New Panic Over Farmlands

The Department of Agriculture’s latest Census of Agriculture has generated new fears about “disappearing farm lands.” The census found that the United States had 22 million (2.8 percent) fewer acres of farm lands in 2022 than in 2017 and 40 million (4.3 percent) fewer acres than in 2012. The census is conducted every five years in years ending in a 2 or a 7.

Oregon Public Broadcasting responded to the release by reporting that “Oregon continues to lose farmlands” which “raises red flags for some agricultural land conservation advocates.” However, a closer look at available data is needed before panicking. Continue reading

Elites Want to Ban Gasoline Cars, Gas Stoves

Urban elites are far more likely than other Americans to oppose gasoline powered cars, SUVs of all types, and gas stoves, according to a survey released last week by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity. The survey defined “elites” as people who have post-graduate degrees, live in households that earn more than $150,000 a year, and live in zip codes with densities of more than 10,000 people per square mile, which is about four times the average urban density in the U.S.

The cities of Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco all average more than 10,000 people per square mile. Photo by Mai-Linh Doan.

Conducted by Scott Rasmussen, the survey found that 72 percent of these elites (and 81 percent of Ivy League elites) favored banning gasoline-powered cars, compared with 24 percent of Americans as a whole. Further, 58 percent of elites favored banning SUVs compared with 16 percent of Americans and 66 percent of Ivy League elites, while 69 percent of elites (and 80 percent of Ivy League elites) favored banning gas stoves compared with 25 percent of all Americans. Continue reading

Even in Oregon, Agencies Must Follow the Law

The Oregon State Court of Appeals invalidated rules written by the state Environmental Quality Commission for implementing the state’s Climate Protection Program. The state legislation creating this program required the EQC to explain “Any alternatives the commission considered and the reasons that the alternatives were not pursued.” In response, the agency claimed that it “considered many alternatives” but didn’t describe a single one or explain why it was rejected.

Smokey, the Antiplanner dog, checks out the environmental quality of an Oregon stream.

This is entirely typical of government planning today. I’ve reviewed many plans that didn’t bother to identify and evaluate any alternatives because planners were so certain they knew what was right and anything else was wrong. What is atypical is that a state court has enforced the law requiring identification and evaluation of alternatives. Continue reading

Pandemic Migration Patterns Continue

A net 338,000 people who resided in California on July 1, 2022 had left the state by July 1, 2023, according to population estimates released by the Census Bureau last week. This follows a loss of 625,000 residents in the two years prior to July 1 2022, indicating that the pandemic-related forces that led to this migration out of the state are still at work.

More U.S. residents moved to green and yellow states than left those states, with darker colors representing greater in-migration. More residents moved out of red and orange states than moved to those states, with darker colors representing greater out-migration.

International migration plus net birth rates (births minus deaths) meant that California’s overall population declined by only 75,000 people in 2023. This was exceeded by New York, which lost 102,000 people. A net of only about 217,000 New York residents migrated out of the state in 2023, but New York didn’t have as many international immigrants to make up for this loss, so its overall population decline was bigger than California’s. Continue reading

When the Economist Lost Its Way

Last week, the Economist published an article about when the New York Times lost its way. The article traces it to a June 2020 opinion piece by conservative U.S. Senator Tom Cotton that provoked such outrage among Times staffers that the editorial page editor, James Bennet, was forced to resign. Since Bennet now writes for the Economist, and in fact was the author of this article, it is easy to see why he would consider that incident to be a turning point for the Gray Lady.

In 2020, the Economist argued that countries should take advantage of the pandemic to enact draconian policies aimed at reducing climate change.

While it is easy to argue that the New York Times lost its way long before that incident, I have a different question: When did the Economist lose its way? The weekly magazine that calls itself a newspaper was founded 180 years ago based on the principles of free trade and free markets. Yet it seems to have forgotten those principles today, advocating for more and more government control of the world and national economies. Continue reading

Strikes a Symptom of Labor Shortages

Auto workers are on strike. Actors are on strike. Writers are on strike. The latest is that workers on Canada’s St. Lawrence Seaway are on strike. As Peter Zeihan observes in the video below, these strikes are a symptom of the labor shortage that isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

Zeihan doesn’t say so but any time advocates of some government subsidize project say, “This project will create lots of jobs,” you should immediately translate that in your mind as saying, “This project is going to make labor shortages even worse.” The jobs argument never was a good argument for doing things that required government subsidies, but now it is one more reason not to do major projects that require government subsidies.

Palestine and Property Rights

The horrible war in Palestine raises an important question. Strife in the Middle East is often portrayed as Muslims vs. Jews. But what if religion had nothing to do with it? What if it is really just a question of property rights?

A home bombed by Israel in the 2014 Gaza War. Photo by Muhammad Sabah.

Before Israel was founded in 1948, many members of the Zionist movement — those advocating a return of Jews to Palestine — understood the importance of property rights. Groups such as the Jewish National Fund began buying land in what became Israel as early as 1901. Eventually, they owned 13 percent of the land within Israel’s current borders. Another 7 percent was own by private individuals, 4 percent by Arabs and 3 percent by Jews. Continue reading

Thanks, Joe

Were it not for the 2021 infrastructure bill, the Antiplanner would probably be enjoying high-speed internet now. But thanks to the bill, which included $65 billion to extend broadband internet to underserved areas, I probably won’t get it until 2028.

Camp Sherman is in a rural area that is mostly out of cell phone range. CenturyLink, the local phone company, provides DSL service that is slow and unreliable. An internet speed test reports download speed of less than a megabit per second, about 1/250th of what I could get elsewhere and for less money. Continue reading

U.S. Fertility Rates Lowest in History

U.S. fertility rates have fallen to just 1.6 per woman. This has led some to fear that the United States may face the same kind of demographic collapse that is besetting Japan.

While some may cheer that this makes overpopulation less of a problem, low fertility rates translate to serious economic problems. As demographer Peter Zeihan notes, people in their 20s and 30s spend lots of money, people in their 40s through 60s save money that can then be used for investments in improved productivity, but older people large retire from the economy. The young consumers drive economic growth and the middle-aged savers fund that growth. If the ratio of younger people to older people falls too low, then the economy stops growing, which reduces economic mobility and security. Continue reading

Time to Sell the Postal Service

Why do we still have a postal service? In 2021, the agency cost federal taxpayers around $18 billion in operating and capital subsidies. Plus, in 2022, Congress bailed it out from having to pay $56 billion of employee health care obligations, meaning federal taxpayers are now obligated to cover those costs.

Around 250 years ago, mail was the closest thing the prospective nation had to the internet. When the Continental Congress was forming the fledging U.S. government, it decided in 1775 that America’s mail should be carried by a federal agency, not the states or private enterprise. One reason for creating a federal post office was to bring the country closer together, as distances would be less important if it cost the same to mail a letter across the country as across the street. This was critical as the land area of the original 13 states was far bigger than any European country other than Russia. Continue reading