OT: [LINK] Only in America

[Roger Clarke]

At 22:26 +1000 24/7/07, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070723/subsidies-dead-farmers/
>
>USDA Sent $1.1B to Deceased Farmers
>MARY CLARE JALONICK | July 23, 2007 07:04 PM EST | AP
>
>WASHINGTON — The Agriculture Department sent $1.1 billion in farm 
>payments to more than 170,000 dead people over a seven-year period, 
>congressional investigators say.

A billion is not a large number.  If you get 8 fully-costed employees 
for $1 million p.a., you only get 10,000 for $1 billion (times 1,000 
plus a margin for being able to use market power to screw their 
income down 20%).

Number of deaths: 2,398,343 and Death rate: 816.7 deaths per 100,000 population
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

In 2004, of the 145 million employed workers in the US, 834,000 of 
them held jobs as agricultural worker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States

But there are about 2 million farms
http://www.nass.usda.gov/census/census97/atlas97/map001.htm

The distribution of farmers is probably older than the general 
population, so the death rate is probably higher.

Assuming 1,200 per 100,000 p.a., and an eligible farmer for each of 2 
million farms, that's 24,000 deaths p.a. or say 500 p.wk.

Assume 80% of deaths take 3 weeks to get through to the paying 
authority, and 20% take 15 weeks.

That's 1,200 + 1,500 = 2,700 dead people being paid at any one time.

On the other hand, in a 7-year period, the number of deaths is - 
would you believe - 24,000 x 7 = 168,000.  And every one of them 
might well receive at least one payment, if the payment cycle is less 
than 3 weeks.

$1.1B / 170,000 is an average payment-while-dead of $6,500.  That 
sounds more like an average of a quarter's payments than a few weeks' 
worth.  (At least some US farmers are massively subsidised, and the 
money may well be enough to cover farm-operation costs as well as 
social welfare).

So (based on those really rough guesses) the scary-looking 170,000 
headline may not stand up to scrutiny, whereas the amount of 
over-payment does make it look like there could be a culture of 
non-reporting of farmer deaths in order to sustain income.

Ah, but the national ID scheme (in their case the REAL ID Act) will 
fix all that, so-o-o-o easily, won't it?

-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
			            
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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
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