In response to Surprising Inability To Think Clearly About Privatization; Teachers Unions, The Child Molester’s Best Friend, please consider two emails.
The first is from a parent concerned about administrative overhead and other public school inefficiencies. The second is from a teacher who does not want to be held accountable for performance unless he can expel kids.

by CalculatedRisk on 3/28/2010 12:30:00 PM

I have good news for those fresh out of college. New College Graduates To Be Cryogenically Frozen Until Job Market Improves

In a bold new measure intended to address unemployment among young professionals, lawmakers from across the political spectrum agreed on legislation Tuesday to subsidize the cryogenic freezing of recent college graduates until the job market recovers.
"Finding employment is extremely difficult for today's college graduate," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said. "Our current economy offers few options for the millions of young men and women desperate to join the workforce."

by CalculatedRisk on 3/28/2010 09:20:00 AM

Inquiring minds are reading Rich Stunned by Recession Sell Munis for First Time by Bloomberg columnist Joe Mysak.

For the first time in decades, the rich showed no confidence in state and local governments during a recession.
This astonishing tale is told in the new edition of the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income Bulletin, which shows that in 2008, the latest year for which preliminary data is available, the richest taxpayers collected $7 billion less in tax-free interest than they did in 2007, an unprecedented drop of 15 percent.

by CalculatedRisk on 3/27/2010 09:49:00 PM

by CalculatedRisk on 3/27/2010 05:36:00 PM

Given the sad state of economic illiteracy in the US, it is not surprising to find many supporters of union parasites even among non-union workers. However, I am surprised to find rampant inability to think clearly even from long-time readers of this blog.
Here are a few comments all in response to 4-Day School Weeks Coming To Illinois.

by CalculatedRisk on 3/27/2010 12:59:00 PM

William Dunkelberg, the chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) is as wary of Obamacare as he was Hillarycare, even though there are exemptions for small businesses. His concerns are over mission creek and what constitutes "small business".
Barron's addresses those issues in Obamacare and Small Firms

Hillarycare was a nightmare from which the country soon awakened; Obamacare has managed to become law. While the new legislation also exempts most small businesses, Dunkelberg is again firmly convinced that the exemptions won't last. And either way, it can't be good for job creation.