EXCERPTS:
" ``Right now we are working two 10-hour shifts, 15 men per shift, six days a week,'' O'Brien said. ``And we're producing about a mile of boom a day.''
Before the spill, the company manufactured about 1,500 feet per day, he said.
QUESTIONS:
1. This company has taken dramatic steps to increase its production of boom [a product used to protect the environment from the oil spill]. What do you think is the primary motivation behind this company's response to the oil spill: a desire to protect the environment, to help society, or to make more profit for itself?
2. Companies that specialize in products and services which are used to clean up oil spills will actually profit from the oil spill in the Gulf. In fact, they may receive tremendous profits as a result of the spill. While the environment is being hurt, and many people are suffering, these companies will be benefiting. Do you think it would be a good idea to impose an extra tax on the "excess" profits that these companies receive?
3. In answering question 2, what should your first step have been?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Protecting, or hurting, nannies?
EXCERPTS:
"To be a Times contributor, you apparently have to write like Mara Gay, who penned these lines for a front page article last week:
New York may soon become the first state to offer employment protection for nannies. The state Senate passed a bill of rights for domestic workers this week, a measure that would require employers to offer New York’s approximately 200,000 household workers paid holidays, overtime pay and sick days. Supporters say the step will provide needed relief to thousands of women — and some men — who are helping to raise the children of wealthier New Yorkers without any legal workplace rights beyond the federal minimum wage.
Now, you see, if I had been writing this article, it might have opened more like this:
New York state may soon become the first state to restrict employment opportunities for nannies. The state Senate passed a bill this week that would prohibit New York’s approximately 200,000 household workers from accepting any position that does not include paid holidays, overtime pay and sick days. Opponents say the step will bring unnecessary hardship to thousands of women—and some men—who have found employment because of labor markets that operate freely, except for constraints imposed by the federal minimum wage.
A more neutral observer might have noted that this bill, if passed, will be good for some of those nannies who retain their jobs, bad for the many nannies who will be driven out of the business, and extremely good for people like Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who will represent the winners and can conveniently ignore the losers.
"To be a Times contributor, you apparently have to write like Mara Gay, who penned these lines for a front page article last week:
New York may soon become the first state to offer employment protection for nannies. The state Senate passed a bill of rights for domestic workers this week, a measure that would require employers to offer New York’s approximately 200,000 household workers paid holidays, overtime pay and sick days. Supporters say the step will provide needed relief to thousands of women — and some men — who are helping to raise the children of wealthier New Yorkers without any legal workplace rights beyond the federal minimum wage.
Now, you see, if I had been writing this article, it might have opened more like this:
New York state may soon become the first state to restrict employment opportunities for nannies. The state Senate passed a bill this week that would prohibit New York’s approximately 200,000 household workers from accepting any position that does not include paid holidays, overtime pay and sick days. Opponents say the step will bring unnecessary hardship to thousands of women—and some men—who have found employment because of labor markets that operate freely, except for constraints imposed by the federal minimum wage.
A more neutral observer might have noted that this bill, if passed, will be good for some of those nannies who retain their jobs, bad for the many nannies who will be driven out of the business, and extremely good for people like Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, who will represent the winners and can conveniently ignore the losers.
Friday, June 4, 2010
The "Mankiw Rule" for monetary policy
EXCERPT:
"There has been a lot of talk lately about whether the Fed will continue raising interest rates or pause for a while. I don't know the answer, but here is one way to think about it.... I estimated the following simple formula for setting the federal funds rate:
Federal funds rate = 8.5 + 1.4 (Core inflation - Unemployment).
"There has been a lot of talk lately about whether the Fed will continue raising interest rates or pause for a while. I don't know the answer, but here is one way to think about it.... I estimated the following simple formula for setting the federal funds rate:
Federal funds rate = 8.5 + 1.4 (Core inflation - Unemployment).
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Why is the unemployment rate for teenagers so high?
Donald J. Boudreaux's letter to the editor of the New York Times:
Dear Editor:
Suppose Uncle Sam orders you to raise by 41 percent the price you charge for subscriptions to your newspaper. Would you be surprised to find a subsequent fall in the number of subscribers? If you assigned a reporter to investigate the reasons for this decline in subscriptions, would you be impressed if that reporter files a story offering several possible explanations for the fall in subscriptions without, however, once mentioning the mandated 41 percent price hike?
Unless you answered “yes” to this last question, I wonder why you published Mickey Meece’s report on today’s record high teenage unemployment rate (“Job Outlook for Teenagers Worsens,” June 1). Between 2007 and 2009, Uncle Sam ordered teenage workers (who are mostly unskilled) to raise the price they charge for their labor services by 41 percent. (That is, the federal minimum-wage rose from $5.15 per hour in 2007 to its current level of $7.25 in 2009 – a 41 percent increase.)
Does it not strike you as more than passing strange for your reporter – assigned to help explain why teenagers today have an increasingly difficult time finding jobs – to ignore the fact that these teenagers are ordered by government to raise significantly the wages that they charge their employers?
Dear Editor:
Suppose Uncle Sam orders you to raise by 41 percent the price you charge for subscriptions to your newspaper. Would you be surprised to find a subsequent fall in the number of subscribers? If you assigned a reporter to investigate the reasons for this decline in subscriptions, would you be impressed if that reporter files a story offering several possible explanations for the fall in subscriptions without, however, once mentioning the mandated 41 percent price hike?
Unless you answered “yes” to this last question, I wonder why you published Mickey Meece’s report on today’s record high teenage unemployment rate (“Job Outlook for Teenagers Worsens,” June 1). Between 2007 and 2009, Uncle Sam ordered teenage workers (who are mostly unskilled) to raise the price they charge for their labor services by 41 percent. (That is, the federal minimum-wage rose from $5.15 per hour in 2007 to its current level of $7.25 in 2009 – a 41 percent increase.)
Does it not strike you as more than passing strange for your reporter – assigned to help explain why teenagers today have an increasingly difficult time finding jobs – to ignore the fact that these teenagers are ordered by government to raise significantly the wages that they charge their employers?
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The official definition of poverty, and a new revised definition
EXCERPT:
"Despite poverty's messiness, we've tended to measure progress against it by a single statistic, the federal poverty line. It was originally designed in the early 1960s by Mollie Orshansky, an analyst at the Social Security Administration, and became part of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. She took the Agriculture Department's estimated cost for a bare-bones -- but adequate -- diet and multiplied it by three. That figure is adjusted annually for inflation. In 2008, the poverty threshold was $21,834 for a four-member family with two children under 18....
The existing poverty line could be improved by adding some income sources and subtracting some expenses (example: child care). Unfortunately, the administration's proposal for a "supplemental poverty measure" in 2011 ... would compound public confusion....
The "supplemental measure" ties the poverty threshold to what the poorest third of Americans spend on food, housing, clothes and utilities. The actual threshold -- not yet calculated -- will almost certainly be higher than today's poverty line. Moreover, the new definition has strange consequences. Suppose that all Americans doubled their incomes tomorrow, and suppose that their spending on food, clothing, housing and utilities also doubled. That would seem to signify less poverty -- but not by the new poverty measure. It wouldn't decline, because the poverty threshold would go up as spending went up. Many Americans would find this weird: People get richer but "poverty" stays stuck.
What produces this outcome is a different view of poverty. The present concept is an absolute one: The poverty threshold reflects the amount estimated to meet basic needs. By contrast, the supplemental measure embraces a relative notion of poverty: People are automatically poor if they're a given distance from the top, even if their incomes are increasing. The idea is that they suffer psychological deprivation by being far outside the mainstream. The math of this relative definition makes it hard for people at the bottom ever to escape "poverty."
"Despite poverty's messiness, we've tended to measure progress against it by a single statistic, the federal poverty line. It was originally designed in the early 1960s by Mollie Orshansky, an analyst at the Social Security Administration, and became part of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. She took the Agriculture Department's estimated cost for a bare-bones -- but adequate -- diet and multiplied it by three. That figure is adjusted annually for inflation. In 2008, the poverty threshold was $21,834 for a four-member family with two children under 18....
The existing poverty line could be improved by adding some income sources and subtracting some expenses (example: child care). Unfortunately, the administration's proposal for a "supplemental poverty measure" in 2011 ... would compound public confusion....
The "supplemental measure" ties the poverty threshold to what the poorest third of Americans spend on food, housing, clothes and utilities. The actual threshold -- not yet calculated -- will almost certainly be higher than today's poverty line. Moreover, the new definition has strange consequences. Suppose that all Americans doubled their incomes tomorrow, and suppose that their spending on food, clothing, housing and utilities also doubled. That would seem to signify less poverty -- but not by the new poverty measure. It wouldn't decline, because the poverty threshold would go up as spending went up. Many Americans would find this weird: People get richer but "poverty" stays stuck.
What produces this outcome is a different view of poverty. The present concept is an absolute one: The poverty threshold reflects the amount estimated to meet basic needs. By contrast, the supplemental measure embraces a relative notion of poverty: People are automatically poor if they're a given distance from the top, even if their incomes are increasing. The idea is that they suffer psychological deprivation by being far outside the mainstream. The math of this relative definition makes it hard for people at the bottom ever to escape "poverty."
Google sued for "faulty" map directions
EXCERPT:
"A California woman is suing Google after she was hit by a car while following directions provided by Google Maps on her cell phone, according to AOL News.... The directions did not tell her that there were no sidewalks along Deer Valley Drive, which, Rosenberg alleges, led to her being struck by traffic.
"As a direct and proximate cause of Defendant Google's careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions, Plaintiff Lauren Rosenberg was led onto a dangerous highway, and was thereby stricken by a motor vehicle, causing her to suffer severe permanent physical, emotional and mental injuries," according to the complaint filed in Park County district court.
Rosenberg is asking for Google to pay her medical expenses in addition to punitive damages and loss of earnings.
QUESTIONS:
Do you agree that Google should be required to help this woman? Explain why you agree or disagree.
"A California woman is suing Google after she was hit by a car while following directions provided by Google Maps on her cell phone, according to AOL News.... The directions did not tell her that there were no sidewalks along Deer Valley Drive, which, Rosenberg alleges, led to her being struck by traffic.
"As a direct and proximate cause of Defendant Google's careless, reckless and negligent providing of unsafe directions, Plaintiff Lauren Rosenberg was led onto a dangerous highway, and was thereby stricken by a motor vehicle, causing her to suffer severe permanent physical, emotional and mental injuries," according to the complaint filed in Park County district court.
Rosenberg is asking for Google to pay her medical expenses in addition to punitive damages and loss of earnings.
QUESTIONS:
Do you agree that Google should be required to help this woman? Explain why you agree or disagree.
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