Category Archives: Economics

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Jonathan Zimmerman, get your head out of the clouds! Well heeled Ivy League professor wants Ivy League students to forget high paying "sellout jobs", go into social justice fields, and then whine on TikTok about how underpaid they are

We have previously noted University of Pennsylvania professor of education and history and Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jonathan Zimmerman on several occasions. Dr Zimmerman has been very supportive of the freedom of speech, but he’s just managed to miss the point in his latest writing.

The biggest problem at Penn is matching what we say about student careers with what we do

Half of our undergraduates enter the fields of consulting or finance. Penn talks the talk of public service, then teaches young people to line their pockets.

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Baristas unionize, coffee shop owner closes the doors

In the heyday of unionization, unions were representing workers who actually had some skills, workers who could not easily be replaced, because their skills were needed to do their jobs, and it took a long time to develop those skills. Perhaps, just perhaps, pulling a cup of coffee isn’t that difficult a skill to learn?

Well, perhaps being polite is harder to learn than pulling a cup of coffee!

All OCF Coffee House locations close permanently, a week after workers moved to unionize

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Unsubscribe, huh?

It was just a month ago that the NewsGuild of Greater Philadelphia criticized The Philadelphia Inquirer’s “Unsubscribe” ad campaign, after the newspaper laid off yet another five employees. I’ve mostly ignored that campaign, but this one caught my eye this afternoon. If by “Unsubscribe from ‘I (heart) NYC'” actually means “Unsubscribe from The New York Times,” I’d point out that my subscription to the Times is $20.00 every four weeks, or $260.  a year is less expensive than my subscription to the Inquirer, $5.49 per week, billed at $21.96 every four weeks, or $285.48 per year.

Yeah, I have reasons to subscribe to both, primarily for my blog supporting documentation, but if it’s a simple economic decision, and the better newspaper costs less than the poorer one, . . . .

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I know how to save The Washington Post! Find a new billionaire owner who doesn't care if the paper is losing money!

I know how to save The Washington Post! Just have Jeff Bezos, net worth $196 billion as of June 4, 2024, owner of the newspaper, give it to MacKenzie Scott, net worth $33.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, Mr Bezos’ ex-wife and a noted philanthropist who has no problem in giving away her money. Just a straight-up reassignment! Mr Bezos stops losing $77 to $100 million a year on the Post, and Miss Scott, with five times as much money as Patrick Soon-Shiong, net worth $6.3 billion as of June 4, 2024, and who is finding the Los Angeles Times’ losses too much to bear, can easily handle losing money, because she doesn’t seem to care if she makes money or not. Continue reading →

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Bidenomics and Bidenflation.

Lisa Nicholson, photo from her TikTok

I noted, just yesterday, that my family have done pretty well when it came to real estate. According to Zillow, our house, which we purchased in September of 2014, is worth more than twice what we paid for it, 109% more. The small rental property we bought in December of 2021 is now supposedly worth 52% more, and the house our older daughter bought in September of 2020, in a more expensive city than ours — we live in a low-cost, poor county — is worth 31% more.

As it turns out, my family are not the only ones who’ve noticed.

Woman Breaks Down Why She Couldn’t Now Afford the House Bought 3 Years Ago

by Alyce Collins | Friday, May 24, 2024 | 10:16 AM EDT | Updated: 11:05 AM EDT

Becoming a homeowner is something that millions of Americans aspire to, but with house prices on the rise and mortgage rates hovering around 7 percent, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to turn that dream into a reality. Continue reading →

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Lies, damned lies, and statistics Who are you going to believe, Joe Biden, or your lying eyes?

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell, 1984

The official inflation rate has come down from its highs earlier in the Biden Administration, and the Democrats are arguing that inflation has been whipped, that wages are rising just as fast as prices, and even a little bit faster. But Erin McCarthy of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote something that just doesn’t go along with the Democrats’ meme. Continue reading →

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The Golden Rule

Have you heard of the Golden Rule? “He who has the gold makes the rules!”

We have noted, many times, how deep-pockets donors have reacted very badly to the tolerance of anti-Semitism on campus. Several major corporate CEOs have said that they would not hire Harvard students who signed a stupid document blaming Israel for Hamas’ October 7th attack, and at least one CEO has said he will never again hire anyone from Harvard, MIT, or Penn following the three presidents’ debacle. Continue reading →

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Another five bite the dust! More layoffs at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Last Tuesday, I attended a meet-and-greet presentation held by the Lexington Herald-Leader, listening to Executive Editor Richard Green and Managing Editor Lauren Gorla. It was a decent meeting, and Miss Gorla said one thing which stuck with me. While newspapers used to depend primarily on advertising, she stated that currently what my best friend used to call the Herald-Liberal is primarily funded via subscriptions, and occasional donations from philanthropic organizations.

Available was a complete list of newspaper staffers, 32 to them, of which only 17 were listed as reporters, and only 13 of which were not listed as sports reporters.

I was thinking about that when I read a series of tweets from the News Guild of Greater Philadelphia.

We are disgusted and enraged to report that The Inquirer has laid off 5 of our members today.

This is the bulletin we sent to our members a short time ago:

Less than a week after The Inquirer announced a desire to have employees increase their days working in the office in the spirit of “collaboration, inclusion, and sense of urgency about our work” today the company informed five Guild members who have been extraordinary contributors to our mission that they are being laid off. So much for collaboration and inclusion. Continue reading →

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The left are pro-choice on exactly one thing

There was a subscriber comment on an article in The Washington Post on the political polarization of plug in electric vehicles that made me chuckle. The commenter styling himself oneofmanyopinions wrote:

I’m not a tree hugger, but every time I hear a Republican, such as Bill Barr, say things like “they want to take our gas stoves” as justification to vote for Trump, I know I’m witnessing ignorance at a high level.

I responded, noting that immediately to the right of the article was a blurb for one entitled “Gas stoves spread harmful pollution beyond the kitchen, study finds.” Continue reading →