My Weekly Reading for June 30, 2024

Here are some highlights.

Written by Fiona Harrigan, The reasonJune 24, 2024.

Quote:

As population decline and economic recession hit many parts of the United States, some policy analysts and elected officials have begun to push behind area-based visas that would bring high-skilled immigrants to those areas facing shrinking or austerity. The idea was also approved at the weekend.

The US Conference of Mayors—a nonpartisan organization of mayors and other elected officials representing cities with 30,000 or more people—has called on state lawmakers to create a “heart visa” that would bring high-skilled immigrants and immigrant entrepreneurs to communities facing demographic challenges. and recession.

by Josh Blackman, Reason, June 28, 2024.

Quote:

It’s a tall order! The standards he sets are so Byzantine, it is unlikely that anyone can satisfy them. And maybe that’s the point. Justice Barrett, more than anyone else on the Court, acts as a watchdog. He is severely curtailing certificate grants. Turns all emergency requests to the shadow docket (unless they come from the Fifth Circuit). He no longer believes in cert before judgment. And he’s forcing lawyers to find a stand with a level of conviction that I’ve never seen before. Critics often charge that the Roberts Court closes the court’s doors. Justice Barrett is the embodiment of that essence.

Also:

I have made this point before, and I will make it again. Justice Barrett wasted no time in practicing. When he was in higher education, he entered zero courts. And he had a very short time in the appeals court. He simply does not have the experience of an attorney who has tried to seek immediate help in a complex case with a fast-moving timeline. When he claims that complex plaintiffs have failed to meet a burden that is not clearly defined in the case law, a preliminary examination would suggest that such a burden does not actually exist. I get the sense that Justice Barrett makes short marks as if he were writing a seminar paper—or worse, giving feedback at a student lecture. He has very high expectations based on his assumption of which cases are in the federal courts and which are not.

DRH Note: The way I put Josh’s point when explaining to someone at pickleball yesterday was, “He seems to be grading students’ papers and insisting they get an A+.”

by Ryan Bourne, AIRERJune 28, 2024.

For Americans only exposed to British politics, the recent TV debate between Labor leader Keir Starmer and Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak may have sounded familiar. That’s because the Tory leader’s economic tone could easily have come from a Reaganite Republican. “Vote Labour, and your family’s taxes will go up a lot,” was Sunak’s succinct message. “Not only that, but your gas bills will skyrocket as workers continue their unnecessarily fast plans to wind down the economy.” Here Sunak sounds like Grover Norquist, warning that Britain’s left-wing progress will raise taxes on people and increase costly environmental regulations.

Where the Brit would say: “its brass neck!” Yes, Labor will do more tax and spending and regulation than the Conservatives. But Sunak’s own government has been no stranger to expanding state territory and aggressively raising taxes. Indeed, under Sunak’s chancellor-turned-Prime Minister, the UK’s total tax burden has risen by 3.4 percent of GDP since 2019 to its highest level since the outbreak of World War II. The Prime Minister has suspended income tax caps by using a high-inflation scenario to deliver the biggest tax hike in Britain’s history. All this to support a state that has already grown to more than 40 percent of GDP – the largest since the start of the Thatcher revolution – when the Tories are pushing for new regulators in the digital markets and football, their zero net targets, recapture of the state. of childcare, and plans to (eventually) completely ban smoking.

DRH Note:

I pointed out to Ryan, when I considered this article, that I especially appreciated that he put the tax increase as a percentage of GDP; significant computational capacity. He replied that that is more often done in Britain than in the US

I also noticed that Ryan put it in terms of tax liability, which is quite incorrect. The tax burden includes the weight loss from taxes, which, at that tax rate, is very high since the DWL from the tax is equal to the amount of the tax. square of the tax rate. A correct statement would be that tax net worth increased by 3.4 percent of GDP.

by Heather Haddon, The Wall Street JournalJune 17, 2024.

Monique Pizano spent three years as a general manager and her six-figure salary helped her save for a mortgage, take a honeymoon in Japan and support her mother.

The 27-year-old woman from Ontario, California, feels lucky—many of her classmates at the University of California, Riverside, who graduated could not find jobs or earn low hourly wages.

Pizano is one of about 850 general managers at Raising Cane’s, where his pay can reach $174,000 a year including bonuses based on his property’s sales and profits. The fast-growing chicken chain considers its managers valuable partners, and the company, based in Baton Rouge, La., pays them to demand perfection.

I found this article, which is, unfortunately, gated, very encouraging.

Note that there is a rule here:

Getting less attention was the chain’s need to raise salaries for managers. Large fast-food chains are required to pay top executives at least $83,200 to comply with California’s laws, up from $66,560. Otherwise, operators need to pay their supervisors an hourly wage, plus overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week.

But apparently, in the case of Monique Pisano, that law is not binding.

However, Heather Haddon is becoming one of my favorite WSJ reporters on labor market issues: she calls the balls and hits the right ball, something WSJ reporters don’t do very often.


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