Parking a link: the cost of “showrooming”

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:49 pm By Jane the Actuary

From today’s Tribune, a “human interest”-type article on a local store in a trendy Chicago neighborhood, specializing in selling attachment parenting and related articles for mothers. They provided all manner of baby carriers, nursing bras, tops, and dresses, breast-feeding supplies, cloth diapers, and clothing made from organic fibers. They offered classes in CPR, baby care, and yoga. They spent time with their customers, helping them to find just the right carrier. And they’re closing — because their customers, one after... Read more

So, who do you like for 2016?

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:49 pm By Jane the Actuary

Boehner just pushed through the “CRomnibus” — an omnibus spending bill to the end of September for all except Homeland Security, which is funded to February to, they’ve promised, gear up for a fight over amnesty when they take control of the Senate. As usual, the spending is generally business as usual, with a few cuts and a few pseudo-cuts, and goodies all around, and confirmation that the current house leadership is no more interested in good governance than their... Read more

WW[HR]D — What would HR do?

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:50 pm By Jane the Actuary

You’re an HR specialist. Your company just had its annual Christmas Party over the weekend. The booze was flowing, the young people were enjoying themselves, and then, when when Last Call was announced, moved on to party elsewhere. (I’ve never been to such a party — we always had in-office potlucks — but I’m told they happen, at least in Ask Amy columns.) A young woman comes into your office. . . . “After the party last Saturday, Mike raped... Read more

Remember Margaret Mary Vojtko?

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:51 pm By Jane the Actuary

Quite some time ago, there was a report making the rounds about an adjunct French professor, Margaret Mary Vojtko, who was so cruelly underpaid by her university that she was living in poverty and unable to pay for her medical care, dying homeless and alone. My blog post at the time, “The Curious Case of Margaret Mary Vojtko,” the first piece I wrote that got any substantial number of pageviews, expressed my skepticism of the story — after all, she... Read more

The Berkeley Protests: why?

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:51 pm By Jane the Actuary

Here’s a link to The Gateway Pundit on the direction the protests have taken at Berkeley: trying to use bystanders as human shields, blocking Amtrak trains and potentially sabotaging their safety equipment. Look, I remember the riot in LA after the Rodney King verdict, though I’m far too young to remember the riots in the 60s (though, from history, I know that in Detroit, this was hardly an impetus to urban renewal, but merely accelerated white flight). I also recall... Read more

Update on Young vs. UPS: the “Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:52 pm By Jane the Actuary

Back last week, in commenting on the current case at the Supreme Court on accomodations for pregnant women, I observed that the supporters of Peggy Young, asking that UPS be required to accomodate her inability to lift heavy items during pregnancy, we really asking for a change in legislation, because UPS in fact followed the law as written. Turns out, what they wanted was for the Supreme Court to institute the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act nationwide by fiat. What’s happening,... Read more

The Illinois Secure Choice Savings Program

Last updated on: August 16, 2016 at 9:50 am By Jane the Actuary

which was passed by the legislature last week, looks, on balance, to be a good program. As the Chicago Tribune reports, Under the measure, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Biss, D-Evanston, and House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, small companies with at least 25 employees will have to offer IRA access at the workplace if they don’t offer a 401(k)-type plan. In a critical move to end the procrastination that keeps people from saving, employers will be required to automatically... Read more

“Set phasers to stun”

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:52 pm By Jane the Actuary

(Second of two hasty posts on the policing controversies.) What do the Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown cases have in common? No, not that white police officers and vigilantes are systematically stalking innocent blacks. Not that blacks are all a bunch of thugs who are rightly killed. But I think they demonstrate that we, collectively, have an unrealistic view of how self-defense/police apprehension should work, based on watching Star Trek. The phaser — that modern marvel, the weapon... Read more

What happened to civil disobedience?

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:53 pm By Jane the Actuary

Once upon a time, “civil disobedience” referred to refusing to obey unjust laws, either by doing things that the law unjustly forbids, or by refusing to do something that the law unjustly requires. You all know such incidents as Indians protesting the British salt monopoly (and pressing their demand for an end to colonialism) by making their own salt, Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, and the like. But what’s happening now bears no resemblence to these historic... Read more

Parking a link: “Baby Bust Threatens Growth”

Last updated on: February 26, 2015 at 10:53 pm By Jane the Actuary

From the Wall Street Journal. (The link, if I did this right, goes directly to a google search for which the article is the first result.) The current fertility rate in the United States, expressed as average number of children per women, is 1.86. Not as bad as most other developed nations (e.g., Germany, Japan, etc. — if I had followed up on my start a could weeks ago and gotten my posts labelled you could see my prior commentary... Read more