Historic News

Well, history happened last nite...I got a new phone.  But, more importantly, UCONN lost...watched that game, and it was..well, impressive.  I mean, MSU Was up big in the first half, and I didn't think that situation would be the case the entire game...and it wasn't.  OT was pretty cool. even if they scored one hoop per minute...and a buzzer-beater, to boot.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-03-29/the-jobs-statistics-trump-should-be-worried-about

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/homebuilders-struggle-to-fill-jobs-americans-dont-want/ar-BBz1bRz

I think these points are linked; you bring in immigrants to serve as low-cost labor, which not only suppresses wages but then makes the jobs lower in status; then, of course, something happens one way or the other, and you can't fill them.  To be sure, what the GOPers say about the welfare state is correct here -- if you make it too generous, you can't move people to work (also, said cost of welfare state drives up taxes!), but I don't think that alone is enough here.  To be sure, if the workers leave -- one way or another, to put it bluntly -- wages will HAVE to go up, and that should do the trick.  I realize this is asking a lot of the Administration, but someone -- state or locally, too -- should figure out a way to put people into training for these jobs...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/america-needs-small-apartment-buildings-nobody-builds-them

I think this is largely true, but there are economies of scale here, and also, if people are moving to cities, well, then you will have to build large multiunit facilities there.  Some of this, I suspect, is also due to zoning and a desire (and I do not quite think it is an unfair one) to keep undesirables out.  That said, I look around here, you see all these lots zoned for commercial, or empty buildings, and you say...hmmm, why can't they put up some condos or a building there. I mean, the taxes might not be good for the city, but I would think in some ways it would be beneficial... place like Seven Hills, where the bulk of taxes are residential in origin...adding 100 residents (a bunch who are taxpayers) would seem to me to be...not unwise.