Everything You Need To Know About Last Week’s News #22

In reverse order of importance:

Thousands of women who are married to thousands of descendants of former British monarchs told family and friends that they are pregnant last week. One of them was named Kate Middleton. Then some Australian DJs prank-called the nurse at the hospital. Then the nurse committed suicide. I learned all this from browsing Google News without clicking on any stories.

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that they will start assembling some Macs in the US. The insourcing trend continues.

Iran claimed to have captured a US drone. Of course they’d say that. The US claimed it wasn’t missing any drones. Of course they’d say that.

Influential Tea Party Senator Jim DeMint resigned to become president of the influential conservative Heritage Foundation. He’s not the first Senator to become a President, but this probably wasn’t what most folks had in mind. Conservatives and libertarians everywhere are hoping he will have more influence from a think tank picking Senate candidates to vote against bills and laws and stuff as opposed to actually voting against bills and laws and stuff himself.

As Detroit races to become the biggest bankrupt city in the history of America, a councilwomen pleaded for a bailout from Obama because they voted for him. Insert political joke about “letting Detroit go bankrupt” here.

Meanwhile, Michigan Republicans hurriedly passed Right-To-Work legislation that gives employees the freedom to not be forced into joining a union and paying union dues if for some strange reason they really don’t want to join that awesomeness. Conservatives say RTW legislation in other states has led to better pay and more jobs. Liberals say it has led to lower pay and less jobs. Or something like that. I guess we’ll see.

The United States got one week closer to the fiscal cliff. Politicians talked about possible solutions or something.

The Syrian rebels seem to be making progress.

4 thoughts on “Everything You Need To Know About Last Week’s News #22”

  1. This Right-To-Work thing sounds pretty cool. I live in a city with high taxes. I was thinking of moving to city with lower taxes or maybe voting for representatives who will lower taxes, but now I can just continue to work in this city without paying any taxes. Excellent.

    1. You are correct that there is an unfair positive externality IF a union negotiates higher wages/benefits for employees than they would receive otherwise and IF a non-union employee enjoys identical wages/benefits. However I am unsure if that is largely the case.

      Anecdotally, as a college student I would have offered to work minimum wage at Schnuck’s without the union if it would have been feasible and had been legal in my state, because with the amount of hours I worked my regressive union dues took the rest of my (not very high anyway) wages below minimum wage.

  2. This Right-To-Work thing sounds pretty cool. I live in a city with high taxes. I was thinking of moving to city with lower taxes or maybe voting for representatives who will lower taxes, but now I can just continue to work in this city without paying any taxes. Excellent.

    1. You are correct that there is an unfair positive externality IF a union negotiates higher wages/benefits for employees than they would receive otherwise and IF a non-union employee enjoys identical wages/benefits. However I am unsure if that is largely the case.

      Anecdotally, as a college student I would have offered to work minimum wage at Schnuck’s without the union if it would have been feasible and had been legal in my state, because with the amount of hours I worked my regressive union dues took the rest of my (not very high anyway) wages below minimum wage.

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