Sleepless in Midland

Hooray for the garbage men

There are a lot of unsung heroes out there doing their jobs to help us live a comfortable life, and garbage men are among those heroes.

Now during the Coronavirus pandemic most communities consist of people trying to shelter in place, a lot of household garbage must accumulate.

It's sometimes hard to sympathize with a union rep complaining about the boss, but this Chicago union guy has a point: City workers say they’re picking up 50 percent more garbage — with no masks. Yeah, they probably should wear masks. But with a mask shortage the city may not have access to factory made masks they could divert from the medical professionals. However, DIY masks are appearing everywhere. And maybe the union could serve their members by making masks for the workers.

Meanwhile, having worked one summer during high school as a garbage man, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the guys who pick up the trash. At that time, a truck typically had a crew of three: a driver and two workers to pick up the cans and dump them into the truck. It was a labor intensive job, but it was well suited for an adolescent kid trying to grow some muscles.

BTW, Garbage Man Day is June 17, 2020. It's won't hurt to start celebrating early.

------
10:52 AM 4/8/2020

Happy Labor Day

Last week I asked a friend how Labor Day came about, and he replied that it probably had something to do with unions. Bingo! Right on the money!

Here's an explanation from the Department of Labor: History of Labor Day. To wit:

Founder of Labor Day
More than a century after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers.

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a co-founder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold."

But Peter McGuire's place in Labor Day history has not gone unchallenged. Many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, not Peter McGuire, founded the holiday. Recent research seems to support the contention that Matthew Maguire, later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic.

How fitting that just the other day the FBI and IRS raided the home of UAW president Gary Jones.

Perhaps a more appropriate holiday might be "Right to Work" day.

------
10:51 AM 9/2/2019

Improve meetings by inviting only people who might benefit from them

This is not our first dive into the business of meetings and likely won't be the last. I'm no expert on meetings, but I know what I don't like when I see it, to paraphrase someone's famous quote.

Others have written about this, too.  For example, see You're running your meetings wrong. Here's how to make them more effective. Here are this expert's bullet points:

Keep the invite list exclusive
Have a clear agenda
Get broad participation (assuming you kept the list exclusive)
Limit your own talk time
Have a call to action
Limit tech
Avoid lip-service meetings
If it's daily, keep it short and try standing
Track how much time you spend in meetings

Here's something with which many might agree: "People don't hate meetings, they hate meetings that waste their time."

Maybe some people hate all meetings. My solution would be to dispense with meetings and collect information, share ideas, and issue instructions some other way.

Previously: Meetings for people who hate meetings; and
80% of meetings are waste of time

------
2:43 PM 8/20/2019

National Garbage Man Day

Some how I missed this "National" day. But luckily, they celebrate National Garbage Man Day all week beginning June 17 this year. Perhaps that's because we might not expect to see the garbage men pick up our trash on some specific designated day for celebrating the event.

I have a fond regard for garbage men, having worked as one during a summer while in high school. That was back in the day when the g-men actually lifted trash cans and dumped them into trucks instead of letting the machinery do all the heavy lifting. The aluminum cans were easy -- those 35 gallon steel drums were not. But it's still an honorable profession.

Happy Garbage Man Day!

------
10:51 AM 6/19/2019

It's a miracle -- disabled people are going back to work

The numbers of people collecting disability payments rose steadily for years, and for the cost conscious among us it was troubling to see another government entitlement growing at such a pace. The prevailing theory was that someone on the disability dole would never go back to work. And skeptics among us suspected that there might even be some malingerers in the group.

So now comes Neel Kashkari, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, with an OP-Ed titled Unemployment Isn’t What It Used to Be. The point he makes is that the Fed needs to watch different aspects of the employment data when trying to determine how to achieve stable prices and maximum employment.

But here's the part that jumped out:

Remarkably, more than 70% of people who got jobs in April indicated the previous month that they weren’t looking for work. For two decades, through expansions and recessions, disability drove increasing numbers of prime-age workers out of the labor force. Economists feared this trend would never reverse. Yet in recent years people who previously had considered themselves disabled have been entering jobs. This is a wonderful development, but it adds to policy uncertainty.

(Bold added for emphasis.)

A booming economy can work miracles.

------
2:10 PM 5/12/2019

Suppose we won the war on poverty and nobody knew?

Some interesting new conclusions about poverty in the U.S. suggest it isn't as bad as some let on. With a booming economy and higher numbers rejoining the work force, it seems logical that generalizations about poverty will lag reality.

And here's something researchers have chewed on -- a better measure of poverty is consumption not income surveys. Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan tell us this: Hardly Anyone Wants to Admit America Is Beating Poverty. (Alternate link.) They make three main points about traditional poverty measure.

First, official income data ignore many of the government distribution schemes.

Second, official poverty measure relies on surveys. And we all know that many if not most people decline to participate in surveys.

Third, research has historically depended on the reported Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers which ignores new products that have become popular.

Instead, these researchers put more emphasis on consumption and the goods and services people can afford to purchase. And they note that the poor today are living as well as the middle class did a generation ago.

Their conclusion:

Fighting poverty requires knowing its extent and among whom it is most severe. Modern antipoverty efforts should promote self-sufficiency. This can be accomplished through work requirements, as well as by helping low-skilled individuals find jobs, offering public employment in targeted cases and helping low-income parents secure child care.

At the same time, the safety net should ensure that those who are unable to work have access to sufficient resources to meet their basic needs. Encouraging self-sufficiency used to be a bipartisan issue; it can be again.

Anecdotally, another admittedly unofficial measure might be the obesity we see among fellow shoppers. If nothing else, they are eating well.

------

10:21 AM 8/8/2018

Harassment in the workplace -- government edition

This came to us by way of Politico's Playbook the other day. And it's a jaw dropping peak into the workings of a government agency when no one is watching, except the ones afraid to speak out.

At WaPo, it's FEMA personnel chief harassed women, hired some as possible sexual partners for male employees, agency’s leader says. Excerpt:

In an interview, [FEMA Administrator William “Brock”] Long described a “toxic” environment in the human resources department under [Corey] Coleman at FEMA headquarters. Starting in 2015, investigators said, Coleman hired many men who were friends and college fraternity brothers and women he met at bars and on online dating sites. He then promoted some of them to roles throughout the agency without going through proper federal hiring channels.

Coleman then transferred some of the women in and out of departments, some to regional offices, so his friends could try to have sexual relationships with them, according to employees’ statements during interviews with investigators.

Astonishing. Mr. Coleman seemed quite comfortable with the system he set up. And that is reason to believe it wasn't an isolated situation. One has to wonder how widespread this sort of corruption is within government agencies.

Photo source.

------

10:48 AM 8/1/2018

Moonlighting as a butler -- article in WSJ

This has to be cutest article I've read all weekend. Jim Ross wanted something to contribute to a charity auction and hit on the idea of selling his services as a butler in the style of the butler in “Downton Abbey.” It was a hit, and he continued doing it. See A Butler Will Serve You Right. Here's an excerpt:

All I had to do was imitate Carson’s mannerisms: low and melodic voice, precise and measured movements, deferential and modest approach.

It worked. I served iced tea to ladies at a wedding shower, greeted the membership at a Kiwanis Club luncheon, and poured champagne for revelers at an 80th-birthday party. I butlered a “celebration of life” for a woman who died young. I ironed newspaper pages, flattening out the wrinkles, while on air with a local radio host. (Your newspaper pages haven’t been pressed? The horror!)

I even made an appearance at the state prison north of town, regaling inmates with tall tales of James the Butler’s professional background. It was a huge hit. Eat your heart out, Johnny Cash.

What a hoot!

His day gig is as managing editor of the local newspaper.

------

3:13 PM 7/14/2018

80% of meetings are waste of time

Some people seem to thrive on meetings -- for the most part, they are the ones who talk the most and relish any attention they receive. But most of us hate them and resent any attendance requirement.

Maybe for that reason -- call it bias confirmation if you want -- it's always fun to read articles criticizing meetings. The toon in the margin came from the July 11, 2018, print edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Here's the one that inspired this blog post: Tortured by meetings. Excerpt:

One eternal problem has been their inefficiency. In 1957, C. Northcote Parkinson, an academic and legendary writer on management, came up with the law of triviality, that “the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum [of money] involved.” In that same spirit, this columnist would like to propose an even broader principle, applying to gatherings of ten people or more, and immodestly called Bartleby’s Law: “80% of the time of 80% of the people in meetings is wasted.”

Various corollaries to this law follow. After at least 80% of meetings, any decisions taken will be in line with the HIPPO, or “highest-paid person’s opinion”. In short, those who backed a different outcome will have wasted their breath. Perhaps because they are aware of the futility of their input, fewer than half of the people in a large meeting will bother to speak and at least half of the attendees will at some point check their phones.

I'm surprised that most are not staring at their phones the entire time. But here's why the meetings are still with us:

Part of the problem lies in the paradox that, although workers hate attending meetings, they loathe being excluded even more. Nothing is so likely to induce paranoia than a department meeting to which you are not invited. To avoid this fear, managers are tempted to invite as many people as might be interested.

Read the whole thing to see tips on how to hold successful meetings. The best tip came from General Electric CEO, John Flannery, who suggested: “little or no meetings where possible”.

------

1:56 PM 7/11/2018

Charles Terry Construction Company - Day 68 and still waiting

I wasn't going to say anything, but I ran into someone else who was having the same problem with the same roofing contractor. Seems the company haven't mastered the art of the deal yet. Instead of explaining the delay, they simply ignore the customers waiting for service.

The category 1 hurricane force winds that hit Midland, Texas, in late June ripped the shingles off my tool shed. I phoned Charles Terry Construction Company and asked if they could repair the roof. A very nice fellow named Robert came out a few days later, provided an estimate and a contract, and he promised that someone would come over in the next few days to fix it. That was over two months ago.

Maybe this has something to do with it: Texas home builders relying on immigrant labor feel effects of immigrant crackdown, to wit:

"Half of the workers in construction in Texas are undocumented," Marek said. "We do hear that there are a lot of undocumented workers that are leaving the state, going to other states that don't have the anti-immigrant sentiment and many of them are going back to Mexico."

Meanwhile, Charles Terry Construction Company boasted in a full page ad in the Midland Reporter-Telegram that they were voted Midland's Favorite Roofing company in a recent online poll. Apparently, they are so good that they can ignore new customers. That's it on the right.

------

1:00 PM 9/6/2017

Google company dogma has a lot in common with Sharia law

In the archives of this blog are a few posts about James Mitchell's book, "Enhanced Interrogation." That book contains a trove of information about Islam, terrorism, Sharia law, and other subjects the detainees opened up to him about.

In one of the chapters he relays a conversation in which one of the captured terrorists explained that Sharia law equals freedom. The rationale was that because the rules are laid out plainly, it freed the people from making decisions.

Compare this with the fiasco at Google in which an employee was hounded out of the company because he didn't subscribe whole heartedly to the politically correct mindset in the company.

I didn't make the connection until Michael Barone's use of the word "dogma" drove it home in his article, Google's 'tolerance' requires repression. To wit:

And Google's tacit endorsement of the quasi-religious dogma that a fair society must produce gender balance and proportionate ethnic representation is at war with both experience and logic.

Defenders of that dogma say that rejecting it would justify gender and ethnic discrimination. But that's exactly wrong. Just follow James Damore's advice: "Treat people as individuals, not just as another member of their group."

The dogma is needed to justify the elaborate apparatus of gender and racial quotas and preferences and the lavish campus and corporate diversity bureaucracies to enforce them and stamp out heresy. As a reliable transmitter of free thought, Google seems headed down the path toward the Spanish Inquisition.

Freedom, in the minds of many of the techies on the West Coast -- as well as many on college campuses these days -- is freedom from associating with anyone who isn't of the correct mindset. Just like Sharia.

------

11:23 AM 8/10/2017

Three Square Market and RFID microchip implant

Fewer than half of the employees (41 of its 85) at Three Square Market agreed to get the chip implant, according to Chicagotribune.com at Wisconsin company holds 'chip party' to microchip workers.

Writers around the world are wringing their own hands over this new technological endeavor. Some are preaching caution, of course. But most, like me, take a libertarian approach and note that only those who consent will actually get it.

I would decline, but if someone wants one, then he/she should be able to get one. The possibilities are probably endless, although currently they appear to be limited to unlocking doors and using vending machines. One would be useful for recording medical history if emergency personnel have the equipment to read it.  It might be a useful adjunct to the clapper light switch.

But the human immune system has evolved to reject foreign objects under our skin even if the mind said "accept." I would side with the immune system on these. A plastic card is easy enough to carry around. It's not as if we had to drag along extra weight.

As for the Three Square Market employees who get them, hey, if you want it, go for it.

------

2:32 PM 8/5/2017

Trump should get credit for economic optimism we're seeing

This type of thing gets buried under the news of the Comey firing and Democrats' screeching for an independent counsel to investigate something, anything, however small, that they can use to discredit Donald Trump.

But there's increasing evidence that Trump having gotten elected and focusing on helping the economy is actually helping the economy. The economy consists of people making something and other people buying it. Both sides of the transaction had to have enough optimism to proceed.

Having endured a stagnant economy for the past eight years, it refreshing to see some optimism. And here we have this headline: Fewest workers getting unemployment benefits in 28 years:

Just 1.9 million people received unemployment insurance benefits at the end of the month, the fewest since 1988. Benefits are available for up to 26 weeks in most states.

Even more engouraging [sic]: Averaging over the past four weeks, total unemployment benefit claims are running at the lowest rate since 1974, despite the workforce being 75 percent bigger.

Thursday's report also showed new jobless claims dropping to 236,000 in the first week of May, an extremely low level.

Donald Trump, making America great again!

------

1:23 PM 5/11/2017

movement for Day Without Immigrants demonstrates how sneaky lefties are with language

This is just the latest example. Lefties command the language, and with the msm backing them every step, there aren't many ways to counter it.

Here's an article from The Inquirer of Philadelphia: Restaurants, stores urged to close for 'Day Without Immigrants' protest. This would be a protest against the Right's move to tighten up illegal immigration wherein the proponents of this movement ask all immigrants to stay home from work all day February 16, 2017. And they hope to expand the movement nationwide for May 1, the communist May Day holiday.

That word "illegal" is missing from the philly.com article. That's a very convenient omission. That way it ropes in a much larger group than the one targeted by the Right making victims of them all. Those sneaky lefties. They've done it again.

Meanwhile, asking anyone to forego work for a day would also mean they forgo pay for a day. That's asking a lot, so anyone willing to go through with it is either very serious or is at the mercy of a serious Democrat store owner*. Even George Soros' stipend to protesters probably wouldn't make up for the loss.

*Hey "Undercover Boss," now there's a show for you.

swamp vs drain -- fed workers seek lessons on how to disobey without getting fired

Apparently, there's an avenue through which State Department employees can express their disagreements with management, and some employees have used it. See Report: About 900 State Dept. Officials Sign Dissent Memo on Executive Order. That's all well and good so long as they don't fall into passive aggression mode or otherwise attempt to thwart the boss' orders. But this from Sean Spicer seems apropos: "I think that they should either get with the program or they can go."

And this is not good either: 180 federal employees sign up for 'civil disobedience' class.

There are probably plenty of qualified civilians available to fill those positions. Civil service reform is long over due.

This Thanksgiving let's thank the garbage men of America

That's not a joke. We generate tons of garbage, and hauling it away is a dirty job. But someone has to do it.

I know. I worked that job one summer during high school. And back in the day, a garbage man rode the side of a truck, lifted, and dumped trash cans into the truck by hand. Today, mechanical arms do the heavy lifting as the truck rolls down the alley, picks up a dumpster and empties it in the truck. The typical garbage man sits in the truck all day. But that's OK. He still has to endure the tedium, and he still has to maintain the schedule. Then there's the health risk of sitting all day that we hear about.

So as we approach the Thanksgiving holidays there will be a lag in the garbage pick-up, and those neighborhoods where dumpster hogs like to load up the dumpsters with empty boxes and tree limbs will experience overflowing trash bins. So let's give thanks to those people who haul it off, the garbage men.

---------

Meanwhile, here in Midland, Texas, Mayor Morales recently told an audience that the vehicle manufacturers no longer make the side loading garbage trucks currently in use in the city. Eventually, the city will begin purchasing front loading trucks.

Then he dropped the bomb shell: Neighborhood dumpsters will have to be moved from the alleys to the front. Whoa! They recently went all out to get an ordinance against parking cars in yards. Now they want to put garbage dumpsters in front yards. Let the irony begin.

So you want "meternity" leave -- you have it already, it's called vacation time

And yet people want to blame someone other than the women because as a collective, women don't make as much money as men.

Most companies allow employees vacation time or personal time. But the employee doesn't have to use it all at once, and they don't have to go to Disney World. It shouldn't come as a shock that many people don't go anywhere on their vacations, and prudent schedulers will use the time for other things they find necessary to do besides ride the roller coaster.

So when we see articles like this one: I want all the perks of maternity leave — without having any kids it makes one wonder if the work place really is the right place for her.

If she can't stand the heat, perhaps she should go back to the kitchen.

Question answered: why are those 90 million Americans not working?

It was a question many of us have wanted to ask when we kept hearing about those 90 million Americans not working and not counted in the work force. We've also heard that the number of people drawing disability payments has jumped, so the obvious conclusion was that many of them managed to convince an adjudicator that they were disabled, whether they really were or not.

The answer appears in a Washingtonexaminer.com article titled Where people leaving the labor force are going.

Turns out that the number of ill and disabled was about 6.5 million in 2014 which is only a million more than in 2004. Those number are similar to the number of students with 6.4 million in 2014 compared with 5.0 million in 2004.

But the big jump was in the number of retired individuals with 15.4 million in 2014 compared with 13.9 million in 2004. The old folks are getting out of the way for the young'uns. Unfortunately, even with those departures too often there aren't enough jobs for the youngsters.

Anyway, the charts accompanying the article make it all very clear.

Sitting too long is unhealthy -- how much longer before OSHA starts dictating how long we can sit at work?

We've been hearing for a while now that prolonged sitting can lead to health problems. And here's another study purporting to confirm that theory. See “Our Chairs Are Killing Us,” Say Researchers. To wit:

In the current study researchers examined the association of sitting time and physical activity level with NAFLD in Korean men and women to explore whether any observed associations were related to the amount of body fat. They studied records of nearly 140,000 Koreans who underwent a health examination between March 2011 and December 2013. Physical activity level and sitting time were assessed using the Korean version of the international Physical Activity Questionnaire Short Form. The presence of fatty liver was determined using ultrasonography.

Of the people studied, nearly 40,000 had NAFLD. Importantly, the researchers found that both prolonged sitting time and decreased physical activity level were independently associated with increasing prevalence of NAFLD. Remarkably, these associations were also observed in patients with a body mass index (BMI) of less than 23.

NAFLD stands for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Here's the scariest part:

This association was still observed among patients participating in high levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity, indicating that regular high levels of physical activity do not fully protect against the risks associated with prolonged periods of sedentary behaviors.

So a daily work-out doesn't seem to matter, at least with this health problem. That's a stunner.

In any event, many of us probably need to stand up more often. But with all these studies telling us not to sit too long, one has to wonder when the nanny state will start trying to regulate chair time.

Via boingboing.net.

Mark Perry has a very educational primer on oil well drilling in the Bakken oil fields

This is worth a look for a quick education on drilling and hydraulic fracking. Here are the links:

Top 10 things I learned on my summer trip to the Bakken oil field, Part I and Part II.

This might be a review of what many readers already know, but a review never hurts. Regardless, don't miss this time lapse video of a drilling rig walking to the next drill site. That's right, walking!

Finally, here's an astonishing factoid. The Bakken field has produced as much oil in the past two years (682 million barrels) as it did in the 60 years prior to that.

How will OPM boost the morale of all those employees whose personal data was easily pilfered by the Chinese? Personal coaches!

We hear a lot about the slouches, cheats and party loyalists in the federal bureaucracy . But there are probably a lot of hard working employees in there, too, if they haven't yet burned out. And the news about all their personal data being left unguarded so that it was easily picked up by a potential enemy has to be disheartening. No wonder they hold their senior leaders in such low regard.

But now there's hope for them. Management is sending in coaches! See OPM launches personal coaching network for feds. Excerpt:

The government is betting that personal coaches can help boost federal employees' sagging morale and even make agencies more productive.

The Office of Personnel Management has compiled a governmentwide database of certified coaches — all federal employees who have other day jobs — who can be deployed to help any federal employee at any agency. It's now embarking on a marketing push to let agencies know about the database. OPM says there are only 110 registered coaches now, but it has plans to train 60 more within the next few weeks.  Deputy Associate Director Steve Shih, who oversees performance-management issues, says he hopes the number will grow exponentially in the next few years.

Via Freebeacon.com.

We here at Sleepless in Midland would like to suggest some reading material for the coaches. Vince Lombardi quotes. Here's a sampling:

“Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.”

“It's not whether you got knocked down; it's whether you get back up.”

“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.”

“Winners never quit and quitters never win”

“If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

And, since the workers are on the clock, they might appreciate this one:

“We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time.”

Editor's note: Maybe they could replace the Obama portraits in government office buildings with those "Hang in there baby" posters of the cat hanging by his paws. Robo-ed.

Finally, a plausible explanation of why increased immigration might not hurt local workers

Common sense tells us that an increase in the number of immigrant workers who would compete with the workers already there would decrease wages for both groups. Opponents of illegal immigration and open borders have driven the point home. Supporters, on the other hand, have their own reasons for wanting increased immigration, and they downplay that potential outcome.

But here comes a study that claims increased immigration results in an increase demand for local services. And that results in an increase of local services, an increase in local wages, and an increase in the number of jobs. Here's the abstract from Are Immigrants a Shot in the Arm for the Local Economy? To wit:

Most research on the effects of immigration focuses on the effects of immigrants as adding to the supply of labor. By contrast, this paper studies the effects of immigrants on local labor demand, due to the increase in consumer demand for local services created by immigrants. This effect can attenuate downward pressure from immigrants on non-immigrants' wages, and also benefit non-immigrants by increasing the variety of local services available. For this reason, immigrants can raise native workers' real wages, and each immigrant could create more than one job. Using US Census data from 1980 to 2000, we find considerable evidence for these effects: Each immigrant creates 1.2 local jobs for local workers, most of them going to native workers, and 62% of these jobs are in non-traded services. Immigrants appear to raise local non-tradables sector wages and to attract native-born workers from elsewhere in the country. Overall, it appears that local workers benefit from the arrival of more immigrants.

A casual observation suggest that that seems to be happening in some of those bustling Texas border cities. Although a closer look would be necessary to say for sure. One has to wonder about single industry towns, farm communities, for example. An influx of immigrant farm workers would seem to drive farm wages down as well as displace some existing farm workers. The increased demand for local services may not offset that feature.

A bigger issue, though, is the effect millions of immigrants would have on our political system. If they gravitate toward politicians who remind them of the government they left behind or promise them free stuff then that's a problem.

NBER abstract via Cafe Hayek.

Everyday heroes -- two workers tried to stop NY gunman after he killed two cops

Ordinary people who step up in times of crisis -- those are heroes.

We all regret the cold blooded murder of the two NYPD police officers in Brooklyn yesterday. It was tragic and senseless. Much has and will be written about the incident. So let's focus on a smaller aspect of that incident.

Two Con Ed workers saw the murder and followed the killer in their truck. They tried to stop him, but he threatened them with his gun. They were unarmed, this being New York City where only police and outlaws carry guns. So they backed away but followed the killer, helping police locate him. The story is at NYPost.com. See Con Ed workers confronted gunman after he shot cops.

They remain anonymous, because, let's face it, the killer could become some sort of folk hero to people like the misguided miscreants who cheered when the cops got killed.

Kudos to those two unsung heroes.

There are winners and losers in the market place and that's why it works so well

Robert Higgs explains it so eloquently in Creative Destruction—The Best Game in Town, although he credits Joseph A. Schumpeter with coining the phrase and for emphasizing that a market isn't only creative but also destructive. It creates winners and losers.

There will be those who have skills no longer in demand or who labor in a declining industry, region or production method who will face hardship as the market moves forward. Everyone is better off if they adapt to the changes and seek employment in another industry, move to a better location or develop different skills. Unfortunately, many of them want the government to intervene to maintain the status quo. However, if the government does that it slows down the whole process.

Therefore, pain is an important part of the process. And it's a great motivator. On the other hand, if a planned government economy is allowed to prevail then everyone suffers.

This is a mere amateurish summary of Mr. Higgs' article. Read the whole thing first hand at Bastiat.Mises.org or Blog.Independent.org.

Happy Labor Day!

National Volunteer Week

This is National Volunteer Week to honor all those people who donate their time to help advance some worthwhile effort. Hats off to everyone who pulls together to get something done. The bystanders' response at the recent Boston bombings gives us a good example of what can be done. And those people deserve all the accolades they get.

President Obama has gotten in on the act by issuing a Proclamation declaring April 21 through April 27, 2013, as National Volunteer Week. His edict:

I call upon all Americans to observe this week by volunteering in service projects across our country and pledging to make service a part of their daily lives.

Workers of the world unite! And work for free!

With high levels of unemployment that's one way to get people back to work.

Revenge of the introverts

We've all seen the extrovert take control, delegate duties, then either take all the credit for successes or try to blame someone else for the failures. Well, finally someone has stepped up for the introverts.

It's a study by a couple of profs, Corinne Bendersky of UCLA and Neha Parikh Shah of Rutgers. Here's an excerpt from the abstract:

... we challenge the persistence of extraverts' advantage and neurotics' disadvantage in task group status hierarchies. In a field and an experimental study, we find that extraversion is associated with status losses and disappointing expectations for contributions to group tasks and neuroticism is associated with status gains due to surpassing expectations for group-task contributions. Whereas personality may inform status expectations through perceptions of competence when groups first form, as group members work together interdependently over time, actual contributions to the group's task are an important basis for reallocating status.

Download the full paper here.

Susan Adams gives us an easy-to-read summary at Forbes.com: Leadership Tip: Hire the Quiet Neurotic, Not the Impressive Extrovert.

It turns out that extroverts contribute less than team members expect and the contributions they do make are not valued highly over time. Neurotics, by contrast, are motivated to work hard on behalf of their teams, who wind up appreciating their efforts, in part because they exceed everyone’s expectations. In the end, extroverts decline in the teams’ esteem while neurotics rise in status. ...

The lesson of the study: Bendersky says team leaders should be wary of extroverts. “The core of an extroverted personality is to be attention-seeking,” she observes. “It turns out they just keep talking, they don’t listen very well and they’re not very receptive to other people’s input. They don’t contribute as much as people think they will.” If she were putting together a team, says Bendersky, “I would staff it with more neurotics and fewer extroverts than my initial instinct would lead me to do.”

The extrovert gets the girl, and the introvert gets the job done.

[Is it "extravert" or "extrovert?" Robo-ed. Either one. Sleepless.]

Prostitution -- those who can't do, teach

Hard times in Spain. From DailyMail.co.uk: Spanish company offers professional courses in prostitution which 'guarantees' jobs for graduates:

For just €100, students will be taught the history of the world's oldest profession, how to use erotic toys and the most popular positions contained within the Kama Sutra.

What they learn in the series of theory and practical classes will enable them to 'earn a lot of money, very easily and quickly', according to the ABC newspaper.

Note this:

It will also ensure budding sex-workers will not fall foul of the law, with in depth descriptions of the industry's laws and how to work around them.

Emphasis added. As for the job guarantee:

And, once they graduate, they receive their first job offer - to become a teacher in the 'school' where they can help in practical classes.

Practical classes? Maybe that's the law work-around.

National Tradesman Day -- 9/21/12

Today is National Tradesman Day.  And here's a tool company tribute to help get it going.

I've scheduled a Roto-Rooter visit, but you can celebrate in your own way.

Entrepreneurial spirit still lives -- teen builds mobile shower for ND oil field workers

The spark: "The recent high school graduate [Evan Jensen] got a whiff of himself and his 21-year-old brother, Justin. The two had been sleeping in a pickup while looking for work in the oil fields of western North Dakota. 'We smelled,' he said. 'Bad.' "

The idea: A mobile shower where oil field workers can take a shower and clean up for a small price thus saving them a long drive to a motel or truck stop.

The seed money: He used $15,000 he earned from trapping muskrats over the past two years plus money invested by relatives.

The product: They built a 53-foot semitrailer with a five-stall shower, an office, and laundry facilities. A 6,000-gallon tanker provides fresh water and collects the discharge.

The price: They charge $10 for a shower and $1 for a towel and washcloth. Soap is free.

He built that.

Via Carpe Diem.

Romance not in the air according to Redbox

We're number 2. That's in the "least romantic" city category in this unflattering Redbox news release which ranks our fair city of Midland, Texas, as number 2 with our neighbor Odessa at number 6. The ranking is based on the number of romantic comedies rented from Redbox in 2011.

Actually, I may have helped or hurt our place in that ranking. The last movie I rented at Redbox was "Midnight In Paris" which imdb.com ranked as comedy, fantasy and romance. But that was sucker bait. The movie was mildly amusing but not very funny. It was not very romantic except in a Woody Allen world. But it was a fantasy, so they got one out of three right. Therefore, it's hard to say whether renting that movie helped or hurt in the ranking.

But here's the problem. Check out the personals in the local Craigslist.org. One lone woman in women seeking men, and she's seeking a guy who can take her away from all of this. But hundreds of men seeking women. Isn't that the way it always is? Those lonely guys are probably hard at work in the energy industry and aren't going to waste their time off watching silly romance movies. "Hey fellows, since we can't get dates, let's go over to my house, cook up some quiche, watch a Sandra Bullock movie, and have a good cry."

No, those guys are making money during the week, partying hard on the weekend, and socking away that dough for the future. Hey ladies, Mr. Right is out there somewhere. Maybe you're looking for love in all the wrong places. And Redbox, how about a category for "most industrious," eh?