- How the Romans chose new leaders: Of the 69 rulers of the unified Roman Empire, from Augustus (d. 14 CE) to Theodosius (d. 395 CE), 62% suffered violent death.
- Scott Sumner: Nationalism is hazardous to your health.
- Paul Ehrlich promoted more fake predictions on “60 Minutes.”
- WaPo: Social Security’s is using of archaic job-availability lists to deny benefits to obviously disabled people.
- WaPo: Social Security is imposing of astronomical penalties on people, many poor and disables, for spending checks mistakenly sent them by Social Security.
- The far more egregious financial malfeasance that WaPo missed: the huge fraud Social Security has committed against 13,000 plus widow(er)s who collectively have been swindled out of $130 million.
Author: John C. Goodman
Saturday Links
- Dr. Marty Makary: devastating critique of NIH and Fauci.
- How Twitter rigged the Covid debate.
- David Henderson solution for the Southwest airlines debacle: Let foreign carriers compete in our domestic market.
- Can you actually eat a discarded Christmas tree?
- No tailgating at the national College Football championship game? This is College Football’s answer to Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Friday Links
- DOJ: Postal service can deliver abortion pills.
- NIH-funded food pyramid says lucky charms are better than steak; chocolate covered almonds are better than cheddar cheese.
- Pro-choice argument: the FDA’s step forward on abortion medications is not nearly good enough.
- The European Union bans 1,300 ingredients from use in cosmetics. The US bans 11. (NYT)
How Obamacare Affected Part-Time Work
The incentives:
Employers are not required to offer insurance to many, if not most, on‐call and temporary workers. To circumvent the mandate, therefore, employers may choose to reduce standard weekly hours below 30 or shift their mix of staffing toward greater use of on‐call, direct‐hire temporaries or agency temporaries. Additionally, employers may choose to outsource certain tasks to firms with fewer than 50 full‐time employees. Ironically, the employer mandate could reduce the quality of jobs for low‐ and mid‐skill workers by increasing the share of low‐hours, part‐time (defined as averaging less than 30 hours per week); temporary; and contract employment—categories that often are associated with relatively low compensation and job instability.