Vatican advocates unequal pay...

...for unequal work.

The Times has the story

The Vatican will offer a three-tier “level of merit” bonus system, with the top bonus being 10 per cent of salary. “Meritocracy has breached the Vatican walls,” Il Messaggero, the Rome daily newspaper, said. The deal, to take effect in January, was negotiated with the Vatican’s association of employees, the ADLV, the closest organisation to a trade union in the Holy See. There are also about 1,000 clergy and nuns in Vatican City – one of the world’s smallest sovereign states. It is not clear how their “productivity” is to be measured, but this should prove rather easier with the administrators, secretaries, gardeners and mechanics, and the staff of the Vatican Museums, the Vatican Bank and Vatican Radio and Television.

According to The Times, 'When he was once asked how many people worked in the Vatican, Pope John XXIII (1958-63) is said to have replied: “About half, I think.”'

Who is most likely to beat Krugman in a debate?

Krugman 2007:

Lately, Barack Obama has been saying that major action is needed to avert what he keeps calling a “crisis” in Social Security — most recently in an interview with The National Journal. Progressives who fought hard and successfully against the Bush administration’s attempt to panic America into privatizing the New Deal’s crown jewel are outraged, and rightly so.

But Mr. Obama’s Social Security mistake was, in fact, exactly what you’d expect from a candidate who promises to transcend partisanship in an age when that’s neither possible nor desirable.

Krugman 1996:

Where is the crisis? Just over the horizon, that's where. . . . Responsible adults are supposed to plan more than seven years ahead. Yet if you think even briefly about what the Federal budget will look like in 20 years, you immediately realize that we are drifting inexorably toward crisis; if you think 30 years ahead, you wonder whether the Republic can be saved.

It's all explicated here in the Washington Post.

Don't get played for a sucker by Krugman. Not to criticize liberals in general, but beware someone who titles his blog Conscience of a Liberal. Well, at least he told us it's not possible to transcend partisanship. 1996. Let's see, what was the context of his remarks at that time?

Lesson learned: Apply a heavy discount to anything the man says.

I promised the Lord I’ll share the Gospel under any circumstance

It was not infidelity that moved another relative to tears but fidelity at any cost. We were breezing through the family photo album when she pointed at a picture from Saudi Arabia that showed her husband at an evangelical church. Church? That is a ticket to deportation or worse. Alarmed that her slip might place him in greater dangers, she started to sob. “I can’t stop him — that’s where he found his happiness,” she said. When I reached him, he encouraged me to mention his preaching, saying it was his way of thanking God for the chance to work abroad. “I promised the Lord I’ll share the Gospel under any circumstance,” he said.

That's from a wonderfully written (and long) essay on migrant workers "A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves" by Jason DeParle in the New York Times Magazine.

Here's another paragraph:

Earlier waves of globalization, the movement of money and goods, were shaped by mediating institutions and protocols. The International Monetary Fund regulates finance. The World Trade Organization regularizes trade. The movement of people — the most intimate form of globalization — is the one with the fewest rules. There is no “World Migration Organization” to monitor the migrants’ fate. A Kurd gaining asylum in Sweden can have his children taught school in their mother tongue, while a Filipino bringing a Bible into Riyadh risks being expelled.

The growth in migration has roiled the West, but demographic logic suggests it will only continue. Aging industrial economies need workers. People in poor countries need jobs. Transportation and communication have made moving easier. And the potential economic gains are at record highs. A Central American laborer who moves to the United States can expect to multiply his earnings about six times after adjusting for the higher cost of living. That is a pay raise about twice as large as the one that propelled the last great wave of immigration a century ago.

For contributions to the understanding of the institution of St. Valentine's Day

Over at the Adam Smith Institute I have been cited for my contributions to the understanding of the church's day of observance for St. Valentine.

Reader's of The Wealth of Nations (or back issues of the New Virginia Church Man) will know that Adam Smith had much to say about the church including schism and promotion of church membership because of the separation of church and state.

Carbon sinks grow with assignment of property rights to trees :: Marginal Revolution

A market solution to deforestation: make trees the property of individuals, not the state. It's working in Niger.

Bridget Jones: Just say no to spinsters...

...Get serious about boys education.

See also, my posts over at The Emirates Economist, here and here.

Economists look at words of comfort

How the minimum wage hurts the poor, and Mom and Pop :: FreeXchange

From the Economist blog, FreeXchange:

It is probable that the minimum wage increase will not cost enough jobs to make its effects readily distinguishable from random economic variation. It is also probable that it will improve the lot of a few poor people, though not many, as fewer than 20% of those who earn the minimum wage live in poor households now. On the other hand, it also seems probable that much of any benefit that goes to poor families will come out of the pockets of other poor people—very probably even poorer people, such as convicts, who are currently barely hanging onto the fringes of the labour force.
...
CEO's who support higher minimum wages are not, as the media often casts them, renegade heros speaking truth to power because their inner moral voice bids them be silent no more. They are by and large, like Mr Sinegal, the heads of companies that pay well above the minimum wage. Forcing up the labour costs of their competitors, while simultaneously collecting good PR for "daring" to support a higher minimum, is a terrific business move.

Read the whole thing.

And then there's all the benefits of the minimum wage that goes to voting white middle-class families via the summmer and part-time jobs of their teenagers. That's a great political more for Republicans and Democrats.

Bring back ROTC to Harvard: Greg Mankiw

Quote:

In my view, Harvard has a moral obligation to play an appropriate role in our nation's defense. No one benefits more from the freedoms that the military defends than academics, who use the freedoms of expression more liberally than the average American. It seems particularly reprehensible for us to free ride as completely as we do.

In addition, from a purely self-interested standpoint, Harvard as an educational institution would benefit from having more students who are considering a military career. If one judges "diversity" by worldview rather than merely skin color, more ROTC students would substantially increase the diversity of Harvard's student body. Their presence would enrich discussions in various history and government classes.

Finally, ROTC at Harvard would extend the university's reach in the world. We have run into diminishing returns filling the ranks of investment banking and management consulting. Wouldn't it be great if some of the next generation of military leaders launched their careers at Harvard? If the Harvard faculty wants to have influence, they should be eager to teach the next Colin Powell.

Greg Mankiw is former chair of the Council of Economic Advisors (for George W. Bush), professor of economics at Harvard, and economics advisor to Mitt Romney.

Via.

Economists: Don't squandor your youth

You may be saving too much. Don't let those retirement planners fool you into saving too much. It's in their interest service fee.