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A Facebook friend made that comment,and I couldn’t stop laughing. This NY Times piece seems to support it.

Update: Just like in Seinfeld, Steinbrenner wants his confused consigliere to remain.

The general manager has a year left on his contract and has had some well-publicized clashes with team brass and even captain Derek Jeter. But Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner still says he “absolutely” wants Cashman to return.

And Cashman scoffed at suggestions that he is doing things to shorten his stay in the Bronx.

“Am I trying to get fired? Absolutely not,” Cashman said.

“What have I done that’s so explosive? What have I done that’s so controversial? I did nothing improper or wrong or controversial or explosive.”

Steinbrenner offered his support.

“I think Brian does a great job,” he said, according to the New York Post. “We need to sit and talk, but now is not the time for that.”

Update: Even more squabbling from the Yankees front office:

Yankees president Randy Levine has fired back at Texas Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg, calling him “delusional.”

The message was direct: Mind your business and keep your team off “welfare.”

Levine made his comments in response to Greenberg opining that the Rangers kept the chase for Cliff Lee going long enough for the Phillies to sneak in and take Lee from the clutches of New York to the National League.

“I think Chuck is delusional,” Levine told ESPNewYork.com. “He has been running the Rangers for a few minutes and seems to believe he’s mastered what everyone else is thinking. I think he should let Cliff Lee speak for himself. I’ll be impressed when he demonstrates he can keep the Rangers off welfare. What I mean is make them not be a revenue-sharing recipient for three years in a row, without taking financing from baseball or advance money from television networks. Then I’ll be impressed.”

From the Mirror.

GORgING on chips, burgers and bacon rolls is a weird way to fight the flab, but hefty Darin McCloud has been piling on the pounds – just so he qualifies for a gastric band.

Doctors told the 20st diabetic he was too skinny to have a gastric bypass on the NHS.

So Darin – who says he finds it impossible to diet – vowed to eat his way to 21st and hit the trigger point that allows him to be considered for the drastic surgery.

He has been scoffing three-quarters of a loaf of bread, several packets of crisps and bacon rolls every day, and tucking into chips, takeaways and junk food for his tea.

This reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer has to gain 60 pounds in order to qualify for a disability, and work from home. Perverse incentives indeed.

Here is Dubner’s take at Freakanomics:

Can you imagine what would happen if Alcoholics Anonymous decided to require a certain level of alcohol intake?

Bruce Yandle has a very interesting paper titled Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: Where Do Jobs Come From?. Here is a bit from the abstract:

Can political leaders create and build jobs . . . out of thin air? Sustainable jobs that will continue on their own once the government’s job-building efforts have ended? Is it direct hiring by government, such as funding construction projects that will lift the level of permanent employment? And if so, what is the opportunity cost, which is to say, where does the real purchasing power come from to fund the government jobs? Will other jobs be lost when taxpayers reduce their private spending to fund the public works? Or is it, as President Obama and Governor Fallin suggest, forming market friendly government policies that will inspire economic growth, bringing with it more jobs? And what about people who hire themselves? Start their own businesses? Are there enough of them to matter?

So where do jobs come from? Real jobs that can be sustained by normal economic activity? Is there a role for government in the process? How do government policies enhance or reduce the long-run pace of job creation?

This paper addresses these questions. The next section focuses on the where and how of job creation by exploring the decision making process made by employers engaged in adding workers to their payrolls. Incentives faced by employers and employees enter the process in important ways; these are discussed in the section. Attention is also devoted to the huge number of one-person firms in the America, those people who create their own jobs. In every case, large and small, in a free society, jobs are ultimately created by consumers and citizens who are willing to pay for goods and services that they value.

Section two concludes with a summary of policy actions governments can take to improve the job creation climate. Section three closely examines the dynamics of the U.S. labor market where the economy is described as a massive churn that produces goods, services, and along with this, jobs. As the churn turns, jobs are destroyed in some sectors and locations and expanded in others. The net result can be job growth. The section also discusses the rise of the knowledge economy and describes major forces that explain migration to jobs across America, which is another way of identifying where jobs come from. Finally, the paper’s last section offers final thoughts on the changing world of work.

Who creates jobs? Who is John Galt? Two questions. One answer.

And from the paper:

As a child, I did not understand that all public works jobs had to be paid for with tax money, eventually. This meant that job growth in the private sector that could have been is forfeited when job-creating public works are expanded.

My lack of understanding had to do with what is seen and not seen. I could see the Wilmington workers turning over bricks. I could not see the results of jobs that never emerged because of the tax increases that paid for the street work. The seen and unseen problem always plagues us when we think about actions that can be taken by government to improve welfare.

But we can be certain that jobs that provide real purchasing power, which is to say wages in dollars that are not depreciated by printing press money, are never created out of thin air.

I once had this exact conversation with my 92-year-old grandfather, who recalled fondly the public work projects during the new deal.

I began by asking what would you say if I told you that the New Deal prolonged, and not shortened the Depression. He was incredulous. I asked, who pays those construction workers? He answered, the government. I asked, where does the government get the money from? He paused, and simply said that the government has the money. I suggested that the government can only get money from taxes, or by printing the money. If they get it from taxes, they are taking it from people who had enough to pay taxes, and giving it to those who do not have jobs, such as the construction workers. Alternatively, they can print money, which leads to inflation, which raises the prices of goods (price controls notwithstanding), and prevents people from buying things.

He thought about this for a moment, and replied that I may be right about the economics, but I did not live through the Great Depression, and cannot understand how dire things were. He intimated that Roosevelt was very popular, and that at the time, people were so happy to have jobs. Frankly, he did not care where the jobs came from, and he was happy that the road to the mountains (perhaps more useful than digging a hole and filling it up again) was constructed. He just wanted to see people working. It was more important to do something, anything really, than just stand by. He wasn’t really worried about the long-term consequences of such policies.

This notion that the government can create “jobs” at no cost out of thin air is so pervasive in popular accounts, yet so wrong. Yandle’s work here is quite important.

So what are the thee ways (two desirable, one undesirable) government can create jobs?

Governments can create jobs in at least three ways.

First, they can build obsolete factories that employ lots of workers, as was done in Bangladesh. Those jobs are not sustainable in open competition.

Then, governments can use tax money or deficits to put more people on government payrolls. Doing so may yield more jobs on balance if the government produces real benefits that taxpayers value. Those jobs may be sustainable in the sense that taxpayers agree to continue to transfer money from their own accounts to the government to pay for them. If the deficits get out of hand, taxpayers will be less willing to do so. Governments can also employ people to perform marginal tasks that are not valued by taxpayers. Workers can be hired to turn over paving bricks. When taxes to fund public works projects are paid, creating those marginal jobs can destroy more employment than is added.1 Again, it is the problem of the seen and unseen.

Finally, governments can take actions that improve the economic climate for private sector firms so that more people will seek work and firms will hire more workers. These policies include:

• Reducing taxes that individuals and employers pay when filling a job.
• Eliminating obsolete state licensing requirements. Reducing mandated costs associated with employment
• Eliminating burdensome regulations that affect the use of labor.
• Reducing capital gains taxes so that firms will accelerate the use of the latest technology, which will increase labor productivity.
• Allowing exceptions to government stipulated pay rates so that employers and employees can contract on the basis of a voluntary meeting of the minds.
• Maintaining the competitiveness of the economy by avoiding the formation of monopolies and encouraging expansion of international trade.

The Florida Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee says yes. The opinion is here and an explanation from the Legal Profession blog is here.

Based on the minority’s positions expressed above, the minority believes that the committee should rephrase the inquiring judge’s question as “May a judge create and privately maintain a website designed primarily to focus high school students on college or trade school preparation to the extent the judge also intends to include links for:  (1) assistance for domestic violence victims and batterers, and (2) description of a domestic violence case from which the inquiring judge was recused?”  The minority believes that the committee should answer the rephrased question as follows:  “Yes, to the extent the inquiring judge intends to include a link for assistance for domestic violence victims and batterers.  No, to the extent the inquiring judge intends to include a link describing a domestic violence case from which the inquiring judge was recused.  As to the remainder of the inquiry, the committee does not have enough information to render an opinion.”

Very nice, if I do say so myself. While I think the entire idea of a business card is unnecessary in the age of vcards and PDAs, some people still use them. Though, I needed to spice it up with twitter and facebook info.