Eric Scheske

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Economics

Crazy Salaries

> [Gretta] Garbo's weekly salary in, say, 1931 was four times the average annual wages in the United States. (In 2002, the national median annual wage, $33,000, was at least fifteen times smaller than the weekly income of an equivalent movie star.) David Thomson, The Whole Equation

Mothers, Don't Let Your Sons Grow Up . . .

. . . to be loggers or pilots. The Ten Most Dangerous Jobs: 1. Logging workers Fatalities: 92.4 per 100,000 employed Median Pay: $29,730 2. Aircraft pilots and flight engineers Fatalities: 92.4 per 100,000 employed Median pay: $129,250 ”“ but may be much lower for commercial pilots. 3.

Battling Away for the Low Ground

> Penthouse Media Group Inc., publisher of the men's magazine, raised $48 million in part to fund an adult entertainment broadcast network that would compete with Playboy Enterprises Inc.'s Spice and New Frontier Media Inc.'s Erotic. > Penthouse raised $15 million in preferred stock

Brews You Can Use IV

> The [beer] industry today includes more than 2,400 brewers and beer importers, 1,908 beer wholesalers, and 551,000 retail establishments. The industry's economic ripple effect benefits packaging manufacturers, shipping companies, agriculture, and other businesses whose livelihood depends on the beer industry. Directly and indirectly, the

Hawaii

An economist takes a detailed look at Hawaii's gasoline price-fixing plan. Link [http://www.mises.org/story/1894]. Excerpt: > Like the federal government's disastrous central planning of 30 years ago, the Hawaiian government has attempted to build in some alleged market mechanisms into its scheme.

Bringing Back Nixon

We're flabbergasted that everyone doesn't understand that the pricing mechanism cannot be messed with. And that's not just a libertarian or laissez-faire position. One of the darlings of the "third way" and Distributists schools of economic thought, Wilhelm Roepke, repeatedly emphasized this.

Odd Consumer News

You can buy a cardboard house for just $35,000. Link [http://www.housesofthefuture.com.au/hof_houses04.html]. Excerpts: > Being extremely low cost and transportable, the Cardboard House could be used in a wide variety of applications. You could live in one while your permanent house is being

Internationals Slipping?

Global U.S. companies are apparently slipping in appeal, and some blame the Iraqi War. If that doesn't prompt an exit strategy, nothing will. Link [http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/12/news/fortune500/brands_ranking/index.htm?section=money_topstories] . Excerpt: > Global consumers have spoken: They&

Weekly Features Post

Tuesday evening, the middle of the week almost here. Welcome. We've been musing over libertarians' and distributists' economic differences and have patched together some notes and thoughts on the subject. We've decided to post them here, even though the people interested in this topic

GM Finds Bail Out?

If people really believe that what's good for GM is good for America, fasten your seatbelts for a lot more concessions to China: > In this obscure corner of southern China, General Motors seems to have hit on a hot new formula: $5,000 minivans that get 43