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Mark Krikorian, over at The Corner:

Another WaPo sob story about a firm desperate for more H-1B visas. The Baltimore company’s CEO says “We offer the same salaries and perks whether you’re from Baltimore or Bangladesh . . . but we simply cannot find enough qualified U.S.-born staff to fuel our growth.”

Well, John Miano, a Fellow with my Center, took a look for me at the “Labor Condition Applications” that the company filed with the Department of Labor to receive its H-1B workers. Lo and behold, the average H-1B wage for architects at this particular firm is about $45,000, compared with the average for all architects in Baltimore of about $69,000. So while it may be true that the company pays its foreign contract labor the same as its American workers, it seems to be paying all its architects 35 percent less than the market average. It’s no wonder they can’t find enough American workers. But why is it government’s job to help this business avoid adjusting to market realities?

It seems a little underhanded to refer to immigration restrictions as “market realities.” A better question is why is it government’s job to help Baltimore architects avoid adjusting to market realities?

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In an op-ed for the New York Times (of all places) James Grant gives one of the clearest, simplest expositions of Austrian business cycle theory I’ve come across.  I especially like his take on rescessions:

Now what to do? Why, slash interest rates to coax forth still more lending and borrowing. It’s the customary curative, seemingly as humane as it is politic.

And if recessions served no useful purpose, it might be. But recessions do. On Wall Street, they speak of “corrections.” What corrections correct are errors in judgment. So do recessions.

They allow the sorting out of boomtime error. They permit — indeed, force — the repricing of inflated assets. In a downturn, previously overpriced businesses, houses and buildings are made affordable again.

Think of a recession as the burn you feel when you first start working out.  Hitting the gym for the first time after you’ve been taking it easy and snacking too many “low-interest candy bars” is never fun.  But that initial pain is the price you pay for getting back in shape.  There’s nothing wrong with recessions in and of themselves.  The problem lies with the policies that led us to a point where a recession (or correction, or bubble popping, or whatever) was necessary.

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Consider also that the 10 largest cities in the U.S. produce the same amount of economic output ($4,300 billion) annually as Japan, and the top 20 largest U.S. cities produce the same output ($6,000 billion) as the economies of U.K., France and Canada combined.

Mark Perry has a chart of those 20 cities and the countries with similar GDPs in the first part of a series on America’s ridiculously large economy. Check out parts two and three as well.

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McCain during the Republican debate in Dearborn:

I’m glad that — whenever they cut interest rates. I wish interest rates were zero.

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The blind want noisier cars:

On Wednesday, the president of the NFB’s Maryland chapter planned to present written testimony asking for a minimum sound standard for hybrids to be included in the state’s emissions regulations.

Prince, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails have decided to “concentrate on their art”:

 Highly successful artists have started abandoning albums as a way to make money. They are now giving away their music for free. Instead of selling albums, they are concentrating on building their fan bases, putting out quality art, and making their bread through touring and merchandising.

Polled Republicans are as dumb as ever:

While 60% of respondents said they want the next president and Congress to continue cutting taxes, 32% said it’s time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the budget deficit and pay for health care.

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Well at least if there is demand. And, apparently, there is demand.

“Demand is the smallest hurdle,” says Elaine Lissner of the Male Contraception Information Project, part of Our Bodies Ourselves, a Boston-area women’s health-education organization. “Basically a majority in pretty much every country is interested in male contraception.”

Yep, that’s right a “male pill” may soon be coming.

Researchers are having difficulties though.

The male machinery that produces sperm — at a rate of 1,000 per heartbeat — is incredibly hard to disable.

So how long until men achieve equality with women in this overlooked area of gender unbalance?

“I’ve been saying ‘five to seven years’ for about 20 years,” Bremner [chairman of the UW School of Medicine] admits. “I will again say ‘five to seven years.’ I just want to give you a dose of reality.”

If the demand is there, it’s only a matter of time until it happens.

Exit question:  When it becomes available, will you use it?

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On The Daily Show last night John Stewart asked Alan Greenspan if we really have a free market when our money supply is centrally planned by the Fed. Larry White (the foremost advocate of free banking) has a home-made transcript and great commentary here. Nice to see the former Fed chairman getting back to his Gold Bug roots a little bit.

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Sorry, I meant to throw this up a while ago.

In Mexico, Walmart allows kids to volunteer as baggers.  The kids earn tips from customers, are provided with insurance, and get bonuses for good grades in school.

Of course, people complain:

Although Wal-Mart’s worldwide code of ethics expressly forbids any “associate” from working without compensation, the company’s Mexican subsidiary asserts that the grocery baggers “cannot be considered workers.” The Mexico City government’s top labor official dismisses that contention as so much corporate hogwash. “To my mind, that is not an accurate description because the bagger is providing a service on the store’s premises that benefits the company by serving the customer better,” argues Federal District Labor Secretary Benito Mirón Lince. “In economic terms, Wal-Mart does have the capability to pay the minimum wage [of less than $5 a day], and this represents an injustice.”

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For the August issue, Cato Unbound has Peter Leeson, Bruce Benson, Dani Rodrik, and Randall Holcombe answering the question of who needs government. I don’t want to get into all the details here (and don’t have to since the whole point of the discussion was to allow you to read the thoughts of four very smart people on the subject) so I’ll just point to two of the opening essays of interest.

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