Owning a soccer team, more on MAID, greedy jobs, and more!
RWL #389
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! An advanced party of daffodils bloomed this week after the snow mostly melted. The bulk of our daffodils (we have many) are still waiting, but this is such a pleasing moment. The daffodils announce the beginning of the end of the long, gray time.
This little guy was checking me out while I was shooting the daffodils. It is so nice to see life re-awaken.
I have a special request to all of you: this week is UNH’s 603 Challenge, the University’s big fundraising event. My department has a goal of 100 donations. Would you consider making a gift of any size (as little as $5) to help us meet our goal? It’s easy to do - just click here: https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/44828/donations/new?tc=19052?&designation=hmpsohlstudentadvancementfund
This link will allow you to give money to the student advancement fund I use to take my students to conferences and support their professional development. You can also use this QR code:
Thank you in advance for your consideration. Your donation will help me continue to pursue my mission.
On to the links! As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: NYT, Why These New Yorkers’ Favorite Soccer Team Is in Denmark: They Own It.
Why: Having watched Ted Lasso this fall with my wife, I have to confess to liking the idea of owning a piece of a European soccer team. This article is pure fun.
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What: Noahpinion, The perverse incentives of euthanasia
Why: The Econ blogger Noah Smith takes a swing at MAID, the euthanasia program I mentioned in last week’s RWL that does not seem to have adequate safeguards. Smith includes this meme that appears to be going around the internets:
Smith has suffered from depression in the past, so he reflects on how he might have responded to a doctor offering physician-assisted suicide:
When a doctor offers you a treatment, it’s never just informing you of your options. It’s always a recommendation. It’s always a statement that this is one of the treatments that experts, authorities, medical science, etc. considers among the appropriate set of measures to address your condition.
Read the whole thing - very thoughtful.
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What: Evil HR Lady, Pay differences – it's all in the data and how you look at it
https://resources.workable.com/stories-and-insights/pay-differences
Why: Do men get paid more than women? Yes. Also, no. It depends on how you slice and dice the data. Like most statistics, you can make the data say pretty much whatever you want if you torture it enough. Taken at an aggregate level, looking at averages across genders, the average wage for men is higher than the average wage for women. But that’s like wading across a river that is, on average, three feet deep. It looks something like this:
(me putting my artistic skills to work)
Much of the pay differentials can be explained when you disaggregate the data. Women are more likely to take long leaves from the work force for child rearing, and when they return, they tend to choose jobs with more flexibility. This sets back their professional growth, and even after they are done raising their families, it is nearly impossible to catch up to the men of the same age, even with the same education. On the flip side, men are more likely to choose “greedy jobs”, which is a very interesting concept I have done some reading on. The Evil HR lady does a good job explaining what these are in this article, but basically they are jobs that are extremely demanding of your time. It’s hard to hold a greedy job and be a primary caregiver, because motherhood itself is regarded as a greedy job in the literature. The article is interesting and worth a read, especially for the “greedy job” concept.
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Watch
What: WSJ, Why Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt Don’t Own Nearly 99% of Their Hotels (8 min)
Why: This is an interesting look at hotel franchises, and what it means to be a franchisor. McDonald’s doesn’t own all of its restaurants, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the big hotel chains don’t own all of the hotels with their names on them. What I find more interesting is there are companies that specialize in being the hotel operators who then franchise the brand. Worth a listen, especially if you aren’t familiar with the franchise model for business.
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Listen
What: UnHerd with Freddie Sayers, Prof. Randall Kennedy: Stop forcing academics to support DEI (47 min)
Why: Kennedy is a Black, self-proclaimed left-liberal. He is against forcing academics to write DEI statements. Here is a link to the article he wrote that got him interviewed for this podcast. I am not a left-liberal-Progressive and I am also against being forced to write DEI statements. Unless you are a DEI researcher, I don’t think you should have to write a DEI statement. I am very much in favor of human flourishing (hence the name of my newsletter and podcast), but DEI does not always line up with human flourishing, especially when it is enforced by the DEI bureaucracy that has metastasized across so many organizations, and forces people to write DEI statements. Because DEI bureaucrats brook no dissent. You are either Anti-Racist or Racist (which is about the most un-academic stance imaginable). Both the podcast and article are worth reading, especially if you disagree with me and Kennedy.