As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)

Friday, September 22, 2023

Some thoughts on the UAW strike

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/19/uaw-strike-demands-too-high-automakers/

 

From Catherine Rampell:

 

[R]ight now, the Detroit Three automakers shoulder about $64 per hour per worker, including all wages and benefits. The UAW’s suite of compensation-related demands would roughly double that total hourly labor bill to about $130, according to calculations from Colin Langan, an analyst at Wells Fargo.

 

Now consider these firms’ competitors. Foreign automakers operating in the United States (Toyota, Hyundai, etc.) pay their workers about $55 per hour all in. Tesla is estimated to pay workers somewhere in the mid-$40s.

 

In other words, the legacy manufacturers are already at a significant cost disadvantage compared with their biggest competitors. Doubling employees’ total compensation costs would make them even less competitive.

Monday, September 18, 2023

Diversity and college admissions

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/15/supreme-court-admissions-elite-schools-00116087

 

Interesting guest column from Marc Novicoff:

 

“There’s only one race-neutral method that would work to increase racial diversity on selective college campuses, and it happens to align with the supposed social-justice goals of highly selective schools: giving a clearly defined, substantial boost to low-income applicants. Neither the University of Michigan nor the University of California embraced that method, and so far, it seems likely that no other university will try it either.”