Thomas Sowell has a piece on the French student protests:
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who supports the new labor law, has seen his approval rating drop to 36 percent. That happens when you try talking sense to people who prefer to believe nonsense. It is elementary economics that adding to the costs, including risks, of hiring workers tends to reduce the number of hires. It should not be news to anyone, whether or not they have gone to a university, that raising costs usually reduces transactions. The fact such profound ignorance of basic economics and such self-indulgent emotionalism should be prevalent at elite institutions of higher education is one of the many deep-seated failures of universities on both sides of the Atlantic.
Capmag got that piece five days ago! They must have organised a great deal with Sowell.
Posted by: wulfbeorn | March 22, 2006 at 11:56 AM
Five days ago I was actually in France experiencing the best and worst of that country. Foie Gras and medieval Carcassone, Cathar history, good. Drizzly weather and blockaded streets preventing me from visiting the Ville Basse part, bad.
Posted by: Frank McGahon | March 22, 2006 at 12:44 PM
On Friday night I had some Foie Gras prepared in batter like the sort used for sweet and sour chicken. After that, I'll forgive France for anything. You don't get delights like that without a culture of self-indulgent emotionalism.
Posted by: Hugh Green | March 22, 2006 at 04:24 PM
Sowell is wrong. The students know their economics quite well. If you can't fire, then risky hiring decisions become much riskier. Cut the risk by hiring well schooled university graduates rather than less well schooled immigrants.
Posted by: William Sjostrom | March 22, 2006 at 06:48 PM