A Few Recent WSJ Notes

I went through a big stack of accumulated Wall Street Journal issues this weekend. Here are a few articles that caught my eye: "Republicans are blocking Obama's jobs plan," by Jeffrey B. Liebman (6/22), excerpt:

One of the largest drags on our economy has been the layoffs of public employees like teachers, firefighters and police officers due to state budget cuts. Even as American businesses have created nearly 4.3 million private-sector jobs over the past 27 months, state and local government employment has fallen by 450,000 jobs during that time. But Congress has failed to act to put hundreds of thousands of teachers and first-responders back to work.

"Dousing lights to save birds," by Robert Lee Hotz (6/13). There was a cluster of articles in the past year about the effect wind turbines have on migrating birds. This article has an interesting graphic (click on interactive graphics tab on the article) listing the top 9 reasons for the estimated 2.38 billion annual accidental bird deaths. Here they are:

cats (1 billion)
building windows (1 billion)
power lines (130 million)
hunting (120 million
pesticides (67 million)
automobiles (60 million)
communication towers (6.8 million)
wind turbines (400,000)
airplanes (25,000)

Putting a bell on Fluffy or, better yet, keeping our feline friends inside (and spayed) would save a lot more birds than doing away with wind turbines.

"Firms resist new pay-equity rules," by Leslie Kwoh (6/27). The article discusses a proposed rule that would force companies to "disclose the gap between their CEO and their median pay for employees, a potentially embarrassing figure than many companies would like to keep private." No doubt.