In “Three strikes and you’re in,” I endorsed the idea that what Springfield needs to make its economy perk is the entrepreneurial energy and enterprise that immigrants supply. Catherine Rampell of the new York Times has more from a 2012 report commissioned by the Small Business Administration. According to Robert W. Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, […]
James Krohe Jr.
Posted inOpinion
A little knowledge….No 3 in a series
Bill Gardner, posting on The Incidental Economist, Aaron Carroll’s invaluable health care blog, reported the other day on trends in the prescription of Prilosec, Prevacid and other proton pump inhibitors. These drugs are used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD, and their prescription for use by infants has exploded. The patients are babies who […]
Posted inOpinion
People skills
Back on Sept 29, 2011, I asked in The college game whether college was always the only or the best way to prepare for a career. In Education Isn’t the Same as Skills, Slate columnist Matt Ygesias warns that we shouldn’t be so blithe about identifying formal education with skills, since it is possible for […]
Posted inOpinion
The cantaloupe and I
The French are happy to explain, whether you want to know or not, about terroir, the peculiarities of geography, geology and climate of a certain place that impart to plants such as wine grapes their particular character. The way we spell “terroir” in the Illinois River melon country is s-a-n-d. You can’t grow anything worth […]
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Temple of the Law
The words audi alternam partum – roughly, “hear the other side” – are inscribed on the wall of the Illinois Supreme Court chambers in Springfield. As a maxim to guide the administration of a state court system, it doesn’t rank with “liberty and justice for all,” but in Illinois, you don’t want to aim too […]
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Buying time
Rich Miller reported on June 11 (Caps off for general if busted in primary) that HB 2418 passed both chambers and is likely to be signed by Mr. Quinn. The bill stipulates (speaking very broadly) that if Bruce Rauner or any other rich guy busts the contribution cap in a primary race and wins the […]
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Moonrise in Illinois
Reacting to my “In defense of the politician,” a veteran State of Illinois employee told me that he thought it would be fun to work under a governor like Jerry Brown. Younger readers might be interested to know that Illinois very nearly had its Jerry Brown, in 1982 and 1986, when the 11-year U.S> Senator […]
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Teen heaven
In “White elephant,” I speculated about the fate of White Oaks Mall in a future in which bricks-and-mortar retailing seems doomed by the internet. Jordan Weissman — who looks younger than some of the store displays at WOM – tells us in a recent Atlantic post not to worry. “The investment bankers at Piper Jaffray […]
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Certain-kind-of-family guy
When I want to learn what a politician thinks, I read what she writes. When I need only to learn what a politician says he thinks, I listen to him speak. Here’s why. Republican governor wanna-be Kirk Dillard ventured an opinion to a radio reporter last week about what kind of people ought to inhabit […]
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Haunted house
Republican Kirk Dillard recently raised the issue of which kind of family ought to be living in the Executive Mansion in Springfield. It is a question we ventilated in in 2009. (“Life in the Big House.) Clearly, it was not a question on the minds of the two most recent occupants of the house. Mr. Blagojevich […]
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In defense of the politician
For years now, Illinoisans dismayed by their elected officials’ failure to clean up the messes they made on the voters’ behalf could console themselves with the thought, “Well, it could be worse.” And it was, in California. Its state government confirms the truth of the old saying that California is just like the rest of […]
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Watching out for fools
Oklahoma’s governor said what they always say. “We will rebuild.” Sigh. Again? There? That way? Really? Tornadoes, we have all been reminded yet again, are nature’s most violent storms. (Not the most destructive; earthquakes and hurricanes, which affect vastly more area, wreak the widest devastation.) The Moore twister was one of the worst of the […]
