New York Times
BOSTON — Winston Chin hustles on Tuesdays from his eight-hour shift as a lab technician to his writing class at Bunker Hill Community College, a requirement for the associate’s degree he is seeking in hopes of a better job.
He is a typical part-time student, with one exception. His class runs from 11:45 p.m. to 2:30 a.m., the consequence of an unprecedented enrollment spike that has Bunker Hill scrambling to accommodate hundreds of newcomers. In the dead of night, he and his classmates dissect Walt Whitman poems and learn the finer points of essay writing, fueled by unlimited coffee, cookies and an instructor who does push-ups beforehand to stay lively.
Similar booms have forced many of the nation’s 1,200 community colleges to add makeshift parking lots, rent extra space and keep thousands of students on waiting lists this fall. While Bunker Hill offers two midnight classes — the other is Psychology 101 — and Clackamas Community College in Oregon holds welding classes until 2 a.m., others have added classes as early as 6 a.m. to make room for the jobless and others whom the recession has nudged back to school.
More students –> More demand –> No room left during “normal hours” = Midnight classes
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama formally renewed U.S. sanctions on Sudan on Tuesday under his new strategy of keeping up pressure while offering incentives to the Khartoum government.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. government may end up throwing away unused doses of swine flu vaccine if people cannot get it soon enough, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.
Wait. Isn’t there a shortage?
Members of Congress questioned whether federal officials were too rosy in their estimates of how much vaccine would be available and when, and companies said they were still struggling to produce immunizations against H1N1.
If you really want to culture jam the economy, here are some methods:
1. Buy stocks without a broker. (Only ownership changes.) 2. Give somebody a gift of cash or receive a gift of cash. (Only ownership changes.) 3. Sell used goods. (Prices can’t be counted twice.) 4. Marry a maid. (The maid doesn’t get paid for household tasks!) 5. Pay under-the-table. (No need to do any financial reporting.) 6. Buy a whore. 7. Gamble amongst yourselves. 8. Buy drugs!
You are on your own. KLYAM doesn’t necessarily endorse any of the above.
What’s happening? Total utility is increasing and marginal utility is decreasing. If I listened to a great fourth album, this whole thing would be fucked up because at a certain point I’m supposed to derive zero marginal utility from listening to more than ______ albums. Albums with zero marginal utility or negative marginal utility are essentially nuisances. Even if I illegally download albums for zero cost, the entire process could become a nuisance to me. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to review all the albums that I downloaded. In that case, maybe I will give those albums lower scores because I didn’t bother to completely listen to them. These downloaded albums would become “bads” because they serve no utility to me at all. Also, why should I review a great number of albums if I am not getting paid? Wouldn’t it be most useful to review just one album a week and spend a lot of time examining it?
Amid the secular and cyclical slowdown in print advertising, McClatchy Company (MNI, the third largest newspaper company in the U.S. and the publisher of 30 daily newspapers including the Miami Herald and Sacramento Bee, reported third-quarter 2009 results.
McClatchy is facing the same dramatic decline in advertising revenue, as the rest of the newspaper industry. Total advertising revenue fell 28.1% year-on-year to $266.1 million. However, circulation revenue stabilized, up 6.7% to $69 million due to increase in circulation prices. As a result, total revenue slipped 23.1% to $347.4 million.
To combat the downturn, management undertook cost-cutting initiatives, focused on building Internet operations and reduced debt load. McClatchy had lowered its headcounts, and cut executive pay. The company was able to lower its cash expenses by 29.4% and total operating expenses by 30.2%.
Kids Like You & Me (KLYAM) 