Nutjob

I'd be really happy if Elon Musk spun off (and sold off) Tesla auto as an independent company, without him at the helm.  He's always been a bit nutty, but between the growing pains that could probably be solved by someone [group] from a high volume large item manufacturing company (like any mass market auto maker, or large truck manufacturer, or even frickin lawnmowers or refrigerators), and his increasingly detached-from-reality public persona (boring company, hyperloop) and now we've got possible fraud.  He's a good "idea person" but probably shouldn't be in charge of a very large company.

More Defensive Krugman

I really don't get it.  It's fine that he supports HRC, but how is it that he can be so blind as to treat Sanders supporters the same way so many of his [right-wing] critics treat him?  Ignore substantial differences (which may be either pro-Sanders or just anti-Hillary) and construct magical straw-unicorns.

Really?!?

I'm not very surprised to hear that more men than women have major parts in movies, but I am surprised that it is as dramatic as it is.  

...In the 120 films the MDSC analyzed, only 30.9 percent of speaking and named characters were women......The United States is far from a leader: Of the 11 most profitable film-producing territories, the United States ranks near the bottom in allocating speaking roles to women.The MDSC, which studies the portrayal of women and minority groups in film, also found that women were more than twice as likely as men “to be shown in sexually revealing attire.”

Unlike the plight of minorities in film--which does make some sense from a pure marketing standpoint--that women would be so dramatically underrepresented is very odd. 50% of the population is female, and so 50% of your potential ticket buyers are female, and so it seems that more female characters and leads would mean more potential revenue.

That women are more sexualized in film: also not surprising.

Actually, You Kind of Do...

In David Atkins' post "Serfdom Either Way" he references the report discussed here about the wage gap between college grads and high school grads.  He doesn't say much about it, in fact most of what he does say is:

Do I really need to comment here? The insanity speaks for itself.

I think I know what he is talking about: either go into massive debt or get a shitty job.  But you really do need to comment about it, because the implication of the price premium for college grads is that it is, in fact, worth it to go to college, even when it means incurring debt.  Now I certainly think that college should be much more affordable--in fact free to everyone--but so long as we have this capitalist fantasy about everything, it not only makes sense that college tuition has gotten high, this report clearly implies that the high cost is entirely justified.  Because the gap has been spreading it also implies that the value (and the cost) should grow faster than GDP.

If a college degree means an extra $17k/year (for life!) then it sure as hell is worth paying $30k/year for 4 years to get one.  Now this isn't the math that most students (or their parents) do, and the nature of student loans is borderline predatory, but it isn't "insanity" it's perfectly rational capitalism.

(Note: I hope this isn't a trend of him becoming increasingly irrational, because this follows a post of his from yesterday, that was mostly fine but that very oddly stated "Bill Gates isn't exactly an innovator"...I'm not sure what he would call Bill Gates, but innovator, at the least, is pretty damned appropriate.)