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“Harvard Faculty Donate to Democrats by Wide Margin” (Crimson) says that “Ninety-six percent of donations in the data set from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes Harvard College, supported Democratic efforts. That figure was even higher—nearly 98 percent—at Harvard Law School.”

As labor unions are major donors to Democratic Party candidates it seems reasonable to infer that most Harvard College and Law School faculty members advocate for workers to unionize. Certainly in private conversations with Harvard faculty members support for labor unions has been almost total. This has been true for my friends who work at other universities as well. The only exception that these folks allow is that workers (other than themselves; the AAUP functions as a union to some extent) should not be unionized at their own university and/or that the university should not have to pay what already-unionized workers are demanding. Professors tend to be especially vehement on the subject of how graduate students should not be allowed to unionize for their work as research and teaching assistants.

This week I walked from the 98-percent Democrat Law School to the 96-percent Democrat Harvard College. What did I find? A strike by Harvard’s food service workers:

What do these folks want? “Affordable health care,” according to the signs. This seems odd due to the fact that the Great Father in Washington already gave us all affordable health care via the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), signed into law by President Obama in 2010. A New York Times op-ed by a striking worker explains the situation further. [If there were a strike at the New York Times itself, would the paper provide its union members with space on the front page to air demands? Or is it only newsworthy when some other enterprise faces a strike?]

I’m wondering if this strike is the harbinger of further dissatisfaction among American workers. We’ve all, apparently, voted to spend 18 percent of our GDP on health care. Yet we apparently don’t want to hand over 18 percent of our paychecks to the health care industry.

Related:

• Health care inflation in Boston (success for Union A = hardship for Union B)
• my 2009 essay on health care reform (“We now spend so much on health care that it is very likely reducing our health compared to having a minimal system. In order to pay for our health care system, Americans are forced to work 25 percent longer hours than they otherwise would.”)

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On a recent visit to Berkeley I received a long and detailed lecture on the benefits to students of a racially diverse educational environment (e.g., the learning of each student in a school with an all-Chinese student body would increase if some black students were mixed in and then would further increase if Latino and Native American students were added; it was unclear if there was any value to students identifying as “white”). The lecture was delivered by two parents and their daughter, a high school senior. The daughter had completely absorbed the parents’ philosophy on this subject and was in perfect accord on the merits of attending a school with a diverse mixture of students.

I asked “What are the demographics of the Berkeley Public Schools then?” They couldn’t give me a clear answer, however, because it seems that both children in their family have attended private schools at the cost of $70,000 per year (total) and a huge amount of commuting time and hassle compared to the public schools.

• Visit to Berkeley, California (2010) in which I noted the existence of an underclass despite the fact that “for roughly 60 years, Berkeley has offered more services to its residents than virtually any other city in the U.S.”

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At a recent gathering of photo journalists I learned about the practicalities of publishing coffee table books. Chinese printing has helped quite a bit, but a lavishly illustrated hardcopy book typically doesn’t make economic sense. How are these getting to market then? It seems that “sponsorship” from a rich person is common. This ends up skewing the content, however. People who are crazy rich are often interested in environmentalism, for example, so there are a lot of books about the fragility of the Earth and how beautiful are the parts that we haven’t trashed yet.

So next time that you’re in the bookstore remember that the large format photo book section could be titled “What rich people care about”.

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In Hillary Clinton’s 1969 Wellesley College speech she began the substantive portion of her speech by decrying the fact that “13.3 percent of the people in this country are below the poverty line”. Ms. Clinton has been near the top and center of American politics for many of the 47 years since that speech. How has her work on behalf of America’s vulnerable moved the needle? Census.gov says “The official poverty rate in 2015 was 13.5 percent, down 1.2 percentage points from 14.8 percent in 2014.”

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Should each election have an official novelist? If so, I nominate Carl Hiaasen for Election 2016. What kind of novel goes with “Porn Star Becomes Latest Trump Accuser — Day After Launching Online Sex Store”? My vote is Razor Girl, about a young lady who makes her living with her pants down, though not in the most conventional ways.

Here are some excerpts:

The Tesla had no trunk, so Coolman was permitted to ride in the backseat. This slender bit of good fortune allowed him to press his case for mercy. Zeto remained cold to his pleas, but Merry seemed open to the idea of giving Coolman more time to raise some funds. “Say nobody comes through. How much you got in the bank?” she said. “It’s all frozen. I’m in the middle of a divorce.”

Had Amp owned a fully formed conscience he would have experienced at least a tickle of guilt for boning Rachel Coolman on the sly, but he’d lost not a minute of sleep. It had been her idea, after all, and Amp was but one of many to meet her for a quick one at the Wilshire. That she would pauperize her future ex-husband in court was a given—it was California, right?

“Has it been four hours?” Richardson checked his watch. “Four hours is when they say to panic.” “Then we’ll wait here together.” Deb opened a book and vaped on her plastic ciggie. If not for her own clandestine escapades—the kayak instructor, the Tantric landscaper, her stepsister’s podiatrist, and so on—she would have pressed more aggressively the issue of her fiancé’s infidelity.

She could envision a medium-length marriage—say five to seven years—based solely on the attractions of sex and money. [Note that seven years would be more prudent for establishing a claim to “permanent alimony” under Florida family law.]

The Pensacola condominium was titled in Miracle’s name, and there was already a Confederate flag on the bathroom wall. “Legally she owns the place,” Coolman said to Buck. “That’s how you wanted it, remember?” Buck slammed a fist on the table, which was so heavy it barely moved. Tears pooled in his eyes as he nursed his throbbing hand. Blister was sympathetic. “You was blinded by the pussy, that’s all. I been there, brother. Say hi to pussy, say bye-bye to common sense.”

[One error in the book is the assumption that an FBO would have a record of the passengers aboard a private plane on a domestic flight: “Yancy was irked that Burton hadn’t told him that Blister and the others were not aboard the gray executive jet that had departed the night before; by now the detective surely had obtained the passenger manifest from the pretty silver-haired woman at the airport.”]

Readers: What do you think? Do Hiaasen’s tales of Americans in Florida match up well to the spirit and focus of the election? Is there a better choice of novelist?

Related:

• “Latest Trump accuser says he hugged, kissed her without permission” (CNN interview on an important topic: “Ten years ago I was working for Wicked Pictures, an adult film company, …)
• Why no sex scandals with this year’s crop of Presidential candidates?

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One subject that has come up in this election cycle is the purportedly Great Age of American Manufacturing and Middle Class Jobs that prevailed back in the 1970s. But what was it actually like back then? I recently did some work in Detroit on an inter partes review. One of the Detroit-based patent litigators with whom I was working was on the scene in the 1970s with summer jobs in two Ford plants. Other than pride in having built a lot of Fairmonts, what does he remember? “You couldn’t be fired unless you hit someone. You didn’t have to do anything. The worst that could happen to you was that you’d be reassigned to a different job.” When experts came in to evaluate how fast the line should move, everyone was told by union bosses to slow down. “They saw everything in slow-motion,” he said.

Meanwhile, what does it look like now that we’re getting our cars from factories in the South, in Mexico, and in Asia? Here’s a photo of peak morning rush hour traffic in Southfield, a suburban business hub:

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Ignited’s Shaken’ not Stirred! (a.k.a. “Hurricane Hunter”) displays the ribbons won competing in National Association of Canine Scentwork trials. (Photos by her proud mother.)

In other dog-related news, walking Mindy the Crippler the other day we encountered a woman with a 12-year-old standard poodle. Responding to an observation that the poodle, playing with Mindy, seemed to be in good shape, the woman said “I hope that she stays in good health for many more years. She is the center of my life.” So that Mindy’s self-esteem isn’t wounded, we’re training the kids to say “Mindy, you are the center of our life.”

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“Just Like Trump, I Avoided Paying Federal Taxes” (nytimes) is an inadvertently interesting article. The author describes an asset purchased in 1987 and sold recently (after a 1031 exchange). He talks about paying taxes on 30 years of what the IRS considers to be capital gains: “I sold the building this year and owe the capital gains tax. Fine. … If you’re paying taxes, you’re making money.”

The owner of a 17-unit apartment building, he distinguishes himself from Donald Trump, not because Trump built the world’s 7th tallest building, but because he is more virtuous: “I’m like Mr. Trump that way. But I’m paying.” (he apparently has access to Trump’s tax returns!)

What’s the interesting part of this? It shows how Americans in the media business can’t think with numbers, especially when it comes to inflation. The BLS CPI calculator shows that $1,000 in 1987 has the same purchasing power as $2,120 today. If this guy bought an asset for $1,000 in 1987 and sold it recently for $2,120 he would owe substantial capital gains tax on an asset that, in real (inflation-adjusted) terms, was worth the same as 30 years ago. Thus it is plainly not true that “If you’re paying taxes, you’re making money.”

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“Helicopter struck by suspected drunk driver near Gallup” describes a good day for Airbus (formerly “Eurocopter”) and a bad one for everyone else. It looks as though an Astar medevac helicopter got tangled up in a secondary accident. Not sure if this can compensate for the slowdown in the offshore oil rig transportation market, but at least someone in the parts sales department is going to be busy.

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“Porn Star Becomes Latest Trump Accuser — Day After Launching Online Sex Store” concerns Jessica Drake, a woman whose job was having sex for money, purportedly receiving an offer back in 2005 to have sex for money ($10,000). The story has become more newsworthy than you might expect (e.g., in the Boston Globe) because Donald Trump was allegedly one of the people who offered to pay her for having sex in 2005. At least 10 of my Facebook friends have linked to stories about Ms. Drake (though none have offered their opinion regarding the quality of her acting or where her films fit into the history of American cinema).

I don’t presume to know the truth of events that occurred in private 11 years ago, and I was not previously acquainted with this young star or her work, but let’s look at whether the $10,000 would have been fair compensation.

How much could Ms. Drake have gotten paid for having sex with Trump under the California Child Support guidelines? Forbes says that Trump is worth $3.7 billion (source). His tax returns are likely complex, but family court judges are encouraged to ignore reported income when a self-employed defendant is sued and are especially encouraged to ignore IRS-allowed deductions such as for depreciation. Assume that Ms. Drake persuades a family court to impute a 5 percent return on investment to Mr. Trump. His imputed income would then be $185 million per year or $15,416,667 per month. If we assume that Ms. Drake became pregnant with just one fetus, rather than twins, she would be entitled to $847,712 per month in tax-free child support ($183,105,792 over 18 years). That’s assuming that she took care of the child 100 percent of the time.

What if Ms. Drake felt that a child in her life would be an impediment to her career in the adult film industry? In jurisdictions such as California where child support is unlimited it is reasonably common for women, represented by attorneys, to market abortions at a discount to the net present value of the child support that would be owed if the baby were carried to term (see “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage”). With $183 million on the table as a starting number, $50 million in immediate cash after three months of pregnancy and a Non-Invasive Prenatal Paternity test does not seem like an unreasonable estimate.

[Note that the purported offer was made in the Lake Tahoe region. The above analysis assumes that Ms. Drake would have been smart enough not to have sex in Nevada and thus open the door to venue litigation. Under Nevada family law, the child would have had a cash value of only about $13,000 per year times 18 years = $234,000.]

[And what if Ms. Drake had been blessed with twins following a one-night sexual encounter? The cashflow generated by two children would be $1,356,339 per month under the California guidelines. That’s $292,969,224 ($293 million) over 18 years.]

Related:

• Where New York Times readers don’t want to follow Europe: Legalized prostitution

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