GOLF IS A SIMPLE GAME: Power: Its Two Elements.

THE PROBLEM OF LABOR-MARKET “RESETS:”

Circa 2013, I fear many of the pending reset deals in labor markets. Insiders are often treated quite well, but the next generation of outsiders may never reattain such privileged positions. The average doesn’t change very rapidly, because most of the employed still are insiders. Still, we can see that the reset may be a doozy. After all, labor’s share as a percentage of gdp has been falling in many of the advanced economies around the world.

Even putting cyclicality aside, Greek and Italian youth worry about exactly this problem. Any aspiring academic in the United States should worry about the reset too, with or without MOOCs. Especially in the humanities, the old privileged positions simply aren’t being replicated because for most schools those positions no longer make economic sense. At the same time, few if any tenured professors are taking significant real wage cuts.

Resets show up more quickly in some sectors than others, most of all they come quickly when buyers and sellers have only sporadic and perhaps even anonymous contact with each other. In other words, the reset comes more slowly for the mistress than for the street prostitute. And when you see youth losing relative ground in labor markets, that is another signal that you should be worrying about resets.

Fear the reset. The world will continue to produce much more value, and much more gdp, but who will capture that value is already changing dramatically and will continue to do so.

Ironically, young voters tend to support policies that, in actual application, benefit insiders at their expense.

I WOULDN’T HAVE EXPECTED THIS: Millions Take Part As Traditional Marriage Movement Sweeps Through France. But, then, French culture isn’t exactly rooted in Lockean individualism.

Plus this:

“Their mouths overflow with the words ‘equality of man and woman.’ She said. “But why should marriage not be a place of equality, too, so that a child will be raised by man and woman?”

It’s not a movement for “traditional marriage.” It’s a movement for parenting diversity!

MY USA TODAY COLUMN FOR TOMORROW: Protecting Children From The Religious Fanatics Running Schools.

NOT SO SEXY: IRS Pillow Talk.

HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: Washington Post: The Justice Department has allowed us to say AG Holder supports press freedom.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Green Jobs Chimera:

Europe is mulling import tariffs on cheap Chinese solar panels to protect its own manufacturers; it could learn something from America’s attempt to do the same last year. Hint: it didn’t work. . . .

The market is heavily distorted at this point; governments are propping up a nascent technology that can’t compete on price on its own. States can continue to subsidize producers and tax imports all they want, but that doesn’t fix the underlying problem: this technology isn’t ready for market.

The greens have deluded themselves into thinking that somehow market forces didn’t apply to manufacturing “clean” tech. It just illustrates the lack of policy competence in the green community, and the cleverness of crony capitalists, who know the silly greens will lobby for your sweetheart deal if you sprinkle some of their favorite phrases into the promotional literature.

I think this is a charitable assessment.

IT’S COMPLICATED: Wall Street Hates Facebook. No One Knows Why.

OLD SPIN: IT’S RIDICULOUS FEARMONGERING TO SUGGEST THAT OBAMACARE WILL RAISE PREMIUMS. New Spin: It’s A Good Thing That Obamacare Doubles Individual Health Insurance Premiums. “In 2009, was Ezra saying that it’s ok that premiums will double for the average person, because a minority of people will pre-existing conditions will benefit? No.”

DIRTY JOBS’ MIKE ROWE: What My Father Taught Me.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Law school applications continue to slide. “Last fall, George Washington University Law School cut its number of first-year law students from 474 to 398, the smallest in a decade and the second year in a row the school reduced its class size.” More here.

Related: University of Tennessee high on list of nation’s most efficient law schools.

AT AMAZON, deals and markdowns on Swiss Army Knives.

NICK GILLESPIE: How Bradley Manning Changed the War on Terror – and Politics – For the Better. Well, possibly.

COMMENCEMENT SPEECH OF THE YEAR: “Dear Graduates: You’re pampered, privileged and oversexed—but at least your employment prospects are dim.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 30 Bits of Commencement Wisdom for the Class of 2013.

MESSAGING: Ten ways you know Obama scandal-management is a bust.

Check out the trend graph on the RCP Job Approval page.

UPDATE: Reader Rick Richman emails:

Here is a better chart, in my opinion, to show the state of President Obama’s approval ratings. It shows not simply the approve-disapprove numbers, but the intensity of the feelings within those two categories.

When the “strongly disapprove” percentage approaches the total “approve percentage” (and within the total “approve” percentage, the “strongly approve” is barely half), you know the President’s approval percentage is particularly weak.

Indeed.

P.J. O’ROURKE: Obama’s Asteroid: The decline of NASA and the senseless priorities of our government.

THERE’S THAT WORD AGAIN: Manufacturing Drops Unexpectedly.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 23 Mistakes You’ll Definitely Make In Your Twenties.

FASTER, PLEASE: Pressure Grows to Create Drugs for ‘Superbugs.’ “The need for new antibiotics is so urgent, supporters of an overhaul say, that lengthy studies involving hundreds or thousands of patients should be waived in favor of directly testing such drugs in very sick patients. Influential lawmakers have said they are prepared to support legislation that allows for faster testing.”

I THINK I’VE GOT TO AGREE WITH SCALIA ON THIS ONE: Court Approves DNA Swabs For Arrestees. Clearly, if we’re going to protect people’s 4th Amendment rights, we need to name more people like Scalia to the Supreme Court.

IRA STOLL ON the New York Times, reporters, and “information parasites.” “If the Times is going to call for a law regulating ‘the harvesting of what is called nonpublic information’ — also known as ‘reporting’ — it might want to consider the First Amendment, or explain why some reporting is parasitic and requires additional regulation, while other reporting deserves First Amendment protection and the self-congratulation normally on display at journalism awards ceremonies. Otherwise people might come to the conclusion that the Times just wants a government crackdown on its competitors in the information industry.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Behind The Tragedy Of Detroit.

LIVING LONGER BY HAVING SEX. “The typical man who has 350 orgasms a year, versus the national average of around a quarter of that, lives about four years longer.” They’re better years, too. . . .

UPDATE: Dave Price emails:

I still remember vividly a front-page Chicago Tribune piece from the 1990s (my late teens) that listed different factors and what effect they had on lifespan. By far the largest positive effect was “1000 or more orgasms per year” at something ridiculous like +19 years.

It’s fair to say this information has been a major influence on my life.

And several readers wonder if there’s a synergistic effect with drinking red wine. I say: Why take any chances?

THE IRS SCANDAL AS AN EXAMPLE OF runaway agency culture.