Like the retail behemoth at its center, everything about the Supreme Court extravaganza known as Wal-Mart v. Dukes is super-sized.

The number of women who could be included in the sex discrimination class-action suit is measured in millions. The amount of damages for which the nation’s largest private employer could be liable is estimated in billions.

If the Supreme Court agrees the case can move forward, it would be the largest employment discrimination class-action suit in U.S. history. As Wal-Mart likes to point out, the suit could include more people than the number now serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard combined. O

Complete article…

Applications are invited for The Economist‘s 2011 Marjorie Deane internships. Financed by the Marjorie Deane Financial Journalism Foundation, the awards are designed to provide work experience for a promising journalist or would-be journalist, who will spend three months at The Economist writing about economics and finance. Applicants are asked to write a letter introducing themselves, and an original article of no more than 500 words that they think would be suitable for publication in this section. Applications should be sent to deaneintern@economist.com by April 15th 2011.

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Here’s an email I recently received from a reader:

I live in Japan, which was once a growing economy.  Ever since that changed in the 80s, society has decided that houses shall now be depreciating assets.  As in, they are treated like how most people treat cars; “The older they are, the more used they get and the less valuable they are.”  As a result, houses almost never go up in value here, and in most areas, land values either maintain or slowly go down. 

Another important factor to mention is that, because of severe earthquakes, rapidly changing building standards, and a more short-term mindset in building, most people expect to rebuild their houses every 30-ish years.

All that being said, should I consider buying a house?

In the long term, it seems like I would save a SMALL amount of money per month versus paying rent.  Like $100-200 a month or so.  But the eventual rebuilding cost seems like it would be bigger than all that money saved anyways.  What should I do?

What’s your advice for him?

MARK THOMA has an appropriately succint post up today which reads in its entirety (and I hope he’ll forgive my quoting the whole thing):

We have enough money to pay for military action in Libya, but not for job creation?

It’s hard not to be cynical about government policymaking, and this is why. Forget about fiscal stimulus for the moment. At present, both Republicans and Democrats are committed to cutting the government’s budget in the current fiscal year. These cuts will almost certainly threaten programmes with positive economic returns; job retraining programmes are on the chopping block, for instance. Certainly few party leaders are seriously discussing new spending on programmes with positive economic returns.

Complete article…