Schadenfreude is such a wonderful thing.

First, young people are beginning to realize that taxing the rich is not as great as they thought. (H/T Hot Air)

Excerpt:

The proportion of people ages 16 to 24 who were employed in July was 51.4 percent, the lowest July rate since records began in 1948 and 4.6 percentage points lower than in July 2008. …

The Labor Department said 4.4 million youths were unemployed in July 2009, or about 1 million more than in July 2008, putting the youth jobless rate at 18.5 percent, about double the overall national percentage.

Fewer young people were even trying to be part of the labor force this year than in recent years, perhaps choosing summer school, odd jobs around the house or idleness instead.

Let’s be clear. If you raise the price of labor while leaving production levels constant, people will be laid off. Period. This is non-negotiable among rational individuals. My recommendation to the young people: put down the Che Guevara t-shirt and step away from television.

Meanwhile, public school teachers are striking against their own union in order to save their jobs. (H/T Hot Air)

Excerpt:

A group of teachers in the North Clackamas School District took the initiative Thursday, amid losing their jobs because of budget cuts, by gathering signatures in an effort to have their voices heard by their union.

The teachers, who gathered outside their union office, said they want a response from the union and put their demands in writing in the form of a petition.

Those speaking out said it shouldn’t have reached this point, and they would have accepted the district’s offer, favoring a wage freeze to save jobs.

“We took a poll in the spring and they got our opinion and the majority said wage freeze,” said Monica Whiteley, who was laid off. “So I would like them to look at the poll or honor it and have us look at the memo of understanding that is out there.”

It’s good to see reliable Democrat voting blocs finally moving beyond rhetoric into reality. The world is dangerous place, and willful blindness has consequences. Next time, they should learn economics the easy way – by reading Thomas Sowell.