What the world is reading

Why are there fewer startlingly beautiful airline stewardesses in the US? Megan McArdle responds to a blog by Glen Whitman whose central argument

The Atlantic
The declining hotness of flight attendants

Why are there fewer startlingly beautiful airline stewardesses in the US? Megan McArdle responds to a blog by Glen Whitman whose central argument is that when airline deregulation brought airfare down,travellers,though they enjoyed the eye candy,werent willing to pay higher faresand since attractive stewardesses would have commanded more in pay,the tickets would have cost more. McArdle,a self-confessed libertarian,takes on that theory and says deregulation didnt play a major role. What did then? She says these jobs are simply not open to the young,hot women…because airlines stopped firing all the old,fat parents. Thanks to a combination of feminist shaming,union demands,and anti-discrimination laws…If you look at the national airlines in countries where anti-discrimination rules and/or unions are less powerful,like Qatar or Asia,youll notice that they spend a lot of time here advertising…their hot stewardesses. Its because the domestic labour market lets them get away with it,and ours doesnt.

Daily Telegraph
The housewives of Britain

A recent survey of 2,000 women who had given up paid work to look after their families,said two-thirds rejected the label housewife outright,saying that it had negative connotations or was even insulting. They preferred the title stay-at-home mother,which they felt hinted less strongly at domestic drudgery. Jenney McCartney says that while on American television,the ancient word housewife is still alive (Desperate Housewives,The Real Housewives of…),in Britain,the housewife is fast disappearing. McCartney finds it curious that just when real British women are bristling at the label housewife,we are more in thrall than ever to the vision of smooth-running family life that is possible only when a certain kind of capable woman is single-mindedly planted at the helm. The recession has made us retreat into the refuge of our homes,at which point those of us in households in which both adults work have the opportunity to drink in the depressing extent of the domestic chaos. The writer confesses that speedy imposition of domestic order is not a gift of mine,and I dont have time to do it slowly,and longs for an agency that would send round a bustling woman to sort out the wardrobe while Ill rustle up a quick Victoria sponge.

The Washington Post
How we succeed by failing

Steve Jobs,though wildly successful,also failed often and badly. Therein,Kathleen Parker writes,lies perhaps the larger lesson of his life: you usually have to fail to succeed. Even those born lucky eventually get a turn on the wheel of misfortune. She alludes to Jobs getting fired by Apple and it was during this period of exile that he founded Pixar and emerged a billionaire. This is to say,to fail is human. To resurrect oneself is an act of courage. There is a lesson here for Americas future,warns Parker. Our obsession with success and our fear of failure has trickled down to our children,at great cost not only to their psychological well-being but also,ultimately,to our ability to compete in the global marketplace.

The Los Angeles Times
Dollar coin? Its time

An editorial in The Los Angeles Times says printing a dollar bill costs the US government a lot of money and it lasts just three years,while a coin can last up to 30. That is why proponents in the US Congress are suggesting phasing out the dollar bill and replacing it with a coin. The production savings could add up to $5.5 billion over those three decades. The editorial proceeds to say that theres no reason to stop at the dollar bill. The US Treasury has been nickel-and-dimed for years since nickels (five cents) and pennies (one cent) both cost more to produce than they are worth. Pennies are made of copper-plated zinc,whose prices are volatile,and the government loses a cent for every one it makes. The even bigger loser is the nickel,costing 9 cents to produce.