SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

GREAT MOMENTS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT – FROM AP:   BERLIN (AP) — Police were called to investigate a domestic disturbance in a southern German town — and found a man arguing with a parrot.  A resident in Loerrach, near the Swiss border, called the emergency number Monday to report his concerns about loud shouting from a next-door apartment that had been going on for some time.  Police said Tuesday that officers sent to the scene found there was a loud argument going on — but it was between a 22-year-old man and a parrot. The man told them he had been annoyed with the bird, which belonged to his girlfriend.  The parrot responded to being shouted at with loud noises of its own. Police said it couldn't speak but could bark like a dog.  Since no one was hurt, the officers left.  On American college campuses, people are arrested for intimidation of the parrot community.  Why is Europe so far behind?

ARE WE SURPRISED? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   When the Associated Press portrayed this spring's commencement season as a victory for female speakers, the Young America’s Foundation cleared its throat and added a caveat: except for conservative women.  In a review of commencement speakers at the top 101 universities as judged by U.S. News, the conservative youth organization found just three that it classified as conservative – and only one woman – at schools that only featured one commencement speaker.  In fact, Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert is the only conservative speaking at a school in the top 50, at her alma mater Lehigh University (No. 46). The other conservatives are former Southwestern Energy CEO Harold Korell at his alma mater, the Colorado School of Mines (No. 75), and Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon at Yeshiva University (No. 94).  Commencements symbolize the college experience for too many students – only one point of view allowed. 

NO WAY TO RUN A COUNTRY – FROM BLOOMBERG:  Sweden’s got a major supply and demand problem.  By 2025, its entire workforce is expected to grow by 207,000 people—yet it needs more than that number just to staff its fabled welfare state. The worker shortfall could crimp services and raise labor costs, especially in a political environment less hospitable to immigration.  The mismatch is one of the biggest headaches facing Sweden’s next government. Past precedents don’t bode well. The workforce rose by 488,000 between 2007 and 2017, with less than a third of that increase absorbed by the public sector.  Local authorities recruiting 208,000 workers is “not a credible scenario,” said Annika Wallenskog, chief economist at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The real risk is that the public and private sectors end up competing for the same workers, she said.  The government is going to have to come up with some seriously big ideas on how to make up for future labor shortages.  Not exactly a paradise.  I guess Sweden will have to pay a bonus to people willing to come into the country to run the welfare system.  But it will be vastly expensive.  At some point, as Margaret Thatcher said, you run out of other people's money.

May 15, 2018