One year ago today a major earthquake devastated Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. One year ago and one million people remain homeless, with less than 5 percent of the debris cleared from city streets. One year ago today.

Why the lack of meaningful progress with rebuilding efforts? Before you draw any conclusion, let me provide some on-the-ground observations of rebuilding efforts following a similar, though less destructive, natural disaster — Jamaica after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

State court judges in New York are unhappy with their pay and are not getting any satisfaction from their paymaster legislators in Albany. The New York City Family Court Judges’ Association polled it’s members and 90% of those who responded are for creating a judge’s association to negotiate on behalf of the jurists.

“The message is: United we stand,” Judge W. Dennis Duggan said.

Labor unions like to argue that the payment of higher wages is to the self-interest of employers because the wage earners will use their higher wages to make additional purchases from business firms, thereby increasing the sales revenues and profits of business firms. However, wrong and foolish it may be, this is an argument worth analyzing in some detail, because it can provide a gateway to a discussion of the actual sources of profit in the economic system.

The New York Times’ David Segal has a lengthy piece out detailing the malinvestment in going to law school. Owing 6-figure loan balances after graduation seems to be the norm. And while U.S. News says 93% of law school grads are gainfully employed, any law grad working at anything–waiting tables or stocking shelves–after 9 months is considered employed. But it’s tough fading a $2,000 or $3,000 monthly student loan payment if you’re slinging drinks at the local pub.

Art Carden is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Business at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee, a weekly columnist for Forbes.com, and a regular contributor to the Mises Economics Blog. He is also an Adjunct Fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, California, a member of the Mises Institute’s Adjunct Faculty, and a member of the Board of Scholars of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. He has taught at Institute for Humane Studies Summer Seminars since 2008 and taught at Mises University in 2009.