"Men are more downbeat than women about America's future."

CNBC: "Men More Downbeat Than Women About US Future":

A new CNBC All-America Economic Survey of 800 Americans shows 53 percent of men are mainly pessimistic, with 42 percent optimistic. Women are more evenly split at 48 percent pessimistic and 46 percent optimistic.

Put it all together, and the nation as a whole splits 50-44, favoring the pessimists over the optimists.

Married men are especially discouraged: 60 percent say they are pessimistic, compared to 44 percent of unmarried men.

On Fire but Blacked Out: The Thomas Ball Story

I have an article up on the Ball case at PJM. You can read it here.

Blogger concerns

Some of you have mentioned that blogger is not allowing you to post comments or is deleting your comments. Others are concerned that I am deleting these comments. I am not. If I delete a comment for some reason (which is rare), I will typically warn you first.

In fact, there have been times when I have posted a reply to one of you and blogger has eaten my comments. So,I am just letting you know it is a blogger problem and to keep trying or copy your comment prior to hitting the publish button and try again.

Why has Wikipedia removed the Thomas Ball page?

"The report's findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says married people have it better economically than their unmarried counterparts."

CNN: "More U.S. couples living together, study finds":

Stephanie Marshall and her fiance, Kelton Scott, are college-educated, gainfully employed and living together. They pay their bills separately but "get together on common things like the rent," said Marshall, who just finished medical school in Atlanta.

The couple is part of a growing segment of American couples who choose to cohabit -- and a new report from the Pew Research Center, released Monday, says financially, those couples are making out like bandits compared to their married and single counterparts.

Not only are there more of them today -- the number of cohabiting couples has doubled since the 1990s, according to Pew analysis of U.S. Census numbers -- but they make more money than other segments of college graduates....

"Working" in more ways than one: Among the college-educated, the study said, in 78% of cohabiting couples, both partners had jobs. For college-educated married couples, only 67% were in two-earner marriages.

The report's findings fly in the face of conventional wisdom that says married people have it better economically than their unmarried counterparts.

"When we started writing this report, we thought that people who were married, and not those just living with each other, would be better off. But that's not the case," said D'Vera Cohn, the study's co-author.

I wonder if more people (especially men) want to live together because in a contractual marriage, the stakes are higher. How long will it be before there are "common marriage" laws that will make even living together more risky for a man--if he stays too long? Or will living together give men more freedom with less government regulation?

What do you think?