Very good points there.

I wish statistics were really taught in highschools. So often I see reports that offer up a few numbers and then a conclusion but lack a lot of pertinent details on the way that anyone with some background in the subject would immediately notice and say “hey, you can’t make that conclusion with this data. . . . ”

And the solution to our education system is so obvious it’s painful. Do away with the department of education. Set some minimum federal standards for education and require all states to provide an education to it’s citizens, but nothing more. Then introduce vouchers. We can have some old-style public schools to serve basically as day cares for those who cannot make it anywhere else but the kids who want to learn will have a chance to compete with each other to get in to progressively better voucher-funded schools.

Let the individual schools negotiate with teachers for employment, so if they want to let the Unions run the show and crash their school they can, but they are not forced to.

A first world nation with a third world education system is an anomaly that cannot last for long.

So we learn from this second rate political economist that the vast growth of wealth and income inequality is due to age, is that right?

Well, let’s see, In prior post 1929 eras, people did not really differ in age, but that phenomenon occurred only later, after the Reagan administration and it continued into the Bush administration. Aging is only a recent happening, and it was only then that it was possible to get to the bottom of this great wealth discrepancy.

Sowell is not an intellectual most people pay attention to, even though he has become the darling of the right.

So we learn from this second rate political economist that the vast growth of wealth and income inequality is due to age, is that right?

Well, let’s see, In prior post 1929 eras, people did not really differ in age, but that phenomenon occurred only later, after the Reagan administration and it continued into the Bush administration. Aging is only a recent happening, and it was only then that it was possible to get to the bottom of this great wealth discrepancy.

Sowell is not an intellectual most people pay attention to, even though he has become the darling of the right.

I took a graduate course a few years ago. It was 40+% Chinese, 40+% Indian, 6% white and 2% black.

Certainly in the more difficult fields like mathematics, science and engineering; there among the graduate students, there are more foreigners than there are Americans in our universities because Americans cannot meet the same standards that the foreign students can.

It has nothing to do with standards and everything to do with opportunity. America students look at PhDs and ask themselves whether they want to be an Academic or do research (and generally I’m repeating myself). If not then they don’t bother to pursue anything past a Masters and therefore don’t become college professors.

If you intend to work in government or industry, it makes no sense to get a Ph.D. for most people. Especially when you can get your employer to pay for Masters in many cases.

Perhaps it’s a result of the way the interview was summarized here, but Prof. Sowell seems to be skirting the edges of the same morass of fuzzy thinking that well-meaning liberals have been splashing around in for 30 or 40 years when he says that African-Americans should marry in order to escape poverty. “Home ownership is a hallmark of the middle class… so if we make it easy for the poor to own a home, they’ll escape poverty and become middle class.” Although he does backpedal at the end of that bit about marriage and correctly indicate that the problem is a cultural (“way of life”) issue.

It is important to note that the arrow of causation runs the other way, however: it is those urban poor who have been brought up with values and a way of life which still celebrate marriage and family who are much more likely to escape poverty. Marriage – and home ownership – are not “magic bullets” which will cause someone to escape poverty; they are instead markers of the kinds of traits and habits which enable one to accumulate wealth and thus be middle class… responsibility, ability to plan ahead, delay gratification, and work with other people to achieve difficult goals.

Perhaps it’s a result of the way the interview was summarized here, but Prof. Sowell seems to be skirting the edges of the same morass of fuzzy thinking that well-meaning liberals have been splashing around in for 30 or 40 years when he says that African-Americans should marry in order to escape poverty. “Home ownership is a hallmark of the middle class… so if we make it easy for the poor to own a home, they’ll escape poverty and become middle class.” Although he does backpedal at the end of that bit about marriage and correctly indicate that the problem is a cultural (“way of life”) issue.

It is important to note that the arrow of causation runs the other way, however: it is those urban poor who have been brought up with values and a way of life which still celebrate marriage and family who are much more likely to escape poverty. Marriage – and home ownership – are not “magic bullets” which will cause someone to escape poverty; they are instead markers of the kinds of traits and habits which enable one to accumulate wealth and thus be middle class… responsibility, ability to plan ahead, delay gratification, and work with other people to achieve difficult goals.

Perhaps it’s a result of the way the interview was summarized here, but Prof. Sowell seems to be skirting the edges of the same morass of fuzzy thinking that well-meaning liberals have been splashing around in for 30 or 40 years when he says that African-Americans should marry in order to escape poverty. “Home ownership is a hallmark of the middle class… so if we make it easy for the poor to own a home, they’ll escape poverty and become middle class.” Although he does backpedal at the end of that bit about marriage and correctly indicate that the problem is a cultural (“way of life”) issue.

It is important to note that the arrow of causation runs the other way, however: it is those urban poor who have been brought up with values and a way of life which still celebrate marriage and family who are much more likely to escape poverty. Marriage – and home ownership – are not “magic bullets” which will cause someone to escape poverty; they are instead markers of the kinds of traits and habits which enable one to accumulate wealth and thus be middle class… responsibility, ability to plan ahead, delay gratification, and work with other people to achieve difficult goals.

Perhaps it’s a result of the way the interview was summarized here, but Prof. Sowell seems to be skirting the edges of the same morass of fuzzy thinking that well-meaning liberals have been splashing around in for 30 or 40 years when he says that African-Americans should marry in order to escape poverty. “Home ownership is a hallmark of the middle class… so if we make it easy for the poor to own a home, they’ll escape poverty and become middle class.” Although he does backpedal at the end of that bit about marriage and correctly indicate that the problem is a cultural (“way of life”) issue.

It is important to note that the arrow of causation runs the other way, however: it is those urban poor who have been brought up with values and a way of life which still celebrate marriage and family who are much more likely to escape poverty. Marriage – and home ownership – are not “magic bullets” which will cause someone to escape poverty; they are instead markers of the kinds of traits and habits which enable one to accumulate wealth and thus be middle class… responsibility, ability to plan ahead, delay gratification, and work with other people to achieve difficult goals.

Again, Mr. Sowell says it all. Something Americans can believe instead of they hype and bull by politicans and the media. If I want honesty and the real facts in any issue I always go to Mr. Sowell’s articles to find the truth and am never dissappointed. No doubt he is my favorite.

Again, Mr. Sowell says it all. Something Americans can believe instead of they hype and bull by politicans and the media. If I want honesty and the real facts in any issue I always go to Mr. Sowell’s articles to find the truth and am never dissappointed. No doubt he is my favorite.