“There is a reason many commentators on the left are allergic to evidence that economic well-being has improved up and down the income ladder: Americans are largely indifferent to the relative size of their income as long as it gets bigger absolutely. Absolute gains, from bottom to top, really take the wind out of populist […]
Archive for October, 2007
Oct31st2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Economics, General and Inequality. 0 CommentsOct29th2007
First we look at the sad state of Canada’s health care system:
1. A typical Canadian seeking surgery had to wait 18.3 weeks in 2007 between referral from a general practitioner and treatment (averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed), reaching an all-time record high, up from 17.8 weeks in 2006.
Which bares a striking […]
Oct26th2007
“I very rarely get angry about politics. But every time I see some middle class parent prattling about vouchers “destroying” the public schools by “cherry picking” the best students, when they’ve made damn sure that their own precious little cherries have been plucked out of the failing school systems, I seethe with barely controllable inward […]
Oct25th2007
Martin Feldstein, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research and professor of economics at Harvard University, said in his speech upon acceptance of a 2007 Bradley Prize:
There are always those who want to turn back the intellectual clock and return to counterproductive policies. They are willing to sacrifice economic efficiency and growth in order […]
Oct24th2007
Few charities have the potential to do as much good for low income minorities as The Center For Education Reform. It is a website where you can find privately funded scholarship programs that take kids trapped in a failing public school and pay for their tuition to go to a private school. You can use […]
Oct20th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in Academia, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and affirmative action. 10 Comments“Question to think about: If right-wingers are underrepresented in universities relative to the population and discriminated against by the left-wing majority, as Larry suggests, should there be affirmative action for right-leaning academics? It seems that, on principle, those on the left (who favor affirmative action to promote diversity and correct past injustice) should endorse such […]
Oct19th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and affirmative action. 1 Comment“I agree entirely with David Bernstein’s previous post: affirmative action in higher education should not be categorically forbidden, but it should be both more transparent and better designed. As David writes, “it’s important to . . . have a theory as to which people you are giving preferences to, and why, rather than just give […]
Oct18th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and affirmative action. 4 Comments“I should note that some or all of these “preferred practices” [of how to better perform affirmative action at Universities] may be inhibited or prevented by the Supreme Court’s affirmative action jurisprudence, which allows preferences only for “diversity” purposes. Of course, no one really takes this seriously, least of all the Court itself; if this […]
Oct9th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues) and affirmative action. 12 Comments“White liberals frown on independent thinking by minorities. Some of them claimed that Thomas was pulling up the ladder behind him and so they pulled the rug out from under him. These are the folks who claim credit for the success of those minorities they agree with while trying to discredit those with whom they […]
Oct6th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, Academia, Books, DayToDay and General. 3 Comments“[Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence] Thomas was talking about how surprisingly positively he has been received in campuses around the country over the past two decades. It is mostly the faculty, not the students or the public that are tough on him. Of course, there are some law schools he does not expect an invitation […]
Oct5th2007
Slavery In Context - Friday Edition
Published by in Books, Chicanoism, Conversation Continued, General and Hispanics (Minority Issues). 5 CommentsDo me a favor, read this and this from Michael Medved and when you are done read this blog post and tell me if their description of what Medved wrote is accurate.
After reading the two articles I responded in the comments section to correct what I saw as a false representation of what he had […]
Oct5th2007
Alex Tabarrok discusses the paradigm shift education departments have a hard time making:
What we need to save inner-city schools, and poor schools everywhere, is a method that works when the teachers aren’t heroes. Even better if the method works when teachers are ordinary people, poorly paid and ill-motivated - i.e. the system we have […]
Oct4th2007
Quote Of The Day
Published by in Economics, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Minimum Wage and Myths. 0 Comments“I just read a very interesting article by Thomas C. Leonard, Protecting Family and Race: The Progressive Case for Regulating Women’s Work, which appeared in the American Journal of Economics and Sociology in July 2005. If you’re at all interested in Progressive Era economists’ and reformers’ attitudes toward working women, this article is a must […]
Oct3rd2007
“Conversation Continued” Section Created
Published by in Conversation Continued and General. 0 CommentsUpdated: Using the term ‘Conversation Continued’ instead of the politically charged ‘censorship’.
I am a frequent commenter on various blogs and especially those I politically disagree with. Over the years I have often encountered blogs that refuse to post my initial comment or follow up comments. However, since the blogs are the personal property of the […]
Oct3rd2007
Is UCLA A Charity?
Published by in Economics, Education, General, Hispanics (Minority Issues), Poverty and University. 6 CommentsLong time readers of my blog know that I strongly disagree with those who argue that Universities need more government funding - especially elite Universities like UCLA. I’ve blogged on this in depth before, see here.
Robert Reich, former president Bill Clintons labor secretary, makes similar arguments in the Los Angeles Times:
Is Harvard a charity?
Most donations […]
Oct2nd2007
Are There Any Crime Free Young Blacks Out There?
Published by in (modern day) Liberalism, General and Hispanics (Minority Issues). 12 CommentsNot many, according to John Edwards:
Question: What would you do to help eliminate inner city kids from partaking in violence?”
John Edwards: That’s a good question.
…I don’t think their’s a silver bullet to this. We start with the president of the United States saying to America, “We cannot build enough prisons to solve this […]
