Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
At no time is it more evident to us how much the modern progressive has to learn about economics, than when said modern progressive seizes upon the Magical, Wonderful Commodity. His treatment of it is always the same:
Commodity good. Make lots and lots of it because it is good. When there is lots of it, it will become even more precious than it is right now.
No they don’t say that word for word. If they did, everyone who’s been taught the essentials in seventh or eighth grade would say “Uh, wait a minute…that doesn’t add up.” But their policies are based on this. Commodity good, make more of it, commodity become even better. “The middle class” — I’m still waiting for a solid justification from the left, why it is that these people are somehow being oppressed when the membership size of their class is diminished. Ethanol. Carbon offset credit vouchers. Hemp shirts. Hybrid cars. High speed trains. Handicapped parking spaces. Union members — the argument is that the power of collective bargaining increases when more people are in the union. (That’s not quite how it works: Collective bargaining increases because, if the union’s demands are not met, there’s nobody left to do the actual work. Slightly different thing.) Rent-controlled housing. ObamaCare “rights,” ObamaCare entitlements, ObamaCare services…ObamaCare waivers.
In fact, this is a commonality in the phenomenon of liberal plans running into their “crash & burn” moment: The public becomes disenchanted with something that was provided in great abundance, for “free,” because it’s such a wonderful thing. Reality reliably disengages & deviates from the liberal’s plan, because right about this time the public was supposed to be in some state of euphoria, and instead the public is saying something like “Oh damn, it’s another gawforsaken [fill in the blank].”
Well, we have a new magical commodity that is supposed to increase in value as we are provided with more of it. College graduates.
“The best economic policy is one that produces more college graduates,” President Obama said in a speech today on education. “I’m confident these reforms will help us meet the goal that I set when I took office -– which is, by the end of the decade we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. We’ll be number one again. That’s my priority. ”
Nothing against college graduates — I am one myself — but it seems to have escaped the president’s notice that some of the most successful entrepreneurs in modern America, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Apple’s Steve Jobs, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Enterprise Rent-a-Car’s Jack Taylor, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Dell computer’s Michael Dell, movie and music producer David Geffen, and Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson — are not college graduates.
It seems to me that president is wrong, and that the best economic policy is not one that “produces more college graduates,” but one that produces more entrepreneurs. If producing a high proportion of college graduates were the secret to economic success, Belgium would be the world’s economic powerhouse. Making college completion rates a priority does funnel taxpayer money to college professors, a reliable Democratic constituency. But as economic policy, it strikes me as at best questionable.
I agree with Ira Stoll, the author of this column. Why? Because when you clamor for “more entrepreneurs” you’re clamoring for more effort to be made at doing a certain thing — entrepreneur-ing. Kind of gets back to my treatise on What’s Wrong With The World? Too much attention put on people being something, not enough attention put on people doing something.
Those who clamor for more college graduates, won’t be able to put to a unified voice any ideas on what exactly it is they want done. We’re just back to that lesson from which liberals can never, ever learn: When you provide a great abundance of something, it doesn’t become precious just because there is more of it. Things, in general, do not become valuable or more highly regarded when they can be found everywhere.
Liberals can’t learn that simple truth — or, they’re refining their words and their arguments for other people who can’t learn it. Or won’t learn it. I’ve yet to discern which of those it is, but does it really matter?
New readers to this blog, which nobody reads anyway, will note that its author possesses very little talent by way of making things pithy or concise. (If he does possess any such talent he deploys it sparingly.) Well, commenter Mark nailed this one better than I ever could’ve:
To simply supply something that is not in demand is economically stupid
The best economic policy is not one that produces more college graduates, but one that creates a demand for college graduates. To simply supply something that is not in demand is economically stupid. But that’s not surprising coming from this administration.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
[…] previous post examined the unfortunate dilemma that rears its ugly head whenever our liberals want to produce more of […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 03/17/2011 @ 07:50I agree with Ira Stoll, the author of this column.
So do I. In fact, in a minute I’m going to follow that link and read the rest of the piece.
When you provide a great abundance of something, it doesn’t become precious just because there is more of it. Things, in general, do not become valuable or more highly regarded when they can be found everywhere.
Yes. In fact, one could credibly argue that the opposite is true. There’s a reason that it’s gold and not sand that sells for over $1000/ounce.
One additional point I don’t see made here – forgive me if it’s made over there – is that as time goes by, it seems like higher education (including at the four-year level) seems to be getting more watered-down and worthless. There are now literally dozens of majors that leave a graduate ill-equipped to do anything besides teach, and presumably indoctrinate other students. Seriously – you’re going to major in Latino studies?
It’s not just that higher education has gotten ridiculously expensive, it’s also that the students seem to be getting less and less bang for the buck, to boot.
Hell, I picked up what I thought was a “real” Bachelor’s degree, and all it’s gotten for me is about 30 thousand dollars of debt. In the ten years that have passed by since graduation, I think I’ve held precisely one job that I couldn’t have gotten with just a high school diploma. Very few of my co-workers at the others, had the level of education I did, and yet they were usually just as qualified as I was and then some.
Everyone knew that Gates dropped out of school, but I didn’t know about the others. Interesting.
When my daughter finishes high school, I plan on telling her that if she wants to go after a four-year degree, fine…but it’s no longer the be-all, end-all (if it ever was). I further plan on saying that a two-year degree/certificate, or completing a training program at a vocational school of some kind, might be all she needs to make a go of it in the world at that time. And then there is the military…which I’m probably going to push her toward anyway, as I doubt I’m going to be able to afford to help her out much with educational expenses. She’ll be pretty much on her own.
- cylarz | 03/18/2011 @ 00:35The left, being economically illiterate, thinks “more college graduates” is an ipso facto good. Just like “diversity,” “equality,” “social justice,” etc.
College trustees — who are not economically illiterate — will therefore produce “more college graduates” in exactly the same way they produce “diversity,” “equality,” “social justice,” etc.: write “college graduate” on a piece of paper and start handing them out on street corners. Then they’ll turn in a report to the government and pick up a few more millions in taxpayer swag.
I work in the so-called “higher education” racket. Most of today’s “college graduates” have the reasoning ability, writing skills, and all-around book larnin’ of a recently concussed colobus monkey. If we were serious about actual education, there’d be about five majors: Math, Science, History, English, and Football (far be it from me to deprive SEC schools of their only source of graduates). But this, of course, would result in the immediate layoff of 90% of the professoriat, which means no more “studies” from “universities” in the New York Times proving that conservatives are Teh Stoopid. So it’ll never happen.
Brain-dead leftist though he is, Matt Damon wrote one of the truest lines ever penned in “Good Will Hunting,” when he told the obnoxious Harvard kid that he just wasted $100K on an education he could’ve gotten for a buck ninety five in late charges at the local library.
- Severian | 03/18/2011 @ 07:16