The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.
When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims,
one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms,
like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
George Orwell
Sowell on Affirmative Action
My first reaction to this clip is how much we miss William Buckley. Sowell is, of course, one of my favorite economists--I own a couple of copies of his books. Gary North did a recent piece, calling him the world's greatest living economist, noting his evolution from a more Marxist perspective to laissez faire economics.
Sowell writes a syndicated op-ed column (see here). He is more of a libertarian-conservative, like myself. Like Donald Boudreaux and George Will, his writing style is brilliant, succinct, and persuasive. Like me, Sowell is concerned with things seen and unseen, i.e., Bastiat's famous discussion of opportunity costs. I am similarly profoundly skeptical of any well-intended socially-experimental public policy, like affirmative action and/or racial quotas.
Let me quote from his recent piece "Liberalism Versus Blacks" (he points out rent control policies have limited availability of affordable housing; wage regulations have resulted in fewer job opportunities; welfare state policies have led to an explosion of single-parent households; murders of blacks have increased under gun control laws, etc.):
Yet within walking distance of the Supreme Court where this pronouncement ["separate educational facilities are inherently unequal': Brown v Board of Education] was made was an all-black high school that had scored higher than two-thirds of the city's white high schools taking the same test — way back in 1899! But who cares about facts, when you are on a liberal crusade that makes you feel morally superior?
Student Debt Forgiveness? No
My middle brother started at UT while I was finishing my Master's in math. He, like 3 of my sisters, started college with a marketable career in mind, in his case as a chemical engineer (the girls got degrees in nursing, education, and accounting); to this day, knowing I was a gifted math and science student, he can't understand why I didn't major in engineering with a path to a relatively well-paying career. I think he probably decided on becoming a chemical engineer in high school; unlike me, he graduated in a good job market and got hired by a well-known integrated energy corporation and today works for a well-known privately-held energy conglomerate. (In subsequent years the energy industry suffered in a recession and largely froze new hiring; my UH friend Tim's roommate Matt was a chem-e major and ended up going back after graduation to pick up his doctorate in math.)
As for me, I may well have ended up like Pope Francis I, teaching high school science (in addition to math). I started with the idea of getting a degree in secondary education. But I also thought I had a vocation for the priesthood. I fought to get into Sr. Mary Christine Morkovsky's metaphysics course (how many other college students came to college with a 4-volume set of Aquinas' Summa Theologica? I used to serve early morning Mass on base, and the chaplain gave me his set at graduation.) Philosophy became my first love, and it's not a standard high school teaching area. However, philosophy is a common major for aspiring priests. What happened? Among other things, I was attending a university two-thirds coed; even a geek could occasionally date given those odds; priests have to take a vow of celibacy. I deferred that option; in the meanwhile, my career aspirations had evolved from becoming a high school teacher to a college professor. At least 2-3 people had "the talk" with me against pursuing a doctorate in my first love: dead-end from a career standpoint. So I went with math; unfortunately, nobody pointed out to me there was also a glut of mathematicians on the market. I learned about that after I started at UT and quickly decided that I would stop with my Master's (although that was also influenced by the fact my graduate stipend was not renewed, a consequence of some politics involving a visiting professor to the math department I've discussed in a prior post).
I've written in past posts that I thought I would get selected in the Air Force officer pool; the tentative plans were for me to be trained as a meteorologist. I unexpectedly got passed over twice within 6 weeks or so (I was told not to worry about the first round because the USAF focuses on pilots in the first graduate pool). After a second pass, I was ruled ineligible for selection for a minimum of 6 months. I was living cheaply just off campus. I tried to circulate my resume at local community colleges and other area employers (at the time Austin was in a no-growth, quality-of-life zone) No response (I would eventually get a call back from Austin Community College several months later--after I committed elsewhere, along with the USAF inquiring about my availability). I tried to use placement services on campus, but since I was no longer a registered student, I was barred from using the facility. I tried to get a loan so I could go back to UT and pick up high school math teaching credentials, but since I had been recently listed as a dependent on my folks' return, even though they didn't pay any college expenses, I had to get them to submit a financial statement. My folks refused to aid and abet my becoming a "professional student". Their statement was on file for my little brother, but the college bureaucrat refused to access it, saying its use would violate my brother's data privacy. I did not blame OLL or UT for my job search challenges.
Eventually someone tipped me off that the US Navy had a need for mathematicians, and I discovered there were single-term (4-year) appointments for a training program in the Orlando area. I bought my first (used) car in Orlando, and during my post-Navy job search, as an afterthought I slipped in a query about any relevant job openings with my auto insurance premium payment, which led to my first IT job. A year later I left for a better position in Houston, eventually enrolling in the UH MBA pat-time evening program to enhance my career, and the rest is history. (I became aware of their MIS PhD program and applied for admission.)
Like the student in the embedded image below, I worked throughout college. At OLL I got a scholarship which covered most of my tuition, but I worked half-time (cafeteria, library, etc.) I ended up with something like a $1600 loan which I paid off by the time I lived in Houston. Granted, UT and UH were public universities and much more feasible than private universities. I didn't get any employer stipends towards my MBA program. The money to attend UH came out of my savings (and at one point during the 1980's I literally had less than $100 in liquid assets).
Do I think I deserved special consideration in loan terms than say, my baby brother without a degree paying off mortgage and/or car loans? He and his wife have also raised 4 kids. No. For most of my work career, I've made a decent income. I could have sought admission to an elite private-school program, which might have opened some doors professionally. Then again, like Obama, I could have ended up with maybe a six-figure education loan. (I don't know the specifics of the Obamas' loans.) Did Obama need a Harvard law degree to serve as a low-paid community organizer? I doubt it. I would think that a bright, articulate Harvard Law graduate would have his pick of six-figure opportunities from law firms, large corporations, etc.; I'm not saying he would have wanted those jobs. But would I think he would have deserved to get his loan forgiven because of his career choices? No. I might prefer to start my school of philosophy, and even find some paying disciples along the way, but when I make a good faith contract to buy a new car, it's not the lender's problem whether I'm making best use of my knowledge and experience.
I might want to live in a very nice townhouse in an exclusive neighborhood, but in this economy I would have to buy a unit consistent with my expected income. Similarly, if I'm a college student majoring in something like psychology, French literature, the classics (ancient Greece) or the performance arts, unless I have a well-paying position waiting for me at a family-owned business or something comparable, I'm going to have a difficult time paying off a six-figure loan for a private college education. If I want an English degree, despite knowing the limited academic career or other options, there are more cost-effective options, e.g., public colleges.
We have a current problem where colleges, like any manager on a budget, will find a way of capturing available funding sources. Just like a number of questionable mortgage applicants in non-traditional high-risk, lower-income, low-collateral category got access to funds, exacerbating bidding and pushing up prices, the same holds true for generous college loans, over 90% from the government. In a low-growth economy, the supply of new college graduates exceeds the demand, and many overqualified graduates end up competing for lower-skill/lower-paying jobs.
High school and college students see, for instance, teachers getting laid off all across the country, newly graduated lawyers unable to find work after 7 years of school. That should normally attenuate demand for loans.
The government lacks distinctive competencies in judging creditworthiness, and loan approvals are vulnerable to special interests and political considerations. If government essentially agrees to forgive loans, that effectively lowers the cost of obtaining less marketable degrees, exacerbating overcapacity and inflationary pressures.
There are moral hazard issues to changing the rules after the game is played, and changing the law doesn't address bigger issues: a lackluster low-growth or recessionary economy generating too few higher-paying jobs, and inflationary pressures have been driven by easy credit policies.
Lin suggests loan discharge as an alternative. For over 25 years, bankruptcy law has made government/nonprofit student loans non-dischargeable except for undue hardship (say, an inability to hold down a job for the long term due to a disabling health condition); in 2005, this was extended to private student loans. John Hupalo argues that discharging student loans is generally a bad idea for most graduates because it effectively ruins the graduate's credit rating for years, making it difficult to get a car loan or buy a house. He points out many progressive politicians want to strip away the 2005 extension (which would have the effect of making the 7% market share private loans more expensive and noncompetitive)
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| Via a law student's blog |
Zoos: Privatize Them!
Think of today's governments as huge conglomerates going beyond traditional core responsibilities of security and justice. Many public entities compete for managerial attention and resources. In the case of Tulsa, zoo operational priorities were getting short shrift, and the zoo was in danger of losing accreditation--until the city spun off managerial responsibility to a nonprofit, allowing for more cohesive management, renovation of facilities and higher zoo attendance at lower cost commitment from the city.
Political Cartoon
Speaking of sugar highs, what about Wall Street and Ben Bernanke'a recipe of high-carb ZIRP?
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| Courtesy of Bob Gorrell and Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven". Led Zeppelin's signature song, but never released as a single.
Political Humor
Your Nanny, Mayor Bloomberg: Sarah Palin has 2 words for you: Big Gulp. But did Marco Rubio bring the Big Water?
