Nothing is more noble, nothing more venerable than fidelity.
Faithfulness and truth are the most sacred excellences and endowments of the human mind.
Cicero
Image of the Day
POTUS: An Elected Monarchy?
Reason's September 2014 Nanny of the Month
Trooper's Tone Is Out of Line
The second cop goes ballistic during a sweep for driver's license and proof of insurance. The cops appear after 3:30 of the video.
Bill Gates and Common Core: Wrong Diagnosis
As an aside, I often find embedded videos from non-YouTube sources will not display in draft or preview modes; I prefer not having to publish a post to test the video placement. If readers are interested, a brief Gates interview is available here.
There are some things I agree on with Bill Gates: his support for charter schools and the issue isn't so much a funding problem (e.g., some international competitors spend less than we do). But I disagree with the idea that the issue is with disparate state standards.
Gates at one level sees the benefit of educational choice in the form of charter schools but he seems to infer that a decentralized public education system is more a problem than a solution. I think, if anything, we have a system where the teaching profession is anti-competitive and self-serving, there is insufficient coverage of teaching subject matter and too much dubious teaching theory, teacher compensation is largely insulated against market forces of supply and demand, teacher evaluations are based more on subjective factors than student performance, and compensation/retention are based more on tenure of employment than teacher peformance. Good teachers often find their hands tied by various regulations. We have a pervasive school culture of political correctness and social promotions, where functionally illiterate students go undiagnosed too little, too late, where course requirements are dummied down, and grades are inflated to meaningless levels. We need to foster an innovative environment, where, for example, we can automate drilling exercises, simulation environments while freeing up teacher time for value-added, higher-order cognitive skills and abilities, less focus on mass production of educated widgets under centralized planning
We also have a cultural context where families object to longer school years cutting into vacation plans, where many parents aren't fully invested in their children's academic success (including supplemental classes, tutoring, priority for completing homework, high expectations for marks, etc.) We need to focus on reinforcing traditional virtues: hard work, persistence, integrity, self-reliance, and on primary skills like literacy and math. The context is beyond the scope of teacher performance. Family, church, and charities can make a difference. It is time for parents to realize that their children's academic performance can mean the difference between a promising future and a bleak existence living between uncertain paychecks.
Facebook Corner
(IPI). From the The Chicago Sun-Times: "Four weeks ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed an executive order requiring city contractors and subcontractors to increase the “living wage” paid to their employees by nearly 9% — from $11.93 to $13 an hour.
Now, Emanuel is pressuring all local government agencies under his control — CTA, CHA, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago Park District, City Colleges and Public Building Commission — to follow his lead."
This is just gimmick politics. Emanuel is already in trouble with his teacher union base. The question is: how many city contractors were making minimum wage jobs? My guess is not many. and the bottom line is that contractors have to make a profit as an ongoing concern. Ths is much like "free birth control" and "free annual checkups"; doctors, nurses, and pharmaceutical companies don't go off the clock. It's simply passed onto the consumer in a more subtle, less transparent manner. The only good thing is he is not, at least in this policy, imposing it on private-sector businesses. We already know that the minimum wage is bad for low-skill/inexperienced/younger workers--all it does is prohibit them from gainful employment. We already know how businesses cope for existing workers, e.g., transfer benefit dollars to wage dollars, lower work hours, etc.
(Independent Institute). Senior Fellow John Goodman: "As many alert readers already know, the Medicare Trust Fund holds no real assets. All Medicare taxes and premium payments go to the Treasury and all that money has already been spent. All the Trust Fund represents is a giant IOU the federal government has written to itself. Medicare, in other words is run like a Bernie Madoff scheme. That’s why it has a huge unfunded liability totaling trillions of dollars."
Bernie didn't have the wherewithal to print money, whereas the government does. The government can print and pay...and WE, in the long run, would pay it back through the higher prices we would pay because of the inflation it would cause. It is NOT a PONZI scheme, but it is a "Rob Peter to Pay Paul."
Of course, the government CAN'T simply print and pay; if it could, there would be no point of taxation. In this Ponzi scheme, the game ends when you find no buyers for government debt or currency. Perhaps if our economic growth, population growth were keeping pace with historical patterns, you might have a point. But the problem is unsustainability. Robbing future Peter to pay present Paul is precisely the problem. Mandatory spending already takes up a majority of the federal budget. We are already liquidating the reserves which basically adds to operational deficits and current public debt.
(Mercatus Center). "The bottom line is that the case for free trade is harmed, not helped, whenever champions of free trade assert that protectionist policies mean fewer jobs." http://bit.ly/1vu8KxB
Crackpot economically illiterate "progressive" trolls (re: the Roosevelt recession). Look at the effects of economic uncertainty caused by government labor and investment policies, gold flows and the monetary base. What 'austerity'? In fact, increases in tax revenues largely offset high federal spending, reducing the observed deficit. ("Progressives" ignore deficits are impacted by both revenues and spending.) In fact, it is generally agreed that government policy prolonged the Depression.
Proposals
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Bob Gorrell and Townhall |
Barry Manilow, "Somewhere Down the Road"
