Quote of the Day
It is not the mountain we conquer
but ourselves.
Edmund Hillary
A Former MIS Professor Gets This
From
Stansberry Radio:
James Altucher: Let me tell you a very quick story. So, my first job out of graduate school was doing computer programming at HBO, the television channel, so I went to undergrad for computer programming. I went to grad school for computer science. I get to the job and the first thing they had to do... they had to send me to a class for remedial programming because I had absolutely no skills, [laughter] but I had $70,000.00 in debt... .
NAS and the Bowdoin Project
Familiar readers may recall
my last segment on NAS, as they discuss how the history requirement at one of my alma maters, the University of Texas (Austin), had become a casualty of identity politics. (Somehow real history, as well as other academic areas, has been "fixed" in misguided attempts to build the self-esteem of those in politically protected special-interest groups--race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disabled, etc.)
HT to Linda Chavez whose
latest column references the Bowdoin College project.
Bowdoin, based in Brunswick, ME, is one of the oldest, most prestigious private liberal arts colleges in the US, boasting among its graduates Longfellow, Hawthorne and President Pierce. A recent quote is that it costs $56K a year to attend Bowdoin. (Bowdoin is richly endowed and claims that in-need students are provided grants, not loans.)
Let me quote from Toscano and Wood's
abstract/overview:
Before 1969, [Bowdoin] was a college with strong intellectual traditions, a core curriculum, and a commitment to Western Civilization. But after 1969, it abolished all general education requirements and turned from what it called “collegiate” education to what its president at the time called “liberating” education. Out went the old standards and in came a new focus on race, class, gender, and the environment. Out went the old style of scholarly generalists as teachers and in came the new style of research specialists as faculty members. The new Bowdoin dedicated itself to the achievement of social justice and to reshaping America in the image of progressive politics. Bowdoin today is the direct heir of these major shifts. Bowdoin claims that these changes have transformed the college into an educational experience which is far superior to its older model.
On a side note: the Catholic Church tried to reinvent itself through Vatican II with top-down, pushing-on-a-string liturgical and other reforms, as if accommodating the culture was an unquestioned priority without unintended consequences. This wasn't a case of New Coke being added as another brand like
P&G has a new laundry detergent; rather, New Coke replaced Coke Classic (based on limited testing that showed a slight preference for the new version). After a backlash they brought old Coke back as "classic" where the traditional formula trounced new Coke in sales. New Coke was eventually phased out (see
here for a retrospective). Even though I was young at the time of the transition of the liturgy of the Mass, I preferred the Old Mass; it bothered me I didn't have a choice. I was told they were in effect afraid people would stick with Old Mass; sooner or later, the people would accept New Mass. There are times I like stripped-down, intimate New Mass--say, on retreats or family gatherings. But I love the aesthetics of old Mass, sung liturgies, incense, votive candles, the smell of holy water. I felt connections to other Catholics around the world and through centuries celebrating the same Latin liturgy. In wasn't just the liturgy; there seemed to be less emphasis on spirituality, discipline, repentance, and morals and more on humanistic priorities. But here's the point: today's magnificent European cathedrals are all but empty, and only about 40-50% of American Catholics attend Mass regularly, about half the rate of 60 years ago. (Don't get me wrong; there are things about Vatican II I liked, particularly from an ecumenical perspective.)
The preliminary report is available
here. I excerpt the following to give a representative feel for the report. It is not surprising to me that the educators and administrators vested in the post-1969 era would be dismissive of the traditional, i.e., collegiate curriculum. The "liberating" curriculum is more of a fragmented, self-directed approach. Professors are less generalist/interdisciplinary and more specialist. Dubious courses abound; past offerings of first-year seminars (p.93, 2011-12) include: ghosts; modern western prostitutes; sexual life of colonialism; and queer gardens. Courses and policies reflect a progressive perspective; for example, it is possible to be a history major without taking an American history course, but majors have to take courses beyond the western democracies. Capstone courses have all but disappeared. Lower grades are the exception. Work requirements outside the class are limited.
My personal experience is more demanding professors, more rigorous and integrative courses are key to quality of the collegiate experience. I also found that I gained weight eating at a college cafeteria (portion control and selection: too many carbs, starches). I'm obviously not talking about Bowdoin's meal plans: I suspect many students choose courses for the wrong reasons (e.g., easy grades or workload). I know that happens because my best friend at UT was a pre-med student whom researched grade distributions.
The authors have done a remarkable job in showing the inconsistency of Bowdoin in its commitment to ideas of “open-mindedness” and “critical thinking.” These ideas are necessary preconditions for healthy intellectual discourse. But Bowdoin has supplanted the “classical liberal” principles of reasoned argument, the West, the universally true, and the potential for discovering the truth. Instead, its regnant orthodoxies are ideas such as “global citizenship,” “social justice,” and “sustainability.” A free society rests on a commitment to reasoned argument. When illiberal dogma is substituted for reasoned argument, it compromises its own liberal arts principles and erodes the basis for a free society.
The authors show that Bowdoin’s faculty members in the “studies” programs are often appointed more for their skin color, gender, and highly specialized research interests than their ability to teach. The advising system is dysfunctional, and students are generally left to piece together their own educations out of the jumble of courses and ideological themes on offer. Perhaps most serious, the academic demands on students outside of class are minimal: students are found to study, on average, a mere seventeen hours per week outside the classroom.
One cannot predict how much, if anything, a Bowdoin graduate will know about the philosophy of Aristotle, the plays of Shakespeare, or the Civil War. But it is very likely that Bowdoin’s more recent graduates are well-versed in racial grievance, anticapitalism, social justice, and multiculturalism. These perspectives are often the product of identity studies curricula that are so popular on college campuses. These programs undermine the idea of America.
Lastly, a word about character education. Bowdoin long ago abdicated from a philosophy of in loco parentis, in which a school assumes some responsibility for the cultivation of the student’s moral life. Although Bowdoin still shapes character, it does not actively or intentionally seek to shape good character. The college effectively promotes sexual promiscuity among students, fosters a sense of permanent grievance among students (including a disregard for America), and produces a supercilious knowingness among students that too often flatters rather than educates.
Sequestration Weekend Update
I love this tongue-in-cheek status report. As for the White House tour, I've lived in the area for almost 9 years and haven't been there once. I've never understood why the taxpayer has to subsidize user fees. People pay up to hundreds of dollars to go to DC but expect "free tours" using expensive government employees, including security?
Bill Clinton: THIS is the BIGGEST Fairy Tale I've Seen
Russ Roberts of Cafe Hayek
retells:
Once upon a time there was a wicked leader who let the economy slide into chaos because he was against regulation and let the rich make a lot of money. A new leader came along and kept the economy from going over the edge into a deeper abyss. Through judicious fiscal policy (though he wanted to do more, really. Really he did but the bad politicians on the other side kept him from doing what he wanted to do) and creative monetary intervention, he was able to somehow salvage a very bad situation. But because the banks had been sick, it took a long time for the land to recover its previous mojo. Patience. It’s just a matter of time.
Russ forgot the ending; every fairy tale ends with an "ever after" as in "The stagnant economy drifted slowly and aimlessly ever after."
His second fairy tale is more realistic:
Once upon a time there was an economy that had a bad recession. There were a lot of reasons including irresponsible monetary interventions by the man who was once considered a great genius but it turns out he was more like the Wizard of Oz but with dials and levers that actually messed things up rather than creating a lot of random noises and flashes of light. But hey, sometimes there’s a recession. The real problems started when the government tried to do to much too quickly to end the recession–printing money but at the same time encouraging banks to keep the money at the Fed in the form of excess reserves, fiscal policy that was poorly designed, temporary, and ineffective, and lots of other crazy interventions like trying to reform the health care system in the middle of a nasty recession– a reform that raises the cost of hiring workers in uncertain ways.
The Wizard of Fed was an acknowledged student of the Depression. There is a relationship between shot-term and long-term bond yields. This is usually positive to accommodate the risk of tying up one's money long-term. When short-term yields exceed long-term, it's called an inverted yield, which typically precedes recessions by up to 18 months.
There was an inverted yield before the Crash of 1929. There are policy tools to address this, most commonly to cut the federal funds rate to drop short-term yields. Alternatively, you could try to increase long-term yields, e.g., by selling longer-term bonds, lowering price and increasing yield.
In 2006 the Fed under new chair Bernanke, worried about an overheated housing sector, pushed up the funds rate one too many times to 5.75%.
A few weeks later, the 10-year note yielded 5.06%, less than the 3-month bill at 5.11%. Bernanke had
all sorts of reasons to explain a recession was not imminent. The yield stayed inverted through June and then vacillated to and from flat over the summer. The Fed finally cut below 5% in September, too little, too late as the recession started in December.
Russ has a third fairy tale (more of a micro vs macroeconomic approach) and hints that he may lean towards 1 or 2 of the fairy tales, although he wears a poker face. (He remains strictly non-partisan, and his blog partner Boudreaux is proud not to vote. But if I was a betting man, given Roberts' being influenced by Hayek, whose
Road to Serfdom was to champion individual liberty against government central planners, and Hayek called for abolition of the Fed, I would infer that he preferred the second fairy tale, but Hayek was not all strident in Serfdom and shifted certain views--and Roberts may have differing views on issue--I don't know the specifics of influence.)
Here's an oldie but goodie from Columbia Business School (HT
Gary North, circa 2006)
If All Your Friends Jumped Off a Cliff
If All the Other Central Bankers Printed a Lot of Money
Spoken like a
true bureaucrat:
U.S. Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg defended backing Boeing Co. (BA) after Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) sought to block the lender’s financing for foreign carriers that buy the manufacturer’s planes.
Airlines “have a choice, they can fly Boeing-built airplanes or Airbus-built airplanes,” Hochberg said today in an interview in Washington, referring to Boeing’s European competitor. “We’re not going to stand down and step back and put U.S. jobs at jeopardy.”
This blog advocates an end to the Export-Import Bank. In essence, the government is guaranteeing/subsidizing loans for foreign purchases of big-ticket American goods. There are private-sector financing alternatives without Boeing socializing business risk to American taxpayers. Not that I'm all that thrilled with Delta which doesn't seem to like competition from foreign carriers. A pox on both your houses! Don't you love how Boeing and Delta are spinning this as all about jobs (as if people or jobs are widgets). Talk about lipstick on a pig--this is all about profits. I don't mind profits--except not at the expense or risk of the taxpayer. Don Boudreaux writes one of his relevant signature succinct letters to the editor
here.
Political Cartoon
 |
Watch out for those trillion-dollar coins!
Courtesy of IBD's Michael Ramirez and Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
U2, "Vertigo"
