Thomas Sowell on public service and education

An excerpt: "Higher education is supposed to teach people to see beyond surface glitter and plausible words. It is supposed to see beyond the fads of today to the broad sweep of history. Most of history is the story of how political leaders have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race."

HT: Liberty Pen

The power of language

HT: LibertyPen

Williams with Sowell - Academic Intellectuals

Worth a listen.

"Where did that right come from?"

Thomas Sowell - Intellectuals and Society

I received a Kindle, a fantastic device, for my birthday and I will be downloading Sowell's new book: "Intellectuals and Society." The above is a small snipet of Sowell discussing the book.

Pithy quote of the day

Thomas Sowell on underdogs:

One of the problems with trying to help underdogs, especially with government programs, is that they and everyone else start to think of them as underdogs, focusing on their problems rather than their opportunities. Thinking of themselves as underdogs can also dissipate their energies in resentments of others, rather than spending that energy making the most of their own possibilities.

Thomas Sowell on Obama's economic policy

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure.

Thomas Sowell - The Housing Boom and Bust

Comment: When some conservatives noted that the Community Reinvestment Act had some factor in the housing collapse, liberal commentators responded by saying that the CRA program and those that participated in it had very little default rates. While this is true, the point that is missed by liberal critics is that the CRA created a culture outside of the CRA program where "affordable" housing activists via progressive politicians effectively influenced financial regulators into pressuring banks to make more loans to less-than-creditworthy borrowers than they would normally be willing to risk. The political epitome of this is Mr. Barney Frank. He constantly pushed public policy to address a "housing affordibilty problem." The results of his work is the housing bubble and collapse.

Thomas Sowell - Housing Boom and Bust

Thomas Sowell is a national treasure.

HT: Liberty Pen

The Fairy Tale That is Universal Health Care

Thomas Sowell on the costs of medical care:

Just as medical care, houses and cars were all cheaper when they lacked things that they have today, so medical care in other countries is cheaper when they lack many things that are more readily available in the United States.

There are more than four times as many Magnetic Resonance Imaging units (MRIs) per capita in the United States as in Britain or Canada, where there are government-run medical systems. There are more than twice as many CT scanners per capita in the United States as in Canada and more than four times as many per capita as in Britain.

Is it surprising that such things cost money?

Random Thoughts From Thomas Sowell

From Thomas Sowell:

One of the most important talents for success in politics is the ability to make utter nonsense sound not only plausible but inspiring. Barack Obama has that talent. We will be lucky if we escape the catastrophes into which other countries have been led by leaders with that same charismatic talent.

Read the rest here

Political Charade and Deregulation

Thomas Sowell on the housing crisis:

The word repeated endlessly in these political charades is "deregulation." The idea is that it was a lack of government supervision which allowed "greed" in the private sector to lead the nation into crises that only our Beltway saviors can solve.

What utter rubbish this all is can be found by checking the record of how government regulators were precisely the ones who imposed lower mortgage lending standards— and it was members of Congress (of both parties) and who pushed the regulators, the banks and the mortgage-buying giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into accepting risky mortgages, in the name of "affordable housing" and more home ownership. Presidents of both parties also jumped on the bandwagon.

Thomas Sowell - On Diversity

HT: Liberty Pen

Thomas Sowell - The Vision of the Anointed

Thomas Sowell on elitists in the media, politics, academia and affirmative action.

HT: Liberty Pen

Thomas Sowell on Welfare

A young Thomas Sowell crosses swords with a welfare-statist. This clip is from Milton Friedman's Free To Choose TV series.

HT: Liberty Pen

Why the free-market works better than a command economy

I really can’t add much to what Thomas Sowell so elegantly states:

When amateurs outperform professionals, there is something wrong with that profession.

If ordinary people, with no medical training, could perform surgery in their kitchens with steak knives, and get results that were better than those of surgeons in hospital operating rooms, the whole medical profession would be discredited.

Yet it is common for ordinary parents, with no training in education, to homeschool their children and consistently produce better academic results than those of children educated by teachers with Master's degrees and in schools spending upwards of $10,000 a year per student-- which is to say, more than a million dollars to educate ten kids from K through 12.

Nevertheless, we continue to take seriously the pretensions of educators who fail to educate, but who put on airs of having "professional" expertise beyond the understanding of mere parents.

A National Treasure

Pithy comments on race by Thomas Sowell:

William F. Buckley’s wife once mentioned in passing, at dinner in her home, that she had been involved for years in working with a school in Harlem. But I never heard her or Bill Buckley ever say that publicly.

Nor do conservatives who were in the civil-rights marches in the south, back when that was dangerous, make that a big deal.

For people on the Left, however, blacks are trophies or mascots, and must therefore be put on display. Nowhere is that more true than in politics.

The problem with being a mascot is that you are a symbol of someone else’s significance or virtue. The actual well-being of a mascot is not the point.

It would do us well in this country to be a little more careful and discerning with some of the policies implemented in order to help minorities. Some of those policies actually hurt and don't help. Sowell, as always, uncovers and exposes some of the inconsistencies still alive and well in our dealings with race. The man is a national treasure.