THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING..... http://townhall.com/columnists/john..._25_best_quotes_from_thomas_sowell/page/full/ Thomas Sowell is not only one of the finest columnists in the business, he's a prolific author, a brilliant economist, and he has an incomparable knack for simplifying complex concepts that few other human beings can match. Enjoy the distilled wisdom! 25) "Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?" 24) "Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America." 23) "Four things have almost invariably followed the imposition of controls to keep prices below the level they would reach under supply and demand in a free market: (1) increased use of the product or service whose price is controlled, (2) Reduced supply of the same product or service, (3) quality deterioration, (4) black markets." 22) "What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are given ‘class’ labels on the basis of their transient location in the income stream. If most Americans do not stay in the same broad income bracket for even a decade, their repeatedly changing 'class' makes class itself a nebulous concept." 21) "There are few talents more richly rewarded with both wealth and power, in countries around the world, than the ability to convince backward people that their problems are caused by other people who are more advanced." 20) "The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people." 19) "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." 18) "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." 17) "The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from 'society,' rather than from individual choices and behavior. To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by 'society'." 16) "No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind." 15) "Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored." 14) "There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs." 13) "Civilization has been aptly called a 'thin crust over a volcano.' The anointed are constantly picking at that crust." 12) "We seem to be moving steadily in the direction of a society where no one is responsible for what he himself did, but we are all responsible for what somebody else did, either in the present or in the past." 11)” For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.” 10) "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." 9) "Intellect is not wisdom." 8)” The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?" 7) "Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good." 6) "Experience trumps brilliance." 5) "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling." 4) "One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence." 3) "Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large." 2) "In short, killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose does not die before the next election and no one traces the politicians’ fingerprints on the murder weapon." 1) "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs."
From Wikipedia: "Sowell has been criticized for various remarks such as a comparison he made between President Barack Obama's administration and those of Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler in an editorial for Investor's Business Daily[32] after the creation of a relief fund for the BP oil spill." Thomas Sowell is one of the finest columnists in the business...if you still think Dwight David Eisenhower is the President of the United States.
Not really. Information is not knowledge Knowledge is not wisdom Wisdom is not truth Truth is not beauty Beauty is not love Love is not music Music is THE BEST... Wisdom is the domain of the Wis (which is extinct). Beauty is a French phonetic corruption Of a short cloth neck ornament Currently in resurgence... FZ
Here is his recent hour long interview with Peter Robinson on Sowell's new book <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/p36iklhEp90" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/CtV4T1LLgDs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EBLvCwa90so" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SBf9uTNri0w" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yQQz_zEdzlM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I'm sure Sowell has some interesting thoughtful work, but these culled quotes are not demonstrative. I think Elizabeth Warren provided a fair answer to this question: This is completely untrue, upward mobility is lower than it has ever been. This quote might have had a kernel of truth 40 years ago, but not now. Now, this radical society that Sowell imagines found is in Canada, or Europe. His 20% number is very off. According to the Brookings Institute, only 6% of those born into a family in the bottom quintile (20%) rise to the top quintile. Sure, price controls are bad. Pretty much every economist agrees with that, but it's not very insightful to parrot a very basic idea. Neither is it the whole picture as the consensus breaks down during times of crisis as some economists believe that they can be helpful in the short term as part of a cohesive governmental response. See the above Brookings Institute piece on intergenerational mobility. He is grossly overstating the ability for change. I could be wrong on this, but I see 3 broad classes used in common discourse, upper, middle and lower. Most people do indeed stay in these same broad income brackets for decades, so, because class intergenerational income mobility is so “sticky,” he is either being disingenuous, he is a misinformed, or he is using some completely off-the-wall definition of broad income brackets. Umm, what? Backward people and more advanced – I can’t begin to respond because I can’t tell what he referring to. I’ll throw out a non-sensical counter quote “There are few talents more richly rewarded with both wealth and power, in countries around the world, than the ability to convince poor people that their problems are NOT caused by other people who are more reaping all the benefits and wealth of a country.” Sure, you wouldn’t because talking about how things are working out doesn’t typically sell commercial slots after the nightly news. This is a strawman, no one celebrates broken families or grinding intergenerational poverty. In fact, most people want more intact African-american families and greater college entrance/graduation rates. Some suggest using affirmative action policies to encourage greater college participation, from what I’ve read of his work, Sowell is not among them. Fair enough. Politicians make promises that can’t be kept – is this news to any one? Fair enough, this quote actually provides interesting imagery. Children need to be acculturated. It’s hard to tell what he is talking about here. So I googled what he meant by anointed, he means liberals. He’s straw-manning here; I can’t speak for all liberals, but I believe in personal responsibility. I think the liberal view is that we can’t really fix personal responsibility side of the coin, so we should try to act on the ills that derive from society. Notice he doesn’t challenge the idea that ills derive primarily from society rather than individual choices. This is basically unfounded ad hominem – I don’t think one should call it wisdom. Possibly true in general, but certainly not always true. I would imagine that the prioritization of getting elected and getting re-elected depends on expected primary challengers and level of challenge posed by opposition candidate. To limit your understanding of politics and the political process to this limited view espoused by Sowell flattens a very complex issue in an unhelpful way. You would also upset all of your political scientist friends who made a college degree or job out of studying these issues. We routinely ignore this in our personal lives; businesses often forget this in their decisions. Anything made up of people has the potential for irrational action. So no, it is not only in politics. Sometimes you simply don’t have to sacrifice much of anything for a very good thing. Probably true. So, Liberal meddling will force our descent into anarchy by destroying civilization? He’s got me here, umm sure. But, once again, unfounded ad hominem does not equal wisdom. How so? We have more people in jail than ever, we are steadily dismantling the welfare state, and increasingly deregulating all sectors of the economy. I would say that we are going the direction that Sowell seems to want - where each man is an island, and no one is responsible for what we as a society do either in the present or past. We invade on false pretenses and then prepare to do so again ignoring lessons we should have learned, we impose foreign sanctions that have ruinous effects on the most vulnerable individuals, we ignore history of economic failure by repealing regulations such as Glass-Steagall. We are on our way to the promised future of milk and honey where “[we] will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for [our own].” So Liberals don’t believe in traditions. Sure by definition they don’t. As he said above, he seems to think we shouldn’t be responsible for what someone else did either in the present or the past. He should pick a belief and stick to it. If something is inherently wrong or unjust but comes from the distilled experience of millions who came before, why should we follow it? Sure, the democratic system as practiced in the U.S. is not perfect. What would he have us do, abandon it. Sadly we were stuck with this pesky constitution that makes such an action exceedingly difficult. Sure, most RPGs recognize this that's why they have different stats for priests and mages. How is it wise to parrot an ancient commonly held belief? His use of the anointed as a pejorative for liberals is obnoxious. Sure, some policies which liberals seek to enact go against “common-sense.” I mean common sense held for many years that it was natural for a man to own another man, that homosexuals were unnatural, that left-handed people were devil marked, that women were the property of their husbands, that children were the property of their parents, that incest preferable to mixing with rabble, and that witches should be burned at the stake or drowned. That is not to say that common-sense has no place in the public sphere, only that common-sense is overrated and should be challenged when it comes to enacting policy. Yes, the past 3 decades of de-regulation of both the private and public sphere and lowered taxation sounded good… but doesn't work. On average this is likely true. However, one does not call a parrot wise. I don’t know what he is referring to here. One of the consequences of such notions as “personal responsibility” is that people feel like they owe nothing to society other than being nice enough to grace our soil with their business. Government is not a business neither is it an individual. The government is called on to pursue certain responsibilities that individuals and businesses do not have. Yeah, the class war on the middle class (the goose) is a damned shame. Let’s raise taxes on the richest individuals to fund programs which we used to fund, and let's re-institute the regulations of the past. True. But not all solutions or trade-offs are equal. All in all I'd give him very low marks. These quotes, on a whole, do not demonstrate wisdom, but maybe we are just using different definitions, or maybe the author's lack of wisdom prevented him from choosing truly insightful quotes. Full disclosure: I was forced to read some of Sowell's scholarly work on affirmative action in the prior affirmative action thread. His methodology seemed sound, but he had a tendency to attribute false goals to affirmative action programs, attack and savage those false goals, and then declare victory. That's the mark of a smart unyielding partisan, not an academic and not a journalist.
Re: Elizabeth Warren "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along." She seems to want to be saying that the guy who built the big factory didn't do his share to pay for paved roads or educated workers or police protection. Is that not classic Class Warfare? The guy that built the big factory probably did more than his share of contributing to those necessities, didn't he?
It's not classic class warfare when the country is being asked to sacrifice to pay for wars, and do something about the huge debt and deficit. Yet one party wants only those in the middle and bottom to make the sacrifices. Everyone, should sacrifice. That isn't fair. When we are sacrificing, everyone should sacrifice, not only those who are at the middle and bottom. It would be different if we weren't in wars that need to be paid for, and didn't have this huge debt to pay for and they were still griping about the rich not paying anything.
Her claim is extreme: "that the rest of us paid for." That is exclusionary. That is basically a lie or delusion at best... and now you've morphed it into sacrifice. It is what it is. http://american.com/archive/2007/november-december-magazine-contents/guess-who-really-pays-the-taxes "... 2. What income group pays the most federal income taxes today? The latest data show that a big portion of the federal income tax burden is shoul*dered by a small group of the very richest Americans. The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 per*cent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes. These are proportions of the income tax alone and don’t include payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare."
Being asked to sacrifice means doing something that requires an actual sacrifice. The group of the top 1% isn't giving up more than they normally do, in fact they are being given breaks and paying their lowest taxes these past 10 years. Yet the rest of us, have had programs cut, benefits cut, and more being proposed all the time. We haven't prospered the way the top 1% has in these past 10 years and it isn't because lack of work.
None of that applies to the things she described: roadways, police work and education. They get the same roads, police protection and educational services that you and I do. They've actually given more than you and I have; I'm not part of that upper 5%. She said, not implied, that they didn't contribute. If you insistence upon "getting" nuance includes swallowing what is said hook, line and sinker: NO THANKS! Their "break" is to pay a slightly smaller disproportionately larger share. Who's to say when enough is enough?
The only thing getting what she said requires is that you use the context, and inferences made. The top % of taxpayers are there because of the work of all the people Warren mentioned. You don't get it, and it's not worth going over again and again until you get it, because almost everyone else did get it and understood the meaning. The only ones who tried to bring up the issue you are, are those who've advocated time and again in favor of the top 1% at the expense of the rest of the nation.
Oh really? Yeah, business owners never work long, hard hours and take risks with their own money. They don't really deserve the rewards they might get....
I didn't say they were the top only because of the work and taxes of the rest of us. But without that, they wouldn't be successful business owners.
