My former student Daniel Lurker (and the youngest graduate in the history of GMU!) got his letter published in the Washington Post. You may even detect trace elements of my lectures:
To read Brigid Schulte’s recent “Class Questions” article about American poverty… one might think we are going to hell in a handbasket. Not so.
Aug 16 2006
Following a link from Alex Tabarrok, I see that Angry Professor writes, The marginal departments, the ones with the lowest possible academic standards, are pulling in vast numbers of warm bodies and the tuition dollars associated with them. I recall seeing a quote somewhere else to the effect that higher education i...
Aug 15 2006
Arnold wonders if I've forgotten the Idea Trap I've talked so much about in the past: He has this theory of "idea traps," in which bad ideas lead to bad outcomes which lead to populists with more bad ideas, etc. If libertarian ideas are as good as we say they are (think of how well they worked when they were tried in ...
Aug 15 2006
My former student Daniel Lurker (and the youngest graduate in the history of GMU!) got his letter published in the Washington Post. You may even detect trace elements of my lectures: To read Brigid Schulte's recent "Class Questions" article about American poverty... one might think we are going to hell in a handbaske...
READER COMMENTS
mgroves
Aug 15 2006 at 1:00pm
While it may be a fact that the poor in the US are still rich by world standards, how can a reasonable person convey this reality without sounding cold-hearted?
Jason Briggeman
Aug 16 2006 at 3:53am
If you aren’t cold-hearted but people think you are, their opinion says more about them than it does about you. Better not to worry about them and to find different people to hang around, ones who see you more accurately.
kedar
Aug 16 2006 at 10:12pm
To have a telephone, car, computer is good. But that does not mean poverty does not exist. Not to have telephone, car, computer is not great. But that doe not mean poverty exists.
We know that absolute poverty exists if one has to be worried about food, shelter and clothes. Relative poverty exists if we can’t keep up with the Joneses.
In America, one may have telephone, computer and car but he/she may be too worried about paying bills for food, clothes and shelter.
In a poor country, one may grow food, wear minimum clothes and have a hut for shelter. He may be not be as stressed as an American in credit card debt.
In that case, who is poor? American or the poor country’s individual?
So, it may be a good idea to find measures of ‘stress’ to measure poverty and not the number of telephones or cars or computers if our goal is to live a stress free life.
Daniel Lurker
Aug 17 2006 at 9:27pm
Kedar,
I-bankers and CEO’s are entrenched in poverty by your “stress” standard!
Let’s stick to defining poverty as not having stuff, while realizing that no one needs anything (no, not even their life). Also, your stress free standard is more unrealistic than even the Libertopia I try to construct my reality around 🙂
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