An Entrepreneur Endorses the Invisible Hand

When Paul Graham says

“The first essay of his that I read was so electrifying that I remember exactly where I was at the time. It was High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies?“

well I have to pay attention. I wasn’t disappointed and I don’t think you will be either.  One of the most insightful and best laid out speeches I’ve read; especially on a political topic, even if it is from 1993.

Change?

Is this the change America voted for? Cabinet members picked from an extremely unpopular congress and a new “New Deal”?

“Barack Obama-san” – Wall Street Journal Op-Ed

My Fellow Taxpayers

What would happen to our collective point of view if we always replaced government with “my fellow taxpayers”? Would anyone go along with it if a politician proposed that “my fellow taxpayers” bailout whichever multibillion dollar industry is failing this week?

This idea comes from an exercise I read about a professor doing at Harvard in “Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds“.

The Daddy Model of Wealth

One of the most insightful things I’ve ever read was Paul Graham’s explanation of “The Daddy Model of Wealth”. You can find it under that same heading in his essay “Mind The Gap”.  Similar ideas are explored in even more depth in his essay “How to Make Wealth” (start with the section “Money Is Not Wealth” unless you have a lot of time and are really interested in technology start-ups).

Anyway the point is that too many people still think there’s a fixed amount of wealth in the world and somebody (like the government) should be distributing it equally.

Although it should be noted the model still seems to work for large financial institutions that can’t make level headed decisions.

Best reads of the week

http://rustysblog.com/about-this-blog/

Is Mormonism Christian?

The Sermon at the Temple (full book here)

Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon

Glenn Beck: Financial meltdown is an absolute disaster

Paul Newman

Portrait in patriotism — Friberg painting of Washington honored at Valley Forge exhibit

Same Old Story

Here’s the headline from the DeseretNews:

Utah still ranks last in student spending

The 2006 census data was released this week which prompted this latest article.

Here’s what always bugs me about these news reports, there are more numbers than just the one that shows Utah at the bottom, but do they ever show up in the paper? Utah does in fact spend the least amount of total money per student. Meaning if you take the annual education budget and divide it by the number of students, you come up with: Utah ranks last in student spending. The thing is that Utah has a lot of kids, so if we look at it from the perspective of what percentage of the total state budget goes towards education, well then we get a different picture. The census data looks at public spending in relation to every $1,000 of personal income. Or in other words, what percentage of the wealth of the state is going towards education. In 2006 we were not last in this category but rather 32nd in revenue and 42nd in spending. 32nd is closer to middle of the pact as I understand the math.

If we go back and look at the total money spent we can see that we are also last in instructor salary, but we’re 35th in benefits. If you combine salary and benefits with Utah’s lower cost of living I don’t think we’re mistreating our teachers as badly as is often made out. Should teacher’s be paid well, absolutely, it’s just we’re closer than is often thought, and we’re getting better. That’s good news.

The other good news is that despite being last in total spending. we’re not last in test scores, graduation rates, or any of the other measurements used to determine the success rate of students. In fact in some measurements we’re even in the top ten. This seems like the best news of all to me, if we can give our kids a solid education for less money than other states, well that’s fantastic. The game is not to spend the most, the idea is help the kids learn. Doing that for less money is a good thing. Also, some analysis reveals that pouring money into a learning program doesn’t equal results. For example over recent years Utah put extra money into reading programs, only to see reading test scores decrease. It would sure be nice to see a journalist explore this topic in-depth instead of always just hitting the hot buttons.

Is there room for improvement in our education funding? Maybe, but I believe there’s more need for creative solutions that enhance student learning. I know that the former chairman of the state school board was asked what could be done to improve our public schools besides increasing spending and the response given was to the effect that he couldn’t think of anything. That kind of thinking won’t get us very far. Here’s hoping we can do a lot better than that from here on out.