Education #10

The latest iteration of the nonsense is the labor strife in Chicago. Imagine the highest teacher wages in the country at $75,000/year, about $20,000 higher than the average in the country, with a high school graduation rate of 50%. No wonder there is a desire for teacher performance in the new agreement.

This morning on CNBC the discussion was on the toolbox provided by the teaching profession (sic) to the graduating students for their entry to the work force. What about the empty tool box of the students who don’t graduate? Who will speak for them, the failures of the education system?

Isn’t it time for the parents and the teachers to take control of the education system and eliminate the overheads of the school boards and the teacher unions. I suspect the results would be much better. The time is now.

Friday Filosophy #28

There are four stages to the life of a man.

  • The first is where he believes in Santa Claus
  • The second is where he no longer believes in Santa Claus
  • The third is where he is Santa Claus
  • The fourth is where he looks like Santa Claus

The time is now.

Education Step 9

To continue the discussion on education I want to explore curricula and start from elementary school and move up to the end of high school. The last time I looked the tax payers provide the money for the school system at the state level. I am not sure that the educators have a clear grasp on what it is that is expected from them. What is the objective of the education of school age children?

Is the ultimate aim to provide employable people? If that is the case why does the curricula discussion not include employers? The ability to have electives is fine as long as the individuals pay for those electives if they are not considered core requirements of an employable individual.

Similarly why has physical education been dropped from many school systems where there is substantial research that shows physical activity enhances the ability to learn and perform academically?

What do you think on this subject? Should business get involved in developing curricula? Should pre-technical school and pre-college education provide work ready people? The time is now.

Thought of the Day #10

Today will be some thoughts of the day. The Elephants have had their turn now is the time for the Asses.

  • It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. – David Hume
  • I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. – A de Tocqueville
  • A program whose basic thesis is, not that the system of free enterprise for profit has failed in the generation, but that is has not yet been tried. – F.D. Roosevelt
  • What has made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. – Holderlin
  • We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become. – Benito Mussolini
  • The statesman who should attempt to direct people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. – Adam Smith

The time is now.

Education Step 8

The Liberal Arts education that has been the push for the past five decades has not delivered what was intended. Slowly in the halls of academia this is being recognized. There are changes underway to address some of the issues. Internet lectures offered for free is one of them.

I want to explore a different direction. One that is tried and proven and comes from Germany. You have heard me say that the battle of the coming decades will be for talented personnel. I have no idea how long this will exist but it will be for some time as the needs and the resources will be slowly rebalanced.

Peter Drucker once said the brightest future business opportunity for going to be in adult re-education. Retraining people who have had the value of their skills eroded as productivity increases have brought dramatic changes. But that does not address the young people starting out in the work force. How do they get opportunities? When the Universities are too expensive (see student loan debate) and the product (the student) that they deliver doesn’t fit the needs of society something is terribly wrong.

In Germany there is a partnership between schools, business and yes even government. “Germany’s apprenticeship programs and its renown as the standard bearer of quality manufacturing are helping companies rejuvenate their workforce with foreigners eager to escape economic malaise at home” – Bloomberg online.

“Germany’s unique educational approach is rooted in a guild system dating back centuries. Trainees receive a modest salary during their education and most get a job offer once they complete their apprenticeships. The country’s vocational training system combines practical training with classroom sessions and has companies pitching in, offering more than half a million high-school graduate’s annually hands-on education in hundreds of professions as well as a respected alternative to a university degree. With the government paying for the schools, the system has helped keep youth unemployment at 7.9%, the lowest rate in Europe.”

We have some schools leading the way with advanced degrees in Industrial Distribution, or partnerships between equipment dealers/distributors and manufacturers of construction equipment and State Universities. But much more needs to be done. The image of vocational schools has been besmirched with the message from colleges and universities over the years that vocational school was a code word for education for the low skilled workers. Nothing could be further from the truth but it fit nicely into the political messages pronounced over the decades. This self-aggrandizing approach from politicians and ivory tower educators has badly hurt two generations, so far hopefully it is going to change soon. The time is now.

Thought of the Day #9

There are some simple definitions that are very important at this time in our history what with people making decisions on elected officials and referendums and initiatives all across the country.

Ignorance can be defined as not knowing what to do.

Stupidity can be defined as knowing what to do and not doing it.

Insanity is continuing to do what you have always done while expecting different results.

Which one will we choose to be in our votes? The time is now.

Thought of the Day #8

“Long-term Treasury bond yields are an excellent barometer of economic activity. If business conditions are better than normal and improving, exerting upward pressure on inflation, long-term interest rates will be high and rising. In contrary situations, long yields are likely to be low and falling. Also, if debt is elevated relative to GDP, and a rising portion of this debt is utilized for either counterproductive or unproductive investments, then long-term Treasury bond yields should be depressed since an environment of poor aggregate demand would exist. Importantly, both low long rates and the stagnant economic growth are symptoms of the excessive indebtedness and/or low quality debt usage.

This line of reasoning also provides an important corollary. If the effects of excessive indebtedness (low growth and low interest rates) are addressed by additional debt, or by debt utilized for investments that cannot produce an income stream to repay the obligations, then this even higher level of debt will serve to perpetuate the period of slow economic growth and unusually low bond yields.”

This is a short abstract from and investment company Hoisington letter for the 2nd quarter of 2012. The arguments presented are from academic studies. The real problem it is clearly too much debt caused by government officials. There is a lot of evidence to this end yet the media does not share it with the public for whatever reason. Curiosity is rewarded with knowledge. Become more curious. The time is now.

Friday Filosphy #27

Do not confine you children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.

Chinese Proverb

 

Every heart sings a song incomplete, until another heart whispers back.

Plato

 

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.

German Proverb

Thought of the Day #7

It starts quietly, the defense of the Keynesian failures.  Published Wednesday in Global Post – Northwestern economist Robert Gordon opines that “We’ve had a lot of inherent advantages: abundant natural resources, favorable demographic trends, relative political stability supported by the protective benefit of two oceans, to name a few. But from colonial times to the present, our happy economy has also been powered by three separate industrial revolutions:

  1. the introduction of steam engines and railroads
  2. the inception and widespread use of electricity and the combustion engine
  3. the invention of computers, the web and mobile communications.”

“Gordon writes that future growth in consumption per capita — the main engine of the consumer-based US economy — could fall below 0.5 percent a year for what he calls “an extended period of decades.” Yes, that would be a big deal. For some context, between 1860 and 2007 that annual growth rate was 1.9 percent. What’s driving this structural economic slowdown, according to Gordon? He argues that six “headwinds” are buffeting the US economy, and that these factors were in place even before the Great Recession of 2008.

Count ’em:

  1. changing and unfavorable demographics,
  2. rising education costs and poor secondary school performance,
  3. growing economic inequality,
  4. increased competition due to globalization,
  5. energy and environmental costs and challenges, and
  6. high levels of consumer and government debt.

Taken together, these headwinds will slow growth dramatically into the foreseeable future.

Here’s the money quote of Gordon’s paper, which is titled “Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds, doubling the standard of living took five centuries between 1300 and 1800. Doubling accelerated to one century between 1800 and 1900. Doubling peaked at a mere 28 years between 1929 and 1957 and 31 years between 1957 and 1988. But then doubling is predicted to slow back to a century again between 2007 and 2100.”

This slowdown is happening because the productivity gains associated with computers and mobility have been far less dramatic — at least so far — than the two previous industrial revolutions, all of which leads Gordon to his depressing theme: “Economic growth may not be a continuous long-run process that lasts forever.”

As Milton Friedman would say – we need to have the freedom to choose for ourselves. Government at times becomes the beneficent uncle and everyone becomes inured to poor performance.  The adults are arriving in the room with the convention underway. Choose wisely. The time is now.

Thought of the Day # 6

Mises said in a lecture in the 1960s:

“The government and the journalists who were writing for the government told us about this ‘deficit spending.’ It was wonderful! It was considered something that would improve conditions in the whole country. But if you translate this into more common language, the language of the uneducated, then you would say ‘printed money.’ The government says this is only due to your lack of education; if you had an education you wouldn’t say ‘printed money,’ you would call it ‘deficit financing’ or ‘deficit spending.’

“Now what does this mean? Deficits! This means that the government spends more than it collects in taxes and in borrowing from the people; it means government spending for all those purposes for which the government wants to spend. This means inflation, pushing more money into the market; it doesn’t matter for what purpose. And that means reducing the purchasing power of each monetary unit. Instead of collecting the money that the government wanted to spend, the government fabricated the money. Printing money is the easiest thing.

Every government is clever enough to do it.”