Cutting GST on food a bad answer to the wrong question - Richard Prebble :
. . . Gold Card millionaires on Waiheke ride the ferry for free while the poor are marooned, unable to afford the fare.
Similarly, the biggest beneficiaries of taking GST off food would be the rich. And the lost tax revenue would have to be made up in some other way.
I was one of the Finance Ministers who introduced GST. "Do not do what we did," said the mandarin from the British Treasury. "We exempted fruit and vegetables. It led to endless arguments and evasion. Is decorative cauliflower a flower or a food? Put GST on everything so it is easy to pay and collect. Then assist low-income households directly."
For 37 years - and through several tax reviews - successive governments have followed the mandarin's advice. New Zealand has had the most efficient and cheapest method to collect and pay GST in the world.
If food is exempt, then why not children's clothing, schoolbooks, hearing aids, public transport, home insulation, electric cars ... it's a long list.
The across-the-board fuel tax relief was of most benefit to the 59.4 per cent of households with two or more cars. It was of no benefit to the 7.9 per cent of households too poor to even access a car. The lost tax revenue was not made up. Now we have potholes in the roads and increased debt.
Well-designed taxes are easy to collect and easy to pay and do not distort the economy. . .
When the purpose of taxation is social engineering, tax becomes complex and expensive to pay. There are always unintended consequences. Punitive cigarette taxes, for example, have made ram-raiding dairies an industry. As addicts feed their addiction first, the tax is now a cause of child poverty.
We do not just pay taxes; we also pay the cost of paying taxes. The only reason I need an accountant is to assist me to fill out my tax returns correctly. In effect, my accountant is working for the IRD, but I am paying him.
In 2021, an IRD study on the time and costs of small businesses paying taxes found that the average small business spends 31 hours a year on tax compliance, at a cost of $4495.
The cost of compliance is one reason why nearly all OECD countries that have tried wealth taxes have abandoned them. Wealth taxes require expensive annual valuations.
But there is an even more important consideration when making tax policy: when taxes are too high, they cause so much damage to the economy that the extra taxes raise no revenue. . .
There is an optimum point where the Government could get the maximum tax revenue without damaging our ability to pay.
Sitting on its shelf, the IRD has world-leading research on what the optimum level of tax is. We know how much of the country's GDP the Government can take before the level of tax damages the economy.
An international economist, Patrick Caragata, was commissioned by the IRD to discover the optimum level of tax for New Zealand. He engaged other international economists using different models to find the answer. The optimum level of tax in New Zealand is somewhere between 15 and 23 per cent of GDP.
The economists estimated that if the New Zealand Government took no more than 23 per cent of GDP a year, the economy would grow at 5 per cent per annum. If the advice had been taken, the average New Zealander today would be as wealthy as the average Australian. We would be able to afford a world-class health system.
But the Treasury was horrified by the results and closed the project.
The economists' projections have come true. Labour has expanded government expenditure as a proportion of GDP to 40.42 per cent. Despite increasing the top tax rate to 39c, the Government's accounts are in deficit. Government debt is rapidly rising. The economy is in recession. . .
The coming election is not just about who has the best tax plan, but who has the best plan to reduce the size of government.
Why do experts hate Labour's potential GST exemption? - Thomas Coughlan :
. . . So unanimous is the hatred of this policy that the real intrigue isn't over who likes it and who doesn't, but over the reason people give for detesting it.
peaking broadly, taking GST off anything is loathed because it is expensive, adds cost to businesses (which get passed on to consumers), undermines the government's revenue base, and ultimately does not reduce costs to consumers.
Ultimately, in return for a minor compliance headache, the tax cut tweak delivers a tax cut worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to supermarkets - the same entities the Government less than a year ago accused of pocketing excess profits of more than $1 million a day. . .
Unlike fuel, the Government will struggle to regulate in a way that forces firms to pass the cut on. Fuel is imported into New Zealand by a handful of companies from a tiny number of terminals, making it easy to regulate. Fresh produce comes from hundreds of different suppliers, both from New Zealand and abroad, making regulation very difficult. . .
Analysis of taking GST off all or some food paints it as an Ottolenghi kind of tax cut; people who have Plenty get Plenty More.
It benefits people who can afford fresh foods over people who can only afford canned or frozen.
The Tax Working Group reckoned the poorest households would save $14.58 a week if GST were taken off all food, compared to a $53.03 saving enjoyed by high-income households.
Analysis by the Herald's data team found the poorest 20 per cent of households would save just $3.31 a week if GST were taken off fresh fruit and veges, compared with $13.73 saved by the highest 20 per cent.
The average saving would be just $6.82. . .
The biggest danger to any GST change is that you permanently damage the tax system. It accounts for a quarter of all tax revenue - equivalent to roughly the entire health budget. Exempting one thing means there will be calls to exempt other, equally worthy, consumables.
Spending is incredibly tight at the moment. Treasury's current forecasts estimate more than a decade of budgets smaller than the one this year are in order, as we try to hit surplus and pay down debt.
The mantra of the tax system is 'broad base, low rate' - we tax everyone a small amount. The risk with GST is that we follow other countries in charging a low rate on some things, but a very high rate on others. The UK exempts most food and some essentials, but charges a 20 per cent rate on everything else.
The reason GST cuts unite so many disparate groups against them is they have immense downsides for almost no upside.
The upside is a paltry tax cuts of about $6 a week to the average household, the downside - which is more likely - is permanently undermining the government's revenue base in order to fund tax cuts for supermarket owners.
Why can't you be transracial? - Jerry Coyne :
There doesn't seem to be a fundamental philosophical or moral difference between transracialism and transgenderism so long as the claimant expresses honest feelings. Sure, you can make up reasons why slight differences would render the former unacceptable, but they're just made-up reasons to somehow defend the sanctity of race. . .
If society deems it okay to assume the trappings of a sex other than your natal sex, then they should also accept one who assumes the trappings of a race different from their natal race, so long as the transracial persona comes from honest motivations. After all, both gender and race are said to be social constructs (they aren't, but it's irrelevant)(, so why is it okay to change gender but not change race? The only reason I see is that "race" is seen as somehow sacrosanct, even though, like sex, it's something you're born with (both natal sex and race actually have biological realities). Race is such a touchy and divisive topic these days that it's apparently regarded as something that an individual cannot change, even if, like Dolezal, you're transitioning from a "privileged" race to a "minoritized one." And this is often the direction in which it goes. . .
Well, maybe you're not changing your genetics to correspond with the ethnic groups we call "races", but neither are transgender (sometimes called "transsexual") people changing their gametes. It's changing your persona, and you can do that with race as easily as you can with gender. . .
First of all, as Luana and I show in our Skeptical Inquirer article, race (even in its crudest classification) does have a polygenic basis: races and ethnicities conform very well to cluster analysis based on many genes. And of course sex devolves to a activated genes that set off a pathway resulting in whether you have the equipment to make sperm or eggs. Biology is key in forming both one's natal ethnicity and natal sex. So if you can change one because you're uncomfortable, why can't you change the other? (By "change", of course, I mean "change the claim of what you are", not change the reality of your biological sex and race.)
So Freund is wrong about that. But what about the sex hierarchy of women's inferiority that was also hundreds of years in the making? Again, though, I don't see the relevance of a "hierarchy" argument, especially because most people who want to change their race are going from white to a "person of color"—the direction of accruing more bigotry. (Apparently black people "passing for white" because of their light skin is not so bad, except in the Jim Crow South that adhered to the "one drop" rule.) . .
While there are indeed transphobes, the general tenor of liberal thought is to accept someone's claim that their self-identified gender differs from their natal gender. Again, why does race differ? Sure, it's hard for a black person to claim that they're white if their pigmentation and other traits are obviously black, but that's also the case for many natal men who claim that their identity is that of a women but still look like men. In both cases one can accept the change of persona while still recognizing the natal origins of someone. (To be polite, though, one should address someone as they wish to be addressed and identified—except in cases like sports and prisons, where natal sex should be recognized.) . .
First, I don't think race was "constructed" to establish a hierarchy; as far as I know, race wasn't used by the ancient Romans or Egyptians to rank ethnicities, and at any rate Egyptians aren't white. Of course recognition of different types of both ethnicity and gender have existed for thousands of years. But that seems irrelevant too, as does the "beautiful and complicated cultures of people of color" (is this an implication that people of no color have inferior cultures?). All that matters to me is that people can claim either a gender or an ethnicity different from their natal condition, and if there are good reasons for this, and it's not a hoax but a real feeling, why should race and sex differ? . .
In the end, my view is that if you're going to go along with people's claims that they're of a different natal gender than their natal sex, then there's no reason not to do the same with race or ethnicity. It may be harder for race if natal race is obvious, but it's often hard for transgender people too, like accepting the claim of a natal man with a mustache and penis that he's of female gender.
Now in neither case do we have to accept the reality of claims like "I'm a woman" from a natal man or "I'm an East Asian" from a natal white person. But I think it's entirely possible to identify with a race other than your natal race, and we should treat those who do so the same as we do transgender folks.
The only difference I can see is that there are racial set-asides, as in affirmative action, and it seems unfair to say you're black when you were born white just to take advantage of these. But such set-asides are disappearing, and really shouldn't exist at all. And remember that there are female set-asides as well, and those also seem unfair. Most of us think that a transgender woman should not be able to compete on female athletic teams. . .
The PM says the gov't "don't have a money tree". Yes it does - the Reserve Bank calls it Tāne Mahuta - Robert MacCulloch :
The PM has criticized teachers' pay demands with the jibe that the "Governments have to ultimately make the books balance, we don't have a great money tree in the backyard that means we can continue to indefinitely increase government spending, we have to pay for everything somehow". His line comes amidst strike action by the teachers' union that has led to school closures throughout the first half of this year.
If I was a teacher then this is how I would respond - the Kiwi government has actually formally stated that it does have a money tree. The Reserve Bank has given it a name, Tāne Mahuta, and identified the part of the tree with the money as being "Te Toto", or the sap. The RBNZ writes that "Te Toto represents money, cash and foreign reserves". I like this metaphor, by the way, even though the PM insists on denying the tree's existence and lampooning it.
The RBNZ shook the money tree so hard these past few years that its branches broke & over $50 billion of cash came pouring out. That $50 billion supported the government's $30 billion wage subsidy scheme by keeping interest rates low during 2020-21. Half of the wage subsidy was paid to medium and large corporations that never even needed the cash. That sum amounts to many multiples of what the teachers have been asking for.
When the Integrity Institute, which was founded by Grant and Marilyn Nelson in the South Island, tried to raise public awareness of the wage subsidy rort by placing an information ad in leading newspapers, the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) tried to silence them and threaten their right to free speech by making a complaint! The Department states on its website, "MSD has made a complaint about this misleading advertising campaign to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which is investigating the matter".
Imagine that - private citizens shining a light on one of our biggest wastes of public money and civil servants try to shut down the publicity. Why publish a defamatory allegation that the ads were "misleading" when that has not been determined? What would the ASA know about the economics of the wage subsidy scheme? I concur with the Nelsons that it was a rort. . .
So my advice to the teachers is to reply to the PM by saying that they do want higher wages financed by giving another shake to Tāne Mahuta, the money tree, planted at Number 2 The Terrace, which Hipkins can even see from his window. But this time in the name of a good cause. When he answers back by saying that printing money is no way to pay for their wages since it will be inflationary & the government has to "make the books balance", then the teachers should say, "well, running a huge deficit supported by money printing was exactly how you funded the wage payments of the employees of big business in 2020 and 2021".
The point I am making, of course, is that Chris Hipkins has no economic credibility, either with the right, who don't trust him, nor the left, who he has abandoned.
Lessons I learned from Thomas Sowell's memoir - Rob Henderson :
- When love and attentive care are available, kids don't necessarily know they're living in poverty. . .
As a young boy, Sowell, along with his aunt and her adult children, lived in a wooden house in North Carolina without electricity, central heating, or hot running water.
Despite this, Sowell writes, "It never occurred to me that we were living in poverty, and in fact these were some of the happiest times of my life…Once I tagged along with Ruth when she went to her job as a maid in the home of some white people. When I saw two faucets in their kitchen, I was baffled and said: 'They sure must drink a lot of water around here.'"
Thomas Sowell learned to read before he was four years old. He describes a story that stuck with him: There was a dog with a bone who saw his reflection in a stream and thought that the dog had a bigger bone than he did. He opened his mouth to try to get the other dog's bone, and lost his own when he dropped it in the water.
- People can be both proud and resentful of a loved one's progress.
From North Carolina, young Thomas Sowell and his family relocated to Harlem. His older female cousins worked as maids and nannies in white people's homes in New York and transmitted to Sowell things they learned, such as table manners and vocabulary. As he matured, Sowell also began reading and learning ideas and keeping up with current events. None of Sowell's family had ever reached the seventh grade. Writing about his aunt, who he called "Mom," Sowell says, "She became, and remained over the years, ambivalent about my progress—proud of my advancement yet resentful of being left behind." . .
- People will lie if they think it's for a good cause.
As a kid, Sowell was invited by his school to attend a two-week summer camp. When he went to speak with the people running the program, he was surprised to find that all the other kids there were white. He asked if any black kids were going to the camp, and they assured him that there would be. When Sowell arrived at the camp, he learned he was part of an experiment to put the first black kid into the program. Sowell concludes that it was "my first encounter with the notion that people who think they are doing something noble don't have to tell the truth."
- Simple questions often have simple answers.
When Sowell was at the summer camp, he had the following exchange with one of the white kids:
"Tommy…?"
"Yeah."
"…can you tell me something?"
"What?"
"How come…you don't act like the colored people I see in the movies?"
That stumped me for a moment, and then I said:
"Well, they get paid to act that way—and I don't."
That seemed to satisfy him and, with a sigh of relief, he went back to where they had been.
When my two weeks at camp were up, he was one of those who came around to say goodbye. And he cried.
- Objective measures of performance are ideal; relying on subjective evaluations is a major blunder. . .
- Life is tough all over.
Sowell worked a part-time job as a grocery delivery boy while he was studying at Stuyvesant High School in New York. The money he earned, though, barely covered his lunch money and subway fare to travel each day from Harlem. . .
- Scarcity breeds gratitude.
During an intense period of financial difficulty and family conflict, Sowell temporarily dropped out of school and moved out on his own before reaching legal adulthood.
From the book:
I learned how to look for a job—relentlessly. Each day, I would decide which was the most promising job to go for, and would arrive early enough to be first in line. When that interview was over, it was off to the next job on the list, and so on all day long, until I finally returned home, tired and dispirited, at the end of a long day of being turned down or told that they would get back to me. Then it was more of the same the next day, and the next, until I finally found something.
During one of these periods of unemployment, I fell behind on rent and began to skimp on food. It finally occurred to me that I could get some money by pawning my one suit. I took it down to the lower east side of Manhattan, where there were many pawnshops, and got some money for it. Immediately, I went to a little fast food place near the corner of Third Avenue and 14th Street, where I ordered a knish and an orange soda. It was delicious. No meal I have ever had since then, anywhere in the world, has ever topped it." . .
- Pay in the present to invest in your future.
As a teenager, Sowell, at one point, was working two different part-time jobs, one at a machine shop and one at Western Union. The Western Union manager told Sowell he had to quit his machine shop job because they needed him full-time. Western Union was paying him more, so the obvious choice was to leave the other job. But Sowell was friendly with the machine shop foreman and knew that if he remained there, he would gain more skills and, potentially, more pay. Sowell quit Western Union. This led to temporarily increased financial precarity, but Sowell was then hired at the machine shop full-time.
- Don't judge the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal; focus on what the reality-based alternatives could be.
Sowell describes how, as a young man, he took a keen interest in the unfolding of the Korean War. Upon learning that the Soviets had set up a puppet government in North Korea, and the U.S. had done the same in South Korea, he was outraged. He then acknowledges that this was because he hadn't thought about what the realistic alternatives might have been, and concentrated only how the installation of these puppet governments was so far from the rhetoric of socialism and freedom.
- Trust people who value being honest more than being nice.
As the Korean War intensified, Sowell was drafted into the Marine Corps. He notes that color did not matter, as all new recruits were treated with equal disdain. Sowell describes his life in the Marine barracks in Pensacola. There were two non-commissioned officers permanently stationed to oversee the young marines. One was Sergeant Gordon, "a genial, wisecracking guy who took a somewhat relaxed view of life." The other was Sergeant Pachuki, "a disciplinarian who spoke in a cutting and ominous way" and was always "impeccably dressed."
Sowell and his peers preferred Sergeant Gordon, as he was more easygoing. Sowell had to go into town to pick up a package. Sowell asked his Chief Petty Officer if he could leave the base to retrieve his package. Sowell received permission.
Later, while Sowell was not on base, he was marked as absent and was accused of being AWOL (absent without leave), a serious offense. Sowell knew Sergeant Gordon, the nice one, had overheard him asking for permission to leave the base. Gordon denied having heard anything, and told Sowell, "You're just going to have to take your punishment like a man." Gordon fretted that if he crossed the higher-ups, he would be reassigned to fight in Korea.
But unasked, Sergeant Pachuki came forward and spoke with the colonel, explaining the situation. As a result, Sowell was exonerated and returned back to his duties.
Referring to Gordon, the "nice" sergeant who betrayed him, Sowell writes, "People who are everybody's friend usually means they are nobody's friend."
- A "free good" is a costless good that is not scarce, and is available without limit.
Sowell would regularly needle Sergeant Grover, another member who outranked him.
Here's the excerpt:
Some were surprised that I dared to give Sergeant Grover a hard time, on this and other occasions, especially since he was a nasty character to deal with. Unfortunately for him, I knew that he was going to give me as hard a time as he could, regardless of what I did. That meant it didn't really cost me anything to give him as hard a time as I could. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I was already thinking like an economist. Giving Sergeant Grover a hard time was, in effect, a free good and at a zero price my demand for it was considerable.
Sowell learned he could receive something he enjoyed (pleasure at provoking Grover) in exchange for nothing.
- Much of what you see has been carefully curated with an agenda in mind.
One of Sowell's assignments in the Marine Corps was as a Duty Photographer on base. One day after submitting some of his photos, Sowell had the following exchange with the public information office sergeant:
"They are good pictures, he said. "But they do not convey the image that the public information office wants conveyed."
"What's wrong with them?" I asked.
"Well, take that picture of the reservists walking across the little wooden bridge carrying their duffle bags."
"Yeah. What's wrong with it?"
"The men in that picture are perspiring. You can see the damp spots on their uniforms."
"Well, if you carry a duffle bag on a 90-degree day, you are going to sweat."
"Marines do not sweat in public information photographs."
"Okay, what was wrong with the picture of the reservists picking up shell casings after they had finished firing? That was one of my favorites."
"Marines do not perform menial chores like that, in our public relations image."
"But all these photos showed a very true picture of the reservists' summer here."
"We're not here to tell the truth, Sowell," he said impatiently. "We are here to perpetuate the big lie. Now, the sooner you understand that, the better it will be for all of us."
- Sometimes, it doesn't pay to have too big a reputation.
Sowell and his fellow marines would sometimes have impromptu boxing matches around the barracks on base. One day Sowell was up against another guy and threw a sloppy right hand. The guy stumbled back, tripped, and fell to the ground. Although Sowell had swung and missed, witnesses thought he had knocked the other guy out.
Later, Sowell went up against another guy named Douglas. Douglas relentlessly came at Sowell and gave him a serious beating. Douglas told Sowell afterwards that the reason he was so aggressive was that he feared Sowell's "one punch" could turn the fight around at any time. "Sometimes," Sowell writes, "it doesn't pay to have too big a reputation."
- Don't say more than necessary.
Sowell was not above skating on thin ice, even as a marine. One Saturday, there was a Commanding General's inspection. Sowell notes that at the previous inspection, no one bothered to take roll call, on the assumption that no one would dare be absent. Sowell decided to skip out and visit the library and go to a movie.
Later, he was summoned to his First Sergeant's office:
"I don't recall seeing you out there for the Commanding General's inspection last Saturday," he said.
I said nothing.
"Well," he asked. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"I have nothing to say for myself."
"And why is that?"
"Because I am not responsible for the memories of First Sergeants."
Since I was never one of his favorite people, I knew that if he had any hard evidence, he would have started proceedings for a court-martial, instead of trying to trap me into some damaging admission. When he realized I was not going for his bait, he dropped the questioning. . .
- Inhabitants of elite institutions treat smug assumptions as substitutes for evidence and logic.
By the time he was about to graduate, Sowell observed that he was "fed up with Harvard."
From the book:
Perhaps any place with such an awesome reputation was bound to be something of a disappointment. What I most disliked about Harvard was that smug assumptions were too often treated as substitutes for evidence or logic. The idea seemed to be that if we bright and good fellows all believed something, it must be true. Unquestionably, Harvard made a major contribution to both my intellectual and social development. But when time came to leave, I felt that it was not a moment too soon.
- Young people are in no position to judge "relevance."
After graduating from Harvard, Thomas Sowell went on to attend the University of Chicago for his PhD in economics. He states that he had more respect for U Chicago than he ever did for Harvard. This is because U Chicago upheld strict standards of rigor, a marked contrast to the smugness of Harvard. Sowell describes taking a course with Milton Friedman, who would refuse to entry to his class to students who arrived late. Sowell notes that he was only one of two students to receive a B in Friedman's course ("there were no As").
From the book:
Some of the most important things I learned at the University of Chicago did not seem at all important at first. One of these things whose relevance I did not see immediately was an essay by Friedrich Hayek entitled "The Use of Knowledge in Society." It was assigned in Milton Friedman's course and it showed the role of a market economy in utilizing the fragmented knowledge scattered among vast numbers of people. It would be nearly twenty years later before I would realize the full implications of this plain and apparently simple essay—and then be inspired to write a book called Knowledge and Decisions. Students are often in no position to judge "relevance" until long after the fact.
- Sometimes, you don't realize how much tension has built up until after it has been released.
After receiving his PhD, Sowell got a job teaching at Douglass College. Sowell's courses were difficult, and many average and mediocre students struggled. His department chair urged him to change his curriculum to make it easier.
Sowell refused and eventually, resigned:
Although resigning was a tough decision to make—there was no other job offer on the table at the time—once that decision was made, I felt a great sense of relief. . .
- The benefits of anonymity, impartiality, and colorblindness
From the book:
Because the history of economic theory was of far more interest to scholarly journals in England and Canada than to those in the United States, most of my professional work was published outside the country. Though I did not realize it at the time, this was a long-term blessing, for the economists who ran these journals in other countries had no way of knowing what color I was, so I was spared the doubts that became increasingly common over the years among black academics, as to whether their achievements were really their own or were due to tokenism or double standards applied by whites.
- Misguided sympathy and the importance of high standards.
Sowell later got a job teaching at Howard University, a historically black college.
He describes the rampant cheating he witnessed, and his attempts to crack down on cheating and low standards. Describing some of the students, Sowell writes:
I knew that whatever 'front' they might put up on campus, behind many of these kids was some father driving a cab at night, after working all day, or some mother down on her knees scrubbing some white woman's floor, in order to send their children to college to try to make something out of them.
My tightening up on standards and on cheating initially meant massive failing grades on exams. This in turn meant massive complaints—to me, the department chairman, and to the dean. One girl who received a very low grade burst into tears and ran into a colleague's office.
The book continues with a meeting with the dean, who essentially tells Sowell that his high standards are unreasonable, followed by Sowell's response:
"We need higher standards, but we have to be reasonable. Kids from these backgrounds can't handle a lot of abstractions, graphs, and things like that."
"Yes, they can—but they will not do it as long as they have sympathetic administrators to intervene on their behalf."
- Liberals thinking conservatives are mean dates back a long way.
Sowell, recently married, describes speaking with his friend:
"Marriage has made you almost human, Tom," he said. "In another five years, when you see an old lady fall and break her leg, you'll feel sorry for her." Jim was a liberal and, to him, those who opposed liberals were just mean."
- Many academics are cowards, unwilling to defend the importance of a good education.
The book outlines Sowell's experiences as a professor at Cornell:
The black students, or at least the more vocal of them, wanted education that was "relevant," such as research in the ghetto.
Much of what the students said was sophomoric, but that is what to expect from sophomores. What had me aghast was that the white faculty members at the meeting were not only going along with it, but also were encouraging the students in a wholly paranoid vision of the "repressive" academic establishment, arbitrarily standing in the way of these wonderful ideas and projects.
I tried to argue that the most urgent educational needs of the students were for a solid foundation in academic skills…But the students clearly didn't want to hear that. Neither did the white activist professors.
Sowell defended his position at a meeting with students and faculty. He continues:
I encountered a colleague from the economics department who had been at the meeting, and began arguing that the students' proposals were self-defeating. He just listened as we walked across the parking lot. Finally, he said, "Of course," got into his car and drove off. He knew better all along. It just wasn't politic to say so.
- Elite colleges aren't necessarily "better" than others. But they generally expect students to quickly absorb and retain a lot of information.
From the book:
It was not that Cornell necessarily covered so much more difficult material than other institutions, though it no doubt did so to some extent. It was the speed with which we covered whatever we did cover…The amount of reading assigned, the amount of verbal facility and mathematical preparation presupposed, the quickness with which explanations were expected to be understood without elaboration—all these were geared to a student body which, in the liberal arts college, was within the top 5 percent in the nation. . .
- Debating dumb people is harder than debating smart people.
Thomas Sowell writes that before he was scheduled to debate Kenneth Arrow (Nobel prize-winning economist), someone asked him if he was nervous because Arrow was so smart. Sowell replied "I don't mind debating smart people. It's debating stupid people that's hard." . .
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