Subscribe to Dollars & Sense magazine. Recent articles related to the financial crisis. This just in...D&S reads the news.Notes on the news from Larry Peterson of the D&S collective.A couple items in the news today caught my eye, besides the coverage of the ever-solemn first-Friday jobs report ritual. The Washington Post had an article today on college admissions (“Battle To Win Top Colleges’ Nod Escalating: Future Applicants Face Array of Competitors”) which focused on the increasingly baroque intellectual and other (not least financial) gyrations required to get into an elite school these days. It notes in particular the travails of well-heeled high school superachievers who are left holding the bag after being rejected by the best schools for reasons that are seemingly impossible to fathom. The Post’s analysis, such as it is, highlights demographics: the baby-boomer bulge (children of baby boomers and so on) is increasing demand for admission slots at a far faster rate than can be accomodated. It also relies on the old saw about the indispensibility of a college education in our economy; according to that story, the pronounced gap in earnings between college graduates and high school graduates that’s opened up in the last generation or reveals that a degree (particularly one from a better school) is the indispensible correlate to higher and growing incomes.
The International Herald Tribune had an article today on executive expenses for security. It analyzed Eric Schmidt’s (of Google fame) regulatory filings and found that Schmidt’s personal security cost shareholders a cool $532,755.00. Granted, that was much higher than Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s $36,795.00 for transport, logistics and security, but it also reveals the extent to which executives can be tempted to identify their own percs with investment in “human capital,” especially if some of the security costs serve to further insulate such executives from contacts with, well, shareholders. On a happier note, the BBC reports that the 1.8 million-member UK union Amicus is in merger talks with the United Steel Workers here and in Canada. Such a merger would create a 3 million strong multinational force. And finally, the sacred jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 180,000 new jobs were created in the US in March, far exceeding expectations. The markets haven’t moved much in response to the news, but the dollar is up. Currency investors evidently believe the report evidences signs of resilience in the labor market in spite of troubles in the housing and housing-related sectors. But given the recent slowing productivity and higher pay statistics, this figure reduces the likelihood of an interest rate cut by the Fed at their next meeting considerably. And that means any additional signs of inflation will bring up spectres interest hikes, and of the dreaded suprime spillover again. Look for Bernanke to have to wheel out Alan Greenspan again to cover up his tracks if that turns out to be true. Please consider donating to Dollars & Sense and/or subscribing to the magazine (both print and e-subscriptions now available!).
Comments:
What's wrong with homeschooling?
It seems that the chief problem with public schooling is less the issue of funding and more the issue of over-regulation of teachers and students, through high-stakes testing, administrative excess, and turning schools into prisons complete with squads of over-zealous security guards and metal detectors at every corner. It seems that we never actually bother to address these basic problems, instead either accepting nonsense like NCLB or demanding teacher pay raises to fix the problem. Give students and teachers some basic respect and freedom and they will prosper. Take it away and they will rebel, even if only through apathy.
Hi, Donald;
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Nothing is wrong with home schooling per se. The purely economic problem consists in the fact that home schooling remains an option only for those who can afford to keep one parent (or even both) home from work to provide instruction. And though this may seem not to involve a cost at all (if the teaching is provided for free), there is what is called an opportunity cost-a loss of income compared to what could have been received if the parent’s labor was sold on the labor market instead of being given away in free instruction. That cost is clearly a large one: I imagine that only a small percentage of families can afford to lose it, though I haven’t looked at the figures. The fact that a growing number of families are still willing to make these sacrifices to home-school shows that they put a rather steep premium on this kind of education, probably akin to that enjoyed by private schools. These hidden costs, in turn, suggest how much more really should to be put into the public schools if they are to remain competitive with home schools and private schools; or, in other words, for a level of educational justice to be maintained in our society. I agree with you 100% that some of the methods used to control, or, as you put it, “regulate” students are not only counter-productive in a pedagogical sense; indeed, I would argue that they increase costs for public schools while diverting teachers from doing what they’re there for: to teach. Some of them probably raise costs to society later in lost productivity, if not worse. Best regards, Larry << Home |
