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March 2016

Education vs. Schooling

Education

The cost of college and public schools education quality are two of the main political issues now in the United States. The progressives believe that we should spend more on K-12 education, although we already spend the most per student, and create a federal standard for school curriculum and force the states to adopt it, hence common core. For college education, the progressives are pushing for plans to make the college free, which means that the taxpayers will pay for everyone’s college education regardless of whether they need or deserve such education. Conservatives on the other side are pushing for school choice, teacher accountability and the return of education powers to the local school boards which are all good ideas if your goal is to make public schools function better, but nobody is seriously considering the role all levels of government are playing in education. Are public schools necessary?

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Heart vs. Mind

Should we support a government program just to do something?

Heart-vs-Head

Yesterday I participated in a phone survey about a proposed ballot measure to approve the county selling bonds to finance low-income housing construction. The survey asked for my opinion about a number of sentences that support the measure. The sentences were all like “the measure will offer housing to veterans”, “the measure will help low-income people crushed by high home prices” and “this measure will give homeless people a place to live”. After I answered all the questions that I will not support the measure and ended the call; I thought about how is this measure being sold and how government programs start.

The usual government program life start when a disaster happen or with news media focusing on people affected by a certain problem. Then loud voices in the media shout that we need to do something and politicians suggest a new government program to do something. Activists then urge People then to either vote or pressure their representatives to vote to support the program that will do something. Eventually the program passes and the media and the activists move to the next issue that we need to do something about.

This story is always missing asking two important questions:

  1. Why do this problem exist or why did that disaster happen?
  2. Does the proposed program actually solve the problem?

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How do banks work?

100-dollars

Banks play a large role in the economy. This post will shed some light on banks and the role of central banks in the economy and how they could create major economic problems with monetary policy.

First, let’s start with the basics. A bank is a corporation that accepts deposits from customers and uses these funds to give loans. Banks offer interest to account owners and charge interest on loans and the difference between the amount of interest they get from loans and what they pay to account owners will be the bank profit.

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