Dreams Lost

-
In her book, How The West Was Lost, Dambia Moyo discusses the misallocation of labor resources caused by the high salaries paid to our sports heroes by society. The cost she points out is not the $442,000 per week that Kobe Bryant is paid for playing basketball, but rather the thousands of young boys, and now girls, who spend a large percentage of their time chasing the dream that only one in 10,000 reach.

Society loses, not because Kobe gains. Society loses because so many children, often with encouragement from parents, sacrifice their time dribbling a basketball rather than studying in hopes of making it big. Society loses thousands of future teachers, scientists or engineers to a dream where success is stacked against the dreamer.
Thus, our addiction to sports heroes is causing us to be less competitive to other parts of the world where ;education is valued more than a great athlete.

Our universities are encouraging these false dreams. More: http://bit.ly/FF1104iitl

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keep Freedom on The Internet!

-
Image
Net neutrality under attack:   Don't let Verizon and Google dictate the future of the Internet. Contact the FCC! This post reflects a comment received from Common Cause. It is time to stand up with them and keep the internet free . As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) considers how to write the rules to protect freedom and openness on the Internet,   who should they turn to: consumers like you and me, or the oligopolistic telecommunications companies?   Verizon and Google announced this week that they have it all figured out when it comes to net neutrality.* They unveiled a policy framework that would give telecom companies the right to speed up or slow down certain kinds of content, and to block outright  applications or content on wireless networks.
Read More

What Can Free Market Conservatives Do?

-
I am a free market conservative. I voted republican in every presidential election since 1968, except one. It is obvious that our government must live within its means and do so in a manner as not to interfere with a functioning free market economy. If we desire to take control of government, we must demand government carry out one of its primary functions; protecting free markets from tyranny, both public and private. We are vocal about defending it from public tyranny, but silent when it comes to tyranny in the private sector. “Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficial. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greater dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.” Justice Louis Brandeis 1928 Today our focus seems to be only on the tyranny of government when it comes to free markets. We need t
Read More

China And The Five Baits

-
Image
If you are under the age of 50 you should be concerned about China from an economic and global power standpoint. Some believe China is seeking peace with the rest of the world. Based on their long history, I am not convinced. For China long term is hundreds of years and for the United States it is the next election cycle. China's focus is always on the long term. Much of this post is drawn from a book,  On China , written by Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State under President Nixon and a research paper of the National Intelligence Council titled  Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds . Whether the future will prove China's desire for peaceful co-existence depends on whether its middle class will sufficiently benefit from economic growth and not allow their leadership to throw it away by creating enemies with trading partners.  This requires the country becoming more democratic and less inclined to be a threat to the remainder of the world.  The jury is still looking
Read More