I am about half-way done on a very long post about economics and politics. It is very long. I may break it up, because its a beast now. A beast that I just can't tackle at once, that was for you Marcin, I just give the people what they want.

-Mr. Alec

Alright today I am going to tackle pre-college education, because what a waste of time that was. In all seriousness I have learned more in the past 18 weeks of college then I did in all of middle school, or even the last two years of High School (and if you subtract Ms Duffy from the picture, it gets extremely bleak). By the end of this college year, I will probably have equaled my entire post-secondary school knowledge. That is just ridiculous. Why can't high school be like that? Writing an essay a week is a good thing, hell it is probably the best thing for you. There are no reasons (other than cultural and a couple practical) for why all of a sudden, once I turn 18, I can learn at this pace. I was born to learn at this pace, I want faster. I am only going to have 6-10 more years of possible education, but 4-6 of those years will have to be a specialization in a certain topic. So in reality I am only going to have a couple of years of learning that will make me a well-rounded intellectual. Kiss my dream of being a "man of letters" goodbye. That is just a shame. It is even more ridiculous when I am mocked by the exploits of 19th and 20th European intellectuals who earned their PhD by 22 and knew Attic Greek and Latin by 12, hell I had not even tackled pre-algebra then. San Just, Sieyes, John Stuart Mill, Condorcet, von Humboldt, Robbespierre, and Karl Marx were changing the world in their twenties.

So why is this, what are the perks of postponing education? Well for one it may be a by product of public education. I never experienced what private school was like and it may very well have been what college is like now (though I highly doubt it). Certainly it is nice to have a childhood. Being carefree is always nice, but why can't the speed step up around 8th or 9th grade, by then we have all enjoyed a good 13-14 carefree years? Well the answer probably lies in the demands on already overburdened teachers. Making lesson plans for one class five times a week is extremely difficult. But then multiply that by 5-6 classes. Then add in grading papers, which I will admit, is as tedious as it gets. College professors certainly benefit from TA's who grade for them. Also professors have the perk of only meeting two to three times a week, for a much shorter period of the year.

But why can't we offer high school teachers and students the same thing? To this I have no answer, but maybe I should go start a middle school and high school. Someday, I will become a high school teacher and go nuts on my students. I will have an essay due every other week and 100+ pages of reading per class. I like it. That would make some learned individuals.

-Mr. Alec

Mission Statement:

This blog have a couple of purposes. I think list them first and then tackle each separately. The topics include: politics, social commentary, issues of pop culture, pointless rants, and occasional personal stuff (don't expect too much meat).

First politics: I do not profess to know answers, nor do I enter any issue with nearly as many preconceived notions as you would think. If I am preaching about the virtue of some economic policy, I am not attempting to sell this as the one and only approach. In fact, I am excited at the prospect of having my ideas checked and responded to comments. For the sake of disclosure, if I were to profess a party affiliation I would be a Democrat, however, if you know me at all, you would know that my views are much more nuanced than any single affiliation or party could ever capture. Primarily I want to comment of political issues of interest. On somethings I might want to establish a common ground. I hope this blog ends up being constructive, I will stray as far away as possible from a The Democrat Eat Babies or Bush is the next Hitler blog. So let’s hope this delicate balance produces effectiveness, not crap. Last I will attempt to be as original as possible with my posts. I will shy away from just paraphrasing an article, if I find an article of particular interest, I will just post that. But with that said, no ideas are created in a vacuum, so feel free to call me out on relying too frequently on a set of minds I am prone to admire (but do not expect me to always care).

Second, social and pop-culture commentary: often I have a beef with pop-culture and seeing as few people listen to me when I complain; I figure this is a great forum for it. I guess you could even throw in pointless rants here, because my social commentary does not intend to be constructive in any manner.

Last, personal stuff: don't read this blog if you are expecting to find out how my fight with Jorge went after he wouldn't pay for his fair share of pizza. Or that I am so upset because my Humanities professor made fun of me. I may talk about my classes, I may talk about grades, I may mention my girlfriend more than just this time, but if you are really interested in that stuff you could harass me about it, but don't expect too much.

In conclusion, let’s hope this is fun, interesting, and a good time for all. Comment away.

-Mr. Alec

Alright so I think I am going to talk today about two things that have been bothering me. First the not so serious one: I absolutely can not stand people and their random abbreviation of words and phrases. For instance, why must people refer to professors as profs, political science as poli sci, international relations as IR, constitutional law as con-law, or parliamentary debate (I am much more sympathetic to this one because of the difficult nature of its spelling, but still) as parli. It is annoying on a number of levels, first of all, only certain people should be able to abbreviate terms, because otherwise you just look like a poser. For example, a first-year college student in his first semester/quarter has no right to call professors profs. They are only calling them profs because they have seen other people do it and are doing it only to adapt a lingo they feel makes them an insider. The other aspect of pointless abbreviations that bothers me is its use for exclusiveness. I may have read plenty of international relations material, but if someone yammers on and on about IR it could mean nothing to me. They are merely using the term to show that they talk about international relations so often that they get the right to call it IR. Furthermore, if someone asks what IR means they are automatically going to look like an uninformed jackass, which has nothing to do with knowledge of an acronym. Gar.

So the second issue, and one of much more significance, is the ridiculous controversy over Larry Summers comments on females in science. For those unaware, Summers is the president of Harvard and gave an off the record speech before the National Bureau of Economic Research addressing the relative lack of women in faculty positions in math and science. All he said was that it could be possible that women do not seek out jobs in the sciences because of innate differences. Now like two or three women at the conference got upset and made a big to do about it. Unfortunately the press went wild with it because people are not supposed to say that, regardless of their intent. Now many at Harvard are capitalizing on the political incorrectness of the statements and going at Summers. This is unfortunate because Summers was only making an observation that he felt could be a reason for the differential. God forbid people make observations. Let’s give Summers a break and realize that what’s important is not the political incorrectness of a sound-clip, but the intent of the remarks, which were in no way discriminatory. If one good thing comes out of this controversy that just will not go away, it could be this realization, but that is probably me just be optimistic.

-Mr. Alec

PS Tommrow I think I will write a mission statement for this Blog, so as to give it some much needed direction.

Alright, so this is my first serious go at having a blog. I think I will start my first blog with a topic of particular significance to many of my beliefs: Human Capital.

One of the things that I have developed a devout belief in over the past year is the importance that education plays in international relations, economics, and comparative power. Rather nationalistic elements of the US can profess that various other issues have determined the current American supremacy, most popular tend to be our freedom, our religious element (from conservative folks), our founding fathers, etc. But those are all wrong. First up, freedom and our founding fathers:

We seem to have an almost mythical relationship with the founding fathers, and rightly so. Imagine what would go down if, right now, we ceased to have a constitution. If Connecticut would have to agree with Alabama on the set-up of the nation, it is certainly a miracle considering the diversity of the US that an agreement was ever achieved (as tentative as it was, remember we did have that civil war thing). But other then an agreement was reached amongst them, and they had read their Machiavelli, More, Livy, Thucydides, Locke, Plato, etc... what was their real accomplishment.

The question I am getting at is: does the US matter just because of its constitution and the founding fathers and the resulting freedom? And the resounding answer is No! Economics, good relations with the British, industrialization, and damn good education are what made the US the most successful nation in the past couple of centuries. The Weimar republic had one hell of a constitution, at least according to Fareed Zakaria (whom I trust), but that didn't do anything in preventing it from going down the tubes. If you look at any liberal (the classical liberal, not the present perversion) democracy and the funny coincidence is that they all have annual GDP growth and an industrialized economy. Would the founding fathers matter without Rockefeller, coal, steel, and annual increases in American productivity that far outpaced anyone in the world? Think about that one.

So lastly, what are the implications of this argument? Well first it points to the importance of the US doing something about the sciences and some more about education. “No Child Left Behind” is not all that bad (I said it). Accountability tends to be a good thing and literacy is certainly a good thing (Russia is really the only once-world power to not have much literacy, Britain, Germany, Japan, France are all examples of once-powers that had great education systems-relative to the times of course). But the US must do two things. First it needs to let up on the immigration restrictions for students. Because there is more and more of a worldwide demand for damn good education, and at least according to Keynes, demand creates a supply all its own. India and China will create their own colleges that cater to the rest of the world and then there goes all those engineers, physicists, and biologists we'll need to keep our comparative international advantage. The US desperately needs foreign students who go to Yale, Harvard, MIT, Cal-Tech, and maybe the University of Chicago, and end up staying the US after education. Better to have foreigners in the sciences then some legacy blue-blood majoring in some soft science (like I intend to do). Second, Pell grants need to be increased; education is the best investment someone can make in themselves, ever, period. And those Pell grants should be subject specific. People follow the money trail and if the government gives an incentive to be a physicist, people will physicize away, why do people want to become doctors and lawyers anyway? Its the pay. Give similar incentives, because lawyers are not doing anything for our relative geopolitical advantage.

I'll depart with a very interesting quote from my economics professor, "The largest cause of inequality in the US is not the inheritance of wealth, but the inheritance of human capital."

-Mr. Alec