Good advice from anybody

10 things that you can learn from people who never went to college. Well, sure, you can learn from anybody, but it seems patronizing to put it like this article does. I would feel better about advice from the man on the street than some damn college professor. They will steer you wrong, more than likely. William F. Buckley once said, "I'd rather be governer by the first 100 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty." See also Thomas Sowell's work.

Thomas Sowell video

I strongly recommend this Thomas Sowell video.

Tea Party debate in 1980?

Thomas Sowell debates Frances Fox Piven in a 1980 video. According to the description, it's "like ACORN versus the Tea Party but 30 years ago."

Reminders for the 4th

Thomas Sowell on the Fourth of July.

Rent control woes

Because of rent control, San Francisco, one of the most difficult places in the country to find a place to live, has 31,000 vacant housing units as landlords give up.

Thomas Sowell has long complained about rent control in San Francisco and elsewhere.

It is the same story when housing prices are controlled by government. Rent control has allowed some people to take up more housing space than they would if they had to pay the full price that reflects other people’s demand for housing.
The net result, whether in New York or San Francisco or elsewhere, is a lot of apartments with just one person living in each, and lots of families who cannot find a vacant place to move into. Housing shortages have resulted from rent control in cities around the world.
Housing shortages mean that some people are forced to live far from their jobs and commute, and some become homeless on the street. Homelessness tends to be greater in cities with rent control — New York and San Francisco again being classic examples.

I like this line:

Economists have long been saying that there is no free lunch but politicians get elected by promising free lunches. Controlling prices creates the illusion of free lunches.

Thomas Sowell on TSA security, so-called. The Obama administration has utter contempt for us.

New Deal or Raw Deal?

I meant to post a link to this Thomas Sowell column a day or so ago. He discusses a new book by Burton W. Folsom, Jr., called New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America. He spells out the failure of the Roosevelt administration to end the Depression of the 1930s and its consequences. We are following the same path. Should be informative.

Thomas Sowell has a new book, Dismantling America.

Thomas Sowell has a new book called Intellectuals and Society. He previews it here.

Thomas Sowell is always thought-prevoking.

Here is a math problem for you: Assume that the legislation establishing government control of medical care is passed and that it "brings down the cost of medical care." You pay $500 a year less for your medical care, but the new costs put on employers is passed on to consumers, so that you pay $300 a year more for groceries and $200 a year more for gasoline, while the new mandates put on insurance companies raise your premiums by $300 a year, how much money have you saved?

The Cost of Medical Care

Thomas Sowell: "We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is "too high"-- either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed by the government is likely to lower those costs, and much that is being proposed is almost certain to increase the costs."

And: "Despite all the demonizing of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies or doctors for what they charge, the fundamental costs of goods and services are the costs of producing them."

Telling it like it is

Thomas Sowell:

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.

Betsy's Page explains why Americans don't trust Obama's plans for health care reform, with help from George Will and Thomas Sowell.

Thomas Sowell: "The great escape of our times is escape from personal responsibility for the consequences of one's own behavior."

Thomas Sowell: "Are the problems created by the current [health care] situation worse than the problems that will be created by the pending legislation?"

An Ugly Truth

I’ve been reading about “death panels” (Section 1233), and I don’t know whether they will exist in the final version of ObamaCare or not. But here is what I do know:

Medical care is not a right, it has to be paid for like everything else; it is produced by limited resources. As the demand for something increases, costs will go up. Obama's objective is to expand health care services, but he also promises to hold down costs. But the law of supply and demand is still valid, and costs will rise. The only way government can contain costs is to refuse to pay for services. Your 80-year-old grandmother may not get that needed hip replacement. That’s called rationing. Supporters of ObamaCare don’t like to hear that word. They don’t like to face an ugly truth. But evidently they will not balk at denying your grandmother whatever they feel she doesn’t need, which some panel somewhere will decide. See The Ugly Truth of Obamacare. And Thomas Sowell's Alice in Medical Care.