Posts By Author » Thomas Sowell

Shepherds and Sheep
26 Feb 2013 12:07 am

John Stuart Mill’s classic essay “On Liberty” gives reasons why some people should not be taking over other people’s decisions about their own lives. But Professor Cass Sunstein of Harvard has given reasons to the contrary. He cites research showing “that people make a lot of mistakes, and that those mistakes can prove extremely damaging.”
Professor Sunstein is undoubtedly correct that “people make a lot of mistakes.” Most of us can look back over our own lives and see many mistakes, including some that were very damaging.
What Cass Sunstein does not …

Guns and Pensions
19 Feb 2013 12:10 am

A nation’s choice between spending on military defense and spending on civilian goods has often been posed as “guns versus butter.” But understanding the choices of many nations’ political leaders might be helped by examining the contrast between their runaway spending on pensions while skimping on military defense.
Huge pensions for retired government workers can be found from small municipalities to national governments on both sides of the Atlantic. There is a reason. For elected officials, pensions are virtually the ideal thing to spend money on, politically speaking. Many kinds of …

Random Thoughts
12 Feb 2013 12:08 am

Random thoughts on the passing scene:
I can’t get excited by the question of whether Senator Robert Menendez had sex with a prostitute in Central America. It is her word against his — and when it comes to a prostitute’s word against a politician’s word, that is too close to call.
If an American citizen went off to join Hitler’s army during World War II, would there have been any question that this alone would make it legal to kill him? Why then is there an uproar about killing an American citizen who …

Prophets and Losses: Part II
6 Feb 2013 12:02 am

People on both sides of tax issues often speak of such things as a “$300 billion tax increase” or a “$500 billion tax decrease.” That is fine if they are looking back at something that has already happened. But it can be sheer nonsense if they are talking about a proposed increase or decrease in the tax rate.
The government can only raise or lower the tax rate. Whether the actual tax revenues that the government will collect as a result will go up or down is a matter of prophecy. …

Prophets and Losses
5 Feb 2013 12:07 am

Now that the federal government is playing an ever larger role in the economy, a look at Washington’s track record seems to be long overdue.
The recent release of the Federal Reserve Board’s transcripts of its deliberations back in 2007 shows that their economic prophecies were way off. How much faith should we put in their prophecies today — or the policies based on those prophecies?
Even after the housing market began its collapse in 2006, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in 2007, “The impact on the broader economy and financial …

Whose Welfare?
30 Jan 2013 12:02 am

If there is ever a contest for the law with the most grossly misleading title, the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 should be a prime candidate, because the last thing this Act protects is the welfare of Indian children.
The theory behind the Indian Child Welfare Act is that an American Indian child should be raised in an American Indian culture.
Based on that theory, a newborn baby of American Indian ancestry, who was adopted immediately after birth by a white couple, was at 27 months of age taken away from …

Shouting Louder
29 Jan 2013 12:07 am

An old-time trial lawyer once said, “When your case is weak, shout louder!”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration’s story last fall that the September 11th attack on the U.S. ambassador’s quarters in Benghazi was due to an anti-Islamic video that someone in the United States had put on the Internet, and thereby provoked a protest that escalated into violence.
She shouted: “We had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night …

Do Gun Control Laws Control Guns?
22 Jan 2013 12:11 am

The gun control controversy is only the latest of many issues to be debated almost solely in terms of fixed preconceptions, with little or no examination of hard facts.
Media discussions of gun control are dominated by two factors: the National Rifle Association and the Second Amendment. But the over-riding factual question is whether gun control laws actually reduce gun crimes in general or murder rates in particular.
If, as gun control advocates claim, gun control laws really do control guns and save lives, there is nothing to prevent repealing the Second …

Liberalism Versus Blacks
15 Jan 2013 12:08 am

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?
San Francisco is a classic example of a city unexcelled in its liberalism. But the black population of San Francisco today is less than half of what it was back in 1970, even though the city’s total population has grown.
Severe restrictions on building housing in San Francisco have driven rents and home prices so high that blacks and other people with …

The Role of ‘Educators’
8 Jan 2013 12:07 am

Many years ago, as a young man, I read a very interesting book about the rise of the Communists to power in China. In the last chapter, the author tried to explain why and how this had happened.
Among the factors he cited were the country’s educators. That struck me as odd, and not very plausible, at the time. But the passing years have made that seem less and less odd, and more and more plausible. Today, I see our own educators playing a similar role in creating a mindset that …

Happy New Year?
1 Jan 2013 12:09 am

The beginning of a new year is often a time to look forward and look back. The way the future looks, I prefer to look back — and depend on my advanced age to spare me from having to deal with too much of the future.
If there are any awards to be given to anyone for what they did in 2012, one of those rewards should be for prophecy, if only because prophecies that turn out to be right are so rare.
With that in mind, my choice for the prediction …

Random Thoughts
25 Dec 2012 12:04 am

Random thoughts on the passing scene:
When I was growing up, an older member of the family used to say, “What you don’t know would make a big book.” Now that I am an older member of the family, I would say to anyone, “What you don’t know would fill more books than the Encyclopedia Britannica.” At least half of our society’s troubles come from know-it-alls, in a world where nobody knows even 10 percent of all.
Some people seem to think that, if life is not fair, then the answer is …

“Forward” to the Past?
19 Dec 2012 12:02 am

The political slogan “Forward” served Barack Obama well during this year’s election campaign. It said that he was for going forward, while Republicans were for “going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place.”
It was great political rhetoric and great political theater. Moreover, the Republicans did virtually nothing to challenge its shaky assumptions with a few hard facts that could have made those assumptions collapse like a house of cards.
More is involved than this year’s political battles. The word “forward” has been a …

Invincible Ignorance
18 Dec 2012 12:08 am

Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of “gun control” advocates?
The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.
If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.
Places and times with the …

Taxing the Poor
12 Dec 2012 12:10 am

With all the talk about taxing the rich, we hear very little talk about taxing the poor. Yet the marginal tax rate on someone living in poverty can sometimes be higher than the marginal tax rate on millionaires.
While it is true that nearly half the households in the country pay no income tax at all, the apparently simple word “tax” has many complications that can be a challenge for even professional economists to untangle.
If you define a tax as only those things that the government chooses to call a tax, …

Christmas Books
11 Dec 2012 12:06 am

During the holidays, a shopping mall can be more like a shopping maul. One way to avoid that scene is to give books as Christmas gifts, since books can be bought on-line, painlessly.
A book that fits in with the holiday spirit is “No, They Can’t!” by TV show host John Stossel. It is written with a light touch, but gets across some pretty heavy stuff about economics. The title is a take-off on Obama’s old slogan, “Yes, we can!”
It is the first book I have read that asks a question …

Fiscal Cliff Notes: Part II
5 Dec 2012 2:02 am

One of the big advantages that President Obama has, as he plays “chicken” with the Congressional Republicans along the “fiscal cliff,” is that Obama is a master of the plausible lie, which will never be exposed by the mainstream media– nor, apparently, by the Republicans.
A key lie that has been repeated over and over, largely unanswered, is that President Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” cost the government so much lost tax revenue that this added to the budget deficit– so that the government cannot afford to allow the cost …

Fiscal Cliff Notes
4 Dec 2012 12:07 am

Amid all the political and media hoopla about the “fiscal cliff” crisis, there are a few facts that are worth noting.
First of all, despite all the melodrama about raising taxes on “the rich,” even if that is done it will scarcely make a dent in the government’s financial problems. Raising the tax rates on everybody in the top two percent will not get enough additional tax revenue to run the government for ten days.
And what will the government do to pay for the other 355 days in the year?
All the …

An Overdue Book
28 Nov 2012 12:02 am

If everyone in America had read Stephen Moore’s new book, “Who’s The Fairest of Them All?”, Barack Obama would have lost the election in a landslide.
The point here is not to say, “Where was Stephen Moore when we needed him?” A more apt question might be, “Where was the whole economics profession when we needed them?” Where were the media? For that matter, where were the Republicans?
Since “Who’s The Fairest of Them All?” was published in October, there was little chance that it would affect this year’s election. But this …

Jensen And Flynn
27 Nov 2012 12:08 am

Anyone who has followed the decades-long controversies over the role of genes in IQ scores will recognize the names of the two leading advocates of opposite conclusions on that subject– Professor Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California at Berkeley and Professor James R. Flynn, an American expatriate at the University of Otago in New Zealand.
What is so unusual in the academic world of today is that Professor Flynn’s latest book, “Are We Getting Smarter?” is dedicated to Arthur Jensen, whose integrity he praises, even as he opposes his …

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