Risk-sharing................

 The issue of "student debt" doesn't seem to be going away.  My parents paid for my education, my wife worked her way through school paying her own way,  and we paid for our kids' education. All of which may explain my lack of sympathy for those who find themselves deeply indebted by the acquisition of a degree that won't pay for itself.  Been reading stuff recently suggesting the radical notion that colleges should bear some responsibility and participate in the resolution of this problem.  Here is an interesting proposition from 2017.

The real issue, though, isn’t outright fraud — it’s that colleges are partially insulated from basic market forces, and they behave accordingly. They have financial incentives to enroll as many students as possible, and little incentive — or at least, little direct financial incentive — to ensure that those students will graduate on time and find jobs that pay well enough to repay their loans. The issue is particularly acute at less selective institutions including, but not limited to, for-profit colleges.

One proposed reform to the student loan system that has bipartisan support is known as risk-sharing. In its simplest form, a risk-sharing system would directly tie an institution’s finances to the outcomes of its students.

Smarter.......................

 more fun here

Yep......................

    more fun here

On treating your "to-do" list.................

 ....................................like a menu.

Worried but optimistic..............

............from this interview with Walter Russell Mead:

 As it turns out, the greatest danger to human beings is not the natural world; it’s not the polar bears, the great white sharks, and the tigers. The biggest danger is us and the very technology that enables us to survive, or manage, these natural catastrophes. So we are now in this totally new era. During the Enlightenment, we thought that we were escaping all of that, that we were moving toward a world of security and abundance. And now that we’ve reached it, it turns out there isn’t any security there after all.

a metaphor............................

 

In the game of bowling, your score depends on where you roll the ball. You either knock the pins down or you don’t.

For toddlers, bowling alleys invented bumper bowling.. If you roll a ball that would have landed in the gutter, scoring zero, it instead hits a bumper and ricochets toward the center of the lane. You get points every time, whether you are good at aiming the ball or not. I see bumper bowling as a metaphor for what our culture is looking like nowadays.

-Arnold Kling, from here

image via

On reading................

..............................or starting, but not worrying about finishing, a book:

 It should be ruthless, taking no prisoners and offering no mercy. Similar to dating, a book you’re not into after 10 minutes of attention has little chance of a happy ending. Slam it shut and move on. You’re not a failure if you quit a book after three pages anymore than if you reject the proposition of a 10-hour date with someone you just met who annoys you. Lots of fish in the sea.

Lately, I've fallen into the habit of reading the first chapter, then the last chapter, then deciding if I want to read the rest.  Seems to be a fairly effective sorting mechanism.

Memories.......................

 

Last evening........................

.............My Sweetie and I traveled to the wondrous Midland Theatre in downtown Newark to take in the Keb' Mo' show.  With no previous experience, we were unsure of what we would be listing to.  Wow! Great show, great talent, great music.  We are now fans.  A good time was had by all.

Keb' Mo'..........................Greatest Hits album

 

inspired...........................

 

Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

image via

In the background.........................

The Zombies...........................Greatest Hits album

 

attitude precedes outcome............

 "We want solutions, but what we really need are attitudes.  You don't need abs, but rather an attitude of training. You don't need the answer, but rather an attitude of curiosity. You don't need an easier life, but rather an attitude of perseverance.   Attitude precedes outcome.

-James Clear, from here 

Having fun with.............................

 ...................................historians:

. . . And what I found truthfully shocked me because I saw our society well on the road to crisis. Of course, our society is quite different from ancient Rome or medieval France and even pre-Civil War United States. But at a more abstract level, the drivers of instability were already working full throttle. So that was one of the reasons why I decided to publish this forecast. And I just want to emphasize that I’m not a prophet. This was a scientific prediction. 

BW: What was the reaction when you predicted that? 

PT: There was, frankly, disbelief, and it was tinged with a desire to think that I must be wrong because nobody wants to believe in bad predictions. People like Steven Pinker and Max Rosen were making all of these rosy predictions right around the same time. Those predictions were very popular because everybody wants to think there is going to be a happy ending to this story. So, the reaction to my prediction was negative, but it was fine because I had tenure at that point. One of the advantages of American academics is that once you have tenure, you can actually try dangerous, risky, intellectual strategies. And it was really quite remarkable. It was thrilling. 

It's a conundrum...................

 ..................Arnold Kling gives some thought to our health care system:

The most important policy problem is that people want unlimited access to medical services without having to pay for them. When the political system tries to accomplish this, the result is excessive spending on medical care.

Not feeling the love.............

.........................for the Intertunnel: 

. . . that sort of thing is just an extreme expression of what the internet is: a parasitic digital organism that feeds on human time and emotion, extracting money or attention through the most useless and shameless means possible.

a singular American ability............

 Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the early 1830s and famously proclaimed the emergence of Homo democraticus, a cheeky creature whose passion for equality and self-interest was tempered only by his ability to join fellow citizens in all manner of mutual associations for pragmatic benefit.  He may not have approved, but it was obvious to him that this was something unprecedented. . . . Democratic enthusiasm remained high among those who joined the Army of the West, but these were largely rural young men who had little experience in hierarchical organization, and they were about to enter one that was traditional and intentionally rigid.  Not unexpectedly. sparks would fly.  But the process of mutual accommodation proved unique and remarkable.  Other force structures in the Civil War faced similar challenged, but Sherman and his boys were together longer, faced a broader range of military problems, and were more consistently successful in solving them.

      The key was a new kind of military adaptability.  Change came not only top-down from an innovative commander, but bottom-up from the soldiers themselves.  In the process, Sherman and his men revealed what intellectual historian Joseph Kett has described as a singular 
American ability to reman creatively insubordinate within large organizations and still survive, even thrive.

-Robert L. O'Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

      

On doing great work..............

 The three most powerful motives are curiosity, delight, and the desire to do something impressive. Sometimes they converge, and that combination is the most powerful of all.

-Paul Graham, from this essay

Me too..................

 

If you had to develop a simple rubric for ex ante rating political candidates’ priorities and policies as reflected in their campaign platforms/agendas, what might that look like?

What I would most like to see is an awareness of the capacity for government to do damage: to intervene overseas in ways that have bad consequences; to have programs corrupted by special interests; and to undertake new initiatives without addressing the failures and mismanagement of older programs. Also, I really wish we had a candidate who had managed an organization larger than a Senate staff. Dwight Eisenhower is the only President of the past hundred years who I think appreciated the strengths and weaknesses of large organizations.

-Arnold Kling, from here

in the heat of the moment...............

      More significant, perhaps, for his fate as a strategist was a trait he first exhibited here in the face of overwhelming odds: He knew when to quit and cut his losses.  This is a much-overlooked military capacity: in the heat of the moment to retain sufficient objectivity to recognize the prospect of sure defeat and then to summon the self-control to reverse course and withdraw.  For some—Grant, for instance—this proved impossible.  But Sherman's military career was studded with such moments, epiphanies of defeat, and they were emblematic of his eventual success.  He came to realize that in war there would be good days and bad days, but the ultimate objectives must always remain paramount.

-Robert L. O'Connell, Fierce Patriot: The Tangles Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman

Freedom: 101

 1. Stop worrying about what others think: that’s an instant path to freedom.

2. Be sensitive; don’t judge. Take feed-back. But stay free; be your own mind.

3. Don’t 'dumb-down' your Life simply for the benefit of others.

4. Be your own personal version of amazing.

5. Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. Voltaire

6. Sort your finances: that’s a very simple path to freedom.

7. Save, then spend.

the remaining 94 are here.