Reply #70: not concerning ourselves with average

[orangeapple]

if we were, then there wouldn't be programs for the poor, since the 'average' household income is ~$50,000. What we're concerned with is the poorly performing schools, or more importantly, the students stuck in them.


First on the notion of school failure. There are better and poorer performing schools, no doubt. However, at no time in US history has the population had a higher percentage of high school graduates, bachelors, and advanced degrees. The schools on average are not doing as poorly as marketed.

But we have high school graduates who can't read. Calling them 'graduates' might make them feel better, but in too many cases we're not getting what we're paying for.


In a rational and reasonable market, tech bubbles, Enron, Worldcom, sub-prime mortagages, and the current crash in metals prices, do not exist.

A 'rational and reasonable market' doesn't have a central bank authorized to print dollars (claims on goods created from thin air with no corresponding production of goods). Greenspan's interference in the market rate of interest spawned and made possible the bubbles you mention.


But they do exist and always have.

No, not always, but if you look at the times governments have been authorized to manipulate the money supply such distortions have resulted. It's what is truly frightening about Bernanke's latest experiment of juicing the monetary base. But we're going far afield here from the question of school choice for parents/teachers.


The word "Ponzi Scheme" was invented long ago, coined to capture the scam Albert Ponzi pulled off. The "Great Depression" was only "Great" because it was larger than the previous depressions.

Ponzi scheme refers to Ponzi's method of taking 'investors' deposits, spending them, and promising returns that could only be paid by finding more suckers to 'invest'. Ponzi was a piker compared to the same scam our government has run in the name of providing social security.
It was 'Great' because it had the most government intervention in the economy since the founding of the Republic. Please don't buy into the myth of a laissez faire Hoover administration. If you're interested in resources on the matter I can provide them, but again, we're moving far away from the question of whether or not parents/students should be able to choose what school to go to.


Modern economists have studied the phenomena and have sorted one thing out with considerable precision, we humans are not rational.

Speak for yourself. Although I'd bet you do act rationally if you take a moment to examine it.


We cannot be expected to behave in a rational manner, because all of history point out that we don't on a regular and repeated basis.

I encourage you to take a closer look. The bubbles you speak of occur when the public, en masse, is mislead as to the true capital stock in the economy. This is done by manipulations of the interest rate and the money stock, which in a free economy transmit to all producers and consumers the relative scarcity and value of goods and services. It's only by government intervention (like cramming down interest rates or exploding the monetary base) that the public is mislead as to what value to ascribe savings, and whether capital can and should be consumed rather than invested.


Another place you are shooting blanks is the notion that government is poor at delivering services. Every attempt to privitize government services has cost more and produced less. Governments do not operate at a profit, so that 15 to 20 percent margin is not skimmed off to pay for the CEO's second lakefront home.

Do you understand the role that profits play in a market economy? They signal producers to the discrepancy between production and demand, and thereby encourage expansion of production and/or entry into that market by other producers to meet the demonstrated demand. Profits aren't 'skimmed off', they're left over after analyzing costs and sales. As more producers enter the market to earn profits higher supply leads to declining prices, and profits. If you were to eliminate profits investors wouldn't know in which fields to increase production.


Secondly the notion that governments can't calculate is cold war era nonsense. The Soviet Socialist system did have a hard time, but "just in time inventory" had not been invented and they were not exactly computing in the cloud, more like paper double entry ledgers and green eyeshades. Wal Mart runs a bigger economy just fine these days, and I have never been to one that was out of toilet paper. This is the current standard for "central planning", and they make toast and dine for breakfast on small "free market" competition.

Wal-mart isn't a central planner! Their prices are not set arbitrarily by GOSPLANners diktat, their prices are set by supply and demand. 'Just in time' inventory controls and the hyper-vigilance of their supply chain management are the products of capitalist investment. They don't issue orders in January for the number of rolls of toilet paper they expect to sell in 2011. Instead they respond immediately and decisively to a plethora of inputs. Incidentally, Wal-mart's profit margin has bounced between 2.5-5% over the last 10 years, spending most of its time between 3-4%. They make so much money because they serve so many millions of people effectively.
CNBC actually did a documentary on Wal-marts supply chain management. At their Arkansas HQ they actually observe weather patterns, and stock their stores in accordance with day to day changes. They mentioned on the show that areas under a hurricane watch experience an eight-fold increase in demand for strawberry pop-tarts, so they make sure that the trucks are appropriately loaded to meet the change in demand that a 'central planner' could never predict. Compare their response to FEMA's 'ice follies' and try to tell me that government management of resources is more reasonable and rational than the markets.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665434/ns/nightly_news-nbc_news_investigates/


I am not "superior" to anyone. They make their choices and I make mine.

My point is, you're denying others the opportunity to make a choice, and trying to sell it to me on the basis that they won't make the 'right' choice in your view.


But when you are talking about social engineering on the scale of redesigning the public education system, it is actually good to pay attention to the choices people really make,

I say let's see what choices they make when we provide them the resources. You say they can't be trusted with that decision.


and not go off on broad based assumptions that they will behave as you expect and desire.

I don't have a 'desire' for them, except that they be given the opportunity to choose. You desire to keep them in bureaucratically controlled schools with no choice. I just want to let them choose whether they want that, or something different. I don't presume to anticipate all their choices.


Having worked in child abuse prevention, I can assure you that people are not rational and on more than just occasion, do not put their children's wellbeing at the sort of priority you and I might.

I worked for the DOH Child Protection Teams HQ from 2000-2002, and have provided support work for the Tallahassee Child Protection Team at 1801 Miccosukee Rd from 2003 to present. Incidentally, that service is contracted out to Children's Home Society, a charity that operates in our region. What percentage of people do you suppose abuse their children? Is your argument really that because a tiny percentage of the population is abusive that no one can be trusted?
"We can't let parents choose schools because some people are child molesters." Are you serious?! Should we even let parents take kids home from government schools, given the clear and present danger you've identified!?