It is rare that an Op-Ed is written praising an economist. It makes many good points but there is one unjustified slap:
Goolsbee no doubt has lots of dubious ideas — he is, after all, a Democrat — about how government can creatively fiddle with the market’s allocation of wealth and opportunity.
Does the use of "no doubt" mean Will actually knows this? But the next sentence comes and the piece closes on a different note altogether:
…he seems to be the sort of person — amiable, empirical and reasonable — you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.
Having read and cited much of Goolsbee’s work on taxation of the rich, I’m surprised to hear that Will could draw the conclusion (at least from his academic research) that Goolsbee believes the government can engage in wealth distribution.
While probably not right on topic with Goolsbee’s own writings, his observations along with those of many other statistics observers concerning the impact of diferring levels of education on “income disparities,” leaves out consideration the constant drop in the learning levels achieved through the high school level. Put another way, when there was a lesser disparity between incomes of high school and college graduates, the level of learning at high schools was higher. For some time now it has been lower, overall.
Community and “junior” colleges have been making up some of that deficit. Looking at simple time period correlations, the decline in learning levels may be tracked from Brown vs. Board, unpolitic as it may be to observe. However, we have not yet found a way to “level the field” except by leveling down, we can not level up, unless we bring in more material than existed before – of course, we did not do so, because it would have been impolitic to recognize that need for those added to the systems.
We may now be entering a time, when we can restore to some degree the previous effective levels of learning available to those 18 years of age and younger. Some of those efforts have begun at the primary levels, and will seep up into the secondary as student competence is increased in response to increased (or required) expectations of the broader public.
…he seems to be the sort of person — amiable, empirical and reasonable — you would want at the elbow of a Democratic president, if such there must be.
Actually, given the stridency of the people , economists and otherwise and nattending the last two Democrats to inhabit the whitehouse, especially the last (think the ragin’ cajun, Carville and the lie squad, Paul Krugman-yeah, amiable and reasonable would be desireable.
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