Category: Current Affairs
Hayek in Jacobin
Here’s something I never expected to write: Jacobin, the magazine of the DSA-aligned left, has a good article on central planning. In an interview, Vivek Chibber lays out essentially the Mises–Hayek–Kornai critique of central planning. Information problems, incentive problems and the consequent failures are laid bare. Moreover, Chibber refuses to lay the blame at the feet of Stalin, poverty, or the Russians. Nor does he wave hopefully at supercomputers and AI, as is fashionable today on the planning-curious left:
The dilemma is this. There is a problem of information. Supercomputers will in fact help process information better. But if the information coming in is junk, and if that junk is built into the system because of the incentives that operators have in workplaces to lie, you will not have a planning system that can be put on its feet through the advent of computers or artificial intelligence or anything like that. I don’t see any reason to think that that strategic misalignment of incentives is simply there because of Russian backwardness or poverty.
Even the pedestrian is shocking coming from Jacobin:
Normally in capitalism, what do managers do? They want to make profits. The way to make a profit is by trying to sell, at the lowest price possible, the best-quality good that you can.
A vivid conclusion:
Melissa Naschek: What do you think leftists should learn from the failure of fully planned economies?
Vivek Chibber: What they should learn is that the burden of proof is on us, on the Left, if we want to continue with this slogan of replacing the market with the plan. The burden of proof is on us to show that it can work. You might say that along with this ought to come a kind of humility about facts and about the world.…it would be criminally negligent to ignore the experience of decades upon decades of planning and say to yourself, “Well, that wasn’t what my vision of socialism is, so I’m going to ignore it.” Because if you do that, I can guarantee 100 percent you will end up repeating many of the mistakes and falling into the same dilemmas that the planners did.
I could offer critiques. Stalin was not an impediment to central planning but a consequence of it. And to warn that ignoring the experience of central planning risks repeating “the same dilemmas that the planners did” is a bloodless way to describe dictatorship, famine, and mass murder. But that would be churlish. Let me end instead by saying that I agree with this:
If we’re actually serious about changing the world, people on the Left … should be the most remorseless and the most merciless when it comes to facts.
Replace “people on the Left” with “we” and the line is exactly right.
How Much Has Shale Gas Saved U.S. Consumers?
Every US president since Nixon has called for freeing the US from ‘dependence on foreign oil’ (within ten years!). Every president has failed. Fracking, however, has delivered the goods. Fracking has reduced the price of energy, reduced net emissions of greenhouse gases and turned the US into an energy exporter.
In How Much Has Shale Gas Saved U.S. Consumers? Lucas Davis compare LNG prices in the US ($5.3 Mcf), Europe ($14.4 Mcf) and Japan ($16.1 Mcf) to offer some plausible back of the envelope calculations:
Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling caused U.S. natural gas production to increase significantly, and the U.S. went from being a net importer of natural gas to being the world’s largest exporter. This paper calculates how much shale gas has saved U.S. natural gas consumers. Using price differences between the United States, Europe and Japan, we calculate that U.S. natural gas consumers have saved $4.5-$5.3 trillion between 2007 and 2025, equivalent to $237-$276 billion annually. Access to low-price U.S. natural gas has been particularly valuable during major supply shocks such as the war in Ukraine, and the benefits of shale gas have been experienced broadly across sectors and states.
Why are stock prices still so high?
That is the topic of my latest Free Press column, here is one excerpt, with the general theme that plenty is going well in the global economy:
A second important fact is that American presidents, whether Democrat or Republican, usually have very little influence on the economy. That is a hard truth for people to hear, since partisan sentiments often run strong, especially when it comes to President Trump. Yet the research literature is clear that most business cycles are not caused by presidents.
As for the current cycle, the core reality is that our economy continues to hum along. Yes, gas prices above $4 a gallon cause dismayed news stories and consumer worry. But energy prices have less influence on the overall economic picture than they once did. The chances of a recession have been falling, and a recent jobs report showed strong progress in hiring.
Of course the Trump administration will take credit for such developments, but mostly they are due to underlying structural factors.
And this:
During the current war, many parts of the global economy have shown more resilience and fortitude than might have been expected. Stocks in South Korea at first plummeted 20 percent, due largely to its dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Today, the Korean stock market, pushed along by the chip-making achievement of Samsung and memory maker SK Hynix, is reaching new highs.
…In previous times, sharp oil price hikes often brought catastrophe to the economies of Latin America. These days Latin American government bonds have held up well and are even considered a safe haven.
Recommended.
The UAP report so far
I will stick with my earlier Free Press predictions:
The fact remains that, if you talk with insiders, they will confirm that the federal government faces some big mysteries. It seems that we have data on what appear to be craft that move very fast, have no visible means of propulsion, and can accelerate in a surprising manner. Radar, infrared, and other forms of data are cited to varying degrees, plus there are eyewitness pilot reports, broadly consistent with what our instruments are telling us.
And this:
Assuming a reasonable chunk of the data are declassified, I think we will simply see more of the same kind of material we’ve seen in the past: more data on entities that appear to move very quickly and in mysterious ways, but with no real explanations. We will see, as I’ve argued before, that the government itself does not know what is going on, and has been afraid to admit that. That may be the real “conspiracy” and why the veil of secrecy has been relatively difficult to pierce.
As of yesterday, there are plenty of additional videos of what seem to be glowing orbs moving fast and in unpredictable ways. Or try this one. Here is another weird one. Or try this. And another one, near military craft. And what is this?
One thing we can conclude is that the debunkers, who have been suggesting this is all camera tricks, parallax issues, or people not understanding how videos work, are proven wrong in general, even though they are right about some particular cases. On that point we can move on, as I have been arguing for some while. Mick West is not your proper guide here.
Nonetheless we still do not know what it all means, and I do not see proof of anything in particular.
I also will stress my earlier point that we are not going to see alien bodies or alien technologies, or anything meaningful connected to Roswell. That is sheer fantasy, or sometimes locos.
340 million hits in the first twelve hours? More people will be believing in aliens in any case, I suspect. Or will it be demons?
It is fashionable in the comments sections of blogs to call this topic a waste of time, but the serious people in the military and national security — most of whom do not cite alien presence — do not see it that way.
And they will be releasing more materials. These materials are being released because some subsection of “the Deep State” wants to know what is going on. As do I.
Public Choice Outreach!
Just a few spots left! Lots of great speakers including Tyler, myself, Bryan Caplan, Robin Hanson, Jon Klick, Shruti Rajagopalan and more.
Please apply and encourage your students to apply.
Rose Farts and the Invisible Hand
In Modern Principles, Tyler and I show the invisible hand by telling the story of how the increase in oil prices in the 1970s encouraged millions of adjustments in how goods were produced and allocated, everything from an increased use of brick for driveways to a movement of the flower market from the US, which relied on heating greenhouses, to warmer climes like Columbia and Kenya. See the I, Rose video!
The FT has an amusing update:
“When my sheep break wind, it smells of roses,” he said, recounting one of the more bizarre and far-flung consequences of the decision by US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bomb Iran in February.
Since Tehran hit back by firing drones and missiles at US allies in the Gulf — grounding cargo flights and closing off the Strait of Hormuz through which booming east African trade with the region used to flow — Mahihu has been forced to jettison millions of rose stems.
Pro-Development Environmentalists
The Breakthrough Institute (BTI) found that “just 10 organizations initiated 35% of the total NEPA cases brought by NGOs.” The Sierra Club and its local chapters alone were responsible for more than 14% of these lawsuits. The dominance of a small number of groups is more pronounced in forest management and energy cases; only 10 groups filed 67% and 48% of these cases, respectively. In BTI’s “The Procedural Hangover: How NEPA Litigation Obstructs Critical Projects” follow-up, which expanded the analysis to district and circuit court NEPA cases, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Center for Biological Diversity were responsible for 24% of all litigation against public lands management decisions.
To paraphrase Alex Tabarrok, federal environmental agencies seem to exist to manage the obsessions of a tiny number of neurotic—and possibly malicious—environmental NGOs.
Grant Mulligan’s excellent post shows in detail how environmental groups use the courts to block projects—including environmental projects. But Mulligan finds that a disproportionate share of the lawsuits come from a handful of relatively small organizations. A textbook case of the tyranny of the complainers.
The lawsuits give environmentalists a bad name but the key point is that many environmental groups are not reflexively anti-development.
What are the largest environmental groups doing with their money if not suing to stop development? Two of the three biggest, the Wildlife Conservation Society and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, primarily operate zoos. Land trusts like TNC, The Conservation Fund, and Ducks Unlimited protect land directly. Many also work on research and policy to varying degrees. Contrary to the typical narrative, many operate pro-market, abundance-style projects.
TNC has several programs that align with the abundance agenda. TNC’s Power of Place research and policy work is aimed at facilitating the build-out of renewable energy and transmission infrastructure. The idea behind the research is to identify and speed the permitting and development of renewable energy projects that won’t interfere with important conservation areas. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) used the research as part of its Western Solar Plan, which aims to promote solar development on public land. TNC also wants permitting reform, and their mapping efforts are an example of what environmentalism that builds could look like — identify critical habitats that need protecting and guard them closely while unleashing building everywhere else.4
While the tyrannical minority has held up forest management projects, TNC has been an advocate and practitioner of forest thinning and prescribed burns to prevent catastrophic wildfires for more than 60 years. In California, they’re part of a coalition working to thin millions of acres of overgrown forests.
TNC isn’t alone. Audubon’s renewables siting work, Ducks Unlimited’s water infrastructure projects, and the Conservation Fund’s Working Lands programs all follow the same pattern of balancing environmental protections with economic imperatives. Plenty of green groups agree, as Larry Selzer, Conservation Fund’s President and CEO, says in Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, “we have to build, and build, and build.”
I’m not trying to defend all the choices of TNC or suggest that the big environmental NGOs don’t promote their share of bad policies. I had plenty of discussions with degrowthers when I worked at TNC that made me want to pull my hair out. I’ve also written about the need for environmentalism to be more positive-sum in frustration over zero-sum environmental positions. But on the whole, environmentalists have been made too convenient a villain by abundance advocates. Environmentalists aren’t as uniformly obstructionist, degrowth, and misanthropic as commonly believed.5
Understanding that only a vocal minority of environmentalists are anti-progress, procedural complainers is important because abundance advocates and environmentalists aren’t natural enemies—and assuming they are serves neither side.
The economic rise of Latin America?
When the world goes looking for shelter during an oil war, the destinations are predictable: the dollar, gold, short-term Treasuries. Nobody puts Latin American sovereign bonds on that list.
Yet as the dollar surged in March, the region’s average sovereign spread didn’t move. There was no contagion. The reason is structural, not lucky: as net commodity exporters borrowing in their own currencies, these governments earned more dollars from the crisis than they owed. This reflects, too, the shift in borrowing profile. Brazil issues 96 per cent of its sovereign debt in reals, for example. Mexico, more than 80 per cent in pesos.
And in the first quarter, with the Iran war already under way, Brazilian local bonds returned 7.3 per cent in dollar terms. Colombia, 4.2. Even Mexico, the regional laggard, eked out 0.3. All three carry the same “emerging market” label as Thailand, which fell 7.2 per cent, and India, which lost 5.9. Between the Brazilian and Thai bonds, there was a difference of nearly 15 percentage points in performance.
The first explanation for the disparities is geography. Asia takes 84 per cent of the crude that flows through Hormuz; Latin America takes virtually none…
Every oil shock in modern history has broken Latin American bonds — 1973, 1979, 1990, 2008. The sequence was always the same: a crisis drove the dollar up, commodity revenues collapsed and governments that had borrowed in dollars they could not print were left holding the bill. That was the original sin. And now it is mostly gone.
Here is more from Erika Mouynes at the FT.
HUD Says Realtors Can Now Speak the Truth
HUD: The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to real estate professionals clarifying they are not violating the Fair Housing Act when they share information with prospective homebuyers about neighborhood crime rates and school quality data.
“Buying a home is one on the most significant decisions a family will ever make,” said Secretary Scott Turner. “Americans should not be left in the dark about vital facts like neighborhood safety or school quality. HUD is making clear that real estate professionals can openly and lawfully provide this information in an equal and consistent manner to American families.”
The background is that The Fair Housing Act of 1968 prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin (and via later amendments) familial status, and disability. Discrimination included “steering” buyers toward or away from neighborhoods based on protected characteristics. The Biden administration ramped this up with a directive and Executive Order that essentially said the Fair Housing Act must be interpreted not just to prohibit discrimination but to redress and undo past discrimination:
This is not only a mandate to refrain from discrimination but a mandate to take actions that undo historic patterns of segregation and other types of discrimination and that afford access to long-denied opportunities.
…the [HUD] Secretary shall take any necessary steps,…to implement the Fair Housing Act’s requirements that HUD administer its programs in a manner that affirmatively furthers fair housing and HUD’s overall duty to administer the Act (42 U.S.C. 3608(a)) including by preventing practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect.
The “discriminatory effect” language reinforced that so-called disparate impact, not just intentional discrimination counted as discriminatory—and it contributed to a legal and reputational environment in which platforms and agents had strong incentives to avoid anything that could be characterized as steering. As a result, by the end of the year, Realtor.com had removed its crime map from all search results, as did Trulia, Redfin announced it would not add crime data to its platform and since Zillow already didn’t include such data, by early 2022 all the major portals had dropped crime information. Similarly, the National Association of Realtors published material instructing agents not to directly answer client questions about neighborhood safety. One article in “The Safety Series” was titled “‘Is This a Safe Neighborhood?’ Don’t Answer That” and by “Safety Series” they meant safety for the realtor not the client.
So without explicitly making such information illegal, the government created a legal and reputational climate that chilled its provision. Portals removed crime maps and realtors became reluctant to answer ordinary buyer questions about neighborhood safety and school quality. That is a degradation of service, not a civil-rights victory. The pretext was that crime information might not be accurate but the real fear was that it would accurately suggest neighborhoods with high percentages of black residents had more crime. Withholding information about crime and schools, however, does not change the facts; it just shifts the informational advantage toward buyers who are wealthy, well-connected, or sophisticated enough to find the data themselves. Moreover, it should go without saying that black homebuyers also want information about neighborhood crime rates–don’t these buyers count? Suppressing truthful information is rarely a good way to improve outcomes. As with Ban the Box, blocking direct access to relevant information encourages worse proxy-based decision-making.
Trump’s HUD is correct: fair housing law should prohibit discrimination, not prevent realtors from telling the truth.
The Pernicious Trade Account
The trade accounts are among the most pernicious statistics ever collected. It’s long been remarked, for example, that merely by calling something a “deficit” it seems bad even though a current account deficit is matched by a financial account surplus. Put that issue aside, however, because the real problems are much deeper. The international accounts make it appear that individuals, in their ordinary buying and selling, bind us all in a collective endeavor. The accounts take millions of voluntary, mutually beneficial transactions between individuals and firms and repackage them as a relationship between nations—as if “America” were buying from “China”. Many, many experts get this wrong—not just non-economists who are misled by terms like “deficits.”
Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek gives a truly excellent example in replying to a reader who asks:
The USA ran trade deficits for 50 years. Those were offset by foreigners’ investments in the USA. Foreigners expect returns on these investments. Doesn’t it mean Americans eventually have to pay those returns to foreigners?
Don’s answer:
No.
The only Americans who are obliged to pay anything to foreigners are Americans who borrowed money from foreigners. (This number includes U.S. citizens-taxpayers whose government borrowed money from foreigners.) But no such obligation exists for other investments that foreigners made in the U.S. – those other investments being equity investments in the U.S. (for example, foreigners buying a restaurant in Houston), purchases of real estate in the U.S., and holding U.S. dollars.
If, for example, the foreign-owned restaurant in Houston goes bankrupt, the loss is fully borne by its foreign owners; no American is obliged to pay anything on that account to foreigners.Of course, foreigners do expect positive returns on all of their U.S. investments, regardless of form. But with the exception of Americans’ repayment of principal and interest on funds that they borrowed from foreigners, no returns that foreigners earn on their investments in America are paid by Americans. If the foreign-owned restaurant in Houston is profitable, those profits are newly created wealth – wealth that’s created by that restaurant’s foreign owners.
In the international commercial accounts, when the restaurant’s foreign owners realize returns on their restaurant – say, by being paid dividends drawn on that restaurant’s profits – it appears that Americans are paying foreigners. This appearance comes from the fact that dollars flow from the U.S. to abroad, and so are recorded as payments from America to a foreign country or countries. But this appearance is misleading. America, as such, doesn’t pay those returns to the restaurant’s foreign owners. Nor do any flesh-and-blood Americans pay those returns. Those returns, again, are new wealth created by the restaurant’s foreign owners; economically, those returns are paid to the restaurant’s foreign owners by the restaurant’s foreign owners.
But the international commercial accounts mask this economic reality. What appears in the commercial accounts as payments by America to foreign countries are no such thing. This accounting mistakes geography for economic reality. Untold confusion is unleashed by supposing that, just because these dollar-denominated returns are created in the U.S. and then sent abroad to foreigners, these dollar-denominated returns are necessarily paid by Americans to foreigners.
As Don says, the trade accounts commit a kind of category error: they categorize geographic location, a where, and treat it as a who, as if “nations” traded. But nations don’t trade, people trade. This confusion wouldn’t matter too much if the statistics stayed in the back pages of government reports. But they don’t. They land on the front page, they shape policy, and they frame negotiations. When a president claims that “we lost $500 billion” to “crazy trade” with China, he is reading the international accounts as a story about nations in competition. The accounting creates the narrative. the narrative creates the policy. Bad accounting leads to bad policy. We would, in fact, all be better off if the trade accounts simply disappeared.
From the UAE
Under the directives of the President of the UAE, we launch a new government model.
Within two years, 50% of government sectors, services, and operations will run on Agentic AI, making the UAE the first government globally to operate at this scale through autonomous systems.
AI is no longer a tool. It analyses, decides, executes, and improves in real time. It will become our executive partner to enhance services, accelerate decisions, and raise efficiency.
This transformation has a clear timeline. Two years. Performance across government will be measured by speed of adoption, quality of implementation, and mastery of AI in redesigning government work.
We are investing in our people. Every federal employee will be trained to master AI, building one of the world’s strongest capabilities in AI-driven government.
Implementation will be overseen by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, with a dedicated taskforce chaired by Mohammad Al Gergawi driving execution.
The world is changing. Technology is accelerating. Our principle remains constant. People come first. Our goal is a government that is faster, more responsive, and more impactful.
Here is the link. While there is typically a certain amount of PR in such pronouncements, I do not think this one is only PR.
Those old factory sector jobs
As AI sweeps into white-collar workplaces, old-timey hands-on jobs are getting a new look—and some of those professions even have shortages.
Consider tailors. Sewing is a vanishing skill, much like lacemaking and watchmaking, putting tailors in short supply when big retailers like Nordstrom and Men’s Wearhouse, as well as fashion designers and local dry cleaners, say they need more of them.
The job, which can take years to master, can be a tough sell to younger generations more accustomed to instant gratification. But apprenticeships that offer pay to learn on the job and new training programs are helping entice more people…
For the first semester of its program, which concluded in December, FIT received more than 190 applications for 15 spots. The nine-week course requires prior sewing experience. Nordstrom hired seven students from the inaugural class.
“It’s increasingly becoming more challenging to find people to fill these alterations jobs,” said Marco Esquivel, the director of alterations and aftercare services at Nordstrom, which employs about 1,500 tailors. Similar to other high-end retailers, Nordstrom offers free basic tailoring for garments purchased at the department-store chain and charges a fee for those bought elsewhere.
Tailored Brands, which employs about 1,300 tailors at its Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Bank and other chains, is updating its apprenticeship program to include more self-guided videos with the goal of moving people through the training faster.
Here is more from Suzanne Kapner at the WSJ. Via LJ Fenkell.
The Luddites Were the First to Attack AI
Everyone knows the Luddites smashed looms. What is less appreciated is that the loom was the first serious programmable device — the direct ancestor of the computer. Thus, the Luddites weren’t just the first to resist automation. They were in some ways the first to attack AI.
The Jacquard loom, introduced in France circa 1805, used a chain of punched cards to control which threads were raised for each pass of the shuttle. The ability to change the pattern of the loom’s weave by simply changing cards was an important conceptual precursor to computer programming. Babbage borrowed the idea directly for the Analytical Engine in the 1830s.
The Luddites lost–they were violently suppressed by the UK military–but more generally they lost because programmable looms brought patterned clothes to the masses.
Prior to its invention, the creation of complex patterns required skilled and labour-intensive manual labour, often involving large teams of weavers. With the Jacquard loom, a single operator could control the machine and produce intricate designs with relative ease.
This innovation greatly increased the speed and efficiency of textile production. It also opened up new possibilities for creativity and design, as the loom enabled the production of intricate patterns that were previously unattainable. The Jacquard loom contributed to the democratization of textile manufacturing, making intricate fabrics accessible to a wider audience
By the time Jacquard died in 1834, thousands of his looms were operating in Manchester, an epi-center of the Luddites riots. Moreover, just over 100 years later, Manchester birthed the Manchester Baby and the Manchester Mark 1, the first electronic stored-program computer. And who was hired to program the latter? None other than Alan Turing.
Ada Lovelace had foretold it all beautifully: “the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves.”
Addendum: I thank Claude for assistance on this post.
Zimbabwe facts of the day
Zimbabwe, often considered an economic basket-case because of its history of farm seizures and hyperinflation, is enjoying an idiosyncratic boom. High prices for the metal and other commodities have led to a surge of cash through its highly informal economy. They have made it easier for authorities to stop printing money and meddling in currency markets; inflation is at its lowest in about 30 years. The IMF has repeatedly revised upwards estimates for economic growth, most recently to at least 7.5% for 2025, almost double the African average…
Gold is not the only source of growth. The current tobacco crop will be the largest on record. Lithium, chrome and platinum miners, many of them Chinese, have raised production. Zimbabwe’s diaspora, mainly in South Africa, sent back $2.5bn last year. So overall demand is higher than ever, says a banker.
Here is more from The Economist. We are told that the private vault sector is booming too.
Eight Rules to Regain Public Trust in Academia
The Yale Report was quite good but for concision I prefer Kevin Bryan’s Eight Rules:
1. Produce and Teach Useful Knowledge
Universities exist to generate and teach useful knowledge. This knowledge is grounded in skeptical inquiry, empirical evidence, and logical deduction. “Useful” includes not only practical applications but also fundamental discoveries that expand our understanding of the world, even if their benefits are long-term.
2. Be Useful to All of Society
Universities are subsidized only if society at large finds them valuable. Research may take time to bear fruit, but its insights should ultimately serve the public good, communicated openly and accessibly, and presented with epistemic humility. Teaching should be done with care and draw on up-to-date research.
3. Attract Talent from All of Society
Useful knowledge can be created by people from any social or economic background. Do not waste talent. Do not select talent based on who knows “how to play the game”. Avoid insular language or norms that deter people from entering research.
4. Neutral, Objective Research Produces Useful Knowledge
Research must be neutral and objective. It is true that everyone has their individual background and preferences; nonetheless, unbiased research is still possible. Tradition, folk knowledge, and storytelling all play an important roles in society, but they are not the purpose of universities. There is no “Western science” or culturally-determined “ways of knowing”. Rather, research is open to all and can be performed identically regardless of background.
5. Hire, Promote, and Cite Based on Knowledge Contribution
Hiring, promotion, and citation must be based on an individual’s contribution to knowledge. Nepotism, group preferences, and adherence to specific “schools of thought” corrupt this process. When advancement is not based on merit, the public rightly questions our integrity and the objectivity of our findings.
6. Keep Personal Views Out of Research and Teaching
A scholar’s personal politics should be invisible in their research and teaching. If a finding is predictable based on the author’s identity or known views, the process has failed. Objectivity is the hallmark of credible science. Academics may hold private beliefs like anyone else, but their academic work must stand apart from them.
7. Research Fraud is Unacceptable
Fraud destroys trust. Misrepresentation of results, selective reporting, or methods designed to publish rather than to discover are also harmful. Proven fraud must bring immediate dismissal, as it violates the core purpose of academia.
8. Scientific Institutions Should Be Apolitical
Universities, journals, and scientific societies must remain non-partisan. Their public statements must be rare, restricted to issues of direct expert consensus, and made only when silence would be a greater threat to their integrity than speaking. Activism sacrifices credibility for influence – or worse yet, sacrifices credibility and influence alike.
I would add 9) Grades must be objective and useful discriminators of talent.