Commentary - Sowell Economics
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Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize-winning economist, once went through the major U.S. government departments and said which ones should stay and which should go: • Department of Agriculture: Abolish • Department of Commerce: Abolish • Department of Defense: Keep • Department of Education: Abolish • Department of Energy: Abolish (move the nuclear/military piece under Defense) • Department of Health and Human Services: Cut in half (limited public health role only) • Department of Housing and Urban Development: Abolish • Department of the Interior: Sell off most government land, and abolish • Department of Justice: Keep • Department of Labor: Abolish • Department of State: Keep • Department of Transportation: Abolish • Department of Treasury: Keep (to collect taxes) • Department of Veterans Affairs: Pay veterans off, and abolish Result: roughly 14 departments down to about 4–5. Government’s real jobs, he said: defend the country, keep the peace, and protect people from being coerced by others. Everything else is outside its proper role.
Commentary - Sowell Economics183,421 Aufrufe • vor 8 Tagen
Nobody in the Arab world actually cares about the Palestinians. The Jordanians loathe them. The Egyptians loathe them. The Lebanese loathe them. Arab states have done nothing for them in 70 years. Yet the moment Israel acts, Muslims across the West flood the streets. Why? Because the real fuel is not Palestinian suffering — it’s hatred of Jews. That hatred hits something deeper than any other conflict.
Commentary - Sowell Economics491,885 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Thomas Sowell on Paul Krugman’s favorite inequality talking point. Krugman claimed that between 1979 and 2005, median household income rose only 13 percent while the top 0.1 percent rose nearly 300 percent. America, he said, is no longer a middle-class society. Sowell’s response is immediate: “All I have to hear is the word household income, and I know we’re not serious.” Households are not the same size. The bottom 20 percent contain 39 million people. The top 20 percent contain 64 million. Households have been getting smaller over time. When a household drops from three working adults to two and still earns the same total money, that is not stagnation — it is a 50 percent rise in per capita income. Per capita income always means one person. Household income is a political metric, not an economic one.
Commentary - Sowell Economics376,545 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Stephen Kotkin explains the real reason Marxism keeps attracting intellectuals and young people, even after the body count. It is not because the theory works. It is because it offers something far more seductive: total, rapid transformation and a special role for the intellectual class. In a market system, ordinary people make their own decisions. Under Marxism-Leninism, the intellectuals get to make the decisions for everyone. They become the engineers of society. Workers and peasants are treated as people with “false consciousness” who need to be led. The ideology flatters the people who believe they are smarter than the rest of society. That is why the blood does not put them off. The power is worth the cost.
Commentary - Sowell Economics458,769 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
This is a clip taken in 1972 of Ugandan citizens reacting to the expulsion of Asian Gujaratis in the country by Idi Amin. One citizen comments: “Asians are very shrewd people, and Africans have been denied opportunities.” Reminds me of this observation by Thomas Sowell: “Middleman minorities are most hated where they are most needed.”
Commentary - Sowell Economics304,481 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
.Kemi Badenoch says American racial narratives have flooded Britain. The language of BIPOC and critical race theory does not fit a country where the indigenous population is white and most minorities chose to come. She points out that she faced more ethnic discrimination in Nigeria than in the UK. "There is no universal black experience." People who do not fit the imported urban script are told they are not really black. A Labour MP called her "the black face of white supremacy" for leading the Conservatives. Her response is simple: she got there on merit, and the left has no explanation that does not involve conspiracy.
Commentary - Sowell Economics73,898 Aufrufe • vor 15 Tagen
Uganda expelled the Gujaratis in the 1970s. They were “too wealthy” and controlled too much of the economy. They left with almost nothing. A few years later they were prosperous in England. Uganda’s economy collapsed. You can seize shops and inventory. You cannot seize the knowledge that built them. Human capital walks out the door. The buildings stay empty.
Commentary - Sowell Economics261,897 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
Victor Davis Hanson on why Sowell is finally winning: He was treated unfairly for decades by the intellectual class. Condescending, leftist reviews. Caricatures. Isolation. He never wrote a long rebuttal. He just kept writing — blunt, clear, Anglo-Saxon English. No fluff. Noun-verb-predicate. YouTube made him unstoppable. Now young men of every race are finding him like water in the desert. He overwhelmed his critics with the sheer power and volume of the work. And he was right.
Commentary - Sowell Economics279,348 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
.Kemi Badenoch discovered Thomas Sowell by accident. At 24, a left-wing colleague mocked her for not knowing economics. She typed “basic economics” on Amazon and ordered the first book that appeared. She couldn’t put it down. It explained why the Nigeria she grew up in stayed poor. When The Vision of the Anointed arrived, she was surprised to see he was black. Unlike most prominent race commentators, Sowell only mentioned race when it was relevant. He treated it as a fact, not an identity.
Commentary - Sowell Economics39,217 Aufrufe • vor 15 Tagen
Thomas Sowell: "I was just doing some research on Detroit and it's decline, as they kept raising the city income tax, the revenues kept falling. Barack Obama was asked by Charles Gibson in 2008, why he wanted to raise the tax rate because he will raise more revenue if he does the opposite, and his response was that, 'it's a matter of social justice'. He didn't care about the consequences. If he can get people to be mad at the rich and vote for him, it's a political success. He doesn't care whether the government collects more revenues or not."
Commentary - Sowell Economics309,700 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
The press goes to the usual civil rights leaders (Vernon Jordan, Benjamin Hooks). Sowell’s difference is simple: he has no financial stake in the programs they defend. Those organizations depend on the money flowing from government. Whether the programs help blacks or harm them is secondary to keeping the funding. Sowell has more confidence in black people than the leaders do. He does not believe they need to be led by the hand or handed results by the state. Give the opportunity and they take it — as they always have.
Commentary - Sowell Economics130,694 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Konstantin Kisin says the single most important idea he ever learned came from Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions. Only trade-offs.” You’re not going to “solve” climate change. You’re not going to “solve” the NHS. You’re not going to “solve” poverty or free speech. Every policy has a cost. The real skill is choosing which costs you’re willing to accept — and being honest about them. We’ve completely lost that ability.
Commentary - Sowell Economics142,312 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Roland Fryer ran the numbers on millions of police encounters. Low-level force showed some racial bias. People liked that finding. Police shootings showed none. He expected the opposite. He hired a second team of eight researchers and got the same result. Colleagues told him not to publish. “You’ll ruin your career.” They wanted the convenient half of the paper and the inconvenient half buried. He published both. Then he bought diapers with an armed guard.
Commentary - Sowell Economics115,307 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Buckley asks Sowell why most black leaders ignore his kind of analysis. Sowell’s answer is blunt: They need political solutions to stay relevant as leaders — and victimization is the easiest explanation for failure. Then he drops the killer line: “Name me three Japanese American leaders.” No one can. Yet Japanese Americans advanced anyway. Leadership isn’t what moves groups forward. Skills and culture do.
Commentary - Sowell Economics109,216 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
Paul Krugman waves the inequality flag: median household income up only 13 percent while the top 0.1 percent soared 296 percent. America, he says, is no longer a middle-class society. Sowell’s response is immediate. The moment you hear “household income,” you know the argument is not serious. Households differ in size across time, across income levels, and across groups. The bottom fifth contains 39 million people. The top fifth contains 64 million. Households have been getting smaller. Three earners becoming two with the same total income is not stagnation — it is a 50 percent rise in per capita income. That is why people can afford to form their own households. Household numbers are political tools. Per capita numbers are reality.
Commentary - Sowell Economics31,159 Aufrufe • vor 20 Tagen
Hunter Maats on Joe Rogan explaining how Thomas Sowell has spent decades fighting racism — not by denying it exists, but by insisting culture matters more than most people want to admit. Joe Rogan He puts two groups of Black people side by side: West Indians (think Colin Powell) who succeed at high rates… and Southern African Americans whose communities struggle with education, violence, and poverty. Both groups endured slavery. Both face racism. So why the massive difference in outcomes? Sowell’s answer: Southern Blacks were largely stripped of their original African culture and absorbed the culture of the white Southern “rednecks” around them — the same low-trust, low-education, high-violence patterns. Even African American Vernacular English carries features from the West of England. Liberals hate this explanation. Sowell has never cared.
Commentary - Sowell Economics113,254 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten