My habit of reading titles of books on bookshelves of journalists, etc.,
shows *Caste* appearing on the shelves of Judy Woodruff and Jonathan
Capehart. David Brooks sits too far from his bookshelf. I don’t recall
Sandel’s book showing up, but I first heard about him from Owen
Densmore, who watched Sandel’s course on Justice at Harvard.
On 2 Jul 2021, at 21:33, [email protected] wrote:
EricS,
Have you looked at Sandel’s Tyranny of Merit or Wilkerson’s Caste?
If on thinks hard enough about “merit” it becomes deeply
confusing. The idea of Merit is something that I got on my own,
right? So working back from now to birth whence exactly did I get
that merit. Even what I got from my genes was random right. At what
point do get to embrace my merit as of my own making? So far as me,
myself, is concerned, it’s all luck all the way down. That is what
the declaration of independence means when it says that all [humans]
are created equal.
Nick
Nick Thompson
<mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]
<https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/>
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Friday, July 2, 2021 7:47 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] of straw and steel
I think there is some version of this for college tuitions, too,
though I am partly muddy-headed and what I say next will probably fail
the logical map at some points.
The general idea is some combination of what is in Ginsberg’s book
https://www.amazon.com/Fall-Faculty-Benjamin-Ginsberg/dp/0199975434
but even more so in some article I read in J. Higher Ed or something
(which I have not succeeded in finding and I need now for other
projects), to the effect that:
1. There is been a massive cumulative re-allocation of money out of
need-based grants and to merit-based scholarships over the past 40
years or so.
2. Sounds good, of course: who could be against rewarding merit.
3. Except that, de facto, what one largely rewards is preparation,
which is a proxy for parental wealth and membership in one of the
culture’s preferred classes, races, regions, or what-have-you. The
part of this that I am pretty sure is in Ginsberg is also fishing for
parental wealth by building snazzy student centers, on-campus water
parks, etc. All that at enormous cost. The punchline of all this is
that WHEN THE BUSINESSMEN TAKE OVER THE CONCEPT OF THE UNIVERSITY, THE
UNIVERSITY BECOMES A BUSINESS. So, monies spent, such as tuition
deferment whether called grant or scholarships, is in their worldview
VENTURE CAPITAL. (That was what was in the JHE article.) And the
return that venture capital is seeking is parental tuition money.
So how does this map to Glen’s EricC’s comments: The nominal
tuition is very high (4x what it was in the 1970s, per faculty
actually teaching or doing research). That high tuition isn’t
actually cost-received from most parents, because a significant
fraction of it was spent either giving their kids scholarships,
building water parks and student centers, or whatever. However: if
they had given it in need-based grants, they wouldn’t be getting
_anything_ from the parents. So in the businessman’s world, the
investment gathered a maximized monetary profit, which was the
criterion for how to make it.
As in EricC’s point below, there will be some very rich parents with
kids so lazy or dull that they aren’t well-prepared even with
opportunities, so one can’t give them scholarships, and those will
pay the sticker price. Those are the ones who buy the article at $19,
or medical products or services at list price. High profit but small
margin on them.
In all the recent and ongoing conversations about tuition jubilee or
free college in the US, I worry that everything real and solvable gets
ruled out before we ever start, because the above characterization of
the real business model isn’t front and center. Not very different
for medical products and services (I am trying not to use the
completely bleached expression “health care”), though that has
been around long enough that a fuller story is not so uncommon to
find.
It is right that we have mortgaged a whole generation of kids with
unplayable tuition loans, and probably somebody should eat that cost.
Kind of like when German banks bought junk mortgage bonds in the US,
they should actually have been allowed to fail for having not done due
diligence, rather than being bailed out by a government that then had
to get the money to float them by leaning on somebody else (the Irish,
the Italians). That of course doesn’t really work for the reasons
correctly given in Minsky’s Ratchet
https://www.amazon.com/Stabilizing-Unstable-Economy-Hyman-Minsky/dp/0071592997
But the threat of it somehow should be used, while the problem is
building, to keep the banks doing due diligence, and to stop the
schools from hiking tuition and spending to profit on the margin, or
medical products and services skyrocketing as a negotiating point
against insurance companies, etc. The system either gets fixed as a
system, or not at all.
There must be a really great book somewhere, which gets the data and
the economics better than I can, and also explains this clearly enough
that it can be an everyman’s book. It’s messy and a bait
indirect, but it’s not so hard as to be incomprehensible. Does
anybody know such a book?
Eric
On Jul 3, 2021, at 5:51 AM, Eric Charles
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Something Glen's analysis, there are MANY things in the modern
economy that fit things model, including healthcare.
The insurance companies demand a steep discount in procedures.
The hospital's have costs to cover.
The only possible consequence is to dramatically increase the sticker
price. There hospital doesn't expect someone to pay that much for a
major procedure, they expect bulk buyers (i.e., insurance companies)
to drive buisness at ther bulk price. (If some random person does pay
sticker price every so often, all the better, but that's not ther
primary goal.)
Mattress companies, clothing stores, etc. that have massive sales
3/4th of the year are doing the same sort of thing.
See also my continuous complaints about the "Big Mac Index". Only a
small % of Big Macs in the U.S. are purchased at sicker price. The
sticker price is primarily intended as something to discount off of.
On Wed, Jun 30, 2021, 10:56 AM uǝlƃ ☤>$ <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Maybe. But remember, despite the prescriptive linguists out there: a)
"troll" is not an insult and b) it can be accidental.
All 3 of Russ' "people with grants", Barry's "rent seeking", and
Pieter's "publishing profits are bad for science" responses are a
trawler's delight! Rather than talk about the Strawman fallacy and
it's variations, we're talking ... [sigh] again ... about capitalism
and money.
Call it naivete if you want. But it was a very effective troll.
On 6/30/21 7:47 AM, [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
Oh, I see. The point is to make getting the individual item so
expensive that it just balances driving to the library (or doing ILL)
with subscribing to the Journal. It's pure manipulation; costs have
nothing to do with it.
Glen, I think you persistently confuse naivete with trolling.
--
☤>$ uǝlƃ
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,vtRPbIZSETq04zfwBbWd3LYgUEX1_KVE5DcT3mtOL0SUmtcNgiuRfSEtck56qg7m3SnmFC3lSfs6z_jbuzlSSjGMph1_Fw4WC1fnmMxDpavMvjhh7Dm8&typo=1>
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,i03FuP6wZL5Em3ggAffAeArKn4MhX9W3s2eW9P5IKi9VS1f17w-ZtKxuIBfNkBp2huMk2ukG57vHFz4NGsZsawZABdXbmbrBusUQoTXf6Q,,&typo=1>
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,p5H6LHrQ4hv950XQsirPOHZwVPIquBhDYGnjW3EenApAzKoM10ga1B6cO5g_J7hWvz6wUvPWXFc_H3SeVhXKv1EKxyCb7fD3Wn1r7pUO_tRHvnoJ&typo=1>
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
<http://bit.ly/virtualfriam>
un/subscribe
https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,ejvpu3P2__Ts5Rr739RVpxF3vN-R7967EAtFeYL76vfx9QUdqw4lWXY1mwNOLKTw9b1Nr97hF6naL9Kl9g-YB3XQAufNCt2PWiVq7Syn3--nLrXt5MpTLZ0u&typo=1>
&c=E,1,ejvpu3P2__Ts5Rr739RVpxF3vN-R7967EAtFeYL76vfx9QUdqw4lWXY1mwNOLKTw9b1Nr97hF6naL9Kl9g-YB3XQAufNCt2PWiVq7Syn3--nLrXt5MpTLZ0u&typo=1
FRIAM-COMIC
https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f
<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,ZjZ63z6kUldm120MBYXD8YdOu2LSLbqQeU4EQNtcre3l1ShWItR0mO9KRw_ML9kJNZuEcyNFL22zJWPdpnuCTHJwTmz0JAu2ocnTqeV6ZLNExmqYkKnk8K4Q4CAw&typo=1>
&c=E,1,ZjZ63z6kUldm120MBYXD8YdOu2LSLbqQeU4EQNtcre3l1ShWItR0mO9KRw_ML9kJNZuEcyNFL22zJWPdpnuCTHJwTmz0JAu2ocnTqeV6ZLNExmqYkKnk8K4Q4CAw&typo=1
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
- .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam
un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
