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Ideological Barriers to High School Graduation For Every Child
Thanks to the efforts of the US Department of Education, high school graduation rates can be compared across state lines for the first time. The results of the 2010-11 Four-Year Regulatory Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rates report is revealing and a bit disturbing. The top high school graduation rate was in Iowa where 88% of all students graduated . The lowest was in Nevada where just 61% graduated. (What’s happening there?) The median of state averages for graduation rates was just 80%.
The nations high school graduation rates are disappointing, but when you break down the numbers they become truly disturbing. In almost every state, White children had the highest graduation rates. In most states the graduation rates for African American and Native American students fell 10 to 20 points below White students. A similar gap can be seen between White students and those who are economically disadvantaged. The largest race based gap was in Minnesota where 84% of White students graduate verses only 49% of Black students. That’s a 35 percentage point gap. The other states with large race based graduation gaps include Nevada (28 pts.), Wisconsin (27 pts.) and Ohio (26 pts.). These are not the states we tend to think of when we talk about the racial divide.
But the biggest and most disturbing graduation gaps are not along racial, ethnic or even economic lines. They occur in two unexpected categories, children with disabilities and children for whom English is their second language.
In Mississippi and Nevada only 23% of disabled students graduated high school. These are children who, through no fault of their own, require every advantage they can get if they are to lead happy, productive lives. In Nevada the graduation gap between students with disabilities and White students was 48 percentage points. Mississippi did a much better job then Nevada overal . White students graduated at a respectable rate of 82%. The graduation gap for Mississippi’s disabled children, however, was 59 points lower. Contrast that with Arkansas where there was only a 9 point gap, or with South Dakota where there was just a 2 point difference between White students and disabled students. What is possible for disabled children in South Dakota should be possible in every state. Over all, the graduation gap between abled and disabled students is greater than ethnic, racial or economic factors. The biggest gaps were mostly in the South, but almost every state needs to do a better job.
The second disturbing category is the graduation gaps for immigrant children whose first language is not English. While states such as West Virginia, Maine, South Dakota and Arkansas were able to graduate English-language learners on par with White students, most other states were less successful. The graduation gaps in Georgia (44 pts.), Nevada, Alabama (both 42 pts.) and New York (40 pts.) were among the biggest. But it is Arizona, by far, that had the largest gap in the graduation rates between White students (85%) and those who needed to learn English (23%). This was a 60 percentage point drop in graduation rates for English-language learners in Arizona, and the reason for this poor performance has a lot to do with ideological politics. Voters in Arizona eliminated bilingual education in a 2000 ballot measure. Proposition 203 was a popular backlash against bilingual education in favor of a more nationalistic “English for the Children Philosophy”. Bilingual education was viewed as a politically correct relic of our liberal past.
It is unconscionable to hold children in the cross-fire of America’s ideological wars. Children are a special class of citizens who rightfully have special protections and certain undeniable rights, including the right to equal educational opportunities. To set different standards based on race, religion, disabilities or place of origin is unacceptable. To eliminate educational opportunities or to choose educational programs based on politics over empirical practice is malfeasance. It harms children and ultimately harms our society. There is no excuse for not duplicating the success many other state already have in educating children of color, children with disabilities and children who speak another language. State sovereignty be damned. Children everywhere are every citizens concern. We must do all we can to remove politics from public schooling and press the case for competent practices that gives every child a fair shot at success. High School Graduation for every child should be our national goal.
(Below are excerpts from an article detailing the struggle to improve educational outcome for English-language learning students in Arizona.)
Bilingual Education vs. English Immersion
http://cqresearcherblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/bilingual-education-vs-english.html
Excerpts:
… Spanish-speaking [families in] Nogales [Arizona]… in 1992 [filed] a federal suit aimed at improving educational opportunities for non-English-speaking students in the overwhelmingly Hispanic town. The class action suit claimed the school district was failing to comply with a federal law – the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 – which requires each state to take “appropriate action” to ensure that English-language learners (ELLs) enjoy “equal participation in its instructional programs.”
… The plaintiffs won a pivotal decision in 2001 requiring Arizona to boost funding for English-language learning in Nogales and the rest of the state. In a narrowly divided decision in June, however, the Supreme Court gave state officials an opportunity to set aside the lower court ruling.
Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the federal district judge had failed to adequately consider changed circumstances since 2001. Among other changes, Alito cited the state’s decision to drop bilingual education in favor of so-called “sheltered English immersion” as the officially prescribed method of instruction for students with limited English proficiency.
Arizona’s voters had decisively rejected bilingual education in a 2000 ballot measure. Along with similar measures passed in California in 1998 and Massachusetts in 2002, Arizona’s Proposition 203 embodied a popular backlash against bilingual education that had grown since the 1980s. Critics of bilingual teaching viewed it as a politically correct relic of the 1960s and ‘70s that had proven academically ineffective and politically divisive. [snip]
… The debate between English-only instruction and bilingual education has been fierce for decades. “People get very hot under the collar,” says Christine Rossell, a professor of political science at Boston University and critic of bilingual education. [snip]
… Those who support a bilingual approach, says Arizona Superintendent of Instruction Thomas Horne, “aren’t interested in teaching the kids English,” but want to maintain “a separatist nationalism that they can take advantage of.” Horne, a Republican, intervened with the state’s GOP legislative leaders to try to undo the federal court injunction. [Snip]
… “It’s a growing challenge,” says Patte Barth, director of the Center for Public Education at the National School Boards Association (NSBA). “We have many more children coming into our schools for whom their first language is not English… Voluminous, statistics-heavy studies are cited by opposing advocacy groups as evidence to support their respective positions on the bilingual versus English-only debate. But Barth says language politics, not research, often determines school districts’ choice of instructional method. “A lot of it is political,” she says. “A lot of decisions about language instruction aren’t really informed by the research about what works for children.”
Reflections on the Human Spirit
Spirit is a word with many meanings, but the difficulty we have in defining it should not take away from the fact that it is real.
For me, spirit is a personal, intuitive sense of being, distinct from, yet an integral part of the greater universe. It is the source of morality, ethics, justice and universal truths. It is not synonymous with religion. I believe human spirit is the source, not the result of religion. It is what makes human rights unalienable. It is what knits us all together while singling each of us out as somehow special at the same time. It is the organizing force behind our social economy and the broader social ecology of our collective development. It is that which, despite all individual and group differences, makes all of us equal from birth. It broadens and deepens our social bonds. It is the essential element for our personal well being, our survival as a species and the survival of Earth as we know it today.
From my perspective, spirituality is indwelling. It invades conscious awareness from fundamental sources deeply imbedded within each of us, as if our whole body is a spiritual organ physically connected to all things. Other people experience spiritual perceptions from a different direction, such as emanating from outside the body and beyond physical existence. It hardly matters. What matters is that it connects us to the world and to each other. It reveals to us pure and enduring insights that we all share. It is a source of knowledge, accessible through introspection and heightened perceptions, that dissolves the estrangement we sometimes feel towards nature or other human beings. The human spirit always arches towards a broader, deeper unity and that special sense of well being we call love.
With all the tensions and challenges today, are we loosing our humanity? I don’t believe so. The human spirit has always faced competitive forces. The most persistent form of this competition pits self-interest over communal interests or present advantage over future needs. Nearly every challenge we face today fits this form. Our challenge, as always, is to elevate the human spirit in our selves and in our world. There are no secret strategies. Most everyone reading this knows what they need to do. Together we must overcome greed with our generosity, both materially and in spirit. We must empower the marginalized, inspire the dispirited, organize the discouraged, protect the vulnerable, overpower the skeptics, confront the intolerant and above all, bring up our children to be champions of the human spirit.
“Free Market” Social Services Fail to Deliver
Where do you turn when your aging mother can’t be by herself anymore or you notice your baby seems a little delayed? Imagine that your teenager start skipping school and staying out all night or imagine you are suddenly diagnosed with a serious illness or disabled in an accident. Where do you go for help?
Sooner or later we all knock on the door of our community’s social service network. What greets us may be far less than we expect. And sadly, the help available to us will depend a lot on where we live and how much money we make. The confusing patchwork of private, public and non-profit social service agencies through which we must navigate is the natural, unintended consequence of the free market model we’ve created to deliver social services.
We are all only temporarily able bodied. We don’t give much thought social services. We are content knowing that free market competition is efficiently keeping down the cost of publicly financed services for the needy.
It isn’t until we seek help ourselves that we encounter a labyrinth of agencies with confusing components and cutesy sounding acronyms for their names. Agencies often list the types of services they offer (counseling, for example) without listing the types of problems they serve (such as adolescent issues). Consumers are expected to know which services work best for their problems. Some agencies over promise results in their marketing or take on people with problems that would be bettered resolved elsewhere. Access to services are often restricted by bewildering eligibility requirements based on age, gender, geography, diagnosis, income, insurance provider, religion, ethnicity, funding source or hours of operation.
If your family has one or two very common problems, chances are you will find the help you need. But if your problems are uncommon or complex, your search will not go smoothly. And if you also happen to be poor, live in an under served community or don’t have transportation, the prospects for getting effective help are slim.
This is the character of our social service networks today. They are not based on matching service availability and capacity to the needs of local communities. They are loosely coordinated networks created by free market forces and competition between private or non-profit agencies scrambling for dollars.
For over thirty years we have been privatizing public social services in the belief that free markets are more efficient than government in providing the best services at the lowest cost. Little attention is given to the inescapable fact that market driven systems create uneven results by their very nature. This is true in commerce but especially true in public social welfare. Larger agencies are more politically connected and better positioned to compete for public dollars. Wealthier communities have a higher profit potential so they attract more and better competitors. Smaller agencies and program models that incorporate innovative ideas are less able to compete for government money.
Innovative approaches to helping people are usually funded in small trials by private foundations. Even when these trials prove successful, bringing them up to scale is almost impossible. Agency competition actually works against it because social service providers are competing on an artificial playing field.
Governments create the playing field on which agencies compete, but the government departments responsible for developing and funding social service contracts are often under staffed and ill equipped to monitor service outcomes. They also lack the personnel and special expertise it takes to design better programs. The time and effort involved in researching literature, writing contract proposals, putting contracts out for bid and guiding the implementation of new programs is enormous . Politicians don’t want to spend what it would cost to create real free market competition for high quality services.
To overcome the uneven distribution of services problem, governments develop specially targeted service contracts with extra financial incentives to serve specific areas. But these initiatives are expensive and tax revenues are declining. Targeted service contracts are usually limited in size and scope because of their higher costs.
We have come to the point where the availability and quality of essential services, to treat an abused child for example, becomes an accident of birth. How often have I seen children getting excellent services in one county while children with identical needs have no such services in another.
Commercial markets are efficient in distributing products according to demand when profits are distributed according to merit. This method breaks down when applied to funding social services. Competition discourages inter-agency coordination and inadequate funding increases agency competition in more profitable locations while discouraging them from entering less profitable communities. This causes unacceptable inequalities in meeting the basic human needs of our people.
There are many pressing issues that demand attention. How we fund social services is rarely among them, yet the wisdom of distributing social services through artificially created free markets cries out for public debate.
Tragedy in Newtown and Our Changing Culture
The slaughter at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut has fundamentally altered the public debate on gun regulations. This change is long overdue. Ultra-lethal guns are the instruments that make these acts so deadly. Assault weapons and extra-lethal types of ammunition have no place in our communities. We must have meaningful gun regulations.
We can’t stop there. The existence of assault weapons alone don’t explain these violent rages. We concurrently need to strengthen our system of identifying and treating people with mental illness and anti-social conditions. And we need to do this without letting it distract us from pursuing better gun regulations. Effective mental health treatment is incredibly labor intensive. Building helping relationships with other human beings takes time and commitment. It is therefore also expensive. Decades of budget contraction for mental health services has created a history of having to do more with less which has lead to service gaps and poor outcomes.
But we can’t stop there either. Significant weaknesses in our mental health systems don’t explain societies growing fascination with guns and violence or our loss of empathy towards “others”. While we press for better gun regulations and improved mental health systems, we need to examine the social factors that are shifting our American cultural in a dangerous direction.
Identifying connections between shifting cultural attitudes and extremely rare events is difficult. Scientific methods are not suited to the study of rare events, yet connections between cultural shifts and extremely rare behaviors are no less real.
This last point is very important. It is easy for those who oppose change to challenge the influence social factors might have on culture or to manipulate these factors for self-gain. Whether we are speaking about violent content in video games or the proliferation of guns in American homes, the influence of each on culture is subtle and hard to measure. We can easily see how being raised in a home where religious values are prominent effects development, but we don’t often consider how social development is influence in homes where deadly weapons are prominent features. Additionally, it is always difficult to perceive cultural changes as they occur. To help explain why this is so a little though experiment might be helpful.
Start by picturing a normal “bell curve” depicting the aggressive tendencies of every person in the country. The vast percentage of us would always fall within the normal rage. The very middle of the bell curve is the median, or average value. So in this case the middle represents people who have an average level of aggression. But there are always a few extraordinarily passive or aggressive individuals at the far ends of the bell curve. Statistically, these are called outliers, but if we are plotting aggression, the furthest outliers on the aggressive end might represent those who commit mass murders.
Now, imagine that social conditions shift the national average in a more aggressive direction. The whole bell curve would move slightly in that direction. Most people within the normal range wouldn’t notice the change. Their own aggressive tendencies and those of everyone around them would be changing in unison. It’s difficult to perceive change when there is no fixed reference point. What everyone might start to notice, however, is what happens at the statistical extremes. As average levels of aggression increases in society, the frequency of rare acts of violence also increases.
To illustrate this last point, consider an analogy to climate change. Suppose there was no scientific or public awareness of climate change or its impact on weather prior to Hurricane Katrina or super storm Sandy. After these events the public might reasonably demand to know why such bad storms are becoming more frequent. Answering that question by simply studying each storms would not be very fruitful. It could improve our knowledge of the particular weather patterns that produced each storms, but it wouldn’t answer the question of why these preconditions were happening so often.
Fortunately, scientists have been studying climate change for decades, so we know why super storms are becoming more frequent. We also know how we can respond to this threat even though convincing those with conflicting interests is another matter. It sometimes takes a super storm to form a consensus for action.
The same logic holds true for trying to understand what happened in Newtown, Connecticut. Studying what made Adam Lanza snap might be helpful from a mental health perspective, but it won’t explain the preconditions in his life. The killing efficiency of his weapons helps explains why the shooting was so deadly, but it won’t explain why his mother and others are so drawn to deadly weapons. It is our changing attitudes towards guns and violence that we must understand. The study of cultural change is far less advanced than the study of climate change, so we are ill prepared for the challenge. This needs to change. In fact, it is clear that we all need to change if we ever hope to end the rash of senseless violence in America.
A Simple Guide to American Capitalism
- Give a starving man a fish and you’re a sucker.
- Teach a starving man how to fish and you’re a socialist.
- Sell a fish to a starving man for profit and you’re a capitalist.
- Tax a starving man for the fish he catches and you’re the government.
- Buy the lake, sell off all the fish in it for a quick profit and you’re a “private equity” capitalist (What man? I didn’t see a man!).
- Rent the lake for $1 from the Department of the Interior, sell all the fish in it to an international fish cartel that sells a fish back to a man for more than he can pay and you’re a petro-capitalist.
- Stock the lake with GM “franken-fish”, then sue a man when he accidentally catches one and you’re an agro-capitalist.
- Ignore a man trying to fish, pump all the lake water into plastic bottles, sell it by the case and you are a “Nestles” capitalist.
- Buy up all the shoreline around the lake, sell dock space through an owners association to a man so he can fish and you are a real-estate capitalist.
- Buy up the prettiest shoreline, sell fancy dock space to a man, charge him to fish from his fancy dock space and you’re a time-share capitalist.
- Buy and sell a man’s fish before he catches it (call it “fish futures”) and you’re a commodities trader.
- Sell insurance policies (call it “swaps”) to those who buy “fish futures” so they make money even if a man’s fish are tainted and you’re a hedge fund manager.
- Bundle a man’s tainted fish into “fish-backed” securities, disguise the smell, sell the bundles to pension fund managers, invest heavily in “swaps” payable to you when everyone discovers the fish are bad and you are WALL $TREET.
The Truth About the ATF Scandal Please…
The venerable New Jersey Star Ledger newspaper printed an editorial on June 30, 2012, in which it repeated as fact a purely partisan narrative known as the ATF’s “Fast and Furious” scandal. Here below is my full response:
As for the 2000 high powered weapons supposedly lost by the ATF, (as per Republican Congressman, Darrell Issa) virtually all of them were legally purchased according to Arizona’s federal prosecutors. This includes the gun later used to kill a U.S. border guard.
The hard truth is that Federal prosecutors broadly interpret Arizona’s gun laws, which are already the weakest in the nation. In Arizona, an unemployed 18 year old with no criminal record can walk into a gun shop, buy fourteen AK-47 assault rifles, certify they are for personal use, change his mind after walking out of the store and then legally sell them to anyone in the parking lot. It’s as if the gun laws in Arizona were designed for gun traffickers. Frustrated ATF agents believed the weapons in question were going to criminals but were over ruled. It is the system that allowed these guns to walk, not the AFT.
Meanwhile, 55,000 Mexican citizens have been killed in the last five years in the battle among drug cartels and Mexican police. It is estimate that 2000 weapons a day cross our Southern border into Mexico and there’s little the AFT can do about it.
I doubt Eric Holder criminally withheld documents from Congress, but the facts about this haven’t filtered out yet. The whole scandal appears to be a political witch hunt. What has become clear, however, is that the guns needed to support Mexican drug cartels are flooding over the border every day while tons of their illegal product floods back here to destroy more American lives.
Thanks to the great reporting of Katherine Eban at Fortune magazine
Note: Many newspapers around the country are probably relying on Congressman Issa’s partisan narrative when reporting on this story. His commentary has been around for months while the Eban report is just days old. Even so, it is revealing how much journalists must depend on the messages politicians give them. Enterprise journalism (or investigative journalism), is what we need to verify what politicians say. This type of journalism is labor intensive and expensive. Eban’s investigation took six months. Corporate media outlets are profit driven, not truth driven enterprises. Newspapers in particular are in financial trouble. Readership and advertising sales are down. I sometimes wonder if readership is down in part because newspapers no longer provide us with trusted, independently verified news?
Despite Flaws, We May Be The Model For Pluralistic Societies
The story which follows supports a theory of mine that the UnitedState, with its highly diverse population, and despite all our ethnic and racial bias, may still be the most social advanced nation with respect to the development of a pluralistic society. Pluralistic societies, to the extent of ours here in America, are a relatively recent development. Our founding fathers were thefirst to build a nation based on principles and ideals instead of geographic population and culture. This was, and is, a gift to human progress.
European nationality remains primarily based on geography and the resulting cultural diversity that historical isolation once allowed. What would happen, for example, if migration patterns resulted in the majority of the Germans being from various other cultures? While we have a long way to go in becoming a truly pluralistic society, we have a two-hundred year head start over most other countries. Unfortunately, there are those here who would undo this progress but the long arch of history is not on their side.
Greece: Halt Mass Migrant Round-Ups
Discriminatory Police Sweeps Violate Rights
AUGUST 8, 2012
(London) – The Greek authorities’ ongoing sweeps targeting suspected migrants based on little more than their physical appearance violate international standards, Human Rights Watch said today. Since August 4, 2012, more than 6,000 foreigners presumed to be undocumented migrants have been taken into police stations for questioning, and more than 1,500 arrested for illegal entry and residence with a view to deportation to their countries of origin.
“Greece has the right to enforce its immigration laws, and after a fair process, to deport people with no legal basis to stay in the country”, said Benjamin Ward, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. “But it doesn’t have the right to treat people like criminals or to presume irregular immigration status just because of their race or ethnicity.”
Greek police must have specific cause to stop and question people beyond the appearance of their national origin. Mass expulsions are strictly prohibited under international law. Greece is also legally bound not to return refugees to persecution or anyone to risk of torture. Yet Greece has failed to demonstrate its capacity even to receive asylum claims, let alone to process and decide them fairly, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch and others have also documented inhuman and degrading conditions in Greek migrant detention facilities. While enforcing its immigration laws, Greece needs to be scrupulous in respecting the basic human rights of migrants. Greece should not discriminate based on race or ethnicity and should not subject migrants to arbitrary detention, inhuman and degrading treatment or to summary removal without due process of law. Greece should also provide effective remedies to those in need of protection.
With its deep economic crisis, and after years of mismanaged migration and asylum policies, anti-migrant sentiment has grown in Greece. A far-right party entered parliament for the first time in 2012 elections. A recent Human Rights Watch report showed that xenophobic violence in Greece has reached alarming proportions, with gangs regularly attacking migrants and asylum seekers. The attackers are rarely arrested, and police inaction is the rule.
“Greek police have a duty to protect all foreigners from violence, just as they do Greek citizens”, Ward said. “These sweeps are a dangerous distraction from the real policing challenges the country faces.”
U.S. Drops to 12th Place on Global Prosperity and Well Being Index
How prosperous is the United States compared with other nations? The latest Prosperity Index is out, and the news for America is disappointing. The U.S. fell to 12th place in the world, just behind Luxembourg and Ireland. Partisan and ideologically driven arguments should to be set aside for the moment as we analyze and assess this data. We should take this finding as a challenge to be solved by appealing to our strengths as a nation. In the coming months I will be exploring various aspects effecting our national prosperity. I invite the readers of this blog to check back periodically to see what I uncover.
The 2012 Legatum Global Prosperity Index of Wealth and Well Being
The just released Global Prosperity Index finds the United States has fallen to 12th place in the world. This is the first time the US has not been in the top 10 group. The Index is based on the Dubai-based Legatum Institute’s assessment of prosperity based on both material wealth and personal wellbeing in 142 different countries, in eight categories ranging from the economy and entrepreneurship to health and personal freedom. The top 25 nations ranking is as follows:
Prosperity Index
1 – Norway
2 – Denmark
3 – Sweden
4 – Australia
5 – New Zealand
6 – Canada
7 – Finland
8 – Netherlands
9 – Switzerland
10 – Ireland
11 – Luxembourg
12 – U.S.
13 – UK
14 – Germany
15 – Iceland
16 – Austria
17 – Belgium
18 – Hong Kong
19 – Singapore
20 – Taiwan
21 – France
22 – Japan
23 – Spain
24 – Slovenia
25 – Malta
There are eight categores by which national prosperity is judged. The United States scored as follows on these eight categories:
Ranking Catigory
20 Economy
12 Entrepreneurship /Opportunity
10 Governance
5 Education
2 Health
27 Safety/Security
14 Personal Freedom
10 Social Capital
Paul Ryan’s Mentor: Ayn Rand, the Mother of Modern Conservatives
On April 30, 2012, The Atlas Society published a piece called “Paul Ryan And Ayn Rand’s Ideas: In The Hot Seat Again.”
In it they talked about the close association then vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, had drawn between Ayn Rand and his own political philosophy. Publicity surrounding his views were prompted by a National Review article entitled, “Ryan Shrugged” which characterize as an “urban legend Ryan’s alleged connections to Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. While Rep. Ryan may never have expressly indicated he embraces her Objectivist philosopy, he is clearly a fan of Ayn Rand‘s ideas and requires his staff to read Atlas Shrugged. (See National Review’s “Ryan Isn’t a Randian” for more along these lines.)
How closely Paul Ryan and other conservative associate themselves with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism is important because it shines a light on the heart and soul of their political objectives. Ayn Rand, a staunch believer in individualism and foe of collectivism in any form, believed altruism and any form of self-sacrifice was evil. She meant this literally, and any institutions based on such collectivist notions were also evil. This included churches and all major religions. Ayn Rand was obviously an atheist. This is an inconvenient truth for Ryan and many evangelical Christians who have adopted Rand’s ideology with respect to the behavior of corporations and the formulation of government business policies. Rand’s Objectivism philosophy has become, ex-post-facto, the underpinning for today’s very aggressive brand of capitalism. In fact, the incompatibility of Rand’s value systems applied to business behavior and Christian values applied to human behavior is the great paradox of our time. Objectivism and Religion antithetical belief systems. (To hear a little more about Ayn Rand in her own words, listen to her interviewed on the Phil Donahue Show back in 1979.)
In the article the Atlas Society released an audio recording of a 2005 speech mand by Paul Ryan at the organizations “Celebration of Ayn Rand” event. That audio file is posted here below along with the following excerpts [highlights are mine].
Congressman Paul Ryan on Ayn Rand
(1:45) I just want to speak to you a little bit about Ayn Rand and what she meant to me in my life and [in] the fight we’re engaged here in Congress. I grew up on Ayn Rand, that’s what I tell people. You know everybody does their soul-searching, and trying to find out who they are and what they believe, and you learn about yourself.
(2:01) I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it’s required reading in my office for all my interns and my staff. We start with Atlas Shrugged. People tell me I need to start with The Fountainhead then go to Atlas Shrugged [laughter]. There’s a big debate about that. We go to Fountainhead, but then we move on, and we require Mises and Hayek as well.
(2:23) But the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.
(2:38) In almost every fight we are involved in here, on Capitol Hill, whether it’s an amendment vote that I’ll take later on this afternoon, or a big piece of policy we’re putting through our Ways and Means Committee, it is a fight that usually comes down to one conflict: individualism vs. collectivism.
(2:54) And so when you take a look at where we are today, ah, some would say we’re on offense, some would say we’re on defense, I’d say it’s a little bit of both. And when you look at the twentieth-century experiment with collectivism—that Ayn Rand, more than anybody else, did such a good job of articulating the pitfalls of statism and collectivism—you can’t find another thinker or writer who did a better job of describing and laying out the moral case for capitalism than Ayn Rand.
(3: 21) It’s so important that we go back to our roots to look at Ayn Rand’s vision, her writings, to see what our girding, under-grounding [sic] principles are. I always go back to, you know, Francisco d’Anconia’s speech (at Bill Taggart’s wedding) on money when I think about monetary policy. And then I go to the 64-page John Galt speech, you know, on the radio at the end, and go back to a lot of other things that she did, to try and make sure that I can check my premises so that I know that what I’m believing and doing and advancing are square with the key principles of individualism… [To better understand Ryan’s references here go to David Weigel’s commentary in Slate from August 13, 2012 ]
(6:53) Is this an easy fight? Absolutely not…But if we’re going to actually win this we need to make sure that we’re solid on premises, that our principles are well-defended, and if we want to go and articulately defend these principles and what they mean to our society, what they mean for the trends that we set internationally, we have to go back to Ayn Rand. Because there is no better place to find the moral case for capitalism and individualism than through Ayn Rand’s writings and works.
TO LISTEN TO AUDIO, PLEASE CLICK ON THE ORIGINAL ATLAS SOCIETY LINK ABOVE
U.S. Global Business Competitiveness Slipping
The World Economic Forum published a study on global business competitiveness that ranks 144 nations according to indicators in 12 categories. We American’s sometimes inflate our greatness among nations. With respect to our Militarily this is justified. The United States represent nearly half of the worlds total military capability. But on measures of national well being, ecology, human rights, health care, press freedom and many other critical areas we often fall short in comparison to other advanced nations.
Given how highly our politics regards U.S. business interests, you might assume our global business competitiveness makes us number one in the world. Keep in mind as you read on that many of the specific measures that make businesses competitive are not in the best interest of ordinary citizens. Business interests and social interests are sometime opposed.
The business competitiveness study categories and where the United States ranks:
CATIGORY RANK (Out of 144)
| 1. Institutions | 42 |
| 2. Infrastructure | 14 |
| 3. Macroeconomic Environment | 111 |
| 4. Health and Primary Education | 34 |
| 5. Higher Education and Training | 8 |
| 6. Goods Market Efficiency | 23 |
| 7. Labor Market Efficiency | 6 |
| 8. Financial Market Development | 16 |
| 9. Technological Readiness | 11 |
| 10. Market Size | 1 |
| 11. Business Sophistication | 10 |
| 12. Innovation | 6 |
Overall, the United States is very competitive, ranking 7th out of 144 nations. This is a decline from last year, however, when we were 5th out of 142 countries. Major reasons for the overall low marks can be found in our Macroeconomic situation, primarily our government budge imbalance and huge national debt on which we were ranked 140th and 136th respectively . Our gross national savings is also very low, with a rank of 114th in the world. Still, confidence in America’s credit rating remains high, 89.4%, or 11th among the nations.
Looking at our strengths and weaknesses, in the Institutions category our top ranking was 5th in investor protections. Our next highest rankings were in efficiency of corporate boards (23rd), intellectual property protection and ethical behavior of firms (both ranked 29th). Our lowest ranking was on the business cost of terrorism (124th). Next lowest rankings were in the business cost of crime and violence, and the business cost of organized crime (86th and 87th).
We did better in Infrastructure. We ranked 1st in available airline seats and 15th in telephone land lines. Interestingly, mobile phone subscriptions were our lowest indicator (72nd) followed by the quality of our electric supply (33rd in the world). Our transportation infrastructure didn’t fair much better (30th).
In the category of Health and Primary Education we had no malaria impact on businesses (1st) but the prevalence and business impact of HIV was high ranking the US 92nd and 90th in the world. Also surprising was our low ranking on primary school enrollments (58th), infant mortality (41st) and the quality of our primary education (38th).
In Higher Education and Training we are doing well in post-secondary education (2nd) and the availability of research and training opportunities (9th). We ranked 47th in secondary school enrollment and the quality of our math and science education.
In Goods and Market Efficiency we rank 9 and 10 in market dominance and buyer sophistication. Our worst ranking is on the business tax rate to profit ration (103rd).
In the area of Labor Efficiency we apparently have the lowest labor redundancy costs in the world (1st) and our hiring and firing practices are also great for business (8th). The labor redundancy variable estimates the cost of advance notice requirements, severance payments, and penalties due when terminating a redundant worker. We also ranked 5th in the brain drain measure and 8th in the efficiency of our hiring and firing practices. Our low rankings here were in the women to men ratio in the work force (we ranked 44th) and our cooperation in labor-employer relations (42nd) , perhaps no surprise give our ease and thrift in firing people).
In the Financial Market Development category we are very competitive in the availability of venture capital (10th) but weak on the strength of our banking institutions (80th). Regarding the regulation of security and exchange, we also ranked low (39th) although it is unclear if this means we are over or under regulated.
In the area of Technological Readiness we ranked 8th in the number of internet subscribers yet 20th in the percentage of individuals using the internet. We rank lowest, (43rd) on foreign direct investment and technology transfer.
Market Size, we remain number one in domestic market size (we buy more things) and number two in foreign market size.
In the category of Business Sophistication we are third in the extent of marketing and ranked in the low teens on other measures, such as production process (13th) and local supplier quality/quantity (14th).
When it comes to Innovation, The United States is still doing very well. We are ranked in the single digits on most measures, including University-industry collaboration in R&D (3rd), Availability of scientists and engineers (5th), Quality of scientific research institutions (6th), Capacity for innovation and Availability of scientists and engineers (both ranked 7th). Our lowest ranking in this area was in government procurement of advanced tech products (15th).
Read more at: http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2012-2013/
Data Driven Viewpoints 