Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Is Tyler Cowen Getting Ready to Run for President?

These just published Tyler Cowen platitudes sound like a Rudy Giuliani campaign platform:
First, our kindergarten through 12 education system has been delivering stagnant results in terms of graduation rates and test scores. That is unacceptable. We can start by instituting procedures to fire the worst school teachers in poorly performing districts...

Second, we need fundamental entitlement reform toward the goal of limiting government spending. There is no way to get the long-term budget in balance otherwise. The real culprit here is Medicare. We have already passed legislation creating a Medicare Advisory Board, to limit wasteful expenditures, but it's not yet clear that politicians and the public will support it..

Third, we still need to shrink the financial sector, which absorbs too much American talent and receives too many government bailouts. We should limit leverage in finance before the next financial crisis comes along...

On education, why don't we just get government out of the business? What's this about firing the worst teachers in the worst districts? The education system as it is currently structured is the problem.

What's with emphasising the limitation of "wasteful expenditures", when the entire system is busted? As far as limiting government spending on Medicare, why not start winding down the entire program? Let people, who can set up there own healthcare insurance plans,  do so, and for those can't afford plans, how about private sector charity?

Shrinking the financial sector? What kind of micro-management is this that Cowen foresees? How about simply pulling the FDIC protection that props up these monster institutions and letting the best survive?

From an academic scholar one would think you would get more creative and original thinking than what Cowen is spewing here. It really sounds like what would come out of the mouth of a second tier presidential candidate. Tyler, what the hell is the deal?

3 comments:

  1. The financial sector would have shrunk a lot and it is still trying to had there not been TARP, QE and a lot else.

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  2. On education he is clueless. Most parents today do not take full responsibility for their children. They send their children to government daycare (public schools).

    Government funded schools should be abolished, at minimum, at the state and federal levels. The fact that parents and communities aren't taking 100% responsibility for raising their children is the problem.

    I must also mention that while there are inept ones, teachers are unreasonably held accountable for social problems they are utterly incapable of solving. Teachers don't teach, they administer ridiculous agendas, acting as agents of the state.

    He's a mess. I'd say "Shut up Tyler Cowen." but then we wouldn't have fun ranting over his idiotic statements.

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  3. A response to Cowen's assertions: What's this "we" nonsense?

    Firstly, The schools you are referring to are not "ours" so "we" will not be instituting any such procedures.

    Secondly, "We" didn't create or mandate the entitlements that allegedly necessitated legislation that "we" didn't pass which allegedly required an "Advisory Board" to limit wasteful expenditures due to entitlements that "we" didn't create.

    Thirdly, "We" didn't create the perverse incentives that exist in the financial sector that demanded "bailouts" and "we" will not be limiting the leverage in finance due to the next financial crisis that comes along due to the perverse incentives in place in the financial sector that "we" didn't create.

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