海角大神

Several of the 鈥楥apitalism in Crisis鈥� thinkers 鈥� even those who should have known better 鈥� thought the government needed to invest more money in education.

Kenneth Rogoff, for example, concludes that 鈥渋mproved education alone will not resolve the flaws inherent in today鈥檚 capitalism, but it [is an] essential first step down any path to a solution.鈥�

Oh? We never quite figured out the connection. The problem in a nutshell is that developed countries have too much debt and not enough growth. And their debt is growing faster than their output. How then does spending more on non-productive behavior increase GDP output or decrease debt?

Contemporary education is a dead end. The industry has been taken over by zombies. Huge amounts of money 鈥� public, private, charitable, debt, savings, earnings 鈥� are invested. The output is small, dubious and perhaps even negative.

We know that in some fields, such as economics, the more instruction a person has, the less he knows. Economics 鈥� as taught in many universities 鈥� is a value-subtracting discipline. As to other fields 鈥� politics, sociology, literature, gender studies 鈥� we are suspicious.

We have also noted that despite huge increases in per capita, inflation adjusted spending over the last 40 years, test scores have not increased. This suggests that the money was wasted.

But our suspicions run deeper. We suspect that 鈥� outside science and engineering 鈥� most education, from the first grade to a PhD, is at best a costly luxury鈥�at worst, a big waste of time and money.

Here is evidence, a letter from a former slave to his former master, written only a few years after the War Between the States came to an end. We don鈥檛 know, but it is unlikely the former slave had any formal education. But you will notice that today鈥檚 typical university graduate could not match his clear thinking or his polite, funny, sarcastic style:

Regards,

Bill Bonner
听蹿辞谤 The Daily Reckoning