Stability and Prosperity from Nationalism or Globalism?
It is very, very good news for the coming decades for hundreds of millions to find the path to prosperity. That path usually with a bus ticket to a city to look for work....
Economic Thinking Posts on Debate Topics
Federal Transportation Subsidies: Why Not Steam Cars Instead of Electric?
Economists have long been skeptical of national industrial policies, where politicians and bureaucrats try to pick and subsidize winning technologies of the future. Congress is currently debating tax reform and considering dropping federal subsidies...
The Race to Space and Mars: Let Private Firms Compete
Past posts have outlined problems with the federal government’s continued rocket planning and contracting. See “Federal Space Transportation: Time for Reform,” for example. The benefits of federal space transportation planning and rockets tends to...
Economics for Extemporaneous Speaking
Overheads for presentation at University of Houston for UIL students. Some overheads were updated since emailing to UIL. Click for PDF of updated overheads (links should work to various articles and videos): UILEconExtemp2017new.key
K-12 Policy Reform August News
August news items and notes for the K-12 education reform topic. • “The newest advantage of being rich in America? Higher grades Escalating grade inflation at wealthy high schools is another blow to poor...
National service: sharing the dirty work by Martin Anderson
[Article by Martin Anderson for the Sept./Oct. NSDA LD topic: “Resolved: In the United States, national service ought to be compulsory.”] Today an understanding of what national service is all about is obscured by...
Informal K-12 and Higher Education: U.S. and Developing World
James Tooley, a professor of education policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, traveled the world researching The Beautiful Tree and describes the popularity of informal schools for low-income families in India and Africa. In India, Nigeria,...
The Strange Case of Special Education Funding
“Trump Budget Would Slash Education Dept. Spending, Boost School Choice,” (Education Week, May 23, 2017), looks at changes proposed in federal education spending, but notes the largest: Grants for special education, which also go...
What the Federal Government Can Do To Improve U.S. Education
Sometimes looking at the past can help us see the present more clearly. And that applies to the 2017-2018 NSDA topic: Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its funding and/or regulation of elementary...
Nationalism, Globalism, Bananas, Sports, and Cheese
Neither nationalism nor globalism are values. They are instead words that cast international relations and policies in different lights. A speech by the U.S. President can call U.S. based car companies Ford and General Motors national...