To say that greatness like this comes along but rarely is an understatement. In my life, there may have been but a few candidates, perhaps no more then 2 or 3 that can be seriously considered:
Better at their sport than anybody else is at theirs.
Jordan – Gretzky – Woods – Barry Sanders – Edwin Moses
It was pure and simple joy to watch Michael Phelps swim his way into the argument this summer.
Indeed, Go World!
100 days left until my daughter will get her copy of “The Law” by Frederic Bastiat
Existence, faculties, assimilation—in other words, personality, liberty, property—this is man.
It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogic subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.
It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?
If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense.
This then, is the proper role of government. There is no right to life at the expense of another man’s labor.
The second installment of the comparison of socioeconomic status and IQ. This post examines the impact of each on:
In a previous post, I showed various charts. Among them is the probability of cropping out of school based on the SES of the family:
The pattern is clear, kids from wealthier families have a better chance of obtaining a high school education.
The came the data showing the probability of a kid, who has dropped out, obtaining a GED:
This is a tale that is counter-intuitive. We expect the narrative to be that rich kids do better than poor kids. But this data shows the opposite for folks who obtain a GED after dropping out of school.
Finally we show data that speak to college degrees. College is, arguably, a key factor to the success of an individual in today’s society. Maybe.
The data suggests a massive SES impact. Very few kids from the poorest families are graduating college while nearly 40% of the wealthiest kids are achieving that milestone.
The data is somewhat mixed. High school and college graduation rates seem highly dependent on the SES of the parents while attainment of a GED is the exact opposite.
Now, what if we add in the predictive value of IQ?
First, dropping out of school:
The first thing that should be apparent is that dropping out of school is rare for kids of either average SES or intelligence. But dropout rates escalate dramatically for those of below average intelligence. IQ is more than a 3x predictor than SES of the school dropout.
How does GED look?
The data including IQ doesn’t change the fact that obtaining a GED goes against the commonly held belief that kids from poorer households do worse than the rich kids. Even accounting for IQ, the folks from the poorer families obtain a GED at higher rates than do kids from wealthier households.
Our last look into education is the college graduation rate:
Again, a dramatic difference. With one exception; the data shows very little difference between low SES and low IQ. But when it comes to highly intelligent kids, it doesn’t matter if they come from poorer families or wealthier families; the kids are graduating college at a better than 75% clip.
As with poverty, IQ plays a dominant role in the educational attainment of our children. All else being equal, the smarter the kid, the better they will achieve educationally.
Posted in Education, Middle Class, Politics: National, The Bell Curve
Tagged College, Drop out, GED, Poverty, SES, Socioeconomic, Socioeconomic Status
Liberty can be messy. But God forbid we would have it any other way, an excerpt from Jack Chambless:
As usual, liberals tell us that we must be tolerant – even thought we have a right to be intolerant. Liberals tell us that we should have freedom of speech. But notice, when someone uses their freedom to speak in such a way that offends liberal theology (and there is a theological element to modern liberalism), they cry out that they have been victims of hate-speech or worse.
The true test of your support of Liberty is if you can accept someone else’ opinion.
If an individual is a net Federal Income Tax receiver, is a reduction in the amount of money he receives from the Federal Government a tax hike for him?
I suspect that the answer is “yes.” Exemptions that are removed seem to be treated as tax hikes.
For illustration, I own a home. If the mortgage interest deduction would go away I would pay more taxes. I can see me arguing that would be equal to a tax increase. And since there is no income level that carries a negative tax bracket, any change in tax policy that would diminish a payment or reduce a deduction would be seen as a tax hike.
I’m only thinking this through right now. I’m reading the report from the Tax Policy Center on how the plan offered by Romney would impact the tax picture for all of us.
I have two thoughts besides the one above:
A tax is an amount of money that an individual PAYS to the government. Reducing the amount of money that someone GETS from the government might not be labelled a tax INCREASE. In fact, I happen to think that labeling government entitlement programs as “tax cuts” has been a method to get those programs passed. And this is long before Obama stepped into the White House [DUBYA!]
Serious. 42% of 76 million is a lot of people who are takers. And 76 million out of 300 million is a lot of non-payers!
Ted Cruz
‘nough said.
Posted in Elections 2012
Tagged Conservatives, Democrats, Liberals, Occupy Wall Street, Republicans, Tea Party
A certain Mr. Harry Reid has set off a kerfuffle with his statement that Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years:
“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid.
After reading the article, I’ve found this claim by Harry Reid to be only the SECOND most amazing thing he mentioned. I mean, forget that I could say that my buddy saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. giving Michelle Obama the business while she was here on a campaign stop, “Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain.”
The MOST amazing claim from the Majority Leader was this:
In a wide-ranging interview with The Huffington Post from his office on Capitol Hill, Reid saved some of his toughest words for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. Romney couldn’t make it through a Senate confirmation process as a mere Cabinet nominee, the majority leader insisted, owing to the opaqueness of his personal finances.
Are you kidding me? Let’s look:
All members or nominees of Obama’s cabinet. THIS President clearly doesn’t care if members of the Cabinet pay or not pay their taxes.
This evening I was with my kid and we stopped at the bank. I had a check to deposit and then I needed some cash.
As we drove away from the drive through ATM the young lad asked me, “Daddy, how much money did you get?” I replied, “One hundred dollars.”
He scrunched his little face and asked if that was 2 bills? When I told him that it wasn’t, rather five bills; $20 bills each.
He then asked if he could have one. When I answered that, indeed, he couldn’t, he grew a little frustrated. “But daddy, I don’t have ANY money and you would STILL have 80 bucks! You would STILL have more money than I would.”
It struck me how parallel his argument is with the liberals in government.
Again, I’m reading a bunch of stuff for an upcoming post and I see this:
Lucia Harkenreader’s check landed in her mailbox last week: a rebate of $456.15 from her health insurance company, with a letter dryly explaining that the money came courtesy of the federal health care law.
…
For Ms. Harkenreader, 53, who is putting a son through college, the rebate helps soothe the frustration she feels toward her insurer, Golden Rule, which is owned by UnitedHealthcare.
“It seems like the health insurance companies really just don’t have any consideration for the cost out here,” said Ms. Harkenreader, who pays about $480 a month for a high-deductible plan, up from $400 last year. “What costs have gone up to justify that rise in premium? I’d love to know. Did you give your people a raise? I guess your light bill went up?”
How is it possible that she can ask “What costs have gone up?” as she clutches a $456.00 check? How can she ask “What costs have gone up?” as insurance companies are required to “insure” people who knock on the door with a broken arm?
People wonder why this country is in trouble.
Posted in Health Care, Idiots on Parade, Politics: National
About 6 weeks ago I started posting data from the book, “The Bell Curve.” The first portion of the book deals with various conditions, poverty, education, crime and so on that take place in our society. And more than just look and detail those conditions, the authors try and look at what might cause some of those conditions. The point being that a vast majority of today’s commentators on such matters blame the socioeconomic conditions of families for the unfortunate plight many of our citizens find themselves in today.
Having problems graduating high school? Check and see if the kid is from a poor family.
Mothers raising children in poverty? Check and see of that mother herself came form a poor family.
Individuals in jail? Check and see if those folks came from a poor family.
And the evidence is there that such an impact exists. But is there another, stronger variable that impacts these conditions? The author’s answer is, “Yes. And that variable is IQ.”
Let’s review the first set of data I showed back then. The first set of data shows the probability that an individual will be living below the poverty line in 1989, the data the study used:
The next set of data shows the probability that a child will be living below the poverty line in 1989 when her mother is married:
And the third set of data shows that same probability for that same child if her mother is single.
The data has an uncomfortable, but not surprising trend, to be born wealthy is better than being born in poverty. However, here the authors, as I mentioned, looked for additional variables. Specifically IQ. Look at the data with the socioeconomic status AND the IQ included in the same graph.
Let’s go down the line starting with the probability of living in poverty:
The difference is dramatic. Not only does having a very low IQ put you at significant risk of living in poverty compared to having a very low SES background, but being very intelligent is more important than being very wealthy.
Next we look at children of married mothers living in poverty and the impact that her SES and IQ have:
While the dramatic difference in the values isn’t the same, the pattern is. A mother having everything else considered who is less intelligent has a higher probability of raising her children in poverty than an equally neutral mother of higher intelligence.
Finally, the probability of children of single mothers living in poverty and the impact that her SES and IQ have:
Right back to the dramatic difference. What looked like an impacting variable before, SES clearly now has the appearance of having a minimal effect on raising children in poverty. Rather IQ dominates this condition for children of single mothers. Those children lucky enough to be born to the brightest of mothers have a 1/7th the chance of living in poverty compared to those children whose mothers score on the very lowest on IQ tests.
Clearly, as it relates to poverty and child poverty, IQ is the runaway variable when compared to SES.