I have previously written about Syria here. In it, I point to the concept of non-combatant immunity as the highest priority of any framework involving violence or responses to it. For me, that framework is the Just War tradition.
I had recently lashed out at our President via a Facebook post that about a dozen people saw. I was critical of him for doing nothing. The news that provoked that post was not the chemical attack and the videos and photos of its aftermath (which I have yet to view), but rather the report from the UN that there are now over 1,000,000 children who have been forced to flee the violence.
Funny how things play out. Within 24 hours of my hardly-viewed post, the President was talking about options including the military. Hagel said we're ready to go "like that." Even France was calling for action. None of it felt like good news to me. None of it seemed to address the real issue -- the violation of non-combatant immunity. It all sounded so punitive. Let's punish Assad for what he's done. None of it was protective. Let's do something to help the refugees and ensure both sides do not target civilians anymore.
At this point, it sure seems that the President is going to the "coalition of the willing" well one more time. We'll fire off some tomahawks because, as someone said, it's what we're good out. All this may even INCREASE non-combatant deaths. I'll be honest, I was hoping for a better plan from a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Protection not punishment.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Obama, College, and Demand Curves
After President Obama's call to make college more affordable, several economists went off the rails. The main argument involved demand curves. When you increase demand (such as by making college "more affordable"), price goes up, not down. That's what economics textbooks have said in their first chapters for centuries. And it's usually right.
The case of college is different. The demand for college is set by the amount of students who have shown they are (1) smart enough, (2) determined enough, and (3) desirous enough to go to college. I would think the percentage of HS students (and non-traditional students) that meet these criteria remains relatively stable over the decades, although I have no data to back this up. In other words, intuitively, the demand for college has been stable for a long time.
What has happened is that the soaring cost of going to college has taken this group of students who want to attend college (demand) and removed some of them from the market completely. The cost of college is so high that this group doesn't even consider college an option regardless of what sort of opportunity cost calculations they do in their head. Since economics is all about CHOICE, and these students view their position as devoid of choice, this part of the demand for college has been almost a ghost. They are living human beings who have shown the traits needed to succeed in college, but the market has removed them from the equation as if they were inanimate. That's certainly not a good thing.
Now this would be a different story if we were talking about, say, the market for 5 star hotels in luxurious locations. For me as a public school teacher, I have no choice to stay at the new Four Seasons hotel in the Serengeti for two weeks. I'm not in the market at all. In this case, that's not a bad thing. The market is working as it should. So what is the qualitative difference between college and luxury getaways? Several.
First, there is the positive freedom of education. It isn't in the constitution, but our society believes that those who have a desire to learn also have a freedom to achieve that desire. This closely ties into Amartya Sen's views of development as freedom and Martha Nussbaum's views of creating capabilities.
Second, an educated citizenry is a social good. Not only does the person who graduates from college (hopefully) benefit from that education, but society as a whole benefits from their education. In economics speak, this is a positive externality. The good that society as a whole receives is not priced into that individual's tuition. The two exceptions being government grants and government subsidized loans where tax dollars are used to fund education. You can call this a Pigovian subsidy I suppose, but it makes sense even from a neoclassical econ viewpoint.
So, if we make college more affordable, do we skew demand curves? Yes and no. The number of students who have shown they have what it takes to make it in college does not increase. So no, demand does not increase. The number of students that have what it takes AND can make the opportunity cost choice to attend college WILL increase. In other words, those students who weren't even allowed in the market are now allowed in. So in this sense demand WILL increase. And possibly a bump in cost as well. Demand curves slope downwards of course.
So where do you make up the difference? How can we allow these students that were not allowed in the market into the market and still keep prices affordable? There's the rub.
Not quite. Colleges have a built in demand limiter which they have been failing miserably at using. It's called the application process. As I mentioned before, we can intuitively agree that the percentage of HS seniors that have what it takes to make it in college remains relatively stable. As about every college professor, student, or alumni will attest, however, colleges have been admitting more and more students who have NOT shown they have what it takes to make it in college. They require multiple streams of remediation in multiple subjects. They simply are not ready for college. Some of them could have been ready but their HS let them down. Others are probably better suited for vocational schools but haven't realized it yet. Still others may be freeloading off of government grants and subsidized loans they know they can't repay just to prolong childhood. Whatever the case, colleges themselves can remove these students that shouldn't be there from the market. This would thus allow room for the group that SHOULD have been there but had been removed. Demand curve remains intact.
BAM. I've solved the problem of college tuition. Stockholm, email me for contact info.
:)
The case of college is different. The demand for college is set by the amount of students who have shown they are (1) smart enough, (2) determined enough, and (3) desirous enough to go to college. I would think the percentage of HS students (and non-traditional students) that meet these criteria remains relatively stable over the decades, although I have no data to back this up. In other words, intuitively, the demand for college has been stable for a long time.
What has happened is that the soaring cost of going to college has taken this group of students who want to attend college (demand) and removed some of them from the market completely. The cost of college is so high that this group doesn't even consider college an option regardless of what sort of opportunity cost calculations they do in their head. Since economics is all about CHOICE, and these students view their position as devoid of choice, this part of the demand for college has been almost a ghost. They are living human beings who have shown the traits needed to succeed in college, but the market has removed them from the equation as if they were inanimate. That's certainly not a good thing.
Now this would be a different story if we were talking about, say, the market for 5 star hotels in luxurious locations. For me as a public school teacher, I have no choice to stay at the new Four Seasons hotel in the Serengeti for two weeks. I'm not in the market at all. In this case, that's not a bad thing. The market is working as it should. So what is the qualitative difference between college and luxury getaways? Several.
First, there is the positive freedom of education. It isn't in the constitution, but our society believes that those who have a desire to learn also have a freedom to achieve that desire. This closely ties into Amartya Sen's views of development as freedom and Martha Nussbaum's views of creating capabilities.
Second, an educated citizenry is a social good. Not only does the person who graduates from college (hopefully) benefit from that education, but society as a whole benefits from their education. In economics speak, this is a positive externality. The good that society as a whole receives is not priced into that individual's tuition. The two exceptions being government grants and government subsidized loans where tax dollars are used to fund education. You can call this a Pigovian subsidy I suppose, but it makes sense even from a neoclassical econ viewpoint.
So, if we make college more affordable, do we skew demand curves? Yes and no. The number of students who have shown they have what it takes to make it in college does not increase. So no, demand does not increase. The number of students that have what it takes AND can make the opportunity cost choice to attend college WILL increase. In other words, those students who weren't even allowed in the market are now allowed in. So in this sense demand WILL increase. And possibly a bump in cost as well. Demand curves slope downwards of course.
So where do you make up the difference? How can we allow these students that were not allowed in the market into the market and still keep prices affordable? There's the rub.
Not quite. Colleges have a built in demand limiter which they have been failing miserably at using. It's called the application process. As I mentioned before, we can intuitively agree that the percentage of HS seniors that have what it takes to make it in college remains relatively stable. As about every college professor, student, or alumni will attest, however, colleges have been admitting more and more students who have NOT shown they have what it takes to make it in college. They require multiple streams of remediation in multiple subjects. They simply are not ready for college. Some of them could have been ready but their HS let them down. Others are probably better suited for vocational schools but haven't realized it yet. Still others may be freeloading off of government grants and subsidized loans they know they can't repay just to prolong childhood. Whatever the case, colleges themselves can remove these students that shouldn't be there from the market. This would thus allow room for the group that SHOULD have been there but had been removed. Demand curve remains intact.
BAM. I've solved the problem of college tuition. Stockholm, email me for contact info.
:)
Monday, June 10, 2013
God's Power Is Made Perfect In Weakness
I realize the last couple posts do not make a whole lot of sense if read with the idea of a "tri-omni" God. In other words, a God who is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. If God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, then my previous posts make no sense. But experience proves the tri-omni God a falsehood. There is simply no way that God can be all three of those. The death of one innocent child is enough to shatter that myth (I've read this is a quote attributable to Dostoevsky but can't find the source). If I have to choose the most important of the three omnis, I choose all-good. An all-loving God has been a common thread in the last couple of posts.
Scripture itself hints at the limits of God's power (although it is blatant in its asserting a tri-omni God as well): "my power is made perfect in weakness." This is a beautiful statement. Just because God isn't ALL-powerful doesn't mean God isn't powerful. God is most powerful when most weak. Jesus-on-the-cross weak.
Since I believe in the importance of experience, perhaps a case study is in order. C.S. Song has said that Christianity should not be easy after the Holocaust. I agree 100%. In fact, any theology that hasn't wrestled with the Holocaust, both in the ways that Christianity contributed to anti-Semitism as well as what the Holocaust means for theology in general, is not deserving of attention. With that in mind, I turn to a Holocaust story.
Janus Korczak was a well known pedagogue in Poland. He was from a Jewish family. When the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto, Korczak's orphanage was forced to move inside the ghetto walls. Korczak accompanied the children to the new orphanage and lived there with them. When the ghetto was liquidated, Korczak was offered safe passage given his prominence in Polish society. He refused and accompanied the orphans to Treblinka. From here, there is no corroborated evidence of their fate, but most likely Korczak and the children were murdered at Treblinka. I have no doubt Korczak kept them close and huddled under his wings for as long as possible.
Where was the tri-omni God in this story? Absent because that God is dead. The all-loving God, however, was present to the same extent as on Calvary. God is not omnipotent. God could not prevent the Holocaust. But God could show power in weakness by accompanying orphans, in the person of Janus Korczak, into the ghetto. And from the ghetto to the train. And from the train to death. I will take the God of Korczak over the God of kings any day.
Scripture itself hints at the limits of God's power (although it is blatant in its asserting a tri-omni God as well): "my power is made perfect in weakness." This is a beautiful statement. Just because God isn't ALL-powerful doesn't mean God isn't powerful. God is most powerful when most weak. Jesus-on-the-cross weak.
Since I believe in the importance of experience, perhaps a case study is in order. C.S. Song has said that Christianity should not be easy after the Holocaust. I agree 100%. In fact, any theology that hasn't wrestled with the Holocaust, both in the ways that Christianity contributed to anti-Semitism as well as what the Holocaust means for theology in general, is not deserving of attention. With that in mind, I turn to a Holocaust story.
Janus Korczak was a well known pedagogue in Poland. He was from a Jewish family. When the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto, Korczak's orphanage was forced to move inside the ghetto walls. Korczak accompanied the children to the new orphanage and lived there with them. When the ghetto was liquidated, Korczak was offered safe passage given his prominence in Polish society. He refused and accompanied the orphans to Treblinka. From here, there is no corroborated evidence of their fate, but most likely Korczak and the children were murdered at Treblinka. I have no doubt Korczak kept them close and huddled under his wings for as long as possible.
Where was the tri-omni God in this story? Absent because that God is dead. The all-loving God, however, was present to the same extent as on Calvary. God is not omnipotent. God could not prevent the Holocaust. But God could show power in weakness by accompanying orphans, in the person of Janus Korczak, into the ghetto. And from the ghetto to the train. And from the train to death. I will take the God of Korczak over the God of kings any day.
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