Thomas Sowell Brings the World into Focus through an Economics Lens
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In this episode of Uncommon Knowledge, Peter Robinson interviews Hoover fellow and author Thomas Sowell, on his 5th edition of Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy. In this interview, Sowell brings the world into clearer focus through a basic understanding of the fundamental economic principles and how they explain our lives. Sowell draws on lively examples from around the world and from centuries of history.
Comments
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At 14:30 in the video, Mr. Robinson asks a question. Mr. Sowell proceeds to ramble and then answer the question unsatisfactorily. Do all of Mr. Sowell's followers not see that a lot of his arguments are based on facile assumptions?
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/people-in-lower-income-brackets-generally-get-richer-as-they-get-older-fraser-institute
That article addresses the study which agrees with Mr. Sowell's point. However, if you read the article, the "report" is critiqued much in the same way I critiqued Mr. Sowell's response. It's all facile assumptions. The report only addresses increases in income. It doesn't address other socioeconomic factors like gender, ethnicity, education level, etc.
Furthermore, the upward income-mobility lauded in the Fraser Institute report is meant to demonstrate that class mobility is still very much alive in a society that is continually shifting towards free-market principles. However, the argument is framed in such a way where it seems to insinuate that the impoverished can become rich. That is not true. It's just simply that the impoverished can become less poor. It's not like "9/10" people in the lowest income bracket, who climb up the ladder over their lifetime, are ever going to be billionaires. It's not like they're ever going to be CEO's of a Fortune 500 Company. Some might. But it's an infinitesimal percentage. -
Makes so much sense.
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@17.15 hahaha checking footnotes does turn you into a cynic
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30:46
TS: Any discussion of people in the abstract drives me crazy because there are no abstract people. A hundred years ago people understood that and so when there was a debate about immigration there was a multivolume set of tomes about the characteristics of the immigrants from various countries. How do their kids do in school.
PR: They had the guts to be picky.
TS: Yes!
PR: They said "We'll take some... but they better do us good."
TS: Yes!
WOW ain't this so true about abstract people! Imagine having those guts today too. I came up through the university hearing of things like brain drain and what not. That there was an injustice picking and choosing who was encouraged to come into the country. I'd like to see some of those multivolume tomes and see if it's documented the sort of calculus they undertook filtering through immigrants, or just what parameters they recorded and bothered noting. This comment jibes well with Sowell's other comment about people not being random events. -
5:54 "We'd start out at from 23rd street and go all the up 5th Ave past all the glittering places, and we would turn left at 57th street and go out past more glittering places including Carnegie Hall. And then we'd turn up at around Columbus Circle, up Broadway and out to Riverside Drive and all the fancy stuff there. And then at 135th street we'd come in off a viaduct and immediately there'd be the tenements and of course this is where I lived..." I find it highly pleasing that Thomas Sowell holds a visual memory map of a bus route he was thoroughly familiar with. You can tell he rode it many years, and I too know the experience of holding a visual memory map of a bus route after riding a bus in my own hometown for many years. I rode it all the way into adulthood in fact.
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Wouldn't it be equally valid to attribute the increase of black households having only one parent to cultural changes as oppose to liberal policies? I feel that in the 50s, marriage was viewed as sacred and there was much social pressure to preserve one's marriage. Nowadays, half of marriages end in divorce and many kids are born out of wedlock. Perhaps this is due to a a change of culture? Or is Sowell's theory right?
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Zeitgeist is tge rainbow of options once all awaken to the simple fact that antiqauted monetary and government systems are what continue the idiocracy, enslavement, destruction, and as Sowell states are the reason your very limited choices are not as broad as a rainbow. All life is priceless monetizing it is immoral and is the reason for so much murder, in the name of profit.
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17:20 awesome
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whenever I read his books or listen to him speak it's like someone's reading Proverbs from the Bible...bursting with wisdom
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I feel sad am just learning about this man now
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I live in Europe and originally I was born in Romania, but live now in Austria for 19 years. To me Mr. Sowell is very important, since I myself am an imigrant in Austria, who witnesses the fact, that left wing organizations are working very hard on trying to do the same thing to all imigrants in Austria, the left wing did to blacks and latinos in the USA, which is mainly turn us to permanent victims and make us dependend to government social goodies.
Fun fact, nobody in Europe ever mentions Sowells name. -
Thanks for sharing.
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Mr Sowell Yer da man. I live your talks and are the only reason I wish I went to college. Other then missing your classes I have made swell choices and am doing quite well. Yet I do not appreciate the mind control and outright diregard for democracy, well being, wise choices, humanity, and Equity of a majority many "free" people growing up in a deck stacked well against them. Everyone is different some are complete zombies. I dropped out as well. Saved my great money from construction I have had several successful businesses I have sold or given most have always held GC licenses in my favorite Union states. I learned many times the hard way how to work the markets to invest my money. Work and market market and work. I now have more then I ever thought possible. I own to lenders now I own many houses I have allowed people to rent in lieu of foreclosure. I loan small business start up and capital money. I often take a ridiculous loan to teach people lessons in how to win and not throw their money away. Anyway I appreciate all you have taught me. I would not be me without you. A special intelligent honest man that I wish I had known. Good luck to you sir
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leftists be like "yeah well this stuff may work, as proven through empirical analysis, but we still think our ideas are better"
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There are not to many that you can look to in admiration both in wisdom and achievement Thomas Sowell is one of the few.
Great interview, Thank you. -
How come I haven't known this genius all these years?
And who are the 26 retards that gave this video a ''thumb down''? -
This man is a true rarity in rational thought. When I'm asked, why I'm an economic conservative. I'm just going to point people to this video. No further explanation is needed.
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It's really sad how far the nation has decayed.. We will be remembered as being destroyed by our own success.. But the blessing of free will should not be frowned upon..
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WHY HAS THIS MAN NOT BEEN AWARDED A NOBEL LAUREATE...?
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Happy Birthday Dr. Sowell
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