Dr Howard Fuller: The Fight for Choice in Education

Teachers' unions don't represent the best interest of students. They shouldn't be allowed to claim they do.

Print your own medicine?

And the end of drug control? Pretty cool stuff. Welcome to the future (Reason):

Both research and production look poised for a revolution, as 3D printing applies its high-tech charms to the business of creating chemical compounds, and turns the production of medicine into a DIY project. Not incidentally, the revolution also promises to kneecap whatever is left of efforts to control chemistry's results, including recreational drugs.

The Case for Culture in Accelerating Development: (More) Successful Immigrant Communities

I'm not a big fan of the idea that culture is one of the driving forces determining which societies succeed and which fail at cultivating entrepreneurs. I tend to believe that it's regulatory policies that drive incentives which in turn drive actions that are often described as being cultural traits.

That said, one of the stronger cases to be made (imho) that culture does matter is in differentiating between the success of immigrants from various countries in the West. Freakonomnics did a blogpost and podcast on where the most successful immigrants come from.

Amazon: Selling more online than its next 12 biggest competitors combined

A stunning stat on e-commerce (WSJ):

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +0.85% sells more online than its next 12 biggest competitors combined, including Staples Inc. SPLS -0.50% and Wal-Mart, according to the trade publication Internet Retailer. Despite its greater online scale, Amazon continues to grow quickly and command a hefty share of new Internet sales. Its 30% increase in North American sales in the second quarter outstripped the overall e-commerce market and some competitors as well.

"Successful people start before they feel ready"

James Clear via AcumenFund:

You’re bound to feel uncertain, unprepared, and unqualified. But let me assure you of this: what you have right now is enough. You can plan, delay, and revise all you want, but trust me, what you have now is enough to start.

It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to start a business, lose weight, write a book, or achieve any number of goals… who you are, what you have, and what you know right now is good enough to get going.

We all start in the same place: no money, no resources, no contacts, no experience. The difference is that some people — the winners — choose to start anyway.

GetInspired: "For a quick hit of motivation"

It' s a site with a number of cool and inspirational videos. Not that I agree with everything here - today's focus is Michael Jackson who, despite the value of his music, is perhaps not the best of inspirational examples (GetInspired via Techcrunch).

The problem of subsidizing not for profit work

As provided for by the US federal public service loan forgiveness program for college graduates, is thatit undervalues for profit work (Forbes):

The larger problem with the program—one that includes its provisions for non-profits as well as government—has to do with the concept of government seeking to influence the career choices of college graduates in the belief that some jobs do more than others to serve the public interest. Both the government and the non-profit sectors, after all, ultimately rely on the growth and prosperity of the private economy. As Carl Schramm, former head of the Kauffman Foundation, has long argued, entrepreneurs—from Steve Jobs to Sergei Brin and countless others—provide the hope for economic growth. But private sector employment of any kind is effectively made less attractive by the terms of federal student loan forgiveness program. That is not, to coin a phrase, what made America great.

Measuring Higher Ed: Leading Professors' Union is against It. All of it.

The American Association of Professors, on of the largest college teachers unions, is against even the idea of any form of measurement. This might work if budgets were unlimited, outcomes left nothing to be desired and dinosaurs roamed the earth, but this transparent admission shows just how stifling legacy systems and organizations are to the education system in the US (TechCrunch):

In response to President Obama’s push to tie federal college aid to labor-market outcomes, the American Association of University Professors has issued a stern warning against the seemingly uncontentious idea of evaluating colleges before giving them money. “In reality measuring the output of our colleges and universities in a meaningful way is simply not possible,” writes President Rudy Fichtenbaum.

As someone with an advanced degree in the mathematics of social science, I fully appreciate the difficulty in quantifying post-graduate outcomes. But, Fichtenbaum’s opposition isn’t to any specific metric; it’s to the very idea of evaluation– not educational, not civic, not financial– nothing. He wants a blank check, even as colleges fail to improve student outcomes by their own standards.

Why giving away bikes has helped more girls stay in school in India

Because bikes are changing the time-cost of school. Interesting study (h/t GregMankiw):

TechCrunch: James Altucher's cheat sheet on entrepreneurship

Simultaneously funny, sad, but definitely useful.

Political attacks on Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank

My admiration and respect for Muhammad Yunus is a bit tempered by his views on price controls on interest rates, but he deserves far better than this (WSJ):

Mr. Yunus's political effort fizzled, but Ms. Hasina's suspicions endured. When a documentary accused the Grameen chief of misappropriating $100 million from the Norwegian government in 2010, Ms. Hasina blasted him as a tax evader and "blood-sucker of the poor." Norway's government responded that "there is no indication" that "Grameen Bank has engaged in corrupt practices or embezzled funds."

But in Bangladesh the fix was in. Dhaka officials forced Mr. Yunus from his post as Grameen's managing director in 2011 on grounds that he had passed the mandatory retirement age of 60—though he had passed that age 10 years earlier and Grameen's board of directors wanted him to stay. Bangladeshi officials then started chipping away at the power of the directors, the majority of whom are elected by the bank's 8.4 million borrowers (almost all women) who are also its shareholders.

Now the campaign against Grameen may escalate into nationalization, with Dhaka raising its ownership stake to 51% from 25%. That is one of three options recently recommended to Prime Minister Hasina by a government-appointed commission, along with breaking the bank into 19 separate regional entities.

More on Jobs, Capitalism and Inequality

A post from TechCrunch raises a few additional interesting points. More here.

Study: Exercise helps you sleep better - but not necessarily right away

NYT (via Instapundit):

The preliminary message of these findings is heartening. If you habitually experience insomnia and don’t currently exercise, Dr. Baron said, start. Don’t, however, expect that you will enjoy or even complete workouts that occur on the day after a broken night’s sleep, or that you will sleep better hours after you’ve exercised.

The process is more gradual and less immediately gratifying than the sleep-deprived might wish. But the benefits do develop. “It took four months” in the original study, Dr. Baron said, but at that point the exercising volunteers “were sleeping at least 45 minutes more a night.” “That’s huge, as good as or better” than most current treatment options for sleep disturbances, including drugs, she said.

Not sure this shows outsourcing tasks to India doesn't work...

Just that *how* the author outsourced, and what he outsourced, resulted in failure (Slate via Instapundit)

Make History

Jeff Bezos (via SwissMiss): “Work Hard, have fun, make history.”

Why Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Matters

From Cato:

Foreign direct investment is ultimately a judgment by the world’s value creators about a country’s institutions, policies, human capital, and prospects. As the world’s largest economy, the United States has been able to attract the investment needed to produce the innovative ideas, revolutionary technologies, and new products and industries that have continued to undergird its position atop the global economic value chain.

The Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship

From Inc.com (via John, a co-founder of Crossfit Toronto):

No one said building a company was easy. But it's time to be honest about how brutal it really is--and the price so many founders secretly pay.

It's one of those things that's tough for others to understand and tough to talk about. For many of us who create businesses, it's difficult to build an identity outside our startups - so even the thought of admitting failure is difficult. On the other hand, the future belongs to those who are willing to take the plunge - and even more encouragingly, the world is changing so that it's increasingly possible to start a business without quitting your job before knowing that your idea will work (TimFerriss).

In recent years, I've found my rhythm with the help of friends and family but also CrossFit Toronto. I've also taken to listening pretty consistently to Mixergy interviews and recently became a premium member.

Does that come in Paleo?

"Towards an exercise pill for humans with a drug that boosts muscle and running endurance by 50%." (Nextbigfuture via Instapundit)

A Nuclear Reactor Competitive with Natural Gas?

A cause for cautious optimism (TechnologyReview via Instapundit)? Not sure why they need to apply for DOE funds... but given the comparatively cheap form of capital, little wonder why.

India Stumbles

Just like China, India's ascent was unlikely to be linear. A bit of perspective on the economic news coming out of India (WalterRussellMead via Instapundit):

“India is now the sick man of Asia. They are in a crisis.” said one economist. “I think things will get much worse before they get better,” said another. “The government is between a rock and a hard place.” The Sensex, India’s stock index, fell precipitously last week. The rupee hit another record low today.

It wasn’t so long ago that many were writing about how India was destined to rival China as a global power. Various American officials, including President Obama, have endorsed India’s bid to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Has this “summer of difficulties” cast all this into doubt?

Probably not. Just as a summer of good news does not mean an economy will be soaring forever, a period of bad news does not mean it will always be flailing. As the chief economist of the World Bank said in a press conference yesterday, ”Growth may not have bottomed out. We have further to go (down), but the situation is not as bad as is being captured by the mood and captured in the headlines. India is nowhere near the 1991 crisis. The gloom is being overplayed.”

As a general rule, the MSM and the Davoisie overreact to trends. America was supposed to be invincible in the 1990s, and after 2008 the consensus voices pronounced that we had entered a terminal decline. Similarly the BRICs were unstoppable and taking over the world a couple of years ago; now they are supposedly roadkill on the economic highway.