:: Life Of Dave ::

shouldn't we raise all boats?

The nice thing about economics is the way it gives you simplified models. Some would say the not-nice thing is that most of the models are crap, but whatever. So I started this evening to look at the cost of education. And as is often the case when you start to try to pull things apart, they get complicated, quickly. And even if you get a model you like, when you try to plug numbers in, things get crazy. Take, for example, this article in the Wall Street Journal, which asserts that the US is performing sixteen percent below where it would be, in terms of GDP, if the kids here were educated as well as in Korea. But I suspect they would not then draw the logical conclusion - if we increase spending on education, and catch our kids up to Korea, anything we spend less that sixteen percent of GDP is pure profit. So we could spend 16 percent of 14.59 trillion dollars (i.e. 2.3 trillion dollars) on education, and if our kids catch up to Korea, we would break even. Note that I think the numbers from this report are bull crap, but you get the idea. So if more education makes us all richer, and in the process makes us all smarter too, why does everyone want to cut spending on it?