Where Can Teachers Become Millionaires?

The capitalist system – aka “free markets” – reward producers according to the demand for their goods or services.  We see that in America very clearly in the technology sector, where companies that make highly desired products are rewarded with profits: think Apple, Google, Samsung, etc.  We also see it in the service sector, even in industries like janitorial services, where a few large companies (ServPro, Molly Maids, etc.) dominate through instant availability, consistent good service, and fair prices. 

In these industries, and most others, the best producers can (and have!) become millionaires.  One exception is the education industry.  There's no way a “rock star” teacher can become a millionaire, the way a “rock star” programmer or doctor can.  That's because education in the U.S. is regulated, institutionalized, and (for the most part) either directly run by the government or controlled (through funding) by the government. 

Is there any place on Earth where this is not true?  Where a teacher can become a millionaire?  Yes, there is: South Korea, where a parallel, for-profit educational system has grown up.  The results are fascinating.  As you read the article, keep a watch for things that are directly the consequence of a free market for education – and the contrast with the public schools (which still exist in South Korea, and aren't all that much different than ours). 

A Win for Free Markets...

Tesla Motors had a big win this week – on something that in a supposedly capitalistic, free-market state should have been a no-brainer.  Tesla is now allowed to sell cars in North Carolina, direct from the factory to consumers with no car dealer involved.  Crony capitalism just suffered a blow.  Let's hope there are many more...

Oops: Obamacare Strikes in California...

From the Los Angeles Times:

As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

"We're going to be mandating that every single person in this state have insurance," said state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina), chairman of the Senate Health Committee and leader of the effort to expand professional boundaries. "What good is it if they are going to have a health insurance card but no access to doctors?"

Hernandez's proposed changes, which would dramatically shake up the medical establishment in California, have set off a turf war with physicians that could contribute to the success or failure of the federal Affordable Care Act in California.

Great. Nobody could have foreseen this, say the liberals. The trouble with with that assertion is that a whole bunch of people did foresee this, including your humble blogger.  It's Economics 101, folks: make a valuable good or service (like healthcare) available to everybody with no (or almost no) incremental cost, and shortages will promptly ensue.

If this doesn't make sense to you, try this simple thought exercise: imagine that you could go to the car dealer and have your choice of (a) a used, beat-up 1954 VW bug, or (b) a brand-new Mercedes CL65, and all you have to pay is a $25 “co-pay”?  Which would you choose – the beater worth a hundred dollars or so, or the $200,000+ Mercedes?  I know I'd be leaving with the Mercedes.  Healthcare under Obamacare works the same way: anybody can have whatever healthcare they want, for (at most) a modest co-pay.  Surprise, surprise, surprise – the demand for great healthcare is going up!

Free markets do a marvelous, organic job of scarce resource allocation...

The Simple Pencil...

The animation below is made from the famous essay by Leonard Reed: I, Pencil.  The lead:

I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.

Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do.

You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery —more so than a tree or a sunset or even a flash of lightning. But, sadly, I am taken for granted by those who use me, as if I were a mere incident and without background. This supercilious attitude relegates me to the level of the commonplace. This is a species of the grievous error in which mankind cannot too long persist without peril. For, the wise G. K. Chesterton observed, “We are perishing for want of wonder, not for want of wonders.”

I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that’s too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.

Pick me up and look me over. What do you see? Not much meets the eye—there’s some wood, lacquer, the printed labeling, graphite lead, a bit of metal, and an eraser.

It's a great introduction to the wonders of capitalism, and most especially the organic development of products.  It's also a great primer on the complexity of the modern world, which most of us completely ignore most of the time.  Capitalism and free markets are really the greatest wonder of the world...

Seeing this reminds me of one of my favorite books on engineering, which also uses the lowly pencil as its protagonist: The Pencil, by Henry Petroski.

The Contract that Changed Everything...

The fascinating story of some Chinese farmers who were so fed up with Communism that they risked their lives to enter into a capitalist experiment.  They were found out, and thought they were doomed – but then the government decided to make them a model for economic reforms...

Yes, I know it's from NPR.  For your own safety, don't venture into the other parts of the site without protective gear.  Or alcohol...

A Story to Make Liberals Squirm...

...and me smile, of course.  Here's a fellow who's figured out how to make money on the backs of the poor while making their lives better at the same time.  Everybody wins, as opposed to charitable doles, where everybody loses...

Industry, Meet Statist...

TigerHawk explains, very clearly, how the Obama administration's failure to understand how capitalism works is wrecking our industrial jewel: the pharmaceuticals.  Read it and weep.  Then vote these assholes idiots out of office at every possible opportunity.

For the children.

And yourself...

In Defense of Capitalism...

Doctor Zero has a nice one...