George Will: “Today, industrial policy’s political purpose is to defuse angry populism that is blamed on “deindustrialization” displacing workers. But declines in the portions of labor forces devoted to manufacturing are normal as nations become richer, regardless of wide variations in nations’ economic policies. And the U.S. government’s would-be industrializers should hope that surly populists, who are eager to cause society’s upper crust to crumble, do not notice how industrial policy makes eager bedfellows of government bureaucrats and corporate elites — for their mutual benefit.”
Jamie Sears: “I wrote How to Love Teaching Again because I am a former teacher and I’ve seen firsthand how teachers are becoming burned out in the classroom. I know that really quality educators are leaving long before they truly wanted to because they have no choice. They need to leave the classroom. I feel like our children really need the best educators possible in the classroom. I’m hoping that the strategies that I share in this book are things that teachers can implement tomorrow to see a better work–life balance.”
From a comment on Tyler Cowen’s blog: “Singapore is often seen as a model for other developing countries for any number of the policies it adopts. But I think one truly underrated high impact policy is this scholarship system. It largely solves the problem governments in many countries face of keeping talent in the public sector, while redressing some degree of inequality (of course, the scale is limited). To a government, the cost of funding the higher education of a couple hundred students a year (Singapore’s birth cohort is small, after all) is relatively insignificant, even at the most expensive American colleges. I’ve always thought of this policy as one of the single lowest-cost, highest-impact things that other developing countries can borrow from Singapore: a marginal revolution, if you like. The second point is on how the civil service is enmeshed with the elected government. The PAP often draws its candidates from the civil service, and because of its electoral dominance, it largely has the power to decide on the career pathways of its MPs and ministers. Unlike the UK, therefore, where ministerial promotions are largely dependent on political opportunity, the PAP does do quite a bit of planning about who its ministerial team a few years down the line is going to consist of, and often draws civil servants to fit into that system.”
Ishan Bakshi: “Considering the lament in the past over the inability to accurately estimate the Indian middle class — households with significant discretionary spending capacity — the sheer range of firms now venturing into the country is indicative not of the potential down the line, but of the market now. So, how big is the market? India’s per capita income is just under Rs 2 lakh or around $2,400. But this statistic conceals more than it illuminates…Though their share in the overall population is minuscule, the absolute number of these households is nothing to scoff at. So even as vast sections of the labour force face near stagnant real wages, millions more seek work under MGNREGA compared to pre-pandemic levels, and, the country’s political and financial capitals, its millennium city and Silicon Valley are submerged during the rainy seasons, for these households, well ensconced in their gated islands, and they are just that, it’s the roaring Twenties. So while India may not be the next China by the end of this decade, even if it only manages to chug along, averaging 6 per cent, it could well eclipse some major markets.”
