My Weekly Economist newsletter, under the heading “A special edition on this year’s notable lives” had a list of all obituaries published this year by the Economist. The one above caught my eyes as I found it deeply offensive on many levels. Continue reading →
The problems I described in my previous post are just the latest manifestations of Western civilization’s political malaise.
The October issue of the Atlantic Monthly was dedicated to the question “Is democracy dying?”
The articles in it are fascinating testaments of the confusion surrounding that malaise. Continue reading →
The following item was part of my daily dose of the Economist this Tuesday the 7th of June:
Class action: China’s university entrance
The 9.4m teenagers taking the two-day exam which starts today have been cramming for years. The tests, known as the gaokao, will (they believe) determine their entire future. Meritocratic exams have been revered in China since imperial times, when any man could sit them to enter the civil service. For centuries they enabled the poor but talented to rise to high office. The gaokao is intended similarly to be a great leveller. But China’s education system is becoming more unfair. The number of university students has increased nearly sevenfold since 1998, but the expanded intake has mostly been from cities, whereas 90% of rural youths leave school at 15 or younger. As a result the country is increasingly divided between those with degrees and those who never even make it to senior high school. Give China’s rulers a failing grade on that test.
As it is the case most of the time, the article subtitled: “The Republican candidates’ tax proposals are exorbitant” is more about The Economist, than the economy. It exposes, yet again, its alarmingly socialist bias. Continue reading →
Did you read my post “A pinch of communism”? It is one of my favorites because I cannot even imagine a better illustration of Hayek’s pretence of knowledge than the one described there from my personal experience. Reading this week’s Economist I got another dose.