What is Economics and What Makes a Good Economist?; The Student Debt Racket; Israel Considers Military Recruitment Inside USA As Soldier Shortage Persists
What is Economics and What Makes a Good Economist?
“Economics, at its core, is the study of cause-and-effect relationships—analyzing how scarce resources, which have alternative uses, are allocated. Individuals respond to incentives, costs, and opportunity costs based on the subjective value each individual places on the choices they make. It is these choices that shape the outcomes we observe in society. Thomas Sowell reminds us, “Incentives are not just monetary—they include prestige, risk, fear, power, and pleasure. People respond to all of them.”
Therefore, economics is the study of choices and the incentives and costs of those choices in conditions of scarcity. The first lesson of economics is scarcity—there is never enough of anything to satisfy everyone’s unlimited wants. Our options, however, are not endless, and failing to understand this leads to poor decision-making and results. The options we have are often much more limited than we think, and we have to realize that whatever we do will be within the constraints of scarcity.
These choices reflect the subjective value each person places on different costs and benefits, as what is important or worth sacrificing for one individual may not be for another. Moreover, since value and costs are subjective only when an individual has full and complete ownership over his or her own self, choices, assets, etc., can the highest and most accurate subjective value can be placed upon anything.
The heart of economics lies in recognizing that there are trade-offs, not fantasies. Thomas Sowell taught us that “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” Economics is often misunderstood as a dismal science, but as Thomas Sowell rightly pointed out, “Economics is not dismal. Life is dismal.” Life confronts us not with perfect outcomes, but with constrained options—“Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.” Every decision we make has costs, which are the price paid and all of the other opportunities we gave up in making that decision (trade-offs). Individuals make decisions based on the incentives or possible rewards and or pain avoided for making that decision.
Frédéric Bastiat emphasized that a good economist must look beyond the immediate and visible effects to consider the long-term and often unseen consequences. In order to understand the true costs of anything, you must know what you are giving up and the unseen consequences that are just as real as the seen consequences. “It almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa.”
This way of thinking is what Thomas Sowell considers “thinking past stage one.” Many people rely on stage-one thinking—focusing only on short-term, immediate results—without considering the ripple effects of their choices and actions. In order to make better decisions, we must develop the discipline to think beyond the first stage. Before making any economic or personal decision, Sowell urges us to ask three essential questions: “Compared to what? At what cost? What hard evidence do you have?”
These principles are not just economic truths—they are tools for thinking clearly in a world full of difficult choices. These principles help us understand ourselves and other individuals better as they explain human behavior and the consequences of decisions and actions. It is in following these principles that makes someone a true and effective economist. All of us should study and apply these principles as they will help guide, improve, and understand the decision-making process in our lives.”
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The Student Debt Racket
“Much of the current debate on student higher education debt centers around the students as victims of rapacious capitalism. However, the government‘s student loan program has driven up education costs, impoverished student borrowers, and financed the leftist takeover of higher education.”
The student debt crisis isn’t a natural market phenomenon; it’s the predictable result of decades of government interference. Since 1980, average tuition and fees have increased by 1,200 percent, while consumer price inflation has risen only 236 percent over the same period. This massive increase has left students and families struggling to keep up, often forcing them to take on substantial debt just to attend college. Today, over 42.7 million Americans owe a combined $1.69 trillion in federal student loan debt. A combination of federal policies, including subsidized loans, government grants, bloated university budgets, and a complete lack of accountability, has fueled the relentless rise in tuition costs. As a result, higher education—once seen as a path to opportunity—has become a debt trap for millions.
Why 1980?
In 1978, Congress passed the Middle Income Student Assistance Act, making federally-subsidized loans available to nearly all students, not just those with low incomes. It took two years to fully roll out loans to the newly-eligible student population. Once 1980 began, tuition rates started their steady climb. Making student loans available to more people seems like a benign policy on its face, but it sent tuition prices soaring for decades.
Universities serve one of the poorest age/education demographics in the United States: young adults without a college degree. Since their target market was short on cash, universities had to be sensitive to tuition prices; otherwise, students couldn’t afford to attend. Before 1980, students had to work during college to pay as they went or work after high school to save as much as possible before enrolling. Once subsidized loans became available, students could borrow the full cost of college with the expectation of higher post-graduation earnings and easy debt repayment. Never mind the taxpayer picking up part of the interest expense. College administrators quickly realized that since students didn’t have to pay up front in cash anymore, price sensitivity was no longer a limiting factor. Universities could raise prices and pursue pet projects like social change, costly sports programs, bloated staffing, and luxurious amenities.
A study by the New York Federal Reserve found that for every dollar the maximum loan limit increased, average tuition rose by 60 cents. This astonishing pass-through rate makes raising subsidized loan caps completely ludicrous. Originally, only the poorest students needed subsidized loans. But as more loans originated, tuition spiraled out of control, requiring more students to borrow until we reached today’s crisis of unaffordable tuition.
[Please read the above! - JRD]
Follow the Money
The vicious cycle is obvious. So why not stop raising the loan maximums? Because higher education is a $200+ billion industry. Even in the public university system, an entrenched bureaucracy is getting wealthy off high tuition. The corrupt cycle looks like this: university administrators and faculty unions donate to left-wing super PACs. In return, they ask for increased student loan limits and more federal grants under the banner of increasing “affordability” for students. Universities then raise tuition and funnel the new money into raises, administrative expansion, and campus construction projects. Then, faculty members continue indoctrinating students to vote for far-left candidates, and the racket continues.
A Forbes article stated the following:
Between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%.
University administrators are not using the increased tuition revenue to create smaller class sizes or improve student’s education. They are inflating the bureaucracy to create a colossal social justice organization.
Graduation now depends on ideological coursework; every student in the California State University system’s 23 campuses must take a class in ethnic studies or social justice. The point is twofold: indoctrinate students in radical leftist ideology and create education jobs for graduates with useless degrees like San Francisco State’s Social Justice Education program. It’s a pyramid scheme designed to enrich the academic elite and cement progressive dogma in the young professional class.
Universities are so effective at converting students into activists that the education system can’t even afford to employ them all. We have begun to see the private sector’s culture shift to placate the radical employees coming out of colleges. So many young adults have fallen under the spell of left-wing cultural ideology that an entirely new industry has appeared out of thin air. “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” training and consulting is now a $15 billion industry. Firms now feel obligated to create mandatory training programs under pressure from young employees. These consulting fees are nothing but tributes to activists in exchange for a “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card in case an employee says something in public contrary to leftist social doctrine. While universities have succeeded at getting rich by indoctrinating students and poisoning our culture, they’ve also buried an entire generation in debt.
The Collectivists’ Role
The same collectivists who built this broken system now insist on fixing it—by expanding it. As Bernie Sanders described in a recent interview with Joe Rogan, the solution to a $500,000 medical degree is more subsidies. He sees public colleges gouging students with government-backed aid and calls for even more intervention. He lacks the self-awareness to see that his ideology created this crisis. His support for ever-growing bureaucracy and government control led to a $1.69 trillion student debt bomb, with 42.7 million borrowers. Now he’s adamant that this enormous financial burden be shifted onto taxpayers. US higher education is a prime example of how collectivists take control of a system, corrupt it, and then raid taxpayer coffers to cover the damage. All the while, they accuse small-government advocates of being heartless and blame them for the very crisis the collectivists created.
The Forgotten Taxpayer
Lost in this conversation is the taxpayer, who’s also getting shafted. State governments continue to fund bloated universities because even federally-subsidized tuition isn’t enough to pay for the massive bureaucracy. Meanwhile, taxpayers are forced to cover the interest on ballooning student debt. Americans who couldn’t afford college and chose to work, are now paying taxes to subsidize the degrees of their higher-earning peers. This collectivist pyramid scheme is a naked power grab designed only to expand the education system, enrich insiders, and reward those who continue to partake in the scheme.
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Israel Considers Military Recruitment Inside USA As Soldier Shortage Persists
“Amid an enduring soldier shortage, and as an all-out occupation of Gaza looms, the Israel Defense Forces are considering a campaign to recruit soldiers from Jewish populations living in the United States and other countries around the world.
According to Israeli Army Radio, a state media outlet, Israel may mount an effort to recruit 600 to 700 Jews a year from the diaspora, a term referring to Jews living somewhere other than Israel. At first, Israel would concentrate its effort in the United States and France, the countries with the two largest Jewish populations, at roughly 6 million and 450,000, respectively.
As of February, there were 3,500 diaspora soldiers serving in the IDF, with nearly 900 of them Americans. Israel calls such troops lone soldiers. “The majority of American lone soldiers are coming after high school, either directly after high school or after a gap year program," said Noya Govrin, Director of the Lone Soldiers Program at Nefesh b’Nefesh, a nonprofit that encourages Americans and Canadians to "make aliyah" -- that is, to move to Israel and become citizens. "In the past two years, there has been a notable increase in college graduates that come to Israel to serve as lone soldiers," she told Times of Israel.
Earlier this month, one of those American lone soldiers who'd recently returned from service in Gaza was the target of an overnight arson attack on vehicles parked at his family's house in suburban St. Louis, Missouri. Graffiti painted on the street accused him of being a murderer and proclaimed DEATH TO THE IDF.
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“An Israeli soldier with US citizenship was attacked in Clayton, Missouri, his vehicles were set on fire and destroyed. Graffiti outside the family’s home called for death to the IDF.”
Open link below for video:
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"Awkward moment for some of my fellow Jews in the diaspora," wrote Rafael Shimunov, New Yorker host of a "Jewish Left" radio show. "Cheerleading Israelis sending their kids to do genocide, but will never send their own."
The IDF is coping with a 10,000- to 12,000-soldier shortfall. There are two principal drivers: draft-dodging by ultra-Orthodox Israelis, and lower retention of current soldiers, who are leaving the IDF at an elevated rate as the war in Gaza nears its second anniversary. Some are voluntarily leaving via extreme means: At least 16 soldiers have killed themselves in 2025, and 54 since Oct 7. More than 3,700 have been diagnosed with PTSD.
There are some 14,600 deserters, according to the Jerusalem Post, which appears to apply that term to draft-dodgers. The IDF is about to close the window on a sort of amnesty plan, which gives draft-dodgers until Thursday to sign up for service by phone or online and then be rapidly ushered into the IDF's ranks in the coming weeks. If they do, they'll be spared criminal charges and penalties that include a prohibition on foreign travel.
The issue of ultra-Orthodox military conscription has threatened to topple Netanyahu's government, as parties representing that community have demanded legislation that would grant them an exemption from military service. In June 2024, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the government must start drafting the Haredi, who'd previously enjoyed an exemption ever since Israel's creation in 1948.
Haredi men typically dedicate their entire lives to religious study in seminaries called Yeshivas and receive public welfare. With Israel waging a multi-front war encompassing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran, the exemption has become increasingly unpopular with the other segments of Israeli society that must heed the call.
As public opinion among both American Jews and non-Jews grows increasingly negative toward Israel's war in Gaza and the Zionist state in general, it remains to be seen how fruitful a recruitment campaign inside America would be. Priming the pump for IDF recruiters, Israel-catering members of the US Congress have controversially introduced a bill that would extend credit and employment privileges enjoyed by US military service members to American citizens serving in the IDF -- with no such privilege for service in any other foreign army.
[Truths are coming out fast now all over the place, including numerous pastors as well as Jews: Israel is a Zionist created and Zionist state. I am not referring to the people but the government and its bureaucracies. - JRD]
Open link for complete article
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