Dave,
Great note. Thanks. I thought I’d end with a few lessons or reminders I take away from our exchange, and the exchange in “The Fray.” Here are my six big takeaways from this past week:
1. THE DRUG WAR
I brought this conclusion into our exchange, and I leave with it intact. I think that America’s drug war is a sad misallocation of energy and resources. To use or abuse drugs is a personal choice for adults in a free country–whether it’s an ultimately deadly drug like nicotine and tobacco, or a catalyst like caffeine, or an addictive like heroin, or a depressant like alcohol. Drug use is a matter of personal choice and drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem. Do we really think Daryl Strawberry and Robert Downey Jr. should be going to jail?
2. GREAT ORGANIZATIONS
I’m not convinced that for-profit companies hold all the answers to solving present and future problems. In a free society, for example, there’s always a bottom 5 percent in personal income and savings that won’t attract a lot of commercial providers. In particular, I think that’s where not-for-profits and government funding are an absolute necessity. In that spirit, I think it’s more important for us to understand what make for great organizations (for-profit and not-for-profit) than to decide where they’ll be effective. In America, we are definitely allocating too much money to mediocre and worse for-profits and not-for-profits.
3. THE NEED FOR FINANCIAL EDUCATION
I certainly take away from this exchange that there’s a lot of concern about the levels of poverty in American life today. One solution I suspect we can all agree on is the need for mandatory personal finance and investment education at every level in school. Today, we’re graduating from grade schools, high schools, colleges, and graduate schools millions of students who have no degree of mastery over the simple mathematics and basic concepts of personal finance. It may just be one very small step toward solving the problems of poverty. But it’s a step worth taking.
4. DEFINING QUALITY OF LIFE
My vacation and our exchange here has convinced me that we need a different scoring system for the quality of a life. It’s easy to oversimplify. If someone has millions in their brokerage account, they must be happy, right? The Dalai Lama would giggle at that idea. And while I certainly don’t think a lifeguard on the Big Island is a proxy for the “have nots” in America, what she said does remind me that financial success is one–yes, an important one–but just one of many factors that make for a good life. Perhaps on the mainland, she’s right, we do rate it too highly.
5. POLITICIANS AND ECONOMISTS
Dave, your comments about economists and politicians persuade me (though they didn’t persuade everyone) that we’re living in a country and moving into an era where the private sector will grow much faster than the public sector. As a nation, we’re asking a lot of the tough questions about what the roles of our local, state, and federal governments are. We should always be asking these questions. And in the end, I side with former Fed Governor Wayne Angell, who–when hanging on Fool radio–said, “Never before has it been so fun and so fascinating to dig into economics and use these economic tools to understand the world around us.”
6. HOMER SIMPSON HANGS OUT ON SLATE
And he does eat Krispy Kremes. Amazing. Those are my takeaways for the week that was. Thanks to Slate for having us. Thanks to everyone in The Fray for reading, reviewing, and reacting to our thoughts. And thanks, Dave, for actually talking to your younger brother this week.
Have a great day and weekend.
Best,
Tom
