Tom McCabe’s List of Lies on Twitter
My friend and colleague Tom McCabe, who I consider one of the smartest people I know, has been Twittering some interesting stuff lately, in the last few hours especially. He has been posting a list of lies. Here is that list below, ending with #19:
A list of lies. #1: For most Americans, an Ivy League college is more expensive than other private or public colleges.
Lie #2: Most lawyers are wealthy and earn a six-figure income.
Lie #3: Teachers are poorly paid, can be easily fired, and have terrible working conditions.
Lie #4: Most millionaires wear expensive suits, have expensive watches and drive expensive foreign-made cars.
Lie #5: Recycling paper or plastic is a cost-effective way to help the environment.
Lie #6: (hopefully everyone knows this by now): Real estate always goes up.
Lie #7: The stock market returns 8-12% over the long term (real number is more like 5% including dividends.)
Lie #8: Paying to go to a no-name college is an investment, which will pay out much more than it cost in future wages.
Lie #9: Mathematics is about numbers and equations and calculations and algorithms (see http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf)
Lie #10: America is more socially mobile than the Old World (France, Germany, Scandinavia, Spain, Italy et. al.)
Lie #11: Rich people, as a general rule, pay a larger percentage of their income in taxes than middle-class people.
Lie #12: There is a Biblical law prohibiting abortion.
Lie #13: Illiteracy, in the sense of not being able to read and understand newspaper, is essentially nonexistent among Western adults.
Lie #14: Health insurance is a hedge against risk, like package insurance or life insurance (it's more like a protection racket).
Lie #15: Americans nowadays are freer than Americans in 1900, or most people in third world countries.
Lie #16: America since 1930 is essentially a capitalist, entrepreneurial, free-market society.
Lie #17: Big company mergers and acquisitions generally create value for shareholders.
Lie #18: Most people want to get rich.
# Lie #19: A majority of people who matriculate into college graduate within six years.
How many of these lies do you believe? The only one which really would surprise me is the last one.
November 14th, 2009 - 22:37
According to this website
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/?level=nation&mode=graph&state=0&submeasure=27
56.1% of students beginning bachelor’s degrees in the US graduate within 6 years. So #19 may not be a lie…
November 15th, 2009 - 08:27
Very interesting stuff.
There’s a bit of a Duh factor with number 4. The Millionaire Next Door was published in 1998, was a huge bestseller at the time, and currently ranks at about 760 on Amazon.
Regarding number 8: Ten years out from the no-name college I attended, I was making about 3X per year the total of what I paid to attend for four years. Today I make about 10X, but I did get a master’s degree along the way — also not from a big name school. These may be atypical results, but I’d want to see some real facts before I accepted such a sweeping generalization. Between numbers 8 and 1, it looks to me like this particular Yale student wants to justify why he’s spending so much on college.
November 15th, 2009 - 09:47
Many of these are vague, and can be considered true if interpreted in various reasonable ways.
November 15th, 2009 - 11:20
“56.1% of students beginning bachelor’s degrees in the US graduate within 6 years. So #19 may not be a lie…”
That doesn’t include people who matriculate into community colleges who want to transfer.
“Regarding number 8: Ten years out from the no-name college I attended, I was making about 3X per year the total of what I paid to attend for four years.”
True, but this (in all likelihood) had nothing whatsoever to do with your degree. College was also much cheaper back then.
“These may be atypical results, but I’d want to see some real facts before I accepted such a sweeping generalization.”
Of course. Here’s some analysis conducted by, of all people, the NY Post:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/don_get_that_college_degree_M3e5tqm90kfvWDU0BD4tOL
Note that this does NOT take into account that a large part of the “earnings premium” is that college grads tend to be smarter/harder working than non-college grads, purely because of the selection process of college admissions.
“Between numbers 8 and 1, it looks to me like this particular Yale student wants to justify why he’s spending so much on college.”
I’m not, both compared to my old college and to what I would pay at a state university. The amount Yale charges students of different socio-economic backgrounds (my family is middle-class) is publicly listed at http://www.yale.edu/admit/freshmen/financial_aid/yale_cuts_costs.html. Do those numbers look high?
November 15th, 2009 - 11:39
Refer to lie #1. AFAIK, Ivies and comparable universities tend to have high tuition, but much better financial aid than second-tier Us. Example:
November 15th, 2009 - 11:40
Er, just saw that you did mention lie #1. I stand by my statement, though.
November 15th, 2009 - 14:35
“True, but this (in all likelihood) had nothing whatsoever to do with your degree.”
Not sure what you mean by this. Getting my first real job depended on having the degree, and everything else happened from there.
The analysis in the NY Post story is interesting, but more interesting would be real (not hypothetical) data on where college grads end up financially vs. people who don’t attend college. The problem with the NY Post story is the headline, which doesn’t really agree with the gist of the story. Rather than advising young people who want to improve their lives not to go to college, the argument is that the cost of higher ed should be lower.
It looks like Yale is taking important steps to get costs down. They are definitely to be commended for that. (Even before the cuts, they were ranked 89th out of the top 100 most expensive schools — I would have guessed they rank a lot higher than that. http://www.campusgrotto.com/colleges-with-the-highest-total-cost.html) But most people who apply to Yale get turned down.
In any case, the NY Post analysis doesn’t justify singling out “no-name” schools as being especially worthless. And I don’t think anyone has ever actually promulgated the lie as you phrased it. “Hey, kids, go to some no-name college! It’ll pay off big for you!”
The lie that people DO hear is that there is some guaranteed ROI associated with getting a college degree. Statistically, big-name schools pay off better than obscure schools — of course — but there’s a lot of variation even there. Across the board, some end up making out like bandits, and some end up with real buyer’s remorse.
I’d kind of like to see a comparison between graduates of Texas A&M (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/Cutcollegecosts/P125902.asp) and MIT with similar majors. The latter pay roughly ten times as much for their degree as the former (assuming Texas residency). I honestly wonder how well that pays off?
BTW, I meant to mention earlier: #9 is huge. This is a misunderstanding that needs to be addressed up front. We need to start explaining mathematics better in primary school.
December 7th, 2009 - 21:35
The link in #9 is broken and should be http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf.
(Can I award myself a kudos for guessing that it would be Lockhart’s Lament?)
April 4th, 2010 - 17:49
If we could educate buyers to be more accountable of their money, our economy may not be as bad as it is today. Great information. Happy Easter. Have a great Easter!
June 6th, 2010 - 21:26
es que siempre que dejaba la lap encendida, se me apagaban los discos duros a las 4 horas y me daba un buen de hueva bajarlo en otra m¨¢quina XD
October 21st, 2010 - 21:33
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