How Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams Changed His Mind

[@Rawdiswar]

I'm a white boy from a rural area and I love Sowell! He's the best.

[@daniw5186]

Eric July!!!! Yes! I can’t wait to go back and watch this whole show 💜

[@davidr1620]

Tom Sowell is my biggest influence. Reading my sixth Sowell book.

[@jimrogers7425]

Don't forget Larry Elder as well... while he's not necessarily a black intellectual, he's definitely one who sees things through the lens of factual evidence.

[@lexington4]

Like fact that Larry Elder is now whining about how the Republican Party has discriminated against him and just utterly dismissed him? He’s acting like a victim who couldn’t somehow pick his presidential campaign up by its bootstraps lol

[@hanamlchl]

@@lexington4 The LATimes literally called him the black face of white supremacy and no one in California called them out on their hypocrisy.

[@janinejansevanvuuren7954]

Thomas Sowell is one of the smartest people alive. Pity he never went into politics. I suppose the smart people never do though.

[@ChelseaBarros-p7k]

This is the exact trajectory drew me away from the left! Thomas Sowell is changing lives!!!

[@paulsorensen7110]

Common sense has no racial, gender or sexual orientation identity. It's just COMMON sense. Kudos to Eric. He is an eloquent voice for self reflection and change.

[@joanhuffman2166]

I have enjoyed reading these two since the 80s in the op-ed pages.

[@katymcpherson7925]

Great KZbin channel. Great videos. Love Love Love & keep on keepin’ on Dad Saves America!

[@DadSavesAmerica]

Thank you!! We’ve got LOTS more coming!!

[@bwake]

Check out Glenn Loury and Roland Fryer.

[@solvingpolitics3172]

Now imagine if Republicans spent a fraction of their time in the inner city, distributing these videos how much better it would be.

[@whirrunofbligh3327]

I enjoyed listening to this discussion. Serious question though: Can anyone really believe that a business of any kind can't manage to pay someone 7.25 an hour? Most minimum wages are incredibly low. A couple of states are outliers that have raised it to 15, but even that like, if you can't or won't pay someone 15 an hour then that person can always go stock shelves at Walmart for even more than that. I don't buy this idea that the minimum wage is ruining employment opportunities when you can easily find a job bagging groceries for 15 or 20 or more per hour.

[@tbtb196]

Are wages incredibly low at $7.25 and hour, or are living costs incredibly high because of inflation? The point is that free market systems create opportunity without inflation. The government sets policy based on inflation. So the more you make, the more they keep and the higher cost of living goes up. Thus ultimately lowering the value of your money and erasing the “higher wage” the government then convinces you that this is greed.

[@amandakish5828]

Hey, Eric July . I found him early in covid lock down era. He was interesting to say the least.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Do the Laws of Physics give a damn about the economy? Does economics have anything to do with the economy? Do the Laws of Physics cause machines to wear out? Can the Laws of Physics tell a machine that is a Capital Good from a machine that is a Durable Consumer Good? Economists talk as though Money can explain everything but when do you hear them talk about the depreciation of machinery not money? Inflation is the Depreciation of Money. But your car wears out and can break down on the way to work. Then you fail to make money and have to spend it to get the car towed and fixed. There were 200,000,000 motor vehicles in the United States in 1994. Where did the depreciation go? Thomas Sowell did not use the word 'depreciation' a single time in his book, *Basic Economics.* Karl Marx used it 35 times in the first two volumes of his major work. And Marx did not have to pretend that planned obsolescence was not happening in automobiles. No automobiles in 1883.

[@DadSavesAmerica]

What, in your view, is the point of this point? What does physics have to do with economics… or psychology… or history? Economists do, in my view, talk about these issues, but I don’t see why the distinctions matter deeply from an economic perspective. Marx gets the basics wrong: that value is subjective and interest and profits are uncertain returns on risk taking and delayed gratification. Sound money should appreciate in value (the numerator) as the supply of goods and services increases per person (the denominator). That’s what market-based commodity money in the classical gold standard era did. And the result was longterm planning, increasing savings for people over time, and the existence of 100 year bonds. Cars and refrigerators and capital equipment wearing out is simply a cost. We buy these things to consumer the services they provide. The “deprecation goes” into the consumption of the good. It’s that simple. We buy things and use them up. That’s consumption. Economists have talked about “productive consumption” for a century plus. That’s what consumption of capital goods is. If they’re used to create for others, we call them “capital goods”. If they’re used for ourselves we call them “consumer goods”. But so what? I’m genuinely curious why you think this makes Marx and his various confusions long falsified by the marginal revolution important. What am I missing here?

[@psikeyhackr6914]

@@DadSavesAmerica What does physics have to do with economics? Are you serious? Did you ever buy a smartphone? Do you know what N-type and P-type silicon are? Isn't technology what made it possible for Europeans to conquer much of the world? It was the steamship Nemesis that helped the British beat the Chinese in the Opium Wars to force them to buy that garbage. Engineering is applied physics. Years ago I asked a PhD economist to explain how an automobile engine worked. He could not even start. But he drove a white SUV. I do think most people live in two realities, Physical Reality and Social Reality. Somehow they manage to believe that Physical Reality is not very important and can say nonsense like "Money makes the world go round." Someone told me the other day that planned obsolescence is a myth. Planned Obsolescence means unnecessary manufacturing which will of course produce more CO2. Of course global warming is not real since physics is irrelevant. The only thing I said about Marx was the depreciation. I do not package up all of a person's ideas into a single unit. He died in 1883. What did he say about Vanadium Steel?

[@psikeyhackr6914]

@@DadSavesAmerica What is NDP, Net Domestic Product? Economists: Do not mention NDP, Net Domestic Product. They subtract the depreciation of *Capital Goods* from GDP like industrial robots and 18-wheel trucks but Joe Blow's car can fall apart and not get noticed. Can economists tell the difference between a banana and an air conditioner? NDP = GDP - Dcap (official economic delusion) NDP = GDP - (Dcap + Dcon) (reality) Dcap == Depreciation of Capital Goods Dcon == Depreciation of Durable Consumer Goods GDP == Grossly Distorted Propaganda

[@psikeyhackr6914]

@@DadSavesAmerica When have you heard economists discuss the Net Domestic Product? Economists: Do not mention NDP, Net Domestic Product. They subtract the depreciation of Capital Goods from GDP like industrial robots and 18-wheel trucks but Joe Blow's car can fall apart and not get noticed. Can economists tell the difference between a banana and an air conditioner? NDP = GDP - Dcap (official economic delusion) NDP = GDP - (Dcap + Dcon) (reality) Dcap == Depreciation of Capital Goods Dcon == Depreciation of Durable Consumer Goods GDP == Grossly Distorted Propaganda

[@lairdey]

@@psikeyhackr6914 it’s plain to see that you know nothing about either physics or economics from that word salad. He may not have used the phrase depreciation, but he did refer to them in the form of durable assets in the fourth and fifth editions of basic economics. What’s nonsensical is taking an ideological talking point and expecting it to be a viable substitution for empirical reality.

[@mikejewell8518]

Much respect to Thomas Sowell BUT most of his work is simply based on theoretical models and most of his empirical work is based on correlations. To cut him some slack he did come up in an era when this was the standard but now econometric techniques have advanced and have shown some of his earlier work to not be causal

[@lexington4]

Translation: his work is basically useless now due to econometrics. Lol But his sophistication in gaslighting black Americans is still useful until it’s not lol

[@lairdey]

Absolutely demonstrably untrue. He was a boots on the ground researcher for most of the things that he did. Thomas Sowell is first and foremost and empiricist. I know that’s hard for people to understand, but it is possible to be a person who says “I believe in this strongly, but if reality doesn’t align with my beliefs, maybe it’s me who needs to change, not reality.”

[@lairdey]

@@lexington4”Gaslighting” = “ I’m gonna create a strawman because I can’t beat this guy on the merits.”

[@Darksecret_23]

😂😂😂😂

[@dannysullivan3951]

Sowell is a mouthpiece for the right. And his only ‘renown’ is on the right. He’s considered a mediocre economist. Buyer beware.

[@DadSavesAmerica]

I’m pretty sure Sowell is a mouthpiece for himself and his ideas. Right vs left is useless. Who considers him mediocre, exactly? “He is considered” is a pretty vague appeal to authority. If an economist spends his life effectively explaining the core principles instead of pretending to be a wannabe physicist with “econometrics” and computer models, is that mediocrity? Remember the joke: how do you know macroeconomists have a sense of humor? They use decimal points! Beware of scientism.

[@dannysullivan3951]

@@DadSavesAmerica Let’s put it this way. Other economists don’t read him, his readers are us average non-economists. As for his political credentials, he never, never veers from conservative talking points. Example: “Obama was the worst president ever.” Good soundbyte, ludicrous logic. Bush jr started a phony war and got Americans killed to build democracy in Iraq. Sowell’s scholarship is almost always tainted. As for his ‘core principles’, he’s a libertarian, an economic philosophy on a par with utopian socialism.

[@dannysullivan3951]

@@DadSavesAmerica Right v Left is useless? Is that you pretending impartiality? And here's a sample of Sowell's scholarly objectivity "Obama was the worst president ever." That kind of 'scholarship' is why academia leans liberal. As for his economic credentials, explaining core principles of economics is hardly an intellectual reach, especially when those "principles' are often tainted by a libertarian philosophy that is as practical as utopian socialism.

[@lairdey]

And you are a mouthpiece for the emotional instead of the intellectual, and the ideological instead of the empirical. Why would you adhere to a worldview if all the evidence to the contrary pointed you in the opposite direction?

[@lairdey]

@@dannysullivan3951 or, just hear me out, maybe the reality is that Obama‘s policies were an anathema for this country and it’s OK to say so.

[@RichardCThurston]

I like it. Now you're dipping your toe in the bottomless depths of stoopid which is The Blaze I'm hoping it won't be long until you get Glenn Beck his own self on your program. Eric July is 'content' at its most insipid. A "DList" KZbinr. Glenn is a real fool's fool. And here's hoping Thomas Sowell turns up at some point as well. A unicorn of rightwing 'thought' the conservative, libertarian, capitalist Black intellectual. Keep up the work!

[@DadSavesAmerica]

I aim to please! 😉😜

[@lairdey]

Come back when you get your success story, random faceless troll on KZbin