10 popular thoughts that I disagree with

If you chop a bitcoin into a trillion pieces to create a currency that can be used to buy a loaf of bread it is the same thing as printing a trillion dollars.

I have no science to base this on but I have the feeling that at some point we will discover, or become aware of, something faster. The speed of light is very useful for calculations. Maybe quantum entanglement will have something to do with it?

I have used this excuse myself but losing weight is simple (but not easy): eat less food. There is an industry built around swirling information and misinformation. Real complicated factors affect weight, like set point theory, carbs vs. Protein, intermittent fasting, glucose tolerance, hormones and other complex interaction on weight. I have lost weight by eating candy for lunch and a light dinner. Less food, lose weight.

The taxation system (in the US) could certainly use some adjustments. However, it is an income tax, not a wealth tax and rewards people that create value, build companies and own real estate and don't necessarily earn a W2 salary.

“The rich” are frequently the makers, and people who call for increasing taxes on the rich are frequently the takers.

If an individual is personally paying many thousands or millions in federal tax already, they should not have to give even more to the crowd of idiots in the government to waste. Some individuals pay more tax than entire counties.

For the people that want to pay more tax as some sort of civic duty: go ahead! There is a line item on the 1040 and you can give the government as much as you want. You don't need special rules that would affect everyone else.

I was a math teacher in high school once upon a time. I saw kids struggle with advanced concepts and give up. Several kids in my classes dropped out when they got old enough. The state required us to cover so many topics it was hard to teach: a week on graphing parabolas, a week on exponents and calculations with exponents, two days working with matrix transformations, etc. Very few of these topics have obvious applications and they are difficult to understand with only a few hours of exposure to the topic.

Education should be made available to people that show promise in complex mathematics. We need people that are good at higher-level math.

I have a “STEM” day job and rarely pull out math skills beyond what I learned in the eighth grade. However, I also need to be very sharp at logic, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

What would serve most people better is learning math through basic algebra and geometry at a deep level. Spend time building things and making things that require some math. More time learning about money. Maybe require some exposure to trigonometry and exponential thinking because they are very useful.

This became a rallying cry for education in the US. It sounds good, and who would say that a child SHOULD be left behind? Like most ideas from politicians, there are unintended consequences. If you are cynical, these are the intended consequences.

Schools are required to pass people whether they want to or not. I taught at a middle school where we could not give a grade lower than 65%. The first people to figure this game out were the students. You could pass a class just by writing your name.

The schools in my state were graded by the percentage of students passing standardized tests, including severely disabled children that were counted at the same level as all other students for "no child left behind." Few principals wanted to have programs for special needs people in their schools.

Since schools were also graded on improving scores, most of the money, time and attention went to the lowest quartile of students. Advanced students were neglected: they could not demonstrate much improvement because they were already getting good scores. The Calculus and advanced French classes taught themselves out of textbooks in the hallway while the teachers struggled to maintain order with the rest of the class.

No, it is a direct handout and bailout to the banks and lenders. If an individual student has $200,000 in debt and gets $10,000, it might not change their life. However, giving 1,000,000 students $10,000 each gives $10 billion directly to the banks.

Certain parts of the world are extremely dangerous and many people are victims of terrible crimes. Even though there was an armed robbery in my neighborhood last week (yikes!) I believe that the odds for most people to get harmed by others is low.

We should stop talking about fairness. It is a loaded word. Once somebody claims that something is not fair, it turns people that are affected by it into victims, and people that are not affected by it suddenly become "not fair." This does nothing but polarize people and distract them from root causes.

Lots of life is not fair. You can discuss the same issues without bringing the concept of fairness into it. For example, above, should rich people pay more taxes? It does not matter whether this is fair or not. If you are rich, you probably think the current situation is fair. Some people think that the current arrangement is not fair. How much more should someone pay, how will this be calculated, what is the justification for it and what will the money be used for? Good luck getting a straight answer, but it should not matter whether someone thinks it is fair or not.

What is fair? I have been listening to a lot of Robert Reich recently. He talks about fairness a lot. I wish he would stop because he has some good ideas, or at least interesting ones. Unfortunately, bleating about fairness seems to be part of his brand. Does he consider it fair that he has money and somebody else doesn't? He worked hard to have a nice career. Would he give half of his money to a drug addict begging for change on the street corner? Would he personally sponsor immigrant families until he had the same amount of money as everyone else? Probably not.

In the United States recently, there was a Supreme Court ruling about race-based college admissions criteria. People talked about whether this was fair or not. Should the color of your skin be a factor in college admissions? Whether it is fair or not is irrelevant.

Legacy candidates are given preferential admission at many colleges. This means that if your parents or grandparents went, and frequently donated money, then the children or grandchildren should be able to get preference. This arrangement probably seems pretty fair to somebody who donates money to the school. To somebody that is not a legacy, this arrangement might seem unfair. At the end of the day we need to decide whether it should be allowed to happen, not whether it is fair.

Well, it depends.

For people and companies that get governments to subsidize their industries and create moats and allow rent-seeking, it is probably not good. For people that create, whether it is an actor, athlete, business owner, inventor, author, doctor, landlord or TikTok influencer, then it is not a bad thing.

Money that is earned does not take money away from anyone else. Businesses create opportunity and abundance that was not there before. If someone in your community is wealthy because they own a chain of hair salons they earn money by providing services. They do not take anything from anyone else that is not freely given. The only people that can take money from you without your consent are criminals and the government.