Collection of scattered quotes & ideas from Thomas Sowell.

"If the government took over the Sahara Desert, there would be a shortage of sand."

There was a time where only 10% of American homes had flush toilets and only 3% had electric lights.

What changed? Markets.

Look at any society that achieved economic growth — no one ever credits any specific leader. It's often markets (Except Lee Kuan Yew, who enabled markets)

What about gov't?

Study what happens when the gov't does something compared to what happens when they do nothing?

For first 150 years of this country, gov't did nothing when there was a downturn.

in 1921, unemployment rate was 12%. Harding did nothing, it went back to 3%.

People talk about the kind of the government has to intervene because we had, you know, 25% unemployment during the Great Depression.

And what they don't understand is, there was only 25% unemployment after the government intervened.

Ppl in different income brackets are discussed as though they are different ppl, as opposed to to ppl at different stages of their lives

56% of U.S. households will be in the top 10% at some point in their lives

Of all the ppl in the top 1%, only 13% are in the top 1% for 2 yrs

And the number who are in the bottom 20%, only 5% of them remain the next year. 29% of them will have gotten to the top, over 50% in the top half.

And so you're comparing what happens to these abstract categories rather than what's happening to actual flesh and blood people?

Bottom 20% of ppl are mostly: young ppl, old ppl, & immigrants. The fact that young ppl & new immigrants have low income is no surprise...they're just getting into the game. And the fact that old ppl have low incomes also isn't surprising...they aren’t in the labor force anymore!

What you’d really want to see is a cohort chart where you see what happens to people who start in each bucket over time

When people say “the incomes of most American households have remained stubbornly flat over the past three decades” they are painting a strawman.

There is no such thing as a “household”. They vary over time. They vary from one group & income level to another.

e.g. there are 39M ppl in the bottom 20% of households, and 64M in the top 20%. So you're saying yes, 24 million additional people do tend to have more money.

Over a period of about 30 years, the household income rose by only 6%. over those same years, per capita income rose by 51%. Because the number of people per household was declining all the while.

There are a lot of people who regard so called disparities and inequities and income is something that requires some great explanation seem to assume that in the absence of some intervention, everyone would have something roughly equal income.

Constrained vision=Human nature is flawed, but fixed, so how do we erect institutions that contain our flaws?

Ppl's outcomes are often constrained by reality

Unconstrained vision=Human nature is malleable

The unconstrained vision looks at pain & says we must remove the pain

There is no one who from sheer intellectual power can tell you what the law ought to be

The Q is, who shall have the authority to change that law & with what constraints on that person so that that person is not just giving event to their own feelings or imaginings or theories?

In order to win politically, ppl have to depict the problems in ways that will allow them to play the role of rescuers

And so there’s no talk about resilience or self-reliance.

You have to tell them their problems were caused by somebody else, otherwise why do they need you?

Why it's bad to hate builders:

B/c you attack the people who are creating the most wealth, not only for themselves, but society.

Ppl don't get wealth exploiting. They get wealth b/c others pay them b/c they are getting value in return.

Ppl like to put down billionaires & say they are exploiting the poor

But if you compare the data there are more billionaires in the U.S. than in Africa & the Middle East put together & yet the standard of living for the poor in the U.S. is higher than that of ppl in Africa + ME

On how Socialism stinks:

Russia had all the natural resources you could imagine

It was the only industrial nation which has so much petroleum that they export oil

And the irony is one of the world's great famines occurred in the USSR. How come? mismanagement by the gov't

Taxes:

People get upset at billionaires for paying less in taxes as a % than their secretaries, but...fake news.

First of all, the vast majority of taxes are paid by people in the upper 10% of the country

It may well be that if someone has capital gains, they'll pay lower rate

Effect of tax cuts on the economy was to increase the rate of growth, increase the revenue received by the government.

The rich not only paid more taxes after the tax cuts for the rich, as they call it, they paid a higher percentage of all taxes.

In the early 20s, the tax rate on the top income was 70%. The ppl making over $100,000 paid something like 30% of all taxes.

By the end of the decade, the tax rate on the top had been cut to 24% so ppl making over 100,000 now paid 65% of all taxes & the reason is quite simple:

That when you have a tax rate of 73% people simply don't pay it (i.e. find loopholes)

So it's the choice between a symbolic high tax rate on wealthy ppl to win votes—Which the rich themselves are not gonna pay—Or actual more tax revenue coming in to the gov't.

Trickle down theory not a theory, it's a caricature

Ppl think if you cut tax rates on the rich, then there'll be less taxes for the government, or you'll have to raise the taxes on other people to make up the difference or cut programs and so forth. The above disproves that.

Why are ppl poor?

Ppl are born poor. The Q is less why are ppl poor and more why are some ppl rich

Asking this gives us an appreciation for what got us rich, (markets), and how we can get more ppl rich, rather than implying that the rich have gotten rich at expense of the poor.

Higher Ed

Why has cost been rising?

Gov't. If tuition is over a certain amount, you get more gov't funding. Thus it incentivizes unis to charge more

One reason professors cost more is that their opportunity cost is higher bc they could get paid more to go into other industries

This review gives more details: https://www.city-journal.org/thomas-sowell-race-poverty-culture

The above tweets are just a tiny fraction of his ideas written over 30 books...