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Thomas Sowell

Reference

Thomas Sowell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Thomas Sowell (born 30 June 1930) is a prominent American economist, political writer, and conservative/libertarian commentator. He is presently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. Best-selling conservative British author, Paul Johnson, once described Sowell: 'America's leading philosopher is Thomas Sowell. He has given me more than any other living American philosopher...' ..."

Images

TheAdvocates.org - Thomas Sowell
200x265 JPEG, color

Born

30 Jun 1930, in North Carolina

Biography

Creators Syndicate: About Thomas Sowell
Hoover Institution
Laissez Faire Books
Townhall.com

Associations

Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Hoover Institution

Web Pages

Thomas Sowell - Libertarian
Advocates for Self-Government

Recent Column

Creators Syndicate
Jewish World Review
TownHall.com

Archived Columns

Jewish World Review
since Feb 1998
TownHall.com
since March 2000

Articles

Book Review -- The Quest for Cosmic Justice, by Richard M. Ebeling, Freedom Daily, Dec 1999
Sowell and Spying, by William L. Anderson, 9 Feb 2006
"In my early libertarian days, Thomas Sowell was one of my heroes. ... However, I fear the Former Great Man has crossed his own Rubicon, with his recent column in support of the administration's post-9/11 domestic spying. ... Sowell defends the wiretapping ... his defense is pure utilitarianism ..."

Writings

Bad Teachers, 19 Apr 1998
Related Topic: Learning
"... good teachers are those whose students learn, not those with worthless certificates and diplomas ... -- 'pieces of paper that signify nothing,' as the author aptly puts it. ... The most brutal reality of all is this: 'No one really cares whether your child learns anything at school.' All sorts of people have all sorts of other agendas ..."
Barry and the Babe, 16 Oct 2001
Related Topic: Baseball
"Barry Bonds is the first batter in the entire history of the National League -- going back into the 19th century -- to have a slugging average over .800. ... Just as batting averages count hits in proportion to your times at bat, slugging averages count your total bases in proportion to your times at bat."
Bundling and unbundling, 13 Apr 1998
Related Topic: Technology
"Microsoft is not the first company to have the government try to second-guess the bundle it is offering for sale. Back in 1956, the government forced Eastman Kodak to stop selling Kodachrome film with the developing included. ... Kodak sold it ... so that they could see that it got done right. But antitrust lawyers forced them to sell the film and processing separately. "
Clinton in Africa, 15 Apr 1998
Related Topic: Rule of Law
"We should never forget that, even today, the rule of law is the exception -- not the rule -- among the nations of the world. Our great blessings as Americans come not from our personal merits but from our having the good fortune to live under a rare form of government, with a constitution dedicated to preventing concentrations and abuses of power."
Joe DiMaggio -- icon of an era, 10 Mar 1999
Related Topic: Baseball
"... Ted Williams had a higher batting average and Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg hit more homers. But no one put it all together ... like the man they called Joltin' Joe and the Yankee Clipper. From his first season in baseball ... people marvelled at his combination of great hitting, brilliant fielding, powerful throwing arm and swift, heady base-running."
Julian Simon, combatant in a 200-year war, 12 Feb 1998
Related Topic: Julian L. Simon
"Julian Simon set out to explain what happened to real population in the real world, not what happens in abstract models or popular hysteria. In the real world, as he demonstrated with masses of facts and in-depth analysis, we are nowhere near to running low on food or natural resources."
"Living wage" kills jobs, 5 Nov 2003
Related Topic: Minimum Wage Laws
"The latest verbal coup of the left is the phrase 'a living wage.' Who is so hard-hearted or mean-spirited that they do not want people to be able to make enough money to live on? Unfortunately, the effort and talent that the left puts into coining great phrases is seldom put into facts or analysis."
McGwire, Maris and the Babe, 21 Oct 1998
Related Topic: Baseball
"Ruth is the only man to have led the league in all four major categories ... -- highest winning percentage and lowest earned run average as a pitcher and highest batting average and most home runs as a hitter. ... The Babe was the only man to have slugged over .800 -- and he did two seasons in a row. He is still the greatest."
Milton Friedman at 90, 29 Jul 2002
Related Topic: Milton Friedman
"... no one did more to dismantle both Keynesian economics and liberal welfare-state thinking. ... Milton Friedman not only excelled in the scholarly journals but also on the television screen, presenting the basics of economics in a way that the general public could understand."
Pete vs. Joe, 17 Mar 2003
Related Topic: Baseball
"Shoeless Joe had a lifetime batting average more than 50 points higher than that of Pete Rose -- and 12 points higher than that of Ted Williams. Where Williams' highest batting average was .406, Shoeless Joe Jackson hit .408. ... Jackson himself could not be accused of throwing the games. He batted .375 in the Series ..."
Religion and the Constitution, 28 Jun 2002
Related Topic: Freedom of Religion
Roasting Walter Williams, 19 Sep 2003
Related Topic: Walter E. Williams
"Walter Williams is the only debater to leave Jesse Jackson speechless. On another occasion, he flabbergasted Ted Koppel when a woman on welfare said that she didn't have enough money to take care of all her children and Walter replied: 'Did you ever consider that you might have had too many children for the money?'"
Senator Feinstein and property rights, 10 Nov 2003
Related Topic: Property Rights
"One of the main reasons for the outrageous housing prices in San Francisco and the surrounding Bay area is precisely the over-riding of property rights. Endless restrictions, obstructions, and bureaucratic delays facing anyone who is building anything on their own property in this area have forced housing costs to astronomical levels."
Storm troopers vs. free speech, 22 Mar 2001
Related Topic: Freedom of Speech
Talkers versus doers, 9 Jun 2004
Related Topic: Entrepreneurs
"Why can't the talkers leave the doers alone? Perhaps it is because that would leave the talkers on the sidelines, with their uselessness being painfully obvious to all, instead of being in the limelight and 'making a difference' — even if that difference is usually negative."
Talkers versus doers, Part II, 10 Jun 2004
Related Topic: Entrepreneurs
"The fact that benefits have costs means that those who create these benefits are tempting targets for accusations from those who know how to dramatize the costs. ... most people have not been taught to weigh costs against benefits or to subject hot rhetoric to cold logic."
The lessons of Indonesia, 22 May 1998
Related Topic: Indonesia
"The economic crisis in Indonesia was created by the government's austerity program, which was imposed by the International Monetary Fund as a condition for giving a multibillion-dollar bailout. These IMF officials are thousands of miles away from the riots, in Washington, D.C."
The Wrong Filter, 26 Feb 1998
Related Topic: Self-Esteem
"American 12th graders fell below the international average in general mathematics and general science. ... American students led the world in one department: 'self-esteem.' ... students had the highest perception of how well they had done. Seventy percent said that they thought they had done well. This would be comic if it were not so tragic."
Vindication, 6 Mar 1998
Related Topic: Larry Elder
"Larry Elder is currently being vilified and threatened, and his sponsors are being boycotted, because he is one of a growing number of 'black conservatives' who do not march in step with the racial party line ... it is only a matter of time before Elder, Clarence Thomas and others are vindicated."

Books Authored

Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study, 2004
A Personal Odyssey, 2000
Autobiography
Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One, 2003
Related Topic: Economics
Barbarians Inside the Gates: And Other Controversial Essays, 1999
Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy, 2000
Related Topic: Economics
Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality, 1984
Related Topic: Rights
Conquests and Cultures: An International History, 1998
Controversial Essays, 2002
Knowledge and Decisions, 1980
Race and Culture: A World View, 1992
The Economics and Politics of Race, 1983
The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, 2001
Related Topic: Children
The Quest for Cosmic Justice, 1999
The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, 1995