patrick.net

SQT Says:

> I have found that desirable school districts go hand in
> hand with more desirable neighborhoods.

I have found that desirable school districts go hand in hand with "rich" neighborhoods.

This may not be PC but most people that make enough to afford a $2mm house are a lot smarter than average, went to better schools than average and have kids that are smarter than average that are working harder than average so they can get in to better than average schools…

I have never heard of a single school bad school district where all the homes are worth over $1mm. A couple local examples are Portola Valley, Hillsborough and Ross.

The median income of Harvard graduates is $200,000.

Take out recent grads and retired people and you are often looking at a lot of money. That’s why a lot of people are obsessed with the school.

I wonder what is the median income of Los Altos Country Club members. Perhaps people should be obsessed as well.

Is being pro-market a responsible position to take?

If there is a market for, say, cocaine then surely the pro-market stance must hold true for that. If so then what about guns, prostitution, killing for fun?

Market is the means, not the end.

Then is an education, or to be educated, a means or an end?

A means.

Happiness is the end.

I have never heard of a single school bad school district where all the homes are worth over $1mm. A couple local examples are Portola Valley, Hillsborough and Ross.

Weren't you arguing that Southern Marin is rifled with inferior schools because of minorities in Marin City and druggies over the hill? The last I checked, the median home value here is well over $1M.

But happiness itself is defined by the enlightened self.

Very true. I am still having huge difficulties finding myself. The more I know the more I do not know.

SFWoman,

Robert Cote' takes his hyperindividualism to such an extreme that even Ayn herself would be cautious.

There is simply no way to get around most major cities without public transit, as an efficient daily matter of practicality. Cote' would argue that major cities themselves are the problem.

I recall that argument being made in Cambodia some decades back.

The country club analogy isn’t great- they cost money, they don’t earn it. That would be more about exclusivity and the ability to pay for it and be accepted. I am unfamiliar with that club. Up here it is either Burlingame or Mayacam up in the country.

The analogy is there. School costs money too. Harvard median income is high because people with the right background go there. If you force them to go to Chico State they will still make the same income. (Not that I have anything against Chico State)

I thought that happiness was accepting that everything and every condition is impermanent.

Do you read I Ching?

Ryno73 Says:

> Education is what the learner makes of it. I grew up in a small
> school in the backwoods of MN. After massive layoffs at the
> Iron mines all the younger teachers were sacked because they
> lacked seniority. As a result I was largely taught by teaching
> waiting for retirement with little stamina left for actually teaching.
> However I personally valued education, my parents valued education.
> I got a decent HS education and have since gotten a very good BS,
> and Masters level education from noted schools. I work with guys
> from China who got 1 notebook and had to share books. They now
> have PhDs from good schools.
> It drives me CRAZY when fellow parents obsess about the quality
> of their kids school. Do your best, nurture them and spend some
> time with them on their education and I think they’ll do OK. It can
> always be worse. Or like Patrick says - rent in place that has good
> Schools, but please realize you might actually have to invest a bit
> of yourself into your child if you want them to have a good education.

I'm wiling to bet that that most of the kids in Ryno73s senior class don't also have a BS and MA from "noted schools". It's always great to read about a poor kid from a trailer park who went to a crappy public school who goes on to become an honor student at Harvard, but parents who sent their kids to a school where it is not "normal" to work your ass off will have a much tougher time getting their kid to work hard. I went to great public schools as a kid and a private High School where 100% of the kids went on to top colleges (over 50% to Cal, Stanford and the Ivy League with the "worst" school probably UCSB). Things move along a lot faster at good schools. I saw the result of this in college when I got to know kids from crappy schools who had only covered about half the material I covered in high school. It’s sad to say that many of the kids I knew from crappy schools (who often got in to college with the help of affirmative action) couldn't cut it and dropped out. The main reason to try and send your kids to the best school you can is for all the stuff they will learn outside the classroom. Over the year I have met a lot of "Chinese guys with PHds that are much "smarter" than I am, but they have a tougher time in business since they didn't learn to play golf, ski and fly fish as kids when they were working their ass off studying and sharing books in China...

I’ll stick to Paris or Madrid, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Tokyo or London thanks.

Only Tokyo is safe enough though. Cities are magnets for bad elements.

Why people don’t use them as housing for their maid or au-pair, however, is beyond me.

@SFWoman,

The reason rich people do not allow their maid/au-pair/valet/chauffer to inhabit the studio apartment in prime location is to instill CHARACTER. They do not want to make it "too easy" for their household slaves, as this would be setting a poor example and encouraging the "wrong" behavior. If the maid's commute time were cut from the usual 3 hours each way (from whatever inland ghetto), this might encourage sloth. The servant would have more free time to spend with their families or to pursue other interests, diverting them from concentrating on their masters' needs.

*Not* a good thing, I'm sure you'll agree. ;-)

Even worse the filthy servant might actually try enrolling one of their children in the same school as your little Damien or Veruca! This simply will not do. Hence, the empty apartments in prime neighborhoods.

Top ten law firms, or Goldman probably don’t interview at the Chico equivalent law or business school. I think this is why some people get the vague idea in their head that they need a name school, even if they would find a better program in their field at a different school.

Probably true though.

Fyi for those unaccustomed to Robert's acronyms: "FOAMers = Forces Of Anti-Mobility".

See Coté-isms section of the Housing Bubble Glossary for more details:
http://patrick.net/wp/?p=63

Storrow Drive in Boston is more difficult than SF, but I still think that the immigrant elderly drivers in SF are the worst I have seen- and I have driven in Istanbul.

This is why Fremont and Cupertino can be dangerous.

SFWoman Says:

> The median income of Harvard graduates
> is $200,000. Take out recent grads and
> retired people and you are often looking at
> a lot of money. That’s why a lot of people
> are obsessed with the school.

I laugh every time I hear that "what school you went to does not matter". Lets not forget that most smart guys work as hard as they can to keep their "taxable" income as low as possible and as private as possible so median income surveys are not worth much (I've got a friend with thousands of "options" to buy Google at $0.10 a share). It seems like half my friends have at least a couple million in stock and/or stock options that they got while serving on the boards of small firms...

I laugh every time I hear that “what school you went to does not matter”.

What school you dropped out from is probably more important. :)

I wrote:

> I have never heard of a single school bad school district where
> all the homes are worth over $1mm. A couple local examples
> are Portola Valley, Hillsborough and Ross.

Then Randy H. wrote:

> Weren’t you arguing that Southern Marin is rifled with inferior
> schools because of minorities in Marin City and druggies over
> the hill? The last I checked, the median home value here is
> well over $1M.

To guarantee a good school district you need "all" the homes over $1mm not just the median. There are many areas like South Marin where the TuPac wanabees from the housing projects and the pot growers from West Marin ruin what would be a good school district...

Are you advocating golf lessons over math tutoring?

Yes. Golf is very important. I am doomed because my swing is lost. :(

To guarantee a good school district you need “all” the homes over $1mm not just the median. There are many areas like South Marin where the TuPac wanabees from the housing projects and the pot growers from West Marin ruin what would be a good school district…

I think privatizing all schools is a better idea.

I wrote:

> I laugh every time I hear that “what school
> you went to does not matter”.

Then Peter P. wrote:

> What school you dropped out from is probably
> more important

If the United Way board member went back to IBM and said: "I'm on the United Way board with a nice lady named Mary who's son and his friends from Seattle Junior College might me able to help us with an OS" there would have been no meeting with IBM and no reason to drop out of school...

Junior College

Perhaps the Junior University is better. :)

Golf is an annoying and frustrating game. Yet I met most of my friends, directly or indirectly, on the golf course.

Oh, did I mention I live over the 7th tee?

Which course?

It (or a particular instance of it) might still be considered an upper-class activity if the players are in purely for the fun (as opposed to looking for or cementing business connections) and on lush lands.

For fun? No way. Mini-golf is for fun. Golf is something you love to hate.

Golf has such a large environmental impact to calorie exerted ratio. Tennis or basketball is so much more environmentally friendly.

I just refuse to perpetuate the system. Kids are fun and all, but the whole human system is so inherently oppressive to everybody involved.

Golf has such a large environmental impact to calorie exerted ratio. Tennis or basketball is so much more environmentally friendly.

I much rather live on a golf course than next to basket ball courts. Golf courses must be environmentally friendly, otherwise animals will not wander on them. I have seen rabbits, deers, and peacocks.

Deer, rabbits, and peacocks do not make for an environmentally friendly place. In fact, absent predators they're major causes of overloading and crashing their local environments.

Thank you Old World Man.

As a living example of that very process, I find myself unable to respond to what I perceive to be overt elitism of the highest order. A good number of modest rural farm-town kids from my substandard public high school went on to public undergrad and later Ivy or equivalent graduate schools -- myself included. Amazingly, once I made it to the "A leagues" I found myself largely without challenge and often thinking that all these sliver-spooners were but a facade of intelligence. Of course that's not true, but the perception that somehow children on the golden path are smarter is bunk. It's just that they have been granted a system with safety nets, whereas we who climbed there from modest beginnings did so despite ever present risk of failure in a system that was indifferent about individual failure. Then, ironically, once we make it we find ourselves looked upon as somehow undeserving; doing nothing more than occupying a seat that should have gone to another prep school "prodigy".

Class warfare is such an unpleasant business.

Heriditary and environment determine the bucket.

Genius is the use and brilliance is the public use.

Karma determines heriditary and environment.

Fate determines intelligence and opportunities.

Work connects the dots.

Luck determines ultimate success.

In fact, absent predators they’re major causes of overloading and crashing their local environments.

Are you suggesting that I should hunt them down next time I play golf? Does a hunting rifle count as one of the 14 clubs? :)

As of Mon 6pm 70 yes/30 no.

Okay, I will short the futures to hedge. :)

astrid Says:

Golf has such a large environmental impact to calorie exerted ratio. Tennis or basketball is so much more environmentally friendly.

Couldn't agree more, especially in places where greensward is not the 'norm'. Large parts of the Algarve in Portugal are golf courses for the tourists who come to play.
Portugal in its natural state is very similar to coastal SoCal, so has severe water shortages and forest fires every year, just so the greens can be watered. Not to mention that all the water that goes on the golf course is not going onto farmer's lands.

Portugal in its natural state is very similar to coastal SoCal, so has severe water shortages and forest fires every year, just so the greens can be watered. Not to mention that all the water that goes on the golf course is not going onto farmer’s lands.

If water is charged correctly, it will automatically be put into the most productive use.

I want to come, my middle child makes a killer sourdough bowl dill dip and the rest make fudge/brownies to die for

Ok, I would already have been disappointed if Robert couldn't make it this Sunday. Now, after reading this I'll be REALLY disappointed if he's not there! Please try to make it, Robert --even if only for an hour (or long enough to drop off the goodies). :-)

"Golf has such a large environmental impact to calorie exerted ratio. Tennis or basketball is so much more environmentally friendly."

Golf is fat drunk businessmen networking, solidifying business relatioships, and making deals. It has nothing to do with environment impact or health.

It is a generally a quasi social business occassion, not a "sport".

“Productive use” of water is generally unnatural and damaging to the environment however.

Perhaps. But humanity is generally unnatural and damaging to the environment anyway. This I feel sad. :(