patrick.net

Under Thatcher the trains became crap.

Huh? Well, the French still has better trains. :)

@Robert,

What is your opinion about school vouchers? Is there any reliable evidence indicating this approach can benefit low-scoring low income and/or minority children?

Trains under Thatcher were supposed to become crap. Train riders are selfish parasites so filled with self hate that they won’t even come close to paying the operating costs of their chosen transportation consumption.

Economic reality.

Train riders are selfish parasites so filled with self hate that they won’t even come close to paying the operating costs of their chosen transportation consumption.

Awww.... c'mon, Robert, they can't ALL be that bad, can they? I rode the tube quite a lot when I was an exchange student in the UK, then later on as a grad student in Chicago and rather enjoyed it. I don't recall hating myself, though I can't say whether or not the trains were breaking even at the time. :-)

Meant to say, "later on I rode the 'L' train in Chicago". No Chicagoan would call it the "tube".

Every post by you that I have seen on the internet was pro-SUV and anti public transit.

I believe he is merely pro-market, which is not wrong at all.

People who grew up in communist countries and emigrate to the US at 57 shouldn’t try to learn to drive.

Their kids can drive them around though. Public transportation should be less subsidized. However, I also think that oil should be less subsidized. The market should be able to sort itself out.

You do not seem to like the housing market.

Huh? How does one like or dislike the market? The market is always morally neutral. I do not dislike the housing market. That is not the reason I am here.

Once again, I see I have to be the child basher here and say having kids, especially having kids in CA, is way overrated.

Once you have kids, your costs pretty much double and your free time goes to deficit. You start worrying about things that you have no control over, like the amount of employer sponsored healthcare coverage or if the kids next door are schizoid drug pushing bully zombie pyromaniacs. From the moment of concept until the kids turn about 30, you worry about whether they're gonna turn into schizoid drug pushing bully zombie pyromaniacs. Most people wouldn't even care about school districts or owning if they don't have kids.

Better to keep kittens. They don't have opposable thumbs so they can't strike a match.

Better to keep kittens. They don’t have opposable thumbs so they can’t strike a match.

Absolutely! There is no bubble in cat condos!

Patrick Says:

> Also, if you have a house already but want to go to
> school in the next town over, those with the money
> can just rent a tiny place and leave it empty. Voila,
> residency. Cheaper than private school.
> One of the Giovanotto family, a big landlord in Palo Alto,
> told me that “a lot” of their rentals are really just to
> give the renter a Palo Alto address and access to the
> schools. So they pay $1000 a month for a tiny apartment
> and never move in.

I bet this does not happen much since:

1. You can get a lot a Palo Alto friend or relative to say your kids live with them for a lot less than $1,000 a month.

2. You are going to have a tough time making a school believe that you live with your kids in a 500 sf studio (about all you get for $1,000 a month)...

As for the topic at hand, I'd the quality of schools depends a lot on the personality of the kid. A lot of kids will do better and learn more in magnet schools and under challenging curriculms. Some kids do better in a more laid back education environment. In almost all cases, parental involvement and observation is key, there's bad elements even at the best schools, and it's important to firmly steer the kids away from those elements.

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.