Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell,economist

The newly-published work by Thomas Sowell. Basic Books,New York in 2008 $26.00

On page 6, China and India have been striking examples of poor nations whose abandonment of severe international trade and investment restrictions led to dramatic increases in their economic growth rates, which in turn led to tens of millions of their citizens rising out of poverty.

Page 170: Sequel to Discrimination: "Bias, prejudice, and discriminatin are often lumped together, as if they were pretty much the same thing. But bias and prejudice are attitudes - things inside people's heads - while discrimination is an overt act taking place outside, in the real world." I am aware of such discrimination when two tenured faculty members with American citizenship of Chinese ancestry had to leave the same college in 1983 and 1984 after 17 and 18 years of successful teaching economics. Such evidence is clear in the minds of the readers. I believe so.

Page 198: "Real incomes per capita in Switzerland is more than 40 times that of Afghanistan, while the real income per capital of the USA is 50 times that of Afghanistan. The list of wide disparities goes on and on. However, some of these statistics need to be taken with a grain of salt." What about the lifestyles of folks in different countries? I published articles in the Atlantic Economic Journal in 1970s to raise the same query about the standard of living in the US and China apropos of customs and culture that are not to be measured in quantitative data. Economist Larry Summers published his article re purchasing power parity in the same rationale in the 1990s to endorse such valid challenges in re the standard of living.

Francis Shieh a.k.a. Xie Shihao,a lifelong student in economics. March 20, 2008 at 7.44 a.m.
P.S. I wish to call your attention for another penetrating speech about US strategy in Iraq by Presidential candidate Obama via C Span Radio and will be released by media. I am greatly impressed about his talented leadership when duly nominated and elected in November for America.