Human capital is the ability to create the material things that constitute wealth… A classic example: In the 1970s, Uganda decided that the Gujarati population, from India, were just too wealthy and controlled too much of the economy. The Ugandans expelled them and wouldn’t let them take their wealth with them. And so the Gujaratis arrived, mostly in England, destitute. Meanwhile, the Ugandan government had taken over all of this material stuff. A few years later, the Gujaratis were prosperous in England, and the Ugandan economy collapsed. Because they didn’t have people who knew how to do what the Gujaratis were doing. It’s also one of the problems of trying to finance things by confiscating the wealth of the wealthy. All you can confiscate is the material wealth. You cannot confiscate human capital.

Thomas Sowell on wealth, poverty and Flat Earth economics:  

Fans of car-crash interviews may enjoy these extracts from the BBC’s Today Programme, in which Ms Malia Bouattia, president of the National Union of Students, shares her deep thinking on the subject of “safe spaces” and campus censorship.

Do stay tuned for her thoughts on the University of Birmingham as “a Zionist outpost.”

Via Julia. 

For newcomers, more items from the archives:

Well, Soil Is Sort Of Brown. 

Your furniture choices are informed by the “crisis in white identity,” says sociology lecturer. And Gardeners’ Question Time is all about race.

Given the Guardian’s intense gravitational pull on certain kinds of stupid, it was perhaps inevitable that Dr Pitcher would find a welcome there. Now it turns out that squirrels are yet another proxy for “our” unspoken racial sentiment. Our esteemed intellectual, who divines hidden racism by means of his third eye, is hurt by the avalanche of mockery aimed at his earlier pronouncements, claiming his words have been misconstrued, while also claiming that same derision proves him right, and while repeating the very claims that resulted in laughter. He does, however, concede that “the uprooting of… Japanese knotweed is… not necessarily motivated by racist intent.”  

Ladies First. 

You men must learn your place in the progressive pecking order.

“On television interviews, on platforms and political meetings, at any presentations — if there’s no woman speaker, then the event does not take place,” says Professor Haiven. By which she means, such gatherings should not be permitted. She’s quite emphatic on this point. Professor Haiven is also keen on punishing people who say things of which she doesn’t approve, and which she casually conflates with acts of violence. And this great thinker can denounce the evils of an alleged male “monopoly” in an environment where women outnumber men by quite some margin, and while sitting on a panel with no male participants, and with no-one willing to argue a substantively different view. 

Answers On A Postcard, Please.

Squat enthusiast invites readers to “imagine what you and your friends could do with a crowbar, a guitar,” and someone else’s property. 

Says Ms Cosslett, “Communes represented a different way of being – sharing the cooking, the cleaning and the childcare was not only practical but also beneficial to the wellbeing of the members.” Readers who as students shared a house and cleaning duties, in theory at least, will no doubt testify to the practicality of this approach and the lofty hygiene standards that invariably resulted. Now imagine those high standards applied to parenting and childcare.

There’s more, should you want it, in the greatest hits. And tickling the tip jar is what keeps this place afloat.

Noted racist and waitress abuser Mr Ntokozo Quabe™ is in the news again:

It is NOT true that I ‘assaulted’ and ‘whipped with a stick’ a white student during our shutdown of the arrogant [University of Cape Town] Law Faculty yesterday. Although I wish I’d actually… whipped the white apartheid settler colonial entitlement out of the bastard – who continued to video record us without our consent.

Well, in fairness, and as caught on video, Mr Quabe and his associates were fairly unequivocal in their demand for attention. And note the use of the word ‘arrogant’.

While word has it that the instruction to video record us came from the Dean of Law (a whole womxn of colour!), we are klear [sic] that we will not be subjected to such white violence. The violent anthropologising of articulations of black pain without black people’s consent is as old as settler colonial domination itself. We refuse to continue operating under the white gaze!

Yes, physical harassment and jabbing at strangers with a two-metre stick are actions unworthy of complaint. But the use of a smartphone to record said jabbing and harassment constitutes “white violence” and is therefore inexcusable. Potential employers, please take note.

Meanwhile, at the University of Houston, and in no way related to anything above: 

Philosophy department advisor Bobbie Sue Schindler agreed without hesitation to the idea of “emotional first-aid kits,” even offering her assistance to help assemble them. “The stress of school gets to them,” Schindler observed… regarding the emotional distress that students face, “like a bad grade, a missed class, being late, a microaggression, uh whatever…” To help students deal with such burdens, the emotional first-aid kits contain a baby blanket, chocolates, a plush kitten, a bag containing the smell of lavender, ear plugs, a genderless pastel teddy bear, hand written notes, and a pacifier. Only the pacifier gave Schindler any pause, though only out of concern that students might take them the wrong way. Instead, she suggested that the kit just contain a note encouraging students to suck their thumbs.

Says Ms Schindler, “I sucked my thumb for twenty years.”

Kitten lovers, look away now. // Dolly does it double tempo. // When objects melt. // Vintage mugshots. // Inside is a game. From the makers of Limbo. // First world problem. (h/t, Julia) // Bottle opener of note. // Buddhist kung fu nuns bring food, fight trafficking. // Baby otter cam. // When the algorithm doesn’t like your article. // Bewilder your children with this retro coffee table. // Room service. // Discontinued products. // How to punctuate your parentheses. // “The F-16 student pilot started to pull up for a barrel roll, but was forced into a G-induced loss of consciousness half-way through the manoeuvre.” // “Objects around you will change shape, appearing to shrink and expand.” (h/t, Dr W) // I question the practicality. // And finally, pleasingly, the good, the bad and the ugly.