Chris Banescu

The Superiority of School Vouchers Demonstrated

School Vouchers by Gary Jason –
The failure of the American K-12 public school system has been obvious for decades. Some of us fossils can recall the public uproar that accompanied the release of the report “A Nation at Risk” back in 1987, documenting the mediocre at best, disastrously bad at worst performance of the nation’s public schools.

The public school special interest groups (the PSSIGs) — that is, public school administrators, education department professors, “labor studies” professors, textbook publishers, and most notoriously teachers unions and their members — managed to turn the outrage into support for jacking up spending.

Over the last quarter-century, we have nearly doubled our national per capita spending — we now outspend per capita for K-12 education every other nation on Earth but one. But our national student scores have remained flat, while internationally, we have dropped in ranking among developed nations from 14th during the 1970s down to 24th place today. [Read more…]

Lessons in Leadership from an Airline Captain

Captain Chesley SullenbergerIt is often in times of crisis and life-threatening emergencies that the real character of an individual is made manifest. The contrasts between the leadership of an American airline captain and that of our current president offer us an opportunity for personal and societal reflection. The differences could not be more striking.

On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport with 155 passengers and crew on board. In the cockpit of the Airbus A-320 twin-engine aircraft were Captain Chesley Sullenberger and First Officer Jeff Skiles. With First Officer Skiles at the controls, the airplane climbed away from the airport. As flight 1549 approached an altitude of 3,000 feet, the plane struck a flock of geese and instantly lost thrust in both engines. At once Captain Sullenberger realized that both engines were failing and imminent danger awaited the passengers and crew. He quickly put his hand on the side stick, called out “my airplane” (at 3:53 in the video), and took over control of the aircraft from First Officer Skiles. There was no panic, no fuss, no paralysis, no moment of indecision — just calm, competent leadership and confident action. [Read more…]

Five Reasons Why You Should Write Down Your Goals

Write Your Goals Down, Commit Your Goals to Writing

There is incredible power in writing down one’s goals. This sage advice comes from an entry written by Michael Hyatt on his blog Intentional Leadership. The five (5) useful tips he mentions can help us focus our efforts, clarify our desires, motivate us into action, and give us an opportunity for self-reflection and self-improvement; key elements in finding purpose and meaning in our lives. I encourage everyone to visit Michael’s site often, he posts a lot of other great stuff there also!

Most people don’t bother to write down their goals. Instead, they drift through life aimlessly, wondering why their life lacks purpose and significance. I am not saying that committing your goals to writing is the end-game. It’s not. But it is the beginning.

Here are five reasons you should commit your goals to writing:

1. Because it will force you to clarify what you want. Imagine setting out on a trip with no particular destination in mind. How do you pack? What roads do you take? How do you know when you have arrived? Instead, you start by picking a destination. The same is true with the milestones in your life. Writing down your goals forces you to select something specific and decide what you want. [Read more…]

How To Brand Yourself Like A Celebrity

Brand Yourself Successby Nick Nanton & JW Dicks –
As I tell my clients over and over, your personal branding campaign should be primarily centered on the goal of branding yourself as a celebrity within your market. The key phrase here is “within your market.” You don’t need to become the next Hollywood superstar, you just need to become the go-to guy in your field, within your market. And as you know if you’ve been paying attention, that involves branding yourself both as an expert and as an interesting individual. Why interesting? Because it’s not good enough simply to be considered good at what you do; you also need to be memorable. You need to stick in the minds of potential clients, so that when they need your services, you are the first person they think of. For some clients I’ve spoken to, this seems to present a problem. “There’s simply nothing memorable about me,” they say. If you identify with that notion, pay attention, because today I’m going to show you that anyone can brand themselves as an expert and a celebrity if they are willing to commit 100% to that goal. [Read more…]

7 Steps to a Culture of Innovation

7 Steps to a Culture of Innovationby Josh Linkner –
Hyper-growth companies often credit a culture of innovation as their primary driver of success. They deploy creative thinking to attack problems big and small. Here’s how you can too.

We live in a business world accelerating at a dizzying speed and teeming with ruthless competition. As most of the tangible advantages of the past have become commoditized, creativity has become the currency of success. A 2010 study of 1,500 CEOs indicated that leaders rank creativity as No. 1 leadership attribute needed for prosperity. It’s the one thing that can’t be outsourced; the one thing that’s the lifeblood of sustainable competitive advantage.

Unfortunately, most companies fail to unleash their most valuable resources: human creativity, imagination, and original thinking. They lack a systematic approach to building a culture of innovation, and then wonder why they keep getting beaten to the punch. [Read more…]

Fatal Flaws of Keynesian Economics

Keynesian Economics Failureby Ron Ross –
It’s now clear that the federal government’s massive stimulus spending has not achieved its objectives. Why hasn’t it? It’s important that we have answers to that question.

The stimulus was premised on the economic model known as Keynesianism: the intellectual legacy of the late English economist John Maynard Keynes. Keynesianism doesn’t work, never has worked, and never will work. Without a clear understanding of why Keynesianism cannot work we will be forever doomed to pursuing the impossible.

There’s no real mystery about why Keynesianism fails. There are numerous reasons why and they’ve been known for decades. Keynesians have an unrealistic and unsupportable view of how the economy works and how people make decisions. [Read more…]

Why Most Market Forecasters Get it Wrong

Market Riders Investment Advice by Mitch Tuchman –
Be it a football game, the weather, an election, or the future of Middle East uprisings, people want to know what will happen before it does. We want to know the future, and we actively seek out experts who can predict it. But facts show that in most pursuits where dynamic and multiple variables determine what will happen, experts are not good at predicting the future. And to make matters worse, those who predict are rarely held accountable for their prognostications.

Take politics, for example. Philip Tetlock, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a study that became a book called Expert Political Judgement. He tracked about 80,000 forecasts from nearly 300 political experts over 20 years regarding political events in many countries. He tracked the outcomes of their forecasts against a group of college undergraduates making subjective predictions and a group who just made random guesses. The experts did slightly better, but not much. Nevertheless, they got on TV frequently and built their names and reputations. [Read more…]