Model Minority - Myth or Reality ?

Interesting article in USA Today on how the changing admissions rules in California Univerisities causing angst among Asian-Americans that it will effect them negatively. Briefly the CA Univeristies were relaxing the rules around the SAT subject courses which were mandatory before, and to primarily encourage participation from other minorities such as African and Hispanic Americans.

This was second in recent times that I have seen and wondering about the myth vs reality of this controversial topic on "whether the elite US universities are some what Biased in their admissions policy against Asian Americans" ? So it was interesting to read public comments on web from general community on this topic.

Comment 1. "is this a left wing looney liberal policiy to punish those who are the smartest and work the hardest ?"

Comment 2. "Neither gender, race, or ethnic background should come into play when it comes to being accepted by a college. Take all this information off of the college applications and accept applicants based on their SAT score, High School GPA, and extra curriculum activities. This way no one party can complain about being discriminated against."

Comment 3. "There is an unhealthy cloud hanging over the asian population if education is the only avenue you should be concerned about while growing up and/or going to college. There is a thing called "living" that one needs to experience along the way of education. I think from my observation, alot of asian kids here in southern california don't get that cause they are being driven face first into their school work by their 1st generation parents! What do you think?"

Comment 4. "It's a myth that all Asians work hard because it's in our culture, but it's because the people who could afford to immigrate to America from Asia and India are already successful, so it's more likely that their kids would be successful. It's called the 'Myth of the Model Minority'. It is a self-selecting group of high achievers who emigrate from one place and come to America as a higher socio-economic group than the average of where they came from. There may be some special cases where the barrier to immigration here is different, but in general the self-selection trends to the higher strata individuals/families."

Comment 5. "Asian parents can give their children a more European name, which will help their kids in other aspects of their lives too."

Comment 6."So you study hard, do your homework, do plenty of community service and graduate at the top of your class BUT because of your ethnicity, you get denied a college education. When did common sense die?"

Comment 7."Hey! If we're lowering the standards on education to increase diversity, does this mean that major corporations (eg Microsoft, Cisco, Pfizer, etc) will lower their standards too? Is Lower education standard=more jobs being outsourced? Are we saying that Bill Gates is an idiot when he made the comment, "We need to strengthen our education system compared to other countries?"

It does feel like the much-acclaimed Oscar winning 2005 movie "Crash" (which by the way I loved watching !), and shows clash of cultures and races as we struggle with skewed prejudices associated.

Ofcourse while researching this, I did find interesting concept "Model Minority", which is most commonly used to label one ethnic minority achieving higher than another ethnic minority.

In the United States, the term has usually been associated with East Asian Americans and Indian Americans. Intend to explore this further... here are some related links if you are interested to follow along.


Link1 Link2 Link3 MIT Princeton Invesigration

Finally, these topics are as controversial as the subject of 'racism' and 'reservations a.k.a affirmative action' itself, and would love to hear your opinion too. Please feel free to send or post your comments... Adios

National Debt hits another record $11 Trillion

I had earlier posted on my blog just as recently as in October 08 about the astonishing rate at which the national debt of US touched 10 Trillion and they had to bring a new digital counter to fit all those digits. Now just in six months.. here's the next one !

Now what does that mean ?
> Over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in US.
> It took the U.S. government 191 years – from 1791 until 1982 – to run up its first trillion dollars in debt.
> By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated in 2001, the National Debt stood at $5.7-trillion. He ran up more debt faster than nearly all of his predecessors combined: just under $4.9-trillion. Also if you want teach your teen kids struggling with algebra on what a real-life example of "exponential" is, this could be your classic one !

> It's projected by Obama adminstration that by the end of September 2012, the Debt will have soared to $16.2-trillion – which amounts to nearly 100% of the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that year.

Wonder what's the big deal ? Debt to whom ? should we be worried ? or who should worry ? Ofcourse, it is.. check it out here for some Debt 101 class ! .

Only interesting are some of the signs if you chose to observe :

> 3/13/2008 "Worried Debtors & Reassurances on Creditworthiness" : China, proably the single largest buyer of U.S. debt in recent times, now starting to get concerned about the safety of the estimated $1 trillion his country has invested in U.S. government debt! Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said on Friday "We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S., so of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. Frankly speaking, I do have some worries," he said in response to a question. NYTimes Obama Reassures Countries on U.S. Debt

> Two days later, 3/16/08 : Bloomberg reports "Foreign Demand for Long-Term U.S. Assets Weakens". Quote from the article “There was a stampede by foreign investors to exit their U.S. dollar investments,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “Everyone wants to bring their money home. It’s not about return on capital. It’s whether you can get your capital back.”

The decline in foreign holdings was the steepest since August 2007. Foreign investors sold a net 43 billion dollars in long-term US securities in January as the flow of capital turned negative, US Treasury data showed Monday.

Analysts say a loss of confidence in US Treasury securities could cause a dramatic drop in the dollar and force Washington to pay higher interest rates.

Cost of Economy rescue: Adding up the dollars

Any idea how much all the US government bailouts so far cost ?

700 billion ? 1.6 Billion ? 1.4 Trillion ? ..

it's a whopping 3.6 trillion sofar already spent out of an allocated sum of $9.1 trillion..

let's put that as number $ 9100,000,000,000 ....

Unbelievable ? check out how and where it all went here

Old behaviours to New

The current news everywhere highlights that how far the pendulum is swinging in opposite direction, that too in such a short span... whether it's related to Global economies, US ecoonomy, Climate patterns - all seems record breaking !! the levels of losses in billions, worst conditions, gloomy forecasts !.

But all is not bad.. there is a new face to the economy in 2009 as people seem to come back to their senses and grasp the new reality and kick some good old habits goodbye ! Check few below..

> American spending has fallen further in the past six months than it has since 1974. For much of this decade, many Americans lived beyond the means of their regular income, tapping cheap credit and the rising value of their homes for extra cash. For a time, the savings rate fell almost to zero... But now in the final quarter of 2008, the savings rate reached its highest level since 2002. In December 2008, Americans saved 3.6 percent of their income.

> Major lossess & job cuts announced in last couple of weeks

Bloody Monday: 74,000 layoffs announced in one day - Caterpillar, Pfizer, Sprint, HomeDepot, GM, Texas Instruments...

US auto sales plunge to 27 yr lows

Bank Failures Will Cost FDIC $40 Billion

Panasonic set to cut 15,000 jobs - The world's largest maker of plasma TVs
BHP Billiton posts 56.5 pct fall in 6-month profit
Macy's Announces 7,000 Job Cuts
Major layoffs at Microsoft -
Orange County, California employers cut 41,400 jobs in 2008, tied with 1991 for the worst local job loss, the state Employment Development Department Friday.

Unemployment sweeps nation - Where does your state rank? Check it out here

'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years

Interesting article from WSJ on how the current economic strategy seems to follow right out of Ayn Rand's classic 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged". If you are not familiar ... Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated "Atlas" as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story in Novel is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123146363567166677.html

As the author of this article says... Ultimately, "Atlas Shrugged" is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand's political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear -- leaving everyone the poorer.

One memorable moment in "Atlas" occurs near the very end, when the economy has been rendered comatose by all the great economic minds in Washington. Finally, and out of desperation, the politicians come to the heroic businessman John Galt (who has resisted their assault on capitalism) and beg him to help them get the economy back on track. The discussion sounds much like what would happen today:

Galt: "You want me to be Economic Dictator?"

Mr. Thompson: "Yes!"

"And you'll obey any order I give?"

"Implicitly!"

"Then start by abolishing all income taxes."

"Oh no!" screamed Mr. Thompson, leaping to his feet. "We couldn't do that . . . How would we pay government employees?"

"Fire your government employees."

"Oh, no!"

Abolishing the income tax. Now that really would be a genuine economic stimulus. But Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Washington want to do the opposite: to raise the income tax "for purposes of fairness" as Barack Obama puts it.

David Kelley, the president of the Atlas Society, which is dedicated to promoting Rand's ideas, explains that "the older the book gets, the more timely its message." He tells me that there are plans to make "Atlas Shrugged" into a major motion picture -- it is the only classic novel of recent decades that was never made into a movie.

"We don't need to make a movie out of the book," Mr. Kelley jokes. "We are living it right now."