Not Proof Of The American Dream

The best thing you’ll read today. “I Am Not Proof of the American Dream”. As a general policy, if Tara Westover writes something, you should read it.

Upon receiving a $4,000 Pell Grant, Westover writes:

“In those desperate years a few thousand dollars was enough to alter the whole course of my life. It contained a universe. It allowed me to experience for the first time what I now know to be the most powerful advantage of money, which is the ability to think of things besides money. That’s what money does. It frees your mind for living.”

How on earth does the Right, with their knee-jerk complaints of Big Government waste and social program dependency make sense of the Tara Westovers of the world?

The American Dream Quantified

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From “The American Dream Quantified, At Last”

This graphic is worth several thousands of words. Among other things, it explains why parents are increasingly anxious about their children’s futures and why education policy makers are fixated on economic competitiveness often at the expense of “the whole child”.

For the record, my dad made about 10x more than me.