Ten Myths in America

I feel compelled the dispel ten myths that I see as pervasively present in American society. These are beliefs that are repeated so often, and with so little opposition, that they are taken as fact. However, they fail to stand up to mathematical analysis, logical reasoning, or both. In no particular order, let me evoke John Stossel and proceed to puncture these oft-unchallenged myths.

1) School Teachers are Underpaid in America : In any free-market setting, no profession will be perpetually underpaid, relative to output produced. Another clue is that private school teachers actually earn less than public school teachers. As a private school is a business that has to pay market wages to teachers, something is seriously amiss with public school teacher salaries.

An average public school teacher earns about $54,000 a year, but this is for 9 months of work. Thus, they earn about $6000 per month. Most teachers have a BA degree in education, and some have an MA degree. A wage of $6000/month compares favorably to what people with similar education will earn in a corporate job. Furthermore, a public school teacher is shielded from economic conditions, and thus has higher job security than. say, engineers have during recessions.

So no, teachers are not underpaid, on a monthly or hourly basis, relative to professions that require a similar level of education. To compare teacher salaries to the wages of doctors and lawyers is false, as the educational qualifications, hours worked, and stress levels are entirely different.

2) Women Earn Less than Men in America : It is true that women, on average, earn less per year than men do. It is also true that 22-year olds earn less, on average, than 40-year-olds. Why is the latter not an example of age discrimination, while the former is seized upon as an example of gender discrimination? Because men are too afraid to challenge the false statement.

If women truly did earn 20% less for doing exactly the same job as a man, any non-sexist CEO could thrash his competition by hiring only women, thus saving 20% on employee salaries relative to his competitors. Women entrepreneurs could hire women and out-compete any male-dominated business. This clearly does not happen.

It is sad that the feminists reciting this myth are devaluing one of the most important roles in any society, that of a mother with the responsibility of moulding the next generation of citizens, who chooses to work part-time. The backlash of this will punish feminists greatly, as immigrants from countries quite unsympathetic to feminist notions move to the US and reproduce prolifically.

3) Whites Prevent 'Minorities' from Achieving Economic Parity : Many of the points from Myth # 2 also can apply here. But let me also add that the leftists who spread this myth go to greath lengths to avoid revealing that Asians actually earn more than Whites in America today. This inconvenient reality will become harder to conceal as Asians grow in number and visibility.

Furthermore, if Whites are the reason that Blacks still earn less than Whites in 2008, is it not fair to point out that Whites created a system where immigrants from poor countries like India, China, and VietNam can come to America and do so well that they surpass their White hosts, economically? Fair is fair. If Black poverty is due to whites, then Asian success is also due to Whites. If this is not acceptable, than the only other explanation is that each group's outcome is primarily due to their own actions, rather than the invisible hand of the white majority.

Lastly, people have always migrated away from places where they are discriminated against, and into places that are relatively better for them. Yet, we see Mexicans coming to the US by the millions, even at great personal risk. Blacks from the West Indies, Africa, etc. also immigrate into the US in large numbers. At the same time, we never see African Americans voting with their feet by going to some country where they might be able to earn more. Where is the evidence of African American migration to Canada, Sweden, Britain, Jamaica, South Africa, etc.? In fact, Liberia was a country created specifically for this purpose, but Liberia clearly is not able to entice any African Americans to relocate there.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright has become wealthy by pretending to be a man from a race he does not belong to, who is oppressed by people from the race he does belong to. Amazing.

4) Healthy Foods are Expensive, and Unhealthy Foods are Cheap : While I think America is the best country in the world in most ways, in dietary terms, America is sadly one of the worst. Most Americans are so alien from the concept of buying fresh fruits and vegetables, and making them a majority of one's diet, that it is shocking. That the 'poor' people in America have much greater rates of obesity than higher-income people is shocking to most of the world, and also leads Americans to assume that fast food is the cheapest available choice.

On the contrary, if one goes to any no-frills grocery store, several bags worth of fruits and vegetables can be purchased for under $20. Tomatos, bananas, carrots, cauliflower, onions, cabbage, green beans, apples, broccoli, zucchini, kidney beans, lentils, and dozens of other plant foods all cost less than $2/pound, and sometimes under $1/pound. If all one eats are fruits and vegetables (which in fact is normal in many cultures), one can easily eat their fill for under $4/person/day. Compare that to $12/day for someone who eats all three meals at McDonald's. The tens of thousand of dollars of lifetime healthcare costs that a person can save with a fruit/vegetable diet are additional.

The best kept secret in America is that the cheapest food is actually the healthiest food. The barrier to eating healthy meals is not cost, but rather knowledge, habit, and culinary skills. Do you dispute the $4/person/day figure? Then you haven't actually tried it.

5) America's Foreign Policy is the Reason for the 9/11 Attacks : This clearly does not explain why the same group conducted attacks in Bali (twice), London, Madrid, Bombay, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, and dozens of attacks in Iraq and Israel. They also have massacred schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia, and in Thailand. How are each of these due to America, rather than the logical conclusion that this group seems to have a problem with anyone who does not subscribe to their ideology? It is odd when an anti-American worldview itself is tainted by the US-Centric thought that anti-Americans love to condemn.

6) Leftists are 'Liberal' and 'Progressive' : You will notice that on The Futurist, I never refer to leftists as 'liberals'. I find them to be very closed-minded, ideologically rigid, opposed to free speech, and incapable of defending their claimed beliefs in the face of incisive questions. In the modern era, the Left can best be described as a vehicle through which people can fancy themselves as intelligent without having to put in the effort previously required to become intelligent, simply by believing a set of agreed-upon dogma. The cost-benefit analysis of this approach is attractive, but this strategy falls apart spectacularly when a leftist is confronted by an informed non-leftist in a debate, hence the efforts to silence informed non-leftists through extremely illiberal means. Ace of Spades has a superb article about what attracts people to Leftism.

7) Republicans are Less Intelligent than Democrats : This is the natural extension of Myth # 5. I simply have to point you to the voting trends by income bracket as reported by the CNN website. Let me repost the table here :Votes

Income certainly does not correlate exactly to intelligence, work ethic, and determination, as someone in college may have all of these things but still not yet be earning a high income. But to believe the 'leftist' view that Bush supporters are stupid is to believe that intelligence is inversely correlated to an ability to earn a high income. This is vastly more difficult to logically accept.

This, more than anything else, explains why the Democrats have failed to get 50% of the vote in the last seven Presidential elections since 1976, while the GOP has achieved this feat 4 times (1980, 84, 88, 2004). The median-income voter does not like being told that he/she is stupid.

8) Democrats Have a Better Record on Racism than Republicans : It is an utter failure of the GOP's branding efforts that this myth has gained traction, despite :

* Abraham Lincoln being a Republican
* FDR's interning of Japanese Americans
* George Wallace running for a President as a Democrat as recently as 1976
* Robert Byrd, a former leader in the KKK, still acting as the senior most Democrat in the Senate, even to this day.
* Strom Thurmond running for President on a segregationist platform as a Democrat, becoming a Republican only 16 years later.

Clearly, a foreign visitor with no prior exposure would not possibly conclude that the Republican Party is somehow more racist than the Democrats. That the GOP has gotten stuck with this label despite the facts above, is remarkable. The GOP also has some unfortunate racial incidents in the recent past, but they certainly have not done more than Democrats have.

9) Houses Always Rise in Value : Here on The Futurist, we identified the Real Estate bubble back in April of 2006, when it was heresy to suggest such a thing. Real estate is an investment class, just like stocks, bonds, art, wine, and gold are. Yet, you never see people nagging you about how you 'must own stocks', or 'must invest in art'. Real estate is the only investment category where emotion dominates quantitative analysis. Remarkably, emotions about real estate revealed the following two major errors that many proponents consistently make :

a) The failure to distinguish between high prices and rising prices : A good school district or California weather can certainly justify high prices, but as these factors are the same from one year to the next, there is no reason for them to result in home prices rising faster than the salaries of workers in that area. Is the school getting dramatically better each year? Is California weather improving each year?

b) The failure to account for cost of capital when calculating a home price gain : Otherwise intelligent people who fully grasp the concept of inflation still manage to think that if their home price is flat for 5 years, that they 'at least didn't lose money'. If one's cost of capital (a mortgage rate can suffice) is 6%, then 5 years of flat prices are effectively (1.06)^5, or a 34% real loss. On a $1 million home, 5 years of flat valuation is a $340,000 effective loss to one's net worth.

It will take a decade for home owners to fully accept that homes are not guaranteed to rise in price any more than stocks, art, wine, or antiques are.

10) High Oil Prices Will Create Permanent Long-Term Poverty : This belief is thoroughly debunked here.

Notice a common theme in these 10 myths. Myths 1, 2, 3, 9, and 10 betray an ignorance of free-market economics or even an active attempt to suppress evidence of it. Myths 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 are propagated by the same ideology, indicating a total inability of that ideology to actually generate compelling ideas. Myths 1, 2, 3, and 9 are derived from a sense of entitlement.

Clearly, a couple of unsavory philosophies have managed to dupe a majority of mainstream Americans (and the foreigners who watch our television news) into believing things that are simply illogical. As citizens, we must fight to overturn these myths.

1. The average teacher makes more than I do at the moment. However, in a few years I’ll far surpass a teacher’s earnings and I also made more in the past.

Granted, I think some teachers deserve more pay than others...but that’s a subject for another day.

2. Women earn less because they tend to choose professions (as a whole) that pay less. More women choose to be day care providers, teachers (see above) while more men gravitate to business, finance, medicine, etc.

3. While I’ll freely admit that there are racist whites in the US, there are racist of all races.

Nobody wants to admit that many of black America’s problems today are their own faults. Well, Bill Cosby did and look what that got him.

4. Healthy foods that are easy to prepare and taste good with little effort are more expensive than unhealthy foods that are easy and quick to prepare. Kraft Macaroni and Cheese tastes better than raw celery to most people, but most people would agree that a well-prepared dish of fresh vegetables and lean meat is better than Mac and Cheese. However, many people don’t have the knowledge, time, or desire to prepare it.

5. Can’t argue at all.

6. Leftists are idiots.

7. Any party whose symbol is an ass raises many doubts about the intelligence of its members. But enough about Obama and the Clintons.

8. Most Klansmen were Democrats.

9. Over the long term, they rise only slightly over inflation for the most part. However, there can be long periods of decline in between.

10. Something will give before that happens.

Teachers in Ca start at about 38K, work 10 months out of the year and are required to have a bachelors and a year of extra classes and student teaching to get their credentials. Before they get that full time job most of them pay their dues by working as a substitute teacher on call and part time. Most new teachers live at the poverty line waiting to get that first classroom of their own. The only place there is a shortage of teachers is in the inner cities where none of them want to live or work. You need to know a little more about teachers before you start making up facts that are supposed to fit all of them in every state.

Honest question here, not trying to be controversial. You stated:

The only place there is a shortage of teachers is in the inner cities where none of them want to live or work.

If becoming a full time teacher is such a pain in the neck and not such a good economic move... Why are there apparently enough people willing to do it that there is no shortage? I would think that if it were all that bad of a career option, it would be difficult to entice people to enter that field and there would be a shortage.

I do take it as an honest question. I know of several teachers who openly state that if they had known about the job situation before they spent 5 years getting their credentials they would not have gone the same route.
There is a teacher shortage in the large cities where education takes a back seat to surviving the school environment. The teacher colleges are all putting forth the stats but fail to tell students exactly where that shortage exists.
This should be one of the myths that this author is debunking.

1. School teachers have at times and places been underpaid, but not for a long time, as most are highly unionized... which is why they have high job security, even though some teach poorly. However, how would you support a family without an income for 3 months? Some compensation has to be given to sustain them.
2. Woman earning a bit less are not necessarily poor; my husband lost his job in the late 1980’s because the boss could hire a single woman for a little less than he would have to pay a family man.
3. The truth is that anyone who can pass calculus can have a better paying job. From programming to engineering to entrance requirements to medical and vet school, to get into many better paying jobs, higher math is the requirement. Some races and families put more emphasis on math education than others.
4. Some cheap food might be healthy, but in the DC area many fruits and veggies are still not cheap! It depends on where you live.
5. As in numbers 1,6,7 and 8, a lot of this is publicity. Tell a lie long enough...
6. The liberals pretended to be offended by being labelled liberal, but are truly pleased. They hide Socialism and outright Communism under that label...
7. Republicans are less intelligent if they believe lies 6,7 & 8... Actually, the liberals enjoy being thought of and called intellectuals and intelligentsia. It probably comes from a combination of their infiltration of higher education professorships at many colleges and their arrogance.
8. Liberals have taken over most media, of course, and play their songs over and over again with only slight variation. They don’t mind hypocracy, unless it is from a Republican. I must also admit, we seldom try to make a point of what we do. We just act more fairly.
9. It does not always happen, but historically, both houses and the stock market usually rise sooner or later.
10. High gas prices seem to be orchestrated before this election, and I believe at least one earlier one, to support their claim that times are hard and change would be a good thing. I think that prices are only down now because those who had propped them up don’t really want drilling.

I am a public school teacher in Los Angeles. My students are gangsters and thugs, some armed. They can scream obscenities at me, push me, grab me, vandalize my car, and very little will happen to them. If, however, I ever once lose my temper and even grab one by the ear, I'll be fired, and perhaps charged with assault.

You have no idea what my stress level is. $100,000 a year might be adequate compensation, given that rent in a decent neighborhood starts at $1700. But even that might not make up for the fact that if I don't burn out in another year and decide I'd rather be a cashier at Petco than continue putting up with this, I'll probably have a stroke or heart attack soon.

I'm serious. The teachers at my school who stay are having strokes and heart attacks in their 40s. It's freaking me out.

I know, I know. I just need to get out.

“However, how would you support a family without an income for 3 months? Some compensation has to be given to sustain them.”

The yearly salary is divided by 12 months. Not 9 or 10. And if only my husband was making $6000 a month. And I notice that’s probably the BEFORE taxes figure.

And the bulk of rural school teachers are “underpaid” by several thousand dollars as to the figure quoted in the article. Even a Master’s degree and 25 years employment only adds up to maybe 40,000 a year pre tax.

The guy's just plain wrong on point #4. The cheapest foods out there are starches like rice, pasta, white bread and potatoes. Sugar isn't far behind. It's a lot cheaper to buy Koolaid than fruit juice, bologna than fish and canned and frozen vegetables than fresh ones.

I'm not trying to say healthy food has to cost a fortune, just that you can get more calories more cheaply if you don't eat healthy.

I have a cousin that had to take a teaching job that paid well because her husband was laid off at Ford, here in the Detroit area. She took the job in Detroit because it was the highest paying.

Her experience reflected yours exactly. Reading your post was word for word what she told me she went through every day. She could only take it for 2 years and had to leave and find a position somewhere else.

Kids like that shouldn't be in a classroom, they should be in a delinquency center learning discipline.

I went to college to get a commercial pilot license, to change careers. Two guys that graduated ahead of me went on to two more years of college in another flight school, before landing a right-seat job on a 19 seat aircraft. Pay? $19k/year. A kindergarten teacher in my town starts at $25k or better. Playing with glue and crayons with small childen, or risking my life day in and day out? Hmmm.

“Most new teachers live at the poverty line waiting to get that first classroom of their own.”

When there is no classroom for the newly hired “teacher” then any wage they draw is well above the market for people in job pools. Unless of course you are talking about individuals who made a poor career choice and earned an undergrad teaching degree for a saturated market.

Either way, your rambling does nothing to dispute the fact made in the article. Every educator that I know who complains about being “under paid” is more than fairly compensated as they couldn’t survive outside of the educational jobs. Just look at how they squawked when asked to be rated and compensated based on performance.

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