Both Harris and Trump Need an Education...on Education

And, Ric debunks the "1 Over N Heuristic" in investment decisions

Ric Edelman: It's Thursday, October 10th. We're continuing our series on an examination of the 34 issues pertaining to this year's presidential election. We started Monday of this week. If you've missed any of the conversations, you can go back and listen to them.  All of those links are in the show notes. And today we're going to talk about education, but before we do, I've got an email, unrelated, from Dana. She's got a question and here it is.

Dana: “Mr. Edelman, I much appreciate your eye-openers. That said, they can make me feel like a neophyte to all things financial. The terms you presented, ROI, accrual ratio, and financial leverage ratio, are new to me and probably new to many of us.

The concepts are fascinating. After re-reading your podcast show notes several times, I have summarized the terms. ROI equals efficiency, accrual ratio equals competency, and financial leverage equals risk. In my mind, it is hard to differentiate these terms from one another. Wouldn't one affect the other? Thanks again for your insights. Dana.”

Ric Edelman: Well, you're absolutely right, Dana. One does affect the other. Wall Street does not operate in a series of silos. When you're doing investment analysis, you very clearly have to recognize that one data point has an impact on other data points or is impacted by other data points.

This is why all of these different statistics and ratios exist. Because you can't just look at one. It might give you a false conclusion or an inaccurate or insufficient analysis. So that's why I shared with you information about return on investment, the accrual ratio and the financial leverage ratio.

You need to look at these as a package. And that is why I always chuckle when I hear somebody say to me, “Oh, I've decided to make an investment in so and so stock because of this reason.” And they give me a single data point without any consideration of any anything else.

In fact, there's a name for this in science, It's called a 1 over N heuristic, where we take a single data point and we conclude that that is the fact, regardless of any other data points. I'd love it for example, in the world of politics, this could be a nice little segue into our conversation on education today, where people will say, Oh, there's so much crime in this country.

My neighbor was mugged the other day. Wait a minute. Your neighbor was mugged, and therefore you're concluding there's a lot of crime in the country? There's 400 million Americans. You just named one of them. That's a 1/N heuristic. Picture a fraction. One is the numerator. The denominator is 420 million.

So, 1/ N, you made a conclusion about the country because of what happened to one person. Same thing on Wall Street with investment analysis. If you're going to look at a single data point, that's the numerator, there are hundreds, you could even argue depending on the circumstance, thousands of data points that you can examine.

If you're only going to look at one of them, you're probably going to reach an incorrect, inaccurate flawed conclusion. And that's why I shared with you these three. That's why people study for years to get their chartered financial analyst designation, where they study all this stuff. That's why people get business degrees and master's degrees in this topic.

So, you're absolutely right. One might affect the other. Most likely it does. That's why you should leave investment management decisions to the professionals.

Okay, let's move on to today's, political conversation. Our conversation today out of the 34 topics pertains to education. This is a broad umbrella topic, including critical race theory, evolution versus creationism, school vouchers, charter schools, higher education, meaning colleges and universities and student loans. That last one’s a topic I talk a lot about.

I've gotten lots of comments from folks who submitted their viewpoints and opinions. And in your effort to help me reach my decision on who I ought to vote for in this presidential campaign, I remain as of today's recording, undecided.

Although I got a lot of e-mails, I'm just going to share two of them with you because these two are pretty representative of what people had to say to me who offered comments on the education topic.

First, we're going to hear from Mark. Here's what he wrote to me:

Mark: “I am not aware that her administration has taken any significant action against universities where Jews have been attacked and harassed in the wake of the Hamas atrocities. I have not heard her express any support for school vouchers. She supports the revision to Title IX that lets boys compete in girls sports and to enter into girls bathrooms and girls locker rooms. This is why I am voting for Donald Trump.”

Ric Edelman: And second, here is what Paul had to say:

Paul: I hate Kamala Harris's position on student loan forgiveness. We paid for both our children to attend college with much sacrifice. Both have graduated with mechanical engineering degrees. Having to pay for others degrees of questionable value is personally insulting.

And expanding Title IX to force women and girls to compete against males who have inherent stronger physical characteristics is plain wrong. It's not just unfair to females. It's physically dangerous. Injuries have already been documented.”

Ric Edelman: Okay, so let me share with you some observations before I give you my viewpoints. First, I want to talk not about Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris.

I want to talk about Thomas Jefferson versus Alexander Hamilton. The dilemma, the debate, the divisiveness we are experiencing today in the topic of education can be traced directly to the debate between Jefferson and Hamilton. Why? Those two founders were the key participants who dealt with the most fundamental of all debates upon the founding of our nation involving the writing of our constitution.

Thomas Jefferson was a huge supporter of state's rights. One of Virginia's biggest concerns in its decision of whether or not to declare independence against England as the eve of the revolution occurred was his concern that Virginia's sovereignty might be supplanted by the views of other colonies.

Alexander Hamilton was on the complete opposite end of that spectrum. Hamilton argued that we had to unite not just as 13 colonies, but 13 states, and those states had to be united. It was uniting the states to present a single viewpoint to England that would be the only way that we were going to be able to declare our independence and, in fact, win it.

This argument, states rights versus federalism, was the core of the debate in the creation of the United States Constitution. One of the arguments within that debate was that of church versus state. If you are going to have a united front, who's going to declare what the front is? Are we going to allow the church to dictate it?

And, all the colonies were in agreement. We needed independence. Our government could not be dictated by a given religion. This issue, states’ rights versus federalism, and the separation of church and state is the foundation of our Republic.

Now let's fast forward a couple of hundred years to the debate on education between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.

Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the Federal Department of Education. Trump says that education should be a state issue. It shouldn't be a federal issue. He wants the individual states, in fact the individual towns and cities, the individual communities, to decide what is taught in the local classroom.

Kamala Harris supports federalism. She believes the same way that Alexander Hamilton did. And that the Department of Education is essential in our nation. I'll tell you further about my views on that in a moment.

What about school vouchers and charter schools. This idea says that the money that the government spends for public education should be made available to private schools. In other words, if the government is going to spend a lot of money on education, and let's face it, our government does, should the government dictate where the student has to go to school, or should the government allow the student to decide what school they go to.

If the student wants to go to a public school, fine, but if the student wants to go to a private school, even a religious school, why wouldn't the government take the money that it would have spent on that student in the public education and let them use that money to pay their way into the private education?

Donald Trump likes the idea of using school vouchers and charter schools. Kamala Harris opposes it. And what about earmarking money specifically for students who are in poverty and for schools that are in low-income neighborhoods and towns? The Biden-Harris administration has increased funding for these schools by billions of dollars.

Donald Trump, when he was president, tried to cut those programs. So clearly, they have a different point of view. And how about prayer in public schools? Donald Trump supports this. He actively advocates for prayer in public schools. Kamala Harris opposes it. And how about critical race theory? A lot of people don't even know what this is, even though we see it being talked about a lot.

Critical race theory is the notion of how American racism has shaped public policy over the centuries. Donald Trump wants to cut federal funding for programs that teach critical race theory to students, Kamala Harris supports it. Trump also supports the banning of books on sexuality and race. Kamala Harris opposes the banning of books.

And then there's teacher pay. The average schoolteacher in this country earns $70,000 a year. Kamala Harris wants to raise teacher salaries. Her proposal would cost $300,000,000,000. Donald Trump supports not broad across the board pay increases. He supports merit pay increases. He wants to tie teacher compensation to student performance. If you're a good teacher and you're teaching your students well and their grades are going up, then he wants to give you more money. But if your students aren't performing well, he doesn't think you deserve a raise. Trump also wants to eliminate teacher tenure laws so that bad teachers can be fired.

Let's look at college. Kamala Harris wants college to be free for lower-income and middle-income families. Donald Trump wants to create a new free national university and he's going to pay for it, he says, by taxing private universities, which at the moment are non-profit institutions and therefore don't pay income taxes. Trump wants them to pay taxes so that he can use that money to create a new free university for students nationwide. And student loan forgiveness. Kamala Harris supports this. Donald Trump does not.

And perhaps one of the most controversial elements is Title IX. Title IX has been around for decades. It basically guaranteed the ability for women to participate in collegiate sports along with K-12 sports that in the past they were excluded from. You go back 50 or 80 years, there was a college football team. Well, how many women are playing college football? And there weren't really very many sports, even where there were sports where women could compete.

For example, men's tennis, not a problem. Women's tennis didn't exist. So, a lot of the funding that was going to education and funneled into sports, only the boys were getting the benefit of this. The girls were left out. Title IX was adopted to rectify that problem. It's been in place for decades. The Biden-Harris administration has expanded Title IX to say that Title IX protects students from discrimination based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

The translation of all of this? A boy who says that he identifies as a girl. is now allowed to play in girls sports, even though physiologically he's a boy, meaning he's bigger, faster, stronger. He's now competing directly against girls. This has been highly controversial. Kamala Harris supports the new definition of Title IX.

She says students should not only be allowed to engage in sports based on their gender identity, but their gender identity should also allow them to determine which bathroom they use. So those boys who say they believe themselves to be girls can go into girls’ bathrooms and girls’ locker rooms. Donald Trump has pledged to, quote, keep men out of women’s sports.

He also says he doesn't want schools to teach what he calls inappropriate racial, sexual, and political content.

So, these are the issues in the world of education. Where do I stand on all of this? What are my viewpoints? I have to figure that out first.

Because if I don't know where I stand, I can't say how I feel about Donald Trump's or Kamala Harris's views on these topics. This is what I find a lot of people making a mistake of. People are looking at what Trump says or what Harris says on any given issue, and they say, I like it or I don't like it, without first identifying how you fundamentally feel about something.

Pretend that you are running for president. Pretend that you are being asked by a reporter, how do you feel about a given issue? You've got to make a decision. You've got to take a stand. And only until you do, can you then decide if you agree with what the other person is saying.

So, let me share with you my evaluation…for me. I'm not saying this is right for you. I'm not saying this is the way others ought to feel. But this is how I see these issues. First, on the topic of eliminating the Department of Education. I agree with Donald Trump on this. I don't have a problem with eliminating the Department of Education.

I don't consider it a significant threat, for the simple reason that the money that is currently going to the Department of Education will simply flow to the states. That's what happens now anyway. I mean, the Department of Education doesn't operate any schools. They simply flow the money to the states, so that they can operate the schools.

So, I think if Trump is simply saying this is merely the elimination of bureaucracy, I really don't have a big problem with that. School vouchers and charter schools, I completely agree with Donald Trump on this. We all know that the government is generally a pretty bad operator. I don't know of too many industries where the government does a better job than the private sector.

And there is a perfect illustration of this, in our education system. We know that schools are failing our children, and is it a coincidence that schools are operated by the government?

So, what's wrong with private schools? And charter schools? And if I've got a charter school in my neighborhood and I can't afford to go, if there's a private school in my neighborhood, maybe even a religious institution that's operating that private school, but I can't afford their tuition, why not take the money that the government would have spent on my kid to go to the public school and let me spend that money on the private tuition?

I don't have any problem with this. I don't see any reason why the government should be inherently the sole choice for an education resource for our students. What about though earmarking money specifically for students in poverty? For schools that are in low-income neighborhoods and towns where there might not be a private school option?

I completely agree with Kamala Harris for this. There are insufficient resources provided for at-risk youth. And I think Kamala Harris has a much better viewpoint on this and a much better focus and attention level. I agree with her on this issue.

Prayer in public schools? I think this is insane. This goes way back to the founding of our nation, the separation of church and state. You want prayer in schools? Go to a religious institution. It should not be done in a public institution with public taxpayer support for the simple reason that different religions are going to have different prayers. Some people aren't religious at all. They're atheists or they're agnostic.

To impose prayer on our impressionable youth dictated by the state is completely inappropriate. I fully support Kamala Harris's position on this. Donald Trump and the Republican right are dead wrong, in my view, on the prayer in public school issue.

Similarly, the critical race theory. Of course it's okay to discuss this. Too often we are determining what students learn by dictating a philosophy behind it. Facts are facts. There is a huge difference in American history between that of white America and that of black America. And not teaching the true history of indigenous peoples in this country, as well as those who were enslaved and brought here against their will, as well as those whose ancestors struggled and sacrificed in order to give themselves and their children a better life by leaving their homeland and coming here at massive, huge personal risk, all of this needs to be taught.

Is some of this uncomfortable? Is some of this awkward? Absolutely. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be teaching it to our children. I support Kamala Harris and the Democratic view on this notion.

The banning of books? There is nothing more abhorrent, and I say this as an author of books, I say this as a former journalist, my degree in communications. The notion of banning of books is without question the most abhorrent idea and attitude of all. Certainly, books ought to be age relevant. You certainly don't want to give a third grader the kind of a book that should be reserved for a high-schooler or a college student. But to ban books is the exact opposite of what this nation was founded on, enunciated most perfectly through the First Amendment.

Kamala Harris has this right, Donald Trump and the far-right Republicans are dead wrong. And if you want to look at how horrible this is and what other nations are doing, just look at what's happening in Middle East countries. Look at China's most recent announcement, they are now forcing all schoolteachers to turn in their passports. Why would the Chinese government be fearful that a schoolteacher might go on a vacation to another country? This kind of dictating, position in policymaking is extraordinarily scary. And that's a slippery slope we should not go anywhere near. Banning of books cannot be tolerated.

How about teacher pay? On this topic, I think both Trump and Harris are correct. Teachers are, in fact, paid too little. We know this. But we have to get rid of this entitlement mentality. Just because you're a teacher and you've been a teacher for 20 years doesn't mean you're guaranteed to keep your job. I mean, that isn't true for taxi drivers or ditch diggers or hardly anybody in any other occupation. Why is it that we're allowing people to keep their job and their pay merely because they've been doing their job a long time?

I'm not a fan of entitlements. I'm not a fan of tenure I'm also not a fan of just throwing money at teachers, because throwing money at a problem doesn't fix the problem. We need to make teachers prove that they're worth their pay. Just like every worker ought to have to prove that they are worth their pay. Merit pay is a great idea.

And since we see such a difference of opinion between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, I agree completely with Harris on some of this. I agree with Trump on others of this. It's a draw. When it comes to teacher pay, I'm not choosing favoritism between either of those candidates on this topic.

College? Let's look at that one. Harris wants college to be free for lower-income and middle-class families, Trump wants to create a new free university. I think this is a draw. Both of them have valid, legitimate points. I really am struggling to find a big, way to choose one or the other with one difference.

Student loan forgiveness. The Harris-Biden administration has given away billions of dollars, waived the student loan debt of millions of students. Harris will perpetuate that costing taxpayers billions of dollars and eliminating personal responsibility. That is completely dead wrong.

And for that reason alone, Harris loses on the higher education topic. Trump is my choice on that issue.

Title IX, Kamala Harris's notion that we should let students declare their gender identity and therefore be allowed to play sports of their choice boy team versus girl team, and go into bathrooms based on their gender identity. That is just plain wrong. I don't know how this started. I don't know when it started, but we are in a situation where we're allowing children to dictate the rules.

I don't get this. It's not that I'm disputing that a child may declare that they have a different gender identity, that it is mismatched to their physical body. I'm not suggesting that that child is wrong or that that child ought to be punished or influenced in any particular way. I have no doubt, quite frankly, that we have a spectrum of gender identities as opposed to the binary male-female.

I have no question in my mind that this is absolutely true. My concern is that we're allowing students to dictate the results of all of this. I was talking with a good friend of mine the other day. She's a high school teacher, and she said that she is unable to tell her students in her classroom to put away their smartphones.

She's unable to tell them to put it away? She's the adult. Why is she unable? Because her school board won't let her do it. So, the students, kids, are saying to the adult, I'm going to use my phone in class and I'm going to go on to Snapchat and I'm going to go on to Instagram and I'm going to play on Facebook and you can't stop me.

Really? The adult can't stop the child? In a classroom? From the child's behavior? When did this happen? I don't know, but to allow a student to say, oh, I don't identify as a boy I therefore want to play on girls sports. My response would be, you don't identify as a boy. Okay, that's fine I get it. But that doesn't mean you're gonna play in a girl's sport. Because your body is that of a boy. You are physically dominant over those who have female anatomies.

So, the fact that you identify one way has nothing to do with it. Now, for those who would argue to me, Oh, Ric, that's not fair. My only response is, You're right. It's not fair. Life isn't fair. How do you say to a five year-old who has cancer that life ought to be fair? Life isn't fair. We have to deal with it. We have to acknowledge it.

It doesn't mean that we have to lower ourselves to the lowest common denominator in a desperate effort to create fairness in an environment where that simply isn't applicable. So, I'm sorry. My attitude is, Title IX, Kamala Harris is dead wrong. The liberal left is dead wrong on this issue, and I fully agree with Donald Trump's position.

But let's take it a step further. Donald Trump also says that he doesn't want schools to teach what he calls inappropriate racial, sexual, and political content. He's wrong. I don't care that he doesn't like these topics. I don't care that he doesn't like what the students are going to learn about these topics.

These topics are legitimate. And we have a duty to our children to teach them what's going on in the world. Again, age appropriate. But to deny the conversation, I think, becomes dictatorial. Just like we're seeing and oppressive, dictatorial, government-controlled societies around the world.

Now here's the bottom line. I've expressed, on a lot of these subjects, I agree with Trump. On others, I agree with Harris. On some, it's a draw. For most of these issues though, it really doesn't matter whether Trump is right or whether Harris is right, because education is mostly a state issue. 44 states have introduced bills in the past three years to restrict teaching about racism and sexism. There are 26 states that have passed restrictions on transgender athletes playing in school sports.

So, I'll tell you what I told you at the top of this podcast. This is a matter of states’ rights versus federalism. And on education, this has to be a federal issue. Let me tell you why. I would prefer that education be controlled and exercised by local communities. I want you, mom and dad, to have influence over what your child is being taught in your local school. I don't want Washington to dictate that to you. That's my ideal.

The problem is we don't live in an ideal world. The problem is we had an issue back in the 1960s where local jurisdictions Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, to name just a few, insisted on school segregation. It took the federal government to bring in National Guard troops to demand black kids enter a school that previously was only used by white kids.

What I'm saying is, in too many communities around this country, I don't trust the local community to make the right decision, to do the right thing. We are seeing too many local jurisdictions teaching creationism in science classes. Go ahead and teach creationism in a religious class or a philosophy class, but to put creationism on the same level as evolution, that's inane. That is really scary. And for that reason, I am too concerned that if we allow this to be a state led issue, the way that Thomas Jefferson had proposed, we would have millions of students around the country being taught inappropriately, incorrectly, inaccurately.

And that will be a devastating impact on our society as a whole. So I have to conclude that we need federalism in education. I side with Alexander Hamilton on this issue. And as a result, I lean toward Trump. But I can't ultimately vote for Trump on this issue because of his book banning nonsense.

Because of his support of banning what he calls inappropriate content. Sorry, can't support that. But I also can't support the notion of states’ rights and Kamala Harris's views on a lot of these topics. So for me, neither one of them gets my vote on education.

I hope you're keeping tabs on how you feel about all these subjects using the Excel spreadsheet that I have made available to you. The link to it's in the show notes. if you haven't already downloaded it. The sheet lists all 34 of these topics that we're covering in this podcast. And you not only state which candidate you support on each of these 34 topics. You also state how strongly do you agree with a candidate and how important is this issue to you?

The spreadsheet does the calculations for you to help you determine overall, which of the candidates do you prefer over the other? I haven't said on a day by day, topic by topic basis where I'm scoring myself. I will do that for you when we reach the end of this series on October 31st.

Tomorrow, we're going to talk about what I think just might be the most divisive topic of all. Abortion, contraceptive freedom, and euthanasia. Be sure to tune in for tomorrow's podcast.

And if you missed yesterday's webinar, you can watch the free replay. The webinar was on crypto for RIAs: Yield, staking, lending and custody. I was joined by Bill Barhydt, the founder of Abra. It was a really fascinating conversation. You can watch it. I encourage you to do so. The link to watch it for free is in the show notes. I'll see you tomorrow when we tackle abortion.

If you like what you're hearing, be sure to follow and subscribe to the show, wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and remember leave a review on Apple podcasts. I read them all. Never miss an episode of The Truth About Your Future. Follow and subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

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Links from today’s show: 

Click here for Ric's worksheet to help you evaluate the candidates

10/7 Monday Election Podcast-The 34 Election Issues and Ric’s worksheet for you:  https://www.thetayf.com/blogs/this-weeks-stories/the-2024-election-the-tool-i-ve-created-to-help-me-decide-who-gets-my-vote

10/8 Tuesday Election Podcast-The Economy, Stupid!: https://www.thetayf.com/blogs/this-weeks-stories/ric-chooses-between-harris-and-trump-on-the-big-topic-the-economy-stupid

10/9 Wednesday Election Podcast-Housing and Homeownership: https://www.thetayf.com/blogs/this-weeks-stories/10-9-24-housing-and-homeownership-among-the-34-key-issues-of-election-2024

Kamala Harris Official Campaign Website Policy Page: https://www.kamalaharris.com/issues/

Donald Trump Official Campaign Website Policy Page: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform

10/9 Webinar Replay- Crypto for RIAs: Yield, Staking, Lending and Custody. What’s beyond the ETFs? https://dacfp.com/events/crypto-for-rias-yield-staking-lending-and-custody-whats-beyond-the-etfs/

10/23 Webinar - How to Factor Longevity into Your Financial Planning: https://www.thetayf.com/pages/october-2024-webinar-how-to-factor-longevity-into-your-financial-planning

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