Having a moral conscience is harmful to your wallet; it urges you to fight for social justice, often at the expense of a lucrative career. For this reason, I wish that I were not held back by the mortgage of guilt in the inequality and destitution that I see in society. Although I have little…
If you are reading this article, you likely belong to the richest quartile of the country. According to an April 2004 New York Times article, three quarters of Harvard’s class of ’03 came from the top quartile of the income distribution; only 6.8 percent came from the bottom. The figures for Princeton are similar. If…
Fifteen percent of Princeton undergraduates are Asian-Americans (among domestic students). Compared with peer institutions, this is actually a low figure. At Yale and Harvard, Asians make up 17 and 19 percent of the population, respectively. Although these are high numbers, enrollment would actually increase if not for current legislation. What would happen to the number…
Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving Day in October. How many of you knew that? If you are like most Americans, then you are probably unaware of this fact. Indeed, ignorance of Canadian matters is an acute problem in the United States. According to a dated CNN poll, only two percent of Americans know the name of the…
I had a discussion with an economics professor about the growing inequality of American society last year. My theme in that conversation was that the United States, like Brazil, is embarking on a path of becoming a nation of haves and have-nots. The Gini coefficient — familiar to economics students — is a widely quoted…