Thomas Sowell turns 75

KUDOS TO MY FAVORITE ECONOMIST, THOMAS SOWELL

" Thomas Sowell on 75 Years Old
The conservative Republican economist writes: "It is hard to believe that I am that old but arithmetic is uncompromising. This means that I have lived through nearly one-third of the entire history of the United States. The changes in my life - and still more so in the life of the country around me and in the world at large - have been almost unbelievable. Most Americans did not own a telephone or a refrigerator when I was born on June 30, 1930. The United States and the world were in the depths of the greatest depression in history. Congress passed the highest tariff in history in 1930, in an effort to protect American jobs from foreign competition - and unemployment became even worse. Franklin D. Roosevelt was Governor of New York in 1930. Winston Churchill was just an ignored backbencher in the British Parliament. In the German elections of 1930, a fringe group called National Socialists received more votes than ever before but the Nazis were still just the second largest party in the country. Bill Terry led the National League in batting in 1930, with an average of .401 -- the last .400 hitter in that league. No black man had ever played major league baseball at that point and none was allowed to enlist in the U.S. Navy, even though blacks had once served in the Navy as far back as the War of 1812....All the dark and ominous times that this country and the world have passed through and overcome in the past 75 years make it hard to despair, even in the face of growing signs of internal degeneracy today. Pessimism, yes. Despair, not yet."