One of the aims of higher education is to broaden perspectives, and what better way than by a home stay in a really different country, like Bangladesh or Senegal? Time abroad also leaves one more aware of the complex prism of suspicion through which the United States is often viewed. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
However imperfectly, subsidies for the poor do actually reduce hunger, ease suffering and create opportunity, while subsidies for the rich result in more private jets and yachts. Would we rather subsidize opportunity or yachts? Which kind of subsidies deserve more scrutiny? Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Utah may well be the most cosmopolitan state in America. Vast numbers of young Mormons – increasingly women as well as men – spend a couple of years abroad as missionaries and return jabbering in Thai or Portuguese and bearing a wealth of international experience. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Conservatives highlight the primacy of family and argue that family breakdown exacerbates poverty, and they’re right. Children raised by single parents are three times as likely to live in poverty as kids in two-parent homes. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Sure, food stamps are occasionally misused, but anyone familiar with business knows that the abuse of food subsidies is far greater in the corporate suite. Every time an executive wines and dines a hot date on the corporate dime, the average taxpayer helps foot the bill. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Girls’ education is no silver bullet. Iran and Saudi Arabia have both educated girls but refused to empower them, so both remain mired in the past. But when a country educates and unleashes women, those educated women often become force multipliers for good. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Every high school and college graduate in America should, I think, have some familiarity with statistics, economics and a foreign language such as Spanish. Religion may not be as indispensable, but the humanities should be a part of our repertory. They may not enrich our wallets, but they do enrich our lives. They civilize us. They provide context. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
At some point, extra incomes don’t go to sate desires but to attempt to buy status through ‘positional goods’ – like the hottest car on the block. The problem is that there can only be one hottest car on the block. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
You educate a boy, and he’ll have fewer children, but it’s a small effect. You educate a girl, and, on average, she will have a significantly smaller family. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
Perhaps no country in Latin America is more picturesque than Bolivia, and the most memorable Bolivian city may be Potosi. Nicholas Kristof Read Quote
