Greatest Graduation Speech?

[Mountaineer]

Students from the class of 2014 have begun graduating.  To mark the occasion, economist and blogger Craig Newmark and AEI's Mark Perry dug up a speech given by Nobel economist Thomas Sargent to graduates of Cal-Berkeley in 2007.

It's only 335 words long, but it's really great. It breaks down the 12 economic concepts that every graduate should know.

Check it out:

I remember how happy I felt when I graduated from Berkeley many years ago. But I thought the graduation speeches were long. I will economize on words.

Economics is organized common sense. Here is a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches.

1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible.

2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs.

3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do.

4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That is why social safety nets don’t always end up working as intended.

5. There are tradeoffs between equality and efficiency.

6. In an equilibrium of a game or an economy, people are satisfied with their choices. That is why it is difficult for well-meaning outsiders to change things for better or worse.

7. In the future, you too will respond to incentives. That is why there are some promises that you’d like to make but can’t. No one will believe those promises because they know that later it will not be in your interest to deliver. The lesson here is this: before you make a promise, think about whether you will want to keep it if and when your circumstances change. This is how you earn a reputation.

8. Governments and voters respond to incentives too. That is why governments sometimes default on loans and other promises that they have made.

9. It is feasible for one generation to shift costs to subsequent ones. That is what national government debts and the U.S. social security system do (but not the social security system of Singapore).

10. When a government spends, its citizens eventually pay, either today or tomorrow, either through explicit taxes or implicit ones like inflation.

11. Most people want other people to pay for public goods and government transfers (especially transfers to themselves).

12. Because market prices aggregate traders’ information, it is difficult to forecast stock prices and interest rates and exchange rates.

[ns3]

I'm surprised they even let this guy on the UC Berkely campus in 2007 with radical views like this, let alone give the commencement speech.

[Ad Orientem]

My vote for the best graduation speech goes to the guy who graduated from Cornell back in the late 90's with a degree in classical studies. He was asked to deliver one of the speeches and accepted. His address, just a bit over 10 minutes, was entirely in Latin! He got a huge standing ovation though I doubt there were more than a handful of people there who understood a word of it. Which is a sad commentary on the state of education today.

[WildAboutHarry]

My vote for the best graduation speech goes to the guy who graduated from Cornell back in the late 90's with a degree in classical studies. He was asked to deliver one of the speeches and accepted. His address, just a bit over 10 minutes, was entirely in Latin! He got a huge standing ovation though I doubt there were more than a handful of people there who understood a word of it. Which is a sad commentary on the state of education today.

From Rushmore, the most interesting relatively recent film that discusses Latin...

Rosemary Cross: I didn't have a major, but my thesis was on Latin American economic policy.
Max Fischer: Oh, that's interesting. Did you hear that they're not going to teach Latin anymore?
Rosemary Cross: This was more like Central America.

[Max has just petitioned to make Latin a required subject]
Magnus Buchan: [heavy Scottish brogue] Why dincha just piss off, Fischer? Ya dotty wee skid mark!
Max Fischer: Is that Latin?

[WildAboutHarry]

And continuing the Rushmore theme, Herman Blume's graduation? speech:

Herman Blume: You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you're going to stay rich. But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you.

[Ad Orientem]

My vote for the best graduation speech goes to the guy who graduated from Cornell back in the late 90's with a degree in classical studies. He was asked to deliver one of the speeches and accepted. His address, just a bit over 10 minutes, was entirely in Latin! He got a huge standing ovation though I doubt there were more than a handful of people there who understood a word of it. Which is a sad commentary on the state of education today.

Becaaaaaaaaaaaaause.....Latin is so useful in modern society?

Latin is the foundational language of Western Civilization. Classical literature as well as the basis of modern law, philosophy, theology (Western) are all to be found in Latin. Indeed long after Latin died as a vernacular tongue, it remained the language of the educated classes. Most important works of an academic/scientific, religious or legal nature were in Latin until the 19th century. Well into the 20th century no one aspiring to study at any reputable college or university could hope to gain admission without a command of Latin since so many of the texts were read in the original language.  Latin is still the mother tongue of many modern European languages. If you know Latin, then Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese are easy to pick up. Even English draws heavily on Latin.

And besides, omnia dicta fortiori, si dicta Latina.

[Ad Orientem]

Becaaaaaaaaaaaaause.....Latin is so useful in modern society?

Latin is the foundational language of Western Civilization. Classical literature as well as the basis of modern law, philosophy, theology (Western) are all to be found in Latin. Indeed long after Latin died as a vernacular tongue, it remained the language of the educated classes. Most important works of an academic/scientific, religious or legal nature were in Latin until the 19th century. Well into the 20th century no one aspiring to study at any reputable college or university could hope to gain admission without a command of Latin since so many of the texts were read in the original language.  Latin is still the mother tongue of many modern European languages. If you know Latin, then Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese are easy to pick up. Even English draws heavily on Latin.

All true.
But you still haven't made a case for why Latin would be so useful at this point in time. Most everything of value has been translated into English by now. Outside of some help in etymology [Greek would be helpful here, too.], I see little value in studying Latin in this day and age.

Translation is often a poor substitute for the original language. One looses the flavor, nuances and in some cases actual meaning or intent. There is a lot in Latin that just doesn't translate correctly into modern languages. Trying to read Virgil or Cicero's Orations Against Cataline in English is like trying to read Walt Whitman in Mandarin.

[moda0306]

Economics is organized common sense.

Nah. 

Economics is politics masquerading as science.

Bam.

[Ad Orientem]

All true.
But you still haven't made a case for why Latin would be so useful at this point in time. Most everything of value has been translated into English by now. Outside of some help in etymology [Greek would be helpful here, too.], I see little value in studying Latin in this day and age.

Translation is often a poor substitute for the original language. One looses the flavor, nuances and in some cases actual meaning or intent. There is a lot in Latin that just doesn't translate correctly into modern languages. Trying to read Virgil or Cicero's Orations Against Cataline in English is like trying to read Walt Whitman in Mandarin.

So you advocate mandatory instruction in Greek as well, so that we can better appreciate Homer and Socrates? I think there is a limited amount of subjects that can be studied in the course of a college education given the time constraints, and I don't necessarily think that omitting Latin from the entire student body's radar was necessarily a bad thing.

Greek never gained the status of the lingua franca of the educated class the way Latin did. Studying Koine Greek would benefit few beyond students of classical literature or theology. But Latin is pervasive in every field of study up to the 19th century.

[WildAboutHarry]

And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek...[Shakespeare] was not of an age, but for all time!

So even back then Latin (and Greek) caused problems.

[Libertarian666]

I took Latin in 8th grade, and most of what I remember was that Julius Caesar's writing lost something in the original. 

[patricia26]

No doubt that those are the greatest graduation speech which reminds me when i graduated in a helsingin kauppakorkeakoulu or school of economics in Helsinki.