Dr. Thomas Sowell is retiring

Thomas Sowell, PhD, 86, the brilliant economist and writer is retiring from writing columns. I consider him to be one of the five or ten smartest people in the country. His numerous books are all worth reading, as he has a terrific ability to translate the complex into clear understanding for average minds (like mine, alas). I highly recommend Basic Economics, which has been translated into six languages and used as an economic text all over the world. I learned more from it than any other book I have ever read. I also highly recommend his books Race and Culture: A World View, Applied Economics and Black Rednecks and White Liberals. There are many more. He will pursue his hobby of photography, learned as a photographer in the Marines. His voice will be missed, but I wish him a happy, peaceful and enjoyable retirement and long life. My monthly Random Thoughts were inspired by his far better Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene columns. Look up his work. ~Bob

Farewell by Thomas Sowell

https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/12/16/farewell

Excerpt: Even the best things come to an end. After enjoying a quarter of a century of writing this column for Creators Syndicate, I have decided to stop. Age 86 is well past the usual retirement age, so the question is not why I am quitting, but why I kept at it so long. It was very fulfilling to be able to share my thoughts on the events unfolding around us, and to receive feedback from readers across the country — even if it was impossible to answer them all. Being old-fashioned, I liked to know what the facts were before writing. That required not only a lot of research, it also required keeping up with what was being said in the media.

Last column, Worth Reading: Random Thoughts, Looking Back. By Thomas Sowell
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443343/thomas-sowell-final-thoughts-learning-history-experience?utm_source=jolt&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jolt%2012/27/2016&utm_term=Jolt

Excerpt: Any honest man, looking back on a very long life, must admit — even if only to himself — being a relic of a bygone era. Having lived long enough to have seen both “the greatest generation” that fought World War II and the gratingest generation that we see all around us today makes being a relic of the past more of a boast than an admission. Not everything in the past was admirable. Poet W. H. Auden called the 1930s “a low dishonest decade.” So were the 1960s, which launched many of the trends we are experiencing so painfully today. Some of the fashionable notions of the 1930s reappeared in the 1960s, often using the very same discredited words and producing the same disastrous consequences.