Living In Luxury

 ... is fine as long as you can afford your luxury. If not, it's probably a bad idea.

I did a tiny bit of research after engaging in an online discussion with a student in Mumbai wherein I learned that India's high earning middle class is larger than the entire US population. I looked into their debt ratio.

If you check out the growth rate of their debt, it's minimal. Ours, not so much. Why worry? We're wealthy and can afford to live on our credit cards.

Their per capita income is about $7K and growing at a decent clip. They value family, work and education, which is why Indian-Americans have the highest earnings in the US with a median household income of more than $100,000. Apparently, white supremacists like me haven't realized that Indian-Americans have darker skin and need to be oppressed.

Meanwhile, we act like we're the undisputed champs of the world and have no competitors. We do things like this.

A selective program for high-performing fourth, fifth and sixth graders in Boston has suspended enrollment due to the pandemic and concerns about equity in the program, GBH News has learned...

"There's been a lot of inequities that have been brought to the light in the pandemic that we have to address," Cassellius told GBH News. "There's a lot of work we have to do in the district to be antiracist and have policies where all of our students have a fair shot at an equitable and excellent education."...

A district analysis of the program found that more than 70 percent of students enrolled in the program were white and Asian, even though nearly 80 percent of all Boston public school students are Hispanic and Black...

The program was open to all students in the Boston Public Schools who took a test known as Terra Nova in the third grade and received a high score. Those students were placed in a lottery conducted by the central administration office, and lottery winners received letters inviting them to apply to the program...

Students in the program have the opportunity to study subjects in greater depth and are offered more schoolwork than the traditional curriculum requires.

We ignore things like this.

So while other countries are scrambling to improve, we're canceling classes for kids who work hard. Instead, we're sitting around trying to figure out why students who don't study do poorly on standardized tests. 

It must be those witches.