Screw the Colleges

Thomas E. Nugent, principal of Victoria Capital Management, proposed in an article in National Review to put a 30% tax on the investment gains of the 25 largest college endowment funds in the country to fund all of our needs. He works it all out, and it looks pretty good. The colleges still have plenty to fund their needs and the rest of us don't have to pay taxes. Only problem -- his math is completely wrong, as Brad DeLong explains. Not only is his math wrong, it's wrong by orders of magnitude.

To make matters worse, the New York Times more or less endorses this idiotic plan in its "Opinionator" section.