The United States is a backward country in so many ways, what with our private for-profit health care system and its death panels, a private internet delivery system that is creeping and slow by world standards, a mullah-like governing body of nine judges who have final say on all laws, and private for-profit campaign finance system. Just to name a few shortcomings.
Yet another is our system for finance of higher education – for all but the very fortunate, private debt. The ease with which loans are granted has put kids in college who do not belong there, and allowed many others to extend their education into advanced degrees of little value.
As with so much else in our loony-bin country, much of this is a reaction to Vietnam. Campuses across the country back then became centers of protest and unrest, which really pissed off the ruling classes. Since that time college education funding has been slashed and more and more burden is placed on students themselves. The overall cost of education, like private health care, has far exceeded normal inflation. The governing idea is that campuses, no more than anywhere else, should be allowed free thought and expression. “Free speech,” after all, means only “acceptable speech.”
It could be a manageable system except that, unlike banks, dot.coms, mining companies and car makers, there are no bailouts or bankruptcies available for kids. Student debt cannot be forgiven or bankrupted. Since there is no way out, the jackals of the debt collection industry are now in search-and-destroy mode, and kids are playing cat and mouse. They cannot repay, so what are they to do? Offer up their first-born?
More civilized countries than ours regard higher education as part of the commons, but are also more cautious about who has access. In France, for instance, kids must perform at lower levels to justify access to higher levels. They do not incur debt for so long as they perform well. I presume that a similar system exists in other countries. Higher education should not be an open checkbook, but should also not be denied due merely to inability to afford the cost. (Full disclosure: I paid for my own education via student loans in a state-subsidized college, and repaid them in full. It was much more affordable back then.)
All of this could have been, would have been avoided had kids of the sixties not protested the Vietnam invasion and massacre. Free thought, once featured on college campuses, led to the current malaise. It is discouraged now in so many ways, Ward Churchill and Steven Jones being two more visible examples, and countless other repressive devices in use. The Tea-Party right still regards college campuses as Maoist think tanks. Not hardly.
These debts, just like those of underwater homeowners, will never be repaid, and should not be repaid. Yes – a some kids will get more benefit than they deserve, and perhaps debt collectors will have to join the real economy and give up their blackmail, but this amount of private debt cannot be sustained, and cannot be repaid.
What a country. JP Morgan gets a free ride, while our kids are hiding out and changing phone numbers every month.
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Photo grab source
Piece of Mindful 
To complicate matters, corporate and government research and football may rank above learning, teaching or training. This isn’t in the brochure, or taught by high school guidance councilors. Once trapped, most will finish anyway — with a mountain of debt.
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Quote: ” but this amount of private debt cannot be sustained, and cannot be repaid.”
But that public debt of 16 Trillion.
No problem.
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The answer is yes, no problem, but if you are a tried and true right winger, you regard the country as a big household.
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I see.
Too big to fail.
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Or a big bank?
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WHo bailed out the banks?
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Swede – I get you entirely. You’re as predictable as grass growing in spring, and about as slow. I tried to get across the idea that you cannot commit the fallacy of composition in regards to economics – that what is true of the parts is true of the whole. A country is not a household, it is not a bank.
Go link now, or find a YouTube on this fallacy. Return then for further debate, not having absorbed a scintilla.
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I really do miss the old Mark. The one who championed governmental control. What was it you’d always say? “I like European socialism”.
Now all your hopes and dreams lie shattered on the floor and the momentum has swung the other way you’re resolved to petty insults.
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Since you don’t know wtf you’re talking about regarding “government control” and are just repeating what your authority figures tell you, I’ll ignore that part and hope some day you tune to a new radio statin.
Regarding the insult, there was nothing petty about it.
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Let me see….single payer health care. That would be “government control”, wouldn’t it?
Obamacare/SinglePayerCare… all the same except the govt. is letting the insurance co.’s in on the action until it collapses under it own weight.
So let’s review OC/SPC. Quote: “We’re going to be gifted with a healthcare plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don’t, which puportedly covers at least 10 million more people, without adding a single new doctor, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn’t understand it, passed by a congress that didn’t read it but exempted themselves from it, and signed by a president who smokes, with funding (laughing & applause) same sentence – with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn’t pay his taxes, for which we will be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupted* social security and medicare, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese and (laughing & applause) and financed by a country that’s broke.”
*Yeah I know, bankrupted is a misnomer. SS is heathy because it’s supported by the credit worthiness of the USA.
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Re: Obamacare is Romneycare, and no, I don’t support either, so leave me alone. Obama did not write the bill, neitehr did congress. Wellpoint did.
But let’s go back to where we started this conversation maybe seven years ago – please pick a country, any other industrial democracy, and explain how they manage to provide better health care than we do at half the cost to 100% of their population.
And if you don’t do that, would you at least forever stfu about health care? You don’t know anything about it or why it works elsewhere else but not here.
Social Security, again going back seven years? We made a solemn agreement in 1983 with Reagan and the Congress that we Baby Boomers would prepay our benefits. We did so to the tune of $2.6 Trillion.
1. We owe a mortgage on our house to our credit union. They list our mortgage on their books as an asset because it is our legal obligation, the underlying asset is real, and we have the ability to pay.
2. Likewise, as Greenspan would remind you, the SS Trust Fund is real because it is a legal obligation, and the ability to pay is there. $2.6 trillion over 25 years from an annual $15 trillion economy is easily affordable.
Now, again, if you don’t get that, would you at least stfu about Social Security? You don’t understand it well enough to be talking about it, and also, if you as a taxpayer are not willing to repay the $2.6 Trillion that has been used over the years for your wars and arms and tax cuts and bailouts, at least have the dignity to say you have no honor.
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I never said that us boomers wouldn’t receive SS.
We’ll get every dollar that was promised.
Its’ just that the dollars will be worthless.
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Budge said three or four years ago that we’d be up to our neck in hyperinflation by now. That’s what neoclassical economics preaches. The fact that he’s wrong doesn’t seem to affect things much. He just moved on to new predictions.
Are you defending him then? If so, on what grounds? Be specific please. Your theory doesn’t seem to be able to predict things. Why not?
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8% real inflation considered hyper?
Quote: “The group maintains that this index better measures the real-world impact of price changes, particularly for people on a budget. And, largely as the result of the recent run-up in gas prices, this “everyday price index” (EPI) suggests that Americans are being pinched far more tightly than the official inflation measure would have you believe.
Over the past year, the EPI is up just over 8 percent, according to the economics group. The biggest factor: Motor fuel and transportation costs are up 21.06 percent from year-ago levels. The cost of food, prescription drugs, and tobacco also have increased faster than the government’s inflation measure, rising 3.56 percent, 4.21 percent, and 3.4 percent, respectively.”
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/03/whats_the_real_rate_of_inflation.html#ixzz267K329DY
Probably not. I’m not putting a firm date on the hyperdrive, but I think it’s inevitable.
These are interesting times. I hope you continue to blog for a couple years. I’d like the satisfaction of being right.
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Lets say we didn’t go into a tailspin when it came to inflation. 8% percent a year vs what the govt says (3% something) would be a net increase of over 5%.
Figured on a yearly bases my SS check in 10 years would indeed worth considerably less depreciating by 5%/yr.
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Ah yes, the last refuge for every mindless soldier of your stripe – even though you appear wrong now, you’ll be proven right in the future. The non-falsifiable hypothesis. You’re as predictable as sunrise but you are unable to shed any light. You’re a fool.
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Soooo you’re happy with 5% less per year?
Consider it a tradeoff in the act of fairness?
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These are trying times, as our economy has been run into a ditch by your idols. We are all trying to find a place more secure than exposure to your jackasses. But inflation is not a problem. Not right now. Lack of demand is. The proscription, again from the infallible Budge and others, is austerity and tax cuts. This will further exacerbate the problem. The collapse, which your boys caused, is turning into a world-wide recession so deep than many are calling it a depression.
That you cannot see that tax cuts, far from solving problems, caused them, puts you beyond reach. You’re not only unreachable, but also unteachable.
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Yeah that “austerity” thing.
Didn’t work in Wisc. did it?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/huntley/12967643-452/wisconsin-govs-collective-bargaining-reforms-have-been-resounding-success.html
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Again, though I know you are impervious to logic, please look up “confirmation bias,” and attempt not to prove, but to disprove your assumptions. Please explain what is happening with Spain.
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Top Ten worthless degrees.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/worst-college-majors-for-your-career.html;_ylt=AvyxagwWTrQmcLmkHWrio3a_34dG;_ylu=X3oDMTFrZ2VpNWs1BG1pdANBcnRpY2xlIEJvZHkEcG9zAzEzBHNlYwNNZWRpYUFydGljbGVCb2R5QXNzZW1ibHk-;_ylg=X3oDMTNqMTRtamMyBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDYmVmYmMwOGMtNmYxMy0zMWIxLTg5ZmMtYTU2NWE4ZWRlYWFjBHBzdGNhdANwZXJzb25hbGZpbmFuY2V8Y2FyZWVyLWVkdWNhdGlvbgRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=3?page=all
Top which NO money should be lent to.
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I Don’t know the numbers on liberal arts, but do believe that such studies make life more interesting and open kids to the big world around them. There’s far more to life than paychecks. Both matter.
That said, overseas is the best option for higher ed – expatriation.
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Interesting no doubt.
But every field of study in the college catalog should state (IN BOLD) the probability of job placement and salaries before they go into 5 to 6 figure debt.
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Whoosh!
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That whoosh sound was you ignoring my link.
The liberal arts degree was #7.
Unemployment rate: 7.6%
Unemployment rate for recent grads: 9.2%
Median salary: $48,000
Median salary for recent grads: $30,000
Projected job growth for this field, 2010-2020: not available
Likelihood of working retail: 1.8 times average
No matter which college you go to, you’re sure to find academics arguing over the value of the classic liberal arts education. While we won’t take sides, the numbers paint a dim picture: Even experienced liberal arts grads face low salaries and high unemployment, and nearly one in ten new grads is unemployed. Three of every four will end up going to graduate school. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether that springs from a deep-seated love of learning or the otherwise dim employment prospects.
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I saw it on the list. You are thinking that that’s all that is involved. I said that liberal arts makes life worth living, but that they also need to make a living. Both matter.
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[Full disclosure: I went to college between 1968 and 1972 on the GI Bill, never missed a major protest march, spent 30 days in jail with two Black Panthers for cellmates, and had sexual intercourse with more pretty girls than I can remember. I took out a government-backed student loan and used the money to buy a new motorcycle, because the interest rate on the student loan was far lower than the interest rate on a motorcycle loan. The new motorcycle allowed me to have sexual intercourse with even more pretty girls.]
The price of college is a function of the supply and demand for college. Government policies, such as equal opportunity and affirmative action, coupled with vast government loans for any dumbbell who can hold a pencil in his fist, have flooded the higher education system with warm bodies and sent the price through the roof.
Besides the financial damage to the nation, a college diploma is seriously undervalued today because there are so many of them. And even supposedly can’t-miss-degrees are looked upon with suspicion: How did Amber or Jamal become a doctor or a lawyer? Oh, equal opportunity and affirmative action, gender quotas, race quotas, and grade inflation. Next applicant, please.
What has happened to college costs is no different from what happened to housing costs (pre-collapse) or to healthcare costs: The government did it by massive loans and subsidies and regulatory interference.
Enjoy the fruits of your socialist utopia. You asked for it, you got it.
— Max Bucks
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There was a university of Michigan study of post-graduation results of their students, and I want to say in law, and this you can find with some clever searching – they found that affirmative action and regular graduates were having much the same success. The conclusion was that high school success is not a good predictor of college success, and the mere fact that AA kids got in was all they needed – a springboard.
You know far less than you presume, are rife with prejudgment, and based on that, I suspect you’ve fucked far fewer women than you claim, beautiful or otherwise, made less money, or landed any degrees.
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I am sorry you never got any girls in college. But that is fairly typical of accountants. Maybe you should have bought a motorcycle. Girls love to ride on them because they get to spread their legs, just like horseback riding.
Actually, a 490-page book was written about my college exploits. The only thing left out of the book was the two Black Panthers, for security reasons. Maybe you can find a copy of it “with some clever searching.” You know, like your University of Michigan study?
Hey, Trotsky, come on. In your heart you know I am the Real McCoy, and that thought burns your ass. Admit it. I have been there, done that, and got the T-shirt whatever the subject you choose to bloviate about. I am handsome, educated, rich, happy, and well adjusted. In short, everything you are not. And that thought burns your ass, also. Admit it.
Oh, and I served my country for four years during the Vietnam War, eighteen months of which were combat duty. Wow, that thought must really burn your ass. I mean, your cowardly, unpatriotic, pansy ass.
Lose your envy, jealously, and hate. Accept the fact that I am a winner and you are a whiner. Then maybe we can move ahead.
— Max Bucks
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Thats awesome. 490 pages? I didnt know they stacked shit that high.
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Lots of people have files that thick.
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Ever been to a library?
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Were you born a fat, slimy, scumbag puke piece o’ shit, Private Pyle, or did you have to work on it?
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Also, a student loan, even then, was processed directly from bank to institution. No way did you buy a motorcycle with college funds.
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I received a bank check for my student loan. You are simply, and predictably, wrong again.
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He’s right Mark. I applied for a student loan in the middle seventies and payment at that time went directly to the student.
At the last minute my father got me a refinery summer job and I didn’t need the loan.
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Cannot be. At best you received a check made out to the financial institution, but simple internal control would not allow them to make a regulated loan without assuring that it was used as proscribed. Simply cannot be.
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37 years ago Mark.
Just last year my youngest received a athletic scholarship and the check came directly to him.
I know the difference between the two but MT in the 70’s was a completely different world.
I’m having lunch with a couple others who applied for loans at MT colleges in the 70’s. I’ll ask them.
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OK, imagine then: You’re a bank and are making risky loans to kids who don’t have much income. The premise is that with an education they’ll be able to repay it. But your internal control is so lax that you don’t even assure yourself that the funds are used for the intended purpose.
Makes no sense.
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You’re totally full of shit. In face-to-face life, people present with masks. On the Internet, you don’t even know if it’s a real person.
Let’s take one part though – you “served” four years in Vietnam. Since the country did nothing to warrant a US attack, you were part of an invading force. Since most of the killing done during that time was of innocent civilians and resistance forces rightly defending their homeland, you are a terrorist. I salute them!
Your attitudes about people – that they are mostly worthy of death by nuclear holocaust; your attitude about women, that they are fucking machines; and your attitude about money, that it is a sign of accomplishment (about which you make up great stories) are all indicators of sociopathy, or some other defect. You’re a piece of work, no matter your ailment.
And lastly, you present with a motorcycle image, which any pop psychologist will tell you is a power substitute – that is, if you have no power between your legs, a hog is a nice compensation device.
And no, student loans were not made payable to the student. Not then, not now. If you borrowed money to go to college and had a check made out to you personally, it was not a student loan.
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You evince so much anger and hatred for your country and your countrymen, one does not know where to begin helping you to cope with it. I am certainly no help. Everything I say about myself seems to make you explode with more anger and more hatred. And I find that fairly weird, since, for the most part, everything I have done in my adult life, including my military service, is considered laudable by normal people.
One can only conclude you are seriously abnormal. You live in an inverted universe. What makes normal people happy, makes you angry. What normal people love, you hate.
So, Vietnam veterans are “terrorists,” according to you. Try shouting that in a crowded bar some night, not a gay bar, but a bar filled with real men. You know, one of those “face-to-face” life situations you are so fond of. Then you can write about the reaction you got, when you are out of the hospital and fully recovered, of course. Go ahead and try it. Do not be a pipsqueak blogger. Man up.
I will admit that I could have been more like a Catholic accountancy student and remained chaste while in college, but given the social and moral milieu of the late 1960s, the fact that I was 22 or 23, handsome, and astride a 500-pound thundering phallic symbol, what happened to me was really not all that extraordinary. As for these women you say are “fucking machines,” I never encountered one of those in college. That might be because I never dated any girls from the engineering department. I don’t know. But I take your word for it that such women exist, since you are the fellow with the five kids.
— Max Bucks
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You really don’t get that killing innocent people, invading their homeland, defoliating their forests, is criminal and depraved. Even if you really did serve in Vietnam, which i doubt, you’re not like most, who were deeply affected. You revel in the moral corruption.
Every word you write is more revelatory than you realize, an indication of your mental state. You don’t experience normal emotions, and so are baffled when people read your words and, seeing through you, experience revulsion. The smarter of your ilk a least have the ability to mimic. You seem to lack it.
So you come to blogs using an anonymous names and fake email, spout nonsense, and apparently really expect to be treated as if mere words gave you credibility. I initially thought you were a moron living in Mom’s basement, and then came to suspect that you were merely making humor, a rather sophisticated ploy. I am now more suspicious that you are a person in hiding, alienated, alone, and disconnected from reality in total.
Your political and economic ideas are immature, your sense of history seemingly the product of a few right wing tracts. You appear uneducated and unable to fool anyone due to the shallowness of your words.
You’re some kind of moron, and it is only left to us to discern your particular variety. Now, go away.
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