tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413935813892441553.post750237912915242407..comments2024-03-20T02:13:42.947-05:00Comments on real economics: Killing our kidsJonathan Larsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05217670446743983955noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413935813892441553.post-38590514304540471802012-07-19T11:30:28.969-05:002012-07-19T11:30:28.969-05:00College degress are false idols, they only show ho...College degress are false idols, they only show how malleable students are and create a bureaucratic workforce. The sassy VT ski trip guy from Good Will Hunting would be some corporate middle manager hoping against hope to make partner.<br /><br />For every partner, there are 20 college degreed guys destined now for unemployment at 50 and tapping there 401k plan early to survive until a retirement age that may never come given our USA health care.<br /><br />Most of the real inventions of consequence have come from college dropouts--Zuckerberg and Gates for example--and both actually were smart enough to steal someone else's concepts and mold them into the 'invention.'<br /><br />We are entering an incredible tipping point--virtually every institution of mankind (religious, governmental, educational, corporate, etc.) has lost its way and allowed itself to become so lost as to misplace its core human values.<br /><br />Even having lived through this corruption era and into this time, I could not have imagined this possible, and I must admit that I dismissed most of the cries of the visionaries who confronted these institutions to try to correct the errors of their ways.<br /><br />All those events that now in hindsight should have been beacons pointing out the corruption but were not due to the able coverups and wishful thinking denialism...even now into this time where it just seems incredible that people still do not get it. Headshaking.<br /><br />And yet now I too do hope that the younger generation will step up, because they literally have nothing to lose. That they educate themselves, and live outside of the contrived mortgage/real estate, and create alternative institutions that undermine the corrupted ones simply by avoiding the special interests until they clean themselves up.<br /><br />And develop alternative energy that undermines big oil and big coal, that when the predictable contrived war is begun that they ignore the call to war. But then, I wonder is it too much to dream for.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05252804186064393926noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413935813892441553.post-7377812408614307902012-07-18T19:32:07.413-05:002012-07-18T19:32:07.413-05:00Thanks Mike
As someone who once got into signific...Thanks Mike<br /><br />As someone who once got into significant trouble by advising my department head's daughter, who trying to get into some fancy schools, that there was "literally nothing a 19 year old can possibly learn that is worth going into debt," I have been thinking long and hard how the economically disadvantaged can learn the important stuff and gain credentials for their efforts. The exchange in "Good Will Hunting" was particularly relevant to this discussion. Will suggests that the arrogant twerp would some day wake up to the fact that he had "blown $150,000 on an education he could have gotten at the public library for $1.50 in late fees." Of course, Harvard boy's response "yeah but I'll be in the drive-through on my ski trip to Vermont and you'll be working there" was also correct. There should be a way around this problem. Because whatever value there is an education, it is not worth becoming a debt peon. This is especially true of those subjects like Chaucer that are only Leisure Class hobbies that can be learned at any stage in life by reading a few good books.<br /><br />Now that virtually everything worth knowing can be found quite easily online—usually for free, the need for expensive schools that offer little more than instructions in status emulation has pretty much disappeared. What we need is certainly not more student debt, we need a free credentialing system that actually rewards those who learn actually learn something.<br /><br />Of course, what we really need is more good jobs.Jonathan Larsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05217670446743983955noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4413935813892441553.post-34382293134938984852012-07-18T16:22:37.240-05:002012-07-18T16:22:37.240-05:00This is yet another classic bankster bubble that w...This is yet another classic bankster bubble that will have to burst due to its own unstopped greed.<br /><br />According to www.google.com/publicdata, 2011 United States Gross National Income in PPP dollars was $15.23 Trillion PPP dollars, current prices - Source: World Bank<br /><br />So banksters have captured an amount equal to 1/15th of all USA annual income BEFORE IT CAN EVEN BE EARNED.<br /><br />At least income taxes are not pledged to the gov't in advance of it being earned. Students really have been screwed here.<br /><br />But I wish the pundits would stop framing arguments as a Boomer versus Gen X-Y-Z battle--this is just as much a problem for Boomers who go back to school.<br /><br />This is a systemic bank/education institutional problem, whereby they are taking advantage to the edge of greed of any person who is in need their financial/educational services.<br /><br />There are many adults, who due to shifting career/occupations as they get 15+ years into the workforce, are forced to seek additional education; and the financial/educational services are more than happy to strip older folks of income before they earn it too.Mikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05252804186064393926noreply@blogger.com