Posted on 02/22/2016 5:16:58 AM PST by rktman
Neither the president nor his would-be successors talk much about the fact that we are now nearing $20 trillion in debt-in an ossified economy of near-zero interest rates, little if any GDP growth, and record numbers of able-bodied but non-working adults. (The most frequent complaint I hear in my hometown is that the government lags behind in their cost-of-living raises in Social Security disability payments.)
No one can figure out how and why America's youth have borrowed a collective $1 trillion for college tuition, and yet received so little education and skills in the bargain. Today's campuses have become as foreign to American traditions of tolerance and free expression as what followed the Weimar Republic. To appreciate cry-bully censorship, visit a campus "free-speech" area. To witness segregation, walk into a college "safe space." To hear unapologetic anti-Semitism, attend a university lecture. To learn of the absence of due process, read of a campus hearing on alleged sexual assault. To see a brown shirt in action, watch faculty call for muscle at a campus demonstration. To relearn the mentality of a Chamberlain or Daladier, listen to the contextualizations of a college president. And to talk to an uneducated person, approach a recent college graduate
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Incredible what has happened to our universities.
Incredible what has happened to our universities.
It is incredible and scary.
As long as they keep up with the kardouchians, all is well. Pop culture is where it’s at to a lot of them.
Actually, it is a simple proposition - want to get ahead, need college, want college, need loans - oh, here is your government backed loan.
It's a government/university run protection racket. As easy as it is to blame the students, the real culprits are the adults who ran this long-con.
Of course educational quality collapsed. "Money for nothing and the chicks for free."
Tuition room and board at a top tier private school ran about 1/10th of a professional's annual salary. Now it is nudging up on half. The money is there because the government provides it. And the expense goes into administrators, deans and their staffs, top end architecture and all kinds of high-priced extra curricular activities having to do with selling the university's brand and nothing to do with professors teaching students, which is an activity unchanged since Plato's academy.
V.D.H., I can figure out how and why America’s youth borrowed a collective $1 trillion for college tuition . . . they DIDN’T !! A huge number of them borrowed money through college loans at low interest for cars, parties, and fooling around instead of diligently pursuing a useful degree or forgoing college altogether and working a real job.
The idea galls me that the government is considering a tax-payer funded bail-out for deadbeats while other diligent responsible students worked their butts off in college and are paying off their loans as agreed to. Socialism’s negative incentive at its best.
Oldplayer
There was a time when you paid later for ignorance. Now you have to pay up front!
I avoided college, so mine hasn’t cost me anything yet.
A scathing screed by VDH. Possibly the best I have read from him. Truly angry at the US contemporary condition brought about by 100 years of progressivism and accentuated by Barack Obama. He didn’t miss many points. Bravo VDH.
Yes, the days of reckoning are going to be very bloody.
By far, the biggest problem is the national debt. The fastest, and likely least painful way of overcoming it is simple: to default on it.
There are two forms to this debt: intergovernmental holdings and public debt.
“Nearly 30% of the Federal debt is owed to 230 Federal agencies. Why would the government owe money to itself? Some agencies, like the Social Security Trust Fund, take in more revenue from taxes than they need right now. Rather than stick this cash under a giant mattress, they buy U.S. Treasuries with it.
“By owning Treasuries, they transfer their excess cash to the general fund, where it is spent. Of course, one day they will redeem their Treasury notes for cash. The Federal government will either need to raise taxes or issue more debt, to give the agencies the money they will need.”
You see how relatively easy it would be to radically slash this debt? The federal government is playing a “shell game” with it, just so that they can waste more money than they budget in taxes. It’s a scam, so end it.
30% of the national debt. But what about the other 70%?
“Debt Held by the Public - Foreign governments and investors hold nearly half (say 50%) of the nation’s public debt. One-fourth is held by other *governmental entities*, like the Federal Reserve, and state and local governments.
“Fifteen percent is held by mutual funds, private pension funds, savings bonds or individual Treasury notes. The rest is owned by businesses, like banks and insurance companies, and an assortment of trusts, companies, and investors.”
So, between foreigners and the government itself, we account for 80% of the national debt.
So, what do we do? So as not to cause an international collapse, we renegotiate our trade agreements for *agricultural products*.
Instead of paying for our food with cash, these foreign nations pay for it with our debt. In effect, this transfers our debt from foreign governments to US farmers, not as debt, but as the US government buying their export crops for cash, then exporting them for debt. This amounts to say, roughly, $250 billion a year.
And those nations that do not hold our debt, still pay us in cash, which goes to offset the expense.
None of this destabilizes any market or nation. In fact, by slashing our debt, we stabilize the heck out of the world’s economy.
..the people wanted someone to make Germany great again...
Hanson nails it again. Having left the once-great state of California decades ago, I view Mr. Hanson’s columns in the same vein as Solzhenitsyn. I once found Russian writing completely opaque and impenetrably dense, but it has become all to accessible as our country has forsaken her heritage and embraced tyranny at every juncture. The intrinsic desperation of those few patriots who remained behind the Iron Curtain and in the grasp of its depots is now reflected in our countrymen as they chronicle the decline of the Christian west.
When the gods of copybook headings are usurped by the Zeitgeist, the end of reason is not far behind. The Four Horsemen are cinching their saddles, and Cerberus salivates as the tree of liberty awaits her crimson sustenance.
’ Neither the president nor his would-be successors talk much about the fact that we are now nearing $20 trillion in debt...
Trump’s trajectory is predicated on the premise that a jaded public cares more about emotion than logic, and how a leader speaks rather than what he says.’
Perfectly sums up this campaign year and candidates. If they were to honestly talk about where we’re headed (assuming they know or care) the electorate would reject it out of hand. So, its more fairy tales, unicorn dust and happy words. The enemy is us....
‘Since Obama’s reelection, the southern border has been wide open, in naked efforts to recalibrate American electoral demography.’
Thats incorrect. Its been this way since at least Clinton.
Incredible what has happened to our universities.
Hanson's wrong and he really should know better than to talk like an idiot; I mean, he has worked as a history prof. at Calif. Univ. Fullerton. OK so he may not think very much of what he and his colleagues taught but the market place sure does. While talk is easy hard money has to go where it counts and U.S. univ. grads make twice what high school grads make.
He whines that folks that went to college now owe a total of $1.2T in student loan debt. Big flippin' deal. Back here on the Planet Earth the ones that owe that debt are earning $5T more than the highschool grads. Every year. Let's think. For $1.2T in debt for life, we get an extra $5T every year, for life.
That's good.
>>The fastest, and likely least painful way of overcoming it is simple: to default on it.<<
Nope...artificially devalue our currency. We will see our taxes go up and value of currency will fall.
Double whammy for Americans and their net worth/retirement savings.
Great post!
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