Posted on 12/28/2004 3:03:45 AM PST by Woodworker
Mel
On the contrary, probably the one Voice article that I can dig. I am this guy, other than not being a namby-pamby silk-slipper-wearing latte-sipping liberal puss with a marginally useful existence working for the Village Voice.
Well OK I am not this guy. But his financial situation, I dig. Did borrow heavily for the college education, the grad school education, the house, the vehicle; will be creditor-owned for the rest of my life. And it ain't easy waiting for that next raise that will, this time for certain, get me over the hump with the credit cards.
My generation has a different spin on these things, I reckon. I'd wager that most of us do grasp the fact that if we party now we'll pay later, but maybe we don't bank on "later" actually coming around. The writer's comments about our transiency in life are dead-on: it's as though many of us don't expect to stick around this life long. I myself don't reckon I'll be here much past forty, the way I smoke. We better do what we got to do today, which includes placing the correct priority on financial integrity... Which may not be a high priority...
Bottom line is, you can't take it with you. What's more important: squatting on top yer bill-stuffed mattress, or spending money on good drink and good friends to make you and other people happy? I don't buy much for myself personally but I do have the reputation for being a generous spender when it comes to other folks...
As the French would say, Tooch.
Close enough.
Wazzup, my bruthah of a different muthah. [intricate handshake] Is there some kinda Republican equivalent of a kegparty in D.C. again this year?
Yes there is. CPAC is February 17th-20th. It would be a blast if you could make it.
Ahhhhhh. I don't object to living for the day, but I don't like to live under the black cloud of debt, either. Fortunately for me, my wife is the same way. Don't get me wrong, we can be very extravagant with ourselves and with others. We take nice vacations, and treat ourselves fine. If I want something materially, my wife will often let me indulge myself.
But we have our life structured in such a way that, if one of us got hit by a train and crippled, or lost our job or whatever, we could pull back, get rid of our magazine subscriptions, live on macaroni and cheese, stop eating out and vacationing, go down to one care or whatever to get by without having creditors on our case.
We don't have cell phones. We don't have cable. (We do have DSL...my priority!)
What I found irritating about that article was the implication that people had no choice about being in debt, and that is, to a point true. But unless you have big hospital bills or things like that, you DO have a choice.
There is a choice about how much debt you incur. My feeling is, once you make a choice, it is yours, and you can think about it and ruminate on it and agonize on it if you want, but...bottom line is...it is your choice. I made the choice to go to a State College instead of Harvard or Yale. I made a choice to buy a Saturn instead of a BMW or SUV. I made a choice to have DSL, but not to have Cable TV or a Cell Phone.
Hehe, one thing is constant...when young and partying, NONE of us ever bank on "later" actually coming around! It's like that 17 year old guy in the prime of his life: "Yeah, I'll jump off the 5th story hotel roof into the pool...won't that be bitchin..."
And it usually is, until you miss or land on someone. And that is life. And I suspect it was that way in the times of the Romans, and will be that way 1000 years from now.
Well...those are the questions Admiral Stockdale asked rhetorically on national TV, and look what happened to HIM!
I notice that too. WHen I was going to college, almost everyone I knew went locally. Some people went to the local community college and then the local 4 year college. Going out of state wasn't very common.
No law, easy-divorce or hard-divorce, is going to force two people who hate each other to live together. The fault isn't in the law, it's in the people.
Funny, I must have missed that part growing up.
I agree, but under the former system the parties had to make some effort to work it out. Now there is no requirement for either party to make any effort whatsoever. How long would you pay your credit card bills if you could simply decide you no longer wanted to spend money that way and wanted to move on to another card company?
But it's still wrong for the law, ie the government, to force people to work it out.
Those, too. :) Even though we like to imagine that those are very important fields that gosh, we can't do without government subsidizing. Many scientists were inspired by science fiction writers with English degrees. If we take it to the nth degree of separation, I'm sure we would be governmentally subsidizing the real estate brokers who sold the land to the parents of the teachers who taught the English to the writers who inspired the mathematicians and theoretical physics professors who developed the A-bomb. Hell, we probably DO subsidize the real estate brokers who sold the land to the parents of the teachers who taught the English to the writers who inspired the mathematicians and theoretical physics professors who developed the A-bomb.
But government shouldn't be in the education business, period. If it makes sense to educate people in a field, banks and businesses will provide. Government funding has done nothing but turn out whopper-floppers with the ability to discuss Marx and Sartre.
I'm sure there will be those who argue that government funding did x or y, and it's important to do x or y, but would x or y have happened WITHOUT that funding? If the market wanted it, if enough of the American people wanted it, yeah!
You're right, we do susbidize real estate brokers -- indirectly, by allowing tax deductions on mortgages.
You have too much faith in "the market." The market, among other things, is a machine. And it's up to us to put that machine to good use.
At present time we live in a perilous age in which America's dominance will be plowed under unless we muster the will to educate the young. The "market" makes no distinction between the U.S. and any other country. It will simply function as it has always functioned, with capital seeking the lowest costs of production and investment seeking out new technologies.
You see complaints about "the market" all the time on this board, including illegal immigration, outsourcing and H1Bs. That is the darker side of the market for the U.S. and these problems will only increase unless we act.
In regards to funding liberal arts majors, I tend to think that most of them find niches somewhere. Either they go into sales of some kind or take jobs in bookstores. Do they need a BA to do these jobs? No. But I'm of the mind that no education is ever wasted.
You reminded me of the old joke:
Q: How many Chicago economists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: If the light bulb needed changing, then the market would have done it.
You are correct in saying that my perspective on worthless subjects is rather subjective. Holding a degree in political science and a law degree, I do happen to see them as particularly worthless. I saw hundreds of history and sociology majors turned out of college to go on to do jack with those degrees. But my favorite worthless major was a deputy county clerk who was bitter because she'd studied BOTANY and sealing land records had nothing to do with it.
However, your diatribe is misdirected. You think I'm merely against liberals and liberal-producing ecuational programs, but actually, I am against government subsidizing education in EVERY subject. I don't have a problem with liberals dominating any field--journalism, law, etc. I just won't pay them for it. I merely point out that those programs are the WORST drain on education resources, tax dollars that would be better spent by people out of their pockets, instead of on public schools...especially schools with tenured instructors.
If you want to tell me I'm wrong because educations are valuable, well, new cars are valuable, too. I don't see government buying one for poor folks or giving no-interest loans for those. If you want to tell me knowledge in varied liberal arts fields is valuable, spiffy. I agree. I'll buy the education I want, and you buy what you want, and we'll be happy about it. But don't tax me so a bunch of schmuck professors can act like Marxists while cashing government checks and indoctrinating young skulls o' mush.
Actually, you'd probably get a far lesser number of unproductive lawyers and historians and writers out there, because then the market would have to bear them instead of the taxpayers. Certainly there would be those lawyers and historians and writers who were lawyers and historians and writers because they "could afford to indulge in those pursuits," but in a free-market system, those are likely to be the folks that actually ARE the best and the brightest, as opposed to what we have right now. Now, any dumbass who doesn't fall asleep through the finals and the LSAT can get a poli sci/history/English degree, go on to graduate from some low-end law school, and become an ambulance chaser who'll sue at the merest hint of legal privilege. The same is true as to the difficulty of getting one of those undergrad degrees alone, though after you get out and try to USE those degrees, odds are better that you'll have to get a productive job.
What do you think of the GI Bill of the post World War II era? Naturally, I'm asking in regards to the educational opportunities it presented...
You have too much faith in "the market." The market, among other things, is a machine. And it's up to us to put that machine to good use.
---Fine. But why is it that my faith is misplaced, while others' faith in government funding for education isn't? What has government ever done right that I should trust IT over the market?
At present time we live in a perilous age in which America's dominance will be plowed under unless we muster the will to educate the young. The "market" makes no distinction between the U.S. and any other country. It will simply function as it has always functioned, with capital seeking the lowest costs of production and investment seeking out new technologies.
---Yes, and we see what the market has done. The U.S. has subsidized people in areas that aren't needed, and we desperately need homegrown engineers and mathematicians, but because it's easy to get cash for ANYTHING, we don't have them. We have liberal arts majors. If the market was a free one, NOT a government-influenced one, many wouldn't waste time with degrees that don't pay off.
You see complaints about "the market" all the time on this board, including illegal immigration, outsourcing and H1Bs. That is the darker side of the market for the U.S. and these problems will only increase unless we act.
---In fact, I think those areas make MY point, and you're right, we should act, in the way I suggest--by cutting federal education funding entirely. Outsourcing and illegal immigration are largely due to the fact that many college-degreed people don't think they should mow lawns or cut crops. That doesn't mean they won't work, but God forbid manual labor is involved if they have a history degree. And H1-Bs are usually for labor where there is a distinct shortage--science and math majors which would people would otherwise be incentivized into by the market!
In regards to funding liberal arts majors, I tend to think that most of them find niches somewhere. Either they go into sales of some kind or take jobs in bookstores. Do they need a BA to do these jobs? No. But I'm of the mind that no education is ever wasted.
---Look, "no education is ever wasted" is an emotion-driven cliche like "if it saves only one life, it's worth it." I can't refute it, because then I'm a meanie, but I can point to the actual choices we would be forced to make if we made policy decisions based upon it. If 'no education is ever wasted,' why don't we have government give any education level you want away for FREE? I mean, it'd be great if shop mechanics could defend their doctoral thesis on Camus while they're changing your plugs, or if pool cleaners could dissect the frogs they fish out of your drain, but societally, it's inefficient and would cost a ton. We are WASTING PUBLIC DOLLARS on things we don't need. And we're driving young Americans away from the education and skills we do need.
I think that the GI Bill might have been part of the rebound from what was a normal post-war depression, in a Keynesian sort of way, but it was a government payout program. It prepared a group of people that would have been typical Americans--farmers, merchants, factory workers, etc.--to become the white-collar and technically educated employees that the Ivy-Leaguers then running the country preferred. But it wasn't the reason for the postwar boom here, just as government wasn't the reason the world dug its way out of the Great Depression.
The reason for the American boom was a combination of the cyclical nature of the world economy, worldwide repopulation, and European and Asian industrial decimation as a result of the war. And I don't believe the GI Bill did anything to ensure that the U.S. will continue that dominance. I am happy that those soldiers got an extra benefit on a personal level, but I don't think it served the country any better than sending the WWI soldiers an advance bonus check would have. In fact, the latter might have been a better choice, because at least the soldiers would have chosen what to do with the money instead of the government.
You do realize that arguing economics with a libertarian is like arguing pot laws with someone for decriminalization.
So let me cut to the chase -- the debate centers around the problem of what should the government fund for the good of the people and the nation?
On the far left of that debate we have folks yelling everything, anything! And on the far right there are people shouting, Nothing! It's my money! The market is always right!
I like to believe that I'm somewhere in the middle. And that we should use reason and compassion to make those choices. That puts me in a difficult position, since it's hideously hard to muster a passionate argument for moderation. You don't see people marching for moderation or carrying placards that proclaim: Moderation Now!
I just happen to think that those people who have a talent and a desire for a thing, should be encouraged to pursue that field. I also believe that the market is amoral (not immoral) and it's up to us to put that powerful machinery to good use. And, that it doesn't benefit us as a country to have an underclass of desperately poor.
So, let the flaming begin.
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