What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?

[4est_4est_Gump]

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/25/bigger_than_facebook_99686.html

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

One of the radical changes I think we will see is the decoupling of the humanities from technical and professional education. As it is, universities package together two forms of education with radically different economics. Scientific, technological, and professional courses teach skills that are judged by objective standards and have direct, measurable economic value.

The humanities, at best, have an economic value that is indirect and difficult to quantify. Perhaps it will make you more creative and a deeper thinker. Maybe Steve Jobs sitting in on classes in calligraphy helped inspire the Macintosh. But then again, the humanities departments are also packed with a bunch of charlatans who will waste your time with things like--well, here's an example. Check out a hilarious review by Joe Queenan of an impossibly pretentious and utterly nonsensical academic tome on the deeper meaning of that important subject, Harpo Marx.

As someone who came out of the humanities departments--I have a degree in philosophy--I assure you that this sort of thing goes on all the time, and your tuition dollars are paying for it. Obviously, there is no reason why they should pay for it, so eventually they won't.

Do you want to know the actual function of humanities education in the job market? For most people, humanities education is a kind of finishing school. It is less about acquiring useful skills or knowledge than it is about learning mannerisms and etiquette, teaching students to act and talk and write like a member of the educated class. In My Fair Lady, Eliza Doolittle offers Henry Higgins five shillings to teach her to "talk more genteel-like" so she can get a better class of job. Now we do that with four years of college education, at $30,000 per year.

Obviously, it is possible to do this more cheaply and efficiently, and there is no reason why you have to purchase that service from the same people who are teaching you more tangible skills like engineering or medicine.

And when we think of fields like medicine or law, we see a big conflict looming on the horizon. These are fields in which there is no alternative to existing universities because they have been granted a legal monopoly. When my wife was studying to become an architect, for example, you could still get a license to practice architecture without having a degree from an architecture school--if you were willing to serve nine years of internship. She chose to go through school, but given that the architecture schools have their share of charlatans, it was an option worth exploring. In many states, though, professional regulators have closed off that option by requiring a bachelor's or master's degree in architecture. This kind of professional regulation is a nice gravy train for the entrenched educational establishment.

I used to think that these restrictive professional barriers to entry would be one of the last forms of regulation that we would choose to take on in the battle for economic liberty. Now, I suspect that a fight could be looming much sooner. Megan McArdle recently reported on how a new Internet-based car service has sparked a battle over restrictions on taxi medallions. Similarly, the impact of the Internet will spark a fight over the equivalent of taxi medallions in fields like architecture, law, and medicine. As online education takes over from the traditional universities in fields that do not require government licenses--and in a few that do; one of my readers directs me to a website that offers relatively inexpensive online training for the "professional engineer" license exam--how long are people going to accept paying so much more to enter those fields where the universities have been granted a labor monopoly?

Most profoundly, an educational revolution that puts less importance on a "piece of paper" from an established institution will cause employers to re-evaluate how they hire people, and many of them will realize that the best way to find out who will be a good employee is not to take the word of a bunch of bearded, tweed-clad college professors, but rather to see how young people actually work.

Link above

 

[RobDownSouth]

You know, I consistently forget was it Yale you started at and Harvard you finished at, or vice versa?

^^^ Class envy is a staple of AJ's life.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

^^^ Class envy is a staple of AJ's life.

☝ Reading incomprehension is a staple of Throb's "double-knot intullekt..."

 

[RobDownSouth]

☝ Reading incomprehension is a staple of Throb's "double-knot intullekt..."

Speakin' of lack of reading comprehension, I notice you are avoiding the Julia thread for some reason.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Speakin' of lack of reading comprehension, I notice you are avoiding the Julia thread for some reason.

Because, not only did you make a lie about what I said and refused to prove or back it up with a quote, but when called out on it, you doubled down on the lie LIKE CAPS AND BOLDING WERE THE ARBITERS OF TRUTH...



But that's just what Democrats do.

We're all Cherokees now.

Born in Kenya...

 

[RobDownSouth]

Because, not only did you make a lie about what I said and refused to prove or back it up with a quote, but when called out on it, you doubled down on the lie LIKE CAPS AND BOLDING WERE THE ARBITERS OF TRUTH...



But that's just what Democrats do.

We're all Cherokees now.

Born in Kenya...

We all had a good laugh at your expense when you got so upset that I quoted you in you entirety. But in doing so I made you look foolish, so you started in with "Rob is a lying liar!" hissy fit.

Periginator noted your intellectual dishonesty.
Richard Daily noted your intellectual dishonesty.
Zipman noticed your intellectual dishonesty.

Bottom line: You got caught mouthing talking points that you couldn't back up.

I quoted you directly, and I quoted your entire post, and you ran like a scalded dog.

 

[Bad_Doggie]

Nobody is surprised that AJ doesn't know what education is.

I’d be surprised if he ever attended an accredited university; very!

Constantly, regurgitating blogs and snippets from writers that affirm those blogs point of view are not signs of a developed individual who can critically form his own opinions.

Woof!

 

[Bad_Doggie]

Education is free at the Library.

Free public libraries!!!!!

A socialist construct, brought to you by AJ the socialist.

Ekkkkkk runs around the room waving hands in the air.

Woof!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We all had a good laugh at your expense when you got so upset that I quoted you in you entirety. But in doing so I made you look foolish, so you started in with "Rob is a lying liar!" hissy fit.

Periginator noted your intellectual dishonesty.
Richard Daily noted your intellectual dishonesty.
Zipman noticed your intellectual dishonesty.

Bottom line: You got caught mouthing talking points that you couldn't back up.

I quoted you directly, and I quoted your entire post, and you ran like a scalded dog.

What I do notice is no link to you claim about my use of the phrase excessive benefits, because it was a lie and now you are trolling thread after thread after thread chasing me with a lie instead of proof.

Typical Democrat behavior.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Free public libraries!!!!!

A socialist construct, brought to you by AJ the socialist.

Ekkkkkk runs around the room waving hands in the air.

Woof!

There is no such thing as a free library, or a free education.

Government spending is currently 40% of GDP and yet the cry is always for more to educate, to heal, to stimulate, but ironically, not so much to defend...
http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/us_20th_century_chart.html

... the CBO projections (not that I put much stock into it) is that to cover current debt and unfunded mandates that the FEDERAL percentage of GDP will reach and surpass the number that is now, currently the TOTAL Government take of GDP.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/35xx/doc3521/125revisedjuly3.pdf

At any rate, the "library," the, specifically, public library, may be a dying paradigm, especially if we keep pressing government to provide internet to every household, a computer to every child, a phone to every benefit receiver...,

What class does not solicit the favors of the state? It would seem as if the principle of life resided in it. Aside from the innumerable horde of its own agents, agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, the arts, the theatre, the colonies, and the shipping industry expect everything from it. They want it to clear and irrigate land, to colonize, to teach, and even to amuse. Each begs a bounty, a subsidy, an incentive, and especially the gratuitous gift of certain services, such as education and credit. And why not ask the state for the gratuitous gift of all services? Why not require the state to provide all the citizens with food, drink, clothing, and shelter free of charge?

... under the name of the state the citizens taken collectively are considered as a real being, having its own life, its own wealth, independently of the lives and the wealth of the citizens themselves; and then each addresses this fictitious being, some to obtain from it education, others employment, others credit, others food, etc., etc. Now the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them.
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I’d be surprised if he ever attended an accredited university; very!

Constantly, regurgitating blogs and snippets from writers that affirm those blogs point of view are not signs of a developed individual who can critically form his own opinions.

Woof!

This is a slander.

Yes, I do posit the thoughts of others for discussion, but in all those posts, you will find a high percentage of original content, especially on good days, the rest is usually a result of a slow day, for slow posters, like my present company...

 

[mercury14]

You know, I consistently forget was it Yale you started at and Harvard you finished at, or vice versa?

My undergrad is from a Jesuit University that's going on 200 years old. My post is from a University that's ranked in the top 25 in the world according to US News & World Report. And I attended a very reputable medical college on the east coast (paid for by the USAF).

None were Harvard or Yale but I'm completely satisfied with my education. How about you?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

My undergrad is from a Jesuit University that's going on 200 years old. My post is from a University that's ranked in the top 25 in the world according to US News & World Report. And I attended a very reputable medical college on the east coast (paid for by the USAF).

None were Harvard or Yale but I'm completely satisfied with my education. How about you?

Very much so since I can compare it to such worldly graduates.

That is...










... if you're just not making it up again. You might think it's okay to lie to me.

 

[mercury14]

Very much so since I can compare it to such worldly graduates.

That is...










... if you're just not making it up again. You might think it's okay to lie to me.

Attend anywhere accredited?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Attend anywhere accredited?

Yes busybodyDownSouth...


... or should I say Celebrai?

 

[mercury14]

Yes busybodyDownSouth...


... or should I say Celebrai?

And when you turned in blogs as term paper references did the professor laugh at you or the whole class?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

A lot of people living in the United States in 1790 believed (as a lot of people do today) that the debts incurred during the American Revolution should just be ignored. What modern people would think of as the United States didn't begin until 1789. The debts run up before that time were under a different government, so why should the new government be responsible for that debt?

Alexander Hamilton argued against this.

He believed that the new nation needed a good reputation on the international scene. If the United States was known to honor its debts, it would find it easier to get loans. Hamilton pointed out that this would be especially useful in a national emergency. Moreover, Hamilton wanted the federal government to take up all the state debt as well. He believed that it would help foster kinship among Americans by uniting them against a common problem.

It was this belief in capitalism that propelled our fledgling nation to its status as a land of prosperity. This attempt to learn and implement free-market ideas makes for one of the key reasons why the experiment in the United States was a success, whereas revolutions in other nations failed.

But the idea of ignoring incurred debt is once again trendy. From the shantytowns of Occupy Wall Street to Western European states, there is a groundswell for debt forgiveness and a war against austerity. The theory is that the government should not ever slow down spending.

Not surprisingly, these ideas are most popular in lands that have amassed large amounts of debt very rapidly. Nations such as Greece now believe that after running up large bills, they can just ignore what they owe and continue their lives. Such nations remind one of spoiled teenagers who want to sleep all day and party all night while relying on Mommy and Daddy for their food. They forget just how expensive living can be.

Such thoughts are very nearsighted, because hidden costs are still costs. In the short term, such nations believe they will get a clean slate, with everything forgiven. But in the long run, they're setting a precedent and demonstrating just how dishonest they can be, especially when the pressure is on. In the long run, they will find it harder to get credit. People work very hard for their money; they don't like seeing it pour down bottomless holes. The crashing bond markets are already beginning to reflect some of these fears.

Alexander Hamilton understood this. He warned:

For when the credit of a country is in any degree questionable, it never fails to give an extravagant premium, in one shape or another, upon all the loans it has occasion to make. Nor does the evil end here; the same disadvantage must be sustained upon whatever is to be bought on terms of future payment. (The First Report on Public Credit, 1789)

The United States was blessed with a leadership that heeded Hamilton's advice at that crucial time in history. This was due to the Founders' interest in capitalism. They had lived in what Marx had called "The Natural Order" -- that is, the master-serf relationship. And the Founders hadn't liked it.

How ironic it is that two hundred and ten years later, the leadership of the United States is ignoring Hamilton's lessons and wisdom: from auto and bank bailouts to housing bailouts to proposals for student loan "forgiveness," ignoring debts and obligations is becoming alarmingly stylish amongst the Ruling Elite. The only genius being displayed anymore comes in the ways terms are being rewritten and words redefined.

Unfortunately, a clever liar is still a liar. These people are doing us no service in the long run. It's not going to take long for creditors to figure out that politicians who don't want to repay loans will come up with all kinds of fancy ways out of it -- be it through laws and regulations, or "nationalization of industries," or outright fraud.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/05/the_lesson_of_alexander_hamilton.html#ixzz1wAMM7QOC

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

And when you turned in blogs as term paper references did the professor laugh at you or the whole class?

There wasn't a lot of blogging then, but I did make a lot of use of Bill Clinton's papers and research on Education when he was governor of Arkansas for one of my papers.

If all you can do is attack to make your points, then you don't have points other than partisan talking.

See, with guys like you, your education tells you that now you "know" things, so there's no need to do any real research, just do with your gut and what medical school (if you even attended one that speaks English) taught you about economics...

"It is not half so important to know as to feel."
Rachel Carson

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The Obama Economic Model: Running Its Natural Course

It was several years ago now that my friend David Pryce-Jones told me about the European Union’s fruit police. Fruit was just the tip of the orchard, so to speak, but the fact that those preposterous bureaucrats in Europe had outlawed curvy bananas made a deep impression on me. It was V. Lenin who said that “Communism means keeping track of everything,” and here were the non-elected busybodies of the EU deciding what sorts of bananas were legal — legal. And not just bananas, of course. They were also deciding what you could and could not say, whom you could criticize, what sort of potatoes you could grow and . . . it took them nearly 100,000 pages to spell out all the things their wards (i.e., the persons formerly know as citizens) could and couldn’t do, say, buy, accumulate, spend, hire, fire, worship, play, read, draw, look at, and commune with. It was all part of what I have called elsewhere “The New Gleichschaltung.”

“Gleichschaltung”: that was the word used by certain Germans of another era — a twentieth-century moment that was supposed to last 1000 years but in the event spanned the early 1930s until May 2, 1945. The blizzard of rules, regulations, must and must-nots emanating from Brussels aims at “harmonizing” the disparate countries of the European so-called union into a single quasi-political-economic entity. As I noted then, one part of this effort was meant to make it easier for the police in one country to round up people in another country for various torts — possessing or selling the wrong sort of bananas, say, or criticizing an EU minister or directive.

So if you are British and you say something nasty about the French while on vacation in Greece, you might wind up in a Greek jail for two “or more” years. Since the EU made it illegal for journalists to criticize its policies a year or two ago, it is not clear what sort of debate this latest piece of totalitarian legislation will spark. Of course, this is not the first time that Europe has attempted to “harmonize” its laws. Beginning in 1933, there was a concerted effort to “harmonize” not only the laws but also all of social life. The German word for the process was Gleichschaltung. That time the effort came out of Berlin. It almost worked. It took the combined military might of England, the United States, and the Soviet Union to stop that earlier push for “harmony.” It is anyone’s guess what it will take to stop this new, Brussels-based effort.

I wrote that in 2002. The EU bureaucrats may be wretched bankrupts now, but they’re still worrying about the details. Over at NRO, David-Pryce Jones has the low down on the latest Bunny Business. Surely you remember the chocolate bunny made by Lindt, the storied Swiss chocolatier? He may have made his last hop. As David explains, the “great men” of the EU have been examining this chocolate bunny, and they don’t like the way it is wrapped in gold foil and has a red ribbon round its neck. This is “not sufficiently different,” so they say, from the wrappings of other chocolate products. Apparently Lindt has failed to establish the bunny’s “inherent distinctive character.” And the European Court of Justice accordingly issues a fatwa.

Yes, that’s right: the continent of Europe is listing toward bankruptcy and demographic disaster and the bureaucrats running the joint are worried about the wrapping of chocolate bunnies. “Ordinary people,” as David observes, “can respond only with a belly laugh – and this may be the only joyful thing to remember when the death throes of this whole preposterous experiment are over at last.”

And when will that be? My prediction? Before 2012 runs its course.

http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/201...course-from-tragedy-to-farce/?singlepage=true


In the US, we seem to be focused on making sure there are food stamps and "education" for everybody...

Education is the magic road to prosperity; all we need are more taxes to provide it!

 

[RobDownSouth]

This is a slander.

Yes, I do posit the thoughts of others for discussion, but in all those posts, you will find a high percentage of original content, especially on good days, the rest is usually a result of a slow day, for slow posters, like my present company...

Had you attended an accredited college, you might have learned of the difference between "slander" and "libel"....

But you didn't, so you didn't.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

It's not a published statement dumbass; it's electronic speech...



This is your Education on HATE.

The Demo drug of choice...

 

[RobDownSouth]

What I do notice is no link to you claim about my use of the phrase excessive benefits, because it was a lie and now you are trolling thread after thread after thread chasing me with a lie instead of proof.

Typical Democrat behavior.

I simply asked you to enumerate which middle class benefits that YOU personally thought Americans could live without.

You couldn't find a cut-and-paste article to explain your position, so you started the usual ad-hominem-arama.

Everybody in that thread laughed at your pissy petulance and marveled at how you sure can "talk the talk", but you damned sure cannot "walk the walk" when you are challenged.

Jeet Kune D'OH!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I simply asked you to enumerate which middle class benefits that YOU personally thought Americans could live without.

You couldn't find a cut-and-paste article to explain your position, so you started the usual ad-hominem-arama.

Everybody in that thread laughed at your pissy petulance and marveled at how you sure can "talk the talk", but you damned sure cannot "walk the walk" when you are challenged.

Jeet Kune D'OH!

This is a lie. You, less than simply asked me about excessive benefits to the middle class that I was railing on.

The fact that you got some useful idiots to cackle with you means nothing to me; they have proven their actual mettle over the course of time, as have you.

Honesty is not your strong suit.

In fact, in remarks to Ham, some posts later, I did address some of the "benefits" they had to pay for that were actually harming them, but by then, you were in full frothing rant mode and unable to read anything with comprehension. That's typical of the Democrat polity, emotion over education...

"It is not half so important to know as to feel."
Rachel Carson

 

[RobDownSouth]

This is a lie. You, less than simply asked me about excessive benefits to the middle class that I was railing on.

The fact that you got some useful idiots to cackle with you means nothing to me; they have proven their actual mettle over the course of time, as have you.

Honesty is not your strong suit.

In fact, in remarks to Ham, some posts later, I did address some of the "benefits" they had to pay for that were actually harming them, but by then, you were in full frothing rant mode and unable to read anything with comprehension. That's typical of the Democrat polity, emotion over education...

"It is not half so important to know as to feel."
Rachel Carson

Duck and weave, boy!

"excessive" is a synonym for "too many", your hair-splitting notwithstanding.

You lacked the courage and character to address my question, so that (in your mind) makes ME a "liar"? HAW HAW

Look at all the people who laughed at your pathetic attempts to bluster your way out of not answering.

I own you, bitch.