Green Energy

[sigh]

Then there's the education bubble pumping out higher and higher degrees to lesser and lesser students filling the world with average minds chasing profound goals.

This is true. Why does everybody need a college degree? Certainly, not all jobs require them.

 

[Peregrinator]

I have hopes for Algae in the future....but it's been an ongoing program for many years and hasn't produced the hoped-for results yet and it certainly won't be doing so in the near term either.

Cue coastal_boy/Dribble, a biologist who has been doing that very thing for years...

So what?

There you go, folks, as classic an AJ response as it's possible to make:

LTGR: I have hopes for this, but it will never happen.

Perg: CB has been doing it.

AJ: So what?

 

[Peregrinator]

This is true. Why does everybody need a college degree? Certainly, not all jobs require them.

As usual, AJ wants to blame the education system. It has nothing to do with employers preferentially hiring people with college degrees, of course.

 

[Ishmael]

As usual, AJ wants to blame the education system. It has nothing to do with employers preferentially hiring people with college degrees, of course.

And the reason for that is that a High School Diploma is now worthless. For most kids attending college the first year is nothing more than remedial High School forcing the parents to pay good money for what should have been already payed for with their taxes.

Ishmael

 

[Peregrinator]

And the reason for that is that a High School Diploma is now worthless. For most kids attending college the first year is nothing more than remedial High School forcing the parents to pay good money for what should have been already payed for with their taxes.

Ishmael

I think the reason is that people were sold the idea that "you can get a better job with a college degree," so more and more people went out and got them. I agree that education at every level is not what it once was, but specific to the conversation AJ and sigh were having, if you tell everyone they need a degree to do well, more and more of them are going to get one. It makes little sense to sit around and complain that everyone has them after that happens.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

As usual, AJ wants to blame the education system. It has nothing to do with employers preferentially hiring people with college degrees, of course.

I don't blame the system for taking advantage of a flawed philosophy...

I blame them for watering a degree down to the point that it can handle the results of the failed philosophy. You and sigh like to try and use an obvious point as a means to diminish me, but the fact that I actually hold two degrees, if, indeed, I am that far off the mark, might actually give you pause and a moment of reflection upon the validity of my viewpoint.



__________________
Some people feel the wealth of a nation is measured in BAs, MAs, and PhDs and that it as nothing to do with fives, tens and twenties...
A_J, the Stupid

 

[Ishmael]

I think the reason is that people were sold the idea that "you can get a better job with a college degree," so more and more people went out and got them. I agree that education at every level is not what it once was, but specific to the conversation AJ and sigh were having, if you tell everyone they need a degree to do well, more and more of them are going to get one. It makes little sense to sit around and complain that everyone has them after that happens.

Well Perg., education is one of the greatest scams ever perpetrated on the people of this nation. The government, at all levels to an extent, has created a perpetual motion money consumption machine that is not serving anyone's purpose in particular.

The teachers unions have diminished the primary and secondary education curricula to the point that it borders on being a joke. High School grads, for the most part, are incapable of reading, writing, speaking proper English, or solving relatively simple math problems.

Sooooooooo, off to college they go spending the first year learning what they should have already known, and at great expense too. But why worry about the expense when Uncle Sugar is going to underwrite the loan!! And because virtually everyone qualifies for these loans the laws of supply and demand kick in with regard to tuition's. If the government is going to supply what amounts to unlimited cash the various universities would be fools not to raise the tuition rates. Remember, college's are a business, not a charity. They are NOT going to leave any cash laying on the table.

They raise their rates, the government bemoans the increase but makes ever more money available to the institutions. The institutions figured out long ago that they have no need of being financially competitive. The entire economic model is turned upside down.

This is going to continue until the system is entirely broken unless politicians at ALL levels start facing up to the facts that the nation cannot afford this wasteful largess.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Something I ran across and posted elsewhere this morning that somewhat highlights your post:

April 8, 2012
Someone in California Finally Shows Some Intelligence, but then Folds
Harlan Platt, The American Thinker

The budget crisis in California affects many aspects of life there. Students attending Santa Monica College suffer from a lack of class offerings. Consequently, some students are unable to graduate or complete certain programs.

Then somebody in California actually considered how to solve a problem rather than giving up or begging for state support which would not be forthcoming. The solution was simple. Offer additional sections of the class in short supply but rather than charge the approved $36 per credit hourly rate actually ask students to pay the full cost of the class, about $180 per credit. Naturally, all hell broke loose. After enduring student protests for nearly a week, the Chancellor of the California community college system forced officials at Santa Monica College to fold -- that is, they could not offer the extra sections. The unintended consequence of this weak action is that students not permitted to pay the extra amounts to take a required or necessary class will not get jobs or will not graduate. No doubt those protesting were not the ones who wanted to take the class. They were just the ones imposing unintended consequences on their peers.

 

[JohnnySavage]

I don't blame the system for taking advantage of a flawed philosophy...

I blame them for watering a degree down to the point that it can handle the results of the failed philosophy. You and sigh like to try and use an obvious point as a means to diminish me, but the fact that I actually hold two degrees, if, indeed, I am that far off the mark, might actually give you pause and a moment of reflection upon the validity of my viewpoint.



__________________
Johnny won't be forced to read sig lines, real nor faux.

I've seen you say that before. What evidence do you have that the current degrees are watered down? It's easy to speculate to support a premesis. In fact, I'd argue a business student today knows more about business than a business student in 1950. Certainly you'd agree that any of the various computer science graduates know more than a computer science graduate in 1950.. wouldn't you?

 

[Saint Peter]

Well Perg., education is one of the greatest scams ever perpetrated on the people of this nation. The government, at all levels to an extent, has created a perpetual motion money consumption machine that is not serving anyone's purpose in particular.

The teachers unions have diminished the primary and secondary education curricula to the point that it borders on being a joke. High School grads, for the most part, are incapable of reading, writing, speaking proper English, or solving relatively simple math problems.

Sooooooooo, off to college they go spending the first year learning what they should have already known, and at great expense too. But why worry about the expense when Uncle Sugar is going to underwrite the loan!! And because virtually everyone qualifies for these loans the laws of supply and demand kick in with regard to tuition's. If the government is going to supply what amounts to unlimited cash the various universities would be fools not to raise the tuition rates. Remember, college's are a business, not a charity. They are NOT going to leave any cash laying on the table.

They raise their rates, the government bemoans the increase but makes ever more money available to the institutions. The institutions figured out long ago that they have no need of being financially competitive. The entire economic model is turned upside down.

This is going to continue until the system is entirely broken unless politicians at ALL levels start facing up to the facts that the nation cannot afford this wasteful largess.

Ishmael

Teachers teach to the standards set by administration. I know you hate unions and the working man, but get your shit right.

The NEA is the weakest union on the face of the Earth. They are a joke in the world of unions. Talk to the parents if you want education to work better.

 

[sigh]

I don't blame the system for taking advantage of a flawed philosophy...

I blame them for watering a degree down to the point that it can handle the results of the failed philosophy. You and sigh like to try and use an obvious point as a means to diminish me, but the fact that I actually hold two degrees, if, indeed, I am that far off the mark, might actually give you pause and a moment of reflection upon the validity of my viewpoint.



__________________
Some people feel the wealth of a nation is measured in BAs, MAs, and PhDs and that it as nothing to do with fives, tens and twenties...
A_J, the Stupid

Why drag me into this? I agreed with you dammit.

(I know that's a shock, but it's true)

 

[Peregrinator]

I don't blame the system for taking advantage of a flawed philosophy...

I blame them for watering a degree down to the point that it can handle the results of the failed philosophy. You and sigh like to try and use an obvious point as a means to diminish me, but the fact that I actually hold two degrees, if, indeed, I am that far off the mark, might actually give you pause and a moment of reflection upon the validity of my viewpoint.

Your two degrees constitute enough experience to use that extremely broad brush? I've attended at least five institutions of higher learning and have a brother who's a college professor. My brush covers more ground.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

April 9, 2012
Unelected EPA Bureaucrats Approve E15 Ethanol
By Peter Wilson, The American Thinker

Last week, "an unelected group of people" over at the Environmental Protection Agency revised our national energy policy, approving a new gasoline blend with up to 15% ethanol, known as E15, which may be available in pumps this summer. Currently, most gasoline sold in the U.S. is E10, containing a maximum of 10% ethanol.

To review the backstory: the last time ethanol was in the news, it seems like its opponents, who come from both the environmental left and free-market right, had won a significant victory. Last summer, "a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," to use Obama's words about ObamaCare, voted to discontinue subsidies for ethanol, effective 12/31/11.

The president termed the vote to end subsidies "ill-advised." Funny how he rails against "giveaways for the oil companies" -- which turn out to be tax write-offs afforded to most businesses -- yet had no compunctions about paying out 45 cents per gallon to ethanol producers. Rather than an "all of the above" energy policy, Obama seems to be pursuing "nothing from below."

Theoretically, 900,000 gallons of ethanol per day would produce a $17-billion annual subsidy. The actual number reported was lower, in the $6- to $10-billion range, but still much greater than the oil company tax write-offs of $4 billion that Obama finds outrageous, amounting to a few pennies per gallon of gasoline produced. (Four billion dollars spread over $133 billion gallons of gasoline per year comes out to 3 cents a gallon, and that doesn't take into account all the other petroleum products that oil companies provide.)

In any case, it appeared that common sense had prevailed. Ethanol was driving global food prices higher, causing riots in developing countries; rain forests were being destroyed so corn and sugarcane could be cultivated; cars got poorer mileage with ethanol; corn was being raised with genetically modified seed and chemical fertilizers that run off into aquifers; ethanol production was producing more greenhouse gases than the petroleum it replaced, if you worry about things like that; and on top of it all, many analysts question whether ethanol production results in any net energy gain -- i.e., it might take more energy for tractor fuel, processing, fertilizer, etc. than we get out of the final product.

The vote was hailed by the American Enterprise Institute, and over at MSNBC we read: "'Corn ethanol is extremely dirty,' Michal Rosenoer, biofuels manager for Friends of the Earth, said in heralding the tax credit's demise."

It turns out, however, that the EPA never intended to slow its push for more ethanol production; in fact, it is required by law to increase ethanol use. The ethanol industry didn't need subsidies because it had something more valuable: legislation known as the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) that creates a guaranteed marketplace for ethanol. The EPA describes the history of the legislation:

The RFS program was created under the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005, and established the first renewable fuel volume mandate in the United States. As required under EPAct, the original RFS program (RFS1) required 7.5 billion gallons of renewable- fuel to be blended into gasoline by 2012.

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007...increased the volume of renewable fuel required to be blended into transportation fuel from 9 billion gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Current levels of ethanol production are around 900,000 barrels per day, or 17 billion gallons per year. Thus, by law, ethanol production must double in the next decade, regardless of whether this is a sensible energy policy and regardless of the changing economics brought on by the fracking revolution that is supplying cheap natural gas and shale oil.

Aaron Smith at the American Enterprise Institute writes:

The RFS mandates that at least 37 percent of the 2011-12 corn crop be converted to ethanol and blended with the gasoline that powers our cars[.] ... [As a result] the current price of corn on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is about $6.50 per bushel-almost triple the pre-mandate level.

An obvious way to accommodate this mandate is to increase the ethanol percentages in gasoline. The recent EPA press release reports that the E15 waiver was "in response to a request by Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers under the Clean Air Act." "Growth Energy" is shorthand for the "Renewable Fuels Association/Growth Energy" (RFA/GrE), self-identified as "a trade association for the U.S. ethanol industry." In other words, a lobbying group.

Adapting to any new energy source will create costs and problems, and E15 has more than its fair share. Car and truck engines, except for those designed to use Flexfuels, can be irreparably damaged by ethanol, and apparently manufacturers aren't sympathetic to warranty claims. E15 was originally approved only for vehicles built in 2007 and later. The recent DOE waivers allow use of E15 "in model year 2001 and newer light duty motor vehicles."

Introducing E15 will create costs for the nation's 128,000 gas stations, requiring a separate consumer pump and either a separate fuel storage tank or a "blender pump" to mix gasoline and ethanol on site.

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Time to run these idiots out of office.

Even if we run them out, the bureaucratic minions remain, by Progressive design.

"We know that the number of government jobs has been increasing steadily, and that the number of applicants is increasing still more rapidly than the number of jobs. … Is this scourge about to come to an end? How can we believe it, when we see that public opinion itself wants to have everything done by that fictitious being, the state, which signifies a collection of salaried bureaucrats? … Very soon there will be two or three of these bureaucrats around every Frenchman, one to prevent him from working too much, another to give him an education, a third to furnish him credit, a fourth to interfere with his business transactions, etc., etc. Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

We could do some trimming, but then we want dirty water, dirty air, unsafe food, grounded flights...,



..., grandma on a cat food diet...,

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They need their budget cut in half. Dept. of Energy needs to be dismantled as well along with Education.

You hate the planet and you want it to die for Exxon.

You hate education. Flat-Earther.

 

[unregistered]

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Chop up the useless Department of Agriculture too.

YOU WANT CHILDREN TO STARVE!!!


Those people grow ethanol you know!

 

[unregistered]

 

[fair_warning]

Chop up the useless Department of Agriculture too.

Speaking of agriculture....it seems prophetic that some of your 'nation of sheep' might elect a Romney to lead the flock

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

They're the ones raising the price of food and starving the chilrun.

HA!

You don't have all your facts!

They cut down like a gazillion trees to print food stamps!

Right-wing propagandist!