Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Louis E. Lataif writes in Forbes:
Higher education in America, historically the envy of the world, is rapidly growing out of reach. For the past quarter-century, the cost of higher education has grown 440%, according to the National Center for Public Policy and Education, nearly four times the rate of inflation and double the rate of health care cost increases. The cost increases have occurred at both public and private colleges.
Like many situations too good to be true–like the dot-com boom, the Enron bubble, the housing boom or the health care cost explosion–the ever-increasing cost of university education is not sustainable.
Just 10 years ago the cost of a four-year public college education amounted to 18% of the annual income of middle-income families. Ten years later, it amounted to 25% of that family’s average annual income. The cost of attending a private university is about double the cost of public universities. Think of higher education as the proverbial frog in boiling water. It feels very warm and comfy but soon will be cooked.
Hat tip to Instapundit.
I see it as a smaller thing that is unsustainable within a larger thing that is unsustainable: We are evolving out of a place where, if you don’t produce something, you don’t eat. I suppose that is a good thing, at least at first, but we’re evolving in a constant direction a bit too far. With no signs of slowing down. We’re coming up with more and more ways for more and more people to create livelihoods for themselves without producing anything…you’ve heard the old adage “those who can do, those who can’t teach.” Perhaps private higher-level education is becoming more expensive, not quite so much because those who toil away therein are demanding more lavish lifestyles, but because there are more of them.
The whole thing strikes me as a misdirection. If we’re laboring away to create an advanced society in which everyone has a livelihood, and therefore no one needs to worry about whether they can get ahold of one — how come we have more and more people who make such a livelihood out of dictating who does & who does not deserve to have a livelihood? Should that not be an occupation in recession? In fact, it strikes me as an altogether unintended consequence. If your livelihood consists of handing down decisions on who else is entitled to a livelihood, well obviously that just beats the snot out of a livelihood that is made by working. So the lazy people are going to want the livelihood that consists of dictating who else can have a livelihood, since it doesn’t involve any actual work. This may not be a problem if the lazy people are in the minority. But when the option to be lazy has been around for a little while…lazy people always, and I do mean always, achieve majority status.
Glenn Reynolds says often that this is a “bubble” that is due to burst; whatever cannot continue indefinitely, won’t. To his credit, I have yet to see him declare anyone should seek any measure of comfort from this. They shouldn’t because the bursting of the bubble is going to be ugly. Don’t forget, as higher-level education becomes more and more difficult to acquire, the “hard” qualifications to be acquired from it are on a downslide, which means the qualifications to be expected from those who have not acquired one, are similarly on a downslide.
To put it in simpler terms, if the bubble doesn’t pop soon you’re going to need a Master’s degree to shovel shit out of a stable.
So. You can’t have a livelihood of any kind until someone says you’re entitled to have a livelihood, and for them to even consider saying it you need to attend some semesters and pay a rapidly inflating rate for the privilege. Just to be considered. This is the culmination of our efforts to build a super-sophisticated society in which nobody needs to worry about acquiring a livelihood.
Einstein is reputed to have said you can’t solve a problem with the same mindset that created it. I think that is applicable here.
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“To put it in simpler terms, if the bubble doesn’t pop soon you’re going to need a Master’s degree to shovel shit out of a stable.”
We’re practically there now. I have a friend who was looking for a part time position doing light admin work like filing and such. They refused to even consider her as she did not have a college degree. I am not making this up.
- Duffy | 02/03/2011 @ 09:06I’m just annoyed that college tuition costs seem to increase, every time the federal government makes more money available for student assistance, whether grants or loans.
I don’t normally spend much time on the “best of” section of Craig’s List, simply because a substantial portion of the postings found there are written by (and nominated for “best of” by) ardent progressives. Most of the CL posters are urban dwellers – CL after all being organized around major metropolitan areas nation- and world-wide), and as we’ve known from 2000 on, cities (not necessarily the states those cities are in) are a deep blue. Health care this,gun control this, mean conservatives that. Many of the non-political “best of” postings are simply too disgusting for me – rants about someone’s sex life, bowel habits, or tiresome complaints about the rigors of riding mass transit to work every day.
All that having been said, this post really jumped out at me. Give it a read:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sea/1619190174.html
- cylarz | 02/06/2011 @ 01:03