Alan Greenspan's Answer To Income Inequality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
21

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And what type of school system educates these foreigners? The crushing debt model, or the public pays for it model?[/quote]
Ding! Ding! We have a winner![/quote]

lol

I mean, if the loans are federally backed, there is little effective difference.

[/quote]
The difference is that the govt expects that money back and people do indeed repay those loans. I would argue that is a huge difference. Imagine getting your MD, debt free.

22

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And what type of school system educates these foreigners? The crushing debt model, or the public pays for it model?[/quote]
Ding! Ding! We have a winner![/quote]

lol

I mean, if the loans are federally backed, there is little effective difference.

[/quote]

I don’t know beans, unless this or the next President/congress ends up pushing for loan forgiveness, there seems to be a pretty big difference waiting at the end.

23

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And what type of school system educates these foreigners? The crushing debt model, or the public pays for it model?[/quote]
Ding! Ding! We have a winner![/quote]

I’m a winner?! I’ve have always wanted to win something!

24

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And what type of school system educates these foreigners? The crushing debt model, or the public pays for it model?[/quote]
Ding! Ding! We have a winner![/quote]

lol

I mean, if the loans are federally backed, there is little effective difference.

[/quote]
The difference is that the govt expects that money back and people do indeed repay those loans. I would argue that is a huge difference. Imagine getting your MD, debt free. [/quote]

No, no. You’re right. My “lol” was I found your post funny.

My post was woefully incomplete.

If, the loans are paid back, yes, there is a massive difference. (Still some subsidization, but at least it is tax dollars with an actual purpose.)

I was thinking, and failed to mention a situation were the default rate is high on those loans. (Occupy was mentioned, and that is where my mind was.)

If people are defaulting on the loans, it becomes effectively the same thing.

25

Been a long week guys, sorry about that.

26

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

There is some truth there but I don’t see the correlation between a glut of STEM graduates, and there is a glut of PhDs in those fields, and Marxist English professors. If anything it is the influences outside of the universities that push students to major in those areas that we’ve been told there is a shortage. How many times have we heard Obama, among others, say we need more engineers, scientists, etc.? Recently he made a comment about majoring in art history vs a more prudent choice like training to work in manufacturing. The problem is that he could have inserted any major in there and made the same point. [/quote]

The connection is that the parallel universe that is an American University is very long on social theories and social justice and the hallmark of an educated person is being able to spit out 150 year old economic theories glibly. No place is there a basic understanding of economics. So you end up with the eye watering scenes of college educated people publicly spewing outrage and justifying it in patent nonsense. If they can’t get jobs they aren’t oppressed, they just have no skills anyone wants. Why is that? Why can’t they take to task the people that gave them the bad advice in the first place? The great fallacy of a college degree is making you think what you do is a priori valuable. No, you don’t get to decided this in the job market, other people do. Telling me I have to hire you so you can continue to feel good about yourself sounds like spoiled rich kids at summer camp, which is what a lot of universities are close to.

There is a huge glut of Ph.D.'s across the board and the scandal is that everyone keeps mouthing how we need more graduates in technical fields to stay competitive while those of us who are in those fields see that there are a ton of graduates who cannot find reasonable jobs in their field. This doesn’t even address the bogus majors that people get. Part of the marketing shtick for colleges and universities is how (a) knowledge for itself is a great good and (b) jobs abound for college graduates. Both of these are ludicrous. They are able to tap in to the often times touching American faith that education will save us.

As for Art History majors and such, this just taps into the idea – blindly followed – that schooling is good. If they can’t get jobs in manufacturing, won’t they be better people if they study Cubism? Again, this might be amusing if it weren’t backed by the idea that someone else has to go up to their eyeballs in hock to pay for this and then it will take a decade of crushing debt to recover from this advice. I’ll tell you how smart you are if you take out loans and give me all the money… Yeah. Real smart… That’s college these days (and I work at one, btw).

– jj

27

Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.

28

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.[/quote]

ugh. I paid mine back (mostly, still a bit left.) I don’t want to pay everyone else’s too.

29

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And what type of school system educates these foreigners? The crushing debt model, or the public pays for it model?[/quote]

The model that has the faculty in charge of the standards for the school, not a group of administrators. European universities do not have the wash of crappy distributional requirements (though more are moving in this direction because American universities have shown it is a lucrative growth industry). No usually it is along the lines of attend classes if you see fit. No requirements, not test, no grades. just slips of paper you were there. Then you are to write a few standardized tests and an actual piece of research. Marching people through a ton of silly courses then declaring them educated is very different.

Point in case, I went to both German and US universities. My German diploma is just a letter stating that the FACULTY awarded me my degree. My German professors were flumoxed when I said I needed letters of recommendation from them to apply for jobs. Why? Because my US degrees state flatly that the TRUSTEES of the university grant the degree not the faculty. Since there is no way to assure people that the degree has any meaning, in the US you have to have people write and say you actually know something – so yes, the letters of recommendation are precisely the admission in the US that no university degree is worth the paper it is printed on. This whole affait left my German profs shaking their heads in disbelief. They wrote them though and I got the job. This is why I have seen first hand that there is discrimination against American graduates. I’ve seen how I was treated (“you went to school in Europe so you must be smart”) vs. how my friends who stayed in the US were. Probably going to school overseas is how I ended up working in my field. Pretty much all my friends could not get jobs in their field and switched to other areas.

Oh and the German profs all thought that since we have to pay for education in the US there must be a lot less freeloading of the system than in Germany. They thought having the students pay more would be a good thing.

Full of shit as always…

– jj

30

One thing to consider :

Regardless of their economic model, european universities are generally older, sometimes much older, than the european states themselves.

Some of their strengths may be related to their “we were there before… / we will be there long after…” perspective.

31

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.[/quote]

ugh. I paid mine back (mostly, still a bit left.) I don’t want to pay everyone else’s too.[/quote]

I don’t think they should forgive students loans. They should institute a policy that if students can’t get jobs, the schools refund their tuition. Making schools act responsibly about their students and their student’s monies is what should happen.

How do universities work? You have

  • the paying customers – undergraduates who finance everything via debt.

  • the graduate students – treated like slaves with sweatshop working conditions. Seriously.

  • Tier 2 faculty – who do service courses and are worked darn near to death

  • Tier 1 faculty – researchers who are obliged to pay usually at least 50% of their research grants to universities right off the bat. So these people are in reality paying the university to work there.

I’ve stated before and will repeat it that in 1960 there were 3 administrators per 100 students at US colleges. Now that tops 60 per 100 and most of it is dead weight. All those admins and support staff suck up enormous sums of money. Look at your average class of 20 students. Each of them alone is paying the teacher’s salary for that semester and the rest of it goes to administrative fees.

Oh and many states already are subsidizing in state students and the fee differences are because in-state students get half of their tuition paid already in many places.

– jj

Edit: Point of this is that forgiving student loans will just ensure a steady cash flow to a wasteful system that delivers far less in return than they want you to believe. Making them step up to the plate and be honest is the order of business.

32

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

Point in case, I went to both German and US universities. My German diploma is just a letter stating that the FACULTY awarded me my degree. My German professors were flumoxed when I said I needed letters of recommendation from them to apply for jobs. Why? Because my US degrees state flatly that the TRUSTEES of the university grant the degree not the faculty. Since there is no way to assure people that the degree has any meaning, in the US you have to have people write and say you actually know something – so yes, the letters of recommendation are precisely the admission in the US that no university degree is worth the paper it is printed on. This whole affait left my German profs shaking their heads in disbelief. They wrote them though and I got the job.

– jj[/quote]

This sounds more like a technicality. The professors award you your grades so you pass/fail based on the professors.

Letters of recommendation in the US has nothing to do with knowledge, but competence and whether people like working with you. No one has ever asked to see my diploma.

BTW, I’m not arguing whether European or US institutions are better. I’m under the firm belief that it’s what you, as a student make of it in both systems.

I’ve met plenty of dumb asses from Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, South America and the US. I’ve also met brilliant people from each of these.

33

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.[/quote]

ugh. I paid mine back (mostly, still a bit left.) I don’t want to pay everyone else’s too.[/quote]

I don’t think they should forgive students loans. They should institute a policy that if students can’t get jobs, the schools refund their tuition. Making schools act responsibly about their students and their student’s monies is what should happen.

How do universities work? You have

  • the paying customers – undergraduates who finance everything via debt.

  • the graduate students – treated like slaves with sweatshop working conditions. Seriously.

  • Tier 2 faculty – who do service courses and are worked darn near to death

  • Tier 1 faculty – researchers who are obliged to pay usually at least 50% of their research grants to universities right off the bat. So these people are in reality paying the university to work there.

I’ve stated before and will repeat it that in 1960 there were 3 administrators per 100 students at US colleges. Now that tops 60 per 100 and most of it is dead weight. All those admins and support staff suck up enormous sums of money. Look at your average class of 20 students. Each of them alone is paying the teacher’s salary for that semester and the rest of it goes to administrative fees.

Oh and many states already are subsidizing in state students and the fee differences are because in-state students get half of their tuition paid already in many places.

– jj

Edit: Point of this is that forgiving student loans will just ensure a steady cash flow to a wasteful system that delivers far less in return than they want you to believe. Making them step up to the plate and be honest is the order of business.[/quote]

But no University guarantees you a job. I’ve never been to one where they have said that. They’ve provided statistics on job placement for students.

I’ll never blame a university for not getting a job. That’s like all those fucking idiots who stuck their hand in a running lawn mower blaming the manufacturer/company for getting their hand chopped off.

Individuals choose their degree, choose their University, choose how they want to pay for it, etc.

I do have issue that individuals can get student loans of $100k+ for degrees such as Art History, I blame the Banks and the Government for that nonsense.

34

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.[/quote]

ugh. I paid mine back (mostly, still a bit left.) I don’t want to pay everyone else’s too.[/quote]

Hah! I’m paying into Social Security and I won’t see half of my money :slight_smile: Life isn’t fair Mr. Beans (not that I wouldn’t feel the same way you do).

35

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]zecarlo wrote:

There is some truth there but I don’t see the correlation between a glut of STEM graduates, and there is a glut of PhDs in those fields, and Marxist English professors. If anything it is the influences outside of the universities that push students to major in those areas that we’ve been told there is a shortage. How many times have we heard Obama, among others, say we need more engineers, scientists, etc.? Recently he made a comment about majoring in art history vs a more prudent choice like training to work in manufacturing. The problem is that he could have inserted any major in there and made the same point. [/quote]

The connection is that the parallel universe that is an American University is very long on social theories and social justice and the hallmark of an educated person is being able to spit out 150 year old economic theories glibly. No place is there a basic understanding of economics. So you end up with the eye watering scenes of college educated people publicly spewing outrage and justifying it in patent nonsense. If they can’t get jobs they aren’t oppressed, they just have no skills anyone wants. Why is that? Why can’t they take to task the people that gave them the bad advice in the first place? The great fallacy of a college degree is making you think what you do is a priori valuable. No, you don’t get to decided this in the job market, other people do. Telling me I have to hire you so you can continue to feel good about yourself sounds like spoiled rich kids at summer camp, which is what a lot of universities are close to.

There is a huge glut of Ph.D.'s across the board and the scandal is that everyone keeps mouthing how we need more graduates in technical fields to stay competitive while those of us who are in those fields see that there are a ton of graduates who cannot find reasonable jobs in their field. This doesn’t even address the bogus majors that people get. Part of the marketing shtick for colleges and universities is how (a) knowledge for itself is a great good and (b) jobs abound for college graduates. Both of these are ludicrous. They are able to tap in to the often times touching American faith that education will save us.

As for Art History majors and such, this just taps into the idea – blindly followed – that schooling is good. If they can’t get jobs in manufacturing, won’t they be better people if they study Cubism? Again, this might be amusing if it weren’t backed by the idea that someone else has to go up to their eyeballs in hock to pay for this and then it will take a decade of crushing debt to recover from this advice. I’ll tell you how smart you are if you take out loans and give me all the money… Yeah. Real smart… That’s college these days (and I work at one, btw).

– jj [/quote]
I still don’t see what English professors have to do with any of that. I don’t think any of my English professors ever talked about economics.

Very few people major in art history and there are jobs out there for them. It’s no more or less a waste than most any other major.

36

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Instead of that stupid Payroll Tax Cut to “stir the economy”, they really should have just forgiven student loans. The spending spree after that would have ignited the economic fire in no time.[/quote]

ugh. I paid mine back (mostly, still a bit left.) I don’t want to pay everyone else’s too.[/quote]

Hah! I’m paying into Social Security and I won’t see half of my money :slight_smile: Life isn’t fair Mr. Beans (not that I wouldn’t feel the same way you do).
[/quote]

Well, at least with SS I’m helping out old people who worked for a living…