As IF Times

link Peter Thiel: Were in a Bubble and Its Not the Internet. Its Higher Education. | TechCrunch.

At this time when we are witnessing “Occupy Wall Street” protests at various cities in the U.S., this is a topic worth exploring.  The topic is education.

There is a glaring incongruence between what the protesters are bleating about, ie: greed, corporate dominance, yada yada yada and the prevailing general wisdom about getting a higher education.  Virtually no one will argue that a “good” education is the foundation of success.  By success, that is implied to mean financial success,  an ability to provide for yourself and your future family.  For this path to financial success, people are increasingly asked to pay almost a lifetime’s ransom in order to participate.   For many people, this payment is achieved either by parental or family help or by guaranteed student loans.  In many cultures, outside of the Jersey Shore, an educated person is held in very high esteem.

It comes as a great shock to many graduates therefore, that their acquired skill sets are greeted with the sounds of crickets rather than boisterous swooning when applying for jobs in the real world.  It’s as if they were victims of the biggest con of their lives.  And in a real sense, they were. The hard hit of reality is painful for many.  What happened to the pot of gold promised at the end of the education rainbow?

The fact that this experience has become more and more of a reality for many will likely be the subject of another article, but the salient point of this piece is that if the “Wall Street” protesters actually represent more than the small handful of perma-discontents that they are, then what is the point of getting an expensive education? If there is no benefit to bettering your circumstances by excelling in some field in order to get a high paying job, why bother going  to school?  The whole premise is that by applying yourself in school, one can wind up with a sharpened skill set that will be sought after in the real world.

This principle extends to all aspects of culture.  Why does someone like Derek Jeter get paid millions of dollars for swinging at a baseball?   Why are genetic freaks in the NBA paid buckets of money just because they can drop balls into hoops?  Why do people pay hundreds of dollars to watch Justin Bieber sing for an hour or two?  Ok, that may have been a bad example.

The answer of course is that in the real world, there will always be those that outperform others in any given endeavour.   Society pays for excellence.  That’s the way it is.  While there may only be a few among us that have the natural physical gifts that allow them to play pro ball, most people are able to hone whatever intellectual skills they have by getting educated.  Of course, attending school and getting a degree in basket weaving or doing a PhD on the sex life of ants won’t necessarily propel you past someone with greater drive or greater street sense or greater connections.  Entitlement only exists in the artificial world created by those with the luxury of believing it.

While most are certainly better off by going to school than by not going to school, the cost/benefits of paying over $100,000 to get a 4 year degree must be weighed against the utility of that degree.  As the linked article suggests, the bubble of college costs may be about to burst.  Not all degrees are created equal but again, this may be a topic for another article.

Nevertheless,  according to the misguided cretins populating the recent protests, this will all be irrelevant,  since to them, the whole notion of success is tied directly to the notion of greed.  It’s only a matter of time before they start protesting schools as incubators of greed.   Once they make that connection, colleges all over will be the venue for protesters as well.  The only problem will be that they’ll have to hire someone articulate enough to make signs.

link Occupy Wall Street veteran gears up for Occupy Sacramento – KansasCity.com.

Nobody wants to miss out on a good street event.  At any given time, there is always some issue to protest somewhere in the world.  Sometimes it’s legitimate bread and butter issues, ie: they don’t have any, or it’s social issues such as gay or animal rights concerns.  In some parts of the world, it can even be about losing a hockey or soccer game.  Some are professional rioters who go from town to town looking to participate at the behest of organizers.  I’m sure there’s a Facebook page for protesters whereby participants can pick the ones that sound amusing.  Some just love a good riot and want to be part of the scene.  The clue is when some people bring their kids like it was the Macy’s parade.

The recent so called “Wall Street Occupation” is a prime example of a protest about nothing.  While ostensibly, it’s about lack of jobs and opportunity and the increasing gulf between regular people and the Wall Street fat cats, the actual message is lost on the majority of the participants.  They incoherently try to frame the issue as some kind of righteous entitlement protest, when in reality, they are a mob with nothing better to do.

When asked what they want, they essentially want those ‘fat cats’ at the top to share their wealth with them.  In other words, they want what someone else has.  How original.  Sometimes they claim that they want jobs.  That’s rather unlikely since if they needed jobs, they’d be out looking for them rather than standing around waving signs and causing public disruption.  Where are they staying?  How do they pay for lunch?  More importantly, where do they wash and pee?  There’s no denying that for years, “Wall Street” financial heads have reaped out-sized rewards for their dubious roles as captains of finance.  There’s no doubt that much of that stemmed from political influence bought and paid for, from both sides of the political fence.  Therefore the roots of the current malaise lie as much with politicians as with greedy bankers.

Unfortunately, the mob have no real endgame solutions other than just to cause disruption.  When you have an avowed communist like Van Jones exhorting the “people” to revolt and stand up for America, we know it’s a complete farce.  The kind of policies people like Jones are pushing are in fact blatantly anti-American.  They are completely at odds with the founding principles of the nation.  There is nothing in the founding tenets of the constitution that refer to any kind of statism, collectivism and certainly not socialism.  Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is clearly mentioned.  Nothing about being owed a job.  Or a minimum wage.  Or 4 paid weeks off every year.

In the old days, when people felt oppressed and deprived of opportunities, they left a country for greener pastures.  This factor is likely high on the list of reasons for why people emigrate.  How do you think America got started in the first place? Immigrants from all parts of the world converged on the U.S. precisely because its policies were diametrically opposite to the countries they were leaving.  From this immigrant pool was built indisputably, the greatest nation the world has ever seen.  Now, it seems, many don’t like the way things are.

If you go to a football game and you don’t like the product, is it logical to change the rules to more closely resemble those of soccer?  Why not just go to a soccer game?  This is the curious circumstance we see today.  “Thousands of protesters”, which actually means hundreds when you discount the media hyperbole, are protesting that the U.S. does not embrace policies that are essentially… socialist!  Breaking news, the U.S. is not a socialist nation, at least not by origin even though the neo socialists want to make it so.  There are plenty of high tax, socialist nations in existence today.   Think Sweden, or Denmark or Great Britain or France, although in France, the winds are a-changing.  These are nations that have embraced the socialist philosophy in their governing policies.  Why wouldn’t these nations be beacons of attraction for the oppressed masses here who are tired of that damn capitalism?

It’s one thing if the ‘mob’ were coherent about inequitable government policies; it’s another to say that the entire system of government sucks.  Strangely there aren’t long conga lines of people heading for Cuba or Venezuela.   These places have widely advertised their socialist/Marxist charms.  Plus, the weather is generally nicer than New York or Michigan.  Somebody should post that on Facebook.