As IF Times

link YouTube – Kelli Space Interview Part 1 – Peter Schiff Radio 11/30/10.

Not really necessary to listen to the entire interview.  The salient point is made from the first few minutes of the conversation.

In another area of human activity rumored to be risky, namely buying stocks or mutual funds, the buyer is practically smothered with disclaimers about the risk of making such an investment.  The boilerplate lines are:

1. Investments may be risky and loss of some or all of invested capital may result

2. Past results are not an indicator of future performance.

Similar to all pharmaceuticals we take these days, the lawyers have draped themselves all over stock investments to warn people away.  Nevertheless, somehow people still take drugs and buy stocks.  Maybe it’s time the lawyers jumped onto the College education bandwagon. 

While I can’t comment on the experiences provided by a  4 year program in sociology, we can probably say that spending close to $200,000 to attain a non professional undergraduate degree without some avenue to employment should not have happened without a prospectus.  No doubt this poor gal is just one of tens of thousands of wide eyed students going to college each year in the hopes of bettering themselves for a competitive job market.  If the parents are able to write the cheque, bully for them.  In the case of this gal, like many other students who are forced to borrow money for the experience, there should be a disclaimer in bold letters at the outset of the school career which states:

“Warning.  In no possible way can the cost of this degree be paid off in your lifetime, we strongly suggest taking courses in waiting tables and selling time shares.  Your degree may have no practical use to society”

Under the noble  idea that no one should be denied the right to higher education because of financial disadvantage, governments have implicitly guaranteed all student loans via their funding arm Sallie Mae.  Similar to the home mortgage fiasco, if lenders are not at risk since the government provides a backstop, why not lend the money to anyone who asked?  Moving up the food chain, if students were willing to pay the tuition, why wouldn’t colleges just ratchet up their fees?  Which brings us to where we are today wherein some private colleges charge 25, 35, or even 55 thousand dollars a year for undergraduate programmes. 

To be sure, colleges can charge what they want, but the original goal of allowing financially disadvantaged students to attend school has achieved, shockingly, the exact opposite effect.  Indirectly, the government is supporting the high cost bases demanded by all colleges.  University educators no longer have to publish or perish, they can make a pretty good wage just teaching.  In this way, the public supports the private school system.  Now, even pedestrian college degrees will cost at least $100,000 even at some state colleges. 

If families cannot afford to underwrite this amount, the aspiring student, like the gal in the interview, takes on a crushing debt load to obtain a degree with little or no guarantee of employment.  Even if a liberal arts student were able to find a job with their degree, the burden of paying off such a crushing debt will guarantee them a miserable life.  It’s only a matter of time before colleges have to issue a prospectus upon taking in students.  Otherwise, students would be better off paying lawyers to sue for misrepresentation.

Update: Aug 18, 2011 http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/08/18/have-b-schools-become-debtors-prisons/

link Palin Success Triggered FCC Complaints | The Smoking Gun.

This story line has been worked over pretty thoroughly, but I will add just one more comment.  Only to point out the rabid insanity of many people out there who are obsessed with the activities of the Palins, mother and daughter.  Clearly the uproar over the younger Ms. Palin is not over her dancing ability, or lack thereof as some are claiming.  Here’s one of the more comical utterances:

“…I want my Government to protect me the viewer from deceptive practices…”

!!!  That is one of the best quotes ever which sums up succinctly the mentality of many in America.  And when I say many, I mean the left and liberals. Clearly this individual and his/her ilk are expecting to be spoon fed in all manner of things affecting their lives including entertainment.  I’m not sure such a groundswell of outrage erupted when a player got voted off Lost or some other ‘reality’ show? I wonder if they get all apoplectic when their football team loses?  What if Cam Newton doesn’t win the Heisman?  I wonder if they go postal when their orders at McDonald’s aren’t filled properly?

The world of should be and the world of what is, most clearly separates liberals from more conservatively minded individuals.  It is the difference between “Oh, that bear can’t be chasing me, I love animals” versus “run this way and bring the shotgun”.   It is the difference between “well, someone should feed us”  versus ” we’d better go out and find some food”.  In some ways, it is protracted adolescence wherein no responsibility is taken for anything since mother will ultimately take care of things.  It may stem from brainwashing by popular entertainment in which slackers and stoners are glorified and depicted as sympathetic  anti-heroes.

Somehow, western society has become soft from generations of affluence.  The mindset has changed so that many willingly listen to and believe people who tell them that all will be taken care of by an omnipotent  and compassionate government.  We have in essence become a society of domesticated dogs who are dependant on their handlers for every aspect of their lives.  This of course, is very sinister, for what eventually happens is that you create  a society of those who are governed and those who are in charge.  I invoke Animal Farm for the 30th time in my musings, but those who haven’t read the book, should make it a priority over the upcoming holiday season. 

We witness acts of outright stupidity and entitlement such as people calling 911 because they didn’t get french fries or enough shrimp  in their fast food order.  In our neck of the woods, a family was berating the government because they weren’t looking after their mentally challenged family member.  Even after all the hard lessons that have been taught over the past few years, there are still those who expect government to take care of their housing, their schooling, their health care, their security and now their entertainment.  Domestic animals indeed.  People like those in the article only make it easier to slip the collar on.