>> ^enoch:

>> ^shinyblurry:
And this is how you can become demon possessed

congratulations! you have just won the super irony award!
considering that many biblical authors partook in the ingestion of shrooms.a common practice among seers and prophets of that time.


And the evidence for that is?

The prophets that spoke in the bible were inspired by God, and they didn't do what was common to the idolators of that time, or this one. Moses, for example, was educated by the Egyptians but you won't find a single shred of their "higher education" in the bible. They had the most advanced medical knowledge in the world at the time, much of which involved rubbing donkey dung in your wounds, yet the scriptures he wrote tell you to wash your hands after touching anything unclean, isolate people who are infected, and that the blood is the life of the body. This was thousands of years before any of these concepts were understood by anyone. Doctors didnt start washing their hands until the 1800's, and if someone had read the bible, George Washington wouldn't have had to die from bloodletting, and the black death probably wouldn't have killed off 1/3 of the worlds population.

>> ^notarobot:

I applied for a job outside of my field with decent pay that needed no education beyond high school, but did ask for a little experience, which I did not have. I approached it with the attitude that I had lots of education and even more enthusiasm. I did not hear back from the company. Later, they brought in a hundred workers from the Philippines. There were no domestic hires.


And this reply is to what @Edgeman2112 said as well.

It's yet another logical disconnect in our society. Where they expect you to be able to buy their goods, but they will not employ the people they want to buy them for a myriad of reasons. Some of them might even be legitimate, as in having a lot of education for a job might mean you end up going to something new when it's presented. But the flipside of that argument is that they are hiring un-educated workers simply because they know it's unlikely they will ever have the ability to leave........which is worker exploitation. Not because they are most qualified, but because they are least likely to be able to leave.

And more specifically to edgeman2112, two parents working is fine if both want to work and can make a good wage. Specifically being able to afford childcare or have parents who willing and able to watch their kids. The point is that when one is unable to draw a wage high enough to make it feasible to work and still earn beyond the costs of child care, etc....you are stuck with choices of education costs. And higher education often makes it harder to find work because your education works against you when it comes to getting any job like above...and you are stuck in the "need to know someone" zone to get anywhere in a reasonable time frame. Which likely if you knew someone, you probably would have taken advantage of that relationship if it was going to provide you with a overall beneficial and financially productive job.

There are lots of financially unproductive jobs... like one's that require you to travel longer and longer distances for work...eventually you make less at the job than you would minimum wage flipping burgers if they don't comp your travel or fuel costs to make up for vehicle wear, etc. And this goes back to them picking worker's that are unlikely to be able to hop to another job due to some circumstances, not the best qualified candidates...because they need to be able to exploit them for lucrative contracts that require them to drive nearly as much as they work or rent elsewhere to cut drive times.

Work and employment overall is becoming a dishonest or "cover-your-ass" practice more than just honest employment. "An honest day's work" seems less likely to happen now than 40 years ago. There's just too much bullshit associated with employment now, mostly in office politics and trying to peer beyond the language of your employee contract to decipher how they are going to fuck you in the future. Just look at non-rolling vacation days where they are all too happy to not inform you or suggest you take a vacation day if you need to do something instead of taking an unpaid day........it happens a lot. They use their organization to actively work against you, and use their bureaucracy to make it hard to invoke your rights in the contract.


Personally in my region, I see a lot of businesses and government agencies going out of their way to list their job postings in weird locations or for like 3-5 day windows. The only good reason I can come up for this is that they already know who they want to hire, but they post it publicly to reduce the chance of someone crying foul when they just hire the guy they wanted all along. Keep in mind that if they end up hiring at all, it comes 2-3 months minimum after the listing...especially for government. You'll also notice a lot of fathers and sons, wife and husband, or other nepotism rich hiring practices in these places. Should not be taking place in any business that accepts government money or any government facilities. It's rampant on military bases, and not just for active duty couples which I understand the need for.

It's never a all of nothing...

Do I agree that, in the best or worlds, education should be free. Absolutely.

Do I think that, in the financial situation this province is in, it's realistic to protest against a tuition hike that still will make it (one of) the lowest tuition in North America? Absolutely not.

We have a bunch of problems to solve - including waste government spending etc...and I'd love nothing better than to have a free education system...but as it is, we have the highest income tax rate in Canada (probably North America), we have debt issue, health system issues, etc. It just is not realistic at this point.

Have a little protest to make your point, and move on. Get some concession to have a bit better bursaries to help those students that need it, sure. Have a 200k protest where you jam up everybody during rush hour, close bridges, etc...I'm sorry, that justs feels like first world problems to me.

Do I have any evidence or polling about who agrees with the protesters...no. That's just based on what you hear on the street/news - which isn't scientific, of course...but I'd bet that there's a greater likelihood that it's the correct situation than not.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^Tokoki:
Students protesting about tuition hikes...when they have the cheapest tuition in all of North America!
Typically, when a group is protesting about something, you find a decent part of the general population that agrees with them. In this particular case...pretty much everyone here agrees that they're out in left field on this - including most of the other students who were actually trying to go to school.

Ummm why would you think this? Just because it's cheaper there than it is in America doesn't make it right. Higher education like community colleges should be free. Mexico has free state schools that are comparable to American ones across the border...yet they're free in a poor country and in a rich country they'r not. Does that seem right?
Also why not present some evidence or polling about who does and doesn't agree with these protesters.

>> ^Tokoki:

Students protesting about tuition hikes...when they have the cheapest tuition in all of North America!
Typically, when a group is protesting about something, you find a decent part of the general population that agrees with them. In this particular case...pretty much everyone here agrees that they're out in left field on this - including most of the other students who were actually trying to go to school.


Ummm why would you think this? Just because it's cheaper there than it is in America doesn't make it right. Higher education like community colleges should be free. Mexico has free state schools that are comparable to American ones across the border...yet they're free in a poor country and in a rich country they'r not. Does that seem right?

Also why not present some evidence or polling about who does and doesn't agree with these protesters.

CreamK, I want to further my higher education, could you help me immigrate to Finland?

You know... This is completely politically incorrect, but...

The boomers raped the economy, created one of the biggest world market crashes in history, were in power, both in elected office and by holding the balance of power in votes during the greatest shift between rich and poor (in the direction of the rich) in recent history and they racked up the biggest debt in history, leaving it to future generations to pay back.

In short, they've screwed the world for the rest of us.

Now they want billions of dollars for research and treatment so they can hold on for longer in their old-age homes and wipe out the inheritance?

Seriously? While young couples scrape to take care of their kids, and dream that one day, maybe they'll be able to afford higher education, if some of this crap gets sorted out.

I say screw 'em.

Let their brains rot. We shouldn't be spending another dime on them.

Of course they still vote in massive numbers, so that will never happen. They'd rather have children starving in the streets than suffer the slightest discomfort. They'll just rack up another few billion on the deficit for everyone left behind to pay off. What do they care? By the time anyone in power develops the backbone to actually DO something about the situation they'll be long dead.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^entr0py:
Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.


I agree with you, but what you are saying is EXACTLY what doesn't happen. I know many people that hold doctorate level degrees yet they still think creationism is great; even THOUGH the science they (literally) use in MANY instances is BASED on evolution and it working as purposed by many scientists--over a very long amount of time; and the evidence is ONLY getting thicker and higher not falling apart and slimming it's waistline--it's madness. BUT, the key thing here is that all of these people have one thing in common, all of them... They all wanted to learn about THEIR field, but when it came to anything else outside of it--even fields that are directly linked to their fields--it didn't matter, because they are of a single-minded process.

They happen to not be as curious as you or I and of course many other people that even when they learned a lot about what interested them, they realized that there was NO FENCE and that the rabbit hole (as it is said) keeps going. I think many other people have successfully quarantined sections of their life of from other sections. Their mind functions like the CDC and it is why we start ending up with people with seemingly underlying psychological issues like Rick Santorum, as they treat their life like it is literally a world alone unto themselves.

They can hear and see all the information you say, but unless you have gotten their curiosity they will treat it as a contamination and try to find a way to dispose of the information--meanwhile, if they have psychological problems, their brain is actively helping them in their routine.

I've been confounded as well, for a longtime. Like I said if you pay attention the one thing you SHOULD learn from EVERY class you have taken is that the rabbit hole has yet to stop. So it seems like education would in fact drive a wedge between you and any faith as you learn more, the more you should realize how much we still have to learn. It should make your faith seem even smaller than you feel compared next to the Universe if you ask me... Some people must just be too fat and get stuck in their relative rabbit hole.

According to the Factcheck article, College does challenge individual faiths, because it has a positive effect on people switching faiths. The problem is it doesn't shake faith in faith itself, which is what I think you were talking about.>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^entr0py:
Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.

I see what you're saying, and that seems plausible on the surface. I could easily see Universities and Colleges just taking "profits" and folding them into projects around the university that don't directly impact their productivity (hey, let's build a new art museum, hey let's build a supercollider, hey, let's pave the walkways in gold...). That way the increased revenues don't show up as profits or even budget surpluses.

But again that speaks to a more general market failure. In a situation like that, competitors should be able to recognize that there's inefficiency, and take it as an opportunity make a profit by opening a competing firm that's more efficient.

This is supposedly the mechanism that punishes firms that grow fat and inefficient -- a more efficient competitor can swoop in, sell an equivalent product at a lower price and make what used to be your profits into their profits.

All this is making me want to go googling for an economic analysis of the drivers in tuition cost increases. Unlike with health care, I can't really think of much that's special about the higher education market that would make traditional market mechanisms break down.

>> ^direpickle:

Universities are like businesses: they like money. Even if they're not stockpiling cash or being 'for profit', they like money. They like to tear down their old buildings and build new expensive ones so that they can get on the covers of magazines. They like to hire prestigious faculty. They like to get money, and they like to spend money.
Even if their fixed maintenance/faculty/staff/utility/etc costs are "low" (which I'd dispute, but even putting that aside), they will always find ways to spend money, and since they continue to have record enrollment rates even with tuition hikes, they'll just continue to raise tuition (and, yes, perhaps hire more professors) until demand stabilizes.

@NetRunner: It's not about poor people being able to go to college. It's about everyone having access to immense amounts of (borrowed) money with which to go to college. Universities are like businesses: they like money. Even if they're not stockpiling cash or being 'for profit', they like money. They like to tear down their old buildings and build new expensive ones so that they can get on the covers of magazines. They like to hire prestigious faculty. They like to get money, and they like to spend money.

Even if their fixed maintenance/faculty/staff/utility/etc costs are "low" (which I'd dispute, but even putting that aside), they will always find ways to spend money, and since they continue to have record enrollment rates even with tuition hikes, they'll just continue to raise tuition (and, yes, perhaps hire more professors) until demand stabilizes.

I usually yell at people for going all 'herp derp supply/demand', but that's really all it is here. It's about as simple a case as you can have. I am not trying to make the case that poor people should not be able to go to college. I don't know what the solution is.

I know that at least my state has a law putting a cap on yearly tuition rate hikes, and the universities raise the tuition by exactly that much every year. Making those requirements tighter might help matters a little. A campaign to tell high school students that it's okay if they want to do a vocation instead of a 4-year university degree might help a little. A boom of new accredited universities springing up on every idyllic hill might help by creating competition, but that is not something that can happen quickly enough to save what really is a runaway higher education system.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker: The only change with student loans since Obama has become president is that they've removed the middleman. The government was already requiring that certain people be able to get loans of certain values. The government was already guaranteeing these loans to the banks (they were NO RISK to the banks. The government would pay if the student defaulted, and the banks still got to collect the interest, from the government when subsidized and from the student with not). The only change is that the government gets the interest now instead of a bank that puts up no risk--this saves a lot of money.

So, the government simplifying the student loan business has not contributed to the tuition inflation, because there's not any extra loan money available--it's actually harder to get money (beyond the basic loans) now, from friends' experiences.

Tuition inflation is a huge problem, though, and it's definitely due to the fact that with loans now "anyone" can afford to go to college, and even with jacking up the prices there are record enrollment rates. This does need to be addressed. It's not because of Obama, though.

It is because a lot of people think a college degree is supposed to be job training--I'm sorry, it's not, unless you're getting an engineering degree. A liberal arts or humanities degree is not worthless, though. It's an education. In the US, a college degree is supposed to give you an expanded knowledge, context, and understanding for the world (this is why college graduates come out as liberals). This may help you in a job, but that's not its primary goal unless you're looking for a job specifically in that field.

So part of the problem is that everyone wants to get a four year degree now, because they think it's the only way they'll ever get a job, even when they have no intention or desire to work in a cubicle like most 'requires any 4 year degree' jobs. There ARE other forms of higher education, though. There are community colleges and trade/vocational/technical schools. In fact, Obama has explicitly said that he thinks some (many? most?) people should be going to those instead of four year schools.

That said, the way forward in the world for the US is an educated population. There is just not that much more call for unskilled labor (that Americans will do) here. Even in manufacturing, while we still produce an immense amount of goods, so much of it is made by machines in the US that those numbers aren't reflected in manufacturing employment. Building/selling/maintaining those machines is where manufacturing jobs go when it cranks up here, and that requires skill.

Snarky responses miss the point. One of the next bubbles on the horizon is the education bubble. Obama's takeover of the student loan racket has in essence created an environment of government subsidized college. That's bad. It is artificially inflating the cost of higher education to the point where even community colleges are overpriced.

Couple that with the widespread fact that colleges at all levels are underperforming and highly questionable in value. The ROI of a college education is plummeting to the point where an Associate's degree is worthless. A Bachelor's is rapidly reaching a point where its value is dubious at best - especially in the Arts & Humanities. The only Bachelor's really worth anything is a BS.

So why tell thousands of kids to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a year or two in college when it is overpriced and gives them no return? Just to say they did? A lot of them would be happier and get a better 'education' just by getting a job, or going to a technical school, interning, or some other option than just droning up and marching through college like a good little worker bee.

>> ^entr0py:

Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.

And here's Obama's actual quote:

Obama, Feb. 24, 2009: And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option.

Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller

http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/

@renatojj It's nonsense that lower taxes on the wealthy means they become more productive, that's simply a rumor spread by the rich. The problem with low/no corporate taxes (which is what RP wants) is that over time more and more wealth accumulates in the top bracket and less and less is available to the middle and lower classes, the wealthy then use this money to influence policy making and the problem becomes worse - which is exactly what is happening now. Yes, this is going to happen anyway, but poor tax policy exacerbates it.

If you don't believe me then just look at history: Coolidge became president in 1923 and signed into law the Revenue Act of 1924, the tax rate for the those earning above $10,000 (about $120,000 by today's standards) was only 6%, there was a surtax added to higher incomes but it only crept up very slowly. Guess what happened? 10 years of economic hell for America - otherwise known as the great depression. Guess what kick started the economy? In part higher taxes. For example the highest period of growth for America was when it had the highest tax rate for the upper bracket (91%) - which was during WWII. Once the tax rate's started coming down again, guess what happened to economic growth - right, it slowed.

If you look at one specific person that makes a lot of money, and you double there taxes, it's easy to make the assumption that you are harming them - but a countries economy is far more complex than that and works in ways most economists don't even understand. To assume that you know what is best for American tax policy is ridiculous unless you happen to know more than every other economist on the planet (and same goes for me). What is clear from history though is that lower tax rates on the wealthy do not help the economy grow, that is pure myth that has been perversely thrown out there to misdirect the general population while the wealthy accumulate more and more money.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-taxgrowth.htm

As far as the RP - Chile connection - RP's 'free market' approach to education is exactly what has already happened in Chile - this privatization of higher education has resulted in Chile's technical schools, colleges and universities having the "highest costs of higher education of any OECD country and the lowest public expenditure" (from the doco I link below). And the quality of the education? Very poor according to an October Economist article:
http://www.economist.com/node/21531468

Is that what you want to happen to American education?

More info about the issues and protests:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Chilean_protests

And I've sifted a documentary on the issue if you want to watch:
http://videosift.com/video/Chile-Rising

And lastly, maldistribution is simply uneven distribution - e.g. according to the NY Times "The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent"

Please justify that to us.