....to busted theories, we will never move on to bigger and better things as a complete nation.
I happened to see this article on Yahoo a few days a ago.
Harvard once again tops U.S. News' best colleges rankings.
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/110356/best-colleges-2011?mod=edu-collegeprep
I know that US News has a job to do and they will do it, but does US News actually read the papers? Or even there own publication perhaps?
Hello! The economy sucks! The FINREG Bill will only lead to a greater economic collapse in the future. Why are we operating as a nation like nothing happened. Housing never corrected. Lehman and Bear never went out of business. AIGFP is still underwriting Abacus S-CDO's. The Dow is 14250. Why can't US News have a real story talking about the structural problems that are eating away America? As long as unemployment stays at these escalated levels, the more many millions of Americans become permanently unemployable.
Going back to the article, I have two points.
Firstly-
1- Who can afford to go to these so called "Best" Colleges? The cost of higher education is simply absurd. That is the only thing that climbs every year regardless of recessions and depressions. The only ones who can afford to go are the kids of the crony capitalist elite. These mostly include bankers, politicians, and industrialists. All insanely wealthy BTW. Forget about the money for a moment, you honestly think Obama's, Jamie Dimon's, or Tim Geithner's kids regardless of merit are going to Rutgers or City College? The middles class has been gutted by years of transfer payments above and below. If you are not in the crony circle or independently rich, your kids are not going to these upscale schools. Why? There is simply not enough college credit/loan programs that are available for normal Americans. The USA is a country that was built on credit growth, but this dynamic is in secular decline. Many loans and mortgages will either be restructured or flat out defaulted on. The government can't forever subsidize every industry and the student loan industry is going to implode in the very near future. The private sector just won't be able to offer the same programs at attractive rates. The average cost at this moment for one of these top schools is some $150K minimum for a four year ride.
Many are going a separate route. The for-profit/on-line college theme have exploded. This is a total scam.
I have written in the past about the for-profit college scams.
http://tradersutra.blogspot.com/2010/05/unmasking-for-profit-online-schools.html
If in the event that you are smart enough to get a scholarship.....
Secondly-
What is the value of an education anyway? Why go to Harvard, Yale, or even City College to learn busted and blatantly wrong theories? This is such the case if you happen to study economics and finance. God knows you won't be stupid enough to study computer science or manufacturing because by that time all of those jobs will be in Israel, India, Russia, and China. You got to love free trade.
The American educational system is a Stalinist regime that suppresses dissent. It is a microcosm of what the basic theme of the country is. Business as usual. There has never been a serious discussion of any type of alternative theories to the ruling sentiment. They spend more time burying dissent instead of fostering discussion. As long as they keep teaching efficient/rational markets, Black Scholes, CAPM, normal distributions, and other drivel, your education will be useless. So what you have is basically learning things in a cognitive nature that bares no resemblance to common sense. Just focusing on Economics/Finance programs, the party line has been free markets, deregulation, efficiency, and the neo classical school of thought. This is precisely what brought our economy to the bring of collapse. After the collapse, what do we have? Keynesianism! Just keep printing money to avoid the unpleasantness of the business cycle. Its just one flawed and busted theory after another. Everything is based upon what went wrong in the last cycle. Remember that free Markets, efficient market hypothesis, monetarism, and the idea of deregulation all came from the frustrations of FDR's New Deal. What we are seeing today is a blow back effort by the Keynesian's to back up Neo Classical Economics. After Keynesianism blows up they will say we are starting a new discussion, a new regime. Nope! It will be the same old broken and busted theories, just refreshed and remodeled.
Even today the elites love to hold unto their theories. Its these same theories that have made them insanely rich while raping the rest of society.
For example....
The preposterous argument that the tax cuts for the wealthiest few will stimulate future economic growth. This is what we call "SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS" or by its street name - The Trickle Down Theory. This one single argument needs to be brutally buried alive alongside other principle beliefs of Voodoo Economics. Its not only a problem that the banking system is hiding trillions in toxic/poisonous debt that is holding back any meaningful recovery, its also coupled with these same toxic theories that have been constantly argued by our elected officials. These toxic theories have brought a once great nation to the brink of collapse. Our elected officials have pulled the wool over most of America for a better part of two generations.The giant/debt ponzy scheme is running on fumes, but many are still unaware because its been Bread & Circus for two generations.
The Dubya Tax cuts were sheer lunacy. They were beyond irresponsible. Both of then were unfunded. What made them worse was that Dubya just happened to start not one but two wars. Why don't we also add the Medicare Prescription Drug Program which was an election year giveaway as well?
Both Democrats and Republicans have to share in the ever increasing financialization of the economy. Every one on both sides of the political fence was drunk on free markets and deregulation. From this unabated fraud, greed, and crony capitalism all came together to undermine the entire economy.
What do we see today? The same. Business as usual. Stay the course. Obama is more Bush than Bush himself. This at the end of the day is the big joke on the electorate.
http://tradersutra.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-is-more-bush-then-bush.html
http://tradersutra.blogspot.com/2009/07/real-obama-plan.html
http://tradersutra.blogspot.com/2009/08/obama-does-what-obama-does.html
I will say it again.
The TBTF institutions must be broken up. The shadow banking system must be brought into the open. The toxic debt on TBTF institutions must be restructured and properly marked to market. FASB rollbacks have been a disgrace not only to capitalism but it reeks havoc on the central tenants of democracy. The financial system has to be gutted and properly regulated. The payola bonus schemes which are at the heart of what makes Wall Street parasitic in nature needs to be done away with. Reform and proper regulation needs to be achieved for us to get our economy back in balance.
There is simply too much debt out there. Some $180T in total worldwide. Some $60T denominated in USD. Most of this debt sits outside of normal banking circles, meaning totally unregulated. This debt is being carried at or near par. The World simply is not going to grow its way out of this. Austerity is an answer, but its a small piece of a bigger structural problem. The debt inevitably will need to be restructured and or defaulted on. This will leave most if not all financial institutions insolvent. It is what it is. The sooner this happens the sooner the real recovery can take place. What we have seen so far is a pseudo crony capitalist recovery.
The Fed, Policy Makers, and Treasury thinks that extend and pretend, expansionary monetary policy, FASB rollbacks all lead us out of this mess. Basically they are making the point that business as usual is the order that will save us all.
I get tired of saying this but here goes..."YOU CANT EXPECT MORE DEBT AND LEVERAGE TO GET YOU OUT OF A MESS THAT WAS CREATED BY DEBT AND LEVERAGE."
Policy makers around the world want a recovery on their terms. The terms are an even bigger more powerful banking sector, less regulation, and a larger gap between wealthy and poor.
Can the USA along with the ECB continue the Debt Parade? When does it end? Keynesianism has an end game and we are seeing the limits before our own eyes.
How in the world does Obama think we as a nation can continue to fight/finance two losing wars, an eroding middle class, ever shrinking tax base, and an enormous defense budget?
Why the wars?
Why is the defense budget $700B annually?
Why do we have 800 overseas military bases?
After all of this we are actually debating a lousy 3% increase to the nominal tax rate for the super wealthy? All at a time when when the tax base is eroding because of transfer payments up stream to the parasites on Wall Street. We as a country have allowed our elected officials to gauge the middle class in favor of speculation and greed centered around the financial sector.
What this country needs is serious political and financial reform. We need to cut the defense budget down to where it was pre 9/11. We need to exit wars from 3rd world countries. We need to start defending the USD and our trade policy. We can't allow other countries to pull the strings in the future because we never figured out that the busted theories that got us in this mess will magically get us out.
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