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Crain posted:Personally I don't see the point of commencement speakers beyond "Someone you want to hear tell a story". The point of a commencement speech is to dick wave at lessor schools over which important person you were able to book.
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May 28, 2014 21:29
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Good Citizen posted:The point of a commencement speech is to dick wave at lessor schools over which important person you were able to book. Also to make the parents that shelled out six figures for a liberal arts degree feel good about it.
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May 28, 2014 21:30
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Captain_Maclaine posted:This is correct. The 14-part telegram, which was a declaration of war in all but name, was supposed to be on FDR's desk about an hour before the planes hit Pearl, but due to its sensitive nature, the Japanese diplomats at the Washington embassy refused to let their professional typists (who were Americans hired for that and other secretarial work) handle the notes. As such, they had to do it themselves, and none of them knew how to touch-type, resulting in the message only getting to the White House after the bombs had been dropped. Even more amazing is that the US had broken the Japanese diplomatic cypher and actually had a decoded and translated version of it a few hours before it was delivered to the President.
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May 28, 2014 21:31
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I can really understand the reactions of those ambassadors to having to pass on a declaration of war. From what I understand it was actually quite common for ambassadors who were in a country for a long time to essentially "go native" and begin to feel closer to the people in the country they were stationed in than with the rather distant people in their own countries. Having to tell the people who you have become closer to than your own people that your people are going to invade them has to be a pretty horrible experience, especially as it is hard to not blame the messenger at least a little bit, so you will probably never be welcome in the place that has been your home for who knows how many years. Also, I want Ted Cruz to do a commencement speech, preferably reading another Dr Seuss book and completely miss the point of it.
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May 28, 2014 21:33
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Khisanth Magus posted:I can really understand the reactions of those ambassadors to having to pass on a declaration of war. From what I understand it was actually quite common for ambassadors who were in a country for a long time to essentially "go native" and begin to feel closer to the people in the country they were stationed in than with the rather distant people in their own countries. Having to tell the people who you have become closer to than your own people that your people are going to invade them has to be a pretty horrible experience, especially as it is hard to not blame the messenger at least a little bit, so you will probably never be welcome in the place that has been your home for who knows how many years. Hillsdale College last year, SFA this year.
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May 28, 2014 21:34
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Crain posted:Also ditto to the everyone saying that conservative speakers are being rejected less due to wanting an echo chamber and more because of student rejecting their horrible, terrible, no good politics. What I find baffling is that the right is suddenly whining about not being invited to speak on colleges or that college republican groups are tiny and emptying. Like OK we get it, you need more people registering and voting R so you can not fade off into obscurity, but they're trying to court the votes of people that they're actively, openly sabotaging. I live in PA and Corbett has been actively loving up educational funding, to the point where he suggested cutting the entire state's educatin budget yes all of it everything from K on up in half as if it were a good idea. Cue state-wide campus protests, poo poo loads of voters getting furious, and the entire education system deciding to hate his rear end. He's damaging grants that help poor folks get educated, rejected things that would help poor college kids get proper medical care, and is all around being a total poo poo. Now the political party that this stuff originates from is asking "why do college people hate us?" It isn't exactly hard to figure out. Fancy words and motivational speech can only go so far. "You can do anything you want if you put your mind to it" is a meaningless phrase when you have a mountain of student debt, no jobs to get, and an entire political party that is working to ensure that you stay indebted and desperate. Well yeah, no loving wonder college-educated people won't vote Republican.
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May 28, 2014 21:37
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zoux posted:Hillsdale College last year, SFA this year. Wait, colleges really are having him to commencement speeches?  That is kind of terrifying, really, because you have to take someone seriously to invite them to that don't you? How are people still taking that nutcase seriously?
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May 28, 2014 21:38
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VitalSigns posted:I guess, but a declaration of war an hour before bombs start falling thousands of miles away isn't exactly much better than an outright sneak attack. If your "honorable" declaration is to wait until the absolute last second and hope it's too late to organize any resistance, you might as well just not bother. Eh, we still had plenty of warning. It was mostly a lack of manpower that kept us from being able to read drat near everything the Japanese navy sent over radio. Not that they knew that, of course.
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May 28, 2014 21:39
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Khisanth Magus posted:Wait, colleges really are having him to commencement speeches? Look up the history of Hillsdale
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May 28, 2014 21:42
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Captain_Maclaine posted:(Antony Beevor's Stalingrad) quote:The Soviet ambassador in Berlin, Vladimir Dekanozov, shared Stalin's conviction that it was all a campaign of disinformation, originally started by the British. He even dismissed the report of his own military attache that 180 divisions had deployed along the border. Dekanozov, a protege of Lavrenty Beria, was yet another Georgian and a senior member of the NKVD. His experience of foreign affairs had gone little beyond interrogating and purging rather more practised diplomats. Other members of the mission, although they did not dare express their views too forcefully, had little doubt that Hitler was planning to invade. They had even sent on the proofs of a phrase book prepared for invading troops, which had been brought secretly to the Soviet consulate by a German Communist printer. Useful terms included the Russian for 'Surrender!', 'Hands up!', 'Where is the collective farm chairman?', 'Are you a Communist?', and 'I'll shoot!'
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May 28, 2014 21:47
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Given how close Dutch and German are, it probably didn't need translation anyway. Also the fact that, you know, the invasion was already happening. You got woken up before dawn to come to work, there's German planes in the air above the city, probably scattered reports of tanks rolling across your border, and the German guy comes in and hands you a piece of paper with a swastika on it that says KRIEG, you're probably leaning less towards "could you get this translated, please?" and more towards "well, it's 5:00 somewhere."
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May 28, 2014 21:52
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axeil posted:As someone who lives in DC and will probably be paying around 40% to half my monthly net income in rent after I move, I can agree that the rental market is totally insane. Another interesting point, if you Google for a rent calculator and find any website where they allow comments almost every single comment is "there is no way anyone can afford to spend only 33% of their income on rent." Also the numbers in the survey are income and thus don't take into account things like student loan debt, retirement savings, transportation costs, or even food. I got a cheap rental house for the neighborhood I am in, owned by a completely absentee landlord committing property tax fraud, but it still is priced at 40% of median household income for the neighborhood according to the 2010 census. There is no hope of buying a house because anything low-end on the market is instantly bought by flippers or hedge-fund-backed pools to then rent them out. Any attempts to increase density and build up is met with the full force of NIMBYism from neighborhood associations packed with 50+ year olds. It seems the exact same story plays out in any area with anything resembling real employment opportunities. The choice people have is either exorbitant rent or insane commuting costs.
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May 28, 2014 21:53
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The only commencement speakers any of these students want to see are like, Stephen Colbert or Joss Whedon or Conan O'Brien. When my wife graduated from Columbia the speaker was some NFL owner who bored everybody by talking about how great he was.
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May 28, 2014 21:54
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joeburz posted:Thomas Friedman gave my commencement address Oh, wow! How was it seeing his mustache in person?
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May 28, 2014 21:57
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Bunleigh posted:The only commencement speakers any of these students want to see are like, Stephen Colbert or Joss Whedon or Conan O'Brien. When my wife graduated from Columbia the speaker was some NFL owner who bored everybody by talking about how great he was. So that's why I couldn't remember mine until just now! A dude who donated piles of cash to the business school. That's what I get for walking during the fall term. 
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May 28, 2014 21:59
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I can speak to the Rutgers commencement situation because I went to the school and had friends who participated in the protests. The main issue is not having a reprehensible war criminal on campus (they have free speech rights too) but what was so offensive was paying her 35K to come and giving her an honorary degree. It was just beyond offensive. I was very happy to see someone like that pay a social cost (albeit tiny) for their crimes.
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May 28, 2014 22:00
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mcmagic posted:I can speak to the Rutgers commencement situation because I went to the school and had friends who participated in the protests. The main issue is not having a reprehensible war criminal on campus (they have free speech rights too) but what was so offensive was paying her 35K to come and giving her an honorary degree. It was just beyond offensive. I was very happy to see someone like that pay a social cost (albeit tiny) for their crimes. She would have been more interesting than the two speakers that did talk, though.
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May 28, 2014 22:03
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tbp posted:She would have been more interesting than the two speakers that did talk, though. Hmm... uninteresting speakers or paying a war criminal thousands of dollars... uninteresting speakers or paying a war criminal thousands of dollars... really loving hard decision
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May 28, 2014 22:12
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Shifty Pony posted:Also the numbers in the survey are income and thus don't take into account things like student loan debt, retirement savings, transportation costs, or even food. The SF housing protests/riots are probably going to end up being a nationwide thing if there isn't an effort to get more affordable rental properties or forcing owner occupancy of vacant housing units out there. At first I didn't really understand what was going on but I've seen people talk about it here and I think I'm starting to get it. As I understand it, landlords are basically jacking the rent up by absolutely ludicrous amounts to ensure former tenants leave, and then renting the unit out at a rate even higher to that to people working for Google/Facebook/etc. Then the companies get deals with the communities to allow their private buses to use the public infrastructure. This allows them to bus their employees in from further and further away, exacerbating the problem and causing it to spread through all of SF. To illustrate the nuttiness in DC there are a number of rent-controlled apartment buildings in the DC area that are pretty good. But to qualify for them you need to make what is well below an average wage for this area. And if you do qualify you get...to pay over a third of your income in rent. I'm pretty sure that's not how affordable housing is supposed to work. I don't understand how this is tenable. As dumb as it is, I've given serious thought to buying a one bedroom condo because at least then I know my rent won't keep going up by 10+% a year. I could move all the way out to the suburbs of DC but the decline in rent is offset by my commuting cost going from negligible to a significant part of my income. All this is happening and yet I think I make an above average salary for someone in my age group. What about someone who doesn't or can't do the typical 20something routine of finding roommates. I don't know how people are getting by who make less. Roommates aren't really an option for a single mother or a low income family and you can't afford a 1 bedroom place in the DC region unless you're pulling in serious cash. The really, really, really frustrating thing about all of this is I've seen no politicians actually discussing this stuff and how it affects people in their 20s or early 30s except for that "the rent is too drat high" guy. It's a very serious crisis since wage earnings from that group are already permanently depressed due to delayed career start from the 2008 crash and debt loads never before seen in America. edit: Do we have a thread on the SF housing protests/riots or housing in general in America? Seems like a topic worth diving into more depth on. axeil fucked around with this message at 22:21 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:14
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tbp posted:She would have been more interesting than the two speakers that did talk, though. Henry Kissinger for perpetual Nobel Peace Prize-winning war criminal commencement speaker!
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May 28, 2014 22:19
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Apparently Jim Webb is thinking about running for President: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/05/19/former-sen-jim-webb-thinking-about-white-house-run/ I'd still personally prefer Sanders or Warren but I would absolutely vote for Webb over Clinton if only because Webb is the reason the Post 9/11 GI Bill exists. He proposed and pushed the largest piece of legislation to help vets in decades.
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May 28, 2014 22:22
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axeil posted:The really, really, really frustrating thing about all of this is I've seen no politicians actually discussing this stuff and how it affects people in their 20s or early 30s except for that "the rent is too drat high" guy. It's a very serious crisis since wage earnings from that group are already permanently depressed due to delayed career start from the 2008 crash and debt loads never before seen in America. No we don't but I've been considering starting one given how relatively hosed up the housing market is for everyone in it. Even if you get affordable units you also have what is happening in NYC where the massive tower developments are getting huge tax exemptions in exchange for including affordable units, but they make the affordable units 400sqft, ban the residents from any of the amenities, and even give them a separate entrance so the other market-rate tenants don't have to risk looking at poor people on the way to the staffed gym where the poor people can't go. And then the market-rate tenants defend this because they think the affordable unit dwellers are leaching off their high rent!
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May 28, 2014 22:29
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ThirdPartyView posted:Henry Kissinger for perpetual Nobel Peace Prize-winning war criminal commencement speaker! He wasn't a Peace Prize winner, but out of all the war criminals I would only invite Robert McNamara to give a speech. I mean at least he's expressed remorse for being one, plus his time at Ford would be really interesting. e: poo poo, I just realized he died like 5 years ago. A Winner is Jew fucked around with this message at 22:39 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:36
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Shifty Pony posted:
Jesus Christ.  That is awful, you should definitely start that thread, I think there would be a lot of interest in it.
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May 28, 2014 22:41
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^^^^Im with him.Shifty Pony posted:No we don't but I've been considering starting one given how relatively hosed up the housing market is for everyone in it. Hahah holy poo poo is this real? It is New York formerly under Bloomberg so I shouldn't be surprised but that's so over the top.
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May 28, 2014 22:41
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Today's undergraduates tend to flip their poo poo about prominent Republicans speaking at commencement because GOP policy has been socially and economically hostile towards millennials for quite a while now. The last thing students want on what is supposed to be a happy and special day is a pep-talk from some rear end in a top hat in a helicopter who's busy pulling the ladder up behind him. Let's not forget that the A-listers from the previous Republican administration who are looking to make bank on the speaking circuit had a hand in getting thousands of young people killed in a war of choice that wound down just over two years ago. Shifty Pony posted:A bit of a departure I know but I recently stumbled across this very interesting study which Harvard published in December asks "how's the rental housing market doing in the country?" and the answer is "holy poo poo is it godawful", especially if you are lower income: I'm sure those who are now stuck renting will be pleased to find out who their new landlords are! Equity firms and hedge funds have also been snatching up foreclosed single-family homes, turning them into high-priced rentals, and paying in cash so first time homebuyers can't even compete. In other words, the exact same people who blew up the mortgage market are now making a killing exploiting the aftermath.
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May 28, 2014 22:42
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The discussion two pages back reminded me that my grandmother, who is still alive, had a grandfather who served in the Army of Northern Virginia the entire war. How many grandchildren of Civil War vets are still around?
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May 28, 2014 22:45
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Rhesus Pieces posted:I'm sure those who are now stuck renting will be pleased to find out who their new landlords are! The US is going to become a 400,000,000 man company town. Of course, that could the grumpiness talking. I am pretty grumpy about my terrible economic prospects.
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May 28, 2014 22:46
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cheerfullydrab posted:The discussion two pages back reminded me that my grandmother, who is still alive, had a grandfather who served in the Army of Northern Virginia the entire war. How many grandchildren of Civil War vets are still around? Enough that we should all remember that we are not that far removed from slavery in the US. *looks right at the SCOTUS*
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May 28, 2014 22:46
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Rhesus Pieces posted:I'm sure those who are now stuck renting will be pleased to find out who their new landlords are! I would almost admire their rapacious persistence if it weren't bleeding the entire country to death.
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May 28, 2014 22:47
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nutranurse posted:But still, man, to have experienced something so crazy at your commencement. At least you can remember your speaker, all I remember about my commencement (which was only 2 years ago FFS) is that it was a rather hot day and my professor/adviser winked at me as I caught him dozing off for a nap. Oh wait, we got Arnold loving Palmer to speak to us. He was pretty bad.
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May 28, 2014 22:50
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I think I'll get something written up over the next day or so regarding the US housing market and policy. Fried Chicken sets the OP quality bar high.
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May 28, 2014 22:50
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Rhesus Pieces posted:Equity firms and hedge funds have also been snatching up foreclosed single-family homes, turning them into high-priced rentals, and paying in cash so first time homebuyers can't even compete. The cash thing is probably the most insane part of all this. My boss was trying to buy a house a while back and basically never got a bid in anywhere because these random people would show up with $600k in cash and a cash transaction is way easier to close than a typical financing situation. I also know that FHA's first time homebuyers program is really starting to lose popularity because you can never get rid of the PMI. I still have no idea why they forced PMI on the entire life of the loan instead of just the time where you have <20% equity. The whole point of the program is to allow those with only a little bit of savings the ability to purchase a home now and then build up the equity. If you're making them pay a few extra hundred a month over the life of the loan, instead of just when there's a risk of the bank getting screwed by a default, you're making this option tens of thousands of dollars more expensive than just waiting until you have 20%. axeil fucked around with this message at 22:57 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 22:52
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axeil posted:you're making this option tens of thousands of dollars more expensive Banks want money. If they can find any excuse to suck more cash out of somebody they'll do it.
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May 28, 2014 22:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Banks want money. If they can find any excuse to suck more cash out of somebody they'll do it. That's a bit reductive. The banks don't get money from PMI, it's going to some insurance company. Making loans to people with <20% equity is significantly more risky than a conventional 30 year fixed rate mortgage. There's nothing wrong with the bank and FHA offsetting that higher default risk by having insurance placed on the loan in the event of default. The screwed up part is requiring it even after the borrowers have achieved 20% equity in the property. There's no risk mitigation there. edit: To clarify, PMI on private loans by law must be terminated when the LTV is at 78% or less. The issue is that loans guaranteed by the government via the FHA and VA loan guarantee programs don't abide by that, thus driving up the cost when the programs are engineered to help increase the number of homeowners in the US. To quote the FHA's website (http://www.fha.com/fha_requirements_mortgage_insurance) FHA.gov posted:
axeil fucked around with this message at 23:12 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 23:06
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North Carolina is going to study whether they should have an Article V constitutional convention because states rights and term limits and maybe the Articles of Confederation weren't so bad.
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May 28, 2014 23:09
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axeil posted:That's a bit reductive. The banks don't get money from PMI, it's going to some insurance company. Insurance companies, banks, and the financial sector, last I heard, are all very tightly connected. It's part of how everything got into this mess in the first place. A major portion of the scam was literally "sell bad debt we knew was going to fail, trade insurance on debt, ???, profit."
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May 28, 2014 23:10
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axeil posted:That's a bit reductive. The banks don't get money from PMI, it's going to some insurance company. The problem is that more and more people are having to buy houses without being able to put 20% down because, well, where the gently caress are they supposed to get that type of money for a down payment in today's economy? The younger generation is entering a workplace where wages have stagnated while cost of living and rent prices have skyrocketed, and parents/grandparents are living longer so there is no longer even the guarantee of inheriting money/an estate to have money for a downpayment as was the way it was often done in the past as I understand it. Not having $10-20k in cash isn't necessarily indicative of not being able to pay your mortgage anymore in my "not a banker" opinion. Your ability to pay your mortgage is something that is determined when you get pre-approved for a mortgage, where they take your income and all your payments into account to see what you could realistically pay. And not being able to put 20% down doesn't mean you can't get a "conventional 30 year fixed rate mortgage." For the house we are going to be buying we are getting a 30 year fixed rate mortgage and the minimum we have to put done is 5%.
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May 28, 2014 23:14
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Insurance companies, banks, and the financial sector, last I heard, are all very tightly connected. It's part of how everything got into this mess in the first place. A major portion of the scam was literally "sell bad debt we knew was going to fail, trade insurance on debt, ???, profit." FHA mortgage insurance goes to the FHA, which then pays out on foreclosures. That's the point of the program.
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May 28, 2014 23:15
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