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Dystram posted:http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bill-clinton-lloyd-blankfein-blood-lust-geithner-sorkin I'm interested in seeing that theory tested.
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May 8, 2014 19:37
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Amergin posted:I 1) did some cursory research to see which job markets were doing well and which paid the best in terms of entry-level positions, 2) went to a college the offered to pay my full tuition after busting my rear end in high school, over many other colleges that I would have preferred, 3) worked summer internships every year while in college at local companies, and 4) switched majors from Comp Sci to Psych with 1.5 semesters left as Comp Sci wasn't teaching me anything useful and, through my internships, I already had a guaranteed entry-level position waiting for me upon graduation. I did research into the job market, did my first two years at community college to save money, switched out of a STEM major to a more rare STEM major and went to the one of the few schools in the country that offers it, worked 40 hour weeks while still going to classes full time, took on 10's of thousands of dollars in debt, did internships, got high grades and a good paying job out of school which allows me to pay down my debt comfortably. I still got waaaaaaay lucky. You got lucky. You did hard work and made good with the position you were handed, sure. It's wonderful that you take responsibility for your debt, but the idea that you should have to go into big debt for something that's essentially required for a decent paying job is wrongheaded. You're talking about personal solutions for societal problems, just like many others have in many other threads. The problem of student debt is not a personal problem. It is a societal problem. Personal responsibility-'splaining miss the point.
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May 13, 2014 18:22
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Amergin posted:Exactly, I agree entirely (and I know I got lucky). Because mis/lack of info is not the problem. Universities aren't going to cut costs because they're trying to make money. You're not going to guide people to the "right" majors because there isn't a right major. There's just ones that that happen to be hiring 4-5 years after you went to school, which is never going to be the answer for millions of people and is notoroiously hard to predict. That is why I said you got lucky. And the whole "just do a trade" thing is also a pipe dream. There aren't enough jobs in trades. Once again, you're trying to talk about personal solutions to a societal problem. You've widened your scope a bit to "guidance counseling" instead of "make the right major choice", but you're still far too narrowly focused.
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May 13, 2014 18:40
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Amergin posted:But (and I know I'm trying to apply simplified economic theory to an issue that is way more complex), in theory if your guidance counselors understand that whichever university you go to is largely irrelevant in the job market with a small set of exceptions, they can steer you to cheaper options (or, rather, options more suited to your financial situation), thus driving up demand to the cheaper schools and reducing demand to the more expensive schools. Even the cheaper schools will put you massively into debt. But many jobs require you have a degree. Nobody knows what degree, because if you could predict the economy with any degree of certainty 4 years into the future you'd be a millionaire and not a guidance councilor. We live in a country where it's hard to find a decent job in fast food, let alone white collar jobs. Even relatively small amounts of debt are burdensome. quote:I think that applying personal solutions to future generations will help reverse/curb the societal problem... what societal solutions would you suggest instead? Have the government pay for college. Increase funding for education below college level. Provide jobs for people with majors that aren't directly applicable to private enterprise(research, teaching, etc). Have an economy where jobs aren't so incredibly scarce that you have millions of people chasing the same few majors. None of these things are going to happen, why do you think people in this thread drink? The solutions are known, they're just not politically viable. Harping on personal responsibility is simply telling people they should feel bad about getting hosed over in a rigged game. Sure, some folks are lazy or listless, but claiming they're a societal issue is naive.
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May 13, 2014 19:33
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Amergin posted:How do we pay for government-paid college? How do we pay for increased funding for education pre-college? And how do we create paid jobs out of thin air for people whose skills aren't applicable to the private market? And how do we magically create an economy where there is a jobs surplus, or at the very least a job for every person? You've had this answered before when you were complaining about government spending and people told you, then you disappeared for a week(If I'm remembering you right). We have the money. It's simply not being spent on these things. The government can create jobs, we did that in the 30's and 50's and much of our national infrastructure that we're letting rot comes from there. There's not a lack of things to be done, just a lack of money paying for them to be done. Do you seriously think we don't need more teachers, more researchers, etc? quote:I'm not arguing with you because I disagree with your ideas - I would love more focus on pre-college education and to live in an economy with jobs galore - the problem is I see goals but no way to get there. I think you're coming at this with preconceived biases(concern trolling). I think you don't want to see ways to get there. Listen to the other people in this thread instead of arguing with them, if you want to see how to get there. Then realize that it doesn't matter what you think the changes won't get maid. Then ask for drink advice. quote:To me, a solution that isn't politically viable isn't a solution unless you somehow change the politics. I would love to absolve all student loan debt and make it a non-issue, but how we pay for that and how we get it through our political system is a mystery. Thus I proposed easier solutions to swallow to curb future student loan debt growth. Your solutions can't fix the problem, because you don't understand the problem. And you can't change the politics without money. If you can, I wish you luck, but I try to be somewhat realistic.
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May 13, 2014 19:49
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Mr Interweb posted:Since we were talking about the Pope a few pages back, I did have a question that I've been wondering for a while. I'm not a Catholic, so I don't know how the Church is supposed to be run, but are Catholics supposed to follow what the Pope commands? Or is the Pope just a figurehead type person who offers suggestions and guidelines but that no one actually needs to listen to? On the topic of the Catholic Church, this is an interesting article.
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May 14, 2014 00:26
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Berke Negri posted:It is rather odd to see leftists dismiss Piketty as just another neo-liberal as he's arguing that capitalism without intervention inevitably leads to oligarchic dystopia and wealth has such a deleterious effect on society we need something dramatic like an 80% global wealth (not just income) tax to prevent the looming Dickensian apocalypse. I guess there's no pleasing some people. As far as I can tell a lot of left criticism of Piketty comes from two things: 1) Liberal solutions...he identifies most of the problems Marx did with capitalism(points which every leftist economist and many liberal econonmist have been making for years) and then essentially prescribes politically unviable capitalist solutions that, like social democracies, postpone inevitable problems 2) His complete dismissal of Marx, using dated criticisms that would be contradicted if he had read Marx, which he admits he hasn't. Which he then follows by drawing conclusions very similar to Marx. Keeping in mind I'm not an expert on economics, Piketty, Marx, or whatever. This is just my lovely meta-analysis.
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May 15, 2014 19:24
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Jazerus posted:If Marx's conclusions can penetrate the global consciousness under another name after the ceaseless slurring of Marx for the last 150 years I don't think it's a bad thing. For all we know Piketty is pretending to have not read Capital and tossing in token criticisms of Marx just so that he isn't tarred as a Marxist. It's entirely possible, even probable, that he's intentionally distancing himself in order to be taken seriously by the people who kneejerk poo poo on socialism. It remains to be seen if that's enough of a distance to move the Overton Window or even slightly effect policy, or if this book will just be people who already knew this stuff talking to themselves. zoux posted:I'd be shocked if there was a Economics PhD in the world that hasn't read Capital. Prepare to be shocked, as friends in the field say it's surprisingly prevalent. Of course that's second-hand.
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May 15, 2014 20:11
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Munkeymon posted:I could see someone rejecting a lot of old economic writing that's mostly philosophy when what they want is to study and model real-world human behavior. Except Marx's work is basically two parts: 1) Sociological criticisms of capitalism based in real-world human behavior and 2) Theorizing about what an alternative might look like 2) is far more easily criticized because Marx was not a prophet and never claimed to be able to see future. But 1) is the far more relevant area to economics and it's consistently ignored or misrepresented. edit: Not trying to turn this into Marxthread #8156 so limiting myself to comments as far as Picketty and modern political economics.
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May 15, 2014 21:28
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Fried Chicken posted:It wasn't that those are the only two, its just that I knew those two. And they are both perfect examples of how a chain of small gently caress ups can lead to a bigger problem even if it isn't a reactor accident. Didn't we almost nuke North Carolina because like of a chain of failures that should never have happened?
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Jun 3, 2014 06:02
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Fried Chicken posted:
It's much like being for prison reform. If you want to be morally consistent, you have to support the proper treatment of child rapists, torturers, scum of the earth. It's all the same thing. I may joke about eating the rich, but the truth is they don't taste good and I'd be happy with taking their wealth and letting them enjoy a good life, if everyone else is too.
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Jun 3, 2014 21:49
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Solkanar512 posted:Remind me again why so many were thrown in jail during the S&L crisis but we can't touch similar folks now? Because the banking sector owns the government to a larger degree than it did then and we choose to do as little as possible, having fired everyone who was part of those prosecutions?
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Jun 3, 2014 22:02
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Oh so we're repeating the right wing divide-and-conquer talking point of blacks costing the left on Prop 8? Cool.
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Jun 5, 2014 23:27
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vulturesrow posted:So that minimum wage increase to 15$ in SeaTac is working out well. Of course there was really no way to know what might happen. Except the mountain of evidence that minimum wage laws don't affect the employment rate. But other than that, no, nothing.
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Jun 6, 2014 01:36
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