Education About Education

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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Today a little education about education.

First I’ll crunch some numbers, as I like to do.

4,726 = the number of colleges and universities United States.

$589 billion =  the amount spent by students annually.

Of that figure,

$393 billion = tuition fees, and

$196 billion = expenses like travel and housing.

538% = the percentage increase of the cost of a college education over the past three decades.

4.5 = the number times more expensive it is to go to college today than it was back in 1985, even allowing for inflation.

So is the cost worth it?

Does the education system make sense?

The vast majority of Americans never even consider these important questions. They are fixated on their kids going to college – end of debate.

Whether they have the ability or not, or whether it is the right career path for them or not, if the parents can afford it and/or the kids can get a student loan (which they usually can) then they go to college.

But there is a heavy cost to pay, as we have just seen above. By the time they graduate 70% of students are lumbered with a loan balance averaging $28,400. Nationwide in the US, student loan debt now sits at a staggering $1.2 trillion, which is nearly 50% higher than all the outstanding auto-loan debt, and almost double credit card debt.

While it is true that college graduates have more opportunities to earn more than those without a degree, the number of those good paying jobs is limited. Most college graduates have to settle for a lot less that they were planning for when they started that expensive college education.

What is often forgotten is that there are many other opportunities out there in the workplace for someone who spends their time and money learning a trade or a skill. A friend of mine who is a plumber earns many times more than many of his contemporaries with college degrees and office jobs.

In fact, since more and more young Americans are turning their noses up at manual type jobs and opting for expensive colleges, there will soon be a shortage of essential trades such as plumbers, electricians and so forth, making those jobs even more lucrative than they are now.

Food for thought for the future perhaps.

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Remember The First Law Of Holes – When You Are In One, Stop Digging!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The Sunday Sermon

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Another week has gone by and President Obama just keeps on digging the hole he has unnecessarily got himself into.

Secretary of State Kerry has found a bigger shovel to help. And even the US Ambassador to the UN has jumped into the hole too.

Almost everyone else is against him, even the pope.

America has never been good at foreign policy decisions, but this latest debacle over Syria has to be one of the worst – EVER!

There have been a lot of mistakes. It looks like there will be a lot more. Here are some of the main ones.

Mistake #1  –  the worst of all – getting involved in something that is none of your business.

Mistake #2  –  refusing to take wise advice or recognize the mood of your own people and the rest of the world. End result, you leave yourself isolated with your influence to help anyone in the future much diminished.

Mistake #3  –  not learning from past mistakes of others. That just leads to repetition of previous debacles.  

Mistake #4  –  appointing other idiots to tour the world to make sure everyone knows how stupid you are.

Mistake #5  –  failure to commit totally. At least when Dubya and his conies were intent on getting us bogged down in Iraq they had the wit to tell Saddam to prepare for “Shock and Awe”. Obama’s right hand man Kerry, on the other hand, has threatened the Syrian leadership with a military response that will be – wait for it – “… an unbelievably small, limited kind of effort.” Rather than intimidating Assad that kind of threat must have left him doubled up with laughter!

Mistake #6  –  making yourself look like a real dumbass by trying to be a smartass and calling an opponent a jackass. It may or may not be true, but resorting to such tactics just because someone doesn’t agree with you, almost always backfires on you. It has in this case. Putin is coming out looking reasonable and sensible while Obama is making himself look more and more ridiculous.

There are plenty of other examples, but this lot will do for now.

It’s hard to correct mistakes at the best of times. But it is almost impossible to correct a mistake if you are so arrogant that you don’t realize you made one in the first place.

That’s what has happened to President Obama and that is why he just keeps on digging the hole he is in deeper and deeper and deeper.

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