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HughBeaumont
HughBeaumont's Journal
HughBeaumont's Journal
August 13, 2014
OK, so from what I'm reading:
Colleges are corporate farm clubs.
Public money going to colleges are a bad thing (as opposed, of course, to public money going in the pockets of the Kochs) that cause tuitions to rise. Yeah.
The Arts and Social Sciences mean shiznit because they're not economically quantifiable, so we should just get rid of them.
STEM, Business and Finance Majors are the only things worth studying; everything else is just a hobby.
In 25 years, it's guaranteed that a college graduate will be an executive VP.
Every kid at the age of 18-19 knows EXACTLY what they want to do.
You wouldn't need 25 years of funding to pay professors NOW or anything.
Our job markets are ALWAYS awesome and accommodating to those with college degrees and those without.
Dumbest Columnist on the Planet Tries to Build Bridges, Ends up Burning Them (College Costs):
A 2% solution to a host of college problems: Kevin O'Brien:
This is his grand solution to curbing college costs that's designed to please the commie lib'ruls . . . I think . . .
http://www.cleveland.com/obrien/index.ssf/2014/08/a_2_solution_to_a_host_of_coll.html#incart_opinion
A much more effective way to attack the problem would be to ensure that colleges have some skin in the game — the more, the better — by paying them after the fact and allowing the marketplace to determine the worth of a college education, one graduate at a time.
snip
The incoming freshman would agree to repay the college for his or her higher education at a fixed percentage of the student's gross earnings for a fixed number of years. Say, 2 percent of income for 25 years.
The problem of crushing student debt is immediately solved. When the student graduates and gets that first job at what should be the lowest earning level of his professional life, he will also face the lowest college repayment level: 2 percent of very little is very, very little. Twenty-five years later, when the former student is the executive VP of a multinational company, 2 percent of a whole lot will still be a very reasonable price for the happy graduate to pay and a tidy raw-dollar sum indeed for Dear Old State U.
snip
First, the college has to choose wisely. If it contracts with marginal students who lack direction or motivation, it's likely to lose money on them. Then, the college has to make sure students don't lose their way during school. It has to make sure they learn truly useful things well. As graduation nears, the college is motivated to help the student land the best possible job at the best possible pay. It may even find ways to support the employed graduate with information and connections that make him a better (and better-paid) employee.
snip
Colleges and universities would be quick to eliminate courses, majors, even entire academic departments that offered insufficient return on investment. Some colleges and universities, finding themselves unable to compete, would disappear. That is not a bad thing. America is way over-colleged, hence the expensive, wasteful competition on creature comforts to lure freshmen, since the quality of undergraduate education is pretty much the same everywhere.
Once colleges eliminate departments and majors that don't move graduates into jobs worth a college education, businesses will recover the skills of screening their own applicants. That would put an end to Americans' patently ludicrous notion that every job more exalted than fast-food worker requires a degree.
snip
The incoming freshman would agree to repay the college for his or her higher education at a fixed percentage of the student's gross earnings for a fixed number of years. Say, 2 percent of income for 25 years.
The problem of crushing student debt is immediately solved. When the student graduates and gets that first job at what should be the lowest earning level of his professional life, he will also face the lowest college repayment level: 2 percent of very little is very, very little. Twenty-five years later, when the former student is the executive VP of a multinational company, 2 percent of a whole lot will still be a very reasonable price for the happy graduate to pay and a tidy raw-dollar sum indeed for Dear Old State U.
snip
First, the college has to choose wisely. If it contracts with marginal students who lack direction or motivation, it's likely to lose money on them. Then, the college has to make sure students don't lose their way during school. It has to make sure they learn truly useful things well. As graduation nears, the college is motivated to help the student land the best possible job at the best possible pay. It may even find ways to support the employed graduate with information and connections that make him a better (and better-paid) employee.
snip
Colleges and universities would be quick to eliminate courses, majors, even entire academic departments that offered insufficient return on investment. Some colleges and universities, finding themselves unable to compete, would disappear. That is not a bad thing. America is way over-colleged, hence the expensive, wasteful competition on creature comforts to lure freshmen, since the quality of undergraduate education is pretty much the same everywhere.
Once colleges eliminate departments and majors that don't move graduates into jobs worth a college education, businesses will recover the skills of screening their own applicants. That would put an end to Americans' patently ludicrous notion that every job more exalted than fast-food worker requires a degree.
OK, so from what I'm reading:
Colleges are corporate farm clubs.
Public money going to colleges are a bad thing (as opposed, of course, to public money going in the pockets of the Kochs) that cause tuitions to rise. Yeah.
The Arts and Social Sciences mean shiznit because they're not economically quantifiable, so we should just get rid of them.
STEM, Business and Finance Majors are the only things worth studying; everything else is just a hobby.
In 25 years, it's guaranteed that a college graduate will be an executive VP.
Every kid at the age of 18-19 knows EXACTLY what they want to do.
You wouldn't need 25 years of funding to pay professors NOW or anything.
Our job markets are ALWAYS awesome and accommodating to those with college degrees and those without.
July 27, 2014
Why does the Pain Dealer give a voice to coprophagic paranoid nutjobs like this? Saul Alinsky?? Rules for Radicals?? COME on. The usual culprits are here . .. mostly extreme red baiting and projection a mile wide. Probably watches a lot of Dinesh D'Souza.
Funnier than Terry's whack-a-doo bullshit list is that he goes out of his way in the comments section to defend and exacerbate what he just pulled directly out of his ass. What kind of loons are we breeding in the suburbs??
Watch for his name . .. wouldn't be surprised if it's the next one you see in the DV/gun spree headlines . .
SUPAH Dumb Letters to the Plain Dealer, Vol. 378973: "ALINSKY! ALINSKY! RUN FOR YER LIIIIIIVES!!"
http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2014/07/wake_up_america_letter_to_the.htmlWhy does the Pain Dealer give a voice to coprophagic paranoid nutjobs like this? Saul Alinsky?? Rules for Radicals?? COME on. The usual culprits are here . .. mostly extreme red baiting and projection a mile wide. Probably watches a lot of Dinesh D'Souza.
Funnier than Terry's whack-a-doo bullshit list is that he goes out of his way in the comments section to defend and exacerbate what he just pulled directly out of his ass. What kind of loons are we breeding in the suburbs??
Watch for his name . .. wouldn't be surprised if it's the next one you see in the DV/gun spree headlines . .
Patrick Lake's July 13 letter to the editor, "Nation's too dumb to appreciate Obama," is a gross misstatement of President Obama's real intentions. Obama makes statements that deceive ones like Patrick into believing he has good intentions, but his real intention is to follow the eight-step plan expressed by Saul Alinsky in his book "Rules for Radicals." Obama is well-schooled in these steps to transform America into a socialist state:
First is government controlled health care and second is poverty. The influx of illegals continues to his delight knowing it will help increase poverty and allow people control. Third is to increase debt to an unsustainable level. Fourth is gun control. Remove guns and create a policed state.
Fifth is welfare, government control of food, housing and income, also a U.N. desire supported by Obama. Sixth is education control, what we read, view and listen to. Shut down all opposition sources. Seventh is to remove the belief in God from government and schools, loss religious freedom. Eighth is class warfare. Divide the people into wealthy and poor (tax the wealthy to support the poor).
The title should have been, "A nation too dumb to understand Obama's deception and real agenda." Wake up America.
Terry L. Davis,
Berea
First is government controlled health care and second is poverty. The influx of illegals continues to his delight knowing it will help increase poverty and allow people control. Third is to increase debt to an unsustainable level. Fourth is gun control. Remove guns and create a policed state.
Fifth is welfare, government control of food, housing and income, also a U.N. desire supported by Obama. Sixth is education control, what we read, view and listen to. Shut down all opposition sources. Seventh is to remove the belief in God from government and schools, loss religious freedom. Eighth is class warfare. Divide the people into wealthy and poor (tax the wealthy to support the poor).
The title should have been, "A nation too dumb to understand Obama's deception and real agenda." Wake up America.
Terry L. Davis,
Berea
July 13, 2014
I don't even get how this person got an "A", since it just seems like blatant revisionism.
Didn't Hayek once praise the Pinochet regime as a "necessary evil"?
Dunning-Krugertarians make for good comedy.
So what do you say to a person who spews this (regarding economics)?
Keynesian economics is centered on spending. He authored the circular flow model to explain that spending, not saving is the key to economic growth. Keynes preferred government investment in public works projects such as the New Deal. He realized that a heavy investment in infrastructure would create jobs. Other than the primary benefit of the jobs that the new deal created, he thought that there were secondary benefits to the economy as well. He preferred this method because he believed in the multiplier effect. Keynes formula for the multiplier effect is based on the marginal propensity to consume (MPC). The MPC is the amount of increased income that is spent on goods and services. For Example, if I get a raise of $100 a month and spend $70 of it, the MPC is .70. This $70 is spent and therefore it becomes income for the people that receive it in exchange for the sale of a good or service. This increase in income creates a chain as the people that received the initial 70$ spend .70(49$) and therefore it multiplies the effect of my initial $100 raise. Keynes argued that saving would inhibit the multiplier effect and therefore the more income you spend, the better the economy is for everyone.
Under this assumption, Keynes favored government spending on major projects because the government would spend one-hundred percent of its budget on the project. This led to an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. If infrastructure projects were privately undertaken, the thriftiness of the entrepreneur would lead to a more efficient use of labor and resources. It is the motivation to save money and maximize profits that keeps things efficient. Free of bloated bureaucratic spending, privatization is almost universally more efficient than public works projects.
Keynes believed in the abolishment of the gold standard in favor of a fiat currency. This enables governments to print more money and artificially stimulate the economy. Generally, an increase in the money supply causes inflation. Inflation decreases the purchasing power of the country’s currency, leading to unstable markets and a higher cost of living. This higher cost of living can lead to an inflationary spiral. According to the online website Business Dictionary, an inflationary spiral is when “high cost living prompts demands for higher wages which push production cost up forcing firms to increase prices, which in turn trigger calls for fresh wage increases.” Without intervention, this cycle can break a countries economy and make its currency utterly worthless.
Under this assumption, Keynes favored government spending on major projects because the government would spend one-hundred percent of its budget on the project. This led to an inefficient use of taxpayer dollars. If infrastructure projects were privately undertaken, the thriftiness of the entrepreneur would lead to a more efficient use of labor and resources. It is the motivation to save money and maximize profits that keeps things efficient. Free of bloated bureaucratic spending, privatization is almost universally more efficient than public works projects.
Keynes believed in the abolishment of the gold standard in favor of a fiat currency. This enables governments to print more money and artificially stimulate the economy. Generally, an increase in the money supply causes inflation. Inflation decreases the purchasing power of the country’s currency, leading to unstable markets and a higher cost of living. This higher cost of living can lead to an inflationary spiral. According to the online website Business Dictionary, an inflationary spiral is when “high cost living prompts demands for higher wages which push production cost up forcing firms to increase prices, which in turn trigger calls for fresh wage increases.” Without intervention, this cycle can break a countries economy and make its currency utterly worthless.
That is an exerpt from a macro paper I wrote sophomore year. My tenured econ professor gave me an A. Keynesian economics has been the rule since the new deal. The Chicago school econmists have not had enought of an effect. Read "The Road to Serfdom" by FA Hayak.
I don't even get how this person got an "A", since it just seems like blatant revisionism.
Didn't Hayek once praise the Pinochet regime as a "necessary evil"?
Dunning-Krugertarians make for good comedy.
June 18, 2014
Why the "World's Dumbest Idea" is Finally Dying: The "maximize shareholder value" myth
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/06/17/why-the-worlds-dumbest-idea-is-finally-dying/Bad ideas don’t die just because they are bad. They hang around until a consensus forms around another idea that is better. This is what’s happening now with a stupid idea has dominated American business for the last four decades: that the purpose of a firm is to maximize shareholder value. The massive problems that this notion has caused for business and society have been documented. Even Jack Welch has called it “the dumbest idea in the world.” Yet it remains the conventional wisdom throughout much of big business. What’s different now is that a consensus is forming around a better idea.
That’s the big news coming out of a recent report from the Aspen Institute which convened a cross-section of business thought leaders, including both executives and academics. The report’s most important finding is that majority of the thought leaders who participated in the study, particularly corporate executives, agreed that “the primary purpose of the corporation is to serve customers’ interests.” In effect, the best way to serve shareholders’ interests is to deliver value to customers.
snip
“Friedman won the way a great debater wins,” says Martin, “by cleverly framing the terms of the debate… Because Friedman was so inflammatory in his call for a 100 percent versus 0 percent handling of the trade-off, his entire opposition …has focused on making arguments for a number lower than 100 percent for shareholders. In doing so, they implicitly… accepted Friedman’s premise that there is a fundamental trade-off between the interests of shareholders on the one hand and other societal actors such as customers, employees and communities on the other hand. Ever since, the Friedmanite defense has been to force the opposition to prove that making a trade-off to any extent whatsoever against shareholders won’t seriously damage capitalism.”
“Had the opposition been cleverer, it would have attacked the premise from the very beginning by asking: what is the proof that there is a trade-off at all? Had they done so, they would have found out that Friedman had not a shred of proof that a trade-off existed prior to 1970. And they would have found out that there still isn’t a single shred of empirical evidence that 100 percent focus on shareholder value to the exclusion of other societal factors actually produces measurably higher value for shareholders.”
That’s the big news coming out of a recent report from the Aspen Institute which convened a cross-section of business thought leaders, including both executives and academics. The report’s most important finding is that majority of the thought leaders who participated in the study, particularly corporate executives, agreed that “the primary purpose of the corporation is to serve customers’ interests.” In effect, the best way to serve shareholders’ interests is to deliver value to customers.
snip
“Friedman won the way a great debater wins,” says Martin, “by cleverly framing the terms of the debate… Because Friedman was so inflammatory in his call for a 100 percent versus 0 percent handling of the trade-off, his entire opposition …has focused on making arguments for a number lower than 100 percent for shareholders. In doing so, they implicitly… accepted Friedman’s premise that there is a fundamental trade-off between the interests of shareholders on the one hand and other societal actors such as customers, employees and communities on the other hand. Ever since, the Friedmanite defense has been to force the opposition to prove that making a trade-off to any extent whatsoever against shareholders won’t seriously damage capitalism.”
“Had the opposition been cleverer, it would have attacked the premise from the very beginning by asking: what is the proof that there is a trade-off at all? Had they done so, they would have found out that Friedman had not a shred of proof that a trade-off existed prior to 1970. And they would have found out that there still isn’t a single shred of empirical evidence that 100 percent focus on shareholder value to the exclusion of other societal factors actually produces measurably higher value for shareholders.”
June 17, 2014
Hello internet right wing! (Big Fat PDF ahead!)
How you doing out there? Like I care!
I've officially decided that you people suck hearty balls at internetting.
So, without further ado, please read THIS handy, dandy chart listing all of the things you're doing wrong before you ruin my day with your inane, linkless, partisan comments on image macros regarding life issues that no other country besides OURS seems to take interest in politicizing.
Pay special attention to the following sections:
The entire "On the Attack" section
Two Wrongs Make a Right
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Circular Logic
False Dilemma
Hasty Generalization
Appeal to Authority
The entire "Appeal to Emotions" section.
Have a pleasant day. But you won't, because you aren't wired that way.
http://pzxc.com/logical-fallacies-cheat-sheet
June 3, 2014
Slum Life In New York City During the Nineteenth Century's Gilded Age
This is "Laissez-Fail".
Here's what life would be like without social services, laws or regulations of any kind, with as small a government as you could imagine and corporate America's "you're worth what you're worth" wage acumen. Put the economy in the hands of the Peter Thiels, Peter Schiffs, Thomas Petterfys, the Kochs, Bernie Marcuses and Ken Langones of the world, and this is what you're going to get. This canyon-gapped two-tiered life is what they would love to send us back to.
Some "utopia" . . . .
http://io9.com/slum-life-in-new-york-city-during-the-nineteenth-centu-1584688488
May 20, 2014
Some of the responses on here are about as cold as Northeastern weather.
Maybe our "Big Tent" economic scolds can explain to me how their precious Trapitalism continues (when 2/3rds of it's perpetuation depends on consumption, by the way) when corporations, the wealthy that run them and the low-tax/kick-the-can economics they nailed in place back in the 1980s just indebted an entire generation out of purchasing necessities and big ticket items and placed more burden on their Boomer/Buster/Gen X parents and the states they live in.
Maybe the bootstrapper/"guud ol' fashened GUMPSHUN" crowd can tell me how 45-and-under America has a future when we have no money to save for retirement because our flatlined wage decoupled with the rising cost of living around 1979, thereby forcing us to work until we're in our 70s, but live under the prospect of unspoken ageism which lays us off; while at the same time, instead of employing younger indebted workers, put more burden on the imported workers they decide to keep?
Maybe the "Nation of Whiners" bunch can explain to me the sensible sense behind this awesome menu for America:
* Learn a potentially unsafe (short and long term) contract-term trade tethered by either the employment prospects of the people you're servicing or the local/state budgets which your success depends on (yeah, ask electricians how well THEY'RE doing).
* Blow thousands upon thousands of dollars on a brand/degree so you can get excluded from the corporate interviewing process in the first round for not being extroverted enough and suffer through un/under-employment, while crushing interest accumulates on that debt.
* Start your own crapshoo . . . er . . . business . . . again, very high cost and completely tethered by the employment prospects and disposable income of the people you're servicing.
* Fall out of the correct womb.
Any of you life-landmine-free, fortune teller finger waggers got a road map to THAT happy ending, because I'm just not seeing one?
May 8, 2014
I know, it really DOES get dumber each time you read it. Kevin O'Brien is slow clapping.
Quite Possibly the Dumbest Plain Dealer LTTE in Five Years . . .
. . . and trust me, this is an awfully high bar this guy's jumping (see my journal for Dumb Plain Dealer LTTEs). It's no secret that Cleveland's suburbs are chock loaded with TeaHadists, but this one is venturing towards sub-moronic even for them. Hope you didn't eat anything yet:
http://blog.cleveland.com/letters/2014/05/shame_on_you_plain_dealer_lett.html
Plain Dealer should be reporting on Benghazi scandal:
As I was taking out the trash, I noticed the May 3 Nation & World lead article on page A5 with the headline "GOP panel will investigate emails." This was imported from the Washington Post. I'm writing because this is exactly why I don't take the Plain Dealer. As a news organization you continue to fail to report on probably the single largest scandal in American History.
Benghazi is not a scandal because there was a fouled up to an attack on a clandestine operations center chartered to run weapons into Syria. Benghazi is a scandal because of the way Team Obama chose to address this abject failure and report it to the American public....during an election cycle.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you remember an American president, and Secretary of State, knowingly blame innocent Americans for inciting a riot abroad. If you can't remember, that's because it's never been done before . This matters because this is bad government run amok. Worse, innocent Americans were blamed and eventually sent to jail.
What disgusts me is the Plain Dealer passes through partisan denial of the worst cover-up in American history as some GOP witch hunt. If you believe its a witch hunt, then I'd like to ask you to turn in your press pass and go back to school for a refresher on the Constitution.
Shame on you Plain Dealer. Strip yourself of your partisan roots and do the job the 1st Amendment grants you. Stop coddling these corrupt thugs in Washington who cannot admit failure when their incompetence and dereliction of duty shines through. The President is not off limits, nor is Hillary Clinton. Your duty is to report the news.
Dave Van Horn,
Columbia Station
As I was taking out the trash, I noticed the May 3 Nation & World lead article on page A5 with the headline "GOP panel will investigate emails." This was imported from the Washington Post. I'm writing because this is exactly why I don't take the Plain Dealer. As a news organization you continue to fail to report on probably the single largest scandal in American History.
Benghazi is not a scandal because there was a fouled up to an attack on a clandestine operations center chartered to run weapons into Syria. Benghazi is a scandal because of the way Team Obama chose to address this abject failure and report it to the American public....during an election cycle.
Ask yourself, when was the last time you remember an American president, and Secretary of State, knowingly blame innocent Americans for inciting a riot abroad. If you can't remember, that's because it's never been done before . This matters because this is bad government run amok. Worse, innocent Americans were blamed and eventually sent to jail.
What disgusts me is the Plain Dealer passes through partisan denial of the worst cover-up in American history as some GOP witch hunt. If you believe its a witch hunt, then I'd like to ask you to turn in your press pass and go back to school for a refresher on the Constitution.
Shame on you Plain Dealer. Strip yourself of your partisan roots and do the job the 1st Amendment grants you. Stop coddling these corrupt thugs in Washington who cannot admit failure when their incompetence and dereliction of duty shines through. The President is not off limits, nor is Hillary Clinton. Your duty is to report the news.
Dave Van Horn,
Columbia Station
I know, it really DOES get dumber each time you read it. Kevin O'Brien is slow clapping.
May 7, 2014
. . . and so on and so on and so on and this isn't the 1970s, asshole.
Do me a favor. Get in a pair of boots that have straps on them. Squat. Now grab those bootstraps and try to pull yourself upright. What happens? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS???
These guys, AGAIN, grew up and acheived success in an age that had plentiful economic opportunites for everyone, whether you went to college or not. They built their wealth at a time when it was possible to do so with consistency (e.g. not in the past 14 years). College was affordable (sometimes free), there were pensions, benefits, employer matches to 401k, employee training, employer-paid college, etc, etc, etc. They never had significant landmines, financial or otherwise and see things from the winner's circle - zero empathy and firmly in a bubble.
This age no longer exists and now they're finger wagging and scolding workers for not "taking charge" of their lives. "Working hard" is no longer enough. "Going to college" is no longer enough. "Starting your own business" is no longer enough. "There's this . . . invisible unknown intangible . . . that my generation, of course, isn't affected by so much, but YOU BUMS ALL NEED TO FIND and once you do, grab onto it like you would a bootstrap, pay for it until yer destitute and starving and let it KILL ya, by gumption!!"
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Thanks for the advice. Loads. We'll all get working on that bill Republicans and corporations left us.
"Why Many Unemployed Workers Will Never Get Jobs" - conservative victim blaming from Huffpo.
Awesome. As if America's unemployed don't have enough problems, we got this victim-blaming duffer to pile it on further.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ira-wolfe/why-many-unemployment_b_5273611.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592
The problem with traditional job skill training in many cases is that you can walk a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Far too many workers -- employed and unemployed -- don't seem interested in finding water on their own. They want and expect someone else to find the water, make sure the journey isn't too arduous, and get someone to pay for it.
Thanks to years of economic prosperity, government entitlements, union contracts and most recently a generation of helicopter parents, many workers from aging Baby Boomers to the young adults known as Millennials don't have the motivational skills to achieve their own success, to keep themselves safe, to avoid a personal crisis, and to get themselves out of a jam.
snip
Many of the unemployed workers have simply lost the ability and motivation to make a better life for them and take responsibility for problems they create -- if they ever learned to do it in the first place. Picking yourself up by your bootstraps is a lost skill. When you fall, it's not your fault. It's expected that someone else come to your rescue, offer you the bootstrap, hoist you up, and nurse you back to health.
I recently mentioned to someone that "God helps those who help themselves." Their response was to tell me God never said that. That is true by the way -- it's not actually in the Bible. But they missed my point. For many generations we believed that. It was a philosophy our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and those before us lived by. People didn't look for handouts, sue someone when things didn't go right, and wallow in their own pity waiting to be rescued.
snip
Up until the last decade or so, it didn't take much to get a job. If you had a pulse and could fog a mirror, you had the qualifications for many low-paying, low-skill jobs. If you sought a better lifestyle, you acquired trade skills or a college degree. Once you had a job, you were pretty well set for life. At that point in your career, school was behind you and employees looked to the company for training, benefits, and even retirement. If you were unfortunate enough to be laid off, the company paid you a severance or you collected unemployment from the government. Companies as well as government and community services even provided another bootstrap -- outplacement services and job coaching to help you get back on your feet.
Thanks to years of economic prosperity, government entitlements, union contracts and most recently a generation of helicopter parents, many workers from aging Baby Boomers to the young adults known as Millennials don't have the motivational skills to achieve their own success, to keep themselves safe, to avoid a personal crisis, and to get themselves out of a jam.
snip
Many of the unemployed workers have simply lost the ability and motivation to make a better life for them and take responsibility for problems they create -- if they ever learned to do it in the first place. Picking yourself up by your bootstraps is a lost skill. When you fall, it's not your fault. It's expected that someone else come to your rescue, offer you the bootstrap, hoist you up, and nurse you back to health.
I recently mentioned to someone that "God helps those who help themselves." Their response was to tell me God never said that. That is true by the way -- it's not actually in the Bible. But they missed my point. For many generations we believed that. It was a philosophy our grandparents, our great-grandparents, and those before us lived by. People didn't look for handouts, sue someone when things didn't go right, and wallow in their own pity waiting to be rescued.
snip
Up until the last decade or so, it didn't take much to get a job. If you had a pulse and could fog a mirror, you had the qualifications for many low-paying, low-skill jobs. If you sought a better lifestyle, you acquired trade skills or a college degree. Once you had a job, you were pretty well set for life. At that point in your career, school was behind you and employees looked to the company for training, benefits, and even retirement. If you were unfortunate enough to be laid off, the company paid you a severance or you collected unemployment from the government. Companies as well as government and community services even provided another bootstrap -- outplacement services and job coaching to help you get back on your feet.
. . . and so on and so on and so on and this isn't the 1970s, asshole.
Do me a favor. Get in a pair of boots that have straps on them. Squat. Now grab those bootstraps and try to pull yourself upright. What happens? TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS???
These guys, AGAIN, grew up and acheived success in an age that had plentiful economic opportunites for everyone, whether you went to college or not. They built their wealth at a time when it was possible to do so with consistency (e.g. not in the past 14 years). College was affordable (sometimes free), there were pensions, benefits, employer matches to 401k, employee training, employer-paid college, etc, etc, etc. They never had significant landmines, financial or otherwise and see things from the winner's circle - zero empathy and firmly in a bubble.
This age no longer exists and now they're finger wagging and scolding workers for not "taking charge" of their lives. "Working hard" is no longer enough. "Going to college" is no longer enough. "Starting your own business" is no longer enough. "There's this . . . invisible unknown intangible . . . that my generation, of course, isn't affected by so much, but YOU BUMS ALL NEED TO FIND and once you do, grab onto it like you would a bootstrap, pay for it until yer destitute and starving and let it KILL ya, by gumption!!"
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Thanks for the advice. Loads. We'll all get working on that bill Republicans and corporations left us.
April 24, 2014
That asshole's corporation's stock is up 504% since January 20th, 2009.
If you bought during February, that return could have been as high as 1000%.
But "Demmucrapz are so bad fer biznezz!!" Stupid veneered orange bastard.
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