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New The "None of the Above" candidate.
Libertarian Gary Johnson.
The 2016 presidential election will soon have its first official party nominee. Not Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. But a Libertarian. The Libertarian National Convention is set for Memorial Day weekend in Orlando, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is hoping to emerge as the party’s nominee for president.
Also he is teaming up with Bill Weld, ex-governor of MA. LA Times:
Several news organizations reported Wednesday that Weld, a well-known Massachusetts Republican, would run for another unlikely job, vice president, on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson.

"We got together and shook hands on it," Johnson told the Associated Press.
I predict the Koch brothers will back these guys to guarantee Trump fails w/o them directly supporting Hillary.

Republicans that can't stand Trump and Democrats that can't stomach Clinton will flock to them. I bet they will get 10-15% of the vote.

You heard it here first! :)
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New Democrats are more likely to go Green party
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Well, Bill Weld was/is a rare specie known as a Moderate Republican.
They are indistinguishable from today's Democrats.

The Green Party doesn't have the funds to be that noticeable. But, I's sure they'll snag some of Bernie's crowd.
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New It isn't easy being Green
Actually, it's real easy for many of this lot. They're generally in positions to elude the direr consequences of maintaining their spotless political purity and hobbling the "lesser evil" to the advantage of the greater.

cordially,
New Dunno.
This has the potential to be a watershed year. Once Bernie finally ends his campaign, I expect the Democrats will shift into overdrive to run-up the score. Obama is going to be campaigning hard, as are Michelle, Bill, Joe and Jill, etc.

It's hard for me to see a large number who supported Obama voting Libertarian. Any she loses to them will be made up by larger numbers of Latinos and similar ethnic groups who fear a Trump victory (for good reasons, as do we all (except MM perhaps)).

People like backing a winner. Hillary is going to win, it's going to be clear very early, and that will help build her coattails.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.
New That's a bit of a mischaracterization.
Do I fear a Trump presidency will be bad for most Americans? Of course. Do I *know* a Clinton presidency will be bad for most Americans? Of course.

Do I have thick enough colored glasses to suggest one will be substantially worse than the other? No, I don't. The truth is I don't really know which would be worse and neither does anyone else at this point.

For example, do you think either of them will end the program of assassinations by drone? Do you think either of them will pardon Snowden or end the NSA's surveillance of US citizens? How about destroy the records they already have? Do you think either of them will draw down troops in the ME (honestly, Trump might, but who knows)? Do you think either of them will kill the TPP (again, maybe Trump will, but who knows)? Do you think either of them will try do anything about wealth inequality (if you're tempted to say "Hillary will try" remind yourself what her husband did to accelerate the polarization of wealth in the first place)?

There are a ton of places where their policies will be identical.
New Your privledge is showing.
For example, do you think either of them will end the program of assassinations by drone? Do you think either of them will pardon Snowden or end the NSA's surveillance of US citizens? How about destroy the records they already have? Do you think either of them will draw down troops in the ME (honestly, Trump might, but who knows)? Do you think either of them will kill the TPP (again, maybe Trump will, but who knows)? Do you think either of them will try do anything about wealth inequality (if you're tempted to say "Hillary will try" remind yourself what her husband did to accelerate the polarization of wealth in the first place)?


I'll see if I can find the time to address the others, but I'll start with the first one.

How are armed drones more of a problem than any other bomb delivery technology? NY Times:

Perhaps the toughest question came last, from a third-year law student who accused the administration of conducting drone strikes that kill some innocent people without proper legal oversight.

Mr. Obama took 10 minutes to answer what he called a “fair” question. He said drone strikes in the first two years of his administration had been carried out with an insufficient “overarching structure.” But he said his administration had since put in place more oversight and a more rigorous decision-making process.

“Part of my job as president is to figure out how I can keep America safe doing the least damage possible in really tough, bad situations,” he said. “And I don’t have the luxury of just not doing anything and then being able to stand back and feel as if my conscience is clear.”

He said he wished he “could just send in Ironman,” and then quickly added that he did not mean that as a joke. He said that he hoped “that the tragedy of war, conflict, terrorism, etc., did not end up” leading the United States to use force in ways that hurt innocent people.

But he said that Hollywood and the popular media had unfairly described drone operators as people who were “irresponsible or bloodless and are going around blowing up children — that’s just not the case.”


The summary really doesn't do his answer justice. WH.gov:

[...]

And so slowly we are pushing it in that direction. My hope is, is that by the time I leave office there is not only an internal structure in place that governs these standards that we’ve set, but there is also an institutionalized process whereby the actions that the U.S. government takes through drone technology are consistently reported on, on an annualized basis so that people can look.

And the reason this is really important to me -- and this was implied in your question -- is there is a lot of misinformation about this. There is no doubt -- and I said this in an interview I think recently -- there is no doubt that some innocent people have been killed by drone strikes. It is not true that it has been this sort of willy-nilly, let’s bomb a village. That is not how folks have operated. And what I can say with great certainty is that the rate of civilian casualties in any drone operation are far lower than the rate of civilian casualties that occur in conventional war.

So the irony -- let’s take an example like the bin Laden raid. This was as precise, as effective an operation that I don't think anybody would dispute was in the national security interests of the United States. And we put our best people in there who operate as precisely and as effectively as any group of individuals probably ever have in the history of the planet. And they executed their mission flawlessly. But there were a number of people who were killed in that who you might describe as not the targets of the mission -- members of bin Laden’s family, for example. Now, that would be counted as a civilian casualty under the standards from which you drew your information. And if you calculated it as a percent, there was actually a pretty high civilian casualty rate for this extraordinarily precise mission.

Now, imagine during the height of the Iraq war, or when we were still actively fighting in Afghanistan, the number of civilians who were killed in normal military operations. We talk about the number of U.S. troops that were killed in Iraq. The number of Iraqis that were killed -- primarily by AQI and those we were fighting, but also by U.S. military that was trying to be as careful as possible in chaotic situations, like Fallujah or Ramadi -- were in the tens of thousands.

So part of my job as President is to figure out how I can keep America safe doing the least damage possible in really tough, bad situations. And I don't have the luxury of just not doing anything and then being able to stand back and feel as if my conscience is completely clear. I have to make decisions because there are folks out there who are genuinely trying to kill us and would be happy to blow up this entire room without any compunction, and are actively trying to find ways to do it.

And I wish I could just send in Iron Man -- (laughter) -- no, no, I don't mean that as a joke. I just mean I wish that the tragedy of war, conflict, terrorism, et cetera, did not end up creating circumstances where we, wielding kinetic power, don't end up hurting anybody who shouldn’t have been hurt.

But what I try to do is to set up the system as best as I can. And I think it is very important for those who are critics of the U.S. government -- and this includes folks on the outside -- to examine the incredible progress that we've made over the course of a couple of decades. Because this conversation didn't even exist, it did not even cross the minds of people in the White House as recently as 30 or 40 years ago. I mean, it wasn’t even a factor. And we anguish over this in a very serious way.

But what I do think is a legitimate concern is, is that the transparency issues. I think that the way that this got built up through our intelligence and what’s called our Title 50 programs meant that it did not -- it wasn’t subject to the same amount of democratic debate as when we are conducting what are called Title 10 Department of Defense conventional operations. And that's done a disservice not only to the public being able to examine where we made mistakes and create corrective action, it’s actually also done a disservice to the incredibly dedicated men and women in intelligence and in operations who perform these operations who are subject to accusations that somehow they're irresponsible and bloodless and going around blowing up children, which is not the case.

And our popular media I think has been able to just project a whole bunch of scenarios that are generally not accurate.

I guess I should stop there. (Laughter.) But thank you for the question. It was a legitimate one.


Remote controlled aircraft aren't going away.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New You might want to review this as well.
New Anything in particular?
New Well, that beats the Donald's "Because I said so!"
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New I meant, is there anything in particular there that you want to talk about?
The topic is huge enough as it is. Help me out here.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Who can countermand a Kill Order issued by the President?
New Someone has to decide those things. The President decides with the input of others.
Who could countermand Truman's order to bomb Hiroshima?

Cheers,
Scott.
New Good Grief. You support that decision, too? Wow.
New (sigh)
New "Supreme Court"
If you want the next justices picked by The Heritage Foundation, vote Trump.

The Supreme Court is the single greatest way a president can affect the course of events for decades to come.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Yup.
New How much worse can they be than "Pro-Citizens United, Pro-Gitmo" Garland?
New Quite a bit.
Scalia. Don't be disingenuous. The progressive causes you claim to support would take quite a hit with 3 new Scalias on the court. Garland was proposed because Obama wanted to fill the slot. Once the election is over that calculus changes considerably.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New [head slap] Now I get it
I finally know what's so maddening about your arguments. You keep pointing out things that you believe Hillary won't do any differently than the status quo - or than Trump. But you consistently ignore all the things she clearly would do differently.
--

Drew
New with crooked hillary you know exactly what you will get
whatever is left over
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New The most qualified, most stringently vetted, and smartest candidate this cycle. HTH.
New yeah, pretty sad isn't it, feebs are not quite finished with vetting her tho
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New Heh. There's nothing there either.
New I'll bite.
What new revolutionary policies would HRC introduce as president that would in any way eliminate the ill effects of the policies her husband created?
New Purity kills.
Rather than beating up on Hillary so much, why not tell us, specifically, how Bernie (or anyone else you plan on voting for) would actually be better. How he would get any of the things he supports actually passed into law? Assume whatever composition of Congress and the Courts you like. Tell us how it happens.

Magical thinking isn't going to make things better.

Tell us how this better world you want actually happens.

Hillary has mapped out her proposals in detail. Bernie (and Jill, and Donnie) haven't. If I'm wrong, point me to their specific proposals and tell me how they get implemented.

If your answer is, "nothing I like is going to get passed into law anyway", then shouldn't your vote be based on the least-worst candidate in the fall? If that is the case, then how on earth can you not vote for Hillary. In what conceivable way is Trump (or 3rd party which == Trump) less worse than Hillary?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Gotta linky for you.
New Lots of slogans there.
https://berniesanders.com/issues/its-time-to-make-college-tuition-free-and-debt-free/

The Sanders plan would make tuition free at public colleges and universities throughout the country.


How.

Saying "it's fully paid for by a tax on Wall Street speculation" is fine, but there are lots of details that he glosses over. Martin works for one of the California university systems:

I agree with the 2-year free tuition without reservation. That’s a no-brainer because the system exists to serve the entire population, just as K-12 does, and is built out for that scale.

But the ‘give this out for free because it will lead to higher tax revenue’ can cut a lot of ways, many of which only make income inequality worse. The trap I think most people on the left fall into is that services which are available to all are a lot easier to broadly subsidize because they don’t have other social structures denying access for people of color, poor, etc. But a lot of the world doesn’t work that way.

Unlike 2 year schools, we don’t have enough room at 4 year schools for everyone and so we have this application and selection process that doesn’t exist at the 2-year level. That process discriminates. I know it discriminates because I’m part of the process and the whole point of choosing these students to attend your institution but not those students is to discriminate against one group in favor of another. We try to do it ‘right’ and ‘fair’ but it’s impossible. There are entire demographic groups that we know are at a disadvantage. When you subsidize these institutions, you are now magnifying that discrimination by making it easier for those people who are on the winning side of the discrimination to take those opportunities. And the catch-22 then with making 4-year schools cheaper is that it likely won’t result in more seats being made available. And that’s the bigger problem – as bad off as the students with $25K in loans is, the student with no loans because they couldn’t go to college because there were no seats is infinitely worse off.

Before we talk about free public universities, the feds should work out a plan with the states to expand the public universities. Adding seats will have a similar effect on costs, but will spread the benefit of the education across a larger population. Once the 4 year schools are truly open to everyone, then you knock the costs down.

Alternatively, you tie tuition and taxation directly back to the institution. If the institutions got 5% of your income every year for 20 years rather than tuition up-front, they would be directly motivated to expand and improve your prospects (or better yet, for 25 years after you start, to motivate them to graduate you quickly). You’d have a system which would be virtuous, where the decision to add capacity could be easily calculated and decided upon, and where nobody would have to put money up-front. If we truly believe that more college lifts all boats, then put your money where your mouth is and fund it in that manner.


(Emphasis added.)

Bernie has lots of great slogans, but he doesn't understand enough about the real world and how to get to the actual best benefit. He has made up his mind about the solution to the problems he see but doesn't understand the systems well enough not to screw things up if he actually had a chance to make changes.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I'll see your "real world" and raise my own personal experience.
California State Universities DID NOT CHARGE TUITION to California residents when I graduated from high school. I believe, but am not certain because I wasn't there, that tuition charges began after California elected the Duke as governor in the 80's. As Chomsky points out in "Requiem for the American Dream", we are a HELL of lot more wealthy as a nation in 2016 than we were in 1977 and yet, what we could "afford in the real world" some 39 years ago is impossible now - if you and the "New Democrats" are to be believed. And you accuse my side of "pie in the sky" and being unrealistic?

Reading your posts is beginning to remind me of a book by the late Robert Lekachman about Reaganomics. It was titled "Greed is Not Enough" and in it he gives a nutshell version of that economic theory. Mind, that is the economic theory embraced by the "New Democrats" and the one that has been choking the middle class since its introduction. The basic philosophy, he wrote, is "I got mine, now you go get yours."

You don't want to even entertain the idea that we are in a better position now to extend the benefits and opportunities that I and everyone of my generation enjoyed to the next generation. But the truth is we can accomplish that if only we abandon the failed policies of the Republican Party and their kissing cousins, the New Democrats.

You (and Rand) seem to be arguing that we cannot tack left back toward the center because, "Trump will be much worse." I call B.S. Even Eisenhower said anyone who does not support New Deal policies has no business in our political system. Opposing Progressive policies *that were in place* in the 1970's is not only anti-Democrat, it is Un-American. I don't care what rationalization you offer for rejecting any attempt to return this nation's domestic policy to sanity - even the idiotic "But Trump will be much worse" which appears to be your only argument for voting for Hillary in November. I sure as heck don't see Hillary making any noise about the re-institution of those policies and there is absolutely nothing in her past or current rhetoric to suggest that she will even try to return sanity to our domestic policy. I can't really fault her for that since her husband did so much to dismantle any Progressive policy he encountered and she readily concedes that her political beliefs are, "rooted in the conservatism I[she] was raised with."
New My Dad paid very little for college too.
Martin can be abrasive about explaining things, but he makes a good point.

Yes, we have lots of money as a country, and yes we don't spend as much as we should on education. Those who do go on to college these days spend lots and lots of money that their parents didn't have to spend. I remember spending 10 years paying off my student loans, also too.

But how do we get back to having students spend little or nothing on their college education? Does it even make sense (right now) to make college tuition "free"?

Bernie, and apparently you, believe that the problem will be solved by taxing Wall Street and (missing step 2) so that tuition is "free" for their 4 year education.

Martin says that that won't work the way you think, and I think he's in a position to know (or at least know better than Bernie).

If college is suddenly free, what do you suppose will happen to the demand for slots? I'm willing to bet that the demand will go up - way, way up. But there won't be any more slots available (at least not for a while. Lack of facilities, lack of instructors, etc., etc.). So what happens then?

Colleges will get more selective. Prices will go up. Does Bernie then raise even more tax money from Wall Street? What will prevent colleges and universities from raising their budgets too much in an attempt to turn themselves into premium brands?

What happens to people who would have been admitted under the previous system, with less competition, now? They could get free tuition, but they can't get a slot. Do they try to get into a private school instead - which is also more expensive due to increased competition? Do they go to community college to try to increase their chances next year? Do they move and try to qualify for in-state tuition somewhere else?

What does Hillary say?

Here’s what every student and family should expect under Hillary’s plan:

Costs won't be a barrier.

Students should never have to borrow to pay for tuition, books, and fees to attend a four-year public college in their state under the New College Compact. Pell Grants are not included in the calculation of no-debt-tuition, so Pell recipients will be able to use their grants fully for living expenses. Students at community college will receive free tuition.

* Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week.

* Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.

* The federal government will make a major investment in the New College Compact by providing grants to states that commit to these goals, and by cutting interest rates on loans.

* States will have to step up and meet their obligation to invest in higher education by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.

* Colleges and universities will be accountable for improving outcomes and controlling costs to ensure that tuition is affordable and that students who invest in college leave with a degree.

* We will encourage innovators who design imaginative new ways of providing a valuable college education to students—while cracking down on abusive practices that burden students with debt without value.

* A $25 billion fund will support HBCUs, HSIs, and other MSIs serving a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients to help lower the cost of attendance and improve student outcomes at low-cost, modest-endowment nonprofit private schools.


Which plan sounds like it will actually address the affordability of college and the need to have slots for students? Which plan actually recognizes that education is still mainly a state responsibility? Which plan recognizes that minority access to college needs a special emphasis?

Which plan is actually going to help achieve the goal we (probably) both share? Getting more people in college independent of their ability to pay and making sure they're not tens of thousands of dollars in the hole before they even are able to get out on their own.

You're free to keep picturing this political contest as a battle between the Pure and Noble Bernie and the Hideous Evil Hillary, but if you step back and look at actual results rather than rhetoric you might come to a different conclusion.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Her position is, more or less, status quo.
First, "Colleges will get more selective." => "Prices will go up" is not at all obvious to me. How would they? If the number of seats remain constant, the only possible costs that could go up is in the screening of applicants. A lot of that can be (and already is) automated. These "additional costs" that will have to be made up somewhere do not necessarily have to be made up by charging tuition. They could be made up in application fees, for instance.

Second, "tuition free" => "everyone could/should go to college" is equally unclear to me. The premise of your point above implies that not everyone will. Nor should they. Have you tried to find a tool and die person lately? Reagan took the "destroy the union movement" to new heights in this country when he fired PATCO workers. Nevermind that the year following that decision was the worst year in the history of commercial aviation for deaths. That's okay, because we broke the backs of unions. Reinvigorating the Union Movement in this country would go a long way toward building a future for the great majority of people who cannot make it through a college curriculum. We need those people, too. We just haven't valued them equally in the past 35 years. But that works only if we don't pull anymore stupid tricks for the Wall Street masters in the form of NAFTA, CAFTA and the TPP. We need to pull out of all of those so that meaningful, rewarding jobs not involving a college degree can remain here in the United States.

Your implication that "free tuition" => "everyone has a right to go to college" is fundamentally flawed. That was never the case. Not even when California had "free tuition" for its residents (BTW, the Junior colleges were absolutely free back then - I paid $12 a semester for a parking permit and library card, neither of which was required). You could literally earn your R.N., for example, back then and have spent nothing on tuition to do so.

"Free tuition" != "Open admissions." I've never advocated for open admissions, although I'm not ignorant of how beneficial that could be. It's my understanding that in at least one European nation if you want to go to medical school you can. But after your first year, only the top students are allowed to continue. That seems a better way to restrict the medical school student population to only those who can actually succeed in completing the curriculum than bubble tests like MCAT. But that, as they say, is a different issue entirely.

One thing I believe our Presidents should do is inspire us to force our reach to exceed our grasp. We haven't had such a president in a long time. We walked on the moon on July 20, 1969, within 9 years of getting our first man in space. NASA now says we'll need 15 years to go back. This country is absurd.
New Re: Her position is, more or less, status quo.
Only if you redefine what "status quo" means. ;-p

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/etc/ucb.html

In the late 1950s, California's population was growing by 500,000 people a year. Kerr foresaw massive growth in the state's higher education system, and convened a series of committees to draft a plan to deal with that growth. The members of the groups were weighted to favor the University of California's interests over those of the state colleges (which later became the California State University system), which Kerr saw as a threat to the university system's elite status.

The result was a plan that almost entirely limited the state colleges from granting Ph.D degrees, thus setting up a two-tier educational system. The University of California schools would continue to be the main research institutions in the state, attracting better faculty and more qualified students, while the state colleges would provide the public service of a college education for anyone who wanted it. Most importantly, the plan tightened admissions requirements for the university system, admitting only the top 12.5 percent of the state's high school graduates.

In 1964, at the peak of the civil rights movement, Berkeley instituted its Education Opportunity Program to bring in more students from disadvantaged minority groups. Under the master plan, the university could select up to two percent of its incoming freshman from the pool of applicants who did not meet its eligibility requirements. Though this loophole was probably added to the plan to allow the schools to stay athletically competitive, Berkeley partially used it to admit low-income and minority students that otherwise wouldn't have been accepted.


If something is "free" then there has to be a selection process - glad you agree. There's not enough capacity to admit everyone, or even more than a small fraction of the increased demand.

When capacity is limited and demand increases, prices go up. Why? Because schools will have to work harder to meet the increased demand. Underpaid adjuncts who are working even harder look for greener pastures or demand higher wages. Facilities that are running near capacity need to expand. More amenities are demanded to get the higher-quality students to attend your particular school than the school on the other side of the city.

Without a process to address the increased demand in a sensible way, minorities, the poor, etc., would be shut out by a system that made college tuition "free".

Look at this from your own perspective. If you suddenly had access to $20k a year for 4 years, wouldn't it open up the range of choices you could make? Wouldn't you be more demanding than if you had to scrimp and scratch and compromise about all the various contraints of what you could do? "We'll I really want to go to XYZ State because they have a better program and I'd have better job prospects, but ABC State offered me a bigger scholarship..." On a larger scale, it would be Darwinism on steroids. XYZ State would get bigger, ABC State would shrink. That's not what you want when XYZ State isn't paying the bills.

Bernie's plan isn't well thought out, it wouldn't work, and it would be a disaster if it were somehow implemented now.

Once Hillary's plan is implemented and there's a sensible transition to increased capacity to address the increased demand, then you can start talking about reducing tuition costs.

HTH.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I can't agree.
I think it's easier to make the case that we have too much capacity right now. My youngest graduated from IU last December, but I remember going on her campus visit with her and what the then "Junior" leading the tour said as she was describing the variety of courses that were available at IU. She said, "For instance, I needed a history credit, so I took 'History of the Beatles' and that satisfied one of my general education history requirements." I said, "That was a junior level history course? (she'd mentioned the course number and I cannot recall right now what it was, but it started with a 3)" She said, "Yes, it is." The fellow father standing beside me said, "And we're paying for this nonsense." I wholeheartedly agreed with him. Take a look at some of the "majors" you can work toward at IU these days:

Apparel Merchandising, Bachelor of Science
Arts Management, Bachelor of Science
Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Bachelor of Science
Fashion Design, Bachelor of Arts
Game Design, Bachelor of Science
Gender Studies, Bachelor of Arts
Interior Design, Bachelor of Science
Outdoor Recreation and Resource Management, Bachelor of Science
Real Estate, Bachelor of Science
Sports Communication—Print, Bachelor of Science
Sports Communication—Broadcasting, Bachelor of Science
Sport Marketing and Management, Bachelor of Science
Visual Arts Education, Bachelor of Science

https://www.indiana.edu/academics/degrees-majors/?
degree_title=Bachelor%27s%20degrees

Are you kidding me? We *need* universities to teach these subjects? Let alone the fact that you can actually receive an undergraduate degree in this nonsense. The problem with idea that "Everyone has to be able to go to college" is that it leads inevitably to this sort of nonsense. If everyone gets to go to college, then you have to come up with majors that everyone can get through. That's not the solution and its not what "free tuition" means. What "free tuition" means is that your best educated folks are not graduating owing their souls to Wall Street. Having society's brightest going to college is a positive for society and the profiteering of those educations by the criminal class on Wall Street should not be tolerated.
New It's not the major that's most important, its that they learn how to learn.
College is mostly about learning how to teach yourself new things, learning how to express yourself clearly to others, learning how to interact with and appropriately consider the opinions of others. The major is the icing on the cake.

I don't use my knowledge of how to type up Hollerith cards too much any more. Most of the specialty knowledge picked up in college becomes obsolete very quickly (especially these days).

BS in Games Design Requirements. It doesn't look like they sit around and play Fallout 4 all day...

Don't get hung-up over the names.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.
New So it's not a bug, It's a feature
You've gone from "college should be free" to "college should be free for the people who should be going ."

So who gets to decide who should go to college?

Oh, and since we *haven't* repealed NAFTA/CAFTA/TPP and rebuilt our manufacturing sector yet, what do we tell all those "other people" to do now that we've closed them out of college?
--

Drew
New When did I ever say, "Everyone should go to college?"
It's been a popular notion for several decades and is the reason for the sprouting of diploma mills (Evergreen University, Grand Canyon University, UoP Online, etc.) all over the place. We only need those mills if we accept the premise that "Everyone should go to college and get a degree." That's plainly false. Prior to the "Third Way New Democrats", the Democratic Party used to take the position that learning a trade in a Union shop was an *equal* way of climbing the economic ladder.

I've already answered above, but I'll quote myself here, "Reinvigorating the Union Movement in this country would go a long way toward building a future for the great majority of people who cannot make it through a college curriculum. We need those people, too. We just haven't valued them equally in the past 35 years. But that works only if we don't pull anymore stupid tricks for the Wall Street masters in the form of NAFTA, CAFTA and the TPP. We need to pull out of all of those so that meaningful, rewarding jobs not involving a college degree can remain here in the United States."

And "Who decides?" are the same as its always been: admissions committees.
Expand Edited by mmoffitt May 26, 2016, 09:36:41 AM EDT
New And how do we get there?
Trades should be valued. We should have a strong manufacturing sector.

But we don't. And the jobs that are left, it's hard to get in the door without some kind of diploma.

So until trades are valued again, what do you think will happen if we "fix" education funding first?
--

Drew
New Let's not over-state problems in US manufacturing.
(summarizing info from several sites)

1) China passed the US as the largest manufacturing economy in 2010. US is still #2.
2) China is expected to fall from #1, with the US again taking that spot, in 2020.
3) Manufacturing employment has been falling worldwide since 1990 (or earlier).
4) Ranking of manufacturing are usually done by "value added". That ranking is hard to do because it depends on things like relative values of the currencies converted back into dollars.

Industry Week

1. United States

By 2020 the U.S will overtake China to earn the top spot for the most competitive nation in the world.

The reason for this ranking, according to Deloitte and the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, is due the country’s investment in research, technology, and innovation.
“Manufacturing competitiveness, increasingly propelled by advanced technologies, is converging the digital and physical worlds, within and beyond the factory to both customers and suppliers, creating a highly responsive, innovative, and competitive global manufacturing landscape,” says Craig Giffi, co-author of the report.


Yes, the US relative ranking has fallen a lot since the 1960s, but we're still a monster in worldwide manufacturing.

NAM - Top 20 Facts About Manufacturing

Cheers,
Scott.
New "Advanced technologies" usually means "fewer workers"
That's why our productivity is through the roof, but wages are stagnant.
--

Drew
New Yup. But wages being stagnant is a choice.
Lots of things went together to prevent workers not getting their usual slice of the pie. The gutting of unions and pensions, the mantra that inflation is always bad, the cult of the MBA and short-term thinking, the worship of finance, the nickle and dime-ing of the bottom 50% of the population via 20+% interest rates for unsecured credit, the lack of control of healthcare costs and the pushing of the increases onto the workers, the lack of paid overtime, paid sick leave, and onerous restrictions on vacation and personal time, etc., etc.

Getting better at making stuff via increased automation is a good thing. The problem is we haven't been investing enough in new products and new industries to take the workers that are no longer needed in the mature/maturing industries. Where are our flying cars? Bullet trains? Personal transportation gizmos that let us commute to work without dragging 2 tons of steel around? New types of houses that are more efficient and less costly than the 3000+ sq ft McMansion in the suburbs? 21st century water and sewer plants? River scrubbers to clean up phosphates, excess nitrogen, 100 year old toxic waste, etc., etc.?

Stagnant wages were a choice that our leaders (in industry and government) made. It didn't have to be that way. It still doesn't.

Cheers,
Scott.
New Hold on to your hat.
I am in *complete* agreement with your post.

Not to spoil the moment, but I don't think insisting that "everyone goes to college" will do anything to reverse that "choice."
New College is important.
Whether it's a 4 year BA/BS or a 2 year AA/AS, post-high school education is important. The world is more complex, people have to know how to do more with themselves and their lives now than in the past. People need to know how to think for themselves, how to figure out how interest and risk and investments work, how to make informed political choices, etc., etc.

Vocational training doesn't have to be separate from college. The University of Cincinnati is famous for its cooperative education model where college students in engineering, etc., work in companies as part of their education.

It's not either-or, it's both-and.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I'm not so sure.
For instance, we need pipe fitters. Does a pipe fitter need a Western Civilization course at the college level (junior college or 4-year)? College isn't supposed to be "vocational training." The vocational training being done at junior colleges today used to be performed by apprenticeships granted by Union halls. We should do what we can to open more Union halls (so that the wages go up) and have them return to their function of training the next generation of blue collar workers. One way to encourage that is to require all government contracts to be filled by Union shops only. I'll give Obama this much, he encouraged PLA's through an Executive Order, but didn't mandate them. It was a good first step, but insufficient.
New disagree with one statement
One way to encourage that is to require all government contracts to be filled by Union shops only
davis bacon act allows union shops to bid at a comparable cost as non union, because the pay rate matches the union rate. Now I would like davis bacon be applied to IT work as well. That way you dont have multinationals paying $6 an hour to Ukrainian programmers to build the Obama Care website (cough)and pocketing a ton. Good american programmers need the work.
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New "Good american programmers need the work"
I seem to recall from way back when I first began hanging out in these precincts thirteen years ago some discussions about how machinists, assembly line personnel, millworkers et cetera should have seen the inevitability of their jobs going overseas, and ought to have had the good sense to learn code like the smart guys at IWT. When the boys from Bangalore started making off with those gigs, I noticed that the tune shifted to a different key.

cordially,
New There are pipe fitters and there are pipe fitters.
My dad has a pond with a small earthen dam on his property. He needed to lower the level to repair a rusted galvanized overfill-drain pipe. How does one do that cheaply? Make a siphon, right?

Well, making a siphon is actually pretty complex when you're moving a bunch of water. Sizing it can be tricky - you don't want turbulent flow (bubbles will break the vacuum) and you don't want it to be too small (takes too long) or too large (expensive, hard to start for small drops). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rgpRJ1xCeM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLyknJHxGz0 are a couple of decent videos (check the descriptions).

There's lots of interesting physics and math behind figuring out how to move fluids. Reynolds number and so forth.

Copper's too expensive to use in most new houses these days, so plumbers need to understand new types of fittings, how various adhesives work together, what's a safe solder and why, etc. Sure, trade schools can teach that, but knowing the "science" behind the stuff is valuable too, especially with the pace of technological change these days.

Cheers,
Scott.
New huh? drill thru the base of the dam, throw in a pvc pipe $400, plug when water is low enough
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New Is that how the British Navy does it? ;-p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9XEMUfbzN0

You don't go messing around with dams, and you don't do anything to weaken them.

(Yes, I know you were just yanking my chain. ;-)

Cheers,
Scott.
New that is how it should have been built to begin with, a safety valve :-)
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New what a pipe fitter needs
Does a pipe fitter need a Western Civilization course at the college level (junior college or 4-year)?
Will it make him a better pipe fitter? Not necessarily, although it might make him a better human being, and that, I submit, would likely make him a better pipe fitter (one, for example, who regards sound craftsmanship as a good in itself, and not something to be compromised if no one's looking). And a pipe fitter trained in critical thinking and grounded in a humanistic cultural background that allows him to form political opinions based on historical context might be a harder target for a demagogue on the prowl for marks.

There's no guarantee, of course: plenty of educated fools about. But we've raised a couple of generations now on a lewd, violent and trivial popular culture with little effort made to provide a body of coherent countervailing influences, and few people, including the products of that pedagogic malign neglect, appear altogether happy with the outcome. I recently came across a piece, opening a forum on "What is Education For?" that included these lines:
To make judgments about the course of human events and our government’s role in them, we need history, anthropology, cultural studies, economics, political science, sociology, and psychology, not to mention math—especially the statistical reasoning necessary for probabilistic judgment—and science, as governmental policy naturally intersects with scientific questions. If we are to decide on the core principles that should orient our judgments about what will bring about safety and happiness, surely we need philosophy, literature, and religion or its history. Then, since the democratic citizen does not make or execute judgments alone, we need the arts of conversation, eloquence, and prophetic speech. Preparing ourselves to exercise these arts takes us again to literature and to the visual arts, film, and music.

In other words, we need the liberal arts. They were called the free person’s arts for a reason.
The essay can be found here.

cordially,
New Emphasis on "college level".
That wasn't loose talk. I do not disagree that "we need liberal arts" for much the same reasons you cite. However, I think you'll agree that taking a U.S. History course in college is a different exercise than taking a U.S. History course (even properly taught - if such still exists) in high school. Going back to "what we can afford now that we're richer", in the 1960's and 1970's, elementary school children were afforded the opportunity to learn violin, viola, cello and bass beginning in the fourth grade. By junior high school, beginning orchestra students (of which I was one) were provided those instruments by the school itself. But not everyone was capable of playing in the college orchestra. That doesn't mean there was no value in making it possible for everyone to be exposed to classical music in their K-12 educations.

I remain *stunned* that entire school systems where I live now have no orchestras of any type. The arts, foreign languages, literature, etc. are all necessary for all citizens. As are math and science (personal bias aside). I know I'll be called an elitist for this, but it's my position that not everyone is capable of success in the study of those topics at a true college level. My position on this can pretty much be summed up as: Give them decent K-12 educations, do not infect our institutions of higher learning with vocational training and allow the people who are actually performing the tasks of a given vocation to provide that training.

I didn't go to college (or grad school for that matter) to be trained. I went for the opportunity to educate myself.
New No disagreement
...although I wonder at the use of the word "infect" in "do not infect our institutions of higher learning with vocational training." I don't see a necessary conflict there (and indeed, aren't the professional schools such as law and medicine themselves forms of vocational training?). Among the many regrets I have when I consider my line-of-least-resistance progress through college, a period in which I lazily exploited my existing strengths and made little effort to cultivate new ones, is that I passed up the opportunity to learn the craft of traditional letterpress printing under William Everson, even though I had already formed a nascent interest in typography.

I remain grateful to my parents, both of whom felt bad about not having extended their own formal schooling past the end of high school, for imparting to their children something of their intellectual yearnings and, yes, their cultural pretensions: I don't think they really appreciated classical music, but they thought it was the sort of thing that was appreciated in the circles to which they aspired, and so we absorbed a great deal of it growing up—and it stuck to our ribs.

cordially,
New This isn't chicken and egg, though
People go to college because that's a requirement in the current economy. You've explained really well why it shouldn't be a requirement, but that's where we are. You can't just cut funding and restrict access to college first. You have to fix the economy so that college is no longer required.
--

Drew
New dunno, did you have to pay a plumber or mechanic lately?
were they US born and raised?
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
New Don't know if this is still valid...
In the late 60's early 70's, GM had apprenticeship programs.You worked for a dealer at lower rate (depends on the situation) and went to GM training center one day a week. I got into it sort of accidentally; the old man who ran the body shop took a liking to me and felt I did good work, so he took me under his wing and one thing led to another.I was expecting to be drafted so I was living a day at a time anyway. Turns out that being in a GM program is "essential for the defense of the country" so I got the same (possibly better) deferment as the college guys. I didn't end up going to Case until I was 30. Had fun doing body work and painting for a while.
Point is: we DID have a mechanism for building trades. Don't know if it's still intact though.
"Religion, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable."
~ AMBROSE BIERCE
(1842-1914)
New Jeez, I didn't even see Trump University in the list! :)
Alex

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

-- Isaac Asimov
New Mea Culpa. I actually intended to include that one. ;0)
New Show me where Bernie says most people shouldn't go to college
You really can't talk about cost or access, and compare it to the 60s and 70s, without addressing the fact that college attendance has gone from less than 45% of high school graduates to over 70%.

Schools are responding to the demand and prices reflect that. But most jobs don't need college. What's his plan to fix that?
--

Drew
New put money back into highschool shops and union apprenticeships
always look out for number one and don't step in number two
     The "None of the Above" candidate. - (a6l6e6x) - (60)
         Democrats are more likely to go Green party -NT - (malraux) - (2)
             Well, Bill Weld was/is a rare specie known as a Moderate Republican. - (a6l6e6x)
             It isn't easy being Green - (rcareaga)
         Dunno. - (Another Scott) - (56)
             That's a bit of a mischaracterization. - (mmoffitt) - (55)
                 Your privledge is showing. - (Another Scott) - (9)
                     You might want to review this as well. - (mmoffitt) - (8)
                         Anything in particular? -NT - (Another Scott) - (7)
                             Is this okay? - (mmoffitt) - (6)
                                 Well, that beats the Donald's "Because I said so!" -NT - (a6l6e6x)
                                 I meant, is there anything in particular there that you want to talk about? - (Another Scott) - (4)
                                     Who can countermand a Kill Order issued by the President? -NT - (mmoffitt) - (3)
                                         Someone has to decide those things. The President decides with the input of others. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                             Good Grief. You support that decision, too? Wow. -NT - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                                 (sigh) -NT - (Another Scott)
                 "Supreme Court" - (malraux) - (3)
                     Yup. -NT - (Another Scott)
                     How much worse can they be than "Pro-Citizens United, Pro-Gitmo" Garland? -NT - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                         Quite a bit. - (malraux)
                 [head slap] Now I get it - (drook) - (40)
                     with crooked hillary you know exactly what you will get - (boxley) - (3)
                         The most qualified, most stringently vetted, and smartest candidate this cycle. HTH. -NT - (Another Scott) - (2)
                             yeah, pretty sad isn't it, feebs are not quite finished with vetting her tho -NT - (boxley) - (1)
                                 Heh. There's nothing there either. -NT - (Another Scott)
                     I'll bite. - (mmoffitt) - (35)
                         Purity kills. - (Another Scott) - (34)
                             Gotta linky for you. - (mmoffitt) - (33)
                                 Lots of slogans there. - (Another Scott) - (32)
                                     I'll see your "real world" and raise my own personal experience. - (mmoffitt) - (31)
                                         My Dad paid very little for college too. - (Another Scott) - (28)
                                             Her position is, more or less, status quo. - (mmoffitt) - (27)
                                                 Re: Her position is, more or less, status quo. - (Another Scott) - (26)
                                                     I can't agree. - (mmoffitt) - (25)
                                                         It's not the major that's most important, its that they learn how to learn. - (Another Scott)
                                                         So it's not a bug, It's a feature - (drook) - (21)
                                                             When did I ever say, "Everyone should go to college?" - (mmoffitt) - (20)
                                                                 And how do we get there? - (drook) - (19)
                                                                     Let's not over-state problems in US manufacturing. - (Another Scott) - (16)
                                                                         "Advanced technologies" usually means "fewer workers" - (drook) - (15)
                                                                             Yup. But wages being stagnant is a choice. - (Another Scott) - (13)
                                                                                 Hold on to your hat. - (mmoffitt) - (11)
                                                                                     College is important. - (Another Scott) - (10)
                                                                                         I'm not so sure. - (mmoffitt) - (9)
                                                                                             disagree with one statement - (boxley) - (1)
                                                                                                 "Good american programmers need the work" - (rcareaga)
                                                                                             There are pipe fitters and there are pipe fitters. - (Another Scott) - (3)
                                                                                                 huh? drill thru the base of the dam, throw in a pvc pipe $400, plug when water is low enough -NT - (boxley) - (2)
                                                                                                     Is that how the British Navy does it? ;-p - (Another Scott) - (1)
                                                                                                         that is how it should have been built to begin with, a safety valve :-) -NT - (boxley)
                                                                                             what a pipe fitter needs - (rcareaga) - (2)
                                                                                                 Emphasis on "college level". - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                                                                                     No disagreement - (rcareaga)
                                                                                 This isn't chicken and egg, though - (drook)
                                                                             dunno, did you have to pay a plumber or mechanic lately? - (boxley)
                                                                     Don't know if this is still valid... - (hnick) - (1)
                                                                         GMI, also too. It was spun off in the 1990s. - (Another Scott)
                                                         Jeez, I didn't even see Trump University in the list! :) -NT - (a6l6e6x) - (1)
                                                             Mea Culpa. I actually intended to include that one. ;0) -NT - (mmoffitt)
                                         Show me where Bernie says most people shouldn't go to college - (drook) - (1)
                                             put money back into highschool shops and union apprenticeships -NT - (boxley)

When?
168 ms