1978 students working min wage were able to pay full yrs tuition at 4 yr public univ

[Zorkorist]

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

-John {George Orwell}

 

[LegendKiller]

Some people would describe the rise of tuition as inflation itself--wherever the government s inflating the currency you see the direct effect in the rise in prices. In the 1950s the average American completed up to the 10th or 11th grade on average before entering the work force and quickly entered the middle class. Today 66.2% of high school graduates are enrolled into college just to avoid working in mcdonalds or Walmart. I'd say the government successfully inflated a college bubble at the cost the currency's purchasing power.

Except that definition of inflation is as moronic as it gets. This is the problem with Libertopians, they fit every square peg into a round hole by repeatedly bashing it into the hole, hoping that it eventually fits. They are too stupid to realize that it won't fit but they keep trying like little 6 month olds. That also happens to be their mental capacity.

 

[schneiderguy]

If you're in college, why the hell are you making minimum wage?

For the first two years of college I made $15/hour tutoring math part time, year round. The last two years I got a summer internship and made almost $15k in twelve weeks both summers, and did a bit of tutoring during the school year. I graduated with zero debt and paid for the whole thing myself.

It sounds like the issue is that people are going to college and not learning useful skills. Or they are stupid and shouldn't be going to college in the first place.

 

[Drako]

I challenge you to find a high school student today, willing to work.

 

[OverVolt]

If you're in college, why the hell are you making minimum wage?

For the first two years of college I made $15/hour tutoring math part time, year round. The last two years I got a summer internship and made almost $15k in twelve weeks both summers, and did a bit of tutoring during the school year. I graduated with zero debt and paid for the whole thing myself.

It sounds like the issue is that people are going to college and not learning useful skills. Or they are stupid and shouldn't be going to college in the first place.

If they had a time machine to whatever year it was you took college when tutoring paid $15/hr than maybe.

 

[Spungo]

Well we certainly don't need to make education cheaper, we just need to make getting a loan for it easier

/s

And thanks to Bush making student loans last your entire life, millions of Americans have little or no hope of ever owning a home. Contrary to what the government thinks, banks do factor in your overall debt load when processing a mortgage application. The bank won't lend you 200k to buy a house when your debt to income is already more than 100%. Banks are not stupid.

Some people would describe the rise of tuition as inflation itself--wherever the government s inflating the currency you see the direct effect in the rise in prices.

Are you seriously arguing that flooding the market with loans causes prices to rise? If what you're saying was true, that giant expansion of credit between 2003 and 2006 would have caused an asset bubble of legendary size that would have eventually collapsed and... oh. That happened?

I can't find any proper liberal or progressive economists to give me the correct answer. All I can find on the internet are libertarian think tanks like the San Francisco Federal Reserve explaining what inflation is:
http://www.frbsf.org/education/publications/doctor-econ/2002/october/inflation-factors-rise

Demand-pull inflation occurs when aggregate demand for goods and services in an economy rises more rapidly than an economy’s productive capacity. One potential shock to aggregate demand might come from a central bank (or government loans) that rapidly increases the supply of money.

Is there any institution the libertarians have not infiltrated? Back when I was in Zimbabwe, our head banker said the inflation was caused by a conspiracy. That sounds a lot more plausible than this insane "too much money" theory.

 

[bryanl]

There's no inflation according to Obama....but us old folks know better.

Unlike you, Obama has actually done something against inflation, in medical costs.

The government should have never guaranteed student loans without limits, and it should have guaranteed them only for public institutions, not private ones.

 

[iGas]

Not any more.

The American Dream is gone.

These minimum wage owners owe $50,000 to the national Debt - Their Politicians. Government Faggots, etc., before they even start trying to make a future for themselves.

-John

Education in Canada getting pretty expensive as well, but I don't think it is anywhere close to the US.

And, each person in the US owe $58,099 in national debt, while Canadian each owe $17,970.

http://www.davemanuel.com/canada-debt-clock.php

In the mean time the US GDP is $16.8 trillion, and owe $17.67 trillion.

 

[LegendKiller]

And thanks to Bush making student loans last your entire life, millions of Americans have little or no hope of ever owning a home. Contrary to what the government thinks, banks do factor in your overall debt load when processing a mortgage application. The bank won't lend you 200k to buy a house when your debt to income is already more than 100%. Banks are not stupid.



Are you seriously arguing that flooding the market with loans causes prices to rise? If what you're saying was true, that giant expansion of credit between 2003 and 2006 would have caused an asset bubble of legendary size that would have eventually collapsed and... oh. That happened?

I can't find any proper liberal or progressive economists to give me the correct answer. All I can find on the internet are libertarian think tanks like the San Francisco Federal Reserve explaining what inflation is:
http://www.frbsf.org/education/publications/doctor-econ/2002/october/inflation-factors-rise

Is there any institution the libertarians have not infiltrated? Back when I was in Zimbabwe, our head banker said the inflation was caused by a conspiracy. That sounds a lot more plausible than this insane "too much money" theory.

Yeah, except that the increase in tuition has been going on since the early 1980s. Thus, the increase in federal loans from 2003 through 2006 cannot explain the increase. Furthermore, the exogenous circumstances, such as decreased state funding, do not matter, correct?

Sure, government loans have a huge influence, but that's not inflation in the terms he is discussing. Furthermore, they do not take into account the private loans which have most assuredly increased the cost. How was this perpetrated? Why, by non-dischargeability! I suppose that is caused by currency also, eh? By the way, I don't suppose that actually caused some of the inflation we have seen, has it? Ohh, most assuredly no.

This is why Libertopians are so fucking stupid. They fail to take into account anything but currency. This makes them myopic and moronic.

 

[OverVolt]

Flooding the market with loans causes prices to rise, yes. Ummm... look at car loans?

 

[CZroe]

Government subsidies and student loans to get "everyone" in school makes education disproportionately more expensive today. No one should assume that minimum wage is supposed to pay enough to put yourself through college in the first place, but today's higher education costs does not mean that minimum wage is too low.

 

[Spungo]

Sure, government loans have a huge influence, but that's not inflation in the terms he is discussing. Furthermore, they do not take into account the private loans which have most assuredly increased the cost. How was this perpetrated? Why, by non-dischargeability! I suppose that is caused by currency also, eh? By the way, I don't suppose that actually caused some of the inflation we have seen, has it? Ohh, most assuredly no.

This is why Libertopians are so fucking stupid. They fail to take into account anything but currency. This makes them myopic and moronic.

You do realize that all loans are currency creation events, correct? This seems to be a common error of Keynesians. Guys like Krugman have been blasted by bankers because they keep saying banks don't matter, and that banks don't create money. This is factually wrong. Loans expand the money supply. Expanding the money supply without increasing economic output leads to inflation. This is why tuition continually rises as interest rates drop and federal loans continually expand. This is why housing near universities is always very expensive. The value of money drops significantly when the supply of it is very high. If you go to a place like rural Mississippi, money is very valuable because there's much less of it.

Yeah, except that the increase in tuition has been going on since the early 1980s.

And can you guess why? Peak interest rate = early 1980s. Interest rates have been falling since then, and just as the Austrians said would happen, the cost of everything has exploded while wages have remained flat.

 

[hal2kilo]

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

-John {George Orwell}

Incrementing post count today?

 

[Sonikku]

Dang. I've got to try that four posts in a row thing. Get me into Lifer in no time.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

I graduated in 1976 and no way could I afford to go to Virginia Tech or UVa making $4/hr. Going to community college would be a struggle making minimum wage unless you lived at home, parents gave you a car/paid the insurance, and provided most meals and clothing.

This was one of the driving forces behind me joining the Navy in 1978 as I knew it was going to be best way for me the learn a trade.

 

[hal2kilo]

I graduated in 1976 and no way could I afford to go to Virginia Tech or UVa making $4/hr. Going to community college would be a struggle making minimum wage unless you lived at home, parents gave you a car/paid the insurance, and provided most meals and clothing.

This was one of the driving forces behind me joining the Navy in 1978 as I knew it was going to be best way for me the learn a trade.

You were in when the Navy had decent training. I've been working around Naval personnel for almost 35 years. The Navy made a conscious decision to cut back on training starting in the 80's. It's quite sad what the level of knowledge of your average sailor is today. There's no more senior leadership that has a clue anymore to pass down their tribal knowledge.
The Navy actually believes that everything can be fixed with procedures without the person having any background knowledge. It's a frigging joke.

Back to my point. Joining the military isn't going to give you any great skills anymore, at least in the Navy.

 

[OutHouse]

I challenge you to find a high school student today, willing to work.

I have 2 of them.

 

[MrCassdin]

No argument that college is seriously expensive now but I'm not sure how changing the min wage will affect this.

I think more kids need to go to trade school. Where I used to live, for a couple thousand bucks you could become a tradesman and earn a decent income - and many cases you could go for free if you could get into a program.

 

[LegendKiller]

You do realize that all loans are currency creation events, correct? This seems to be a common error of Keynesians. Guys like Krugman have been blasted by bankers because they keep saying banks don't matter, and that banks don't create money. This is factually wrong. Loans expand the money supply. Expanding the money supply without increasing economic output leads to inflation. This is why tuition continually rises as interest rates drop and federal loans continually expand. This is why housing near universities is always very expensive. The value of money drops significantly when the supply of it is very high. If you go to a place like rural Mississippi, money is very valuable because there's much less of it.



And can you guess why? Peak interest rate = early 1980s. Interest rates have been falling since then, and just as the Austrians said would happen, the cost of everything has exploded while wages have remained flat.

Really? This is the problem that Libertopians and anti-FRB people have, they think the money multiplier is true. It isn't. If you take all forms of money and applied the money multiplier you would get a much larger actual reserve balance, but you don't. It's because money creation isn't at the banks, it is at the FRB. How? Because banks don't have the same function they did before, most assets are now funded through the hard money investors. Even if you took how much in deposits at JPM and apply the money multiplier, you'd see a far different picture for balance sheet size than you actually see. This is where you are logically wrong.

Where is a car loan funded? Not really at the banks, they are mostly funded in the Securitization market. Where does that get its money? Not the banks, through mutual funds, pensions, and separately managed retirement accounts. That is *real* money, not deposit * reserves = money multiplier. I know because I see that market *every* day.

There are far more reasons for wages not keeping up than rates or money creation.

There is not a single thing Austrians have said, long-term, that has come true. Not a single fucking thing. They keep saying rates will skyrocket, gold will skyrocket...blah blah blah. Why? Because they can't see past their noses at exogenous variables. They just simply say X + Y = Z. However, there are a million other variables in the regression that they cannot get past.

It's why Gundlach runs circles around Austrian theories.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Or college prices have increased because it has become more accessible to people and more people are going requiring larger buildings, more teachers, more cleaning staff, more land, etc etc etc.

Such functions would ultimately drive the cost down, not up. A larger building should cost less per student than smaller ones.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

You were in when the Navy had decent training. I've been working around Naval personnel for almost 35 years. The Navy made a conscious decision to cut back on training starting in the 80's. It's quite sad what the level of knowledge of your average sailor is today. There's no more senior leadership that has a clue anymore to pass down their tribal knowledge.
The Navy actually believes that everything can be fixed with procedures without the person having any background knowledge. It's a frigging joke.

Back to my point. Joining the military isn't going to give you any great skills anymore, at least in the Navy.

I noticed the change during my years of service, when I went through the service schools we were taught to troubleshoot electronic circuits to the component level. I also was taught complex logic diagrams that allowed one to understand how the equipment worked. When I was an advanced school instructor (84-87) I also taught operational theory and component level troubleshooting. By the time I got out in 1990 they had begun teaching blackbox theory (swapping cards vs repairing cards).

 

[who?]

Banks can't loan out money unless they have it from deposits or investments.
Universitys that have 20,000 students get better utilization of classroom space and faculty time than unis with only 16,000 students.

 

[who?]

Modern electronics have so many integrated circuits that you can't change components and changing the IC would cost more for the part and labor than making a new unit on the assembly line and the IC for that model may not be made anymore so just throw it away and buy a new model.
If it doesn't break during the manufacturers warranty period it will probably work fine for years so why keep spare parts on a shelf somewhere?
Under lean six sigma any part that wasn't needed for two years was either sent back to central supply or thrown away because it isn't worth the cost of keeping it on the shelf.

 

[who?]

Why teach military people two years of electronics if they're only in for four years and modern electronics is so reliable it isn't worth equipping everybody with a full bench. If they can figure out which card has the problem the central shop can fix it. This is how the USPS does it.

 

[CZroe]

Modern electronics have so many integrated circuits that you can't change components and changing the IC would cost more for the part and labor than making a new unit on the assembly line and the IC for that model may not be made anymore so just throw it away and buy a new model.
If it doesn't break during the manufacturers warranty period it will probably work fine for years so why keep spare parts on a shelf somewhere?
Under lean six sigma any part that wasn't needed for two years was either sent back to central supply or thrown away because it isn't worth the cost of keeping it on the shelf.

Well, there's plenty of old stuff needs repairin' too. I think you are dead wrong about the modern stuff though.

Also, RoHS has led to tens (hundreds?) of billions of dollars of broken out-of-warranty devices including bad GPUs in notebooks (ATI and nVidia have both had related recalls), XBOX 360s (highly publicized though few know that brittle Pb-free RoHs-compliant solder was to blame), and PS3s (yellow/red light issue).

Electronics are now designed to break. There is no good reason to be using so much glass on phones that are increasingly designed to have limited lives (no expandable storage, built-in battery). I repair several of these a week just from the coworkers, friends, and family I bump into (used to be several a month).

Modern stuff breaks for no good reason. It's an epidemic that has worsened today. All my old consoles from my childhood still work great while only one of my four PS3s work.