TED Talks -- Economics

[saxitoxin]

and yes, I do know about wars... but were they really caused by the government

yes

That's how it used to be. Today, more and more middle class kids cannot even afford college.

They've resorted to shoplifting college, apparently.


http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/ ... 07_008.asp

[InkL0sed]

To be fair, I didn't actually watch the whole thing. At the start he said "occasionally I go out to eat with friends."

Honey, by the looks of it you're going out to eat a lot more than occasionally.

If someone is going to make such a blatant lie as that I can't be bothered to sit through the next five minutes.

This is reportable for bigotry. But I won't do it cause I'm a cool guy.

[PLAYER57832]

Nope. That's how it used to be. Today, more and more middle class kids cannot even afford college.. and many of those who graduated cannot pay off the massive debt they incurred. This in a time when US power overall is sliding.

So it's the government's job to pay for everyone to go to college? Maybe it's the college's problem for always raising prices. Or it's the student's fault for getting a useless degree with a bunch of loan money.

You are stretching pretty far here in your attempt to claim anything government is bad and anything private has to be good. Pretty much ignoring reality, in fact.

Education is a fundamenal need. The government is in a much better position to see that real education, as opposed to what seems most profitable for a few company execs today, happens.

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions. That pretty much counters your "argument".

Not every person has to go to college and take on debt if they don't want to. People have to learn how to be responsible for their actions instead of crying to the government to bail them out.

Yeah, everyone should just be born wealthy.. that would solve it all. Anyone not wealthy can just go work at the local supermarket or gas station for minimum wage.

Economically speaking, every dollar invested in a student's education comes back to society, the government many times over. With few exceptions, college graduates pay far more in taxes than they every were given student aid. (the biggest exceptions, again are the many "for profit" institutions.. not all for profits are horrible, but the incidence of failures to graduate, loan defaults and lack of job prospects post graduation in them is much higher than in public and not for profit institutions).

[nietzsche]

First of all, Americans need to understand that they've been brainwashed with the idea that anything that slightly infers that absolute capitalism is not the only real solution is bad and is dangerous and is red and it means Russia won.

It's impossible to actually do some debating with that in the back of the minds of most of you. Seriously, de-educate yourselves.

Fear invokes a state of mind with which those who know can work and implant ideas in your head that you won't have access to erase.

[Night Strike]

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions. That pretty much counters your "argument".

If those institutions are so abusive, then why are people still attending them? You should educate people on why a product is good or bad. If for-profit schools are that bad, then educate people. Also, for-profit schools aren't the only options aside from government schools. For-profit schools have nothing to do with my argument about how it's not the government's job to provide for collegiate education (and how it's not the federal government's job to provide for other education).

Education is a fundamenal need. The government is in a much better position to see that real education, as opposed to what seems most profitable for a few company execs today, happens.

The government already takes care of plenty of general education (and does a pretty poor job of it in most places). If people want to better themselves, it should be their responsibility to find a way to pay for college, trade school, apprenticeship, etc. It's not the government's job.

[saxitoxin]

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions.

very few private universities are for-profit - so few that that they're an anomaly and bizarre to even bring them into the conversation

Of the 10 "best" universities in the U.S., 8 are private (non-profit), 2 are run by your precious warmongering cannibal government you so enthusiastically support as a side-business when it's not busy butchering hundreds of thousands of Arab children for the entertainment of the crowd.

[BigBallinStalin]

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions.

very few private universities are for-profit - so few that that they're an anomaly and bizarre to even bring them into the conversation

Of the 10 "best" universities in the U.S., 8 are private (non-profit), 2 are run by your precious warmongering cannibal government you so enthusiastically support as a side-business when it's not busy butchering hundreds of thousands of Arab children for the entertainment of the crowd.

Oh yeah? And what's wrong with that?

[spurgistan]

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions.

very few private universities are for-profit - so few that that they're an anomaly and bizarre to even bring them into the conversation

Of the 10 "best" universities in the U.S., 8 are private (non-profit), 2 are run by your precious warmongering cannibal government you so enthusiastically support as a side-business when it's not busy butchering hundreds of thousands of Arab children for the entertainment of the crowd.

Just because it's a weird and possibly out-of-context (I didn't read the context) doesn't make it untrue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For-profit_education. For-profit universities (which are not as uncommon as you might think) have an atrocious record of misrepresenting future earnings and debt load, even when you compare them to the terrible record non-profit unis have in that regard. And, even given their low level of penetration into the American college market, for-profits are responsible for a hefty share of government college loans, and related difficulties paying them back.

lolz i no read nothin.

[saxitoxin]

Per the cost bit... the worst abuses, highest amounts of debt and sometimes worst educational outcomes occur in for profit universities, not the government institutions.

very few private universities are for-profit - so few that that they're an anomaly and bizarre to even bring them into the conversation

Of the 10 "best" universities in the U.S., 8 are private (non-profit), 2 are run by your precious warmongering cannibal government you so enthusiastically support as a side-business when it's not busy butchering hundreds of thousands of Arab children for the entertainment of the crowd.

Just because it's a weird and possibly out-of-context (I didn't read the context) doesn't make it untrue.

No one said it was untrue. People were discussing the benefits of private education which - 92% of the time - means private non-profit (e.g. Harvard). That was too difficult of a position for a commenter to argue against so she attached everyone's position to the anomaly of private for-profit education (e.g. DeVry).

To assume that an argument against Government is an argument for Business is intellectually dull.

[spurgistan]

I went and sort of read the context. I retract my objection.