For all familiar, the National Inflation Association (NIA) has just released the long awaited documentary entitled, "College Conspiracy." In a nut shell, NIA attempts to expose the dark reality of the educational system in the United States of America. If you are a current college student or perhaps someone thinking of attending college, give this documentary your undivided attention. Although I disagree on certain points, I credit NIA for doing their homework. Well done. Enjoy!
College Conspiracy
For HD quality (and full-screen capabilities), view the documentary on YouTube.
My primary objection to the documentary is that... some professions (absolutely) require college/university degrees - professions in the medical field and positions as a CPA come to mind.
Other than that, NIA hits the nail on the head. A good friend of mine earns 100k a year building websites for a company in DC. He doesn't have a degree of any sort, just a HS diploma. On the other hand, I have friends with master degrees selling cars.
I can only assume NIA is overlooking minor details (while focusing on the big picture).
I would agree, basically. I think colleges are mainly useful for science based careers. Engineering, medicine, etc. My father did get a college degree but he made all his money starting businesses completely unrelated to his degree. meanwhile my mother was a schoolteacher, which requires tons of education and paid a pittance in comparison.
Something lots of low income kids don't realize, either, is that it could actually be cheaper to go to a high-end private college than to a local school due to the large endowments these schools have. as a result most people do not really take advantage of the flaws int he system and instead suffer for it.
The fact is that most jobs are going away in america. the only jobs that are guaranteed to be booming are technical fields; so that's the only occupation you can rely on to repay your college investments.
It's easy to attack a "college" mentality when the economy is suffering so thoroughly. I'd be interested to see numbers about a decade after the economy rebounds to see if the trend continues.
Trades always do well, and require less formal education. But they're also less glamorous so there's less demand, so it makes sense. I've actually been considering one myself.
Colleges themselves are not suffering; on the contrary, they are experiencing record profits.
The documentary - College Conspiracy - is merely relaying the fact that, most Americans assume that they need a college degree to become successful.
As a whole, such is not the case - unless you have aspirations to persue a career in the medical field or something in the sciences, like King Kandy mentioned. Some professions require a degree, but not all, to become successful.
Through experience, you can attain a wealth of success without a college degree (in the long run). I mentioned my friend - today, he is making 100k a year - without a college degree. I also have friends with master degrees selling automobiles. And they are being hassled by ridiculous amounts of debt.
In any case... the US economy is not going to "rebound," until we create and reconstruct a strong manufacturing base - an economy no longer based on debt.
With US economic trends in mind, all we see in the future, is additional debt (to pay off existing debt). Countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China are well aware of this fact. That's precisely why they are working to debase the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The US dollar - through inflation - is losing value.
Thanks to the US of America, not having a manufacturing base, to include massive government spending (monetary and fiscal) policies and entitlement programs, it is absolutely impossible to balance our budget, not mention paying off our debts. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security amount to 80+ trillion. Our national debt: 14+ trillion. Tax receipts sum to the tune of 2 trillion dollars.
Do the math. But hey... let's have universal heath care - where the government takes care of you from cradle to grave.
This equates to the FED printing more, more and more money - which further devalues our dollar. In the end, you can expect hyperinflation in America. It's a mathematical certainty.
Harping back to China and other countries that I've mentioned, it's no wonder they want nothing to do with the dollar. It's going to tank.
An article was release today (on the Drudge Report), that the Federal Government is dipping into the pensions of federal employees to manage US debt. This is insane! It simply reflects how dire US debt is.
The article further stated, that all monies taken from federal worker pension funds, will be reimbursed (legally). Any one with a brain will ask: How?
Such will be done with the printing of fiat currency. This creates inflation, and foreign countries are sick of it - because their investments (T-bonds) are losing value, through inflation.
So... bye-bye the US of America - and with it, jobs.
Last edited by ushomefree on May 17th, 2011 at 02:42 AM
While I enjoy a good business rant as much as anyone, the above post is just speculation. People in business are great at sounding like they know what's up, yet we see the greatest business minds failing to predict or know a LOT of things.
So let's stick to college/no-college here, eh? When you put together as many ideas as there are in ushome's post, there's bound to be some abject speculation and at the very least a criminal amount of generalization.
The idea that you don't need a college degree to be successful is a well-known one. Lesser known is that it's difficult to be the 100K+ guy with OR without one. Those are the outliers, the statistical margins. "Knowing a guy" and using it as an example is a bit fallacious, and creates a greater expectation than any average or median endeavor should expect in a similar field. Anecdotes aren't data, they are almost by the very quality of them being worth telling, somewhat an exception. That said, it's probably worth looking into non-degree jobs more and more, if only because of the nature of many job markets right now. Like I said, this may change as we rebound collectively and job markets open up a bit mroe for degreed jobs.
Actually an interesting video though, imo...amusingly enough, given my normal reaction to ushome's threads. I'm about 25% through it.
Like most things, I have a hard time saying I agree before I see the opposite argument and weighing the two. But it's not entirely without merit imo. They endorse some of the same doomsday economic ideas that Glenn Beck does, though, so a few alarms went off when I perused the website. Ultimately, no one does anything this large for entirely altruistic purposes and without profit in it, and the heavy endorsement of, say, gold buying seems fishy to me.
The idea of government being more hands-off and allowing private banks to compete more heavily in and among the education system is one that resonates with me though. I'm very much a proponent of free market competition driving down costs and improving quality of the product (in this case, education).
Speculation? Digi... I love you brotha.... You simply must understand that the US economy is based on debt. This is unsustainable. A country can only print money for so long before it's currency is debased and becomes worthless - those with central banks anyway.
You need only to look at the actions of foreign countries - aside from history - to confirm this: that a total US economic collapse is near. That's why Brazil, Russia, India and China are making preparations to diversify away from the US dollar. They're not divorcing themselves from the US dollar because it's gaining in value. I totally promise. I'm totally, totally not making this up.
Many ideas? What are you talking about? My thread is all about the US economy and it's impact on future jobs, not to mention the value of college degrees (under such circumstances). Our generation is bearing eye-witness to the downfall of America, but politicians will tell you otherwise. "Hey... the US economy is strong, and it will further strengthen, but we need to steal money from pension funds. We also need to raise the debt ceiling by next week or the government will be forced to default. But hey... the economy is strong and employment will rise." C'mon, Digi.
I didn't realize that. What do you think accounts for record profits amongst colleges/universities then (if people think they don't need a degree "is well known")?
Fallacious how? What field(s) are you taking about?
Anecdotes - was is that all about, and what do you mean by to "rebound collectively?" The US job market is dwindling, and it's pace is only going to increase. Degrees in the future, are going to be even more worthless. I really don't understand what you are saying; help me out.
Last edited by ushomefree on May 17th, 2011 at 04:10 AM
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A lot of people have predicted many things and they were right about many of these things, in terms of money. College was fine *many* years ago, when it was cheaper and had a larger impact. But as time went along the degrees became more inflated because more people went. College became a big business and a victim of its own success. Now people are leaving with more and more debt, with less and less jobs. Things will eventually correct themselves. Government guaranteed loans only raise the cost of it. College is expanding in cost much faster than the rate of inflation, or even health care.
When you're talking about a trillion dollars of student loan debt, higher than the credit card debt, that's pretty bad. But the middle and lower class have been conditioned from when they were young to "go to school, get a degree, buy a house, get married soon, etc." People do these things without thinking that many of these actions trap you in debt. (Funny I was watching the vid and that first thing I said in this paragraph came up.)
If you do go to school, make sure it is in a useful field and get a little debt as possible. I went and I paid for it with my company, while my degree has done next to nothing for me. But I didn't expect it to, and I didn't leave school with the staggering debt that many have, I had only about $1,000 from a private school. The saying goes "The C students rule the world", because you do not need enhanced academic education to be successful. Just hard work, ambition, the willingness to take risk and real world education. Many of the worlds most successful were dropouts or C students. People don't realize that even if you get "that good job" and make "big money" (which isn't that big, like early 6 figures or so), you can still lose that job. Therefore it is wise to place earn passive income in several areas as it is less taxed.
Trade schools are in now because they are more practical, and because people are starting to catch on that jobs like that are always going to be needed. 4 year school is for some people, but not for everybody.
As I said in my other thread, the education system is here to train employees and soldiers. No financial education is in our schools, no schools on investing or starting a business. Just "get a job and cross your fingers".
I've been saying this years. Glad to see it's been put out in detail.
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Last edited by Tha C-Master on May 17th, 2011 at 04:23 AM
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I just call them like I see them.
Like I said before, college does benefit *some* people, doctors, lawyers, etc. It however is *not* an instant success bubble, and because people in our country have such terrible financial education and spending habits, it won't really matter what they make, no different than the millionaire musician or athlete with no financial skills.
Sure. For the most part, my criticisms of your stance were mostly based around the idea that you seem to "know" exactly what course the economy will take. It's an unfortunate amount of hubris. Post-diction is 20/20, to mix and match some cliches with logical fallacies for a moment, and there's been people a lot smarter than you or I about the economy who haven't known the first thing about how things will turn out, or they thought they did and were wrong.
Because, of course, there exists somewhere (either on the internet, in books, board rooms, etc.) hard data to refute some of their points (the predictive ones more so than the "here's what already happened" ones). The nature of these beasts necessitates that both sides exist in their extreme. And are you familiar with that side? I'm certainly not, nor am I probably qualified to say which is the more correct. But my guess is, you aren't either.
So basically, I think you're a bit too sure of yourself is all. Watching a documentary and reading a website with a clear agenda doesn't make you an expert, it simply makes you a lopsided researcher. The fact that you are preaching the opposite of those who helped cause (or didn't foresee) the financial collapse doesn't mean that your precognitive capabilities are any sharper, or that we are unequivocally doomed to spiral downward from here.
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All of that is somewhat ancillary to my reason for being in this thread, and that's that it genuinely interests me and I don't think it's total bunk. But acting like posting a video then paraphrasing it in about 15 sentences lays to rest our financial future is, well, silly. The reasons for the collapse are already (largely) known, so parroting them isn't any particular insight. And, yes, predicting something you don't know the entirety, or even the majority of, is indeed premature.
However, some of the video is common sense, and I would be fool to say it's not without some merit. The dangers of wracking up debt are obvious, and it's usually just a lack of information that leads people down such roads. The same of government involvement, as large organizations will tend to be wasteful, and I'd rather see more free market competition driving up education and driving down prices. But when they parade that one fellow...he shows up a lot but I forget his name...to scream about the "system" doing things like "taking away you ability to think" and "teaching you only how to think their way" it's not hard to detect the rhetoric of someone with a clear agenda and a lack of perspective. It's anti-establishment conspiratorial fear-based preaching, which is a powerful tool, but not a strictly rational in its approach and therefore subject to emotional manipulation to achieve some end that may be premature or agenda-driven. It's the same with, say, climate change "controversy." You have two sides, but not only do you have to have the requisite knowledge of the science behind it to make sense of either side's argument, but you also have to know what group is funding or profiting from both sides' respective endeavors to detect the political motivations behind them, and then uncover whether or not the science is legit or being misused to further an economic or political agenda. It takes a lot of time just to get up to speed on the topic, let alone form a cohesive opinion that doesn't have noticeable gaps. You think this is any different?
Really, just apply some critical thought. I'm not against the video's message necessarily. I'm just endorsing measured skepticism and provisional approval. Not "c'mon Digi" when I doubt something you say simply because you posted a video on it.
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As for college not being the only answer as "common knowledge," maybe it hasn't reached that level yet, but I had that exact conversation with a group of my friends the other day and none of us are incredibly destitute. It wasn't a reaction to massive college debt, it was just kind of like "well here's where the jobs are. You know {insert trade skill} is actually the highest-paid per-hour trade, etc. etc." That was the gist of it, and none of us are heavily invested in the issue. So it's common knowledge to us.
...so as for why colleges are rich. I dunno. Everyone in that conversation had at least a 4-year degree.
If the job market's shrinking is *only* going to accelerate than in a few decades there won't be *any* jobs at all. You should probably be more concerned about the US vanishing into some kind of economic black hole than the discovery that college's don't have a magic ability to make you wealthy, just a statistical one.
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In 2010, US health care reform policies were singed into law, but they do not take effect until 2014. In any case, the point that I was trying to make, is that, the US economy is based on debt - meaning, the US is no longer solvent.
America used to be the manufacturing epicenter of the world; today, it's China - the next superpower. America is currently undergoing an economic collapse, and to make matters worse, leaders in Washington, have seen it fit, to supply an additional entitlement program: universal health care. The US can not afford it, that was my point.
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have already bankrupted America - 80+ trillion dollars. This is insane when you take note of the fact that, US GDP equates to 14+ trillion dollars (with trade deficits).
And just to be sure that you understand what I am talking about, what has the US government done as a result and continues to do? And what are the consequences of those actions?
I've posted threads about the US economy in the past. If my memory serves me correctly, my latest thread was called "Melt Up." It contained an hour long documentary about the US economy and government spending, not to mention other topics. Give it a watch. You could also skip the thread and simply watch it on YouTube in HD.
Last edited by ushomefree on May 18th, 2011 at 02:10 AM
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