jerseyhoya wrote: I think we've got some pretty good senate candidates this go around, tbh.

Actually, here are three numbers. They’re not perfect, but they’re just about right: 10, 25, 50. Ten percent of our kids are in for-profit universities, colleges. Those for-profit universities are sucking down 25 percent of federal loan dollars, and they are responsible for 50 percent of all student loan defaults.

That’s the question that lies at the heart of whether our democracy will survive. The system is rigged. And now that I’ve been in Washington and seen it up close and personal, I just see new ways in which that happens. But we have to stop and back up, and you have to kind of get the right diagnosis of the problem, to see how it is that—it goes well beyond campaign contributions. That’s a huge part of it. But it’s more than that. It’s the armies of lobbyists and lawyers who are always at the table, who are always there to make sure that in every decision that gets made, their clients’ tender fannies are well protected. And when that happens — not just once, not just twice, but thousands of times a week — the system just gradually tilts further and further. There is no one at the table…I shouldn’t say there’s no one. I don’t want to overstate. You don’t have to go into hyperbole. But there are very few people at the decision-making table to argue for minimum-wage workers. Very few people.

Exactly right. Because that’s the other half of how the game is rigged. You know, we think of it in terms of Congress, and we should, because it’s definitely rigged in Congress and this is a place where people can do something about it. But the wind always blows from the same direction through the agencies. Those agencies, the banking regulators, who do they hear from, day in and day out? Big banks. They don’t hear from people who got cheated on their mortgages, people who got tricked on their credit cards. They hear from the big financial institutions, day after day after day. That’s, in part, what this whole Fed — this latest scandal at the Fed — you know with Carmen Segarra who has the tapes. Part of what that shows, if you just back up and think about what you’re seeing there, it’s that the supervisors, or regulators as they’re called — everybody commonly calls them that — the regulators all meet with Goldman Sachs executives and employees day after day after day. They don’t see the people who get tricked, the people who get cheated, the people who get fooled by the products that Goldman turns out.

So we are, the federal government is currently subsidizing a for-profit industry that is ripping off young people. Those young people are graduating — many of them are never graduating — and of those that are graduating, many of them have certificates that won’t get them jobs, that don’t produce the benefits of a state college education.

You know somebody to talk to sometime if you want to ever do a separate story on this is Marty Meehan [who] is the president of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. And what he talks about is, particularly, the young vets who come to UMass-Lowell already sixty or seventy thousand dollars in debt without a single college credit that will transfer to an accredited university. Now, think about that.

So who do you think gets targeted by these for-profit universities? It’s kids who are the first in their family to go to college. It’s not happening to the sons and daughters of graduates from elite schools. It’s happening to young people who are the first in their family to graduate from college. Many of them have come out of the military, they’ve gone into the military straight from high school. They’ve now completed their military service. These are strivers, boot-strappers, hard-working kids who are the very kids we most want to make sure the doors of opportunity are open for. You know who else goes [to these schools]? It’s young, single mothers who are trying to make something out of their lives, many of them are working two and even three jobs, who believe that if they can get a college education, their children will have opportunities that would otherwise be closed off, and yet that’s not what they’re getting. They’re getting preyed on by these schools. So I mention this only by way of saying, when we look at college — you’re not wrong — we have got to use the leverage of the federal government investment to bring down the cost of college across the board. But we’ve got particular problems to focus on, both in support for public universities and the resources that are being drained away by the for-profit schools.

dajafi wrote:I've been trying to think of how the Republicans would differ from their current positions and priorities if their agenda were actually and explicitly "to increase aggregate human misery in both the short and long term." Thus far, I'm struggling.

Werthless wrote:

dajafi wrote:I've been trying to think of how the Republicans would differ from their current positions and priorities if their agenda were actually and explicitly "to increase aggregate human misery in both the short and long term." Thus far, I'm struggling.

They'd throw their support behind the teacher's union on every education issue.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote: I think we've got some pretty good senate candidates this go around, tbh.

Ernst is a great candidate. For broom closet monitor. or pig balls extirpator. Not for United States Senator.

Do you agree with the following statement: "Most people are better off in a free market economy, even though some people are rich and some are poor."

Worldwide, two-thirds of those surveyed agreed, giving capitalism a thumbs up.

But the results get more interesting at the country level. In the U.S., 70% agreed that the free market is the way to go. Compare that to China (76% agree), India (72%) and South Korea (78%).

dajafi wrote:Yeah, I think I'm in on Warren 2016. She seems so far immune to the Washington mind warp that seems to get even most of the good ones, and she's focused on the most important thing--the long-term credibility of our democracy, which should not be a partisan issue (in this sense, it's actually somewhat unfortunate that she's been tagged as an ultra-liberal)--rather than whatever silly bullshit might help win a news cycle. Even if she runs and loses, it will help move the conversation in a good way.

As for the for-profit colleges, one of my good friends led an effort on this in NYC when she was head of the Mayor's Office of Adult Education. It's a huge problem in NYC because you've got a confluence of low-information consumers and a labor market where, even more than everywhere else, you're dead without a postsecondary credential.

They would have gone further, but Bloomberg was concerned about what he perceived as an effort to impede a profit-making entity. I loved the guy overall, but he had some big-time blind spots.

pacino wrote:He's actually accomplished an incredible amount.

The idea that Warren is all platitudes is pretty laughable to me.

Werthless wrote:

pacino wrote:He's actually accomplished an incredible amount.

The idea that Warren is all platitudes is pretty laughable to me.

Obama is increasingly unpopular.

Warren has a worse resume than Hillary Clinton.

Which sentiment are you arguing with?