Except that the price of college tuition started rising much faster than inflation about the time that the Baby Boomers graduated college (when the demand was decreasing). I remember colleges and universities explaining that tuition costs were rising because, with fewer students, the cost per student to deliver a college education was higher.
The problem with student loans is not the cost to the government (I agree with your logic on that, but I do not know what the cost to government is). The problem with student loans is that they have created an education bubble. If you look at the market for a college degree (cost to get, value in the market), it is starting to look a lot like the housing market just before the crash. Student loans are one of the more significant factor is the rate at which the cost of a college education is rising.
People seem to assume that all that money result somehow in school profit, the fact is that schools can hire more professors and pay them better.
Except that the evidence suggests that that is not what happens. What has happened is that schools (most of which are non-profit) higher more administrators and pay them more. Look at the teacher to student ratios over the last 40 years (they have remained fairly stable, with some improvement), then look at the administrator to student ratio of the same time frame (the number of administrative personnel relative to the number of students has skyrocketed).
Actually, someone did a study a few years back and calculated that if you earn the average salary for your education and age your whole life, you will be better off at retirement if you graduate high school and do not go to college. The calculation was based on the fact that, while your average salary would be higer with a college education, without that college education you have four more years of earning (and saving for retirement) and you do not have the college debt to pay back (I believe they also used the average student debt upon graduatin from college) so that is even more money that you can save for retirement.
they're spiraling out of control because supply of seats isn't keeping up with demand.
The problem with that logic is that college tuition rates were rising at a rate much higher than inflation at a time when the number of students was dropping, right after the Baby Boomers graduated from college. I entered college shortly after the last of the Baby Boomers graduated and I remember college and university officials explaining that tuition was rising because with the decreasing number of students the cost per student was going up.
There are many reasons why the cost of college education continues to rise as rapidly as it does. However, the key reason is that just about anyone who is willing to put in the effort to figure out how can come up with the money to pay for a college education (that may be mostly loans they will never be able to pay back, but they can find the money).
The problem is that the federal student loans, while genuinely useful to some, have been exploited pretty much to death by the for-profit colleges. Those do powerful marketing and have pretty much established the idea that everyone should go to college, no matter what.
It is not the for-profit colleges that have established the idea that everyone should go to college. The idea that everyone should go to college is a result of the marketign by non-profit colleges. While there are abuses at for-profit colleges, most of the people going $100,000 in debt for a useless degree are doing so at non-profit colleges, even when one adjusts for the ratio between students at no-profit vs for-profit colleges.
The fact that the loans are guaranteed by the government means that lending organizations make loans to people that would otherwise not qualify for the loans on the grounds of being unlikely to be able to pay them back.
However, since the advent of student loans, the cost of a college education has risen at an astronomically higher rate than inflation. If one looks at products which have a price increase significantly greater than the rate of inflation for an extended period of time (more than a decade), most, if not all, are products that are to one degree or another paid for with government subsidies of some kind.
Actually, there is a way to limit the "blockbuster" movies without limiting guys like this. You can make the rules so that someone can film to their hearts content as long as neither their equipment nor production crews obstruct others in those others' use of the park. If you are filming something where you need to limit other people entering into the area where you are filming, then you need a permit. If the Court is wise they will craft a ruling which says this, while throwing out the existing rules/laws and tossing it to the legislature to write a law which follows such a reading of the Constitution.
That may be, but it is likely that future historians will refer to the period beginning shortly after WWII until some date in the future (current trends suggest near future, but that is up to the American electorate) as "Pax Americana".
Direct Democracy does not fix the problem that is caused by the majority of voters being poorly informed on the issues. The reason that the "voice of the electorate" does not have sufficient weight in modern politics is that too many of the voters do not put enough effort into understanding the issues and the actions taken by politicians. Laws which make it easier to register to vote were passed in order to make it so that the "voice of the electorate" would carry more weight, yet they had the opposite effect. Making it easier to register meant that people who could not even be bothered to go to the designated location to register some time before the election (length of time varied by state) were now voting in elections that they could not be bothered to pay attention to until a few days or weeks before the election. Campaign finance reform laws were passed to reduce the impact of corporate money on elections. They, also, had the opposite effect. Campaign finance reform laws resulted in making it harder for a challenger to unseat an incumbent, meaning that a company had to put more effort into cultivating those holding political office (since they would be there long enough to make life miserable for along time for any company that did not do so).
Yes, but since they were not employees of the crown, they would not have been working on computers with this technology. I did not read the article, but from the summary (and my understanding of such software) putting this software on private computers would yield way too many false positives.
George Washington and the other Founders were not employees of the British government at the time of the Revolution, so this particular technology would have had no impact on them whatsoever if it was in the hands of George III.
Follow me home, pull a gun on me, and watch me drop your ass on my front lawn for being an invasive threat.
It won't be one or two guys that follow you home. It will be 50-60 heavily armed guys wearing body armor. Good luck dropping more than one ofthem before they drop you.
Well, considering that the states are smaller and it is easier to move out of one of them to another than it is to do so from the entire country, wouldn't you rather oppressing people be left to the states rather than that role being taken by the federal government the way it is now?
Compound this with about half the country feeling directly opposite of us, and clamoring for more paranoia,...
Which half of the country is that? The ones at the "Occupy" protests, or the ones that were at the Tea Party protests? As far as I can tell, there is no one "clamoring for more paranoia", except for bureaucrats and politicians.
And if the people of Louisiana and Montana are satisfied with that, what is the problem? If they aren't, why should people from other states pay to fix it?
More importantly, we aren't talking about what things would be like if these departments never existed, but what they would look like if we did away with them.
I don't happen to agree with Ron Paul's list of Departments to get rid of, but I agree that there are several Cabinet level departments that should be gotten rid of (most of them have parts that should be put into other Departments).
Read the thread. I was relying to someone who said that doing what Ron Paul proposes would mean "No more energy research, no more parks, no more public education, no more low income housing, no more roads & bridges". And just because the Commerce Department (which is not mentioned in the Constitution) is eliminated does not mean that the NOAA is. The NOAA could be moved into another department. Personally, I would not eliminate the Commerce Department, but it is not as devastating as the OP of this thread expressed.
Where do weather satellites fit into the list "No more energy research, no more parks, no more public education, no more low income housing, no more roads & bridges"?
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank both were involved with setting up the situation that led to the meltdown starting when Democrats controlled Congress. There were Republicans involved in that as well. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank both said that there were no problems in the mortgage market (in particular the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as late as 2006 (and possibly later, but I don't want to take the time to look that up).
Doesn't Minnesota fund public education, roads & bridges, and parks? Maybe it doesn't fund any low income housing or energy research, but my state does.
That $5 billion hole pales in comparison to the one the federal government has, or haven't you been paying attention? The federal government has a $1.5 trillion hole.
The poster I replied to appealed to the Constitution as the basis for the existence of the Commerce Department. The Constitution does not mention the Commerce Department (which was my point, I fully understand how the various executive departments derive their authority).
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Except that the price of college tuition started rising much faster than inflation about the time that the Baby Boomers graduated college (when the demand was decreasing). I remember colleges and universities explaining that tuition costs were rising because, with fewer students, the cost per student to deliver a college education was higher.
The problem with student loans is not the cost to the government (I agree with your logic on that, but I do not know what the cost to government is). The problem with student loans is that they have created an education bubble. If you look at the market for a college degree (cost to get, value in the market), it is starting to look a lot like the housing market just before the crash. Student loans are one of the more significant factor is the rate at which the cost of a college education is rising.
The thing is that most of that money is already going to public universities.
People seem to assume that all that money result somehow in school profit, the fact is that schools can hire more professors and pay them better.
Except that the evidence suggests that that is not what happens. What has happened is that schools (most of which are non-profit) higher more administrators and pay them more. Look at the teacher to student ratios over the last 40 years (they have remained fairly stable, with some improvement), then look at the administrator to student ratio of the same time frame (the number of administrative personnel relative to the number of students has skyrocketed).
Actually, someone did a study a few years back and calculated that if you earn the average salary for your education and age your whole life, you will be better off at retirement if you graduate high school and do not go to college. The calculation was based on the fact that, while your average salary would be higer with a college education, without that college education you have four more years of earning (and saving for retirement) and you do not have the college debt to pay back (I believe they also used the average student debt upon graduatin from college) so that is even more money that you can save for retirement.
they're spiraling out of control because supply of seats isn't keeping up with demand.
The problem with that logic is that college tuition rates were rising at a rate much higher than inflation at a time when the number of students was dropping, right after the Baby Boomers graduated from college. I entered college shortly after the last of the Baby Boomers graduated and I remember college and university officials explaining that tuition was rising because with the decreasing number of students the cost per student was going up.
There are many reasons why the cost of college education continues to rise as rapidly as it does. However, the key reason is that just about anyone who is willing to put in the effort to figure out how can come up with the money to pay for a college education (that may be mostly loans they will never be able to pay back, but they can find the money).
The problem is that the federal student loans, while genuinely useful to some, have been exploited pretty much to death by the for-profit colleges. Those do powerful marketing and have pretty much established the idea that everyone should go to college, no matter what.
It is not the for-profit colleges that have established the idea that everyone should go to college. The idea that everyone should go to college is a result of the marketign by non-profit colleges. While there are abuses at for-profit colleges, most of the people going $100,000 in debt for a useless degree are doing so at non-profit colleges, even when one adjusts for the ratio between students at no-profit vs for-profit colleges.
The fact that the loans are guaranteed by the government means that lending organizations make loans to people that would otherwise not qualify for the loans on the grounds of being unlikely to be able to pay them back.
However, since the advent of student loans, the cost of a college education has risen at an astronomically higher rate than inflation. If one looks at products which have a price increase significantly greater than the rate of inflation for an extended period of time (more than a decade), most, if not all, are products that are to one degree or another paid for with government subsidies of some kind.
Actually, there is a way to limit the "blockbuster" movies without limiting guys like this. You can make the rules so that someone can film to their hearts content as long as neither their equipment nor production crews obstruct others in those others' use of the park. If you are filming something where you need to limit other people entering into the area where you are filming, then you need a permit. If the Court is wise they will craft a ruling which says this, while throwing out the existing rules/laws and tossing it to the legislature to write a law which follows such a reading of the Constitution.
That may be, but it is likely that future historians will refer to the period beginning shortly after WWII until some date in the future (current trends suggest near future, but that is up to the American electorate) as "Pax Americana".
When we went into Afghanistan, I told my friends we were entering into an era of Pax Americana.
Then you were at least 50 years too late.
Direct Democracy does not fix the problem that is caused by the majority of voters being poorly informed on the issues. The reason that the "voice of the electorate" does not have sufficient weight in modern politics is that too many of the voters do not put enough effort into understanding the issues and the actions taken by politicians. Laws which make it easier to register to vote were passed in order to make it so that the "voice of the electorate" would carry more weight, yet they had the opposite effect. Making it easier to register meant that people who could not even be bothered to go to the designated location to register some time before the election (length of time varied by state) were now voting in elections that they could not be bothered to pay attention to until a few days or weeks before the election. Campaign finance reform laws were passed to reduce the impact of corporate money on elections. They, also, had the opposite effect. Campaign finance reform laws resulted in making it harder for a challenger to unseat an incumbent, meaning that a company had to put more effort into cultivating those holding political office (since they would be there long enough to make life miserable for along time for any company that did not do so).
What was the business model that allowed the US Government to invest $500+M??
That's easy. The primary investors in this company donate copiously to the campaign coffers of Democratic Party politicians.
Yes, but since they were not employees of the crown, they would not have been working on computers with this technology. I did not read the article, but from the summary (and my understanding of such software) putting this software on private computers would yield way too many false positives.
George Washington and the other Founders were not employees of the British government at the time of the Revolution, so this particular technology would have had no impact on them whatsoever if it was in the hands of George III.
Follow me home, pull a gun on me, and watch me drop your ass on my front lawn for being an invasive threat.
It won't be one or two guys that follow you home. It will be 50-60 heavily armed guys wearing body armor. Good luck dropping more than one ofthem before they drop you.
Well, considering that the states are smaller and it is easier to move out of one of them to another than it is to do so from the entire country, wouldn't you rather oppressing people be left to the states rather than that role being taken by the federal government the way it is now?
Compound this with about half the country feeling directly opposite of us, and clamoring for more paranoia,...
Which half of the country is that? The ones at the "Occupy" protests, or the ones that were at the Tea Party protests? As far as I can tell, there is no one "clamoring for more paranoia", except for bureaucrats and politicians.
And if the people of Louisiana and Montana are satisfied with that, what is the problem? If they aren't, why should people from other states pay to fix it?
More importantly, we aren't talking about what things would be like if these departments never existed, but what they would look like if we did away with them.
I don't happen to agree with Ron Paul's list of Departments to get rid of, but I agree that there are several Cabinet level departments that should be gotten rid of (most of them have parts that should be put into other Departments).
Read the thread. I was relying to someone who said that doing what Ron Paul proposes would mean "No more energy research, no more parks, no more public education, no more low income housing, no more roads & bridges". And just because the Commerce Department (which is not mentioned in the Constitution) is eliminated does not mean that the NOAA is. The NOAA could be moved into another department. Personally, I would not eliminate the Commerce Department, but it is not as devastating as the OP of this thread expressed.
Where do weather satellites fit into the list "No more energy research, no more parks, no more public education, no more low income housing, no more roads & bridges"?
Chris Dodd and Barney Frank both were involved with setting up the situation that led to the meltdown starting when Democrats controlled Congress. There were Republicans involved in that as well. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank both said that there were no problems in the mortgage market (in particular the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as late as 2006 (and possibly later, but I don't want to take the time to look that up).
Doesn't Minnesota fund public education, roads & bridges, and parks? Maybe it doesn't fund any low income housing or energy research, but my state does.
That $5 billion hole pales in comparison to the one the federal government has, or haven't you been paying attention? The federal government has a $1.5 trillion hole.
The poster I replied to appealed to the Constitution as the basis for the existence of the Commerce Department. The Constitution does not mention the Commerce Department (which was my point, I fully understand how the various executive departments derive their authority).