Bob Lord Tammy and I just returned from a one-week vacation in Belize. Belize is obviously a Caribbean type destination, but unique compared to the other destinations in that class to which we’ve traveled.
Two aspects of Belize set it apart from the other locations we’ve visited: We were not separated from the local population, and there was a significant American “ex-pat” community presence. Each of those distinctions contributed to it being an interesting week (while still very, very relaxing).
We’ve all heard the expression “may you live in interesting times.” I never knew this until I started to work on this post, but the expression is meant not as a blessing. Rather, it originally was intended as a curse. “Interesting times” in this context is a euphemism for times of upheaval.
So, I wonder, are I and my fellow mid to late boomers destined to “die in interesting times”?
My IPS colleague, Sam Pizzigati, has a feature in his newsletter on inequality, Too Much, he calls “Petulant Plutocrat of the Month.” Sam has no troubling identifying a different petulant plutocrat each month. When he used to publish on a weekly basis, he had no trouble identifying one a week. Commercial break: If you’re interested … Read more
Talking Points Memo reports that Rick Santorum’s reaction to the horrific act of racial terror in Charleston, which claimed nine innocent victims, was to call it an “assault on religious liberty.” If TPM’s reporting is accurate, Santorum just defined himself as a racist. He knows what the shootings were about. We all know. For Santorum to … Read more
I was a guest on the Arizona at Work radio show yesterday. A good portion of the hour was devoted to the cost of higher education. In the discussion, the point was made that it’s “all about opportunity.”
Sorry, but it really isn’t. I’m all for lowering the cost of higher education, because the current system is absurdly discriminatory and is wreaking havoc in all sorts of ways. I also believe there are other compelling reasons to decrease the cost of higher education, a point to which I’ll return later.
But, first, mass higher education isn’t the answer to the demolition of the middle class. We already have college grads unable to find work. Oh, I know, they didn’t pick the right majors. They all should have majored in engineering or accounting. Which would create a glut of engineers and accountants, resulting in substantially lower incomes in those professions.
Consider this: When I graduated from law school three decades ago, law students were receiving multiple job offers and young lawyer salaries were skyrocketing. Fast forward to today. A friend of mine just lost her job as a law school professor because enrollment was down over 50% from year to year. The decrease in enrollment was far less about the cost of a legal education than it was about the glut of lawyers. So, do we really want more law students? Hardly. Could the same thing happen in the vaunted “STEM” fields? I don’t see why not.
Conservatives, including many Democrats, love to preach how “what matters is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.” In their minds, if everyone has a reasonably equal chance of making it to the top 1%, our absurdly unequal sharing of wealth and income is fair.
Memo to progressives: Stop getting tripped up by this canard. If you’re at a loss to respond when confronted by the “opportunity vs. outcome” argument, remember: