GDP shrinks 1% in Q1

[the_spaniard]

 

Bullshit. My daughter is enrolled in a local 4 year college in North Georgia. Her tuition is $1250/semester or $2500/year not counting summer. That's only $10K for four years. Work and you can pay for at least half that yourself.

 

And in Georgia we have hope scholarship which will pay all or most of your tuition for 4 years if you simply maintain a B average.

 

Just because some students choose to live on campus and rack up enormous student debt or think they have to go out of state without a scholarship doesn't mean that there aren't less expensive affordable alternatives.

 

It took me 6 years and working full time but I went 2 years to a community college locally, worked for a year, then moved to Athens, GA and spent 3 years at UGA, 2 full time and 1 part time. I worked at a close to minimum wage job. I also paid for my own vehicle and shared an apartment with my fiancee. I left with only about $5K in student debt and got a job immediately in the IT department of a large corporation.

 

So I don't want to hear how you need money because I didn't have a penny of help from anyone and I know plenty others who did the same thing. All it takes is determination.

 

Your daughter payed in-state tuition. That is a lot easier. Not every program is offered in every state. Sometimes you have to go out of state, so you don't get the benefits of living at home, and as I mentioned before, pay higher tuition rates for the first year or two years - usually 3x the state rate. That is not bullshit, it is a fact unless you want your state to determine the course of your life. Living on-campus has nothing to do with residency. And believe me, not every state has such a scholarship for maintaining a "B" average. You are lucky. Not everyone can do things the way you described.

 

Academic/merit scholarships are usually awarded to 6-7% of applicants.

 

And how long ago did you get that degree? Don't you think times have changed a little since you were in college? Do you think the economy is comparable? Do you really think that this generation is graduating with more college debt than any other because they are just lazy and want things handed to them? Tuition has far outpaced COL.

 

Since 1985, college tuition rates have risen over 440% if you adjust for financial aid. Twice the inflation of medical costs in this country over the same period. Salaries for college-educated professionals are falling, and tuition rates are still rising twice as fast as inflation.

 

If anything there is reverse racism in grant money and programs geared towards a persons ethnicity vs their GPA or income.

 

 

When minorities are treated equally in this country, I will agree with you. (As of right now, they are paid less for the same work done by whites, still sentenced to longer and harsher prison sentences, etc, etc, etc)

[akirby]

I didn't say you could easily go to any college you wanted and major in anything you wanted to. But the fact is in-state tuition is available to almost everyone for most degrees. Credits earned at a much cheaper small college or community college will usually transfer to larger universities.

 

Why are people racking up debt? Because they want to. They think they can easily pay it off. They think a college degree is a guarantee of a well paying job regardless of what they decide to major in.

 

My daughter doesn't get hope scholarship - that tuition figure is the full cost plus books. If she had Hope she would pay nothing. The point is there are colleges like that almost everywhere.

 

My son graduated with a 4 year business degree 3 years ago. He moved to Seattle and has been living on his own as a Starbucks shift supervisor while applying for a job with the corporate office. Right now he's paying his own way through graduate school and will have 2 masters degrees in October. We haven't sent him a dime the last 3 years.

 

Stop the victim mentality. Whether you think you can or think you can't - you're right.

[CurtisH]

I didn't say you could easily go to any college you wanted and major in anything you wanted to. But the fact is in-state tuition is available to almost everyone for most degrees. Credits earned at a much cheaper small college or community college will usually transfer to larger universities.

 

Why are people racking up debt? Because they want to. They think they can easily pay it off. They think a college degree is a guarantee of a well paying job regardless of what they decide to major in.

 

My daughter doesn't get hope scholarship - that tuition figure is the full cost plus books. If she had Hope she would pay nothing. The point is there are colleges like that almost everywhere.

 

My son graduated with a 4 year business degree 3 years ago. He moved to Seattle and has been living on his own as a Starbucks shift supervisor while applying for a job with the corporate office. Right now he's paying his own way through graduate school and will have 2 masters degrees in October. We haven't sent him a dime the last 3 years.

 

Stop the victim mentality. Whether you think you can or think you can't - you're right.

I absolutely agree with this. My son graduated from the University of Georgia. He started at a two year school and finished at UGA. He was able to use the Hope scholarship and did not owe a dime upon graduation. Yes, he had help from us. He could have gotten the same degree at a smaller school without our help. There are a lot of ways to get a degree without accumulating mounds of debt.

[cal50]

 

 

When minorities are treated equally in this country, I will agree with you. (As of right now, they are paid less for the same work done by whites, still sentenced to longer and harsher prison sentences, etc, etc, etc)

 

 

That statement & belief explains a lot......

[the_spaniard]

I didn't say you could easily go to any college you wanted and major in anything you wanted to. But the fact is in-state tuition is available to almost everyone for most degrees. Credits earned at a much cheaper small college or community college will usually transfer to larger universities.

 

Why are people racking up debt? Because they want to. They think they can easily pay it off. They think a college degree is a guarantee of a well paying job regardless of what they decide to major in.

 

My daughter doesn't get hope scholarship - that tuition figure is the full cost plus books. If she had Hope she would pay nothing. The point is there are colleges like that almost everywhere.

 

My son graduated with a 4 year business degree 3 years ago. He moved to Seattle and has been living on his own as a Starbucks shift supervisor while applying for a job with the corporate office. Right now he's paying his own way through graduate school and will have 2 masters degrees in October. We haven't sent him a dime the last 3 years.

 

Stop the victim mentality. Whether you think you can or think you can't - you're right.

 

I am a big believer in the community college option for killing general education credits. In-state tuition is available to residents. If you go out of state it takes at least a year at most schools to get residency. Then you can pay in-state rates.

 

People are racking up debt because the costs are outrageous. Some may believe a degree is the golden answer to life, but that's not all of them. And while you can get away with working and paying your way for some degrees, others you simply can't. You have to take the loans. You don't have a lot of time when you are a med student for example. A lot of sciences are also very intensive, with Masters Degrees taking 3-4 years full-time depending on your thesis.

 

They think a college degree is a guarantee of a well paying job regardless of what they decide to major in.

 

Well people need to be realistic, and that is on the parents. That being said people should do what makes them happy. Is a marketing degree more likely to make more money than a music degree? Yes, but money isn't everything in life, and many people earn a living with a music degree. I know many people with great lives that have social science degrees. God help someone if they have to get a degree in a subject they don't want to, get a job they don't want with that degree, and spend the rest of their lives being unhappy just to make a living wage AND be potentially saddled with debt. That doesn't sound like the American dream to me, and I certainly wouldn't recommend that to anyone. You do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.

The victim mentality? Right. I suppose our entire country is just full of victims and there is no crisis with skyrocketing tuition. Oh wait, yes there is.

[the_spaniard]

 

That statement & belief explains a lot......

 

Yep. It's a belief based on facts and statistics of what is happening right now....or has there been a sudden breakout of equality around the globe today?

Edited June 9, 2014 by the_spaniard

[the_spaniard]

There are a lot of ways to get a degree without accumulating mounds of debt.

 

Yes, but sometimes any degree from your home state is just not what you are interested in. As I said before, I would never pick a field of study just because an in-state college offers it. If it does, great. If it doesn't, then you have to go elsewhere. Not to mention that some schools outside of your state may offer better programs in the same field of study (more reputable, better networking, etc), which is more important for graduate school.

[akirby]

 

Yes, but sometimes any degree from your home state is just not what you are interested in. As I said before, I would never pick a field of study just because an in-state college offers it. If it does, great. If it doesn't, then you have to go elsewhere. Not to mention that some schools outside of your state may offer better programs in the same field of study (more reputable, better networking, etc), which is more important for graduate school.

 

I can only think of a handful of very specialized degrees that you can't find at an in-state college or university. And if you are dead set on pursuing that then yes, you may have to go out of state and you'll have to pay more. But that's your CHOICE.

 

Is college expensive? YES! Should public colleges be cheaper? PROBABLY. Would it be nice if anybody could major in anything they like and get a 6 figure job doing it right out of college? Yes. Is that realistic (or fair)? No.

 

There is nothing wrong with taking moderate student loans as long as you have a good prospect of paying them back. If you choose to major in Music the only sure job you can really count on is Music teacher. You may have aspirations of making it in the music business but that's a crap shoot at best. I have a good friend who sent his daughter to a private college for about $20K/year. She majored in Music and is now a Music teacher and perfectly happy. She could have gotten the same degree and had the same job with a $5K/year degree. $80K vs. $20K for the same job.

 

There are obviously many other differences between colleges that make one more desirable, but that doesn't enter into the equation if you're just looking at how to get a degree in a particular field.

 

While you sit here whining about how hard it is to get a degree and how it's not fair, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of minorities out there busting their butts and getting college degrees the old fashioned way - they're working for it just like I did.

There is nothing in the system to prevent a minority or anyone else from getting a college degree. In fact it's easier for minorities to get admission in some states.

 

I'm sorry that you can't get a degree for free in some curriculum that interests you but does not provide any prospect of a high wage job. Every job has an inherent worth and you have to choose whether you do what you love at lower wages or do what you have to do to survive.

[NickF1011]

 

Sorry to say, the Scandinavian countries actually offer more opportunity to advance, partially because post-secondary education doesn't require the burden of humongous student debt. Canada, unfortunately, has become almost as expensive as the US for that get-ahead education, as opposed to, say, Finland, where post-sec is free. That's why a couple of years ago, there were massive student demonstrations in the province of Quebec, as that provincial government tried to jack up the cost of tuition to the egregious levels charged by English-Canadian universities.

 

It seems that for kids today in North America, the chances of doing better than their parents are rapidly declining, in a down-sized, contracted-out economy that is becoming more and more roboticized. Recently, Cambridge University published a report that predicts that almost 40% of current office jobs could disappear in the next 30 years as Artificial Intelligence automates a lot of offices.

 

 

There are just a multitude of ways to define everything that encompasses "quality of life" though. All I was getting at really. I don't see how anyone can definitively rank it since everyone's criteria are going to be different.

[mettech]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/where-missing-american-workers-gone-090641178.html

 

"...In May, the U.S. workforce-participation rate — the combination of those with jobs and unemployed workers actively seeking them — was just 62.8 percent, the same as the month before. Job markets have been essentially flat since October.

Where have all the missing workers gone?

 

A key factor, nearly all agree, is the growing exodus from the job market of Baby Boomers. Born roughly in the post-World War II period from 1946 to 1964, these workers are now at or fast approaching retirement age.

Another reason is that some employment-intensive industries that suffered the most during the Great Recession, especially in manufacturing and construction, have yet to fully rebound.

But perhaps the most significant factor is unemployed workers "who just drop out of the job market after one, two or three years of looking for work and not being successful," said Carl Van Horn, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University who studies workplace dynamics and employment trends.

Recent surveys suggest more and more long-time unemployed workers are abandoning the search for another job and leaving the nation's workforce.

"And they are disproportionately older workers," Van Horn said. "We have a large number of older (unemployed) workers who are not old enough to retire, yet they are facing discrimination in the workplace and have found it nearly impossible to get another job."..."

 

It may be quite a while before the jobless rate falls back to 5 percent and below, long the informal standard pegged by economists as a typical employment level for non-recession times.

But 5 percent may no longer be the norm.

In February 2011, economists at the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank suggested that around 6 percent might be a more appropriate unemployment rate as the "new normal." But some analysts suggested even that target may be unrealistically low.

"Our economy is leaving our unemployed folks further and further behind," said Robert A. Funk, CEO and Chairman of Express Employment Professional, an Oklahoma City-based service which tries to line people up with jobs and help client companies find suitable employees.

"But if people quit looking for work at a rate like this, it makes our job much, much more difficult," said Funk, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City.

And while economists note high levels of unemployment among older working-age people, joblessness is disproportionately high among younger workers as well.

Generation Opportunity, a U.S. nonpartisan youth advocacy organization which keeps close track of job levels for younger adults, reported even higher effective unemployment rates for those under 30.

"School is out for summer, and more than four out of five recent grads don't have jobs. My generation deserves better than an economy in which a 15.4 percent effective unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is considered a good month," said Patrice Lee, director of outreach for the organization.

Even though the overall unemployment rate has been essentially flat since last October and is holding at high levels with 3.4 million Americans counted among the ranks of long-term unemployed, it's been five months since federal emergency unemployment benefits expired, leaving the burden up to the individual states..."

[FiredMotorCompany]

 

I am a big believer in the community college option for killing general education credits. In-state tuition is available to residents. If you go out of state it takes at least a year at most schools to get residency. Then you can pay in-state rates.

 

People are racking up debt because the costs are outrageous. Some may believe a degree is the golden answer to life, but that's not all of them. And while you can get away with working and paying your way for some degrees, others you simply can't. You have to take the loans. You don't have a lot of time when you are a med student for example. A lot of sciences are also very intensive, with Masters Degrees taking 3-4 years full-time depending on your thesis.

 

 

Well people need to be realistic, and that is on the parents. That being said people should do what makes them happy. Is a marketing degree more likely to make more money than a music degree? Yes, but money isn't everything in life, and many people earn a living with a music degree. I know many people with great lives that have social science degrees. God help someone if they have to get a degree in a subject they don't want to, get a job they don't want with that degree, and spend the rest of their lives being unhappy just to make a living wage AND be potentially saddled with debt. That doesn't sound like the American dream to me, and I certainly wouldn't recommend that to anyone. You do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.

The victim mentality? Right. I suppose our entire country is just full of victims and there is no crisis with skyrocketing tuition. Oh wait, yes there is.

Somewhere in this analysis is the effect of individual skill. The concept that every individual is capiable of the exact same abilities when offered equal education is B.S.!

 

It takes motivation, inspiration and unique abilities.

Otherwise, anyone can be Lebron James, Tiger Woods, Ansel Adams, Bob Seger, Walt Whitman,.........

 

College degrees for their own sake is stupid. And burdens young people with years of debt.

 

Some people would be better off never attending college. And dedicating themselves to getting everything from High School that they can.

 

In today's job market, a degree is almost worthless when the only jobs available are non-degree occupations.

Edited June 9, 2014 by FiredMotorCompany

[NickF1011]

In today's job market, a degree is almost worthless when the only jobs available are non-degree occupations.

 

My company has a boatload of open reqs for IT positions that all require a degree. Nobody is applying for them. Plenty of work out there for people with degrees. Helps if they are the right degree though. A bachelors in psychology or English literature isn't going to help you much, where one in something like electrical engineering almost guarantees employment.

[fordmantpw]

 

...where one in something like electrical engineering almost guarantees employment.

 

Why do you think I chose EE as my major?

 

Well, the main reason is because I hate every subject that does not deal with math or science.

[xr7g428]

My first semester as an engineering student was simple enough. Just three classes: 5 hours of Calculus, 5 hours or Physics, 5 hours of Organic Chemistry. I lasted two weeks. I didn't give up though I just needed a much better advisor. The main reason people don't get engineering degrees is that it is really difficult.

[FiredMotorCompany]

My first semester as an engineering student was simple enough. Just three classes: 5 hours of Calculus, 5 hours or Physics, 5 hours of Organic Chemistry. I lasted two weeks. I didn't give up though I just needed a much better advisor. The main reason people don't get engineering degrees is that it is really difficult.

The point I am making is a degree in Feminine Studies or Art Appreciation is worthless debt.

[akirby]

I had a good friend in high school who passed away last year. She either got a perfect SAT score or only missed one question I think. She got a scholarship to Harvard. She decided to major in Slavic Language. I'm not sure what she did right after college but she eventually went to law school and was an attorney with Microsoft. Maybe she was planning to go to law school anyway but you are responsible for the major you choose - nobody holds a gun to your head. And if you choose based on what you like without taking into consideration the job prospects then you have to live with those choices.

 

You don't even have to go to college to make a good living. There are plenty of well paying trades like plumbers, electricians, welders, etc and most even allow you to own your own business.

Policemen and firemen don't require a college degree.

 

Or join the military for a few years. They'll train you and help pay your tuition when you get out.

 

But sitting back and claiming you're disadvantaged because the out of state college you want to attend is too expensive or that you're discriminated against as a minority is hogwash.

[fordmantpw]

My first semester as an engineering student was simple enough. Just three classes: 5 hours of Calculus, 5 hours or Physics, 5 hours of Organic Chemistry. I lasted two weeks. I didn't give up though I just needed a much better advisor. The main reason people don't get engineering degrees is that it is really difficult.

 

Yes it is! After a month of Calc I in college (after having Calc in high school), I began to question if I was in the right place or not. Thankfully, it was just the instructor as my 46% on the test was one of the highest in the class! I stuck it out, and while I am not an engineer by trade, I'm glad I stuck with it. The company I hired with out of college sought out engineers for their problem solving skills and put them to work programming software. That was over 16 years ago and I'm with the same company.

 

 

I had a good friend in high school who passed away last year. She either got a perfect SAT score or only missed one question I think. She got a scholarship to Harvard. She decided to major in Slavic Language. I'm not sure what she did right after college but she eventually went to law school and was an attorney with Microsoft. Maybe she was planning to go to law school anyway but you are responsible for the major you choose - nobody holds a gun to your head. And if you choose based on what you like without taking into consideration the job prospects then you have to live with those choices.

 

You don't even have to go to college to make a good living. There are plenty of well paying trades like plumbers, electricians, welders, etc and most even allow you to own your own business.

Policemen and firemen don't require a college degree.

 

Or join the military for a few years. They'll train you and help pay your tuition when you get out.

 

But sitting back and claiming you're disadvantaged because the out of state college you want to attend is too expensive or that you're discriminated against as a minority is hogwash.

 

Condolences on the loss of your friend.

 

Well said on the rest. I know plenty of folks that never would have even considered college (that's normal for a rural area like this), and many are doing quite well now. Many own their own business, like you mentioned. Carpeting/flooring business, construction, heavy equipment/excavation, landscaping, farming etc. It all amounts to the amount of effort you want to put into life. You get out of it what you put into it.

[MI451]

But you still haven't explained away the main thrust of my point-------------> if we were only 30% unionized, while other countries were 70 to 85% unionized, since unions demand higher wages, how is it that the United States had the highest standard of living in the world?

 

See, most people have to unlearn the garbage they have been force fed by politicians to discover why things are what they were/are. They tell you a very good story to fire you up, but reality is............most of it is just fairytale theatrics to get you blaming people from other segments in the population.

 

Oh, and I really like your picture. Seems to me if enviros are really worried about the world, they should ALL buy a plane ticket to either China or India, as that is where they could do the most good. Of course, they aren't really about fixing anything, just about feeling good about themselves.

Well, that would have to do with other economic factors, which you conveniently overlooked. The economyand standard of living in any state is not a single celled organism that develops only because of that one variable. Your suggestion fails to take into account resources, population, both consumer and labor, and many other factors including land mass.

 

And you might be forgetting that Europe was rebuilding after a world war while we were not. That type of thing might depress the living standard just a bit.

[Imawhosure]

Hey, back on topic----------> update really shrunk 2.9% in the 1st quarter. Harumph, sure was a lot of snow.

[cal50]

Negative 2.9 is not growth*

 

*Unless its algebraic rules with a negative sign before the parentheses & everything after becomes a positive automatically.

 

 

Like spinning a drill bit its going deeper into the ground.

[Imawhosure]

Negative 2.9 is not growth*

 

*Unless its algebraic rules with a negative sign before the parentheses & everything after becomes a positive automatically.

 

 

Like spinning a drill bit its going deeper into the ground.

Well Cal, and everyone else---------> people really need to pay attention. We can all support those that promise to give us what we want; but when you realize what has to be given up to make your wish happen, that is the time you need to put your big boy pants on.

 

Big boy pants means---------> if you choose to continue down this path, you can no longer complain about the pain it gives you, and everyone else. You enjoy the pain, for your gain.

 

There is always tradeoffs; has always been, and probably always will be. As long as the people choosing know what they will lose, and what they will gain, I have no problem. It is when they want their way, and proclaim it is someone elses fault that the problems begin for me.

 

When anyone in power decides to use a "pen and a phone," most everyone else is along for the ride. It is up to them to make is sooooooo good by demanding that their wishes be carried out, that the electorate is a bunch of happy campers. If their ideas go belly up, then trying to point the fickle-finger-of-fate elsewhere is just politics at it's worst. I wish the man great success, because we need it at this point in time.

 

But what I won't do is let him blame those that think he is in error. He personally chose his path, and if it fails, he has to live with it.

 

Those who herald his success should be listened to, as well as those who point out the failures! As of this writing, even those who support this "transformation," would have to say.....fail.......fail......fail.

[chevys]

I am curiuos at this point of the failed BHO administration how the libs will try to defend the community organizer. The wheels came off long ago. BHO is a boy in a mans game.

[Edstock]

The Late Great American Promise of Less Work

 

Funemployment, staycations; these words have crept into the national lexicon as a cultural coping mechanism. Americans who are actually lucky enough to have a job here in the early 21st century are working their asses off to keep them. So what happened to the push-button world of leisure that Americans of the 1950s and 60s were told was just around the corner? Politics.

• • •

Just about every other modern industrialized country has some basic amount of guaranteed vacation time, and many have paid public holidays. The United States has no such laws. The U.S. doesn't even have guarantees of paid time off for sick leave—a good thing to remember the next time a barista with the sniffles hands you your pumpkin-spiced-doodle-frappu-whatsit. Strangely, we forget that paid time off used to be as American as Mickey Mantle riding an eagle through the Grand Canyon with two fistfuls of apple pie.

[NickF1011]

While there are changes that could probably benefit our well-being and sanity, I think most of the predictions of the "push-button world" were just unrealistic. Reminds of the "In the year 2000!" routine Conan O'Brien did for awhile.

[phil1336]

I am curiuos at this point of the failed BHO administration how the libs will try to defend the community organizer. The wheels came off long ago. BHO is a boy in a mans game.

BHO is simply a (boy) in a Mans game, huh? No racial undertone meant, huh? Just asking.... Feel the same way about the Cowboy from Crawford TX or Dr Strangelove, his VP from WY? What else do you want to blame him for, Global Warming? Oh, I almost forgot, it does`nt exist, another "Lib" conspiracy theory. While the Stock Market breaks through 17000 at the same time that the Moslem Socialist Kenyan resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, who you going to give the credit to, Mitt Romney? Idiot!