In February, I wrote a post about the high wages of federal employees. As I wrote it, I was bothered by one thing: it’s difficult to compare federal jobs to private jobs. I know with moral certainty that the government employees aren’t working harder than the private sector employees, but I couldn’t prove it, and I had an added problem: the jobs in the two sectors are often different (laid-off postmen, for instance, go postal for a reason: they get paid a lot for a skill that doesn’t translate into the private sector, so they know they’re screwed).
But now comes a MSM source that points out that, among careers that have roles in both sectors, the federal workers make more . . . a lot more:
Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA Today analysis of federal data finds.
Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.
Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.
These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
10. Eliminate tenure.
9. Eliminate faculty unions.
8. Freeze capital spending: no new latte bars and other amenities.
7. In the short-term, use your own endowment money to underwrite tuition assistance.
6. Eliminate the Hope Credit
5. Eliminate the Lifetime Learning Credit
4. Eliminate Coverdells and 529 college savings plans.
3. Eliminate mandatory college education (artificially pumping-up demand).
2. Eliminate PELL grants.
1. Eliminate favorable student loan terms.
Believe it or not, numbers 1 and 2 aren’t the ones that irritate me the most. Though I think they’re the biggest reason college tuition rates are skyrocketing, it’s number 3 that really grates me. Big government and big business often require their employees to get worthless degrees in order to keep a job or get a promotion. It’s a travesty. Joseph Epstein pointed out higher education’s dirty little secret years ago: “a college education doesn’t really add much.” It is, in other words, just a piece of paper. I went to school for seven years in order to become a lawyer. Academically, I could’ve done it in three. (Maturity-wise, I probably needed ten, but that’s irrelevant: college did nothing to accelerate the maturation process; I could’ve matured just as well sitting on the dock of the bay with Otis Redding.)
But even though college classes don’t add much, people are required to take ‘em. In Michigan, you can’t even keep your accreditation to be a kindergarten teacher unless you’re actively pursuing a master’s degree in education! It’s an appalling sop to the economics of higher education: By artificially jacking up demand, colleges and universities can keep jacking up tuition. I’ve know many big businesses who tell qualified employees that they need to go back to college, yet everyone who works knows one thing: 99% of what you do at your job comes from experience, not from the classroom. Classes can enrich a little, but the vast majority of employees only need on-the-job training and maybe an annual seminar or two. They don’t need a degree, which by its cookie-cutter nature requires them to sit through many lectures on topics that will never directly apply to their job.
I had great hopes that the highly-successful college drop-out dot.com geniuses of the 1990s would show everyone that the college degree is vastly over-rated, but they haven’t. If anything, the perceived value of a college education has risen. Nearly ever person I talk with agrees that college is grossly over-rated, academically (it’s a helluva lot of fun, but academically?). Yet as a society, we keep pushing it. It’s inexplicable, unless there are monster forces at work behind the scenes . . . which there are.
If people really start to look into college education costs like they’ve been looking at health care, they’d see it’s a tangled web of a mess, just like health care. College education and health care are both messes, and they have a few things in common: They’ve both been favored with money in excess of what an unhampered free market would provide, they both have deep ties with government, they both have deep ties with big business.
Blogging time is still scarce. Fortunately, I found this excellent article: The 25 greatest cities in the world for drinking wine. Sample: “Los Olivos, California, USA. Rather than fighting the crowds in Napa Valley try this quaint Victorian town just north of Santa Barbara. The area is now famous as the setting of Sideways. Don’t let the Hollywood connection scare you away though: the region is stunningly beautiful and is one of the best Pinot Noir producing areas in the United States (alternatively, swing by Andrew Murray for some killer Syrahs). The historic downtown is home to over a dozen wine tasting rooms in a small area.”
(2) The disconcerting politics of Generation Y (30-under): “Two-thirds of Gen Y voted for Barack Obama . . . Gen Y is more socially liberal, pro-gay marriage, and pro-immigration than earlier generations. . . In his column for The Washington Post last Thursday, E.J. Dionne calls Gen Next ‘the next New Dealers.’ Link. The writer sees a bright spot (Gen Yers tend to like Ron Paul) but overall, things look grim for the country.
But it has nothing to do with the watering down of Catholic teaching and the general air of dissidence. It’s only a coincidence that such things occur at the same colleges that allow the Vagina Monologues to show: “Researchers from Mississippi State University considered a survey of 1,000 college students nationwide and were surprised to find that ‘women attending colleges and universities affiliated with the Catholic Church are almost four times as likely to have participated in ‘hooking up’ compared to women at secular schools.’ A ‘hook up’ is defined as a casual physical encounter with a male student, without the expectation of an ongoing relationship.” Link.
School Name / Starting Median Salary / Mid-Career Median Salary
1. Dartmouth College: $58,200 / $129,000
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): $71,100 / $126,000
3. Harvard University: $60,000 / $126,000
4. Harvey Mudd College: $71,000 / $125,000
5. Stanford University: $67,500 / $124,000
6. Princeton University: $65,000 / $124,000
7. Colgate University: $51,900 / $122,000
8. University of Notre Dame: $55,300 / $121,000
9. Yale University: $56,000 / $120,000
10. University of Pennsylvania: $60,400 / $118,000
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Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of the 235 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY
Don’t you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
Census takers will be arriving shortly, and they’ll be asking a lot of invasive questions. With that in mind, watch this nifty little video. Caveat: The commentator is correct about the plain wording of the constitution, but I wouldn’t rely on that when responding to an agent of the federal government. The Supreme Court has taken all sorts of narrow provisions of the Constitution and greatly expanded their reach. Without analyzing the census case history, I wouldn’t advise anyone to rely on the plain terms of the Constitution, which, by themselves, really don’t mean much anymore.
But if you can ditch a census taker, please do. Statistics are the eyes and ears of the government. Without statistics, the government is deaf and blind. The census is, I suspect, the primary means the government uses to gather its statistics.
Based on a quick internet search, it would appear that you’re subject to a mere $100 fine if you refuse to answer the census. Link. But please: Don’t take this as a legal opinion. I know no more about census law than the average joe on the street. Do your own internet searches or hire an attorney, if you really feel like dodging the census.
Ben Havenstein
Interesting reading: Dylan Grice, strategist at Société Générale, “provides a gripping account of Germany’s hyperinflationary episode, in which he charts the extended parallels between not just the precursor economy that lead to a 16,579,999% inflation in 1923 Weimar Germany, and modern day developed (and highly leveraged) countries, but between Germany’s then central banker Rudolf von Havenstein, and the Greenspan-Bernanke duo. And while we know how “der Geld Marschall’s” Weimar experiment ended, the future before the U.S., as a result of the Maestro’s (both Senior and Junior) almost identical policy response is still open-ended. As the future of America is now exclusively in the hands of insidious economists, the following insight from Grice into the utility of economic models and decision-making should be sufficient to dash the hopes of any optimist for a favorable outcome.” Link.
“The greatest obstacles to the soul’s trying to follow Christ and to help others have their origin in a disordered love of self. At times this leads us to overestimate our strength. At other times, it brings discouragement and despondency as a result of our own weaknesses and our errors. Pride often reveals itself in an interior monologue, in which we exaggerate the importance of our own interests and get them out of proportion. We end up praising ourselves. In any conversation pride leads us to talk about ourselves and our affairs, and to want people to have a good opinion of us at any price. Some people stick to their own opinion, whether it be right or wrong. They seize any chance to point out another’s mistakes, and make it hard to maintain a friendly atmosphere. The most reprehensible way of emphasizing our own worth is by putting down someone else. The proud do not like to hear praise for another person and are always ready to reveal the defects of anyone who stands out from the crowd. A characteristic note of pride is an impatient dislike of being contradicted or corrected.” Francis Fernandez
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