I kinda like it: “Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.” Awhile ago, I suggested they should turn Detroit into the first anarcho-capitalist experimental laboratory. I figured, “What would it hurt?” This idea is a bit less radical, but I don’t know who they’ll prevent gang leaders from shooting the cows as a form of semi-urban vandalism.

What’s the saying? There’s a moron born every second? “Two bottled “ghosts” have sold for more than £,1300 in an online auction in New Zealand.”

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.

Link (emphasis added).

Get a Pair

Another reason to dislike the Cleveland Cavaliers: Cleveland Cavaliers fans create world record for Most Snuggies Worn.

The Tory Twister

I saw this sentence over the weekend: “Birmingham [in England] was hit by a tornado five years ago and when homes were flooded these kind of items would have been very useful.” I thought tornadoes only hit in the United States, like they were our own special disaster that no one else got to share. This is the first time I’ve heard of a tornado outside the U.S.

Music to my ears: Anger over increasing tuition and school budget cuts boiled over as students across the country staged rowdy demonstrations that led to clashes with police and the rush-hour shutdown of a major freeway in California. But all that violence and disruption isn’t going to solve the problems. Let me give you my ten-point guide to eliminating runaway higher-education costs:

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.

Those commonalities aren’t coincidences.

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.”

(1) The most liberal/conservative members of Congress.

(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.

Rich City, Poor City. Portolio dot com has a neat breakdown of the richest and poorest cities in America. In Newport Beach, CA, more than a quarter of its households make over $200,000. In Reading, PA, the average per capita income is $14,120 (of half the national average) and no household brings in more than $200,000.

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.

You wanna go to college to earn more money? Here are your best bets:

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

Received in an Email

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.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

O’neill is the speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetos it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts – of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it’s because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses – provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

By Charley Reese