Wall Street protesters: We're in for the long haul

[crazy canuck]

I am focusing on the Ide's of the world that think just because they paid for an education that they should be living the good life and since they are not they should get a refund.

Well, I think being conned into overpaying for college is a contributing factor to the angst of the younger generation.

If the "Con" was that they thought they simply by going to University they would be get a good job then I have no sympathy for them.

[The Minsky Moment]

They could have the protests in Flushing Meadows and they'd still be meaningful in the same way.  I don't get the topographic quibbling.   

Because it is illustrative (symbolic perhaps?) of a deeper problem that explains the total inefficacy of these protests: the lack of understanding of that which is being protested.

[Ideologue]

You know, I never said I should be living the good life, dude.  Those are words you're putting in my mouth.  I just think I should be able to get a decent job instead of being sandwiched in a state of strident, massive competition for jobs I'm qualified for and a state of overqualification for stopgap work.

So are you rethinking your argument that education be a guarrantee of results in the job market because you paid for it?

Is that the subjunctive (if so, cool) or are you missing a "should"?  Of course I still think it should, yes.  It should not be a crapshoot, and degree programs should not so overproduce that they're effectively defrauding investors.  I certainly agree with you that it is not, but unlike you I'm not in a position to say "the world is good enough."  I doubt I'll ever feel that way, but we've had different formative experiences.

I mean, I get what you're saying that it's "not just your degree, but also hard work!"  But that's sort of a false distinction, isn't it?  I mean, maybe you're a lot smarter than me, but I thought my J.D. and clinical was pretty hard work.  And if that wasn't enough, then my school ought to have required and been better at facilitating the means for its customers--or students, if you disagree that a customer service model is appropriate--to achieve those requisites.

And, yeah, yeah, not taking the bar is on me.  It was a mistake.  But 1)that was no guarantee of work either*, 2)SC has a bullshit reciprocity stance that would reduce my marketability in other states to the same levels they exist at presently, and 3)for someone with a professional degree walking into a GS-6 or GS-7 gig should be no problem.  My father did; actually, he had a M.A..  In History.  If it's entitlement to think I should have the same opportunities as my father, when I live in the fucking future, when I did in fact work harder than he did (or at least get a degree that involved some practical training), then color me entitled.

Of course, people actually died in Vietnam, so that might explain the difference.

*Or a guarantee of admission, even if I passed.  I did notice something cool when looking up SL dischargeability, that I need to look into: if I did take the SC bar, and passed--or applied for provisional membership, that'd be cheaper and less time-consuming--but was refused a place based on my criminal history, which was known in all its details to the University of South Carolina, I think I could cancel my student loans.

Of course, I'd probably have to be rejected from every state in the union before they discharged that kind of blood debt.

[Ideologue]

They could have the protests in Flushing Meadows and they'd still be meaningful in the same way.  I don't get the topographic quibbling.   

Because it is illustrative (symbolic perhaps?) of a deeper problem that explains the total inefficacy of these protests: the lack of understanding of that which is being protested.

They need leadership.  A vanguard, if you will.

[Ed Anger]

I hate young people.

[The Minsky Moment]

They need leadership.  A vanguard, if you will.

It's true - Marx would be apoplectic if he were alive and saw these protests.

Problem is Marx was wrong.
Keynes was right.   

[MadImmortalMan]

They need leadership.  A vanguard, if you will.

It's true - Marx would be apoplectic if he were alive and saw these protests.

Problem is Marx was wrong.
Keynes was right.   

Without it, they are left to suffer at the whim of whichever one of them manages to make the biggest noise. And that's almost always not good.

[Razgovory]

They could have the protests in Flushing Meadows and they'd still be meaningful in the same way.  I don't get the topographic quibbling.   

Because it is illustrative (symbolic perhaps?) of a deeper problem that explains the total inefficacy of these protests: the lack of understanding of that which is being protested.

Would moving the protest help this problem?

[Ideologue]

They need leadership.  A vanguard, if you will.

It's true - Marx would be apoplectic if he were alive and saw these protests.

Problem is Marx was wrong.
Keynes was right.   

I raise you: Friedman.

Friedman was an important member of the team during World War II that developed a new proximity fuse for anti-aircraft projectiles, which prevented shells from exploding unless they were near the object they are meant to destroy.

Heh.

[crazy canuck]

Ide, law school was not hard work.  The articles and the years of being a junior lawyer after law school - now that was hard.  Both in the sense that it was hard to get such positions and it was hard work once those positions were obtained.  Looking back on it, law school was the easiest thing I ever did.

[DGuller]

They could have the protests in Flushing Meadows and they'd still be meaningful in the same way.  I don't get the topographic quibbling.   

Because it is illustrative (symbolic perhaps?) of a deeper problem that explains the total inefficacy of these protests: the lack of understanding of that which is being protested.

Better a slightly misdirected protest than no protest at all.  I think it's downright humiliating how little resistance ordinary people put up while oligarchs picked up one resounding victory after another in their war on equitable society.  It's like liberal Americans took lessons from Russia and China on political docility.

As stupid as certain facets of these protests may seem, I really hope that this isn't just a fad.  Unfortunatley, I'm afraid that people of liberal persusasion by the very nature of their ideology lack the necessary amount of bile to keep going for extended period of time.

[Ed Anger]

The hipster fuckers will wander off when it gets cold.

[The Minsky Moment]

Any oligarchs who happen to pass by must be laughing their ass off.  Because these protests are not just slightly misdirected, they are self-marginalizing.

[Ideologue]

Ide, law school was not hard work.  The articles and the years of being a junior lawyer after law school - now that was hard.  Both in the sense that it was hard to get such positions and it was hard work once those positions were obtained.  Looking back on it, law school was the easiest thing I ever did.

And one day you can be ruler of the Queen's Navy.

But just so we're clear it's not like I expected hard work to end.  Or any work to end, for that matter.

I think we're sort of arguing past each other.  "I want a job."  "Work hard!"  "Where?"  "At your job!"  "What?"

But I dunno, maybe you're right.  The hardest thing I'm dealing with these days is keeping my morale up.

P.S.: I also suspect, though I can't claim with certainty, that some of that is distance, and the effect of being faced with novel challenges.  I find the concepts of my 1L year pretty trivial now, but at the time I found them difficult.

[crazy canuck]

Ide, law school was not hard work.  The articles and the years of being a junior lawyer after law school - now that was hard.  Both in the sense that it was hard to get such positions and it was hard work once those positions were obtained.  Looking back on it, law school was the easiest thing I ever did.

And one day you can be ruler of the Queen's Navy.

But just so we're clear it's not like I expected hard work to end.  Or any work to end, for that matter.

I think we're sort of arguing past each other.  "I want a job."  "Work hard!"  "Where?"  "At your job!"  "What?"

To the extent we are arguing past eachother it is based on the fact that you are upset that you paid for an education that didnt immediately result in gainful employment but then you at times deny that you think an education should be a guarrantee of such a thing.