“From 1975 to 2005, the cost of attending public universities in the U.S. tripled…. much of the increased cost can be attributed to administrative bloat.
Since the 1970s,….. the number of administrative staffers has risen by 235 percent, while the number of faculty and students has increased by only about 50 percent.”

I worked at a major University and saw the bloat and saw it cut and cut and cut as State Revenue went down, down, down. However, part of the reason (probably most of the reason) for the bloat was the friggin’ government wanting reports, reports, reports and more and more information feedback on every damn thing imaginable which took more people to supply it. Just one example at our University (with a hospital, Medical School, other sciences, basic research, clinical research, etc.) was that crappy HIPAA law (the Medical Privacy law). Every patient had to sign a HIPAA form at every visit, someone had to create the forms, copy them distribute them, etc. In order NOT to get into trouble with the government causing us to lose our capability to do research, we had to create a whole new department to handle HIPAA with its very own employees plus add employees to the Human Subjects Division and then the Human Subjects Committee had more work to do, more to consider, making it necessary to add support staff.

And THAT was just ONE frackin’ Government law! Assholes.

That’s the only part I’ll address. Gotta go soon.

Here.

In every Marxist revolution, one of the first things the revolutionary leaders do is move into the very mansions they kicked the owners out of.

I’d like to add a few things.

“Send his kids to college”. Whatever happened to supporting your kids while letting them work the summers and get part-time jobs during the school year? I know It can still be done. In my world, giving your kids a “free ride” isn’t part of the dream.

Your flame to Tom is what brought me here. It looks to me you’re only pointing out the system doesn’t work the way it used to and that’s a given. You’ve repeatedly pointed out the disparity between the rich and the poor and chalked it up to greed. While I agree that greed is large part of the problem, it’s certainly not the only one. In other words, the bone you chew is meatless. You don’t want to look seriously at any causes beyond your predetermined judgments. Your reply to “Five lessons from the European fiscal crisis ” is a perfect example.

How about instead of just pointing out the unaffordability of a college education, why not look at college costs and see what’s causing the problem. Here is just one:

“From 1975 to 2005, the cost of attending public universities in the U.S. tripled…. much of the increased cost can be attributed to administrative bloat.
Since the 1970s,….. the number of administrative staffers has risen by 235 percent, while the number of faculty and students has increased by only about 50 percent.”

I’d say that has something to do with it and I’m sure you would too, but you and other liberals ignore information like this especially when Tom posts it. Instead of being dismissive like ER and Eri, would it hurt to find sources of information to counter Tom’s claims? Too much work or prefer just to spout off?

Sorry, Back to your subject.

I think you unknowingly invited Tom’s embellishment by using the word “Pension” instead of “retirement account” or “401k“. Pensions are associated with trade unions and government employees and we know what conservatives think about them.

The irony is you shouldn’t have to be a union member to live the American dream. And that takes your argument even further.

“You think there is an ideal universe where all high school graduates can be union workers at high wages with massive benefits, months of vacation, and defined pensions*.”

You can’t, because I didn’t. Here’s the real question. Do you believe it is intellectually honest to ascribe thoughts to me I haven’t expressed?

Simple question, yes or no. Either you do, or you don’t.

Arf

If you need bluntness and simplicity, our system is working better for its citizens than anything else currently out there.

The alternatives presented by “progressives” have burned down every nation that has actually tried them, and yet liberals are still completely incapable of conceiving anything else as a solution besides “more power and wealth to the state.” Go ahead, run any social, environmental, or economic problem through your own head and see what solution pops out. Bet I can guess.

Re-read the part about irrational belief.

Pretty good job.

Arf

Besides, there really isn’t a lot of percentage in trying to get the answers across to someone who thinks Ghaddafi and Chavez were working “for their own countries’ benefit.”

Even your “high school graduate” definition is complicated, since the number of such graduates has been a rapidly moving curve since the 1950s, and would have to be calculated against the rest. I understand what you’re driving at. You think there is an ideal universe where all high school graduates can be union workers at high wages with massive benefits, months of vacation, and defined pensions*. That universe doesn’t exist. Europe is finding this out the hard way.

Liberals and leftists believe…not know, believe…that there is some way, some how, some world, in which you can make a government-controlled society work better than a free one. History settled this a long time ago, which is why we’re talking belief, not knowledge. If you really were interested in an answer, the objective verdict on “American-style” capitalism has been in for decades.

I watched a young idiot in one of the tent cities screaming about the evils of capitalism while holding in her lap–in her lap!–a computer a thousand times more powerful than the $9 million Cray 1 was when I was her age.

There are those who try to tell me that the answer is some “compromise” between freedom and government control, some correct mixture that we have yet to arrive at. But every last person I have ever talked to with this belief always insists that the proper mixture includes a lot more government control than we already have. Again, Europe is hammering one of the last nails in the coffin of “democratic socialism.”

(*and a nice chunk of their wages funneled to The Party.)