Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) tells us that there are many ways for people to find jobs, and they don’t have to go go through college.
There’s That Amendment Thing, Right? Bill of Somethingorother?
November 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
See, now this is why we should have a strong requirement for civics and American Government in public schools.
Annoyed by criticism from a local political group, the Gould, Arkansas, city council decided to wish it away. Last month it passed an ordinance abolishing the Gould Citizens Advisory Council, which it accused of “causing confusion and discourse among the citizens.” It also forbade Mayor Earnest Nash Jr., a member of the irksome group, to meet “any organization in any location,” whether “inside or outside Gould city limits,” without the city council’s permission. For good measure, Gould’s legislators declared that “no new organizations shall be allowed to exist in the City of Gould without approval from a majority of the City Council.”
It’s kind of funny. But then it really isn’t. It’s actually scary, not that some idiotic city council would try to outlaw dissent, but rather that they’d think it was somehow constitutional.
Can Students Get Through College Without Taking Loans?
November 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx tells TheStreet.com that students can get through college without taking loans and that the U.S. needs more students learning technical skills.
They Believe They Can Spend Your Charitable Money Better Than You, Too.
November 2, 2011 By 1 Comment
Built into the Obama Administration’s call to reduce the charitable deduction for higher earners is this:
Much more worrisome are the assumptions of the latest tax proposal and a White House initiative called the Social Innovation Fund. While the former assumes that the money diverted from charity can be put to better use by government, the latter adds the notion that government funds should themselves be directed to nonprofits, some previously independent of government. The other assumption is that private philanthropy should follow along, matching government dollars.
In combination, this amounts to what can be called the Solyndra-ization of philanthropy, in which the government would brand select social-service organizations with the Washington seal of approval, and thus signal that private charitable capital should be directed to the same organizations.
The mind boggles. Not only are they taking money out of the private sector capital markets to play their own venture capital games (see: Solyndra); but they’re also planning to do the same with non-profits. Their proposal will drain funds from non-profits of your choosing and funnel money to non-profits of their choosing.
The One Decent Point Being Made by OWS
October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
When they were 18 years old, they were told: “Go get a four-year degree. It doesn’t matter your major. You’ll get a job when you graduate.”
They were told: “Liberal arts degrees are coveted by employers – it means you know how to think critically.”
They were never exposed to shop classes. They were taught to look down their noses at the trades. They were told to avoid “selling out” to earn a living. They were told that working for a nonprofit was somehow more noble than working in the job-creating private sector.
And they were told – and encouraged – to go $100,000 in debt to earn that degree.
Do you blame the 18-year old who’s now in his mid-twenties, buried under a mountain of debt and unable to find a job?
Or do you blame the parents, educators and college counselors? Do you blame a higher education system that has no downward pressure on costs?
It’s officially a crisis. Student loan debt has hit the $1 trillion mark, exceeding Americans’ total credit card indebtedness. Unemployed graduates with huge loan balances are camping out in “Occupy” camps — the Hoovervilles of our age — around the nation. And President Obama, perhaps afraid those camps will be dubbed “Obamavilles,” as indeed they have already been by some, has unveiled a new proposal that promises to help graduates who are drowning in debt.
More:
The real problem is that we’ve been running a higher education bubble, one that — like the real-estate bubble — has been pumped up by cheap government money. Since 1999, student loan debt has increased by 511%, while disposable income has increased by only 73%.
That’s because when the government subsidizes something, producers respond by raising prices to soak up as much of the subsidy as they can. College is no exception. Tuition has been increasing much faster than disposable income, and families — believing that a college education is a can’t-lose investment, much as they used to think houses were — have been making up the difference with debt. After all, we’re told, student loan debt is “good debt,” because a college degree guarantees more earnings.
Tell it to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, many of whom note that they’re deep in debt for fancy degrees that didn’t get them jobs.
Taxpayers Bailing Out Taxpayer-Financed Loans to Non-Taxpayers = “Stimulus”
October 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
But Obama is now seeking to use that new power to obtain a taxpayer-financed stimulus that Congress won’t approve. The idea is to cap student loan repayment rates at 10 percent of a debtor’s income that goes above the poverty line, and then limiting the life of a loan to 20 years.
Take this example: If Suzy Creamcheese gets into George Washington University and borrows from the government the requisite $212,000 to obtain an undergraduate degree, her repayment schedule will be based on what she earns. If Suzy opts to heed the president’s call for public service, and takes a job as a city social worker earning $25,000, her payments would be limited to $1,411 a year after the $10,890 of poverty-level income is subtracted from her total exposure.
Twenty years at that rate would have taxpayers recoup only $28,220 of their $212,000 loan to Suzy.
Mallory Factor A Judge in Corporate Spelling Bee to Benefit Reading
October 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
from the POST AND COURIER
October 11, 2011
How do you spell “fundraiser”? If you are local educational nonprofit LifeManagement Center, it’s B-E-E.
LifeManagement, which helps adults and children overcome learning challenges, is holding a Corporate Spelling Bee on Oct. 18 to help fund its Reading Rewards program.
The event will include 11 teams representing schools, colleges, dentists, pediatricians and even a book club. Some groups were sponsored by other organizations for the $1,000 entry fee.
What: LifeManagement Center Corporate Spelling Bee
When: 6:30 p.m. Oct. 18
Where: Emmett Robinson Theatre, Simons Center for the Arts, College of Charleston
Details: Judge Alex Sanders is the emcee and Elsa McDowell of The Post and Courier is the word reader. Judges are businessman Mallory Factor, consultant Doug Gepford and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley. Teams are sponsored by The Citadel, College of Charleston, Nelson Mullins, Maybank Properties, Between the Lines book club and more.
Cost: Admission is free for spectators, but seating is limited. For tickets, call LifeManagement at 852-5705.
Disney Paid Dividends
June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Like many families, we take our children’s education seriously. So when we were planning a trip to New York for our middle child, Creagh, we scheduled visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History and Chinatown. Then, the subject of Disney musicals came up. “Take Creagh to a show!” the grandparents suggested. “You mean like the Picasso show at MOMA?” we responded. “No, a Disney musical—like Mary Poppins. She’ll love it,” they urged.
“Hmmm,” we replied. Our trips to New York with the kids always focused on the cultural and educational highlights of the city. These were all the things our kids missed out on by being transplanted from Manhattan to a much smaller city when they were very little.
