If anyone is interested, I originally posted the graph Jerome uses and Subtr4t posted originally here on March 6 in Predicting Future Oil Prices. This sort of memory stuff used to drive me crazy but I'm over it now. I think its just the nature weblogs to be mostly ahistorical.
Yes, it's different. Subtr4ct's graph goes back to 1990, which is what makes it so striking, IMO. The futures price was the same for so long...then shot up so fast.
Yes, it's a slightly longer history but part of the point of my original story was that from 1986 to about 2002 or so, the 5 year futures price fluctuated between $18 and $21 and never deviated from that range. So Subtr4ct's graph confirms that back to 1990 instead of 1998.
I'm not annoyed about this or anything. Just thought I would point people back to my original story since it's relevant to this thread.
Earlier in the development of wind, almost half of Danish wind turbines were owned by co-ops. Some my farmers (always easier to see a wind turbine when every few revolutions means another krona in one's pocket), others by city dwellers. Today, AFAIK, about `/4 are owned by co-ops.
I am just wondering if there is enough financial support at TOD to develop our own co-op or corporation for some sort of renewable energy to displace oil or natural gas in some market.
For awhile, Jerome a Paris was trying to get DailyKos members to join together and invest in a wind farm. I'm not sure if anything ever came of it. IIRC, it was a pretty significant investment.
It would be interesting to try and develop a more formal proposal for a wind farm, or other solutions. These proposals would be available on TOD for review and further enhancement. Such an initiative and the resulting repository would accomplish a number of things:
1) The amount of knowledge that "erupts" here is significant. At present there is no way to capture the key elements of a debate or expose them to later critique. Development of a "project" page, or an resource composed of "working papers" would avert transitional loss of intellectual capital.
2) We often see the invocation of the "technological fairy," some technological fix which, if immediately applied, would resolve everything. The recent debate on Fusion power is one example. It would be just as worthwhile to identify technological dead ends as it would be to identify possible lines of solution.
3) EROEI is a valuable concept. I had not seen this applied outside of anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer practice until I came to TOD. It would be worthwhile to do formal EROEI studies on such topics as fuel ethanol so that they can be revealed as bogus soluitions if that is in fact what they are. Such a resource would help prevent public bamboozlement and pork driven political decisions.
4) The availability of working papers would help prevent us from reiterating the exact same debate six months later. Xaxat recently provided an image which perfectly illustrates this lack of progress here: http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/chrono/photos/photo_1999_4.php
5) The compiled working papers would be available for public distribution as PDF or similar. This would help communicate the issues to a broader public.
6) If a working paper indicates a solution that may be of economic significance then the co-op could coalesce around it. It would also be helpful to provide economic studies that highlight the technical, economic, or social roadblocks to a possible solution. Another reader may be able to innovate around those roadblocks and transform a "dead end" into a viable solution. I am taking for granted here that our bottom line is a search for viable solutions rather than individual economic return. Both would be nice.
7) The working papers repository would provide a collection of studies that TOD might rework into publication form for general sale. This would both get the word out and provide economic sustenance to the TOD project.
8) I am sure that there is an item 8 and equally sure that some other TODder has it on the tip of their keyboard. :-)
BOP for your windfarm proposal what if capital was put forth by a group to say put a solar power system on JOE BLOWS roof. Then He pays into the Co-op what he would normally pay the power company at the original KW hour price. The Co op uses his wasted sunlight (or wind same priciple) and he secures constant price of energy. since his system would be based on his need everything is god. A few years down the line when his system pays for itself he gets say 25%off. The Contract would have to attach to the deed and carry with a sale.
Against point #2 you can't rule out a dead end except in rare occasions (alchemy) some things are possible even though thought otherwise. I might be wrong fusion might not be possible but at this point I think it is not proven so.
I am pretty sure if a company like BP funded this they would get green credits or something like that for the project. I forget what the term is when a corporation cuts pollution somewhere else and gets to increase their emmissions a percentage of the reduced value.
Also If TSHTF the panels are on your home their yours.
I think a special section of "Working Papers", with comments and suggestions logged, revisions made, etc. would be a worthwhile addition to TOD. What to include and what not would be made by the editors of TOD.
I see my paper as the missing section/addendum to Hirsch's paper.
The amount of work you have done is impressive. But a lot of it is scattered through a wide range of posts. Having the information formally gathered in one place would be very helpful. My locality is seeking to expand light rail. Being able to educate myself, and/or provide a comprehensive, accurate resource to other concerned parties would be invaluable.
I note that the NA car dependency arose in part due to the citizens blind acceptance of a development path espoused by vested economic interests. The entire US Inter-urban railway system was abandoned and in many cases this was due to oil or tire interests purchasing and then shutting down a potential competitor.
Oilrig Medic is right.
The Gas Diffusion process plant in the Manhattan Project almost didn't work because they couldn't get a filter that had the right size and range of holes to separate the two isotopes by their different relative velocities.
The technological fix to make it work was development of a way to make a filter with very small holes. I've heard from a family member that that technique was what started the Pall Corporation. You've probably seen their filters behind your plant, if you run a plant.
A napkin with some writing on it is the difference between a dead end technology and something that changes your world.
There may be companies doing this already, but if not, a logical idea for an IPO would be for a company whose sole business plan is to install wind generators. This also makes it easier for individual investors to pool their capital.
This goes along with my recommendation that Baby Boomers take a hard look at buying small farms and perhaps leasing them out to organic farmers. The ideal situation is a farm coop arrangement, where people make fixed monthly payments to farmers in exchange for weekly deliveries during the growing season.
Food is the most basic requirement for retirement, and it's a win/win proposition. You can simultaneously make money from Peak Oil, while having a positive impact on your community, and while arranging for a reliable food supply.
How does a wind farmer sell his crop? I know that in the past it was a fairly political negotiation with regional power companies ... but now there seem to be more end user arraingements.
I suspect that the Danes have a guaranteed buyer arraingement.
Peak Oil Action Plan & Peak College Enrollment--a Looming Crisis?
After laboriously typing out my comment, I found myself at the bottom again, so I'll move to the top of Sunday.
Peak Oil Action Plan
Two plans for action that address a lot of concerns and that make sense together: (1) Alanfrombigeasy's rail electrification plan and (2) scrap the highly regressive Payroll (Social Security + Medicare) Tax and replace it with a fossil fuel and/or liquid transportation fuel tax.
Peak College Enrollment--a Looming Crisis?
In regard to education, the New York Times had an interesting article today on the problems with retraining programs. They frequently don't work, in the sense that once airline mechanics are laid off from high paying jobs, it is unlikely that they will ever get their old lifestyles back.
The article also discusses the reality that the number of college graduates is growing faster than the number of jobs for collage graduates. This results in a lot of people graduating who find that they can't find a job that will pay both their student loans and their cost of living on their own.
This situation will only get worse, especially as we approach Peak College Enrollment. I believe that the all time record high peak high school enrollment is going to be around 2007-2008, leading to the all time record high college graduation a few years later, right into the teeth of the Mother of all Energy Crises.
I have noticed a fascinating situation regarding even Peak Oil aware parents and their own kids. When I explain the new reality for Baby Boom Echo generation, invariably the response is "But there will still be a need for policy makers." Translation: it's okay for your unemployed college graduate to work in agriculture, but my college graduate will have a cushy white collar government job. I don't think so.
Parents and prospective college student are making tragic mistakes right now. They should be looking at technical schools that will give them practical training, with a special emphasis on repair work and agriculture. The last thing that you want to do is to go into debt to release another unemployed law school graduate into the marketplace.
Of course, law school applications are headed toward record levels.
When I graduated high school (class of '63), it was received wisdom, particularly among working-class families like my own, that if you just got that college diploma, the American Dream would automatically be yours.
Though such a mindset seems hopelessly naive today, it wasn't all that far from reality during that time period, for when I subsequently graduated from engineering school (class of '67), the members of senior class had an average of of something like 4.3 job offers each, and not one of the 270-odd graduates was without a job offer. No one thought that to be particularly remarkable at the time.
Today, as is so painfully obvious, a college degree has far less value, particularly if it is a liberal arts degree rather than one of the 'trades' like engineering or business administration. It is quite sad and disturbing to see so many college graduates doing menial jobs for which they are far over-qualified.
And getting more education can only make it worse by making you even more over-qualified. If you want to ensure that your son or daughter remains permanently unemployed, have him/her get a PhD in something like particle physics. I think many young people in graduate school are there because they couldn't find a decent job and feel that they are at least doing something positive by being back in school.
I really think that once this reality sets in, we are going have some very angry young people in a truly ugly mood. I also think that colleges are now getting close to the peak of a bubble, much akin to the real estate bubble. So many of the large universities have embarked on outrageously expensive expansion programs, largly consisting of impressive but marginally useful physical facilities, the main purpose of which appears to be to improve their status, lure the better students, and provide a justification for obscenely expensive tuititions. Universities seem to compete among each other in much the same way that posh resorts do. I think it's going to come down, because our economy just doesn't need all of these college graduates, particularly with increased outsourcing of white-collar jobs.
The American middle class will continue to shrink.
As it happens there was a C-Span show on college costs and debt yesterday. I caught the last half of it. this is it.
A couple interesting factoids stick with me:
The age of college students has increased in recent years, to mid 20s.
Most students start within a year or two of high school graduation, if they start at all.
The time-to-degree is longer, with 6-8 years becoming common.
The first generations in families to reach college tend to go for the more practical degrees. The "trade" oriented degrees.
The more secure second/third generations going to college go for the less practical liberal arts.
(How "rational" #5 is may be in they eye of the beholder. It was painted as reasonable by the presenters, but I think those affuent kids are the ones who get the rude surprises.)
Oh, the moderator painted the bottom line as "since a degree at a state school can be had for $20K, and can be financed by loans, it is still (in today's world) a relatively low cost investment."
I think someone else pointed out that the average state college education costs less than the average new car.
$20,000... which state school was he talking about? I might transfer there. I'm at UTexasSA and my yearly tuition is around $8000. Add to that the money you take out for cost of living, which you really do need in order to make it day to day, and it jumps considerably. I average about $12,000 a year in loans.
Sorry, I keep thinking of these things one by one.
Another interesting factiod was that either Australia or New Zealand had a policy of charging less tuition for practical degrees and more for liberal arts.
I think that is a good policy (that would be unlikely to fly here given the entrenched control liberal arts exert on our campuses). It certainly drives home to the student what is a "luxury" degree.
That's a poor assessment. I'm a first generation college student, and I'm double majoring in political science and psychology, two of the most useless liberal arts majors in existence. The difference, and this is what you left out, a grad school is usually the next step for a liberal arts major, where they learn a profession like law or finaince, or they work for their PhDs, which while they're becoming more so, are definently not useless degrees.
One of my formative experiences was hearing of a newly married couple. Recent college graduates. He, with a history degree, went to work selling furnature at Levitz. She, with an english degree, went to work selling clothes at Broadway.
Should they have become lawyers? Perhaps. I suppose the rubber meets the roads in the stats - the precentage of liberal arts majors who leap to high income professions.
I'm sorry but my patience with the cracks on liberal arts majors and lawyers has worn thin. Both groups are absolutely essential to a civil democratic society. It is unfortunate that the current employment market undervalues those with an education designed to provide the tools for rational and reflective thought, a historical perspective, and the ability to use language fluidly and with precision. Would anyone here really appreciate a society only run by engineers? The trains would run on time, but much of the Constitution would be lost in the bargain, as it is inefficient and costly.
Of the founding fathers how many were engineers and how many were political science majors with a double major in art histrory (after they changed majors 2 other times)
Universities generate new knowledge through research. Vital function. We have more lawyers percapita than any other country. This is the reason nobody coaches little league and OBGYN's are hard to find.
Legal representation is neccesary. But we have more than enough.
I must inform you that during the time of our Founding Fathers the profession of engineering did not exist, at least not in any formal sense. There were surveyors, and people who learned how to build things and who learned about machines. It was mostly learning by doing. But you did not go to college to become an engineer, because there wasn't any engineering curricula at the time. Engineering as a formal profession is relatively young, largely getting its start in the mid-19th Century.
Most of our Founding Fathers were well-connected and well-educated aristocrats, the elites of the day, if you will. While there were exceptions (such as Ben Franklin, one of the most capable and versatile geniuses of all time, right up there with Leonardo), our Founding Fathers were not middle class people.
I'll remember that the next time one comes seeking my legal services: "I'm sorry about your car collisioin and the fact that the insurance company is only paying a small fraction of your medical costs, but you see ... well, there are too many lawyers . . ."
Lawyers work in a very competitive market and if there isn't the work they don't eat. Private clients hire attorneys to advance their goals and defend the rights. More than any other profession, it's a self regulating one. Unlike the medical professions they do not work together to limit their numbers.
The Bar bears substantial responsibility for the growing disconnect between what lawyers do and how the help society and market efficiency and the increasinly majoritarian view that they're leaches or pilot fish, sucking the life blood of the body politic and the market economy.
Incidentally, no other Presidentail administration has been as hostile to the legal profession and the Bar and had so little regard for the rule of law as that of George W. Bush - and it became apparent a few days before the 2000. election.
my patience with the cracks on liberal arts majors and lawyers has worn thin
Actually the "cracks" (and by the way, that is a Freudian slip-wise, well chosen word) are not aimed at liberal arts or legal studies per se; but rather at any specialization in education which leaves out the need for studying other areas. It is because we subdivide ourselves into spealized areas that things slip between the "cracks"; very important things, like no one worrying about how the whole thing comes together. We all are taught to believe that some invisible being --often called the invisible hand-- will make everything work out. But it doesn't. The markets don't provide. Your underemployed college graduates are "evidence" that the markets don't provide.
Would you prefer to live under a socialist system where everybody is employed in spite of being useful? The market is a dynamic feedback system, fluctuating between the extremes of chaos and routine.
It seems obvious to me that we all are born with a specialized talent, i.e. musician, writer, engineer, mathematician, biologist. I know you are aware that the division of labor is especially evident in other species, i.e. bees´ and ants´. What does this tell you? My guess is the DNA "masterplan" produces x percentage of engineers, poets, writers, lawyers, and musicians in order to promote sustainablity. Insects have been around for hundreds of millions of years.
oil,
My message was nothing of the sort. Instead, it means that all of us need to get educated in each other's specialties. The economist needs to learn some basic thermodynamics AND APPLY IT to the theory of economics. The engineer needs to learn politics and APPLY IT to the decision making process that determines which projects are funded and which are not. Politicians need to learn how real science works and to stop pretending Global Warming is not real because it is politically inconvenient. Most of all, all humans need to learn how their brains work so they do not become easy prey for mass media manipulation and smiling propaganda faces on the MSM news networks. We are herd animals and we are irrational, fearful and easily manipulated. The sooner we admit it, the sooner we can start seeing how we are all blindly following the main herd towards the edge of the cliff. The sooner we can learn that "stay the course" is not about loyalty but rather about irrational behavior.
I went to two colleges, The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Mississippi State Unitversity. I was classified as and Un-decided at UALR and as A Landscape Architecture Major at MSU. While at UALR I took any class I wanted to know about. I worked part time, Kept a Garden at my parents house and Helped with other things, Even helping them pay some of thier bills. I did all the same chores I ever did growing up and a few more. I took classes that interested me. I disliked when I was told you need this or that to get your degree. What degree I was going there to learn things, not to get a degree. I did decide I really liked Landscape and designing the world around me and When my younger brother was heading to college. We looked at only the schools in the nation that had his degree AeroSpace engineering, and L. A. at them, about 20 at the time. We sent out the apps and Mississippi Picked both of us, and off we went, roommates and brothers, we were there to help each other and be family in school and he had a better college going to class ethic than I did, till he failed to make the grade and Lost his 4 year Scholarship. He did get his degree after 6 years. But me, I got the same run around, do this, do that and you will be better. I never liked folks telling me what I needed to learn. I like learning what I want to learn. I slowing got down to where they would not let me stay on campus, so I moved off campus, my brother was living with his girlfriend and future wife. I got a great deal on a great house, and we slowly went to classes and I left for other places. He finally got his degree, early in my first marriage. I never got a degree, But I loved learning what I wanted to learn.
Jobs. I have worked a whole range of jobs, from the 3.35 an hour to 15.00 an hour and done things I have really enjoyed. If I did not like the job, I did not stay there long.
With My VERY well rounded education, I am going off to Re-build my Girlfriends Free and Clear paid for House. I will be in charge of all fixs and Landscaping, and make it What we both want, but also What I know we will need with the coming events of PEAK OIL. She does not need to worry about PO just yet, I can handle that detail just fine.
I have Always said, that a college should not be where you go to learn a career it is where you go to learn things that you want to know about, things you don't know, anything about. To learn the well rounded information that some of the practical work experience can't teach you.
Hey, my family thinks I am a failure. I write books, Stories, Poems, Children's stories, and have as much fun every day of my life as anyone I know. I have no worries. but my brother is uptight about money all the time, and Is in debt up to his eyeballs while he is standing on his wife's shoulders!! Me, no debts, No worries and able to do anything I want to do.
Of course we need lawyers; but do we need so MANY of them?
The last time I looked countries like Japan seemed to be gettingt along just fine with but a tiny fraction of the lawyers per capita that the US has. A well functioning system of law, of course, is absolutely essential for a civilized society and free-market commerce. However, the legal system can become a drain upon society when it becomes an industry onto itself and the society becomes more and more litigious.
Asain societies, Japan and China, have very diffent political cultures. Neither have tradions supporting the Western view of individual rights. To be sure Japan adopted a constitution imposed by General MacArthur, but their political, social, and economic culture favors the sciences and engineering. In that balance, note that inidivual intiative and individual expressive rights are not as highly valued as in this country. That explains in part the fewer attorneys.
Jerome a Paris made your graph into one of his "Countdown to $100 Oil" diaries:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/25/173852/003
And it was picked up by Energy Bullitin:
http://www.energybulletin.net/14290.html
I'm not annoyed about this or anything. Just thought I would point people back to my original story since it's relevant to this thread.
I am just wondering if there is enough financial support at TOD to develop our own co-op or corporation for some sort of renewable energy to displace oil or natural gas in some market.
Any thoughts ?
1) The amount of knowledge that "erupts" here is significant. At present there is no way to capture the key elements of a debate or expose them to later critique. Development of a "project" page, or an resource composed of "working papers" would avert transitional loss of intellectual capital.
2) We often see the invocation of the "technological fairy," some technological fix which, if immediately applied, would resolve everything. The recent debate on Fusion power is one example. It would be just as worthwhile to identify technological dead ends as it would be to identify possible lines of solution.
3) EROEI is a valuable concept. I had not seen this applied outside of anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer practice until I came to TOD. It would be worthwhile to do formal EROEI studies on such topics as fuel ethanol so that they can be revealed as bogus soluitions if that is in fact what they are. Such a resource would help prevent public bamboozlement and pork driven political decisions.
4) The availability of working papers would help prevent us from reiterating the exact same debate six months later. Xaxat recently provided an image which perfectly illustrates this lack of progress here:
http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/chrono/photos/photo_1999_4.php
5) The compiled working papers would be available for public distribution as PDF or similar. This would help communicate the issues to a broader public.
6) If a working paper indicates a solution that may be of economic significance then the co-op could coalesce around it. It would also be helpful to provide economic studies that highlight the technical, economic, or social roadblocks to a possible solution. Another reader may be able to innovate around those roadblocks and transform a "dead end" into a viable solution. I am taking for granted here that our bottom line is a search for viable solutions rather than individual economic return. Both would be nice.
7) The working papers repository would provide a collection of studies that TOD might rework into publication form for general sale. This would both get the word out and provide economic sustenance to the TOD project.
8) I am sure that there is an item 8 and equally sure that some other TODder has it on the tip of their keyboard. :-)
Against point #2 you can't rule out a dead end except in rare occasions (alchemy) some things are possible even though thought otherwise. I might be wrong fusion might not be possible but at this point I think it is not proven so.
Also If TSHTF the panels are on your home their yours.
I see my paper as the missing section/addendum to Hirsch's paper.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan -
The amount of work you have done is impressive. But a lot of it is scattered through a wide range of posts. Having the information formally gathered in one place would be very helpful. My locality is seeking to expand light rail. Being able to educate myself, and/or provide a comprehensive, accurate resource to other concerned parties would be invaluable.
I note that the NA car dependency arose in part due to the citizens blind acceptance of a development path espoused by vested economic interests. The entire US Inter-urban railway system was abandoned and in many cases this was due to oil or tire interests purchasing and then shutting down a potential competitor.
Cheers!
Please eMail with where you are from, how much you want to get involved, some idea of any technical background, etc.
Best Hopes,
Alan_Drake@Juno.com
The Gas Diffusion process plant in the Manhattan Project almost didn't work because they couldn't get a filter that had the right size and range of holes to separate the two isotopes by their different relative velocities.
The technological fix to make it work was development of a way to make a filter with very small holes. I've heard from a family member that that technique was what started the Pall Corporation. You've probably seen their filters behind your plant, if you run a plant.
A napkin with some writing on it is the difference between a dead end technology and something that changes your world.
This goes along with my recommendation that Baby Boomers take a hard look at buying small farms and perhaps leasing them out to organic farmers. The ideal situation is a farm coop arrangement, where people make fixed monthly payments to farmers in exchange for weekly deliveries during the growing season.
Food is the most basic requirement for retirement, and it's a win/win proposition. You can simultaneously make money from Peak Oil, while having a positive impact on your community, and while arranging for a reliable food supply.
I suspect that the Danes have a guaranteed buyer arraingement.
After laboriously typing out my comment, I found myself at the bottom again, so I'll move to the top of Sunday.
Peak Oil Action Plan
Two plans for action that address a lot of concerns and that make sense together: (1) Alanfrombigeasy's rail electrification plan and (2) scrap the highly regressive Payroll (Social Security + Medicare) Tax and replace it with a fossil fuel and/or liquid transportation fuel tax.
Peak College Enrollment--a Looming Crisis?
In regard to education, the New York Times had an interesting article today on the problems with retraining programs. They frequently don't work, in the sense that once airline mechanics are laid off from high paying jobs, it is unlikely that they will ever get their old lifestyles back.
The article also discusses the reality that the number of college graduates is growing faster than the number of jobs for collage graduates. This results in a lot of people graduating who find that they can't find a job that will pay both their student loans and their cost of living on their own.
This situation will only get worse, especially as we approach Peak College Enrollment. I believe that the all time record high peak high school enrollment is going to be around 2007-2008, leading to the all time record high college graduation a few years later, right into the teeth of the Mother of all Energy Crises.
I have noticed a fascinating situation regarding even Peak Oil aware parents and their own kids. When I explain the new reality for Baby Boom Echo generation, invariably the response is "But there will still be a need for policy makers." Translation: it's okay for your unemployed college graduate to work in agriculture, but my college graduate will have a cushy white collar government job. I don't think so.
Parents and prospective college student are making tragic mistakes right now. They should be looking at technical schools that will give them practical training, with a special emphasis on repair work and agriculture. The last thing that you want to do is to go into debt to release another unemployed law school graduate into the marketplace.
Of course, law school applications are headed toward record levels.
Though such a mindset seems hopelessly naive today, it wasn't all that far from reality during that time period, for when I subsequently graduated from engineering school (class of '67), the members of senior class had an average of of something like 4.3 job offers each, and not one of the 270-odd graduates was without a job offer. No one thought that to be particularly remarkable at the time.
Today, as is so painfully obvious, a college degree has far less value, particularly if it is a liberal arts degree rather than one of the 'trades' like engineering or business administration. It is quite sad and disturbing to see so many college graduates doing menial jobs for which they are far over-qualified.
And getting more education can only make it worse by making you even more over-qualified. If you want to ensure that your son or daughter remains permanently unemployed, have him/her get a PhD in something like particle physics. I think many young people in graduate school are there because they couldn't find a decent job and feel that they are at least doing something positive by being back in school.
I really think that once this reality sets in, we are going have some very angry young people in a truly ugly mood. I also think that colleges are now getting close to the peak of a bubble, much akin to the real estate bubble. So many of the large universities have embarked on outrageously expensive expansion programs, largly consisting of impressive but marginally useful physical facilities, the main purpose of which appears to be to improve their status, lure the better students, and provide a justification for obscenely expensive tuititions. Universities seem to compete among each other in much the same way that posh resorts do. I think it's going to come down, because our economy just doesn't need all of these college graduates, particularly with increased outsourcing of white-collar jobs.
The American middle class will continue to shrink.
A couple interesting factoids stick with me:
- The age of college students has increased in recent years, to mid 20s.
- Most students start within a year or two of high school graduation, if they start at all.
- The time-to-degree is longer, with 6-8 years becoming common.
- The first generations in families to reach college tend to go for the more practical degrees. The "trade" oriented degrees.
- The more secure second/third generations going to college go for the less practical liberal arts.
(How "rational" #5 is may be in they eye of the beholder. It was painted as reasonable by the presenters, but I think those affuent kids are the ones who get the rude surprises.)I think someone else pointed out that the average state college education costs less than the average new car.
So much for affordable education.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0417,kamenetz,53011,1.html
Another interesting factiod was that either Australia or New Zealand had a policy of charging less tuition for practical degrees and more for liberal arts.
I think that is a good policy (that would be unlikely to fly here given the entrenched control liberal arts exert on our campuses). It certainly drives home to the student what is a "luxury" degree.
Should they have become lawyers? Perhaps. I suppose the rubber meets the roads in the stats - the precentage of liberal arts majors who leap to high income professions.
Universities generate new knowledge through research. Vital function. We have more lawyers percapita than any other country. This is the reason nobody coaches little league and OBGYN's are hard to find.
Legal representation is neccesary. But we have more than enough.
I must inform you that during the time of our Founding Fathers the profession of engineering did not exist, at least not in any formal sense. There were surveyors, and people who learned how to build things and who learned about machines. It was mostly learning by doing. But you did not go to college to become an engineer, because there wasn't any engineering curricula at the time. Engineering as a formal profession is relatively young, largely getting its start in the mid-19th Century.
Most of our Founding Fathers were well-connected and well-educated aristocrats, the elites of the day, if you will. While there were exceptions (such as Ben Franklin, one of the most capable and versatile geniuses of all time, right up there with Leonardo), our Founding Fathers were not middle class people.
Lawyers work in a very competitive market and if there isn't the work they don't eat. Private clients hire attorneys to advance their goals and defend the rights. More than any other profession, it's a self regulating one. Unlike the medical professions they do not work together to limit their numbers.
The Bar bears substantial responsibility for the growing disconnect between what lawyers do and how the help society and market efficiency and the increasinly majoritarian view that they're leaches or pilot fish, sucking the life blood of the body politic and the market economy.
Incidentally, no other Presidentail administration has been as hostile to the legal profession and the Bar and had so little regard for the rule of law as that of George W. Bush - and it became apparent a few days before the 2000. election.
But unfortunately there is confusion now between a liberal education and a liberal arts major.
That made sense to me. More sense than reading the books first, and worrying about the job later.
Actually the "cracks" (and by the way, that is a Freudian slip-wise, well chosen word) are not aimed at liberal arts or legal studies per se; but rather at any specialization in education which leaves out the need for studying other areas. It is because we subdivide ourselves into spealized areas that things slip between the "cracks"; very important things, like no one worrying about how the whole thing comes together. We all are taught to believe that some invisible being --often called the invisible hand-- will make everything work out. But it doesn't. The markets don't provide. Your underemployed college graduates are "evidence" that the markets don't provide.
Would you prefer to live under a socialist system where everybody is employed in spite of being useful? The market is a dynamic feedback system, fluctuating between the extremes of chaos and routine.
It seems obvious to me that we all are born with a specialized talent, i.e. musician, writer, engineer, mathematician, biologist. I know you are aware that the division of labor is especially evident in other species, i.e. bees´ and ants´. What does this tell you? My guess is the DNA "masterplan" produces x percentage of engineers, poets, writers, lawyers, and musicians in order to promote sustainablity. Insects have been around for hundreds of millions of years.
P.S. Thanks for posting the picture last week.
My message was nothing of the sort. Instead, it means that all of us need to get educated in each other's specialties. The economist needs to learn some basic thermodynamics AND APPLY IT to the theory of economics. The engineer needs to learn politics and APPLY IT to the decision making process that determines which projects are funded and which are not. Politicians need to learn how real science works and to stop pretending Global Warming is not real because it is politically inconvenient. Most of all, all humans need to learn how their brains work so they do not become easy prey for mass media manipulation and smiling propaganda faces on the MSM news networks. We are herd animals and we are irrational, fearful and easily manipulated. The sooner we admit it, the sooner we can start seeing how we are all blindly following the main herd towards the edge of the cliff. The sooner we can learn that "stay the course" is not about loyalty but rather about irrational behavior.
p.s. what picture?
I went to two colleges, The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Mississippi State Unitversity. I was classified as and Un-decided at UALR and as A Landscape Architecture Major at MSU. While at UALR I took any class I wanted to know about. I worked part time, Kept a Garden at my parents house and Helped with other things, Even helping them pay some of thier bills. I did all the same chores I ever did growing up and a few more. I took classes that interested me. I disliked when I was told you need this or that to get your degree. What degree I was going there to learn things, not to get a degree. I did decide I really liked Landscape and designing the world around me and When my younger brother was heading to college. We looked at only the schools in the nation that had his degree AeroSpace engineering, and L. A. at them, about 20 at the time. We sent out the apps and Mississippi Picked both of us, and off we went, roommates and brothers, we were there to help each other and be family in school and he had a better college going to class ethic than I did, till he failed to make the grade and Lost his 4 year Scholarship. He did get his degree after 6 years. But me, I got the same run around, do this, do that and you will be better. I never liked folks telling me what I needed to learn. I like learning what I want to learn. I slowing got down to where they would not let me stay on campus, so I moved off campus, my brother was living with his girlfriend and future wife. I got a great deal on a great house, and we slowly went to classes and I left for other places. He finally got his degree, early in my first marriage. I never got a degree, But I loved learning what I wanted to learn.
Jobs. I have worked a whole range of jobs, from the 3.35 an hour to 15.00 an hour and done things I have really enjoyed. If I did not like the job, I did not stay there long.
With My VERY well rounded education, I am going off to Re-build my Girlfriends Free and Clear paid for House. I will be in charge of all fixs and Landscaping, and make it What we both want, but also What I know we will need with the coming events of PEAK OIL. She does not need to worry about PO just yet, I can handle that detail just fine.
I have Always said, that a college should not be where you go to learn a career it is where you go to learn things that you want to know about, things you don't know, anything about. To learn the well rounded information that some of the practical work experience can't teach you.
Hey, my family thinks I am a failure. I write books, Stories, Poems, Children's stories, and have as much fun every day of my life as anyone I know. I have no worries. but my brother is uptight about money all the time, and Is in debt up to his eyeballs while he is standing on his wife's shoulders!! Me, no debts, No worries and able to do anything I want to do.
Of course we need lawyers; but do we need so MANY of them?
The last time I looked countries like Japan seemed to be gettingt along just fine with but a tiny fraction of the lawyers per capita that the US has. A well functioning system of law, of course, is absolutely essential for a civilized society and free-market commerce. However, the legal system can become a drain upon society when it becomes an industry onto itself and the society becomes more and more litigious.
* - to borrow a term from an "engineering education"