Run it on carrots and parsnips!!!!!!
― bunnicula, Monday, 7 November 2011 17:12 (twelve years ago) link
free range motherboards
― new rap guy (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Monday, 7 November 2011 17:13 (twelve years ago) link
fwiw, a friend works at John Deere and a lot of his engineer colleagues are Indian dudes who went to college in the US
― mh, Monday, 7 November 2011 17:15 (twelve years ago) link
My girlfriends brother graduated with an engineering degree in may and now has a job where he is being paid me and my girlfriends combined salary. Otoh his job sounds so boring.
Not really any reason for this post other than my own jealousy
― max, Monday, 7 November 2011 17:28 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/11/why-kids-are-all-broke/44664/
generational warfare c/d
will it 'catch on'
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 01:34 (twelve years ago) link
I mean beyond the stuff already done by congress on a regular basis
with respect to those present i have been saying since i was 16 that the boomers left us fucked
― new rap guy (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 04:43 (twelve years ago) link
some suggestions re student debt via mike konczal
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/11/07/two-steps-towards-tackling-our-current-student-loan-problems/
― max, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 15:48 (twelve years ago) link
that's a good article
I like the framing of 'public option' tho irl we're drifting away from that instead if coming closer to having a feasible 'public option'. it's more complicated because education is more of an investment than health care. but it's a personal investment *and* a social investment and right now we're failing at funding the 2nd part.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i liked that framing too. the demise of the public university is a really bad thing for everyone, private schools and their students as much as anyone, in particular w/r/t controlling costs.
heres a longer thing about "public options" that konczal has linked to before
http://slackwire.blogspot.com/2010/09/public-options-general-case.html
― max, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 16:38 (twelve years ago) link
yeah there's a never ending price spiral atm w/ public universities capable of justifying any price increase - as long as they remain cheaper than private schools they're 'the bargain' and private schools operating w/ their own weird games - super 'competitive' w/r/t everything but price (even that isn't *always* true, which is why this is a weird market)
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 16:58 (twelve years ago) link
yeah shoulda read that first looks like he's saying that and more
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html
otm
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
One of the two who is still in engineering plans to work in finance after graduation.
lol
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 18:03 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-tyranny-of-meritocracy/248061/
what is she saying here? my brain is too tired to parse this
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 18:10 (twelve years ago) link
oh who gives a fuck
― goole, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 18:15 (twelve years ago) link
i literally read that URL and went "pffffffffffft" at my desk
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:24 (twelve years ago) link
key graf
This overlooks a more important question, which is why the system went wrong. Don't tell me it got hostage to the wrong ideology--tell me why all those professors we paid millions of dollars to study economics couldn't provide a convincing rebuttal to that ideology in advance of the crash. Don't tell me that regulators were stupid or bankers got greedy until you first explain to me why tens of thousands of very well educated people, most of them graduates of colleges and professional schools that had aggressively winnowed them based on intelligence, barely outperformed a bunch of upstart micks, third-generation coupon-clipping WASP dimwits, and central bankers who still worshipped the barbarous relic of the gold standard?
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:26 (twelve years ago) link
yikes
― ah, how quaint (Matt P), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:27 (twelve years ago) link
I'm not sure I'm really following her point.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:41 (twelve years ago) link
i think she's saying "the problem is the meritocracy, cause clearly it fucked us just as badly as the robber barons"?
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:53 (twelve years ago) link
which is totally fascist and batshit?
Interesting how she slips in "a few mick upstarts" -- McArdle who grew up on the Upper West Side etc.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
Don't tell me that regulators were stupid or bankers got greedy until you first explain to me why tens of thousands of very well educated people, most of them graduates of colleges and professional schools that had aggressively winnowed them based on intelligence, barely outperformed a bunch of upstart micks, third-generation coupon-clipping WASP dimwits, and central bankers who still worshipped the barbarous relic of the gold standard?
like it sounds like she's saying "clearly these technocrats are all know-nothings and we should scrap the deal, cause i mean look at all those pre-depression people that did just fine clipping coupons"???
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:57 (twelve years ago) link
it's a sloppy argument but I think it's notable that someone like her is in a position that they feel like they *have* to talk about this. she might be ~occupying~ the right-wing corner of a left-wing subject, but watching conservatives approach ows-related issues is interesting cause a lot of the time they're basically forced to agree. there are not very many subjects outside of 'killing obl was a good thing' where that really happens these days.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
she's better than david brooks fwiw
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:59 (twelve years ago) link
When she says "coupon-clipping" I assume she's referring to bond coupons, not supermarket?
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
her argument is something like
1. bad old blue-blood days2. the ivies start letting more jews and catholics in3. crash of 2008 happens
??
no i don't get it either
― goole, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:14 (twelve years ago) link
seems like a reflexive need to not-explain the crash by reaching for some kind of business-page friendly greater narrative. oh, it wasn't an "oligarchic" elite that wrecked the world, but a meritocratic one. hmm, makes you think.
― goole, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:15 (twelve years ago) link
I remember reading somewhere that there's a narrative that plays bigger in Western Europe of non-blueblood upstarts coming to wreck up the financial system -- class (and sometimes ethnicity) overtones are more present in stories about "rogue traders" and the like who don't come from the right backgrounds/schools.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:18 (twelve years ago) link
she seems to be using "change in admission standards at elite colleges of 80 years ago" and "upward mobility" somewhat interchangeably, which is pretty fucking stupid!!! ps i hate megan mccardle she totally sucks.
― goole, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:20 (twelve years ago) link
Yup, she sucks and is dumb.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:25 (twelve years ago) link
srsly
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:25 (twelve years ago) link
it's worth noting that whatever her definition of meritocracy is, she certainly includes herself in the category
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:48 (twelve years ago) link
and yeah the 'went to harvard' = meritocracy pov has a lot of faults w/ it esp since if you look at harvard (etc.)'s student body today you wouldn't think "wow that is a great institution when it comes to turning significant quantities of poor people into rcih people." otoh how do you define 'meritocracy'. it's a word that makes sense as a vague idea but when you try and sketch out a strict definition you run into a lot of problems. is someone who dropped out of hs but started their own successful business part of the 'meritocracy'? is someone who went to harvard but works as a (insert crappy job) part of the meritocracy?
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:55 (twelve years ago) link
does she really include herself in it? I get an old money vibe.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 20:59 (twelve years ago) link
really what you have is 'successful people are successful people' and maybe our system of credentialism is more 'fair' today than it was 80 years ago and maybe social networks are slightly less important when it comes to moving ahead. but I mean george w. bush was president notsolongago - very old school oligarchy was still on top of the american cheerleader pyramid when things went to shit. maybe it was less prevalent than before, but it's hard to pretend like we've turned into some bizarro society where nothing matters but test scores.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:00 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/the-rage-of-the-almost-elite/247638/
Of course, you might think my outlook was jaundiced because I identified with the bankers; I did go to an Ivy League school, and I eventually went to business school and spent a summer with Merrill Lynch. But I didn't know I was going to business school until shortly before I applied; it was what I did when I realized that I was never going to care as much about the inner workings of a computer as most of the guys I worked with.
And if Orwell (and I) are right, then it is I who should have had the most resentment. I did all the same things they did--went to the right schools, got good test scores--and they ended up in banking, while I ended up making a small fraction of what they did. In fact, this happened to me twice: once after college, and again after business school. My first job at the Economist paid approximately a third of what the management consulting job that I'd originally accepted had promised to pay.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:02 (twelve years ago) link
waht
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:24 (twelve years ago) link
that has to be one of the stupidest things i have read today
― so solaris (Lamp), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:41 (twelve years ago) link
you guys are reading the Atlantic
― The Uncanny Frankie Valley (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:43 (twelve years ago) link
their new cities section is pretty good
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:48 (twelve years ago) link
^^
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:51 (twelve years ago) link
also regularly enjoy connor friedersdorfenbergerdorf or whatever
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:52 (twelve years ago) link
Other than pure envy, it's hard to see how I could somehow be made worse off if Bill Gates' income suddenly doubled, but everything else remained the same.
lol behavioural economics, lol any economics
The old WASP bastions democratized or were swept away by nimbler competitors who didn't scruple to sacrifice profits because it might look bad to the boys in the club.
the benefits of an 'elite education' at work here, huh?
Whatever the systemic injustices, it's also quite clear to everyone . . . even parasitic leeches of investment bankers . . . that their salaries only come as the result of frantic effort.
as long as its quite clear to everyone, it certainly has to be true
― so solaris (Lamp), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:59 (twelve years ago) link
Megan McCardle is such a moron.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 22:34 (twelve years ago) link
her last name is fun to say
― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 22:35 (twelve years ago) link
― what's happening to our based god??? (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, November 8, 2011 4:52 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Holy crap, I have had this guy on my gchat buddy list for like two years thinking he was some law school classmate I couldn't remember. Now I realize that I had an e-mail exchange with him a while back in response to something he wrote in the Atlantic -- maybe even an article about Law School.
― pass the duchy pon the left hand side (musical duke) (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 22:43 (twelve years ago) link
she goes between 'troll' and 'doesnt know very much about subject she's talking about'
at the end of the day the fact thy people like her and Brooks have jobs as intellectuals is pretty good evidence that we dont have a great meritocracy.
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 23:08 (twelve years ago) link
thy = that
iPhone making me talk all fancy like
― iatee, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 23:09 (twelve years ago) link