I was cool with what you wrote until I came upon your last line that you think we don't have a crisis in education. There most certainly is. Ever heard of kommon kore? Have you checked how they are teaching basic math? You haven't seen nothing yet.

I suggest you read the "Dear Hillary letter" ~ link is provided for your convenience: http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_t...

Otherwise, I enjoyed the reading.

Thank you KH, WW, & DS for your encouragement and making me feel welcome.

Thank you KH, WW, & DS for your encouragement and making me feel welcome.

Thank you KH, WW, & DS for your encouragement and making me feel welcome.

The problem is the lack of the millenial generation's interest in founding business or creating jobs for themselves. We all went through this - Gen X when the dot-com crumbled for example, but we dusted ourselves off and started our own businesses. When I founded my first company, I left a 'decent' paying job that I really wasn't happy with. I did that for 4 or 5 years and realized that while the business was successful, I didn't like having a business partner. Especially a lazy one that didn't mind giving the company Amex to his wife to do their grocery shopping with. I abandoned it and 'miraculously' he was out of business in a few months. Surprise surprise.

Next I was downsized out of a very well-paying job that I liked, the tech industry was pretty much collapsing, we went from consulting rates of over $100 an hour for even basic stuff to something like $20 & $30 and it didn't make sense, so I started a real estate company (without knowing much about it other than basic financials) and went on to employ 170 people. I didn't have 20 cents to rub together either for capital on either of those business startups but both were worth over a million dollars at some point.

After running businesses for 12 years, I'm now VERY valuable and am very highly compensated for running a division of a military contractor. Do I attribute my degree to that? No, not really. Do I attribute my military experience? Maybe 30% of it, the discipline yes, but sweeping up hydro fluid in an aircraft hangar wasn't really a preparation for cyber security. Running a business, managing people, selling, and the "Will-Do" attitude is what my personal success is.

Most of these people think that getting a degree is the magic bullet... no.. its not. It's a piece of a puzzle that you have to fit together, and I'll add that the snotty types that claim the 'school of hard knocks' is their education, are also a bunch of fools when interviewed. If education didn't mean anything, Africa and Mexico would be full of millionaires.

It's a leg to a 3-legged stool, but without one, the stool tips over. If I ask a non-educated but 'skilled' technician to write a technical solution proposal for a cyber security project, I'm going to get a pile of garbage that wouldn't work for recycled Christmas wrap. But if I ask that same task of someone with a bachelors or masters, with a lot of experience, and experience selling, I'm going to get something that might be useful.

Same argument, the pure-science degrees that are being pushed these days lack the communication skills of the English Literature minor or something that used to be popular. Now the candidates struggle there too.

Ask the typical graduate if they would consider a career in sales, and about 90% of them will say "no way"... why? Because they want to be paid for sitting at a desk somewhere. Without acknowledging that NO BUSINESS survives without sales, and none of them thrive without a very integrated and very competent sales strategy and ability to bring a product or service to market.

Have I bored you yet? Yes, I'm sure I have... but its God's honest truth. This is all a myth being pushed by academia, which themselves, don't understand sales, or strategy, or technical innovation.. if they did, they wouldn't be soaking up that county-level Govie' k-12 job and parking their butt waiting for the pension to pay out.

We don't have a crisis of education, education is educating just fine. We have a lack of society to teach survival skills... we have assumed that we have already mastered the universe. That the basics of selling a product for $3.00 that it cost you $1.00 to make is much better than selling a service from a professional that you pay $120,000 a year to for $45 an hour probably isn't going to keep you in business very long...

I see your point and I agree. But it's a specious argument. real wealth is about knowledge, skills and the ability and willingness to apply it. It's not about capital. You can see throughout a couple of these posts the threads are peppered with people focused on capital. that's fine. but it is only a component of creating wealth and generally most start-ups don't have a lot of it. I think too, that we only have to look to the last financial crisis to see that big money (capital) chased real estate in part because the un-free market had stifled other industries and promoted real estate. Because of Sarbox, capital didn't have the same IPO options and venture capital all but dried up. To point: look where venture capital is right now-mostly govt promoted industries (govt promising to fund certain industries). Just a short decade ago, that was not the case. There has been a substantial weakening of the patent system.Intellectual property is stimulation(provides the incentive for large risk) for disruptive innovations (wealth creation). A disruptive invention means its significance is so huge it pervades the majority or all industries. cell phone technologies, desk top computers, internet browsers, satellite technologies, nano technology, the telephone, steam engine, electric light bulb, airplane, automobile, american system of manufacturing etc The manufacturing of silicon chips disrupted and almost overnight created millions of high skilled jobs. These jobs come from startups, the majority are tech, this according to the US govts own statistics. Yet the govt focuses on the largest employers, cronies, who have no interest in your company growing and competing with them. You saw it with the bailouts. Small businesses and startups dried up while the big boys were bailed out. Unions were propped up while entrepreneurs were not only ignored they were scorned. "you didn't build that!" OK, off my soapbox

excellent point

teresa, here's how I see it. You're not writing a paper. We are having a conversation and sometimes it will just be top of the head stuff. It is what makes this a more relaxed format than other Objectivist forums. few will pounce. and you can always say-well, I didn't mean THAT, I meant...now not everyone agrees with me and people have their own style. Some people carefully comment. I think they must cut and paste their comments from Word. My thing is-what's the fun in THAT? There are a few subjects which are lightening rod subjects. and one has to defend their position vigorously. but most conversations are areas where we have common ground and it's refreshing to to relax and just get opinions off your chest. whether you can find the time to come over for dinner or just pop in the back door for a cup of tea, we'll be here! :)

Being now kinda ancient and retired has allowed me many years to come to my own philosophical/political conclusions. Also being in business virtually all my life, it was indeed hard to find the time! Atlas Shrugged became my bible way back in 1963, and since brought it all came together for me over these many years, so the writing becomes easier (and more repetitious) once the garble is sorted out. Mankind has been so subtly brainwashed that it makes me wonder "where is the Hope anymore?"

Many who have jobs are bored and unhappy. That can make a person surly. I'd be interested to know how many are flipping burgers who have an advanced degree.

After you are here for a while, and interact with people, you will begin to see their personalities come thru their words. I, too, generally prefer face-to-face contact to begin to know someone, but I was heartened by the fact that most of the people here thought much the way I did, so I proceeded as if this place were my living room. It worked - I do feel as if I know many people here. It is a hard decision to make - to use some of your precious time to communicate with another person through what is essentially a sterile medium.
Please, if you can, stay with it. I have found the Gulch a rewarding and interesting place to be, with real people I can truly interact with. I hope that you will find, as I did, that there really is a Galt's Gulch and we are really there.

re: "We look for intelligence, common sense, and work ethic. "

Maybe 25 or so years ago... let's see, I was in my early forties, so yes, that would have been about right... my manager came to me one Friday afternoon and said, "Alan, I really like how you do your job here... so responsive to your customers' needs and such... Can you suggest how I should choose new people for our department so I can get 'more people like you'?"

I told him I'd like to think about The Answer over the weekend, and he agreed.

Monday morning, he came to my desk and asked if I'd decided on The Answer.

"Yes," I replied, "and the answer is: Don't hire anyone under 40."

Virtually all of the New Hires couldn't do critical thinking, wanted to be CEO within five years of getting their MBA, thought they were God's Gift To Business and Industry and aside from not being able to construct a grammatically close-to-correct sentence, didn't give a rat's butt about actually serving their clients/customers. Gimme a paycheck and leave me alone.

Oh, Yes, there WERE a few, but the Average was well below that kind of attitude And Performance.

One guy demanded a Company Car along with a promotion, and the Corporate Policy was that Nobody At His Level Ever Got A Company Car. But he lobbied for it for years. Talk about Entitlement and mooching....

And his decision-making skills barely justified the promotion in the first place. Of course, we already had some second and third level managers with similar lack of skills, so he had mentors galore to emulate.

And the company has been 'downsizing to success' ever since.

Sad. But true.

And how many times have I mentioned that one of the most common 'bitches' you hear is about the dearth of Good Carpenters, Plumbers, Electricians, and even Salespeople!

Highest bucks for non-degreed folks today? Oil Rig Pipe Jockeys, among other similar 'dirty' jobs.

Everyone seems to want $15 an hour without having to break a sweat, get dirty or be polite to a customer.

Talk about fucking "moochers"!

Yep, and I just loved posting this comment there...

"plusaf > ... Ah, Joe Lizak... would you please elaborate a bit on what "free" means in your comment above?

My understanding is that Nothing Is Free... if a product or service is offered or consumed, SOMEONE, somewhere, has PAID for it. Maybe in taxes; maybe in a direct cash (or credit) transaction.

So if a Community College offers "free" education to someone (or anyone) who wants it, does the College get a 100% exemption from all property taxes on their land and buildings? Do ALL of the teachers and admins pay NO Income Tax on their wages?

Oh, wait! Their Wages!... Where does THAT money come from?

And if you even Think of Saying "the government", you have So Totally lost the argument/discussion, it's just too embarrassing for even me to continue...

Cheers... Now go think it over.

Thanks..."

Damn, I believe I applied for that fake job! To the too few interviews I have been to the comment is always the same "Your over qualified for the job."

It is called property rights. Trolll

And thank you for the unofficial Thumbs Up. Even though Galt's Gulch is one of my three favorite sites, after today's discourse, I am highly unlikely to make it to 100 comments. In the absence of eye contact, body language, and vocal intonation, I am too slow in composing my thoughts and choosing my words to be careful of the point I am trying to communicate. Very time consuming. With a medical career and two businesses, I just do not have time. I do not know how you all do it so regularly.

I await a credible reasoned argument against net neutrality

Troll

Davidmcnab

dbhalling, are you responding to TW or davidmcnab? I am presuming the latter (?)

"Hypothetical distribution of $300k"? If that ever happened, then within a few years, the wealth levels would revert to essentially what they were before any such redistribution happened.

I work as a software developer in the IT industry, and know very clearly what Net Neutrality entails. It simply preserves the basic level playing field we take for granted in other areas of endeavour such as transport and telecommunications.
The internet was invented on the premise of neutrality, and for almost all its history, has honoured that principle. If neutrality were abolished, it would be similar to a highway which sets a 10miles/hour speed limit for cars driving to K-Mart and a 100miles/hour speed limit for cars going to Wal-Mart. It also increases the opportunity for businesses with more cash and inferior products to erect barriers against newer startups with superior products and less cash.
I strongly agree that government agencies on the whole are not to be trusted, but in this issue, the FCC (possibly despite itself) has actually got it right.

You have no idea what you are talking about.