Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
Bleary-eyed from the 16+ hour flight from Asia, I checked my phone last night once the plane landed to find that riots have broken out across the Land of the Free.
It was enough to wake me from my jet lag.
All the televisions in the airport terminal were showing footage of the chaos along with occasional interviews with some of the protestors.
Naturally there was outcry against racism, sexism, violence, and all the usual anti-Trump arguments.
(Which I found ironic given this video of a Trump voter being viciously beaten in Chicago.)
But one of the recurring themes from these protestors being interviewed, primarily young people, was that Trump wasn’t going to do anything about student debt.
This was a major issue during the election, one that Bernie Sanders grabbed onto with promises of free education and debt reduction.
His message resonated with young people.
I’ve see this same theme all over the world, from Chile to the United Kingdom– students want free education, underpinned by a fundamental belief that quality education is a basic human right to be provided by the government.
Even if you agree with this assertion, there’s a MAJOR problem with the logic: these students are conflating “education” with “university degree.”
Anytime young people tell me they’re entitled to free education, I always ask the same questions–
How many books did you read in the past six months?
How many times did you go to the local library?
How many free online courses from top universities like Harvard, MIT, and Georgetown did you take at edx.org?
How often have you actually used the multitude of free resources at your disposal to educate yourself?
Most times I just get the deer in the headlights look.
The truth is that they’re not interested in free education.
They just want a free university degree… a piece of paper that confers neither education nor any guarantee of success in life.
Candidly, many of the important things we need to learn in life are not taught in school.
I’ve started more businesses than I can count, some of them spectacular failures, others highly successful. I didn’t learn any of those skills at school.
And everything I learned about farming, for example, was on the land, not in the classroom.
This is true with many other elements that help us achieve success in life– business, investing, networking, romance, personal health, etc.
Understandably, certain professions do require formal schooling.
But that’s not really the point.
This is ultimately about people expecting the government to steal from others and give them something of questionable value for free when they haven’t yet taken steps to provide for themselves.
One could make the same argument that access to healthy food is a fundamental human right, and that the government should provide organic vegetables for free.
But how many seeds are people planting for themselves? A tomato plant can be grown from a single seed and about one square foot of space with almost no effort.
You’ll eat better (and sooner) taking matters into your own hands rather than waiting for the government to pass some terrible law in order to give you something for free.
It’s the same with education.
Yes, the cost of university in the Land of the Free is out of control. And it really doesn’t make sense for young people to start their lives buried in debt.
But rather than demand a bunch of laws be passed (which, even if this ever happens, will take years), you’ll be much better off taking matters into your own hands.
This starts with expanding your thinking.
Rather than limit yourself to traditional options (i.e. I’m from the US therefore I must attend a US university in order to be successful), consider whether university is the right option at all.
If you truly want to learn a highly valued skill that can pay the bills and provide income security (sales and marketing, business management, investing, design, web development, e-commerce, etc.) you may be better off eschewing university and instead learning directly from someone who has mastered what you want to know.
It’s an extreme example, but you would learn more about investing by working for Warren Buffett than in any university program.
This simple concept of apprenticeship has worked for thousands of years: if you want to be successful, learn from successful people.
Even if you still think that university is the right choice (which it very well may be), expand your thinking to the whole world.
There are plenty of high quality universities overseas that you can attend for almost nothing.
To boot, going abroad gives you a lot of great international experience and the chance to achieve fluency in a foreign language.
So the end result is that you still get that piece of paper (your university degree), along with tons of other benefits and experiences, with almost none of the costs.
Just like I always try to point out with other solutions we discuss at Sovereign Man, this is an option that makes sense… no matter what.
Basic Human Rights = Zero
Honest question (Not trying to be confrontational or tiring):
Did Trump ever say he would eliminate FSA programs or block forgiving student loans ? If yes, was it a (without a doubt, absolute) or a statement in passing type of statement?
Bea, stop pulling your punches. Trump didn’t promise anything but that he would build a wall and fix everything using his great brain. If a salesman starts blowing smoke up your ass, you know you have to write things down because they always try to pull the old switcheroo once you start agreeing. Now is the time for extreme vigilance.
You, my friend are the man of the hour. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to be our David selected to face Goliath armed with little more than a pencil and a piece of paper with your questions on it. Behind Goliath are the true believers hoping to see you get demolished. I’m rootin’ for you.
AHHHH! I understand what’s been going on now. I hadn’t been reading enough of the exchanges elsewhere to get the context of the odd panic going on with you two. Good luck, I guess/think?
razzle- I’ll just always be a 9/11 nutter to some people. I only have two friends left, EC is one of them.
No what I mean is that I’ve been responding to your panics from the wrong understanding.
I’m so focused on the on the ground social side of the transition that I hadn’t quite realized you were focused on “UHHHH GUYS…. it’s still a Globalist’s world”.
We can dig up posts from when Trump got the nomination where I was saying “Welp… there is the globalist’s candidate”. So I get where you’re coming from I just didn’t understand your attention was almost entirely on Trump personally and not the mountain he’s standing on (socially). You are projecting forward (like the Hillary protesters) the damage you expect to happen and reacting now.
I’ve been beating this drum for a few years, and will see if I can find the old posts here I made.
Step 1: Prop up SJWs, etc.
Step 2: Promote Nationalism.
Step 3: Throw SJWs to the wolves.
Step 4: Ready made Statists!
I get it, but I honestly think you’re just farting for the moment. Maybe once the dust settles a LITTLE from the normies finally being able to say “FUCK… I can finally say I don’t like feminism SJW etc” then the 4chan, 8chan, reddit, TBP magnifying glass can turn to monitor the activities actually going on when in office. If that even happens! 😉
I know what I expect to happen, but although it would be the normal pattern from history, I’m not going to say it’s guaranteed.
(etc in that thread)
The one thing that throws monkey wrench into this doomsday potential that might lead to something actually worthwhile is if an actual full frontal law enforcement or deep state revolt happened that finally drops its pants on what it has from Soros to Satan to SusieQKidnappedToo.
Bea/EC… read these two and figure out whether you’re still missing the plot twist that you didn’t see coming. 😉
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/concession-speech-aka-meet-new-clinton-inc
This is why I’m focused so much on the way people are thinking and the information they have. Not the specific machinations of a world we will never know until revealed in the afterlife, and even if we did know one faction’s truths there are 10 others playing their own competing games.
not really
Eh, this is a useless argument once you look into predatory lending practices surrounding student loans. As students shouldn’t be entitled to an education the lenders shouldn’t be entitled to federally backed guarantees.
Predatory isn’t the word you’re looking for. It’s one of those trigger words used by progressives to absolve agency and responsibility in the individual, thus requiring intervention on the part of the state.
In each case people sought out the loan to pay for something they had not saved up enough money to purchase on their own. Predatory implies stealth and a lack of awareness on the part of the prey.
Opportunistic?
If those loans weren’t federally guaranteed this bubble would not exist. If the government wasn’t securing these loans they wouldn’t exist. No bank or financial institute would lend thousands of dollars indiscriminately to any student for any degree.
Or if the students had not borrowed the money.
And everyone knows that student loan debt is not dischargeable.
Delayed gratification is foreign to the millenials. No way they will actually work and save for their education, perhaps extending the time it takes to graduate a couple or few years. Nope. Instead, they are all “Gimme dat loan now!” Which gives way to “You mean I really do have to pay it back? That is wrong! Unfair! Predatory! Screech!”
And here Clammy you had some thinking you were maturing. I have never bought into that idea. I am hopeful but not convinced.
“If you owe the bank $100 dollars, that’s your problem; if you owe the bank $100 million, that’s the bank’s problem.” -J. Paul Getty
Step 1- get the government out of the student loans business altogether.
Step 2- remove the prohibition against discharging student loans in bankruptcy.
Step 3 – MAGA
I worked for a large corporation for 26 years in financials and insurance before going into business for myself. The company would verbally give us instruction in meetings, down the road we got screwed out of commissions and their reply was, “Do you have that in writing”? Always acting as if it was never a definite.
We wised up and started asking for everything in writing, that NEVER HAPPENED and they found it much harder to pull the switcheroo . Never trust things that are implied or stated in passing from politicians or corporations. Don’t even trust things in writing, we found that out when we got our pension money and they kept half of it.
Most of these libtard halfwits don’t have enough brainpower to be in a University and should be going to a much cheaper trade school.
Sure you can learn as much in an online course but then it is much harder to go to a frat party and hit on the cute blond in the front row.
Did anyone catch the 60 Minutes show earlier? Melania looks smashing in red.
One thing I can say about the Trumps is they dress real nice and you are sure about their gender. Clean cut sons like the old days.
The Don does an hour and crickets here? Is there some sporting event on tv?
It was the typical confrontational style you expect of an adversarial press. He dodged quite a few direct questions, stood his ground where he felt it necessary and replied with a great deal of tact and forbearance, all things considered.
Leslie Stahl was off her game and visibly drawn to the family against her will it seemed.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/donald-trumps-first-interview-winning-election-key-highlights-and-full-transcript
I found it interesting that “Make America Great Again” was actually his second choice for campaign slogan. The first was “No More Beaners!”.
I was prepared to give up TexMex when he first started his campaign, but now I’m realizing I’ll still be able to get it at the Asian Fusion places once the gap in the market is created. It’ll be good business.
Trump names Reince as his Chief of Staff.
T4C- 400k is chump change for charity. He made 300k per episode of his tv show. That’s ok with me.
So…..what do you think of his choice for Chief of Staff?
Let Priebus deal with the dickless wonders on Capitol Hill. Let Bannon come up with the schemes that drive the libtards crazy – like nationwide “constitutional carry” and repealing the 19th amendment.