From Where I Stand: Step 118

When I sat down yesterday at the luncheon following the rabbi’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah and started to talk with my friend Dr. Mark a dean at California State University-Fullerton about what he did on his furlough day, I had no idea the question, “Is a college degree still worth it?” was the headline story in Saturday’s Los Angeles Times. Our conversation centered around the growth in prison budgets being many times the level of higher education during the past decade, while the article pointed to the “vast majority of job gains this year have gone to workers with only a high school education or less,” and the prospects for the future look like that trend will continue.

Needless to say this is disheartening for me to hear since following my parents’ advice led to two advanced degrees, nearly a dozen certifications in three states, and two years of rejection in the pursuit of returning to full time employment. In the words of Rodney Dangerfield, “I just can’t seem to get any respect.” Actually I’ll forgo the respect factor in favor of putting those of us who bought into the American dream of improving oneself through education back to work.

To make matters worse most of us who bought into this ploy, no doubt perpetrated by an educational aristocracy with connections to some Chinese, Indian, or Waltonian demonic plot, foolishly led our children astray with this illusion. It certainly appears conspiratorial when your oldest child is an adjunct faculty at a Midwestern university working on her doctorate, your second child graduated from law school and is studying for the California bar, and your youngest child is completing her bachelor degree in a state more interested in protecting menial jobs for high school dropouts than developing the talents of the brightest at their noteworthy institutions. Why did the Times wait a decade for them to pile up their own individual debt accounts before raising the question about whether or not it’s a worthwhile venture?

Almost as astounding to me is the notion by various economists, bureaucrats, and members of the media that we are supposed to somehow buy our way out of this Great Recession. All of them seemed to be equally amazed when consumers put away their credit cards and sales fell in May. While most consumers are deep in debt like myself, those with resources may be following Franklin’s advice and saving for those rainier days ahead.

Speaking of rainier days, Robert Reich, the diminutive secretary of labor in the Clinton administration now teaching economics at Berkeley, reported there is now a 50:50 chance there will be a double dip recession. For those of us who have yet to climb out of the first dip this comes as both further bad news and no surprise. When banks which double dipped by making unsecured loans and writing them down with the assistance of both the Republican and Democratic administrations stop gambling in derivatives, provide a rate of interest on savings in line with rates charged for loans, and invest venture capital in local small businesses the economy will recover.

Meanwhile we may seek refuge from the storm by losing our worries for a few hours watching the classic match up of NBA Finals rivals the Lakers and Celtics. For sports fans not into professional basketball there is the thriller from South Africa. By the way I know both Kobe and the G-man chose to skip college and March Madness in favor of ever increasing economic opportunity, but I have no idea how many soccer players on the men’s and women’s teams decided college had nothing to offer them.

How about it: has your college degree paid dividends? Are you still planning to send your kids to college? Let us know in the comment section.

From Where I Stand: Step 76

With the responsibility of watching my seven-year-old niece comes the inability to play volleyball this morning. So, while she digests another episode of ICarly on Nick I will attempt to update my readers on the latest status of current events from where I stand. Of course, living in southern California one could sense the communal sigh of relief as the Lakers pulled it together Friday night to quash the upstart Thunder in Oklahoma and move on to the second round. Speaking of Oklahoma what is with a state that decides to protect doctors who fail to disclose fetal abnormalities to pregnant women. Apparently after Arizona pushed through their antagonistic law designed to incite hostility among law enforcement and those of foreign descent, other states such as Oklahoma feel compelled to act in an unfair and out of balance way knowing Fox-news will help get the story right, emphasis on the right. Meanwhile, protesters took to the streets in a May Day celebration of anger over the new immigration law in Arizona and calling for the federal government to take immediate action to bring about immigration reform. Elsewhere these protests are seen as an effort by the well-connected to draw attention away from the battle among senators, members of the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York state authorities over who will be the first to prosecute and convict Goldman Sachs and its executives of not only fraud, but stupidity in the way they brag about their deceptive practices in their emails. Feeling left out after the Southwest stirred up immigration, the boys in OK land thumbed their noses at women, and the Northeast derived a way to undo derivatives, the Southeast climbed on board by having an oil well bust up and blaming London-based BP Industries for the slick that threatens their coast in the Gulf of Mexico. Coming close on the heels of the disaster in West Virginia where twenty-nine miners lost their lives deep below the surface of the earth attempting to provide one of the substances we use to fuel our lives, the explosion, death of oil rig workers and ensuing rupture of another substance we use to fuel our lives, serves as a reminder how important energy reform ought to be. As the layer of black gold draws ever nearer the shoreline with even the greatest doubters of climate change aware of the devastation and ruin this catastrophe will have upon not only the environment but the economy, my mind is clear on why an oil man like George W. Bush supported drilling in the Arctic but completely baffled when a supposed liberal like Barack H. Obama supports offshore drilling. Change does take strength and commitment, and there must be well thought out systematic methods of transition developed, but true reform, especially moving away from oil, which has been the center piece of global conflict, and coal whose dust has filled our air with carcinogens and other harmful substances and sent too many West Virginians to an early grave, requires sacrifice. At a time like this it would be refreshing to hear the president step forward and explain how each of us must take every step we can to reign in our consumption of petroleum and coal based products. In other words, it is time to call for a national effort to walk, bicycle, carpool, utilize public transportation, limit driving, replace incandescent lights, and whatever else an individual can do to change energy consumption and preserve the planet for our children.