Quote of the Day – Mike Rowe (12/15/2015)

Bernie Sanders tweets, “At the end of the day, providing a path to go to college is a helluva lot cheaper than putting people on a path to jail.”

I wonder sometimes, if the best way to question the increasingly dangerous idea that a college education is the best path for the most people, is to stop fighting the sentiment directly, and simply shine a light on the knuckleheads who continue to perpetuate this nonsense. This latest tweet from Bernie Sanders is a prime example. In less than 140 characters, he’s managed to imply that a path to prison is the most likely alternative to a path to college. Pardon my acronym, but…WTF!?

Mike RoweFacebook Post

December 14, 2015


[Oh the commentary and hate in response to Mike’s post would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the reminder these people are so attached they believe it. Mike points out, and rightfully so, that the idea if you don’t go to college your other choice is prison is bullshit.

You have a large number of people who have become emotionally invested in their political candidate and they take it personally. Quite like if someone made fun of their sports ball team. Because if a political candidate says something that sounds good, it must be accurate and true.

Look, college isn’t for everyone. The prices are inflated due to the federal loan programs so the answer is to offer more?  Look it wasn’t 80 grand spent over two bachelors of science degrees that landed my wife a job. It was a 500 dollar vocational course for a CNA that finally got my wife work.  I’ve gone into detailed depth before about the economics, and it’s only gotten worse since I wrote it.

Education is an investment and people are investing poorly. I do not want to be forced at the point of a gun to keep supporting this bullshit system.

But TMM, you went to college! Yes I did and lets actually evaluate what it got me other than 80-100K out of my pocket. Most every material piece of information I gained via college I could get freely with a trip to my public library, or now with the advent of Google and the Open Courseware initiative sitting at home in front of a computer.  While I admit not all have the drive to do this solo, the fact is if you actually are in it for the education you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on something you can get for a couple bucks. Now the problem is, how do you prove you’ve absorbed the material, this is changing as well. MIT is offering credits if you complete some of their Open Classes, additionally it’s making a space for certification companies.

You have Cisco certification regarding network design, architecture, and administration. Why not something like that for software or other industries? The point is the mode of education is outdated. Most of what I had to do for my degree was “rounding” and that was all politically correct indoctrination. Don’t try and sell me it wasn’t because “disabilities and society” was bull shit, doubly so as someone who lived in wheel chair for a while. My wife hated the class as much as I did and she’s got nerve damage. We were graded down because we didn’t agree with the professors. It was a game of repeat the bullshit, even if our argument was valid and supported. If you cut out the bullshit like that, I could have done my degree in half the time at a more reasonable course load. What do I mean by a more reasonable load, I averaged 5 to 6 classes a semester, where most averaged 3 to 4. Are some classes required for rounding, sure, history, literature. But the volume of “rounding” was over the top and didn’t even directly correlate to things that do round someone, they were classes in political correctness.

For example I graduated with 152 credits, minimum for EE is 145, for the school it is 120. They actually derated core classes related to my degree in credit value because they had so much extra garbage I had to take. Most other degrees were between 120-130 credits. So I had a full extra year of school by the time I graduated, most was for “rounding”.

But TMM, what about networking. You met all those people and that was a big help. I met a decent number of people and it was a help, except I can tell you exactly who my biggest network source while I was in college and I didn’t have to goto college to meet him. I knew him since I was a child when he and my dad worked together. First job was working for him and it was him that brought me to other opportunities. He was my mentor, and while I did end up taking classes from him, I learned way more working for him as an intern. I made way more in terms of professional contacts and networking working for him as an intern and the jobs that followed along later.

You know what college really got me? A sheet of paper that says I learned something about some subject. That’s it. I’ve worked with plenty of people, even in the software industry, who didn’t have a college degree. They were just as capable, if not more so than me. The degree didn’t magically make them who they are or enable them to accomplish their goals. As a matter of fact, one of my coworkers is a highly respected and known game programmer who didn’t graduate from College and if he had stayed it probably would have destroyed him. It was NOT the environment for him. Yet he isn’t in prison. No instead he gets royalties off of Age of Empires and tons of other games I spent my childhood playing and has worked for heavy hitters such as Valve.

I have friends who are also in blue-collar work making the same if not more than what I do. They work their ass off and they get paid for it, they didn’t goto college and didn’t need to. Seriously, who’s smarter, the guy who spent 80-100k to make 90K a year after school, or the guy who spent nothing and got trained vocationally by his company and is making 150k a year?

Now after years of experience that college grad may match the vocational employee, however at the same time the vocational employee will also increase his value. The point is, different strokes for different folks. And if you think making college free is going to solve the educational system problems, I have some ocean front property for sale in Arizona. It’s a basic economics problem and well making it free isn’t going to stop price inflation, it’s just going to pass the bill to someone else and they get to suffer for the poor investments instead of the person who made the poor choice.

Lastly don’t try to sell me a pile of bullshit under a false dichotomy.  -B]

Well, this is not good…

So coupled with the case of sudden Jihad syndrome out of Australia, we have something that is considerably concerning and interestingly not being advertised well within the news.

Last night Russia increased interest rates to 17%. Yes, those rates are Jimmy Carter era rates. Now why would they do something like that? Well here it is in graphical form:

Snapshot as of Dec. 16, 2014 0716 Pacific Time

Snapshot as of Dec. 16, 2014 0716 Pacific Time

The link will take you to the current Kitco rates. That’s right folks the Russian Ruble has damn near lost half its value in 30 days. There is a bunch of very interesting things if you think about it, and none of it comforting. Be ready cause winter is coming.

It is becoming apparent that the majority of the world has been printing money at a rate faster than the US and the US is making Zimbabwe look like thrifty spenders. How is that for “mental comfort”.

But you can have property!

Can you?  This started as a rant I was sending to Facebook and then I decided to push it here.  You see Chris made a post on Facebook yesterday, the crux of which was this image.

Taxation

The the thread predictably devolved into people saying how taxation is not a form a slavery because you can have property.* Guess he missed all those taxes on that property where if you don’t pay they seize your property (so in reality rent). And my personal favorite, where the state can take your property under eminent domain and give you pennies on the dollar, if the state feels like spending the pennies.  (Seriously check out that link… The City of Seattle is seizing a 103 year old woman’s property, currently a parking lot, to make it a parking lot. I can’t make this crap up.)

So don’t tell me I’m not a slave when there is nothing voluntary about my relationship with my government and I live in fear of them deciding to seize my property without cause and me with no legal recourse. Remember, this is the land of the free, where the mob can vote to have the state steal your stuff to give it to them.

If everyone saw equal services from the state, then I might not call it slavery, but entitlements are horse shit. I should not be taxed to feed someone else’s kids because they squandered their money on a big screen TV.

Go ahead and say I have no heart. Know why I don’t have kids yet? Because I’m paying for someone else’s. But remember I’m the heartless asshole for merely being the responsible person and staying within my means.

I’m paying more now for my healthcare too, why? To subsidize people who didn’t want to take care of it themselves. Pardon me while I say screw all of you who support this BS.

*He also made a comment about the ballot box being involved so it wasn’t really against your will.  Uhh, so because the mob votes to steal my stuff makes it some how morally ok and just?  WTFO!?  Seriously, how does the fact a ballot box being involved make it OK for the state to take, by force, property from one person and give it to another.  If it was really that person’s property it couldn’t be taken in such a way now could it?

**As someone who’s now working as a contractor, I’m well versed in exactly how much I’m paying out in taxes and it’s far beyond most people. For every dollar I earn I see about .46 cents.  I could easily start a family with all that money being dumped into a government who spends more frivolously than a drunken sailor… But I’m not a slave since I can rent property from the state and they can seize at any time to do with as they please.

I’m going to end the rant here because I think I’ve made my point.  But seriously if you think you’re not a slave merely because they’ve provided you some illusions of freedom, you’re an idiot.  The greatest trick the government ever pulled was making the people think they’re free when they’re really slaves, they just don’t know it yet.

A Short Story…

Terry from the Boomershoot staff emailed this to me and honestly it’s worth the read.

Once upon a time there was a street fair. It had striped awnings and bright colors and from far and near, farmers came with wagons full of produce to sell at the street fair. The produce was plentiful and cheap and the crowds it drew were huge which created all sorts of concerns for the government.

So the government created a Ministry of Street Fairs which it funded by taxing the produce sold at the fair. At first the Ministry brought some some order to the street fair, but it would periodically launch new “street fair initiatives” to justify another expansion and pay for them by raising taxes on the produce.

Just keep reading.  For many of us the results were obvious, others however will continue to insist the story is wrong and their false view of the world is real.

I wanted to snap something as the quote of the day but honestly, it only works as a story.  Go, read, spread it far and wide.

Can We Please Bring on the Apocalypse Already?

I’ll let Tallahassee Explain.

Well life is now imitating art and soon that box of Twinkies on the shelf may very well be the last box of Twinkies.

Hostess Brands, the bankrupt maker of cream-filled pastries like Twinkies and Ho Hos, said on Friday that it planned to wind down its operations. The decision comes a week after one of the company’s biggest unions went on strike to protest a labor contract.

The unions were protesting a cut in pay which occurred because of increased operating costs.  I do find it funny that in this wonderful market, where I know many people who have taken pay cuts instead of raises, these people decided they were going to go on strike. Tell me geniuses, how is no income better than some income?  Have no fear though because I’m sure they will all be collecting unemployment from the government.  That means you and I get to pay them for their stupidity.

Doubly so since the company warned the union that they were going to have to liquidate and shutdown if they didn’t return to work.  Well, the union called the bluff with one minor mistake, the company wasn’t bluffing.

The last thing I need is freaking Twinkies but man they take me back to my childhood.  Thank’s for ruining a direct link back idiots.

Welcome to the demise folks.  This is what happens as government regulation gets to the point where businesses can no longer thrive or be profitable.  Things crash and augur into the ground.  Get ready folks because this is going to get worse, a lot worse.  Especially when you consider the number of people dependent on the government, when the hand outs stop, they’ll just attempt to take their handouts from others.

Atlas is starting to shrug and it seems a lot of people don’t even realize it.

So you want an AR…

This isn’t as much a how-to buying guide but merely a disclaimer that right now is not the time to buy.

The most annoying thing about the post election panic is that it throws a wrench at planned purchases.  I was planning on buying more blasting ammo for Boomershoot, well when ammo started disappearing from shelves, that changed the time frame.  I did an inventory last night and confirmed, yes I needed more steel cased ammo. Since the new replacement ammo is lacquer coated steal rounds I picked up some P-Mags with it and had a nice long discussion with the owner since he’s also my neighbor.  Seriously, he lives 2 houses down from me on the opposite side of the road.

While chatting phones ring and emails come in.  The result of the calls and emails is that  I’m promptly helping them retag every AR in the place.  Now they weren’t gouging nearly as bad as they could, or probably even should.  But every rifle went up by at least an extra 100 bucks.  Now here’s why.  There is no replacement supply anywhere on the horizon, their friends were reporting they were sold out and couldn’t get replacement stock.  Their suppliers were sold out and back ordered for the foreseeable future.  Even manufactures are listing as back-ordered.  Given the sudden demand increase and a fixed supply, prices are going up.

So my advice is if you’re wanting an AR, now is probably not the best time to buy.  Prices will probably drop back now in 6 months and deliveries will move back to normal.

The same goes for ammo.  If you can survive on your current stock, do so.  Come spring thaw it will be back to normal rates and you’ll also have people trying to unload excess stock they didn’t need.  Right now a bunch of people are panicking and buying, but honestly if you wanted one for preparatory purposes, you should have done this a while ago.

Quote of the Day – Joe Huffman(11/5/2012)

Don’t ever be at a loss for words when someone whines about the rich getting richer. Don’t try to explain that it doesn’t or shouldn’t matter if some people get rich or that it means there is opportunity for others to get rich. Handle it as Ms. Thatcher did. Follow it up by forcefully making the case that if the gap between the rich and the poor is a valid cause for government and/or social action then they will never be satisfied until fully equality is achieved. And there are those that admit what they demand is fully equality in just those words. But what they cannot seem to comprehend is that fully equality can only be approximated by everyone being in extreme poverty. Full equality comes with death. And it should come as no surprise the political left is well acquainted with death on a very large scale.

(Emphasis mine.)

Joe Huffman – Quote of the day – Margaret Thatcher
November 4th, 2012


[Go read the whole thing.  That which I emphasized above is the money shot and is worth remembering.  Because that is exactly what many would like to bring upon all of us. -B]

Socialism First Hand, A Warning

Now, with his comments about taking away the incentives for success and people losing interest in working hard in mind.  Lets look at another video:

Think about this for a second.  They’re penalizing success and there are large groups of people who instead of working live off of entitlements from the government.  As RobertaX said, we cannot reverse the slope, but we can at least change it to give us some time.  Given time we might be able to reverse it.

The ACA is going to have some serious repercussions that many probably don’t even realize.  Especially in large parts of the voter base that is most likely to support Obama. What am I talking about?  College internships are liable to get screwed.

There is no way a company is going to bother paying for benefits for an intern, doubly so since usually they are on school or their parents healthcare.  So now when you’re working 40 hour weeks in the summer they’ll have to provide care of face a fine.  Well instead they’ll limit you to 29 hour work weeks.

This is significant because during the summer I regularly worked 40+ hour weeks to pull overtime to save up for my upcoming semesters.  Now instead students will have to incur more debt because they will be prevented from earning money to pay for school.  Wait, who is it that subsidizes most of the loans, which are exempt from most laws governing debt, that’s right the government.

That’s right folks, the government passed legislation that will force more people to take loans and pay them interest.  Nice huh?  Don’t worry though, they’re from the government and they’re here to help…

Ultimately though Bill Whittle nails it with this one:

The money quote:

The left has these same failed ideas from about a 20 year window at the end of the 19th century.  That have never worked, don’t work now, and will never work.  And this clinging to an ossified discredited model based on envy and resentment has killed no less than 100 million people.  And many people call this progressive as they cover themselves in glory, but not in the blood or the failure.

It may be the recent history of the 20th century, however I think it’s certainly in the current path of the future for the United States.