College Tuition Increases...

This article rants and raves about the cost of college tuition, which for the past 20 years or so has been rising much faster than inflation.  The author explores several possible reasons for the increase, but none of them are satisfyingly simple and obvious. 

There is such a reason, however: the fast ramp of college tuition almost exactly correlates with the easing of student loan availability.  Way back in the Cretaceous era when I was examining the possibility of going to college, there's no way that I could have gotten a student loan.  These days, thanks to numerous Federal and State programs, if you can fog a mirror and get admitted to any college, you can easily get a loan to pay not only your tuition, but your books and living expenses as well.

So why would that make college tuition increase?  Because the marketplace for college has been distorted by the government subsidies and guarantees in the student loan market – a student selecting a college no longer needs to worry so much about what it costs.  Because the loans are so easy to get, the only pricing pressure comes from a students deferred need to pay off the loan.  This greatly reduces the pressure on colleges and universities to keep their prices low, as the “buyers” not longer care so much about the price.  Instead, they are now motivated to spend more money to compete for student loans (the fact that a student comes along with the loan is just a cost of doing business for them, and a relatively minor one). 

This is yet another example of the government's intervention causing a huge distortion in the market.  Like the housing bubble, the taxpayers are going to be on the hook again – because a large fraction of all the trillions in student loans are guaranteed by some Federal program or another.  Of course “Federal guarantee” is just the polite way of saying “They're going to stick their hands in my pocket to steal the money”...

Imagine...

Imagine, for one horrifying moment, that you're a bureaucrat within a major city's administrative staff.  Within your purview are the city's collection of public swimming pools, including responsibility for hiring lifeguards.  Now imagine that you're making up a list of requirements that applicants for lifeguard jobs must meet:

- swimming: nope, not required
- racial minority: you're hired

This is not a joke; it is the reality in Phoenix, Arizona.  Seriously.  And the progressives think it's just wonderful.

Doom...

For All Those Who Think “It Can't Happen Here!”

How many of us have looked at history (say, of Germany in the 1930s) or recent events (say, of Hugo Chavez's systematic dismantling of representative democracy in Venezuela), and then comforted ourselves by saying “That can't happen here!”  I know I'm guilty of that.

Read this story of government intimidation in Fresno, California.

This is how takeovers start, when the government starts placing itself above the people it governs, and (most especially) when those who are governing start treating themselves as above the law.  When the powerful get away with intimidating the citizenry, it of course only encourages more of this.   These small acts of intimidation are actually very important, much like the early stages of a bacterial infection are very important – they are a warning sign, which, if taken seriously, provide an opportunity to wipe out the infection before it gets completely out of control.

Debbie and I had a conversation yesterday on a related topic.  She keeps reading about efforts to allow Obama to run for a third (and further) terms as president, by somehow repealing or getting around the 22nd Amendment.  My response is two-fold: First, I don't think such a thing is very likely in the U.S.  Second, if it did happen, that would be a clear signal to us to make our home somewhere else...

Forbidden History of Taxes...

Excellent.

Shadow Government Statistics...

John Williams has an interesting web site called Shadow Government Statistics, wherein he exposes flaws in the way government presents and analyzes economic and finance statistics.  Here's a good example using unemployment statistics.  Williams includes (in the blue line) long term “discouraged” workers which have been left out of all U.S. government statistics since 1994 (a piece of Bill Clinton legerdemain designed to make the economic picture look better than it actually was).  With those “discouraged” workers back in the stats, the current unemployment rate is really about 23%, not the much rosier 7.9% released as the official number...

Things I Did Not Know...

What's the difference between “Holland” and “The Netherlands”?  The answer is much more interesting – and involved –  than I expected it to be!

How to Spot a Bureaucrat Who Needs to be Fired...

I'll give you two answers:

1. (only slightly facetious): Any bureaucrat you spot.
   
2. (more seriously): Any bureaucrat who thinks that borrowing $2.5 million under terms that required over $35 million is a “good deal”.  And that's not even the worst example!  Oh, and the examples are from California, of course.  And it's so bad that even NPR is reporting it!  I originally heard this on the radio (I listen so my readers don't have to), and almost drove off the road in shock...

Bureaucrats and your money:

    Rope
    Tree
    Bureaucrat
    Some assembly required

A Fourth Branch?

Last night I pondered my frustrations with our government, and I realized that quite a few of them all boiled down to one thing: fiscal irresponsibility.  That's not all my frustrations, mind you...but a good number of them.  For example, the fact that our federal government is now operating without a budget, on continuing financing resolutions – that's completely irresponsible.  Or the accounting gimmicks that Obamacare is rife with – also completely irresponsible.  Or the near-universal underfunding of state and municipal pension funds.  But most of all, it's indefensible that we keep spending money (at all levels of government) that we simply don't have.  All these issues have one thing in common: the legislators and executives being way, way too free with the taxpayer's hard-earned dollar.

The rest of our society doesn't have this problem.  There are safeguards in place that prevent the same kinds of abuses that we see our governments perpetrating on a daily basis.  Which led me to an idea...why don't we have such safeguards in place for governments as well?

This is akin to our legal safeguards, implemented by our system of justice, culminating in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Why not have a similar system of financial safeguards, with the same power as that of our justice system?  A system of auditors, covering all levels of government: municipal, state, and federal.  A U.S. Supreme Auditors, a council of 9 auditors whose word was final.  The whole system set up to prevent the financial shenanigans currently foisted upon us by our criminal politicians (the only reason these things aren't actually crimes is because they're being committed by the same people who make the laws!).

This would require a Constitutional Amendment, and with 100% of all politicians deadset agin it, I don't think it would have a chance in hell of passing.  Dang...

Just a Little Steep, Don't You Think?

Suppose you were badly in need of some money.  Let's say you needed $10,000 to buy something you desperately wanted.  You might be willing to pay a somewhat higher-than-usual interest rate to get a loan of that much money, and you'd realize that you'd be paying back more than you borrowed.  So, for example, if you borrowed that money for 10 years at 20% interest with a balloon payment, you'd be unsurprised that you'd end up paying back about $30,000.  That's a lot, but hey – that was something you really wanted.

But now suppose you were told you'd have to pay back $100,000?  Wouldn't that make you wonder whether it was worth it?  Well, apparently such considerations – especially since the taxpayers would be footing the bill – never even occurred to school district officials at Poway (in San Diego County).  And the Poway officials were not alone.

Rope.
Tree.
Rotten, corrupt, city officials (I know this is redundant).
Some assembly required...

This Is How a Society Commits Suicide...

Selected more or less at random from the new Washingon, D.C. regulations (PDF) covering (amongst other things) rat exterminators:

(i) A wildlife control services provider shall make every reasonable effort to preserve family units using humane eviction or displacement and reunion strategies and shall not knowingly abandon dependent young wildlife in a structure.
(j) Wildlife shall not be kept in captivity longer than 36 hours unless specifically
authorized by the Department or unless reunion attempts are being employed. In the case of attempted reunion, a wildlife control services provider may hold wildlife in captivity for up to 72 hours.
(k) Captured wildlife shall be transported in covered, secure containers in such a way as to:

      (1) Minimize stress to the animal and its exposure to the elements by covering
the trap or vehicle with appropriate material;
      (2) Ensure that the covering is of such material that the animal has an adequate
supply of air to prevent overheating; and
      (3) Minimize potential hazards to the general public.

(l) A wildlife control services provider shall not use sticky or glue traps to control any wildlife.

The city is now obligated to enforce these new regulations.  That means a small army of unionized inspectors and (given that we're talking about Washingon, D.C.) armed enforcement officers.  This, in a city where more than half the kids drop out of high school.  When the priorities of a society favor the rats over its own young, you know the end is near (for the society, not the rats)...

Kopimism...

A new religious movement has been formally recognized by the government of Sweden.  It's just a bit different than most religions you've run into.  For example, one of their central tenets is that all information sharing is “holy”.  Their sacred symbols include things like ^C (the keyboard shortcut for copying to the clipboard).

On one level, this is just an amusing story.  On another level, though, it's a great example of something that free societies embracing religious freedom find quite challenging: exactly what constitutes a “religion” (thereby becoming worthy of protection by the state)?  That turns out to be an astonishingly difficult – perhaps even impossible – question to answer objectively.

Thanks to Simon M. for passing this along...

Catch 22...

Courtesy of your government, of course.  The latest: a trucking company can't refuse to hire a driver with a history of alcohol abuse – but if that driver causes an accident, the company is still liable.

At times like this, it surely seems that the socialists in charge of our country's government are trying to destroy us...

A Fitting Symbol...

Via reader Doug S., this gem: the logo for the Smithsonian Institution's new blog, “Department of Innovation”.  Note that the Smithsonian Institution is government-sponsored (and funded).

Look at that logo carefully.  The three gears are arranged such that they can't possibly move in any direction.

Is that a perfect symbol for our federal government or what???

Now This Just Pisses Me Off!

The gist of the story:

• The local government, advised by engineers, does something that some local citizens don't like.
  


• The local citizens do their homework, put together a counter-argument, back it up with the same kind of work the city's engineers did, and submit it.
  


• An engineer working for the local government reads their submission and is surprised at the quality of it.  Then he notes that the work wasn't signed by a licensed engineer – so he files a complaint against the citizens for practicing engineering without a license (?!?!).

As one of my favorite bloggers used to say, before he was hounded off the Internet:

Rope.

Tree.

Bureaucrats and their minions.

Some assembly required.

Backcountry Plan: No Decisions...

This article has the details, but the bottom line is that (as expected) the County Supervisors are not voting on the General Plan Update until sometime after the election on November 2.  There will be more hearings and more public input.  However, as the article points out, the public input so far has been overwhelmingly negative.  The plan update has something for everybody to hate, as probably any proposed changes would.

How do I feel about it?  Unsure, as I haven't read the proposed changes.  However, if the news stories are accurate (never a sure thing, that), there is one element which I definitely would oppose: a “taking” in the legal sense.  This element would increase the minimum size of lots that homes could be built on – directly reducing the value of larger tracts that individuals or developers own, without compensating them in any way.  That is a taking, and I'd oppose it...