Stacy Summary – You can tell a lot about the consumption patterns of a generation by how much spam you get related to that particular product. I’ve noticed a whole lot less Viagra spam and a whole lot of ‘Online student loans!’ spam these days. It appears the latest generation gets turned on by more debt. And I leave the upside (no pun intended) to this for you to comment on below, on the downside – when Viagra goes wrong, you can spend days with an erection (or so I hear); when a student loan goes bad, however, you can spend a life time in virtual debt detention.
. It appears the latest generation gets turned on by more debt.
Indeed they are. Nothing turns them on more than a debt fuelled spending spree on designer labels that they cant afford. There is also various laws relating to things such as inheritance that have slipped past unnoticed that make them fear bankruptcy and default. They dont need viagra because they dont have sex anymore, they use “sexting” that is sending pics of their genitalia over the SMP protocol to masturbate over. Or worse, they use facebook and such for virtual sex. Having a proper non-prepaid phone service is essential for this, again something that a defaulter can not acquire. Maybe its time to go long (no pun intended) on sex toys, even in these ‘hard’ economic times, there has to be an upside
Student debt=hope. I think many young folks with ambition are motivated by hope. To get ahead, have a better chance, without the inducement of debt, many become suicidal. It is inherent in the young to live and advance in life and strive for accomplishment and achievement.
The majority are stuck in a system of services, end users and shoppers. Besides, the young do not need Viagra, TV is good enough.
Debt has become the nourishment of society, like gmo’s, these engineered entities are quite harmful to mankind.
What’s the alternative?
The latest generation are baboons. But genious baboons! The exposure to modern gui’s ala iPhone 4 by children under 2 will likely spawn a new
generation of cyborg ready children capable of solving all debt problems through
Enhanced algorithmic trading software and banker detecting weaponry.
Good post, Stacy. . .
The “student loan” debacle will come to a close at some point in time. It’s Obama’s way of sedating the nerves of everyone that can’t find a job. Hey, if you can’t find a job after graduation, go back to school, right? What a bunch of bullshit this country has turned into. That jackass we have in office now is only making matters worse. Students that are buying into this crap of getting higher education are fools. If one has already graduated from college they should not have to borrow more money for the banks for more education when there are NO JOBS AVAILABLE for educated people.
This POS system needs to be reconstructed for those who have paid their dues. And these notebook computers also need to be reduced along with that Microsoft 7.0 platform. What a piece of crap that is.
Amazing how they will all try and suck a person in to increase revenues. That is exactly what is going on right now. Like Max says, people should go out and get their Series 7 License and just rip everyone off to gather some quid.
It’s the truth. Otherwise, just let the universities screw you over by charging outrageous fees for courses and books.
Peace,
Mark
Stifted by debt!
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Probably linked to that “magical thinking” again: fantasy boners and fantasy jobs.
@ stacy
herro hope good day
” there’s a rittle brue pirr, and we go running for de sherter of our daddi’s rittle herper”
jimmyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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Exclusive – Dambisa Moyo Extended Interview Pt. 1
In this exclusive, unedited interview, economist Dambisa Moyo argues that China’s approach to emerging world markets is more popular and effective than America’s.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-31-2012/exclusive—dambisa-moyo-extended-interview-pt–1
In this exclusive, unedited interview, Dambisa Moyo says that the economic and political contest between America and China will determine the developing world’s future model.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-31-2012/exclusive—dambisa-moyo-extended-interview-pt–2
@ stacyherbert – nice image, I remember when Valium looked like that and we swallowed them like candy by the handful. Ha, the kids of today go loopy on a quarter of one of those. Some of the stories I hear, like “he went to rehab for his cannabis habit” Bwahhaha they need to get real drug habits. Every second one of them is seeing a psych or counsellor and are on some kind of weird mood stabilisers that dont seem to get you high or low, they just hold you in that middle zone. Blah! what a bunch of wilting flowers.
Stacy, these are really good points, but you’re really only identify the tip of the iceberg. I’m a university professor (just retiring), who has seen the whole thing from the inside out. The issue of loans became a major factor in my deciding to take early retirement from a long-time tenured position. What I would add to what you are saying is this: the universities, like all of our major institutions in the US, are now desperate for money. There is huge pressure to admit people who are either not capable or ready to do anything like college level work. This is in order to take advantage of the student loans as a revenue stream. Where I was, departments and faculty survived (or didn’t) based on “retention” and classroom sizes. Thus there was tremendous pressure to keep people in the seats. I can guarantee you that I had people in some bachelor level courses who literally had IQs of 80 (or possibly less), and many could not write. Only a minority of students were there to actually do the work and learn anything; Most just wanted to go through the motions in order to get a degree, presumably to get some job waiting on the other side. So, its a formula for very low and always deteriorating standards and something called grade inflation. Many universities, probably most, are now just joke in terms of actually doing anything like education. They’re just extended high-schools, and we all know that’s a joke. But the shift is really at the administrative level. The stated goal requires keeping up an PR appearance of “education”, but the real goal is to maintain health care plans, pensions, salaries, careers etc etc of the major players. There’s no way to exaggerate how bad all of this has become. What we’re really seeing is what happens in institutions when a society and an economy move into serious decline. The focus shifts to self preservation and maintaining position and power while the original goal is maintained in some PR fantasy. How about “Ministry of Education” Ha. But do not doubt that the same essential pattern is and will occur in other institutions, especially government.
@swampuppy that was a very good read and as a recent phd student I can identify with everything you talked about. The real education nowadays is on wikipedia, IRC, and sites like this. And it’s all free.
@swampuppy – thanks for that insight; it definitely feels like everything is in self-preservation mode at the top and as to the bottom, one does see that there was a trend toward parents demanding their children be given higher grades for lesser intelligence, it seems to correlate to jobs and wealth being outsourced and plundered, as if Johnny getting an A was somehow compensation for that never being likely to mean anything, even if it were a legitimate A grade . . . I’m always struck when I am in the states that the Help Wanted ads demand college degrees for some of the most menial labor, for example, as a sales clerk at a clothing shop; it’s part of this degradation of the entire society and wealth creation mechanism and what a misallocation of knowledge if, indeed, the degree had been worth anything
Pity, prolific singer from the band “Viejas Locas” did the “Argentine flag”; that means blue pill with white snort. He, supposedly had a bad case of erection and had to have a phallic removal procedure. Nothing official, but rumors are like that… He disappeared after that though…
Great comparison Stacy. When student loans go bad (when life happens along someone’s path to a degree and a good paying job) it gets really ugly. The fun stops and the debt reality sinks in. And it can last a lifetime (not just a few hours)!
Keep up the great articles and perspective.
Well, I am quite sure that appllying for a loan from Sallie Mae or CitiAssist requires a co-signer for any reasonable amount of money. The government-subsidized loans on their own barely cover tuition (which goes up year after year since universities are quite extractive operations and believe that the more money a student has, the more money the university should ask for) and are not enough to cover housing, food, and health insurance (at a minimum).
Going out-of-state is a non-starter on govt financial aid. The real problem, again, is the fundamentally extractive nature of universities. The pressure is to keep students in the seats not as a means of getting money as an end unto itself but to subsidize professor and grad student research. It is fundamentally a pyramid scheme…let’s face it, the US is not an “education” country. It is a country that serves an absentee landlord, to put it mildly, and certainly not the citizens themselves.