Overnight Open Thread
— Maetenloch

The Great College Degree Scam

Via Instapundit comes this damning statistic on the value of a college education these days:

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) has unearthed what I think is the single most scandalous statistic in higher education. It reveals many current problems and ones that will grow enormously as policymakers mindlessly push enrollment expansion amidst what must become greater public-sector resource limits.

Here it is: approximately 60 percent of the increase in the number of college graduates from 1992 to 2008 worked in jobs that the BLS considers relatively low skilled—occupations where many participants have only high school diplomas and often even less. Only a minority of the increment in our nation’s stock of college graduates is filling jobs historically considered as requiring a bachelor’s degree or more.

So basically all the money that many college students (and their parents) have paid/borrowed for a college degree was wasted. They paid $60,000+ just to qualify for essentially high school entry-level jobs.

Here's a breakdown of what percentage of different professions have a college degree:

Note that none of these jobs require a college education to be excellent at them, but they do require specific knowledge and skills that aren't taught at a university. So pretty much every class that the college graduates working in these areas took was a waste.

Even worse than all the money wasted is the waste of student time and the opportunity costs. If instead of spending four years indebting themselves in college, the students had picked a profession and spent four years immersed in it, they could have already put in the requisite Gladwell 10,000 hours to become accomplished in the field. And would have made money the entire time without any debt hanging over their future.

I remember one of the things that the Soviet Union always boasted about was the high percentage of their citizens had a post-secondary school education and how this made them a better workforce. Most of this was in vocational and trade studies and the average Soviet worker had something like 2+ years of post-high school training.

Well after the Soviet Union collapsed it came out that most of this training was utterly worthless - the 'trained' workers were only about 1% more efficient at their jobs despite spending three years in a trade school. Basically the state authorities were using the schools to make themselves look good and as a way to hide the real unemployment among young people. I wonder if we aren't doing the same thing. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:30 PM | Comments (593)
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Obama As The Comeback Kid
— DrewM

Charles Krauthammer wrote about this last week and that was before DADT was repealed and START was ratified.

Now that the lame duck has wrapped up, Obama Comeback Fever has gone to 11!

Greg Sargent of the Washinton Post is practically giddy over it all.

So this afternoon, the Senate voted to ratify New START after months of partisan wrangling and passed the bill giving health benefits to 9/11 heroes after, well, years of partisan wrangling. This, on the same day that Obama signed the repeal of don't ask don't tell, a civil rights milestone. All in all, a pretty productive day.

It's obvious enough that Obama's rebound was remarkable, in that he has defied expectations of gridlock to rack up a fusillade of major accomplishments that have placed him in a stronger position than many expected. But there's more: It turns out he will also emerge from the session with far more kudos from the public than Republicans have earned.

To Democratsliberals I say, enjoy it while you can.

To Republicans/conservatives on't buy the hype.

Yes, a lot got done partially because of the RINO sellouts Ace talked about earlier but mostly because the House was still controlled by the Democrats. The legislation that passed looked very different if Boehner was the Speaker instead of Pelosi.

Obama is getting a lot of credit now for being "bipartisan" and "getting things done" but he only had to deal with a handful of Republican Senators. It was easier to cut deals with a handful of mushy Senators, some of whom aren't coming back (by Robert Bennett, Judd Gregg and Kit Bond).

From the tax deal to a medium term Continuing Resolution, the lame duck was about playing defense for Republicans. You wouldn't have known it judging by the press coverage but Harry Ried is and will be the Majority Leader, not Mitch McConnell. John Boehner hasn't broken down in tears while grabbing the gavel from Nancy Pelosi's hands just yet.

Majorities matter.

Everything changes in two weeks. The House alone won't be enough to undo all the damage the Democrats and some fellow traveling Republicans have done in the last two years but it will be a start. The terms of the debate will change and Obama will be forced into taking and defending unpopular and liberal positions again.

Posted by: DrewM at 04:48 PM | Comments (105)
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Alaska Senate Update: AK Supreme Court Rules Against Miller
— Gabriel Malor

The last time we checked on the Alaska Senate race, Joe Miller had just had his state law claims tossed out by a state judge. He appealed that directly to the Alaska Supreme Court.

Minutes ago, that court affirmed the decision that the Alaska Division of Elections properly counted the write-in votes by adhering to the intent of the voter. The decision is available here (PDF).

Miller still has a case pending in the federal courts, but that was only to maintain the federal injunction on certifying the results. That judge already indicated he would defer to the state court's interpretation of state laws. So unless Miller raises some constitutional claims -- that would be U.S. constitutional claims -- he's finished.

Will be back with more after I've read the decision in full.

Later: Okay, the part where I'm insufferably smug is tucked below the fold. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 01:36 PM | Comments (93)
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Out: Californian Fiscal Sanity; In: Californian Vaginal Steam Baths
— Ace

It's a Korean practice. You know, anything that has any connection to the Far East is science as far as New Agey women are concerned.

Pungent steam rises from a boiling pot of a mugwort tea blended with wormwood and a variety of other herbs. Above it sits a nude woman on an open-seated stool, partaking in a centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West.

This is the first time this sentence was ever written:

At Daengki Spa in Koreatown, a 45-minute Vaginal Herbal Therapy treatment can be had for $20 a squat.

I changed "V" to "Vaginal" to really push how absurd this sentence is.

I just opened my own clinic in Newport Beach for dudes. Basically, we're going to charge $70 for treating dudes' junk with eucalyptus leaves and Binaca.

Bye-bye blog traffic, hello, easy street! Whoo-hoo! The recession just ended for me! So long, suckers!

Posted by: Ace at 01:34 PM | Comments (132)
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What a State Bond Default Looked Like When It Last Happened, In 1933
— Ace

Arkansas just kept piling up debt, and then defaulted.

Three pieces of bad news here:

In January 1934, the bondholders got a permanent injunction against the state, blocking the use of automobile and gasoline taxes for anything other than highway maintenance and debt service.

Now “at the mercy of the bondholders,” in the words of Senator Reaves, the state in 1934 agreed to a refunding that extended some maturities and required an increase in both those automobile and gasoline taxes.

That cured the 1933 default.

So I assume this means that bondholders could do this today. The bad part isn't that they essentially garnish the state wages; it's that the state then raises taxes otherwise to make up for the money flowing out to bondholders.

I do not know if employee unions have the same sort of legal position, where they can compel states to direct monies into their pensions and such.

In the mid-forties, the state threatened default again, and couldn't sell bonds except at very high rates of return (which would make them appealing enough to investors to overcome their risk aversion, but would be too expensive for the state to pay). So the RFC (FDR's Reconstruction Finance Corporation) came in and bought the bonds, all of them, at a rate favorable to the state. Essentially, then, the federal government subsidized the state for borrowing so much and mismanaging its finances and repeatedly defaulting and threatening to default on its obligations, sparing it from having to pay a high cost for its spendthriftery.

Just making everyone else in the country pay for it.

Here's the difference:

In 1933, nobody thought Washington should get involved in a state bond default. In 2010, thatÂ’s the first place we would look for help.

So back then, it was a surprise that the federal government should do this; now it's just expected.

So what incentive do states have to make tough cuts? None, it seems.

Posted by: Ace at 01:05 PM | Comments (55)
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Fat Fight: Huckabee Says Michelle Obama Right, Sarah Palin Wrong on Federal Role in Childhood Obesity
— Ace

I had this in the sidebar, but there's a new twist.

Ben Smith digs up an old Sarah Palin speech offering up a little preaching about healthy choices.

We have alarming levels of heart disease, diabetes, childhood obesity – and all of these maladies are on the rise. Now, I won’t stand here and lecture – for very long – but health care reform on an individual basis is often just this simple: we could save a lot of money and a lot of grief by making smarter choices.

It starts by ending destructive habits and beginning healthy habits in eating and exercise. In my case, it’s hard to slack when you have the ever-present example of an Iron Dogger nearby. But many of us could use a little more time in our great outdoors -– and when you live in the Great Land [of Alaska], there’s no excuse.

I don't think this is really a big deal, because Palin was only partly on about mere nagging and nattering-- the gravemen of her criticism seemed about legislation, government coercion:

"Instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician's wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back."

And:

"Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents."

That said, clarity never hurt anyone (except diplomats), and if her specific beef is with the legislative end of this only, she should say so. If good old-fashioned lecturing is still good policy, she should say that too.

Posted by: Ace at 11:16 AM | Comments (226)
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Awful Obama Judicial Nominee Goodwin "Maybe We Need To Think About Reparations" Liu Will Not Be Confirmed
— DrewM

For a refresher on Goodwin Liu's extreme theories on race check out this post and his effort to cover them up.

Senator Jeff Sessions was not a fan.

Consider Goodwin Liu, the University of California at Berkeley professor whom the president nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Liu has argued that judges should treat the Constitution as an infinitely flexible document to be interpreted through nebulous "social understandings" and the consideration of foreign law. This activist philosophy led Liu to conclude that the Constitution provides a right to government health care and welfare -- a remarkable view of a document designed to curb the excess of federal power.

The American people overwhelmingly disagree with this approach to judging. So the president is playing a rhetorical game, accusing the court's conservative, or traditional, justices of being the real activists: harboring a secret bias for big businesses. It is an absurd suggestion.

Well, Liu's nomination was held up by Republicans in the Senate and he was left out of a deal that allowed a number of other nominees to go forward.

A Cal law school dean's nomination to a federal appeals court appears to be dead, at least for now, under a deal struck between U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans to break a year-end judicial confirmation logjam.

Officials familiar with the deal said Democrats agreed not to seek votes on the nominations of Goodwin Liu, associate dean at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law, and three others, while Republicans agreed to confirm at least 19 of President Barack Obama's noncontroversial nominees.

Liu's nomination dies when the Senate adjourns sine die (probably later today). Obama can however renominate Liu and the others in January. With 6 more Republicans coming in January (and some fine conservatives among them), I don't think the outcome will be any difference in the end.

No doubt some awful people go through but that's the nature of being in the minority, sometimes the best you can do is prevent the worst of the worst. Liu is certainly that.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:34 AM | Comments (44)
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Unbowed: Obama To Attempt "Regulatory" End-Run Around Congressional Law-Making on EPA Rules After All
— Ace

Ed lays out the options here, which range from obstruction to forbidding any EPA funds to be used for this purpose.

Another possibility is Congress striking down the rules the EPA establishes, but that would be an actual law, and as such, would require Obama's signature or a veto override of two-thirds -- an impossibility.

Like most liberals, Obama lacks a real religion. His religion is "The Environment." Seems odd that he'd give in on taxes but press for this, but that's the nature of religion. It's a matter of dogma and faith.

Posted by: Ace at 10:01 AM | Comments (84)
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This Just In: Michael Moore Is Still A Hateful, Treasonous Monster
— Ace

"Poor Bradley Manning," sitting in confinement at Quantico for merely honoring the ethic of Nuremberg, that soldiers must disobey illegal orders.

What can you say?

Thanks to JackStraw.

Posted by: Ace at 08:55 AM | Comments (83)
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When Chyrons Go Bad
— Ace

Awful.

What was second place?

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 08:24 AM | Comments (31)
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