More government meddling? What could go wrong?
Educators already have been teaching kiddos about careers implicitly for decades. That is why we have too many twenty-somethings with useless college degrees and few with actual job skills in demand, e.g., the skilled trades.
Teaching kiddos about careers has let educators push their preferences for some types of work, e.g., college professor, "green jobs," over other types, e.g., oil driller, fisherman, rancher. Such preferences reflect their politics.
The True Purpose of Elementary and Secondary Education
The purpose of public schooling ought to be this:
produce civic-minded individuals who are ardent defenders of freedom (the realm where no laws exist in the presence of lawgivers) and warriors against creeping officialdom with ever growing law.
Teaching kiddos about filing taxes makes them more compliant about wanting to pay taxes. That leads to greater demands for more social democracy, i.e., positive rights. That is how you get more gimmie dats!
Instead, public education should teach kiddos of the whys of the Townshend acts and Boston Tea Party Kiddos should learn about the difference between negative-rights jurisprudence and positive-rights jurisprudence.
Yes to Commercial Banking in Education
Teaching kiddos about loans only makes them more compliant about wanting to take out loans with crazed terms such as seven years for a stinking car and thirty years for a house, or a ten years for a student loan.
Kiddos should learn about commercial banking all right, but they should learn about what life was like under a system of money, i.e., coined metal by weight and fineness, and then contrast it to the fiduciary monetary system of today, i.e., banknotes and other bank credit.
Before the era of Congress-guaranteed student loans, i.e., before 1965, most who went to universities could pay for attendance including room and board by working summer jobs. The typical college professor earned less than the typical factory worker. Today, the typical college prof earns twice as much as a factory worker.
In 1960, the average wage rate for a worker was $2.32 an hour (see on the TDJ: IN 1960, A MCDONALD'S HAMBURGER WAS PRICED AT 15¢. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BREAK YOU DESERVE?). Today, the average wage rate for a worker is $22.38 an hour.
In 1960 (prices), when car loans were for three years or less, a new car average price was slightly more than half of yearly wages (0.54 times). Today, the average price of a new car is 0.8 times of yearly wages! The average car price has risen 1.5 times relative to average wage rate.
In 1960, a new house was 2.6 times yearly wages when mortgages typically were 15 years or less. Today, the average price of a new house is 8.5 times yearly wages. In short, having gone from 10-year mortgages to 30-year mortgages, the average house price has risen 3.3 times relative to the average wage rate.
In 1960, the tuition to attend Harvard was 29% of yearly wages. To attend Michigan State was 5.2% of wages (see source for 1960 prices). The tuition of the University of Texas was a mere 2% of wages!
Is it any wonder why working-class parents who send their kiddos to state schools of their states to take advantage of supposedly lower in-state tuition have been feeling it even more than those who can send their kiddos to Harvard and other private, non-profit schools of the USA?
Supposedly, after having gone through the Information Age (computerization) and the Internet Age (networking of computers), US workers are more efficient than ever before. That is what fools like Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen told us.
Yet, if this is so, why is the average wage rate in terms of buying power lower today than in 1960?
If the average wage rate of today had kept pace with 1960, even with the pure banknote monetary system of today, the average price of a new house would have been 4.9 times the average wage rate, or slightly less than double, proportionally from 1960. A new car would be cheaper today, proportionally (0.46 times) than in 1960.
Attending Harvard would have been 59.5% of wages, more than double 1960, but far less than today. Attending Michigan State would have been 18.1% of wages. Attending U of Texas would have been 6.4% of wages
US citizens lived better before August 15, 1971. They did so because the US federal reserve note dollar was redeemable for gold, at least for other banking systems of other countries. That kept bank credit in check.
Also, US citizens lived far better in the 1960s, By 1970, foreign-born population hit a low of 4.7%, which was the lowest percentage since 1840 (see: THE BIG LIE: AMERICANS ARE A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS).
Various Congresses has let in 2.62 million immigrants a year since 1960 through May 2019, which has suppressed the average wage rate and has reduced capitalism in the USA while increasing capitalism in China, India, Mexico, and elsewhere. That policy has been great for the 702 billionaires of the USA, but it has been a disaster for working-class Americans and other US citizens.
Gab It
