Florida State Seminoles

[crashcourse]

look forward to it Bklyn

have to admit the charleston shooting opens your eyes to the problem that this isnt isolated

I still stand by my expierience in indy/sanantonio/kansascity/that 98% of cops try to do the right thing. Im beginning to think that number is inflated nationally though

[hedge]

Racism has been around forever and it's going to stay around forever. Does anybody think that 200 years from now this country is going to be free from racism? No way...

[Bklyn]

Not until the Martians come. Then we can all hate them together as a family.

(and yeah, most cops are good, caring people that want to do a good job and make it home safe every day until they get that juicy pension. The news doesn't cover successful plane landings, I get that reality)

[crashcourse]

i ran from the cops one time

sure glad i wasnt in charleston

[Jungle Rat]

Not until the Martians come. Then we can all hate them together as a family.

FINALLY!!!!

[Jungle Rat]

i ran from the cops one time

sure glad i wasnt in charleston

I ran from the cops most weekends as a kid. Unfortunately they always knew where I was running to. Way different back then though. They just made your parents pick you up. Not like that today. Today nailing a cop car with a snowball as a 14 year old would get me charged with attempted murder on a cop as an adult.

[eCat]

To me the problem is this mentality that cops have of "#1 priority is getting home to see your family at the end of your shift"

that sentiment to me takes on the view that going out into the community every day is a war and the public is the enemy.

I'm not sure what the answer is but I personally would rather not have a police force that has this mentality. If you really see the job this way, then why are you even doing it in the first place? You're not protecting the community, its not answering a call to serve.

And the pay is shit anyways. Seriously why do they do it?

[Bklyn]

You get on the NYPD at 22 years old, retire with a full pension at 42 (with the avg payout per retiree of $60K), get a gig managing the security of an office building for $75 - 105K a year and you never had to fire your service revolver in the line of duty.

That's why guys up this way join the force.

[hedge]

"Not until the Martians come. Then we can all hate them together as a family."

That's basically one of the main plot lines in The Watchmen...

[hedge]

"Today nailing a cop car with a snowball as a 14 year old would get me charged with attempted murder on a cop as an adult."

Kinda makes me wish you were 14 today...

[eCat]

so I'm watching the Daily Show this morning and Stewart has Elizabeth Warren on who seems like a genuinely good politician. I"m sure Fox would say otherwise, but the main topic she wanted to talk about was student loans and how the government is making roughly $16b a year in profit from student loans ($66b over a 4 year period) and she says that is obscene. She compares that to banks getting 0% loans to buy treasury bonds etc but also just how in general the government of the people should not be a profit by the people organization.

So I get that and I can pretty much get behind that sentiment.

But the Libertarian view of this would be that by the government guaranteeing student loans and making loans easily accessible to virtually any American (and in some cases, illegal immigrants), they've dramatically raised the price of education for the average American. And worse , I would bet that if we looked into it, even though the trend has always been more people going to college every year, college graduation rates have pretty much stayed the same (resulting in more college graduates, but also a steady number of students who drop out).

By guaranteeing money to the college there is no incentive for the colleges to graduate students - matter of fact, there is incentive for colleges to stretch out a student's college career so that a 4 year degree takes 5, 6 or even more years.

I'm not sure how you address that, but clearly there is a strong argument to be made that Health Care, Education and Housing have all seen dramatic cost increases due to guarantees of payment made by our federal government\ which have affected Americans as a whole - the question is- do the positives outweigh the negatives

[hedge]

The problem is that everyone now sees the federal government as a legitimate engine of economic activity. I'm not talking about just the money that they need to run their legitimate operations (which as far as I'm concerned should be limited to national defense and interstate commerce, and even the latter has been grossly overblown), but just the idea that nobody even questions it when a politician says something about "economic stimulus" or anything along those lines, as if that was a legitimate function of government. Why do we think that? The government should not be in the business of business, but they have now become the primary and by far the greatest (in terms of gross dollars) element in "the economy". And nobody questions it at all. That's fucked up...

[sardis]

"I"m sure Fox would say otherwise, but the main topic she wanted to talk about was student loans and how the government is making roughly $16b a year in profit from student loans ($66b over a 4 year period) and she says that is obscene."

Depends on how much are the loan balances in total. If the $16 billion a year is less than the borrowing costs to fund those loans then the government is not making money.

[eCat]

"I"m sure Fox would say otherwise, but the main topic she wanted to talk about was student loans and how the government is making roughly $16b a year in profit from student loans ($66b over a 4 year period) and she says that is obscene."

Depends on how much are the loan balances in total. If the $16 billion a year is less than the borrowing costs to fund those loans then the government is not making money.

she made it clear that was after overhead and even included those students who default on loans

[AlabamAlum]

More people are graduating now.

And I can only address the college that I teach at: we have not attempted to draw out or extend a student's career. Just the opposite, there are more ways to finish on time or early now due to bridge programs and distance learning. Not only that, but most programs are looking at ways to make it easier to get out by removing or restructuring the "road block courses" (organic chemistry, physics, statistics, microbiology, etc).

I'm not in favor of incentives for graduating students. Bad things happen there, IMO. We've seen that with athletics and in HS.

And, remember, at most colleges, tuition doesn't cover the cost per student. That's made up through endowments and donations and other revenue streams. Now, if you want to change the college model and run it more like a business, and offer less of the 'college experience' you can greatly lower costs. Make everything but lab distance education. No sports at most schools, no fancy buildings or parks on campus, no dorms, and we could allow corporate sponsorships: "The Dell baccalaureate in computer science degree" or maybe the "Johnny Cochran Lawfirm JD."

[eCat]

The problem is that everyone now sees the federal government as a legitimate engine of economic activity. I'm not talking about just the money that they need to run their legitimate operations (which as far as I'm concerned should be limited to national defense and interstate commerce, and even the latter has been grossly overblown), but just the idea that nobody even questions it when a politician says something about "economic stimulus" or anything along those lines, as if that was a legitimate function of government. Why do we think that? The government should not be in the business of business, but they have now become the primary and by far the greatest (in terms of gross dollars) element in "the economy". And nobody questions it at all. That's fucked up...

because the only time the government talks about economic stimulus is when we are on the brink of something bad happening ( at least that's the narrative) so there is little to no resistance for it.

[eCat]

More people are graduating now.

"

more people are graduating now because there are more people? Technology , competition and demand have resulted in options that allow students to graduate faster or easier - I don't think school have embraced those ideas, they just recognized they were going to lose out if they didn't implement them.

I wouldn't support a model that incentivized colleges to graduate students, however I would support a model that says a college credit paid for is good until a student earns a "C" in the class and putting more stringent requirements on receiving a student loan, such as a qualification review/exam each year and a monthly payout tied to the student being in school versus a lump sum payout up front at the start of each year or semester.

I do like the idea of sponsored degrees.

[eCat]

but going back to student loans - the real issue to me is that the government is guaranteeing the demand allowing unlimited or artificially supported supply. Maybe the real supply/demand model is we don't have as many colleges/universities or that we don't have as many that offer as many amenities to the student population.

In my mind, if the government is guaranteeing student loans - in essence, guaranteeing a supply of students, they why isn't their a cap on the profits or costs that can put on the students?

The reason is because colleges would then just start delivering a crap education and cutting back on the college experience as a whole like AA mentioned - no sports, no research, no outreach, etc.

But its easy to understand why this concept is messed up.

The same logic can be applied to housing and health care - the government creates the supply but cannot cap the costs because the results would be decreased quality of either.

We're seeing that now in health care as the government is attempting to reduce the payout to medicaid/medicare and doctors across the country are dropping them as patients.

[crashcourse]

nice to see the cops have learned their lesson

a fokkin news helicoptor right over your head and your lkicking somebody in the head who just got tased

http://news.yahoo.com/video-shows-calif ... 28080.html

[eCat]

nice to see the cops have learned their lesson

a fokkin news helicoptor right over your head and your lkicking somebody in the head who just got tased

http://news.yahoo.com/video-shows-calif ... 28080.html

yea I saw that this morning. Apparently the counter argument is that he had been in trouble with the law 3 times before so he had it coming.

The writing is on the wall - video is going to alter police behavior - the question is how many riots and police being put in jail will be necessary before it happens.