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[Ogdibus]

Yeah.  This doesn't even have anything to do with anything anymore.  It's just the guy living up to his name.  Insulting everyone based on his imaginary conceptions of what they believe.

I got people asking me for citations. Nary a citation from them.

I got people telling me I'm insulting them, while calling me "kid" and "deluded" and "imaginary" over a simple stark number like $16 trillion, that will still be there when you close your eyes and plug you ears and scream you aren't hearing this.

I got people accusing me of strawman to evade posting something on-point.

Good show, chaps. This is over.

It was the "parasites" comment, not the statistic.  You struck a nerve with a lot of people.  It's also why you've been accused of living in a bubble.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I got people telling me I'm insulting them, while calling me "kid" and "deluded" and "imaginary" over a simple stark number like $16 trillion, that will still be there when you close your eyes and plug you ears and scream you aren't hearing this.

I got people accusing me of strawman to evade posting something on-point.

No, you're a child and a moron because you believe people who get help from a government they pay taxes to are parasites [though I argue strongly that you're the exact parasite you refer to]. Then you make up silly positions to argue with to make your positions seem less stupid, or to veil your trolling as debate when in fact you are showing you know nothing about what you drag up in conversation. See: Previous education statements and your follow-up.

[Trollheiming]

On a board moving this fast, I'm not hunting citations. You can look at the easy money of the housing bubble, or the easy money in any irrational stock market boom. Wherever people get to buy things for free or with easy loans that they may or may not default upon, value is destroyed.

Know anyone who lost 40% of the value in his home after the easy money destroyed home values? That's your citation.

You do understand that there is a difference between buying a home and studying for a certification, right? The trade of goods isn't comparable with personal training. You can just buy a house if you have the money, but you can't just buy a degree, you need to be able to pass the tests. Further more, a house maintains value if you don't use it, a degree does not. A house can be resold, a degree can not.
They are conceptually very different things, and not economically interchangeable any way!

A house is a good. Education is a service. Goods and services can be analysed with the same theories. Don't pretend otherwise. It's been real, guys, but I got to go the sleep.

[Reelya]

The view that higher education is a bubble is controversial. Most economists do not think the returns to college education are falling. In a financial bubble, assets like houses are sometimes purchased with a view to reselling at a higher price, and this can produce rapidly escalating prices as people speculate on future prices. An end to the spiral can provoke abrupt selling of the assets, resulting in an abrupt collapse in price — the bursting of the bubble. Because the asset acquired through college attendance — a higher education — cannot be sold (only rented through wages), there is no similar mechanism that would cause an abrupt collapse in the value of existing degrees. For this reason, many people find this analogy misleading.

the "higher education bubble" is controversial and has been rejected by some economists. Data shows that the wage premium—the difference between what those with a four year college degree earn and what those with only a high school education earn—has increased dramatically since the 1970s, but so has the 'debt load' incurred by students due to the tuition inflation. The data also suggests that, notwithstanding a slight increase in 2008–2009, student loan default rates have declined since the mid 1980s and 1990s. Those with college degrees are much less likely than those without to be unemployed, even though they are more expensive to employ (they earn higher wages). The global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company projects a shortage of college trained workers, and an excess supply of workers without college degrees, which would cause the wage premium to increase, and cause differences in unemployment rates to become even more dramatic.

The problem with "too many lawyers" isn't that there are too many, it's that greedy private tuition colleges don't want to fail anyone, even if they're lousy at the course. Not for some "liberal bleeding heart" reason, but because those students are a cash-cow. So they pat them on the head and dumb down the course to inflate numbers.

[SalmonGod]

16 trillion.  Yup.  It's a number.  It also means absolutely nothing to me.  I went straight to from high school to college.  Paid my own way through most of it, with some parental assistance.  Still holding down a job and raising a family while edging my way into a better career.  That really big number?  As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with me.  I've given no support to any of the politics that generated it, and I'm not one of the parasites you describe.  Should that number pose any threat to me, I see it as nothing more than an invading force on my life.  Powerful people have their number games, while I'm just living the best that I can.  As far as I'm concerned, the influence of the former on the latter is illegitimate and a form of violence.

[Agdune]

Right, education lowers economic development, because it dilutes the labor market with an overabundance of skills, basically. That's why Africa is a Shangri-la of economic prosperity; no lousy free education mooching off the system! Yeah, go free enterprise! The fewer skills there are avaliable to a market, the better off that market is! We should totally revert to a guild system, because LOOK AT THE PROFITS GUYS, THERE ARE TOTALLY NO DRAWBACKS TO THIS!

Your arguments are so well thought out and based on such sound principles. It's almost like Abe Lincoln has risen from the dead and signed up to these forums. Why, I'd wager you could get giftbaskets if you just went and posted your home address along with your brilliant ideas on /b/! Honest, give it a try! Write us a novel on your ideas, for they are GOLDEN!

(PS; I'm really impressed that at the mere age of 30 you managed to get a job in China. I might not have noticed, but you brought it up almost half a dozen times, so it's evidently quite an achievement. Good job, sunshine! We'll write you a card for christmas, okay? We'll send it to 'china', so no doubt it'll arrive no problems)

...C'mon guys, don't buy into the amateur troll.

[alexandertnt]

You continue to state the deficit without explaining how "liberalism" is causing it. Just that it "is" $16 Trillion. Also, given your constant use of straw men, accusing someone of using an emotional fallacy is ironic.

Entitlement spending is 60% of the total. That's New Deal liberalism. How can this be a strawman? You aren't using these terms in good faith.

"5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.

America has succumbed to the parasites that only wanted goodies and hated productive people.

4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.

I got people telling me I'm insulting them, while calling me "kid" and "deluded" and "imaginary" over a simple stark number like $16 trillion, that will still be there when you close your eyes and plug you ears and scream you aren't hearing this.

1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position.

As if they are calling you names over that figure. They are not.

I got people accusing me of strawman to evade posting something on-point.

I would consider pointing out the flaws in your arguments and refuting them to be in-point.

Free education is the corner-stone of modern society. How would someone born to poor parents get anywhere if they could bearly read.

[Blargityblarg]

And, tell me, what is bad about free education?

Free education means more people take advantage of it. Well and good, eh?

That means more teachers. Teachers need pay, and if the education is to be meaningful, it has to be at a high price to recruit  dedicated and skilled teachers. In fact, if you want more of something at the same quality, it costs more per a unit. That's called the supply curve, which slopes upward as quantity increases. The more you want of something, the more you have to pay.

So now everyone is a trained lawyer. That's awesome. But wait, we only need so many lawyers! Oh, dear! We've got people with $100k sheepskins and no degree-specific jobs to give them. But we need buildings cleaned. Voila. Those free degrees all become $100k "janitorial engineering" degrees.

And the cost is picked up by the government. And the deficits grow. Free education destroys the value of the product, but not the costs.

I'd like to see the intermediate steps between 'more people are being educated' and 'now everybody is a lawyer, nobody did anything but study law'

This is one solution the free market actually does provide. As an Australian, I see plenty of people ignoring university altogether and going into trades jobs. You are, quite simply, drawing a conclusion that does not follow the premise.

[Max White]

A house is a good. Education is a service. Goods and services can be analysed with the same theories. Don't pretend otherwise. It's been real, guys, but I got to go the sleep.

Umm, no, not exactly. You don't study economics, do you?
While on a business level they are pretty identical, were not doing business studies any more, we are talking economics. On an economic level, the ability to resell an object, and other, non-financial limitations on a product both change how it acts within an economy. They are not interchangeable.

Still, shame I missed the fun, but good night, see you some other time!

[Trollheiming]

I got people telling me I'm insulting them, while calling me "kid" and "deluded" and "imaginary" over a simple stark number like $16 trillion, that will still be there when you close your eyes and plug you ears and scream you aren't hearing this.

I got people accusing me of strawman to evade posting something on-point.

No, you're a child and a moron because you believe people who get help from a government they pay taxes to are parasites [though I argue strongly that you're the exact parasite you refer to]. Then you make up silly positions to argue with to make your positions seem less stupid, or to veil your trolling as debate when in fact you are showing you know nothing about what you drag up in conversation. See: Previous education statements and your follow-up.

Yup. I'm a parasite. Because I'm obviously a drag on the society that I don't even live in. How astute of you.

That part where you ripped into the substance of my arguments by calling me a moron was an exhilaratingly virtuoso display of debating talent. Bravo.

You are not being childish and not resorting to inarticulate name-calling that cheapens anything worthwhile you might have said. You look every bit as dignified as when you began. And even if you were childish, you doubtless would be rubber, and I'd be glue. I concede!

[Ogdibus]

Right, education lowers economic development, because it dilutes the labor market with an overabundance of skills, basically. That's why Africa is a Shangri-la of economic prosperity; no lousy free education mooching off the system! Yeah, go free enterprise! The fewer skills there are avaliable to a market, the better off that market is! We should totally revert to a guild system, because LOOK AT THE PROFITS GUYS, THERE ARE TOTALLY NO DRAWBACKS TO THIS!

Your arguments are so well thought out and based on such sound principles. It's almost like Abe Lincoln has risen from the dead and signed up to these forums. Why, I'd wager you could get giftbaskets if you just went and posted your home address along with your brilliant ideas on /b/! Honest, give it a try! Write us a novel on your ideas, for they are GOLDEN!

(PS; I'm really impressed that at the mere age of 30 you managed to get a job in China. I might not have noticed, but you brought it up almost half a dozen times, so it's evidently quite an achievement. Good job, sunshine! We'll write you a card for christmas, okay? We'll send it to 'china', so no doubt it'll arrive no problems)

...C'mon guys, don't buy into the amateur troll.

Eight or nine thirty is pretty early to go to sleep for a thirty year old, too.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Yup. I'm a parasite. Because I'm obviously a drag on the society that I don't even live in. How astute of you.

That part where you ripped into the substance of my arguments by calling me a moron was an exhilaratingly virtuoso display of debating talent. Bravo.

You are not being childish and not resorting to inarticulate name-calling that cheapens anything worthwhile you might have said. You look every bit as dignified as when you began. And even if you were childish, you doubtless would be rubber, and I'd be glue. I concede!

Hey look, more of you doing more nonsensical talking and proving you don't know anything about what you talk about. It must be easy to get a job in your multinational if they hire such fools. Are you the janitor, perhaps?

[Agdune]

Well, he needs to rest from all the China work he does in his important job in China where he's a big success. He has no time for defending his strawmen! He has WORK to do man!

[Max White]

Trollheiming, Mictlantecuhtli, you know I hate being a mod, right? I'm as likely to shitpost as anybody here, if not more so, but I feel bad. You guys are getting personal grievance all over Aqizzars thread that he put so much into, and he is a pretty cool guy.
The idea was to laugh at Obama and Mittens doing this stuff, not getting into it ourselves.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Trollheiming, Mictlantecuhtli, you know I hate being a mod, right? I'm as likely to shitpost as anybody here, if not more so, but I feel bad. You guys are getting personal grievance all over Aqizzars thread that he put so much into, and he is a pretty cool guy.
The idea was to laugh at Obama and Mittens doing this stuff, not getting into it ourselves.

He's come into this topic to spew out trash plenty of times before. Coming in to say that Americans who get benefits are parasites was the last straw, sorry. The kid's a damn joke.