This past weekend, my brothers, friends and I wanted to go play some mini-golf at Como Zoo in the cities. It was a Sunday, and the place was packed. We pulled into a parking lot, I was driving, and every space was full. There were two cars in front of us, driving the horseshoe hoping a few cars would pull out so we'd have a place to park. One car pulled out, and the lead car pulled in. The car in front of us rounded the bend, and two families were getting into their cars, so that was spaces for them and us.
The first car pulled out, and the new lead car pulled into that space. The second car pulled out, and I went to park in that space, when a lady ran to the middle of the parking space and stood there. I inched forward and she held her hand up to me. I honked my horn, and she pretended to ignore me. I rolled down my window and I asked her what she thought she was doing. She said, "I'm saving this spot for my friends who are on their way."
It was too hot outside and I was too tired from the weekend to get out and cause a scene, but in retrospect I should have, because as I drove on, I saw another open spot. This open spot also already had a female inhabitant. This female inhabitant was twice as rude as the first one, telling me, "I'm not moving child." In an effort not to unleash my unholy rage at a children's zoo, I politely swore at her and drove on. We had to park about a mile away, and walk back. I settled for reporting them to security, even though they were probably long gone by the time security got to the parking lot.
This whole ordeal got me thinking about entitlement. Am I entitled to those parking spaces? Only if I can physically park my car in that spot before anyone else does. When somebody cuts you off and steals your space you're mad, but at least they have a car and are using the parking space for its intended purpose. So that lead me to ask, do those women have any right to those parking spaces?
If those two women were walking down the middle of a highway, they would be deemed a safety risk and the cops would be called. Now, I'm all for everyone having the right to stand where they want, but seriously, is this middle school? There's a line of cars waiting and you're going to stand in a parking lot and tell 20 people, who were able to bring their cars with them, that they can't park there? Obviously these women feel a strong sense of entitlement, strong enough that they believe they don't need a car to 'reserve' a parking space. On the grand scheme of things though, how high up are parking spaces?
My issue isn't so much the parking spaces. OK, at the most I got some more exercise and maybe my blood pressure was elevated for five minutes due to anger. My issue is their attitude, because you know they apply it to more than parking spaces. What kind of society do you have to grow up in to believe that you are entitled to anything and everything? The answer is ours.
It starts out, at the latest, in public schools. These are the institutions teaching our children. These institutions hand out trophies to the kids in last place, as well as the kids in first, because otherwise the kid in last place might feel bad. These institutions change their entire curriculum to ensure that no child is left behind, no matter how slow a learner. They actively and legally hold back the smart children. And on top of that, there's all the propaganda that is taught in their regular classes. Furthermore, there are parents out there who refuse to punish their children for bad behavior, saying they don't want to cause the child any discomfort. In reality, they are just being lazy by not teaching their children that actions have consequences. The consequence can be positive or negative, but every action has a consequence.
For example, had I kept driving towards the woman in the parking space, eventually she would have moved or I would have hit her. In either instance I could be charged with assault with a deadly weapon, or some similar charge. Every action has a consequence.
College is no better at doing away with a person's sense of entitlement. Scholarships are given to those who need, not those who earned. Scholarships are given to the teacher's pet, or the son of the mayor, not those who earned them. If you can play football, or another popular sport, you may be given a free ride, even if you can't write your own name.
After graduation you enter the workforce. This really doesn't do anything to curtail the sense of entitlement either. If you know the CEO or president you don't have to be the most qualified candidate. If the company is trying to fill it's affirmative action quota, you don't need to be the most qualified candidate. Pretty soon you don't feel that you need to earn a raise or promotion, rather, they should give it to you because it's yours. And as if that was not enough depravity, soon you are standing in parking spaces for no other reason than you deserve it, and those of us waiting with our cars don't.
© Nate Phillipps 2010
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Showing posts with label college. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Cost Of Spending Money
There are those who say that debt is a choice. You choose to get a credit card. You choose to take out a loan. While this is mostly true, the other aspect we need to consider is how our society and economy are set up in a manner which fosters debt. A college degree is worth more now than it was 50 years ago. From birth, children are harped on about picking a college, a degree, etc.
Regardless of what school you go to, or what degree you receive, you should be aware of the huge gap between those potential employees who have a degree, and those who don't. Some companies won't even look at your resume if you don't have a degree. Even if you don't require additional education, even if you know everything there is to know about your field, in order to be marketable, you will need to get a degree.
I never thought twice about going to college, at least, not until I started going to college. After taking class after class where I learned absolutely nothing, and taking out a loan equivalent to a mortgage on a house, I toyed around with the idea of not finishing college and putting myself directly into the workforce. If you look at the options, there really is no option at all. Unless you want to spend your life working at McDonald's or Walmart, you will need to get a degree. I'm not saying anything bad about McDonald's or Walmart, and if those are your aspirations, great! But if you aspire to more than that, you will have to get a degree.
Society mandates a degree. The government offers to loan you money, your parents' money. So you take out a loan, earn your degree, and then at the end of it all, you are left with an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and an enormous amount of debt. Well, that's no problem because now you can get a high paying job. Except now the economy is in the tank, and nobody's hiring, or if they are, you're earning so little, that you might as well be working frying burgers.
When confronted with a poor economy and bleak financial outlook, companies generally use one of two options. The first option, they fire all nonessential staff and try to retain as many experienced employees as possible. They will not hire anybody else until either the economy turns around, or until it is absolutely necessary. The second option consists of firing all top-level, experienced employees, and hiring the fresh-out-of-college people. They can pay these people peanuts while abusing them because they don't know their workplace rights. If one of them wises up, they simply fire him and hire another college graduate. The second option substitutes cheap labor for experienced labor. Which one do you think saves money in the long run?
So even if you're hired right out of college, your salary is so low you can't possibly make the minimum payments on your student loans. What do you do? You try to get a longer forbearance and restructure your loan repayments. Basically all this does is increase the amount of money you will be paying Uncle Sam, and extends the period you are in debt to the government. The sad part of this is that you basically have no choice. For fear of not landing a high paying job, you are pretty much forced to attend college, and unless your family is wealthy, you will have to take out a loan. When you graduate, you are left with a heap of debt, and no job (and limited job opportunities, because you are now too experienced for a job at McDonald's, but not experienced enough for a job in your field).
College isn't the only money-earning scam of our society and government. Perhaps the biggest scam is what we call 'credit.' Credit was illustrated in the college example with student loans, but to really understand this scam, we need to take a look at credit cards. Who do credit card companies target? They target college kids, and offer them a free pizza in exchange for signing up for a high interest card. It makes sense, they've already taken out a sizable loan, and don't have much spending money. What better way to market yourself as offering 'free' money?
The only drawback is there is no such thing as free money. Somebody somewhere owns that money, and they will charge you an exorbitant amount in exchange for you using their money. Credit card companies, it should come as no surprise, are structured in a way to encourage people having long-term debt, or sustained debt. If you pay off your balance immediately, the credit card company doesn't make any money. If it takes you years to pay off your balance, they make money hand over fist from your interest rate. Credit cards, and student loans, are designed to saddle you with debt for most of your life. Sure, they market themselves as being sensitive to the public good, and being sensitive to the needs of small businesses and individuals, but that's just a marketing ploy. If they cared about anything other than leeching off of people, their companies wouldn't exist.
We can't simply blame the credit card companies and be done with this. The problem isn't with the credit card companies; they're merely taking advantage of the situation, or at least, that's how they started out. Now they may be out to stick it to the consumer. Although, ever since our currency was taken off of the gold standard, we really haven't been consumers. Our purchasing power has decreased to an all-time low. There used to be a time when if we didn't want to buy a GM vehicle, we would buy another brand, and if GM didn't offer something we wanted to buy, they would go out of business. Not anymore. Now if they don't produce something we want to buy, the government will buy all of it, using our tax dollars.
Actually, if you do your research, the government doesn't technically use our tax dollars, they use the Federal Reserve, which is an even bigger scam than credit. The best way to get acquainted with the Federal Reserve is to check out, Dishonest Money: Financing The Road To Ruin, by Joseph Plummer (2009). Basically, how banks, and the Federal Reserve, operate is that they loan out money that they don't have. They can do this because the government pinky swore that they would cover their irresponsible lending habits with the Federal Reserve. Joseph Plummer estimates they have enough money in their reserves to cover 1% of all outstanding loans. 1%.
Let's say I get a credit card with a $1,000 limit. I have $100 in my savings account. Even I would have 10%. The reason this is such a great racket, is that the government, and banks, can loan out money they don't have, and collect interest payments on that money that doesn't exist anywhere. The reason we went off of the gold standard is because the government can make more money if they don't have to back up our currency with anything more than their word. The government operates with the same modus operandi as the credit card companies, only, as with all things government, it is on a larger scale and comes with an astronomical price tag. And with all things government, who is left holding the bill but the citizens.
It isn't until you start looking at it that you realize what a scam it is, and what it ultimately costs to spend money you don't have.
© Nate Phillipps 2010
Regardless of what school you go to, or what degree you receive, you should be aware of the huge gap between those potential employees who have a degree, and those who don't. Some companies won't even look at your resume if you don't have a degree. Even if you don't require additional education, even if you know everything there is to know about your field, in order to be marketable, you will need to get a degree.
I never thought twice about going to college, at least, not until I started going to college. After taking class after class where I learned absolutely nothing, and taking out a loan equivalent to a mortgage on a house, I toyed around with the idea of not finishing college and putting myself directly into the workforce. If you look at the options, there really is no option at all. Unless you want to spend your life working at McDonald's or Walmart, you will need to get a degree. I'm not saying anything bad about McDonald's or Walmart, and if those are your aspirations, great! But if you aspire to more than that, you will have to get a degree.
Society mandates a degree. The government offers to loan you money, your parents' money. So you take out a loan, earn your degree, and then at the end of it all, you are left with an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper and an enormous amount of debt. Well, that's no problem because now you can get a high paying job. Except now the economy is in the tank, and nobody's hiring, or if they are, you're earning so little, that you might as well be working frying burgers.
When confronted with a poor economy and bleak financial outlook, companies generally use one of two options. The first option, they fire all nonessential staff and try to retain as many experienced employees as possible. They will not hire anybody else until either the economy turns around, or until it is absolutely necessary. The second option consists of firing all top-level, experienced employees, and hiring the fresh-out-of-college people. They can pay these people peanuts while abusing them because they don't know their workplace rights. If one of them wises up, they simply fire him and hire another college graduate. The second option substitutes cheap labor for experienced labor. Which one do you think saves money in the long run?
So even if you're hired right out of college, your salary is so low you can't possibly make the minimum payments on your student loans. What do you do? You try to get a longer forbearance and restructure your loan repayments. Basically all this does is increase the amount of money you will be paying Uncle Sam, and extends the period you are in debt to the government. The sad part of this is that you basically have no choice. For fear of not landing a high paying job, you are pretty much forced to attend college, and unless your family is wealthy, you will have to take out a loan. When you graduate, you are left with a heap of debt, and no job (and limited job opportunities, because you are now too experienced for a job at McDonald's, but not experienced enough for a job in your field).
College isn't the only money-earning scam of our society and government. Perhaps the biggest scam is what we call 'credit.' Credit was illustrated in the college example with student loans, but to really understand this scam, we need to take a look at credit cards. Who do credit card companies target? They target college kids, and offer them a free pizza in exchange for signing up for a high interest card. It makes sense, they've already taken out a sizable loan, and don't have much spending money. What better way to market yourself as offering 'free' money?
The only drawback is there is no such thing as free money. Somebody somewhere owns that money, and they will charge you an exorbitant amount in exchange for you using their money. Credit card companies, it should come as no surprise, are structured in a way to encourage people having long-term debt, or sustained debt. If you pay off your balance immediately, the credit card company doesn't make any money. If it takes you years to pay off your balance, they make money hand over fist from your interest rate. Credit cards, and student loans, are designed to saddle you with debt for most of your life. Sure, they market themselves as being sensitive to the public good, and being sensitive to the needs of small businesses and individuals, but that's just a marketing ploy. If they cared about anything other than leeching off of people, their companies wouldn't exist.
We can't simply blame the credit card companies and be done with this. The problem isn't with the credit card companies; they're merely taking advantage of the situation, or at least, that's how they started out. Now they may be out to stick it to the consumer. Although, ever since our currency was taken off of the gold standard, we really haven't been consumers. Our purchasing power has decreased to an all-time low. There used to be a time when if we didn't want to buy a GM vehicle, we would buy another brand, and if GM didn't offer something we wanted to buy, they would go out of business. Not anymore. Now if they don't produce something we want to buy, the government will buy all of it, using our tax dollars.
Actually, if you do your research, the government doesn't technically use our tax dollars, they use the Federal Reserve, which is an even bigger scam than credit. The best way to get acquainted with the Federal Reserve is to check out, Dishonest Money: Financing The Road To Ruin, by Joseph Plummer (2009). Basically, how banks, and the Federal Reserve, operate is that they loan out money that they don't have. They can do this because the government pinky swore that they would cover their irresponsible lending habits with the Federal Reserve. Joseph Plummer estimates they have enough money in their reserves to cover 1% of all outstanding loans. 1%.
Let's say I get a credit card with a $1,000 limit. I have $100 in my savings account. Even I would have 10%. The reason this is such a great racket, is that the government, and banks, can loan out money they don't have, and collect interest payments on that money that doesn't exist anywhere. The reason we went off of the gold standard is because the government can make more money if they don't have to back up our currency with anything more than their word. The government operates with the same modus operandi as the credit card companies, only, as with all things government, it is on a larger scale and comes with an astronomical price tag. And with all things government, who is left holding the bill but the citizens.
It isn't until you start looking at it that you realize what a scam it is, and what it ultimately costs to spend money you don't have.
© Nate Phillipps 2010
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