- Reaction score
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Getting to the 1% isn't as hard as the occupiers would have you believe. Just take courses with real value, apply yourself and even if you don't get to the 1%, you can probably make it into the 10% or 15% (or whatever percentile you choose). The important quote is highlighted:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/06/matt-gurney-on-the-occupiers-new-slogan-feed-the-poor-tax-the-veterinarians/#more-80794
And the opposite side of the coin: the "students" don't want free education, just expect us to pay for them. Nice takedown by George Jonas:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/06/george-jonas-quebec-students-dont-want-free-tuition-just-someone-else-to-pay-it/#more-80739
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/06/matt-gurney-on-the-occupiers-new-slogan-feed-the-poor-tax-the-veterinarians/#more-80794
Matt Gurney on the Occupiers’ new slogan: Feed the poor! Tax the veterinarians!
Matt Gurney Jun 6, 2012 – 10:44 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 6, 2012 10:46 AM ET
Comments Email Twitter Researchers at the University of British Columbia have prepared a report examining who exactly constitutes the much-discussed 1% in Canada. The term refers to the top 1% of income earners in the country, who activists in the Occupy movement (and those of like mind) contend are unfairly accumulating too much of society’s wealth, to the detriment of everyone else. And the study did find some support for that theory — the top 1% of Canadian income earners are pulling in 14% of the total earnings of the country. Their average income is $450,000 a year, compared to an average of $36,000 for everyone else. And the study also found worrying signs that sharp recessions, like the one we just endured, are driving the trend toward increased inequality, not necessarily by favouring the 1%, but by eroding the employment opportunities for the middle- and lower-classes.
That would certainly seem to lend credence to some of what the Occupiers were saying. But the study also looked closely into who qualifies for the Canadian 1%. They are overwhelmingly male, generally over the age of 35 and spread across multiple economic sectors. While the average wage of someone in the 1%, as said above, is $450,000, the minimum wage required to enter it is a surprisingly low $230,000 a year. That’s a lot of money, but not huge money. And those making it aren’t the stock brokers and financial executives you’d expect. Indeed, for every banker on the list, you’ll find a dentist or veterinarian.
And that is interesting. Becoming a medical doctor, a veterinarian or a dentist isn’t exactly easy — there are years of schooling, costly education bills and obviously a lot of hard work. But these are certainly accessible careers that anyone can aspire to. Not all of us have the brains or frankly the interest to find success in these fields, but they’re hardly a professional elite that sees more and more power concentrated in fewer, potentially corrupt, hands (the popular stereotype of the financial-sector plutocrat). Indeed, as our population grows (and our pet population along with), there is a constant demand for more doctors, vets and dentists. Their success isn’t about inheriting family wealth, lucky breaks or a broken economic model that rewards using accumulated capital to generate unproductive, and unsustainable, profits just by moving money around. It’s about polishing teeth and spaying cats.
None of that speaks to the underlying criticisms of the increasing concentration of wealth, nor does it disprove what the Occupiers were saying. Our society is absolutely seeing friction along economic, and generational, lines. My friend Barbara Kay made the point beautifully last week when she recounted an awkward encounter between herself and a Gen-Y waiter, pointing out that while the younger generation has legitimate gripes, the older generation has all the economic and political firepower. “If this were a real war, millennials wouldn’t have a prayer,” she wrote. “Oldies’ greatest fear — realistically — is outliving their money … They won’t cede their entitlements willingly.”
She’s likely right about the outcome of any such contest, but the fact that we’re even talking about the prospect is unpleasant, and bodes poorly for our society’s future. While the Canadian Occupy movement was too disorganized to be effective and seemed at times to operate in a reality-free bubble of whimsy and wouldn’t-it-be-nice economics, I maintain that they were worth listening to if only as a symptom of a greater issue within our society. They might not have had the answer — which is to say, none of their bazillion answers would have worked — but their mere existence was illuminating. As anyone who actually spent some time at an Occupy site, particularly at the beginning before the movement became its own worst enemy, could attest, it wasn’t just the standard hippy protest movement. It was bigger than that.
But it suffered from a problem laid bare by the UBC report, and arguably one being mirrored by the Quebec student protests. While there was an ideological hardcore there who protest inequality on general principles, many of the Occupiers (and I’d wager students clogging Montreal’s avenues) aren’t so much interested in inequality as they are in making sure they get their unequal share of the wealth. In tough economic times, where youth are bearing a disproportionate burden of the continuing consequences of the 2008 crisis, they have reason to be alarmed that their educations and job hopes may prove worthless, and that a job that pays in the mid-thirties may be all they can hope for. So it’s easy for them to freak out at the 1% and demand they pay more … probably not realizing how relatively easy it is to become one of those resented, distant elites. Forget the upper floors of bank-owned skyscrapers. You’ll find them in your local strip mall, urging you to floss.
Setting out to become a high-powered investor isn’t something one can just decide to do. Same with CEOs. You need certain inherent skills for that. Not to denigrate our medical professionals, who are of course highly skilled, but entering medicine or dentistry isn’t quite so impossible. Good grades, hard work and determination will give you a fair shot. The Occupiers and student protesters of today, demanding that the rich pay more or that education be free, may well in large part get their way. And if they benefit from it now and go on to enjoy some success later, they may easily find themselves picking up the tab for everyone. Tax the rich might not sound like such a good idea once people realize how low the bar for that really is.
National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com
And the opposite side of the coin: the "students" don't want free education, just expect us to pay for them. Nice takedown by George Jonas:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/06/george-jonas-quebec-students-dont-want-free-tuition-just-someone-else-to-pay-it/#more-80739
George Jonas: Quebec students don’t want free tuition, just someone else to pay it
George Jonas Jun 6, 2012 – 9:00 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 5, 2012 5:38 PM ET
There’s no free education, only education charged to someone else. If something has any value, a dollar or a million, it cannot be free. It’s logically impossible. Repeat after me, especially if you’re an NDP supporter: If it’s free, it has no value; if it has value, it’s not free.
After Quebec’s rebels without a cause took a pasting in the press, a few errant knights rose to defend the underdog. Guest editorialists and even some resident pundits wrote pieces explaining why striking students and professors aren’t as bereft of sense as they seem. The rebels have a point, defenders declared; higher education should ideally be free.
Don Quixote tilting at windmills is attractive in a weird sort of way. But Cervantes, although sympathetic to the “knight of mournful countenance,” has kept things in perspective with a donkey ambling behind the noble steed Rosinante. It carried a roly-poly practical fellow with his feet touching the ground, who called a windmill a windmill.
Hello, Quebec students and professors, rioters and taxpayers, here’s Sancho Panza with news for those who haven’t heard it yet: There is no free education.
There’s no free education, only education charged to someone else. There’s no free lunch, no free love, no free bicycles, no free anything. Cost is inherent in value. If something has any value, a dollar or a million, it cannot be free. It’s logically impossible.
Repeat after me, especially if you’re an NDP supporter: If it’s free, it has no value; if it has value, it’s not free. When people carry placards in the street demanding a “free” education, they’re demanding nonsense. (Unless they think education has no value, but let’s not open up that can of worms.)
A $5 pumpkin is worth five dollars. Removing the price tag and handing the squash to the first person who comes into the store won’t make the pumpkin “free;” it will only make the merchant pay for the customer’s supper.
Can goods or services of value be made freely available to a particular person or group? Ah, that’s a different kettle of pumpkin.
The answer is yes, of course — as long as another person or group pays for them.
Quebec students could demand an education that is free to them, but under what banner would they do it? Carrying a sign that says “Zero Tuition” is one thing, but it might be impractical to parade under “Pay For My Tuition, Or Else!”
Zero tuition is humbug, but it trumps the truth as an exercise in public relations. Even vandalism and violence won’t harm the protesters’ cause as much as a placard that said something truthful like “Thanks For Sending Me To University Instead Of Taking Your Family To Disneyland.” Or “Caring Means Sharing Your First Born’s College Fund With Me.” Or perhaps: “Are You Choosing Your Elective Surgery Over My Diploma? How Selfish Can You Get?”
The word “free” is code about who should pick up the tab, with students displaying a sense of entitlement to the contents of other people’s wallets that would be comical if it weren’t so alarming. Pickpockets used to show more respect for what didn’t belong to them than some protesters do, who flock about like hysterical magpies, coupling atrophied judgment to a hypertrophied sense of self-esteem.
Some gowns support the goons in calling for low- or no-cost education. That’s jolly, but I’ve yet to hear any offering to donate their services, so presumably in a system of “free” education faculty would still expect to be paid. (Even if they didn’t, schooling wouldn’t become free, only faculty would assume some of the cost.) It’s a moot point as none of the marching professors have offered their educational services gratis, to the best of my knowledge. Nor has anyone made any reference to heating oil, schoolbooks, audio-visual systems, seed for flowerbeds or cadavers for the pathology lab at the medical school. The way it looks, a “free” university would cost exactly as much as a paying university, only with nobody to pay for it.
Who should pay? There are two schools of thought, not only in education but generally. One holds that costs should be borne by those who incur them; the other, that they should be assessed against those who can best afford to pay. In the cultural divide of our times, the philosophically right-of-centre usually favour the first school, while people left-of-centre prefer the second.
“Lefty, the crime is robbery. Robbing the haves is no better than robbing the have-nots.”
“The crime is you, Genghis. No better? The haves have, for heaven’s sake; the have-nots haven’t.”
In logic and equity, it should be no contest. The students take home the $5 pumpkin. They benefit. The pumpkin-taste is in their mouths, the pumpkin-lore in their heads, the pumpkin-contacts in their iPods and the pumpkin-eating diplomas on their walls.
They owe society five bucks.
But hasn’t education value for the entire community? Sure, and communities chip in big time. Universities are subsidized; scholarships are available to bright students, remedial assistance to dull students, and student-loans to just about anyone. In addition, the wealthy shower gifts, bequests, endowments on educational institutions. Where’s the beef?
If the world were governed by logic and equity there would be none. But the world’s governed by fashion, confusion, greed and — especially — envy. That’s where the beef is, and boy, look at it sizzle!
National Post