Reply #53: This is going to be the medium-term future [View All]

[murdoch]

Just look at today's headlines about California universities boosting college tuition by 33% within one year.

There's money to bail out Wall Street.
There's money to build dozens of nuclear submarines.
There's money to put military bases in Peru, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan etc.

But money to educate people, so that they will be more productive at work of all things, which will enhance future competitiveness and tax revenues - no.

If you look at where billionaire foundation money (Walton, Scaife, Hunt) etc. is going, the biggest thing they are financing is defunding public schools, deemphasizing learning and emphasizing tests for students and teachers. They also want to make school basically a cash handout - a certain amount of dollars is given for every student - poorer students use all of it to go to the lowest schools, working class people supplement it to go to slightly better schools. Right off the bat, only 40% of kids will get anything near a real education, and that number will keep shrinking.

Just looking at how the health care thing is going, I don't see any way to stop this. It can be blunted possibly.