The Political Satire/Meme Thread

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The two wrongs being bank bailouts and profiteering universities.
Nope, goalposts shifted. If the topic is handing out taxpayer money, as it is, the two wrongs are handing out taxpayer money to financial institutions that demonstrate moral hazard and handing out taxpayer money to profiteering univerties with students merely serving as middlemen.

If the problem is greedy people, you don't fix that problem by feeding it.

...

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Nope, goalposts shifted. If the topic is handing out taxpayer money, as it is, the two wrongs are handing out taxpayer money to financial institutions that demonstrate moral hazard and handing out taxpayer money to profiteering univerties with students merely serving as middlemen.

If the problem is greedy people, you don't fix that problem by feeding it.

...

226578.png
That clever little asterisk “merely serving as middlemen” bit is wrongfully minimized and very undervalued. It means millions of students continuing their education after high school and millions more graduating without crippling life long debt.

Corporate welfare bankrolls the financial sector, petroleum industry, taxpayer money to the military and prison industrial complexes. $30 million golden parachutes for executives. But then when it comes time to help average Joey Citizen you get rich platitudes like “two wrongs don’t make a right”. What a funny coincidence that it’s right at this point where the buck happens to stop.
 
That clever little asterisk “merely serving as middlemen” bit is wrongfully minimized and very undervalued. It means millions of students continuing their education after high school and millions more graduating without crippling life long debt.

Corporate welfare bankrolls the financial sector, petroleum industry, taxpayer money to the military and prison industrial complexes. $30 million golden parachutes for executives. But then when it comes time to help average Joey Citizen you get rich platitudes like “two wrongs don’t make a right”. What a funny coincidence that it’s right at this point where the buck happens to stop.
Secondary education is a purchase. Just like every other purchase, it's not a wise one to make if you don't expect you'll be able to afford it. It's also not something you enter into ignorant of the costs.
 
It means millions of students continuing their education after high school and millions more graduating without crippling life long debt.

How many of those millions actually need their college degree for whatever they wind up doing for the rest of their lives? Hell, how many actually make it to graduation? Spoiler, it's surprisingly few.

So yes, they are serving as middlemen. Because most wind up getting themselves into a mountain of debt for a piece of paper they won't even use (If they even get it!). This all has happened because of our over-inflating the importance of the "traditional" 4-year college as a necessary thing. The only people that really wind up benefiting are the schools and wait for it... banks!

Meanwhile, trades like Electricians, HVAC, Plumbing etc... have major staffing shortages even though you can make good money with at most a 2-year degree at a technical college (some companies will even pay your tuition), or just a mix of on-the-job learning along with various training sessions provided by the employer or various suppliers (which is the route I took). Nobody seems to talk about those jobs though and I wonder why? Perhaps because all the money is in 4-year schools?
 
Secondary education is a purchase. Just like every other purchase, it's not a wise one to make if you don't expect you'll be able to afford it. It's also not something you enter into ignorant of the costs.
You are exactly right. People are aware of the massive debt they’re taking on but feel it’s necessary to be able to compete in the job market.

Countries with much higher standards of living spend their money on education instead of giving bankers free money to gamble with.

The results speak for themselves.
 
You are exactly right. People are aware of the massive debt they’re taking on but feel it’s necessary to be able to compete in the job market.

Countries with much higher standards of living spend their money on education instead of giving bankers free money to gamble with.

The results speak for themselves.
You're kidding yourself if you think "investing in my future" isn't itself a gamble.

It'd be nice if higher wages--ideally higher enough so that the investment is recouped and then some--as a result of that investment was a foregone conclusion, but it really isn't.

You also seem to be under the impression that you have no option but to leverage your livelihood to continue your education once you've graduated grade school. You don't. Community colleges are a very affordable option. As indicated in the post above yours, there are employers out there who are so desperate for people to fill positions that they're willing to pay for the education required.
 
but feel it’s necessary to be able to compete in the job market.

Which is exactly the problem. People feel like they absolutely positively have to go to college if they want to amount to anything when that's not the case for everyone.

Don't get me wrong, furthering your education is a great idea, if you are planning on getting into a field where there is demand. If you do that though, the salary should be enough to manage the college loan, making the whole "eliminate college debt" thing a non-issue.

Countries with much higher standards of living spend their money on education

We do though, in fact we spend more than anyone else.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/

The problem, as with most U.S. government programs, isn't lack of funding, it's not using it wisely (which is also why I'm against universal healthcare in the U.S.).
 
But then when it comes time to help average Joey Citizen you get rich platitudes like “two wrongs don’t make a right”. What a funny coincidence that it’s right at this point where the buck happens to stop.

You're assuming that @TexRex was in favor of bailing out AIG. Or that I was for that matter. I wasn't.

You're also really quite strangely linking two completely separate issues (wall street bailouts and student loans), and I think it's just to confuse the discussion, because you know that the student loan bailout doesn't stand on its own.

Getting back to the tweet... I see nothing wrong will letting people know that you worked for what you have, and taking offense to the notion that others should be given it at your expense.
 
You're kidding yourself if you think "investing in my future" isn't itself a gamble.

It'd be nice if higher wages--ideally higher enough so that the investment is recouped and then some--as a result of that investment was a foregone conclusion, but it really isn't.

You also seem to be under the impression that you have no option but to leverage your livelihood to continue your education once you've graduated grade school. You don't. Community colleges are a very affordable option. As indicated in the post above yours, there are employers out there who are so desperate for people to fill positions that they're willing to pay for the education required.
Nothing in the above shows that giving money to bank CEO’s is a better option than putting money into education.
 
I sure hope AOC didn't take an airplane from DC to the southern border for those photo opportunities.
Otherwise she would be a hypocrite of her own proposed policies.
Just like Bernie.
I think I'm seeing a pattern.
 
It's a false dichotomy.
Not only is not a false dichotomy, it is governance at the most basic level. It is so foundational, that it applies to nearly all types of government, whether it be a democracy, monarchy, autocracy, plutocracy, theocracy etc.
 
From the archives:

Then And Now

Ulysses Grant crying crocodile tears over the persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire. He had used this tactic to win the Jewish vote in the 1868 Presidential election but this later cartoon contrasts this with General Order No. 11 that he personally issued in 1862 which expelled all Jewish people, civilians included, from his army's territory, which at that time was Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee. Lincoln ordered Grant to rescind the order three weeks after it was issued.

Grant defended issuing the order by saying that it was to blanket address a problem that only "certain Jews" had caused.


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That's going to take some detailed explaining seeing as how those are not the only two choices - that makes it a false dichotomy. For example, a third choice would be don't give money to either. See? False dichotomy.
I suppose but I see it as a government has the choice to spend capital or not spend capital. Also, I can’t think of a nation which doesn’t spend on education

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I suppose but I see it as a government has the choice to spend capital or not spend capital. Also, I can’t think of a nation which doesn’t spend on education

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False dichotomy. We do not have to spend money on either the plane or the insulin or the college.
 
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