Questions with easy answers: Higher Ed Edition

Salon asks the following: Why does the GOP hate college? and blathers on and on without ever once touching on the very simple answer:

Because "College" hates the GOP!

People, this is just basic, basic politics. An overwhelming majority of college professors are liberals. They vote for and contribute to the Democratic Party almost exclusively. It is widely perceived that professors spend much of their time inculcating liberal ideas into their students' unformed brains.

The reason the GOP hates college is the same reason why they hate Unions. Both are bastions of support for the Democratic Party.

It's amazing to me that liberals can't or won't see this. College professors and administrators backed the wrong side (at least for now). They didn't play it down the middle. They put all their eggs in one political basket and now, hey, payback's a bitch.

Of course, this is a shame because a college degree has perhaps never been more valuable. It is truly amazing that, even as the share of young people attending college rose steadily, so did the college wage premium.

Let's just say the jury is still out on this one

Wow, Elba Esther Gordillo, aka "La Maestra" esta detenida!

The long time head of the Mexican Teachers Union (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación) has been a powerful retrograde force in Mexican politics, consistently blocking education reform and long rumored to be corrupt.

At least one Mexican "expert" loves the move:

This new development destroys those doubts about the seriousness of the Pena Nieto government to take on the union, and to mobilize the sovereign power of the state against vested interests.


But this is Mexico, where criminalizing political differences is an art form.

La Maestra burned new President Enrique Peña Nieto during the campaign by pulling her political party (the PANAL)out of an alliance with his party (the PRI). And all she wanted to stay in was for multiple family members to be Senators!

So it's far from clear whether this arrest marks a bold move against impunity and a step forward against corruption and toward rule of law, or just the same old "payback's a bitch" political culture at work.

Does PJ Carlesimo have relatives on the Milwaukee PD?

I only ask because Latrell Sprewell somehow got taken to jail for the offense of playing music loud in his own $%#$ house!

I always thought Milwaukee was cool, but whatever Spree was playing, the Po-lice were not playing:

"Sprewell, 42 and a graduate of Washington High School, was booked into the jail about 4:15 p.m."

I guess I could see it if he was blasting "Call me maybe", otherwise, WTF Milwaukee?

Hat tip to MT

Penguin hunt

La Penguina has started the process of nationalizing YPF, a Spanish owned energy company operating in Argentina and Spain is pissed! Its Industry Minister says there will be "consequences"!

People, you just know that Argentina will lowball the Spaniards on the price like they were some kind of foreign bond holders.

Perhaps after his surgery, they can send old Juan Carlos over there with his blunderbuss.

Maybe JC and Maggie Thatcher's ghost can tag-team to take down Kirchnerismo.

Hypocrisy About Government Programs? Not So Much

New York Times article on "We are all dependent on entitlements now."

Strange conclusions will be drawn from this article, I predict. People on the left will say, "See? Everybody gets benefits from government. They are hypocrites."

Well, wrong. If a thief takes my stuff, and then offers a small amount of it back to me, this article would imply that I should be charged with knowingly receiving stolen goods. It matters it was taken from ME. Trying to get back some of the huge amount of money I pay in doesn't make me a hypocrite.

I would say, once you establish the budget as a giant commons, then it makes sense for each person to try to take as much as possible. It's a Ponzi scheme, of course, since we are depending on other people, people now too young to vote, to put the money back. The problem with this Ponzi scheme is that it is MANDATORY. You have to put money into it, because of taxes. Your only choice is whether to try to get some of that back, in the form of entitlements. The fact that I take some of the money back is NOT a sign that I approve of the Ponzi scheme. I'd bail if I could. Keep your entitlements, and I'll keep my taxes. And let's not make the YYM and the EYM responsible for paying off that deficit.

You can't have a system where everyone takes out more in benefits than they put in in taxes. Unless you want to get all covered in Greece.

Nod to EC

Everybody Wing Chau tonight!

If you've read Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short" (and if you haven't you are really missing something good), you know that he comes down hard on a particular trader named Wing Chau.

Well hot on the heels of Brat Pitt buying the movie rights to the book, Mr. Chau has decided to sue Lewis for defamation.

His complaint contains some interesting parts, for example:

"Wing Chau and his immediate family are Chinese immigrants. His father, Muk Loong Chau, fled Chairman Mao’s China in 1953 to make a better life for his family in America—to pursue the American dream. Mr. Chau was born in Hong Kong, where the family was waylaid for many year while awaiting a visa. Eventually, the family immigrated to Rhode Island, where his father took various jobs at Chinese restaurants, usually working six days per week."

Michael Lewis! You should be ashamed of yourself!!!

Here is more on the complaint and here is more on the saga of Wing Chau.

And here is something I've not been able to get out of my head since I read the Wing Chau portion of "The Big Short":

The truth about the public sector union kerfuffle

Look people, this one is simple. Public sector unions are a taxpayer funded Democratic party vote and money machine. For that reason Democrats love them and Republicans hate them. Now the Republicans have the upper hand and are trying to do something about it.

Everything else in the debate is BS (perhaps the Oscar for BS could go to these geniuses who claim that taxpayers don't pay for the compensation of public sector workers).

So it doesn't matter if you can find a study saying public employees are over or under paid or have higher or lower benefits. It doesn't matter if you compare apples to apples or apples to hedgehogs. It doesn't matter if the unfunded pension liabilities are mostly structural or cyclical.

This is just straight up political payback. I wonder what the public sector union bosses expected would happen if the Republicans ever figured out what was going on and got hold of enough political power to do something about it?