Programming note: I have a backlog of issues about which I'm hoping to write longer-form, standalone pieces in the next few days. I apologize for the recent lack of content outside the DOoL--real life, i.e. law school, has intervened of late--but that should be corrected soon. I know, I know, you can all hardly wait.
And yes, the Overdose is really late today. So sue me.
--Ed.
I know what you are doing, President Obama. And even if you are trying to do it in the greatest city in the world, it's not going to work.
I understand that you need people like me. I understand that by not responding to your generous "offer" to me, I am in the distinct minority among my peers. I even understand that what you're putting out there would probably confer some substantial benefits upon me.
And I'm still not impressed.
Because, Mr. President, I know that it would be bad for this country. One of the major problems we Americans currently face is a glut of over-educated young people who contribute to unemployment because their post-secondary degrees confer little or no benefit upon them in the job market. By "accelerating" to 2012 a new federal law--yes, Congress deserves a lot of blame here, too--that lowers the share of discretionary income the Income-Based Repayment Plan grabs and forgives that program's debtors their obligations earlier, you encourage more young people to go to college instead of working after high school. (Incidentally, Mr. President, how exactly does one, by executive fiat, change the effective start date of a statute that is contained in the statute itself? You are a smart man, and a well-known scholar of constitutional law to boot, so surely you understand the phrase "separation of powers," no?) By lowering the interest rate on consolidated student loans, you decrease the urgency of recent graduates to find stable, high-paying work. This, Mr. President, is the definition of counter-productivity.
Now, as I said, you are a smart man, and you are surrounded by smart advisors. I strongly doubt that you actually think this is good for the country (and if you do, your economic team got some 'splaining to do). Like so many Presidents before you, you have begun to abdicate, more than a year in advance of the election, the running of the country in favor of campaigning--to win four more years of, supposedly, running the country. This student loan "restructuring" move (I prefer to call it that to which it practically amounts: forgiveness) is carefully calculated to appeal to a group of people, i.e. recent or soon-to-be college graduates, who a) you are counting on for votes next November, b) are easy to pander to, and c) are more likely than just about anybody else to disregard the systemic effects of any particular candidate's policy as long as the benefits (and none of the costs) accrue to them. The good news for you, which is the bad news for the country, is that this is a fool-proof move that is sure to work very, very well.
I may just be some quasi-anonymous Internet asshole, but I'm not going to lie--if you think that I, as a recent college graduate (and continuing student loan debtor), am not going to take advantage of these new policies, you've got another fucking thing coming. I'd be a fool to not partake of the lucre that Big Brother so generously provides, because if I don't, somebody else will. But don't expect me to be grateful to you for it, Mr. President; just because I'm part of the problem doesn't mean I don't want a solution.
In other insufficiently logical news:
Victimless crime: In what the Occupy Wall Street pinkos are sure to consider a coup, Rajat Gupta, formerly of Goldman Sachs, Procter and Gamble, and McKinsey (n.b.: all major hirers of Northwestern University chemical engineering and/or econ majors!), has been indicted for insider trading. To this day, I do not understand why insider trading is illegal; everybody else is allowed to use private information to their advantage in trading stock, so why shouldn't an executive? Indeed, executives invest more time, energy, and money in obtaining private information about a company than anybody else--and we disincentivize them to use it. It's ridiculous. Mr. Gupta is probably going to prison for a long time, and that's a shame.
Business: The Boeing 787 Dreamliner carried its first commercial passengers between Tokyo and Hong Kong today, to, unsurprisingly, rave reviews. I am an unabashed Boeing fanboy, and the 787 is an engineering marvel, so my reaction to this is mostly just jealousy, tinged with relief that the Dreamliner isn't a massive flop like I had feared it might be. I plan to find a way onto a Dreamliner as soon as I can.
Purple Mafia: Virginia Rometty is the new CEO of IBM, making her the company's first female honcho. Virginia Rometty is a graduate of the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University. Just another day at the office for the world's greatest university.
Entertainment: Andy Rooney is hospitalized in serious condition following a serious surgical complication. This is good to hear; given his appearance, demeanor, and level of intellectual rigor, I was under the impression he had died about twenty years ago. (Also: this fills my quota of entertainment-related "news" for the next decade or so. The joke was just too good to pass up.)
Colorado: So much awesomeness from This the Finest of All States today. First, the State, spurred to action by the Jensen Farms listeriosis outbreak, did just about the best thing it could do: instead of cudgeling the state's cantaloupe growers to death, it will work with farmers to create a voluntary certification label for Colorado cantaloupe using CSU resources already in place, and the certification process will probably be paid for by the farmers themselves. I happen to think voluntary regulation of this type is the tits, and the State is going about this in the least intrusive way possible while still being effective. Second, the Girl Scouts of Colorado decides not to gender-discriminate. The Boy Scouts of America, which doesn't admit atheists or gays, let alone girls, plugs its ears and decides not to listen. And third:
AWESOME. (Oh, and go Rapids.)
Image courtesy Major League Soccer.
Anti-depressant: An engineering--of course--undergraduate at Johns Hopkins has a brilliant new idea to fight world hunger. Good on you, sir, and if you're looking for a place that might fund some doctoral research, I hear there's a school in Evanston, Illinois with an excellent biomedical engineering department.
1) Implementing the law is an executive function. I guarantee that president Obama and his advisors understand the constitution better than you or I.
ReplyDelete2) Lowering interest rates on student loans is not a disincentive to getting work. For one thing, students have other expenses. For another, peer recognition and self-respect are more powerful motivators than money, this is a major flaw in the economic-reductionist view of society.
3) Lower interest rates on student loans will make it more realistic for students who could not otherwise finance an education to do so. The idea being that we shouldn't close the doors of academia to a massive subset of society.
4) Do you seriously believe that America's economic problems come from over-education?
1. I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it does seem curious that the bill Congress passed says it will take effect in 2014, and the President just decides that it will take effect two years earlier instead. I am legitimately interested in how, constitutionally, that works. (The President and Education Secretary Duncan were unabashed in saying that they were circumventing Congressional action by this "acceleration.")
ReplyDelete2. True, students have other expenses. I don't see how that means that reducing one such expense doesn't make it less crucial to find work. And peer recognition and self-respect may be more powerful motivators than money for *you,* but I hardly think it fair to impute the same hierarchy of motivations to all recent graduates. (I would go so far as to hazard a guess that independence from one's parents, including financial independence, may be the strongest motivator of all.)
3. Lower interest rates certainly make poorer students (and indeed all students) *think* that it is more realistic for them to fund their education. It also encourages huge numbers of people who have neither need nor use for a college degree to delay the start of their careers and go into debt to get one.
4. Over-education is not a primary cause of our economic woes, but it is a minor contributing one. The proportion of young people now obtaining college degrees is rapidly outstripping the proportion of jobs that require college degrees.