Our New Economic Bubble... as told from a mere plebe (not from the military... as in "commoner") Part I

I went to the University in the US. I actually learned a great deal and found the experience, in terms of education, largely enlightening and largely "educational". I did not however, find it to help me in life in general. In fact, I'm doing the exact same things I was doing pre-owing-everyone-I-know-even-just-in-paper, except now with debt. Personally, I learned a lot of things. However, there seems to be no place to use this education in the huge way I was informed I'd be able to, unless of course, I choose the route of further academia. Fine. I like school. I love learning. I love mental challenges. I love the idea of pushing ideas beyond known limits... hell, I even... I love deadlines. You know what I don't like? Debt.

In the last year or so I've discussed undergraduate debt with many people from many universities and it always comes back to the same issue... we're screwed. The US economy is not hiring. You can't get a job at Burger King due to "over qualification" and you can't get a job in your undergraduate field due to "more experienced individuals" (AKA so many people advanced have been laid off in their fields that they can get non-entry level applicants to work for half the price). So our option? More school. More loans. Make that artificial economy grow!

I'm no economist but I have to wonder... this is going to have to hit a wall, right?! Universities are going to have to be more selective, right?! I went to SUNY's "Ivy" Binghamton and I have to admit, I don't know how 1/2 the students got in: "like" abuse is rampant, the focus on getting to school in pajamas was the norm and most disturbingly, the arguing over test grades was tolerated. REALLY? This is higher education? Is it so easily bought and owed? OWED being the hard part for those of us that speak proper english, wear actual pants to class (yes, we got up that early), and when we didn't do as well as we liked, contacted the professor about extra credit as opposed to arguing the professor's ability to grade vs our failure to READ. (No seriously, the world famous Walden Bello taught a class I took my last year at Binghamton Slobiveristy and I was EMBARRASSED at my peers...) Spoiled. But hey, it's all on credit and all too expected, which isn't really anyone's fault... or is it?

The really screwed up part [a later post will address the actual student populous and the lack of "give a damn" about their education or their lack of feeling grateful for the opportunity and why I understand that yet am disturbed by it] here is it's all paid for by credit. Either the parents of, or the student, have borrowed money to do it. A few are luck enough to have parents that actually paid for it via check and in full. Even those people however, rarely work jobs along with their education and take out loans in some form for living. After the four years (and I admit, with summer, it only takes 2.5-3-summer costs more), you owe a reasonable hunk of change.

Let me remind the reader, this is a public school. It doesn't even touch Cornell, Columbia, etc...
Let me also state, I grew up poor. Paying for school for me meant working full time and taking classes full time the entire time I was in school. It was tiring, but I appreciated it.

Phase II: you graduate and without an actual "in" ( a family connection, a friend connection)... you are screwed. You could have been the most brilliant student with the best questions ever and you really... You get to work long and/or awkward hours to: get by and job hunt. I'm lucky, I have a great job I have worked throughout my education, with great people, that kept me. Yet, it has a limited association with my degree and honestly, when I budget for a few months: I just pay my rent, utilities and student loans. You know what that means? I don't do shit to keep the economy going because all I can do is keep my debt from standing on my face and stomping it's feet. Which sounds strangely like the stress of the last bubble burst: mortgages, in terms of money to spend and life to live and eventually in terms of the realization you bought more than you can pay for... It all sounded so nice in the beginning...

What I'm trying to say here is, it's unsustainable. We'll never own houses, we'll never buy anything with our own hard work. We'll buy credit. We'll use up our efforts just to get buy- and then use- faux money to get by some more and be stuck in this cycle forever.

I'm not suggesting all college graduates get a job. I'm suggesting admittance into college is more competitive, it costs less [let's face it, it's the new high school diploma... or it was in the 90s and now it's the second decade of the new millennium... and no, I didn't use spell check to spell that word you lazy asses. I can actually spell... and read], and higher degrees than "Bachelor" should be harder, more challenging and more specific in the way this degree was in the 60s, 70s, 80s.... I also suggest the US develops a new labor market so everyone doesn't have to go to college per se, but can actually produce goods and services at a fair rate. Let's face it, we can't all be academics. Someone needs to make the tools we use, the food we eat, create the infrastructure to get us there and enforce the societal laws necessary to make this all work.

Eh change...?

Either way, wait 4 years. No one has jobs. Everyone is getting more loans for more school. Eventually... this bubble will burst. I don't think it's so far off... and I don't think the US economy is prepared for putting us all in jail for debt. Or maybe it is. We do rank no. 1 in the world for jailing people...

to be cont.

Cinco de Birthday

It would appear I have fallen off the face of the Earth considering my lack of commitment to either of my blogs in the last few months. I have not (yet). I thought I'd drop a few lines about my Birthday/the day Mexico celebrates me.

Thus far, this has been a truly adult birthday. I did laundry. I paid bills. Ran errands. And as of now, I'm preparing to go to dinner with some friends who have for the past 4 or so years, gone to dinner with me on my Birthday. Which I might add is a blast. My friends are smart, they know I will never say no to food and/or wine, nor will I ever decline to sit around a table with them. Additionally, a group of them, knowing that my modes of transport tend to last me roughly 6 months- 1 year a piece, have been truly awesome in funding a new bicycle since- wait, did I ever tell you that I had 2 bicycles stolen in less than 2 weeks last summer? Well I did. And recently, when my current car's alternator belt went on a hiatus I was fairly annoyed that I didn't have a stand in bicycle. I love to ride a bike- even more so when it's not my only form of transport. So this has been a really great day which will no doubt end in much hilariousness and most likely, some form of debauchery.

This is my last birthday before I turn 30. I am not really afraid of aging so much as terrified of "middle age." I'm not really sure when you're officially considered middle aged, but I wish I could skip whatever that designated time period is all together and go straight to "old." Why you ask? I'm a bartender. I witness plenty of middle aged women and let me tell you, I like them the least as clients. It's like the awkward age of not giving up enough youth and wearing clothes and hairstyles that are unfitting. It's the age where if you're not married yet you start to lose your shit. It's the age of the first-life-partner-is-probably-going-to-need-to-go-oh-shit-I-have-a-mortgage-crisis. These women scare me. They scare me when they wear too small clothing from Aeropostale yet have feathered hair. They scare me when they come to the bar in at least twos as part of a large group but sit and and talk maliciously about the others before they arrive. I don't want to be catty and worried about trying to look young to impress some likely non-perfect "perfect" potential mate that probably doesn't exist anyway! I don't want to go through a divorce! I also don't want to be rude and mean to bartenders about "my" drink (that I'm literally calling by the wrong name) and yelling at them to make my madras (it was really a bay breeze) correctly! It's apparently inevitable. And what? It's not like middle age lasts a couple years like all the other groupings of years pre that do. My guess is it lasts about from about 40-60 (or something?) and only in the late middle to end of it do you get to start giving pep talks to younger people and start feeling like a tampon commercial- free and doing exactly what you want!

Here are some examples: between 18-21 you're still able to be a kid and screw things up. You get to use the excuse you're still learning to be a grown up in some manner. Between 21 and 25, again, you're still becoming a grown up but the exploits of 18-21 seem much more stupid. You may still be part of such exploits but they aren't as funny any more and you tend to keep the items lacking dignity to yourself- instead of posting them on facebook along with pictures of yourself that just shouldn't exist let alone be public. Now, 25-30. Expected to have pulled your shit together considerably and even if you haven't, unless you're a complete hot mess, everyone thinks you have. Still working out life goal kinks, still milling through the reasons to or not to live some place, take some job, still not making a million dollars and therefore struggling to pay all the loans for your awesome social science degree, and stuck in existential crisis mode constantly but it's still okay. Not in middle age though! That's not cool. That's the age of competition to have your shit together more than everyone else your age and if you don't you have to become a royal bitch to prove you have control over something.

I'd rather skip that all together and just be 80, waving a cane at people with long scary white hair like Charlie's Grandmother in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! I want to just be old and wise and curse like a trucker. I want to be my Grandmother, with the patience of a saint and the ability to tell jokes and stories faster and better than Margaret Cho.

So for this year, I'm totally going to enjoy that I'm not yet 30. Not because 30 scares me, or even 35 necessarily. Forty five however, needs to be a decade ahead or behind me at all times.

Shout out to Mexico! Love!