Posts by BenWilson
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OnPoint: 3 News Exclusive Investigation…, in reply to DCBCauchi,
All the polytechnics wanted to be universities, but instead all the universities became polytechnics.
Yes, and polytechnics dropped their standards to keep their position of soaking up non academic kids. My mother, who has taught at Manukau Polytech for over 20 years, talks of continual pressure to pass substandard students, just to satisfy standards requirements of her own teaching. Something's really fucked up with that.
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OnPoint: 3 News Exclusive Investigation…, in reply to NBH,
Thanks for that NBH. I'll have to pore over them to satisfy myself about a couple of key points.
1. Are they taking into account that by the end of 3 years study, the school leaver has 3 years of experience, and also 3 years of earnings, and no debt?
2. Are they taking into account that apart from degrees that you must have to do certain work, that there is a steady decline in the value of the degree relative to experience? I don't know the figures, but technical subjects have a very rapid skill turnover. If your skills are no advantage in 5 years, and your 51% higher earnings must offset 3 years of no earnings and accruing debt, does that actually amount to an advantage at all?
3. Are those with educations actually just working harder for their money? Do they end up taking their work home with them, as they have been trained for years of schooling to do? -
Sorry about the bumout above. I'm just feeling that NZ is on a race to the bottom of the wage heap, with a grinning banker in charge, rubbing his hands with glee at the idea that clean green socialist NZ will soon be changed into grubby oily factory NZ. And millions of people letting it happen, indeed making it happen. I'm not liking my home country so much right now.
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OnPoint: 3 News Exclusive Investigation…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
The big problem with university education these days is that it doesn't really mean much in terms of extra wages. Only the jobs that actually require it ... require it. For the rest, NZ business doesn't really rate general education that highly (despite protestation that they do). Other worker qualities are nearly as valuable to them, like initiative, presentation, hard working, etc. This is the vast bulk of jobs.
This is something that changed in NZ, and in the developed world generally, over the last 30 years. Was this directly related to how many people actually had such education? Seems likely to me. The skill stopped being scarce, and became commonplace, commanding no increase in wages. So when the cost of it suddenly increased (exactly the year I began tertiary education), it just started crippling people who chose anything that wasn't one of those carefully-kept-scarce degrees.
I don't regret the education, but I know it cost me a lot of money. I know this because all the people who didn't get one when I was that age have substantially more money than I do. They got 4 years more earnings and no debt. Because they were saving, they got into property sooner, and rode a 20 year boom. It didn't really matter that they earned less than I did at my peak (about 7 years after finishing study) - one of the things about a high income is you're expected to work your arse off, and to keep retraining too. So they could just rest at night and on weekends, where I feel like I've been playing catchup for my whole adult life.
Most of these guys fit into the "Waitakere Man" mold, interestingly. They have moved from being left wing when they were young exploited trainees, to being in the middle as they got to decent wages, to being right wing now that they're small business and property owners. They see paying for student education as a luxury they couldn't afford and shouldn't have to pay for for anyone else. Not having had that education, they are blind to any value in it whatsoever, and certainly in their lines of work, it is of no value.
Actually, to be honest, it's been of pretty limited economic value to me too. I don't think a diploma in computer science set me up as a programmer any better than just getting a job as a programmer as a kid would have. The value of such technical training declines very rapidly, you have to keep upskilling. My philosophy degree has been of nebulous value economically - I think it might have given me a mild advantage as a management trainee, useful for the 1 year it took me to realize that they couldn't pay me enough to do that kind of work. Did it make me a better thinker? I don't actually know. It enabled me to think and talk about abstract problems which mostly have no actual solution, something practically everyone does every day, with no more or less credibility than me.
I don't have high hopes for free general tertiary education. Developed capitalist economies made the false assumption that it increases productivity more than the wage slavery of the developing world does. They've learned they were wrong and the overall answer is not to treat it as a right, as a gradually raising quality of human life issue, but as a luxury. So either the base model changes, or general education slowly devalues until only the very rich and the underclasses can really afford it.
I think I'd actually rather that it went back to being a free meritocracy than that, and if there must be free tertiary, it should be in short technical courses. But of course the thing I'd most like to change is the base model that treats education as only of value for it's economic outputs. Currently, at least today, I'm feeling extremely pessimistic about the chances of that in the next 10 years in this country.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Rich of Observationz,
That's the good thing about MMP, you can vote for whoever you want (unless it's a party with no hope of getting seats) and not worry about tactics.
Unless, of course, you're in Epsom, in which case you should vote National, if you want a Labour government.
ETA: Electorate vote ONLY. Of course the party vote should go wherever you think it will count, and it will count for there.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
My bad. Goodness, I don't know how I confused a tweet from @keith_ng about Gareth Morgan with your link. My only excuse is there's a picture of your face just below it in my tweet stream. Apologies.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
Eh? Can you please quote what you're responding to.
Morgan says in your linked article:
The ideal would be for KiwiSaver to be required only of those whose current wealth indicates insufficient resources to fund an adequate replacement in retirement for their current lifestyle.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Rich Lock,
Labour don't have a hope in hell of getting back in, so I'd prefer to actually vote for something, rather than strategically. Green it is.
Yeah, I realized on the weekend that what I suddenly liked about Labour was that they were finally promoting policies which have been part of Green Party policy for a while. Also, voting for Green isn't voting against Labour, they'd be a natural partner if Labour could get enough.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
Can't say I agree with his idea for compulsory savings only for the poor. And his take on asset sales is simply anathema to me - justified because there's no blue chips in the stockmarket? WTF? How about all the ozzie banks that have been creaming us? Can't comment on UBI without buying his book, but it is good that he agrees that trickle down has increased child poverty.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Sacha,
I believe you're over-rating the willingness of the Maori Party to work with Mana and Dunne to work with the Greens (who he seems to loathe though I've never understood why).
Yes, there's a lot of minor horse trading that would have to go on. Perhaps Dunne might actually come out and say what it is he hates and lock it in - perhaps they only have to drop the dope legalization. Maori + Mana would be very interesting to watch. If it's a question of actually being in government, they could bury the mere. We'll see.
Odds are it's going to be Nats + Dunne + MP though. That's my pick.
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