BF2S Forums EU politico-economic issues

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

have you seen the sort of people that pass out of mba programs? you only get one life, you know. jeesh.

professional degree meaning you NEED that degree to work in the specific field eg JD and MD's to become lawyers and doctors.

Cybargs wrote:

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

have you seen the sort of people that pass out of mba programs? you only get one life, you know. jeesh.

professional degree meaning you NEED that degree to work in the specific field eg JD and MD's to become lawyers and doctors.

JD's and MD's are north american. MBA's are more universal, hence why i spoke about them. you don't get JD's in the UK or europe. the most common professional degree is an MBA. but still, medical and law schools, too.. have you seen the sort of person yet that goes on from undergraduate study and opts for a business/law school over further academic study/employment? the driest motherfuckers going. i made my comment because i'd rather have a doctorate in a philosophy subject that involves deep learning and wisdom, rather than earn a fuckload because i got an MBA in finance. that's what i meant by "you only get one life". i'd rather educate myself in culture, personally, than spreadsheets.

every humanities student i know who went on to law school (and humanities students are favoured in law school) was the dry, unassuming, bookish (in a bad way) sort. fuckin' squares, son.

over here the MBA is considered a 'professional accreditation' and is licensed separately by a 'professional' body who deal exclusively in business and legal qualifications. hence it is considered separate to a 'masters' degree, which are typically either theoretical or practical degrees taken within a university structure (university structures, i hasten to add, which are not so readily associated with business/law/medical schools, as is the case with american institutions like harvard/yale). i guess the graphic is in that sense a little confusing/ambiguous.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-18 11:20:01)

no. what i am saying is that on a continent where higher-education in the university is state-run, separate degrees that run outside of the state-regulated system (i.e. MBA's) are accredited by separate 'professional bodies', and are thus considered 'professional degrees'. the MBA granting business school at my alma mater, for example, was verified and accredited by a whole different body and board to the economics department, who granted normal bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees. MBA's and law schools are seen as 'professional qualifications', normally run by private corporate entities rather than large academic institutions. a master's degree here is in two types: taught and research, and, as i said, normally either involves further theoretical/philosophical academic type study, or more vocationally-leaning research (i.e. international development MA's).

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-18 11:25:04)

where is the fixation with licensing coming from? 'professional degrees' == degrees for professions that are 'licensed', now? that's not the taxonomy of a 'professional degree' in the UK/europe, at all.

Because it was a US Census graphic, and it's the definition used in the US.

Some are boring, some are interesting, just like every other slice of society. I will agree that people that talk about money all day are hideously boring though.

Jay wrote:

Aside from defense contractors, no one is dependent on the military here.

Military is spending is a huge part of the US economy, it is a disguised form of workfare, tax and spend socialism and govt directed R+D funding to assist the engineering/technology sector - which gives the US one of its major advantages in the world economy - rolled into one.

It supports entire towns, complete industries,millions of full time jobs and provides immense flow-on benefits in technology.
I don't really understand how you can say 'no-one is dependent on the military' when many people are or have been - starting with you...

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2013-03-19 00:26:40)

people in europe are indigent and lazy, and depend on an over-munificent state to fund their 'not real' lives of 'unearned wealth'.

people from factory towns in the US propped up by the military-industrial complex are, however, hard working and enterprising, not at all effected by or reliant upon a state-generated demand. ditto soldiers who grow up in poor working-class neighbourhoods and rely on the government's top put-to-work schemes - i.e. kill a towelhead, get a pension - they are just young radical Objectivists, seizing the day and bettering themselves in the true pioneering spirit of american individualism!!!!

of course, as always, the piece de resistance in the midst of all of jay's spiel is that his critique of subsidies and state-assistance is a critique that he has only been able to muster the education in order to formulate from... subsidies and state-assistance. he'd have never made it to the college campus to become infected with the randian germ if it wasn't for big brother giving him a helping hand.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-19 05:34:00)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Jay wrote:

And you don't think people are adaptable? That they won't find new jobs? The strippers, and pastors, and dry cleaners, and hair cutters, and used car salesmen will move away and find work elsewhere. No, no one is dependent.

If they're so adaptable and entrepreneurial why don't they move away now?

Most people in military towns have family in the military. They are wives, sons, daughters, or extended family. Others are there because they built businesses specifically to cater to the military (most of these are ex-mil). They'll move on and find work elsewhere.

nobody is saying that people are 'helpless' without government largesse. do not kid yourself. the 'welfare' budget of most european states is <20%. how is that even saying that 'people are completely helpless'? that means one fifth of a society, on average, for whatever reason, require some sort of especial disability/jobseeking/family support help. what we are saying is that this small proportion of society - the ones in need, the ones who pay their taxes just like everyone else, and are perfectly entitled to state support - are not the ones that caused the euro crisis. your rhetoric is basically this: people are over-dependent on a welfare state, "everyone on the dole" (your words), people have become lazy and too cushty, etc. this is completely misguided rhetoric. the euro crisis happened because of irresponsible dealings in high-finance and banking. it is, however, those in need and the societies' poor who are truly paying for the economic measures pushed through to hastily 'fix' the problem (a strategy that is almost universally failing, i hasten to add).

your ideology blinds your judgement (as well as probably your geographical+cultural distance). you view things thusly: big government is bad, welfare and socialist help is bad, keynesian intervention and economic state-management is bad; therefore people reliant on big government are bad by association, welfare is bad, it must surely be their fault! that's not what has happened here at all. europe isn't on the verge of collapse because of its penchant for big bureaucracies (france has had one of the largest states in the world since mitterrand, and france has been pretty immune to financial meltdown since those years). europe isn't on the verge of collapse because it helps its poor and needy with state handouts and tax exemptions. the european market has ALWAYS been managed by subsidies, just like certain sectors of american industry are 'helped' to stay competitive/afloat by subsidies and corporate tax breaks. don't fucking kid yourself with your textbook-pansy ideological bullshit. the euro crisis was WHOLLY caused by a systematic failure in the private banking sector. only now it's the public sector and sphere of life that is being cut to shreds and considered 'extraneous'; everyone is being encouraged to 'knuckle down, we're in this together'. no. to borrow a term somewhat sullied by its associations, it was the 1% who caused the trainwreck. stop blindly pinning the tail on the donkey all-so-conveniently with the cognitive bias you received from your libertarian pamphlets.

the state of places like greece has become somewhat of a red herring in the argument 'against' europe since then. was greece a particularly bad and egregious example? yes, certainly. inefficient as hell, somewhat competitively moribund; resting on its laurels, to borrow an old olympian phrase. the EU as an economic bloc and political project certainly carried some dead-weight and dragged up some states from shithole status, and kept them afloat in the global market. but that was somewhat the whole point. the EU wasn't just about focussing power in the super-competitive western-industrial states: a major part of the EU's mission was to integrate, gradually, the former-soviet bloc states, for instance, or formerly agrarian societies, and to integrate them into a common market, and thus bring up their quality of life/economic prosperity. it was part of the whole wider progressive-socialist shebang. when you critique the EU market for being 'inefficient' and 'poor for competition', you are comparing the EU too much to a free-market neo-liberal experiment, which it has only (partly) got on board with in the last 10-15 years. the EU has always had a wider social ethos that you are totally missing when you rag on about (the extreme example of) greece.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-19 06:22:00)

Jay wrote:

Do you think that of eleven bravo? Or shifty? Or FEOS? Or rdx? It's a seriously flawed viewpoint, but considering you both grew up wealthy, you probably think the poor are stupid and dependent and wouldn't last a day in this world if there weren't people like you to light the way. That amount of hubris is disgusting. People get by, they survive, cutting government spending would cause short term pain, but people will survive.

no i don't think that of everyone in the military. people join for different reasons, from a complete cross-section of society. however, we happen to know from your posts here, in moments of more rare candor, that you joined the military because it was your way of financing college. you 'hated' the war, and didn't want to be there. you thought the military, once inside, was frustrating and pointless (i'm paraphrasing a whole history of your posts here, but feel free to split hairs on the wording; the sentiment stands). many times in the past you have basically revised your personal history w/ the military and your involvement in the wars as "the way i could pay for college". you're a poor kid that relied on the military for direction in life, after some aimless early 20's dropping out of a few things. the state gave you structure, the state gave you discipline, and most importantly of all, the state gave you lots of hand-outs (or a 'grant', if you will) and a subsidized education. now you're on the other side of that little bildungsroman, you want to say that big government schemes and subsidization is 'bad, mmkay', because it hurts 'competition'. the very same market-based educational competition that had you closed out of getting a college degree in your youth. hmmm: priceless.

nowhere am i speaking for the other military members: they do not necessarily have your background, and they far from espouse the same horseshit hypocritical views that you do on here.

as for "people get by, they survive" after large state-helped workschemes/industries are cut... what's up with detroit, then? what about flint, michigan? or any these former towns/cities that basically turned into dark abysses of systemic unemployment, drug abuse, and social degradation? oh yeah, they get by alright... providing for another big private industry boom in america: the prison system.

Last edited by Uzique The Lesser (2013-03-19 06:43:02)

Uzique The Lesser wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmLGq6Odu7g

i enjoy will self on several levels.

That's where I studied...

Also, Will Self is awesome.

Banks are opening in Cyprus today.....