The Left’s long held pipe dream is over. Most of them don’t know it yet, but it is.
In a spectacular new column, Margaret Wente accurately paints a picture of the modern world and illustrates how far out of step assorted liberal sycophants clearly are. It starts thusly:
Laurel O’Gorman is one of the faces of Occupy Toronto. She believes the capitalist system has robbed her of her future. At 28, she’s studying for a master’s degree in sociology at Laurentian University in Sudbury. She’s also the single mother of two children. “I’m here because I don’t know what kind of job I could possibly find that would allow me to pay rent, take care of these two children and pay back $600 each month in loans,” she said.
Charles Adler provides excellent coverage on this entire issue.
Robert nothing happens when I hit the link. Could you also give ua a link to Margarets column.
Link to Wente: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/occupiers-are-blaming-the-wrong-people/article2226104/
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ahem…that should be “Too Many Sociologists, Too Few *Electrical* Engineers”, but otherwise a good post 🙂
Margaret Wente makes a good point about the post-secondary education too many choose. They go to university, acquire a soft degree in something such as women’s studies, and then wonder why they are unemployed or under-employed. There isn’t much of a market for grads with these kinds of degrees. But it isn’t their fault for acquiring a useless degree. No. It’s the fault of the fat cats and dammit government should do something. Besides aren’t they supposed to be rewarded just for showing up? That’s how it worked in T-ball where everyone got a medal.
On ending the occupation, the Vancouver mayor is laughable. He wants them out but will not do anything to make it happen except blather on like an Obama. No wonder this doofus had a riot in his city last June. Grow a pair, Mr. Mayor.
Too many “SOCIAL” engineers and not enough trades, technicians or practical engineers,,,period.
The interesting thing is that she has, all by herself, made a number of choices in her life and these choices have set her up in her current position.
She chose sociology, an area with little job-related functions in a modern society. Instead of then moving on to a practical application of sociology, eg, …hmmm…well, in some administrative job, she made yet another choice: a master’s degree in sociology. This further alienates her from the job market.
First, many unionized positions require the financial compensation to be geared to education. Therefore, with her MA, the employer – obviously the public service or academia – would be required to pay her a higher salary. Their entry level budget might not cover such a salary.
Second, she’s narrowed her job market field even further by this second degree in a ‘words-only’ educational area. Who needs someone whose key accomplishments are writing abstract essays about irrelevant issues?
Third, she’s made the choice to have two children and be a single parent. That inhibits her flexibility in jobs, increases her financial needs and…
These were all her choices. Yet she expects Society to have the jobs, the income, the lifestyle that she wants, and all that is needed on her part, is to show up and accept it.
Sociology, Womyn’s studies (otherwise known as the Degree in Victim-hood), History of Irish short stories,etc..etc..etc…
I think the folks who pick these useless degrees have a common set of traits. Usually left leaning…usually assured of their own moral superiority…..dislike any views that are not shared as their own….look down on physical labour and those involved in the “trades”(but ironically, publicly supportive of trade unions)…..and most importantly;
No math please.
Cause, well…Math is hard.
And as we know; hard work is not a trait common to those on the left.
Re reading Atlas shrugged again, it has refreshed my memory of how prophetic most of Rand’s observations were.
There are more sociologists and administrators than plumbers machinists, metalurgists,large scale engineers etc. because the work ethic/moral paradigm has shifted towards sloth and mediocrity – what can one do to get by or profit with the least amount of risk and effort – this is the core result of “progressivism” of removing the competitive edge and denouncing the persuit of excellence and corrupting the markets and corporate world to where no one can succeed/work without a college degree. Most college grads don’t really want to work – physically – and think the world should welcome them to the leisure class by merit of their degree, not their production or creativity or risk taking.
OTOH competent skilled tradesmen have never had it better due to the scarcity of quality tradesmen in a marginally skilled labor pool corrupted by union protection of mediocrity. Based purely on Rand’s sliding scale of worth based on merit of productivity/creativity ALL jobs requiring an undergrad degree are overpaid. A corporate cog or administrative drone is not worth what a plumber makes because it is not value-added output. National wealth depends on value added productivity. When the economy turns to a “service industry” because it exports its industrial wealth engines off shore and relies on expanding government bureaucracy and administrative industry to employ undergrads, who have skills that produce no tangible wealth, you end up with the long term productivity glut stagflation and towering national debt we see now.
“Progressives” think government is an industry that creates life long careers for the college undergrad output. The reality is A) Government creates no tangible wealth. B) Government creates a net deficit in national productivity C) Government can only grow as large as raping the private sector productivity to run it will allow – there is a saturation point, have we passed it? Not a very reliable economic system, but we are stuck with it in spite of Rand’s warnings – and a reminder of our mistake is seeing unskilled college grads consort with grubby street people and protest against the system they should be contributing to with their productivity – problem is the capitalism which provided lucrative broad based employment is dead – killed long ago by “progressive” economic planners who shipped productive capacity off shore.
Completely typical of the OWS generation, “I expect everything that I want to be handed to me on a platter and other people have to pay for everything I want. I should also not be held responsible for anything I say or any decisions I make.” May God give us guidance because this generation will never provide the leadership we need in the future.
Too many SOCIAL engineers, not enough CIVIL engineers!
By reading Wente’s comments section, one would wonder if the comments are for the right article. It seems that the OWS gang and friends can read via their i-pads and smart phones. They may not be able to comprehend anything but they can certainly read and reply with big words.
I’m confused. Exactly how do American and Canadian issues blend together? When exactly did the Canadian Government bail out Canadian banks?
Laurel O’Gorman should have been called out for that stupid statement. How exactly does she intend to pay for more of her useless education?
I’m entitled to my entitlements?
“ahem…that should be “Too Many Sociologists, Too Few *Electrical* Engineers”, but otherwise a good post 🙂
Posted by: TJ at November 8, 2011 10:06 AM ”
Mechanical engineers build targets.
Electrical engineers build weapons.
I’ve been saying this here for many years. The bright side for the OWS 20 something crowd is that there is still plenty of time to re-educate yourself and have an amazing career.
John Ratzenberger(Cliff from Cheers) is spearheading the marketing campaign for ‘Center for America’ who cite that there are 10 million unfilled jobs in the Trades in the USA today.
But…but….she completely glossed over the fact that upon graduation, she also gets a free t-shirt that says “I have a Sociology degree…Would you like fries with that?”
I think ET neatly covered the nub of the matter.
This being the week leading up to Remembrance Day, you will excuse me if I display little sympathy with this young woman.
More than a few members of my family received invitations from the King in both 1914 and 1939 offering them exciting government jobs in exotic foreign locales…
Fred wrote:
Mechanical engineers build targets.
Electrical engineers build weapons.
CIVIL engineers build targets.
Electrical, mechanical, and chemical engineers build weapons.
I’ll bet it never crossed the minds of these ‘social engineers’ that job security in their chosen career paths(if they did land jobs there) would necessitate that they never achieve their lofty goals of social equity because if they did they would then become jobless.
That’s right folks, whether these people have jobs in their chosen fields or not, the continuation of those jobs depends on the maintenance of the present unequal status quo and that the equality/fairness that they yearn for must never actually materialize.
Catch 22 or pipedream, you decide which, but the conclusion is that these people want to direct other people’s lives and although they can’t even see the end of their own noses they do know for sure that they want their noses buried permanently in the trough filled with other people’s money.
In the meantime, Alberta is crying out for skilled tradesmen.
As I’ve been saying for years, the world has too many geniuses and not enough honest workers.
Finally, more people are beginning to understand.
Some call Wendte’s style ‘blaming the victim’ (see comments), which only point out another thing.
These clowns figured they could be control freaks forever, charming the stupid blue-collar worker out of their hard-earned money, with the powers of their precious university degree … and now they’re victims? Puleeeze.
Great column. What’s she doing in the Globe & Mail?
Margaret Wente is apparently cutting & pasting again. She apparently got her man John from a [get this] Obama campaign ad —
// Wente writes: “Then there’s John, who’s pursuing a degree in environmental law. He wants to work at a non-profit. After he graduated from university, he struggled to find work. ‘I had to go a full year between college and law school without a job. I lived at home with my parents to make ends meet.’ He thinks a law degree will help, but these days, I’m not so sure”.
She’s “not so sure” – sounds like she’s ruminating over the conversation she’s just had with the guy.
But there’s no evidence “John” has anything to do with the Occupy movement.
Who is “John”? […]. His existence appears to originate on an online Obama 2012 election page about student loans, from whence he was perhaps picked up by a blogger who is in turn picked up by blogger Kenneth Anderson, who Wente quotes and paraphrases in her article. Anderson at least identifies “John”, providing a link to the guy who links to the Obama site), but since Margaret doesn’t bother, you can http://www.barackobama.com/news/helping-to-pay-for-school-one-student-at-a-time/ “>meet “John” and his quote right here. //
Female caller on Adler complains that “People are being commoditized nowadays. Nowadays? People used to be, and still are in some areas, OWNED – if that’s not commoditized I don’t know what is.
We just had some flooring done. The man who did is one of the few good tradesmen doing this kind of work in our town. He was saying that he has way more work than he can handle and that almost no one wants to do flooring anymore because it is such hard work. He wants to retire and his 20 year old son and helper wants no part of the business. If you want to make a good living, invent a way of installing flooring that is less back and knee breaking and you will make a good buck, for sure.
Arts majors are the people who would not likely have had much of a career with or without the arts degree. These are the folks who will always take the road of least resistance.
Many would have been sales clerks, bus drivers, the lucky ones might get a post office gig. The smarter ones might have considered a skilled trade. The dumber ones still think that if they protest enough the world will magically change back to a more prosperous period when many useless tits’ like themselves were hired to look after other useless tits.
They have been duped by the educational system for certain, but they have also sold themselves out by trying to take the road of least resistance. That is also the road that leads to the hell they are now living.
But mostly they have been sold out by a failed experiment called socialism that is designed for elites and useless tits only. The rest of us continued in the real world and we are now no longer willing to fund useless titism.
“They go to university, acquire a soft degree in something such as women’s studies, and then wonder why they are unemployed or under-employed. There isn’t much of a market for grads with these kinds of degrees.”
You understate her problem. I will never hire anyone with a degree in grievance studies.
“I’m here because I don’t know what kind of job I could possibly find that would allow me to pay rent, take care of these two children and pay back $600 each month in loans,” she said.”
Wente hit the nail just right in this article, and judging by the comments, it hurt!
I’ve met SO many young people with fancy degrees in the “Social Sciences”,and most either work for the government part time,because there are no full time positions,or work in menial jobs,fast food,waiters,etc.
Most of these people want white collar careers because they are plain damned lazy,they don’t like hard physical work.
Someone should mention to the young lady quoted above that if she’d taken a good trade,she’d have NO student loan to repay,and a job making more than enough to support her lifestyle.
Freshman year in university I took a Sociology course as an elective. Had to do a research project on ‘who held opened doors for whom’ at a local store. (e.g. did women hold open doors for other women…) My friend and I completely fabricated our ‘results’, wrote up the paper and ended up with an A on the project. Professor even called me in the summer to see if he could submit our paper for some sociology contest.
That, my SDA friends, demonstrates the value of a sociology degree.
Wente’s column would be difficult to rebut. I would like to see someone try. It’s always funny when a barking dog politically correct leftist argues against logical obvious conclusions.
I is distilling down to me that these fools with useless degrees actually thought that degree would give them elite statis…IOW become a ruler.
It is worth mentioning that the US army requires ALL officers to have a degree. The officer candidates (ROTC) attend law, engineering and business administration.
Business administration has a high priority because the US Army closely resembles General Motors without the UAW.
Law has a priority due to the military culture being highly regulated…
Engineering…simply because of the logistics involved…and provides an extremely competant resource during civil emergencys…fire, flood etc.
It is worth mentioning that the commanding officer at Rooke’s Drift was “here to build a bridge”…Royal Engineer….
The world needs ditch-diggers too….
I wonder who’s looking after the kiddies while she’s camping out, not working or getting her useless degree.
Marxism 2.1: “To each according to his needs,from each,….ahh screw that other bit..”
If everyone deserves a free education etc, shouldn’t she have learned something economically useful so the next generation would have the same opportunities?
Just more socialist greed and selfishness….
We don’t need Bachelors, Masters and PhD’s in Parasitism. Useless faculties in universities should be shut down and the funding should go to the useful faculties or to trade schools.
If someone wants to be schooled in useless endeavours, they should pay every penny themselves. It is not up to taxpayers to fund the hobbies of others.
Reading the comments at the G&M, one is struck by the number of people who feel that the bailouts are what justify this futile attempt to “take out the capitalist system”. True conservatives would agree that the bailouts were wrong – if you managed your business poorly, whether you were in the financial sector or the automobile industry, you should fail, and others will take your place. However, two points are worth noting. First,why is all the ire directed at the recipients of the bailouts, and none at the government that offered them? Surely the blame should be at least shared. Second, the failure of the bailouts to produce any benefit to the general populace (who provided the tax dollars) is not an indictment of the free market system but of government intervention in the free market system. It proves the exact opposite of what the protesters are asking for – more government actions and less true free enterprise. Ah, well, lefty logic – two words that should never be placed too close together.
Abe Froman said: Arts majors are the people who would not likely have had much of a career with or without the arts degree. These are the folks who will always take the road of least resistance.
I know a fair number of people with MFAs. None of them took the road of least resistance to get one; turns out an MFA is kind of a lot of work.
They do it because they’re driven to be artists. Indeed, they probably wouldn’t have much of a “career” in any case, because they’re not motivated in that area.
(Then again, those ones that I know aren’t the ones complaining about not getting a job “because banks” – they knew that nobody was going to “give them a job” because they had an MFA. The whole point was development of their existing skills.
Like a trade school, but with a skill that’s a lot less in demand…
Which is fine, if you know it in advance and don’t expect anything else. Which a lot of ’em did and do.)
test
From Sudbury eh? Lots of starting Labourer jobs in mines all across northern Canada including. Sudbury. She would earn a healthy income and excellent benefits…
good comments abe and OZ
we can sit here all day spinning our wheels wondering what Progressives think… by the time you’ve got it figured… you’re lost.
good comments abe and OZ
we can sit here all day spinning our wheels wondering what Progressives think… by the time you’ve got it figured… you’re lost.
“They wanted to do transformational, world-saving work”
A quick list of people who have transformed or saved the world – the guy who invented the wheel, Gutenberg, the US Founding Fathers, Watt, the Wrights, Edison, Einstein, Gates, Jobs, Fleming, Salk & Sabin, Pasteur – and not one of them a sociologist, grievance studies major or journalist.
Odd, huh?
whatever else happens, the banks will be bailed out.
and that ladies and gentlemen is the ultra right wing platform.
Anyone who cares to know the truth can go back in the archives to when the banks were bailed out(past tense) and find that most conservatives, especially commenters here at SDA, were against the bank bailouts.
I was against them then and am against any future bailouts of banks or any other businesses including corporations.
That said, these people who planned to live off of my taxes by making a career in any socialist rent-seeking endeavour can languish in poverty and I won’t feel the least bad about them suffering for their own cancerous short-sighted world view.
It seems Laurel O’Gorman went to the trouble of attending ‘Occupy Toronto’ when she could have saved herself from further debt by simply attending ‘Occupy Sudbury’. She would have been able to accomplish the same result for much less money; S.F.A.
Saw this quote a number of years ago at Louisbourg in Cape Breton. It hangs on my wall and it is something I make sure to tell those who are trying to decide what career path they will take. Our youngsters have been swindled by the current education system that looks down on skilled trades as being for those “less intelligent”.
‘I do not know why a low idea has been attached to this word: it is to the trades that we owe all things necessary for life.’ Denis Diderot, French philospher.
Nuff said.
One thing I know from personal experience is how much parents are to blame for this. We had
“Go to University and get a degree or you will be a nothing, nobody loser.
drummed into our heads from childhood.
Thing is not everyone has the mental horsepower to handle anything more than “soft science” and due to lowered standards might not be cut out for post secondary in the first place.
Personally I dropped out and faced the wrath and shaming that resulted instead of completing a worthless degree. Being lucky enough to be mechanically inclined means I have never had much trouble finding a job in the trades.
The whole socialist entitlement culture that many of my peers bought into still bothers me to this day.
Myself,like JJM,have not ONE ounce(opppsss…gram)of sympathy for these OWS leeches. Just one iota of pre-university research would have told them what were the useless degrees and what ones were needed in the real world.
JJM also said…More than a few members of my family received invitations from the King in both 1914 and 1939 offering them exciting government jobs in exotic foreign locales…
This being Rememberance Day week….so did mine.In fact my paternal grandfather received one for 1914,1939, AND 1950…all of which he proudly accepted. Til the day he died at 99 yrs old,he still wouldn’t admit he fudged his birth date just a wee bit.
And sasquacth…same for the Army,Navy,and Airforce here in Canuckistan (except pilots are exempt,although a lot do hold at least two yrs college). I guess a degree in engineering doesn’t help you much at 10K feet,doing over Mach 2 trying to get or outrun the bad guy!
Indiana Homez said: “we can sit here all day spinning our wheels wondering what Progressives think…”
Dude, I can tell you what they think in one sentence. They think you’re stupid and need to be controlled. Everything else is window dressing and tactics.
You can oppose pretty much any leftist policy or cause with a clear conscience, there’s no possibility you’ll be doing the wrong thing.
Well, I did my job for king and country. My daughter graduates in 3 months as a mechanical engineer, my Son starts his chemical engineering program at Montana State, my other daughter is working on bi-chemical engineering, and my youngest two are still undecided. 😎
Phantom ‘s gotit.
If Miss O’Gorman wants to be irresponsible for herself, what can one say? But that she drags her children into the messes SHE made….
Often, there are no words.
The OWS protestors are just wrong.
Protesting is fashionable these days,….. just look at those trend setters in the Middle East. Soon there’s going to be a reality show revolving around them.
Everybody’s got a beef about something. Some people complain and others just carry on and get the work done.
Anybody who has any smarts will do what it takes to support themselves and their family (and not let others get in their way).
Arts degrees are hard work and interesting, but lucrative? Not likely for the average Joe.
Everybody’s got a different story and everyone matures (or not) at a different rate.
The ones who mature earlier are usually more financially successful. IMO
I see this primarily as the fault of the ludicrous university bubble. It was inevitable, and frankly most tenured academics should feel guilty as hell.