Wow, this is about as far away from the Native American idea that a society’s or an individual’s actions should not impinge on the quality of life, seven generations from their own.
There is a furor in California because the Poway Unified School District, in San Diego County, borrowed money last year on terms that even Countrywide would have laughed at during the boom. It will not pay a dime of interest or principal for more than two decades. Only then will it begin to service the bonds.
It is paying a high price. Although it has a good credit rating — Aa2 at Moody’s and AA– at Standard & Poor’s — it will eventually pay tax-exempt interest of up to 6.8 percent for the borrowings. When it issued more conventional bonds last year, it paid rates that were much lower, ranging up to just 4.1 percent.
For borrowing $105 million in 2011, taxpayers — or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the children and grandchildren of today’s taxpayers — will pay $877 million in interest between 2033 and 2051.
Should districts issue such bonds? It is not an easy question to answer. Much of this expensive borrowing is a result of local officials searching for a way to meet their responsibilities at a time when opposition to taxes has become a mantra. This generation will not pay for what it needs, so some of its leaders have decided to saddle future generations with the bills.
The U.S. plans to spend $931 billion on defense in fiscal 2013. By way of comparison, the federal government will spend around $64 billion on education that same year.
translatingtheprintempserable:
Samuel Auger June 30, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.lapresse.ca/le-soleil/actualites/education/201206/29/01-4539662-des-etudiants-des-quatre-coins-du-globe-preparent-une-greve-mondiale.php
Photo caption: The global strike that has been…
Phenomenal letter sent from Aldous Huxley to George Orwell in 1949, just before the publication of 1984.
Here’s a short thought provoking passage:
Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging and kicking them into obedience. In other words, I feel that the nightmare of Nineteen Eighty-Four is destined to modulate into the nightmare of a world having more resemblance to that which I imagined in Brave New World. The change will be brought about as a result of a felt need for increased efficiency. Meanwhile, of course, there may be a large scale biological and atomic war — in which case we shall have nightmares of other and scarcely imaginable kinds.
One might consider the widespread acceptance of GMO food and synthetic pesticides biological war, waged on a global scale against nature herself. Additionally, our educational system is designed more to teach children capitalist work ethic (show up on time, meet deadlines, respect authority, become obedient), and to regurgitate facts versus how to think analytically for themselves. Couppled with the fact that, “Children spend more time watching television than in any other activity except sleep” (Huston and Wright, University of Kansas. ”Television and Socialization of Young Children”) — I suppose one might deduce that Huxley was right. That our generation has taken up the suggestion to ‘love our servitude’ as Huxley puts it.
Herbert Marcuse writes at length in his book “One Dimensional Man” about consumerism as a form of social control. The book is an amazing read for anyone interested in the evolution of, and psychology behind how and why Americans began to ‘love our servitude’.
John Moore: It’s the older generation that’s entitled, not students
Setting aside the fact that this intergenerational hectoring dates back to Socrates, let us ask: Who exactly is making the charge? Quebec has had low tuition rates for a half century. That means almost every living adult in the province, having already been afforded a plum goodie, is now wagging his finger at the first generation that will be asked to pay the tab. So who really is entitled here?
(via theatlantic)
