Towards an Enlightened & Sustainable World

But let’s just remember that, as the 53%, I am working SO HARD while those blue collar/poor people work lazy jobs like shoveling, melding, and standing all day at a cash register. But because you got a degree, for which you spent a substantial amount of money on, you get the luxury of a safer, more comfortable office job. 

See the reason some people are upset right now is that they feel they were tricked and coerced into taking on a horrible investment - preyed on like crooks prey on the elderly. We’re not just talking houses, but education as well. It used to be that you could work hard a few years and invest a lump sum of money (if you were lucky enough to have it) into a degree so that after that sentence, you could get a more comfortable job. A job where you could sit, indoors, with a computer or other boredom killers. And it used to be that those jobs paid more to cover the cost of that education. That made it a worthwhile investment. But the system has fallen apart because education prices have sky-rocketed since our parents went to school, yet our salaries have stayed at relatively the same stagnant level. We were bred on the mantra, you must get a degree to get a job these days. So we did. And we were told to go to a good school. We had rankings and schools gave out statistics on their 95% post-graduate employment rate within six months. But who the F**K has $15-50,000 PER YEAR just sitting around? So basically we were told, if you want to succeed in life you will take this loan. It all sounded like a must take deal. 

Oh, no more jobs? Salary hasn’t risen? Too bad, so sad. You should have known better at 18 years old. You shouldn’t have listened to ALL these professional adults, including your parents. So stop being a whiny brat and get a job. WTF? What rock have you been living under? And to all the people complacent in their austerity - your life is unfair. You shouldn’t have to sweat and stress as hard or harder than another person and live in squalor (or if you’re lucky, relative comfort but one accident or sickness away from squalor), whilst they live in luxury of services, medical care, technologies, educations, experiences YOU WILL NEVER HAVE ACCESS TO. This isn’t about complaining or being whiny. This is about justice and fairness. This isn’t even about taxing. This is about the whole system. How much we pay our workers and charge for education. That would be the “trickle down” we should have seen from the bail-outs. Instead that money disappeared into the bonuses of bankers. 

Do people really not see the problem? Without education we won’t see the sorts of progresses we would like to see under capitalism. Because people WILL start to decide against education if, when they look around, they begin to see that education is a bad investment. 

THIS is the problem, on a totally mathematical, economic, logical level - not on a bleeding-heart liberal level. 

(via bethpratt)