Are Americans a Broken People?

[Bakustra]

Your point is well taken, and I was thinking along those lines during my earlier post. Someone who graduates with a Biochemistry Bachelors degree will have essentially no job prospects in that field (most public and private sector Biochem-related jobs require at least a Masters, preferably a Doctoral degree). So someone graduating with that degree and no further education has a "useless" degree.

More specifically, however, I am referring to the large numbers of college students graduating with Arts and Humanities (i.e., Liberal Arts) Degrees, with ridiculous debtloads (over $100k in some cases), who have no real job skills, and face the prospect of not being able to pay off their student loans any time soon. I know medical school loans can be insane, but at least a doctor or lawyer can pull down $100k, $200k, or more each year to (relatively) quickly pay off their $150K in student loans. A Philosophy major, on the other hand, is much less likely to be able to pay off their $150K in student loan debt, given that the jobs they're likely to be offered are either in education or some sort of menial office job, neither of which pays all that much.

EDIT - for what it's worth, I have no issue with someone receiving a Philosophy degree and paying or working their way through school. It's the people incurring ridiculous debt without any forethought and with no way of paying it off that irk me.

It's okay. I agree with you totally. I think that there are useless degrees, or rather, degrees with such a narrow range of usefulness they might as well be useless. For example, my school offers BAs in Physics and Chemistry. It's exactly what you would think: a pitiful shadow of a real degree. Similarly, I can't help but feel wary about interdisciplinary and other build-a-degree programs, because, although they are a good idea in theory, in practice, how can an employer tell what the degree provided in way of skills to the prospective employee? Engineering, primary education and business degrees, and language to a lesser extent, as far as I'm aware, are some of the few bachelor's that have a large market associated with them. Even then, there is the shadow of the MBA for business graduates. Even secondary education requires that you work towards a master's if you come in with a bachelors. There are jobs available for people with bachelor's degrees, mainly lab technicians and research assistants for Biochem as in your, but in many cases the market is small enough that a recession will mean that even average numbers of graduates will oversaturate the market. In cases like English, where there are many, many more students than in any given science specialization...

Looking at the College of Arts and Letters at my university, they contain the theater, art/art history, English, linguistics, languages, philosophy, religious studies, and the gen-ed writing departments. The usefulness of any of these is of course up to debate, but it is one of the smaller colleges in terms of departments and special programs.

I find it interesting that one of the preeminent philosophers at my university, Robert T. Pennock, himself received his BSc in the biological sciences. This has helped him, as he has published a number of works attacking creationism, but he was able to go from a biology degree to philosophy. In any case, it seems we primarily agree. As someone who is currently in college and trying to pay for it as much himself, I must say that I find the idea of people coasting through on debt irritating, not the least because they harm the ability of others to receive student loans (including myself, if necessary).

[JME2]

Simon,

Your analysis on the previous page echoes thoughts I've been having over the last couple of months.

I'm not bitterly disappointed with Obama's first year, but I'm not exactly satisfied. I supported him, but I was expecting more, and I've had to focus on other more pressing matters in the interim -- namely education and employment. Politically, I'm annoyed with the Democrats' spineless stance, I'm angry at the Republicans and nutters, and I'm absolutely furious with Wall Street and the other corporate fuckers who had a role in our current situation.

There's just an increasing sense in my mind that culturally, socially, economically, this country is falling apart for all the reasons you mentioned, that nothing will change, and we're all going down with it. No wonder so many Gen Y's are calling themselves "Generation Screwed".

[Simon_Jester]

Personally, I think there will be at least one more significant rebound before things really fall apart, and that the most likely outcome (assuming civilization as a whole survives) for the US is a "merely developed" status, not remarkable in any particular way, but not bad by global or historic standards.

The problem is that while the political system has largely collapsed, the effects of the collapse are only beginning to strike normal people hard enough to break them out of business as usual. The system was just as broken in 2005 or 2001; all that really changed was how many of the consequences have come home to roost.

[Big Orange]

There's just an increasing sense in my mind that culturally, socially, economically, this country is falling apart for all the reasons you mentioned, that nothing will change, and we're all going down with it. No wonder so many Gen Y's are calling themselves "Generation Screwed".

I tend to think the current crisis is more a young vs. old phenomena, rather than just the rich vs. poor, with the Babyboomers upwards making the crucial decisions that accumulated into a another Depression and the US going into comparative decline as a superpower. Also the current problems were years/decades in the making, so your average Joe getting by could not immediately know about their ill effects, he did not care about the gradual erosion of the economy when Mattel shipped yet another production line from some crappy Midwestern town to Taiwan/China. Here's a old(ish) and roughly hour long lecture given by Elizabeth Warren on the deflating US middle class:



One of her conclusions towards the end of the lecture is that there is strong US social stigma of being a economic failure and it shows how US corporations have severly warped the economic landscape (when wages are declining and eduction has a pricetag). And like today, it seems like US Big Business was always prone to treachery and subversion in America:

[Aasharu]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any kind of statistics on the number of Gen Y emigrants from the US to other countries? I imagine a lot of middle class Gen Yers are looking into ways to get jobs out of the country - I know I am. If it is a significant number, then that will only contribute to the deterioration of the US, but from a personal standpoint, if I have to choose between poverty and living in a more stable country, I'm choosing to move.

[Bellator]

Aasharu: which countries would that be? For me (West European emigrating to the US) it's the exact opposite. Things aren't exactly great in m any European countries either. Countries like Ireland, Spain, Greece are nearly bankrupt, Italy is trying it's utmost to stop being a functioning democracy. Countries like France (but many others as well) have serious problems dealing with the minorities living within their borders, and everywhere populist right wing parties are attracting votes based on a message of xenophobia. Unemployement in most EU countries remains high (and was in many countries already high prior to the economic meltdown). Taxes are high, and likely to get higher. A rapidly aging population means social security will be lowered (recent example: Holland is raising the age retirees will get a state pension from 65 to 67, and possibly beyond). Housing prices are still through the roof in Holland, despite the recent meltdown.

I realize that this is a hasty generalization of problems facing Europe, and it varies from country to country, but in my view the future there isn't looking all that bright there either. I for one am leaving just because of that. So where would you go? It's not like Japan or Russia are doing great either.

[Coyote]

Out of curiosity, does anyone have any kind of statistics on the number of Gen Y emigrants from the US to other countries? I imagine a lot of middle class Gen Yers are looking into ways to get jobs out of the country - I know I am. If it is a significant number, then that will only contribute to the deterioration of the US, but from a personal standpoint, if I have to choose between poverty and living in a more stable country, I'm choosing to move.

You're not the norm. You need to remember that the Americans here on this board are not typical of the mainstream working class Americans. For a variety of reasons, Americans generally do not leave America, except for short vacations where they typically surround themselves with faux-American transplant culture, ie, McDonalds, Sheraton, etc. If they foray into the "real culture" it is for brief periods and usually just to find a "quaint" place to eat that "looks safe".

Very few of us choose to live overseas for extended periods of time: pay rent, receive mail, get a tax liscence to work as a non-citizen and allow a flat tax rate to be deducted from all paychecks earned, and subject yourself to the demands of the local school or work week, learn the local road signs, and speak in a foreign language to obtain mundane things such as shopping for one's own groceries or clothes. When you subconsciously feel like eating "foreign food" and you choose Burger King as "foreign", you've take at least one of many big steps .

People are free to argue all the reasons why this is so: Americans are insular; Americans are afraid; Americans feel like they're "the best" and no one compares; Americans just don't feel a need to go overseas because we have everything we need right here; Americans feel that despite the troubles things are still better here, etc, etc, etc. For a variety of reasons, few of us go overseas to stay and even fewer go overseas to emigrate for good. They will typically stay here and watch the place melt down before rolling the dice on another country, even if that other country is "comperable", like in Europe.

[Bellator]

Ghetto edit: I'm not saying that Europe is a shitty place to live in, and that the US is better. In my view, there are serious problems anyhere and determining which country is a better place to live in depends on your own personal situation.