Show Me The Money: The Economically Smart Vote of a College Student in 2012

Fellow college students, I am pleased to announce you are part of the most important constituency in the  nation: the swing vote.  Yes, despite a prevailing general assumption since the 1960’s that college students are essay-writing Sandinistas willing to exchange their laptops for small arms in pursuit of a cultural revolution, today’s reality is one where we vote as a moderate, center-left bloc.  That is, those of us who do actually vote.  My point? With a race as tight as this, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama want your vote, badly.  And you shouldn’t just give it to either of them.  As citizens we have the resources, know-how, and right to understand what a Romney or Obama administration means for us, as Willamette Students, for the next four years. Below is my non-partisan, point-by-point analysis of the fiscal issues I believe most broadly affect us as students.You decide what policies would be most conducive to you realizing your post-graduate dreams.

The first, most immediate issue: Financial Aid.  The federal government controls Pell Grants and government subsidized loan rates, so that’s what we’ll discuss here.  The average college student has parents whose combined income fall into the jointly-filed middle-income tax bracket ($70,700- $142,700 a year).  This means that with a Willamette-style tuition, you almost assuredly require some form of financial assistance to stay in school, even more so if you have siblings. If your parents are in this bracket, it is unlikely that Pell Grants affect you, but it is still very possible given the Dept. of Education’s comprehensive formula.  Romney’s stated position is that he wants "refocus Pell Grant dollars on the students that need them most”- this is consistent with his running mates’ budget, which would lower the income level at which students qualify for an automatic maximum grant, and create a maximum income eligibility level.  He would also freeze the grants at $5,500.  Over one million less students would qualify (mostly from middle-class homes, the grants would continue to serve low-income groups).  When it comes to loans, Romney has pledged he would eliminate two Obama-era initiatives, an income-based repayment cap limiting payments to 10% of monthly income, and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which provides loan forgiveness after ten years for those who work for the public good (e.g. teachers, social workers, construction).  Romney’s plan seems to focus on the long-term, arguing that tuition is too high, and that pouring out aid now will only burden grads later when the interest rates of the associated federal deficit drive us all into higher taxes and a depressed economy, thus eliminating future job prospects.

It is safe to say that Obama strikes a sharp contrast; spurning the idea that we can sacrifice short-term growth for long-term fiscal responsibility, Obama would allow the Pell Grant maximum to increase for 2013, expand access to greater numbers of low and middle-income earners, and continue to support the two loan programs mentioned above in Congress.  He balances these increases with some reductions: whereas Stafford loans were once interest free while one was enrolled in school, they now have a 3.4% interest rate for Undergrads, and a 6.8% rate for post-grad education (You can still defer the rates until after you graduate, but the compound will be capitalized on your payments thereafter).  Obama has indicated that he wants Congress to keep those rates down.  

The second issue: Jobs for when we actually live in the real world.  This calls for a much larger debate than this column allows, but I’ll try to be fair and succinct. The same deficit hawk arguments that underpin the Romney/Ryan education funding policy speak to their opinion of jobs; money spent now on government jobs will only depress the economy later, when the interest rates on our debt force everyone to pay higher taxes and suppress private-sector job growth. Policy recommendation?  Cut government jobs drastically, particularly in places like the National Endowment for the Arts, NPR, and social services (Head Start funding, Planned Parenthood).  On the flipside, Romney would lower the corporate tax rate to a stated 25%, closing unnamed corporate tax loopholes, which would spur private-sector job growth by freeing up corporate cash to hire employees, making up for the losses in firing government workers.  Most corporations are already hoarding cash ($1.73 trillion according to the Fed, a 50% increase from 2007), so one wonders if giving them more would actually create jobs. Obama would also lower the corporate tax-rate to 28%, but has specified loopholes he would close in his most recent budget that would level out revenue losses from the 7% decrease from the status quo rate of 35%.  Again, whether or not this would create jobs is unclear, but the noticeable difference is that Obama wouldn’t gut the government jobs, so those would still be there.  

In sum, there is no one answer to which candidate will serve all of us college students better (speaking fiscally), but there are some clear revelations.  For example, if you come from a low-income background, the differences between the two candidates are not actually that wide; in fact, the Romney/Ryan ticket has made a clearer commitment to refocusing Pell Grants on your demographic (cropping the size of the program as a whole).  However, if you are in the middle-class, it is evident that the Obama administrations’ policies will keep doors ajar for you that will close under Romney.  There are larger factors in our ultimate decision; who supports your social causes?  Who is more likely to take America to war?  Who truly cares about the lower-class when it comes to social spending?   The answers to these broader questions about the future of our country have to matter, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be considering our immediate financial interests, especially in an economy as volatile as this.  Speaking strictly economically, I think the important questions for us are: How much do I need the governments’ help in paying for my education in the short-term, and which candidate will deliver it?  And, how much will the deficit affect my job prospects, and will either selection deliver me a certain answer?  

Don't Always Just Read Between the Lines... The Lines Are There Too

There is little room for argument- politics has become a game of money.  Today’s campaigns focus less on complex policy arguments and more on winning meme wars designed to produce calculated financial results.  Sound bites have replaced logic as the crux of a candidates righteousness, filling Americans with gross misunderstandings colored by a gray cloud of impenetrable reductionism.  This reductionism has more than harmed intelligent debate, it has replaced it as the weapon of choice for those who wish to lead.  It is never a good indicator of public awareness when those who wish to inspire and lead us also wish to distort our understanding of the polity. 

However, this doesn’t change the fact that despite the reductionism, two distinct party platforms are challenging each other to determine the fate of this country.  While their methods of communication are bilaterally weak, their ideas are no less different when put in the limelight.  But if you ask a lot of young people, you are met with a different breed of reductionism than consignment to partisan fallacy- you’re told that the two parties are ideologically congruent, so voting really won’t make a difference.  This almost upsets me more than if you were to tell me you were voting for Mitt Romney because the Democrats were trying to “steal your liberty”.  To say such a thing indicates not just a complete misunderstanding, but an apocalyptic apathy to our political system. 

It isn’t wrong to criticize parties on policy arenas that have largely become unified; the most common of these is military foreign policy, a topic wherein most Democrats and Republicans alike take an interventionist approach wherein the United States plays an increasingly dominant role in world politics.  It’s true that one of the greatest threats to the republic currently standing is the military industrial complex- the gagging economic crutch of the baby boomer generation aptly recognized by Dwight D. Eisenhower in the twilight of his presidency.  It’s true that because the production of weapons and war-time services are so vital to our GDP that members of both parties are afraid to suggest that a change might be in order.  But this is not the only issue, and the means to make effective reforms in what stabilizes our economy begins with empowering other sectors, whether our government chooses to do it for us or not. 

This brings me to my point; ultimate solvency for our most long term issues is brought only through comprehensive agendas that involve all areas of policy: education, healthcare, foreign policy, social policy, energy, and fiscal and monetary policy.  Let’s look at this grocery list, and see how much our two parties actually align, and where their differences are so stark as to create very different Americas.  I'm going to take them one at a time for the next few posts, starting here with education.

Education- The Differences

 The Democratic Party has supported public education since the Progressive Era (1890's- 1920's), and continues to advocate for propping up the Department of Education.  When they are able to pass a budget through both houses, it usually includes large earmarks for school funding, increased hiring of teachers, and funds to stimulate non-profit growth that has been shown to provide dramatic reductions in the achievement gap (Head Start, Mentorship programs, etc).  The Dems also abhor religion in schools, asserting that such instruction is unconstitutional (the Supreme Court has generally supported this view with regard to schools).  Instead, they support the teaching of evolution and theories based off of the scientific method rather than mythical doctrine; it is this distinction that has led to the Supreme Court’s support of teaching evolution in schools 

The Republican Party believes the Department of Education, as well as its dramatic expansion under the Great Society measures of the Kennedy-Johnson era, has been a complete failure.  They point to our low literacy rates, flawed institutions, fiscal waste, and their favorite, bad teachers.  They think free market solutions such as school vouchers will allow a process of elimination that supports only the best-of-breed faculties, offered primarily from private or religious institutions.  Every budget Paul Ryan proposes includes massive slashes to public education.  They think religious instruction and prayer in public schools is a demonstration of our First Amendment rights, except when that prayer is Muslim.  They believe creationism should be taught in schools, because it is, like the big bang, “another theory out there”.  Yeah, except, you know, it isn’t.

The overlap: the only real agreement between the parties is that the status quo is failing.  The Democrats are a little more optimistic about the role of public education, and think its failings are mostly attributed to financial neglect.   Both support “education reform”, but this term has become so overused and meaningless that the past few generations of teachers discard it completely.  Curriculum reform recommendations and attempts to alter pedagogy are met with the apathy of eyes that have seen this pendulum swing back and forth, left and right, every several years.  With regard to education, we can see that the two parties have pretty different views. 

Next week- Healthcare.   Don't oversimplify. -The Polemic

The Flaws of Appreciating a Flawed Character

  Presently, most of what I read is non-fiction. But in my early youth; and when I get a chance now, science fiction has been my genre of choice. Because of this, I am in a constant argument with my best friend about the value of a science fiction character, as opposed to the value of a serious, realistic character. (Think Star Trek vs. No country for Old Men. This argument applies to all types of storytelling.)

 

    Great works of literature always boast "complex" characters. Macbeth; Heathcliff; Dorian Gray. These characters are multidimensional, because they are not just paragons of justice and morality. These characters reflect real people's weaknesses, where "heroes" like superman or Indiana Jones do not. Superman and Indiana jones are perfect, they will never let you down, they will never lose. We know this from the very beginning of the story. They are always likable, and they can always outwit the competition. They are unrealistic because, supposedly, everything under our sun (contrary to the son of Krypton) will let you down. And stories with "realistic" characters are here to caution us against trust, against idolatry, and against hope. Because those are the realm of fairy tales.

 

    May I be the first to say fuck that. America used to be a country of heroes. We had Babe Ruth and Neil Armstrong. Our president may or may not have slept with Marilyn Monroe. We were the military demigods of the world. "The Americans are coming" meant an unstoppable force. We had nobel laureates and we had Olympians. We had heroes. Elvis. The Beatles. These were more than people--they were a personification of hope. These did not let you down. ( I don't mean to make this centered on America, and before a war starts, yes I know The Beatles were British, but they were heroes to American youth as well.)
    Now we break down our celebrities. Television Shows constantly cover rehabs and moral failings and drug addled deaths. I'm not naive enough to think heroes of the past century didn't have dark secrets--they most certainly did--but our culture didn't drag their successes over the coals of their failures. When Jimi Hendrix died, nobody laughed. Nobody made entire bodies of online comedy devoted to his "predictable descent." 

 

    Here’s my problem in a nutshell: having the flaws of our stars and “heroes” being exposed and examined has stopped being a matter of disgust and started to be a matter of acceptance. We expect every new, wonderful, person to have some fatal vice, so when it comes out that they killed their mother/molested the neighbor’s child/stolen millions of dollars from taxpayers/have done more cocaine than can be reasonable concealed on an aircraft carrier, it's not a “scandal” anymore. It is as if these things are okay because we do not expect a perfect being anymore. These things are not ok. I don’t want my heroes to be jackasses in real life. I don’t want to find out that Clark Kent beat Lois Lane. Celebrities, like it or not, are the de facto social leaders of our culture and when they are allowed to be torn down, our culture goes with it. 

 

Here’s the hard part: people are not going to stop doing horrible things in real life, and we can’t really let someone off the hook just because they are a good role model, because if they have committed an atrocity, they have kind of forfeit their legitimacy in sculpting our culture. This is not a problem in fiction however. This is why super heroes had such a powerful ethos during their prime. This is why the same tropes are still appealing to my generation today (The Marvel Motion Picture Universe). 
There is great value in knowing the weakness that mankind has within them. East of Eden, Of Mice And Men, Heart of Darkness are all extremely important books in the body of human thought because they show us the potentials for evil within ourselves. (Yes, two of those were by Steinbeck. He is my favorite author. If you haven’t read Cannery Row, it will fix all the problems in your life. Seriously.) But I do not want to live in a world where thousands of innocents are wrongfully incarcerated every year. I want to live in a world where someone like Michael Westen will help you solve the problems that are tearing you down. I want to live in a world where everyone is beautiful and witty and the biggest problems in your life can be solved by the end of a fifty minute spot, or at least by the end of the season. I want to live in a world where people always make the right moral choice. 

Yes, sometimes that’s a grey area, but nine times out of ten it’s extremely clear cut and most “grey areas” are results of the wrong moral choice some time ago. If we start living our lives more like The Avengers and less like Game of Thrones, we’ll end up living in a more healthy, more friendly society. We crave stories that are “dark” and “gritty” and “real” because those are more consistent with our expectations of the real “cold, harsh, unforgiving world.” This is all true. The world for the vast majority of people is cold, harsh and unforgiving, but has it occurred to us that such circumstances are at least subjectively horrible and that instead of seeking out a reflection of the injustice that does exist in real life, we should seek to alter our reality to instead reflect the golden age as materialized by our fantasy?

    Tell me how I am a shallow book-burner in the comments below!

The Other Case for Sports

I'd like to prime this post by saying that I have never excelled as an athlete- I played sports as a boy, less as a teenager, and play slightly more now.  I've always enjoyed it, but have never been by any account a truly competitive athlete.  I was lucky enough to grow up as an artist in a thriving community of artists; a place where my particular skills, while not physical, were appreciated.  I was regarded as normal for being a writer and not a football player, encouraged to pursue what I was good at rather than  create myself in a more common image.  But I never lost respect for athletes, or spited them for their skill- in fact I harbor deep admiration for people who dedicate their lives to doing something they love, whatever it may be.
It has, however, been a process understanding the role that professional sports play in our lives as human beings, and uniquely, as Americans.  Our national appreciation is unique only in that we were the first to elevate our athletes to the temporary divinity they enjoy- but that distinction is a marked one. To take a more holistic and long-term view of sports is more instructive, at least to me, in understanding why they are truly so important to us.  We frequently get lost in the Yahoo! blips about LeBron and the Miami Heat's Grey Goose filled chalice sipping bar tabs of $200,000, and the itemization and free-market structure of nationalized professional sports.  Many sports have come to be understood as a series of prominent stalwarts paving the way for future athletes to excel- a cinematic narrative of home runs, slam dunks, touchdowns, and the heroic personalities that score them.

But that's not the way I appreciate the game, and many of my friends who are athletes have expressed similar sentiments.
No, I think many athletes and fans alike take a more sociological appreciation to the game; and since the dreamy cataclysm that was the 2010 Giants World Series Win, a breath of friendly clarity has renewed in San Franciscans that appreciation.  As with a globalizing world, our teams have become less and less associated with the localities they are from; it was only on the dangling precipice of luck that the 2010 Giants roster flung together an amalgamation of athletes uncannily glued to the ideals of the city they would play for, and an even thinner strand of possibility that put us back on the map.  Like San Francisco, the Giants are quirky, unconventional, and decidedly confident.
2010 made me remember how a sports team can truly unite a community- putting to use not the personal faculties of the individual players, but the common stock of dedication of a group of people to bring happiness and joy to their fans.  Sports have done this for communities in the past, and still do, and it is through this lens that I admire these men and women.

 

It is through this lens that I watched the Eurocup Finals today, as Spain and Italy toiled for the most prestigious honor in the world of European sport, two nations that have, in the span of the Euro crisis, lost much of the stability that once underpinned their gloriously vivacious cultures.  Bearing through the hard times, their Futbol clubs acted again as chivalrous vicars on the grand stage- an economically beleaguered Spain pinning a 4-0 win on the green, undoubtedly producing an evening that, as I blog, is being soaked in pride and blood-red Sangria.  Now being hailed by sports columnists as potentially the greatest soccer team ever, I hope that the likes of Vicente Del Bosque and Xavi Hernandez carry the Spanish people through these difficult times, and that the Italians can stomach the results with graceful candor and similar patriotism.

As we head into the Olympics this July, four years deep into a global recession that has sunk the hopes of millions of fellow humans, let's think about these Olympians not as celebrity deities, but champions of humanity, esquires showcasing the determination and enduring spirit of our species.

Rebranding the Friend Zone: Turning Familiarity Into Power

We’ve seen it all before a thousand times. Many of us have been there, probably more than a few times. The boards on 4chan are full of people asking for advice on how to break the cycle. The story goes like this: Really nice guy meets a girl, they become really close friends. Either he has been into her from the beginning, or he realizes later on that he’s really into her. (This happens in both directions with any combination of girls and guys; Im just writing the male-hetero version because it is what I am familiar with personally.) The girl goes through other guys like a lawnmower, each one having some major flaw and inevitably acting like a douche-canoe. Of course the guy “friend” is with her through all this. Listening to the complaints, giving lots of hugs, and in some extreme cases even defending the errant boyfriend. All the while the guy won’t have any real relationships, in fact he won’t do much with the other gender at all because has eyes for nobody else but his “friend.” If he does hook up with someone or even start a relationship, it will slowly deteriorate because he has so much more fun with the other girl and doesn't see the point; he returns to waiting.

Often the situation will come to a head when the girl says something stupid, like “I wish I could just date you. . .” Or the guy just can’t take it any more and admits his feelings only to have the girl say no because she doesn’t want to “ruin our friendship.” If no new actions are taken, the cycle will continue until there is neither friendship nor romance. A true waste of emotion and yet it continues to occur every single day. In this post, I am going to discuss how to break out of the friend zone successfully, and why this is often where the best relationships come from.
First of all, I don’t want to give false hope. This article is not a guide on how to seduce that new friend you met three months ago and have gotten “so” close with. This is for the hard-core friends, who hang out on friday nights and eat pizza alone together or have keys to each other’s rooms/houses. These are the friends that people see in the street and assume are couples. These are people who enjoy the company of each other clothed more than they enjoy the company of others naked. These are the lifers who need to stop living in disappointment because everyone who sees them thinks “Man, I wish I had a relationship like that.”

 

Now let’s discuss the objections of the oblivious party. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” This is an interesting litmus test, actually, if you are persistent and this is the only objection you receive, it is quite likely that this is the only “objectionable” part of the idea. This is a good sign, if the other person doesn’t find you attractive/only liked buff Germans/doesn’t know who you are and keeps spraying you with mace, it will become clear, and the prospect of a relationship is unlikely. In the situation described by the previous paragraph, however, this objection simultaneously sounds reasonable and  makes no sense under further examination. Usually by the time the receiving party has realized this, the subject has been changed. It makes sense because ruining the friendship is an objectively horrible thing. This is the person you have the most fun with, remember? Losing that connection would be unthinkable. But then, further examination inevitably unearths the next question:
“WTF? How would us spending more time together, and being romantically involved, and being able to express our feelings honestly, and intertwining our lives further, ruin our friendship?”
The short answer is that it really shouldn’t. The confusing answer is that it often does, and the reason for all of that confusion is expectations. (This is the vocab word that allows me to post this seemingly irrelevant article on our blog.) The best couples are best friends, either because they always have been, or through their courtship they became that way. (totally baseless claim warning, that commenter who was very concerned with the comings and goings through my ass will enjoy this one:) I have noticed that many couples who are happiest claim to treat each other the same in public and in private. That is to say one does not ignore the other when friends are around. Physical affection is not abhorred in public (though hopefully not too extreme, either, for the rest of us.) Friends do this naturally. They have no need to treat someone differently in different situations. BUT, when we join in a formal relationship, we get confused and we start thinking we have to buy flowers, we start thinking about what our friends will think, our parents, our pets, that tile on the kitchen floor you have always suspected disapproved of you. We freak out and try to act like boyfriend/girlfriends. This can cause awkwardness in the transition and leads many of these relationships to fail. The resistant party is really afraid of that failure, because that failure means the loss of the friendship. At this point, a choice has to be made, live forever in the friend zone or take a risk on something perfect--and make no mistake, it is a risk. The hardest part is going to be convincing the other person that the risk is worth it.
That’s where this article really starts. I believe that relationships that start as friends, especially longtime friends, have a much better chance at success than other relationships. The reasons are pretty simple. You already know you like the person, and you already know what you don’t like about the person. As a bonus you probably already know almost everything about them and they probably know almost everything about you. When you date a person you barely know, you live in constant fear of their “skeletons.” If you date a friend, you already know them. Now, an argument can be made here that half the fun of a relationship is getting to know someone, and this is absolutely true, but I also believe that misunderstandings/miscommunications/straight-up incompatibilities that occur in that stage of a relationship can stunt growth and result in a premature ending (pun intended).

So here’s what you need to do. Once you are sure that you want to take the risk, you must make a bold move. You must be “Alpha” as they say on 4chan. (remember again this position can be taken by a person of any gender) If possible, this should be done when the other person is single, but it can be successful otherwise as well. A little bit of creativity is necessary here. It is probably a bit too much to breach the subject and perform a grand gesture all in one fell swoop. And on the other hand if you leave too long between the actions she will have time to start worrying. For the best results, hint at the prospect of a relationship between you, even as a joke. Bring the idea to her mind, let it germinate, let her come to the only wall there is: “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” Now break that wall down. Play to your advantage here. You know her, you know what she likes, you know what she likes about guys, you know what she likes about you. If she’s a surfer, think romantic sunset paddle. If she’s a cinephile think that one-screen movie house that plays cute old rom-coms. If she’s a bookworm, think some imaginative game in the library where you first met. Oftentimes the cheesier the better--If you can commit to it fully. You have to take yourself seriously. Watch Dress up nice, be on your game, make her laugh, blow her mind. Make her take that risk. Make her know that you care, even humiliate yourself a bit because you don’t care as long as she thinks its cool. Try this on for inspiration (but remember it helps to be Heath Ledger):

Then at the end of it all, just tell her straight out what you want, how you feel, how you think she feels. If you have gotten this point it’s all up to her now. If it was meant to be, she will know it too.

If she says yes then all you have to do it deal with the shockwaves. A lot of stuff goes down when two friends go out. Mainly other friends get freaked out. Thats normal. Just hang out with them like you normally would. Make them know that no one is going to get left behind. COMMUNICATE. DO NOT AVOID QUESTIONS. ANSWER HONESTLY. GET YOUR STORY STRAIGHT WITH YOUR PARTNER. 100% of the problems we worry about when friends date can be solved if you share your feelings. You can handle it, you’re already the best of friends.

Occupy Your Life: Living Politically

People have criticized the Occupy Wall Street movement for lacking a central message, if one at all.  Further, people have criticized their repertoire for being ineffective, divisive, and lacking the discipline or leadership to quell violent fringe groups.  I split with most of this criticism;  part of the OWS strength has been it's ability to encompass a vast array of issues that all, in some part, relate to wealth concentration and its corruptive influence.  Also, if a movement is able to mobilize participants across the nation, activating powerful organizing networks while retaining a direct democratic structure- that is, one that has no leaders or representatives, but speaks only through a sovereign voice- I believe this success overshadows any violent fringe groups that successfully lured a media bent on sensationalizing protest.  But as with any social movement, it does require growth; particularly with regard to what, in the sociological realm, is referred to as repertoire.  It is clear that, at this point in time, endless demonstrations will result in little impact.  I do believe that there are some effective social, political, and economic measures that could, theoretically, be executed by participants that might deliver the results.  Some are more arcane, others are obvious, but in concert my proposed measures would deliver a message that could not be obfuscated or ignored by both corporate and political leaders.  This is not an article in defense of OWS, nor a position paper on corporate America and Washington.  It is simply a playbook for effective communication, one that I do hope will take wind.

1) We have to start understanding our dualistic role as citizens of a democracy, and consumers in a capitalist society dominated by undemocratic financial institutions.  While we don't control the institutions themselves, we do, in fact control the capital that empowers them.  What does living this dualistic role mean in terms of realizing OWS goals?

-It means being an aggressive, political consumer.  Exercise what democratic pull you do have in the corporate world by organizing people not just under political views, but corporate ones.  You are not just "Progressives", you are Anti- Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs shareholders in the GDP of America.  If you have an account with one of these banks, or a subsidiary of one of these banks, close it and move your money elsewhere.  Request information from banks on where they ground their investments- Is it in firms that support the military industrial complex? Firms that use Washington lobbyists to forward their agendas?  This is public information.  Find it.  Use it.  The sooner these firms lack the capital to continue covering up their incompetencies, the faster they will be shunned by by more consumers and politicians.

- Buy American Products and encourage Product industry.  That is, firms that produce physical objects that are useful in our daily lives, not financial firms that produce hot air and money from thin air.  Don't buy products from firms that engage with these banks, or use lobbyists to influence congress.  Buy secondhand, or from firms you know are good.  You have to be vigilant; the liberal branding of a company culture has no bearing on it's practices.  How do we know this?  Look at some of the most "lib eral" "counterculture" brands many people rely on. Urban Outfitters, for example, is owned by an extraordinarily conservative superdonor who bankrolled Rick Santorums' presidential run.   Apple, a company traditionally revered by liberals for it's break from the corporate monotony of Microsoft, and held in esteem by many for completely unsubstantiated claims about corporate responsibility, contracts to Chinese companies that dangerously exploit their workers.

-Pay only the premium value back on loans to private lending institutions, perhaps adding for inflation.  You read that and said, "That's ridiculous, it's dishonest, it's unfair, irresponsible, impossible, and has serious consequences, such as a dent in your credit score".  Well, maybe, to the last one, but this is only an employable tactic if EVERYONE DOES IT.  No one can jail you for not paying back the interest on your loan.  (Well, as long as you stay on your shit http://finance.yahoo.com/news/jailed-for--280--the-return-of-debtors--prisons.html) As to the other charges of irresponsibility, dishonesty, unfairness- if these words ran through your head for but a fleeting second, take a moment to reflect on the 2008 financial crisis.  If the greedy, irresponsible, unfair, dishonest and bloody incompetent maneuvers by the financial industry don't rock your moral calculators towards supporting this idea, then you weren't paying attention.   Liberals- these scumbags defrauded the American people and lobbied their way into buying your Congress.  Conservatives- your tax dollars bailed them out when they failed.  Explain to me why whatever profit they may reap from loaning you money doesn't already belong to you?  Until these banks issue a check to every American in an amount proportionately equal to the tax money they contributed to saving their asses, I'm pretty sure they owe us.

2) Educate Yourself and become involved in local politics
-So OWS criticizes elite institutions of education, as well as Washington D.C.  Yale, Harvard, Columbia, and Dartmouth don't covet some special knowledge that cannot be accessed through a community college, so let's empower counter-institutions by attending them.  The more attendees your local junior college gets, the more state money it will qualify for. The more you attend alternate four year institutions, the more esteemed they become.  I'm a student at Willamette University- Willamette is well-regarded in the Pacific Northwest, with an increasing following here in the Bay Area.  It is nationally attended but not nationally acclaimed- yet.  Am I ashamed that it is only ranked #57 on the "Nation's Best Liberal Arts Colleges" by US News and World Report?  Absolutely not.  One, because I know it's becoming more well known, more respected, and actually growing to be a better institution.  Two, because that singular ranking system means about as much as the opinions of a fifth grader. Check out that hyperlink to Malcolm Gladwell's piece published in the New Yorker on how that ranking system is organized.  It just reinforces the institutional bias that lies at the heart of what OWS opposes.
  Also, read books that allow you to be a more persuasive authority on topics of interest.  Check out Robert Reich, Kalle Lasn, and Michael Lewis.  The more you know, the more valuable you are to your cause.  Many important OWS media bite opportunities have been debunked by the ignorance of the unwitting individual selected to be the poster boy.

Think this:

Not this:


-Local politics- Just as elite academic institutions have little more real educational value than colleges "ranked" far beneath them, you'd be surprised what your local district supervisor, state senator, or mayor can do to improve your world.  Often, this level of government has a more visible impact on our daily lives, and it's more accessible than the entrenched systems of Washington, and subject to less special interest manipulation.  Get in touch with these people, or become involved yourself.  The more active and effective local governments are, the more responsibilities and assets are endowed in them.  Remember "think globally, act locally"?

Were these suggestions to be implemented, a real possibility for swift, systemic change exists.  If we begin by executing a run on every major publicly traded bank, but are sure to instantly reinvest those assets in community credit unions, the economy will not cave in on itself.  Rather, it will undergo a reformation that relegates the distribution of capital to regional microcosms of what they once where.  This creates oversight and accountability, allowing the sort of bottom up financial disasters such as the Great Depression and Recession to be cut off at their genesis.  Essentially, this would be citizens forcing banks to abide by a federal law that already once existed- the McFadden Act of 1927 prohibited banks from branching out beyond the state they initially operated in.  This kept a reasonable measure to the pipeline between investor and borrower, one that could not be obfuscated by national bureaucratic design.  Could you imagine a mortgage broker pushing a Ninja (No Income, No Job, No Assets) loan when his supervisor regularly reports to a state financial supervisor?  Further, that risky loan could never be shrouded in the secrecy of a derivative bundle-up and then traded as a hot commodity on national markets.  Risky financial behavior would be monitored, and failures would affect the involved parties alone, rather than internally shredding the organs of our financial system.

By consciously supporting product industry, that is, ethical firms that produce physical products and not financial mechanisms, we will help companies that will actually create jobs.  Financial firms simply concentrate jobs on the administrative end of the economy- these jobs are important, but they should only exist to the extent they need to.  Right now, our economy is flooded with financial advisors that should actually be in management positions of firms that are developing useful products for the future and employing Americans.  We can make that choice, if we do the research.  By not allowing your capital to fall into the black hole of finance, you throw your weight behind meaningful economic growth.   That is to say, you will shun financial mechanisms that enable frenzied recirculation of capital to grow GDP in a nominal fashion, and support firms that grow real GDP permanently by employing people and selling useful stuff.  This is the only legitimate way to lower the unemployment rate.

This is a Tesla Roadster, a fully electric, American-made, American-badass sports car.  Unfortunately one of these bad boys (with middle-of the road upgrades) weighs in at $84,000  in American markets.  This would be different if Tesla Motors was supported by serious financial backers and high consumer demand.  This is the sort of product we could be mass producing if we shifted our emphasis from finance, to ethical products.  

  

By not paying back the interest on our loans, we would send a message to large lenders that we are not willing to accommodate large, floating interest rates, at least until our money is returned from bailing them
out.  The result would not be some cataclysmic default- all of the principal investment would be returned, and the capital would continue to flow- investor salaries will drop.... I see no negative repercussions.  Again, the lack of income to financial firms would cut the margin for jobs in the financial sector and redirect our young professionals into jobs that actually matter.

If people began to attend and financially support junior colleges en masse, we would see a reconstruction of the way hiring works.  Well-attended, well-respected, and well-run community colleges would provide valuable degrees to people seeking employment.  This has two resounding impacts: 1) On of our main employment issues is that of under education- an abundance of jobs requiring technical expertise in the medical, agricultural, mechanical, and IT industries exist, but there is a lack of people with those skills connecting to these employers.  Community colleges provide these skills.  2) It lessens the demand for four year institutions, forcing them to drop this aggressive campaign of tuition hikes in response.  The average student debt is now $20,000, a result of the overbearing average annual tuition: $32,475.

Lastly, involving yourself with local politics enables one of my favorite conservative principles: devolution.  This is not to say that the federal government doesn't have an important role in our lives, but there is a lot more that could be done with well-funded local governments.   By becoming involved in district, city, and state politics, we make these governments more accountable and thus, more effective.  By proving to the federal government that local public works projects can do far more than poorly managed national ones, we can usher in reinvestment in communities and away from foreign wars of occupation.  The Obama administration has begun a promising trend of entirely avoiding wars of occupation, ending the decade long engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, and transforming military policy into a streamlined unit focused on small tactical strikes.  If he could only complement the reduction in defense spending with a termination of the Bush Tax Cuts, we'd be fully back in business.  Let's make our local governments so efficient that when that day comes, and our richest citizens are forced to contribute their fair share, we see encouraging dividends of return in our public schools, libraries, parks, and museums.  Instead of waiting for top down change, let's start living in the future- everyone else will catch up.

I hope that these ideas are received by those active in OWS and similar movements.  I hope we can reinvent these social mobilizations as lasting social institutions that promote and guise immersive political lifestyles-  you don't need to wait for a Democratic House of Representatives to start demanding reform.  You can live reform.

There's No Government Like No Government (The Blogging of the Revolution Part 1)

Since my inbox did not exactly overflow with suggestions on how to begin the discussion of the brave new world, I will endeavor to start the wellspring myself by offering the most simple extreme: No government at all.

(Obviously, this image belongs to bethesda)

This is often inaccurately referred to as Anarchy, but it is subtly different, as any reader of V for Vendetta will tell you. Often in the U.S. anarchy implies lawlessness, violence and chaos. The original meaning of the word, and the way it is meant by most people who identify as anarchists, is a non-govermental system of volunteers who take up all the matters usually run by the state. There would still be fire stations and hospitals; but it does rely a great deal on human generosity and responsibility--coffers that are known to be quite paltry at times. But anarchy is an old idea. Let’s discuss the implications of having no government at all. No hierarchy, no government services, no nothing. Tomorrow, every governing body in the world, from the International Monetary Fund, to the People’s Republic of China, to The Coca-Cola executive board to the Santa Fe Park and Recreation office, all close up shop.  

The major difference you will realize right away is that your money is worthless. In the United States, and in most countries, our currency is Fiat money.

(Not that kind of Fiat)

Fiat means “by decree.” Money is only valuable because the government backs it up. As soon as the government is gone, money is just paper and nostalgia. From here a couple things can happen. People can go to precious metals--which also inherently have no values and will keep the rich at the top, or people will return to trading. The latter will happen in either case, actually, because there are not enough precious metals to go around and without a government the mining of precious metals will at least become thousands of times less efficient (think gold rush standards) or cease entirely. All industries will come to a standstill because laborers are not being paid anything meaningful anymore. Proprietors and paymasters would have to find an alternative store of value--and fast-- or let their organizations dissolve. Most will dissolve. The only networks with a fighting chance to stay active are volunteer networks; and many of those support causes and actions will be rendered irrelevant by the disbandment of government.

So you’ve made it through the first night. Eaten all the microwavable stuff in your freezer while the power is still on. Maybe you got lucky and survived the looting crowd of your local grocery with a couple boxes of cereal to show for it. Good for you. Now what? You need food. No economy means you need to either make your own or find something valuable that you can do in exchange for it. Many, many, many people will starve. Without a government to care, this is an unavoidable outcome. Agribusiness will dissolve too: it's no use for a group of a couple people to own thousands and thousands of acres of a single crop. If they’re smart they will set up some sort of sharecropping arrangement where they let people use their land for a cut of the food produced. Of course, ownership is a bit iffy after a governmental collapse, so they would need some muscle to enforce the arrangement--no small feat for a couple of acres, let alone 25,000. The best position to be in would be to have a small, self-sustained farm that is remote enough that people won’t care to take it over and successful enough to live off of its crops. These people will become the aristocracy of the new world once the masses are finished dying off.

As for the rest? Well not much else exists anymore. Anyone with a service job will be pretty much irrelevant and move into any sector they can (hint: probably agriculture). Little compounds of society will erupt and in those places some specialization will take place. Eventually society and economy will evolve again. Perhaps the same way it did before, perhaps completely differently. Millions of people will die. Probably billions. General health will be supremely diminished and average lifespan will plummet.

This is a possible route to the future, but I personally don't think it is the best. Lets keep brainstorming.

What did I miss? Post your conjectures in the comment below.

The Revolution Will Be Blogged About

This is something of an angry post, because my opus (a 5,000 worder on what it would take to start a bar) was lost by the blogger interface. Like most things I am mad about, it was totally preventable and my fault for not using google docs and hibernating my computer for a week which makes it all the more frustrating. But I bet you are wondering what this has to do with revolution. Well, the answer is very little, that is what the next paragraph is for.

We live in startling times. People in northern africa and the middle east are dying in droves for a fairer government, people in China are fighting long legal battles for the freedom of their information technology, people in some smaller countries are struggling just to save up enough money to buy the goat that will be their livelihood for the next ten years. There are peoples in the deep amazonian rainforest who know nothing of the hyperconnected world around them but for the glass eye of an unmanned drone. There are peoples in a house nearby who have neglected their corporeal form to live out their existence in World of Warcraft or Second Life. We have drugs that make you sleep, drugs that make you dream, drugs that make jump, drugs that make you want to rub a carpet for hours, drugs that make you kill, drugs that make you ride a bicycle off into the sunset without a care for your previous life. Whole cultures rise and fall in matters of years.

There is so much good in the world. Science has found so many answers and smart innovative people have more power than ever, especially through the mouthpiece of the internet. If every good idea could be brought to pass, most known diseases would be under heavy attack and the average household would be converted into a zero-emissions bastion of convenience, health and design. Cities would be lit by bioluminescent trees and hovercars would be powered by algae tanks. Everyone’s eyes would be bright and everyone’s bed would be warm at night.

So why not? What has gone wrong? Why, in an age of exploding talent and education and assets, are we still quagmired in politics and finance and even genocide? The answer is that we are badly organized.

Our resources are inadequately allocated. Pure math can show this. There are 12 million square miles of arable land (farmable land) in the world. That is 7.68 billion acres. (640 acres to a square mile). That means there is more than an acre of farmland in the world for every man woman and child alive. Given advanced farming techniques, even sustainable farming techniques, that is more than enough to keep a person well fed. So why is there starvation? Some say greed. People in richer countries eat more because they can. True, but an an acre and a half of land for one person is actually huge and will give more calories per day than a person needs. No rich person sits in their dining room, eating a frisee salad and thinking “Hmmm. . .I really must make sure 1,000 children starve next week. Waiter! bring me ten more courses!”

This has always been a problem, it’s why capitalism exists, it’s why communism was so popular, it’s why socialism seems to be making a name for itself. But none of these ideas are perfect. communism has the “real world” problem and doesn’t account for its inherent bureaucracy. Socialism leads to weaker incentives and hasn’t been shown to work with a heterogeneous population. Capitalism leads to unbelievably income disparity and a despotic oligarchy of corporations. I’m not complaining about the existence of these systems, they have brought us where we are today. But why haven’t we had an original idea about government for 50 years? Where is the grassroots movement to overhaul the way things are done on this planet?

Let’s brainstorm, people. Post original ideas. Its not like we are going to immediately enact a  government system just because it was posted on this blog. I don’t care if your idea says that the value of our currency fluctuates with the phases of the moon. Anything new is worth checking out, insights can be gained from the most outlandish of ideas. I myself will attempt to come up with as many new systems as I can, and I’ll re-examine some of the old ones too. Karl Marx didn't wake up one morning with the idea for communism. Lets see if we can’t get the powers of the internet to work on something big.

The Privatization of Public Security and Our Liberty

It is commonly understood that the intellectual berth of our Constitution was the Enlightenment period of Western Europe.  The lofty concepts of liberty, individualism, and humanism were woven throughout the document, most notably, perhaps, in the Preamble.  The prescript reads "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America".  It is for these limited reasons that we establish our government, yet since these words were written, America's statesmen have engaged in a constant battle over their meaning and implementation.  What is shared multilaterally, however, is the understanding that we, as citizens, give deference to the state for these purposes alone, whatever they may mean.

(Not My Image)

  I am of the opinion that we have, as a nation, followed a continuing arc of progress towards achieving these ends in an equitable and realistic fashion.  We have erred tragically, and torn our nation to pieces correcting for these mistakes.  And finally, now, after a civil war and generations of civic rights struggles, I believe we are at an impasse.  Technically speaking, all Americans are equal in the eyes of the law.  Our government aims to serve justice blind, and in many cases is able to do so.  But it is not dissent or misinterpretation within our government that now inhibits these ends, but rather the enigmatic, distanced, and unaccountable creature of privatization.  Corporations are not evil- they generally serve a common good, provide jobs, products, and wealth.  But just as government is resigned to the limited roles written in the preamble, the private sector is meant for these purposes, and these purposes alone.  While we are a nation of free enterprise, we are not to be a government of free enterprise.  Government is constant;  it cannot be subject to any market force beyond the fluctuating opinion of the populace that elects it- yet today corporations have begun to assume some of the most basic duties we have assigned to our government.  
  Our government has pawned off some of our security and justice systems to the highest corporate bidder,  and we have had no say in the matter.  While we expect the military to be the sole provider for the common defense, an organization mobilized by Congress and congress alone, we now have private military contractors that have absolved these responsibilities.  We pay multimillion dollar defense contractors such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater), United Defense, and Lockheed Martin to provide for our security, and simultaneously take a blind eye to how they carry out their enlistment.  Unlike our military, private contractors operate outside the Uniform Code of Conduct.  This means that these soldiers are little more than mercenaries, operating under a United States banner but without the nations direct consent or oversight.

(Not My Image)

  But the problem sinks further.  Not only has our government privatized our vessel of international security, but it has hijacked our domestic systems as well.  Charles Blow writes a great article for the NYTimes documenting the situation with private prisons in Louisiana, wherein 1 in every 86 residents is incarcerated, 2/3 of which are non violent offenders.  Many of these inmates are incarcerated in private prisons pioneered by rural entrepreneurial sheriffs that caught the market niche early- if that wasn't enough of a conflict of interest, one can looker deeper to the profit structure of private prisons.  Such prisons must remain full to make a profit, thus the Sheriff's association has bolstered a continuous lobby for stiff sentencing for non-violent offenders.  In the short-term the local contract prisons offer a lower pricetag for the state's incarceration efforts than if the state were to imprison the offenders itself, but the hook is that the private prisons provide a less rehabilitative experience than the state prisons, so half of the offenders end up back behind bars within five years.  This keeps the market for human commodities hot, perpetuating full private prisons and increased profits for their investors, yet the state still pays the same or more because it amasses more and more inmates.  If this weren't bad enough, let me tell you about my experience with immigrant detention centers in Illinois.

(Not My Image)

  This spring break I went with a group to do volunteer work in Chicago.  We met with different immigrant rights groups, attended an immigrant court, and helped in whatever ways we could.  The centerpiece political item for the groups we met with was a new immigrant detention center just outside the city in the suburb of Crete.  In the discussion about the detention center, I learned about the injustices that riddle the judicial pipeline of detained immigrants- it begins like this.  First off, anyone can be pulled over and detained by a police officer for an indefinite amount of time if their citizenship is suspect- once detained, they can be shipped to a detention center anywhere in tri-state area to await a "trial".  The waiting period can be up to eight months, at which point they enter a trial without any state-appointed representation.  Generally, suspects never see an actual courtroom; they're video-streamed into one on a big monitor and stand trial before a state adjudicator, a translator, and a lawyer acting for the state.  At this point, their citizenship status is determined- they are either deported on the state's dime, with no opportunity to see their in-state relatives and a federal injection barring them from entering the country for ten years, or they can opt-for self-deporation, pay their own way back to their home country, and may return after a number of years set by the adjudicator.   Either way, it sucks.

I took these outside a detention center just outside Chicago

The Front of the Detention Center

  What's worse?  The detention centers are... you guessed it.... privatized.  Masked from public accountability, private companies like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) detain human beings for indefinite periods of time, and they never even receive proper due process.  I don't have to explain why this jeopardizes the freedom of any American citizen, let alone one who's citizenship might be "suspect" (AKA anyone Brown-skinned).  But even if someone is residing in the country illegally, while they may not retain the rights of an actual citizen, cannot we, as a nation, serve those who wish to join us as countrymen with more dignity than a shoddy trial and the accommodations of a shady corporate entity?
  I question privatization of public functions wherever it exists.  Be it the military, or be it our prison system.  I question the actual benefits of a "reduced price tag" for the state, which seems to generally be a short-term rationalization for crony capitalism.  I want our state bodies to be effective, transparent, and accountable.  It seems that after analysis, privatization perverts all of these qualities, while simultaneously undermining basic constitutional precepts.  Whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, a free-market conservative or a socialist-leaning Keynesian, it takes nothing more than a commitment to the basic tenets of our Constitution to recognize and understand threats to our liberty, which must always trump all other considerations.  Expect more on this topic.  Frankly, honestly, and freely, The Polemic. 




Some of my photos from volunteering in Chicago:

Welcome to The Ambidextrous Academy!

Today is our grand opening! We have up four articles for your reading pleasure, hopefully at least one of them will be of interest to you. Each writer is committed to updating twice weekly, so keep us in your bookmark bar for interesting ideas, opinions, observations and oddities. We welcome input of any kind, please leave your thoughts in the comment section. Also feel free to email us at ambidextrousacademic@gmail.com. Welcome to the Academy.

Work Credits: A New Idea For Wage Equality

Today, the CEO of a major company does nothing but plays golf and sips scotch all day while being paid thousands of times more than the miners that find the raw materials for his company’s products, hundreds of times more even than the hardworking salesmen a few floors below. Since 1970 labor wages have stayed relatively stagnant, with respect to inflation, while executive compensation has skyrocketed. Yes, that CEO worked very hard to get to where he was, and yes he deserves to be compensated for seniority, and yes this is a capitalist system where a person can pay themselves whatever they want with the only risk being the collapse of their own business--but a thousand times more? Think about that. Is that person’s education, experience, etc make his one day of “labor” worth 1,000 days of an unskilled worker’s labor? That’s almost three years.

I’m not going to suggest a system where everyone is paid the same--some people work harder than others and that is an acceptable fact of labor. But I do think that we can more reasonably compensate everyone’s labor, and doing so will raise the general standard of living and help close the income gap. To do this, I suggest (hypothetically of course), that we institute a system of “work credits” which laborers (CEOs and miners alike) earn in place of their salary. These work credits then either replace money entirely, or more likely, are redeemable for a set amount of value. For example, a miner might get one credit per hour and and a CEO might get 120. Still a large gap that shows their different pay-grades, but not ridiculously large. Lets see how the math breaks out:

There are many ways to conceptualize this, but I’m going to set the minimum wage of a full-time worker to be the US census stated poverty level: $11,491 (this is est. for 2011). So if we break that up into 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year:

$11,491/(8*5*4)hrs = $11,491/2000 hrs = $5.75/hr.   

Therefore our work credits will be worth $5.75 each. Just as a matter of interest, this is $1.50 less than the current federal minimum wage level. Now, we have to give credit where it is due and grant skilled workers more credits based on what education/training/experience they have. To try and keep this on the ground, let’s examine another profession that seems to have about the right pay for its prerequisites:  an auto-mechanic. Mechanics, on average, in the United States make $34,406 a year. This is far above the poverty line, but it is a tame 4x as much, rather than the outrageous 1000x we see among corporate executives. To be a mechanic, generally either an apprenticeship or a technical school is required. How many credits does that give our representative laborer? We are assuming he/she works the same number of hours as our other laborer:

$34,406/2000 hrs=$17.20/hr   

That works out to be almost exactly 3 work credits per hour. Technical school has added two more credits per hour to this laborer’s salary. So, we can say technical schools add two credits to one’s salary. How about a four year college? It costs more than a technical school generally, lets go ahead and double the credit bonus. A Bachelor’s degree will get you 4 extra credits. Now someone who has gone through all that will make a yearly salary of $57,500. This is a little north of the average college graduates starting salary (currently $46,000). How about graduate school? Let’s give one extra credit for a Master’s degree and three extra credits for a PhD. Now a laborer with their Master’s degree makes $69,000 a year and a PhD makes $92,000.

The beauty of the system is you can add credits for anything you deem worth compensation, the  only important thing is that these attributes are transparent and consistent. This should be centralized; individual firms will not be able to decide whether someone deserves more credits unless that employee qualifies for more due to something in the central code. Obviously, laborers would receive more credits for experience and company loyalty. Fractions of credits can get messy and might lead to defeating the entire point, so lets award one more credit per hour for three years, another after four years, another after five years and so on. Now, a mechanic who has been working for 25 years will be making $115,000. A PhD would be making $149,500 after 25 years, and a masters would be making $126,500. The interesting thing is, because education takes up so much time that could have been spent earning money, after 25 years, the two professionals are going to be making similar amounts of money, and their lifetime earnings are going to be close.

Let's get back to our executive. She should be paid well. This is an entrepreneur who has invested her entire life into a dream and it has become a success. How much will our work credit system pay a person like this? Is it enough to still incentivize people to innovate and create and become a successful CEO? Imagine a 50 year old executive, she did not go to college but started the dream on her own and has been running her own business since she was 22. She gets the original 1 credit, plus 5 credits for experience over 28 years (she will receive a sixth in 5 years). That's only 6 credits; and only $69,000 a year. But we have not yet scratched the surface of what other credits the person would receive. In a system where work credits were used, entrepreneurial ability would undoubtedly be worth a significant number of work credits, probably only available to those who are proprietors of their own company. Let’s give 5 credits for that. Then, finally, some measure of stress and responsibility should grant work credits. for lack of a better idea, I am going to give 1 credit for every 10,000 employees a person is responsible for. If this CEO’s company employed 2,100,000 people (this is the size of Wal-Mart, one of the largest employers in the world), our executive is entitled to 420 work credits extra. Now lets do the final calculation:

1+5+5+210 = 221credits

Giving our executive a salary of $2,541,500. This is a huge amount of money. And yet, not as grossly disproportionate as our current system stands. The average salary of a CEO in a fortune 500 company is $12 million a year. Think about it. I would love to hear ideas to improve this system in the comments! Also please know I made all of these credit numbers up, though I do plan on continuing on this idea and refining the credit rewards so that salaries make sense.


Sources:

1. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/data/threshld/
2. http://www1.salary.com/Automotive-Mechanic-I-Salary.html
3. http://www.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-college+graduate