Mish Complains About "Useless" College Degrees, And Lousy Google Translate

"You're umbday in any language"

In ye good olde days, a college degree came with a foreign language requirement in addition to demonstrated facility with the finer points of English.

Holders of college degrees could reliably be counted on to read something in Italian, German or French and put it in a presentable form in their own language. In addition to knowing how to type, the skill supplements the work, say, of a financial blogger, unless your name is Mish, who has a degree in civil engineering.

On August 21 he's trying to plumb the depths of stories about the European Central Bank, noting here:

Every day I get links from Spain, Italy, Germany, and Australia. The first three frequently cause problems. Translation from German is particularly difficult.

For example, a Google-translated headline on Welt Online reads ECB chief demonstrates German banker. ...

With the help of Bran from Spain, Andrea from Italy, and "EM" from Germany I can frequently provide much better translations of foreign articles than I could otherwise.

Then three days later he complains here in a lengthy diatribe that colleges today turn out too many useless degrees:

Yet colleges churn out thousands of graduates, year after year, with perfectly useless degrees.

Clearly his own degree has failed him, not in the least because, even after all that, he still doesn't recognize it.

David Stockman Misses An Opportunity: The Warfare State IS The Welfare State

The New York Times is only happy enough to run an op-ed from David Stockman, here, attacking the phony conservatism of the Republican Party since Ronald Reagan, in which he rather relishes pointing out, among other things, that when push came to shove Rep. Paul Ryan "folded like a lawn chair" and voted for TARP:

Thirty years of Republican apostasy — a once grand party’s embrace of the welfare state, the warfare state and the Wall Street-coddling bailout state — have crippled the engines of capitalism and buried us in debt. Mr. Ryan’s sonorous campaign rhetoric about shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to “job creators” (read: the top 2 percent) will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.

Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.

Mr. Stockman never once calls this Republicanism what it is. I suppose if he had the Times wouldn't have printed it. And I don't know how he really could since his family is allied with liberal social positions anyway. Paul Ryan isn't the only phony conservative liberal around.

But the truth is (someone's got to say it) the warfare state since Reagan is another consequence of liberalism, expressed as a failure of nerve with respect to conscription. Good wars are wars for which Americans more or less readily submit to the draft, fight successfully and end relatively quickly. They have the consent of the governed and are representative wars, conducted as they are by a cross-section of the population. Bad wars don't have the consent of the governed. And so these must emphasize among other things protecting warriors and civilians, not destroying the enemy's ability to make war, and are all too often fought to draws after protracted efforts. These cannot be conducted except with compliant volunteers, who come from more or less distinct sectors of American society: the South, and poor minorities. And these volunteers require enducements in addition to a commitment from government to their safety, such as citizenship, a college education, or a pension. As in the private sector, the military's single biggest cost is personnel, which explains perhaps more than anything the drive to mechanized war in a new form, the vanguard of which is drone technology. Can The Terminator be far behind?

The war in Afghanistan would be long over if we had destroyed its infrastructure, annihilated its people, and salted its poppy fields. But we couldn't do that. That would have been a war crime. And besides, where we would get our drugs then?

Liberalism, you see.


"Yet Reason frowns on war's unequal game,
Where wasted nations raise a single name,
And mortgaged states their grandsires' wreaths regret,
From age to age in everlasting debt;
Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey
To rust on medals, or on stones decay."

-- Samuel Johnson

Santorum Voters in Michigan Heavily Self-Identified as Democrats

By a margin over Romney voters of 35 points, according to FoxNews exit polling here:

Santorum voters were also union members by 15 points over Romney voters.

Only 24 percent of Santorum voters thought abortion should be legal, and 77 percent of Santorum voters thought of themselves primarily as abortion issue voters, with only 13 percent of Romney voters seeing themselves that way.

Deficits and the economy mattered more to Romney voters than Santorum voters by 16 and 17 points.

Despite Santorum's view that mainline Protestants aren't really Christians, Romney and Santorum pretty much split that vote with Santorum winning Protestants by two points. But Santorum lost the Catholic vote by a 7 point margin.

Romney excelled among females, the over 65 demographic, those making over $200,000 a year, college graduates and post-grads, the somewhat conservative, those somewhat opposed to the Tea Party and those favoring legalized abortion.

Self-identifying moderates went for Romney 45 percent to Santorum's 31 percent. The somewhat conservative went for Romney by an even larger spread, 50 to 32.

The Washington Post here reported that 1 in 10 Republican voters yesterday self-identified as Democrats:

Early exit polls in Michigan seemed to show that the negative campaigning had weighed on the state’s Republicans. Less than half of voters there said they backed their candidate “strongly.” About one in seven said they made their choice because they dislike the other options — four times the proportion that said so in this political season’s first votes, at the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses.

The polls also showed that a large number of Democrats had, in fact, crossed party lines in Michigan. About one in 10 of Tuesday’s voters identified themselves as Democrats in exit surveys. That was a higher figure than in any of the other early GOP contests.


About 978,000 votes were cast in Michigan's primary yesterday.

Occupy Wall Street Demands Student Debt Bailouts

So says Scott Cohn for CNBC.com here:

One proposed list of demands for the Occupy Wall Street movement includes "free college tuition" and "immediate across the board forgiveness" of student debt. While neither demand may be very realistic, the student debt problem is very real.

According to FinAid.org, which carries a "student debt clock" on its website, outstanding student debt is on pace to top $1 trillion in a matter of months. Student debt surpassed credit card debt in 2010, and has not looked back. The average 2011 college graduate had $27,204 in student debt, according to the organization.

The price of worship at the altar of the god, Education. Its high priests rob the easy.

Depression of 2008-2009 Devastates Male Incomes to Levels Lower Than in 1978

And compared to the men, women still make 77 cents on the dollar.

Female participation in the workforce today merely keeps the household income picture from looking as bad as it could, but no one seems to reflect on the social costs to the country at large and to the children not raised by a parent in the home. Nor do many appreciate the massive cheapening of the worth of all labor which their participation necessarily caused starting in the 1970s.

What on earth was improved by nearly doubling the workforce and halving the income? The American family? In truth the only thing which was improved was the corporate bottom line, and the investor class which it rewarded.

And often the price was having a smart-mouthed, ungrateful, unemployed 26-year old college graduate still living in the basement trying to figure out how to pay off the college loan between bong hits. Imagine that person ever growing up, flying straight and voting for anything worthwhile except for goodies from Uncle Sam.

If the working women of America really wanted to change something, they'd unite . . . and go home.  

The data were reported here in The Wall Street Journal:

The income of the typical American family—long the envy of much of the world—has dropped for the third year in a row and is now roughly where it was in 1996 when adjusted for inflation.

The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said. ...

For a huge swath of American families, the gains of the boom of the 2000s have been wiped out.

Earnings of the typical man who works full-time year round fell, and are lower—adjusted for inflation—than in 1978.

Sarah Palin's Neurons Are So Cross-Connected She Cannot Produce a Complete Sentence

You may verify the following completely incoherent excerpt for yourself, here:

Michelle Bachmann pointed out that Governor Perry's former chief of staff who then went to work for a drug company who made the drug that would be required of the Texan government to mandate that our young daughters would have to be inoculated against a potential disease from this company that his former chief of staff was lobbying for. That is crony capitalism. 

Here's the translation, in English:

Michele Bachmann pointed out that Governor Perry's former chief of staff went to work for a drug company which made the drug that the Texas government under Rick Perry required our young daughters to receive in order to be inoculated against a potential disease [.]  That is crony capitalism.

Ya got that?


Yes, it might indeed be crony capitalism, if only we understood what the hell you are trying to say, except that even if we did it pales in comparison to the way the Federal Reserve, and the Executive and Legislative branches of our government have conspired to bail out the bankers and big business at the expense of trillions to the electorate. Thanks Newt. Thanks Phil Gramm. Thanks Bill Clinton.


If only any of you had the brains to talk about that, or its twin problem ObamaCare. But no, you decide to criticize someone who's on your side just to score a few miserable points.


While I fully understand how a person of such limited intellectual ability can be awarded a college degree in our culture of decrepitude, what I cannot understand is the enthusiasm which a certain part of the electorate has for this woman. Being able to supply (!) and string together correctly a subject, verb and object should be the last thing on our list of presidential qualifications, but alas, it appears to be first.

The electorate which backs Sarah Palin should know better, and that a substantial part of it does not is the real cause for alarm.

We Still Don't Know Obama's GPA, But We Already Know Gov. Rick Perry's

From an important story about the Texas governor from Andrew Ferguson for The Weekly Standard, here:

At Texas A and M he earned a grade point average a bit over 2.0 (Ds and Cs in chem and trig and Shakespeare, an A in world military systems, and a B in phys. ed.) and majored in animal science. 

Years of Blood, Sweat Equity, and Tears . . . Gone: Home Equity Down $7 Trillion Since 2006

The Nutter feels your pain:

Since early 2006, American families have lost $7 trillion in home equity — more than half of their equity has simply vanished. Many millions, of course, have lost everything they put into their house, and more.

Years of blood, tears and sweat equity gone. Remember, for most families, home equity accounts for most of their wealth. In the past, wealth in the form of home equity has often been the ticket to upward mobility; many a small business or college education has been funded from real estate wealth.

About 11 million families — about 23% of those with mortgages — now owe more on their house than it’s worth. Before the bubble burst, that figure was about 1%.

More from Rex here.

Defining Middle Class

Maureen Callahan for The New York Post takes a look at the big squeeze of the middle class in "Class Dismissed: Why Middle Income Jobs Are Not Coming Back."

Here's an excerpt:

‘I don’t know if I’m middle class anymore,” says Mark Lieber, 54. “From what I read, if you’re earning over $150,000, you’re in the top 5% of earners.” He echoes Francese: “In New York, that’s not rich.”

Here's how you know you're solidly middle class:


You retired last year at age 65 and your last salary was $107,000. You own your 3 bedroom house and one car outright, you're still married to your first wife who never earned a paycheck but raised your four kids, for whose college educations and the weddings of two who were girls you paid (mostly), and you have no debt and about $391,000 socked away in cash.


That's the territory between the third and fourth income quintiles from 1980, adjusted for inflation.


Know anyone like that?

College Education Does Almost Nothing To Improve Knowledge of American Civics

From Joe Wolverton, II at the New American:

Report Finds College Students Fail Basic Civics Test

Written by Joe Wolverton, II

Friday, 26 February 2010

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it” is one of the most oft-quoted aphorisms of Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Irish-born member of the British Parliament and fearless friend of liberty. Judging from the results of a recent survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), most of the 14,000 college students who participated sadly will be repeating history.

Considering that most of the 14,000 students who completed the exam (7,000 seniors and 7,000 freshmen) scored an F on the portion of the test covering basic American history and institutions, not only will they be repeating history, but with test scores like that, they’ll be repeating history class, as well.

ISI, a conservative non-profit educational organization, has recently published the results of this sweeping survey in a 32-page report entitled “The Shaping of the American Mind: The Diverging Influences of the College Degree and Civic Learning on American Beliefs.” Sit down before you read this report because the data will knock you off your feet.

In 2007, ISI administered a 60-question test to 14,000 students at 50 colleges nationwide. The questions were designed to measure the students’ aptitude in four areas: basic American history, government, foreign affairs, and economics. In a companion study, in 2008 ISI administered a shorter exam (33 questions) to a random sample of 2,508 Americans without a college degree in order to have a standard level against which the impact of a college education on a threshold level of familiarity with basic American institutions could be determined.

Here are a few frightening figures certain to keep you up at night:

71% of Americans failed the civics knowledge test;

51% of Americans could not name the three branches of government;

The average score for college seniors on the civics knowledge test was 54.2% (an “F” by any standard);

The average student’s test score improved only 3.8 points from freshman to senior year;

Freshmen at Cornell, Yale, Princeton, and Duke scored better than seniors on the civics knowledge test;

79% of elected officials that took the civics knowledge quiz did not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the government from establishing a religion;

30% of office holders did not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence;

27% of politicians could not name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment;

43% did not know the purpose of the Electoral College;

39% of lawmakers believe the power of declaring war belongs to the president;

The average score for college professors who took the civics knowledge quiz was 55%.

So, while our nation’s most elite colleges are not imbuing our children with a knowledge of our history and our government, the study makes it clear that those universities are becoming round the clock factories churning out poorly instructed liberals with little civic knowledge and even less faith and less devotion to principles of liberty than those Americans who didn’t go to college.

It’s not just ignorance of the founding and the structure of government that is being fostered at these so-called institutions of higher learning. The classrooms are becoming hothouses of left-wing opinions, as well. For example, according to the findings published by ISI, college graduates are more likely than non-graduates to favor legalizing same-sex marriage and abortion on demand. By contrast, college graduates are less likely to believe that the Bible is the word of God and that hard work and perseverance can make the American Dream come true.

Similarly, the study’s findings revealed that regardless of one’s formal education, one’s knowledge of basic American civics determined one’s faith in America and trust in the tenets of liberty upon which it was established. This shift is evident in the fact that non-college graduates who scored higher on the civics knowledge quiz than college graduates were less likely to believe that “America’s founding documents are obsolete.” Furthermore, the learned, though not college educated respondents are correspondingly less likely to agree that “the Ten Commandments are irrelevant” to the world today.

This research is, according to the organization’s website, the fourth such study conducted by ISI in an attempt to scientifically measure the impact of a college education on civic knowledge and citizenship. Unremarkably, the results have not changed much over the years and once the numbers are crunched it is irrefutable that having a college education does almost nothing to buttress one’s overall knowledge of the fundamental history and composition of American government.

In contrast, what a formal education at one of America’s university does so effectively, however, is engender doubt in the American way of life, incubate irreverence for the pillars of liberty upon which the nation was built, and perhaps most disturbingly, sap the faith in God and the institutions of religious worship.

The various interesting findings of the study, including the questions asked and the results, as well as the scientific analysis thereof, can be found here.

And, if you’re brave, test your own knowledge of America’s history, government, foreign policy, and economics by taking the quiz posted online here. Good luck! And remember, eyes on your own paper. Judging by the results of this study, many of you college graduates might be tempted to cheat!