the SNOB
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
I Was Against Sean Penn Before I Was for Him...
He may be the leftist crackpot di tutti leftist crackpots in Hollywood, but at least he remains willing to flick ash in the face of one elitist, nanny-state piety. ¶ 2:50 PM 0 Comments
He may be the leftist crackpot di tutti leftist crackpots in Hollywood, but at least he remains willing to flick ash in the face of one elitist, nanny-state piety. ¶ 2:50 PM 0 Comments
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
But this is madness!
No! This. Is. WASHINGTON DC!
Let me get this straight: at a time when oil prices are surging, the mideast remains about as stable as Britney Spears at a custody hearing, and hurricane season is around the corner, the Senate votes 97-1 to stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
This is sort of like saying, "well, I may get laid off into the start of a recession pretty soon, so let's blow the savings on a trip to Vegas before I need that money to spend on rent and groceries."
You could argue--wrongly, I think, but honestly--that we ought to be using the SPR to buffer a short-term spike in prices. Otherwise, this is rank foolishness. Yes, buying 70k barrels a day at $120 is expensive, but it will be a lot more expensive when it's $150, which I won't be surprised to see before the election. The whole point of the SPR is to be there as a strategic reserve, in case the excrement really hits the impeller. Granted, the SPR is 97% full, so stockpiling another two days' worth of imports probably won't make that much difference, but it's the thought that counts. As is usually the case, any bill of substance that gets 97 votes is probably a bad idea. ¶ 10:19 AM 1 Comments
No! This. Is. WASHINGTON DC!
Let me get this straight: at a time when oil prices are surging, the mideast remains about as stable as Britney Spears at a custody hearing, and hurricane season is around the corner, the Senate votes 97-1 to stop putting oil into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
This is sort of like saying, "well, I may get laid off into the start of a recession pretty soon, so let's blow the savings on a trip to Vegas before I need that money to spend on rent and groceries."
You could argue--wrongly, I think, but honestly--that we ought to be using the SPR to buffer a short-term spike in prices. Otherwise, this is rank foolishness. Yes, buying 70k barrels a day at $120 is expensive, but it will be a lot more expensive when it's $150, which I won't be surprised to see before the election. The whole point of the SPR is to be there as a strategic reserve, in case the excrement really hits the impeller. Granted, the SPR is 97% full, so stockpiling another two days' worth of imports probably won't make that much difference, but it's the thought that counts. As is usually the case, any bill of substance that gets 97 votes is probably a bad idea. ¶ 10:19 AM 1 Comments
Monday, May 12, 2008
Eat the Rich
State rep Paul Kujawski's initiative to increase taxes on "exorbitant" university funds refuses to die the quiet death the presidents of the state's many universities clearly wish it would. Kujawski, last seen pissing on the shoulder in front of a statie at a DUI stop, epitomizes the depth of the threat.
Having similarly micturated away the goodwill and deference conservatives ordinarily afford to venerable endowed institutions run by old men in colored robes and pointy hats, university leaders now must face a much baser challenge from the populist left. While Jim Manzi writes in the Corner that "giving lots of money to Democratic politicians very well might" stop the drive, I'm considerably less sanguine. When Charles Grassley and a well-marinated Democratic hack rep from Webster agree on the basic outlines of something, it's a fair sign that the wolves and sheep dogs are preparing to put their differences aside and crack open a jar of mint jelly.
There are two big problems here. The first is that any discussion of the issue will necessarily focus on Harvard, even though it is an extreme outlier. I haven't run the numbers, but if one takes into account the number of undergraduate students, I suspect Harvard, Yale, and perhaps Princeton and Stanford will stand very much alone.
The proposals bouncing around Beacon Hill are as mongoloid in their economic reasoning as a great cynic like myself could possibly hope. Imprimis, a tax is proposed on any endowment over a billion dollars, just like that. Perhaps an enterprising rep can propose to have Kujawski pay the same taxes as John Kerry, seeing as they both call themselves "senator." Like the Alternative Minimum Tax, Kujawski's Narrowly-Tailored-Exorbitantly-Rich-Ivy-League-Schools-Ought-To-Pay-Their-Fair-Share-The-Bums law will, with the benefit of inflation and time, eventually grow into a broad revenue stream that can't be touched.
Compared to this, Sen. Grassley's suggestion that universities ought to spend at least 5% of their endowment on students annually strikes even me as quite reasonable. This is where the second big problem rears its head: none of the proposed "solutions" are likely to accomplish anything like what we want.
The assumption here is that requiring universities to be slightly less stingy with their endowments will achieve a social good by reducing the cost of higher education. Michelle Obama's complaints aside, it is unclear to me why the government should care in the least how much it costs to attend Harvard. I would be fascinated to know how many students were admitted to Harvard over the past decade and chose not to attend due to the cost. One could argue that just as much benefit to society is accomplished by funneling these future luminaries off into public colleges, who years later benefit from their largess and the glow of their reputation (c.f. Jack Welch and UMass).
Given that most universities (and certainly all of those likely to be hit with a luxury tax) are able to fill their student bodies at current prices, why should we assume that if Harvard and BU are forced to spend $5000 more per student on aid, they won't simply find a way to raise the cost of attendance pari-passu? Indeed, this is arguably one of the most significant effects of the availability of large amounts of cheap credit in the form of student loans, without which the number of students able to pay would be far smaller.
One of the things which must be borne in mind throughout is that colleges generally, and especially the elite ones, are not in the business of admissions nearly half as much as they are in the business of rejections. Harvard could, at today's high prices, fill up every dorm room on every campus inside Route 128 with Harvard freshmen, and still not exhaust the demand for a Harvard degree. They could probably still do so at triple or quadruple the price, at least for a few years. At some point, "Harvard" as a brand would join Cadillac and Budweiser in the pantheon of brands that used to imply the utmost in American-made quality.
As with the economy at large, once you get below the top several dozens of schools, the payoff from increased endowment payouts shrinks rapidly. Harvard could realistically afford to forego tuition altogether, while Bentley could perhaps hand every freshman their choice of a free hat and T-shirt. To the extent that Grassley and others are talking not just about absolute cost but about access, it's not clear any of these bills would do any more than slightly alter accounting procedures for the lucky few. The vast majority of students, attending mediocre institutions with endowments to match, would probably see little, if any real change. ¶ 12:05 PM 2 Comments
State rep Paul Kujawski's initiative to increase taxes on "exorbitant" university funds refuses to die the quiet death the presidents of the state's many universities clearly wish it would. Kujawski, last seen pissing on the shoulder in front of a statie at a DUI stop, epitomizes the depth of the threat.
Having similarly micturated away the goodwill and deference conservatives ordinarily afford to venerable endowed institutions run by old men in colored robes and pointy hats, university leaders now must face a much baser challenge from the populist left. While Jim Manzi writes in the Corner that "giving lots of money to Democratic politicians very well might" stop the drive, I'm considerably less sanguine. When Charles Grassley and a well-marinated Democratic hack rep from Webster agree on the basic outlines of something, it's a fair sign that the wolves and sheep dogs are preparing to put their differences aside and crack open a jar of mint jelly.
There are two big problems here. The first is that any discussion of the issue will necessarily focus on Harvard, even though it is an extreme outlier. I haven't run the numbers, but if one takes into account the number of undergraduate students, I suspect Harvard, Yale, and perhaps Princeton and Stanford will stand very much alone.
The proposals bouncing around Beacon Hill are as mongoloid in their economic reasoning as a great cynic like myself could possibly hope. Imprimis, a tax is proposed on any endowment over a billion dollars, just like that. Perhaps an enterprising rep can propose to have Kujawski pay the same taxes as John Kerry, seeing as they both call themselves "senator." Like the Alternative Minimum Tax, Kujawski's Narrowly-Tailored-Exorbitantly-Rich-Ivy-League-Schools-Ought-To-Pay-Their-Fair-Share-The-Bums law will, with the benefit of inflation and time, eventually grow into a broad revenue stream that can't be touched.
Compared to this, Sen. Grassley's suggestion that universities ought to spend at least 5% of their endowment on students annually strikes even me as quite reasonable. This is where the second big problem rears its head: none of the proposed "solutions" are likely to accomplish anything like what we want.
The assumption here is that requiring universities to be slightly less stingy with their endowments will achieve a social good by reducing the cost of higher education. Michelle Obama's complaints aside, it is unclear to me why the government should care in the least how much it costs to attend Harvard. I would be fascinated to know how many students were admitted to Harvard over the past decade and chose not to attend due to the cost. One could argue that just as much benefit to society is accomplished by funneling these future luminaries off into public colleges, who years later benefit from their largess and the glow of their reputation (c.f. Jack Welch and UMass).
Given that most universities (and certainly all of those likely to be hit with a luxury tax) are able to fill their student bodies at current prices, why should we assume that if Harvard and BU are forced to spend $5000 more per student on aid, they won't simply find a way to raise the cost of attendance pari-passu? Indeed, this is arguably one of the most significant effects of the availability of large amounts of cheap credit in the form of student loans, without which the number of students able to pay would be far smaller.
One of the things which must be borne in mind throughout is that colleges generally, and especially the elite ones, are not in the business of admissions nearly half as much as they are in the business of rejections. Harvard could, at today's high prices, fill up every dorm room on every campus inside Route 128 with Harvard freshmen, and still not exhaust the demand for a Harvard degree. They could probably still do so at triple or quadruple the price, at least for a few years. At some point, "Harvard" as a brand would join Cadillac and Budweiser in the pantheon of brands that used to imply the utmost in American-made quality.
As with the economy at large, once you get below the top several dozens of schools, the payoff from increased endowment payouts shrinks rapidly. Harvard could realistically afford to forego tuition altogether, while Bentley could perhaps hand every freshman their choice of a free hat and T-shirt. To the extent that Grassley and others are talking not just about absolute cost but about access, it's not clear any of these bills would do any more than slightly alter accounting procedures for the lucky few. The vast majority of students, attending mediocre institutions with endowments to match, would probably see little, if any real change. ¶ 12:05 PM 2 Comments
