Make big money running a college

Bloomberg reports on the scandalous default rates at the large for-profit colleges, seen in the context of the eye-popping salaries of the executives that run the colleges:

Strayer Education Inc., a chain of for-profit colleges that receives three-quarters of its revenue from U.S. taxpayers, paid Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Silberman $41.9 million last year. That’s 26 times the compensation of the highest-paid president of a traditional university. Top executives at the 15 U.S. publicly traded for-profit colleges, led by Apollo Group Inc. and Education Management Corp., also received $2 billion during the last seven years from the proceeds of selling company stock, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show. At the same time, the industry registered the worst loan-default and four-year-college dropout rates in U.S. higher education. Since 2003, nine for-profit college insiders sold more than $45 million of stock apiece.
Here's more information about the problems with the nations large for-profit colleges, including Phoenix University.

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Matt Taibbi reports from his front row seat at a foreclosure court trial docket

Matt Taibbi's newest article should be required reading for anyone who wants to support the desires of banks to expeditiously foreclose on home loans. Taibbi showed up at a Florida foreclosure docket to give an insider's view. You will be amazed at the conduct of the judge (it is described toward the end of Taibbi's article). Here's the link: Courts Helping Banks Screw Over Homeowners: Retired judges are rushing through complex cases to speed foreclosures in Florida. Here's an excerpt:

At worst, these ordinary homeowners were stupid or uninformed — while the banks that lent them the money are guilty of committing a baldfaced crime on a grand scale. These banks robbed investors and conned homeowners, blew themselves up chasing the fraud, then begged the taxpayers to bail them out. And bail them out we did: We ponied up billions to help Wells Fargo buy Wachovia, paid Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, and watched as the Fed opened up special facilities to buy up the assets in defective mortgage trusts at inflated prices. And after all that effort by the state to buy back these phony assets so the thieves could all stay in business and keep their bonuses, what did the banks do? They put their foot on the foreclosure gas pedal and stepped up the effort to kick people out of their homes as fast as possible, before the world caught on to how these loans were made in the first place. . . . When you meet people who are losing their homes in this foreclosure crisis, they almost all have the same look of deep shame and anguish. Nowhere else on the planet is it such a crime to be down on your luck, even if you were put there by some of the world's richest banks, which continue to rake in record profits purely because they got a big fat handout from the government. That's why one banker CEO after another keeps going on TV to explain that despite their own deceptive loans and fraudulent paperwork, the real problem is these deadbeat homeowners who won't pay their fucking bills. And that's why most people in this country are so ready to buy that explanation. Because in America, it's far more shameful to owe money than it is to steal it.

Continue ReadingMatt Taibbi reports from his front row seat at a foreclosure court trial docket

I am a turd

A friend handed me one of those little religious pamphlets a few days ago. It was from the "Greater Rhode Island Baptist Temple" in Johnston, RI. We marveled at the following page--note the text near the illustration of the forlorn woman (click on the images to see enlarged versions):

"I know that I am a sinner and I deserve to die and go to hell . . . "

Egads! How can statements so self-deprecating be encouraged, much less allowed, anywhere on earth? If I were a god, why would I want to allow people with such low self-esteem into heaven. I wouldn't want to be around such people. This is not to say people should be arrogant. And they should certainly be humble. But the above phrase is not humility. It is sick. How can someone walk around on this planet actually believe that they should go to hell? Does anyone ever (even Hitler or Stalin) deserve eternal torture? What is the point of eternal torture? Do these people know what they are saying? Do they know what "eternity" means? Does anyone who says this really believe this?

So many questions.

Lest you think that "hell" is one of those namby-pamby moderns versions of hell where the punishment is that you only get to watch TV for 4 hours per day, the same brochure shows you a photo of the flames that will be licking your sorry ass.

And here's one more final warning: Don't think that you can escape the sizzling flames by being nice to other people here on earth, by doing "good works." That kind of altruism means nothing to almighty God, based on the authority of this mighty brochure:

So all I can say to you skeptics out there is you'd better shape up. And quit wasting your time trying to help other people. If you ignore this advice, you should at least invest in some asbestos clothing and hope that you can take it with you.

God help us all.

Epilogue: It is thoughts like the ones in this brochure that inspired this prayer scene in Monty Python's "Meaning of Life":

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Getting Science Under Control

After the election of 2008, we fans of the rational and provable had high hopes that government may give as much credence to the scientific process and conclusions as to the disproved aspects of philosophies promulgated by churches and industry shills. We watched with waning hope as a series of attempts to honor that ideal got watered down. But at least it was an improvement. But the 2010 election quickly reveals a backlash. Those whose cherished misunderstandings had been disrespected for the last couple of years now will have their day. As Phil Plait says, Energy and science in America are in big, big trouble. He begins,

"With the elections last week, the Republicans took over the House once again. The list of things this means is long and troubling, but the most troubling to me come in the forms of two Texas far-right Republicans: Congressmen Ralph Hall and Joe Barton."

He goes on to explain why. It comes down to them being proven representatives for Young Earth and fossil fuel interests, doing whatever they can to scuttle actual science by any means necessary. Especially where the science contradicts their pet ideas. Barton has published articles supporting climate change denialism. His main contributors are the extraction industries. Hall has used parliamentary tricks to attempt to scuttle funding for basic research. The Democrats offered to compromised by cutting funding, and he refused in hopes that the whole bill would fail. It passed. Then Hall publicly called Democrats on the carpet for using tricks to fatten the bill by the amount that they offered to cut. The Proxmire spirit lives on.

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