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The Education Trap
For decades, governments have been promoting school as being necessary. Celebrities, probably thinking they are doing the "right thing," often promote the message "stay in school," from people like Mr. T. and NBA players and rappers. No one ever thinks to ask, "Hey, Mr. T., did you learn to be an actor and how to work out and grow a mohawk in school?" Nor do they ask the same questions of a bunch of multi-millionaire basketball players and rappers. Did Michael Jordan learn to play basketball "in school"? For the rappers, I don’t remember there being Hip Hop 101 in college. All public schools in the U.S. today are prep camps for jail or for being a cubicle rat for the rest of your life. The School "System" Jim Rohn said, "formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune." Today, however, formal education, often, does not even make you a living, as the cost of schooling has increased dramatically ever since the government subsidized it with grants, loans and tax benefits. But education is not the real goal of the education system. As William Torrey Harris, U.S. commissioner of education in 1906, said, "Education… scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual." Johann Gottlieb Fichte, head of philosophy and psychology at Prussian University in Berlin, said it even more clearly: "Education should aim at destroying free will, so that after pupils are thus schooled, they will be incapable throughout the rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished." The 99% Have Had Their Free Will Destroyed The saddest thing I have seen in a long time is the "We Are the 99%" page. And it’s not necessarily sad because of the tough situation these thousands of people have found themselves in. What is sad is that you can see how broken they are as individuals. How they bought into a system and have had all their free will drained from them. This is particularly shown by the fact that thousands of people would take the time to write out on a piece of paper all of their concerns and unhappiness with the expectation that this will CHANGE anything! I estimate over 90% of the people on that site appear to be in rough shape due to student loans. But not one of them sees the truth. They’ve all been brainwashed to think a college education is not only a good thing, but is a guarantee of having a great life. One starving artist had $175,000 in student loans. $175,000 in student loans? To become an "artist"? But he sounds as though it is the system that let him down. He takes no responsibility for his massive error in judgment. Another 99 Percenter is 47, penniless and in debt after her "college education," yet what does she want for her daughters? To put them through the same system! She has been brainwashed to believe that a "college education" is a necessary and good thing despite all the evidence in her own life that has provided that it was not. Rather than realizing their errors, many of these people figure that writing their problems on a piece of paper on the Internet may help! Or by chasing down rich Wall St. bankers (a symptom of the problem) with pitchforks while admonishing the government (the real problem) to play a bigger role in the economy. Student Loans are Slavery Rather than hoping the government helps them, many of these people with student debts should be looking at ways to get out of the country. Why? First of all, student debt is the only debt in the U.S. that is not able to be defaulted on in a bankruptcy. In other words, the starving artist above with $175,000 in debt will never be able to remove that chain from his neck as long as he lives in the country. If he were to expatriate, he could at least start fresh somewhere else. And now the U.S. government has dropped many hints that in order to get a passport in the future, you will need to have your government debts (taxes, loans, etc.) up-to-date. It is not much of a stretch of the imagination for the U.S. government to demand that all those behind on their student debt will be ordered to report to duty with the military. Any opposition will be met with unlimited prison sentences. There are plenty of opportunities in the world. Look for employment in places like the Canadian oil sands, where they can’t even find enough employees. Or in booming places such as the Middle East (try Qatar) or in Asia (plenty of finance-related jobs in Hong Kong - and a 15% income tax rate). But remember, in life, there are no "sure things" or guarantees. The government fooled you into thinking there are, but there aren’t. In real life, you just have to get out there and do it. Keep Your Kids Out of School For those with children, keep them out of school. Any school. Real education, today, is all free and can be done via the Internet from anywhere. All you have to do is ensure your child can read and from there they can self-educate. MIT’s entire curriculum is available online for free via MIT’s OpenCourseWare. As well, University of the People is a tuition-free online university. Not to mention there is a YouTube video or a Wikipedia article on any subject matter you’d ever want to know. Be a College Dropout... or Drop-In I am not a college dropout. I’m a college drop-in. I dropped in to college, at the behest of my mother, for a few days and quickly got out of there. Consider doing the same. Don’t get caught in the education trap. Regards, Jeff Berwick The Dollar Vigilante Jeff Berwick, a self-described financial freedom fighter, is the founder of Canada’s largest financial website, Stockhouse.com. He now writes the libertarian, Austrian-economics based newsletter, The Dollar Vigilante and is a regular speaker at many of the world’s most important investment, resource and freedom-focused conferences where he is known as the most dangerous man in finance. |
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