Prominent forum member being interviewed

[apropos]

Originally Posted by intent

Waiting for your proposal here, Einstein.
Oftentimes, saying nothing is better than saying something breathtakingly stupid.

 

[apropos]

Originally Posted by B|aze

Funny to hear this discussion. In Denmak it's "free" to study....you actually getting paid to study. You get around $500 a month if you live at home and $1000 if you live by yourself. It's all getting paid for through the taxes...which are pretty high of course. But frankly I wouldn't want it any other way and neither does the vast majority of the danes.
Your system (and the Swedish system) only work if enough people are - putting it simply - ideologically on-board. And if you have enough people who through deep-set cultural differences or lack of identification with the dominant culture cynically free-load and game the system, your system breaks down - I am sure you are well aware of what I am speaking of. Unlike the Scandinavian countries, the UK does not share a culture that places the good of society high enough in comparison to getting ahead as individuals (this thread alone should be evidence enough...), and also has a... regrettable history of immigration. I'm sorry, but your system will not work in the UK.

 

[w.o.e.is.me.]

Originally Posted by Mac

Whereas, I don't see myself being in more than one or two thousand pounds of debt, if that.

Wow! To have that little debt post law (or Med) school would be miraculous.
think of the obscene damage one could do in B&S.

 

[JDMills]

I live in a part or Canada where tuition is ridiculous. And I mean low like wow low. A tuition freeze isn't a good thing. I'd actually rather pay more. Tuition here is 1500 a semester. The government wanted to inrease it by 50$ a course (an extra 200 or so dollars). And there were protests! Students bitching it's too high, like seriously any minimum wage job will more then cover that. The bad part was that there were hundreds of adults encouraging them.

So ya not in favour of tuition freezing.

 

[B|aze]

Originally Posted by apropos

Your system (and the Swedish system) only work if enough people are - putting it simply - ideologically on-board.

And if you have enough people who through deep-set cultural differences or lack of identification with the dominant culture cynically free-load and game the system, your system breaks down - I am sure you are well aware of what I am speaking of.

Unlike the Scandinavian countries, the UK does not share a culture that places the good of society high enough in comparison to getting ahead as individuals (this thread alone should be evidence enough...), and also has a... regrettable history of immigration. I'm sorry, but your system will not work in the UK.

I know what you mean. I think you have to have special mentality about the whole system. I don't think you could make it work today if it wasn't already in place.
But it's whole idea of everything here is pretty much "free", I mean free healthcare and free schools and that everybody gets the same possibilities that makes it work.

 

[The Silverfox]

Originally Posted by B|aze

Funny to hear this discussion.
In Denmak it's "free" to study....you actually getting paid to study. You get around $500 a month if you live at home and $1000 if you live by yourself.
It's all getting paid for through the taxes...which are pretty high of course. But frankly I wouldn't want it any other way and neither does the vast majority of the danes.

Well, I don't know the specific particulars of the Danish system, but I'm guessing it in essense is similar to the one I grew up with, the Norwegian system.

In Norway, all state-run higher education is free (except for a notional registration fee), and you are given about $10 000 a year which starts out as a loan, and as you progress and complete courses 40% of it is forgiven as it is changed from a loan to a stipend upon completion.

This of course breeds the healthy dynamic that it is profitable for a person to enroll in college without any intention of ever showing up, taking up a slot and wasting the resources of the education system, simply to make themselves eligible for a zero interest loan which they can put in a savings account and which will accrue interest which the "student" can keep after repaying the principal ammount.

People for some reason object that this system couldn't "work" in the UK the way it "works" in Scandinavia, to which my question is, how in the hell can you state that it works in Scandinavia? My objection to the system is that it will cause spiraling costs of education, and that it will breed a very serious malinvestment problem and create shortages of the education services, and this is what's happening.

The fact that it has public support is only indicative of the pitiful state of economic understanding in these countries. You simply cannot use as an argument for why something should be considered a good idea the fact that it already is considered a good idea, if you want to defend the idea, defend it on it's own merits, rather than public opinion. By that logic, nothing should ever change as the current majority opinion is by definition right because it is the current majority opinion. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of something that is now considered a good idea that was not a minority opinion when it was first conceived of. Just about every new idea starts as an idea held by a single man in oposition with the rest of the world, and it is only through the process of dealing with the idea on it's own merits rather than enforcing what's already popular opinion that we can progress.

In any case, if you want proof of the problem, just take a look at the entry requirements, for certain educations the requirement is higher than perfect grades. The norwegian grade scale goes from 1 to 6, 1 being a failing grade, 6 being the highest achievable mark possible. The entry requirement for veterinarian school is the last time I checked that you have a GPA of 6.1 or 6.2, this is above the GPA of 6 you would get if you got perfect marks in every course you ever had. So in addition, you need extra bonus points that are given for various things that ammend your GPA, such as military service and various combinations of courses that give bonus points. Now, certain studies would never be easy to get into, or easy to graduate with good marks, but this is an artificial difficulty created by the system. Education appears to the student to be free, so the student treats it as such, overconsuming at the cost of everyone and the available resources must be rationed by other means than letting the student decide if it was worth it themselves through the price system.

Simply put, from the standstead of economics I think this system is absurd, and it is no way an efficient way of solving the economic problem of gaining the most from scarce resources. It runs up the costs of the actual service production as a government entity can be run without making a profit which tends to cause inefficiency. In addition, as I already mentioned, it causes some pretty sever misallocations as the cost/benefit calculation only takes into account the benefit, because someone else bears the cost. From a moral point of view I think it's deplorable, as you are in the business of imposing on person A the costs of person Bs decisions, decisions person B made for his/her own benefit. I have never heard a convincing argument for why it should be the job of those who gain their experience through work to be paying the bills of those who gain it through formal education, and I don't think it is morally acceptable to do so.

 

[lasbar]

Originally Posted by apropos

Your system (and the Swedish system) only work if enough people are - putting it simply - ideologically on-board.

And if you have enough people who through deep-set cultural differences or lack of identification with the dominant culture cynically free-load and game the system, your system breaks down - I am sure you are well aware of what I am speaking of.

Unlike the Scandinavian countries, the UK does not share a culture that places the good of society high enough in comparison to getting ahead as individuals (this thread alone should be evidence enough...), and also has a... regrettable history of immigration. I'm sorry, but your system will not work in the UK.

Apropos is spot on...

The UK has a more individualistic culture than the rest of Europe.

The good of society is frowned up and the success of the recent elections confirm that sad state of affairs...

People are more worried about paying as little taxes as possible than the good of society even if they whinge as hell when they receive awful service from the NHS for example..

A country is like a house ...

If you don't maintain it it will crumble down and you will have to call external help to repair...

Invest in it , you may have less disposable income to play it but it will be buit on better foundations...

 

[apropos]

Originally Posted by The Silverfox

Well, I don't know the specific particulars of the Danish system, but I'm guessing it in essense is similar to the one I grew up with, the Norwegian system. ... Simply put, from the standstead of economics I think this system is absurd, and it is no way an efficient way of solving the economic problem of gaining the most from scarce resources. It runs up the costs of the actual service production as a government entity can be run without making a profit which tends to cause inefficiency. In addition, as I already mentioned, it causes some pretty sever misallocations as the cost/benefit calculation only takes into account the benefit, because someone else bears the cost. From a moral point of view I think it's deplorable, as you are in the business of imposing on person A the costs of person Bs decisions, decisions person B made for his/her own benefit. I have never heard a convincing argument for why it should be the job of those who gain their experience through work to be paying the bills of those who gain it through formal education, and I don't think it is morally acceptable to do so.
Your entire post is invalidated by the fact that... their system works. And has worked for many many years. They also happened to do quite a bit better than the UK during the recent crisis, so... so much for your positing that the Scandinavian model is an unsustainable economic conundrum. But the thing is - it works only for them, and for no one else. Partly because of the reasons I mentioned earlier. You sound like someone trying to understand architecture from the standpoint of interpretive dance - just doesn't fly. Sorry, big post with a lot of big words, but complete fail.

Originally Posted by B|aze

I know what you mean. I think you have to have special mentality about the whole system. I don't think you could make it work today if it wasn't already in place.
Precisely what I meant.

Which is why whenever talk about implementing the 'Scandinavian system' in Australia/certain countries in Asia comes about, I

Full disclosure - partner is a bonnie Swedish lass, and I've spent many years thinking/talking/arguing with her about the relative merits (or not) about the 'Swedish system', which is for most intents and purposes essentially the same as the Danish system fundamentally.

 

[The Silverfox]

Originally Posted by apropos

Your entire post is invalidated by the fact that... their system works. And has worked for many many years.

They also happened to do quite a bit better than the UK during the recent crisis, so... so much for your positing that the Scandinavian model is an unsustainable economic conundrum.

But the thing is - it works only for them, and for no one else. Partly because of the reasons I mentioned earlier.

You sound like someone trying to understand architecture from the standpoint of interpretive dance - just doesn't fly.

Sorry, big post with a lot of big words, but complete fail.

Precisely what I meant.

Which is why whenever talk about implementing the 'Scandinavian system' in Australia/certain countries in Asia comes about, I

Full disclosure - partner is a bonnie Swedish lass, and I've spent many years thinking/talking/arguing with her about the relative merits (or not) about the 'Swedish system', which is for most intents and purposes essentially the same as the Danish system fundamentally.

What is your basis for stating that it works? What constitutes a "working" system to you?

There is a very big difference between a system being an economically efficient one and a system being politically practicable. Politically the system works, simply because the population is under the impression that it makes sense economically. If your definition of whether a system works or not is whether or not people go along with it, any system might "work" given enough propaganda.

The notion that a referendum will reveal the truth about the functionality of a system is a fantasy, the only thing it will reveal are the sentiments of the population, which are a result of the intellectual climate.

I have never stated that these systems don't "work" from a political point of view... people are under the impression that it's a good idea for the government to run everything, so they vote for people who increase government control and centralisation.

My objection is with the economics of the situation and the vast ammount of resources that are being pissed out of the window on a daily basis. Expenditures which if each taxpayer was confronted with each expense and could see clearly where the money was going would seem outrageous, but which in the current system is lumped together and presented as one bill that's seen as simply the cost of living in Norway.

If you've found flaws in my argument, feel free to point them out and I will try to adress them, but the objection that "it works" is a silly one because how would one know if it wasn't? What I am talking about is the efficiency of the system and the cost of providing these services within the system. My objection is simply that the system will not give you your money's worth for the simple reason that it's grossly inefficient, which is both what an economic analysis of the system would lead me to believe, and my experience from growing up wasting my childhood and youth in the Norwegian Educational system while my father was paying about 50% of his income in taxes. The fact that the system is in place does not prove that it deserves to be in place.

 

[Mac]

Originally Posted by w.o.e.is.me.

Wow! To have that little debt post law (or Med) school would be miraculous. think of the obscene damage one could do in B&S.
In Scotland my university education is paid in full for me by SAAS - so it's effectively 'free'.

I don't think that's 'right' but it's the way things are.

 

[apropos]

(I'm using the term 'Swedish' in this post because it's fairly representative of the 'Scandinavian model' and I'm familiar with it)

Originally Posted by The Silverfox

What is your basis for stating that it works? What constitutes a "working" system to you?
You've approached this from a completely arse-up POV - you're viewing the 'suitability' of a governmental system as being primarily objectively dependant on it's 'economical efficiency', which it isn't. The Swedish implementation of socialism has worked for 60 years, and by at least some important markers (e.g. health, life expectancy, mortality at birth, education, educational achievement, economic equality, poverty levels) they are ahead of the US/UK. That's a system that works IMO. But you're apparently willing to negate/brush aside all that in your pursuit/worship of 'economical efficiency'. Also, unless you can actually show how spectacularly inefficient the Swedish model is in comparison to the UK model (and what endpoints you're using as well!), your entire 'economically efficient systems' argument is doubly useless.

Originally Posted by The Silverfox

My objection is with the economics of the situation and the vast ammount of resources that are being pissed out of the window on a daily basis. Expenditures which if each taxpayer was confronted with each expense and could see clearly where the money was going would seem outrageous, but which in the current system is lumped together and presented as one bill that's seen as simply the cost of living in Norway.
Cost of living in the UK isn't too spectacular as well, and what endpoints do you get for your money?

Originally Posted by The Silverfox

If you've found flaws in my argument, feel free to point them out and I will try to adress them, but the objection that "it works" is a silly one because how would one know if it wasn't? What I am talking about is the efficiency of the system and the cost of providing these services within the system. My objection is simply that the system will not give you your money's worth for the simple reason that it's grossly inefficient, which is both what an economic analysis of the system would lead me to believe, and my experience from growing up wasting my childhood and youth in the Norwegian Educational system while my father was paying about 50% of his income in taxes. The fact that the system is in place does not prove that it deserves to be in place.
Finally - 'wasting your childhood and youth' in a Scandinavian system because you didn't make it into veterinary school in Norway?

You went through one of the better education systems in the world and you think you've had it hard?

Maybe you deserve to be in the UK - you are soft, and would fit right in amongst the whinging poms. Good luck with life.

 

[George]

Originally Posted by apropos

The Swedish implementation of socialism has worked for 60 years.
Aye, I wonder why. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compuls...ization#Sweden. Whinging Poms? You lot take some beating...

 

[apropos]

After the Ashes, we're about even now I reckon.

 

[Naive Jr.]

Originally Posted by intent

Students are a bunch of entitled twats who think higher education in non-essential areas is a birthright. The most atrocious ones are those who believe taxpayers should pay for their tuition completely, since schools are breeding grounds for intellectual endeavors that benefit society.

My suggestion, should they insist on more government support, is this: The government could pay for a year of your tuition and books completely for every year of military service you do (or every 2 years of volunteer/public interest work). It'll get rid of the crowd that doesn't know what they want to do in life but goes to school since it's what you're supposed to do.

What "students" think is influenced by those who instruct them. Instruction should be to benefit society. Education enables the individuals to develop their abilities in order to contribute to society. The persons who do not know what they want to do are victims of poor psychological counseling. The problem is not the young people, but the lack of thinking or false thinking about how human society should be shaped.

 

[The Silverfox]

Originally Posted by apropos

(I'm using the term 'Swedish' in this post because it's fairly representative of the 'Scandinavian model' and I'm familiar with it)


You've approached this from a completely arse-up POV - you're viewing the 'suitability' of a governmental system as being primarily objectively dependant on it's 'economical efficiency', which it isn't.

The Swedish implementation of socialism has worked for 60 years, and by at least some important markers (e.g. health, life expectancy, mortality at birth, education, educational achievement, economic equality, poverty levels) they are ahead of the US/UK. That's a system that works IMO.

But you're apparently willing to negate/brush aside all that in your pursuit/worship of 'economical efficiency'.

Also, unless you can actually show how spectacularly inefficient the Swedish model is in comparison to the UK model (and what endpoints you're using as well!), your entire 'economically efficient systems' argument is doubly useless.

Cost of living in the UK isn't too spectacular as well, and what endpoints do you get for your money?

Finally - 'wasting your childhood and youth' in a Scandinavian system because you didn't make it into veterinary school in Norway?

You went through one of the better education systems in the world and you think you've had it hard?

Maybe you deserve to be in the UK - you are soft, and would fit right in amongst the whinging poms. Good luck with life.

If you think I'm advocating the UK or US systems, you have obviously completely misunderstood me. What I am advocating is a system of personal freedom and personal responsibility. Neither the US nor the UK have been that for over 90 years, so I have never attempted to make the argument that the scandinavian system is less efficient than the UK model (it may be, I don't know). The argument I have made, and will continue to make, is that the scandinavian model is less efficient than it could be, and while we in norway still have people dying in hospital queues waiting for "postponable" surgery, I think resource scarcity is still a considerable issue.

I'm not basing my arguments on comparing statistics, because quite frankly what on earth would you use for comparison? If sweden was socialist a social-democracy with a large government and economic centralisation and denmark was a liberal-democracy with a small government and economic decentralisation, that would be a relatively valid scenario for comparing the two side-by-side when everything else was relatively similar, but the simple fact of the matter is that there isn't really any countries practicing true liberalism these days, and certainly not a country comparable to the scandinavian countries. To the best of my knowledge, the country that comes the closest to what I have in mind would be Hong Kong, and even they have been drifting towards regulation recently.

Once again, what is the alternative to the norwegian system "working"? How would norway be if parents could choose the schools for their children? How would norway be if the curriculum was decided on by the teachers rather than enforced by politicians? How would norway be if the teachers were responsible to the parents for the services they provided? How would norway be if people could decide for themselves which doctors would treat them? How would norway be if people could manage their own retirements and their retirement age rather than have it dictated by the government? How would norway be if students were themselves responsible for weighing the costs against the benefits of studying?

I'm sure people would be living in mudhuts with a life expectancy of 30, right?

Norway is far from a bad place to grow up, what I am saying is it could be better (as could every other country in the world) and I fail to see the reason why we shouldn't try to improve it as long as people are dying from lack of medical care, lack of medication or numerous other scarcity-related problems. There's a new scandal every week about the healthcare system... doctors buying and selling patient lists (patients don't have free choice in doctors and doctors get paid by the patient on their list, but young and healthy patients rarely if ever see the doctor so having them on your list is free income without work). Nursing homes overbilling the government and under-servicing their patients... The kind of thing you allways see whenever there is a complete separation between the person receiving the services and the person paying for the services, there is no incentive to work for quality of service, just cutting costs.

And as for my personal experience... why is it that idiots allways seem to make random assumptions about things they know absolutely nothing about? I had no desire to go to veterinary school because being a veterinarian is about the last thing I'd ever want to do. I used it as an example of the kind of sillyness that comes from government run education being rationed because of extreme demand. I might as well have used medical school as an example, which is fitting seeing as how we have problems finding enough hospital personell, but I picked veterinarian school because it's slightly more absurd.

If you don't feel particularly sympathetic towards my disappointment with my norwegian education, I think I can learn to live with your apathy. I wasn't looking for a hug, but rather to make the point that I think it's disgraceful to take a large amount of money against someone's will for providing a service and giving them very little in return. Why I did not learn much is something that could be caused by numerous things. Mostly because I found the entire experience to be utterly unchallenging and uninteresting, so I became a problem-child in the classroom instead. If you ever go to norway and have a child, I very much hope your child is of average intelligence and average temperament, if so I'm sure your child will fare reasonably well. The problem with a one-size-fits-all system is that one size does not fit all, and when it doesn't fit and there is no alternative... you're fucked. The result for me was that I was convinced that I was stupid, and I felt certain that learning was a dreadfully boring thing. I got slightly below average grades, and in my opinion was not learning enough to warrant those even, and why would I, the teachers were not in any way paid by success, and the school was not in any way reliant on me learning, or them keeping their good reputation. I did well in some courses, because contrary to my belief at the time, I am not stupid and on the rare occation I got a good teacher who could make the subject appealing to me, it was fun.

And by the way... last I checked, norway's education spending was the 8'th highest in the world as a % of GDP, and norway is one of the highest GDP per capita countries in the world. And the next time you check your rankings, education and life expectancy... have a look at where hong-kong is in those.

My logic is very simple, examine the mechanism in place and using basic economic understanding, analyze what kind of results the mechanism is likely to produce. When the producer is reliant on customer satisfaction to maintain his profit, he is likely to work for customer satisfaction. When he is reliant on lobbying a bureaucrat to keep his contract, and his customers are nothing more than a cost he would like to cut to increase his profits, he will do exactly that.

If you feel equipped to argue why a school run by an oversight board with a fixed budget and students who have no choice should do better than a school reliant on the parents/students willingness to pay tuition who have the power to remove the schools revenues if they feel they are not getting their money's worth, I'm all ears.

If however all you've got is more apples-to-oranges comparisons and attempts at refuting points I've never made, please spare me. I'm not advocating the US or the UK systems as they are both riddled with government intervention and incompetence, I'm advocating a system of freedom and consumer-sovereignty where every service-provider is held accountable to the service-receiver because the latter has the power to refrain from buyin the service.

And if you are going to make comparisons, make comparisons between countries that started out in a similar situation economically and culturally and have developed differently where the only major difference was centralization vs decentralization.