How anyone can watch this video and still support Obama is beyond me.
Bloomberg Report: Cost Of College Degree In U.S. Has Increased 1,120 Percent In 30 Years
According to Bloomberg, college tuition and fees have increased 1,120 percent since records began in 1978, far outpacing the price inflation of consumer goods, medical expenses and food.
As this chart explains the rate of increase in college costs has been “four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index.” Medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.”
Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported the average tuition at four-year public universities had increased by 15 percent between 2008 and 2010. Private universities were also found to have had significant price increases.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Associated Press in June that lowering college costs needs to be priority for the whole country.
“As a nation, we need more college graduates in order to stay competitive in the global economy,” Duncan said. “But if the costs keep on rising, especially at a time when family incomes are hurting, college will become increasingly unaffordable for the middle class.”
12 Year Old Fined For Selling Hamburgers to Raise Money for Vets
12 year old Justin Peterson was holding his usual fundraiser, selling hamburgers, for the Honor Flight Program, which flies vets to Washington, D.C., to see the National World War II Memorial , when a local health inspector approached his stand in a Chewelah park and issued him a $170 for not having the proper food permit.
“She charged us for it and I was kind of sad,” Peterson told local TV station KREM. “I was just trying to raise money for vets.”
Dave Windom, administrator for the health district said the inspector was only following policy.
“You don’t want someone in the field making judgment calls on what they consider a worthy cause and cutting people slack. It opens the door for accusations of favoritism,” he said.
Faced with an embarrassing situation, the health district board members decided to pay the fine themselves.
Peterson has helped send more than three dozen veterans to the nation’s capital by selling hamburgers, holding nacho dinners and selling Honor Band wristbands (available for $5 by emailing JP4vets@yahoo.com). He called the whole thing “kind of cool.”
Peterson was honored last year with the Prudential Spirit of Community Award, one of only two honorees from Washington state, for his fundraising on behalf of Honor Flight. The year before that, the Spokesman-Review dubbed Peterson a “fundraising phenomenon” for his efforts.
Former TARP Inspector General: ” US Pretty Fucked”
Neil Barofsky, the former Inspector General of the Troubled Asset Relief Fund, summed up the state of the countries finances in two words: “Pretty fucked.”
The response was to the question “So we’re just totally fucked, right? As citizens, like no-way-out fucked?” asked during a question and answer session on Gawker.
“We need to convince those seeking or trying to retain power that they will not get our votes unless and until they commit to meaningful change of a financial system,” Barofsky wrote in the Q&A.
Barofsky’s assessment is strikingly similar to Christina Romer’s. Romer, the former chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, told Bill Maher last year that the U.S. was “pretty darned fucked” on the night that the US credit rating was downgraded by Standard and Poor’s.
In addition, Barofsky insisted that President Obama’s administration isn’t doing enough to address issues inside the financial industry, saying that Dodd-Frank financial reform doesn’t adequately address questions surrounding too-big-to-fail banks:
“The incentives are all still in place for the TBTF banks to accumulate dangerous amounts of risk in the quest for short-term profits with the assurance that if their bets do not pay off, they (and most importantly from the perspective of market discipline) and their counterparties/creditors) [sic] will be bailed out by the gov’t. Combine that with a lack of accountability for bad/fraudulent behavior, and you have a toxic cocktail that will bring about another crisis. Regulatory reform did nothing to change those incentives. “
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