Bernie! Bernnnniiiiieeeee!

With the election coming, the canidates seem to be as any year, the best of the worst.

But for some, especially the younger generation, Bernie Sanders was a light in a tunnel of darkness.

Younger people, and socialists alike gathered around the cause.  Lets have free education, free childcare, free healthcare.

Normally Im not too political.

Mainly because its a wasteland.

But people got behind this idea of a candidate who would give them, and their daily lives what they wanted, what they needed, what they deserved.

I am not one of those people.

With education specifically, I paid my fair share, my 100k plus.  And I'd like relief from that, or to have never had that at all, by different life choices, i.e. the military or just hard work, or even better, and education funded by my parentsn at least partially as I am attempting with my son.

But a free education is not something that is feesible.

What happened to working towards a goal?

I hate the hard work.

I work 7 days a week for it.

Blue and white collar.

But as a society, as an American Capitalistic society, progression is possible but not a total overnight transformation.

This is America and we believe anything is possible, especially overnight transformation.

Fat fighting, plastic surgery, Get Rich Quick schemes.

You name it, we as Americans have embraced it.

But thats a lie and momentary fleeting feelings and lifestyles.

Leaving us wanting more.

We are already offered healthcare, social systems such as primary education and safety, Obama phone, food if we need it, the postal service, financial services for secondary and post secondary education.

And frankly, if we want free college, free healthcare, free daycare, and anything else our hearts desire as free, we're just working to turn the rest of our lives over to public systems.

Public systems that don't work right, are over or under funded depending on the politicians, even Bernie.

Public systems like my community which left to its own accord is in massive debt, has an abysmal school system, and growing social issues.

Public systems dont improve our society, they slow it down.  Innovation is slowed, if theres any room for it at all.  Efficiency lacks.  Progress as a society is left to the government when it should be left to the people.

Hope is a good thing.

Change for the better is a good thing.

Dramatic societal change such as free education and $15 minimum wage are impossible realities from the base we have now. 

There is a better future but WE have to work for it. 

The collective WE.

Us as individuals.

Not the government.

And certainly not Bernie Sanders.

More Choices

There are many more choices in life other than to college or not.

But when college is the option then the choice is what to study.  Sure, where, how, and other questions also arise but what is the most important of those choices.

Talking with a 16 year old cousin, I find myself preaching on the words I write here. To not college.  And if I could go back I wouldnt change my decision, but I would hopefully do it better. Think about it more and realize there are many more years after college. Years that the decisions made before, through, and after are affected.

So the choice of what to study and ultimately Be is one that shouldn't be made lightly, but one that any young person does not know because they've barely experienced to know what is.  But nonetheless we give them that life defining choice and let them run into whatever life they choose, which the direction is chosen in some instances but paths and obstacles arise that were not necessarily by choice.

He, my cousin, wants to be an aerospace engineer, which to me sounds like a child saying I want to be an astronaut.  To say that you will start into this career path is one thing but getting through is a whole different, long and brutal story.  Ive known many an engineering student move elsewhere,  which are those unseen and unchosen paths and obstacles.  So I heeded him that warning along with a warning to chose a field like that, he also said mechanical engineering which seems a bit more obtainable but also a grueling effort is needed to succeed while in school.

I, as an accounting major, took a job for jobs sake and still believe in the accounting major as an adequate opportunity with a heed of warning that you, unlike I, must put in the work to find a position in the field.  But many come out with 'business' or 'management' or 'communication' or 'miscellaneous' degrees and look for miscellaneous jobs, not unlike myself.  So I ask what then is the point of those degrees.  And the point of educational institutions that give 'knowledge' but actually give nothing of real value, physical or future, such as guarantee of a position.  A guarentee of a grade is giving and even when that is sufficient, a job is still not given.

Maybe im being a child of my generation.

Entitled.

Maybe im just bitching. As always.

But read and know that the choice of 'what' is a fine point as to know to college or not to college.

The Choice

100k plus is a choice, one that I was not aware of the implications and thus I sit here trying to find a forum to educate future generations, but it was still a choice to make.

As a 'lower' middle class teenager, college was most certainly an option, especially for someone like myself who excelled in that environment, but there were other choices, many of which I see my peers having made and doing much better than myself at this point.

Well, I guess there wasnt many choices, college, mooch, or work, as my simple mind can put together.  I chose college as did many of my equals, intellectually (ha that's a stretch for myself to deem myself intellectual but we'll run with it) not all economically, in high school.  Others who did not see the benefit of more schooling chose work.  I wont go into option b, but I assume there is a choice to do nothing and allow those, society and family, around you to cover the tab.

Work presented many benefits that college did not. Money.

I started working at age 15 and made a couple thousand each yeah but no more than 8k until I start my professional career.  Maybe that was a lack of motivation to be something more while being an academic but either way I did not make an above poverty level wage until 23 while those who chose work made a full time workers salary, whether that be even minimum wage, still add in up to around 15k a year.  Others took it further and work allowed them to make much more than that, thus receive the benefits of financial freedom prior to college graduates.

Work seems like a much more viable option, but the ceiling is much lower, or the potential ceiling I must say is much lower. But that's all obvious.

But that's also all a choice.

A necessary choice by a mind much to young and inexperienced to understand the life long implocations or either choice.

But that's another argument for another blog.

The choice I chose was 100k plus, one I assumed and hope would lead to an accounting position, a career path I was told in high school was booming.

I never made it to that career path, and thus I sit here and bitch, or preach, or try to pen words to show others(ha like who? I must ask) to make a more informed choice.

A New York Time article(today's for some reference other than my babbling) called 'Falling wages at factories squeeze the middle class' make the choice of Work seem much less viable, and the choice in general much more complex.  It basically sums up that manufacturing positions, which I saw some 'friends' pursue, do not simply pay as well as they once did.  Also obvious,  at least in my eyes, with that field being one sent to foreign (The Elephant and the Dragon, a economic commentary on the rise of both nations worth a read) labor markets that present a much cheaper landscape.  But is that what we must accept.

The article also goes on to explain and show the government's hand in the overall industry, as evidently seen in the auto manufacturing industry, while wages still have succumbed to a decreasing trend. 

One which may seem to be a contradiction in a democratic nation.

For the people?

For the industry.

For the company.

So how is work versus schooling going to win the debate?

I myself have seen wages by a manufacturing company in my community which was taken over by an Indian company, slashed.  A position that was somewhat well paying and held by one of my peers as I went off to college and saw him be able to support himself with the company but the company has been reduced to minimum or close to minimum wage positions for jobs that are above the duties of many workers at that same wage.

This trend is not a welcome in the battle of work versus school but that is what also must be understood, trends at the time of The Choice.

The Choice is not easily formulated, even with my hopeful Life Equation, but its a necessary and inevitable choice.