World Trade Center Building 7 - controlled demolition

Obvious troll is obvious.

Annoyingly for the Troll, it was Thatcher ( a Brit) who persuaded Bush pere to go to war against ( that lovely guy ) Saddam, in order to kick him out of Kuwait.

No way is it a troll;  trolls make killer statements that cut to the bone that get everyone really mad. This one is just a politically opinionated keyboard warrior who needs to get out more & not spend so much time jangling his watch strap.    

If you want to know why Denver airport sits on the intersection of
'paranormal' and 'conspiracy', here's why:
http://thechive.com/2012/03/08...he-denver-airport-25-photos/

That should keep some here occupied for a while.

G

That did keep me busy Graeme.

Obviously, everybody knows that state funded bunkers are built all over the States and other countries , also by private individuals of variying wealth. 

And who wouldn't fear the 'Hugo'. And for those not aware, Hugo is not an asteroid, it's just simply known for its insatiable appetite for subjugating online Forums into its hive by sending those that hear it into delirious appreciation...so much so that any conversation invariably ends in "try the Hugo" and the circle is complete, "the perfect organism, Ripley" on the Forum no one can hear the nDAC.

Jason.

DrMark,

I did my university schooling without loans. I graduated from HS, worked as a construction laborer for five years, saved my money, and paid cash for my undergrad education. Then I got funding from the US Bureau of Reclamation to pay for my post grad education. You've got the student loan at 40+. Now who is buying into the coproro-government misinformation machine?  

(Latter emoticon meant to imply no ill intent in my post ). Shit happens.

Not a term I used, but I assume it refers to the highest degree that can be bestowed .

Exactly - not a term I invented either. 

No question that if I could go back to 2007 I would not go back to school...I was just looking for something that had some sustainability, and there is no way to "save' for pharmacy school.  I had been a chiropractor, and had to give that up due to the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome, then I was in telecom engineering until the 2003 "tech wreck" whereupon I spent a full year out of work and spent almost all my money form selling my practice to my partner.  Finally landed a position doing IT support at...a mortgage company, which of course was doomed - even before the mortgage bubble burst, they were bringing in workers from India to learn our jobs.  Pharmacy looked like a sure bet; good pay, and the government even had a study indicating that the demand would far outstrip the supply for decades - of which I only needed 2. 

So at 49 I stupidly believed "it's never too late" and went back to school.  I am now suicidally in debt...and I realized that this is part of how we generate good corporate lackeys.  It also points out the fact that every time the government gets involved in something, they can't help but f*** it up, because they create mis-allocations of capital.  In the current system, the schools have zero incentive to control costs, because they will get the check direct from the government, and the student walks away holding all the debt.  If the loans were not so liberal, the price of education in America would not be climbing faster than every other sector...and by a wide margin.  So we have a bunch of students who will all do whatever they can to try and service the debt - so they are in no position to call the shots - and as we know, many will never be able to pay it back.

And to go back to what I saw - the dean of the pharmacy school had a course in critical thinking - it was interesting, and really not very difficult...I found it to be an easy "A".  But most of my 20-something classmates hated it (viscerally so), because it was a course that required you to figure out the answers and deduce them; there was no "give me the chart to memorize".  While memorization is undoubtedly part of learning, it appears to have replaced real learning in schools - I think wrote memorization is almost a waste of time, but that seems to be the new normal for "education" in our schools, and I don't think what I saw was an exception.  I worked at a CVS with a classmate who would get a 94 on a test that I got an 80 on, and a week later in the store she wouldn't know something from that exam.

Again, the students I saw, bright young people, are more accustomed to memorizing and being told what to think as opposed to learning how to think.  And that is a product of the NEA and all that claptrap.  That is why they hated, almost to a man, the dean's course on critical thinking...Liek George Carlin said, just smart enough to run the machines & fill out the paperwork.

I learned a lot more about the scam of "higher education" in America than I did about pharmacy.  And the government has "pre-bailed out" the lenders on student loans; currently sitting at over a trillion dollars...much of it will never be repaid.  I no longer owe the money to the banks - that debt has all been transferred to the US Treasury department, removing the onus from the banks.

I have a car loan at 0.9%, and a mortgage at 3.75%, and a mortgage on the rent house I own (upside down thanks to these same bankers from 2008  - that is why I am in the rental business) at 4.25%, but my student loans are average 6.8% - and none of those are "private" student loans - all through federally backed programs.

But the banks don't run anything - that's just "conspiracy" silliness.  And I was stupid to buy the lie.  Oh and employment prospects for pharmacists (which I don't even practice pharmacy) are a fraction of what they were 7 years ago.

Oh my, Dr Mark!

US Student loans. Intriguing on paper. Perhaps not in practice.

I'm working with a guy in his early 40's, married, with two kids. He has a house (a heavily overvalued mortgage), several cars on loans, and a boat on a loan. And he still has not paid-off his student loan from years ago. Unbelievable to me, but maybe the norm to others.

With two kids in college, my perspective is that the best gift a parent can give their child is a college education; paid upfront. That's what I'm working for. Not a nicer car, not a boat, not a hot tub or a remodeled kitchen. Just my children's education.

Joe - I actually saw an article that claimed (since it didn't apply to me I investigated no further) that you, as a US college student (or parent thereof) could find a number of fine colleges in Europe, send you kid there, and even with 4 flights a year (there Sept, back for Christmas, then return and come home at school year end) beat the pants off most college "experiences" here in terms of cost.  (And IMHO, likely academically in many cases.)  Even "public" schools here have gotten ridiculously expensive.  UNCC here in Charlotte, part of the state system, I hear students at the gym speak of the increasing costs all the time (my gym is right up the road from the school.)

Like I said, I did not run any numbers, but I could easily see it being the case in comparing to small, private schools like where I got my PharmD.

The thought of paying for my kids' college education scares the pants off me. I joke to my wife that they should just get a job when they finish high school.

Don't joke ! Its a good idea IMHO

All three of my daughters went straight from high school into work. Then after a year or two, the eldest and youngest went to university, the youngest to study architecture which was a seven year course, admittedly with two of those years in supervised employment.

It did them all a world of good in so many ways. The most obvious being that they saved towards their higher education costs, got a real sense of financial values and an appreciation of the needs of society. I think they applied themselves more seriously to their degree courses and fitted more easily into the real world post graduation.