To all of those in the traditional media establishment -

Thanks for all of your dedication over the years, but we're going to have to let you go. The simple reality is that we get more objective facts from our Facebook feeds than we do from you. Moreover, we just don't get you anymore. It's like listening in on someone else's conversation. You focus on stories and story lines that have no relevance to us.

Worse, you report from subjective, ideologically-driven premises that we know are simply wrong. See that's the thing, we used to take you at your word and base our understanding on the premises that you developed for us, but now we have the internet and we are starting to discover that your premises are simply false. We have begun to question those premises...left/right, for/against, Republican/Democrat. We just aren't buying anymore. Before the internet, we assumed we were alone in feeling this way, that we were the outliers, the kooks, but now we know that actually, you are.

You recently told us that 60-75 thousand attended the Tea Party event in DC. In the past we would have shrugged and said, "Oh, o.k." But today we have so many tools that don't depend on you which can be used to confirm or deny your claims. I have read two separate analysis of the crowd size by normal people who just took the various claims, cross-referenced them with videos,still photos, mathematical calculations, interviews, and archived material from past events. Guess what, your numbers are laughable, and easily rebuked. This is the part you're missing. In the world of virtual communities and internet activism, anyone can project a message, but it must stand up to critical review or be discredited. When the message is repeatedly discredited, so is the messenger.

Time and time again, your reporting has been challenged and rebuked; your blind partisan hackery and naked self-aggrandizing pose exposed for what it is. When GE uses its media arm to promote "going green", you don't think we see it for what it is? When there are four leftists pounding on one token conservative on your talk shows, you don't think we understand what is happening? When you take affronts to freedom and liberty and frame them as left versus right, do you honestly believe that we aren't laughing and mocking your simple-minded naivety and your assumption that we are too stupid to see through the false choice you are presenting?

Look, this is a courtesy letter. You guys do what you will, but when the bankruptcies cascade through your industry, at least you'll know why.

In liberty,
America

 

Discussion of the economics of college funding is something that makes most people roll their eyes and look for the nearest exit. Many folks seem to think that it's great and is responsible for everything from the post-WWII boom to the computer revolution and they don't want to hear otherwise or apply any critical thinking to the issue.

However, us political economist-types don't have that luxury. We have to apply a series of analytical tools to the issue to get a real view of what is going on with student loans. What we find is that the market for a college education is no different than any other market in terms of how it functions. A scarcity of dollars will cause prices to go down as competing universities chase a diminished supply of capital. Conversely, when dollars are plentiful, prices rise. See where I am going with this yet?

When the government dumps lots of cheap dollars into the system and the FED keeps interest rates artificially low (encouraging private lenders to do the same), then the price of tuition will necessarily rise. This creates an inflationary spiral that feeds the need for more and more student loans, grants, and scholarships which causes prices to rise further.

I'm currently working on a graduate degree that costs $3300 every two months. If you take the national average price inflation since the inception of the GI Bill, these classes should only cost about $800. If that were the case, I could easily pay for this degree out of pocket as I go. Instead, I am forced into the public financing system and as a result (assuming I don't pay it down as I go), I will be approximately $105,000 in debt when I finish. In the absence of public funding, that debt would be zero.

The only real solution to the problem of the education cost is to get the government out of it and to strip the Federal Reserve of the ability to manipulate interest rates. The resulting price deflation would make it possible for millions of people to attend college without racking up a huge debt obligation as well as allowing private lenders to make low interest, manageable-sized loans for those that truly need it.

This is an issue that is critical to this audience and understanding the economics is key to joining and winning this battle. We are all rightly concerned about the new legislation to create a government monopoly over education funding. Such a system will be unsustainable, create huge debt obligations for new graduates, and assure that the cost of education will remain out of reach to those unwilling or unable to go hat in hand to the government for help.

This piece originally appeared on yaliberty.org. If you haven't been there, what are you waiting for ?