++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ JASON MURPHEY, PART 3 ON HIGHER ED & ITS COSTS
++ BURN BANS, DO THEY WORK & 85% OF BURNED HOMES NOT INSURED.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our 12 noon meeting for Wednesday, August 22nd will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. We will have several
items on our agenda for this week’s meeting. A representative for the
soon to be released film, LAST OUNCE OF COURAGE will talk to us about
the film and play a trailer for us on our TV system. It is due to open
in theaters on September 14th. Our main speaker will be Oklahoma
County Sheriff candidate, Darrell Sorrels. In addition, OCPAC Vice
President Bob Donohoo will discuss our accountability efforts toward
incumbent lawmakers.
Our goal at OCPAC is not necessarily an ever larger majority of
Republicans in the legislature, now our goal has shifted to electing
the highest quality of Republican lawmakers as possible. If that means
challenging liberal lawmakers such as Guy Liebmann and others then so
be it. Of course we hope for the highest quality of candidate as
possible, candidates who have sound conservative principles and will
go on to stand up for moral issues as well as work to see that we have
a business friendly environment where entrepreneurial genius can rise
to the top and succeed. Under that scenario, there will be a greater
demand for labor, which will in turn cause the wages for employees to
increase. That will benefit Oklahoma as a state and everyone wanting
to benefit from that positive economic environment will have that
opportunity.
Just a reminder, to see any of our meetings we have recorded and put
on you tube, just log on to our new web-site at: www.oklahomacpac.com
. Once on the home page, click on the video tab and all of the
meetings we have recorded are easily accessed.
++ JASON MURPHEY, PART 3 ON HIGHER ED & ITS COSTS
State Representative Jason Murphy (R-Guthrie) has been writing a
series of columns on the high cost of higher education, its causes and
what can be done to bring those costs down. Warning, these articles
are not politically correct, nor are they sensitive to the feelings of
the profiteers of higher ed. The title of this article is: “Popping
the higher ed bubble”
“I have found it interesting that it has taken so long for technology
to bend the cost curve for Oklahoma higher education entities. Just as
in many other areas of the business world, Oklahoma universities
should have developed the ability to provide effective administration
with far fewer people due to advances in technology. In the free
market this is cutting overhead and driving down costs in so many
areas. These savings offset many of the inflationary pressures such as
increased health costs.
However, in Oklahoma, higher education as a whole hasn’t realized
these savings and as I have described in the past two columns, has
grown spending far faster than inflation. This means the higher ed
experience is in a bubble. It is drastically overpriced and will face
a day of reckoning.
Just as the housing bubble was propped up by lose monetary policy and
debt, the higher ed bubble is also fueled by debt. The federal
government feeds the bubble by making it so easy for students to incur
thousands of dollars of debt. Too many students don’t act like logical
free market participants who demand the best product at the lowest
possible price. Instead, they take the free money from the government
and take on a debt that will haunt them for years to come. In fact, as
a whole, Americans owe about $900 billion in student loan debt.
This unsustainable set of bad policies must come to an end--and they
will!
In his 2011 state of the state address, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called
for the creation of $10,000 four-year bachelor degree programs. His
effort initially was opposed by some within the Texas higher education
community, but students at multiple Texas universities are obtaining
their degrees for less than $10,000 today. In fact, students at Texas
A&M San Antonio can secure an information technology degree with an
emphasis on cyber security for $9,700. Those who hold this degree
typically get paid between $16 and $40 per hour and likely will start
their jobs with little student loan debt hanging over their heads.
Perry wanted Texas universities to provide the $10K degree by
leveraging web-based instruction, creating innovative teaching
techniques and establishing aggressive efficiency measures. Online
coursework clearly offers one of the foremost tools for driving down
cost.
Ironically, just last week, Oklahoma State Rep Pat Ownbey circulated a
letter from one of his constituents showing that they were paying
$1,025.52 for just one online course from the University of Oklahoma.
Of that amount, $389.90 was the cost of tuition and the rest was fees.
Even though this student may never set foot on campus during the
duration of the course, for just one course he will pay more than a
tenth the cost of getting an entire degree at Texas A&M San Antonio.
The higher education bubble has started to burst in Texas. In
Oklahoma, even when some of our higher education institutions are
using technology to deliver a service, they are still gouging the
student. It’s not supposed to work that way. Technology is supposed to
drive down the cost of education.
A key component of the plan obviously orients around web-based
coursework. The University of Oklahoma’s current online education
model is completely backwards. The university should shift cost away
from online course offerings because online students don’t use campus
services. They cost far less to serve.
By failing to lead the way in offering reduced cost online access,
local universities risk failing to establish market share in higher
education venues of the future.”
If anyone has a comment for Representative Murphey, he can be reached
via e-mail at Jason.murphey@okhouse.gov, on Facebook at facebook.com/
JasonMurphey and Twitter.com/JWMurphey.
I have been republishing these columns because I believe the cost and
value of higher ed is one of the biggest shams being perpetuated on
the citizens of Oklahoma. If you have read my opinions for any length
of time I often refer to education in general as the “education
industry” because it is actually a business. It is really more about
the power and wealth of those who make their living under the guise of
educating, mostly young people, than it is about actually educating
those same clients. That of course not to say that there aren’t many
dedicated teachers, because there are, they are just caught up in a
troubled system.
I will not hold myself out to be an expert on education, but the study
of the industry and what actually is necessary for peopled to be
educated has been a focus of study for me for the past 25 plus years.
I have a rather large section of my personal library dedicated to
books about education, written by many of America’s leading critics of
our modern “education system”.
++ BURN BANS, DO THEY WORK & 85% OF BURNED HOMES NOT INSURED?
Recently the general manager of ABC’s KOCO 5 News station in OKC
offered an editorial opinion about the need to pass more laws making
it easier to pass burn bans and stiffer penalties for those who break
those laws. One of the problems with any tragedy, is there is always
someone, maybe many, who immediately jump on the bandwagon for
government to come to the rescue and solve the problem. While I might
not have a problem with increasing the punishment for causing damaging
fires, I suggest we really look at the value of a burn ban.
Before the horrible wild fires broke out in Cleveland and Oklahoma
counties, those counties had already had a burn ban in effect for
several weeks. On the morning of the afternoon that the fires broke
out, Governor Fallin issued a statewide burn ban and then that
afternoon all hell broke lose. Please do not misunderstand me, I am
not trying to suggest or imply that Governor Fallin is at fault. What
I am trying to say is think, think, think, did any of the burn bans
prevent these fires? Of course not, most fires are set by arsonists,
low life smokers who don’t want their cigarette butts in their
vehicles so they toss them out a window (no amount of burn bans will
prevent them from doing this) lightening strikes or industrial
accidents.
There is a certain segment of the population that never watches a news
cast, never reads a newspaper or never listens to anything on radio
other than some form of pop culture. They don’t pay attention to the
rules and for the most part they don’t obey the rules. You can
announce all the burn bans you want and it won’t mean a thing to these
folks.
While watching the news the other night I was shocked and had to
reverse the TV and listen again as the report said that 85 percent of
all the homes burned or destroyed were not insured! I visited with a
person at the insurance commission and was told the number was
correct. It was suggested that many of the burned homes were mobile
homes or older homes that are paid for or have been in a family for
more than one generation and passed down.
In many cases these homes are in heavily wooded areas and covered by
rural fire departments which generally have a high (in this case a
higher number is worse) ISO rating. Therefore, the cost of insurance
to value being insured is much higher than in a larger city with full
time firefighters and fire hydrants well spread out over a particular
area.
Then I remembered about 25 years ago when my wife and I lived in a
mobile home in Southern Logan county with heavy woods all around us.
We paid the home off and made a conscience decision to self insure.
Our premium at the time was about $500 per year with a $1,000
deductible and the coverage value was for about $15,000. Therefore, we
took $1,500 (1 years premium and one year’s deductible as insurance
coverage is for one years at a time) and put that money into an escrow
account. I knew our greatest risk was in the early years, but if we
had no claim in 10 years then we would fully have the money to replace
the value based on our insurance policy. After about 4 years we moved
into a small home about a mile away and rented out our mobile home. At
that time I took out a policy for rental property and of course the
rent easily took care of that cost. We then had the four years of
savings ($6,000) to do with as we chose.
Point is, all insurance is a gamble. Insurance companies “expose”
themselves to the risk of a substantial payout and in turn we pay a
premium for that exposure. If those that lost their homes without
insurance were disciplined and self insured, they won’t be totally
without resources. If on the other hand that was not the case, they
will be faced with starting over again which will be much easier on
young people than those that are older. Even with that all said, that
does not mean that they do not have needs and people of charity will
certainly help to some degree in those needs.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
* MONDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn will host
a town hall meeting, 6:00 p.m. Monday August 20th at the Brand Senior
Citizens Center, 501 East Main in Moore. I always urge conservatives
to attend these meetings and try and ask the first question to set the
tone of a meeting. Otherwise, those who nurse on the government teat
are the ones that show up and continually ask for more government
largess. Coburn may have copies of his new book, THE DEBT BOMB
available for those wanting to purchase one.
* MONDAY EVENING - CLAREMORE AREA - Oklahoma 2nd Amendment (OK2A)
is bringing Larry Pratt, the national director of Gun Owners of
America (the no compromise defender of the 2nd amendment), to Oklahoma
for appearances on both Monday and Tuesday. Monday’s appearance will
be at the JM Davis Gun Museum, 330 N JM Davis Blvd in Claremore at
6:00 p.m.
* TUESDAY AFTERNOON - McALESTER AREA - Larry Pratt will be
speaking at 12 noon at The Meeting Place 104 East Choctaw Ave in
McAlester. Lunch will be available for purchase.
* TUESDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - Larry Pratt will be speaking at
the H&H Gun Range in OKC at 6:30 p.m. The location is 400 S Vermont
Ave, Suite 110.
* TUESDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - The Tulsa Area Republican
Assembly (TARA) will host their monthly meeting, Tuesday August 21st,
6 for dinner and 7:00 p.m. for the speaker. The location will be the
Golden Corral on 71st street and Mingo in Tulsa. Speaking will be Jim
Bridenstine, Republican nominee for Oklahoma’s first Congressional
district.
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
With half of August over we are a little over half way in membership
dues toward meeting the full match of $1,500 by the end of August. We
need to raise about $600 more dollars which would be 12 memberships at
the base membership of $50 or one or two memberships at the $180 or
$360 level will really help us meet the matching challenge.
We are now at 237 dues paying members for this year which is exactly
20 more memberships than last year at 217. We are interviewing some
very good candidates for office and we want to be able to help the
ones our members select with as large a contribution as possible. I
would say OCPAC is as effective of a place as possible to contribute
to candidates as very little of your dues are consumed in overhead and
we do our best to ferret out the true conservatives from those who are
not. A candidate appearing at OCPAC is not a guarantee for our
support. During the primary season there were at least 4 that appeared
that did not garner our support and there will be those coming before
us now that will not receive our support.
With the help of conservatives from all over the state, we are slowly
making a positive difference. I want to thank everyone who has already
joined and urge others who have considered joining to do so now.
Instructions on how to join are below.
You won’t want to miss this week’s meeting.
Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com
++ JASON MURPHEY, PART 3 ON HIGHER ED & ITS COSTS
++ BURN BANS, DO THEY WORK & 85% OF BURNED HOMES NOT INSURED.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
Our 12 noon meeting for Wednesday, August 22nd will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. We will have several
items on our agenda for this week’s meeting. A representative for the
soon to be released film, LAST OUNCE OF COURAGE will talk to us about
the film and play a trailer for us on our TV system. It is due to open
in theaters on September 14th. Our main speaker will be Oklahoma
County Sheriff candidate, Darrell Sorrels. In addition, OCPAC Vice
President Bob Donohoo will discuss our accountability efforts toward
incumbent lawmakers.
Our goal at OCPAC is not necessarily an ever larger majority of
Republicans in the legislature, now our goal has shifted to electing
the highest quality of Republican lawmakers as possible. If that means
challenging liberal lawmakers such as Guy Liebmann and others then so
be it. Of course we hope for the highest quality of candidate as
possible, candidates who have sound conservative principles and will
go on to stand up for moral issues as well as work to see that we have
a business friendly environment where entrepreneurial genius can rise
to the top and succeed. Under that scenario, there will be a greater
demand for labor, which will in turn cause the wages for employees to
increase. That will benefit Oklahoma as a state and everyone wanting
to benefit from that positive economic environment will have that
opportunity.
Just a reminder, to see any of our meetings we have recorded and put
on you tube, just log on to our new web-site at: www.oklahomacpac.com
. Once on the home page, click on the video tab and all of the
meetings we have recorded are easily accessed.
++ JASON MURPHEY, PART 3 ON HIGHER ED & ITS COSTS
State Representative Jason Murphy (R-Guthrie) has been writing a
series of columns on the high cost of higher education, its causes and
what can be done to bring those costs down. Warning, these articles
are not politically correct, nor are they sensitive to the feelings of
the profiteers of higher ed. The title of this article is: “Popping
the higher ed bubble”
“I have found it interesting that it has taken so long for technology
to bend the cost curve for Oklahoma higher education entities. Just as
in many other areas of the business world, Oklahoma universities
should have developed the ability to provide effective administration
with far fewer people due to advances in technology. In the free
market this is cutting overhead and driving down costs in so many
areas. These savings offset many of the inflationary pressures such as
increased health costs.
However, in Oklahoma, higher education as a whole hasn’t realized
these savings and as I have described in the past two columns, has
grown spending far faster than inflation. This means the higher ed
experience is in a bubble. It is drastically overpriced and will face
a day of reckoning.
Just as the housing bubble was propped up by lose monetary policy and
debt, the higher ed bubble is also fueled by debt. The federal
government feeds the bubble by making it so easy for students to incur
thousands of dollars of debt. Too many students don’t act like logical
free market participants who demand the best product at the lowest
possible price. Instead, they take the free money from the government
and take on a debt that will haunt them for years to come. In fact, as
a whole, Americans owe about $900 billion in student loan debt.
This unsustainable set of bad policies must come to an end--and they
will!
In his 2011 state of the state address, Texas Gov. Rick Perry called
for the creation of $10,000 four-year bachelor degree programs. His
effort initially was opposed by some within the Texas higher education
community, but students at multiple Texas universities are obtaining
their degrees for less than $10,000 today. In fact, students at Texas
A&M San Antonio can secure an information technology degree with an
emphasis on cyber security for $9,700. Those who hold this degree
typically get paid between $16 and $40 per hour and likely will start
their jobs with little student loan debt hanging over their heads.
Perry wanted Texas universities to provide the $10K degree by
leveraging web-based instruction, creating innovative teaching
techniques and establishing aggressive efficiency measures. Online
coursework clearly offers one of the foremost tools for driving down
cost.
Ironically, just last week, Oklahoma State Rep Pat Ownbey circulated a
letter from one of his constituents showing that they were paying
$1,025.52 for just one online course from the University of Oklahoma.
Of that amount, $389.90 was the cost of tuition and the rest was fees.
Even though this student may never set foot on campus during the
duration of the course, for just one course he will pay more than a
tenth the cost of getting an entire degree at Texas A&M San Antonio.
The higher education bubble has started to burst in Texas. In
Oklahoma, even when some of our higher education institutions are
using technology to deliver a service, they are still gouging the
student. It’s not supposed to work that way. Technology is supposed to
drive down the cost of education.
A key component of the plan obviously orients around web-based
coursework. The University of Oklahoma’s current online education
model is completely backwards. The university should shift cost away
from online course offerings because online students don’t use campus
services. They cost far less to serve.
By failing to lead the way in offering reduced cost online access,
local universities risk failing to establish market share in higher
education venues of the future.”
If anyone has a comment for Representative Murphey, he can be reached
via e-mail at Jason.murphey@okhouse.gov, on Facebook at facebook.com/
JasonMurphey and Twitter.com/JWMurphey.
I have been republishing these columns because I believe the cost and
value of higher ed is one of the biggest shams being perpetuated on
the citizens of Oklahoma. If you have read my opinions for any length
of time I often refer to education in general as the “education
industry” because it is actually a business. It is really more about
the power and wealth of those who make their living under the guise of
educating, mostly young people, than it is about actually educating
those same clients. That of course not to say that there aren’t many
dedicated teachers, because there are, they are just caught up in a
troubled system.
I will not hold myself out to be an expert on education, but the study
of the industry and what actually is necessary for peopled to be
educated has been a focus of study for me for the past 25 plus years.
I have a rather large section of my personal library dedicated to
books about education, written by many of America’s leading critics of
our modern “education system”.
++ BURN BANS, DO THEY WORK & 85% OF BURNED HOMES NOT INSURED?
Recently the general manager of ABC’s KOCO 5 News station in OKC
offered an editorial opinion about the need to pass more laws making
it easier to pass burn bans and stiffer penalties for those who break
those laws. One of the problems with any tragedy, is there is always
someone, maybe many, who immediately jump on the bandwagon for
government to come to the rescue and solve the problem. While I might
not have a problem with increasing the punishment for causing damaging
fires, I suggest we really look at the value of a burn ban.
Before the horrible wild fires broke out in Cleveland and Oklahoma
counties, those counties had already had a burn ban in effect for
several weeks. On the morning of the afternoon that the fires broke
out, Governor Fallin issued a statewide burn ban and then that
afternoon all hell broke lose. Please do not misunderstand me, I am
not trying to suggest or imply that Governor Fallin is at fault. What
I am trying to say is think, think, think, did any of the burn bans
prevent these fires? Of course not, most fires are set by arsonists,
low life smokers who don’t want their cigarette butts in their
vehicles so they toss them out a window (no amount of burn bans will
prevent them from doing this) lightening strikes or industrial
accidents.
There is a certain segment of the population that never watches a news
cast, never reads a newspaper or never listens to anything on radio
other than some form of pop culture. They don’t pay attention to the
rules and for the most part they don’t obey the rules. You can
announce all the burn bans you want and it won’t mean a thing to these
folks.
While watching the news the other night I was shocked and had to
reverse the TV and listen again as the report said that 85 percent of
all the homes burned or destroyed were not insured! I visited with a
person at the insurance commission and was told the number was
correct. It was suggested that many of the burned homes were mobile
homes or older homes that are paid for or have been in a family for
more than one generation and passed down.
In many cases these homes are in heavily wooded areas and covered by
rural fire departments which generally have a high (in this case a
higher number is worse) ISO rating. Therefore, the cost of insurance
to value being insured is much higher than in a larger city with full
time firefighters and fire hydrants well spread out over a particular
area.
Then I remembered about 25 years ago when my wife and I lived in a
mobile home in Southern Logan county with heavy woods all around us.
We paid the home off and made a conscience decision to self insure.
Our premium at the time was about $500 per year with a $1,000
deductible and the coverage value was for about $15,000. Therefore, we
took $1,500 (1 years premium and one year’s deductible as insurance
coverage is for one years at a time) and put that money into an escrow
account. I knew our greatest risk was in the early years, but if we
had no claim in 10 years then we would fully have the money to replace
the value based on our insurance policy. After about 4 years we moved
into a small home about a mile away and rented out our mobile home. At
that time I took out a policy for rental property and of course the
rent easily took care of that cost. We then had the four years of
savings ($6,000) to do with as we chose.
Point is, all insurance is a gamble. Insurance companies “expose”
themselves to the risk of a substantial payout and in turn we pay a
premium for that exposure. If those that lost their homes without
insurance were disciplined and self insured, they won’t be totally
without resources. If on the other hand that was not the case, they
will be faced with starting over again which will be much easier on
young people than those that are older. Even with that all said, that
does not mean that they do not have needs and people of charity will
certainly help to some degree in those needs.
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
* MONDAY EVENING - MOORE AREA - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn will host
a town hall meeting, 6:00 p.m. Monday August 20th at the Brand Senior
Citizens Center, 501 East Main in Moore. I always urge conservatives
to attend these meetings and try and ask the first question to set the
tone of a meeting. Otherwise, those who nurse on the government teat
are the ones that show up and continually ask for more government
largess. Coburn may have copies of his new book, THE DEBT BOMB
available for those wanting to purchase one.
* MONDAY EVENING - CLAREMORE AREA - Oklahoma 2nd Amendment (OK2A)
is bringing Larry Pratt, the national director of Gun Owners of
America (the no compromise defender of the 2nd amendment), to Oklahoma
for appearances on both Monday and Tuesday. Monday’s appearance will
be at the JM Davis Gun Museum, 330 N JM Davis Blvd in Claremore at
6:00 p.m.
* TUESDAY AFTERNOON - McALESTER AREA - Larry Pratt will be
speaking at 12 noon at The Meeting Place 104 East Choctaw Ave in
McAlester. Lunch will be available for purchase.
* TUESDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - Larry Pratt will be speaking at
the H&H Gun Range in OKC at 6:30 p.m. The location is 400 S Vermont
Ave, Suite 110.
* TUESDAY EVENING - TULSA AREA - The Tulsa Area Republican
Assembly (TARA) will host their monthly meeting, Tuesday August 21st,
6 for dinner and 7:00 p.m. for the speaker. The location will be the
Golden Corral on 71st street and Mingo in Tulsa. Speaking will be Jim
Bridenstine, Republican nominee for Oklahoma’s first Congressional
district.
++ OCPAC MEMBERSHIP UP-DATE
With half of August over we are a little over half way in membership
dues toward meeting the full match of $1,500 by the end of August. We
need to raise about $600 more dollars which would be 12 memberships at
the base membership of $50 or one or two memberships at the $180 or
$360 level will really help us meet the matching challenge.
We are now at 237 dues paying members for this year which is exactly
20 more memberships than last year at 217. We are interviewing some
very good candidates for office and we want to be able to help the
ones our members select with as large a contribution as possible. I
would say OCPAC is as effective of a place as possible to contribute
to candidates as very little of your dues are consumed in overhead and
we do our best to ferret out the true conservatives from those who are
not. A candidate appearing at OCPAC is not a guarantee for our
support. During the primary season there were at least 4 that appeared
that did not garner our support and there will be those coming before
us now that will not receive our support.
With the help of conservatives from all over the state, we are slowly
making a positive difference. I want to thank everyone who has already
joined and urge others who have considered joining to do so now.
Instructions on how to join are below.
You won’t want to miss this week’s meeting.
Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com
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