Monday, October 8, 2012

DO VOTERS IN TULSA HAVE A CANDIDATE WHO CAN HANDLE MONEY?

++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++  ANNOUNCEMENTS
++  DO VOTERS IN TULSA HAVE A CANDIDATE WHO CAN HANDLE MONEY?
++  WHAT’S OBAMA, FALLIN, BARRESI, FORD & COODY HAVE IN COMMON?


++  AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, October 10th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. Our speaker this
week will be Mr. Ward Connerly, founder and President of the American
Civil Rights Institute, an organization dedicated to educating the
public about the need to move beyond race. More specifically, the need
to eliminate racial and gender preferences. Mr. Connerly’s
organization is behind State Question 759. Following Mr. Connerly’s
presentation and the question and answer session our members will vote
to determine if OCPAC will endorse this State Question.

Mr. Connerly is the author of Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race
Preferences and his new release Lessons from My Uncle James: Beyond
Skin Color to the Content of Our Character. One part memoir, one part
moral guide, Lessons from My Uncle James is a touching, funny and
ultimately a philosophical book about living a principled and
productive life regardless of skin color. Lessons illustrates how Mr.
Connerly arrived at the ethics that have guided his life and is a new
starting point for the discussion about character that America must
have in order to move beyond race for good. Mr. Connerly is another of
the high profile national figures that we have at OCPAC from time to
time, therefore, you will NOT want to miss this meeting!

++  ANNOUNCEMENTS

*  MONDAY EVENING  -  ADA AREA  -  The Ada Seminole Tea Party will
host their monthly meeting in a new venue, the Perfect Blend Coffee
House, 730 East Main in Ada, starting at 6:30 p.m.. The first speaker
will be Ward Connerly of whom I mentioned above and then I will be
speaking on what I believe to be the hideous agenda of the State
Chamber of Commerce. If you live in the area, make every effort to
come and hear Mr. Connerly as it is not often that a rural community
has the opportunity to hear a high profile conservative speaker such
as Mr. Connerly.

*  TUESDAY EVENING  -  MOORE AREA  -  Middle East expert Brigitte
Gabriel will be in Moore on Tuesday evening, 7:00 p.m. at First
Baptist Church, 301 Northeast 27th street (about 2 blocks East of I-35
on 27th street). Brigitte has a compelling story as she suffered at
the hands of the radical fundamentalist Muslims in Lebanon as a young
girl. She thoroughly understands the dangers of Sharia Law and the
attempts by many American Muslims to use it to take over the judicial
and governmental institutions in our nation.

*  WEDNESDAY AT NOON  -  TULSA AREA  -  The Tulsa County Republican
Men’s Club will host their monthly meeting, 12 noon, at the Hibachi
Grill on East 74th Place South and Memorial Drive. Speaking will be
former City Councilor Bill Christiansen who is running for Mayor to
replace the liberal Republican Mayor Bartlett. Christian will discuss
his opposition to Vision2, the $748 million dollar sales tax increase
that will be on the ballot this November 6th. The public is invited to
attend. The folks in Tulsa had better wake up and inform themselves on
this issue, this will be a great opportunity to do so.

*  WEDNESDAY EVENING  -  SKIATOOK  -  Brigitte Gabriel, of whom I
mentioned above, will be speaking in the Tulsa area at Immanuel
Baptist Church of Skiatook, 625 South Broadway Street. The meeting
begins at 7:00 p.m.

++  DO VOTERS IN TULSA HAVE A CANDIDATE WHO CAN HANDLE MONEY?

This past Monday, October 1st the Oklahoman ran an above the fold
front page article about the Republican and Democrat candidates for
the District 1 Congressional race having a large amount of student
loan debt owed to the federal government. The debt is described as in
a range between $100,000 to $250,000 dollars. I have done a little
investigation and found out that the Republican candidate Bridenstine,
owes near that lower amount and I don’t know about the Democrat Olson,
but the article went on to report that Olson also owes up to $150,000
dollars in private student loans . Both have 2 degrees. The article
also indicated Olson’s wife has a similar amount of debt. Bridenstine
is 37 and Olson is 35, both about the same age.

The point I want to make is the need to have a person in office who
has an attitude of abhorrence toward debt as well as an ability to
handle money and build wealth. One of my problems with Congressman
Sullivan was that as of the last reporting I saw he had a very low net
worth, which is not impressive for the amount of salary he makes and
the number of years he has made such a high salary (probably $150 to
$180 thousand a year for the over 10 plus years he has been in
office).

Olson reports a family income of $111,000 and indicates he and his
wife struggle under the debt load. Bridenstine makes $36,000. For
Bridenstine to be current on his bills with a wife and 3 children
tells me he can handle money and we can only hope the pressure from
the student debt has created a hatred toward debt.

We are continually told that people with college degrees make X number
of dollars more in their lifetime than those without a degree. That
may be true, however, prior to his death Paul Harvey cited a study
which showed that people who went to work right out of high school
started earning wealth right away, whereas college students often wait
a few years before they start to earn wealth. If those same students
acquired debt during college, by the time they paid off their debt and
with a shorter earning lifespan, in the end they will have acquired
little or no more discressionary dollars than those without a college
degree.

Bottom line, I believe a college or university degree is vastly
overrated. There are some professions such as engineering, medical,
law and perhaps a few others that the need for a degree is valid. Home
school moms and dads without a degree prove on a daily basis that
children can be educated to a higher academic, social and spiritual
level than those taught by degreed educators in our government
schools.

Following are some thoughts by syndicated columnist Malcolm Berko. Mr
Berko writes about investments and does so by way of a question and
answer format:

Question

“Dear Mr. Berko, I’m 30, make a good living as a plumber and have two
children ages 4 and 6 who are in preschool while my wife works part
time at Walmart. We want to provide for their college and need to know
how to invest $150 to $200 a month for their education. One financial
adviser recommended investing monthly in three mutuals that look very
good. Another, whose seminar we went to, recommended a complicated
life insurance policy that will have a high guaranteed value when the
children are ready for college. Another recommends small partnerships
in apartments, oil, shopping centers, natural gas wells, etc. And
another told us to invest in a diversified portfolio of good stocks
that we would invest in every month. The mutual sounds the best but we
don’t know how to make a decision. Please tell us what you would do.
CT in Gainesville, Fla.”

“Dear CT: I’d prefer you save that money for retirement rather than a
college degree for your kids. When you retire in 40 years (if you’re
able) I’m certain you’ll need every penny you can beg, borrow and
save, and even then, that won’t be enough. The retirement future for
most middle aged Americans is bleak, and it’s a colossal mess out
there.

It’s a daunting task to invest for a child’s college costs. You have a
12 year time frame until the kids are college ready, which isn’t
enough time for the magic of compounding to work. Our market has
morphed into a casino, whose embedded players have the scruples of a
gang of sociopaths.

Most investments purchased 10 years ago are worth less today, failures
of over-aggressive stock market greed. This money is dear to you, and
you can’t afford to have fewer dollars 12 years from now than you have
today. Saving $200 a month accumulates to $28,000 in a dozen years
(without interest), which is what the cost could be for a single year
of college.

Bank your savings in an interest account and know that all of it will
be there in 2024. This isn’t what you want to hear, but I don’t like
the risks I see in the coming 12 years.

Now, you need to look around you and ask why an employer a dozen years
from now would hire a graduate with a degree in history, sociology,
literature, political science, philosophy, art or music theory.

Employers I talk with recognize a student’s 4.0 grade average but also
recognize the culture of grade inflation and from past experience
doubt a student’s ability to learn on the job.

We’re not in the 70s, 80s, and 90s anymore. The economy and its need
for new skill sets is changing.

Many educators wear blinders or are too bumbling to recognize this
change. Those who do prefer the easy, armchair sinecure of the 20th
century and won’t change.

Most of today’s bachelor’s degrees aren’t worth a blue pig in a green
huckleberry patch and too few master’s degrees are worth more.

Forget the Madison Avenue media hype about the importance of a college
degree; rather, look at the facts.

More than 54 percent of bachelor’s degree holders under 25 are either
jobless or underemployed as wait staff, cabbies or telephone
solicitors. Universities care more about becoming bigger than getting
better.

This year, your University of Florida recently announced an increase
in funding for its athletic department to $99 million and a decrease
in funding for its computer science department.

Your boys can make a better living as butchers, electricians, diesel
or jet engine mechanics, welders and yes, plumbers. They can get a
better education about life as apprentices in these fields rather than
doing dope at frat parties or sitting through mindless classes given
by 50-year-old nerds who can’t make a living in the real world.

Tell your kids to join the Armed Services, learn a skill, learn what
they would like to do. Then when their hitch is up, have Uncle Sam pay
for their college education.”

I really wish Mr. Berko wouldn’t hold back with his opinions. Recently
we have seen reports about a nationwide effort to increase the number
of people with degrees. This idea is also being pushed in Oklahoma.
Why and who is behind this idea?

First off, it is the people who earn their living as college
professors, instructors, administrators or those who work in other
fields associated with these bastions of leftist indoctrination.

Secondly, some businesses have bought into the idea that the old sheep
skin is somehow a determinate as to a quality employee, rather than
the concept that a reasonably sharp person with a good work ethic can
learn to be as, if not more, productive than the person with the
degree.

Third, many in government have seen the stats that the person with the
degree earns a higher wage. Therefore they believe, if we can only get
more people making more money, paying more personal income and sales
taxes, that situation will result in more revenue flowing into the
government coffers.

Finally, parents have heard the mantra about the “necessity” of a
college degree and they project that onto their children as they grow
up. Therefore, many of those kids coming out of high school have been
programmed to think, think, think that college is the only way to go
and thus are scripted to give it a try. They have been told they will
never amount to much without a college degree and the peer pressure is
significant to go to college.

Certainly some are successful in college and some really need college
for their future field or profession. However, many others aren’t
suited for that experience and thus drop out and get on with their
lives in other ways. We just have to hope they are able to overcome
the negative vibes about not amounting to anything without a college
education. Some of them go on to own businesses and become multi-
millionaires. Others learn the honor of labor and earn a good living
for themselves and their families.

I simply offer these ideas so people will consider them before they
just automatically go down the prim-rose path that is being laid out
for them by the system.

One more thing, a few weeks back I re-published several columns by
State Representative Jason Murphy (R-Guthrie) about the high cost of
higher education and ways to beat those costs through the rapid growth
of technology. Following is an editorial from the October 5th edition
of the Oklahoman which does an excellent job of summing up
Representative Murphey’s columns:

“State colleges need to alter business model to expand”

“Twelve Oklahoma colleges and universities are part of a national
initiative to increase the number of degrees awarded over the next 14
years. This is a worthy goal. However, those touting the effort hinge
its success largely upon increasing taxpayer appropriations. There is
little discussion of using technology to increase efficiency and lower
costs while serving a larger group of students.

That’s disappointing because online learning is growing in the world
of higher education. L. Rafael Reif, president of Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal of
that school’s venture into online education. Since last December,
150,000 people from 160 countries have signed up for MIT’s online
course content. Reif wrote, ’Online education holds the key to making
residential education better and less expensive even as it promises to
offer education to many millions more people.’ He believes providing
courses online for a small fee can ultimately boost the school’s on-
campus efforts as well.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry has called for tying 10 percent of a
university’s funding to graduation rates. Perry has also called for
universities to develop a $10,000 bachelor’s degree, a goal that nine
schools have embraced. According to its student newspaper, The
University of Texas-Arlington is collaborating with Tarrant County
College and local high schools to allow students to complete 24 credit
hours of dual-credit college courses during their junior and senior
years in high school, attend TCC and then UTA, reaping a bachelor’s
degree for $10,000 in the process.

If schools as prestigious as MIT can explore lower-cost online
learning, why can’t Oklahoma colleges? If a $10,000 degree is possible
in Texas, why not in Oklahoma? According to The Institute for College
Access and Success, 56 percent of Oklahoma students currently graduate
with an average of $20,708 in student loan debt.

Instead, Oklahoma college officials often seem focused on maintaining
the current system structure and associated revenues. In 2005, OU
suffered a public-relations embarrassment after requiring most
freshman students to live on campus, including those residing within
50 miles who were previously exempt from that mandate. The university
backed off after public outcry from students trying to save on college
expenses by living at home.

Oklahoma college officials note that state appropriations account for
a smaller percentage of their funding today than in 1980, but those
statistics are misleading. State colleges no longer require
legislative approval for tuition increases - something that didn’t
occur in the 1980s. Between 2003 and 2007, tuition and fees at
Oklahoma universities increased by more than 50 percent. Rates have
continued to climb since then. State appropriations can comprise a
smaller percentage of the total budget even when lawmakers increase
taxpayer funding.

Furthermore, in-state tuition and fees at OU in 1980 were $1,713
(adjusted for inflation). Today, they’re $7,340. At OSU, tuition and
fees jumped from an inflation-adjusted $1,677 to $7,441 today. That’s
an increase of more than 300 percent, after inflation, at both
schools.

The forces driving more students to obtain a college education to get
21st Century jobs also allow colleges to better control costs while
increasing enrollment and preserving quality. Other business models
have changed since Oklahoma statehood; there’s no reason our higher
education system can’t do the same.”

Again I believe that college is overrated. However, the day is coming
when people aren’t going to put up with $100,000 to $250,000 in
student loan debts to earn between $36 to $55 thousand a year. Change
is coming and folks would be wise to consider those changes.

++  WHAT’S OBAMA, FALLIN, BARRESI, FORD & COODY HAVE IN COMMON?

I have run out of time, so this will be the lead article in next
week’s e-mail.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com

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