Govt cuts to tertiary education penalise the poor

[Don1]

Fret not thyself...all is not lost

You might bre right Willi. What Jamaica needs mostly are engineers and technical people. We keep on training an excessive amount of money managers, and lawyers. To become a developed country we ned to take a page from the Chinese, Indians, Germans and Japanese. For us to have something to manage, we have to be producing something. Unfortunately we are using the failed British, and the begining-to-fail American systems as our examples. The British produce nothing, and the Americans are now producing too little. How long will they survive managing other people's money. Of course, the Americans can go on for a long time because they have a large and important economy. The British probably wont be able to go on for very long, and Jamaica might be a nonstarter.

BTW are our insttutions handing out too many masters and PhD's? Are the contemporary PhD's given by the UWI of the same quality as the ones handed out in the 70's and early 80's?. I am a little leary, as it seems as if everybody, and their mothers have PhD's in Ja these days.

Digital Yard soon ready fi buss....

All aboard..Toot TooT!!

[Don1]

You might bre right Willi. What Jamaica needs mostly are engineers and technical people. We keep on training an excessive amount of money managers, and lawyers. To become a developed country we ned to take a page from the Chinese, Indians, Germans and Japanese. For us to have something to manage, we have to be producing something. Unfortunately we are using the failed British, and the begining-to-fail American systems as our examples. The British produce nothing, and the Americans are now producing too little. How long will they survive managing other people's money. Of course, the Americans can go on for a long time because they have a large and important economy. The British probably wont be able to go on for very long, and Jamaica might be a nonstarter.

BTW are our insttutions handing out too many masters and PhD's? Are the contemporary PhD's given by the UWI of the same quality as the ones handed out in the 70's and early 80's?. I am a little leary, as it seems as if everybody, and their mothers have PhD's in Ja these days.

The post of the year.... now what to do about it??

[ReggaeMike]

A loan with interest rates below market is a subsidy!

I see where you are trying to go with that, but the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's Thesaurus (and plain ol' logic) disagree:
subsidy n. (pl. subsidies) 1. A sum of money granted from public funds to help an industry or business keep the price of a commodity or service low. > a sum of money granted to support an undertaking held to be in the public interest. > a grant or contribution of money. 2. historical a parliamentary grant to the sovereign for state needs. > a tax levied on a particular occasion.
ORIGIN: ME: from Anglo-Norman Fr. subsidie, from L. subsidium 'assistance'.

loan n. a thing that is borrowed, especially a sum of money that is expected to be paid back with interest. > the action of lending. > short for loanword. v. give as a loan; lend.
ORIGIN ME: from ON lán, of Gmc origin; rel. to LEND

Synonyms for loan: 1. permission to borrow, lending; advance, advancing, giving credit, accomodation. 2. sum of money lent, thing lent, thing borrowed; credit, mortgage, advance. verb 3. lend, permit to borrow, advance, allow; mortgage, credit.

Synonyms for subsidy: grant, aid, appropriation, provision, backing, subvention, sponsorship, allotment, honorarium, award, gift, support, subsidization; scholarship, fellowship, grant-in-aid, assistanceship.

Note the synonyms for each term do not overlap because the two terms themselves are not synonyms.


Besides, ANY loan that does not feature negative interest rates cannot be a subsidy. A subsidy means money is transferred with one party gaining what they didn't have before - a grant. A loan means money is temporarily transferred and must be paid back, usually with the party that would gain with a subsidy experiencing a net loss as a result of paying back the principal with the interest. So even if a loan has "below market interest rates" that doesn't make it a subsidy since those below market interest rates could still be positive interest rates (or at best probably 0% interest rates).

So "I subsidize you to go to school" - I pay "X" out of "Y" for you to go to school and you never pay me back the money.

However "I give you a loan to go school" - I pay "X" out of "Y" for you to go to school and you better darn well pay me back not just "X", but "X + % of X" in total or I will blacklist you/break your legs/sue/get you in legal trouble/etc.

Any economics or business book that attempts to equate a loan (without negative interest rates) with a subsidy must be written by someone who either:

a. doesn't understand English and is confusing "loan" with a synonym of "subsidy"

b. is a fraudster like Charles Ponzi or Bernard Madoff

c. never learned basic economic principles.




Sure if the government offered loans with say 10% interest as opposed to the lowest market rate of say 20% one could say that the government is subsidizing the interest rate on the loan, but that doesn't turn the loan into a subsidy anymore than a bald woman or short-haired woman buying a wig or extensions turns her into a "naturally long-haired woman". Likewise a person undergoing a sex-change operation doesn't genetically become the other sex, nor does the addition of V/STOL capability to a fighter-jet (such as on the Harrier or F-35) turn it into a helicopter.


In any case our supposedly learned doctor from UTech said: "the minister of education intimated that it was the government's intention to move to a student-based subsidy rather than the institutional-based system that now obtains..". Had he (and the minister) meant to refer to a subsidy on government interest rates then he would/should have said "move to an interest-based subsidy" as what was actually written could only mean a subsidy to the students (i.e. subsidize the students) or a subsidy of the institutions from the students (i.e. the students subsidize the instutiton's budgets instead of the government doing so). The latter meaning would make no sense, especially in light of the fact that he (and the minister) referred to "the institutional-based system that now obtains" and that could only be referring to the institutions being subsidized by the government as educational institutions can hardly subsidize themselves. It's quite clear from the letter that Dr. Nkrumah-Young and the minister were conflating loans with subsidies unless it is that their command of English is simply **************** poor.

[Willi]

Dem nah talk with dat level of precision. Technically its a subsidy on the loans, yes.

BTW, yuh love type! LoL

I did not mean for you to have to hash out a treatise! Dat tek too much of your time.

[Willi]

BTW, yuh giweh yuhself now. LoL

I figured out who you are. Welcome sah!

[Willi]

Not to tek away from R-Doc glory, but the essence of this post is made several times a year here. Nuff a we tired of the useless paper chase happening in JamDung.

Real advancement would come with maximal usage of our educ. resources...or by innovative initiative like your Dig Yard project. The poor imitation of Wall Street effery will get us nowhere.

[Willi]

China soon mash up di dolly house....watch!!!

Something "wicked" this way comes!

[Don1]

Not to tek away from R-Doc glory, but the essence of this post is made several times a year here. Nuff a we tired of the useless paper chase happening in JamDung.

Real advancement would come with maximal usage of our educ. resources...or by innovative initiative like your Dig Yard project. The poor imitation of Wall Street effery will get us nowhere.

where there is no vision ... the people shall perish

[Islandman]

Willi you wikid bad! The man spend all that time a type, format, define, analyze, and you rebutt it with one sentence? LOL!

[ReggaeMike]

Dem nah talk with dat level of precision. Technically its a subsidy on the loans, yes.

BTW, yuh love type! LoL

I did not mean for you to have to hash out a treatise! Dat tek too much of your time.

But Willi, isn't it sad when a DOCTOR (presumably one with a PhD) writes a fairly long letter but then doesn't write with that level of precision? And worse, the minister he supposedly quoted?

Either they are lazy, fool-fool or trying to pull a fast-one. The fact remains though that they can't replace subsidies to the institutions with loans to the students and still have the audacity to say they are subsidizing the students.

And I type fairly fast, so it's not a problem to type extensively. Besides, I firmly believe in clarity and having substance in my writings.

[ReggaeMike]

BTW, yuh giweh yuhself now. LoL

I figured out who you are. Welcome sah!

Well thanks for the welcome (again) but I never know I suh famous that anybody could figure out who I am.

[ReggaeMike]

Unless of course the vision is for the people to perish (mentally at least)...

[ReggaeMike]

Well the useless paper chasing is bad enough, but when the paper chasers either deliberately confuse financial concepts or don't seem to understand those concepts themselves....well, then Jamaica in trouble.

[Willi]

LoL

Ah juss now yuh figure out that JamDung in chubble?

We sailing up shite's creek fi years!

[Willi]

That is how we do!