Debtucation
by
Jeff Berwick Previously by Jeff Berwick: The Door Is About to Shut for Americans
From a young age I never understood schools. You mean I have to wake up at 6am, trudge through the snow and the cold (where I was from in Canada), evade getting beat up by all manner of bullies and then sit in what seemed like a cruelly hard and uncomfortable wood chair and listen to some guy/gal who had never done anything with their lives read out of a book to me while I write down and memorize what they say?? I'd always return home after eight straight hours of child prison and say to my Mom, "Why can't they just give me the books and I'll read them?" and "The chances of me needing to have to know ANY of this info in my future are slim to none". Let's just take a case study of myself. Other than learning to read, which theoretically, most kids should learn within 2 or 3 years (Detroit aside), once I knew how to read, what did I learn in school that has brought me any value, despite the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into the system on my behalf by taxpayers? My first real business in adult life was a music studio I started in Vancouver, Canada. I didn't even take "music" in school. I was "self taught" by teachers like Dr. Dre, Professor Griff and Maestro Fresh Wes. After that, I went on to start an internet company. They didn't teach that in school back in the 70s and 80s, for obvious reasons. I rarely even went to school after grade 7... something which I now believe to be the main reason why I think the way I do... because I wasn't indoctrinated like most others. While they spent 8-10 hours per day in government regulated schools and then spent the rest of their time being brainwashed by the boob-tube I spent almost every waking hour I had on my computer - hacking away. Since having gotten out of the "internet" business I now have a company that sells condos in Acapulco (acacondos.com). I don't remember them teaching that in school... and if you want to be granted the right to sell real estate in places like Canada and the US you now have to pay a lot of money and spend a lot of time in some sort of government school to get a "license". I also have a boutique hotel in Acapulco which rents out the renovated beachfront condos on behalf of the owners (LTGPS.com). They didn't teach "hotel management" in grade 1-12 but I hear there are college courses focused on this. Really! I can teach hotel management in 10 seconds or less. Ready? Time me. Find what people want, build it and then rent to them at rates that make sense for both you and them and try to hire people who will make sure they have a nice time when they stay in your rooms. There, I just saved someone $50,000 in tuition fees.
Since then I now write an Austrian economics based financial newsletter which you all are aware of. There once was a point when I wanted to learn economics and, stupidly, I signed up to a college to take "Economics 101". After one class I realized what a waste of time it was and I went off on my own to read the masters of economics... texts they don't have in any government school anywhere: Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard and some of the modern masters of the art of free-market economics like Doug Casey and Steven Saville. I now have children of my own and live in Mexico with them. I completely ignore any dictate or obligation to imprison them in any public school and they are what you would call homeschooled. Vladimir Lenin stated, "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted". He would have gushed with joy at the insane thought of having the government indoctrinate your children for a minimum of 12 years and by the time all is said and done, with "higher" education, 16-20 years! Anyone who forces their children into the public education system, in my opinion, is a child abuser. Now that I have children of my own, at ages four and six, one thing is very clear to me. Children want to learn. Their eyes are wide open and they are eager to feast on knowledge. Another thing is clear to me after seeing many go through the public education system. By the end of 12-20 years of it, only the most eager, warped or twisted still have a glint in their eye. The government education system will suck your child's interest in learning out of them. In fact, many students used to free market education devices such as the internet, Xbox and Nintendo are classified by the dinosaur-age education system as having "Attention Deficit Disorder". They just can't seem to handle centuries old education style systems since they already have access to much better free market devices. So, what do they do with these misfits? Drug them. Dumb them down so they can handle sitting in a wood chair and reading out of old, expensive paper books. The only thing more insane than putting your child into any government regulated education system is actually paying a lot of money for it or, even worse, putting them into massive amounts of debt for it.
Thanks to the internet ALL knowledge is freely available. MIT offers all their courses free online. As well, thanks to the internet we don't need hundreds of thousands of teachers. Really, we just need one or two. One of the best math teachers in the world is Salman Khan. He offers to teach you everything you would ever want to know about math for free. And recently I was approached at an investment conference by two young, wide-eyed entrepreneurs who are also huge advocates of libertarianism/anarchism and austrian economics. They have started something called eProf... it is a website which will be in its beta-launch in about 2 months. The concept is to allow anyone to become a teacher (much like Salman Khan) and upload videos/courses. Students will vote on which are their favorite teachers and the best teachers will attract the most students. Over time this should attract countless students who will be willing to pay (either subscription or via advertising). It is a great idea and I am a big supporter of their vision. They recently got angel funding and are in Silicon Valley working on their project right now. In short, if you are a parent of a young person or you are a young person wondering about your future, one of the last things you should do is pay to go to a college or university. Sure, thanks to criminal government mandates you can't practice certain professions without going to these expensive institutions, so if you want to be a doctor in the US or something similar you may have to play their sick game. If your main intention is to learn, however, there is no excuse for not doing so completely outside of any organized school system. Thanks to the internet the world is at your fingertips. Take advantage of it before the governments begin to shut it down. And, of course, no school education can compete with real life experiences. Travel is one of the best educations you can have... or start up a business. Or, at the very least, just intern or work under a business owner in whatever field you enjoy. But, of course, the government is trying to make internship illegal or impossible now too. Whatever the case, before you send your child to college or attend college yourself, I highly recommend watching the following documentary, again only available on the internet because the government run mass media won't publish this type of information in the western world. It is called "College Conspiracy" and it does a good job of showing what a con job the education system is. Reprinted with permission from The Dollar Vigilante. June 20, 2011 Jeff Berwick [send him mail] is an anarcho-capitalist freedom fighter and Chief Editor of the libertarian, Austrian economics grounded newsletter, The Dollar Vigilante. The Dollar Vigilante focuses on strategies, investments and expatriation opportunities to survive & prosper during and after the US dollar collapse. Copyright © 2011 The Dollar Vigilante
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