Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you.
I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. And Thiel – the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist – not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious.
Some people are contrarian for the sake of getting headlines or outsmarting the markets. For Thiel, it’s simply how he views the world. Of course a side benefit for the natural contrarian is it frequently leads to things like headlines and money.
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Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future. Both whisper a seductive promise into the ears of worried Americans: Do this and you will be safe. The excesses of both were always excused by a core national belief that no matter what happens in the world, these were the best investments you could make. Housing prices would always go up, and you will always make more money if you are college educated.

Like any good bubble, this belief– while rooted in truth– gets pushed to unhealthy levels. Thiel talks about consumption masquerading as investment during the housing bubble, as people would take out speculative interest-only loans to get a bigger house with a pool and tell themselves they were being frugal and saving for retirement. Similarly, the idea that attending Harvard is all about learning? Yeah. No one pays a quarter of a million dollars just to read Chaucer. The implicit promise is that you work hard to get there, and then you are set for life. It can lead to an unhealthy sense of entitlement. “It’s what you’ve been told all your life, and it’s how schools rationalize a quarter of a million dollars in debt,” Thiel says.

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Making matters worse was a 2005 President George W. Bush decree that student loan debt is the one thing you can’t wriggle away from by declaring personal bankruptcy, says Thiel. “It’s actually worse than a bad mortgage,” he says. “You have to get rid of the future you wanted to pay off all the debt from the fancy school that was supposed to give you that future.”

Equally, some government's in Europe don't know how valuable it is to have a skilled workforce that starts its 'consuming' life without a lifetime's debt. In years to come, either the cost of student education in the US is going to have to come down or salaries are going to have to go up or the debt will have to become less recourse. None of these look likely at the moment.

Personally, I like the graduate tax with the aim that x amount is paid back where x is at very low interest. You can carry it to your death or pay it back quickly, it doesn't really matter. The amount that comes in, though, is the maximum funding for the university sector...

And was Patrick Neary made financial regulator BECAUSE he had no third level qualifications so the education lobby could later claim it would have all worked out fine if only we'd had a regulator with proper qualifications??

Dr. Liam O'Reilly

Dr. Liam O’Reilly is Chief Executive of IFSRA. He is also Director of the Central Bank. He was Assistant Director General of the Central Bank of Ireland since 1998, with responsibility for all of the Central Bank’s financial supervision functions. In that period, he oversaw significant changes in the supervision regime. Outside of this supervisory role, he has previously held the positions of Manager of the Central Bank’s Financial Control & Settlements Department, Markets Department and International Relations Department. He is a member of the ECB Banking Supervision Committee, the EU Banking Advisory Committee, the Committee of European Securities Regulators and the International Organisation for Securities Commissioners. He was a member of the Review Group on Auditing, set up by the Tánaiste in 2000 and which subsequently led to the establishment of the Interim Board of the Irish Accountancy and Auditing Supervisory Authority, the regulatory board for auditors, of which he is a member. He holds an M.Sc. in Economics and Statistics and a Ph.D. in Econometrics from Trinity College Dublin

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Prior to April 2007, Chartered Accountants Ireland, subject to Government and regulatory oversight in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland, regulated and disciplined its members.

Following a proposal made by the Strategic Review Group report of 2005 as endorsed by Council and ratified by an SGM of members, the Institute's regulatory and disciplinary functions were transferred to an operational independent board entitled the Chartered Accountants Regulatory Board.

The first Chairman of CARB was Dr Liam O'Reilly, formerly Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator in the Republic of Ireland. He has been succeeded by Chris Gibson

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A father was dragged from his home and handcuffed in front of his children by a SWAT team looking for his estranged wife - to collect her unpaid student loans.
A stunned Kenneth Wright had his front door kicked in by the raiding party at 6 am yesterday before being dragged onto his front porch, handcuffed and led to a police car with his three children...

Personally, I like the graduate tax with the aim that x amount is paid back where x is at very low interest. You can carry it to your death or pay it back quickly, it doesn't really matter. The amount that comes in, though, is the maximum funding for the university sector...

But why has no one in the media asked questions about how despite the number of graduates, masters, PhDs and MBAs recruited by all the big banks, the banks still accumulated massive losses, and the accounting firms who keep check on them despite employing honours graduates etc. ALSO failed to spot what the hell was going on.
And was Patrick Neary made financial regulator BECAUSE he had no third level qualifications so the education lobby could later claim it would have all worked out fine if only we'd had a regulator with proper qualifications??

David Willetts in secret talks with banks on funding of student loans
Saturday 25 June 2011
Daniel Boffey, policy editor

Government may encourage applicants to seek banks' help to pay for university places

Students will be encouraged to borrow from high-street banks to cover their tuition fees, under proposals considered by the government as a way out of the funding crisis facing higher education.

With more universities than expected charging the maximum of £9,000 a year for tuition, universities minister David Willetts is seeking a way to reduce the liabilities of the government-backed Student Loans Company by turning to the UK's major banks to provide loans at preferable rates.

Universities UK, which represents universities, has been consulted. Its president, Sir Steve Smith, who is vice-chancellor of Exeter University, said the proposal to allow banks to exploit the student market carried huge risks and could create a two-tier education system.

He said the Department for Business Innovation and Skills had proposed that students taking private loans would be counted outside the allotment of places each university is given by the government, making them attractive to colleges aiming to increase their cash flow.

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It seems that Congress has removed nearly every consumer protection from student loans, including not only standard bankruptcy protections, statutes of limitations, and truth in lending requirements, but protection from usury (excessive interest). Lenders can vary the interest rates, and some borrowers are reporting rates as high as 18-20%. At 20%, debt doubles in just 3-1/2 years; and in 7 years, it quadruples. Congress has also given lenders draconian collection powers to extort not just the original principal and interest on student loans but huge sums in penalties, fees, and collection costs.

The majority of these debts are being imposed on young people, who have a potential 40 years of gainful employment ahead of them to pay the debt off. But a sizeable chunk of U.S. student loan debt is held by senior citizens, many of whom are not only unemployed but unemployable. According to the New York Federal Reserve, two million U.S. seniors age 60 and over have student loan debt, on which they owe a collective $36.5 billion; and 11.2 percent of this debt is in default. Almost a third of all student loan debt is held by people aged 40 and over, and 4.2% is held by people over the age of 60. The total student debt is now over $1 trillion, more even than credit card debt. The sum is unsustainable and threatens to be the next debt tsunami.

Some of this debt is for loans taken out years earlier on their own schooling, and some is from co-signing student loans for children or grandchildren. But much of it has been incurred by middle-aged people going back to school in the hope of finding employment in a bad job market. What they have wound up with is something much worse: no job, an exponentially mounting debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the prospect of old age without a social security check adequate to survive on.

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OLATHE — The Kansas Bioscience Authority expressed interest in funding a $4.9 million retention package for a professor at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine.
The money, which would be distributed over five years, would go toward attracting Jim Riviere to KSU from North Carolina State University. KBA officials said Riviere is a member of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine and was a leader in the animal health drug field.

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