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Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

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Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#221

Post by janalsncm »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #87
sonofhans wrote: post #45

> “Any Temple employee that decides to strike forfeits their pay and complete benefits package,” explained Temple University senior vice president and chief operating officer Ken Kaiser. Here's the problem -- that's a business solution. This decision is intended to benefit Temple the business, not the Temple the university. The administration is too busy filing TPS reports to realize that they're curating something a…

My Alma-Mater, more interested in hiring administrators than new professors, or even retaining full time professors. Schools a joke, especially this one.

The president and dean of my school both made $2 million each last year. I have no idea what they do. They definitely aren’t teaching any students.

The school emailed me to ask for a donation, and I said they should ask the dean.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#222

Post by icepat »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #131
rwalle wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story of Mackenzie Fierceton is a perfect example. These scumbags in university administration could not care less about ruining a student's future. They have nothing to lose.

> They have nothing to lose. Which is what I really think the core of the problem is. These people make decisions that can ruin of a whole host of people, but face no accountability for it. I'm of the opinion that there should always be a remedy available for those wronged, and the ones doing the wronging should hope it's only via the court system.

> face no accountability for it

Well, just look at how administrative errors, and professional misconduct by instructors is handled. I had a professor fail half the class because he lost the final exams, and another cohort because he made serious errors in the grading. The university did absolutely nothing to deal with it. While I was able to get the grade removed, I was directly told by the vice-dean to get out of the faculty for making a stink about it.

It took four years for the university to take action against the professor. Apparently the line wasn't even him telling students to kill themselves if they failed his course.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#223

Post by fzeroracer »

ETH_start wrote: post #97

There is no good reason at all for society to accept and institutionalize the sense of entitlement that unionizing workers have. You don't get any moral right to extra-contractual benefits just because you agree to an employment contract. Almost all of the problems society has emanate from the ideological narratives of victimhood (e.g. the superficially plausible but fundamentally fallacious notion that parties with…

It's funny that you complain about the 'ideological narratives of victimhood' while directly crafting a narrative where poor companies are victims to the vicious labor force. That said, you seem unfamiliar with the history of unionization and why these laws came into place. I recommend looking up what the Pinkertons did in order to stop companies being 'victimized' by workers.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#224

Post by int_19h »

WalterBright wrote: post #149
komali2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's easier to optimize for profit, so what? How can your core mission be education but "you're optimizing for profit?" Either your core mission is education or it isn't. I feel like this is the kind of goal setting miss I see businesses make all the time. They'll be doing be doing some version of the ubiquitous value setting activity, and as ideas are pitched someone will be like "wait, isn't our most basic value…

The beauty of the free market is that the way to maximize profit is to maximize customer satisfaction.

It's too bad that truly free (i.e. competitive) markets don't survive capitalism for long, due to the inevitable concentration of capital that it produces in the long term.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#225

Post by red-iron-pine »

epgui wrote: post #140
BitwiseFool wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"This decision is intended to benefit Temple the business, not the Temple the university." More and more it seems like academics are just a front for running a hedge fund - one that gets very favorite tax treatment. Growing the endowment is the most important thing in the minds of the leadership.

Lol those aren’t academics, they’re administrators. It’s a pretty simple difference.

Academia is pretty ruthless these days too -- publish or perish.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#226

Post by danaris »

BobbyJo wrote: post #193
sonofhans wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Mr. Bright, usually I think you’ve got your head screwed on pretty well, but this is a religious statement, not a matter of fact. 1. Find me a free market. Otherwise we’re just going to devolve into “no true Scotsman.” The USA, for instance, is light years from a free market in basically every respect. 2. In a truly free market the way to maximize profits is to create and maintain a monopoly. Nearly every large…

1) Market != Country. There are plenty of free markets within the U.S. 2) There are multiple ways to maximize profits in a free market depending on the market. Not all markets allow you to create monopolies. Monopolies only exist, in practice, were market dynamics are compromised. For instance, power companies are able to be monopolies because power delivery infrastructure is constrained and supply cannot be increase…

Gotta be careful when talking about "Free Markets".

Thing is, there are generally two different things that people can mean when they say "free market":

1. A "market economy", as contrasted with a "command economy"—ie, more or less the way the US does things, as opposed to the way the Soviet Union did things.

2. An "ideal free market", as described by Adam Smith, which can, in theory, ensure that many systems find a stable, efficient equilibrium that balances consumer desires with producer desires.

The problem is that, however much many (particularly of the Libertarian bent) wish to believe in it, the latter is not real. It is a thought experiment, and it requires a bunch of conditions that don't always apply (eg, perfect information, commoditization, etc). The other problem, of course, is that as I said, the two are often called "free markets" interchangeably without clarification, which leads to much confusion.

You seem to be referring to #1 when you say "there are free markets within the US"; however, what WalterBright is talking about is clearly #2, since he's referring to ways that idealized free markets theoretically operate.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#227

Post by eli_gottlieb »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #201
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking from present experience: "tuition remission" is a sort of imaginary quantum payment. I call it that because first they "charge" you tuition, then they issue you a "remission". The result is that no money ever actually enters or leaves your bank account, and they write something in a database somewhere to say that you "paid tuition" and are therefore legally a "student" (eg: legal to treat as a student, put u…

that's not correct to say. There is such a thing as noncash compensation. And that's part of total compensation. If the govt has any inkling that you are taking payments in other than cash, they want to know (and tax) it too.

But my point is, you're not getting a payment, in any form. Most of the time, you are not taking courses. You're being charged a fee to do your job, and then having that fee "waived". Now, with the remission "withdrawn" for the strike, you have your employer demanding you pay them to be considered their employee.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#228

Post by WalterBright »

sonofhans wrote: post #174
WalterBright wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of the free market is that the way to maximize profit is to maximize customer satisfaction.

Yeah, Mr. Bright, usually I think you’ve got your head screwed on pretty well, but this is a religious statement, not a matter of fact. 1. Find me a free market. Otherwise we’re just going to devolve into “no true Scotsman.” The USA, for instance, is light years from a free market in basically every respect. 2. In a truly free market the way to maximize profits is to create and maintain a monopoly. Nearly every large…

The closer one gets to a free market, the better it works. This is unlike socialism, where the closer one gets to it, the worse it fares.

> I believe a 100% free market would mean the removal of all worldwide government entities and the creation of a few mega-cartels that ran basically everything.

A free market requires the existence of government to enforce our rights and provide a mechanism to resolve disputes.

> How would you describe an economy in which customer satisfaction actually matters?

A free market. Qualifiers are unnecessary.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#229

Post by jrumbut »

andrew_ wrote: post #108
jrumbut wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, every time I've left a job the insurance was canceled more or less instantly.

Are you in the U.S.? It's law https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/health-plans/cobra

Yes, but that is a separate purchase (that is usually extraordinarily expensive). You don't just get continued coverage.

Re: Temple Student Strike Turns Ugly as School Ends Some Tuition Aid

#230

Post by WalterBright »

danaris wrote: post #226
BobbyJo wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Market != Country. There are plenty of free markets within the U.S. 2) There are multiple ways to maximize profits in a free market depending on the market. Not all markets allow you to create monopolies. Monopolies only exist, in practice, were market dynamics are compromised. For instance, power companies are able to be monopolies because power delivery infrastructure is constrained and supply cannot be increase…

Gotta be careful when talking about "Free Markets". Thing is, there are generally two different things that people can mean when they say "free market": 1. A "market economy", as contrasted with a "command economy"—ie, more or less the way the US does things, as opposed to the way the Soviet Union did things. 2. An "ideal free market", as described by Adam Smith, which can, in theory, ensure that many systems find a…

> perfect information

I don't know where this requirement comes from. It is completely unnecessary for a free market. The free market prices in lack of perfect information - i.e. "risk".

Complaining that free markets not being perfect is like complaining that friction in an engine isn't zero. You can't make it zero, but you can get pretty close to it.

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