Why Save PBS?
via Chris Bishop
“i feel like as of this year, I make enough money as a standup my goal now is to bring the cost down for those who buy my stuff. i really mean that. It makes me much happier.”
From: comedian Louis CK, commenting in an “I Am A” thread on Reddit, on why he decided to forgo traditional distribution methods and make his newest one-hour special, Live From the Beacon Theatre, only available to stream or download through his website for $5 via PayPal
Here are some choice quotes from this depressing piece:
“In the coming years, a lot of people will still be paying off their student loans when it’s time for their kids to go to college,” said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com, who has compiled the estimates of student debt, including federal and private loans.
***
The mountain of debt is likely to grow more quickly with the coming round of budget-slashing. Pell grants for low-income students are expected to be cut and tuition at public universities will probably increase as states with pinched budgets cut back on the money they give to colleges.
***
“If you have a lot of people finishing or leaving school with a lot of debt, their choices may be very different than the generation before them,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for Student Access and Success. “Things like buying a home, starting a family, starting a business, saving for their own kids’ education may not be options for people who are paying off a lot of student debt.”
In some circles, student debt is known as the anti-dowry. As the transition from adolescence to adulthood is being delayed, with young people taking longer to marry, buy a home and have children, large student loans can slow the process further.
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Unlike most other debt, student loans generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the government can garnish wages or take tax refunds or Social Security payments to recover the money owed.
Lovely!
I know I haven’t posted on here in a while, guys — between PAX East last weekend and the insane amount of work before and afterward, I kinda forgot about Tumblr. (Still been tweeting, though!)
In any case, I remembered about my Tumblr when I decided I wanted to get the word out about this to as many people as possible. The title of this post pretty much says it all: until 1 PM EDT tomorrow (Saturday), LivingSocial will match each $5 donation through their site to the Red Cross.
The current total (including LivingSocial’s doubling) is approaching $1.85 million as I type this. Let’s get it to $2 million and beyond! Please reblog, if you’re so inclined, so we can do that.
Are you sick of high paid teachers? Teachers’ hefty salaries are driving up taxes, and they only work 9 or 10 months a year! It’s time we put things in perspective and pay them for what they do - baby sit! We can get that for less than minimum wage.
That’s right. Let’s give them $3.00 an hour and only the hours they worked; not any of that silly planning time, or any time they spend before or after school. That would be $19.50 a day (7:45 to 3:00 PM with 45 min. off for lunch and plan — that equals 6 1/2 hours).
Each parent should pay $19.50 a day for these teachers to baby-sit their children.
Now how many do they teach in day…maybe 30? So that’s $19.50 x 30 = $585.00 a day. However, remember they only work 180 days a year!!! I am not going to pay them for any vacations.
LET’S SEE…. That’s $585 X 180= $105,300 peryear. (Hold on! My calculator needs new batteries).
What about those special education teachers and the ones with Master’s degrees? Well, we could pay them minimum wage ($7.75), and just to be fair, round it off to $8.00 an hour. That would be $8 X 6 1/2 hours X 30 children X 180 days = $280,800 per year.
Wait a minute — there’s something wrong here! There sure is!
The average teacher’s salary (nation wide) is $50,000. $50,000/180 days = $277.77/per day/30 students=$9.25/6.5 hours = $1.42 per hour per student–a very inexpensive baby-sitter and they even EDUCATE your kids!)
WHAT A DEAL!!!!
My mom’s a kindergarten teacher, and she really does not get paid nearly enough for all the bullshit she has to put up with.
Oh hey I was doing this already!
Only because I have no money with which to buy things, but yeah!
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I’m Samit Sarkar, a 26-year-old reporter for Polygon. You may also know me from my four-plus years as an associate editor at Destructoid.
I’m a stickler for proper English — grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. — so if you see any mistakes in my writing, let me know. And if you see mistakes elsewhere, let me know, because I’ll want to point them out here and laugh (à la English Fail Blog). I might even put some on The Grammar Nazi, a Tumblr that I contribute to.
You can contact me at samit [dot] sarkar [at] gmail [dot] com, or on Twitter (see below). I’m also on Facebook.
The views and opinions expressed on this website do not reflect the views and opinions of my employer(s), my colleagues, my friends, or anyone else besides myself.
