First, there is the story of Luka Rocco Magnotta, an adult film star, who apparently mailed a severed foot to Conservative Party HQ in Ottawa, Canada and attempted to mail a hand to Liberal Party HQ.

Now a man supposedly high on ‘bath salts’ chewed off another man’s face.

Then there is another report about a man who stabbed himself and threw his skin and intestines at police.

Granted, I’m only 26 years old. But a few years ago I was a know-nothing know-it-all.

Since then I have learned a few things:

1. The world is just far too complex for one person to have all the answers to life’s questions.

2. College is bullshit. It is really just a waste of time. Did I learn a lot? Yes. But much of what I learned in this period of time came from outside school. This includes my field of study, economics, as well. About half of what I learned of economics came from outside of the classroom.

3. Politicians are full of shit. When I was a child, I was a very gullible one. I often watched television shows featuring psychics, alien abductions, ghosts, etc. I eventually came to the conclusion that this was nothing more than entertaining television. The same goes for politicians. I was raised in a liberal household, and I held liberal views for much of my life. But when high school came around, something happened. I don’t know if it was a form of rebellion or what. But I became a neoconservative, Republican shill. I remained so for about three or four years after high school. Like many people I became disillusioned with the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration. And so I left for a few years and became a liberal. But soon I realised something wasn’t right their either, and after studying some basic economics, I left that too. Soon I became just simply anti-government. I hate government, I loathe politicians, and I’ve gotten much better at sniffing out bullshit.

The above should be common sense for most people. Basically it says that there is a positive correlation between GDP and Federal Government receipts. It also includes the correlation between GDP and tax receipts on corporate income taxes.

From what I have heard, the mainstream media is basically saying that Ron Paul has dropped out of the race.

This is blatantly false. What the campaign has decided is to focus on winning delegates at state conventions, rather than focusing (and spending millions of dollars) on primaries. After all, it is delegates that decide the nominee for the GOP, not primary results.

Using my economic acumen, I can say that spending millions of dollars on primaries (that don’t usually matter, since delegates are often selected at state conventions) that get little return on investment makes no sense. Ron Paul’s strategy for winning delegates at caucuses and conventions, on the other hand, has worked. And it’s still working!

Granted, the media machine has basically counted Paul out of contention from day one. Since he can’t really win primaries, Paul has decided not to play the media’s game any longer.

1. Don’t fucking go to college. You’ll just waste your money on some worthless piece of paper that pretends to mean that you know something. Plus, chances are you’ll be getting in debt to pay for this worthless piece of scrap paper called a “bachelor’s degree.” The average amount of debt for a college grad is about $25,000. But that is just the average, there are plenty of people who get twice that much or more, especially if they go to a “private” school.

Much of the stuff I learned about economics, I learned OUTSIDE of the classroom, so if you want to learn about a subject go online or get a library card! It’s about $25,000 cheaper. And once you’re in college your $6000+ per semester tuition (including dorm room) increases by about $100 or $200 per year.

Most of these problems have to do with Federal Financial Aid system itself—IT IS THE BIGGEST SCAM EVER!!!! Federals subsidies to the student are THE reason tuition cost keep skyrocketing in this country. Think about it this way: Imagine yourself at an auction and everyone want to buy this stupid Ming Dynasty vase, so then I, the government, come along and give everyone in the room a million bucks (or loaned it to them on the cheap, whatever). Surely, you would expect the bidding to skyrocket. It’s the same way with education: Federal grants and loan programs bid up the price of education.

And what do these prestigious institutions of higher learning do with this extra money? Do they hire high quality instructors or improve the quality of education? Fuck no, you get taught by some know-it-all grad student who doesn’t know jack shit. So, again, what do they do with the money? They waste it on building new offices and buildings. They hire a dean for this, a dean for that, a VP for this, and a VP for that. They just piss it in the wind. All because the gravy train provided by Uncle Sam keeps rolling on in.

To put is succinctly, don’t fucking bother.

2. If, for some stupid fucking reason you decide that college is a good idea, I advise you not to go the college right out of high school. Wait at least two years before getting a house-less mortgage.

Because if you don’t and you’re on federal aid, every class you attempt goes against your attempted hours, which determines how much financial aid you will be able to receive in the future. So if you end up changing your major two or three times, those attempted hours add up until you get a nice email from the financial aid office telling you that you may soon run out of financial aid.

3. Don’t major in art or music, unless you plan on teaching that shit. I’ve known plenty of people working as retail slaves who have degrees in art or how to blow wind through a fucking flute. So major in something that will get you a decent job, which I hate to tell you there aren’t that many out there. Accounting, economics, nursing—those will probably get you somewhere. If you want to go be an artist, don’t waste your time in college.

Tired of remembering which months have 31 or 30 days, look no further than the new Burks Calendar.  Every month has 30 days except for the 13th month which has 5 days in a non-leap-year and 6 days during leap year!

And, better still—no more Mondays!

Check out the new Burks Calendar.

The US dollar has depreciated against foreign currencies, including the Mexican peso, South African rand, Indian rupee and Chinese Yuan.

From The Hill:

In a presidential proclamation released Thursday, President Obama called upon Americans to boost their understanding of their personal finances in April.

As America digs out from underneath the financial crisis of 2008, he stressed in the announcement that the need for a strong understanding of finance is more important than ever, as the nation works to get back on a sound fiscal foundation.

How big is the national debt?

It’s too bad they don’t give Nobel Prizes for comedy.

Some Maine Republicans have come under attack from progressive and union groups for a proposal (pdf) to curtail some child labour laws or as progressives put it, to wage “war on child labor laws”.

Ignoring politics, lets make a simple economic analysis. Minimum wage laws cause unemployment, especially for younger people. By setting a minimum wage above the equilibrium price in a labour market, the result is a surplus of labour, i.e. quantity supplied exceeds quantity demanded. This means that employers will not hire as many employees at the government mandated wage. (See image above)

Think Progress goes on to claim:

Burns’ bill is particularly insidious, because it directly encourages employers to hire children or teenagers instead of adult workers. Because workers under 20 could be paid less than adults under this GOP proposal, minimum wage workers throughout Maine would likely receive a pink slip as their twentieth birthday present so that their boss could replace them with someone younger and cheaper.

This claim is very blunt, and lacks economic backing. Adult workers typically have more work experience and more education than teenagers, which is why adults earn higher wages than teens. So really this nothing more than hyperbole, not a form of economic reasoning.

There is nothing wrong with letting young people, willing to work, bid down wages so they can gain valuable work experience.

Alan Greenspan is apparently criticising the federal government for its “fiscal ‘stimulus’”.

It seems that a fiscal ‘stimulus’ is a no-no, but pumping billions of dollars into credit markets and fueling a housing bubble is perfectly OK.

I have yet to figure out how a central planner like Greenspan has a “long-held free-market ideology”.