Sunday, April 26, 2009

Corporation Farming

(Taken from the April 16th edition of The Wanderer:
"In 1940, Msgr. Luigi Ligutti and Fr. John Rawe, SJ, warned Americans in their book "Rural Roads to Security: America's Third Struggle for Freedom," that perhaps the greatest internal enemies of the American people were the giant corporations that were taking ownership of all the farmland in this country and were producing "food' that was not only bereft of nutritional value but was positively harmful.
'Corporation farming,' they warned,'will in time destroy itself with its mechanical methods in a field essentially biological, but before this stupidity will reap its empty harvest, our American families will be finally and completely uprooted from the soil...This last Octopus of Wall Street will drive the remaining families from the land.' And Pope Pius XII lamented in an address to Italian farmers, "Finance capital hastens to take over the deserted countryside, and the land then becomes not an object of loving concern but of cold, calculating exploitation...it no longer produces except for speculation.'"
Serious words to ponder in these days when most of us are so dependent on the goodwill of giant corporations and big government to be able to feed our families!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Higher Education

This morning I was reading a letter from a man about sending children to college.
He was writing in response to an article called "Is College Worth It?" Here are a few sentences:
"Thanks for the article on 'Is College Worth It?' I have four children, with two who have graduated. All four have loans. Your article does not mention those students who try to earn a college degree, and fail. My son attended an out-of-state school for about two years. He owes $65,000 without the degree. Something like buying a yacht and sinking it without insurance. Another daughter received a well-earned engineering degree from Virginia Tech. She has worked for two firms; both have closed the facility where she worked. Her current job prospects are bleak...Her loans must still be paid. Another daughter has earned a master's in occupational therapy. Her future is bright but she will need to start a private practice to truly free herself from student loans. The last daughter still owes me a little money from a Dad loan.

"The reason for these stories is to point out that the ROI (Return On Investment) for a college degree is variable and risky. I suspect many institutes of higher learning would close if we instituted a mandatory ROI calculation for students. College is worth it--for the tenured professors....Further compounding is the lack of culpability by the colleges. They offer no guarantees for jobs after graduation...We have sold our youth a perception that college is the golden path without teaching them the true cost to achieve that goal."

I think he makes some good points. Another point I would like to make is that I do not understand why parents would spend that kind of money to send their grown child to a place where their faith and values are constantly under attack. Why support such an institution?