Economics is a Dirty Job, but Mike Rowe Shouldn't Do it, Parte Dos

*Sigh* its looks like Mike Rowe's Promoting Stupid Tour 2013 continued last week on, of all places Glenn Beck's online exclusive TV show (link, if you dare)

It was bad enough when Rowe went on Bill Maher and was able to spew his nonsense unchallenged. But appearing on the show of wild, raving neofascist lunatic Glenn Beck is a new low for Mr. Dirty Jobs. Rowe continues on his campaign to discredit four year liberal arts degrees with his folksy, visceral "wee dont need no edju-kay-shun BS. He brings up the widely discredited "skills gap" theory that "if only lazy, spoiled Americans would just take the high stress, low wage jobs the the High Holy Private Sector Job Creators(tm) are offering them" then we would fix the economy. He goes on to say "we are borrowing money we dont have" to fund higher ed. Yes Mike....we are going to run out of fiat! I always wonder how these geniuses think we paid for WWII and all the GI bill programs.

Thing is, I want to like Rowe. He does go on to say that he "isnt against college education, just against debt", which is a perfectly reasonable argument. However he doesnt make the next logical step, which is to say that the monetarily sovereign government could just as easily fund higher ed with interest-free grants instead of loans. There is no reason that higher education needs to come with enormous debt, but Rowe skips over this point and continues flattering Beck, who of course hates the idea of national populace that knows history and can think critically. Could it be that having a college education makes Beck's foaming-at-the-mouth chalkboard "lessons" seem almost ridiculous?

Rowe's comments get even more confused from there, when he says:

“This whole topic always boils down to management vs. workers…the blue, the white collar. Enough with the color of collars,” he declared. “The way to talk about work is through the context of, what are you addicted to? Are you addicted to smooth roads? …Cheap electricity? Indoor plumbing? I am. So if you share my addiction to the fruits of skilled labor, you’ve got skin in this game.  So I think if you start to engage a bigger hunk of people, not just management and not just labor, if you really start to have a conversation about work and education, about affordability, everybody can take a micro-macro look at this thing.”

Um, What?!?! Rowe's intentions are probably honest enough, but he shows no humility when making his ass-backwards arguments. He may not realize it, but he is effectively shilling for the corporatist distopian worldview where an informed electorate is an unaffordable triviality but wage slavery is "good for ya." And its not that I even have a problem with Rowe promoting blue-collar jobs, its just that he doesn't mention the reason for the deterioration of such jobs is due to the bipartisan attack on unions, not because "kids today" dont want to work hard. If we got back to 40% private sector unionization levels then maybe, just maybe, these blue collar jobs would be plentiful and lucrative. But you can't blame today's kids for looking at how their parents worked hard in blue collars jobs only to be betrayed by management, and not wanting to follow that same path.

So Mike, please stop with the glorified s**t kicking. You're a good guy, but ya don't understand econ. From now on, please just stick to cleaning out urban sewer tunnels and leave the policy to the pros. After all, we have to make our fancy pants college degrees pay off somehow!