S21.E02: Frances Haugen; Bari Weiss; Tim Ryan

[tessaray]

Air Date: 01/27/23

Bill’s guests are Frances Haugen, Bari Weiss, and Former Congressman Tim Ryan

[DXD526]

Bill isn't the right person to interview Frances Haugen. She spent most of her time explaining things to him that he should already know. He seems rather proud to be largely unfamiliar with the workings of things like Facebook and TikTok, and that's her wheelhouse. At least in Overtime she got to let loose a little, without him asking stupid questions, like he did one-on-one. 

[Mr. R0b0t]

The smugness of Bari Weiss drips from my television.  A career victim who lives to put her thumb in everyones eye with a knowing smirk on her face.  How she got elevated in stature so much baffles me.  

[aghst]

The populist pandering vs. college was so ridiculous.

Tim Ryan has to pander because OH has become so red and all those factory workers had nothing else going as the world changed.

He should have been telling them to save for their children's college at least.  Telling them they don't need college in this world is not doing them any favors.

College educated workers earn far more over their working lives than those who don't go to college.  Period.

Bari Weiss, yeah she's gotten her opportunities with a GED?

They talked about Josh Shapiro not requiring college degrees for PA state jobs.  So why don't bill do the same?  How many of his writers and segment producers didn't go to college?  Why not go hire some new writers at some bobo team place.  Plenty of high school kids waiting in line there.  Or go pick up those people waiting outside Home Depot waiting for day jobs?

I guess Bill isn't going to do stand up shows in college any more.  That's right, that bridge is long burnt.

But he'll fly private to go to his shitty shows.

 

 

[Hedgehog2022]

2 hours ago, aghst said:

The populist pandering vs. college was so ridiculous.

Tim Ryan has to pander because OH has become so red and all those factory workers had nothing else going as the world changed.

He should have been telling them to save for their children's college at least.  Telling them they don't need college in this world is not doing them any favors.

College educated workers earn far more over their working lives than those who don't go to college.  Period.

Bari Weiss, yeah she's gotten her opportunities with a GED?

They talked about Josh Shapiro not requiring college degrees for PA state jobs.  So why don't bill do the same?  How many of his writers and segment producers didn't go to college?  Why not go hire some new writers at some bobo team place.  Plenty of high school kids waiting in line there.  Or go pick up those people waiting outside Home Depot waiting for day jobs?

I guess Bill isn't going to do stand up shows in college any more.  That's right, that bridge is long burnt.

But he'll fly private to go to his shitty shows.

 

 

Boomer Bill’s target audience isn’t college students…it must be hard for him to realize that people under the age of 50 have no interest in his stand up or HBO show. He still thinks of himself as a young maverick comic that can fill college auditoriums with his mix of political observations (yawn) and whiney humor. He might want to start booking gigs at senior citizen centers…😂

[Kenz]

Wow, I never realized that my degree in sociology from a liberal arts college was so worthless and the object of such scorn. I guess I didn't know that the many other subjects I studied while in college would be worthless to me too. Somehow I managed to build two successful businesses with my pathetic college education. Did Bill go to college? He certainly knows how to insult a large portion of the population in this country.

Of course we got the usual rage about obesity from Bill. The other people at the desk were not exactly svelte like him, so that might have caused some discomfort. Bill didn't care, because he is on a holy mission. Wokeness and obesity, along with how the younger generation is spoiled and just no good are his weekly issues. Ugh.

Edited January 29, 2023 by Kenz

[DoctorAtomic]

I certainly would encourage any one thinking about college to go, but the point that a lot of jobs really don't need college degrees and that high school should be better at preparing young adults to be job ready is fair. I'd say go to community college at least because you may discover more opportunities that you didn't know were out there. I would say there needs to be an emphasis on techical training. The robots at Amazon aren't really taking jobs per se. You still need people to maintain them. 

I only know what's said on the show, but I'm highly skeptical a professor was fired solely because his class was too hard. My evaluations are consistently abysmal. They're not worth the paper they are printed on. That may have been the final straw, but there's something more going on. 

I don't think that colleges on average are as ridiculous as they make it out and a lot of what they point out are isolated examples. 

People in general are not eating well in this country, and that leads to all sorts of health problems. Many, not all, could do better without a ton of effort. 

As Ryan pointed out, part of the problem is because everything is loaded with sugar and the government subsidizes it. I try to avoid added sugars, but it's nearly impossible. 

Ryan was trying to get to the root cause of the problem, but I think they got too ranty. To be fair, going to the doctor and not getting your weight is absurd. Doctors don't talk enough about nutrition either if at all. 

Ryan had mentioned high schools need to bring back shop classes, and I'd also add health class too, including nutrition education. 

On the other hand, they weren't quite getting to the root causes; healthy foods aren't affordable, people live in foods deserts, etc. 

Certainly, some people are overweight no matter how hard they try. However, we do rely on taking pills for everything a little too much. 

Except for being overly ranty, I don't really have any problem with the subject matter. 

I don't understand Bill's fascination with Weiss. She's just not particularly insightful. 

 

Edited January 29, 2023 by DoctorAtomic

[aghst]

I went to high school decades ago so my info. is probably out of date.  I think there were wood shop classes and maybe home economics or something like that.

People who planned to apply to college wouldn't take those classes.

Wood shop, people know whether they have the skill for it right away.  Sure experienced carpenters can make money, if the construction industry is on a building boom.  With higher interest rates and high office space vacancy in big cities because more people have been working from home during the pandemic -- and many don't want to go back at all -- maybe basing your high school education on the construction trades isn't as solid as Ryan thinks.

I think Mike Rowe has been on the show as well, touting the same message.

A local community college offers classes for auto mechanics.  So those jobs can't be exported.  But with the advent of EVs, they aren't going to need as many auto mechanics in the future.  EVs have a lot less mechanical systems and parts.

The other trend is, more females are enrolling and graduating from college relative to males.  Recent enrollments are trending around 55% female.  Girls do the work in school and do better, so they have reinforcements to continue their education while it's almost the opposite for boys, who can do low-skilled labor out of college.

It's certainly possible for a high school graduate to make good money but the aggregate statistics show otherwise, that they will lag college graduates in career income, by a lot.

So Bill talking about it and having guests who nod their heads, while being college graduates themselves like Ryan and Weiss, is performative populist BS.

A few years back, the last time Rick Santorum ran for office, he said not everyone should go to college.  This is a guy with all kinds of degrees at the top universities and law schools in the country.  Pretty sure someone on Real Time pointed out this hypocrisy.

Now Bill is embracing the same bull.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

3 minutes ago, aghst said:

 I think there were wood shop classes and maybe home economics or something like that.

People who planned to apply to college wouldn't take those classes.

Same for me. I didn't take them because I was taking AP classes. I don't know if there's shop now or not. 

I also forgot to mention that community colleges offer a lot of professional certificates that can up your marketability. 

I know that you're going to make more with a college degree. Even 'just' and MS and you'll be positioned quite well. I think the point is that the system is kind set up that way where degrees are expected. They started the discussion by saying the governor of PA removed the requirement for a college degree for a state job. The question would be is if the pay rate is the same. If it's just a way to cut spending, then that's not really fair either. I don't think they're wrong to criticize if you need a degree just because they have degrees themselves. They didn't really say whether they felt their degree was necessary or they got it because it was expected. Weiss did mention that she didn't think being a journalist requires a journalism degree. I would think that you should have some writing skills, but I don't know what exactly journalism majors do. 

The other part of the issue is that you might not need one, but you can always get one later if you have that aspiration. It's expected that you go from high school right ot college. That's not really necessary either for most people. I would wonder if the decline in the 'not degree' jobs is tied to the decline in unions. You wouldn't need a degree to be an electrician; back in the day, you'd apprentice and work your way up. I don't even know if that's a thing now.

[aghst]

You look at job postings and sure, a lot of those jobs can be done by people who don't have a college degree even if they list one as a requirement.

But it's been like this for DECADES.

There are thousands or millions of workers in similar jobs with degrees.  So if they suddenly lowered the bar and gave people similar pay to those who went to college, there would be some resentment.

The other thing is many large employers use college as a filtering mechanism.  They assume if a job candidate showed aptitude to get admitted into college with some degree of exclusivity (low percentage of those admitted to those who applied) and earned a degree, they have certain ability -- intelligence, diligent work habits, etc.

Again, Bill and others may say that kind of system is wrong but you're not going to get hundreds or thousands of larger companies to abandon it without a better reason than "college is bullshit."

Also, in addition to resentment from those with college education getting similar pay with those who didn't go to college, a lot of hiring people -- not talking about whole HR policies which definite job requirements almost always listing college degrees as the first requirement -- went to college themselves.

So if an applicant went to the same university or maybe to a rival university that the hiring person knows and respects, they're automatically going to be more predisposed to hire that candidate.  That has happened to me, benefitting from the fact that the hiring  person liked the school I went to.

May not be fair to those who didn't go to college but people are going to gravitate towards others with similar backgrounds, whether that's in hiring workers or in social settings as well.  For instance, I cited that more females are enrolling in college than males.  When those women get their degrees and work for a few years in the work force, they may start looking for potential mates.  They might meet men who didn't go to college but are nevertheless successful.  Odds are that the men who did go to college are more likely to be successful.  But many of those women may believe that they have more to talk about with someone else who went to college than someone who didn't.  That may not be true in all cases but it may become a pattern, as more women get college degrees and get white collar jobs, they may be more inclined to have relationships with men with white collar jobs as opposed to say men who worked in construction, maybe some have their own businesses.

 

[tessaray]

Bill was obnoxious about the flying private but he wasn't wrong, especially about Greta Thunberg and Ed Begley being among the few innocents. 

Before retirement, I spent years training young college grads jobs that I could do in my sleep but couldn't even apply for because I didn't have a degree. (I did eventually finish my BA as a bucket list kind of thing.) A degree is such a lazy way to filter out people but I don't think it's going away anytime soon. 

[DoctorAtomic]

23 minutes ago, aghst said:

So if an applicant went to the same university or maybe to a rival university that the hiring person knows and respects, they're automatically going to be more predisposed to hire that candidate.  That has happened to me, benefitting from the fact that the hiring  person liked the school I went to.

Oh me too. I originally said that I would encourage anyone thinking about college to go. That's one of many intangible reasons. I would tell them to get into STEM though. Overall, this country needs a huge technically trained workforce. I also agree that getting a degree shows some level of self motivation and discipline. I don't think it should be the sole marker though. 

There's certainly a whole host of issues surrounding the question of what jobs do you really need a degree for. My criticism of the discussion would be that they got overly ranty and didn't really offer solutions and just talked about random nonsense at some colleges. The question itself is valid though. If you think you have to go to college because that's what you have to do, then you're probably not going to get out of it what you should. Some people also don't have the luxury of essentially not working for four years. 

Did Weiss say she was on the board or something for a college? Why?

[chediavolo]

Not everyone needs a college degree. Has anyone tried to get a plumber or an electrician or service for their HVAC recently? And let me tell you a lot of these people make a shit load of money .  We really do need to be pushing trade schools as an aspiration these days and not like we did years ago,  where Boces was a bad word. 

[Hedgehog2022]

3 hours ago, Kenz said:

Wow, I never realized that my degree in sociology from a liberal arts college was so worthless and the object of such scorn. I guess I didn't know that the many other subjects I studied while in college would be worthless to me too. Somehow I managed to build two successful businesses with my pathetic college education. Did Bill go to college? He certainly knows how to insult a large portion of the population in this country.

Of course we got the usual rage about obesity from Bill. The other people at the desk were not exactly svelte like him, so that might have caused some discomfort. Bill didn't care, because he is on a holy mission. Wokeness and obesity, along with how the younger generation is spoiled and just no good are his weekly issues. Ugh.

Spot on. Bill went to Cornell and Bari Weiss went to Columbia. Bill’s disdain for the younger generations is almost pathological. I guess when you’re a soulless, selfish bachelor with no family or life outside of your “work” this is to be expected. What a sad pathetic man he is. His vape pipe must be what keeps him warm at night.

[Kenz]

9 hours ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

His vape pipe must be what keeps him warm at night.

Right. Also his piles of money and knowledge that his old cranky man beliefs are far superior to those of others must keep him comfy.

Did that Weiss woman let it slip that Bill lives in Beverly Hills? He certainly seemed upset by that. Also I guess Bill didn't have time to ask her about her Twitter so called "bombshell" that I think turned out to be a dud. She is worthless as a panelist as others have mentioned here previously.

Edited January 30, 2023 by Kenz

[tessaray]

I always assumed that if Bill didn't live in Beverly Hills, then he lived someplace equally expensive and exclusive. That was a weird reaction.

[heatherchandler]

I think what Bill and the guests are saying is that college is not a reality for a lot of people, especially these days.  Either you have money and you can go, or you have to take on a lot of debt.  It is not inclusive to all walks of life, but if you *need* it to get a job, it should be.  Also, I agree, it is usually not necessary, other than to weed out "undesirables" in the job market.  Which is ridiculous.

I got a degree in communications (that my parents paid for) and I now work in finance.  I can attest that nothing I learned in college, other than being at X place at 8am is part of my skill set.  And actually I barely ever made it to class.  I did not take one finance course.  I like that Bari is actively hiring people who didn't go to college.  If they can write well, then why not?  Why exclude people who cannot afford college?  And yes there are scholarships, etc but really for people who do not come from money, it is all about student loans.

23 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

Did Weiss say she was on the board or something for a college? Why?

She and the rest are trying to create a new university, UATX.  

[aghst]

Until we see a lot of employers revise their practices and not require 4-year degrees, things like the state of PA removing degrees as requirement or Bari not hiring college-educated people are outliers, a niche, for most white collar jobs.

Also, it's not just hiring, there are many cases where people without degrees do well working for years for an organization but then hit a career ceiling, because they lack degrees.  Again, you can say those large companies shouldn't require degrees to get promoted past a certain level but that's just the way the world is.

I'm sure at the time companies implemented these requirements, there were good reasons to do so.

But Bill, Bari and Ryan were not just saying college isn't for everyone.  They were calling it bullshit and part of some cartel scam to make people go to college and spend tens of thousands.

Again, I'd be surprised if Real Time's writers and segment producers didn't have college education -- maybe they hire some people  who didn't complete their degrees.

And Ryan was whining about Biden canceling $10k in college debt instead of giving that money to laid off car factory workers in OH.  Sure Biden should have done that to help Ryan with those specific voters, as opposed to help millions of people who were unable to do other things like buy homes or start families because of longstanding college loan debt.🙄

 

[Hanahope]

The "d" is toxic in Ohio and many other states due to republican hit job media.  I can't believe ryan has to put all the blame on the dems.  the gop doesn't talk about jobs, pensions, safety either.  but they get people all riled up with lies about immigration and crt.

and the reason the dems like college is because generally the more educated a person is (at least, when allowed to be fully educated), the less likely they believe the media lies.  

Edited January 31, 2023 by Hanahope

[sugarbaker design]

5 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

the less likely they believe the media lies.

and Bill's and Bari Weiss's bullshit.

[Hanahope]

Bill is probably correct about one thing.  people either fly private, or would love to fly private (if they could afford it).

 

[RealHousewife]

On 1/31/2023 at 4:53 PM, Hanahope said:

Bill is probably correct about one thing.  people either fly private, or would love to fly private (if they could afford it).

 

I guess I’m the rare exception. I don’t even feel safe unless I’m flying with a bunch of other people. 

[AuntieDiane6]

On 1/29/2023 at 2:44 PM, chediavolo said:

Not everyone needs a college degree. Has anyone tried to get a plumber or an electrician or service for their HVAC recently? And let me tell you a lot of these people make a shit load of money .  We really do need to be pushing trade schools as an aspiration these days and not like we did years ago,  where Boces was a bad word. 

The problem is the trades themselves.  They don't advertise, they aren't credentialed, and in many cases, the graduates complain that what they learned there is not relevant to the "real world" (sound familiar?)

I know three young men who went to welding school.  Not one stayed in the field for more than 3 months.  The reasons?  One found out the skills he was taught were out of date; the second at the small welding shop found out the boss's son got the easy jobs, and the third learned it would take YEARS to get into the union.  

And where do you learn painting?  Drywall?  Bricklaying?  No one knows.  

And those who want to become an electrician quickly finds out that there is a LOT of classroom learning and yes, written tests.

As for plumbers, as my plumber said, "I lose them the first time they get covered in S*IT."