Sunday, June 14, 2015

"Some really bad luck" sank Indiana Tech. Film at eleven.

A recent editorial in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette avers that opening a law school at Indiana Tech was the right thing to do, despite all the naysaying and baleful warnings from quarters like ours:


http://www.journalgazette.net/opinion/editorials/Legal-tender-7122838


It was a sound decision, insists one of the leaders of the "feasibility study". Only "some really bad luck" derailed Indiana Tech's sure thing. After all, "[i]f you look at the baby-boomer generation and expected retirements, and at the expected growth in the economy, the case was there".


Except that we, who were recently likened to the Wicked Witch of the West at the LSAC's lavish conference for 500 admissions scamsters, spoke to every bit of that and more. As usual, the "feasibility study" was nothing but propaganda designed to cook up a justification for a decision that was a fait accompli. Since there never was a case for a law school at Indiana Dreck, one had to be cobbled together out of the usual scraps:
  • a void to be left any minute now by the retirement of baby boomers en masse
  • many openings for lawyers as a result of economic growth
  • unmet demand for law schools in the region
  • a shortage of lawyers to serve the impecunious
Let's consider these one by one.


The much-vaunted imminent retirement of the baby boomers hasn't shown signs of happening—and the oldest of them turned 60 a decade ago. Moreover, the departure of old lawyers won't necessarily entail openings for new ones. Even the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), not noted for economic doom and gloom, has stated for years that "more students are graduating from law school each year than there are jobs available". And that statement seems to militate against opening yet another goddamn law school.


Prognostication of economic growth is of course the standard chestnut for Pollyanna forecasts. But economic growth, even if real rather than imaginary, may not extend to all sectors. As the BLS has long predicted (see link above), much work that used to be done by lawyers is now going to cheaper paralegals, overseas suppliers, temporary workers, and others. Law is not the candy store that it was once upon a boomer time.


It is true that Fort Wayne had no law school. Yet, by my count, there were 31 accredited law schools (including one in Canada) within a four-hour drive during the "feasibility study". From Chicago and Michigan to Valpo and Cooley, there was something for every taste and LSAT score. True, a handful of people in the vicinity of Fort Wayne were unable or unwilling to move even a couple of hours away for law school. As Indiana Tech has discovered the hard way, however, one cannot build a viable law school on a couple of dozen local students alone.


Of course there's a vast unmet demand for free legal services, just as there's a vast unmet demand for free anything. If Indiana Tech ever becomes accredited and its graduates are able to pass the bar (neither point should be taken for granted), some valiant Indiana Tech centurions may be able to fill this void, competently or otherwise. But I doubt whether many of them spent three years and six figures of borrowed money with a view to practicing without pay.


In addition, both applications and admissions were already in decline when this "feasibility study" was concoc—er, conducted, and it was well known that large numbers of graduates even of established schools, to say nothing of unaccredited upstarts, were unable to find relevant jobs.


In short, the veriest simpleton could have seen that this would-be bottom-grade law school was headed for the rocks. The founders knew of the criticisms but proceeded anyway. And now they blame "bad luck" for their wholly predictable calamity.


The author also opines that "[t]he departure of the law school’s founding dean inevitably hindered the accreditation process". This refers to Peter Alexander, who suddenly (what was the euphemism?) resigned less than a year after the school opened. Reportedly he resigned on account of "the achievement of the goals he had established for the law school to that point in time and a desire to pursue other employment opportunities". So strong was the desire to leave that he gave up not only the deanship but also his tenured post as professor, all without a minute's notice. His profile on LinkedIn suggests that today, more than a year after his "resignation", he is marginally self-employed if not downright unemployed.


Now, I don't know what goes on in Alexander's mind (if I may so flatter him), but this narrative strains credibility. First, I find it hard to believe that he achieved any goals that he had established. Indiana Tech Law Skule 'n' Biker Bar completely missed his stated goal of starting off as third out of Indiana's five law schools in LSAT and undergraduate GPA: the first class's median LSAT score of 146 (percentile 29.5) fell ten points below his proclaimed target (percentile 67.4). Upon his departure, Indiana Tech was the poster boy of arrogance, greed, self-delusion, and exploitation (particularly racial exploitation). It had ousted Cooley as the leading laughing-stock. Enrollment was a third of the pie-in-the-sky forecast. Red ink gushed forth in torrents, to the point that in less than a year the school would be forced to raffle off a "scholarship" in the hope of trapping one more gullible student-loan conduit. Only a sadist could feel gratified and accomplished with that track record.


Second, he would not lightly throw away two sinecures in a dismal hackademic job market unless he had something better lined up. A genuine resignation, unmotivated by pressure, would ordinarily include a bit of notice—two weeks at the minimum, and probably several months for a dean and tenured professor; yet he was gone before the ink was dry on the announcement, and the institution immediately scrubbed from its Web site every mention of him. I therefore believe that he nominally resigned after being—how can I put this diplomatically?—invited to consider that option.


If that be so, then the departure of the founding dean was within Indiana Tech's control. And if it would "inevitably hinder[] the accreditation process", Indiana Tech has only itself to blame for that consequence.


I don't believe that it made a significant difference in the accreditation process, except perhaps to the extent that Dougie Fresh Pond Scum was an even more inept administrator than Alexander. The editorialist is off the beam here. He is just bitter that the one law school in his city has become a grievous embarrassment, not to mention a financial and professional liability.


The author of this editorial may not be so sanguine this time next year, when 25 or fewer people are expected to don hideous orange-yellow caps and gowns as Indiana Tech's first graduates. Will their precious alma mater be accredited by then? How many of them will have found suitable work? How many of them will be able to repay their loans?

39 comments:

  1. Excellent summary of events, Old Guy. This is the equivalent of opening a mom and pop burger shop on a street corner lined with the big boys, McDonald's, Wendy's, BK, In-N-Out, Pie 'n Burger, Sonic, Carl's Jr., White Castle, etc. Not to mention the big names in pizza, tacos, hot dogs, and other artery-clogging fare.

    Oh wait. We're talking about Indiana TTTTTech Law Sewer, right? This is more akin to opening a mom and pop burger shop with no margin for error, tiny resources, no advertising budget, no name recognition, no prior business experience of any kind, staffed with junkies and convicts opening in a tiny, ratty-ass strip mall - located next to a nail salon and nickel arcade. And then "competing" against McDonald's and the other major sellers - and then bitching about bad luck. Never mind that a blind, 17 year old terrier could have seen the outcome beforehand.

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    1. a void to be left any minute now by the retirement of baby boomers en masse

      This turd above is used as a SOP for all of the consultants (yes opening grad schools is big business now). In pharmacy, with approaching 2x the number of grads/job--even with increasing churn and burn, the above turd is brought out. Compounded with:

      1. high level of female grads (which tend to leave the workforce, lol [140,000 debt]).
      2. outdated studies from when there was a small surplus.
      3. skewed unscientific 'demand indexes', in the case of pharmacy "The Man Power Project," controlled by a pharmacy school academic and only measures employer preferences and feedback with no worker input.

      What closed schools in dental and pharm in the 1980s was 'prestige' concerns at the declinng stats of incoming students. We live in a much more shameless, greedy time. The academic turds wont be swayed by such arguments.

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    2. More than prestige should have been involved. Going to the dentist frightens me enough without the additional thought that the person mucking with my teeth, and the sensitive nerves inside, might be a mouth-breathing nincompoop who barely scraped through high school.

      Likewise, grave danger attends the licensure of Cooleyoid idiots as lawyers. But that doesn't bother the scamsters. However "progressive" they pretend to be, they show little concern either for the morons that they draw into law school or for the public that will get stuck with incompetent counsel. The narrow interests of privileged professors and administrators outweigh societal concerns in their warped view.

      Delete
    3. As far as pharmacy school today:

      http://youngrx.blogspot.com/2012/06/true-figures-cost-of-pharmacy-school.html

      Says it all.

      Delete
  2. Another example of hackademic arrogance: Indiana Tech at first charged a $50 application fee—$25 for those who committed to its "early admissions" scheme.

    At the time, dozens of law schools, including a few with some claim to competitiveness, charged no application fee. Yet the worthies of Indiana Tech were arrogant enough to believe that their institution would be so appealing, before it even opened, that it could afford to charge an application fee. What's more, they supposed that large numbers of people would feel so enamoured of embryonic Indiana Tech that they would commit themselves to an "early admissions" scheme that required them to withdraw all other applications if admitted—all for a 50% discount on the already risible application fee and a promise of VIP treatment in the presumably harried admissions office.

    Needless to say, Indiana Tech found out PDQ that 1) not many people were interested in applying at all, especially if they had to pay $50 for the dubious privilege; and 2) other than those (probably most of the matriculants) who were not prepared to leave Fort Wayne and thus would not apply to any other law school, pretty much nobody was prepared to commit to Indiana Tech, even for a trifling $25 discount.

    For its second class, Indiana Tech dropped the application fee. It also announced large "scholarships" for people with LSAT scores as low as 145 and even stooped to giving away a "scholarship" as a door prize at an event for prospective applicants. (The better door prize was a pair of mediocre headphones, possibly Dougie Fresh's favorite brand.)

    Indiana Tech went from arrogant to desperate in less than a year.

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    1. The illustrious Indiana Tech Law Prof. Adam Lamparello, who now bears the title of Associate Dean for Experiential Learning, is holding another one of his student recruitment events (on June 20th). There may be another raffle-- "Great food, prizes" are promised.

      https://twitter.com/IndianaTechLaw/status/609389927617437696

      http://law.indianatech.edu/date/law-school-boot-camp-2/

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    2. They must have realized, after being exposed and mocked here, that raffling off a "scholarship" to the general public was a foolish idea. That would explain their reticence about the "prizes" on offer this time. Of course, reticence won't draw many lemmings in. Damned if you do, Indiana Tech, and damned if you don't.

      Perhaps Lamparello will give away autographed copies of his tell-all autobiography.

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  3. "Of course there's a vast unmet demand for free legal services, just as there's a vast unmet demand for free anything."

    Hilarious!

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    1. Although, it is more sinister than all that.

      We are Greece, but just for the lesser human beings from latter generations.

      Greece could not pay its school teachers, so instead it was offering a merit points system wherein if you work full-time for free today, you get priority in hiring when the money to pay teachers eventually reappears. A law school would count that as "employed" "full-time" in "public interest" or "government."

      That sounds to me like being a full-time, licensed, "volunteer" US Attorney to me, or a full-time, licensed, "volunteer" District Attorney.

      Of course, much like Greece, some special people are still eligible to paid for their labor and live very well indeed.

      The old hand, social justice warriors, who live very well indeed, have raised the alarm so loudly that forcing debt onto students, and then using it to obtain coerced, free labor is a shameful evil that 'the system' cannot resist change.

      L.O.L.

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  4. I'm so sick of hearing about how all the Boomers are going to retire soon.

    Maybe that's true in other fields, but the Boomer lawyers I know are going to practice until they collapse dead at their desks. Law is one of those professions you can do until you become senile. People like to have a lawyer with a lot of grey hair. And it's not like a lot of these financially irresponsible Boomers have savings or pensions to fall back on. Solo attorneys and people working in small law firms don't have pensions or 401ks, so they have to keep working at least until Medicare and SS kicks in.

    I know one lawyer still practicing who fought in WW2. He's 89. Drinks scotch at 9:30 AM and why the hell not?
    I know another in his late 70s - a named partner in Biglaw - who has brain damage and is still collecting from his firm.

    So I don't see any of the Boomer lawyers at my firm going anywhere in the next 25 years. They're going to keep pulling in their nice salaries, keep buying expensive toys, and will be alive just long enough to completely exhaust Social Security and Medicare. By the time I "retire," I'll be lucky if the eligibility age for SS is 75.

    The truth is, Gen X and beyond will have a very frightening old age. We won't be able to afford medical care and will have precious little in the way of Social Security. The Boomers have stolen everything.

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    1. Truth. If I had $5 for every time a Boomer know-it-all talked down to me or told me how I was a Gen-X slacker/entitled/lazy worthless nothing, I could retire today. I have managed to obtain some small modicum of success in spite of Boomers, not because of them (although they would all claim credit for my efforts due to their crap-tacular "advice", I'm sure).

      All the data and analysis show that Boomers got what they got due to "sweet spot" timing. Of course, that goes against the narrative that "Teh Boomerz are awesum!!!!" because that would require some actual, you know, humility, so they will never admit it.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/15/business/economy/american-seniors-enjoy-the-middle-class-life.html?_r=0

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    2. Double Plus Good (Truth).

      I was the one who posted a 3-parter on TTT on Pace's 3+3. All I got for my efforts was being called a blowhard and crap from the resident troll who likes to throw out the "personal responsibility" schtick angle. Yet, I was the person who actually took the time to write an accurate analysis.. Most of the idiots there are simply the kind of people who flip the channel to Jerry Springer and enjoy watching the train-wreck of others' lives. I made an end comment about Boomers and the resident trolls jumped on it, despite that I too posted links like you showing that it's a zero-sum game out there and rigged from the start, especially today. It'll never be our turn because it's the last day at the park. The park is not only closing for the season, it's being torn down. It's 9:55 pm, and we're not in line.. Sorry.. Game Over.

      Yes, a rising tide lifted their boats. It really is that simple.. All I know is, when you come out and are *starting* with $250,000 in debt, where the hell do you think you are going to go in life? And doing the analysis, I answered a question of my own: If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it really fall? Yes. Just because we don't see the people being churned through the programs year after year does not mean they don't exist. They do. That is a certainty.

      The only solution is not playing a rigged game and that starts with ignoring the older generation who not only remember things as they were and not as they are but are liars and will cut your throat out there to continue getting theirs.

      As one poster here wrote: That is the Boomer Way. Boom and bust. And time it so that it ends just as they are getting ready to check out, leaving the tab for someone else.

      Don't fall for the trap. Education today is not the way. Google "is pharmacy school worth it?" I thought that that industry was in the process of imploding. Wrong. It's well underway already. No amount of hard work will find jobs for these people that don't exist or justify the debt they've acquired to get their degree. PharmD's are now the norm. Not entry-level.. So even more debt. The personal responsibility schtick trolls will now obviously claim that the new crop of pharmacy students are simply not as intelligent or hard-working and, you know, anyone can take the PCAT nowadays.. Blame the victim. Americans excel at that.

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    3. Look at Concordia, for example. A lot of the TTT trolls are blaming the victims. This is essentially a night program. Looks like a lot of older non-trads..

      Except - it's a night program costing $29,500 per year. Wow..

      Can you imagine?

      Where is the responsibility for the law schools? Look at who's running and teaching in them. Boomers. For example, Charleston. Retired judges. People who were called the embodiment of what? Lucre and malice. Where is the schools' responsibility knowing the outcomes of their students today. Of course, they justify it by saying their responsibility was only to teach, to provide a degree.

      Yeeeees.. Except that people ordinarily pursue degrees in order to secure jobs using said degrees.

      No, I don't blame the people at Concordia or Charleston for enrolling. They're doing what they've been "programmed" to do: Education is the way. It's your Ticket to a better life. Everyone says it from kindergarten on. The media shills it. People are indoctrinated with it because it's part of the Horatio Alger / American Dream *myth*.

      They don't say the same thing about tobacco nowadays, do they? Yet, the tobacco companies are still selling it. People know it's bad and will kill you. But mention education.. Oh no... That's good! It's all your fault. Not the schools' fault for pushing an overpriced product via an education cartel knowing the state of the economy and jobs today.

      The folks at Concordia are doing as the System has told them based on a false promise of success - so the System can profit.

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    4. Back in the late 80s and early-mid 90's, a wave of nostalgia peaked amongst the Boomer generation. In popular culture, it manifested itself in things like the following: Forrest Gump, The Wonder Years, 30-something, the rash of Vietnam movies and TV shows, the 30th anniversary of Woodstock, etc....

      I was a young adult at the time and I remember wondering what was so great about the Boomer generation and I asked myself why they made such a big deal about themselves. Turns out it is really just the self-absorbed Boomer mentality. They are selfish navel-gazers who had the luck and the luxury to be born at the best possible time in history. They didn't create the wealth they are now enjoying (and plundering). They were born on third base and thought they hit a home run.

      Here's a simple experiment to prove this. Currently, my generation (X) is about the same age as the Boomers were when the Nostalgia wave hit in the late 80s - early 90s. Yet there's no great wave of nostalgia manifested in TV, movies and music. No one cares about the 80s and 90s.

      Boomers are the party-goers and Gen X and Y are the ones who have to deal with their messes. That's why I have no respect for them.

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    5. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/business/economy/as-demand-for-welders-resurges-community-colleges-offer-classes.html?action=click&region=Article&module=middleseriespromo

      Go do welding people. Forget law skule. Hell.. forget college. They are training you.

      Look at the dollars per hour.. Or, would you Lemmings with too much pride and blue-collar disdain prefer $150,000 - $200,000 in non-dischargeable student loan debt. 7+ wasted years, your 20's gone.. And, if you're lucky and can even get it, maybe make $25/hr. on a short-term doc review project in downtown Manhattan..

      New Guilded Age as I've been saying now. You will not beat out the connected rich kids and there are only so many good white-collar jobs left - fewer every day as they are outsourced, lost, or eliminated - to go around.

      Paying for education today, IMO, is the way of the Chump, the Debt-Slave.

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    6. No, autistic moron at 722, the boomers haven't "stolen everything." For one thing, boomers who keep working don't draw social security. It may enrage you to see people working while you can't find a job, but it means they're paying into the system and delaying their retirement. You, on the other hand, can obviously hardly wait for a retirement funded by the generations behind you.

      Parasite.

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    7. You know nothing about me you dickless wonder, so piss off back under your rock.
      I have been working since I was 14.

      I hope the brain tumor growing in your otherwise empty skull snuffs out your life in a particularly painful agonizing way.

      Delete
  5. Great post. Keep piling the pressure on these charlatans. The fact that they mention the scamblog movement at all shows that it's having its intended effect.

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  6. The BLS numbers FACTOR IN anticipated retirement. I can't believe how blatantly these charlatans lie.

    Boomers have been trickling out of the legal market for some time. Usually when they leave, their clients are subsumed by other boomers. It's not like their work is a static football that can be picked up by the next generation like a fumble. The boomers now either have solo practices that they're going to work until death or they're partners somewhere where their work is already spoken for.

    The Indiana Tech community should be livid that their school has been embarrassed this way.

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  7. Writing as a boomer/buster (if you are 49-51 you are about there, or a late boomer) this boomers are going to retire was piffle and nonsense from the get go. Most late boomers who became lawyers entered the profession in 1989-93, just in time for the 1990-93 crash in legal hiring and the start of the big layoffs. That is not as catastrophic as 2008-15, but it was bad. Most of them also went into debt. But the big reality is that few earned huge pay checks, few have any significant pension savings and many have kids starting college.

    Do the math - assuming a 4-5% yield, a $1 million retirement account would generate $50k pre-tax. Most late boomers don't have $100k in pension savings. The thing so few boomer law professors making their predictions about a wave of retiring boomer lawyers is that outside those in pensionable government jobs, professors and federal judges, the bulk of boomer lawyers cannot afford to retire - while those who retire from government jobs are (a) increasingly not replaced, and (b) the jobs in salary terms have failed so dismally to keep up, that they are hardly worth taking. By the way, y'all know that governments opt out of social security so the pension a government lawyer gets is all the pension they usually get don't you?

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    1. (reporsted 6:51 pm comment - please pick user names more wisely)

      Zero sympathy for boomers. A revolting generation who are - thank god! - nearing the age where their retirement cash runs out after "living large" and buying the trophy home and Lexus and new golf clubs every year and the massive diamond ring for the wife, and their kids don't have anything to help support them. I wish every single one of them the most miserable, poverty-stricken latter years of retirement possible.

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    2. Well, I noticed from that article on the middle-class 'Sweet Spot' that Boomers do indeed Boom. There's so much wrong in the world today and the supposedly most socially-conscious generation seems to have forgotten how to protest, at least on behalf of anyone else but themselves. So much more going wrong today than in the 1960's. They do what? Retreat to gated communities full of people like themselves to spend their time playing golf and taking trips. Just wall themselves off away from everything like they do. Like they ran from social responsibility in the 1960's and criticized anyone who went to fight in Vietnam.

      So.. yes. 60's kids, you SOLD OUT. Just goddamn-well ADMIT IT instead of claiming otherwise..

      And don't blame X'ers (me, I'm on the wrong side of 40..) and gen "Y" for crapping their pants when we're faced with toxic debt for highly-devalued degrees, rising economic and world uncertainty, a business climate which would rather churn and burn you every 3-5 years vs. what you had - pensions and retirement in jobs which could last an entire career, and cutthroat globalized competition from every angle and your generation who is holding jobs by not retiring.

      You're not paying for your S.S. checks. The following generations are providing the money for your current payout. You'd think the Boomers would at least advocate for positive change for younger people to have at least the opportunities they had. Nope.. They don't care.. Because - The Boomer Way. Just take and time everything to bust right as you check out. The Greatest Generation paid it forward. Not you folks. That's clear enough. And like 6-15 8:42 AM said, it's the damn condescension on top of it all.

      IF you folks graduated today, you'd all be out there will a cup in your hand.. The laziest, greediest generation. You wouldn't even do as well as X/Y/M did because of the innate laziness..

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    3. It is startling to me how the Baby Boomer generation - and frankly the Silent Generation also - seems to be totally unable to understand that the economic reality they grew up with is gone.

      If you have 50% of the Millennial generation destitute and underemployed, many living with their Boomer parents, how could they maintain this tone deafness?

      How could they fail to understand the generational differences in opportunity and wealth?

      How could they indulge in thoughtless memes, sloganeering and exploitation of the younger generations?

      The bots shall preach to you about "personal responsibility" (18 trillion in debt and god knows what in underfunded liabilities), or query why we can't just have "European style socialism".

      I mean everybody has excess wealth, right? The stock market is on an incredible run, and housing prices are booming some places...so, everything is looking much better, no?

      But no Boomer who lost his or her job in the last 5 years and was monkey-hammered by the reality of being a would-be entrant in a labor market that has 1 job for every 2.6 applicants and age discrimination of every variety will dare mock the plight of the youth.

      Instead, what you'll hear is fear and desperation. They worry about Social Security Disability, Social Security and Medicare.

      So, when are the Boomers going to step and realize that if they treat the economy like a zero sum game, that is what it will be for them also?

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    4. They never will, IMO.

      Take a look at this article and what's going on in the UK:

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/11432189/Let-the-boomers-prove-they-arent-a-selfish-generation.html

      It's the same in the US. They are the largest voting block and vote for their own interests - knowing this is unsustainable. Remember, this is the generation that started the divorce craze. So, they'll wall themselves off in gated communities. They either have no children to care for them or those that do are gone and moved on, etc. The idea of the extended family is a dead concept in America and the West which is strange considering the times we live in. We've been taught that it's #1 that matters even when that philosophy is long-term short-sighted.

      They'll live in these communities and be taken care of by strangers until they die and consume their assets. They'll die broke but live well. And as the article rightly points out, the debt they leave behind and the mess.. too bad. The following generations will be forced to endure the greatly decreased standard of living.

      That is the Boomer Way. Boom and bust, as one posted has said before. Boom and Bust.

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    5. "I wish every single one of them the most miserable, poverty-stricken latter years of retirement possible"

      Sad. Your generation is about as dysfunctional as can be. The late great united states. Just turn off the lights on this one.

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    6. Anon at 6:29, you need to get a grip.

      We are angry, but we are not angry because Boomers have taken everything - it's because they act like they've earned it. Like a previous commentator said, they were born on third base and think they hit a home run.


      And disagree about the silent generation, 1:14 PM. Although they are fairly clueless about the state of the world today, at least the ones I know embody the virtues of thrift and savings and hard work. Boomers have none of these virtues and blow through all their money.

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    7. "Sad. Your generation is about as dysfunctional as can be. The late great united states. Just turn off the lights on this one."

      Yes, because we all know the prior successes of the United States of America had everything to do with the Boomers and No One Else, Entirely.

      For the record, that was sarcasm.

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    8. Nah. Nope. Many of the articles of feces in the Congress are the Silent Generation - born during The War, but they sure as shit did not fight it. Being 1 year old during the latter most years of the Great Depression didn't count for shit.

      The over-64 crowd is just as awful as the Boomers. They are just Boomer older siblings.

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  8. OMG.. Look what happened to this poor guy..

    http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-branford-lawyer-law-school-loans-0615-story.html?track=rss

    I'm reposting the link here. Someone actually posted something worth it on TTT. Go figure...

    He got his degree in 1993, consolidated in 1999 for just under $100,000. Now, he's been ordered to pay $236k. So when I posted my entries on TTCraphole and got trolled for it.. I calculated $250,000 after 6 years. You will come out from Pace at 27-28 with your life ruined before you've even started.. No amount of "personal responsibility" or "hard work" will do it. Period. And now your 20ies are nearly gone and you can't re-tool because you've exhausted your student loan creditworthiness - basically a one-time event - on a gamble far worse than any casino game. Say 95%-5% against. Maybe 97-3%. Or worse..

    And your balance is starting at $250k. Starting.

    This guy never could generate enough income to live and get ahead on his loans let alone pay them down. He's generating low-mid 20's for godssake, probably as a solo, year after year.

    Think real hard about it kids. Real hard. There but for the Grace of God go you.

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    1. Fortunately for the law $chool$, there are still people that will laugh and dismiss stories like this. "Hur-hur, he's a lawyer. He's gotta be making enough money to pay off $250k."

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    2. "He got his degree in 1993, consolidated in 1999 for just under $100,000. Now, he's been ordered to pay $236k. ....This guy never could generate enough income to live and get ahead on his loans let alone pay them down. He's generating low-mid 20's for godssake, probably as a solo, year after year."

      Your larger point's fine, but you may have missed the mention that this guy just up and decided to stop making payments - any payments - 14 years ago.

      It's not that he's been making minimums all along and has gotten further behind. He wasn't trying. He's a JDP as far as I'm concerned.

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  9. We hear this for many fields, usually from colleges - that soon the "boomers" will retire and there will be huge demand for new workers.

    I'm not sure if this makes sense from demographics. But we don't need to look at the general demographics of the US to disprove this. All we have to do is look at the number of lawyers who graduated. If we were anticipating a shortage of lawyers due to retirement, we would have seen a huge drop in the number of graduates about 40 years ago. There has been no such huge drop in the entire time the ABA has been keeping records.

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    1. I work with a Boomer lawyer. Laziest person in the office. Reads books 3-4 hours a day at his desk. Takes at least one in five days off. Just coasting through until he hits 62 and can start collecting from the government. His entire career was going from one company to the other until they finally let him go when they realized he just. didn't. do. his. job.

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  10. "The operation was a success. Unfortunately, the patient died."

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  11. My old boss mentioned he had a five year timeframe for retiring when I was interviewing back in 2009. I was hired, and in 2010 I had a really busy tax season, then I billed a whopping 19 hours for the MONTH of June. Hitting the wall seems like an understatement.

    My boss had a sweet setup at one point - farm probate, taxation, and real estate transactions. Made tons of money 1990-2010, as the WWII vets who farmed were passing away. He had a huge house on a huge lot - whoops, still mortgaged! - but was pulling 100k on a slow year.

    Poof. The billables tanked. I was fired. He had some health problems. The firm finally merged with another firm - used the merger to fire all the non-law staff. He's going to work until he is dead - there are too many bills left to pay.

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    1. A frustrating but unsurprising story. I joined a small firm when I graduated back in the mid '00s, The same kind of story: he had a decade or so of great years, thought it would continue, and wanted someone else to help out with the practice so he could wind down and retire. Paid me a shit salary because "one day" he'd fully retire and I'd be making what he used to make. Yay.

      Then oops! Recession time. The billables tanked. Instead of sharing the downside and reducing his own "take" from the firm, he decided to fire me to save costs and do the work himself to maintain his income. Boomer attitude: fuck the young people because we need our "lifestyle".

      Well, look on the bright side. Soon that boomer "lifestyle" will be one of terminal illness and death.

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    2. This is why I am like the proverbial Ant rather than the Grasshopper. I drive a beater, don't have cable, do all my home cleaning myself, shop in second hand stores and on Craigslist, never eat out, etc. I'm trying to save at least 30% of my pre-tax income.
      When the gravy train is rolling it's very easy to think it will go on forever but it never does.

      Now if I was a Boomer and had the security of a defined benefit pension, medicare, and social security, sure I'd party. But our generation does not have that luxury and that's why I look at Boomers the way a parent looks at a spoiled, profligate child.

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    3. @ 5:41 PM

      Politicians are still overwhelmingly Boomers who vote for Boomer theft from younger people.

      If that is to change, we need our own politicians willing to viciously vote our self-interest in a zero sum game at the expense of Boomers.

      I would do that. I will vote for the guy who explains that the money is gone. We're not "participating" in the benefit side of a pyramid and ponzi scheme, we're just the suckers, so fuck them. Cut them off.

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    4. @ 541 and 8:18 AM

      This is the attitude I got as well. They need someone to do the work and they dangle carrots which they have no intention of giving you. When they leave, there is no position to assume because it will end with them.

      I also have embraced the live ultra-cheap philosophy. We live in times similar to the Great Depression. I just fix, save, recycle everything I can. I try to learn things which will put extra money in my pocket.

      I'm so hard on education because I think I see it for what it is: a massive wealth transfer from the young to the old and to a highly corrupt System where you become a Debt Serf to the government. Most people have to work, what was it?, Jan to just about May to pay taxes. Now add student loans on top of that.

      It's a zero-sum game where, as 10:29 said, we're the ones paying in. They're the ones taking out. The act of simply taking on student loans is paying in. And it's worse because, as I've said, they have it planned to Bust at just about the time they die en masse. So, no bill to pay back, or pay forward.

      Yeah, it's wrong to generalize but it's funny that we've all had similar experiences with the Boomer Generation. Their lifestyle and happiness comes ahead of everything. And they are lazy at their jobs. If you can even call them real jobs, because they con others into doing all the work.

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