Author: DOuG pRATt

College loans succeeded in burdening many students, especially liberal arts majors, with debts they couldn’t repay. Thanks in large part to the rapid rise of AI, the promise of entry level jobs paying six figures for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) majors appears to be waning. Last week’s Wall St. Week, on defunded PBS, had an unsettling report on the weak job market for recent tech grads, along with some other segments of interest.

For years, the most brilliant computer programmers and scientists of the world have been progressively rendering their less brilliant, yet highly competent, colleagues obsolete. Their code is now generating its own code. Is it too late to cash in being an influencer?

We are at a tipping point in education, where major technology firms are only accepting job applicants from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Cal Tech, and a select few other institutions of higher learning. If you are graduating from a less competitive college or university, forget it. There’s software that can do the work you would have been hired to do ten years ago, for a salary of $125,000 or more.

One notable exception I can think of is the leading healthcare software firm Epic Systems, which treats the University of Wisconsin/Madison as if it were a farm system team for recruiting new talent. Epic’s campus is even on a former farm.

It would be good to see at least a partial return to the idea of embracing education for its own sake. The value of HEAP — History, English Literature, Art, Philosophy — shouldn’t be undervalued. But how to make that affordable again, after so many millions of student loan dollars pumped up school coffers, only to see small, liberal arts colleges shutting down from the rise of STEM? What was the money spent on? Upgrading facilities to luxury accommodations, while adding administrative overhead, reducing the number of tenured faculty and relying upon adjunct professors. Not a good mix.

But there’s the problem of those fields of study being seen as “woke.” In my entire life, from the Cold War, to Viet Nam, through Watergate and its aftermath, I’ve never witnessed such a completely screwed up political environment as what Donald Trump has managed to create.

In my opinion, it all began with Ronald Reagan, acting as “Barry Goldwater Lite,” and being fond of saying, “I think you all know that I’ve always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Here’s the funny part. Republicans are acting only on that statement. In one instance, the next thing Reagan said was, “A great many of the current problems on the farm were caused by government-imposed embargoes and inflation, not to mention government’s long history of conflicting and haphazard policies.” Which is exactly what Trump is doing.

https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/presidents-news-conference-23

Am I ranting today? Sorry.

I recall a day of mass lawlessness in Washington on January 6, 2021, when Trump was disinclined to call out the national guard. Today, did he contact the mayor to express his concerns, and request a meeting to discuss what measures could be taken? Of course, not.

Trump deploys National Guard to Washington DC and pledges crime crackdown

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2110me5g4o

At first, I dismissed the suggestion that Trump would find an excuse to declare martial law to prevent the mid-term elections, and perhaps even the 2028 election. After his military birthday parade, I no longer doubted that. Now, with his takeover of the District of Columbia, I am feeling more certain that it will happen. (Yeah, I know, he’s only taking control of the police department, but is he really?)

Never before have I seen a past due reminder with a Bank of America eBill, for a payment that was already made on time. If I ever did, in fact, miss a payment and needed a reminder, it was so long ago I don’t remember.

Eversource, my electric company, has confirmed that payment was processed on August 1. That was the extent of what they could tell me. So, I know my credit report won’t be dinged. The question is, why did BoA consider the bill as being unpaid? I have a suspect in mind.

My town has entered into an opt-out business arrangement with some other energy outfit. The idea seems to be that more of my electricity will come from solar power, and for a reduced rate that will be fixed for two years.

When I was notified of this program, I doubted the assurances that I could continue paying my Eversource bill as usual, and it would be completely transparent. My doubt seemed to be confirmed with the above notice.

When I called the new energy company, they reminded me that the program won’t take effect until September, to which I said yeah, but obviously the computer systems need to be talking and tested beforehand. The energy outfit suggested I speak with the bank, which I did.

Through several painfully long waits, I spoke with several different agents. Excuse me, they’re called representatives. Oops, my mistake. They’re associates. The second is supposedly a billing specialist, and the third an e-bill expert. The exchanges with all three associates can be summarized this way:

Me: “Why did I receive notice of an overdue payment that was not overdue? It has never happened before.”

BoA: “When that message appears, you have to clear it manually.”

Me: “Yes, and I have done that. So why did I receive the message? I’ve never seen it before.”

BoA: “Whenever you schedule a payment manually in e-billing you have to mark it as paid.”

Me: “Sorry, but I must disagree. I have never had a completed payment fail to be registered. It didn’t happen with my last American Express payment. So, again, my question is, how does Bank of America know that a payment has been accepted by a payee?”

BoA: “You must mark the bill as paid.”

Me: “Yes, as I said, I’ve done that, but either something went wrong or something changed.”

The thing that changed was, of course, the insertion of the energy company between myself and the actual utility that delivers the power and collects payment. I explained that to the bank, but they were hung up on trying to convince me of the way the system works, which doesn’t agree with my many years of experience using it.

Bank of America bought Fleet, after Fleet bought BankBoston, after the Bank of Boston merged with Baybank (with Massachusetts being the Bay State). Way back when I was a Baybank customer, I accepted an invitation to participate in an online banking pilot program.

I received a floppy disk in the mail. (Perhaps there were multiple disks, but I only recall there being one.) Compatibility was with Windows 3.1/3.11. It was that long ago. The program was nothing more than a graphical representation of a Baybank ATM screen and keyboard.

I dialed into the bank’s system with my 14.4 kbps modem^* and entered my checking and savings account information. Seeing the account balances and transferring money between them was the limit of what the program could do, but it worked, and I really appreciated being able to check balances against Quicken for DOS.

So, when a customer associate tries to tell me their system doesn’t work the way my experience tells me it does, I’m not inclined to be very receptive. Something has changed, or there was a problem at BoA that was too coincidental for me to ignore.

My utility payment for this month has already been scheduled. If once again it is flagged as overdue, I’ll give up what had been the convenience of paying through Bank of America, and go directly to the utility. Or, perhaps, opt-out of the town’s new energy program.

It’s all so flickin’ annoying. But I’m retired and have plenty of time to be an aggravating customer, and aggravate myself in the process.

^* Speaking of modems: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/aol-dial-up-service-ending-youve-got-mail-september-30/