CW 344: Educational Budgets in Academia with Benjamin Ginsberg Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University

Welcome to Creating wealth with Jason Hartman. During this program, Jason is going to tell you some really exciting things that you probably haven't thought of before. And a new slant on investing fresh, new approaches to America's best investment that will enable you to create more wealth and happiness than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. He's been a successful investor for 20 years and currently owns properties in 11 states and South 17 cities. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to financial freedom. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to the Creating wealth show. This is your host, Jason Hartman. This is episode number 344 and today I've got Ben Ginsberg joining me and we'll talk about some interesting stuff here in a few moments. But first of all, an interesting CNBC report is out. Diana Olich commenting on home affordability and the market slowing just a tad, which is actually kind of a welcome thing. Frankly, I'd like to see it slow down just a little bit so it gets a little bit more, oh, I don't know how to describe it. A little bit more pleasant to do business in. I guess this is, you know, probably partially seasonal. It's also we saw a little tick up in interest rates and then a tick down. But in the markets we're in, business is still quite good and quite strong. There's definitely more inventory now as we talked about on the last episode. So take advantage of that. The home buyers aren't really out that much in this time of the year. And this is the time when a prudent investor should be out, when demand is a little bit lower and more reasonable because most home buyers move in the spring and summer. Obviously, that's just a typical seasonal adjustment that I became so familiar with when I was back in traditional real estate years ago. But what this CNBC report talks about is pretty interesting. One of the great barometers for a prediction on where housing prices and where the market activity is going is the good old Housing Affordability Index. Now, it doesn't tell you everything, but it tells you a lot. It's pretty good. And historically, the Housing Affordability Index is awesome. Okay, it's still totally awesome. It was really, really awesome. As we talked about on prior episodes, maybe I think we talked about this a lot about 8 to 12 months ago on some shows how the housing Affordability Index was the best time it's ever been in history since the national association of Realtors started keeping tabs on it in the early 70s. And historically it's still excell. However, it's not as good as it was just even a few months ago. And this article profiles the least affordable areas and the most affordable areas out of 25 metropolitan areas. So, you know, you can probably almost guess this stuff if you're, if you're becoming astute at the marketplace through listening to the Creating wealth show. But least affordable markets. Number 21, Miami. No surprise there. Number 22, my hometown, Los Angeles. No surprise there. Number 23, New York. No surprise there. And number 24, San Diego. No big surprise. Number 25, San Francisco. So those are the least affordable metropolitan areas and those are areas that, you know, none of them really makes sense for investment because the rent to value ratio doesn't work. So you'll just notice that in the markets are least affordable, there are also markets where the RV ratios just don't make any sense and we wouldn't want to invest in those areas. Now the most affordable metropolitan areas are a little bit interesting and they require some deeper analysis and commentary. Well, here they are. And you'll recognize a lot of these markets. A lot of you listening may own property in one or two of these markets, hopefully, but hopefully not more than one or two of these markets because they're not markets we recommend but we have looked at intensively. So the most affordable market. Well, I'll go up from the bottom. Okay, I'll go up from the bottom. It's more suspenseful to do it that way. Most affordable markets. Number five, Pittsburgh. I used to live in Pittsburgh when I was a little kid and we have looked at Pittsburgh quite extensively in terms of investment. And two things bother us about that market. We may overcome them and maybe be tempted to overcome them at because other factors outweigh them. But one problem is that we don't find it to be very landlord friendly. And as you know, if you're a regular listener and follower of our work, we always want to be in landlord friendly markets that are friendly to our cause as landlords. So if we ever get in a bind where we have a problem tenant, we have a deadbeat, we have someone we've got to kick out. We want the courts, the legal system to favor the investor rather than despise the evil big land owner like the Socialist Republic of New York, California. Those places definitely not very landlord friendly to say the least. And the next one, number four, is not landlord friendly either. But it's interesting because it always looks tempting to investors and I've talked about it many times, but. But it's not a place we have ever recommended and probably not a place we ever will. Yes, you probably guessed it. It's the D word. Detroit. Yes, Detroit. The bankrupt city of Detroit. I was gonna say destroyed. And it is destroyed. And that market is of course the poster child for how big government simply doesn't work. The model cities program, the corrupt mayors, the corrupt government, the kickbacks, the just extremely mismanaged, formerly great city of Detroit where the unions ruined that city, the liberals ruined that city. It's just so ruined. I can't even tell you what to think about it. Now, number three, that's a market we've recommended and we very much actually still like the market. We haven't been talking much about it lately though, for other reasons. Oh, by the way, I don't know if I mentioned this just now on Pittsburgh, but there were two reasons, right? Landlord friendliness. That was one of them. But the other thing is, look, I have been very transparent in talking about this on the show and that is that, look, there are markets we would like to be in, markets we would like to be recommending to you as an investor. However, one of the big things, it's not just about the market, folks. It's also about the team, the provider, the local market specialist in that market. Because you can have the best market, but if you don't have the right team, you're not going to have a good experience. Now that actually kind of relates to the next market I'm about to mention here.

But that would be similar to if any of you are employers, if you have your own business or you're a manager in a, in a company and you're in charge of hiring people. If you're in the HR world, the human resources world. I have a long felt, and you'd probably agree with me, that I would rather have an employee with a great can do attitude and limited knowledge than an employee who knows everything, who's got all the knowledge and all the credentials, but a bad attitude. As Earl Nightingale says, to estimate the role of attitude in one's success is like talking about the role of, of water in the Pacific Ocean. It's pretty significant, right? And attitude is probably 99% of success. So that's the thing, you know, it's about having the right team, not just the right market. Well, number three, market. I kind of hedge on this one because I think it's a good market. And I think, I don't know. The team experience in this market is hard to really explain because we have been having challenges with our team here and we have a long list of promises our team here is slowly keeping. But I don't consider myself to be the most patient person in the world. I'm fairly patient, but at some point, even the most patient person, their patience runs out and runs ragged. Well, that's good old St. Louis. Pretty good market. I agree. Our most popular provider in there has been backlogged dramatically and has a huge backlog of promises to keep. So we're dealing with that. And it's like a slow progression. But if you're in that market and you have any of these challenges, you'll know what I'm talking about. So St. Louis is number three. I guess I won't go into much more detail on that. Another market that's pretty good in terms of affordability but has other big challenges, one being weather, the other being liberal politics that make it landlord unfriendly. But we have looked at this market fairly extensively and that is Minneapolis. Minneapolis is number two in terms of the most affordable, not a market we recommend, though. The action is in the Sun Belt. People are moving south. They want to be in warmer climes with low cost of living, natural beauty, recreational opportunities, and of course, employment growth. And that is in right to work states, which oddly, Michigan became one somewhat recently, a few months back. I don't know if that's enough to save Michigan. It's probably too little too late. But number one is one of my longtime favorites. But it's become a little less affordable. It doesn't work as well as it used to and that's why we haven't talked about it so much lately. But that is, yes, it starts with an A. It's the first letter of the Alphabet and It is Atlanta, Georgia, number one, most affordable metropolitan area of the 25. Now remember, this is only of the 25. So it's like looking at the Case Shiller Index, which is massively flawed in my opinion, but yet that's what you'll hear about in the media. The media talks about the Case Shiller Index, which only surveys the top 20, not even 25 metropolitan areas out of about 450, 14 of those markets I really have never been very interested in. So again, of the Case Shiller Index, only six of them spark my interest. So anyway, that's how this stuff is so flawed and it requires greater analysis. Definitely, but I thought you'd find that Interesting. And just wanted to hear a little bit about that piece from Diana Olich on cnbc. Okay. A couple housekeeping items. Oh, Meet the Masters, our annual event that used to be twice annually, now it's just annually is scheduled, confirmed, it's done. You can register. We've got the hotel special set up. And by the way, I got to tell you, I am very impressed that we have been able to hold on to this great hotel pricing and it's at the same place as we've had it many, many times. That's the Hyatt regency in Irvine, California. And it is confirmed January 18th and 19th, 2014. Of course, January 18th and 19th. And we've got that great hotel rate which is only $119 per night. And you know, of course this is a beautiful hotel, very nice. And room rate is typically, I think about 179 per night. We got our room block discount. So be sure to not only register for that event@jason hartman.com and we've got a special, by the way. This is the first time we've done this but we really wanted to get kind of roll out the welcome mat to some of you who have not attended, attended this event before. So if you're a first time attendee, we have got a special and it is just $397 for the two day event and the regular ticket price at the door is 1500 bucks. Non first timers, we of course love you but we wanted to offer a little special for the first timers and just see if we can attract some of our, some new people. We love our regulars but like the cell phone company offering the special for newbies, that's what we're doing. So we want to, we want to get some new people this time and $3.97 for them. And the early bird price though is $4.97 and we've got that great room rate while the room block lasts. And speaking of housekeeping items, wow, we've been deluged with orders for that special that I offered on the last episode. I only mentioned it once, but thank you for all of your interest in our closeout special for the physical product of Meet the Masters, which is a combination of two Meet the Masters events sort of put together kind of a best of and we closed that out. This is normally a digital Download product for $497 and we made it half price at 247 and we still have several boxes left. So if you'd like to take advantage of that. I didn't count them, but we went and shipped a whole bunch of them. And by the way, the estimated arrival from UPS is on Halloween you'll be receiving those. So that's not scary. That's. But maybe everything else will be scary on Halloween. But you should. For those of you who ordered, you should be receiving your boxes of our physical product. I think it's got like 22 CDs and a big, huge like 500 page workbook in there. And thank you for all of you who ordered. There's still some left while supplies last. This is a closeout so you know, we don't plan to offer it again. And the next version will probably just re edit and update that as well. So $247 for the physical product that will beautify any bookshelf for many, many years to come. And of course, the knowledge is priceless and the education is priceless and take advantage of that@JasonHartman.com sale that's Jason Hartman.com sale so there's a couple housekeeping items. And one more thing I should mention to you. We've got some fantastic shows coming up. There are just so many in the queue. And one of the challenges we've had is that in the way we, we structure the podcast. Actually, I owe this to my editor. He made a good suggestion, our producer, on how to do this and get more episodes out to you more frequently. And that is to, number one, not do long intros.

And number two, not state the show number on every episode. So the show number of course will be in the show notes. You can always reference it that way. But we're going to get more episodes out to you more quickly because we've got so many great guests, so many great recordings. Bott the way. Wow, this was an interesting one. I had my interview with Obama's buddy, Bill Ayers. Yes, I know it's probably a few of you think, Jason, why the heck are you interviewing that guy? He's a rotten egg. He's a terrorist. Whatever. Hey, he was interesting. Let me tell you. I don't agree with him on. I agree with him on very few things. Okay? But I did agree with him on some things and that interview was lively. No questions were out of bounds or off limits. So he let me grill him and that's an interest. Interesting one. So we'll have that coming up. We got a whole bunch of others I can't even remember, but I've been recording like crazy. We want to get these episodes out more quickly so some of them may not have show numbers on them coming up or episode numbers, but we'll get them out faster that way. Okay, so let's get to our guest. We've got Ben Ginsberg, and we'll be back with him in just a second.

Are you interested in a property outside of our network? Do you need a second opinion? No problem. Let Jason's experts evaluate the deal. For more information, go to jasonhartman.com now.

It's my pleasure to welcome Professor Benjamin Ginsberg to the show. He is professor of Political Science and chair of the center for Advanced Governmental Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And that's a David Bernstein professorship, I should say. And he is coming to us today from. I don't know exactly where you are today.

As we speak, I'm in Potomac, Maryland.

A suburb of Washington, D.C. fantastic. Well, how are you doing?

I'm fine. How about you?

Well, good, good. Welcome. I'm in very hot Phoenix. We have a huge heat wave going on out here.

Yeah, so I heard. I keep saying that we have a lot of heat here, too, because we have so many senators and members of Congress. They add about 8 degrees of hot air.

I love that. They are partially responsible for the global warming issue right there.

Yeah. Well, there you go. When people talk about global warming, they never think about reducing it by cutting the size of the government.

Yeah. Well, that's a great place to start, if you ask me. That's my plan, because I can tell our views are very similar. Well, first of all, let's talk about student loan debt and the cost of education that has risen depending on how you look at it and what survey and timeframe you look at. About two to four times quoted inflation, the official numbers for inflation, which I believe are understated, you might agree. But what's behind this and what can be done about it?

Well, you know, one reason for the quantity of student loan debt is that colleges and universities are constantly lobbying to raise the amount that students can borrow. And they do this claiming that we want to make sure, you know, that everyone has access to college. But of course, as soon as the limit is raised, we raise our tuitions.

Absolutely. I mean, this is just classic inflation to me. You've got more dollars chasing a reasonably somewhat limited supply of goods and services. And, you know, of course, universities can expand. The Internet has helped them scale quite a bit with tools like blackboard and so forth, but they still have admissions. And at least they put on the air of being picky about who they accept and who they graduate. And doesn't anybody Realize this is just the classic definition of inflation.

Yes. I often use this as an example in my classes. I tell students that the first step in being a good citizen is to be a cynic. The press is always telling us not to be cynical, but I don't know anyone more cynical than reporters. So I say you have to listen with a very jaundiced ear to the claims that people in government and in all sorts of institutions make. And this is one of my examples. I say colleges and universities lobby incessantly for increased limits on how much students can borrow. And they say they do this for the public good. Whenever you hear the phrase the public good, you should lock up your wallet. The reason that we want to raise the loan limit is so students can borrow more and then we raise tuition accordingly. And one of the great drivers in high tuition is student loans. That money is there and we go for it. So you're absolutely right. But for some reason, people don't want to understand this.

It is just ridiculous. Well, it doesn't pay to understand it. And you know, it's amazing how the politics. Well, I guess it's not that amazing, but it's interesting, I'll say, how the politicians pander to it on both sides of the aisle. We need more grants, we need more availability of student loans. And all they're doing is increasing this debt burden on Generation Y, which is now over $1 trillion. Well, that's on all generation, on probably Gen X and Gen Y pretty much. But the interesting thing too, Ben, is it's not dischargeable in bankruptcy. I mean, this is.

No, for the most part, it's not.

Yeah, it's. And it's the only debt, as far as my understanding goes, that is like that where you never get a second chance.

Well, that's right here, the. Here's another case of lobbying. The universities lobby for more debt and the lenders have lobbied successfully for extra protection. So it is generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy. But I would say that this debt is a greater fraud than many others and should be the first to be dischargeable in bankruptcy, not the last.

Now why do you say that?

Well, because I think it's granted under the most false of pretenses. You know, if I borrow money for a car, we all understand what the goal is. We understand the parameters of the loan. All the facts are on the table. But if I borrow money for my education, I'm literally buying a dream. I'm being sold a dream. I don't know if my debt is going to ever be Worthwhile. The lenders have every reason to deceive me about the value of the loan. I have no idea whether this loan is justifiable or not. So I would say it's far more susceptible to fraud than is a loan on a car or even a loan on a home.

Well, you know, that's so interesting. After we had the mortgage meltdown a few years ago, all of the lenders were being accused of predatory lending. And I'd say that student loan representatives are probably the most guilty of predatory lending.

I fully agree with you. I think they're very guilty of predatory lending. And I'm ashamed to say that colleges and universities, for their own, you know, for their own reasons, are party to it all. The guaranteed student loan program is a source of enormous financial hardship to hundreds of thousands of students who just don't understand what they're borrowing and why they're taking on enormous quantities of debt that they couldn't possibly. Couldn't possibly repay, given the educations they're receiving.

Well, you know, let's talk a little bit about the quality of that education and the need for college. Now, it's really interesting, and I must commend you because you're in the industry. I mean, most people in the industry would be saying glowing things about it and encouraging people to go into debt and so on, but you seem like you have a very level and reasonable view about it. Is the value of education or advanced college education? Is it the same as it was before? When I talk to people that are of age, I have an employee who didn't finish college, and she occasionally says to me, you know, maybe I should go back to school. She's still in her 20s, you know, maybe I should go back to school, blah, blah, blah. And I said, look, if it were 1980, I would say go back and finish your degree. But nowadays it's just a different world. People seem like they judge more on action than they do on credentials. Maybe you can speak to that a little bit.

Well, I think a college degree is a very good thing to have, and I think a college education is a good thing to have. Look, there's no substitute for a good education. And I don't mean necessarily training in a particular skill set. I mean being able to think and read and write. These are things that college should teach and often does teach. So I'm not, certainly not opposed to a college education for those who have the intellectual ability. What I'm opposed to is the cost. I think college is substantially overpriced. Now, look, if your kid gets into a selective private college and you can afford the tuition and want to pay it, fine. People drive Mercedes, right? I don't think you get a bargain at the Mercedes dealer. I'm not sure that it's a good car, but if that's what you want, go for it.

However, when I look at state schools and I see that state schools are charging tuitions of 12, 14, $15,000 a year plus room and board to parents who were already taxpayers in that state there, I think people are being grossly overcharged. And when I look at the cost factors built into that tuition, one thing I see is an enormous over inflation on the administrative side, about 35%, perhaps more of the cost, you know, encountered by that school is a usually bloated administration, which is absolutely unjustifiable. You know, in Indiana, where Mitch Daniels has now become president of Purdue, I think one of the first things that he's tried to do is cut back on the administrative side. And I wish him the best of luck because this is in the last 25 years, half the growth and the cost of higher education has come because of the growth of administration. So my concern is not with what Harvard charges. You know, Harvard can charge what it wants and people want to pay it, fine, you can, everyone.

It's the free market.

Right?

This is America. We used to be entitled to a Cadillac, but what the heck, right? So. But state schools, it's state schools where I'm appalled that the taxpayers who already support the institution are then being asked to pay exorbitant tuitions for their kids to go into debt for a lot of things that they shouldn't be paying for.

Well, you mentioned the administration issue and I don't know if you have any specific stats on that, but they'd be interesting to hear because I remember years ago picking up William Bennett's book, the Leading Index of Cultural Indicators and there was a very telling graph about the public school system and it basically showed ratio of administrative to teaching staff in I believe it was the 1960s versus the 1990s. And it amazingly had completely flipped upside down where all of this administration so top heavy.

Oh yeah, you know, what Bennett showed about public schools is now true of America's colleges and universities. There have been very good studies of this issue and in fact I've written a book on this called the Fall of the Faculty. And what I and others show is exactly this flip flopping phenomenon that the administrators now outnumber the teachers. It's as though you send your kid to College to work with a good assistant dean instead of a professor because they don't hire professors, they hire, I call them deans, deanlets, deanlings, dingalings and ding dongs. Those are the people. There are now about two administrators for every professor around the country. About two administrators for every professor. And a number of studies have shown that the reverse is the economically optimal ratio. About two professors for every administrator. That's about what you need in terms of optimal cost allocation. But we've gone the opposite and it's getting worse every year. There are fewer professors and more administrators because, you know, when a college gets into financial difficulties, the administration doesn't fire administrators, it cuts back on courses. You know, we don't need a language department, we need three more deanlets. And unfortunately that, that's been the direction in which we've gone. And much of this cost studies show is internally generated. It's not because the federal government made me do it. That's what they usually say. It's internal. It's the growth of the bureaucracy growing on itself. So I would say that if you're going to look for a villain in the story of higher education costs, I would look first at the million dollar presidents and $500,000 associate provosts. I say in my book that if a million dollar president was kidnapped by space aliens, it would be months before anyone noticed. People on campus would think that the president was off on retreat, which is where they often are. However, if some poor underpaid adjunct faculty member earning $3,000 a course disappeared, everybody would notice. Everyone would notice. The students would want to know where the professor was.

Right? Yeah, it's really amazing. It's interesting that you didn't talk about the football and basketball coaches.

Well, you know, this, you know, you're going to get me going on this, but I'll tell you the following. I like athletics, I'm a big fan of athletics, but I believe in playing athletics. Now when I look at a school, I'm going to pick on any big ten school, I'm going to say Ohio State, okay? They say they have a football program. I say they don't. They have a football watching program where you have 11 kids on the field and 110,000 in the stands eating junk food.

Yeah, right.

Why don't they call it what it is? It's a junk food eating football watching program. It's not a football program. So you know, and the unfortunate fact of the matter is that those athletic programs, even the most successful ones, don't produce revenue for the School, they produce revenue for the athletic program. Hardly any of that leaks into academics. So, you know, if I ran the zoo, I'd have every kid play a sport. I think learning how to play a sport is a good thing. But learning how to eat junk food in the stands? I doubt the value of that. And moreover, I don't want to pay tuition for my kid to eat junk food in the stands.

Couldn't agree more.

You can do that at home, right?

And you didn't mention the alcohol consumption that goes along with it either.

Well, that, you know, that's what you say. That's denied. Every school denies that there's alcohol consumption associated with athletics.

Exactly. Exactly. What about tenure? What do you think about that? That's probably a touchy subject for people listening and.

Well, you know, I've. For your peers, I've had tenure for 45 years and hasn't done me any harm, so I'm for it. Let me say something about tenure. You remember Churchill's definition of democracy? It's the worst system.

It's just better than everything else. Yeah, right.

The tenure system has many, many defects. I could tell you more funny tenure stories than the critics of tenure can tell you. I've seen some of the problems. But the thing is, if you eliminate tenure, then you also eliminate any possibility of the faculty playing a role in the governance of the university. And to my mind, that would be a tragedy.

How is that? Can you explain that relationship?

Well, because the tenured faculty has some power within the university, they can't, you know, the administration can't push us around as much as it would like to. We play a role in the governance of the school. If you didn't have tenure and you had professors being fired for insubordination, which is what would happen, the university would be left in the hands of its worst people. The deans, deanlets, deanlings, dingalings and ding dongs would be in complete charge. There would be no checks and balances whatsoever. And, you know, the university is a very special place. The thing that we do best where American universities have served our country is because they have been hotbeds of new ideas. Now, I will grant you, a lot of those have been crackpot ideas. Possibly even some of my own, I don't know. But new ideas come from the universities in our country. Ideas in the sciences, ideas in the humanities and so forth. They come out of the university. And that means that faculty have to be free to voice opinions because you have to try out. You know, I feel that I have to try out 15 silly opinions before I get one good one. So I think tenure is critical to the functioning of the university. So that's why I say it's like Churchill's democracy. It's the worst system you can think of, except for all the other ones.

Right, Right. It's just better than anything else out there. Let's maybe talk about politics a little bit. You know, you mentioned that you were close to D.C. and what are your thoughts about what's going on? You know, the first. The first one I'd like to really ask you about is, Mr. Snowden, and see if you have any thoughts about the NSA scandal.

Well, you know, here you have an agency charged with collecting and guarding a variety of secrets. An agency which is spying on all of us, even though it shouldn't be, but it can't protect itself from one dumb contractor working for.

One of the big consulting firms. So I would say that NSA has a bit of a management problem. But, you know, but what it. What it reveals is that our government, when it doesn't have an enemy to work against, it turns on us. I think it's just outrageous that a government agency is collecting, they say, metadata on all of our communications anytime we pick up the phone or use the Internet. This is being monitored by government agency. I mean, this is a violation of the Constitution, run amok as far as I'm concerned.

Of course it is. It's just unbelievable. I mean, do you think Snowden is a public servant? Has he done us all a favor by exposing this?

Well, he's not a public servant.

He's a. I didn't want to use the word hero.

Whatever he did, he did. You know, we can't have people, you know, revealing all the nation's secrets to anybody. They can, but in this particular instance, we've learned a lot from this. This is brought home to us just how far outside its constitutional limits our government has gone. People don't like to believe that our government operates unconstitutionally on a regular basis. We don't want to believe that about our own government, about ourselves. But unfortunately, the truth is that this government is spying on us. It's engaging in activities that we just don't believe that the framers of the Constitution would have been appalled to learn about. At the time the Constitution was drafted, they didn't have the Internet. They didn't have communications. If they had all the stuff, you can perfectly believe that they would have listed it as being among the things that government can intrude into.

Of course, no question about it. They just, there's no way they could know that. What can be done? I mean, you know, with the current state of affairs, we look at a country that is $17 trillion in debt, much more than one year GDP. We've got maybe depending on who you ask, $120 trillion in entitlements coming due over the next couple of decades. What do we have to look forward to and can we do anything about it? And when I say what we have to look forward to, particularly I'm curious about your thoughts on inflation.

Well, I think unfortunately we have taken on some of the attributes of a third world country. That is we pay our debt with debt, we pay our debt by printing money. We develop programs designed to enhance the popularity of elected officials without any thought to how we're going to pay for those programs. And politicians as you know, have a very short time horizon, right? They don't care about the long term future, they care about being re elected. So I think that we as citizens first have to be extremely cynical. That is we should not believe what we're told. And of course everyone says, oh yeah, I don't believe, but Americans are not cynical enough. Americans need to be cynical. They need to educate themselves, they need to learn some economics, they need to learn about politics, they need to learn a little bit about history. They have to be citizens. You know, a citizen to the ancient Greeks was someone who knew enough to engage in debate in the marketplace. If you couldn't do that, you were an idiot. So we have to stop being idiots. We have to be citizens. And one of the few powers left to us is that we do have the right to vote. And we have to use our votes wisely and judiciously and vote for those politicians who offer some hope. Cutting spending, cutting borrowing, working to eliminate unnecessary programs. Now there are not many of them, but there are a few.

What can we do about it though, being citizens? Are we just too comfortable in this country? Do we need more adversity? Do things need to be tougher? To get people off their rear ends to, to go and do something? And you know, in terms of doing something, what do they do? I mean communicating, raising awareness, that's all important. Voting, that maybe is a minor part of it, but writing your congressman well.

We have to be as active and cantankerous as we possibly can. And you know, things have not gotten to the point that the citizenry is utterly powerless. Look at a variety of political movements in recent years have had an impact. And I say movements both on the left and on the right have had an impact on politics, perhaps not as much as we wanted to see, but have had some impact. But, you know, I think that if Americans educated, this is. We come back to education. So everything is tied together. Most Americans don't know enough about politics to know to have any idea what to do. They don't know what the right thing to do is. And I think we have to educate ourselves. We have to understand economics. How many Americans do you think understand even one little teeny bit about economics?

Even econ majors? I mean, I live right near a college. I live right near asu. And I mean, even people majoring economics don't know about economics.

That would be sad. That's very sad.

It's rather sad. It really is.

This is where, you know, education. You know, you asked me before whether a college education is still worthwhile. I would say that in a democracy, if you hope to be a citizen rather than an idiot, and education is absolutely critical. You know, there's nothing magical about politics. People do engage in political action and we see all the time that organized groups do get what they want, we bitch about it. Right. So there's nothing to prevent citizens from organizing, from using social media, which. Which is an enormous and incredible organizational tool.

Sure. Monitored by the nsa, mind you.

I'll let the NSA monitor it, but for the moment, they can't stop it.

Yeah, I think the NS really needs to open up a polling company because they could do great polling with all their data mining.

Well, they could. You know, I'll tell you, here at Johns Hopkins, we're starting a program in government analytics to show how. How data can be used more effectively.

I mean, they could put the Gallup organization and Rasmussen to shame with what they know.

You know, and wait until we get to work on those baseball statistics. We're gonna. So. So I would say that I. I'm strongly in favor of being cynical. I favor what I call cynical realism. You have to be cynical, not believe what politicians and the government say, but you also have to be realistic and try to develop tactics and techniques for bringing about meaningful change. Perhaps. I think President Obama claimed that he was for that, but I'm a little dubious.

So I don't think it's too late. I'm not cynical about that. I believe that the country has taken a bit of a turn for the worse. But. But in the life of every country, there are ups and downs and America has, to me, it seems, enormous resources. We have a citizenry accustomed to exercising its liberties. We still have a good deal of wealth and power in private hands, which is very important. And among those resources is an educational system that has always been the best in the world. It's fallen on harder times, but it's not beyond hope. So I'm very hope I'm cynical, but hopeful.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a very good way to put it. Well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on these important issues with us today. Benjamin Ginsberg, do you want to give out your website?

Well, I don't have a personal website, but anyone who wants to communicate with me can do so through the website of the Johns Hopkins University center for Governmental Studies.

So would that be politicalscience? Jhu. Edu.

Well, that would get it.

Or.

They'Re free to email me@bginhu.edu.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts again today and keep getting the word out. It is rare to hear from someone with your thoughts in the academic world. I'm sure you'd probably agree with that.

Well, that's what they tell me at the faculty club. They say I'm wronger than anybody.

Well, it's very refreshing. You keep being wrong because I think you're right.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Bye Bye.

This show is produced by the Hartman Media Company. All rights reserved. For distribution or publication rights and media interviews. Please visit www.hartmanmedia.com or email media artmanmedia. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own and the host is acting on behalf of Platinum Properties Investor Network, Inc. Exclusively.