COVID accelerated a lot of things, most noticeable has been the decoupling of the US from China.
But one of the most accelerated trends has been the decline of US universities...
Well over half of US schools will close by 2030.
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Notably however, this was the official prediction BEFORE the events of 2020.
The simple fact is despite the outrageous tuitions and outrageous endowments tier 1 US schools command, the vast majority of America's 5000 colleges and universities are near broke.
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While Harvard has amassed an endowment of $40 billion, even large state schools have struggling finances.
all the rise in tuition produced for them was increased competition, and unable to compete on academics or prestige they spent their money on massive facilities.
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A few sports and student facilities are net profitable...
But the vast majority of them are raw expenses meant to attract students.
One of the bigger trends of the past decade has been the spread of lazy rivers and other resort style amenities on campus
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In addition to the bloat of administration these expenses were good for attracting students and tuition money, when the millennial population bulge was still driving enrollment.
However that debt and maintenance cost adds up really fast once demographics shift
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Again just following 2018 trends 50% of US universities were set to go bankrupt by 2030...
But we're no longer on 2018 trend lines. The current forecast is much worse.
The golden goose of Chinese foreign students with their bottomless pockets has been killed.
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Students already enrolled will do nearly anything to complete their degree, as we witnessed with the indignities forced on students during lockdowns...
But new enrollments are a different story.
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you think you had it hard during lockdown: imagine regular travel between Lockdown happy China, and Lockdown happy blue state universities...for years.
Combine this with an increasing CCP hostility to US ties/education and this crop of Chinese students won't be replaced.
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International students are vastly more important than regular students since they're amongst the few who pay full tuitions and don't receive large discounts off of the sticker price.
the US is set to lose upwards of 45% of its 300,000 Chinese foreign students by 2025
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The Bottom 50% of US schools cannot afford that loss, hell the upper tier of US schools can't really afford that loss.
Real Estate markets in western cities, driven by Asian students and their wealthy investor parents can't afford that loss..
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This will be one of the biggest societal shifts of the 2020s.
Universities don't just create university graduates... they also employ them. When 10s of thousands of administrators are laid off en masse expect the "University premium" to take a nose dive..
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After that well, underemployed university graduates have caused the majority of revolutions in the past 200 years...
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Legacy media, even when they have audiences, have demographics that make bingo halls look hip and high rolling.
In the post-propaganda age, media no longer exists for its audience... and it no longer dies when they stop watching:
1982's Conan the Barbarian has one of the best scripts ever put to page, up there with Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia.
Director/writer John Milius wrote the scripts for Apocalypse Now and HBOs Rome
And this is easily his most coherent, most complete work
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Robert Eggers, celebrated arthouse director of The Witch and The Lighthouse, beloved for the depth of his scripts, researched the hell out of Norse culture and ancient revenge cycles...
And his Northman just wound up being beat for beat the exact same movie, only worse.
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Conan's base dialogue is so overwhelmingly poetically gorgeous.
"The mounds have been here since the time of the titans. Kings are buried in them, great kings. Their domains once glittered like the lights on a windy sea"
Few understand how much warfare has changed in 70 years.
Sure most look at the Afghan defeats of the Soviets then the US and conclude insurgencies matter, but Afghanistan is a place these empires should have won!
the guerillas lacked their ultimate weapon:
Mega-cities
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Cities have always challenged armies.
Troy held 10 years, Athens held off the Spartans 30 years, hell Constantinople maintained its shrinking empire/kingdom/city-state 1000 years after Rome fell.
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the European theatre of WW2 was defined by 2 massive urban battles.
First Stalingrad broke the Wehrmacht's forward momentum and ended German dreams of Russian conquest
2 million people died in that city
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It was only 3km deep from the surrounding fields to the Volga river
"If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons"
Biden echoed what lots of establishment types believe when he said this, but is there any truth to it?
Obviously not
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First of all... no. Resorting to nuclear escalations in low intensity urban and suburban insurgency skirmishes is obviously a horrible idea
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and as for F-15s or Drones (as if it really makes a difference where the pilots chair is located)...
Well that deals with the one insurgent, but now likewise you've got to deal with all his neighbors who took exception you turning their block or complex into a testing range
🧵Fedposting is your Civic Duty🧵
(Not legal advise) 1/
Probably no secret police force in world history has achieved a greater psychological victory than the US letter Agencies in the 21st century.
The tabooing of "FedPosting" is now almost total on the internet.
2/ On dissident forums across the web no sooner has someone advocated revolution or invoked the image of a guillotine before the accusation of "Fed" starts flying
Statements are said to "Glow" and participants called "Glowies" if they advocate anything but ineffective activism
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In this the letter agencies and particularly the FBI have achieved a psychological victory over dissenters to the regime greater than almost any security force in the history of the modern world...
And they have won this without any legal grounding whatsoever.
Americans don't understand class. American socialists especially
Every week i hear: "How can Trump be considered anti-elite? He's a billionaire!?"
This fundamentally misunderstands class. its not how much you have, its how you make it.
And Trump definitely ain't elite
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Classic Marxist economics divides class via the individual's means of securing resources.
The proletariat trade their labour to employers for wages.
The bourgeoise use their ownership of the means of production to extract surplus value from the proletarian laborer
etc.
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Sure this usually resulted in the bourgeoise being wealthier than the proles.. but not always. Some decayed bourgeoise barely made more than proles, while many successful skilled proles earned as much as lower tier bourgeoise.