grinder silk: How To Profit From The Impending Bursting Of The Education ...

I urge all to review those articles for the verbose nature of this topic lends to rampant cross referencing.?

In the?previous installment of this series, I walked through the math that basically invalidates the pursuit of a 4 year degree for nearly everyone that needed to finance it through school loans at 6% or higher. The basis of this invalidation was the poor quality of the asset backing the loan, the degree itself. This installment will walk through the logic that dictates the quality of said asset, but before I delve into said diatribe, I want to illustrate for the non-finance types the relationship between assets and liabilities and the path to insolvency that ensues when you use debt to purchase inferior and/or depreciating assets - basically the crux behind the??and?.

Knowledge?is a familiarity with someone or something. That familiarity can include?facts,?information,?descriptions, or?skills?acquired through?education, which also includes experience. Knowledge refers to both the theoretical and practical understanding of a subject. Knowledge can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject). I am here to sell implicit knowledge, better known to the old school as know how, or more formerly known as "Knowledge How"....

Knowledge that vs Knowledge How

In academia, the kind of knowledge usually proffered is?propositional knowledge, more colloquially described as "knowledge that." "Knowledge that" or "know that" is distinct and should be discerned from "knowledge how" (know how). The best way to describe this concept is to use simple real life examples. In mathematics, it is commonly known?that?(hence knowledge that, or know that) 1 +1 = 2, but there is also knowing?how?to add the numbers one plus one together and understanding what their sum (two) is.?

In physics, we can take this concept even farther. It has been argued to by college age students of knowledge that (who are currently mired in academia) that a physics engineer cannot approach know how without being first well versed in know that. This is a mindset that is the result of today's modern academic group think.

This concept is also easily enough disproved by using a common example known to most of us, and that is riding a?bicycle.?The theoretical knowledge of the?physics?involved in maintaining a state of?balance?on a bicycle (knowledge that, or know that) cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride (knowledge how, or know how). The importance of understanding how to ride a bike is obvious, established and grounded - at least to those interested in bike riding. There is absolutely no prerequisite of having the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining the state of balance of the bicycle to learn to ride the bicycle, nor to ride it proficiently, nor to pass this knowledge on to others. Thus, it is obvious and clear that an engineer does not need to be versed in "know that" to move on to "know how". Any failure to acknowledge the distinction between knowledge that and knowledge how can lead to?vicious regresses.

A distinction must be made between infinite regresses that are truly "vicious" and those that are comparatively benign. A truly vicious regress is an attempt to solve a problem that by and large re-introduced the initial problem in the (or as the) proposed solution.?Examples of this can be found in today's global Ponzi scheme of using more debt to solve the debt dilemma of Greece, thus the ease of my predicting serial re-default.?This is not truly a practical (or doable) solution, and as one continues along these lines, the initial problem will recur infinitely and will never be solved. Not all regresses are vicious, however the truly circular argument is. This is the crux behind the article, "How Inferior American Education Caused The Credit/Real Estate/Sovereign Debt Bubbles and Why It's Preventing True Recovery"?and the reason why the?Pan-European sovereign debt crisis?is nowhere near being solved (again reference??Greece Reports: "Circular Reasoning Works Because Circular Reasoning Works" - Or - Here Comes That Default!!!). Remember,?failure to acknowledge the distinction between "know that" and "know how" leads to?vicious regresses. With academia being a bastion of "know that" rooted in the rote memorization of facts and information bits, those well versed in know how can literally run circles around those immersed in said schools of thought once it comes to problems solving, value creation and getting things done (or undone) in the real world.?

It is the reason why the legion's of ivy league academics failed to foresee following while I clearly articulated the risks and consequences well beforehand:?

I have a rich history in seeing and benefiting from the things that the "know that" crowd cannot perceive. Reference?Who is Reggie Middleton??for more about me.

What Is This Really About?

There is a very important and distinct difference between "knowing that" and "knowing how," with the crux of the distinction being the difference between this initiative and that vast swath of modern academia. "Know that" is a function of rote memorization of static information, passed down from the Prussian method of education implemented over 200 years ago and still common use today and "know how" is basically understanding of how to get things done...

"Know how" is what has separated the labor intensive low margin industries of the far east from the Intellectual Property rich industries found in the US, at least until now. After decades of toiling in an?antiquated?teaching system producing a legions of leveraged "know that" recipients who then seek "know how" in the work force (basically asking employers to pay to learn on the job what they should have learned from school) to pay off or compensate for hundreds of thousands of dollars of tuition bills and debt, the US is finally paying the piper for its lackadaisical approach to real education. Asian companies such as Samsung are actually outperforming their sterling US counterparts such as Apple in both product capability, product quality and even market share. In order to stem this tide, true "know[ledge] how" must become - once again - the aim, goal and accomplishment of the education system, similar to the apprenticeships of old.

The basis of doing things and solving real world problems by thinking through them and value creation (making things) by applying a real, true skill. Academia is primarily interested in the first, Reggie Middleton is deeply ensconced in the latter.

The next installment will focus on a sampling of individual schools that peddle and push leveraged "know that" to the masses, ranging from the gleaming ivy league towers to the workshop tutoring courses down the street. This pandering of leveraged "know that" is to the dismay of all who relied on the so-called scholars from said schools to actually know what they were talking about in predicting crises, managing assets and conducting policy through said crises, and coming up with solutions for the same. I have already laid my "know[ledge] how" track record for all to see (reference?Who is Reggie Middleton?) and it would be interesting to perform an apples to apples comparison to those purveyors of "leveraged know that" to see if this blogger cum entrepreneurial investor is on to something or not. I don't possess a masters degree, not to mention one from the ivy league, yet I feel I have run circles around many, if not the vast majority of those that have. You can view the data and judge for yourself -?Did Reggie Middleton, a Blogger at BoomBustBlog, Best Wall Streets Best of the Best??It's not necessarily the raw intelligence, that has enabled this, but the ensconced approach to learning.?

I currently have my analysts working on explicit ROIs for degrees (both cash and levered) from the following schools:?Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Princeton, NYU, Capella, University of Pheonix, DeVry, CUNY, SUNY with explicit comparisons to investing borrowed funds in the NASADAQ and S&P 500 over the same time period(s) and interning for free at various institutions who hire from said schools. This installment will also review the business models of said schools and the following installment will illustrate my answer to this mess.

In the mean time and in between time,?subscribers?can glean my view of one of the big private post secondary educators who is ?having a problem with volatile earnings that are probably going to get worse.

file icon Education Co.?1-3-2013