I was talking to my brother-in-law the other day, he's been getting a few days work operating a roadworks stop-go sign for for some maintenance contractors.
I was amazed to learn that he requires three different tickets to do this job. That's right, three separate credentials to operate a stop-go sign!
The credentialling sector is obviously doing very well for itself these days. Very well indeed!
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
At 10:34 AM -0400 8/7/09, Michael Smith wrote:
>On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 23:16:31 -0400
>Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>> This sucks, re: Churchill. But when were the universities riding high?
>> When William Graham Sumner ruled the roost?
>
>Aren't they still riding pretty high? I seem to recall that
>somebody pointed out here, a couple of weeks back, that the
>absolute size of the credentialling sector continues to
>grow. Certainly they've made themselves increasingly
>indispensable, and more and more credentialling is
>required to get a job. One sees lots of gleaming
>new buildings on college campuses, and the campuses
>themselves are expanding like West Bank settlements --
>in my nabe, Columbia is growing like a melanoma.
>In fact, the credentialling sector and the closely-
>related incarceration sector seem to be the great
>economic success stories of recent decades.
>
>Of course the notion that universities were ever havens
>of free inquiry is a self-serving myth -- and clearly the
>aggrandizement of the institutions themselves isn't trickling
>down to the poor Morlocks who patrol the classrooms. Au
>contraire, these hapless souls are experiencing downright
>immiseration.
>
>