“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.” - Adolph Hitler, Socialist and Mass Murderer (but then I repeat myself)
I linked this article in my most recent post. The Class of 2008 and 2009 are still scrambling to find jobs... and here comes the class of 2010. Are Oil imports into the U.S. down because of the economy, or is the economy partly down due to the decrease in imports? Without doubt the debt situation is worse than Oil at this moment but that does not mean that constricted Oil and high energy costs are not doing their work as well... and perhaps its more than that...
Over the last five months, only one job materialized. After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.
Hmmm... Fair enough. Ok, exactly what was his training in?
“I worked hard through high school to get myself into the college I did,” Scott said, “and then I worked hard through college to graduate with the grades and degree that I did to position myself for a solid job.” (He majored in political science and minored in history.)
The sad fact is that this young man has no training. He has an education. An education in Political Science is not being trained... Training, as in surgical/engineering/mechanics/plumbing/welding/shoe repair means you can actually DO SOMETHING useful at the end of your training.
Read this self-serving BULL SH*T from Rutgers University when asked "what can I do with a Poli Sci Degree?" The response? In a word - NOTHING. They claim they teach you how to think... and that is really all you need (and I agree with that part)... problem is, they (these private universities) charge $200,000 to give you a certificate that says you probably know how to think but that you really don't know how to do anything. That's great. Thinking is abstract and conveniently for the Universities it cannot be measured.
Let me ask you something... do you really think 4 years of part time class work and full time partying gives one better thinking capabilities than going to work, opening a business, saving money, buying a home, selling to gain customers/clients, servicing them, and reading humanities type material for 15 hours per week? Really?? No you don't. The problem is you don't get a certificate, a "union card" if you will, in the form of the sheepskin that SAYS somebody affirms you.
Look at this from OTHER side of the trade. IF, (IF!), any of the above claim from Rutgers was true, then Lifelong earnings should increase for each hour of course credit earned - a student who dropped out with only 3 hours left should earn 98% of the increased lifetime value of what a grad earns, a second year drop out should earn 50% of the of the difference between a high school grad and a college grad (I know, I know... the metric is not perfect... are they ever?)... but according to payscale.com's director of quant analysis, Al Lee:
“Essentially, if you don’t graduate, you’ve not only lost money to tuition, you’ve also lost wages that you would have earned by working instead of going to school. A non-graduate’s time in school creates, more or less, a net zero in their lifetime earnings,” says Lee.
I'd like to repeat that last line - "A non-graduate’s time in school creates, more or less, a net zero in their lifetime earnings". It then follows that it is not the increased ability to think, but an institutional affirmation (a degree) in ANY subject that creates opportunity for those fortunate enough to have the resources and support system to navigate the college educational system (otherwise each and every college experience would lead to increased "thinking" ability and the enhanced economic benefits that comes from such "think" training... I am desperately trying to suppress a laugh... tee hee!!) to its conclusion.
Life is not fair. Smarter people earn more money, and they congregate in "better" schools with Alumni connections and placement offices... One look at the U.S. Supreme Court should give you a hint. Over the years Justices hailed from all manner of Law Schools. Today? 5 schools DOMINATE the Court. Are there really no smart people graduating from the University of Texas, or U. of Colorado, or Auburn? Really??!!
If you can get into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stamford, or Columbia (or the other 10 TOP, TOP schools)... by all means, don't pass that up. They are worth the price of admission. Paying $200k for an also ran private school? You gotta have rocks in your head. Paying anything for a Poly Sci degree? In this economy? HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHALOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHAWHAWHAWHAW
Sorry, that got away from me.
These "also rans" are in the business of false promises and exaggerated claims. Don't let them bag you. Peak Oil has hit the U.S. The full repercussions of this are unfathomable, but it doesn't take too much thought to see clearly that wasting 4 to 8 years studying something that cannot earn you a living is probably not a great idea.
In the end, people that successfully interpret their environment prosper.
35 comments:
I suppose calling this another anti-college rant is unfair. But I do think I'm somewhat qualified to give the other side of the coin.
I did a top-20 university in the U.S., 1985-89. Family paid $60,000 (I had no loans) to live on campus. I made two long-term friends there. Both became successful lawyers (one was political science and one was in engineering).
College doesn't teach you how to learn so much -- you already know how to do that, or you wouldn't be there. College gives you a certificate that says you will complete work you don't want to do, and it tells your employer that. The degree says you are likely to be a success, learning on the job.
We had heavy drinkers, heavier partiers, guys who ordered pizza for dinner every other night, guys who slept till noon and stayed up all night to write papers. All the guys (and girls) I knew who should have self-destructed from this bad living all made it fine. All the ones who got married at age 21-23 are still married.
$200,000 is a lot for college, especially since you learn your job on the job 99% of the time. My degree has nothing to do with my govt. work, but I am wildly successful in completing what I do, as the degree "states" I should do. I can read, write and make "policy" as I go. I can find minefields before they become MINEFIELDS.
Jeffers, you have a case stating today's college is too expensive, too easy, facilites laziness and is all-or-nothing i.e. you can't get half-a-degree.
But really I think what you should be mad about is chemistry and physics. Because no one from college, nor from the college of hard knocks, has figured out how to cheaply make long-chain hydrocarbons (oil). And we need it -- fast.
@bureaucrat
"College gives you a certificate that says you will complete work you don't want to do, and it tells your employer that."
Then porn workers and prostitutes should be the first to be considered for jobs.
"The degree says you are likely to be a success, learning on the job."
Having worked with a large number of people with degrees anecdotal evidence appears to support that the degree(s) did not 'produce' successful individuals.
I can't remember what founder it was now, but when he applied to law school he was expected to be able to read and write Latin and Greek to apply. Could you imagine that now? The truth is that there are way too many degrees. Useless junk most of time. If you are an engineer, lawyer, in sciences, seminary a degree is useful, beneficial and increases you utility. (poly-sci is said to be the best plan of action to go to law school, I would think business is a better barometer because it opens more doors after law school)
This is common in criminal justice now. You use to just send a young man to the academy and then 16 weeks later had a competent officer. Now you have to have at minimum an associates and a lot of the time a bachelors to drive a car around and pull people over. Fairly easy, straight forward job turns into a super-duper trooper job. The best part is that we have to pay them more because they are educated.
My 2¢ worth from April, 2007:
Following is the "Produce" Portion from my April, 2007 ELP (Economize; Localize; Produce) essay.
http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2007/04/elp-plan-economize-localize-produce.html
ELP: Produce
Jim Kunstler has suggested that we should not celebrate being largely a nation of consumers. I agree with Jim. We need to once again become a nation of producers. I recommend that you try to become, or work for, a provider of essential goods and services.
Key recommended sectors are obviously energy--conventional, non conventional and alternative energy production and energy conservation--as well as food production, especially local organic farming close to towns and cities.
Other sectors to consider are repair and maintenance, low cost energy efficient housing, low cost transportation, basic health care, etc.
The biggest risk to family finances is trying to maintain the SUV, suburban mortgage way of life in a period of contracting energy supplies. Beyond that, one of the next biggest risks in my opinion, is excessive and unwise spending--especially debt financed spending--on college education costs.
While we will desperately need engineers and many other technically qualified graduates, we are seeing wave upon wave of college graduates entering the work force with degrees that very poorly prepare them for work in a post-Peak Oil environment. We may ultimately see college graduates competing with illegal immigrants for agricultural jobs.
Perhaps the best education investment that many young people could make is a two year associate degree in some kind of repair/maintenance area, perhaps with summer jobs in the agricultural sector.
I would especially recommend that you consider buying, perhaps with a joint venture group, a small farm, either currently organic, or that can be converted to an organic farm. In the short term, if nothing else you could lease it out to an organic farmer. Longer term, you might consider building or moving a prefab, small energy efficient house to the farm. If nothing else, this plan may provide a place of work for your unemployed college graduate.
I think that “Tiny Houses” will become more popular, as larger homes are no longer viable. Where there are jobs nearby, many McMansions could be subdivided, but absent local job centers, I expect large swaths of American suburbia to be essentially abandoned. As Jim Kunstler warned, American suburbs represent the “Worst misallocation of capital in the history of the world.”
Very small (250 square feet or so), highly energy efficient, perhaps prefabricated housing makes a lot of sense, and this may become a growth sector.
I should confess that I in no way have a green thumb, but others certainly do, and there are some very encouraging case histories of Americans doing quite well with their own “Victory Gardens” so to speak, such as this case history: “Berkeley: Urban farmers produce nearly all their food with a sustainable garden in their backyard.”
Latin is more useful than most people realize, Richard Henry Dana describes in Two Years Before the Mast how he used a book and his knowledge of it’s Latin roots to teach himself Spanish. Excellent book BTY, the attitudes and assumptions alone are worth the time to read it, I’d recommend it. Because of the benefits of classical languages I reckon Letters will always be a good degree I one truly wants to learn to think.
On the other hand truly talented or driven individuals don’t need a degree, as Bureaucrat repeatedly points out it is mainly an over-glorified admission ticket. Abraham Lincoln was a self taught attorney, learning primarily from four books. At the time most men learned law as an apprenticeship and in some states such as California one still can. I clawed my way up to accounting supervisor on a base of four courses in accounting combined with dozens and dozens of hours in the library. The most successful engineer I know, with dozens of patents throwing off cash, got started by being trained as an electronics technician in the military. If one is willing to work for it without being told what to do, they can dispense with the degree and the expense save a few areas where it’s required by law.
Hey Westexas: My point exactly.
My other point was the PRICE. The only schools that make sense on a return on investment basis are the top 15 schools (or so) and a technical (read:engineering) degree from a state school. Everything else just does not add up to economic sense... and, if Westexas is correct, NO HUMANITIES degree from ANYWHERE will make economic sense.
If you are RICH... who cares? Do as you wish. If you are poor... who cares? Get all the financial aid you can get. If you are somewhere in between and actually have to pay for your kids school with hard earned savings and the money that you pay for tuition will prevent you from giving them money to start a business or to buy a home? Then this requires using your noodle.
Well, I've been deleted. Good luck, everyone.
I messed up that story. He went to law school straight out of high school at the time. But that only makes the language thing that much more impressive. As Dan said they were self taught men back then.
It is interesting to note bur works for the government and watches porn, does he work for SEC. I think so :)
I think Greek and Latin were part of the cannon before 1900 and everyone who went to primary school was expected to learn them. The rigor between then and now is just incomparable. My great grandfather had a third grade education yet in that time he flat out memorized his addition and multiplication facts thus everyday math could be done instantly in his head. How many high school graduates today can’t figure how much something costs if it’s 20% off, little lone spit it out in about a second. We have defiantly backslid in this area.
I will take my typical stance but I agree education is way over priced and way over subsidized.
Only something like 35% of college students are male these days. Affirmative Action is managing to completely kill any advantage a degree would normally give males, especially white males. "progressive" degree programs like WYMINS STUDIES has clogged the market and pushed out traditional degrees like poli sci and history.
Another issue which I have seen over and over especially in government job openings is some kind of time in grade award for the years worked in the department. Being able to track alot of merit positions has shown where a job was posted as degree required then filled with some clerk typist who was given a year of college experience per year worked.
Yes the top jobs require certain schools but the low end entry jobs have managed to get around a degree requirement in order to fill slots.
My opinion again is just more affirmative action.
Seems funny to me that the real segment of the population to benefit from AA is the single largest majority ie: white female.
Also the fact that not finishing doesn't help at all is more of the same. The degree is just a way for them to say no and they will find as many ways around it as possible.
@PioneerPreppy
"Yes the top jobs require certain schools but the low end entry jobs have managed to get around a degree requirement in order to fill slots."
Which top jobs aside from the Financial sector? What about the middle tier jobs? In the discipline I work in,I.T., once you get over a certain amount of years of experience (around 5) it seems that a degree is a non-event unless you want to work for the Feds. Especially in cases where individuals are contractors and have a decent reputation. I have not had to apply for a job cold since I first entered I.T. Once the first contract was finished my on-going references carried me through the last decade. Granted I am getting close to the supposed point where getting work is difficult due to age discrimination but I have yet to see that occur.
Pioneer;
I went thru a similar process to the one you describe, however it was education +years of experience to sit for the exam. Then when a position came open they would invite the top ten, based on test scores, for interviews. Since I ranked 9th statewide I was garneted an invite to any position that came open and fairly quickly hired.
I have friends and acquaintances that have done similar in the private sector. Results will take you a long way, but alas not to the stratosphere-that requires connections.
Joseph and Dan
I was only referencing State jobs around here. Private sector seems to be a matter of who ya know or if not that the actual bottom line is hard to pin down. With the State government jobs however especially in the merit system there are rules and easily tracked results.
I have never seen my state give education + experience. I have only seen giving equivalent educational credit for experience. With the positive bonus points minorities get it usually means that after they have been in a department for 4+ years they will get a higher overall merit score than someone with a degree.
One interesting factor that I have yet to figure out is they also give merit points for overall GPA but how they determine it for equivalent educational points is a mystery.
As for IT positions they were certainly the exception since for a long time there were few with degrees for the field. The certs filled the gap but it always seemed to me so many IT positions were filled with "friends and family" applicants at the entry level.
For generations, a college degree has been an indicator of success. With the dilution of liberal arts programs, the skyrocketing costs of education and the high unemployment in the private sector, that may no longer be the case. Why not do a cost/benefit analysis, as our host states?
I have one daughter in college working on a two year veterinary assistant degree and a son that will be starting on a IT degree come fall. They're going to community college as much as possible (transfer issues are known and minimal) and not going into debt. I doubt that Mr. Jeffers would have a problem with animal husbandry knowledge, and computer programming is one of our nation's few half-way decent job sectors left. My children aren't guaranteed a job after graduation, but I cannot come up with a better fit with their aptitudes and my slim wallet.
You're right most college degrees are a waste of time. If you can't go to an Ivy league school don't bother. Go to a trade school instead, everything they teach you can learn on line.
but you are wrong about Hitler: He was not a socialist. Socialism means government ownership of the means of production. It does not mean annihilation of certain ethnic minorities of the human race. Maybe if you were paying attention in your college economics class you would know what socialism is.
Eventually young people will go to where the jobs are, if they are not in the US, go to Canada or Australia. In Australia an engineer or hard working laborer can name his or her own price.
The reason the US is turning into a third world dump of kleptocrats and fat worthless working class slobs is not only oil . Its the baby boom generation who refused to get the country ready for peak oil.
Anon,
“But you are wrong about Hitler: He was not a socialist. Socialism means government ownership of the means of production”
Nazi= National Socialist. It is a type of socialism that concentrates its effort and power to increase power of the ruling Ethnic group. In this case white, blue eyed and blond haired people and Germans in general. Socialism in the classical sense is never going to happen. What does happen is governments control company’s trough tax and regulation to the point where there is little difference between private ownership and state ownership. Did you notice the seizure of German industry to feed the war machine, National healthcare under Hitler, gun control regulation and then seizure from minority groups first and then citizens.
Dex,
It is funny that true believer socialists try to rationalize that Hitler was not a socialist. Apparently, though, it is perfectly moral to kill off 10% of your country's population to secure your revolution, as long as you aren't a racist. Aren't Stalin, Tito, Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein and Castro just as much murderers? Why do they get a pass?
Regards,
Coal Guy
Coal Guy,
Great point. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I am somewhat amused that the left is so completely foolish. How else do you say it? They have completely rewritten history for themselves. They believe their own lies.
Eugenics was also another major idea pushed by Hitler and now almost the whole left. Just like the Ancient Greeks, we now kill are kids not because they are sick but because they are not perfect, not the sex we want, not the best point to have them, I need to save more money first. The abortion industry is to me is the most pertinent example of the effects of the social engineering started by the social Darwinist/ Fabian socialist. The left has actually convinced itself that babies are just a fetus, a clumping of cells, not life, but something in between, they just conveniently forget that they always grow into adults. I have often thought I could apply the same thinking to a 4 yr old. They can’t take care of themselves, they do not have fully developed brains and if they were not with adults they would surely die. Must not be human then!!! Of course a baby inside its mother has not fully developed, it takes 18 yrs and my parents said 25 for me ;), but this points out the logical fallacy, a part is never the whole. It is a process that takes a long time.
Nice hearing from you coal guy
Yes, it is nice to hear from Coal Guy.
And Dex, reading your commentary leads me to have hope in the future. Thrilled to see young people thinking... simply thinking... and understanding.
To Life!
To life!
Dextred1, you are completely clueless about abortion. Women have been having abortions since the beginning of time. Beside, 20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, so this makes God an abortionist. Maybe we should make abortion illegal - I think we should also make multiple births illegal. All women should be sterilized after the birth of their second child. There is no reason the women in the poor Muslim countries should be allowed to have seven or eight kids so the boys can be raised as suicide bombers and the girls can be sold into slavery. It should be stopped. Lets face it - we don't really have an energy crisis, or a global warming crisis or a job crisis - We have an overpopulation crisis. We live on a planet which does not have enough resources for the population it has, and you want to increase it? You are the problem in a nutshell
Coal Guy:
I am flummuxed when socialists claim Hitler was not a socialist... if not Socialist, what was he?
Socialism means government ownership of capital. This is why socialized medicine means the government owns and operates the hospitals and the doctors and nurses work for the government. There are very few socialized countries in the world today, Fidel Castro is an example of a dictator who seized control of property and started a socialist state. the Nazi seizure of power was totally different. Please learn the meaning of the word before you start using it.
A smart, hard working person will do good with a college degree. However, that same person without a college degree taking the same amount of money to start a business (or just get set up in life) will also do well.
I have a college degree and have worked at a small local 4-year college. I think success has more to do with personality, start-up capital, basic smarts, ambition, connections and a little luck.
Except for a few fields (i.e. medicine, engineering, etc.), I really don't think a college eduction is worth the money anymore.
Idaho Homesteader
Anon,
And of course, as a member of true Socialist Elite, you get to decide who live or dies, who reproduces or not, where one lives, what one eats, etc., etc. A human life that is externally planned is no life at all. It is a cell culture.
Please go away and run your own life and get you nose out of mine. It is none of your business, just as your personal decisions for your life are none of mine. You would at best enslave us all, but more likely reduce us to cattle.
Regards,
Coal Guy
Anon,
I guess it comes down to what you value. Would you trade a life in a chaotic, dangerous world where your decisions had real consequences for a safe world in which you had no choices? No one has come close to the second world, even on a small scale. Every attempt has been atrocious in the worst sense of the word. I'll take the dangerous world any day, even if safety were possible.
Regards,
Coal Guy
I know all you Malthusian death worshippers don’t understand this, but we can support a lot more people, just not the little liberal elitist like yourself. You and you’re all knowing friends have been predicting the end of the world because of population overshoot for 40 yrs and all we have done is double the population. Do we have problems yeah, but they have more to do with understanding that our lifestyles will be downsized because of a debt contraction. Just look up world demographics, you will quickly learn that china, Japan, US, Europe, Russia and many other nations are quickly aging with not enough youth to replace the retiring in the work force. Most major countries will be losing population in 50 yrs or so. We will all be like Russia soon. China will age before they pass us. They killed all their children. Eventually the third world birth rates will come down and then they will come in balance also. Our problem will be deflation, not inflation which is implied by a growing population. Why do ask, well we have the largest retirement of people in the history of mankind and their spending will slow as the only thing they go out for is a newspaper.
Anon
All you did was set up a straw man argument on socialism. I gave you that traditional socialism does not work. You respond Hitler was not a socialist. Well can you tell me one truly socialist nation, no? Have you ever thought about why? Simple, even with high taxation and stiff regulation a somewhat free market will produce much more disposable income which can be given to you and your friends. See son this is where the big boys play. You are so blinded by you ideology you can’t see the tree through the woods. He described himself as a socialist. Read Mein Kampf
As National socialists we see our programme in our flag. In red we see the social thoughts of the movement, in white the nationalist thoughts, in the hooked-cross the mission of fighting for the victory of Aryan man and at the same time the victory of the concept of creative work
- Adolf Hitler
What do you think the Red stands for? Communism!!! If you had read Karl Marx you would know that socialism is a step towards universal Communism when there will be no more warfare, borders, poor, etc. This is the difference between current European socialism (Fabian socialism) and militant communism. He was just borrowing from Friedrich Engels & Marx with his anti-Semitic ranting.
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew -- not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Jewry, would be the self-emancipation of our time.... We recognize in Jewry, therefore, a general present-time-oriented anti-social element, an element which through historical development -- to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed -- has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily dissolve itself. In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Jewry".
Karl Marx
Sounds like Hitler Huh? Why? They were all marxist!
As for abortion, I would love to make it illegal. Murdering your children is at least as important as texting while you are driving (if you did not know that is illegal, even as mundane as it is) you as the typical leftist can’t tell what life means. Sorry I find value in life. What do you commies usually say, oh yeah “might is right”. You hate bankers because they steal money, and industrialist because the create goods out of raw materials, but you think it is okay to kill your own child? What can I say; even the most pathetically uneducated poor in the backwoods of Africa take care of their own. As for you, I see where you stand.
From the scourge of old, the NationalSozialistische Deutsche ArbeiterPartei (NSDAP) or National Socialist German Workers Party to their modern equivalent the National Socialist Democratic Abortion Party the lusting after the death of innocents is constant. If you doubt that look at how they defend third trimester abortions where the baby is viable outside the womb, it’s not about the right to “choose” they are fighting for the right to kill a child.
At its essence abortion is one party contracting with another to extinguish a human life and that ought be a capital offence.
Anon @ 12:15:
I don't think I can respond properly to your outrageous comments.
Forced sterilization? G-d the abortionist? Is G-d a murderer because everything and everybody dies? Who gave us this life?
I am not terribly religious; actually I would describe myself as secular. But folks don't need a religious leader to tell us that WE should not play G-d. We don't need a religious leader to tell us right and wrong, and killing is a fairly obvious "wrong".
Who am I, and who are you, to determine who should live and who should die? Or whose groups flourish? It is simply not possible for man to know the mind of G-d.
Madam (yes, Madam and you are of a certain age, as well) I have been reading your stuff for a while. Your style gives you away. Given the "black and white" view you hold of the world as well as many other context clues you have given me my bet is that you suffer from a condition called "Borderline Personality Disorder". You can google BPD (and no, I am not a shrink... but I have researched this condition to the maximum and have extensive personal experience with someone with the condition). WHile BPD cannot be cured it can be helped - but only if the sufferer recognizes the condition within themselves.
Unfortunately, most Borderlines destroy the lives and health of those around them. It is probably best that you never had children as many children of Borderlines suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ted Bundy's Mother and Grandmother were diagnosed as clinically depressed but were almost certainly Borderlines), and their appears to be a strong genetic link passing the condition from Mother to daughter or Gay son. Borderlines are almost exclusively women and Gay men, and though feminists and gay rights groups have attacked this designation, as Daniel Moynihan said they "are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts". In fact, until the diagnosis was expanded there were no straight male Borderlines in the history.
Given your age and childless status you might think it a waste of time to seek counseling. Maybe, but in reading your postings here it is obvious, in my view, that you are a tortured individual. What have you got to lose?
Anon @ 12:15:
I don't think I can respond properly to your outrageous comments.
Forced sterilization? G-d the abortionist? Is G-d a murderer because everything and everybody dies? Who gave us this life?
I am not terribly religious; actually I would describe myself as secular. But folks don't need a religious leader to tell us that WE should not play G-d. We don't need a religious leader to tell us right and wrong, and killing is a fairly obvious "wrong".
Who am I, and who are you, to determine who should live and who should die? Or whose groups flourish? It is simply not possible for man to know the mind of G-d.
Madam (yes, Madam and you are of a certain age, as well) I have been reading your stuff for a while. Your style gives you away. Given the "black and white" view you hold of the world as well as many other context clues you have given me my bet is that you suffer from a condition called "Borderline Personality Disorder". You can google BPD (and no, I am not a shrink... but I have researched this condition to the maximum and have extensive personal experience with someone with the condition). WHile BPD cannot be cured it can be helped - but only if the sufferer recognizes the condition within themselves.
Unfortunately, most Borderlines destroy the lives and health of those around them. It is probably best that you never had children as many children of Borderlines suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ted Bundy's Mother and Grandmother were diagnosed as clinically depressed but were almost certainly Borderlines), and their appears to be a strong genetic link passing the condition from Mother to daughter or Gay son. Borderlines are almost exclusively women and Gay men, and though feminists and gay rights groups have attacked this designation, as Daniel Moynihan said they "are entitled to their own opinions, not their own facts". In fact, until the diagnosis was expanded there were no straight male Borderlines in the history.
Given your age and childless status you might think it a waste of time to seek counseling. Maybe, but in reading your postings here it is obvious, in my view, that you are a tortured individual. What have you got to lose?
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