They are Greedy; On the Other Hand, We are Entitled

Professor Robert Reich opened a recent column (Sunday Insight Section of the San Francisco Chronicle) by honoring the Prescott Fire Department's Granite Mountain Hotshots who were killed Sunday, July 7, while fighting the Yarnell Hill fire.

MR Reich used this national tragedy as the starting blocks for a rant against rational self-interest and greed.

As MR Reich suggests, we are right to presume that the Fire Fighters were motivated by something more than rational self-interest.

This presumption marks a point of departure for MR Reich as he diverges into the broader topics of “Economics and much of public policy and political strategy,” which he purports, make the erroneous assumption that “people are motivated by self-interest, (and) that the definition of acting rationally is to maximize what you want for yourself.”

He goes on to say that public policy and political strategy chronically underestimate, even trivialize, the influence of values such as “service, duty, allegiance to others, morality and shared ideals.”

He points out that honorable people are “motivated by compassion, empathy, loyalty and duty.”

The irony is he is writing as a “professor of public policy at UC Berkeley and the author of ‘Beyond Outrage.’”

As parents and taxpayers in California, we too should be “Beyond Outrage” given what MR Reich tacitly identifies as “service, duty, allegiance to others, morality and shared ideals” within the University of California System.

To the unindoctrinated, the UC administrators and professors appear to be acting very rationally to maximize what they want for themselves and are NOT acting to benefit California, its college bound, nor its taxpayers, nor its high-tech economy.

In 2006, UC students paid $5,406 a year in educational fees; presently they pay $12,692; fees have more than doubled in seven years.

How many California parents have a college fund galloping along—increasing 135% over the last seven years—to keep up with the UC fee structure?

“Fees” by the way are a linguistic sleight of hand to circumnavigate the original mandate for "tuition free" education within the UC System.

Recently the system proudly announced the acquisition of Janet Napolitano at the bargain price of $570,000, plus free housing, plus nearly $9000 to drive a car and a one-time kick start of $142,500 for moving expenses.

A $9000 car allowance translates into over 56,000 miles per year, even with the air conditioner set to MAX; to accomplish that tour de farce, at a steady 70 miles per hour, Janet will be on the freeways for twenty weeks out of the year.

And $142,500 for moving?

Is she moving her house to California or just doodads inside it?

Don’t they have yard sales in D.C.?

To think that MS Napolitano edged out 300 other applicants.

Were none the others equally inexperienced but only a little cheaper?

In her endorsement of MS Napolitano, a gushing UC Regent Sherry Lansing announced, “We all feel extremely excited about this as she brings fresh eyes to the UC system. She's had a lifetime of public service.”

Ah, more public service (sic).

“Fresh eyes” is code for “inexperienced” but undoubtedly MS Napolitano is long in such suits as “duty, allegiance to others, morality and shared ideals” and is truly “motivated by compassion, empathy, loyalty and duty.”

Rumor has it that MS Napolitano—in addition to trucking $142,500 worth of knick-knacks and chattel to California—brings sufficient political clout to successfully panhandle our Federal Government for more UC revenue.

Mark Yudof—the outgoing UC president who looted the UC system for $10,000 beyond what MS Napolitano settled for—said that high salaries and raises for administrators were necessary to attract and retain talented employees.

But wait, “high salaries and raises?”

What about opportunities for “service, duty, allegiance to others, morality and shared ideals … motivated by compassion, empathy, loyalty and duty?”

Like Trotter of Animal Farm, Yudof issued his tripe just as the UC regents voted unanimously to ask the state to increase the university’s funding for the 2012-13 fiscal year to $2.7 billion up from a meager $2.3 billion.

Traditionally, the UC system not only shakes students down for more and more money, it thrusts its maw ever deeper into California coffers and is now eyeing Deficit City (D.C.) for even more.

As if to add additional authority to his platitudes, MR Reich conjured up Ole Snowball: Yes, Ayn Rand: “the philosophical guru of modern conservatism, ho popularized the view of human nature as being greedy.”

As MR Reich warns us: “In Ayn Rand’s world, selfishness is the only honest and justifiable motive. “

Let’s see: the Overloads of the UC System have cut student enrollment, nearly doubled tuition—oops, “fees”—and have reduced faculty ranks by 2.3 percent while simultaneously larding the ranks of managers and paper shufflers by 4.2 percent.

UC currently has more senior managers (8,822) than ladder rank faculty (8,669).

UC continues to ratchet up its ratio of foreign and out-of-state students to in-state students.

Why?

So it can minimize the low fees paid by California residents and maximize the high fees paid by non-residents.

The nefarious Ayn Rand is reported to have said, that “By looking out for No. 1, we accomplish everything that's necessary.”

Apparently the bureaucrats, educrats, looters and kleptocrats within UC—or Animal Farm—have a better adage, “By looking out for UC, we accomplish everything that's necessary for us.”

The beauty of being a public servant within the UC System is that you do not have to risk getting swatted or collared by the Invisible Hand that haunts the greedy in the for profit world.

Public servants can hold the UC System hostage and write ransom notes to helpless Californians like: “If you ever want to see your children educated again, then cough up the dough.”

The average UC student will probably finish paying off his or her college loans just as he or she emerges from child bearing age.

As the July 20, 2013 Economist, reported: “(We) should recognize the importance of the profit motive. There has been much talk of ‘social entrepreneurship’—harnessing enterprise to do good deeds—but in truth the main motivator for entrepreneurs is the chance of making big money. This is what drives people.”

If the real world is greedy for “big money” why do UC kleptocrats invariably use the wage and benefits packages of the selfish corporate world as a benchmark for UC entitlements?

Remember, private enterprise is greedy; while the altruist UC bureaucrats are merely entitled.

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton allegedly said, “Cause that’s where the money is.”

And why does the Mandarin class continue to enrich and expand itself within the UC System?

“Cause that’s where the money is.”

Jeffrey R Smith

Alameda CA