Could a Tunisia Type Event Happen In Your Country?

Blacksword wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Not sure about this, but some sort of protests appear to be rising in Saudi Arabia. This is important. $150 + per barrel coming soon!

Not necessarily, at least in the long run (I hope).

Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship. I guess people are fed up with living in such conditions - and that's the reason why there's a way of protests in the region. If you take a look at any '10 (or 20) world's worst living dictators' list, you'll get half a dozen of them from Middle East, Africa, Indochina and usual suspects (North Korea, central Asia).

If people will be able to overthrown their dictators, making a provisional government which is at least partially democratic, it will reflect on stability of the region, in a good way...including economic impact (and prices of crude oil, if you want).

Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but there's always hope.

harmonium.ro wrote: Henry Plainview wrote: I'm not disagreeing that the Ivy League etc. is a rip off, but you can't have a world class education at Oxford for the equivalent of $5400 a year Of course you get a great education there at these money, the tuition fees is not raised because the schools can't provide good education any more at these money, but because the government wants to reduce their funding (like you said) so they can balance the over-all deficit.

It's a political decision in the fields of economics, I think we can agree on that (I know they didn't raise the tuition "just like that"). This year would cost you £3,290 at Oxford (source). I don't understand this:

Henry Plainview wrote: I'm not disagreeing that the Ivy League etc. is a rip off, but you can't have a world class education at Oxford for the equivalent of $5400 a year (and sorry if that number isn't right, the Oxford website is confusing for my poor American brain).

Of course you get a great education there at these money, the tuition fees is not raised because the schools can't provide good education any more at these money, but because the government wants to reduce their funding (like you said) so they can balance the over-all deficit.

Personally I agree that in the situation of crisis it's a correct decision to cut spending in as many domains as possible, but I believe you also need to evaluate these domains in a certain order of priorities. To me education is an essential investment and should be protected, especially while it doesn't consume that much anyway. The tories don't seem to share this view, but I think cutting equally from domains with different kind if an impact might be a very wrong decision.

That reminds me, you haven't done a trolling poll since too long (the Yes-PtH one).

BTW thanks for linking to Al Jazeera (I think it was KoS). They're fantastic. The two main news television in Romania haven't covered the global Arab unrest at all, they're focusing on ridiculously irrelevant topic of home affairs, chose according to the interests of the two chains' owners. 

Henry Plainview wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: BTW I just read that the cost of higher education in the US has risen with over 800% since 1980, while the over-all inflation since that year was just above 120%. If that doesn't look wrong to you, like a problem that needs to be solved, then I am sorry for you.  Trust me, everybody in America is aware of the cost of higher education. Unfortunately, it's not something that protesting can solve and that's also true of the situation in the UK.

I don't know about the US, but you also don't seem to know much about the UK either Henry. The increase of tuitions in the UK was a purely political decision of the government, a decision which by the way one of the two parties in the ruling coalition promised (before the elections) not to support. A purely political decision can be just as well overruled by another political decision in the opposing direction, which is why the people are protesting.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: BTW I just read that the cost of higher education in the US has risen with over 800% since 1980, while the over-all inflation since that year was just above 120%. If that doesn't look wrong to you, like a problem that needs to be solved, then I am sorry for you.  It does, but your solution seems to be that government should absorb the cost of tuition. Since government is responsible for the boom in cost and unable to control the cost of anything, I disagree.

You seem like the kind of guy that shoots first and asks questions later.  No, I wouldn't imagine that as a "solution", putting a cost that I find ridiculous on the shoulders of either the student or the tax payers is not something that I'd consider a solution.

No, it couldn't happen here, for the simple reason... THAT WE STILL DON'T HAVE A GOVERNMENT AFTER HUNDREDS OF DAYS OF NEGOTICIATING , so there's nothing to overthrow.

"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way..."

Edited by Ronnie Pilgrim - January 30 2011 at 13:45

In light of recent events in Egypt I would surmise that it could happen in any country with a significant population of disenfranchised people. The reaction of those in power lives on a knife-edge.

harmonium.ro wrote: BTW I just read that the cost of higher education in the US has risen with over 800% since 1980, while the over-all inflation since that year was just above 120%. If that doesn't look wrong to you, like a problem that needs to be solved, then I am sorry for you.

The real solution is don't go to uni and pay the inflated cost.