Dating the Economically Illiterate
I've been dating this sociology major for a while now. Mostly, she's great, but sometimes she says some things that make me suspect she thinks all businessmen are like Tex Richman, the evil oil baron from the Muppet Movie.
For my senior project, I'm making a multiple regression model to explain why the cost of higher education is outstripping CPI like no tomorrow.
"That's easy," she pointed out when I told her about it, "colleges are businesses, so they jack up their prices."
Obviously, this is ridiculous; if colleges were really competing (you know, like businesses) they would need to offer lower rates to attract the students. Higher education has inelastic demand because we're subsidizing student loan monies and grants -- and because high school seniors aren't smart shoppers, I suspect. Besides, college is increasing even relative to other businesses.
Anyway, she wants to go to grad school for sociology to study income inequality, having never actually studied economics.
Is anyone else dating an Occupy lady? How do you deal with this when it comes up?
lol....if you ask me you are missing the most important thing with being with someone.....does she make you happy...life is not all about being able to do regression or pivot tables......look at it this way she gives u another perspective on life
Is she hot? I mean that really is the important question. And why are you paying attention to the vapid comments she makes anyway. And furthermore, you are still in school. Does she have hot friends?
She's probably in the top 1% at my school.
...then who cares?
"Sure babe, you're right."
resumes sex
How PRESTIGIOUS of her!
Wow. If she can throw together a sammich you should marry her.
Perhaps her perspective of the business world will change once she gets her career job & hits the real world. Until then, enjoy your final year in school & any economic discussions initiated from her mouth should go in thru one ear & quickly out the other.
Why don't you just explain to her that she's wrong in a way that she'd get? (i.e. make it easy to understand and relate it to her interests
"Nah babe, that's not really how businesses work. They'd be trying to compete, you know, and beat each others prices, so if they were like businesses the prices would actually go down. It's because the government is supporting all of these student loans that the prices keep going up. The colleges know that no matter how much they charge, people will pay. That's horrible for a lot of people too because it drives them into debt that they struggle to pay off."
Unless I'm missing something, I think there's a big difference between your girlfriend, a soc major, just repeating what she hears in the media, probably in an effort to impress you, and her sitting in a park in NYC for weeks on end.
So, you have a problem dating some chick who's way out of your league because she doesn't agree with you? Hate to break it to you buddy: you're gay. Give me her number so she doesn't end up lonely, I promise I'll treat her right.
Also: colleges ARE businesses, it's just that their funding currently has unlimited supply and so they can charge what they want. Cut off defense, farms, and big oil from gov't protection/support and watch those prices fly all over the map. Most large scale industries show some form of price distortion due to gov't influence, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing and it doesn't mean they're not businesses. LOL colleges SHOULDN'T be run like businesses, and they currently are set up to rape the financial aid system, and that's the problem....they're acting like a business and taking advantage of something they shouldn't be.
LOL. Colleges aren't run like businesses unless you think most businesses are crony capitalists. Colleges are run like GM, Tesla, Solyndra, Fannie Mae and Berkshire Hathaway, but they aren't run like the other 99.99% of businesses that compete in a mostly free market. Most goods and services are equal in expense or cheaper and of substantially better quality than 20 years ago. That's the exact opposite with colleges, which are delivering a worse product for costs that far exceed the pace of inflation.
LOL. Unless you plan on dating straight men, this will be likely be a recurring problem for you.
In general, women of that age have no idea about things like transaction costs or inelastic demand or competition or the age-old expression of "there's no free lunch." These are the folks who think that Europeans and Canadians actually have free health care. It's not free, the costs are just allocated differently and this causes an inefficient allocation of services due to prices not moving to meet real demand.
Why do you think just about every young female college student is such an ardent Obama supporter?
My advice is just bang her as much as you can and have political/economic discussions with your more enlightened friends.........
You're in college, you shouldn't be worrying about a girl's ability to understand business concepts.
I casually dated a girl on the dance team who was absolutely nuts and took 6 years to graduate. I also dated a communications major who was so vacuous I could barely talk to her. What drew me to them? They were knockouts. Have fun dude...that's what it's all about
As long as she is hot you can date a leftist. Other than that I try to avoid dating the Occupiers who live life on someone else's expense (loans/subsidies/parents/inheritance).
Consider dating a girl in the top 1% who IS economically literate - they are usually douche baguettes. In your case just talk about other shit, or shit she's into, just not your shit.
OP you're gonna get a lot of shit for this...already have. I guess, point is, you have to decide what you want out of this. I know where you're coming from. It's hard for me to spend any kind of meaningful time with someone who doesn't at least seem like they try to have some kind of desire to be smart in one area. On the other hand, I've been with some pretty insane girls, some of whom had problems, the least of which being their political views. Have fun a as much as you can, and yeah, there's no problem trying to explain shit to her sometimes. Of course, if she's adamant that she's right, next her. The more serious the relationship, the more seriously you should look at who they are. If you're just trying to have fun, do it. Don't look back. Just don't get too wrapped up with someone you know you're not gonna spend forever with and miss the rest of college. I did that my senior year and will always regret it.
Was this not apparent in the beginning? I'm pretty sure something like this had to be obvious right from the get go. Or like most of the replies here seem to indicate, do most people not actually value somewhat intelligent conversations with the opposite gender? It's incredible how shallow some of the replies really are.
I think a lot of them are just doing a poor job of saying "don't be afraid to have fun", which is important in school. You'll lose your shit if you don't. But there's definitely a lot of "form over function" sentiment around here period. Which I hate. I could never seriously date a stupid girl, or even someone who won't make an effort to be intellectually stimulated. I just can't. It's hard enough to endure the couple hours of conversation you might get sucked into at a bar with one. I can't imagine months of it.
Maybe get over yourself and realize that while you're "economically literate" you could take an interest in her field too. Aside from crude overgeneralizations about how finance is superior to everything, perhaps widen your gaze a bit and learn something about other things. You can help her understand economics better; she can explain to you why people who work at investment banks and accounting firms would go hang out with OWS or the underlying principles driving the book "Freakonomics". Money is cool, I'm a fan, but not being emotionally retarded and intellectually narrow minded is cool too. Make each other better people. Why the hell would you be with someone just like you, that's boring.
Facts are, if the only thig you cared about were looks, you wouldn't be posting here, you'd be banging her and wouldn't care if she thinks colleges are run like businesses (they kind of are). This means you're semi gay OR you actually like this girl and want to figure out how to make it work. Either that your you're an insufferable bore who would actually let an opinion about the economy ruin an otherwise good relationship....again, with someone who's likely far out of your league.
In other news, women manage household money better than men. I have no idea how to explain that.
Well said in your first paragraph. It takes maturity from both sides to benefit, but its always good to try even if you don't think the other side is capable.
And if she's emotionally intelligent (its rare that very good looking women that age are) then she'll recognize your effort and reciprocate.
I thought this was the best response in this thread. OP seems to have some irrational feelings of intellectual superiority (holy shit! multiple regression!?). I'm sure there is plenty of stuff you don't know jack shit about that your girlfriend could talk circles around.
I don't think it's "irrational" to think--know?--that one is intellectually superior to an OWS person. They're the kind of people who blame businesses for crony capitalism rather than blaming big government for crony capitalism. It's not a case of the chicken and the egg--we know which one came first. It would take an intellectually bankrupt person to think anything else.
In this thread: stereotypical WSO douchebaggery.
This is what you do, send her a meme of an owl with ORLY?. This will serve two purposes one it will shut her up two you can have an inside laugh at how dumb she is.
She's a 19-21 years old sociology major. I'm not sure why you'd expect her to understand inelastic demand and competition. There's a solid percentage of the grown adults in this country that aren't economically literate.
Stay with her until you can find an upgrade. Always be looking.
And seriously, the collective advice here is correct.
Do you also want your old econ professors to be great in the sack?
Usually preferable.
To the OP, your situation reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's brain and his penis were competing--his brain wanted to ditch his hot but vacuous girlfriend while the penis wanted to stick it out. The brain ultimately won when the idiocy became too much to bear. In my view, there are few girls hot enough to make up for being around an intellectual midget, an intellectually dishonest person or a person who suffers from severe cognitive dissonance (which often happens with the children of rich, successful capitalists). I'm going to go against the crowd here and say that there's nothing more penis deflating than a rich, white liberal who talks about moving to Europe after visiting the wealthiest enclaves on a 10-day parent-financed vacation. Those girls should literally--not proverbially, but literally--be beaten with a crowbar the same way the guy who drives 10 miles under the speed limit in the left passing lane should be.
Oh man. I love it. SB if I could. Especially regarding the speed limit.
The example provided, with the detail provided, doesn't exactly make the point. (I'm sure cable company pricing has exceeded inflation, some aspects of the publishing market have exceeded inflation) -- products where there is an oligiopoly, barriers to entry, and/or competition not on the basis of price. That is not to say the OP is wrong, just that the OP has not made the point.
I'd rather date an idiot that I disagree with than a genius that I disagree with.
Exactly. Just don't argue back. I'm reminded of this:
Emotionally stable? What's that.
I'll take good looking and intelligent. A little crazy keeps things interesting.
PIITB
Emotionally stable? LOL date a red head with a drinking problem. The opposite of THAT
Just date a redhead... everyone knows gingers aren't to be trusted
Haha. Have you done that? That sounds...unforgettable. In both good and bad ways. Something you must do and do only once.
No but one of my best friends growing up was from a family of redheads. His sister....HOTTTTT. All of them nice people, but fucking nuts.
I know it's a stereotype, but when people live up to and exceed it, well, WTH am I supposed to think???
I have to say, I've never met a red head girl that wasn't insane. So as far as I'm concerned, stereotype confirmed. Then again, I like insane women. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. I think I'm fucked for life.
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