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A friend of mine is in Singapore and last night had a conversation with the local guy, an arab who runs the gym and buys land in Bali for re-selling it to the lush resorts. They got into an argument about investment. My friend argued that the best investment is education. To which the guy said "Education is like a gun without bullets".

I thought it is a nice metaphor. Education is good if you want to get a certifiable profession, such as doctor, lawyer, architect etc. However, The path of getting a degree and getting a good job is in the long run more dangerous than running your own business. JMO. Incidentally, MBAs with Ivy League degrees often work for guys with much lesser formal education.

Sangoma wrote:A friend of mine is in Singapore and last night had a conversation with the local guy, an arab who runs the gym and buys land in Bali for re-selling it to the lush resorts. They got into an argument about investment. My friend argued that the best investment is education. To which the guy said "Education is like a gun without bullets".

I thought it is a nice metaphor. Education is good if you want to get a certifiable profession, such as doctor, lawyer, architect etc. However, The path of getting a degree and getting a good job is in the long run more dangerous than running your own business. JMO. Incidentally, MBAs with Ivy League degrees often work for guys with much lesser formal education.

It all depends on how one defines "education". It doesn't have to be a formal degree, one can read books, take night courses, get coaching from the small business administration, etc.

I think what the edu advocate was suggesting was that one invest in oneself, in their earning potential.

Look if someone is making $30K/yr and they better themselves so that they're making $100K/yr, over 20 years that's a gain of $1.4M. That's hard to duplicate with a modest investment in an index fund, or in a buying a humble home, etc.

My friend argued that the best investment is education.

To pile on with Thud, what you get from college is mostly accreditation. You could look at most courses' on-line syllabus, buy the book, do the homeworks, do the reading, and get the education for free in $$$ (but lots of time) while you are taking the money you would have spent on tuition and start buying rental properties for students.

nafod wrote:

My friend argued that the best investment is education.

To pile on with Thud, what you get from college is mostly accreditation. You could look at most courses' on-line syllabus, buy the book, do the homeworks, do the reading, and get the education for free in $$$ (but lots of time) while you are taking the money you would have spent on tuition and start buying rental properties for students.

Across the distribution network of the company I work for, two of the least respected individuals have MBA's. The most successful by far have high school diplomas and, maybe, some college. They certainly have nothing more than a bachelor's degree.

Law, medicine, high end science needing a first rate education makes sense. It certainly helps for gaining entry into the track for a Fortune 500 executive suite too.

For running a pretty good sized lucrative business ($50-$100MM), apparently not so much.

However, The path of getting a degree and getting a good job is in the long run more dangerous than running your own business.

This is insane. There's a reason not everyone "runs their own business" - shit is high-risk (and high-stress, and very often high-barrier of entry).

My friends who work as corporate auditors and revenue accountants are way less stressed out than I am.

milosz wrote:

However, The path of getting a degree and getting a good job is in the long run more dangerous than running your own business.

This is insane. There's a reason not everyone "runs their own business" - shit is high-risk (and high-stress, and very often high-barrier of entry).

My friends who work as corporate auditors and revenue accountants are way less stressed out than I am.

What happens if these friends get downsized in their mid-forties?

I am not against education at all. A university degree (most of the time) makes you a more interesting person to talk to, and this alone is a valuable thing. The fallacy is in the impression that more education gives you more security. Investing in yourself is a good metaphor, but it is not the only way to do it. And yes, the guy was talking about formal education.

Below is the extract from Taleb's Antifragility. It should not be taken at absolute value, but he has a reasonable point.

Sangoma wrote:

milosz wrote:

However, The path of getting a degree and getting a good job is in the long run more dangerous than running your own business.

This is insane. There's a reason not everyone "runs their own business" - shit is high-risk (and high-stress, and very often high-barrier of entry).

My friends who work as corporate auditors and revenue accountants are way less stressed out than I am.

What happens if these friends get downsized in their mid-forties?

The same thing that happens to an entrepreneur if a buyer flakes on a big order or if a market changes or if Amazon/Wal-Mart fuck 'em or the millions of other reasons businesses die.

Far more small businesses fold (which has consequences beyond straight loss of income - like, you know, debt) than degreed individuals remain unemployed forever.

Now convert that excerpt into an hourly wage for both Smet. And Uber.

If you don't need to buy a key to get through a formalised door, don't pay for your education. A degree is just a key to get through the door, sometime not even that.

My friend argued that the best investment is education. To which the guy said "Education is like a gun without bullets".

Uneducated people as a group are bad at metaphors.

The kind of people who don't need college to make bagloads of $$$ are exactly the same people who don't let student loans stop them from kicking ass. For everybody else, more education is strongly correlated with higher income and lower unemployment.

Sangoma wrote:What happens if these friends get downsized in their mid-forties?

Gee, we don't know...use their education and experience to go acquire new jobs?

Well, I liked the metaphor. If you didn't - bite me!