Karl -- regarding higher education and a greater trend which i have noticed over the past two decades is that they (in general, not some Tinfoil Hat implication of a group or cabal, whatever) know, already know and have been planning in an interesting manner in kind of a group consciousness. All of the player within have been doing things with this expectation to varying degrees and networking to share cross institution.

Take for example the university where i started my collegiate studies. They shutdown a major campus as we are seeing other niche and established colleges do recently. Others are on the way.

In a nutshell and representing the first tier of their considerations which i describe above, they give enough time while running on fumes for the majority of their people to retire or make horizontal and institutional moves. In one particular case, the shutdown should have occurred two decades ago, however all participants at the location and in the greater institutional circle planned to keep going until most were well into social security and other positions. They did not however tell the students or prospective students instead giving a diluted experience just to keep the money flowing.

Online classes were also a part of the above scam. Some faculty with working years ahead of them were offered online teaching positions to avoid massive relocations or seriously long commutes to the still functioning campuses. Why not simply layoff or have the realities make people lay themselves off? For this reason and in general, online classes are a scam. Why pay the full ride for a system where an institution of learning can sell infinitely more seats with no scaling cost and minimal costs overall?

The online sphere in formal university should be dominated by the absolute best in the fields due to the above mentioned lack of cost. In addition there is the matter of "record it once" use it forever.

Thus, the techno improvements which appear to give the student what he wants which is an analog of "work from home" in zeitgeist and intention are merely used by the existing system to wind itself down, grab profits for as long as possible and position for newer scams.

This is happening in many venues which we discuss and has been for some time. People always knew that this was coming. Even RE, the darling of American life (and i include Canada here.), has been a realization by those positioned earlier that they should cash out by a certain time. Nearly every conversation with people regarding said since the early 2000s has been about getting theirs before it was over. We extended this for a while, and this does not change the mentality of an overall system and participant mentality that it was unwinding.

In other words, people have always known that eras were changing in our inflated American life, once again Canada included, and did a few things which they still do.

People in positions knowing the end is near, plan their exits long in advance, extend and pretend as long as possible with nary a care for who is shortchanged in the process or even harmed, never share the truth of the reality of the situation even with their own, and never educate their marks or those who come later as to what they can and should do to protect their own interests.

This is a long way of saying that there are two forces in conflict. There are those who need change to have normal lives, and those who at minimum want these changes to be a soft landing for them and spin down as slowly and with as little pain as possible. The only way to do the latter is to shift that pain onto those who follow.

In closing, this is why the arguments and sentiments here and elsewhere are many times so personal and viewed as personal attacks leading to much vitriol if not seething hatred undertones. They require those who are holding onto their positions merely by place in history to accept that they do not want the game to change while they still need it. In place of this acceptance a lot of equivocating is offered masquerading as hope stitched into a lie that the existing system can be fixed.

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This is about to be a lesson on selling to the market you have instead of worrying about your cost basis. No one and I mean no one cares about what you paid for something except you.