Letters to the Editor
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: Because of an editing error, a prior version of this letter was attributed to the wrong author. The letter was written by David A. Brescia '11, not Andrew Freeman.
In support of Social Security
In a March 12 column in <i>The Tech</i>, Keith Yost argued for gutting the Social Security. He argues that, “Besides having a negative effect on our economic security, Social Security is destructive to our political process.” I would agree that something needs to be done for the economy but Social Security is not the problem. It may actually be part of the solution.
What if you went to school for free?
Across the nation, college students and faculty were recently protesting, sometimes violently, against tuition hikes by public universities. Faced with grim budget outlooks, state governments have reduced funding to higher education; the worst cuts are in California, where perpetual fiscal mismanagement has left legislators with few alternatives. As the cost of an MIT education (the sum of tuition, fees, books, room and board) crosses $50,000 next year, there may be a temptation among some MIT students to join in and stage the same sort of sit-ins and rallies that have appeared elsewhere.
What if you went to school for free?
Next year, MIT says, the all-inclusive cost of tuition, room, and board will top $50,000. What would happen if MIT made an executive decision that, by 2020, tuition would be free?
Vote in Lobby 10 today
Paper ballots for the UA elections for President/Vice President and Class Councils members are available today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Lobby 10.
Debunking trade myths
On February 24th, Barack Obama appeared before the Business Roundtable, an association of corporate CEOs, to give an address on what has now become a major talking point of his administration: competitiveness. In the president’s view, the main problem facing the U.S. is that other nations are catching up, they are making investments in education and infrastructure that have been unmatched by the United States, and as a consequence, American economic well-being has been eroded. The solution, he explained, is to renew America’s competitive edge with fresh investment, health care reform, stricter financial oversight, and closer integration between business and government to promote American exports abroad. In his own words, “Winning the competition means we need to export more of our goods and services to other nations.”
Modi and Wyman <br />for UA leadership
As MIT faces more and more budget cuts, the Undergraduate Association will need strong and effective leadership to make student voices heard in the decision-making process. That leadership will face students that are often apathetic towards the UA as it rallies support on critical upcoming issues concerning dining, add/drop dates, the continuation of the Athena program, and the implications of future changes in enrollment. In contrast to past years, the challenges faced by the UA and its constituents will be broad and far reaching, serving to unite the student body more than divide it. All of these requirements dictate that next year’s UA president and vice president have experience, enthusiasm, and a firm grasp of the realities of the job. There is only one ticket that clearly exemplifies these traits. <i>The Tech</i> endorses Vrajesh Modi ’11 and Samantha Wyman ’11 for UA president and vice president.
Corrections
A sports short about women’s tennis last Friday incorrectly stated that Jenny C. Dohlman ’11 played first in the singles matches. In fact, it was her teammate Hillary E. Jenny ’12. Dohlman plays doubles tennis.
Turn off your lights Big improvements in energy can start in the dorms
Here at MIT, we’re all about coming up with creative solutions to big problems. It’s just what we do best. But sometimes, it pays to remember that small, simple solutions can add up to solve big problems.
Paying for Mrs. Fuller
In 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law the Social Security Act, an insurance program designed to cover against what were then considered the greatest financial risks in American society: disability, unemployment, loss of spouse or parents, and, most notably, old age. At the time, the poverty rate among the elderly was over 50 percent — the Great Depression had wiped out the savings of many, and older citizens, whose best wage-earning years were behind them, were particularly hard hit. By funding the benefits of current retirees with income taxes on current workers, Social Security constituted a major windfall for its first generation of recipients; Ida May Fuller, the very first citizen to receive a Social Security check, paid $24.75 into the system and received back $22,888.92 over the course of her lifetime. In this manner, the program theoretically provided a way to spread out the pain of the Great Depression — each generation would pay some ever-declining amount to the previous generation until the entirety of that one monumental loss had been spread out across decades.
Voting begins next week
Senate met on Monday, March 8. Before the regular proceedings, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75, Dean for Student Life Chris Colombo, and Dean for Undergraduate Education Daniel E. Hastings PhD ’80 came to Senate for a town hall meeting. Discussion with the chancellor and deans centered on the implementation of the Institute-wide Planning Task Force recommendations and possible changes to dining.
Lessons from the crisis
Before discussing banking reform, it is necessary to first understand why and how financial markets operate.
Rules of the game
I think my favorite childhood computer game — after the MS-DOS days of dinosaur building and Tetris — was SimCity. I spent hours staring down at my two-dimensional landscape, laying out residential, commercial, and industrial zones, and power lines and roadways to connect it all. I battled crime with police stations and natural disasters with exorbitant reconstruction. And while I never did scrape up the allowance money to upgrade to the three-dimensional version of the game, SimCity Classic (which you can now play for free online) kept me blissfully entertained through my middle-school years.
Let’s reevaluate keeping freshmen on campus
The recent proposal to change the freshmen-on-campus policy has caused much debate within the MIT community. The administration first made on-campus housing mandatory for first-years after the death of a freshman from heavy drinking at a pledge party for two main reasons. First, the Institute claimed that the change would expose freshmen to a community outside of their immediate living group. Second, the major public backlash after the death surely played a role in the policy change. But while keeping freshmen on campus does help them integrate within the broader campus community, that more campus-oriented community often isolates freshmen from an independent living group in which they may feel more comfortable.
Corrections
Sudeep Agarwala’s article “Two Minds in One Work” from Feb. 19 was edited for clarity, but omitted and distorted some of the author’s discussion and introduced errors. Biss and Goode’s performance was very well executed, given that pianists often perform as soloists (due to the timbre, history and range of the instrument). However, some works did not translate well into an arrangement for piano for two hands. The article as it appeared in <i>The Tech</i> was published without the author’s final approval.
Get over it
Thirteen months ago, I wrote an article for this newspaper entitled “Screw Bipartisanship,” in which I claimed there was a fundamental disagreement between Democrats and Republicans on the most important problem facing health care markets. I suggested that, rather than fruitlessly try to find common ground, Democrats should ignore the Republican point of view and muscle through legislation that would mandate individual insurance coverage.
Why you should care
Sometimes it seems like the Undergraduate Association can’t do anything for you. After all, isn’t it really just the same powerless, ineffectual government-ish organization that couldn’t do anything for you in high school, either? At the end of the day, doesn’t the MIT administration really call the shots? Maybe. But that doesn’t mean that participation in student government isn’t valuable for other reasons.
Campaigning has begun!
Senate met on Monday, March 1. Senate members passed 41 U.A.S. 4.2: Bill to Create Midterm Reviews, which created a review process for members of the UA Executive Committee between the fall and spring semesters. Senate also passed 41 U.A.S. 10.1: Bill to Task the Treasurer with Reimbursement Responsibilities. Ashley M. Nash ’11 was confirmed as the Vice Chair for the Special Projects Committee. Maggie K. Delano ’10 and Timothy R. Jenks ’13 were approved as Chair and Vice Chair of the Nominations Committee, respectively. Senate requested the report from the Financial Policy Review Committee to be ready for discussion at the next meeting on Monday, March 8.