The question is: Who is the customer? You could say the customer is the student who pays the university for the education. Or you could say the customer is the employer who hires the graduate.

There has been the impression in the past that getting a degree meant getting a job, but this is not the case. Employers, who have more at stake when hiring don't have to wait 4 years to learn whether or not their "purchase" was a good one. They are learning that the value of a college degree is not much when used as a predictor of job success. More valid predictors are work experience, internships, side projects, and a work ethic. None of which are gained in college. A lot of students think college is enough, but it isn't.

This is where the problem starts over the confusion about the customer. Colleges want students to be enrolled for 4 years. If college is hard and students don't make the A's they think they deserve simply for attending class, then the student leaves the university for one where an A is easier. The student consumer is buying a product and their product is a good GPA. A low GPA won't get them a job and that's what they are after.

This is a problem with money really. It's a philosophical life issue. Is your goal to receive value from the rest of the world, or to create value for the rest of the world. No one wants to work anymore. We've gotten lazy and complacent. The job has become avoiding work, when all too often, doing the work is easier than avoiding it.

Life has become too easy for too many. The rest of the world is eating America's lunch. Even our president thinks it's fine to "bailout" businesses who don't want to put the effort into producing products the world wants to buy. They are losing out to better innovation, better business models, and harder work from their competitors around the world.

For too long, education has been selling hope for a better life, a better job, a higher income. So students go into debt. Debt has allowed universities to continue charging more and more and more over time with deferred payment plans that yield little consequence to the full time student who doesn't yet understand the concept of debt or even money.

And let's not forget the parents who spend more time at work than at home teaching their children good values, a work ethic, how to care for themselves, the value of money.

America is really in a sad state of affairs. A depression is definitely on the way. Life has been too easy for too long. It's amazing as I think about it right now, I can feel it. I can feel the exhuberance evaporating. I can feel the realization setting in that our hopes and dreams for an easy future are being dashed. Only a few people really get it right now. There is still an air of optimism floating around. People are thinking, "No... no really, we can keep going like this... we can. If only we try."

But we can't. We can't keep going like this and be worth anything. What we are doing isn't worth anything. Who wants to pay for it? What is the value? What's the value of your college degree? What's the value of your employment? What's the value of your iPod and your 6 room house in the suburbs and your SUV and your $20,000 in credit card debt and $125,000 in student loans.

Too many people are falling for the clever sales and marketing strategy of the universities, the car companies, the banks, the real estate agents. The irrational are the prey. The predators are eating your money and you are left empty -- today and tomorrow.

The easy path is the path to destruction. You have to work. You have to think. You have to analyze and predict and learn math.

This stuff is hard folks. It's hard to do things faster, or cheaper, or better than everyone else. Mediocrity isn't valuable. You have to be the cream of the crop. You have to work and practice and strive for perfection every day.

No one said life was going to be easy. It's even harder now that the competition has become everyone in the world.