I think the republicans are I think the republicans are being very disingenuous. During the Bush years even during the bubble years with large revenues, how many times they voted to increase spending and raised the debt limit ceiling? Suddenly they are spending hawks again. They want large cuts with no cut in the $700 bil defense budget and no revenue increases even though the rich are paying much less tax even compared to the Reagan Era. I think it is completely irresponsible to think that you can reduce the deficit on cutting social security, and Medicare alone.
No I am not an Obama supporter and didn’t vote for him nor did I vote for Sarah Palin. I don’t like Obama’s staunch support for labor unions but I am fully behind him on this budget cutting issue. I think the Republicans are just hope that Obama fails even if it costs the country dearly.
an
July 12, 2011 @
9:41 AM
This is what Obama said about This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote]
jimmyle
July 12, 2011 @
9:51 AM
Speech is speech, reality is Speech is speech, reality is different. I totally didn’t like Obama giving incentives for home buyers, giving benefits extensions to the unemployed but realistically if you inherit a federal budget with $600 bil (2007) in the red and then revenue dropped by another $400 bil (2008 – now) and plus all the bailouts (that republicans also enthusiasstically signed on) what can you do to reduce the deficit? I think Obama might have spent $100 bil more than he should but the rest was unavoidable.
an
July 12, 2011 @
9:59 AM
If you want to increase tax If you want to increase tax revenue, why attack a some group and not others? Why not do real reform and remove most if not all deductions and lower tax rates.
So you’re saying that since both party spends a lot, no one can speak up about spending now, since it’s hypocritical?
jimmyle
July 12, 2011 @
10:34 AM
I am all for removing all I am all for removing all deductions and lower the tax rate. Why should GE pays no income tax? I and my wife are both Engineers and I think we belong in the group that pay the most taxes (as a percentage of income). The poors in this country don’t really pay tax and the rich pays much less tax because most of their income is in capital gain. But I don’t think it is feasible to cut government spending 30% (with no cut in defense) and not drastically affect the economy. Why increase tax on the rich. My take is that the rich with their influence on the politicians and government has created a society where the gap between rich and poor is becoming larger and larger. I believe this is not good for America’s stability in the long term. If you think that increasing rich-poor gap is not the problem then it is hard for you to agree with me.
[quote=AN]If you want to increase tax revenue, why attack a some group and not others? Why not do real reform and remove most if not all deductions and lower tax rates.
[quote]
meadandale
July 12, 2011 @
10:51 AM
You don’t really think that You don’t really think that you can throw his own words back at him now do you?
That was because Bush was in power and he WAS an ineffective leader. Now Obama is in office and since he’s so awesome, the need to raise the debt ceiling has nothing to do with his ineffective leadership and everything to do with the Republicans (again).
[quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote][/quote]
jimmyle
July 12, 2011 @
11:12 AM
Actually I think if McCain is Actually I think if McCain is the president the deficit might be a little bit lower but not that much lower (might be $1.3 tril instead of $1.4 tril). These Presidents are not Gods and they can’t increase nor reduce the deficits much by themselves. What ever harm done to the nation in the past already happened and I believe both Republicans and Democrats are at faults. But I really think to solve the problem you need to be make compromises. You really think polically we can cut social security and Medicare alone? Even if the Republicans agree some increase in tax I am not entirely sure if Obama can convince the Democrats to sign on. But I think with some increase in revenue, there is much better chance that we can make cuts in medicare and social security.
Again, I am not a republican nor democrat. I fully support the California Republicans stance on no increase in tax because I want to see cuts to the public employees pension and pay first.
[quote=meadandale]You don’t really think that you can throw his own words back at him now do you?
That was because Bush was in power and he WAS an ineffective leader. Now Obama is in office and since he’s so awesome, the need to raise the debt ceiling has nothing to do with his ineffective leadership and everything to do with the Republicans (again).
[quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
I really worry about my 401K if America defaults. I don’t have many options. It is bonds, domestic stocks and a few foreign stocks. I just move most of my 401K to foreign stocks because I think US stocks and bonds will tank if we default.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote][/quote][/quote]
briansd1
July 13, 2011 @
10:17 PM
AN wrote:This is what Obama [quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator[/quote]
What Obama didn’t say is that he would not vote for a debt limit increase.
Congress has the power of the purse. The debt is money that Congress has spent already, so they should simply live up to their commitments and pay for the spending.
I’m sure Republicans who said that they would not increase the debt limit will eventually have to do quite the opposite.
an
July 13, 2011 @
11:56 PM
briansd1 wrote:What Obama [quote=briansd1]What Obama didn’t say is that he would not vote for a debt limit increase. [/quote]
He didn’t say it, but he didn’t vote for it. What make the debt ceiling more important today vs 2006 that make him want others to vote for it while he didn’t vote for it then? The most interesting thing he said in that speech was his opening sentence:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.[/quote]
[quote=briansd1]I’m sure Republicans who said that they would not increase the debt limit will eventually have to do quite the opposite.[/quote]
I’m sure they’ll eventually have to vote for it too. They’re both the same.
jimmyle
July 14, 2011 @
8:32 AM
I believe cutting social I believe cutting social security and medicare benefits is similar to a tax increase on the middle class because that money come out of my paycheck and yours every two weeks. The cuts will amount to a 10% tax increase on the retirees. The rich on the other hand are much less reliance on social security and medicare so a small tax (1 to 3 percent) increase on them makes it more fair. I think if the republicans really want to solve the debt problem they should sign on to this deal especially when they are getting a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio on spending cuts and tax. If they don’t sign on to this deal it will show to the country that they just want Obama and the country to fail.
an
July 14, 2011 @
9:17 AM
If you believe that ss and If you believe that ss and Medicare benefits are taxes, then all the seniors who are getting them are getting a tax cut compare to their parents because they’re living longer today. Also, since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. Last I heard, it was 3 to 1, not 4 or 5 to 1. Both sides have different solutions for this problem and both sides don’t even agree on the magnitude of the problem. If your logic is that if you don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase is a sign that you want this country to fail, then Obama wanted this country to fail in 2006. BTW, I don’t agree with that view at all.
Lets have an analogy to everyday life. It’s like a family who bought too much house in 2005 and cars. Then one spouse lost their job. Do you go on and spend as if nothing has changed, or do you file for bankruptcy, or do you cut back on everything else and get a loan mod? Raising the debt ceiling is like getting another credit card, cutting ss and Medicare is like getting a loan mod, and city other things is like reducing your discretionary spending. How would you deal with this problem in your own home?
jimmyle
July 14, 2011 @
10:26 AM
Not really,
How much is Not really,
How much is Medicare worths annually for each senior? Lets say $10,000. If you cut this to $8,000 then it is a huge cut for a person with $50,000 annual income compared to a person with $2,000,000 annual income.
In addition, the maximum SS benefit is $2,366/month. If you cut this 10% to 20% it is a real cut for seniors who depend on this. But this is nothing for a rich person who makes most of his money from capital gains.
So essentially this is a huge cut for the middle class and very minimal cut for the rich if there is no tax increase on capital gain.
I already moved all of my 401K money to foreign stocks. I believe US stocks and bonds will tank next month. My 401K account doesn’t give me the option of buying precious metals so foreign stocks is the best I can hope for.
[quote=AN]since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. [/quote]
I believe the rich have brain I believe the rich have brain washed the politicians and many of us in supporting policies that benefit them more and more. Currently top 1% account for 24% of all income compared to 15% in the 1980s and there is nothing to stop this trend. As this trend increases, society will become unstable. US policies that support globalization is one cause of this as companies move production overseas to increase profit while US workers lose jobs. But one incredibly difficult to understand reason is that many in the middle class continue to support tax reduction for the rich as a result they rich as a whole is paying much less tax now compared to the Reagan era. Tax on the middle class is also lower when compared to the Reagan era but there are hidden taxes when you have cuts on schools, and colleges which the middle class rely on much more than the rich.
CA renter
July 15, 2011 @
2:05 AM
jimmyle wrote:I believe the [quote=jimmyle]I believe the rich have brain washed the politicians and many of us in supporting policies that benefit them more and more. Currently top 1% account for 24% of all income compared to 15% in the 1980s and there is nothing to stop this trend. As this trend increases, society will become unstable. US policies that support globalization is one cause of this as companies move production overseas to increase profit while US workers lose jobs. But one incredibly difficult to understand reason is that many in the middle class continue to support tax reduction for the rich as a result they rich as a whole is paying much less tax now compared to the Reagan era. Tax on the middle class is also lower when compared to the Reagan era but there are hidden taxes when you have cuts on schools, and colleges which the middle class rely on much more than the rich.[/quote]
Agreed.
UCGal
July 14, 2011 @
10:49 AM
What I don’t get – why isn’t What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.
jstoesz
July 14, 2011 @
10:53 AM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get [quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]
I would support that.
KSMountain
July 17, 2011 @
12:20 PM
jstoesz wrote:UCGal [quote=jstoesz][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]
I would support that.[/quote]
I would support that.
briansd1
July 14, 2011 @
10:55 AM
UCGal, Obama said that he is UCGal, Obama said that he is willing to consider painful cuts to programs dear to Democrats.
The Republicans are unwilling to budge even on closing tax loopholes for corporate jets. They claim that raising the limit in itself is enough of a concession.
Maybe while on vacation you did not follow the politics.
This says it all:
“Just a This says it all:
“Just a little reminder to those of you still fooled by the congressional and presidential sideshows: Neither the Democrat nor the Republican plan cuts the deficit.” http://letteradicorsa.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/odious/
an
July 14, 2011 @
12:27 PM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get [quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]I totally with their proposal.
jimmyle
July 14, 2011 @
12:49 PM
I think Obama is saying that I think Obama is saying that he is willing to make cuts in social security and medicare but Republicans are not willing to make any compromise.
[quote=AN][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]I totally with their proposal.[/quote]
briansd1
July 14, 2011 @
1:57 PM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get [quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit. [/quote]
[quote=UCGal]
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable. [/quote]
Another example: In hindsight, we now know that the auto bailout was good for the nation and saved American jobs. Obama demanded concessions from the industry in exchange for a bailout. The Republicans said no, hell no. http://www.komonews.com/news/national/42122487.html
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get [quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
[/quote]
As I’ve mentioned before, the commission never issued a report. It was ignored, and rightfully so, because it didn’t meet the commission’s charter. Had they timely and properly issued a report, it would have (theoretically anyway) been a proposed bill before congress. They did neither. Nor did the untimely recommendations issued by the commission chairs, which did not have the required support of the commission members to meet their charge anyway, include the sufficient detail needed in a bill before congress.
So, they failed to file a timely report. Failed to get the required number of votes. And failed to produce a document sufficient to be voted on by Congress.
And probably more importantly, it was bi-partisan. Despite my disdain for the ignorance of Alan Simpson, I really don’t think they did a bad job with their report. But in the current political environment, there is no chance of either side proposing bi-partisan legislation. For whomever proposed it, it would be a starting point, from which to move backwards. That’s the legislative process. Every proposal moves towards the opposite side.
UCGal
July 14, 2011 @
4:22 PM
SK in CV wrote:UCGal [quote=SK in CV][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
[/quote]
As I’ve mentioned before, the commission never issued a report. It was ignored, and rightfully so, because it didn’t meet the commission’s charter. Had they timely and properly issued a report, it would have (theoretically anyway) been a proposed bill before congress. They did neither. Nor did the untimely recommendations issued by the commission chairs, which did not have the required support of the commission members to meet their charge anyway, include the sufficient detail needed in a bill before congress.
So, they failed to file a timely report. Failed to get the required number of votes. And failed to produce a document sufficient to be voted on by Congress.
And probably more importantly, it was bi-partisan. Despite my disdain for the ignorance of Alan Simpson, I really don’t think they did a bad job with their report. But in the current political environment, there is no chance of either side proposing bi-partisan legislation. For whomever proposed it, it would be a starting point, from which to move backwards. That’s the legislative process. Every proposal moves towards the opposite side.[/quote]
I think you’re somewhat, but not entirely, mistaken.
So to say they never issued the report is inaccurate. The report was issued.
To say it didn’t have enough votes is accurate. But it had majority support. It was one vote shy of being automatically referred to congress. 13-5 in favor of the report. Unfortunately, it needed at least 14-4.
SK in CV
July 14, 2011 @
7:48 PM
UCGal wrote:
So to say they [quote=UCGal]
So to say they never issued the report is inaccurate. The report was issued.
[/quote]
The recommendations were issued by the two chairmen of the commission and signed onto by 11 others. The commissions term, as a matter of law, expired on December 1st. The vote was taken and the recommendations were issued on Dec. 3. The commission never issued a report. On Dec. 3, the commission no longer existed. So even if it had the 14 votes, it would have had no legal status to be referred to congress for a vote. That was not an accident.
sreeb
July 14, 2011 @
8:14 PM
I don’t really want to hear I don’t really want to hear about a 4 trillion cut in 10 years.
How about a $500 billion cut (below this years spending) next year.
If they are going to agree on a bunch of lies, it could at least be adequate lies.
briansd1
July 14, 2011 @
10:43 AM
AN wrote: How would you deal [quote=AN] How would you deal with this problem in your own home?[/quote]
The debt limit is an arbitrary construct that’s not even legal because by spending, Congress implicitly raised the debt limit. Congress passed the budget so they should appropriate the funds.
At home, households can borrow until the markets decide to no longer lend to them. The markets (lenders) put a limit on the amounts households can borrow.
The free markets, right now are very eager to lend to the US government. There is no debt limit until the free markets demand higher interest rates and refuse to roll-over existing debt.
CA renter
July 15, 2011 @
1:30 AM
AN wrote:If you believe that [quote=AN]If you believe that ss and Medicare benefits are taxes, then all the seniors who are getting them are getting a tax cut compare to their parents because they’re living longer today. Also, since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. Last I heard, it was 3 to 1, not 4 or 5 to 1. Both sides have different solutions for this problem and both sides don’t even agree on the magnitude of the problem. If your logic is that if you don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase is a sign that you want this country to fail, then Obama wanted this country to fail in 2006. BTW, I don’t agree with that view at all.
Lets have an analogy to everyday life. It’s like a family who bought too much house in 2005 and cars. Then one spouse lost their job. Do you go on and spend as if nothing has changed, or do you file for bankruptcy, or do you cut back on everything else and get a loan mod? Raising the debt ceiling is like getting another credit card, cutting ss and Medicare is like getting a loan mod, and city other things is like reducing your discretionary spending. How would you deal with this problem in your own home?[/quote]
Get another job/source of revenue (increase taxes to Clinton-era levels, at the least).
SD Realtor
July 16, 2011 @
11:08 AM
Wow brian I guess the debt Wow brian I guess the debt ceiling wasn’t a national issue in 2006 when every single dem senator voted against raising it. Whew I am glad it is national now though.
Arraya
July 16, 2011 @
2:29 PM
Oh, it’s just theater to keep Oh, it’s just theater to keep you all entertained. The economy is now run by Skynet, it’s all going according to plan
briansd1
July 16, 2011 @
4:23 PM
SD Realtor wrote:Wow brian I [quote=SD Realtor]Wow brian I guess the debt ceiling wasn’t a national issue in 2006 when every single dem senator voted against raising it. Whew I am glad it is national now though.[/quote]
When it come to an issue of national interest, one must not obstruct doing what must be none.
It’s one thing to register a vote to make point when you’re in the minority. It’s another thing altogether to throw our country into a financial crisis.
You know what, SDR, the Republican house will raise the debt limit after refusing to do so.
This whole crisis shows how Republicans are willing to gamble with the well-being of our country for the sake of power.
briansd1
July 12, 2011 @
11:48 AM
jimmyle wrote:I think the [quote=jimmyle]I think the republicans are being very disingenuous. [/quote]
Yesterday on the Newshours, I heard Peter Roskam, R-IL pretty much say that raising the debt limit is the only compromise Republicans are willing to make (what cockamamie compromise is that?!).
The Republican are not dealing in good faith, plain and simple.
I’m loving the brinkmanship I’m loving the brinkmanship on the debt limit.
What should have been a routine thing (the debt limit has been raised 74 times) was turned into a political charade by the Republicans.
Their intrangisence painted the Republicans into a corner and they can’t get out.
“Our problem is, we made a big deal about this for three months,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
“How many Republicans have been on TV saying, ‘I am not going to raise the debt limit,’ ” said Mr. Graham, including himself in the mix of those who did so. “We have no one to blame but ourselves.”
Anyone want to take odds on the winner out of this impasse?
briansd1
July 24, 2011 @
2:46 PM
Obama could unilaterally Obama could unilaterally raise the debt limit on his own. As a last resort, he should do so and let the Republicans take him to court.
Actually Brian the repubs Actually Brian the repubs have already offered him a plan that lets him do that so why doesnt he take that plan. Also they sent a plan to the senate as well but obama already said he would veto that plan as well. Seems like someone else is “holding the country hostage” by rejecting plans that don’t get past the election year. Similarly him and Boner were on the cusp of an agreement but he slipped another 400 billion in “revenues” on Friday at the last minute. I like how they call tax hikes “revenues” it sounds so much friendlier…
Talk about playing politics. Both parties suck here… let’s not exonerate anyone… take the rose colored spectacles off just for a minute.
Allan from Fallbrook
July 24, 2011 @
6:43 PM
SD Realtor wrote:Actually [quote=SD Realtor]Actually Brian the repubs have already offered him a plan that lets him do that so why doesnt he take that plan. Also they sent a plan to the senate as well but obama already said he would veto that plan as well. Seems like someone else is “holding the country hostage” by rejecting plans that don’t get past the election year. Similarly him and Boner were on the cusp of an agreement but he slipped another 400 billion in “revenues” on Friday at the last minute. I like how they call tax hikes “revenues” it sounds so much friendlier…
Talk about playing politics. Both parties suck here… let’s not exonerate anyone… take the rose colored spectacles off just for a minute.[/quote]
SDR: Good post. You’re right, both parties suck on this and both are using this to score political points (in advance of the 2012 elections) and for political theater.
I’d also ask to see Obama’s “plan”. We hear repeatedly about the Obama plan, but haven’t seen it. Nor have we seen any attempt at balancing the fed budget during his 2.5 year stint as prez.
There is enough bullshit flying about to choke a horse. Plus, when the Euros are doing a better job (relatively speaking) than we are, as far as attempting to find a path forward, well, that REALLY sucks.
SD Realtor
July 24, 2011 @
8:43 PM
Yes Allan they do both suck. Yes Allan they do both suck. They really suck. I am not a fan a repubs, believe me but damn I am tired of the world saying they haven’t offered up any solutions. Paul freeking Ryan offered a solution and per my other posts, solutions have been offered that get past the debt ceiling yet we are told that nothing has been offered and the country is being held hostage.
What the hell has this nation done to deserve a AAA credit rating anyway. We can’t balance a budget. We havent even had a budget…We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…) we are on an astronomic spending trajectory… we have been monotizing our own debt…yet we keep spending…AND HERE WE ARE AGAIN… being told the sky will fall if we don’t allow for more debt… and we need more debt so we can keep spending!
Really? If the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised do you guys think we are gonna miss our interest payments to China? Furthermore how useless is a debt ceiling when we are monetizing our own debt anyways? Guess what guys? The FED will just keep buying treasuries anyways!
If it wasn’t so utterly ridiculous it would be sad.. but all one can really do is laugh…
briansd1
July 24, 2011 @
9:04 PM
From a historical context, From a historical context, the Republicans are the obstructionists here.
The debt ceiling is a ceiling that Congress put on itself. But Congress has spent the money already. The debt ceiling is not about future spending but about spending that Congress already approved.
The Republicans are creating an artificial crisis that wasn’t there before. They should automatically raise the debt ceiling as it has been done so many times before.
Tax reforms, spending cuts and entitlements are separate issues to be dealt separately.
The Republicans are holding the country and the economy hostage.
PS: I think that Obama can unilaterally raise the debt ceiling but that won’t help with the credit rating.
[quote=SD Realtor] Furthermore how useless is a debt ceiling when we are monetizing our own debt anyways? Guess what guys? The FED will just keep buying treasuries anyways!
[/quote]
BTW, if he debt ceiling isn’t raised, the Treasury won’t be able to issue more treasuries for the Fed or anybody else to buy.
Allan from Fallbrook
July 24, 2011 @
9:47 PM
briansd1 wrote:From a [quote=briansd1]From a historical context, the Republicans are the obstructionists here.
The Republicans are creating an artificial crisis that wasn’t there before. They should automatically raise the debt ceiling as it has been done so many times before.
The Republicans are holding the country and the economy hostage.
This is Obama in 2006 (when he was Senator Obama) opposing raising the debt ceiling and calling it a “failure of leadership”.
Huh. So, now its bad faith on the GOP’s part to not raise the debt ceiling, but it was good faith in 2006 when Senator Obama opposed it? Help me out with this, because I’m confused. I mean, it sounds like COMPLETE BULLSHIT to completely reverse course from then to now. Maybe I’m missing something?
gandalf
July 24, 2011 @
10:51 PM
WRONG. Prior to the TEA WRONG. Prior to the TEA PARTY JACKASSES, nobody used the debt ceiling to negotiate policy. It’s a procedural thing, required to operate the government.
FOR THE MOTHER FUCKING RECORD:
DEFICIT = Bush Tax Cuts and Iraq War.
REPUBLICAN POLICY < 2008.
CHENEY = "Deficits don't matter."
2009 < GOP OPPOSED to the deficit.
Debt ceiling default = TAX INCREASE for USA.
Flirting with disaster on the currency side.
briansd1
July 24, 2011 @
11:31 PM
gandalf wrote:WRONG. Prior [quote=gandalf]WRONG. Prior to the TEA PARTY JACKASSES, nobody used the debt ceiling to negotiate policy. It’s a procedural thing, required to operate the government.
[/quote]
That’s my point here. This debt crisis is a manufactured crisis (a real crisis is an emergency that occurs unexpectedly).
The Republicans have grabbed onto the debt ceiling as a negotiating tactic and to hold the country hostage until they get what they want.
The Republicans know that the debt ceiling must be raised. They said so themselves.
This shows the Republicans’ desperation and their willingness to take all of us down with them.
This is Obama in 2006 (when he was Senator Obama) opposing raising the debt ceiling and calling it a “failure of leadership”.
Huh. So, now its bad faith on the GOP’s part to not raise the debt ceiling, but it was good faith in 2006 when Senator Obama opposed it? Help me out with this, because I’m confused. I mean, it sounds like COMPLETE BULLSHIT to completely reverse course from then to now. Maybe I’m missing something?[/quote]
As I’ve said before, the Democrats who in 2006 voted against the debt ceiling increase did so just to make a point and register opposition to Bush. They did so knowing full well that the measure would pass, as it necessarily must.
That is world of difference from opposing something that must be done, knowing full well that your vote would cause the imperative to fail.
SD Realtor
July 24, 2011 @
10:02 PM
Brian from a present Brian from a present perspective the republicans have offered up solutions that have been rejected. The president who you support in an almost blind faith manner has said that he will not support any solution that doesn’t push the issue past the elections. That is not political? That is not obstructionist?
It was congress that KNOWINGLY voted for those spending measures knowing damn well they exceeded the debt ceiling. Your solution to being addicted to spending is to allow more borrowing. Luckily there is political balance in place otherwise this would have been rubber stamped with no spending cuts.
Furthermore while you clearly appear to be intelligent I clearly would rather trust expertise in the field of economics and finance who are not as threatened by the all knowing Geitner and Bernanke and Obama. (Seeing as how that threesome have done such a great job)
The bottom line is that the treasury is due to bring in 172B in August. As bonds come due the Treasury would use the income to pay them off. This actually LOWERS the debt owed. That then lowers the debt beneath the friggin ceiling (which is a joke anyways) and the treasury can then reissue more debt (which would be stupid but make spenders happy! YAY more debt!!)
How bout some math Brian?
That means there’s enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).
That leaves 39 billion to pay the following bills:
That leaves you with about $39 billion to fund (or not fund) the following:
Defense vendors ($31.7 billion)
IRS refunds ($3.9 billion)
Food stamps and welfare ($9.3 billion)
Unemployment insurance benefits ($12.8 billion)
Department of Education ($20.2 billion)
Housing and Urban Development ($6.7 billion)
Other spending, such as Departments of Justice, Labor, Commerce, EPA, HHS ($73.6 billion)
So who makes the decision on who gets paid and who does not?The treasury of course.
Will this likely be catastrophic? No… will it be very very painful? Yes. Will we miss interest payments? No. Is this going to have to be done sooner or later? Yes.
***********
You still have not qualified how the repubs are holding the country hostage? They have already sent a plan to the senate? They have been negotiating?
Why cant the president accept a short term plan Brian? What is the problem with that? Why couldnt they accept the plan delivered to the Senate on Friday?
********
Really it must be very interesting to have such blind faith in something that your party can never be at fault for anything and that any mode of thought that is not in line with what your party wants is completely wrong. That you can label any alternative thoughts as obstructionist, hypocritical, outlandish, racist, homophobic, or right wing crazy.
gandalf
July 24, 2011 @
10:38 PM
WRONG AGAIN. Federal WRONG AGAIN. Federal discretionary spending has been CONSTANT on a percentage basis since Clinton.
DEFICIT?
– Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
– Iraq War (Retarded response to 9/11)
– Bush Medicare Part B Entitlement
The same GOP asses who voted FOR Bush’s Medicare increase, FOR the Iraq War and FOR Bush’s tax cuts for rich fucks…
…are now opposed to deficits.
gandalf
July 24, 2011 @
10:44 PM
At this point, it is At this point, it is irresponsible to support the Republican Party.
I’m not a partisan.
The Republican party platform is BATSHIT INSANE.
SD Realtor
July 24, 2011 @
10:52 PM
Yes they are asses. The GOP Yes they are asses. The GOP are assholes.
Does that make you feel better? I don’t like them. They are no better or worse then the democrats to me. Obviously to you they are much worse. Good to see you have such faith in at least one party.
They were terrible choices and I didnt like them then nor do I now. For the record look back at my posts in THIS THREAD saying WE WILL HAVE TO PAY HIGHER TAXES and that I am okay with that. I didn’t even say the rich. I said we meaning all of us.
Just dont say they haven’t put any proposals forward because they have.
Nobody has ventured an answer about why a solution has to be longer term then the elections either? Why is Obama so adamant about the solution being after the elections?
If this is a formality to keep everything skipping right along then why can’t it be short term?
What is the problem with that?
Also when does the deficit get dealt with? Was it dealt with over the past 2 years? It sure the hell didn’t get dealt with when Bush was in office. That was a joke. So I guess the answer is to keep f-cking up cuz we f-cked it up before. In fact let’s not just keep f-cking it up, lets crank up that spending even more and REALLY f-ck it up.
You can brush off the shortcomings of this administration by blaming the previous administration for how long? Another year? Another 3 years? When Obama is gone and the next pres comes in and is another party stooge (pick a party) then I am sure he will blame the previous 2 administrations as well… So yes your best response is a vehement attack on the previous stooges. The current repubs are just as much assholes as the previous ones. I know that. The plans they have offered are not great, I don’t agree with not accepting some tax hikes, (oh I mean revenue increases) but don’t say they haven’t offered anything up.
gandalf
July 24, 2011 @
11:04 PM
Obama is awful, a weak Obama is awful, a weak President. No reforms, no accountability.
The GOP sucks worse, in a putrid, historic ‘suck-shit’ kind of way.
I have no answers. It is awful.
SD Realtor
July 24, 2011 @
11:05 PM
I have to admit that I got a I have to admit that I got a good chuckle over “suck-shit”…
That was a good one.
gandalf
July 24, 2011 @
11:17 PM
Cheers, SDR…
If Piggs Cheers, SDR…
If Piggs were a bar, I would buy you a beer.
It’s a crazy time. Yet another crisis. This too shall pass.
briansd1
July 25, 2011 @
12:06 AM
SD Realtor wrote:
Nobody has [quote=SD Realtor]
Nobody has ventured an answer about why a solution has to be longer term then the elections either? Why is Obama so adamant about the solution being after the elections?
[/quote]
Because we need to provide some clarity to the markets.
A 6-month extension of the debt ceiling would not provide assurances to the rating agencies to keep our bond ratings at AAA.
Republicans, if they are as business oriented as they claim, should know that world financial markets need stability and predictability.
America, as the largest economy, has the responsibility to lead.
briansd1
July 24, 2011 @
11:21 PM
gandalf wrote: Bush Tax Cuts [quote=gandalf] Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy[/quote]
For some point of reference here, the $800 billion revenue increase that the Republican could potentially agree to is roughly equal to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans over the next 10 years.
But of course, the Republicans won’t let the Bush cuts expire on the richest 2% of Americans. The Republicans want to tax all Americans.
I really don’t see why the richest Americans can’t go back to the tax rates of the Clinton era when the economy was doing so well.
CA renter
July 25, 2011 @
12:45 AM
gandalf wrote:WRONG AGAIN. [quote=gandalf]WRONG AGAIN. Federal discretionary spending has been CONSTANT on a percentage basis since Clinton.
DEFICIT?
– Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
– Iraq War (Retarded response to 9/11)
– Bush Medicare Part B Entitlement
The same GOP asses who voted FOR Bush’s Medicare increase, FOR the Iraq War and FOR Bush’s tax cuts for rich fucks…
…are now opposed to deficits.[/quote]
You’ve nailed it again, gandalf.
briansd1
July 24, 2011 @
11:51 PM
SD Realtor wrote: We spent a [quote=SD Realtor] We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…)[/quote]
Well, here’s an interesting article on how Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi argue that the Federal intevention was successful.
In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.
The reason the Federal stimulus programs were not more successful is because state and local governments have been bleeding jobs. The Federal programs, stabilized the economy and plugged the holes left at the state and local levels.
CA renter
July 25, 2011 @
1:08 AM
briansd1 wrote:SD Realtor [quote=briansd1][quote=SD Realtor] We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…)[/quote]
Well, here’s an interesting article on how Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi argue that the Federal intevention was successful.
In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.
The reason the Federal stimulus programs were not more successful is because state and local governments have been bleeding jobs. The Federal programs, stabilized the economy and plugged the holes left at the state and local levels.[/quote]
Brian,
They weren’t successful. All they managed to do was shift the risks from the private market to the taxpayers. It’s one of the main reasons we’re having this debt ceiling discussion right now. Who is going to pay the bills for all the speculation and bad loans that have been made during the past decade? We, the taxpayers, are going to pay for this.
It is not over, yet. They haven’t even had the chance to tally all the losses that we’ll be covering. Think of all the refinances to govt-backed loans. Those would have largely remained on private balance sheets if not for all the interventions. Now, WE are on the hook, and the losses will be rolling in for many years to come, IMHO.
The trillions of dollars spent to keep interest rates down and asset prices propped up? That’s on us as well.
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. I can’t understand why you think the problems have been fixed when we’re dealing with skyrocketing debt…and no painless way to pay it off. We’re digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole, and you’re calling it a success story.
faterikcartman
July 26, 2011 @
4:19 PM
I disagree with the premise I disagree with the premise of the poll. You can’t bind future congresses (except for entitlement spending it seems!) so all cuts in the future are imaginary and not real. Simply cut spending. Right now. No need to wait. It was dramatically increased overnight and it can be cut quickly. The poor track record of the republicans does not give the Democrats a free pass to go hand in hand with their worse track record. We’ve gotten to the point where, like children, we’re arguing “Why can’t I? All the other kids are doing it!”
mlarsen23
July 26, 2011 @
5:19 PM
We need to cut defense We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.
faterikcartman
July 26, 2011 @
5:48 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:We need to [quote=mlarsen23]We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.[/quote]
I’ve got both some Kool-Aid in Guyana and a bridge in Brooklyn I’m trying to sell. Both would be perfect for you!
I’ve been hearing from more and more people that they are concerned about the debt ceiling negotiations. Many of these people are busy with their daily lives, and they don’t usually pay close attention to politics or budget issues.
This concern is probably why consumer sentiment fell sharply in the Reuters / University of Michigan preliminary July survey.
No worries.
The debt ceiling is about paying the bills, not the deficit. However it is not uncommon for the party in control of Congress to try to use the debt ceiling as a tool to try to negotiate on budget priorities. That is what has been happening.
But at any time Congress can agree to pay the bills, and they will this time too. As Senator McConnell (R) noted this week, if the U.S. defaults, the American people would blame the party in control of Congress – the Republican party – and the “Republican brand” would be forever toxic. The leaders of the party can’t allow that to happen, and the are now looking for the exit.
From Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey at the LA Times: House Republicans brace for compromise on debt
Republican leaders in the House have begun to prepare their troops for politically painful votes to raise the nation’s debt limit … Republican leaders orchestrated a series of public moves intended to soften the blow for conservatives. They agreed to give the House an opportunity to vote on two top conservative priorities: a so-called cut-cap-and-balance bill, which would order $111 billion in cuts in federal programs for 2012 and impose a cap on future spending, and a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced federal budget.
The Democratic leadership in the Senate is also expected to allow votes on one, and perhaps both, measures. Neither is expected to become law … Congress is likely to spend much of next week on those measures, then could take up a debt ceiling measure in the Senate toward the end of next week.
Ignore the votes this coming week. These bills will not pass the Senate, and no Republican or Democratic President would sign them anyway – they are just for show. The real votes start the following week, and the debt ceiling will be increased.
This is almost over.
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
9:27 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:We need to [quote=mlarsen23]We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.[/quote]
Pretty cool – I disagree with every sentence in your post except the part about a high gas tax. Vive le difference!
faterikcartman
August 4, 2011 @
3:18 PM
There are no cuts — the debt There are no cuts — the debt will still increase by about $7 billion over the 10 years, assuming future congresses agree to be bound (they won’t). There are only reductions in the size of the future increases.
There are not enough differences between the majority of Republicans and Democrats for me to pick one over the other — they’re both wrong. There are a minority of so-called “Tea Party” representatives who have it more right.
Coronita
July 12, 2011 @
11:24 AM
Give it up people. No good Give it up people. No good politician. Neither parties can balance a budget, nor to they really want to….
But hey, at least all the predictions about social security not being paid is becoming self fulfilling. Must suck for people that were counting in these entitlement programs that no longer can be paid….
“President Barack Obama, in a CBS News interview scheduled to air Tuesday night, warned that, absent a deal, he can’t guarantee older Americans will continue to receive their Social Security checks.
“There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” Obama said, according to excerpts released by CBS.”
GH
July 14, 2011 @
9:39 AM
Seems to me no matter what we Seems to me no matter what we do there is not enough money in the universe to pay our debt and obligations.
We print or default – simple as that!
Medicare costs have gone up many times in the last 30 years and seniors are living longer than ever which means are costing many times what they were projected to. This is the basic crux of our current problems today. (I am entitled according to my SS report to many many times what I paid in assuming I live to an average age, and it appears should have been paying some 50%+ of my income just in Social Security tax over my life)
Yeah, I know we don’t go there ….
Keep in mind, even IF we tax the daylights out of “the rich” whoever they are, overall taxable revenue is still falling and contrary to popular press, apart from a few high profile billionaires like Bill Gates, the group in the $250k a year bracket is drying up fast. Thus even with tax increases we need to assume overall tax revenue decreases.
A tax I would personally support would be a 100% tax on manufactured imported goods. Sure the cost of a big screen might go up, but then maybe the job making it would return here and we would have a “taxable” worker instead of a 99er.
Anonymous
July 14, 2011 @
5:05 PM
GH wrote:Seems to me no [quote=GH]Seems to me no matter what we do there is not enough money in the universe to pay our debt and obligations.
We print or default – simple as that!
[/quote]
Default is only if we don’t pay our interest payments. There is plenty of money coming in to pay all the interest, social security, active troops, and on and on. This idea of “if the debt limit isn’t met we default” is crap. The treasury has discretion to prioritize payments, and — unless Obama is so politically craven that he would deliberately starve seniors to score political points — if Congress fails to raise the debt limit by August 2 the gov’t will simply shut down, as it has before.
On the bright side, we at least finally have an admission from Obama that Social Security is not a trust fund, but rather only a traditional ponzi scheme. The money we’ve paid in Social Security taxes has already been spent, there is nothing left, and we only get money if new people pay in the future. Ponzi FTW!
BTW, partially privatized SS accounts would have avoided this risk…
svelte
July 14, 2011 @
9:23 PM
This is really pretty This is really pretty hilarious to watch.
The Republicans have backed themselves into a corner…they’ve let the Tea Party take control of the Republican Party and dictate unreasonable litmus tests – if they vote for a tax increase, or now even raising the debt limit, they can kiss re-election goodbye.
Doesn’t seem to matter that the debt limit has been raised 74 times in the last 50 years, if we raise it this time we’ll all go to hell in a handbasket according to Tea People.
So now the Reps are in a tight spot. Lose their job, or be held accountable when the well runs dry on August 2nd, which will no doubt tick the independents off and make it difficult for them to get re-elected anyway. Talk about a catch-22!
I think Boehner is a good, smart man actually. He’s just in a hell of a pickle. McConnell’s proposal to let Obama decide is actually a very smart move…it gets the Reps off the hook. I think he made that proposal this week to test the waters, see how the public reacts. I hope they react well, as it is really the best option at the moment.
And why the Republicans have been okay with reducing taxes this past decade – thereby giving us a deficit – but now seem to be aghast at the word deficit is the clearest example of hypocrisy I’ve seen in quite some time.
We do need to reduce the deficit for sure, no doubt about it. But returning taxes to a slightly higher level has to be part of the equation.
Eugene
July 15, 2011 @
12:13 AM
Balancing the budget right Balancing the budget right now is not only unnecessary, but extremely dangerous.
The right thing to do for any sensible government right now would do a clean lift of debt ceiling with no strings attached, and then pass a $1T short-term stimulus, composed of a variety of infrastructure construction projects spread throughout the country. (As compared to the fairly ineffective 2009 Obama stimulus, which was, for the most part, composed of tax cuts and transfer payments.) Once that stimulus takes full effect, it will by itself reduce the deficit by about two thirds, and the rest of the gap can be balanced through defense cuts and tax loophole closures.
It is extremely instructive to compare the effect of the financial crisis on the United States and on China.
The United States went for a mild stimulus, followed by more tax cuts, followed by a whole lot of doing nothing (except debating whether it’s OK for its citizens to choose not to buy health insurance.) We are still stagnating. Contrary to the right-wing propaganda, government employment is down by something like 500,000 since Obama took office.
China went on an infrastructure spending spree. By now, Chinese economy is not only back at full employment, but it’s overheating. They have recently unveiled a new high speed rail line, roughly as long as the distance from San Diego to Portland, whose construction took place almost entirely during the post-Lehman period. The trip takes under 4 hours.
sreeb
July 15, 2011 @
1:40 AM
Eugene wrote:
The right thing [quote=Eugene]
The right thing to do for any sensible government right now would do a clean lift of debt ceiling with no strings attached, and then pass a $1T short-term stimulus, [/quote]
Who on earth would lend us $1T so we can stimulate ourselves?
There will be immediate pain if we cut spending now.
There will be a complete disaster if our government had to pay the same rates as Italy is facing.
Eugene
July 15, 2011 @
4:16 AM
sreeb wrote:
Who on earth [quote=sreeb]
Who on earth would lend us $1T so we can stimulate ourselves?
There will be immediate pain if we cut spending now.
There will be a complete disaster if our government had to pay the same rates as Italy is facing.[/quote]
Our country is awash in excess savings. Thirty-year inflation indexed securities trade at 1.62%. The market would swallow $1T in new federal bonds without as much as a hiccup.
At this point, for us to be afraid of spending money on stimulus because we worry about having to pay Italy’s rates, is about as meaningful as it is for a person in the middle of Sahara desert to be worried about drowning.
ocrenter
July 15, 2011 @
7:41 AM
I think deep down everyone I think deep down everyone knows that 4T cut in 10 years is the best solution for everyone. Right now the rest of the world needs assurance that we are capable of cleaning up our mess and this 4T cut will restore their faith. And essentially bend the curve.
Problem is this thing is going to be historic. The president will be viewed once again as someone who can rise up to the occasion and make the tough and painful decisions. This will elevate this president and he will become undefeatable in 2012. Therefore, for the GOP, this 4T cut MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS, PERIOD.
briansd1
July 15, 2011 @
9:58 AM
ocrenter wrote:
Problem is [quote=ocrenter]
Problem is this thing is going to be historic. The president will be viewed once again as someone who can rise up to the occasion and make the tough and painful decisions. This will elevate this president and he will become undefeatable in 2012. Therefore, for the GOP, this 4T cut MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS, PERIOD.[/quote]
It’s clear the Republicans are not for a long-term solution.
They know that the debt limit must be raised… but they want to use it as election fights by holding several votes between now and the elections.
So much for reassuring the markets that we, as country, have the resolve to put our financial house in order.
And so much for shared sacrifice and doing what’s right by the country.
Eugene wrote:
Our country is [quote=Eugene]
Our country is awash in excess savings. Thirty-year inflation indexed securities trade at 1.62%. The market would swallow $1T in new federal bonds without as much as a hiccup.
At this point, for us to be afraid of spending money on stimulus because we worry about having to pay Italy’s rates, is about as meaningful as it is for a person in the middle of Sahara desert to be worried about drowning.[/quote]
If we can borrow as much as we want, forever, at nearly zero interest, then there is a easy solution. We should stop collecting any taxes and just let the federal government borrow all its funds. Nothing to it.
Two years ago, the Greeks were happily borrowing money at 3%. Now they can’t borrow at any price.
There is a limit. We aren’t there yet. When we get there, it will be like falling off a cliff.
There are no longer any easy answers. There aren’t even any good answers.
poorgradstudent
July 15, 2011 @
10:36 AM
Obama is offering a Obama is offering a legitimate compromise. The Republicans have shown no willingness to give at all. It’s really not fair for one party to completely fail to negotiate in good faith when the stakes are this high. And the idea you can eliminate the deficit without raising taxes at all is a laughable joke. We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.
I don’t love either package, I don’t think either is perfect. But compromises rarely satisfy anyone. Obama is being the grown up in the room. Boehner and especially Cantor are being children and playing a very dangerous game of chicken.
sreeb
July 15, 2011 @
10:51 AM
poorgradstudent wrote:We have [quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
If only this was true.
Without borrowing, we can fund only 56% of our expenses in August. To balance our budget (interest only on the debt), we would need to increase revenue (taxes) by 79%.
This isn’t due to the Bush tax cuts and it isn’t going to solved but raising taxes on private jets.
briansd1
July 15, 2011 @
12:30 PM
poorgradstudent wrote:We have [quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.
ocrenter
July 15, 2011 @
12:34 PM
in general, on this forum, in general, on this forum, whenever politics come into play, there would be a whole lot of Obama bashing.
I’m not seeing that this time around.
I think finally the Republicans have overplayed their hand.
meadandale
July 16, 2011 @
5:21 PM
briansd1 [quote=briansd1][quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.[/quote]
The Bush tax cuts are purported to be costing us about $530 billion over 2 years. We are spending $1.7 trillion per year more than we are taking in.
If we immediately rolled back the Bush tax cuts we’d still be spending almost a trillion and a half dollars more per year than we are taking in.
In what universe is that a ‘small spending problem’?
SD Realtor
July 16, 2011 @
5:44 PM
Brian you are missing the Brian you are missing the point entirely. While I despise both parties, you have unbridled love for one while at the same time consistently admitting it is the best of the worst. You like to consistently hammer one and then when the identical behavior is identified to your party of choice, you always have a rationalization.
It really is quite amazing. Regardless of who had the majority in 2006 the vote would have gone the EXACT same way so please don’t try to double talk your way around the fact that it would not have.
As for the proposal that Obama made, I actually thought it actually had merit, IF what was reported was true. However what was reported to be offered varies wildly with what source you read it from. You of course blindly believe that whatever is reported by the press is bonafide. I do not. Nor do I believe what is reported by the conservative press is true either. Hopefully the truth is somewhere in the middle. I honestly have no clue what he put on the table. You of course tend to attack anyone who questions it in the name of having to defend a president that everyone attacks.
Needless to say that playing the card that social security checks may not be mailed out was one of the most outlandish statements he could make. Talk about playing the fear card.
**********
The repubs are screwed no matter how this plays out. They could not accept his proposal for the 4T because if they did he wins 2012 easily.
They cannot force a default because if they do he wins 2012 easily.
So the card they are trying to play is giving him the power to lift the ceiling while they can say they voted not to and put the blame on him each time he does so between now and 2012. It is remarkable what a f-cked up play that is.
*************
As usual you will not address the trajectory of the spending that has occurred under the administration. As I said I hate both parties but having one of those crooked parties in 100% control of all branches is a suicide pill. Just think if the dems still had the house do you honestly believe that any spending cuts at all would be proposed? I am sure you do.
************
As for the Bush tax cuts, they were another amazing example of fiscal irresponsibility. Bush spent like a drunken sailor and anyone with sense know the payback was gonna come in the form of tax hikes possibly higher then his reductions. I have no problem with tax hikes. I DO have a problem with over 40% of the country not paying a penny in taxes. Also as pointed out, the missed revenues from the tax cuts doesn’t come close to the spending increases.
*************
GH
July 16, 2011 @
8:38 PM
SD Realtor wrote:I have no [quote=SD Realtor]I have no problem with tax hikes. I DO have a problem with over 40% of the country not paying a penny in taxes. Also as pointed out, the missed revenues from the tax cuts doesn’t come close to the spending increases.*************[/quote]
I am essentially VERY opposed to tax hikes. Having been in this position I can tell you that if you make little then start to make a lot, you will have NO protections against taxation such as home ownership most at high incomes take for granted. My OT was taxed at a rate of a percent or two under 60% of my gross income, making it very difficult to break out of years of low income living and get ahead, so IMO “the rich” are taxed up the babooki contrary to Obama gobbledygook on the subject.
That said, I would like to see a substantial decrease in “earned income” traded with a substantial increase in “unearned income”, which I believe would provide opportunity for businesses to grow while taxing capital gains etc at a higher level.
In either event taxes up or down, there is a lot less taxable income and in the future there will be even less, so raise taxes by all means, but expenses must be massively cut to accommodate the current economic times, and ALL citizens must share the downturn, not just young working people.
mike92104
July 16, 2011 @
8:55 PM
Here’s my take on the tax Here’s my take on the tax increase. Those clowns (dems and reps) aren’t going to stop spending wildly until the money spigot is turned off. Once the spigot is off, they will start making cuts. At first it will be political BS like Social Security checks, or military pay until the public demands more responsible use of the money they have. Hopefully, at that point the government will finally have to start stripping away the disgusting bloated bureaucracies that are wasting so much of our money. In short, I wouldn’t mind a bit of a tax increase if I thought it would actually do some good.
Also, if we want to discuss cutting costs, what about foreign aid? It really annoys me that a chunk of my taxes goes to some other country.
briansd1
July 17, 2011 @
12:46 PM
SD Realtor wrote:
It really [quote=SD Realtor]
It really is quite amazing. Regardless of who had the majority in 2006 the vote would have gone the EXACT same way so please don’t try to double talk your way around the fact that it would not have.
[/quote]
How is that the exact same way?
In 2006 the debt limit increase passed without a hickup. Democratic senators voiced disapproval of Bush Policies, but nobody held the country hostage.
People in power need to be mindful of the proportional consequences of their actions.
Today the debt ceiling increase would pass in the Senate just the same.
The Republican House is the problem. They are holding the country hostage.
SD Realtor
July 17, 2011 @
1:33 PM
I love responses that are not I love responses that are not responses at all. Good job addressing no points. It just shows your blind partisanship. The point is that they all voted as a party the same way. Don’t give me this crap that it was a show of symbolism because had they had a majority they would have done the same damn thing and only allowed a debt increase under some conditions that would have been beneficial for them.
At least make a half hearted attempt at being honest.
paramount
July 17, 2011 @
1:35 PM
I think it’s all an act. Both I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.
briansd1
July 17, 2011 @
1:43 PM
paramount wrote:I think it’s [quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
How is that an act?
Under Republican plans, new legislation will cut programs.
Under Democrats, the programs are preserved under law.
But if you believe what you believe, and you’re middle-class, what side of the two do you want to be on?
CA renter
July 18, 2011 @
2:59 AM
paramount wrote:I think it’s [quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.
ucodegen
July 18, 2011 @
12:55 PM
CA renter wrote:paramount [quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Except for one thing.. lets take the CTU (California Teachers Union) – primarily Los Angeles area because contracts did vary by locale.
On retirement – it was 80% of medical – covered (Blue Shield was the carrier last time I saw).
Retirement pay – varied between 60% to 80% of final pay.
Social security, a person making over 100K a year, SS will pay them about 25K/year – for less than 25% of final pay.
Medicare doesn’t even cover close to what the CTU’s medical coverage will cover.
Though many Union workers – like CTU, do not get Social Security, they get a near equivalent. Most of the Union workers who do not get SS are State/Federal Union workers. If you a Union worker, working at a plant like GM, you do get SS and you get a pension at the same time.
CA renter
July 18, 2011 @
3:55 PM
ucodegen wrote:CA renter [quote=ucodegen][quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Except for one thing.. lets take the CTU (California Teachers Union) – primarily Los Angeles area because contracts did vary by locale.
On retirement – it was 80% of medical – covered (Blue Shield was the carrier last time I saw).
Retirement pay – varied between 60% to 80% of final pay.
Social security, a person making over 100K a year, SS will pay them about 25K/year – for less than 25% of final pay.
Medicare doesn’t even cover close to what the CTU’s medical coverage will cover.
Though many Union workers – like CTU, do not get Social Security, they get a near equivalent. Most of the Union workers who do not get SS are State/Federal Union workers. If you a Union worker, working at a plant like GM, you do get SS and you get a pension at the same time.[/quote]
L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.
ucodegen
July 18, 2011 @
7:16 PM
CA renter wrote:L.A. Unified [quote=CA renter]L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.[/quote]
The reference I am using is a parent who is retired after teaching in LAUSD. Of course they hired on a while back (quite a while). I do know that after mid 90’s (actually more recently than that, late 90’s) pensions, retirement and health benefits were changed with some attempts at ‘retroactive’ changes affecting those who were employed when benefits were better.
Actually, it is quite a bit different than Soc Sec. 60% vs 25% of salary is not the same or even close. If you are contributing to SS, you should be getting mail from the SS administration showing what your retirement benefits would be at particular retirement ages.
CA renter
July 19, 2011 @
2:53 AM
ucodegen wrote:CA renter [quote=ucodegen][quote=CA renter]L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.[/quote]
The reference I am using is a parent who is retired after teaching in LAUSD. Of course they hired on a while back (quite a while). I do know that after mid 90’s (actually more recently than that, late 90’s) pensions, retirement and health benefits were changed with some attempts at ‘retroactive’ changes affecting those who were employed when benefits were better.
Actually, it is quite a bit different than Soc Sec. 60% vs 25% of salary is not the same or even close. If you are contributing to SS, you should be getting mail from the SS administration showing what your retirement benefits would be at particular retirement ages.[/quote]
No doubt, benefits were very good many years ago. My dad worked for LACCD, and they had 100% medical coverage while employed, retiree healthcare for life, and a comfortable pension. Those days are long gone, I’m afraid.
The changes to LAUSD’s benefits were part of the changes that swept through local governments all across the state (maybe other states as well, but I’m not familiar with them). I know that it began in 1995-1996 because I was working for LAUSD at the time, and my husband was working in municipal government in a totally different capacity, and in a totally different county, and they went through the same thing at the same time (as did many of our friends who work in various capacities in govt throughout the state).
Quite frankly, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a municipal employer who still offers retiree healthcare benefits. This is one of the things that gets glossed over by those who complain about government workers, and who claim that they’ve never given anything up. The loss of retiree healthcare was a very big deal.
Yes, you are correct about SS not paying as much as a teacher’s pension, but according to the calculator:
…I entered the approximate wages for a teacher working over the past 30 years, and it pays about 34% of their final wages.
You also have to account for the fact that many private employers during that time were contributing to their employees’ retirement/401K plans, whereas the public employers don’t (outside of pensions, which is similar to the private employers contributing toward payroll/SS taxes).
jpinpb
July 26, 2011 @
5:31 PM
delete delete
briansd1
July 17, 2011 @
1:36 PM
Democrats had the majority in Democrats had the majority in Congress under many Republican presidents. They have never held the country hostage and brought the country to the brink like Republicans are doing with the debt limit today.
KSMountain
July 17, 2011 @
2:51 PM
briansd1 wrote:Democrats had [quote=briansd1]Democrats had the majority in Congress under many Republican presidents. They have never held the country hostage and brought the country to the brink like Republicans are doing with the debt limit today.[/quote]
But Brian, understand they have constituents who support what they’re doing. It’s not like 200 or so inexplicably obstinate dudes are doing this on their own for giggles.
Perhaps the objections are fiercer this time because the debt went from $9T to $12.5T just, what, a year and a half ago and now they’ve already spent that and are coming back for more. Enough!
Would you support an individual running their finances in this way? I do not.
KSMountain
July 17, 2011 @
2:56 PM
Bringing some data, and some Bringing some data, and some perspective,
Oh Brian please… holding Oh Brian please… holding the country hostage. Really? Are they really doing that? Get a clue please… There is no way the dems don’t come out ahead in this debt deal. The timing is perfect for them and either way they win. As stupid as the republicans are they are going to hold anything up.
It would be damn good for this country to actually see what life is like when you ACTUALLY HAVE A LIMIT on what you spend.
The point is that both parties suck and they rely on blithering blind yahoos to support what they do unconditionally.
mike92104
July 17, 2011 @
4:07 PM
Holding the country hostage? Holding the country hostage? You mean like attaching a bunch of pork to supplemental military spending bills? Is that a good example of holding the country hostage? I wish you would grow up and get an opinion of your own Brian. One other than the one the Dems have told you have.
afx114
July 17, 2011 @
11:51 PM
KSMountain wrote:Bringing [quote=KSMountain]Bringing some data, and some perspective,
In general, I don’t agree to In general, I don’t agree to anything US government said or done lately.
ucodegen
July 18, 2011 @
12:45 PM
briansd1 [quote=briansd1][quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.[/quote]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
Much like how California’s budget was wrecked when they assumed that they could ‘straight-line’ the property and real estate sales tax revenue – until it all collapsed.
What was forgotten on both sides was that things always return to norm. If you get a Windfall – bank it, don’t assume it will always be there. Don’t adjust your spending as if it would always be there.
eavesdropper
July 18, 2011 @
9:03 PM
ucodegen wrote:
You forget. [quote=ucodegen]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
Much like how California’s budget was wrecked when they assumed that they could ‘straight-line’ the property and real estate sales tax revenue – until it all collapsed.
What was forgotten on both sides was that things always return to norm. If you get a Windfall – bank it, don’t assume it will always be there. Don’t adjust your spending as if it would always be there.[/quote]
Doesn’t much matter how the surplus came about. It’s part and parcel of political lore now. Despite the fact that it was “accidentally” created, there are two completely different stories to the contrary. Which one you actually hear is dependent upon the political persuasion of the individual telling it. Neither is the truth.
That aside, I agree with you, ucodegen. Quite honestly, every congressperson since 1990 has been aware of the impending retirement of the first of the baby boomers, and the looming social security/medicare tsunami – in fact, well before then. The fact that they did nothing to address it is inexcusable, frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. However, squandering the existing surplus, and then running up a multi-trillion dollar debt demonstrates a level of incompetence that is beyond stratospheric.
Quite honestly, every government official responsible for approving the Medicare Drug Plan and the waging of two (!) wars, commitments that carry astronomical price tags, without finding appropriate sources of funding to pay for them should be kicked out of Congress and stripped of their pensions and any other benefits. This, in itself, is unbelievable. But to make deep long-term cuts in taxes during the same period??
Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.
CA renter
July 19, 2011 @
1:56 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
That [quote=eavesdropper]
That aside, I agree with you, ucodegen. Quite honestly, every congressperson since 1990 has been aware of the impending retirement of the first of the baby boomers, and the looming social security/medicare tsunami – in fact, well before then. The fact that they did nothing to address it is inexcusable, frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. However, squandering the existing surplus, and then running up a multi-trillion dollar debt demonstrates a level of incompetence that is beyond stratospheric.
Quite honestly, every government official responsible for approving the Medicare Drug Plan and the waging of two (!) wars, commitments that carry astronomical price tags, without finding appropriate sources of funding to pay for them should be kicked out of Congress and stripped of their pensions and any other benefits. This, in itself, is unbelievable. But to make deep long-term cuts in taxes during the same period??
Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.[/quote]
There it is, in a nutshell. Well done, eavesdropper.
Again, when are you running for office? 😉
eavesdropper
July 19, 2011 @
2:34 AM
CA renter wrote:eavesdropper [quote=CA renter][quote=eavesdropper] Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.[/quote]
There it is, in a nutshell. Well done, eavesdropper.
Again, when are you running for office? ;)[/quote]
When I get my friggin’ hardwood floors (refer to PIGGS R’ US thread).
Seriously, CAR, I have to run for governor first, so that I can quit two years into my four-year term to prove that I’m a selfless and dedicated public servant. THEN I can run for an office that you can vote for.
But if I have to learn to golf, all bets are off…..
briansd1
July 18, 2011 @
11:59 PM
ucodegen wrote:
You forget. [quote=ucodegen]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
[/quote]
I didn’t forget. Bush used those same projections for his tax cuts.
If we had maintained the Clinton rates, we would have had 10 years worth of additional revenue and our debt problem wouldn’t as daunting today.
In fact, if we had paid for the wars, we would be in better financial shape today.
briansd1
July 15, 2011 @
1:22 PM
poorgradstudent wrote:
I [quote=poorgradstudent]
I don’t love either package, I don’t think either is perfect. But compromises rarely satisfy anyone. Obama is being the grown up in the room. Boehner and especially Cantor are being children and playing a very dangerous game of chicken.[/quote]
I agree that this is what compromise is all about.
The national debt is a problem that Congress needs to fix. It’s an accumulation of decades of deficit spending. Obama doesn’t own the problem, Congress owns the problem because Congress spent the money over the years.
Holding the country hostage and threatening financial crisis is highly irresponsible.
The debt limit a national issue. It’s not a bargaining chip that belongs to Republicans.
Coronita
July 15, 2011 @
10:43 AM
Ah who gives a sh!t. Let’s Ah who gives a sh!t. Let’s talk about more important questions that many people in our nation is more concerned about…
What’s going on with Charlie Sheen, and what’s he thinking?
eavesdropper
July 17, 2011 @
6:11 PM
The very sad truth of the The very sad truth of the matter is that, despite the immense responsibility with which they are entrusted, most members of Congress don’t have a clue about what is happening with the economy of the United States. The fiscal IQ of this governing body is shockingly low, but what is far worse is their lack of curiosity about the present crisis and their unwillingness to acquire the knowledge necessary to address it effectively.
There was a clearly marked difference in the overall tone of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate this week, and many of the GOP members. This happened to coincide with the release of the Debt Limit Analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, authored in part by Jay Powell, a former undersecretary of the Treasury for President George H.W. Bush. Reading the report apparently represented a “come to Jesus” moment for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, scaring the hell out of them enough that they not only immediately dropped the “no tax hikes, no ceiling hikes” line, but corralled several of their fellow Republicans into an emergency presentation by Mr. Powell.
As several of my fellow Piggs have mentioned in this thread, the GOP has, by all appearances, been faithfully following the marching orders given them by the newer House and Senate members who follow a Tea Party agenda. To save time, space, and what’s left of my sanity, I will refrain from delving into their reasons for doing so. What is more important is that no one seems to be concerned that our leaders no longer feel the need to consult with experts, examine situations from every angle, and formulate solutions that are based on solid theory and evidence. Instead, we refer to our subject matter experts as “intellectual snobs”, and make constant references to the need for “common sense” in policymaking and problem-solving.
We have political leaders adopting recalcitrant attitudes in which they vow not to change their position, no matter what, who claim to be willing to work in a bipartisan manner. Explain to me again how that’s done? But what’s far worse is that they are basing these positions not only on their desire to win the next election, but on extremely limited, and often, critically-flawed information.
People – both political leaders and voters – are no longer concerned with gathering information in an effort to formulate a position on an issue, but only on gathering information that will support their preconceived positions. Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, it has become so incredibly easy to do that. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to check the source of “facts” quoted by popular politicians, and all I’ve come up with is a rumor that has traveled from blog to twitter post to radio show transcript to blog, gaining tacit veracity along the way.
Our nation is at a critical crossroads, and we have a Congress chock-full of intellectually-deficient members. What’s worse is that we have a country full of voters ready to vote even more of these loud obnoxious stubborn morons into office (largely because of their loud obnoxious stubborn moronic characteristics). I commend Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell for attempting to educate their fellow Republicans (once they were, themselves, educated about the big picture), but it will take more than that for them to undo the damage they’ve done in the last couple months.
And please do not interpret my post as an endorsement of the Democrats. IT IS NOT. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing about this Congress that is bipartisan is their overall lack of an intellectual foundation.
Please, please, PLEASE, can we bring the smart people back? I don’t expect my leaders to know everything. I DO expect them to (1) recognize and acknowledge what they DON’T know, and (2) make a concerted effort to find people who DO know, and take the time to listen to them BEFORE taking a position.
Arraya
July 18, 2011 @
6:22 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
Please, [quote=eavesdropper]
Please, please, PLEASE, can we bring the smart people back? I don’t expect my leaders to know everything. I DO expect them to (1) recognize and acknowledge what they DON’T know, and (2) make a concerted effort to find people who DO know, and take the time to listen to them BEFORE taking a position.[/quote]
I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions
eavesdropper
July 18, 2011 @
10:59 AM
Arraya wrote: I don’t think [quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.
Coronita
July 18, 2011 @
12:24 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya [quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
Eaves,
You could have just used two words to summarize what you said.
Sarah palin
eavesdropper
July 18, 2011 @
7:42 PM
flu wrote:
Eaves,
You could [quote=flu]
Eaves,
You could have just used two words to summarize what you said.
Sarah palin[/quote]
You know, flu, that very thought occurred to me just as I hit the “Save” button.
briansd1
July 19, 2011 @
12:00 AM
eavesdropper, glad to see you eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.
zk
July 19, 2011 @
12:16 AM
briansd1 wrote:eavesdropper, [quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
I agree with you, Brian. Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.
eavesdropper
July 19, 2011 @
12:40 AM
zk wrote:briansd1 [quote=zk][quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
I agree with you, Brian. Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.[/quote]
zk, that is SO sweet! I mean it: that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week. Except my husband. And he’s obligated to say nice things to me.
eavesdropper
July 19, 2011 @
12:34 AM
briansd1 wrote:eavesdropper, [quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
A pleasure to be back, brian. Love the Piggs – my #1 source of civilized discourse, available 24 hours a day.
jpinpb
July 26, 2011 @
5:20 PM
CA renter wrote:paramount [quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Good point.
[quote=eavesdropper][At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
eavesdropper – I’m in awe. Any chance you’ll run for office. Please.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
I’m in awe. Please run for office. I’ll be over to your place w/my DH and put in your hardwood floors ourselves!
bearishgurl
August 2, 2011 @
10:24 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya [quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
Thanks, BG. Wow!! You ARE busy catching up. You’re gonna be up all night.
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
3:56 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
There was [quote=eavesdropper]
There was a clearly marked difference in the overall tone of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate this week, and many of the GOP members. This happened to coincide with the release of the Debt Limit Analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, authored in part by Jay Powell, a former undersecretary of the Treasury for President George H.W. Bush. Reading the report apparently represented a “come to Jesus” moment for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, scaring the hell out of them enough that they not only immediately dropped the “no tax hikes, no ceiling hikes” line, but corralled several of their fellow Republicans into an emergency presentation by Mr. Powell.
[/quote]
It seems like no matter what Boehner does, the Speaker has lost control of his Tea Party troops.
Boehner’s people rebelled, with many Republicans saying they wouldn’t support the speaker. By Tuesday, his appeal had come down to this: Boehner and his lieutenants showed other legislators a clip from the heist movie “The Town.”
“I need your help,” Ben Affleck’s character tells a buddy in that scene. “I can’t tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we’re gonna hurt some people.”
It didn’t work. By the end of the day — after more Republicans said they would vote no — things only got worse when the Congressional Budget Office said that by its estimates, Boehner’s bill would cut less than expected.
ucodegen wrote:
I have no [quote=ucodegen]
I have no problem with tax increases IFF(if-and-only-if) congress can be trusted to reign in and hold spending. So far, they have not demonstrated that ability. They see money, they got to spend it…[/quote]
Agreed and their track record makes me opposed to tax increases b/c they just do not seem capable of controlling their spending. Heck. Forget about controlling spending. Cut back on what they’re spending. Hitting SS and Medicare is a joke. People have been into it and relying on it. But agree that it is a Ponzi. But if they are cutting it, how many would be still willing to pay into it? There’s a lot of money being spent that they could curb.
[quote=briansd1]If we had maintained the Clinton rates, we would have had 10 years worth of additional revenue and our debt problem wouldn’t as daunting today.
In fact, if we had paid for the wars, we would be in better financial shape today.[/quote]
Clinton had a surplus b/c he cut military drastically. Since then, we’ve had wars and enormous amount of money going towards our military, protecting our country, eroding our economy.
[quote=zk] Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.[/quote]
x2
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
11:40 PM
jpinpb wrote:
Clinton had a [quote=jpinpb]
Clinton had a surplus b/c he cut military drastically.
[/quote]
Don’t forget he also benefited from a tech bubble. The economy was really humming then, but some of it turned out to not have legs. Even from just a San Diego point of view, do you recall what was going on with qcom, cymer, and copper mountain at that time? Craziness. “Irrational exuberance” and “wealth effect”. The NASDAQ is still only about half its level in early 2000. Sheesh, even CA had a surplus in 1999.
Also don’t forget Clinton definitely conducted a “conflict” in Bosnia. Not sure how much it cost. He also went after bin Laden, albeit ineffectively.
The planning for 9/11 was already under way at that time, we just didn’t know it. Whoever was in power on 9/12 was going to be spending a lot of money, regardless of their ideology, IMO.
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
12:17 AM
KSMountain wrote:
Don’t [quote=KSMountain]
Don’t forget he also benefited from a tech bubble. The economy was really humming then, but some of it turned out to not have legs. [/quote]
KSM, when Bush cut taxes in in 2001 and 2003, the tech bubble had already burst.
It was clear that tax revenue decreases would follow. So why cut taxes and add to the debt?
[quote=KSMountain]
Also don’t forget Clinton definitely conducted a “conflict” in Bosnia. Not sure how much it cost. He also went after bin Laden, albeit ineffectively.
[/quote]
Clinton’s “wars” were all part of his budgets.
I don’t remember special war appropriations that added to the debt.
[quote=KSMountain]
The planning for 9/11 was already under way at that time, we just didn’t know it. Whoever was in power on 9/12 was going to be spending a lot of money, regardless of their ideology, IMO.[/quote]
If that was known, then why cut taxes and add to the debt?
Bush never adequately budgeted for his wars. He requested special war appropriations again and again.
It was certainly irresponsible to cut taxes knowing that the bills were pilling up.
KSMountain
July 27, 2011 @
9:06 AM
briansd1 wrote:
It was [quote=briansd1]
It was certainly irresponsible to cut taxes knowing that the bills were pilling up.[/quote]
I concede that point.
eavesdropper
July 19, 2011 @
12:27 AM
UCGal wrote:Looks like [quote=UCGal]Looks like there’s a new plan on the table. Sure to piss off everyone – proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn.
UCGal, trust me: I’m no Tom Coburn groupie. But these days, any member of congress who will come up with plans that appear to be based on actual study of the issues and that make a reasonable attempt to “share the pain” earns a modicum amount of respect from me. It’s a big plan, and I need much more time to look it over, but he ladles out pretty big helpings of steaming hot shit to everyone at the table. Not only that, many of the cuts he mentions take a significantly long time to take effect (like 2025). Not like Paul Ryan’s “heroic” plan to privatize Medicare. Not only has that failed miserably in the case of the Medicare (Dis)Advantage Plans, but -seriously – what are the chances that I’m going to be able to purchase anything but completely worthless health insurance plans with my little Ryan-voucher when I’m 65? And that’s only 11 years away. Not exactly enough time for me to lay aside another couple million in an HSA to cover serious or catastrophic illness expenses.
I’m tired of our elected officials throwing testosterone-fueled temper tantrums (and I include the female congressional members in that) in public, loudly declaring what they will not vote for, or signing increasingly bizarre pledges giving their allegiance to some individual or group for whom I did not vote. I’m tired of the verbal duels (which, interestingly enough, never take place face-to-face), and the machismo-soaked stand-offs. Frankly, that’s not why I’m paying these jerk-offs. I’m pretty sure that most other voters will agree with me when I say that what I DO pay these asshats for is to WORK. They need to get into a room with the guys from the “other side” – a room, NOT a golf course – and start pounding out ways of handling this critical situation that involves actual compromise. I’ll be happy tp donate a dictionary if that is too big a word for members of Congress to understand.
Like I said, I’m not a charter member of the Coburn Fan Club (and my niece in OK – a constituent – hates him), but he at least appears to be earning his taxpayer-funded salary, and that will always get a nod from me. A few weeks ago, he and Joe Lieberman released a Medicare overhaul plan, and I was favorably impressed with a lot of the stuff in it. It may not represent the perfect solution, but there are suggested measures that are not included simply to gain votes or curry favor from the insurance companies or the AMA or AARP. Once again, they distribute the pain across the board, and some of suggestions might actually work. If it will get a dialogue going, I’ll give the guy his props.
jstoesz
July 19, 2011 @
12:39 AM
Every argument here on both Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government. If we had a federal government which stuck to its constitutional bounds as laid out plainly, we would not be in this mess. But then of course we would not have a federal government which could evolve with the times (tongue in cheek).
If you want socialism move to a socialist state…if you want laissez faire capitalism and its cruelty move to a libertarian state…if they would exist.
All this discussion shows how important a united states of america is!
One where the majority of taxes, regulation, and commerce is decided by more local municipalities.
Now if you fear competition and desire control, you will probably disagree with me.
eavesdropper
July 19, 2011 @
2:25 AM
jstoesz wrote:Every argument [quote=jstoesz]Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government. If we had a federal government which stuck to its constitutional bounds as laid out plainly, we would not be in this mess. But then of course we would not have a federal government which could evolve with the times (tongue in cheek). [/quote]
Ah, we are back to the Constitution, and Obama’s Tourette’s-like compulsion to continue violating it in any way he can.
You might find the opinion of this writer illuminating; by all accounts, he knew a little somethin’-somethin’ about the Constitution (but I couldn’t swear to it. It might just be another baseless rumor spread by godless liberals):
“Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, & deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. they ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. it deserved well of it’s country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40 years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent & untried changes in laws and constitutions … but I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind … we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
[quote=jstoesz] If you want socialism move to a socialist state…if you want laissez faire capitalism and its cruelty move to a libertarian state…if they would exist. [/quote]
I’m confused here. Are you talking about actual “states”, as in California, Michigan, Arizona, etc.? In which case, you will have to enlighten me on which ones are socialist, capitalist, etc.
Or are you speaking of moving to other countries that are socialist or capitalist? In which case, you will probably still have to inform me, as established governments typically operate under the tenets of several systems. There are reasons for that – the fact that it just works better that way is paramount among them. But, just for shits and grins, I’ll play along.
I don’t want to move to a “socialist state” or a “socialist country”. And I don’t have a problem with capitalism or a free-enterprise system, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a true free-enterprise system in the U.S. these days. A relatively few megacorporations own and run everything these days. You might think that anyone is free to start a little business, and through their own hard work (and nothing else, especially from the big, bad government), can earn a spot between Hewlett-Packard and General Mills on the Fortune 500 list within a few years. But as soon as your plucky little company-that-could was large enough to be identified as a mosquito on the nose of a big company, they’d take steps to buy you out at a seriously undervalued amount (if you were lucky), or just find a way to make you and your company disappear (if you weren’t lucky). They seem to find #2 a more entertaining and efficient solution, so that’s probably the way it would go.
So I can’t vouch for whether the government has forced the US into socialism, but I can guarantee that they’re making capitalism hazardous to your health (or, at the least, your bank account).
[quote=jstoesz] All this discussion shows how important a united states of america is!
One where the majority of taxes, regulation, and commerce is decided by more local municipalities.[/quote]
There’s a good reason that the founding fathers created “one nation, indivisible…” instead of “the United Countries of America. I ask you – in all seriousness – do you honestly believe that we would have survived for over 200 years as a nation, much less achieved the level of world power if we had allowed the states to act as completely independent entities?
Look, there’s no question that the federal government has made some serious blunders over the years, and that they have, at times, overstepped their bounds of power. However, consider this:
Who do the people, municipalities, and the states turn to……
In times of war?
In public health emergencies (i.e., typhoid epidemics, or incidences of fast-moving unknown communicable diseases?
In natural disasters, like floods or hurricanes?
When major damage has occurred to infrastructure?
And the list goes on and on. There are some things that are too large in scope for a smaller entity (such as a state) to handle on their own, or things that occur in quick succession. If each state had to maintain a separate military; separate facilities to handle multistate crimes or events; separate public health facilities, the expense would be prohibitive, especially in states that are less populated.
At this point in time, the cost of health care has reached prohibitive levels for the individual states. Only an entity as large as the federal government is in a position to handle it. And it can’t be turned over to private insurers because they have made it crystal clear that they are interested only in “insuring” very young, extremely healthy people. And that really wouldn’t help much as an answer to our health care crisis, would it. At the same time, another reason for the crisis is because of the high level of expectations from the public where their health care is concerned. For health care to remain a reality for the anybody outside of the very rich in America, those expectations are going to have to be lowered significantly.
Everyone will have to make concessions. It’s referred to as compromise.
But back to the original statement: if the states had been allowed to act as completely independent entities, we’d have a mess of little poverty-ridden nonproductive states surrounding the intermittent well-developed highly populated ones. Or we’d have three or four really, really big states. If we still had a nation at all.
[quote=jstoesz]Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government….Now if you fear competition and desire control, you will probably disagree with me.[/quote]
We DO have a limited federal government. Their power has been curtailed to an unprecedented level, and many of the agencies don’t exert the power that they have (the SEC’s stellar performance in the Enron, Tyco, and Madoff cases are the ones that come to mind immediately).
This is not accidental. Look at the amount of pressure that has been brought to bear against Elizabeth Warren in her efforts to bring about some relatively innocuous changes in the ways banks sell consumer loans and credit cards. The Republicans have devoted an enormous amount of time and resources to preventing the establishment of a Consumer Credit Agency, and finally resorted to their time-honored AND proven method of liberally applied smear tactics.
I don’t fear competition. In fact, I’d welcome some sign that it is still alive and well in the United States. But that’s difficult to do with my cable bill staring at me from the top of my desk.
gandalf
July 25, 2011 @
8:02 AM
Completely agree, car. Lack Completely agree, car. Lack of accountability from Obama administration has had disastrous consequences, both as a matter of policy and economics, and it enabled the tea party movement to take root.
briansd1
July 25, 2011 @
11:29 AM
CAR, are you so obsessed with CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
In Cantor, hedge funds and private equity firms have voice at debt ceiling negotiations
Among the White House’s top demands for new revenue are changes in the tax code affecting hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate partnerships, which would raise an estimated $20 billion over 10 years.
For the past four years, Cantor has taken the lead in the House on fighting the same changes. He also has been one of the top recipients of contributions from those industries — last year, his two fundraising committees received nearly $2 million from securities and investment firms and real estate companies, more than double the figure for Boehner (R-Ohio).
The hedge fund and private equity proposals were at the center of Cantor’s break with Biden’s team. Since then, the prospect for any immediate tax increases has declined, with the focus turning instead to a package based on spending cuts, with broader tax reform postponed.
briansd1 wrote:CAR, are you [quote=briansd1]CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
In Cantor, hedge funds and private equity firms have voice at debt ceiling negotiations
Among the White House’s top demands for new revenue are changes in the tax code affecting hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate partnerships, which would raise an estimated $20 billion over 10 years.
For the past four years, Cantor has taken the lead in the House on fighting the same changes. He also has been one of the top recipients of contributions from those industries — last year, his two fundraising committees received nearly $2 million from securities and investment firms and real estate companies, more than double the figure for Boehner (R-Ohio).
The hedge fund and private equity proposals were at the center of Cantor’s break with Biden’s team. Since then, the prospect for any immediate tax increases has declined, with the focus turning instead to a package based on spending cuts, with broader tax reform postponed.
For God’s sake, Brian, this has nothing to do with buying a house! Are you totally blind to what has been going on? The working and middle classes has been brutally raped, and you’re applauding it.
I’ve never said that we should sit back and let everything fall apart. From day one, I suggested WPA-style programs to maintain and improve our infrastructure; supported low/no-interest loans and grants to businesses and researchers for medical and energy R&D; supported nationalizing the financial entities that failed, so we could continue making **good, responsible** loans to business and people. On top of all that, I’ve always favored protecting American jobs by eliminating deductions for foreign labor, increasing tariffs on things that can just as easily be made here, reducing or eliminating certain credits or incentives to American companies that use foreign labor for goods that are sold in the U.S., etc. There’s more, but at least that’s a start.
What I’m angry about is the fact that all those trillions were funnelled through the very financial entities that caused the “financial crisis” in the first place. NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for destroying our financial system. People go to jail for stealing a $1000 car, but NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for causing a crisis that will cost us trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs, before we see the light of day.
I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong!
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
8:27 AM
CA renter wrote:Those f**kers [quote=CA renter]Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Well let’s be clear: you don’t own a yacht and you don’t buy 20k bottles of champagne on 250k a year (which is like 150k after even current taxes). And you don’t know any movie stars at 250k a year either. I think it’s disingenuous when folks use the 250k combined family income as “the rich” and then in the next sentence start talking about private jets. I’d bet 95% of folks with family income at 250k have never even seen a private jet (or a yacht) up close.
Further, I think there is too much focus on “the rich” as the cause or solution to our problems. Sure their wealth might be annoying or enviable, but it is not enough to solve our problems, not by a long shot.
Say you took the two richest americans, Gates and Buffet, and confiscated and liquidated all their assets. You’d get about $100B. Someone posted earlier in this thread that we are 1.7T in the hole *every year*. So you liquidate our two very richest guys, hang them for their “crimes”, and you’d only close 6% of the gap for only *one year*. What if we took ALL the money from ALL the American billionaires – what would that add up to? $2T? CBO projects us to go $10T in the hole just this decade.
The problem, IMO is entitlements. That’s the thing that has to be dealt with. We need to look at what is going on with the body of 300 *Million* people (many who will benefit more than they put in) rather than 1000 or so individual cases that are admittedly more interesting and titillating to talk about.
The tax code is already “progressive”, poor folks pay 0 and actually get paid earned income credit – richer folks pay close to 50% counting AMT etc.
Now if some really rich folks are skating due to loopholes – fine, close ’em! If they’re breaking the law – nail em! But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
9:51 AM
KSMountain wrote: But don’t [quote=KSMountain] But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.[/quote]
If we had let the Bush cuts expire, we wouldn’t have to deal with the cuts today and the manufactured crisis that is the debt ceiling today.
Notice that the Republicans, today, are only willing to conced to about $800 in addition revenue over 10 years.
We should have let the Bush cust expire for everyone and be done with it.
Treasury estimates the costs of making the tax cuts permanent for everyone is $3.7 trillion over 10 years
Of that, $3 trillion accounts for the cost of extending them for the vast majority of Americans, as the president has proposed. The remaining $700 billion is the cost of extending them permanently for the high-income earners.
And, of course, if Bush didn’t sign the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 (as we were are at war), we won’t have a problem at all today, as we would have had 10 years worth of tax revenue to pay for war and deficits.
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
10:00 AM
Well, we’d still be in Well, we’d still be in deficit, right? But I could agree with restoring the old rates and capital gains treatment. I don’t toe the whole repub platform. Otoh, I would like to see AMT fixed or eliminated.
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
10:15 AM
KSMountain wrote:Well, we’d [quote=KSMountain]Well, we’d still be in deficit, right? But I could agree with restoring the old rates and capital gains treatment. I don’t toe the whole repub platform. Otoh, I would like to see AMT fixed or eliminated.[/quote]
Yes, we still would have debts and deficits if we let the Bush cuts expire.
But notice that the solutions proposed by the Republicans today are much lesser than letting the Bush cuts expire last year.
The Republicans could have done nothing and solved more problems… but the Republicans manufactured crisis after crisis.
jimmyle
July 26, 2011 @
11:20 AM
I wonder why the republicans I wonder why the republicans didn’t solve this problem when they had the White House and congress? It was much easier back then because of the properous economy and high tax revenue. I believe poltically it will hurt republicans much more than democrats if the country defaults.
an
July 26, 2011 @
11:30 AM
jimmyle wrote:I wonder why [quote=jimmyle]I wonder why the republicans didn’t solve this problem when they had the White House and congress? It was much easier back then because of the properous economy and high tax revenue. I believe poltically it will hurt republicans much more than democrats if the country defaults.[/quote]
Same reason democrats didn’t solve the problem when they had the white house and congress. Why didn’t they end bush tax cut for the top two bracket then?
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
12:23 PM
AN wrote:when they had the [quote=AN]when they had the white house and congress. Why didn’t they end bush tax cut for the top two bracket then?[/quote]
Notice that jobless benefits (unlike tax cuts for the richest 2%) are immediately spent into the economy to support jobs, and end up in corporate coffers as profits.
Also notice that back then, the Republicans were not interested in paying for the additional spending, they were interested in protecting the richest 2% of Americans.
Finally, notice which party has been more willing to compromise in a give-and-take manner.
Coronita
July 27, 2011 @
9:44 AM
KSMountain wrote:CA renter [quote=KSMountain][quote=CA renter]Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Well let’s be clear: you don’t own a yacht and you don’t buy 20k bottles of champagne on 250k a year (which is like 150k after even current taxes). And you don’t know any movie stars at 250k a year either. I think it’s disingenuous when folks use the 250k combined family income as “the rich” and then in the next sentence start talking about private jets. I’d bet 95% of folks with family income at 250k have never even seen a private jet (or a yacht) up close.
Further, I think there is too much focus on “the rich” as the cause or solution to our problems. Sure their wealth might be annoying or enviable, but it is not enough to solve our problems, not by a long shot.
Say you took the two richest americans, Gates and Buffet, and confiscated and liquidated all their assets. You’d get about $100B. Someone posted earlier in this thread that we are 1.7T in the hole *every year*. So you liquidate our two very richest guys, hang them for their “crimes”, and you’d only close 6% of the gap for only *one year*. What if we took ALL the money from ALL the American billionaires – what would that add up to? $2T? CBO projects us to go $10T in the hole just this decade.
The problem, IMO is entitlements. That’s the thing that has to be dealt with. We need to look at what is going on with the body of 300 *Million* people (many who will benefit more than they put in) rather than 1000 or so individual cases that are admittedly more interesting and titillating to talk about.
The tax code is already “progressive”, poor folks pay 0 and actually get paid earned income credit – richer folks pay close to 50% counting AMT etc.
Now if some really rich folks are skating due to loopholes – fine, close ’em! If they’re breaking the law – nail em! But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.[/quote]
+1
Bah… Until our government does something about repatriation of earned income by U.S. corporations overseas, I find any tax increase on individuals appalling. Come on. $250k household income is hardly “wealthy”. It’s taxing more the upper middle class and pulling them down, while corporations can escape paying for taxes…And WTF is up with some of our “leaders” entertaining the idea of “repatriation holiday”??????
I’ll ask again… How much did GE pay in taxes last year????
Yeah, I thought so…
Ridiculous….
I can’t believe a lot of you are arguing back and forth about which party is better when both parties have long cared less about the average person and respond only to corporations. Everything else they try to debate over is a just smokescreen to protect their respective corporate masters.
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
10:14 AM
CA renter wrote: I do not [quote=CA renter] I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
I agree with you CA renter.
But what coud have been is not reality. I’ve felt like you at times, but I’ve let it go. No need to be angry. Time to move-on, live, and fight battles you can win.
By Suzanne Kapner in New York and Paul J Davies in London
Published: April 10 2011 21:55 | Last updated: April 10 2011 21:55
US regulators are expected to file up to 100 lawsuits against executives and directors of failed banks in the next two years, as they seek to hold people accountable for management failings and recover billions of dollars, industry experts said.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is only now beginning to step up its efforts to make an example of overly aggressive executives or inattentive directors of the 348 banks that have failed since 2008. The FDIC says the failures have cost its insurance fund $59bn. However, analysis by Nera Economic Consulting of material on the FDIC’s website suggests it has lost $80bn.
CA renter wrote:
What I’m [quote=CA renter]
What I’m angry about is the fact that all those trillions were funnelled through the very financial entities that caused the “financial crisis” in the first place. NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for destroying our financial system. People go to jail for stealing a $1000 car, but NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for causing a crisis that will cost us trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs, before we see the light of day.
I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Thank you. X2
meadandale
July 26, 2011 @
12:33 PM
briansd1 wrote:
That’s why we [quote=briansd1]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis. [/quote]
Right, because they wouldn’t shift the cost of that tax onto the client.
When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.
an
July 26, 2011 @
12:51 PM
meadandale wrote:Right, [quote=meadandale]Right, because they wouldn’t shift the cost of that tax onto the client.
When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.[/quote]
That’s something I don’t get either. I don’t know any corporation that won’t pass on the cost to its consumer. The more cost you put on corporations, the more they’ll pass it on to the consumers.
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
12:54 PM
meadandale, Republicans don’t meadandale, Republicans don’t want to tax the banks or regulate the banks.
So how do we recover the costs of the bailouts lessen the likelyhood and impact of another financial crisis?
How about taxing the profits of the banks? I guess you’d claim that could be passed on too. So, let them pass it on. We could regulate the banks’ ability to nickel and dime small account holders. Plus we could use the revenue to pay down the debt.
meadandale
July 26, 2011 @
1:08 PM
briansd1 wrote:meadandale, [quote=briansd1]meadandale, Republicans don’t want to tax the banks or regulate the banks.
So how do we recover the costs of the bailouts lessen the likelyhood and impact of another financial crisis?
How about taxing the profits of the banks? I guess you’d claim that could be passed on too. So, let them pass it on. We could regulate the banks’ ability to nickel and dime small account holders. Plus we could use the revenue to pay down the debt.[/quote]
How about we just stop bailing out the banks and put them on notice that if they crash and burn we are just going to watch the fire burn out from the sidelines? Maybe then they’ll stop engaging in short sighted, risky practices that they wouldn’t entertain if they knew there was no backstop.
While we are at it, let’s take the same approach with auto manufacturers and airlines.
briansd1
July 26, 2011 @
1:14 PM
meadandale, i agree.
But meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.
meadandale
July 26, 2011 @
1:51 PM
briansd1 wrote:meadandale, i [quote=briansd1]meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.[/quote]
Spending several trillions of dollars of taxpayer money is still systemic risk IMO. You’ve just moved the risk somewhere else (to the larger governance of the nation).
I have a feeling that the economy would have bounced back much quicker if we’d let the whole thing unwind on itself and bounce back healthier.
CA renter
July 28, 2011 @
3:53 AM
meadandale wrote:briansd1 [quote=meadandale][quote=briansd1]meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.[/quote]
Spending several trillions of dollars of taxpayer money is still systemic risk IMO. You’ve just moved the risk somewhere else (to the larger governance of the nation).
I have a feeling that the economy would have bounced back much quicker if we’d let the whole thing unwind on itself and bounce back healthier.[/quote]
Could not agree more.
gandalf
July 26, 2011 @
5:14 PM
meadandale wrote:When will [quote=meadandale]When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.[/quote]
That’s a foolish comment.
Corporations transact business, buy and sell goods, book profits and capital gains and otherwise participate in almost every aspect of economic activity as a ‘person’. They are subject to taxes.
(In theory. In practice, large and sophisticated corporations evade and avoid their tax obligations through abuse of the tax code.)
Also, they do not ‘pass on’ taxes as a matter of course. Market pricing is a separate issue. They will try to ‘pass on’ the tax, if the market bears it. Otherwise, it comes out of their bottom line — same as everybody else.
gandalf
July 26, 2011 @
5:40 PM
Rich people pay less tax than Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
Republicans want to default the USA over the Bush tax cuts.
Fuck you right-wing fucks.
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
9:23 PM
gandalf wrote:Rich people pay [quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…
gandalf
July 26, 2011 @
10:04 PM
KSMountain wrote:gandalf [quote=KSMountain][quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…[/quote]
You’re clueless, kymountain.
Get a good tax lawyer.
Percentage tax prior to shelters and avoidance.
KSMountain
July 26, 2011 @
10:52 PM
Gandalf – I’m curious: what Gandalf – I’m curious: what do you mean by “rich” and what do you mean by “middle class working people”?
UCGal
July 27, 2011 @
9:22 AM
KSMountain wrote:gandalf [quote=KSMountain][quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…[/quote]
The wealthy don’t get the bulk of their income from salary – they get it through investments, stock grants etc. All of which are taxed at the capital gains tax rate. If they hold onto the equity before selling, they get taxed at 15%. Much lower than the income tax rate.
I aspire to be wealthy, but I still think capital gains taxes should be at the same rates as income taxes. If only in the interest of fairness.
KSMountain
July 27, 2011 @
9:51 AM
There’s ostensibly a reason There’s ostensibly a reason for that treatment, right? To encourage investment. What if you gave an IPO and no one showed up?
Further, there are lots of middle/upper middle class folks who benefit from the current rules. You could have a secretary at a biotech company, for example. Lots of engineers nowadays get stock in the form of RSU’s. People who manage a portfolio in an after tax account. Not everyone is a hedge fund weenie or trust fund baby.
Perhaps we could tweak the rule so if that were your only income (cuz you’re a rich f**k) you have to pay at ordinary income rate. But that starts to get complicated (meaning it will be abused). I thought AMT was designed to ensnare those folks, anyway. Oops.
Flat tax? Would everyone here go for that? It’s simple, but not exactly progressive.
CA renter
July 28, 2011 @
3:51 AM
briansd1 wrote:CAR, are you [quote=briansd1]CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
In a new paper, the economists argue that without the Wall Street bailout, the bank stress tests, the emergency lending and asset purchases by the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration’s fiscal stimulus program, the nation’s gross domestic product would be about 6.5 percent lower this year.
In addition, there would be about 8.5 million fewer jobs, on top of the more than 8 million already lost; and the economy would be experiencing deflation, instead of low inflation.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
In Cantor, hedge funds and private equity firms have voice at debt ceiling negotiations
Among the White House’s top demands for new revenue are changes in the tax code affecting hedge funds, private equity firms and real estate partnerships, which would raise an estimated $20 billion over 10 years.
For the past four years, Cantor has taken the lead in the House on fighting the same changes. He also has been one of the top recipients of contributions from those industries — last year, his two fundraising committees received nearly $2 million from securities and investment firms and real estate companies, more than double the figure for Boehner (R-Ohio).
The hedge fund and private equity proposals were at the center of Cantor’s break with Biden’s team. Since then, the prospect for any immediate tax increases has declined, with the focus turning instead to a package based on spending cuts, with broader tax reform postponed.
We should have a financial transaction tax, mostly because so much of our market today is made by high-frequency traders who can manipulate markets for their own benefit. A transaction tax would greatly affect their business, and (hopefully) drive them out for good.
CA renter
July 26, 2011 @
3:08 AM
gandalf wrote:Completely [quote=gandalf]Completely agree, car. Lack of accountability from Obama administration has had disastrous consequences, both as a matter of policy and economics, and it enabled the tea party movement to take root.[/quote]
Yep. I’ve been extremely disappointed in Obama. We had the opportunity to reverse the destruction of our country and its growing wealth disparity (the cause of so much social and political unrest), and we had the most amazing opportunity to take out the most toxic people who sit at the top of the decision-making pyramid, and he blew it. Some, like Partypup, would say it was all by design. I tend to agree.
Dukehorn
July 26, 2011 @
7:53 PM
Really, some folks here can’t Really, some folks here can’t see the difference between
(a) cutting revenue (tax cuts), starting two wars and asking for an increase in the debt ceiling. (2006)
versus
(b) trying to add revenue, cutting some spend and asking for an increase in the debt ceiling to avoid default because of what happened in 2006 (2011)
I call bullshit if you can’t distinguish between the two scenarios.
Vod-Vil [quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.
KSMountain
July 27, 2011 @
8:59 AM
jpinpb wrote:Vod-Vil [quote=jpinpb][quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.[/quote]
I *love* George Carlin. He’s been making me laugh since the 70’s.
But that particular piece is defeatist.
With that worldview, how do you explain the success of the google guys, or the yahoo guys, all of whom became billionaires starting while they were in school? They were not part of any nefarious “cabal” when they started, and “the man” did not hold them back. Same with Apple.
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.
an
July 27, 2011 @
11:10 AM
KSMountain wrote:I think jp, [quote=KSMountain]I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
+1
I know people who came here less than 30 years ago with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They saved, lived extremely frugal, make appropriate risk to start businesses and now they’re what some would consider “rich”. If they live the way most if not all lived on here, they wouldn’t have the capital to start the business that they did. So, I feel that they deserved every dollar they earned. Much more so that most people who are on welfare.
Arraya
July 27, 2011 @
1:39 PM
KSMountain wrote:
I think jp, [quote=KSMountain]
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
Upward mobility is largely a myth. It’s extremely rare to leave your social strata. Though the middle class’s social strata has improved in material comfort. This myth is propagated along with the “Just world myth” that success and failure are earned – which throughout history has had a modicum of truth(for maybe a century at the most), but largely has been decoupling from reality. People are waking up to this and getting angry. As society continues to deteriorate the “jealousy” you perceive is really anger at these myths being exposed for what they are. The truth is only 1 in 50,000 can produce a technological development worth a damn
The purveyors of Our Way of Life promulgate this odious lie, because if Debbie Middle Class truly understood that failure isn’t always earned, then then she just might figure out that success isn’t always earned either. And if success isn’t always earned, well… heavens to Mergatroid , Snagglepuss, maybe those richer-than-thous aren’t holier-than-thous after all.
Herecy! “Send ‘em off to that Gulag they call Europe”, I can hear them shouting. And unfortunately, most of that heckling won’t come from the orchestra seats, but from the peanut gallery. Because it is the working/middle classes, the ones who have toiled in the trenches of status anxiety and felt the fear of failure sting like a jockey’s whip, it is they who are most invested in this poisonous meme.
Nor could they suffer lightly the indignity of accepting that their economic inferiors might be their moral equals. No, no, no. Too many dangerous questions would follow. The hierarchy must be maintained at all costs, otherwise, they might have to reconsider WTF they’ve been doing with their precious time on this planet. Remember, this is their America, and in their America the one with the most toys at the end wins. So suck it up, walk it off, be a man, do your job, and take it to your grave
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
2:11 PM
Arraya, I love your take of Arraya, I love your take of the psychology of things. There’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying.
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[quote=Arraya] People are waking up to this and getting angry. As society continues to deteriorate the “jealousy” you perceive is really anger at these myths being exposed for what they are. [/quote]
I’d be very interested in your take of the anger felt by Tea Party adherents. I’m not talking about people like the Koch brothers who are bankrolling the Tea Party. But I’m interested in the White middle-class folks of the Red States — the troops of the Tea Party.
What’s fueling their anger?
KSMountain
July 27, 2011 @
2:37 PM
Arraya, let’s take a random Arraya, let’s take a random 9th grader, child of lower middle class parents. What’s to stop that kid from becoming an anesthesiologist and making $400K/yr? Nothing! The poorer they are, the more help they can get (academic and financial) and the more school acceptance opportunities. Minority status helps atop that. I’ve seen it personally.
Say you Arraya, wanted to open a restaurant tomorrow. What would stop you? If you had a good concept and kept the bathrooms clean, maybe it would be popular. Maybe you could get some investors, diversify into a chain. Before you know it, you’re franchising. What’s to stop you?
Just a few examples I can think of really quickly off the top of my head (try not to skewer me if some aren’t perfect): Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Walton, Sam Price (price club), Mrs. Fields lady, Meg Whitman. Ray Kroc (McDonald’s) didn’t even graduate from high school! How can he have done so well if the deck is stacked? Don’t you want to bet though that Joan Kroc in her later years was considered high society in Rancho Santa Fe.
You could argue those folks are “1 in 50000”. But maybe it’s the other way ’round: maybe it’s quite common, and we just don’t know the backgrounds of the folks whose businesses we frequent.
Personally in my life, I know many people who have jumped many levels financially. I know others who haven’t, for whatever reason.
Now true *social* “class” jumping – you may be right there. I think it’s pretty hard to become “old money”. It might be a lot easier here than in other countries though. I do agree with you those people are not superior though by any means simply by virtue of birth or fortune.
Arraya
July 28, 2011 @
8:24 AM
briansd1 wrote:
I don’t [quote=briansd1]
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[/quote]
Well, some things are planned. Probably more than we like to admit. This can’t be proven definitively. Of course, the dominant minority did not get to where they are from not planning. So, it’s not crazy to think people of wealth and power talk out of publics view about the future. Though, it may be crazy to think they don’t. The problem arises when their interests are not aligned with large segments of the population coupled with the influence they have over the political/economic system.
Yes, most things are cultural(or as you say “self-reinforcing” patterns of behavior). Protecting the pecking order is a cultural reflex, it has been since the feudal age. These things are invisible if you don’t look for them. I have became very interesting in studying this process, and in doing so, have become interested in disturbing it.
Wealth worship has been around since the feudal ages. Before our scientific understanding of evolution, genetics and the vast array of behavioral sciences, it was culturally propagated the those with wealth and power were more in God’s favor or that those of little means have moral failings. It was actually said by early economists that god was teaching them a lesson with their plight. Now this mindset comes in handy while running a feudal system or any system with social stratification. Once we developed a more scientific world view, it became people with wealth were of better genetic “stock”. As science moved on(and morals) both these views became repugnant on some levels. The genetic view came to a head with eugenics and coupled with a economic collapse, spawned the Nazi project. Still, both views are still somewhat embedded in our culture – though diminishing.
Still, wealth and power worship is still prevalent today. And it needs to be, to some extent, to propagate the system. Certain collective understandings need to be in place for it’s maintenance. Though, it is something that is eroding – along with the mechanics of the system itself.
Now, culture is an outgrowth of our political/economic world view and systemic operation- which is closely related to our perception of biology. And cultural values and trained reflexes or patterns of behavior are propagated to support this world view and system. Today, systemic needs are propagated and encouraged with mass communications. In my view, we misplace cause and effect massively.
Reflexivity is an interesting sociological term that I recently came across. This is the fundamental feedback between what the brain maps for survival and how it choses to select for survival – along with social response to this selection. It’s basically ones perception of socioeconomic reality and how the perception influences individual and social behavior. Today, this process is fundamentally gone off the tracks, a large part due to the internet. Where many peoples selection for survival is in contradiction to systemic needs. Anyway, I digress.
[quote=briansd1]
What’s fueling their anger?[/quote]
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.[/quote]
Thanks for the input. The big picture is very interesting. I wish more folks would study history and sociology so they can examine and explain the world we live in.
CA renter
July 29, 2011 @
1:59 AM
Arraya wrote:briansd1 [quote=Arraya][quote=briansd1]
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[/quote]
Well, some things are planned. Probably more than we like to admit. This can’t be proven definitively. Of course, the dominant minority did not get to where they are from not planning. So, it’s not crazy to think people of wealth and power talk out of publics view about the future. Though, it may be crazy to think they don’t. The problem arises when their interests are not aligned with large segments of the population coupled with the influence they have over the political/economic system.
Yes, most things are cultural(or as you say “self-reinforcing” patterns of behavior). Protecting the pecking order is a cultural reflex, it has been since the feudal age. These things are invisible if you don’t look for them. I have became very interesting in studying this process, and in doing so, have become interested in disturbing it.
Wealth worship has been around since the feudal ages. Before our scientific understanding of evolution, genetics and the vast array of behavioral sciences, it was culturally propagated the those with wealth and power were more in God’s favor or that those of little means have moral failings. It was actually said by early economists that god was teaching them a lesson with their plight. Now this mindset comes in handy while running a feudal system or any system with social stratification. Once we developed a more scientific world view, it became people with wealth were of better genetic “stock”. As science moved on(and morals) both these views became repugnant on some levels. The genetic view came to a head with eugenics and coupled with a economic collapse, spawned the Nazi project. Still, both views are still somewhat embedded in our culture – though diminishing.
Still, wealth and power worship is still prevalent today. And it needs to be, to some extent, to propagate the system. Certain collective understandings need to be in place for it’s maintenance. Though, it is something that is eroding – along with the mechanics of the system itself.
Now, culture is an outgrowth of our political/economic world view and systemic operation- which is closely related to our perception of biology. And cultural values and trained reflexes or patterns of behavior are propagated to support this world view and system. Today, systemic needs are propagated and encouraged with mass communications. In my view, we misplace cause and effect massively.
Reflexivity is an interesting sociological term that I recently came across. This is the fundamental feedback between what the brain maps for survival and how it choses to select for survival – along with social response to this selection. It’s basically ones perception of socioeconomic reality and how the perception influences individual and social behavior. Today, this process is fundamentally gone off the tracks, a large part due to the internet. Where many peoples selection for survival is in contradiction to systemic needs. Anyway, I digress.
[quote=briansd1]
What’s fueling their anger?[/quote]
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.[/quote]
Another great post, Arraya.
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
It is a known fact that extremely wealthy and powerful people run in the same social and professional circles. To think that they are NOT talking about ways to maximize their wealth and power — every chance they get — is painfully naive.
People do not “accidentally” become extremely wealthy and powerful. They had to plot and plan relentlessly to get there, and many of them couldn’t care less about harming someone else (including the entire country) if they can further increase their wealth and influence. These people, by their very nature, tend to have more sociopathic tendencies.
These people have managed to convince the masses that the debate is about dual-income engineers, when nothing could be further from the truth. Others seem to think it’s about envy or wanting to buy a house for a cheap price, which is not at all why many of us are angry.
The problem for the PTB is that people are starting to wake up to the truth, and even though “the rich” have the power and wealth, we have the numbers. They constantly strive to keep us distracted and divided so that we don’t revolt against them.
The original Tea Party was a true threat to them, IMHO, and the PTB quickly went into action via the two-party political system (created to keep us divided). The Dems brought out the healthcare bill, right in the middle of the “financial crisis”/”worst recession since the Great Depression,” which created the distraction that the Republicans needed to take over the Tea Party and turn it into an anti-tax, anti-healthcare group. Problem solved. Like magic, nobody knew anymore why the Tea Party originated, or why it originally attracted so many people — from all across the political spectrum!
The original Tea Party was anti-bailout, and anti-banker. They were gathering to oppose the bailouts of lenders and borrowers who created the credit/housing bubble. Most importantly, the origination of the Tea Party was was akin to the curtain being pulled away in The Wizard of Oz. People were beginning to question the superiority of those in power, and were beginning to hold the most wealthy/powerful accountable for the destruction they had wrought. Unfortunately, Americans’ distractibility and short attention span caused us to lose this precious opportunity to turn things around. We had it within our grasp, and we threw it away. That’s why I’m so angry.
briansd1
July 29, 2011 @
5:58 PM
CA renter wrote: The original [quote=CA renter] The original Tea Party was a true threat to them, IMHO, and the PTB quickly went into action via the two-party political system (created to keep us divided). The Dems brought out the healthcare bill, right in the middle of the “financial crisis”/”worst recession since the Great Depression,” which created the distraction that the Republicans needed to take over the Tea Party and turn it into an anti-tax, anti-healthcare group. Problem solved. Like magic, nobody knew anymore why the Tea Party originated, or why it originally attracted so many people — from all across the political spectrum!
The original Tea Party was anti-bailout, and anti-banker. They were gathering to oppose the bailouts of lenders and borrowers who created the credit/housing bubble. Most importantly, the origination of the Tea Party was was akin to the curtain being pulled away in The Wizard of Oz. People were beginning to question the superiority of those in power, and were beginning to hold the most wealthy/powerful accountable for the destruction they had wrought. Unfortunately, Americans’ distractibility and short attention span caused us to lose this precious opportunity to turn things around. We had it within our grasp, and we threw it away. That’s why I’m so angry.[/quote]
If what you say about the Tea Party is true, then why are they oppoosing any taxes and regulations of the banks that received the bailouts?
Remember the banks already received the bailouts and we can’t go back in time. So why not get the banks to concede to taxes and regulations in exchange for the bailouts? Tea Partyers should logically support that.
It seems like Tea Party adherants are pretty gullible if they were so easily coopted by the Republicans.
an
July 29, 2011 @
6:04 PM
briansd1 wrote:If what you [quote=briansd1]If what you say about the Tea Party is true, then why are they oppoosing any taxes and regulations of the banks that received the bailouts?
Remember the banks already received the bailouts and we can’t go back in time. So why not get the banks to concede to taxes and regulations in exchange for the bailouts? Tea Partyers should logically support that.
It seems like Tea Party adherants are pretty gullible if they were so easily coopted by the Republicans.[/quote]
Because it’s not just taxes on the banks. More taxes will give government more money to bail out more banks if there’s another problem. That’s why they don’t support it.
Arraya
July 31, 2011 @
10:06 AM
CA renter wrote:[
This is [quote=CA renter][
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
[/quote]
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s econ 101.
The distortions in capitalism that we see now are a direct result of of the extreme accumulation and centralization of wealth that Capitalism creates. The extreme accumulation of wealth ultimately and intrinsically becomes the distortion within the economy. Wealth is power and that power is the capacity to bend a socio-economic system (to one degree or another) to the will of a select few. Capitalism breeds those who destroy its theorized idealistic state by creating the means to do so. Quite the paradox. This is something economists denied for centuries. Though, they are starting to admit it.
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
[/quote]
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s econ 101.
The distortions in capitalism that we see now are a direct result of of the extreme accumulation and centralization of wealth that Capitalism creates. The extreme accumulation of wealth ultimately and intrinsically becomes the distortion within the economy. Wealth is power and that power is the capacity to bend a socio-economic system (to one degree or another) to the will of a select few. Capitalism breeds those who destroy its theorized idealistic state by creating the means to do so. Quite the paradox. This is something economists denied for centuries. Though, they are starting to admit it.
Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
[/quote]
Precisely. FWIW, Einstein was a socialist.
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
2:21 PM
Back on topic, the drama Back on topic, the drama playing out on Capitol Hill is fascinating to watch. I fear for the economy our stock portfolios.
What’s most interesting is that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee has remained silent on this issue.
an
July 27, 2011 @
3:14 PM
briansd1 wrote:Back on topic, [quote=briansd1]Back on topic, the drama playing out on Capitol Hill is fascinating to watch. I fear for the economy our stock portfolios.
What’s most interesting is that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee has remained silent on this issue.[/quote]
If you believe we’ll see a big slide, time to load up inverse funds.
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
4:00 PM
Some of your guys may know Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.
I know a guy who’s full of shit about his business ventures, lives in a cheap rental, makes payments on his car, can’t afford to pick his share of restaurants checks. And that guy votes Republican.
Look at the Republican voters in Mississippi or Missouri.
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being.
You can always change your registration when you make it big. In the mean time, show some solidarity to people who need help. Or even when you “make it” you can still vote to help those who need it most.
KSM, let’s look at a poor immigrant child who makes it. Do you think that he, and his parents, and relatives who immigrated to America didn’t benefit from social services that gave them helping hand?
If that child became a doctor, did he not enjoy in-state tuition and student loans? Once that doctor practices in the immigrant community, his patients are likely or medicaid and medicare.
Plus a well-oiled economy is one that needs all kinds of workers at all different income levels to perform different kinds of services. Not everybody should be well-educated and well-paid otherwise that would cause very high inflation and the wheels of commerce would come to a halt, to everybody’s detriment.
As a well-educated person, one has a certain responsibility to look out for the interests of those who are not so well aware of the issues.
an
July 27, 2011 @
4:13 PM
briansd1 wrote:Some of your [quote=briansd1]Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.[/quote]
I love it when dual engineer incomes with a big nest egg due to extreme frugality or small (tiny) business owner who are extremely frugal are considered extremely rich folks.
No one ever said we should remove social safety net. Is that your best argument? If it is, then we agree, since I don’t believe we should remove all social safety net either.
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
4:19 PM
AN wrote:briansd1 wrote:Some [quote=AN][quote=briansd1]Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.[/quote]
I love it when dual engineer incomes with a big nest egg due to extreme frugality or small (tiny) business owner who are extremely frugal are considered extremely rich folks.
[/quote]
I never said anything of the sort.
If you’re a dual engineer family, the taxes proposed by the Democrats don’t affect you.
Here’s an example: as an engineer, you’re paying proportionately more social security tax than the CEO. It would only be fair that the CEO pays social security on a greater portion of his salary when you pay social security on all (or nearly all) of your own salary.
an
July 27, 2011 @
4:42 PM
briansd1 wrote:I never said [quote=briansd1]I never said anything of the sort.
If you’re a dual engineer family, the taxes proposed by the Democrats don’t affect you.
Here’s an example: as an engineer, you’re paying proportionately more social security tax than the CEO. It would only be fair that the CEO pays social security on a greater portion of his salary when you pay social security on all (or nearly all) of your own salary.[/quote]
Didn’t you consider those making $250k or more are the wealth and their taxes should be increased?
CEO don’t make $250k. They make multi-million. If you want to attack those people, why not create new brackets for those making millions and then another one for billions?
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
5:03 PM
AN wrote:
Didn’t you consider [quote=AN]
Didn’t you consider those making $250k or more are the wealth and their taxes should be increased?
CEO don’t make $250k. They make multi-million. If you want to attack those people, why not create new brackets for those making millions and then another one for billions?[/quote]
AN, this debt ceiling battle is not about raising tax rates.
The revenues discussed are about closing tax loopholes for the very rich, taxing hedge fund managers, and ending subsidies to industries who no longer need them.
The Democratic plan will not affect you.
In fact, Republican brinkmanship, if it results in a credit downgrade, may cost you more in terms of higher interest rates and lower values of your 401k and inflation.
an
July 27, 2011 @
4:48 PM
briansd1 wrote:
It makes [quote=briansd1]
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being. [/quote]
But there are plenty of wealthy people voting Democrats, no?
briansd1
July 27, 2011 @
5:04 PM
AN wrote:briansd1 wrote:
It [quote=AN][quote=briansd1]
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being. [/quote]
But there are plenty of wealthy people voting Democrats, no?[/quote]
Yes, those people are voting their conscience.
As I said before, there are plenty of invididuals who vote against their personal financial interests because of their own personal reasons.
That’s fine on and individual levels, but from an aggregate statistical point of view, it makes no sense at all. There is something other than economics at play here.
That’s why I asked Arraya his opinions on the motivations the Tea Party voters of the Red States who, by and large, are just average people.
meadandale
July 27, 2011 @
5:55 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Yes, those [quote=briansd1]
Yes, those people are voting their guilt.[/quote]
There, fixed that for you.
Dukehorn
July 28, 2011 @
12:35 AM
@KSMountain
Are you @KSMountain
Are you white?
Because if you think “minority status” makes things easier for folks, I’m sure minorities (like myself) will offer to trade places with you in a heartbeat. It’s a total nonsensical statement.
And if you’re Asian, try being the only Asian in your graduating class at a Texas high school (like myself). It wasn’t “easy”.
ifyousayso
July 29, 2011 @
8:26 AM
Are you white?
Because if you
Are you white?
Because if you think “minority status” makes things easier for folks, I’m sure minorities (like myself) will offer to trade places with you in a heartbeat. It’s a total nonsensical statement.
And if you’re Asian, try being the only Asian in your graduating class at a Texas high school (like myself). It wasn’t “easy”.
I guess everyone has something to cry about. Whites cry about affirmative action in universities, that accept minorities with mediocre grades and test scores while rejecting top scoring white students. Or that a middle class white pays 100% of college fees or gets a loan, while minorities with similar grades and skills gets a full ride.
surveyor
July 27, 2011 @
2:56 PM
Arraya wrote:
Upward mobility [quote=Arraya]
Upward mobility is largely a myth. It’s extremely rare to leave your social strata.[/quote]
The IRS data disagrees with you.
“But Internal Revenue Service data following specific individuals over time show that, in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20% in income in 1996 rose 91% by 2005, while the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20% in 1996 rose by only 10% by 2005 — and those in the top 5% and top 1% actually declined.”
Arraya beat me to it. You Arraya beat me to it. You can cherry pick the low percentage of people who succeed, some by a fluke. Call it luck. For one you present, I can present many more who work just as hard if not harder and are just spinning wheels in place, treading water and going no where.
an
July 27, 2011 @
4:07 PM
jpinpb wrote:Arraya beat me [quote=jpinpb]Arraya beat me to it. You can cherry pick the low percentage of people who succeed, some by a fluke. Call it luck. For one you present, I can present many more who work just as hard if not harder and are just spinning wheels in place, treading water and going no where.[/quote]
And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.
jpinpb
July 27, 2011 @
4:19 PM
AN wrote:And for all those [quote=AN]And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.[/quote]
LOL. Yes. That is a very simplistic solution.
an
July 27, 2011 @
4:46 PM
jpinpb wrote:AN wrote:And for [quote=jpinpb][quote=AN]And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.[/quote]
LOL. Yes. That is a very simplistic solution.[/quote]
Yes, it’s very simple and it works every single time. It doesn’t matter how much you make if you spend more than you make. Just look at the many multi-millionaires sport stars who went broke. So, to get ahead long term, you have to spend less than you make. I know it’s possible even when you make just the median HHI.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
10:50 AM
Obviously there are many Obviously there are many people in the US who improve their class situation, and many others who don’t. The real question is why we are doing so much worse now than other developed countries.
“It now appears that many EU countries have created an environment in which it is significantly easier for the poor to climb the social ladder than it is in the US. Structural reforms will be necessary in the US if it wants to emulate the success of European countries in organising social mobility.”
Is there similar historical Is there similar historical data? Have we always been this bad?
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
12:32 PM
I don’t know, although I I don’t know, although I don’t find it hard to believe that we used to be better than Europe, especially the farther back you go in time. Certainly I would bet most Americans believe even now that were are less constrained by class in this country than other developed countries, based on a history where that had been true.
The reality is that many of the countries in Europe with far more “socialistic” economies are not only now doing better than us economically, but offer more social mobility, spend less money per person on healthcare (with equivalent outcomes), and take far better care of their children, their weak and disabled, and their elderly.
But god forbid we should rethink our own policies through making serious comparisons to other countries. USA! USA!
an
July 29, 2011 @
2:45 PM
That’s my point exactly. That’s my point exactly. Even today, most American think we are better than Europe when it comes to upward mobility. Yet, according to your source, we’re not. So, what make you think we were better than Europe in the past? We’re talking about the last 100 years, not several hundred years.
What do you mean by better economically? AFAIK, we’re still the biggest economy. What do you mean social mobility? I agree that they spend less per person on healthcare. We need to definitely fix that. But our demographic is a little different than theirs, so it’s not quite apple to apple comparison. Personally, I’d love to have Sweden’s social benefits. I’d take full advantage of the unlimited unemployment. If we ever get that, I’d get myself laid off and collect unemployment for life. But that’s the lazy selfish part of me talking.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
3:21 PM
I can’t find a source but I can’t find a source but what I’ve read of US and European history suggests that at least in the 1800s we had more social mobility than Europe. At any rate, I am not sure why it matters so much. If you think social mobility is a good thing, than I would think you would want for us to have more of it. It follows that we should therefore look to Europe to learn about how we can get more of it.
By better economically, I mainly mean that many of the countries there have lower unemployment and an equal or higher standard of living. Obviously they are smaller countries, although in aggregate Europe has a larger economy than the US. There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have.
Perhaps you would be happy to enjoy a modest lifestyle of unlimited leisure – it’s true that 2 or 3% of younger Swedes end up choosing to do this. Despite this, Sweden has a strong economy, and the vast majority of citizens do not choose this path. Many Nordic countries are enacting policies to discourage people from taking advantage of the system that way, and Denmark is leading the way in making their labor market very flexible and dynamic but also without the very bad outcomes associated with unemployment in the US.
The fact is, northern European countries have found a mix of socialism and capitalism that by almost any measure is superior to what we have in the US. While we have been getting progressively worse at making good public policy, these countries have removed the worse excesses of Cold War socialism, and now are in many respects more free market oriented than the US. Its Sweden that privatized its post office, not the US. When their banks were about to blow up, instead of bailing them out, they took them over, kicked out the management, and eventually sold them off for a profit. These countries generally have lower, and fairer corporate taxes than the US, making for less economic distortion. Surveys regularly show that Danes and the Dutch are the happiest people on earth. We could learn a thing or two.
an
July 29, 2011 @
4:03 PM
All very good points and I All very good points and I totally agree. We can learn a thing or two from the Finnish education system as well. They can afford to pay for those social safety nets by not having a huge military, postal office, etc. They also seem to encourage education, which also help bring up the entire society. I love the voucher system the Finnish have. If only we can implement that here too.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
4:42 PM
Notably they also pay for Notably they also pay for these safety nets with significantly higher taxes. Despite these higher taxes they have good economies and happy people. And arguably more freedom then we have.
I think we are coming to the point in our nation’s history where the Presidential system we have with power divided between two legislative houses (one of which requires a supermajority) and the President is proving to be damaging. It is extraordinarily difficult to enact new policies on anything, so we just get stuck with a lot of old bad policies. Both sides believe they have a mandate to govern, but neither side gets to implement their policies the way they promised or really want them to be. So to pass anything you end up with compromise half-measures that are often bad policy that don’t represent what anyone really wants. When it comes time to vote again, since both parties voted for the policies, it’s hard for a large swath of voters to determine what they are going to be getting when they vote for or against a given party.
We’d be much better off with a parliamentary system. If the Republicans are elected and want to gut programs for the poor and elderly, let them do what they want, and lets see what happens in the next election. Sames goes for the Democrats when they want to raise taxes. Give them each a chance to implement their preferred policies in something resembling a pure version, and let the voters decide. Call elections when there are issues to be decided, not just on arbitrary schedules! This is what other countries do and it works just fine, and they don’t have these stupid government shut downs and other nonsense that makes us look like buffoons.
briansd1
July 29, 2011 @
4:05 PM
mlarsen23 wrote: There is no [quote=mlarsen23] There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have. [/quote]
Another thing is that we have a younger population, but we spend much more per person on heath care.
It’s clear that some things in our health care system have gone awry.
an
July 29, 2011 @
4:41 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:I
By better [quote=mlarsen23]I
By better economically, I mainly mean that many of the countries there have lower unemployment and an equal or higher standard of living. Obviously they are smaller countries, although in aggregate Europe has a larger economy than the US. There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have.[/quote]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
You’re right, there’s no apple to apple comparison. We eat more and our portions are much bigger. We probably walk less as well, since our cities are not as dense. If there’s no real apple to apple comparison, we can’t really assume that if we implement their solution, it’ll work for us.
Arraya
July 29, 2011 @
5:03 PM
AN wrote:
If you compare [quote=AN]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
[/quote]
Your probably correct in this assessment. Though, the west is all tied to the hip with this debt problem. Debt has fueled our economies over the past few decades. Paying down debt will reduce GDP, likewise, increasing it will not help anything. We are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. All of us.
The PIGGS are the periphery of the EU so they will get clobbered first, then it will move inward.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
5:06 PM
AN wrote:
If you compare [quote=AN]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
You’re right, there’s no apple to apple comparison. We eat more and our portions are much bigger. We probably walk less as well, since our cities are not as dense. If there’s no real apple to apple comparison, we can’t really assume that if we implement their solution, it’ll work for us.[/quote]
The southern European countries are not doing better, but the northern European countries are. Countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany and France for that matter show that is possible to combine an intelligent health care system and a compassionate safety net with a dynamic economy, and we should attempt to emulate the good policies they have. That’s not to say we should copy every policy – the Euro has turned out to be a disaster, and is in large part responsible for the depth of the problems in many of the Southern countries. Even a country like Greece, that is really poorly managed and not an example for anyone would be much better off if it could have devalued its currency.
As far as healthcare goes, take a look at this chart:
We are spending 50% more than the average OECD country on healthcare as a percentage of our GDP, and well more than even the richest OECD countries. Healthcare is just one of those things where the market doesn’t work — it can’t when the seller gets to tell the buyer how much they need to buy and what they should pay and the buyer both has to and wants to listen. This expense difference isn’t happening because we eat too much.
Healthcare is STILL the single biggest long term fiscal problem we have, and the Obama reform is just a start in getting us where we need to be. Doctors, pharma companies, and med device companies all need to get paid less, health insurance companies should be transformed into MUCH smaller businesses focused on supplemental policies, and everyone else needs to get used to having the government (yes, the government) tell them that it can’t afford expensive care that isn’t proven to work.
an
July 29, 2011 @
5:31 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:Healthcare is [quote=mlarsen23]Healthcare is STILL the single biggest long term fiscal problem we have, and the Obama reform is just a start in getting us where we need to be. Doctors, pharma companies, and med device companies all need to get paid less, health insurance companies should be transformed into MUCH smaller businesses focused on supplemental policies, and everyone else needs to get used to having the government (yes, the government) tell them that it can’t afford expensive care that isn’t proven to work.[/quote]
I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t want the government to tell me that I can’t get a certain operation because it’s too expensive. Especially if I pay for the coverage. However, if I don’t pay into the system, then I can decide if certain operation is worth it to me. Just look at the plastic surgery industry or the lasik surgery industry. Their cost have been going down over time. Insurance doesn’t cover it, so people shop around and people decide if certain operation is worth it to them. Those Doctors are making great money too.
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.
briansd1
July 29, 2011 @
5:50 PM
AN wrote:
The biggest [quote=AN]
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.[/quote]
I think that doctors and medical clinics have labs have cross ownership intersts. Ordering more tests puts more money in their pockets.
I think that one problem is patients never see bills and are never told of the costs ahead of time.
an
July 29, 2011 @
6:02 PM
briansd1 wrote:I think that [quote=briansd1]I think that doctors and medical clinics have labs have cross ownership intersts. Ordering more tests puts more money in their pockets.
I think that one problem is patients never see bills and are never told of the costs ahead of time.[/quote]
Do you have proof of the cross ownership? Even if you’re right about the cross ownership, I doubt they’re ordering extra labs to make money, especially when there’s always a threat of a law suite.
I do agree about patients not seeing the bills as one of the problem. People don’t shop around like they do w/ plastic surgery or lasik.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
6:29 PM
briansd1 wrote:Do you have [quote=briansd1]Do you have proof of the cross ownership? Even if you’re right about the cross ownership, I doubt they’re ordering extra labs to make money, especially when there’s always a threat of a law suite.
I do agree about patients not seeing the bills as one of the problem. People don’t shop around like they do w/ plastic surgery or lasik.[/quote]
Doctors respond to financial incentives like anyone else, and they can and do manipulate various elements of how they practice and get reimbursed to do so, with no clinical benefit. Much more healthcare should be provided by doctors who get paid a flat salary, with no financial incentives tied directly to what care they provide.
When care starts really getting expensive, patients are not in a position to shop around. They don’t have the expertise to make an informed decision about what the best care choice is, they may in fact be incapacitated in any case. That kind of thing might work for the most routine care, but it would never work for the care that really is costing lots of money.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
6:18 PM
AN wrote:
I guess that’s [quote=AN]
I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t want the government to tell me that I can’t get a certain operation because it’s too expensive. Especially if I pay for the coverage. However, if I don’t pay into the system, then I can decide if certain operation is worth it to me. Just look at the plastic surgery industry or the lasik surgery industry. Their cost have been going down over time. Insurance doesn’t cover it, so people shop around and people decide if certain operation is worth it to them. Those Doctors are making great money too.
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.[/quote]
Nobody wants anybody telling them how much healthcare they can buy. But very few people can afford to buy as much healthcare as they might want, especially as they get sicker and need more expensive healthcare to stay healthy or alive. So we have to buy insurance, and insurance companies tell you what operations you can get. In countries with government run health insurance, you get more for your money because the government is a powerful negotiator with all providers – much more powerful than any insurance company. That is the primary reason that healthcare is so much cheaper in other countries. The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.
Lasik, plastic surgery – for those the market works because they are optional. The doctor may tell you you need plastic surgery, but it’s easy to decide you don’t. Not so when it comes to cancer treatment.
an
July 29, 2011 @
6:44 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:The providers [quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
6:54 PM
AN wrote:
Which is why I’m [quote=AN]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
I agree, I don’t think doctors should have personal liability for errors. In addition, I think the government should pay for Doctor’s education too. Doctors should be doctors because they want to help people, not because they want (or need) to make a bunch of money. Again, this is how they do it in many European countries.
CA renter
July 30, 2011 @
3:33 AM
mlarsen23 wrote:AN [quote=mlarsen23][quote=AN]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
I agree, I don’t think doctors should have personal liability for errors. In addition, I think the government should pay for Doctor’s education too. Doctors should be doctors because they want to help people, not because they want (or need) to make a bunch of money. Again, this is how they do it in many European countries.[/quote]
Could not agree more.
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
2:11 AM
AN wrote:mlarsen23 wrote:The [quote=AN][quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
In reality, providers (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) have been refusing medicare patients for 30 years now. This is not anything new. In areas that lack generous health facility coverage, providers can get away with this more easily.
As for the lower prices being negotiated by Medicare, likewise, this is nothing new, and has been going on since the 70s. In reality, this represented a proactive, and highly effective, method of cutting health care costs. So effective, in fact, that private health insurance companies adopted many of the features of the Medicare system themselves (prior to that, they had been simply rejecting legitimate claims to save money).
The problem today isn’t the prices being negotiated by Medicare. It’s a combination of (1) the significant increase in the numbers of Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries; (2) the level and degree of care that they have come to expect; and (3) the fact that many of these patients are more sick more often than ever before; in many cases, it is lifestyle-related morbidity. Thanks to the uninformed public’s (the ones who, incidentally, are screaming for fiscal restraint) eager leap onto the Republican health care misinformation bandwagon, healthcare reformers are trying to counter the negative effects of nonexistent death panels and euthanasia protocols.
The plain truth of the matter is that there need to be limits on the type and amount of heath care provided. Indeed, there ARE limits being placed now – not by the government, but by private insurance companies who cherry pick their customers, and then refuse to authorize services for which they are legally liable, or dropping the enrollees once they are diagnosed with a serious illness. The increase in health insurance premiums is not due to Obamacare; every insurance plan that I or my husband have been enrolled in through work has significantly raised their premiums each year for the past 20 (If you doubt this, ask yourself why every major health insurer in the United States continues to make astronomical profits on their enrollees. This is not opinion, and I am not asking you to check a blog; the financial statements of every insurer is accessible to the general public).
As mentioned, there need to be limits. But not the type being utilized by insurance companies. Medicare/Medicaid dollars are resources, as are the health care providers and facilities. Those resources should be distributed according to a cost/benefit ratio. We currently provide services to 85 year-olds using the same protocols used for 30 year-olds. Cold and heartless as it may sound, people over the age of 80 should not receive experimental treatments, nor should they receive repeated, increasingly complex surgeries or procedures for conditions that respond minimally or not at all to basic intervention. In addition, they should not be candidates for harsh chemotherapy regimens that lower their immune system function to life-threatening levels. People who are non-compliant should be addressed as the extremely poor risk that they are, and not be placed on lists for transplants or other astronomically expensive procedures that carry extremely high morbidity rates.
By the same token, much more attention needs to be focused on palliative care for the elderly, particularly on giving seriously ill seniors a good quality of life. Very frequently, elderly people do not die from their diagnosed illnesses, but from the treatments for them. An elderly patient with breast cancer can have 3 or 4 functional, pain-free, high quality years of life with palliative treatment compared with the same number, or fewer years dealing with the pain and serious side effects of treatment that will not result in a “cure”.
Many people will complain loudly, stating that it should be their choice, when the reality is that the “choice” is not up to them or their providers. Because there are procedures and therapies available does not mean that they should be utilized. There are many things to consider, and a patient’s quality of life should be foremost among them. In reality, in the U.S., it is typically not. In fact, this is what was translated into talk of “death panels” by a GOP-hired public relations hack two years ago.
I’ve worked in this field for the past 30 years, and I was married for 12 years to an EVP for a leading health insurer. I’ve been able to study the complexities of this situation from all aspects. Dealing with this situation will require that the American public stop buying into the bullshit being spoonfed them by politicians on all sides, that they actually look at what the private insurance companies are DOING instead of believing everything they are saying, and, most of all, lose their entitled attitudes about the services and choices they should have. Quite honestly, those of them that are crowing about the superiority of the Paul Ryan voucher plan should ask themselves what kind of policy are they really going to be able to getfrom a private health insurer – at ANY price – when they are 65 years old. As for Ryan’s suggestion that seniors will be able to put aside extra money for uncovered expenses in Health Savings Accounts, I’m not sure how I’m going to come up with an extra $250K over the next 10 years to accomplish that. If someone out there with superior financial knowledge has any suggestions for me, I’d definitely welcome them.
As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.
CA renter
July 30, 2011 @
3:32 AM
eavesdropper wrote:AN [quote=eavesdropper][quote=AN][quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
In reality, providers (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) have been refusing medicare patients for 30 years now. This is not anything new. In areas that lack generous health facility coverage, providers can get away with this more easily.
As for the lower prices being negotiated by Medicare, likewise, this is nothing new, and has been going on since the 70s. In reality, this represented a proactive, and highly effective, method of cutting health care costs. So effective, in fact, that private health insurance companies adopted many of the features of the Medicare system themselves (prior to that, they had been simply rejecting legitimate claims to save money).
The problem today isn’t the prices being negotiated by Medicare. It’s a combination of (1) the significant increase in the numbers of Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries; (2) the level and degree of care that they have come to expect; and (3) the fact that many of these patients are more sick more often than ever before; in many cases, it is lifestyle-related morbidity. Thanks to the uninformed public’s (the ones who, incidentally, are screaming for fiscal restraint) eager leap onto the Republican health care misinformation bandwagon, healthcare reformers are trying to counter the negative effects of nonexistent death panels and euthanasia protocols.
The plain truth of the matter is that there need to be limits on the type and amount of heath care provided. Indeed, there ARE limits being placed now – not by the government, but by private insurance companies who cherry pick their customers, and then refuse to authorize services for which they are legally liable, or dropping the enrollees once they are diagnosed with a serious illness. The increase in health insurance premiums is not due to Obamacare; every insurance plan that I or my husband have been enrolled in through work has significantly raised their premiums each year for the past 20 (If you doubt this, ask yourself why every major health insurer in the United States continues to make astronomical profits on their enrollees. This is not opinion, and I am not asking you to check a blog; the financial statements of every insurer is accessible to the general public).
As mentioned, there need to be limits. But not the type being utilized by insurance companies. Medicare/Medicaid dollars are resources, as are the health care providers and facilities. Those resources should be distributed according to a cost/benefit ratio. We currently provide services to 85 year-olds using the same protocols used for 30 year-olds. Cold and heartless as it may sound, people over the age of 80 should not receive experimental treatments, nor should they receive repeated, increasingly complex surgeries or procedures for conditions that respond minimally or not at all to basic intervention. In addition, they should not be candidates for harsh chemotherapy regimens that lower their immune system function to life-threatening levels. People who are non-compliant should be addressed as the extremely poor risk that they are, and not be placed on lists for transplants or other astronomically expensive procedures that carry extremely high morbidity rates.
By the same token, much more attention needs to be focused on palliative care for the elderly, particularly on giving seriously ill seniors a good quality of life. Very frequently, elderly people do not die from their diagnosed illnesses, but from the treatments for them. An elderly patient with breast cancer can have 3 or 4 functional, pain-free, high quality years of life with palliative treatment compared with the same number, or fewer years dealing with the pain and serious side effects of treatment that will not result in a “cure”.
Many people will complain loudly, stating that it should be their choice, when the reality is that the “choice” is not up to them or their providers. Because there are procedures and therapies available does not mean that they should be utilized. There are many things to consider, and a patient’s quality of life should be foremost among them. In reality, in the U.S., it is typically not. In fact, this is what was translated into talk of “death panels” by a GOP-hired public relations hack two years ago.
I’ve worked in this field for the past 30 years, and I was married for 12 years to an EVP for a leading health insurer. I’ve been able to study the complexities of this situation from all aspects. Dealing with this situation will require that the American public stop buying into the bullshit being spoonfed them by politicians on all sides, that they actually look at what the private insurance companies are DOING instead of believing everything they are saying, and, most of all, lose their entitled attitudes about the services and choices they should have. Quite honestly, those of them that are crowing about the superiority of the Paul Ryan voucher plan should ask themselves what kind of policy are they really going to be able to getfrom a private health insurer – at ANY price – when they are 65 years old. As for Ryan’s suggestion that seniors will be able to put aside extra money for uncovered expenses in Health Savings Accounts, I’m not sure how I’m going to come up with an extra $250K over the next 10 years to accomplish that. If someone out there with superior financial knowledge has any suggestions for me, I’d definitely welcome them.
As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
So glad you’re posting again, eavesdropper! Thank you for yet another one of your brilliant posts!
One thing that many of the anti-socialized-medicine types fail to address is the fact that we are **already** paying for the most expensive patients — the elderly, the uninsured infant and maternity patients, the indigent, and uninsured children. What we’ve done is passed on all the expensive patients to the taxpayers, leaving only the profitable patients to the private insurance companies. IMHO, by moving all the private-market patients to a public system, our relative costs would drop dramatically.
I don’t think we need to limit choices at all, BTW. Insurance companies could still offer supplemental policies, and people could always pay cash for whatever services they want. It’s just that we should have a basic, “socialized” healthcare system that covers all U.S. citizens (and non-citizen residents who pay into the system). This would free up workers who would be better utilized in other companies or industries, but who are stuck with a particular employer because they are afraid of losing their health insurance.
jpinpb
July 30, 2011 @
8:50 AM
eavesdropper wrote:As for [quote=eavesdropper]As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
Agree that med-mal is not as common as they claim it is. It takes a lot of money and time to file a med-mal suit. Most attorneys will NOT do it. There is just too much work involved and not much reward. You have to get an attorney that specializes in it and they have to find expert doctors who are willing to turn on their fellow doctors. Not saying it can’t be done. There are some doctors who will do the right thing and if another doctor really screws up, they will come forward.
For a med-mal case to be filed, there has to be a real meritorious claim with some major errors and serious injury. And even then you have to be lucky enough to find an attorney willing to take the case, since it’s not easy money for them and a lot of work they have to put into it.
Maybe a long time ago med-mal was a problem. But that’s no longer the case, yet they are still riding that wave of med-mal cases and insurance, blah, blah. Doctors have med-mal insurance to CYA themselves if they really screw up. The insurance company makes out again, b/c I question how often they have to pay out. But again, when they do on those really botched up cases, they probably have to shell out quite a bit.
It’s good that we as patients have some recourse, just in case. But it is not as easy and as common as being claimed.
an
July 30, 2011 @
10:53 AM
jpinpb wrote:eavesdropper [quote=jpinpb][quote=eavesdropper]As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
Agree that med-mal is not as common as they claim it is. It takes a lot of money and time to file a med-mal suit. Most attorneys will NOT do it. There is just too much work involved and not much reward. You have to get an attorney that specializes in it and they have to find expert doctors who are willing to turn on their fellow doctors. Not saying it can’t be done. There are some doctors who will do the right thing and if another doctor really screws up, they will come forward.
For a med-mal case to be filed, there has to be a real meritorious claim with some major errors and serious injury. And even then you have to be lucky enough to find an attorney willing to take the case, since it’s not easy money for them and a lot of work they have to put into it.
Maybe a long time ago med-mal was a problem. But that’s no longer the case, yet they are still riding that wave of med-mal cases and insurance, blah, blah. Doctors have med-mal insurance to CYA themselves if they really screw up. The insurance company makes out again, b/c I question how often they have to pay out. But again, when they do on those really botched up cases, they probably have to shell out quite a bit.
It’s good that we as patients have some recourse, just in case. But it is not as easy and as common as being claimed.[/quote]
Are you gals saying that the European system where patients can’t sue the pants off their doctor is not working? Their single payer system work in Europe because of everything that go around it. I doubt it’ll work in a vacuum. Which include free education for all (so doctors don’t graduate with a $300k+ of debt), low reward for suing doctors, etc.
My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.
scaredyclassic
July 30, 2011 @
11:25 AM
you know the details on the you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…
an
July 30, 2011 @
11:38 AM
walterwhite wrote:you know [quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
This is how hot the water has to be to cause 3rd degree burn: http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html
If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving. What’s your definition of supermolten? How hot do you boil your water? If you noticed, coffee shops coffee are still very hot, they just have a label saying it’s hot and the lady get millions.
UCGal
July 30, 2011 @
11:41 AM
AN wrote:walterwhite [quote=AN][quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
This is how hot the water has to be to cause 3rd degree burn: http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html
If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving. What’s your definition of supermolten? How hot do you boil your water? If you noticed, coffee shops coffee are still very hot, they just have a label saying it’s hot and the lady get millions.[/quote]
She was a passenger. The car was parked and she’d taken the lid off to add cream and sugar. She was NOT driving.
an
July 30, 2011 @
1:31 PM
UCGal wrote:
She was a [quote=UCGal]
She was a passenger. The car was parked and she’d taken the lid off to add cream and sugar. She was NOT driving.[/quote]
You’re right. After researching this some more, I still don’t agree with the law suit. If the product was used properly, no injury would occur. All this law suit did was get McDonald and all other companies that sell hot beverage to put a label saying it’s hot. Just like have a label saying the knives and saws are sharp. If a really sharp knife was sold w/out that label and I accidentally drop it on myself and cut myself, can I sue the company?
It’s a little more complicated: burns caused by hot liquid are compounded by clothing worn by the victim. Believe me, it would have been much better if she had been naked. She was wearing a heavy sweatsuit that was soaked, resulting in prolonged exposure of the affected area of skin to the burn-causing agent. Keeping this in mind, check your graph again.
[quote=AN]If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving…..[/quote]
Note: Plaintiff was NOT driving, and car was at a complete standstill in a parking place.
She DID attempt to remove the cup lid while the cup was between her legs. She admitted to her negligence, and the jury factored her part in on their decision. Yes, this was not a very smart thing to do, and I’m willing to bet that she never again attempted to do so.
[quote=AN] How hot do you boil your water? [/quote]
Usually to the boiling point of water: 100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Farenheit.
[quote=AN] What’s your definition of supermolten? [/quote]
Can’t speak for scaredy, and definitely can’t verify the official temperature of “supermolten”. But I’ll give you you’re point 140 degrees Farenheit probably wouldn’t qualify.
However, McDonalds admitted that its franchise operations are REQUIRED to maintain the holding temperature of coffee between 180 and 190 degrees Farenheit. If the coffee had been recently brewed utilizing boiling water, the temp could have been even higher (see “boiling point” info above).
There’s no question that the lowest required temperature of 180 degrees is quite a bit removed from 140 degrees. Check the chart again.
[quote=AN]the lady get millions.[/quote]
The lady didn’t get millions. In fact, she didn’t even get a million. Settlement was less than $600,000, and this was before attorneys’ fees, and court expenses (which were likely in the tens of thousands of dollars, or more).
If you want to talk about frivolous lawsuits and abuse and overuse of the courts, consider that the plaintiff requested less than $20K for reimbursement of medical bills and lost wages. McDonalds offered $800.
Abuse of the courts can go both ways.
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
1:11 PM
Yeah, I heard about that doc, Yeah, I heard about that doc, scaredy. It’s supposed to be very good, but haven’t seen it yet. However, I did some research into that case about six months ago.
You’re right: I think McDonalds policy was to keep their coffee at a holding temp of close to 200 degrees Farenheit (That certainly explains why their coffee always tastes like roofing tar). I’m not sure why it is necessary to keep it that hot, but I digress.
The details of this case have been distorted, and used for political gains, for over 20 years now – plenty of time for it to become part of urban legend lore. Some of the highlights:
— The plaintiff in the case, a 79 year-old woman, was a passenger, NOT the driver of the vehicle
— The car was at a complete standstill in a marked parking area when the plaintiff attempted to remove the lid on the cup to add sugar (not a terribly nefarious act)
— While doing this, plaintiff spilled contents of the cup on herself, sustaining second and third degree burns over her genital area, her buttocks, and her thighs, some of which required skin grafting.
She required almost 2 years of treatment, and was left with large amounts of scar tissue that were very sensitive to stimuli (temperature, clothing, etc.), causing severe chronic pain. The physical and emotional effects of the burns and treatment were exacerbated by her advanced age, and caused a much greater degree of morbidity than would have occurred in a younger person.
The plaintiff approached McDonalds to request that they pay for the uncovered medical bills, and for time she had missed from work (approx. $20K). McDonalds refused, and ultimately a suit was filed, went to trial, and the jury found that McDonalds had been negligent (BTW, it was also determined that the plaintiff had also been negligent).
The concept of risk management had been discussed on Piggs before, and some posters were of a mind that corporate risk “management” consists of hoping that nothing happens, and pretending that it hasn’t and denying everything when it does. In the “hot coffee” case, McDonalds was “helped out” by one of their managers who admitted it was true that the company had received several hundred complaints from customers regarding burns they had received from the coffee (think it was around 800 in a 10-yr period), but that McDs didn’t believe the number was high enough to warrant the company’s taking any action on the issue (now THERE’S an honest employee! Short-sighted and incompetent, but honest.)
A lot of people think that a negligent company will recognize that they can be sued for a huge amount of money, and will, therefore, be ready and willing to deal when approached with a reasonable offer to settle. Nothing could be further from the truth. What’s even worse is that, in the almost 20 years since the coffee case went to court, changes made under the politically-charged guise of “tort reform” have taken away our basic right to even seek legal redress in many of our states. “Arbitration” is what our rights have been reduced to, and contrary to its reasonable-sounding name, it is anything but.
I still don’t know how I feel about this case. Part of me, while horrified by the descriptions and photos of the plaintiff’s injuries, still believes that she chose to engage in an unsafe act for which McDonalds should not be held liable. In addition, I don’t believe that the court system should be used to force change in a corporation that continues a practice that results in repeated severe injuries. However, if corporations refuse to manage risk properly, posing a threat to the welfare of the public, how else can that be addressed?
CA renter
July 31, 2011 @
1:17 PM
walterwhite wrote:you know [quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
Yes. It’s easy for people to summarize it, and say that it was a BS lawsuit because the coffee was hot. That was not the case at all. McDonald’s knew the coffee was well above the recommended temperature, and it caused third-degree burns. IIRC, she had to have skin grafts, etc.
As much as people like to blame lawsuits for the high costs, it’s extremely important for patients/customers to have recourse when a doctor is negligent and causes extremely painful and/or life-long disabilities. Without this recourse, doctors would be even less careful, and these tragic mistakes would multiply. That’s not something I’m willing to tolerate; and yes, I’m willing to pay more so that the doctors are held accountable for their actions.
UCGal
July 30, 2011 @
11:39 AM
3rd degree burns over more 3rd degree burns over more than 5% of the skin and being willing to settle for less than the eventual 640k judgement is not a good example of frivolous tort. That case has been so distorted… and resulted in safer practices.
As to the argument that malpractice suits are common… here’s my anecdotal offering… as most of you know we built our granny flat to help in the care of my father in law who’s in a wheelchair. He’s in a wheelchair after going to the hospital for straightforward hip surgery, with robust health and full mental capacity. He came out of the surgery with aphasia of the brain effecting speech, motor skills, and mental faculty. The hospital circled the wagons and refused to release some of the medical records until the PA statute of limitations ran out… My mother in law talked to three attorneys who all refused to take the case because they felt the hospital would effectively stonewall. Of note, the hospital did NOT bill Medicare for the anesthia for the surgery – so we suspect that that’s the area that was botched. 3 lawyers agreed that malpractice had likely occurred, one was willing to take the case for a 200k retainer. 9.5 years later we are still dealing with this… Brain damage is not a acceptable result for hip surgery, IMO.
Here in CA there is tort limits on malpractice… I think it’s 200k plus actual expenses. This has not been adjusted for inflation since it went into effect in the 80’s.
jpinpb
July 30, 2011 @
12:06 PM
AN wrote:My wife is in the [quote=AN]My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.[/quote]
I work in the legal field and I can tell you that med-mal is the hardest and most difficult cases to file and you’d be hardpressed to find a good attorney to take on the case unless there is merit and money to be made. I am NOT saying that there aren’t any bogus personal injury cases that are filed against deep pocket companies, such as your example about suing McDonald’s over coffee. Personal injury and med-mal, two totally different things, comparing cantaloupe to tomatoes.
an
July 30, 2011 @
12:34 PM
Ok, I’m convinced. Doctors Ok, I’m convinced. Doctors are over paid and need to take less. The one stats I heard recently was, out of 130 doctors graduating out of UC medical, only 2 were family doctor. I wonder why?
Jp, if med-mal are so uncommon, why is the mal practice insurance so expensive? It seems like if you want government to help reduce cost, government should provide mal practice insurance at a cheap price too.
gromit
July 30, 2011 @
1:54 PM
Malpractice premiums are high Malpractice premiums are high because insurance companies are in the business of making money. They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums. I am an attorney and agree that medical malpractice claims are extremely tough to win and very hard fought. My dad is a doctor, so I am sympathetic to people in the medical industry, but it is also true that mistakes are made at hospitals (as anyone who’s had a family member in the hospital can probably attest). Those patients that are injured by their caregivers need some form of protection, and medical malpractice suits are all they’v got. Also, I’ll add that the McDonald’s story is worn out, and it’s true that it is frequently mischaracterized as nothing more than a “spilled coffee” suit (just as has been done here). It was more than that, as other people here have tried to explain. That’s not to say that the legal system isn’t imperfect, but it benefits huge corporations (who pay exhorbitant amounts of money to buy teams of lawyers to overwhelm the underfunded little guy) more often than it benefits the less powerful.
Of course, this budget fight has nothing to do with malpractice insurance or malpractice claims or plaintiffs’ suits. It has everything to do with intransigent zealotry and the difficulty of compromising with the narrow-minded.
an
July 30, 2011 @
2:33 PM
eavesdropper, please see my eavesdropper, please see my last post. I agree I had the facts wrong. But like I said, even with the correct facts, I still think it’s frivolous. If McDonalds’ coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burn with normal use, then I would agree that the lawsuit is not frivolous. Like my knife example or if you buy a saw, not put it on proper footing and you have an accident and the saw cut off your hand. Can you sue if they don’t have a sign saying it’s sharp and can cut you?
So, the government should go after the insurance companies for charging too much for mal practice insurance then, since it’s not likely to get sue by mal practice. I do agree that mistakes do happen. We are human after all. I’m not envious of doctors. Their jobs are very stressful and mistakes are more likely to happen when you’re stressed and tired. We all make mistakes in our jobs, and to expect doctors to be free of mistakes is quite unreasonable. It’s one thing if the doctor is maliciously causing hard vs a mistake under pressure.
So, are you guys/gals say that doctors do not practice defensive medicine and they’re just milking their patients?
Back to the original topic, I wonder why Democrats didn’t raise the debt ceiling when they had all 3 branches, especially when they know they’ll have too by 2011 if they don’t.
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
4:35 PM
gromit wrote:Malpractice [quote=gromit]Malpractice premiums are high because insurance companies are in the business of making money. They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums. [/quote]
gromit, awesome!! Talk about hitting the nail on the head!
The only suggestion I would make is that insurance companies have always been in the business of making money, and have an impressive record of success, I might add. What they have done is to change the business model, and not in a good way.
Insurance, by its very nature, implies the acceptance of risk. 60 or 70 years ago, your success and profitability as an insurer was entirely dependent upon your skill at managing risk. This was accomplished through the employment and utilization of educated and experienced employees: actuaries, statisticians, underwriters, and claims examiners. There was not a single operation of the company in which risk was not carefully – indeed, obsessively – managed.
Without delving too deeply, that is no longer the model and hasn’t been for several decades. Plain and simple, insurance companies do not believe that they have to accept ANY risk. They do not make a profit by managing risk, but by refusing to honor the contracts they have with their policyholders. There is a myriad of methods by which they accomplish this, none of them ethical and only a few that are actually legal. But they spend huge amounts of premium revenue on lobbyists to keep public opinion at just the right temperature, and are equally generous with the crack in-house legal team they maintain to deal with pesky policyholders, and government officials who just won’t play ball. What is clear is that insurance companies engage in highway robbery with the full assistance and endorsement of much of America’s middle class.
Why does NO ONE ever question the role played by the insurance companies? They are right up there next to oil companies in terms of charging outrageous amounts of money for their product, while reporting dizzying levels of profitability each quarter. I do not understand this – it’s not like it’s rocket science. You’ve got journalists, pundits, politicians…all the “experts” examining the problems of high health costs in depth….and not one of them ever delves into the role of the insurance companies. Very, very few even mention the insurance companies as HAVING a role. WTF??!!
[quote=gromit] Of course, this budget fight has nothing to do with malpractice insurance or malpractice claims or plaintiffs’ suits. It has everything to do with intransigent zealotry and the difficulty of compromising with the narrow-minded.[/quote]
Permit me to replace “difficulty” with “impossibility” in what is, otherwise, a beautifully-crafted and disturbingly accurate summing-up of the situation.
an
July 30, 2011 @
4:44 PM
gromit wrote:They capitalize [quote=gromit]They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums.[/quote]
Why can’t doctors practice without malpractice insurance? Is that the law from the government?
an
July 30, 2011 @
7:09 PM
They need more money so they They need more money so they can spend $900 for a $7 switch: Report: U.S. Contractor in Iraq Charges Pentagon $900 for $7 Control Switch, http://fxn.ws/qHqRme
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
8:32 PM
AN wrote:gromit wrote:They [quote=AN][quote=gromit]They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums.[/quote]
Why can’t doctors practice without malpractice insurance? Is that the law from the government?[/quote]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm.
However, many corporations/health systems require that their personnel carry professional liability insurance, also, so that their liability is limited in cases where charges of malpractice or incompetence are made.
This has been going on for a long, long time; the necessity for professional liability insurance is nothing new. However, about 20 years ago, the premiums began to rise at an astronomical rate. Coincidentally, that’s when you started to hear the “frivolous lawsuit” horror stories. Whether there really had been an exponential increase in the number of lawsuits, or if they had simply been a proactive PR effort on the part of the insurance companies, I’m not sure. Here is an excellent oversight of the situation by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonpartisan group that funds a wide variety of healthcare-related research. I definitely recommend reading it if onerous malpractice insurance requirements or tort reform are concerns of yours.
The fact remains that the insurance companies have benefited enormously from the publicity surrounding malpractice insurance. They managed to create a perception of rampant malpractice lawsuit abuse that far exceeded the reality, that served to justify the necessity for the huge premiums they were charging doctors. Their campaign created such an atmosphere of resentment against all of the (nonexistent) people who were reaping millions from frivolous malpractice lawsuits, that it provided an enormous amount of momentum to politically-motivated “tort reform” legislation that, in reality, severely limited legal and economic redress by those who were seriously injured in genuine acts of medical malpractice.
I was asked earlier how I felt about the additional burden that malpractice premiums placed on high-quality physicians who were being forced to practice defensive medicine. Having worked in this environment, I was aware that, in many cases, the employer places more emphasis on the possibility of lawsuits than many physicians place on themselves. Good physicians are well aware of the reasons why patients choose to pursue litigation, and many are proactive in ways that do not require “defensive” medicine. A significant number of “defensive” medicine practices and regulations are actually set forth by hospitals and health systems, as “risk management” measures meant to reduce their own chances of being sued.
In many cases, decisions/responses by hospitals and health systems in certain circumstances are what trigger an injured patient’s decision to take legal action. In addition, many of these entities are reluctant to take action against obviously impaired or incompetent physicians/practitioners because of staff shortages or personnel costs. In addition, these employers can create an atmosphere of fear in which other personnel will be pressured to cover up for impaired/incompetent practitioners.
Perhaps if the laws were changed where hospitals and health systems were forced to assume all of the risk for any injuries caused by a practitioner in their employ (i.e., the practitioner could not be sued), it would discourage the methods of “risk management” I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Under those circumstances, a hospital might be more vigilant about policing the physicians/practitioners in their employ who had demonstrated impairment or incompetence in the past, and not exposing unknowing patients to the danger of being treated by them.
an
July 30, 2011 @
9:10 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
Many [quote=eavesdropper]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm[/quote]
I don’t know about other profession but I’m 100% sure nurses do not need to get their own insurance. The hospital they work for have their own insurance and it covers their nurses.
But, it seems like the government is giving the insurance company the free ticket to charge whatever price they want, since professional don’t have an option to opt out if it get too expensive.
gromit
July 31, 2011 @
12:36 PM
AN wrote:eavesdropper [quote=AN][quote=eavesdropper]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm[/quote]
I don’t know about other profession but I’m 100% sure nurses do not need to get their own insurance. The hospital they work for have their own insurance and it covers their nurses.
But, it seems like the government is giving the insurance company the free ticket to charge whatever price they want, since professional don’t have an option to opt out if it get too expensive.[/quote]
AN– yes, most state governments require doctors to hold medical malpractice insurance in order to practice.
And yes, you’re right — insurance companies hold all the cards. I mentioned I’m a lawyer, and I had the chance to work for a federal judge, and I can tell you from seeing some of the lawsuits that come through the courthouse that (from my perspective) not only are insurance companies in the business of taking your money in the form of insurance premiums, but they are also in the business of keeping your money in the form of denying coverage if they can help it. Insurance coverage litigation is what it’s called when insurance companies decide to sue you rather than pay. They do it at the big boy level, when there are millions at stake; not so much at the garden variety individual consumer level.
The idea that old people have a chance of getting decent medical insurance from private companies, and that we don’t need Medicare to protect the aging and aged– all I can say is, and I say this with all the eloquence I can muster: HA!!!! Also: AS IF!!! As if there would be policies they could afford that would actually cover any medical condition they might, in the world of reality, develop. As if.
Just my two cents– but I’m a cheapskate, so please don’t waste ’em.
equalizer
July 30, 2011 @
12:27 PM
AN wrote:
My wife is in the [quote=AN]
My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.[/quote]
“In Malpractice Trials, Juries Rarely Have the Last Word” -WSJ Large Awards Grab Attention But Often Aren’t Paid Out; Fodder for Debate on Caps.
“Large malpractice verdicts in New York were typically reduced to between 5% and 10% of the original verdict amount (90-95% reduction from headlines!). … Earlier this year, for instance, the U.S. Department of Justice published a study of medical-malpractice trials and verdicts rendered in 2001 in the nation’s 75 largest counties. Plaintiffs, it found, won only 27% of the time. That win rate, it noted, has changed little in the previous decade and is consistent with other studies that have examined the same issue.”
Ambulance lawyer has 73% chance of losing, so is he going to be able to afford to hire expensive experts, most who are are not affiliated with the hospital or region due to wall of silence for a frivolous case? Logically, one must deduct that most wins are due to at least partial negligence.
BTW, the McDonalds coffee case plaintiff (age 79, passenger in car) had non-frivolous injuries – 7 days in hospital with third degree burns. Plaintiff wanted $20K, MDC offered $800. Mediator for Judge proposed $200K before trial. Final outcome was private settlement in range of $500K. Note that this was most sympathetic plaintiff you could find. Why did they not privately settle with NDA? They must have wanted to lose the case and use the loss as way to get PR machine for tort reform. Worked perfectly, don’t see any coffee lawsuits today.
Again, ambulance chasers and Again, ambulance chasers and personal injury and accidents are totally different than medical malpractice where a doctor was negligent. There is a lot involved in proving the standard of care, the injuries, the outright negligence and getting expert witnesses to testify as to the doctor’s errors. A lot of work for not that much money after all said and done. The fear of getting sued might linger over the heads of doctors and cause them to be more careful (as they should be) and as a result, the risk of suit causes higher insurance premiums, but the reality is that there are not many med-mal cases that exist, especially compared to personal injury and/or class action.
an
July 30, 2011 @
12:40 PM
So, you’re saying mal So, you’re saying mal practice suit are uncommon, yet the insurance premium is high. That doesn’t make much sense. Why is that?
jpinpb
July 30, 2011 @
1:36 PM
AN wrote:So, you’re saying [quote=AN]So, you’re saying mal practice suit are uncommon, yet the insurance premium is high. That doesn’t make much sense. Why is that?[/quote]
Because before laws changed, there was more money to be made by attorneys. Now there are limits and by the time the attorney pays for expert witnesses (which have increased their hourly to exorbident figures) the attorneys want a clear-cut case that is undisputable negligence. Way easier, quicker and more money to be made by doing class action and P.I. than med-mal. But since the risk is there for the doctors and b/c the med-mal cases that do occur, the payout is high, the insurance companies charge the doctors for the inherent danger, just b/c there is the possibility.
If an attorney has a chance to sue McDonald’s deep pocket w/clear-cut injury, versus working hard on a med-mal for a possible minimal award, the attorney will take the P.I. case. Seriously, the med-mal attorneys are specialists and fewer and fewer and very selective about the cases they take.
Arraya
July 29, 2011 @
4:09 PM
Given the transformation of Given the transformation of the industrial revolution and educational and technological trends over the last 100 years “upward mobility” is very hard to measure. Because there was a general increase in living standards(education, health, access to technology) for everybody. So, it kind of gets blurred with the general material comfort increase and educational gains across the spectrum. The major population-wide educational gains went from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century, then have been receding since then. Interestingly, general population health improvement trends followed pretty closely. It started a little earlier, like 1800, with it peaking in the US, in the late 60s, and receding since then(Americans have been becoming less healthy for 50 years). As an aside, major health gains were made before modern medicine. They were actually achieved with basic public health measures and nutritional improvements.
If you go back 200 or so years ago, only white men were educated in significant amounts. Then the well educated, beyond the basics, were only the upper classes. Also, people only lived to their 40s 200 years ago.
But now, we’ve been banging our heads against the wall for decades. We’ve stopped improving as a society a long time ago and have started to decay. It’s systemic.
afx114
July 29, 2011 @
4:39 PM
Scandinavia also has oil. Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.
Arraya
July 29, 2011 @
4:42 PM
afx114 wrote:Scandinavia also [quote=afx114]Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.[/quote]
The US was the Saudi Arabia of the 50s. But, yeah, Norway’s unemployment rate hoovers between 2-3% with massive safety nets
an
July 29, 2011 @
4:55 PM
Arraya wrote:afx114 [quote=Arraya][quote=afx114]Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.[/quote]
The US was the Saudi Arabia of the 50s. But, yeah, Norway’s unemployment rate hoovers between 2-3% with massive safety nets[/quote]
What’s Norway’s population and what are their major industries?
Arraya
July 29, 2011 @
5:00 PM
I don’t know. They do have a I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.
mlarsen23
July 29, 2011 @
5:08 PM
Arraya wrote:I don’t know. [quote=Arraya]I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.[/quote]
Norway has oil and it makes everything easier for them, but Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands don’t and they are doing well too.
an
July 29, 2011 @
5:22 PM
Arraya wrote:I don’t know. [quote=Arraya]I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.[/quote]
That’s my point exactly. Similar to North Dakota and South Dakota right now with the oil sand. Their unemployment is 3-4% but their population is tiny and the jobs and $ from oil is doing wonder for them. But there’s not enough oil to support the entire US population like it can w/ Norway or North Dakota.
poorgradstudent
July 27, 2011 @
5:08 PM
KSMountain wrote:If you [quote=KSMountain]If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
What if you honestly believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle? That there are steep, rocky paths to success for those with ability, but the affluent enjoy wide, broad flat streets and open doors? That who you know is often more important than what you know, and who you know is a product of money and power?
The “Google Guys” were the son of two computer science professors and the son of highly educated former soviet PhDs. I’d be willing to bet the Burt’s Bees lady got a lot of financial support from her family in starting her business. Steve Jobs, while adopted, grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. Mark Zuckerberg is the child of a Doctor and a Dentist. Obviously it didn’t hurt to have good genes, but do any of us think Zuckerberg would have gone to Harvard if he grew up in a household making $50,000 a year?
Is the US the land of opportunity? Certainly. Is it a level playing field? Not even close. I’m grateful for the programs we do have for education; I personally benefited greatly from opportunities paid for by federal tax dollars. I’d love to see those kinds of programs expanded. We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.
CA renter
July 28, 2011 @
3:49 AM
poorgradstudent [quote=poorgradstudent][quote=KSMountain]If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
What if you honestly believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle? That there are steep, rocky paths to success for those with ability, but the affluent enjoy wide, broad flat streets and open doors? That who you know is often more important than what you know, and who you know is a product of money and power?
The “Google Guys” were the son of two computer science professors and the son of highly educated former soviet PhDs. I’d be willing to bet the Burt’s Bees lady got a lot of financial support from her family in starting her business. Steve Jobs, while adopted, grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. Mark Zuckerberg is the child of a Doctor and a Dentist. Obviously it didn’t hurt to have good genes, but do any of us think Zuckerberg would have gone to Harvard if he grew up in a household making $50,000 a year?
Is the US the land of opportunity? Certainly. Is it a level playing field? Not even close. I’m grateful for the programs we do have for education; I personally benefited greatly from opportunities paid for by federal tax dollars. I’d love to see those kinds of programs expanded. We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.[/quote]
Good post, poorgradstudent. You are exactly right.
For every “success” story that gets bandied about (gotta keep that dream alive, so the unwashed masses will continue to vote against their own best interests), there are tens of thousands who have failed.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with founder-CEO types, who grow their own businesses, making millions/billions of dollars. That being said, if they want the limited liability provided by our legal system, then their rewards should be limited as well. If you want all the gains, you have to personally take all the risks, as well.
I DO have a problem with transient CEOs who just move from one corporation to the next — many of whom never seem to succeed, but always manage to find a new million-dollar+ position (because of connections, not talent); and I DO have a problem with parasites in the financial industry who simply profit from making speculative bets for a living — especially when they are the ones demanding to pay lower taxes than those who actually work for a living. Why in the world are these people paying lower taxes than those who work for a living?
I’ve never said anything about the “$250K club” being “rich.” That’s not at all what I’m referring to. IMHO, we need a steeply progressive income tax that begins to really take off after $1MM/year. Again, there can be exceptions for windfall profits, etc. by smoothing earnings over a few years, or something of that nature, but we cannot continue to pretend that speculators are entitled to 15% tax rates (or lower), while workers are asked to foot the bill for their reduced tax rates.
CA renter
July 28, 2011 @
4:18 AM
KSMountain wrote:jpinpb [quote=KSMountain][quote=jpinpb][quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.[/quote]
I *love* George Carlin. He’s been making me laugh since the 70’s.
But that particular piece is defeatist.
With that worldview, how do you explain the success of the google guys, or the yahoo guys, all of whom became billionaires starting while they were in school? They were not part of any nefarious “cabal” when they started, and “the man” did not hold them back. Same with Apple.
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
I’ve known quite a few people who have done very well for themselves in this country, and even more who have failed. So much of it is pure luck, and a lot of it involves having the right connections at the right time.
It’s also true that this was once a country where people could work hard and get ahead. They could work for the same employer for all/most of their working years, and retire with a comfortable pension. With their wages, they were able to buy a home for their family, a car, college for the kids, and the odd vacation. Those days are long gone, and it’s almost entirely due to the fact that these jobs have moved overseas because of cheap (not superior) labor, and a government that is 99% owned by the corporations/capitalists (those who make money via “investing,” as opposed to those who work for a living).
We have been royally screwed, and the credit bubble was used to mask the deterioration of the working middle class. Because of the credit bubble — and all the ensuing bailouts — we now have inflation that has destroyed what little purchasing power U.S. workers had left.
Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.
jpinpb
July 28, 2011 @
8:14 AM
CA renter wrote:Again, all of [quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU!
surveyor
July 28, 2011 @
10:34 AM
jpinpb wrote:CA renter [quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.
an
July 28, 2011 @
11:53 AM
surveyor wrote:jpinpb [quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
NAILED IT 😀
briansd1
July 28, 2011 @
12:31 PM
Surveyor, it’s always the Surveyor, it’s always the same broken record no matter the economic conditions, boom or bust.
Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion of unused cash right now.
Stop listening to that and look at how the policies affect you.
*
Back on topic to the debt ceiling.
Obama pretty much caved and gave the Republicans nothing but cuts. So what’s their problem. What else do they want?
It looks like the Republicans, by holding the economy hostage, won this battle. Let’s see how they do in the 2012 elections.
surveyor
July 28, 2011 @
1:19 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Corporations [quote=briansd1]
Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion of unused cash right now.
[/quote]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. Railing about the evil of corporations and talking about taxing them more will certainly not do it.
[quote=briansd1]
Obama pretty much caved and gave the Republicans nothing but cuts. So what’s their problem. What else do they want?
It looks like the Republicans, by holding the economy hostage, won this battle. Let’s see how they do in the 2012 elections.[/quote]
Oh, I think they will do just fine Brian.
briansd1
July 28, 2011 @
1:40 PM
surveyor wrote: Railing about [quote=surveyor] Railing about the evil of corporations and talking about taxing them more will certainly not do it.
[/quote]
Nobody said that corporations are evil.
What strikes me as really odd is that Republicans rail against the bailouts.
The bailouts are done with and cannot be undone. So do we give the banks a free ride? Or do we tax them to recover the bailout money and risk taxpayers took too bail them out.
Republicans should stop railing against bailouts if they won’t do anything to fix the situation.
Arraya
July 28, 2011 @
3:49 PM
Corporations are short-term, Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.
an
July 28, 2011 @
4:04 PM
Arraya wrote:Corporations are [quote=Arraya]Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.[/quote]
How does it feel to work(ed) for a sociopath?
njtosd
July 28, 2011 @
4:07 PM
Arraya wrote:Corporations are [quote=Arraya]Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.[/quote]
Yes. They are profit maximizers. That is why they exist – people put money in corporations because they want to make money. Failure to attempt to maximize value for shareholders is a failure of the BoD and officers of the corporation to fulfill their fiduciary duty, and gives rise to lawsuits.
The problem is that people look to corporations for purposes for which they were not designed. Corps are required to act legally, but they are not designed to support the public good (unless that goal is directly written into their articles of incorporation.) Some do illegal things, but almost every business that you deal with is a corporation – do you really think all businesses are the equivalent of sociopaths? Ralph’s Supermarket? In-and-Out Burger? Bed, Bath and Beyond? It might be very exciting and dramatic to say that, but I don’t think it’s true.
briansd1
July 28, 2011 @
5:32 PM
I understand Arraya better I understand Arraya better now.
He’s talking about the big picture, over decades. I agree with Arraya that corporations are a flaw in our system. Over the longer term, they are like sociopaths. We need to fix that flaw lest we endanger our long-term survival.
I believe that Arraya is saying that what works well in the short-term to medium-term might have destructive effects as they take on their own lives. Corporations are legal beings that never die.
Arraya is thinking at a higher level. That’s too lofty for me. It’s also hard for me to relate to the big picture over decades and centuries (as Arraya does when talking class stuggles and wealth/power worship by the poor).
I’d rather concentrate on the nitty gritty of everyday life and deal with what affects my life.
I enjoy Arraya’s comments because they make me think about the human character. I agree that humans need to evolve to a science-based society, otherwise, one-day we will destroy ourselves.
briansd1
July 30, 2011 @
8:35 AM
surveyor wrote:
Where would [quote=surveyor]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. [/quote]
Business will tell you that don’t have enough demand. Capital is not a problem right now. Thanks to the central banks, there’s a glut of capital throughout the world.
briansd1 wrote:surveyor [quote=briansd1][quote=surveyor]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. [/quote]
Business will tell you that don’t have enough demand. Capital is not a problem right now. Thanks to the central banks, there’s a glut of capital throughout the world.
More debt! More Advertising! We gotta keep the machine rolling!
Which is why the average american household tripled it’s debt in the last 30 years – to increase demand. Now, how did they know they needed to spend more to help the economy out? What could have possibly made them “chose” to change their consumption patterns from all of history ?
And the big question is: When the consumers are all up to their eyeballs in debt AND stuff… With mass bankruptcies and foreclosures abound. How do we get them to buy more stuff!
As I have said before. It is, ultimately, about demand. The economy runs on the assumption that their will always be enough demand to move enough money around so the system does not seize up. With larger and larger amounts of money and stuff, needed to be moved around, because of it’s exponential function. It’s a runaway train on a dark stormy night that just past a bridge out sign – that has resorted to pumping trillions of borrowed dollars into the economy just to keep it from falling apart and we still have anemic GDP!
Ah, the death of a consumption based economy. It’s going to be ugly, but it has to happen.
So who has a plan B?
mlarsen23
July 30, 2011 @
10:14 AM
Arraya wrote:
So who has a [quote=Arraya]
So who has a plan B?[/quote]
Plan A should have been for the Fed to target higher inflation 3% to 4%, around the levels we had during the Reagan years. It could have done this by stating an inflation target and printing money until it was achieved. That could have been combined with a much larger fiscal stimulus that would take advantage of the extremely low (at different points essentially zero or even negative) interest rates that the US gov’t would have to pay on borrowing. If we were to do that, private debt would effectively gradually reduce, the economy would get going again from the stimulus, and as the stimulus wore off inflation would have reduced the effective debt people owned, helping the economy to keep going. Meanwhile the US gov’t tax revenues would go up as the economy picked up, and would go up more when we raised taxes. So we’d pay back the debt we owed putting the gov’t fiscal situation in order, people would be back to work, and we would have improved our physical infrastructure, laying the groundwork for growth for years to come.
briansd1
July 30, 2011 @
10:32 AM
Arraya wrote:
Ah, the [quote=Arraya]
Ah, the death of a consumption based economy. It’s going to be ugly, but it has to happen.
So who has a plan B?[/quote]
We had 3 pillars of the global system. European stability, US consumption and Chinese growth.
The Chinese are now having problems creating a consumer economy to take the pressure off of America. Their intervention has resulted in a property bubble in China.
Europe is teetering and America is dysfunctional.
I guess plan B is to buy time and prevent the world economy from collapsing.
Eventually, China will become a big consumer market. India and other developing nations will also help.
In fits and starts, and ethnic and religious clashes, Europe will reform, increase immigration to build a younger population base and create more demand.
The USA, while in decline, will continue to provide economic and military stability. We will be facing similar problems to Europe as our population ages. But we still have a younger population and we can more easily increase immigration (with all the problems that creates).
Our big problem is health care. Who will pay and care for all the sick and obese Americans who will be handicapped in older age?
Thanks to the Tea Party, we will see cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and perhaps an indefinite delay in the implementation of health care reform.
I believe that in a few decades as Americans age, they will come to regret not having a “government-run health-care system.” But it will too late for them.
The wealth gap will continue to widen. Disenchanted Whites will continue to feel angry and throw their support to a Tea Party that works against their own economic interests, while at the same time railing against immigrants, Muslims and gays.
Michele Bachman could become vice-president to the next Republican president.
There could be revolution and regime change in China. That would throw a wrench in world economic growth but it will be good for American power.
Africa is potentially a next area for growth.
All in all, things won’t be easy but I believe that, with the right policies, we can keep economic growth going for another 50 to 100 years.
*
As much as people want to blame Obama, he’s just the fireman trying to put out fires to stabilize the system.
The self-induced debt ceiling crisis is making the economy worse, not better.
Cutting spending is the worse thing right now. The US government can borrow cheaply and can be a source of demand. American infrastructure is falling apart and it’s time to rebuild it.
I wonder if the Republicans care about the economy (as they claim they do), or they just care about sticking it to Obama.
BTW, I agree with mlarsen23 that the Fed should have done more.
briansd1
July 30, 2011 @
11:21 AM
Arraya wrote:
More debt! [quote=Arraya]
More debt! More Advertising! We gotta keep the machine rolling!
Which is why the average american household tripled it’s debt in the last 30 years – to increase demand. Now, how did they know they needed to spend more to help the economy out? What could have possibly made them “chose” to change their consumption patterns from all of history ?[/quote]
You’re right Arraya, the growth of credit in America in the last 30 years has been amazing. Car sales would plunge if people had to put large downpayments like in the old days.
20% on house purchases? Unthinkable. The real estate industry would not stand for that.
Plan B? Give the Chinese credit to buy stuff. TPTB might be able to pull it off and create a consumer society in China. That will carry the world economy for another 50 years.
BEIJING — Jin Jitao, an editor at a textbook publishing house, may be the prototype of China’s new urban consumer. Though he had never even heard of credit cards until 2004, he now owns 79.
Arraya wrote: So who has a [quote=Arraya] So who has a plan B?[/quote]
I do. Decriminalize drug use. At least marijuana.
We have lots of farmland; not nearly as much as fifty years back, but a goodly amount.
Let’s direct some research dollars to marijuana growing methods, and figure out how to grow the best grass in the world. Get Madison Avenue to use their incomparable marketing skills to push product globally.
Result: $$$$$$$$. Won’t last forever, but will help get us back on our feet until such time as we can turn our bad habits of the past around, and establish a new economy that is appropriate for the 21st century, instead of the early 20th century model to which we’ve been clinging.
What bad habits? Let’s see:
Aside from bemoaning the “loss of manufacturing”…
1. Looking to the undereducated, immature, “win-at-all-costs” idiots in Congress to fix what’s wrong. Seriously!! Many of them aren’t even aware of what IS wrong.
2. Stop looking for government handouts. This means all you people who loudly complain about “entitlement programs” at the same time you are benefiting from them. Social Security disability, SSI, food stamps, tax exemptions limited to small segments of the population, subsidies, Section 8 provisions (renters and landlords), school grants, government employees who charge nonexistent overtime and expenses…..the list goes on and on. And I’m not limiting the list to those who benefit from these things directly. If you have someone in your family who is drawing disability who doesn’t deserve it, or who is using school grant funds but never studies, or attends class, or who receives food stamps but manages to go gambling every weekend in Atlantic City, you’re a deadbeat as much as they are. We have ALL developed a sense of entitlement, and it frequently stems from being envious that the next guy is getting something that you’re not. Shit, get OVER it!
3. Start taking responsibility for our carelessly-spawned offspring. This means that you first have to stop being afraid of your toddler or second-grader. I mean, HOW does this happen? What I do know is that if you don’t stop being afraid of them now, you WILL have reason to be afraid of them in a few short years. And so will the rest of us.
Be a freakin’ PARENT already!
4. Start getting involved in your kids’ education. They are only in academics-oriented activities in school for about 16 to 20 hours a WEEK. Even if your kid was the only one that the teacher was responsible for, that wouldn’t be nearly enough time for him to learn what he needs. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one: there are 15 to 25 other kids just like yours in that same unfortunate teacher’s care, and they are all just as loud-mouthed, disrespectful, and disobedient as your brat is. Tell me again how this school thing is supposed to work?
Do your job, and participate in the education of your kids. Keep abreast of what they are studying in school, and how they are keeping up. Make sure that you are (1) aware of their assignments, (2) that they are actually doing them, and (3) that the quality of their work is age- and grade-appropriate. Do NOT make excuses for them, or rag on their teachers when they are “punished” for bad behavior. That’s not parenting. It’s not even “being your kids’ friend”. It’s saying, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you now, or your ability to survive life in the future”.
5. While you’re at it, recognize the gaps in your own education. If you aren’t helping your 4th grader with her math homework because you don’t understand it, or her social studies project because your reading comprehension skills fall short of being able to understand the teacher’s directions, DO something about it! BTW, I could be wrong, but it might have something to do with your ability to get or maintain a decent job. I’m just sayin’….
If we, as a nation, don’t stop burying our head in the sand (which we ARE doing by listening and believing the self-serving lies and inaccuracies of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and polarizing politicians, rather than having the balls to think for ourselves based on efforts to seek out the truth on our own), we are fucked. Excuse the expression, but I can’t think of one that expresses it better.
We’re in the shape we’re in because we didn’t face up to our responsibilities. We continue to claim the superiority of the U.S., but it is always based on the accomplishments of an earlier generation. The sad fact is that we took the hard-won accomplishments of that generation, and, essentially, flushed them down the toilet. We used them as a way to assert superiority rather than as our ancestors meant: a springboard from which we could launch a technology-based future that would result in sociological and economic advantages for our citizenry.
I’ll admit that we’re down, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say that we’re out. But we have to administer CPR now! We have to admit OUR mistakes, instead of blaming the “other guys”. We have to take personal responsibility, and we have to envision an austere, albeit rewarding, future that will not mirror our gluttonous past.
So I say let’s jump start the economy by legalizing grass, not only enjoying the fruits of a growth industry, but also saving the costs of fighting a losing battle against it.
an
July 30, 2011 @
3:21 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya [quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] So who has a plan B?[/quote]
I do. Decriminalize drug use. At least marijuana.
We have lots of farmland; not nearly as much as fifty years back, but a goodly amount.
Let’s direct some research dollars to marijuana growing methods, and figure out how to grow the best grass in the world. Get Madison Avenue to use their incomparable marketing skills to push product globally.
Result: $$$$$$$$. Won’t last forever, but will help get us back on our feet until such time as we can turn our bad habits of the past around, and establish a new economy that is appropriate for the 21st century, instead of the early 20th century model to which we’ve been clinging.
What bad habits? Let’s see:
Aside from bemoaning the “loss of manufacturing”…
1. Looking to the undereducated, immature, “win-at-all-costs” idiots in Congress to fix what’s wrong. Seriously!! Many of them aren’t even aware of what IS wrong.
2. Stop looking for government handouts. This means all you people who loudly complain about “entitlement programs” at the same time you are benefiting from them. Social Security disability, SSI, food stamps, tax exemptions limited to small segments of the population, subsidies, Section 8 provisions (renters and landlords), school grants, government employees who charge nonexistent overtime and expenses…..the list goes on and on. And I’m not limiting the list to those who benefit from these things directly. If you have someone in your family who is drawing disability who doesn’t deserve it, or who is using school grant funds but never studies, or attends class, or who receives food stamps but manages to go gambling every weekend in Atlantic City, you’re a deadbeat as much as they are. We have ALL developed a sense of entitlement, and it frequently stems from being envious that the next guy is getting something that you’re not. Shit, get OVER it!
3. Start taking responsibility for our carelessly-spawned offspring. This means that you first have to stop being afraid of your toddler or second-grader. I mean, HOW does this happen? What I do know is that if you don’t stop being afraid of them now, you WILL have reason to be afraid of them in a few short years. And so will the rest of us.
Be a freakin’ PARENT already!
4. Start getting involved in your kids’ education. They are only in academics-oriented activities in school for about 16 to 20 hours a WEEK. Even if your kid was the only one that the teacher was responsible for, that wouldn’t be nearly enough time for him to learn what he needs. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one: there are 15 to 25 other kids just like yours in that same unfortunate teacher’s care, and they are all just as loud-mouthed, disrespectful, and disobedient as your brat is. Tell me again how this school thing is supposed to work?
Do your job, and participate in the education of your kids. Keep abreast of what they are studying in school, and how they are keeping up. Make sure that you are (1) aware of their assignments, (2) that they are actually doing them, and (3) that the quality of their work is age- and grade-appropriate. Do NOT make excuses for them, or rag on their teachers when they are “punished” for bad behavior. That’s not parenting. It’s not even “being your kids’ friend”. It’s saying, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you now, or your ability to survive life in the future”.
5. While you’re at it, recognize the gaps in your own education. If you aren’t helping your 4th grader with her math homework because you don’t understand it, or her social studies project because your reading comprehension skills fall short of being able to understand the teacher’s directions, DO something about it! BTW, I could be wrong, but it might have something to do with your ability to get or maintain a decent job. I’m just sayin’….
If we, as a nation, don’t stop burying our head in the sand (which we ARE doing by listening and believing the self-serving lies and inaccuracies of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and polarizing politicians, rather than having the balls to think for ourselves based on efforts to seek out the truth on our own), we are fucked. Excuse the expression, but I can’t think of one that expresses it better.
We’re in the shape we’re in because we didn’t face up to our responsibilities. We continue to claim the superiority of the U.S., but it is always based on the accomplishments of an earlier generation. The sad fact is that we took the hard-won accomplishments of that generation, and, essentially, flushed them down the toilet. We used them as a way to assert superiority rather than as our ancestors meant: a springboard from which we could launch a technology-based future that would result in sociological and economic advantages for our citizenry.
I’ll admit that we’re down, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say that we’re out. But we have to administer CPR now! We have to admit OUR mistakes, instead of blaming the “other guys”. We have to take personal responsibility, and we have to envision an austere, albeit rewarding, future that will not mirror our gluttonous past.
So I say let’s jump start the economy by legalizing grass, not only enjoying the fruits of a growth industry, but also saving the costs of fighting a losing battle against it.[/quote]
I agree with all of this. I’d also add to cut military spending by at least 1/2 and bring back all of our troops. Other 1st world countries can defend themselves. We can eliminate the department of education and put the power back to the parents and implement the voucher system. Give parents the choice to choose between public, charter, or private schools. We can remove pension for all future public employees. We can cap the pay of all public employee to be no more than the president of the USA. We can remove all tax deductions and lower the tax rates for both personal and corporations. Remove Fannie and Freddy. Let all corporation knows that we no longer bail out anyone. If you fail due to taking too high of a risk, you’ll fail.
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
7:34 PM
AN wrote: I agree with all of [quote=AN] I agree with all of this. I’d also add to cut military spending by at least 1/2 and bring back all of our troops. Other 1st world countries can defend themselves. We can eliminate the department of education and put the power back to the parents and implement the voucher system. Give parents the choice to choose between public, charter, or private schools. We can remove pension for all future public employees. We can cap the pay of all public employee to be no more than the president of the USA. We can remove all tax deductions and lower the tax rates for both personal and corporations. Remove Fannie and Freddy. Let all corporation knows that we no longer bail out anyone. If you fail due to taking too high of a risk, you’ll fail.[/quote]
AN, I totally agree that there is more than enough room for improvement in the schools. But, as a child who was educated primarily in parochial schools (at great personal sacrifice on the part of my parents), and as an adult who raised four children, utilizing both public and private schools along the way, I have never wavered in my perception of “voucher plans” as just another entitlement program.
The public school system is just that: education for the public at large, paid for by the public at large. If someone desires something different from what is being taught in that system, they need to pony up the resources necessary to move into the private school system.
In discussions on voucher systems, I typically see two motivations voiced:
1. They are upset by the content of the school curriculum, or by what they perceive as a lack of necessary content, particularly that events in history are being presented without the necessary social or religious context, or that science classes should include teachings that are derived from religious beliefs as opposed to proven scientific theory.
2. Parents and interested individuals are upset that school curricula are deteriorating, and children are not learning at the rate they should. Drop-out rates are increasing, and even student who graduate high school at the tops of their classes are often not adequately prepared for the academic challenges they will encounter at college.
In general, I have a problem with both lines of reasoning. Truthfully, I see a relatively small group of people saying, “I want to send my children to a school where their philosophies of the administration and teachers mirror mine, but I want the government to pay for it” (which translates into “I want this for my children, but not badly enough to pay for it”).
The fact of the matter is that the concerns raised in both these lines of reasoning can be addressed in a way that should also be used in correcting the shortcomings of the nation’s public school system. MORE PARENT INVOLVEMENT!
As long as parents see public schools as day care, not recognizing the essential nature of a complete education for their children, and do not care to even spend the time to ensure that their children are actually learning, the schools will not change. And It wouldn’t matter if they DID change, at least the physical changes enabled by more money. You could spend 10 times more, have the latest equipment and facilities, and employ the best and brightest teachers. You’d have a model environment for learning, but students would continue to receive low test scores, drop out in high numbers, and even the grads would remain functionally illiterate.
Schools will not improve until we, as a society, not only recognize their value, but also acknowledge their limitations. Schools are an extremely valuable resource for which parents, as individual taxpayers, pay very little. They should not be seen as an automatic right, but as a privilege, the existence of which is enabled by the taxes of millions of non-parents. To that end, I believe that:
— children entering the school system should be interviewed and receive behavioral testing. If they are lacking in maturity, remedial therapy is administered until they are able to behave appropriately in a classroom.
— parents are held responsible for their children’s actions. Period. Demanding that parents pay for the bad deeds of the children they spawned, but neglected, tends to get their attention.
— academic expectations (and repercussions for failure to meet them) are established at the start of each semester (grades 1 – 12), and communicated to parents and students.
— parent(s) and student both sign off on this academic contract. Failure to do so will result in the student being denied admission to classes.
— teachers are free from interference in their grading decisions as long as they adhere to the academic contract.
— students that are disruptive/disobedient in class are immediately escorted from the classroom by school security, and placed in a supervised detention area.
— there is a limit of two classroom removals per marking period. The third violation will result in expulsion for the remainder of school year. The parent will be responsible for paying for private schooling for their child during the period of expulsion.
— a second expulsion will result in permanent termination of access to the public school system.
I realize that this sounds harsh, but if we do not lay down expectations of behavior and academic achievement in our schools, our children will not learn. Period. Teachers need to be able to focus on teaching, and students need to be in an environment that is conducive to learning. Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?
an
July 30, 2011 @
8:32 PM
I’m neither part of group 1 I’m neither part of group 1 nor group two. If you want to remove the private school part from the voucher system, then I’m fine with that too. I take the Finnish’s voucher system as an example of why I think voucher system is superior to ours. They are the #1 school system after all.
The reason why I add private school into the equation is because I view as a society, we should educate our kids anyway we can. I also believe parents should have the ultimate control of where to send their kids. We all pay taxes, so why can’t the education fund be tied to the student instead of the local schools? If the parents feel the local school is not doing a good job, why can’t they have a choice to take their tax money to another school.
Even without private school as part of the solution, why can’t parents who care send their kids to a better school? The way we have now, there is no competition between school, so there’s no real incentive to improve. Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. Also, voucher system allow parents who don’t have the funds to buy a house in the better school area to send their kids to the better school. We are currently keeping down the poorer student from getting the best possible education because they can’t afford to buy in a better area.
Although schools have its limitation, we’re hardly close to the limit. If we’re #1 in the world, then I might agree with you, but we’re not. We can take note from the Finnish system. The Finnish system does not have the harsh behavior expectation you mentioned, yet they’re doing just fine.
What would you do with those students who you escort out of the classrooms? There are plenty of students who are bad. Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? If you can implement that, then I’m sure most schools will be great, since you basically removed all the bad students. But what will we do with those bad students?
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
11:03 PM
AN wrote: The reason why I [quote=AN] The reason why I add private school into the equation is because I view as a society, we should educate our kids anyway we can. I also believe parents should have the ultimate control of where to send their kids. [/quote]
Remind me again how it is that you do not have that control now?
And why do your beliefs mean that I should share in the responsibility of paying YOUR child’s private school tuition?
[quote=AN] We all pay taxes, so why can’t the education fund be tied to the student instead of the local schools? If the parents feel the local school is not doing a good job, why can’t they have a choice to take their tax money to another school.[/quote]
Education is a huge undertaking. The problem is that there are certain fixed costs that cannot be divided in real life among separate students. Rough example: A district builds a school for 400 students. 3 years later, the parents of 125 students decide the school isn’t meeting the needs of their children. The reason: their parents don’t like the fact that they’re being taught human reproduction, including how contraception works (the physiology of contraception; they are NOT handing out condoms), in their biology class. But out of the 125 kids, the parents of 40 of them also are upset that intelligent design is not taught in the school.
All of a sudden, you need three school facilities instead of one. Your existing school has tax revenue from 275 students instead of 400. In addition, I’m not sure how you’re going to build and staff schools from the tax revenue for 85 students and 40 students.
Simplistic explanation, I know, but the idea under it all is that it’s a waste of already scarce resources.
[quote=AN] The way we have now, there is no competition between school, so there’s no real incentive to improve. Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. [/quote]
An, first I have to ask you to qualify the statement that begins, “If a school is failing…”. You’re a parent of a child at the school. What characterizes the school as “failing”?
Aside from that, I tried to address the “competition” issue in my earlier post. Do you honestly think that there is a school out there, especially one with academically-struggling students, that is totally satisfied with their facility and its performance? That isn’t already feeling like they are trying to keep up with schools that have better records? How exactly is removing students (along with their respective tax revenues) from a school going to foster a sense of competition?
Again, schools have students in a classroom setting for about 4 to 4.5 hours per day. For the remaining 19 or 20 hours per day, those students are exposed to a wide variety of living conditions and influences. There aren’t enough hours in a school setting for a student to both receive basic instruction and to use the information so that it becomes a permanent part of their intellectual inventory. In addition, teachers cannot force students to learn. What students are exposed to for that other 20 hours per day, combined with how much emotional and physical support they receive from their parents, makes a HUGE difference in how they progress in school.
[quote=AN] Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. Also, voucher system allow parents who don’t have the funds to buy a house in the better school area to send their kids to the better school. We are currently keeping down the poorer student from getting the best possible education because they can’t afford to buy in a better area.[/quote]
My understanding of the voucher system was that part of the alternative (private) school tuition would be paid, not the entire amount. If it is a case where the ENTIRE amount is paid, I truly do not understand how the cost will be covered by the government. Is there a voucher-supporting conservative out there who can explain that to me?
As for whether it’s transferring from one public school to another in a “better” area, I cannot comprehend how that’s going to work. The planning of education, like any broadscale public service, requires short- AND long-term planning and forecasting. Students can’t be shifted around willy-nilly, per the whims of their parents.
In addition, you mention “poor” students. What income level are we talking about here? In reality, genuinely poor families are concerned with keeping a roof over their children’s heads, and food in their bellies. I’m fairly sure that most of them are happy just to have a place to drop their kids off in the morning before they go to one of their minimum wage jobs. I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t imagine the parent coming home from work at 2:30 am and pulling out the real estate map so that they can evaluate the relative benefits of one school district over another. Also you need to recognize the added burden that traveling a distance to a “better” school takes on a young student who comes from a poor family.
I’m sorry, but many of the justifications you provide here don’t seem to be motivated by a concern for better schools, or opportunities for the poor. As I said earlier, every argument I hear for vouchers melts down to a middle-class parent who wants their kid to have access to a private school education on the government dime (i.e., entitlement program??), or else someone that wants their church’s bible study/sunday school converted into a full-time facility with government-paid tuition. In reality, this proposal will benefit the upper middle class, not the poor or the lower middle class.
[quote=AN] We can take note from the Finnish system. The Finnish system does not have the harsh behavior expectation you mentioned, yet they’re doing just fine.[/quote]
I can’t speak as to the superior qualities of the Finnish schools, but would be very interested in finding out more. Do you have any links to websites that give some detail?
As for “harsh behavior expectations”, do you have first-hand experience with the Finnish system, and familiarity with their policies? That is, were you a student there, or did you have children in the Finnish system?
Many times, people see article describing educational systems in other countries, in which the students are doing very well. They wonder aloud why we can’t do that here in the United States, and from there it’s a quick descent into a fact-free blamefest: “It’s the teachers’ union that caused it all” “It’s the welfare kids that go to the school”, or my personal favorite, “It’s because they took God out of the schools”. Excuse me, but I’m all full up on anecdotal “evidence”.
In some countries of the world, education is afforded a place of high priority. It IS a privilege in some places, and the people recognize that. In many nations, behavior like that exhibited by many of today’s elementary and high school students would not be tolerated. The “rules” may not be in writing, especially in places where parents make sure that their children learn respect for their elders at an early age.
[quote=AN] What would you do with those students who you escort out of the classrooms? There are plenty of students who are bad. Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? If you can implement that, then I’m sure most schools will be great, since you basically removed all the bad students. But what will we do with those bad students?[/quote]
Yes, there are plenty of “bad” students….or, at least, students who frequently demonstrate bad behavior. My point is that they do it because they CAN do it. More and more students have no idea how to behave in the classroom, and for quite a few, it’s appropriate behavior to loudly express your resentment at having to be in the classroom when you would much rather be at the mall. Have you been in an American high school in the past five years? The students are not only openly disrespectful of their teachers, but they will often refuse to follow the instructions of their teachers, and carry on loud conversations that are disruptive, and keep other students in the classroom from learning.
You ask, “Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? “. I hope not. But the fact is that we currently have a society where a large portion of the citizenry is uneducated, either because they didn’t give a crap about their own education, or because their teachers were powerless to remove them from the class when they were loud and disruptive, and this prevented other students from learning. And it’s getting worse every year.
The responsibility for disciplining students, and teaching them to respect others and how to behave in a classroom is NOT the job of the school or the teacher. It is the sole responsibility of the parent, one from which they have completely abdicated. We should be discouraging that abdication of responsibility by refusing to tolerate the unacceptable behavior of their children in our schools.
Instead we dump these uncivilized cretins in the classroom, and tell the teachers that it’s their problem. And the people who are actually at the root of the problem – namely, the PARENTS – aren’t held accountable. So where is the motivation for them to change their irresponsible habits?
Parents see schools as government-sponsored daycare for their kids. That attitude needs to change. Education is a privilege, and if you don’t care enough to teach your children how to behave in a school, and make sure that they ARE behaving there, then you don’t get to take advantage of the privilege. Education isn’t daycare, and teachers aren’t babysitters.
NotCranky
July 30, 2011 @
11:08 PM
I am middle class, I don’t I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?
sdrealtor
July 30, 2011 @
11:25 PM
Were eavesdropper and BG Were eavesdropper and BG seperated at birth?
eavesdropper
July 31, 2011 @
8:06 PM
sdrealtor wrote:Were [quote=sdrealtor]Were eavesdropper and BG seperated at birth?[/quote]
Ooh, sdr, can’t tell if that’s a yea or nay on what I’ve posted.
However, I will tell you that, while we were not separated at birth, we are very close in age and, I suspect, our cultural backgrounds.
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!!
Allan from Fallbrook
July 31, 2011 @
8:44 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
All I [quote=eavesdropper]
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!![/quote]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.
an
August 1, 2011 @
12:02 AM
They struck a deal. I knew They struck a deal. I knew they would. This is all political show. It has been going on for the last 25+ years. It doesn’t matter which party has the presidency, the other party would say no and debt ceiling get raised. Here’s a cool video from CNN:
As you can see, during Reagan administration, Democrats were the one who were tooting deficit. Today, it’s the Republicans who are tooting deficit. Nothing has changed in the last 25+ years with regards to debt ceiling. Why can’t they just raise it to $10000000T and be done with it, especially when Democrats has all 3 branches a few years ago.
eavesdropper
August 1, 2011 @
1:41 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=eavesdropper]
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!![/quote]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.[/quote]
Okay, Allan, simmer down. I wouldn’t want you to be too disillusioned.
I will clarify, and say (truthfully) that I never wore a rabbit-fur coat during that era, and, what’s more, I thought they were pretty cheesy.
If you click on “Campaign” and then “Legends Gallery” at the top, they have pictures of all the great “What befits a legend most?” photos. There are some great shots, but I think my favorite has to be Barbara Stanwyck on Page 5.
My own portrait is on Page 6: second from the left, in the bottom row. I have to admit, I do look fabulous. No retouching, either.
But back to the rabbit-fur: despite my earlier disdain for them, as I grew older (and what some call “wiser”, but I recognize as “progressively senile”), I began to develop a warm spot in my heart – or was it heartburn – for the distinctive “style” (for lack of a better term) of the 1970s, and those who were fortunate enough to have had that enviable combination of bad taste and couture courage…..and the pictures to prove it.
When bearishgurl described that coat, I was blown away; when she followed up with color commentary on the outfit, including accessories, with which she wore it, I was positively enraptured. BG is my new fashion goddess.
But back then, I was a bit of a fashion purist. Turns out, I really did have excellent taste and could spot haute couture a mile away. Not really sure where it came from, and the really unfortunate part of it was that not only were we in an era during which what was available to teenage girls was truly awful (if a teenager wore some of the outfits today, they’d be hauled off to the cooler for prostitution), but I was born to a family for whom money was really in short supply. So I may have had Bergdorf and Bonwit Teller dreams, but my reality was Atlantic Thrift and I. Goldberg Army-Navy, two fine Philadelphia retailers at which I could stretch my $1.35/hour minimum wage checks.
But, no doubt about it: the 1970s were a total cultural dry gulch of a decade.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
But they’re all making a comeback, Allan. You’ll see.
Actually, I’d give my umbilicus for a Pacer. An electric lime green or bright yellow one. There’s something I kind of like about that design in retrospect. You can keep the Gremlins, though.
Back then, I was dependent upon the largesse of my parents if I wanted to drive. Sometimes I could get them at a good time, and get a loan of one of the late model family compacts. But, usually, I was offered the “kids” car, that my dad had gotten from his sister. In 1972, she bought a new LTD, and gave us her 1963 maroon w/white hardtop Ford Galaxie. Geez, that thing was a boat! Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).
Actually, I’d give my umbilicus for a Pacer. An electric lime green or bright yellow one. There’s something I kind of like about that design in retrospect. You can keep the Gremlins, though.
Back then, I was dependent upon the largesse of my parents if I wanted to drive. Sometimes I could get them at a good time, and get a loan of one of the late model family compacts. But, usually, I was offered the “kids” car, that my dad had gotten from his sister. In 1972, she bought a new LTD, and gave us her 1963 maroon w/white hardtop Ford Galaxie. Geez, that thing was a boat! Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).
Good times.[/quote]
Eaves: A buddy of mine in HS had a Pacer, which we derisively referred to as the “moon unit” (not to be confused with Frank Zappa’s child of the same name). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a woman as vibrant and intelligent as you would want such a car, especially at the cost of your umbilicus (although, in truth, I’ll profess to not knowing the value of umbilici in today’s market).
This guy lived in Portola Valley (a tony Bay Area suburb near Redwood City) and both his folks taught at Stanford, so I was always left with the question: Why did they stick with him such a POS car?
Speaking of parental largesse: My dad’s largesse went so far as to offer a 1976 Mercury Capri as my starter car. That was a complete non-starter, so I picked up my second and third summer jobs (I was already working as a “petroleum transfer specialist” at the neighborhood Chevron) cleaning pools and stenciling street numbers on curbs for the City of Sunnyvale (union job!). I took the proceeds and bought a 1967 Ford fastback with a Boss 302, which I promptly wrapped around a lightpole in Mountain View.
Following summer, I moved to working on a tuna boat in the Bay for $16/hr, which in 1981 was BIG money. That jingle purchased my dream car: A 1969 Mustang Mach I with a 428CJ. I held that car right up until I bought my first house in 1991 and used the proceeds of the sale to help with the down payment.
Good times, indeed.
Arraya
August 1, 2011 @
1:21 PM
The combination of auditory
The combination of auditory and visual overstimulation, and the lack of interpersonal interaction, causes anxiety and fatigue in these kids, who then act out. Their parents deal with that by either hitting their kids, or trying to distract them or “buy them off” with toys, videos, sweets (even more stimulation) to try and stop the behavior. Eventually this cycle becomes so extreme that the result can be an overweight 4 yr old who can’t travel 3 blocks to the preschool without a cookie and a DVD playing.
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
Whether the corollary to these modern practices or the result of other forces, research shows the health and well being of American children is worse than it was 50 years ago: there’s an epidemic of anxiety and depression among the young; aggressive behavior and delinquency rates in young children are rising; and empathy, the backbone of compassionate, moral behavior, has been shown to be decreasing among college students.
“All of these issues are of concern to me as a researcher of moral development,” Narvaez says. “Kids who don’t get the emotional nurturing they need in early life tend to be more self-centered. They don’t have available the compassion-related emotions to the same degree as kids who were raised by warm, responsive families.”
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
The combination of auditory and visual overstimulation, and the lack of interpersonal interaction, causes anxiety and fatigue in these kids, who then act out. Their parents deal with that by either hitting their kids, or trying to distract them or “buy them off” with toys, videos, sweets (even more stimulation) to try and stop the behavior. Eventually this cycle becomes so extreme that the result can be an overweight 4 yr old who can’t travel 3 blocks to the preschool without a cookie and a DVD playing.
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
Whether the corollary to these modern practices or the result of other forces, research shows the health and well being of American children is worse than it was 50 years ago: there’s an epidemic of anxiety and depression among the young; aggressive behavior and delinquency rates in young children are rising; and empathy, the backbone of compassionate, moral behavior, has been shown to be decreasing among college students.
“All of these issues are of concern to me as a researcher of moral development,” Narvaez says. “Kids who don’t get the emotional nurturing they need in early life tend to be more self-centered. They don’t have available the compassion-related emotions to the same degree as kids who were raised by warm, responsive families.”
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
Oh, Arraya– not only did you speak the truth in this post, but you worked in Bill Hicks! So well done. Props to you, Arraya, I am now a fan.
CA renter
August 2, 2011 @
12:44 AM
Arraya wrote:
The combination [quote=Arraya]
The combination of auditory and visual overstimulation, and the lack of interpersonal interaction, causes anxiety and fatigue in these kids, who then act out. Their parents deal with that by either hitting their kids, or trying to distract them or “buy them off” with toys, videos, sweets (even more stimulation) to try and stop the behavior. Eventually this cycle becomes so extreme that the result can be an overweight 4 yr old who can’t travel 3 blocks to the preschool without a cookie and a DVD playing.
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
Whether the corollary to these modern practices or the result of other forces, research shows the health and well being of American children is worse than it was 50 years ago: there’s an epidemic of anxiety and depression among the young; aggressive behavior and delinquency rates in young children are rising; and empathy, the backbone of compassionate, moral behavior, has been shown to be decreasing among college students.
“All of these issues are of concern to me as a researcher of moral development,” Narvaez says. “Kids who don’t get the emotional nurturing they need in early life tend to be more self-centered. They don’t have available the compassion-related emotions to the same degree as kids who were raised by warm, responsive families.”
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
If “working on” your first child means that you guys are pregnant, congratulations!
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
But what about acquiring the skills to survive and thrive in a harsh world?
The hard part is bringing up a good, noble person who can deal with the world with self-confidence and aplomb.[/quote]
Brian, I can speak only for myself. But I was very careful about monitoring the media with my children. They are older now, so I’m not faced with many of the challenges with which parents of toddlers and grade-schoolers have to deal. However, the underlying essentials are setting up the ground rules (which should always include a plan of action for occasions when the rules are broken), ensuring that both parents in a two-parent family are equally committed), the willingness to monitor, and consistency in follow-thru. CAR, you’re spot-on: It is getting increasingly harder to monitor, as there are more and more options that kids can access. It’s doable, but I confess that the last time I grounded my teenage daughter, I needed a shopping cart to take away all of the devices through which she could access her friends and media sources.
Yes, I did protect my children from media that was not age appropriate. They grew up into self-confident young adults, who were not afraid to travel anywhere in the world by themselves by age 18. They’ve faced situations in Europe, Asia, and South America where they’ve lost money, missed trains, had to find shelter at the last minute, and they’ve always managed to deal with it on their own (I always found out about it a month after the fact when they’d be showing off their travel photos) They’ve been in some scary situations (terrorist bombings in London, political revolt in Thailand), and it hasn’t slowed down their desire to travel. All except my youngest (in high school) are employed, pay all their own bills, and live in places of their own. They seem to be managing the real world just fine.
I don’t understand parents who allow their children to watch slasher movies and films that are rated R when they are under the age of 12. It does not enhance or enrich their lives (so that excuse – which I’ve heard – is useless), and the extreme violence can really screw with their heads (same with the violent video games). Children do not see things in the same context as adults do. Adults are able to look at what’s on the screen and know that it’s fake, but kids aren’t able to do the same. They’re thinking, “That guy in the mask with the chainsaw killed 48 people in the movie they just saw, so how long will it be until he gets to my neighborhood?”
Likewise, exposing them to the crap on reality shows. They see some gum-cracking, sun-dried, hair product-immune bimbo, who contains more silicone than natural body tissue, stumbling drunk into a men’s room to confront her cheating boyfriend, or loudly declaring that she ALWAYS gets what she wants because she makes her parents’ lives miserable until they give it to her, or some greased-up creep who still lives with his mother, who also pays for his clothes, food, car, cell phone, and spending cash from her SSI check, swaggering through a nightclub declaring that he’s a player and a “businessman”, and that other people his age are losers “because they work” and they all really want to be him – again, kids are the only ones who see these shows as “reality”, and, from the looks of the public behavior all around us and on the internet, they see these shows as a tutorial on how people function when they reach adulthood. Nothing about these shows or movies teaches kids how to survive in the real world.
That’s a parent’s job. And the parents who try to shelter their child from every actual reality – homework, a failing grade, a missed turn at bat – are screwing up. As they are when they constantly tell the child he/she is accomplished and brilliant and talented, when there is no evidence to support those statements (there’s a wide chasm between supporting your child, and lying to him). To throw 18 years of totally unmonitored media exposure into that cocktail is to guarantee that you’re gonna be blessed with your child’s presence for most of his adult life, and also be responsible for paying his/her mental health treatment bills.
By the way, Brian, I didn’t deny my kids exposure to the real world. I just measured it out in age-appropriate doses. Sometimes they can surprise you: when my one son was 8, he elected to watch live infant skull surgery on the local PBS channel in lieu of “Wizard of Oz”. And I didn’t have any problem letting him (aside from the fact that I really wanted to see Wizard of Oz). He had a genuine interest in medicine and in the functions of the human body, and he was fascinated how the procedure followed by the reconstructive surgeons resulted in such a profound and positive change in the child’s appearance and function. He grew up and went into the bioengineering field.
KIBU
August 2, 2011 @
12:36 PM
Eavesdropper et al,
Agree Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).
UCGal
August 2, 2011 @
1:42 PM
KIBU wrote:Eavesdropper et [quote=KIBU]Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).[/quote]
Yes – their peers influence them. (I don’t homeschool). My standard answer when they say “But Mom – friend X gets to watch < insert inappropriate tv or movie here> and friend Y is allowed to play Grand Theft Auto”… My reply is always: “Lucky them, they have a nicer mom than you. I’m a mean mom and you’re stuck with me.”
Just because the kids are feeling pressure – doesn’t mean the parent has to cave. I don’t need to be liked by my kids. Often they’re not happy with the rules/restrictions/limitations. My job is to parent, not be their buddy.
eavesdropper
August 3, 2011 @
12:49 AM
KIBU wrote:Eavesdropper et [quote=KIBU]Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).[/quote]
That’s a really tough one, KIBU. In answer to your question, I think the level of influence of media over friends, or vice versa depends on the kid. However, I think what matters most is that you do your absolute best to ensure that you are the force that most influences your child. I’m not saying that you should be all-controlling and severely limit your child’s access to media and to friends. That would not only be counter-productive, but has the potential to create serious psychological harm, and would also keep you child from acquiring skills and knowledge essential to his/her future.
However, you mention that you are reluctant to interfere for fear that your child will scream, “Censorship!!” He/she probably will, and they would be absolutely correct. My question to you is, “What’s the problem?”
Censorship (as a child or teenager sees it) = “you’re interfering with my desire and intent to do what I want to do”. Review the following:
Eaves: Are you interfering because your child wants to do something that will provide an immediate or future benefit to themselves, or to others?
KIBU: Of course not. Why would I ever do that?
Eaves: Are you interfering because your child wants to do something that will could harm him/herself or others now in the immediate future?
KIBU: Yes. I found out that my child is involved in activity that threatens his health and safety.
Okay, does what is described in that exchange qualify as censorship? For what it’s worth, I say no. I see it as basic parenting. You see your child contemplating dangerous activity. This is because (a) he isn’t experienced or knowledgeable enough to realize that it’s dangerous, or (b) he fully realizes the danger, and he plans to do it anyway.
Neither a nor b is a good thing. If your child is under the age of 18, you are morally and legally obligated to do everything in your power to stop him from hurting himself. If he is over 18, and completely self-supporting and living independent of you, he has a legal right to be free of your interference in his intentions to harm himself. But (and listen carefully here) if he is 18 and living in your house, he is subject to any policies you set forth.
What you are doing is parenting. It is NOT censorship. Children have the right to be loved, to be fed, clothed, cared for, treated with dignity, and protected from danger. Other than that, they are out of luck.
Censorship, conflicts of interest, WTF??!! This is not your business partner, not your neighbor, your landscaper, or your best friend – relationships in which you are on equal footing as humans.
This is your child, who is not on equal footing with you. Your child, as a minor, is your subordinate, and, by law, is subject to your rules and regulations. And strange as it seems, underneath it all, this is what kids want from their parents. And the more they can count on you being there, the less influence their friends will have.
I sent you a private message also. I wish you the best on figuring this out.
Allan from Fallbrook
August 3, 2011 @
7:48 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
What you [quote=eavesdropper]
What you are doing is parenting. It is NOT censorship. Children have the right to be loved, to be fed, clothed, cared for, treated with dignity, and protected from danger. Other than that, they are out of luck.
Censorship, conflicts of interest, WTF??!! This is not your business partner, not your neighbor, your landscaper, or your best friend – relationships in which you are on equal footing as humans.
This is your child, who is not on equal footing with you. Your child, as a minor, is your subordinate, and, by law, is subject to your rules and regulations. And strange as it seems, underneath it all, this is what kids want from their parents. And the more they can count on you being there, the less influence their friends will have.
[/quote]
Eaves: This is one of the best written passages on parenting I’ve ever read.
I’m fond of telling my kids that, within our house, there is no democracy. Rather, we are a mix of benevolent despotism and totalitarian dictatorship. I have very forthright discussions with both my kids on topics ranging from religion/spirituality to drugs/alcohol to the various impacts of divorce (several of their friends are living through this right now). The discussions can be interesting in terms of response, reaction and feedback, but the roles of parent and child don’t blur. I think too often parents treat kids as smaller versions of adults, or peers, or “friends”, with negative results. This, combined with a modern aversion to discipline (and I don’t mean corporal punishment), has resulted in a generation of kids that are entitled, discourteous and poorly socialized.
Add to this the absolute plethora of “inputs”, ranging from video games to the internet to the 700 channel satellite TV cable box and policing becomes increasingly difficult, if not nearly impossible. I’ve sat and watched my son play xBox, text/email on his iPhone and carry on a conversation with me, all at the same time. I feel some of the same frustration my parents felt, in that I think I’m always missing something, as far as the kids having access, but eternal vigilance is part of the job. We have clearly established ground rules and my wife and I constantly spot check, including periodic (and unannounced) room searches. It can feel a little draconian at times but, again, part of the job.
KIBU
August 3, 2011 @
12:54 PM
Thank you for your input Thank you for your input Eaves and Allan. Here is my opinion.
It’s one thing to have the legal rights to take care of your children in the home the way you set it. In many cases, it’s probably absolutely legal to set it as: it’s my way or the highway.
But I think it’s another matter how the children will respond to such, as they may view incorrectly, “totalitarian dictatorship” or “censureship” (even if we don’t care about such terms from our point of view) ?
The assumptions, perhaps, are that children understood that we are standing on their side, protecting their interest, their life, future. I think it’s hard if it’s the other case, where they probably react and rebel to our imposed will on them. All this also occur at a time where they are naturally developing their self identity and we are only one of the outside influences, source of information, that they are taking in.
It’s a hard balance. Thanks for sharing your ideas and you are doing great with your children.
eavesdropper
August 3, 2011 @
4:26 PM
KIBU wrote:
The assumptions, [quote=KIBU]
The assumptions, perhaps, are that children understood that we are standing on their side, protecting their interest, their life, future. I think it’s hard if it’s the other case, where they probably react and rebel to our imposed will on them. All this also occur at a time where they are naturally developing their self identity and we are only one of the outside influences, source of information, that they are taking in. [/quote]
Trust me, KIBU, NO child EVER understands or accepts that you are doing something because you love them. Every one of them are positive that you are dead-set on destroying their lives, and that you get sick kicks from doing so.
You can’t change that, so don’t allow it to be a factor when you intervene. The focus should be to keep them alive and healthy into adulthood.
Incidentally, that’s when they have their own children, and suddenly come to the realization of just how much you loved them.
[quote=KIBU] It’s a hard balance. Thanks for sharing your ideas and you are doing great with your children.[/quote]
The electric cattle prod was a big help….
briansd1
August 2, 2011 @
1:17 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
Yes, I [quote=eavesdropper]
Yes, I did protect my children from media that was not age appropriate. They grew up into self-confident young adults, who were not afraid to travel anywhere in the world by themselves by age 18. They’ve faced situations in Europe, Asia, and South America where they’ve lost money, missed trains, had to find shelter at the last minute, and they’ve always managed to deal with it on their own (I always found out about it a month after the fact when they’d be showing off their travel photos) They’ve been in some scary situations (terrorist bombings in London, political revolt in Thailand), and it hasn’t slowed down their desire to travel. All except my youngest (in high school) are employed, pay all their own bills, and live in places of their own. They seem to be managing the real world just fine.[/quote]
Sounds like you raised some great kids. Congrats.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.
eavesdropper
August 2, 2011 @
10:39 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Sounds like [quote=briansd1]
Sounds like you raised some great kids. Congrats.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.[/quote]
Thanks, brian. It’s nice of you to say that. I don’t want to make it sound easy, because child-rearing never is. But I started with great raw material (ever hear cute little infants described in quite that way?)
It probably sounds odd, but I am proudest of them for that quality. The fact that they’ll get an unexpected couple days off, and decide to research a cheap fare, hop on a plane to somewhere they’ve never been, grab a train to some off-the-beaten-path city, and find a place to shack up once they get there makes me feel really good. I think it’s because I feel like if they have the self-confidence to do that, along with that driving level of curiosity, that they won’t go through life waiting for people to give them things, or for good things to just “happen”.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.[/quote]
Thanks, brian. It’s nice of you to say that. I don’t want to make it sound easy, because child-rearing never is. But I started with great raw material (ever hear cute little infants described in quite that way?)
It probably sounds odd, but I am proudest of them for that quality. The fact that they’ll get an unexpected couple days off, and decide to research a cheap fare, hop on a plane to somewhere they’ve never been, grab a train to some off-the-beaten-path city, and find a place to shack up once they get there makes me feel really good. I think it’s because I feel like if they have the self-confidence to do that, along with that driving level of curiosity, that they won’t go through life waiting for people to give them things, or for good things to just “happen”.[/quote]
You’ve done a great job with your kids, eavesdropper.
Your posts about modern child rearing practices are scarily accurate. Mr. CAR and I have had a few discussions about them, already. 🙂
Arraya
August 3, 2011 @
7:42 AM
CA renter wrote:
If “working [quote=CA renter]
If “working on” your first child means that you guys are pregnant, congratulations!
[/quote]
Shhh! Don’t jinx it! Actually, we miscarried a while back and are about to give it another go.
[quote=CA renter]
They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
[/quote]
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head with this and it can probably be applied to a lot of modern stimulus. But, that is another long post that I will not burden the board with today.
I have to say, though, the fascination is probably not healthy.
A couple questions that I ponder;
[quote=eavesdropper] And even though violent crime is an abnormal, antisocial, and often deviant act, [/quote]
I 100% agree. Though, what I find interesting is the you include the word crime – which makes it subjective to legal interpretations. Which gives a lot of leeway for violence that is not abnormal, antisocial and deviant.
Personally, and I have spent some time recently thinking about this. I think any violence between humans is, at the very least, a failure. War, death penalty, violent geopolitical coercion etc.. Social failures.
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi
[quote=afx114]So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
I mostly agree.
Art, on the one hand, probably has a duty to reflect societal ills. A lot of people misinterpret this and have tried to ban it in the past. Though, IMO, they miss the point. It’s a mirror. If you don’t like the reflection, maybe you should do some thinking. Conversely, I think Hollywood tries to pawn off a lot of mental pollution as art.
On the other hand, with video games – where the sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible, in exceedingly more vivid graphic detail, I don’t consider art, though it may have artistic qualities. This is also a reflection, IMO.
So, I decided not to play these games, for a lot of reasons, but because I see it as glorifying failure. I can stimulate my brain and hand/eye coordination in more productive ways.
So, as a potential new parent, it won’t be allowed in my house. With an age appropriate discussion on my perception of human violence. Outside of my house, they can do what the want in regards to video games.
And I know this line of thinking will rub some people the wrong way or come off preachy. But, I have not been shy about my personal projections on socioeconomic trajectories. If I did not change the way I look about things I would fail into nihilism and misanthropy(which is another growing unhealthy epidemic that I noticed in other internet circles I travel in). So, it was an act of mental health preservation.
“Look, they don’t want anyone except for the Washington, D.C. bigwigs to know how bad shit really is,” said Bernanke, slurring his words as he spoke. “Mounting debt exacerbated—and not relieved—by unchecked consumption, spiraling interest rates, and the grim realities of an inevitable worldwide energy crisis are projected to leave our entire economy in the shitter for, like, a generation, man, I’m telling you.”
eavesdropper
August 1, 2011 @
8:21 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Eaves: A buddy of mine in HS had a Pacer, which we derisively referred to as the “moon unit” (not to be confused with Frank Zappa’s child of the same name). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a woman as vibrant and intelligent as you would want such a car, especially at the cost of your umbilicus (although, in truth, I’ll profess to not knowing the value of umbilici in today’s market).[/quote]
I confess, neither do I. But, being the consumer-driven society that we are, I have absolutely no doubt that there is a demand for them, that they are bought and sold in at least a half-dozen commodities markets, and that there’s an opportunity to bid on one every 3 days on average on eBay (handy tip: on some auctions, you have to lie in wait until the last 3 or 4 seconds to sneak in your bid, depending on your preference for lint-free or fully-loaded).
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] This guy lived in Portola Valley (a tony Bay Area suburb near Redwood City) and both his folks taught at Stanford, so I was always left with the question: Why did they stick with him such a POS car? [/quote]
The Hallmark card-side of my brain likes to think that they were trying to keep him grounded, and give him some perspective.
But the rest of my brain (i.e. the best part) is pretty sure they just couldn’t resist an opportunity to humiliate him.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Speaking of parental largesse: My dad’s largesse went so far as to offer a 1976 Mercury Capri as my starter car. That was a complete non-starter, so I picked up my second and third summer jobs (I was already working as a “petroleum transfer specialist” at the neighborhood Chevron) cleaning pools and stenciling street numbers on curbs for the City of Sunnyvale (union job!). I took the proceeds and bought a 1967 Ford fastback with a Boss 302, which I promptly wrapped around a lightpole in Mountain View.[/quote]
So you’re a diva from waaay back, huh, Allan?
Love the “petroleum transfer specialist” job title!! You were politically correct before your time. And to think that all that talent went to waste when you didn’t become a lobbyist. A dirty shame!
They didn’t let us girls pump gas in those days. Job market growth areas were off-limits to females, except for prostitution. I was pretty much limited to babysitting (which dried up after a coupla incidents involving plastic bags and matches), retail clerking, or food service. I worked at a hoagie-cheesesteak place for a week, and spent the next two years trying to wash the smell of fried onions and grill grease out of my hair (Too bad you didn’t know me back then. I was irresistible.)
Nothing like that first car is there? It does help if you own it long enough to remember. But that’s what I’d expect from you, Allan: aspirations to be an insurance company loss leader.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] Following summer, I moved to working on a tuna boat in the Bay for $16/hr, which in 1981 was BIG money. That jingle purchased my dream car: A 1969 Mustang Mach I with a 428CJ. [/quote]
I would have so trapped you by getting pregnant back in ’81! A guy who smells like tuna with a full wallet and a hot car. Trifecta!!
KSMountain
August 1, 2011 @
11:39 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Massive [quote=eavesdropper]Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).[/quote]
Lol! Totally can relate. Power steering was so horrible in those days. If you never drove one of those cars you really can’t imagine how bad it was…
KSMountain
August 1, 2011 @
11:23 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…
CA renter
August 2, 2011 @
12:12 AM
KSMountain wrote:Allan from [quote=KSMountain][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
Love it!!! 🙂
UCGal
August 2, 2011 @
8:01 AM
KSMountain wrote:Allan from [quote=KSMountain][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
Nice local list. I have fond memories of Licorice Pizza records and Organ Power Pizza.
I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)
eavesdropper
August 2, 2011 @
12:46 PM
UCGal wrote: I remember [quote=UCGal] I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)[/quote]
Dingos. Brown leather biker boots. Looked fab with hip-hugger modified bell-bottoms (boot-cut jeans). They also made a great noise when you walked through the school hallway. My husband says he simultaneously lusted after and feared me back then. I work hard to keep that theme going in our marriage.
I also remember shelling out $36.00 (this is when min wage was a $1.35 an hour, fellow Piggs) for a pair of Adidas “Country” long-distance running shoes. However, it was a genuine need. I was a middle-distance runner, and did a lot of training on asphalt and concrete roads, and, even in my mid-teens, I was having joint impact issues. Hard to believe now, but you couldn’t get shoes specially made for road running (men had a bit more choice, but not women). All that was available to the mass consumer were spikes or shoes made for training on indoor tracks (at the most, a good cinder surface outdoors). When news leaked out that Adidas was introducing this radical new shoe, I started saving my pennies (literally). If you saw it now, you’d split a gut laughing: they look like something your grandmother would wear on her mall walks. But, compared to what I had been using, I really appreciated the technology, such as it was. But I wore them out quickly training, and at $36 a pair to replace, I did a lot of babysitting (good part was that there wasn’t a kid in a 100-mile radius who could outrun me, so babysitting wasn’t that bad of a gig).
blahblahblah
August 2, 2011 @
12:54 PM
Back to the original topic, Back to the original topic, how cool is that we now have a SUPERCONGRESS! Most countries just have a crummy old congress. Not us, we have one that is SUPER. You can just feel the awesomeness when you say the word. Say it with me one time — SUPERCONGRESS. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Again we lead the way with our innovative problem-solving. We are indeed the envy of the world today.
I think that after they permanently fix our debt problem by slightly reducing the amount of money we borrow from China each day, the next act of the SUPERCONGRESS should be to change the flag to have 10 stars for each of our 10 glorious FEMA regions. We can keep the 13 stripes as they will represent the 13 members of the SUPERCONGRESS. Our flag would then be not only more appropriate but more awesome.
aldante
August 2, 2011 @
1:20 PM
Concho,
Don’t give them any Concho,
Don’t give them any more “great” ideas. This one sounds like one under serious consideration…..
I think our current country is more typified by a SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS……
eavesdropper
August 2, 2011 @
3:00 PM
aldante wrote:Concho,
Don’t [quote=aldante]Concho,
Don’t give them any more “great” ideas. This one sounds like one under serious consideration…..
I think our current country is more typified by a SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS……[/quote]
“SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS”. Excellent!!
There’s a rap in there someplace, and you, aldante, are just the guy to write it.
C’mon, Ron Paul needs an official campaign song.
bearishgurl
August 2, 2011 @
12:58 PM
eavesdropper wrote:UCGal [quote=eavesdropper][quote=UCGal] I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)[/quote]
Dingos. Brown leather biker boots. Looked fab with hip-hugger modified bell-bottoms (boot-cut jeans). They also made a great noise when you walked through the school hallway. My husband says he simultaneously lusted after and feared me back then. I work hard to keep that theme going in our marriage.
I also remember shelling out $36.00 (this is when min wage was a $1.35 an hour, fellow Piggs) for a pair of Adidas “Country” long-distance running shoes. However, it was a genuine need. I was a middle-distance runner, and did a lot of training on asphalt and concrete roads, and, even in my mid-teens, I was having joint impact issues. Hard to believe now, but you couldn’t get shoes specially made for road running (men had a bit more choice, but not women). All that was available to the mass consumer were spikes or shoes made for training on indoor tracks (at the most, a good cinder surface outdoors). When news leaked out that Adidas was introducing this radical new shoe, I started saving my pennies (literally). If you saw it now, you’d split a gut laughing: they look like something your grandmother would wear on her mall walks. But, compared to what I had been using, I really appreciated the technology, such as it was. But I wore them out quickly training, and at $36 a pair to replace, I did a lot of babysitting (good part was that there wasn’t a kid in a 100-mile radius who could outrun me, so babysitting wasn’t that bad of a gig).[/quote]
Lol, UCGal and eaves! I bought my “inverse U” and “hip hashmark” Dittos (mostly at “Gemco”) with my tips. I was also able to get matching see-thru belts in both turquoise and purple 🙂
Re: running shoes, I was also a distance runner at the time, both on pavement and dirt. In SD, you could get good “lightweight-for-the-era” running shoes for women at “Second Sole.” I got my money’s worth when getting my “free” Second Sole after only 7-12 months of ownership :=]
eavesdropper
August 2, 2011 @
3:09 PM
bearishgurl][quote=eavesdropp [quote=bearishgurl][quote=eavesdropper][quote=UCGal]
Lol, UCGal and eaves! I bought my “inverse U” and “hip hashmark” Dittos (mostly at “Gemco”) with my tips. I was also able to get matching see-thru belts in both turquoise and purple :)[/quote]
BG, was there a single deplorable 1970s clothing fad that you allowed to pass you by?
My money’s on “no” being your answer.
Love it, love it, love it! (you do realize that this whole thread offshoot started with my expression of intense envy over your rabbit coat, right?)
afx114
August 2, 2011 @
3:25 PM
As with most things in life, As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.
Allan from Fallbrook
August 2, 2011 @
3:34 PM
afx114 wrote:As with most [quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Afx: What a great post and right on the money. Now that I have kids, I truly appreciate the job my parents did, but recognize that they were from a different generation entirely. I allow my kids to watch “R” movies, access to beer or wine (on a very limited basis) during family events/BBQs and openly discuss sex, alcohol, drugs, etc.
You’re right, presentation is a key, as is context.
CA renter
August 2, 2011 @
5:19 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Afx: What a great post and right on the money. Now that I have kids, I truly appreciate the job my parents did, but recognize that they were from a different generation entirely. I allow my kids to watch “R” movies, access to beer or wine (on a very limited basis) during family events/BBQs and openly discuss sex, alcohol, drugs, etc.
You’re right, presentation is a key, as is context.[/quote]
Absolutely, afx, balance is key. We don’t hide the real world from our kids, but we do want to be there when they are exposed to the uglier side of life so that we can explain things to them.
Too many people don’t seem to understand that a child’s brain is in different stages of development at different ages. There’s a lot to be said for being mindful of where they are physically, mentally, and emotionally…and making sure that what they are being exposed to is age-appropriate. IMHO, slasher movies and videos (and reality TV — thank you, Eaves) are not “real life.” There are bad people out there who do horrific things to others, and that needs to be explained; but parents are not doing their children any favors by exposing them to the most gruesome and heinous details of their crimes via movies and videos that glorify torture and killing.
eavesdropper
August 2, 2011 @
9:28 PM
afx114 wrote:As with most [quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Absolutely, afx. Also, it’s a matter of what you consider “bad”. For instance, I don’t consider nudity “bad”, nor sex. While there are NO circumstances under which I would have let my preteens watch “Showgirls”, I wouldn’t hesitate to sit down and watch “Schindler’s List” with them. By the same token, I wouldn’t watch Schindler’s list with children under the age of 8, and then only if they were very bright, well read, mature-for-age 8/9 year olds. Not because of the nudity and sexual content, but because it would be extremely difficult for children that young to put it in context – one of those cases of “when are they coming here”.
Sex, drugs, crime, violence, people’s nastiness to each other are all part of “the big parade”. Children do need to become aware of them. However, as you say, they should learn about them at the proper stage of life, and in a context that presents them as they really are. As I mentioned, you have 4 and 5 yr-olds growing up thinking Freddie Kruger is going to move in next door because they’re unable to truly make the distinction between movie and reality. And even though violent crime is an abnormal, antisocial, and often deviant act, many films glorify that, and intensify the level of those qualities, while completely ignoring the tremendous human cost of such violent acts. More and more children are becoming anesthetized to the extremes in the media, which does not bode well for the rest of society.
However, people who perform categorical editing of their kids’ media exposure, like your relatives did, are putting them at a distinct disadvantage. There are young adults out there that cannot deal with the everyday realities of life because they’ve been so sheltered. If you’re so limited that you insist that your children watch nothing but G-rated movies until age 18, get them some classic films from the 30s, 40s and 50s, so they can at least acquaint themselves with life’s realities (and you won’t have to worry about the “curse words” or sexual references). I agree with you that some kids rebel and go the other way, but I also think that kids are totally unprepared for life’s dangers.
Growing up in the 60s, my friends and I (btw ages 6-12) were pretty much limited to G-rated films because of our parents AND the local theater owner, who’d throw you out of M and R films. But TV shows , though not realistic, were introducing themes that showed the dangers of drugs, talking to strangers, hitchhiking, teen drinking. By early 70s, they were even touching on teen pregnancy (anybody remember an ABC Movie of the Week called “Mr. & Mrs. Bo Jo Jones”? It starred Desi Arnaz, Jr. and sucked worse than its title.) I also read a helluva lot, including newspapers on a daily basis, during my childhood. So I was conditioned from what I read about the addictive potential of heroin and horrendous withdrawal descriptions to know that I never wanted to go near the stuff. I had a mom that never sat me down for the “talk” but, because I read at an advanced level, I found out all about sex from accurate sources, and then told all my friends whose moms were like mine. I knew all about a wide variety of birth control methods, how they worked, where to get them, and also that there is NO “safe time”.
But let’s face it: most kids didn’t read a lot back then, and even less read now. If they have families that limit them to G-rated movies, that means they are still watching preschool entertainment and whatever romance or adventure movies that are made by Christian entertainment media outlets. Then their parents send them out on their own, with no information about the dangers they may encounter. Sorry, but that’s not loving your children.
BTW, good responses from Allan and CAR, too.
bearishgurl
August 2, 2011 @
3:38 PM
eavesdropper wrote:BG, was [quote=eavesdropper]BG, was there a single deplorable 1970s clothing fad that you allowed to pass you by?
My money’s on “no” being your answer.
Love it, love it, love it! (you do realize that this whole thread offshoot started with my expression of intense envy over your rabbit coat, right?)[/quote]
eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.
Also had several colors of “Dr. Scholl’s” wood sandals (that UCGal spoke of), incl: Jean fabric, tan, avocado green, navy and red!
bearishgurl wrote: eaves, I [quote=bearishgurl] eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.[/quote]
BG, you’re killing me!! That jacket had all the food groups: white fur (were people, like, always mistaking it for ermine??), vinyl (and not any vinyl, but the shiny stuff), AND (be still, my “really bad taste” radar) CHAINS!!!!
You know, I once watched 10 minutes of “Can’t Stop the Music”, and, since then, I find myself wondering if California wasn’t responsible for the 1970s. You know, some kind of one-upmanship competition between Nancy Reagan and Imelda Marcos to see which of them could manage to humiliate their subjects more through the distribution of truly tasteless cultural trends.
But then I realize that I forgot to take my meds again, and I’m conspiracy theorizing. After I take my inexpensive lifesaving miracle drugs, brought to you by the wonderful folks at Pfizer Pharmaceutical$, I’m thinkin’ straight.
It’s obvious that the 1970s were a PTSD-induced reaction to Duane Allman’s untimely death on October 29, 1971 (HEY!!! A moment of silence, please??)
As for the jacket, you so ROCK!! Some people are just way ahead of their time, and that’s you, BG. Megakudos!!
bearishgurl
August 2, 2011 @
11:26 PM
eavesdropper [quote=eavesdropper][quote=bearishgurl] eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.[/quote]
BG, you’re killing me!! That jacket had all the food groups: white fur (were people, like, always mistaking it for ermine??), vinyl (and not any vinyl, but the shiny stuff), AND (be still, my “really bad taste” radar) CHAINS!!!!
You know, I once watched 10 minutes of “Can’t Stop the Music”, and, since then, I find myself wondering if California wasn’t responsible for the 1970s. You know, some kind of one-upmanship competition between Nancy Reagan and Imelda Marcos to see which of them could manage to humiliate their subjects more through the distribution of truly tasteless cultural trends.
But then I realize that I forgot to take my meds again, and I’m conspiracy theorizing. After I take my inexpensive lifesaving miracle drugs, brought to you by the wonderful folks at Pfizer Pharmaceutical$, I’m thinkin’ straight.
It’s obvious that the 1970s were a PTSD-induced reaction to Duane Allman’s untimely death on October 29, 1971 (HEY!!! A moment of silence, please??)
As for the jacket, you so ROCK!! Some people are just way ahead of their time, and that’s you, BG. Megakudos!![/quote]
eaves, I never made it to Woodstock, but for the record, I saw a GREAT Allman Bros (remaining Bros) concert sitting on the grass at the “Mile High Stadium” (now “Invesco Field”) where we passed around a glorified “jumbo hairpin” (or bobby-pin) for a “roach clip.” Yeah, I was wearing my “bestest” halter top (that I tye-dyed myself) with my puka-shells-with-turq-accents, lol, at the time. Of course, it was too warm for the rabbit jacket, lol! Still have Polaroid pics!!
THANK YOU, but CO ALSO had a major responsibility to uphold the ’70’s (culture). My recent trip there showed me that most of my “counterparts” are very much alive and well and never left!!
KSMountain wrote:
An [quote=KSMountain]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
KSM: I can’t disagree; there were some fond memories, too, and some great music. Tom Petty, Styx, ELO, Dire Straits, Bad Co., Babys, Bob Seger and, of course, Randy Vanwarmer.
Speaking of feathered hair, did you have the Farrah Fawcett poster? I had that thing from about 5th grade until I tore it down in fury (when she married that a-hole Lee Majors!).
I had a buddy in HS that had a pink Caddie Eldo convertible that we’d take to Santa Cruz (via Highway 17, the so-called “suicide slot”, due to all of the accidents). It had a white leather interior, an 8-track player, and was stupid fast for a car that size. I remember blaring Rush’s “Moving Pictures” with the Ray-Bans on and the top down. Just being “that age” had a lot going for it.
jpinpb
August 2, 2011 @
8:06 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
You left out ABBA!
As for old cars, my grandfather had a Chevy Nova. Wonder what happened to it.
UCGal – blowing dust off the memories – Millers Oupost and Candies – yeah.
Setting aside the off topic, this has been a great thread to read through. Thanks eavesdropper and others for your opinions and discussions!
an
July 31, 2011 @
12:46 AM
Jacarandoso wrote:I am middle [quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.
briansd1
July 31, 2011 @
3:21 PM
AN wrote:Jacarandoso wrote:I [quote=AN][quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.[/quote]
A 3rd or 4th party would never work in America because we have a winner-takes-all system.
I think that someone mentioned a parliamentary system as more democratic.
gromit
July 31, 2011 @
5:26 PM
briansd1 wrote:AN [quote=briansd1][quote=AN][quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.[/quote]
A 3rd or 4th party would never work in America because we have a winner-takes-all system.
I think that someone mentioned a parliamentary system as more democratic.[/quote]
I agree– in a parliamentary system, each party gets a number of representatives allocated to it in the parliament based on the percentage of citizens that vote for that party’s candidate. That means fringe parties can put representatives in the legislature in proportion to the citizens that vote for them; it also means they stay on the fringe if they’re in the minority, and there’s no need to kowtow to them (as with the GOP and tea party).
Also, American politics has turned into such a corporate money driven exercise, thanks in large part to our conservative Supreme Court, which thinks that a corporation is the equivalent of a sweet cuddly human being, rather than a legal fiction. Not much hope for a 3rd or 4th party (read: 3rd or 4th-best-funded) candidate.
an
July 31, 2011 @
1:24 AM
eavesdropper wrote:Remind me [quote=eavesdropper]Remind me again how it is that you do not have that control now?
And why do your beliefs mean that I should share in the responsibility of paying YOUR child’s private school tuition?[/quote]
Uh, last I checked, I have to send my kids to the designated local school. I can try to do inter/intra district transfer, but that’s hardly the same kind of control voucher system would provide.
You are paying for MY child’s public school tuition, so what difference does it make? If anything, it would save you some money if I decide to send my kid to a private school that charges less. If you truly believe that you shouldn’t pay for my kids’ education, then that’s perfectly fine. I shouldn’t have to pay for others’ children public school tuition as well. We all can just pay less property tax (reduce the amount that would go to schooling) and let everyone pay for their own schooling. I’d be perfectly fine w/ that too.
[quote=eavesdropper]Education is a huge undertaking. The problem is that there are certain fixed costs that cannot be divided in real life among separate students. Rough example: A district builds a school for 400 students. 3 years later, the parents of 125 students decide the school isn’t meeting the needs of their children. The reason: their parents don’t like the fact that they’re being taught human reproduction, including how contraception works (the physiology of contraception; they are NOT handing out condoms), in their biology class. But out of the 125 kids, the parents of 40 of them also are upset that intelligent design is not taught in the school.
All of a sudden, you need three school facilities instead of one. Your existing school has tax revenue from 275 students instead of 400. In addition, I’m not sure how you’re going to build and staff schools from the tax revenue for 85 students and 40 students.
Simplistic explanation, I know, but the idea under it all is that it’s a waste of already scarce resources.[/quote]
In reality, that logic doesn’t pan out, since you’d have a couple more zeros behind those numbers of students. Why is choice such a bad thing?
[quote=eavesdropper]An, first I have to ask you to qualify the statement that begins, “If a school is failing…”. You’re a parent of a child at the school. What characterizes the school as “failing”?[/quote]
Failing is different for every parent. It doesn’t matter what my personal definition of failing is, but if I think the school is failing my kid, I should have a choice to send my kid to a different school, be it public or private.
[quote=eavesdropper]Aside from that, I tried to address the “competition” issue in my earlier post. Do you honestly think that there is a school out there, especially one with academically-struggling students, that is totally satisfied with their facility and its performance? That isn’t already feeling like they are trying to keep up with schools that have better records? How exactly is removing students (along with their respective tax revenues) from a school going to foster a sense of competition? [/quote]
Yes.
[quote=eavesdropper]Again, schools have students in a classroom setting for about 4 to 4.5 hours per day. For the remaining 19 or 20 hours per day, those students are exposed to a wide variety of living conditions and influences. There aren’t enough hours in a school setting for a student to both receive basic instruction and to use the information so that it becomes a permanent part of their intellectual inventory. In addition, teachers cannot force students to learn. What students are exposed to for that other 20 hours per day, combined with how much emotional and physical support they receive from their parents, makes a HUGE difference in how they progress in school.[/quote]
First, 4-4.5 hours? Are you serious? My 3 year old preschool spend 7 hours in a classroom setting (6 if you take out lunch and PE). More if you add in after school activities like foreign language or music classes. You just describe what I’d consider a failing school. To some, it’s OK if their kids spend only 4-4.5 hrs. a day in a classroom setting while for me, it’s not. Right now, if I live in an area that have such school, I don’t have as easy of a path to send my kids to somewhere else.
[quote=eavesdropper]My understanding of the voucher system was that part of the alternative (private) school tuition would be paid, not the entire amount. If it is a case where the ENTIRE amount is paid, I truly do not understand how the cost will be covered by the government. Is there a voucher-supporting conservative out there who can explain that to me?[/quote]
Again, I’m paying less for my son’s private school tuition that the SDUSD is spending on each student. So, if anything, I’m saving the government and all its tax payer some money. But I’m willing to compromise and take partial tuition payment.
[quote=eavesdropper]As for whether it’s transferring from one public school to another in a “better” area, I cannot comprehend how that’s going to work. The planning of education, like any broadscale public service, requires short- AND long-term planning and forecasting. Students can’t be shifted around willy-nilly, per the whims of their parents.[/quote]
It works perfectly fine in Finland where their school system is ranked #1. You should study how they implement their voucher system if you don’t think it can work.
[quote=eavesdropper]In addition, you mention “poor” students. What income level are we talking about here? In reality, genuinely poor families are concerned with keeping a roof over their children’s heads, and food in their bellies. I’m fairly sure that most of them are happy just to have a place to drop their kids off in the morning before they go to one of their minimum wage jobs. I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t imagine the parent coming home from work at 2:30 am and pulling out the real estate map so that they can evaluate the relative benefits of one school district over another. Also you need to recognize the added burden that traveling a distance to a “better” school takes on a young student who comes from a poor family.[/quote]Those who don’t treasure education wouldn’t care, but there are poor parents who do care and want to send their kids to school that perform better. Have you ever heard of The Preuss School UCSD? This will tell you how many poor parents actually care.
[quote=eavesdropper]I’m sorry, but many of the justifications you provide here don’t seem to be motivated by a concern for better schools, or opportunities for the poor. As I said earlier, every argument I hear for vouchers melts down to a middle-class parent who wants their kid to have access to a private school education on the government dime (i.e., entitlement program??), or else someone that wants their church’s bible study/sunday school converted into a full-time facility with government-paid tuition. In reality, this proposal will benefit the upper middle class, not the poor or the lower middle class.[/quote]Wrong and wrong. First, where does the government get their money? Second, it doesn’t have to be private school. I’m perfectly fine w/ a voucher system that don’t include private school.
[quote=eavesdropper]I can’t speak as to the superior qualities of the Finnish schools, but would be very interested in finding out more. Do you have any links to websites that give some detail?[/quote]I watched a view documentaries and read up on it. I don’t have the link in hand but you can easily Google it. There are plenty of hits since it’s a well discussed topic and Finnish schools are ranking #1 in international testings.
[quote=eavesdropper]Many times, people see article describing educational systems in other countries, in which the students are doing very well. They wonder aloud why we can’t do that here in the United States, and from there it’s a quick descent into a fact-free blamefest: “It’s the teachers’ union that caused it all” “It’s the welfare kids that go to the school”, or my personal favorite, “It’s because they took God out of the schools”. Excuse me, but I’m all full up on anecdotal “evidence”.[/quote]I see the same argument for single payer system for healthcare. If we can use Europe as a model for healthcare since it work better ours, then why can’t we do the same for education?
[quote=eavesdropper]In some countries of the world, education is afforded a place of high priority. It IS a privilege in some places, and the people recognize that. In many nations, behavior like that exhibited by many of today’s elementary and high school students would not be tolerated. The “rules” may not be in writing, especially in places where parents make sure that their children learn respect for their elders at an early age. [/quote]This is not very different from the healthcare debate.
[quote=eavesdropper]Yes, there are plenty of “bad” students….or, at least, students who frequently demonstrate bad behavior. My point is that they do it because they CAN do it. More and more students have no idea how to behave in the classroom, and for quite a few, it’s appropriate behavior to loudly express your resentment at having to be in the classroom when you would much rather be at the mall. Have you been in an American high school in the past five years? The students are not only openly disrespectful of their teachers, but they will often refuse to follow the instructions of their teachers, and carry on loud conversations that are disruptive, and keep other students in the classroom from learning.[/quote]You must have never really meet real bad kids. Saying that gang members do it because they CAN do it and won’t if they can’t is foolish.
[quote=eavesdropper]You ask, “Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? “. I hope not. But the fact is that we currently have a society where a large portion of the citizenry is uneducated, either because they didn’t give a crap about their own education, or because their teachers were powerless to remove them from the class when they were loud and disruptive, and this prevented other students from learning. And it’s getting worse every year.[/quote]If you think they’re uneducated now, just wait and see how really uneducated they are when you actually remove them from the classroom.
[quote=eavesdropper]The responsibility for disciplining students, and teaching them to respect others and how to behave in a classroom is NOT the job of the school or the teacher. It is the sole responsibility of the parent, one from which they have completely abdicated. We should be discouraging that abdication of responsibility by refusing to tolerate the unacceptable behavior of their children in our schools.[/quote]This I totally agree with, but unfortunately, the parents of those bad kids most of the time don’t give a crap. So, what do you do? If you kick them out and give them no education, then might as well ship them all to an island like England did to criminals and Australia.
[quote=eavesdropper]Instead we dump these uncivilized cretins in the classroom, and tell the teachers that it’s their problem. And the people who are actually at the root of the problem – namely, the PARENTS – aren’t held accountable. So where is the motivation for them to change their irresponsible habits?
Parents see schools as government-sponsored daycare for their kids. That attitude needs to change. Education is a privilege, and if you don’t care enough to teach your children how to behave in a school, and make sure that they ARE behaving there, then you don’t get to take advantage of the privilege. Education isn’t daycare, and teachers aren’t babysitters.[/quote]On one hand, you say parents need to care more about their kids’ education and on the other you tell parents that actually care that they can’t have the control they deserve because they are are too demanding. Make up your mind.
BTW, what you suggested is not that different in the end result than a voucher system. At least w/ a voucher system, the good students will be together and the bad students will be together. While with your solution, the good students will be together but the bad students get no education.
Also, with your solution, the “scarce resource” argument still apply if 1/2 of the students are bad and get kicked out. Now, you have a school that have less students.
BTW, Sweden, Denmark, and Netherlands are also other countries that have voucher system and their kids are scoring better than ours as well. AFAIK, parents get to pick public or private school and it’s all covered. Also, make no mistake that voucher system is NOT the silver bullet. There are many other things that need to be changed as well. But it NEVER hurt to have parents more involved and have more control of education their children.
Here’s a nice read on school choice vs performance: linky
Here’s a blurb:
[quote=Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D.]OECD data also indicate that school choice benefits students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Among the top five countries with above-average performance and a below-average impact of student socioeconomic background, competition for students was the most common characteristic. On average, 80 percent of schools in Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, and Korea faced high levels of competition for students. Parental school choice was even a more common characteristic than selective school admissions (26 percent) or parental pressure on their children to do well in school (73 percent). Among these high-performing countries, students spent an average of less than three hours a week on out-of-school lessons and around five hours per week on homework.[/quote]
I would think that it’s common sense that when vendors compete, the customers win. In this case, the schools are the vendors and the customers are the students.
eavesdropper
August 3, 2011 @
4:16 PM
AN wrote: [The school [quote=AN] [The school voucher system] works perfectly fine in Finland where their school system is ranked #1. You should study how they implement their voucher system if you don’t think it can work.[/quote]
AN, my apologies for the delay in responding to your previous post (July 31, 3:24 am). I take great pains to ensure that the facts and evidence I present are just that, and the research to ensure this can take a lot of time. In addition, when my correspondent’s argument against my POV is based on information with which I am not familiar, I don’t automatically tell him that he’s wrong. I can tell him that I don’t agree, but in the absence of knowledge or information, I cannot judge him wrong.
You REPEATEDLY referred, in several posts, to Finland’s academic superiority that resulted from its change to a competitive market model via school vouchers (see quote above); therefore, I felt obliged to read up, not only because I lacked perspective on the Finnish system, but because I was interested in how their system achieved such results. However, I was taken back a bit when, in response to my request for URLs of sources you found informative, I received this response: “I watched a view documentaries and read up on it. I don’t have the link in hand but you can easily Google it. There are plenty of hits since it’s a well discussed topic and Finnish schools are ranking #1 in international testings.”
Excuse me? You’ve been carrying on lengthy arguments, not only with me, but with other Piggs on alternate threads, fiercely defending the “proven” virtues of the school voucher systems, but this is all you’ve got?
Okay, I’ll let that go. I did read your linked article on “school choice” by Dr. Vicky Murray. This is not a research paper, but a very poorly-written opinion piece, and if the claims she made throughout the article are valid, I can’t prove it, as she apparently felt her status as a PhD and a senior fellow in education studies at the Pacific Research Institute excused her from having to include references and citations. However, I wanted to give your “expert” a fair shot, so I looked up AND read a number of her papers on the success of school voucher systems that were listed on the PRI and other websites. Her publications are all of a similar genre to the original: they are straight-out opinion pieces. Many had no references; the ones that did were almost laughable with regard to what she did or did not include (the work of any college freshman who tried to pass that off as a bibliography deserves an F).
Still wanting to be fair, I researched Dr. Murray’s education/qualifications as an educational policy expert. Unfortunately, I could not locate a CV anywhere (including her personal site, where the CV had been removed), and the only Google hits led to PRI or “papers” she had written posted by entities that had hired her. No info re: undergrad, but her Ph.D. is from a diploma mill (and is in Politics, not in education-related studies). The upshot is that Vicki Murray is a paid mouthpiece for PRI, a lobbying group that advocates what they term as “free-market policy solutions.” Why am I so concerned about her? Because when you search for pro-school voucher sites, she is represented on a huge number of right-leaning sites: either quoted as a “leading educational expert” who is “highly knowledgeable in the success of school vouchers”, or through publication of her “research”.
Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.
I have a number of other excellent sources regarding the structure and success of the Finnish education model and the Program for International Student Assessment study (testing results). These sources are ACCURATE and REPUTABLE. You’re right, AN: they were easy to find on Google. Which begs the question: Why didn’t you find them?
In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m pissed off. I come to Piggs because I meet people who, for the most part, are intelligent, well-informed, and who always welcome an opportunity to mix it up in challenging arguments. The political leanings of most are, to a degree, in one particular direction, but they have no problem with people who prefer to lean opposite. This is because there is no greater evidence that a nation is free than the open exchange and expression of widely diverging ideas and opinions on a public forum that is open to the eyes of all.
However, there’s a difference between what qualifies as an argument, and what is simply someone trying to shove their opinion down your throat. Successful argumentation requires both sides being presented: each side brings their facts and evidence, along with their opinions, to the forum.
You haven’t done that. You shoot down other people’s statements, but don’t offer evidence of your argument for doing so. You don’t answer questions, and you cherry-pick points you want to challenge. That doesn’t thrill me, but I’m okay with it. However, it really pisses me off when people repeatedly make baseless claims, or provide “evidence” that is, in actuality, opinion.
You’ve challenged a number of people on their opinions on the current educational model, but then I find out that your child isn’t in the public school system of which you speak. You use your 3 year-old child’s experience in a private preschool (with a 7-hour school day) to challenge my argument about the average PUBLIC high school student’s 4-hour day. I try to explain the logistics of removing and adding pupils to and from a variety of schools and districts, and you cling to your vision of “simply” moving X dollars per student from one entity to another (read this article, AN. [www.jrre.psu.edu/articles/v5,n3,p21-29,Thompson.pdf] It’s outdated, but it will familiarize you with a few of the challenges of changing to voucher education. It will also serve the purpose of introducing you to what an actual research paper looks like.) You persist in envisioning my concerns about problematic student behavior as limited to “gang members”, when, actually, I’m talking about ALL students in public schools, including those from upper middle class families.
Most clueless of all is the following response to my request that you characterize school “failure”. You said, “Failing is different for every parent. It doesn’t matter what my personal definition of failing is, but if I think the school is failing my kid, I should have a choice to send my kid to a different school, be it public or private.” Aside the fact that you DO have a choice of where to school your child (you just don’t have a choice of who will pick up the tab), I cannot even begin to address the – shall we say, naivete – of this belief. Let us speculate on the delicious possibilities* of such “freedom”:
—- “I have a beautiful, talented daughter who is in pageants. I want her in a school that replaces some of that stuff she’s never going to use, like spelling and fractions, with courses that will help her achieve her destiny of Hollywood stardom”
—- “My son’s Jupiter is in Sagittarius this year, so his pediatric astrologer thinks that’s the reason he’s flunking science. She recommended that he be bused to School X, whose principal’s chart is more closely aligned with my son’s than is his current principal.”
—- “I know that I transferred my kids to School B last year, because they teach Intelligent Design there. But I didn’t know that they also teach the Theory of Evolution. They say it’s “science”, but, after all, it’s just a theory. It’s not like it’s a law that’s been proven. He needs to go to a school where they only teach science that’s been proven, like Intelligent Design has.”
—- “Jamie needs to go to a school where they understand him. They, like, give him work to do at home. Isn’t that what school is for? He says he’s too busy to do homework, but they’re still giving him Fs claiming that he missed assignments. Then I have to go to school to get the grades changed to Bs. I missed Pilates the last time I had to do that. I want him in a school where the teachers are trained to recognize and grade talent that kids are born with.”
*if you think that such excuses are ridiculous examples, do some research into the reasons people have given for switching to home-schooling.
AN, you challenged views that were expressed by knowledgeable people, who were able to back their views up with evidence, but, in reality, you were unarmed. You don’t “research” issues, or try to acquire knowledge with which to make a decision. What you do is what most people in America (including members of our esteemed Congress) do: You formulate an opinion, which is actually a visceral reaction in disguise, and then you go to the always-reputable WWW for support for that position. You either follow a link given to you by a like-minded friend, or you go to your favorite completely one-sided blog or homepage, and harvest your “evidence” and “scientific data” there. But what’s really great about it is, all those people having the exact same opinion as yours gives you license to ignore the need for evidence. “I mean, all these people are saying the exact same thing. I’m sure they confirmed the evidence.” In reality, ANY one-sided website is an excuse for people to vent, and to pretend/assume that such consensus must have a foundation of proven facts.
Here’s a handy tip: when you go to a website where everybody thinks just like you do, chances are very strong that a significant percentage of the information there is flawed. Sorta like the websites that praised Finland’s school voucher system. You are a sitting duck for the powers-that- be who are using the masses to push through candidates, policy, and legislation that end up hurting them. You live in a nation where you still have freedom of choice. Treat that freedom like the priceless gift that it is: use it to make sure that you study everything. While it’s true that the Finnish National Board of Education and the OECD/PISA sites are not nearly as entertaining or easy to read as FreeRepublic.com or Drudge Report or Sean Hannity, they can be counted on to provide accurate information about their own school system. Also keep in mind that if the evidence on a site doesn’t match what you were hoping to find, that does NOT automatically disqualify the information source from being impartial. It IS possible that you were buying into a lie.
So either admit that you want a school voucher system so that you can send your child to a private school while the taxpayer picks up the tab (BTW, it’s okay to admit that. Every good parent wants the best for their children.), or spend less time on Piggs picking fights on subjects about which you know nothing, spreading misinformation in the process, and more time actually studying the issues that concern you.
Because when you’re on Piggs, the shots are being exchanged at a rapid pace. And AN, your ammo box is empty.
an
August 3, 2011 @
6:00 PM
eavesdropper wrote:So either [quote=eavesdropper]So either admit that you want a school voucher system so that you can send your child to a private school while the taxpayer picks up the tab (BTW, it’s okay to admit that. Every good parent wants the best for their children.), or spend less time on Piggs picking fights on subjects about which you know nothing, spreading misinformation in the process, and more time actually studying the issues that concern you.
Because when you’re on Piggs, the shots are being exchanged at a rapid pace. And AN, your ammo box is empty.[/quote]
Sorry, but I’ve said it many times, I’m fine if you removed the private school from the voucher system. I would be perfectly fine having an option to send my kids to TPHS, SRHS, Westview HS, etc. Those are ALL public schools. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my retirement security by living in such areas. For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.
FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. If those are not your point, prove me wrong. Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. I’m perfectly fine with more magnet schools, more charter schools, etc.
BTW, I would be perfectly fine with your system you proposed, where the bad students get expelled. But, I highly doubt either system will be implemented. I was only voicing my opinion because I want change, hoping our primary school will be as revered as our secondary schools. Another proven good system is our secondary school system. We can model after that.
I’m sorry I can type as long of a post as yours. But you haven’t proven to me why voucher system are bad, so although my ammo is empty, you’re aim is so bad you’re missing the point completely. I was only trying to offer another system that have produce better results. They’re being implemented my socialist countries no less. I love it that people living in these socialist countries have more choices in schools than we do. CHOICE is the key word here.
bearishgurl
August 3, 2011 @
10:05 PM
AN wrote:Sorry, but I’ve said [quote=AN]Sorry, but I’ve said it many times, I’m fine if you removed the private school from the voucher system. I would be perfectly fine having an option to send my kids to TPHS, SRHS, Westview HS, etc. Those are ALL public schools. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my retirement security by living in such areas. For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.[/quote]
AN, I thought your schools in MM were ALL GOOD, from K-12! Isn’t that why you purchased in the area you grew up in … to raise your family there? Do you currently have kid(s) enrolled in public school in MM? If they’re not in MMHS yet, why can’t you attempt to “choice” them into one of the above schools when the time comes … SRHS? I just don’t see a big problem here.
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. This cost would be the same as paying a $5K annual MR, $2K annual HOA dues and borrowing $40K more in mtg purchase money to live in, say, 4-Closure Ranch. You won’t be able to save more “retirement” $$ for yourself by paying your current property taxes and then sending your child(ren) to private schools. Why not just rent if you’re going to do that??
[quote=AN]FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. If those are not your point, prove me wrong. Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. I’m perfectly fine with more magnet schools, more charter schools, etc.[/quote]
AN, I don’t think ALL parents know what’s best for their children. Some “well-intentioned” parents are actually getting in the way of a good education for their children by foisting their OWN jaded or paranoid beliefs about schools and/or districts (which they themselves never attended) and their OWN warped agendas on their children and/or trying to live vicariously thru them (read: “helicoptering”). If you just send your kid to your neighborhood school to get their class schedule and get settled (without “dissing” it to them first) they may very well come home happy and talking about their new classes and friends they are making.
I believe in “choice,” especially for those families served by schools which fail the “No Child Left Behind” test. However, I do NOT believe vouchers to attend private school should be paid for by the taxpayer. I also believe that those who pay more “property taxes” and much “higher rent” in particular areas “deserve” to have high-performing schools in their attendance areas. It doesn’t always turn out this way, however. Vouchers issued by the state just to pay for esoteric activities or a faith-based curriculum that a “few parents” (not necessarily students) want “for their child” is unjust enrichment to these families. The cost of these parents’ “special requests” and “private desires” for their children should be borne by them.
CA public schools are set up to graduate a very diverse population of students after successfully passing the state-sanctioned academic curriculum, passing their HS exit exam, serving their community service hours, and, in some districts, turning in a “portfolio” of their accomplishments. They can’t possibly cater to parents’ whims on class offerings, rules, attendance policies, etc.
AN, I don’t understand why you want vouchers for your child(ren) since you are living in the area of your choice already. It doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.
an
August 3, 2011 @
10:28 PM
bearishgurl wrote:
AN, I [quote=bearishgurl]
AN, I thought your schools in MM were ALL GOOD, from K-12! Isn’t that why you purchased in the area you grew up in … to raise your family there? Do you currently have kid(s) enrolled in public school in MM? If they’re not in MMHS yet, why can’t you attempt to “choice” them into one of the above schools when the time comes … SRHS? I just don’t see a big problem here.
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. This cost would be the same as paying a $5K annual MR, $2K annual HOA dues and borrowing $40K more in mtg purchase money to live in, say, 4-Closure Ranch. You won’t be able to save more “retirement” $$ for yourself by paying your current property taxes and then sending your child(ren) to private schools. Why not just rent if you’re going to do that??[/quote]
Yes, MM schools are good. But not great. I’m planning to only keep my kids in private school preK-6th grade. I personally don’t see as big of an advantage in Jr. High and HS. So I’ll be putting them in Challenger Middle School and MMHS. With K-6th grade, there’s 1 curriculum and all kids are lump together. While Jr. High and HS, kids are separated by their ability. Also, in HS, I will get my kids to go to Jr. College at night and summer as well.
With regards to cost, I’m paying much less than $10k. Also, talking to the parents who have their kids at the school I’ll be sending my kids to, they all loved it and they even look down to Carmel Valley schools in term of academics and they believe their kids are being learning much more. I have to agree when I ask what they’re learning at certain age and compare that to my cousin’s current curriculum. It doesn’t even compare. With regards to why buy? I’m paying less in my mortgage than comparable rent. So why rent?
[quote=bearishgurl]AN, I don’t think ALL parents know what’s best for their children. Some “well-intentioned” parents are actually getting in the way of a good education for their children by foisting their OWN jaded or paranoid beliefs about schools and/or districts (which they themselves never attended) and their OWN warped agendas on their children and/or trying to live vicariously thru them (read: “helicoptering”). If you just send your kid to your neighborhood school to get their class schedule and get settled (without “dissing” it to them first) they may very well come home happy and talking about their new classes and friends they are making.[/quote]Sorry, but I believe parents know more about what’s good for their kids than the government.
[quote=bearishgurl]I believe in “choice,” especially for those families served by schools which fail the “No Child Left Behind” test. However, I do NOT believe vouchers to attend private school should be paid for by the taxpayer. I also believe that those who pay more “property taxes” and much “higher rent” in particular areas “deserve” to have high-performing schools in their attendance areas. It doesn’t always turn out this way, however. Vouchers issued by the state just to pay for esoteric activities or a faith-based curriculum that a “few parents” (not necessarily students) want “for their child” is unjust enrichment to these families. The cost of these parents’ “special requests” and “private desires” for their children should be borne by them.
CA public schools are set up to graduate a very diverse population of students after successfully passing the state-sanctioned academic curriculum, passing their HS exit exam, serving their community service hours, and, in some districts, turning in a “portfolio” of their accomplishments. They can’t possibly cater to parents’ whims on class offerings, rules, attendance policies, etc.
AN, I don’t understand why you want vouchers for your child(ren) since you are living in the area of your choice already. It doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.[/quote]
It seems like you’re against voucher system because you think the current system is fine. I want to change, be it voucher or something else that’s better, is because I don’t think our school system is as good as it could be. That’s what I’m seeing from this debate.
With regards to my children and vouchers, it’s not really about me. I’m perfectly satisfied w/ private school for preK-6th (I see their academic performance as better than ANY public elementary school in SD) and MM schools for 6th-12th. I want voucher for the other kids who are stuck in their bad schools and don’t have an easier way to attend better schools. A friend of mine is a teacher and she used to teach at a Charter school before it closes. She said the District tried and tried to shut them down. They finally was successful. The current establishment doesn’t like choices is what I gather.
bearishgurl
August 3, 2011 @
10:44 PM
AN wrote:…With regards to [quote=AN]…With regards to my children and vouchers, it’s not really about me. I’m perfectly satisfied w/ private school for preK-6th (I see their academic performance as better than ANY public elementary school in SD) and MM schools for 6th-12th. I want voucher for the other kids who are stuck in their bad schools and don’t have an easier way to attend better schools. A friend of mine is a teacher and she used to teach at a Charter school before it closes. She said the District tried and tried to shut them down. They finally was successful. The current establishment doesn’t like choices is what I gather.[/quote]
Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.
an
August 3, 2011 @
10:51 PM
bearishgurl wrote:Families [quote=bearishgurl]Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.[/quote]
Based on my understanding of “choicing” into school, it’s not as easy or straight forward as voucher. Even IF “choicing” for those bad areas is as robust and easy as vouchers, I DON’T believe only certain student have that luxury while the rest are denied such luxury. I know about inter/intradistrict transfer. But again, it’s not as easy and straight forward. Again, this luxury should be giving to ALL of our students, just not the one in failing schools. What about kids who are barely above the failing mark?
CA renter
August 4, 2011 @
4:57 AM
AN wrote:bearishgurl [quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.[/quote]
Based on my understanding of “choicing” into school, it’s not as easy or straight forward as voucher. Even IF “choicing” for those bad areas is as robust and easy as vouchers, I DON’T believe only certain student have that luxury while the rest are denied such luxury. I know about inter/intradistrict transfer. But again, it’s not as easy and straight forward. Again, this luxury should be giving to ALL of our students, just not the one in failing schools. What about kids who are barely above the failing mark?[/quote]
What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.
Scarlett
August 4, 2011 @
6:30 AM
CA renter wrote:What happens [quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.
bearishgurl
August 4, 2011 @
11:53 AM
Scarlett wrote:CA renter [quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
I’m almost certain that if a school already has reached its maximum capacity of CHOICE, VEEPS and Magnet (if applic) students, in combination with its already enrolled students within its attendance area (who have first priority), then it will turn away applications. I don’t know for certain, but would surmise that students out of an attendance area are admitted to a school in the following order:
1. Magnet students (who may have auditioned)
2. Choice (No Child Left Behind Act)
3. VEEPS
4. Choice (Other intra-district)
5. Inter-District transfers (outside of district)
Perhaps there is Pigg who works/worked for a school district who can help us here.
Schools usually will not exceed their physical capacity unless another school is under construction nearby (it’s a temporary accommodation). The excess in capacity results from new construction projects which bring in more students from a particular attendance area. I have seen schools in Chula Vista shut down ALL methods of accepting incoming students from out of their attendance areas when they had an overcapacity of “local” students, as well as bus some of the “new-construction” students to schools in further away, older areas.
I don’t see any school populations dwindling to empty. First of all, a CHOICE transfer is not always connected to free transportation. Not every parent has the time or even vehicle to transport their child to a different area to school every day. Second, the NCLB Act students have first priority on a CHOICE transfer and each school has a certain number of slots available (some have none). Third, if most or all the CHOICE transfers in a school are from NCLB schools, then that leaves few to no transfer-in opportunities from the pool of “other” CHOICE applicants. VEEPS are ahead of “other” CHOICE applicants. Many VEEPS originate from a NCLB attendance area and transportation is often provided to the CHOICE school. These are deserving and hardworking students whose families are designated “low-income.” I have no doubt that some NCLB schools (or “recovering NCLB” schools) have specialized magnets, drawing students in from other areas into their magnet programs.
My kids have always attended their local schools but I have noticed that schools which are located in areas with fewer children (read: older areas) accept more transfers of every kind because they have more room. I know many people who have successfully used all those methods of school transfers. However, the student’s application must be renewed every year and their attendance year-to-year is NOT “guaranteed.” IMO, if you’re trying to choice into a school in an older area (which is NOT upper middle/upper class, such as LJ), you can get your application accepted and keep attending year after year successfully if the area is already built out (no new construction pending).
ninaprincess
August 4, 2011 @
1:58 PM
After all the debates, they After all the debates, they managed to cut $200 bil out of a $1200 bil deficit so we are still adding at least one trillion dollars in debt every year?
When Bush was in office, the deficit was near $600 bil and now it is $1200 bil. I wonder how much of the difference is because of lower revenue and how much of it is because of extra spending? Could anyone find out?
CA renter
August 5, 2011 @
3:29 AM
Scarlett wrote:CA renter [quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.
an
August 5, 2011 @
9:23 AM
CA renter wrote:Scarlett [quote=CA renter][quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.[/quote]
It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity.
I’m just speaking out loud here, but if we implement an admission process like we do with our colleges, then the student body would be more homogeneous in term of academic capability.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
9:53 AM
AN wrote:It might look [quote=AN]It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity…[/quote]
AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.
an
August 5, 2011 @
10:24 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN, “new [quote=bearishgurl]AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.[/quote]
“new classrooms” would only be needed if all classrooms are full and there are still more students that were turned away every year.
I’m not proposing anything concrete. I have certain opinion about how to improve our schools and I’d like to hear others’ opinion as well. My opinion is constantly evolving as I take in more information. You’re right, I think schools that fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. Maybe rent out that space to a private school or a charter school or a magnet school that can use that space and yield better results.
With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
10:27 AM
AN wrote:…With regards to [quote=AN]…With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.[/quote]
AN, do you have a link for your $10K per student claim? I would surmise the reality is more like $4500 per student but I don’t know where to find this info.
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
That seems incredibly high to me. Wonder if that much will be spent in the coming school year?
I don’t think private schools are “50% less than that.” I think the cost is very close to that or more, esp for private high school.
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
That seems incredibly high to me. Wonder if that much will be spent in the coming school year?
I don’t think private schools are “50% less than that.” I think the cost is very close to that or more, esp for private high school.[/quote]
That number does seem high, when compare to CA Dept of Edu numbers.
Wow! There are some big Wow! There are some big numbers in there. Owens valley is pushing 40 g’s. I guess the state education budget is bailing them out.
I wonder too if those numbers are the state expenditure with the city/county adding to the state contribution, bringing the grand total to 14k. Although the SOSD article does not site a reference, so it does not appear terrible credible.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
11:05 AM
jstoesz wrote:Wow! There are [quote=jstoesz]Wow! There are some big numbers in there. Owens valley is pushing 40 g’s. I guess the state education budget is bailing them out.
I wonder too if those numbers are the state expenditure with the city/county adding to the state contribution, bringing the grand total to 14k. Although the SOSD article does not site a reference, so it does not appear terrible credible.[/quote]
jstoesz, the state funds the schools, not cities or counties. The state actually intercepts county property-tax coffers (not MR) and doles a portion of it back out in the form of “Teeter Funds” to operate city and county governments.
This is a ridiculous outlay per student for Owens Valley (pop 17K). The Inyo County seat is Bishop. This area no doubt can fill one K-12 school or two small adjacent buildings (one K-6 and one 7-12). A former co-worker of mine worked in the court up there about 15 years ago and said they had ONE judge at that time – for ALL types of cases, incl traffic, filled in occasionally by a (ret) Commissioner, lol!
jstoesz
August 5, 2011 @
11:10 AM
BG…Thanks for that info. I BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
11:55 AM
jstoesz wrote:BG…Thanks for [quote=jstoesz]BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.[/quote]
Roughly, it has to do with the portion of property tax recovered by the state within that school district which is set aside for school district operation – divided by the number of students enrolled in the district. A property owner can see how much money they are contributing to operate their school district(s) on their property tax bill.
The smaller districts (esp where the land is worth less) can’t possibly collect enough property tax to operate their schools. Perhaps districts such as the one in the Owens Valley were factoring in the cost of building a new school in 2009 (to replace a very old one). I haven’t checked but I don’t think there are any CFD’s there. There isn’t really room (or an “audience”) to build an entire new housing development up against the back of the Sierras. Nor are their jobs in that area.
At the time of my friend’s leaving the employ of Inyo County (about ’98-99), its population was just over 16K. So it hasn’t really grown due to “bubble-era” construction.
edit: just checked a map of Inyo County and Independence is the County seat (my bad). My friend lived in Bishop but worked in Independence. I also noticed that the Death Valley area is part of Inyo County. The Death Valley area is too far to bus students to/from school. There would need to be school(s) there, as well, even though its population is very small. A/C costs are very high out there and transporting kids from other locales 40+ miles to school into Bishop or Independence is expensive. The vast majority of these kids probably qualify for free transportation.
“Economies of scale” prevails here.
CA renter
August 6, 2011 @
12:47 AM
bearishgurl wrote:jstoesz [quote=bearishgurl][quote=jstoesz]BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.[/quote]
Roughly, it has to do with the portion of property tax recovered by the state within that school district which is set aside for school district operation – divided by the number of students enrolled in the district. A property owner can see how much money they are contributing to operate their school district(s) on their property tax bill.
The smaller districts (esp where the land is worth less) can’t possibly collect enough property tax to operate their schools. Perhaps districts such as the one in the Owens Valley were factoring in the cost of building a new school in 2009 (to replace a very old one). I haven’t checked but I don’t think there are any CFD’s there. There isn’t really room (or an “audience”) to build an entire new housing development up against the back of the Sierras. Nor are their jobs in that area.
At the time of my friend’s leaving the employ of Inyo County (about ’98-99), its population was just over 16K. So it hasn’t really grown due to “bubble-era” construction.
edit: just checked a map of Inyo County and Independence is the County seat (my bad). My friend lived in Bishop but worked in Independence. I also noticed that the Death Valley area is part of Inyo County. The Death Valley area is too far to bus students to/from school. There would need to be school(s) there, as well, even though its population is very small. A/C costs are very high out there and transporting kids from other locales 40+ miles to school into Bishop or Independence is expensive. The vast majority of these kids probably qualify for free transportation.
“Economies of scale” prevails here.[/quote]
That would be my thought as well.
jstoesz
August 5, 2011 @
11:07 AM
The first private school that The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day.
I just checked, the private schools I went to in MN are also slightly less than half that for base tuition with plenty of finacial aid to lower it further. But I went to the middle class private schools. If you want a status school, you are going to spend 3X.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
11:14 AM
jstoesz wrote:The first [quote=jstoesz]The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day. ..[/quote]
jstoesz, the Rock Church has many thousands of members, some very well-heeled. So many that they took up nearly ALL the street parking on Liberty Station for years even though there was a huge public parking lot just over a block away. They expanded rapidly in SD when they acquired the old military chapel on NTC and rehabbed it. I haven’t been out there recently but would venture that they have built onto their parking lot due to voluminous neighborhood complaints of Sunday parking problems, loudspeaker noise and traffic.
Those tuition levels are based upon the Church’s ability to fundraise and they also offer partial scholarships. Perhaps some of their members are well-connected in the non-profit world and so they have the expertise and ability to raise the funds to keep their tuition low.
jstoesz
August 5, 2011 @
11:19 AM
bearishgurl wrote:jstoesz [quote=bearishgurl][quote=jstoesz]The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day. ..[/quote]
jstoesz, the Rock Church has many thousands of members, some very well-heeled. So many that they took up nearly ALL the street parking on Liberty Station for years even though there was a huge public parking lot just over a block away. They expanded rapidly in SD when they acquired the old military chapel on NTC and rehabbed it. I haven’t been out there recently but would venture that they have built onto their parking lot due to voluminous neighborhood complaints of Sunday parking problems, loudspeaker noise and traffic.
Those tuition levels are based upon the Church’s ability to fundraise and they also offer partial scholarships. Perhaps some of their members are well-connected in the non-profit world and so they have the expertise and ability to raise the funds to keep their tuition low.[/quote]
To add to the speculation…
The growing trend in private education is to apply tuition based on need. So only the rich, or the kids with behavior issues, Pay the full price. (maybe not the second one depending on the school).
Talking to my friends who graduated from Private U’s. Almost no one with a brain or in a cash strapped position pays the full price of the tuition.
My wife went to Loma Linda School of Allied Medicine and certainly didn’t pay the full price. Still paid a lot though!
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
You also don’t get the special ed, high-needs, low-income, free breakfast/lunch crowd, either.
an
August 5, 2011 @
10:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN [quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]…With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.[/quote]
AN, do you have a link for your $10K per student claim? I would surmise the reality is more like $4500 per student but I don’t know where to find this info.[/quote]
Go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp. They say in 09-10, SDUSD spent $9855/student. Sweetwater spent $8612/student.
I downloaded the chart. It’s shocking how much was paid per student in rural and mountain districts in’09. Probably due to “economies of scale.”
It will be interesting to see what the outlays for each student will be for the 11/12 school year and beyond.
an
August 5, 2011 @
10:55 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN wrote:Go [quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]Go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp. They say in 09-10, SDUSD spent $9855/student. Sweetwater spent $8612/student.[/quote]
I downloaded the chart. It’s shocking how much was paid per student in rural and mountain districts in’09. Probably due to “economies of scale.”
It will be interesting to see what the outlays for each student will be for the 11/12 school year and beyond.[/quote]
I agree and it boggles my mind as well. These mountain districts probably have enough students to fill 1 school. So, their cost due to “economies of scale” should be similar to private schools, no? Example: Oro Grande Elementary spent $33,673/student. That’s ridiculous. Or Pacific Unified. They spent $59,638/student.
CA renter
August 6, 2011 @
12:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN wrote:It [quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity…[/quote]
AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.[/quote]
LOL! Just saw your post, and see you’ve already addressed some of my points, BG.
CA renter
August 6, 2011 @
1:43 AM
AN wrote:CA renter [quote=AN][quote=CA renter][quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.[/quote]
It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity.
I’m just speaking out loud here, but if we implement an admission process like we do with our colleges, then the student body would be more homogeneous in term of academic capability.[/quote]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?
As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
CA renter wrote:
All of the [quote=CA renter]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?[/quote]I’m not sure what’s better, stick with the current school size or expand the good school. There’s pros and cons for both. But lets say we want to expand the good school, if the money follow the student, then the school can either borrow money from the state or the school can say to the state, I’m running at 100% capacity and we are currently turning away X students every year. That would be enough students for x classrooms. The state then can just give money to that school to build more classrooms. With regards to the empty school that’s left behind, they can rent it out to private schools or allow charter/magnet school to open there. My kid’s current school was once a public school. But ideally, the local public school would see that students are leaving due to their bad performance. They would then do whatever they can to improve to stop or reverse the flow of students.
[quote=CA renter]As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
Here’s an article about the different arguments:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20091214_5320.php%5B/quote%5D
That’s a good article CAR, fair and balance on both sides. With regards to using Preuss (they miss spelled the school name in the article) as an example of detracking is better, I’m a little confused. Preuss school is charter school that only low income student can apply. Here are the 3 requirements all applicants must meet:
• All families must meet income eligibility criteria as defined by Federal guidelines. You may view these guidelines here.
• The parents or chief guardians are NOT graduates of a four year college or university.
• Student applicants must demonstrate motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college.
They prove that just because you’re poor and your parents are not college graduate doesn’t mean you can’t outperform. The biggest factor I think is the #3 requirement. Because of #3, the student body are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability.
I’m not sure what to think about this statement: “But in practice, the discussion inevitably revolves around race and equality. This is because, predominantly, the students in low-track classes are minorities and low-income.” Yes, it’s true that certain minority groups perform poorly. So, tracking will separate them from the higher performing students. However, I personally don’t think it’s because of their race but it’s more because of their desire to outperform in academic. I think Preuss school is an example of the contrary. Just because you’re a minority and poor doesn’t mean you can’t outperform.
Personally, I think tracking has a good track record of allowing most students to perform at their max potential. Our Secondary/vocation school is the prime example that support my view. Not everyone can go to Harvard, Stanfard, etc. Yes there are a small group that can buy their way in, but in general, our Universities are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability. This, I think is the main reason why we have the best higher education system. That’s why people from all over the world want to come here to study. Preuss school and private schools are another example that support my view. I also believe that not everyone is cut out to go to college. We should find a way to track every students to see what they’re good at and what they’re interested in. With that data, we can help every student outperform in an area they’re good at and love. There’s nothing wrong w/ vocational school. You don’t need to learn calculus if you want to be a carpenter. Some European countries like Germany implement this segregation (dividing students into two tracks, academic and vocational) as well.
CA renter
August 6, 2011 @
6:34 PM
AN wrote:CA renter wrote:
All [quote=AN][quote=CA renter]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?[/quote]I’m not sure what’s better, stick with the current school size or expand the good school. There’s pros and cons for both. But lets say we want to expand the good school, if the money follow the student, then the school can either borrow money from the state or the school can say to the state, I’m running at 100% capacity and we are currently turning away X students every year. That would be enough students for x classrooms. The state then can just give money to that school to build more classrooms. With regards to the empty school that’s left behind, they can rent it out to private schools or allow charter/magnet school to open there. My kid’s current school was once a public school. But ideally, the local public school would see that students are leaving due to their bad performance. They would then do whatever they can to improve to stop or reverse the flow of students.
[quote=CA renter]As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
Here’s an article about the different arguments:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20091214_5320.php%5B/quote%5D
That’s a good article CAR, fair and balance on both sides. With regards to using Preuss (they miss spelled the school name in the article) as an example of detracking is better, I’m a little confused. Preuss school is charter school that only low income student can apply. Here are the 3 requirements all applicants must meet:
• All families must meet income eligibility criteria as defined by Federal guidelines. You may view these guidelines here.
• The parents or chief guardians are NOT graduates of a four year college or university.
• Student applicants must demonstrate motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college.
They prove that just because you’re poor and your parents are not college graduate doesn’t mean you can’t outperform. The biggest factor I think is the #3 requirement. Because of #3, the student body are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability.
I’m not sure what to think about this statement: “But in practice, the discussion inevitably revolves around race and equality. This is because, predominantly, the students in low-track classes are minorities and low-income.” Yes, it’s true that certain minority groups perform poorly. So, tracking will separate them from the higher performing students. However, I personally don’t think it’s because of their race but it’s more because of their desire to outperform in academic. I think Preuss school is an example of the contrary. Just because you’re a minority and poor doesn’t mean you can’t outperform.
Personally, I think tracking has a good track record of allowing most students to perform at their max potential. Our Secondary/vocation school is the prime example that support my view. Not everyone can go to Harvard, Stanfard, etc. Yes there are a small group that can buy their way in, but in general, our Universities are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability. This, I think is the main reason why we have the best higher education system. That’s why people from all over the world want to come here to study. Preuss school and private schools are another example that support my view. I also believe that not everyone is cut out to go to college. We should find a way to track every students to see what they’re good at and what they’re interested in. With that data, we can help every student outperform in an area they’re good at and love. There’s nothing wrong w/ vocational school. You don’t need to learn calculus if you want to be a carpenter. Some European countries like Germany implement this segregation (dividing students into two tracks, academic and vocational) as well.[/quote]
The bolded part of your post definitely has its merits, but there are issues with that, as well. It prevents people who might be more “immature” in their youth from pursuing a more rigorous academic path later in life. My mother was Austrian, and they did this in her country. But what’s different there (at least in the past…not sure about current times) is that the students who don’t go on to the university track go into apprenticeship programs that really teach them skills with which they can support themselves and their families. Also, “blue collar” work is very much respected and admired. They have skilled craftsmen who are paid well for what they do. In the U.S., we’ve done away with our higher-skilled craftsmen, and replaced them with (often illegal) low-skilled workers from poor countries. If we track our students this way, and force them into non-university tracks, we would be forcing them into poverty, with very little opportunity for turning their lives around.
As to the rest of your post, you’re still working from the assumption that it’s the **teachers** who are failing these students, when those who are familiar with education will tell you that it’s the **students** and **parents** who are failing themselves. Sticking a private school where a public school once was — and educating the same population there — will not likely yield better results. As a matter of fact, because of a private school’s inability to meet the needs of special ed and higher-needs students, they would likely perform worse than the public school that was replaced.
Regarding Preuss, it’s the third requirement that explains why they do well. The first two simply mean that they accept the **highest performing students with the most dedicated parents** from low-income families where the parents don’t have college degrees. The students need a teacher’s recommendation from their previous school, and, “student applicants must demonstrate high motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college,” which most likely means they have a better-than-average I.Q.
You cannot compare Preuss with a typical public school in a low-income neighborhood. They are not even close. Preuss enjoys the benefits of having VERY wealthy, private donors, in addition to the typical funds given to public or charter schools. They also have use of the UCSD campus and many of the university’s ammenities (there’s a cost component there), and UCSD students who provide FREE tutoring to these students — we use tutors for our kids, and I can assure you, it is EXTREMELY expensive. They have top-of-the-line classrooms, technology, sports facilities/equipment, and materials. Do you have any idea what all of that costs? I can assure you, their program costs more than twice what the typical public school costs.
As I’ve mentioned before, you have to consider ALL sources of income when comparing what schools spend on students. With traditional public schools, most of those income sources and costs are public information; there is very little private money, compared to what private (or special charter) schools get. Read the bottom of the piece linked here, to see how much things cost, and how they are trying to get PRIVATE funding to provide these things. It’s nice when you’re a high-profile component of a very wealthy community, with nice, wealthy people who want to “do good” in their communities. How many rich people are willing to consistently donate millions of dollars to support a single school in the gang-infested parts of the inner city?
Here is a small sampling of what Preuss offers (regular public schools can’t even begin to offer all of this, or the state would have been broke decades ago):
The Tutoring Program
To give its students extra academic help with its challenging curriculum, the Preuss School also conducts a tutoring program in partnership with the University. The program employs two different groups of tutors. One is enrolled in a class through UCSD’s Teacher Education Program; the class awards credit for a certain number of hours of tutoring per month. The other is made up of UCSD student volunteers from Thurgood Marshall College. Through these avenues, the Preuss School typically has 150-200 tutors available to help assist students at any given time.
Counseling Program
The Preuss School’s counseling staff plays a central role in the school, seeing to it that those students who are lagging behind get academic help as soon as possible and providing guidance in the college selection and application process. Students living in poverty often confront many difficult issues that call for support beyond regular school counseling, however. To help them, UCSD professor Peter Gourevitch established an endowed fund in memory of his late wife, Lisa Hirschman, a teacher and psychologist. The Hirschman Fund enables two psychotherapists and an intern to work with Preuss School students, providing them with the psychosocial services they need to overcome the problems they face.
Mutual Benefits
The benefits of the relationship between the school and UCSD are extensive and reciprocal. For example, University students volunteer at the Preuss School as tutors and mentors, and many have found the experience so rewarding that they are now considering careers in teaching. Preuss School students do internships on campus with UCSD faculty to gain experience in fields that interest them and also interact with professors when they are researching senior papers. At the same time, UCSD mathematics faculty have been turning to the school to help determine how students best learn the subject, and social sciences faculty have been examining the academic performance of Preuss School students compared with that of peers who were not selected by the lottery. Preuss School teachers have received training at the University, and students in UCSD’s teacher education program observe classes at the school. UCSD undergraduates serve as tutors for students and interns for teachers. Engineering faculty help with the school’s robotics teams.
Shared Resources
Access to such outstanding University resources as its library, athletic fields and San Diego Supercomputer Center translates into unprecedented opportunities for students and teachers. As one example, in 2003, the school dedicated a visualization center that will provide a virtual reality gateway to the world, eventually enabling students to interact in real time with images stored thousands of miles away, such as a fly-over of the surface of Mars and navigating deep inside a human cell. The center, part of the National Science Foundation’s OptiPuter project, has brought together the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (a partnership between UCSD and UCI) and the Visualization Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Connected to a high-performance network, it will permit students to work collaboratively with University faculty and graduate students on research projects.
From that same link, some possible evidence that “old, tenured teachers” are NOT the problem:
Master Teachers/Teacher Supplements
While the teachers at the Preuss School are dedicated, enthusiastic and innovative, a high percentage are comparatively new to the field. The school’s limited funds for personnel have hampered its ability to attract more experienced teachers, who command higher salaries. As a consequence, the younger teachers on the faculty, who could benefit from mentoring by the most experienced, highest-caliber teachers, lack access to this important resource for career development.
To address this need, one of the Preuss School’s highest priorities is to generate private support for teacher salary supplements and/or hiring bonuses in order to add more veteran teachers to the faculty. Specifically, the school is seeking funds to hire teacher leaders in all the core subject areas, including a literacy chair, who will be responsible for mentoring other teachers in the area of literacy.
In addition, the school is seeking contributions to implement a formal resident scholar program, providing release time for UCSD professors to work with the Preuss School faculty in their subject areas to ensure that curriculum and content are state of the art and preparing students properly for college.
an
August 6, 2011 @
10:08 PM
CAR, with regards to your CAR, with regards to your point about illegal immigrants, I have to agree to a large extent. About your point on immature youth, I totally agree, but the solution to that is to not lock the student into a particular path/school. Like in college where you still need to take GE, I think you can do something similar. If the student decide they want to switch path, they should be able to and because of a GE like portion of the curriculum, they won’t be too far behind.
Let me be clear, I don’t think the teacher is the main reason for failure. On the contrary, if I have to put a % to the blame, I would say, say, teacher = 5%, teachers union = 10%, school system = 45% and parents & students = 40%. The reason why I don’t think teachers are blameless is because I know there are some bad teachers out there. Also, I believe some teachers are complacent. IIRC, tenure came from university professors who want to be protected from getting fired due to their political view. I agree with that but IIRC, they don’t have automatic tenure either. If my memory serves me right, then primary school teachers shouldn’t get automatic tenure as well. I believe the teachers union prevent the bad teachers from getting fired and the good/great teachers from being property rewarded. The students and parents do have a big cause of the failure. Unfortunately, some parents and students don’t care, so you can’t really change them. This leads to the biggest point of blame for me, the school system.
I personally believe in homogeneous academic capability, and our current system does not allow for that. If you look at all the bad schools out there, not all the students in there are bad. Imagine if you can combined all the top students in those schools and have them compete with each other. Also, have the best academic teachers to teach theses students and push them all to their max potential. I think they will be even better than what they would be with the current system. We need MORE Preuss like schools. We also need to have more vocational schools to allow students who want to go into vocational profession to be trained. Yes, they still need to take basic math and English classes, but they don’t need to be pushed to go to college. We should also have special schools for special ed students. We should have special teachers who are specialized in teaching these students to bring out their best capability. The biggest bulk of the schools are your average school for your average kids. Since these kids are of similar academic capability, it might be easier for the teachers to bring out the best in them.
After reading my above paragraph, I now don’t think voucher system would be the best solution. I still think voucher system give more choice (and I personally think choice is good) than the currently system. However, what I described above is our secondary education system and I think that system is the BEST.
With regards to the money, I think there are some wastes in the system. We can have more teachers and less administrators. I mean, if private school can provide good education with an annual cost of $6k-13k ($20k+ for the very elite private school), public schools should be able to provide similar results for similar cost. I personally wouldn’t mind spending more for education, we can definitely find more money from other areas of the government that’s not as important. Do you think if we spend 2X the amount we currently do, we’ll see all the school perform at Preuss’s level? Maybe we can implement something similar to what we do with our college system. We can have completely free school that students don’t have to pay, then we can have school where it’ll cost more than what the government covers, and the parents can choose to pay the difference to get similar quality education like the Preuss school.
CA renter
August 7, 2011 @
12:38 AM
AN wrote:CAR, with regards to [quote=AN]CAR, with regards to your point about illegal immigrants, I have to agree to a large extent. About your point on immature youth, I totally agree, but the solution to that is to not lock the student into a particular path/school. Like in college where you still need to take GE, I think you can do something similar. If the student decide they want to switch path, they should be able to and because of a GE like portion of the curriculum, they won’t be too far behind.
Let me be clear, I don’t think the teacher is the main reason for failure. On the contrary, if I have to put a % to the blame, I would say, say, teacher = 5%, teachers union = 10%, school system = 45% and parents & students = 40%. The reason why I don’t think teachers are blameless is because I know there are some bad teachers out there. Also, I believe some teachers are complacent. IIRC, tenure came from university professors who want to be protected from getting fired due to their political view. I agree with that but IIRC, they don’t have automatic tenure either. If my memory serves me right, then primary school teachers shouldn’t get automatic tenure as well. I believe the teachers union prevent the bad teachers from getting fired and the good/great teachers from being property rewarded. The students and parents do have a big cause of the failure. Unfortunately, some parents and students don’t care, so you can’t really change them. This leads to the biggest point of blame for me, the school system.
I personally believe in homogeneous academic capability, and our current system does not allow for that. If you look at all the bad schools out there, not all the students in there are bad. Imagine if you can combined all the top students in those schools and have them compete with each other. Also, have the best academic teachers to teach theses students and push them all to their max potential. I think they will be even better than what they would be with the current system. We need MORE Preuss like schools. We also need to have more vocational schools to allow students who want to go into vocational profession to be trained. Yes, they still need to take basic math and English classes, but they don’t need to be pushed to go to college. We should also have special schools for special ed students. We should have special teachers who are specialized in teaching these students to bring out their best capability. The biggest bulk of the schools are your average school for your average kids. Since these kids are of similar academic capability, it might be easier for the teachers to bring out the best in them.
After reading my above paragraph, I now don’t think voucher system would be the best solution. I still think voucher system give more choice (and I personally think choice is good) than the currently system. However, what I described above is our secondary education system and I think that system is the BEST.
With regards to the money, I think there are some wastes in the system. We can have more teachers and less administrators. I mean, if private school can provide good education with an annual cost of $6k-13k ($20k+ for the very elite private school), public schools should be able to provide similar results for similar cost. I personally wouldn’t mind spending more for education, we can definitely find more money from other areas of the government that’s not as important. Do you think if we spend 2X the amount we currently do, we’ll see all the school perform at Preuss’s level? Maybe we can implement something similar to what we do with our college system. We can have completely free school that students don’t have to pay, then we can have school where it’ll cost more than what the government covers, and the parents can choose to pay the difference to get similar quality education like the Preuss school.[/quote]
We agree very much about vocational schools, but they’ve been cutting back on those in order to get more students on the college track — which, like you, I disagree with.
For various reasons, most countries with the “university/vocational track” system that I’m familiar with do not allow students to cross over with ease (or at all). They invest too much money, and feel that students cannot catch up in the required time it takes to graduate from the university track if they’ve previously been placed in the vocational track. Since it’s publicly funded, these governments do not allow for “professional students” who take many, many years to graduate.
You can’t compare primary schools with colleges/universities because primary education is compulsory. Trying to compare the two is like trying to compare a low-income, inner-city school with Preuss. One is compulsory, and will have to take everyone who applies, irrespective of their academic abilities or behavioral tendencies. The other has strict admisssions guidelines, and gets to pick and choose from the cream of the crop of a given population. It’s a foregone conclusion that you will get two totally different outcomes from these two groups. It does NOT mean that one is more “successful,” with the same student population, especially if they normalize for parent involvement, I.Q., and total costs per student.
You and I have very different views WRT tenure. Teachers (and many other public workers) are very much in a political position, as I’ve described before. This is a profession where experience counts, and there are occasions when the most experienced teachers need to take a politically or socially unpopular stance. As was pointed out above, the definition of a “good” or “bad” teacher is very subjective, and we cannot allow administrators, politicians, or parents to hire/fire teachers based on personal whims.
There are already methods for firing teachers who do not perform well. No, it’s not easy, nor should it be. There should be proof that a teacher is “bad,” using objective criteria.
briansd1
August 7, 2011 @
10:20 AM
Now to the results of the Now to the results of the poll. Does that mean that Pigg readers are blaming the Republicans for the debt ceiling mess and will be reelecting Obama next year?
I looks that way.
NotCranky
August 7, 2011 @
10:57 AM
briansd1 wrote:Now to the [quote=briansd1]Now to the results of the poll. Does that mean that Pigg readers are blaming the Republicans for the debt ceiling mess and will be reelecting Obama next year?
I looks that way.[/quote]
If he still looks good in France compared to the competition, he gets my wife’s vote.
CA renter wrote:What happens [quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
You’re right, there are some logistical issues. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m sure countries like Sweden who have implemented voucher system can answer that question much better than I can. There has to be a good solution to that problem, or else they wouldn’t have implemented it.
What I’m reading on here so far is nothing meaningful will change in the foreseeable future. Thank you all who tried to enlighten me without calling me names. I’m just a simple parent who like to talk about education.
Scarlett
August 3, 2011 @
11:07 PM
AN wrote:bearishgurl [quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]
(…)
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. [/quote]
Yes, MM schools are good. But not great. I’m planning to only keep my kids in private school preK-6th grade. I personally don’t see as big of an advantage in Jr. High and HS. So I’ll be putting them in Challenger Middle School and MMHS. With K-6th grade, there’s 1 curriculum and all kids are lump together. While Jr. High and HS, kids are separated by their ability. Also, in HS, I will get my kids to go to Jr. College at night and summer as well.
With regards to cost, I’m paying much less than $10k. Also, talking to the parents who have their kids at the school I’ll be sending my kids to, they all loved it and they even look down to Carmel Valley schools in term of academics and they believe their kids are being learning much more.[/quote]
AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.
an
August 3, 2011 @
11:51 PM
Scarlett wrote:AN, I think [quote=Scarlett]AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.[/quote]
Yes, it’s MBMA. I can use Dependent Care Spending Account to save another $2k-$3k. Adding in Coverdell ESA tax free on earnings and custodial account that will be taxed at 0% for certain earning makes it MUCH less than $10k.
Scarlett
August 4, 2011 @
6:37 AM
AN wrote:Scarlett wrote:AN, I [quote=AN][quote=Scarlett]AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.[/quote]
Yes, it’s MBMA. I can use Dependent Care Spending Account to save another $2k-$3k. Adding in Coverdell ESA tax free on earnings and custodial account that will be taxed at 0% for certain earning makes it MUCH less than $10k.[/quote]
You CANNOT use DepCare account to pay for private education, I’m pretty sure. Better check that. You can use it only up to kindergarden, AFAIK. Why would it be a tax break for private education? Once your kid is in school (K), you can use DepCare only for after-school-hours and maybe summer programs.
an
August 4, 2011 @
6:53 AM
Scarlett wrote:
You CANNOT [quote=Scarlett]
You CANNOT use DepCare account to pay for private education, I’m pretty sure. Better check that. You can use it only up to kindergarden, AFAIK. Why would it be a tax break for private education? Once your kid is in school (K), you can use DepCare only for after-school-hours and maybe summer programs.[/quote]
You’re right. Since my son is 3, I can use it.
eavesdropper
August 4, 2011 @
12:21 AM
AN wrote: For the same [quote=AN] For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.[/quote]
Sorry, but I cannot comprehend what it is that you are trying to say here
[quote=AN] FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. [/quote]
#1 I am not against choice, in principle.
#2 Informed decision is an essential component of choice (translation: you need to know what the hell you’re talking about before you choose.
#3 Read this carefully, and ask someone for help if you don’t understand it, because I’m tired of repeating it: CHOICE COSTS MONEY. I keep asking you to explain how this will be accomplished, and you keep telling me that I should Google Finland to figure out how they’ve implemented their (non-existent) voucher system.
I don’t have a problem with choice, but I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it. Sorry, but you don’t seem to have the faintest glimmer of the complexities of school finance. So instead of ME having to prove to you that it CAN’T be done, why don’t you SHOW ME how we’re going to pay for choice. Get a copy of your school district’s financial statements and annual reports for the past 5 years, so you can get a very small taste of what you’re up against.
#4 I’ve read a LOT of material on the school voucher debate, from a wide variety of sources. I have never heard ANYONE say that “parents don’t deserve choices” or “choice is bad and will be destructive”. Perhaps it’s a matter of inference on your part.
[quote=AN] Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. [/quote]
AN, did you actually read those hypothetical situations? They were meant as tongue-in-cheek cynical commentary on how crazy things will get if parents get to have unlimited leeway in their ability to move their children from school to school. If you believe that these proved your points, you’re as nuts as the parents of these hypothetical kids.
[quote=AN]BTW, I would be perfectly fine with your system you proposed, where the bad students get expelled. [/quote]
Look, I’ve tried to explain to you at least twice that my idea wasn’t to get the bad kids expelled, but to move toward a system which would change American parents’ attitudes that school is actually daycare, and teachers are babysitters. You’re just not going to get this, so lets forget about it.
[quote=AN] I was only voicing my opinion because I want change, hoping our primary school will be as revered as our secondary schools. Another proven good system is our secondary school system. We can model after that.[/quote]
Your kid is still in preschool, for fuck’s sake. How do you know the friggin’ school needs changing? Or that you want to change schools?
[quote=AN] But you haven’t proven to me why voucher system are bad, so although my ammo is empty, you’re aim is so bad you’re missing the point completely. I was only trying to offer another system that have produce better results. They’re being implemented my socialist countries no less. I love it that people living in these socialist countries have more choices in schools than we do. CHOICE is the key word here.[/quote]
Cripes, AN, what the fuck IS the point? It keeps changing with you. Worse yet is having to try to follow your nonexistent logic in posts that are filled with spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and grammatical errors. Stop worrying about CHOICE, and just focus on making sure your kid’s school is better than the one you went to. Holy shit, my eyes are like two burning coals at this point, reading your tortured prose and attempting to understand what you’re trying to say.
And you couldn’t resist throwing one more cheap shot in about “socialist” countries. And, by the way, the people in Finland DON’T HAVE CHOICE when it comes to schools.
And you weren’t “only trying to offer another system that have produce better results” (BTW, it’s “has produced”. I don’t normally nitpick like that, but you’ve made that error 47 times in the last 5 days). Over and over again, AD NAUSEUM, you kept talking about Finland as your PROOF of how well a voucher system works. Now you’re trying to create a whole different story. Your predisposition for denial has passed the point of being pathological.
If you want to continue this “discussion” with some other poor sucker, good luck. But stop bothering me. You are (1) astoundingly limited in your ability to think critically, (2) a lazy and incompetent researcher, (3) not interested in, or capable of, true argumentation.
Pack up your CHOICE in Ziploc bag, take it down to Scripps, and use it to choose a neurosurgeon to finish that half-completed lobotomy.
an
August 4, 2011 @
1:59 AM
Way to be classy Way to be classy eavesdropper. Your main argument against voucher is cost. Let me give you a very simple solution. We are currently paying $x/student for their education. Give that $x to the parents. They can a)send their kids to a public/charter/magnet/vocational school of their choice and it’ll cost them $x or b)they can take that $x and send them to private school. If it costs less than $x, give the difference back to the government. If it costs more, pay the difference with their own money.
This will mean the government doesn’t spend more per student than they currently do.
You said Finland doesn’t have choice, but their private schools are paid by the government. I wonder who goes to those school if the kids have to go to the local public school.
BTW, I’m sorry my Engrish suck. I’ll refrain from commenting on your personal attacks with my broken Engrish.
eavesdropper
August 4, 2011 @
3:16 AM
AN wrote:Way to be classy [quote=AN]Way to be classy eavesdropper. Your main argument against voucher is cost. Let me give you a very simple solution. We are currently paying $x/student for their education. Give that $x to the parents. They can a)send their kids to a public/charter/magnet/vocational school of their choice and it’ll cost them $x or b)they can take that $x and send them to private school. If it costs less than $x, give the difference back to the government. If it costs more, pay the difference with their own money.
[/quote]
No, no, NO!! Your answer definitely qualifies as “simple”, but it’s not a solution. This is the THIRD time you’ve come back with that incredibly CLUELESS response. If there was no other evidence of your inability to participate in a discussion of this subject (and, unfortunately for you, that is not the case), that answer alone makes your limitations crystal clear.
And shove your “way to be classy” remark where the sun don’t shine. This is not the type of exchange in which I usually allow myself to engage on Piggs, and the reason I’m ending my part in the discussion now. I can assure you that I’m not proud of myself. But you left yourself wide open with both your repeated claims that were not backed by evidence, and by your employment of a superior attitude, where none was warranted. You are way out of your league, AN. You can continue to delude yourself – it’s the one area in which you excel, apparently – but not on my time.
[quote=AN] BTW, I’m sorry my Engrish suck. I’ll refrain from commenting on your personal attacks with my broken Engrish.[/quote]
How about if you simply refrain from being hypocritical through your selective pulling of the ethnic card? I have no idea whether English is your first, second, or sixth language. The fact of the matter is that your posts are difficult to read at times, and when I’m dealing with someone having a supercilious attitude like yours, I’m expecting to see a quality writing sample.
an
August 3, 2011 @
10:06 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Still [quote=eavesdropper]Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.[/quote]
What make you think all Finnish people value education? Are you trying to say most of or none of American value education? Took you 2 days and that’s what you come up with? If you would just Google “Finnish School”, you’d get this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/finland-schools-curriculum-teaching
[quote=article]Private schools
The vast majority of children attend comprehensive schools in Finland. The country has a handful of faith-based and alternative schools, which are legally private but funded by the state. They cannot charge fees but may set their own catchment areas. In England, 7.2% of children attend private schools, which are free to select pupils and charge fees. A private education costs parents an average of £10,100 a year.[/quote]
[quote=article]It is illegal to charge fees in the Finnish education system, so even those schools that are run privately take their funding from the state.[/quote]
What does illegal to charge fees… even private school mean to you? Sounds a lot like voucher to me. So, who’s lacking ammo now?
[quote=article]A common theme among three of the top-performing nations – Singapore, South Korea and Finland – is that they all attract the best talent into the profession by setting high standards for recruitment. Mr Gove’s answer to this is to limit entrance to the profession to those who have better than a third-class degree.[/quote]
Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Their teachers all requires to have a master. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pri_tea_sal_aft_15_yea-teacher-salary-after-15-years
US:$34,705.00 vs Finland:$24,799.00
AN wrote:eavesdropper [quote=AN][quote=eavesdropper]Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.[/quote]
What make you think all Finnish people value education? Are you trying to say most of or none of American value education? Took you 2 days and that’s what you come up with? If you would just Google “Finnish School”, you’d get this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/finland-schools-curriculum-teaching
[/quote]
1. What makes me think all Finnish people value education? Perhaps the fact that I found direct references and/or direct quotes relating to that particular quality of of the Finnish people: they value education highly and this was a major factor leading to the improvement in their education system. I found these references on the website of the Finnish National Board of Education, and in documents issued by them, and on the website of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Incidentally, you don’t get better “proof” as you put it, than these sources.
2. I’m saying that I believe a significant number of Americans do not value education.
3. You may flatter yourself by assuming that I spent two days trying to prove you wrong; however, that is not the case. I did spend a couple hours trying to prove you RIGHT, and that’s what angers me. You don’t give enough of a crap to do that yourself, so don’t come into a discussion with opinion disguised as evidence (You didn’t even find these newspaper articles until tonight, and then only after a mad search to find proof that I was wrong)
4. That being said, can you explain why someone in the U.S. looking for information on the Finnish education model and its effect on the testing scores and academic success of its students would choose to consult a 1000-word promotional article in a British newspaper rather than going to the Finnish National Board of Education, who actually designed the current system, and operates it in its entirety, and the Program for International Student Assessment who collects and analyzes the international student test data (i.e. how they know Finland is #1). AN, you are incapable of doing even the most basic of research.
[quote=AN]
The vast majority of children attend comprehensive schools in Finland. The country has a handful of faith-based and alternative schools, which are legally private but funded by the state. They cannot charge fees but may set their own catchment areas. In England, 7.2% of children attend private schools, which are free to select pupils and charge fees. A private education costs parents an average of £10,100 a year.[/quote][/quote]
Again, you’ve got a crummy source of info: a very brief, incomplete article. All of the schools in Finland must strictly adhere to the curriculum set forth by the FNBOE (government), as must home schooling situations. When they mention “faith-based and alternative schools”, it is not what you think. They, too, must follow the same curriculum, and anything additional must be approved by the FNBOE. In addition, they can choose where to open their school, but they cannot turn down students for admission for any reason (i.e., the government does not open a public school AND a faith-based school in the same catchment area), and students who live in other catchment areas (districts) cannot go to the faith-based or alternative schools if they are not in their catchment area. As far as the Finnish government is concerned, all of their schools offer the same level of excellence in education, and the very small variations between schools on PISA and other testing bear this out. So, AN, if you buy or rent a home in a particular area, that is where your child will go to school. Period.
Again, I got this info from the Finnish National Board of Education.
[quote=article]It is illegal to charge fees in the Finnish education system, so even those schools that are run privately take their funding from the state.[/quote]
What does illegal to charge fees… even private school mean to you? Sounds a lot like voucher to me. So, who’s lacking ammo now?[/quote]
Are you freakin’ serious? Does your parole officer know that you’re this far down Delusional Lane? Not only does it NOT sound “a lot like voucher” (or even a little) to anyone else in the world, but you haven’t been presenting it as such in any of your posts. It’s apparent that you’re not only out of ammo, but operating brain cells seem to be in dangerously low supply, too.
ONCE AGAIN, your laziness and inability to conduct research worthy of a 3rd grade book report. The author is referring to the faith-based and alternative schools discussed above.
[quote=AN] [quote=article]A common theme among three of the top-performing nations – Singapore, South Korea and Finland – is that they all attract the best talent into the profession by setting high standards for recruitment. Mr Gove’s answer to this is to limit entrance to the profession to those who have better than a third-class degree.[/quote]
Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Their teachers all requires to have a master. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired.[/quote]
Okay, AN, it’s been a long time (what, 3-4 days) so I’ll do a little refresher for ya. The point of my original post wasn’t to say that any one entity – parents, teachers, kids, administration – is to blame. What I wanted to point out was that, in virtually all discussions of the problems of the U.S. educational system, either teachers or administration (or the government) is blamed. The behavior of kids is sometimes mentioned, as kind of an abstract thing. But the one variable in kids’ school performance that I never see cited is the role of parental involvement. So my post was to suggest that parents be held as accountable as everyone else in improving primary and secondary school education in the U.S.
That being said, YES, there are bad teachers and there are good teachers. No shit, Sherlock. My question is (and I’m asking you because you’ve demonstrated incomparable critical thinking skills at every turn of this “discussion”) in terms of rewarding good teachers/getting rid of bad teachers, what are the criteria for determining and measuring good and bad? As you pointed out, “I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired.” Yeah, you and six million others over the past 100 years (Sorry. I know you were feeling special about that brilliant gem of an idea.) But no one’s been able to answer that question. So go ahead, and take a stab at it. This ought to be good.
And we end with a bang. Statistics!! Nothing carries an impact like stats. I’m one of those people for whom statistical data are essential in the decision-making process. I particularly like making a decision on a current issue with up-to-date statistics at my fingertips, just like these…….12 year-old….stats…..
Look, AN, hate to break it to you. But, unless you’re in a profession like Civil War historian or a CDC researcher trying to figure out how many returning GIs gave their wives syphilis during WWII, you kinda want your statistics to be…..well, fresh. And while we’re on a roll here, when you’re including stats on whether students are …..bored (???)….anyhow, that’s rather vague, not to mention subjective, so it really helps to have a copy of the instrument that was used in order to interpret the data in the context of your issue (i.e., school vouchers). Not to mention that the website kinda screamed, “I have no idea what I’m talking about but I want to look like I do.” I gotta ask: when you Google something (and it looks like you do a lot of catch-up cover-your-ass Googleing), do you just grab at the first thing that comes up, and not bother to see if maybe something else would be a good fit? I mean, it LOOKS that way. Do you really think that none of the people that you “debate” have actually read up on subjects they broach on Piggs? That, if they refrain from some of the threads, it may just be that they don’t feel that they…hmm, how do I put this……KNOW ENOUGH about the subject at hand? What do you think?
Yeah, this stab at trying to be taken seriously was kind of a bust, too. But try again. With somebody else.
Arraya
July 31, 2011 @
5:59 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
Both [quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.
NotCranky
July 31, 2011 @
10:59 AM
Arraya wrote:eavesdropper [quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.[/quote]
Thanks for the comments on the Warren book. Sounds like something I would be interested in reading.
gromit
July 31, 2011 @
12:25 PM
Jacarandoso wrote:Arraya [quote=Jacarandoso][quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.[/quote]
Thanks for the comments on the Warren book. Sounds like something I would be interested in reading.[/quote]
Eavesdropper– I agree it starts with the parents. I mean, to use a race car analogy, the parents provide the engine and the fuel; the school provides the track. And Arraya– great call citing Warren. She’s a rare gem. Here’s the thing: I think what you’re saying (or what Warren is saying) is that parents (or DINKs, I mean the phenomenon isn’t limited to parents, as you point out) have less real income than previous generations and thus feel pressured to work more, such that their stressful lives make them poorer caretakers.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the only option. There’s a simpler, and healthier, way to live: stop buying so much crap. Stop being such consumerists. If you want to know what I’m talking about, check out Jacob Lund Fisker’s website, Early Retirement Extreme (easily googled so I won’t paste a url here). If you can get off the consumer treadmill, you can build up your capital, stop working so much, and experience freedom from that stress. We’ve been STRONGLY conditioned to believe that things have to look like this: morning latte from Starbucks, individually pre-packaged microwave lunch (or worse, buying lunch from a fast food franchise) every day at work, bring home a “convenient” pre-packaged frozen meal purchased at the grocery store. Expensive, unnecessary, and that description is just of the ways we are inefficient about food; it says nothing about all the other ways we waste our money. Incredibly expensive to live that way, very stressful, and wholly unnecessary.
Of course, our inefficient behavior, and our belief that this is the only way we can live– this is the very fuel that keeps our Starbucks, our McDonalds, humming along. You won’t see TV commercials encouraging you to buy less. Getting off that consumer treadmill requires the cognitive shift equivalent of taking a red pill (if you’re a Matrix fan), but it opens up a world of creative living choices if you’re open to it.
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.
Arraya
July 31, 2011 @
12:55 PM
gromit wrote:
I say this [quote=gromit]
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.[/quote]
I agree, to a point. Warren actually deals with what she calls a “myth” that the “average” family is buying tremendously more. Health care, education and housing costs relative to income have skyrocketed Certainly the upper 20% is, but that is not average. Though, I have not dove into the data too intensely to really come to a firm conclusion. But my gut, is people are probably unnecessarily stressing themselves out. Conversely, that is the name of the game that we all play and is fostered culturally. Status anxiety drives the economy and makes us sick. And, if they did not consume more – would they have a job? Paradoxes everywhere. If everybody was frugal over the past 40 years and did not increase their average debt loads by 300% would we even have the economy we have?
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.
gromit
July 31, 2011 @
1:11 PM
Arraya wrote:gromit wrote:
I [quote=Arraya][quote=gromit]
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.[/quote]
I agree, to a point. Warren actually deals with what she calls a “myth” that the “average” family is buying tremendously more. Health care, education and housing costs relative to income have skyrocketed Certainly the upper 20% is, but that is not average. Though, I have not dove into the data too intensely to really come to a firm conclusion. But my gut, is people are probably unnecessarily stressing themselves out. Conversely, that is the name of the game that we all play and is fostered culturally. Status anxiety drives the economy and makes us sick. And, if they did not consume more – would they have a job? Paradoxes everywhere. If everybody was frugal over the past 40 years and did not increase their average debt loads by 300% would we even have the economy we have?
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.[/quote]
There are a lot of ideas here, all of them worth plenty of discussion. I’ll just respond to a couple of them. First– I’m not saying middle class families are buying more than in the past; I’m saying that they should downgrade their lifestyles to help build capital and attain freedom from reliance on dual incomes. And by lifestyles, I mean nuts and bolts things like downgrading the housing, changing habits regarding food shopping, that sort of thing.
Second– I wonder the same thing: what would happen if we all stopped buying too much crap? It’s a fair question. Lots of people have already, and the shift to saving cash is contributing to the slowdown of our economy. But I don’t think we will ever be in danger of everyone shifting out of their consumerist lifestyles, because I just don’t think there are that many sane people in the world. 🙂
briansd1
August 1, 2011 @
1:51 PM
Arraya wrote:
Interestingly, [quote=Arraya]
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.[/quote]
Very good observation.
Eventally the system runs out of gas. Hopefully we can discover something new and transition to that new system.
Arraya, you’re discussed how the richest portion of the population has always controlled the wealth. But they have transitioned from agriculture and slaves, to trains, to cars, to planes, to oil, to banking and the Internet. Their main sources of wealth have changed.
I find the health care situation interesting. The health care economy needs more patients/customers to take drugs, be sick and utilize the most advanced services. That leads more revenue which leads to more discoveries, more drugs and more advance procedures.
Sure, people will cut back on housing and other consumption before they cut back on health care. But what happens when eventually the whole population is obese, sick, and in debt to their eyeballs.
eavesdropper
August 1, 2011 @
12:32 AM
Arraya wrote:eavesdropper [quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them. [/quote]
Arraya, I see your point, and I did consider this reality when I wrote the post. There’s no question that there are people who are burning the candle at both ends trying to keep food on the table, and a roof over it. It’s not only people who come from poor backgrounds, and are struggling to give their children something better. There are also a fair amount of involuntary single parents out there (myself included, 20 yrs ago) who, prior to their spouses unilaterally deciding that the marriage should end, led comfortable middle-class lives in which they were able to spend much more time with their kids. Thanks to decisions made by others, they are suddenly pushed into another socioeconomic class, often having to work two or more jobs.
I recognize that today’s parents are stressed and have limited time. But I’m not talking about spending hours playing Barbies or GI Joes, or playing video games. If parents just provided the necessary structure to their child’s life, there would be a huge improvement. I’m willing to bet that there has never been a parent who was not shocked by the level of physical and emotional demands of parenting. Nothing can prepare you for that moment during the first evening home when you suddenly realize that the baby’s parents aren’t coming to take this screaming red-faced infant home, along with his crap-filled diaper: he/she IS home. But the difference today is that many parents somehow think that the choice to be parents comes AFTER the baby is born, instead of before he is conceived. They don’t see their children as having needs because they are solely focused on their own wants.
I don’t know how old you are, but I had the first of my 4 kids almost 30 years ago. Back then, holding and rocking and interacting with your child was pretty much a parent’s M.O.
But, more and more, I’m seeing parents respond to their crying or distressed child with looks that are a mixture of fear, disgust, and “Whose kid is this?Often, they’re seemingly reluctant to interact, hold, or even touch their children. Infants are fed by placing them in a carrier seat and propping a bottle up its mouth, and 15 month-olds are parked in front of TV daily for 3 or 4 hours at a time. When their cries finally permeate the self-focus of the parents, attempts are made to stop the crying through distraction (a toy or video image) or a bribe (pacifier or a cookie). Very quickly, toddlers learn that negative behavior gets attention. It may not be “good” attention, or lengthy, but to children starved for interaction, it doesn’t matter.
The combination of auditory and visual overstimulation, and the lack of interpersonal interaction, causes anxiety and fatigue in these kids, who then act out. Their parents deal with that by either hitting their kids, or trying to distract them or “buy them off” with toys, videos, sweets (even more stimulation) to try and stop the behavior. Eventually this cycle becomes so extreme that the result can be an overweight 4 yr old who can’t travel 3 blocks to the preschool without a cookie and a DVD playing.
At age five, the result is a child who is immature, angry, frustrated, and sad. He/she is turned over to the school system by parents who are also angry and frustrated, and who lack the backbone to deal with their own child. We see these kids going ballistic in malls, in restaurants, on the street, at amusement parks, and in the homes of friends and relatives. Why doesn’t it occur to people that the same out-of-control behavior is being exhibited in schools? And the same parents who don’t deal with it at home and other places, don’t address their kid’s classroom actions either. They don’t accept responsibility, preferring instead to blame it on the school and the teachers.
So what I expect from parents is that they send their child to school with a clear understanding of what is acceptable vs. unacceptable classroom behavior. If the teacher/school contacts them to report that the child is being disruptive or the child is not doing the assigned work, I expect the parent to either take corrective action themselves (no, NOT spanking!), or accept the school’s assistance in doing so. I do not expect them to ignore the problem, or, even worse, to make the problem all about them, heaping verbal abuse on school personnel for daring to criticize their parenting (apparently, the 21st century translation for “your child isn’t doing his homework). They need to stop looking at the school as their government-sponsored daycare, and the teacher as a volunteer babysitter.
[quote=Arraya] Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.[/quote]
I adore Elizabeth Warren. I’ve been following her for about 10 years now, and have never ceased to be enormously impressed with her research, her insights, and her persistence. Having working in an academic environment similar to her home institution, I found that many faculty were too impressed with themselves to give a crap about some of the less fortunate. Even those who conducted research on socioeconomic issues often had difficulty bridging the academic-human divide. With Warren, that is not the case.
Warren recognized the dangers of deregulation, decreasing oversight, and the easing of credit right from the get-go. Her warnings WERE heeded, only not by the poor and middle class consumers at whom they were directed. Her detractors – America’s most powerful bankers, mortgage company CEOs, radio/TV pundits, and internet bloggers ridiculed her publicly, but, behind the scenes, fully recognized the depth, breadth, and accuracy of her research findings, and the dangers they posed to their business operations.
However, they felt reasonably safe until Obama gave her a national public platform from which to speak. Once that occurred, the right-leaning political/media/lobbying behemoth went into action. The size of the arsenal they employed against her confirmed their fear at the threat she posed. She did not disappoint. She maintained her calm, unflappable, unfailingly polite public persona, and kept the focus on what she was trying to achieve with the opportunity she had been given. While the pundits (on all sides) were making a fuss over the fact that she would not be the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she continued to work on getting it up and running. I do not know Ms. Warren personally, but I’ve been privileged to make the acquaintance of many like her over the years: extremely bright, committed, goal-driven individuals who recognize opportunities, focus on the task at hand, and once it is accomplished, move on to the next challenge. It is my exposure to women like this that fuel my outrage at the exploitative maneuvers, cheap tricks and short cuts of public figures like Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin.
I realize that this is starting to sound like a nomination for canonization. It’s not: Elizabeth Warren is human, and, I’m sure, no saint. But her message over the years I followed her was simple and straightforward, yet curiously missing from the national dialogue during a time when its inclusion would have been most appropriate. With the formation of the CFPB, she’s demonstrated that she could not only walk the walk, but that she could – and would – walk the gangplank.
UCGal
July 28, 2011 @
12:26 PM
surveyor wrote:jpinpb [quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Lets say I’m a fat cat businesswoman.
And I see chance to NET more profit by expanding my business. I’m going to do it. After all – I want more money.
So if, after paying taxes, I can net some green – I’ll hire more people to take advantage of that.
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.
surveyor
July 28, 2011 @
12:51 PM
UCGal [quote=UCGal]
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
[/quote]
But how much money will it take to make that million dollars? Will I have to spend $100 million to make that million (a 1% rate of return?). Who here has $100 million? Why should I risk $100 million and put up with the hassle of trying to get the business expanding, deal with the increased regulation, deal with the unions, the increased taxes, just to get a 1% rate of return when I can just dump it into a tax exempt muni rate of 3% to 5%? Which one results in more jobs?
Which results in more jobs, a business that can provide a rate of return of 5% or 1%? Which would you rather invest in? Would you rather invest in a tax exempt muni of 5% or a business that can only promise 1%? Which action provides more jobs?
And your primary assumption, that the business or industry will actually provide a profit, that’s not for sure that all. Also, your premise is incorrect. If a business expansion in a low tax environment will require 100 jobs, in a high tax environment it will result in less than 100 jobs.
That’s how money works.
[quote=UCGal]
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
[/quote]
The “rich” that you talk about are generally about using their money in the easiest and best way possible. If it’s into moving money into their own accounts and letting it sit, great they will do it if that’s what they want. If they want to use it to leverage more wealth, they will do it also. Which results in more jobs? If they can generate a better rate of return by investing in a business or by just sitting on money, which will they do? If you tax them too much they will try to protect their money by sheltering it. Does that create more jobs? It doesn’t? Huh.
[quote=UCGal]
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
Where are many of those job creators getting the capital to start and expand those businesses and get hiring? From the banks? Banks don’t want to lend. It couldn’t be from the RICH right?
That’s how money works.
CA renter
July 29, 2011 @
3:10 AM
surveyor wrote:UCGal [quote=surveyor][quote=UCGal]
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
[/quote]
But how much money will it take to make that million dollars? Will I have to spend $100 million to make that million (a 1% rate of return?). Who here has $100 million? Why should I risk $100 million and put up with the hassle of trying to get the business expanding, deal with the increased regulation, deal with the unions, the increased taxes, just to get a 1% rate of return when I can just dump it into a tax exempt muni rate of 3% to 5%? Which one results in more jobs?
Which results in more jobs, a business that can provide a rate of return of 5% or 1%? Which would you rather invest in? Would you rather invest in a tax exempt muni of 5% or a business that can only promise 1%? Which action provides more jobs?
And your primary assumption, that the business or industry will actually provide a profit, that’s not for sure that all. Also, your premise is incorrect. If a business expansion in a low tax environment will require 100 jobs, in a high tax environment it will result in less than 100 jobs.
That’s how money works.
[quote=UCGal]
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
[/quote]
The “rich” that you talk about are generally about using their money in the easiest and best way possible. If it’s into moving money into their own accounts and letting it sit, great they will do it if that’s what they want. If they want to use it to leverage more wealth, they will do it also. Which results in more jobs? If they can generate a better rate of return by investing in a business or by just sitting on money, which will they do? If you tax them too much they will try to protect their money by sheltering it. Does that create more jobs? It doesn’t? Huh.
[quote=UCGal]
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
Where are many of those job creators getting the capital to start and expand those businesses and get hiring? From the banks? Banks don’t want to lend. It couldn’t be from the RICH right?
That’s how money works.[/quote]
Many businesses originate in homes or garages, and they expand because there is enough **demand** for their products or services. Oftentimes, they can use their own money, or borrow from relatives. If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.
One of the main problems I have with “investors” is that too few of them are actually investing in businesses. Instead, they are buying up assets (houses, commodities, etc.) which pushes up prices for those who legitimately need to buy those assets for shelter or for running their businesses. We also have the high-frequency traders who simply manipulate markets. They are not looking to “invest,” but to speculate. They (speculators) are the cause of booms and busts, which I think is even worse than having a “shortage” of investors.
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
No, the problem is the off-shoring of our manufacturing jobs. Fix that, and we will begin to see our economy stabilize. Ignore it, and we will continue to drift down until we are all living in mud huts and subsisting on a bowl of gruel per day.
surveyor
July 29, 2011 @
8:12 AM
CA renter wrote:
If they need [quote=CA renter]
If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.[/quote]
Those “investors” wouldn’t happen to be the “rich”, would they?
[quote=CA renter]
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?[/quote]
Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin. Two of them are low tax states. According to you, this must be a coincidence.
But here’s the newsflash: low taxes are only part of the equation. I agree with you, certainly a business will go into a high tax area if the profit is there. But is the area business friendly? Are there lower regulations? Is there a talent pool there? Texas and North Carolina have been historically business friendly states. California has been anti-business, with its high tax rates and its high regulations.
[quote=CA renter]
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
[/quote]
GE has a cadre of lawyers and lobbyists to go after tax deductions. Do most businesses have the time, effort, and money to go after that? No. When you have a complex tax structure, the big corporations are the ones who win.
Not one business ever says we are looking for a place with high taxes and high regulations.
My point is, make is simpler and make it cheaper to hire people. This does not have to result in a lower cost of living. It will even increase the taxes collected. The reason why jobs are offshored and there are no jobs created here is simply because this is not the environment we have now.
With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it’s going to be later—much later. Here’s why.
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She’s been with us for over 15 years. She’s a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That’s the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She’s lucky she doesn’t live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers’ comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally’s Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally’s pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally’s job each year.
Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation. With government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.
Companies have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the insanity, there is ObamaCare.
Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%.
To offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this “summer of recovery.” We can’t pass the additional costs onto our customers, because the market is too tight and we’d lose sales. Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.
And even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government’s message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
Mr. Fleischer is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J.
surveyor
July 29, 2011 @
8:21 AM
Jobs Jobs Jobs: Proof [img_assist|nid=15171|title=Jobs Jobs Jobs|desc=Proof positive regulations lower jobs growth|link=node|align=left|width=70|height=100]
eavesdropper
July 30, 2011 @
2:56 AM
surveyor wrote:Jobs Jobs [quote=surveyor][img_assist|nid=15171|title=Jobs Jobs Jobs|desc=Proof positive regulations lower jobs growth|link=node|align=left|width=70|height=100][/quote]
surveyor, while catching up on Piggs, I came upon this heated discussion between you and several well-informed regulars. Even though there are things you’ve written with which I don’t necessarily agree, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt until now.
This one piece of paper is your smoking gun? Your clear-cut evidence that firmly establishes the validity of your argument? It’s a graphic issued by the Heritage Foundation. It is limited in the information that it provides, and I see more implications than facts.
I may use the websites of politically-oriented organizations in terms to gathering material to counterbalance that acquired from organizations at the opposite end of the spectrum. But I never use them as a source of facts and figures to establish grounds for an argument, especially when the information is readily available on government websites.
Normally, I would not have mentioned this. But the language in your discussions was coated with a thin veneer of sarcasm and superiority, and you appear to be particularly fond of using the phrase, “That’s the way money works”.
I have been privileged to engage in discussions about a wide variety of topics on this site with many wonderful individuals, many of whom possess high levels of intelligence (including the often-mentioned, much vaunted “common sense”). These include the individuals with whom you were discussing the current debt crisis and the role of taxation and government oversight. All of these individuals are well aware of “how money works”.
The truth is that this graphic is essentially useless because (1) if offers an extremely limited amount of information, which does not adequately support the views you’ve so forcefully expressed, and (2) it comes from an extremely biased source.
In reality, job loss has been in steady decline since the Bush tax cuts were passed. If you recall, the tax cuts were sold to Congress using the same “logic”: that the “rich” who would benefit from the cuts would reinvest the money in U.S. business, creating jobs. Regardless of “how money works”, the tax cuts didn’t….at least where job creation was concerned.
CA renter
July 30, 2011 @
4:02 AM
surveyor wrote:CA renter [quote=surveyor][quote=CA renter]
If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.[/quote]
Those “investors” wouldn’t happen to be the “rich”, would they?
[quote=CA renter]
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?[/quote]
Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin. Two of them are low tax states. According to you, this must be a coincidence.
But here’s the newsflash: low taxes are only part of the equation. I agree with you, certainly a business will go into a high tax area if the profit is there. But is the area business friendly? Are there lower regulations? Is there a talent pool there? Texas and North Carolina have been historically business friendly states. California has been anti-business, with its high tax rates and its high regulations.
[quote=CA renter]
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
[/quote]
GE has a cadre of lawyers and lobbyists to go after tax deductions. Do most businesses have the time, effort, and money to go after that? No. When you have a complex tax structure, the big corporations are the ones who win.
Not one business ever says we are looking for a place with high taxes and high regulations.
My point is, make is simpler and make it cheaper to hire people. This does not have to result in a lower cost of living. It will even increase the taxes collected. The reason why jobs are offshored and there are no jobs created here is simply because this is not the environment we have now.
With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it’s going to be later—much later. Here’s why.
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She’s been with us for over 15 years. She’s a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That’s the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She’s lucky she doesn’t live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers’ comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally’s Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally’s pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally’s job each year.
Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation. With government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.
Companies have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the insanity, there is ObamaCare.
Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%.
To offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this “summer of recovery.” We can’t pass the additional costs onto our customers, because the market is too tight and we’d lose sales. Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.
And even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government’s message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
Mr. Fleischer is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J. [/quote]
The investors may or may not be “rich.” They might simply be a large pool of small-time investors, or a small pool of very wealthy investors. They might be relatives, co-workers, friends, etc.
There is a myth that only rich people create jobs. “I’ve never worked for a poor person,” the saying goes. Personally, I’ve worked for more “poor” people than “rich” people. Most small business owners and start-up entrepreneurs that I’ve known were not rich, especially when they started.
That being said, I absolutely agree with you about regulations and all-around “red tape.” Local, state, and federal regulations should be streamlined, and certain fees and costs should be reduced or eliminated.
IMHO, socialized healthcare would greatly help businesses, as they could shed the responsibility of providing and maintaining healthcare for their employees. Healthcare should not be tied to employment (though one would think that the Republicans would champion this, as it prevents “the lazy” from getting proper healthcare).
CA renter
July 29, 2011 @
1:18 AM
UCGal wrote:surveyor [quote=UCGal][quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Lets say I’m a fat cat businesswoman.
And I see chance to NET more profit by expanding my business. I’m going to do it. After all – I want more money.
So if, after paying taxes, I can net some green – I’ll hire more people to take advantage of that.
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
NAILED IT!!!!!
jpinpb
July 29, 2011 @
8:24 AM
surveyor wrote:And yet look [quote=surveyor]And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Yes, corporations are out to make the biggest profit possible. Laws should be changed so they can’t get cheap labor abroad. We are supposed to have a higher standard of living in America, including pay and working conditions. Not bring our labor down to the levels of Third World countries.
We are making it too easy and cheap for corporations to outsource AND too easy and cheap for items MIC to be brought and sold here. Definitely import/export laws needs to be changed.
IMO corporations are not going to “help” us when they make a profit. Not going to happen. There will always be cheap labor elsewhere in the world and they will go that route for the sake of profit. That means unless we are willing to work for $3 a day, or laws get changed, we will be shedding jobs.
svelte
July 28, 2011 @
10:23 PM
Back to the three ring circus Back to the three ring circus that started this thread…
So the Republicans decide that they will put on a sideshow that has no hopes of passing the Senate by passing a Republican only House package for raising the debt ceiling…that, I suppose the thinking is, will show the American public that at least the Republicans can unite and get something done.
Well, at least for now, has gone down faster than a sorority girl on spring break. Boehner would not have delayed the vote if he had enough votes! The Republicans weren’t even able to unite behind a package by ignoring Democrat desires!
But tomorrow is a new day….maybe the Republican leadership can pistol-whip enough members to push it through…
ifyousayso
July 29, 2011 @
7:55 AM
Also, since everyone is
Also, since everyone is paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone.
It’s a tax increase for everyone, but the tax increase is greatest on the younger generation. That’s because the cut to social security is, as I understand it, a change in the way inflation is calculated, and thus a change in the annual cost of living increase to social security. For a current retiree, I believe it was estimated that it would amount to 3% less total benefits over a lifetime. But who cares about that when you’re paying in for another 20+ years? Because of a change like this, the monthly payout to people like me will be much less than current retirees (inflation adjusted) and yet I’m still stuck paying in the same amount every 2 weeks.
Anyway I think they should just abolish social security and expand the welfare program, because that’s what it is in the end anyway.
jficquette
July 29, 2011 @
11:37 AM
I thought politics was off I thought politics was off limits here after it became indisputable that an idiot was elected to the White House.
aldante
August 1, 2011 @
1:11 PM
I figured I would let all of I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul.
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the “cuts” being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family “saving” $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of “cuts” that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to “cut”. It would only take us 5 years to “cut” $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger “cut” than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..
eavesdropper
August 1, 2011 @
9:13 PM
aldante wrote:I figured I [quote=aldante]I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul……Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..[/quote]
Much as I truly hate to pass up this opportunity to blow you, aldante, I gotta confess that I respect Ron Paul. Quite often I don’t agree with what he says, in whole or in part. But I like the fact that HE DOES HIS JOB.
There is a relative handful of people in Congress who appear to comprehend the fact that they are there to do a job, just like the rest of us do. They actually think about the serious problems, gather information (not propaganda), and formulate problem-solving strategies. Ron Paul is one of these.
The majority present themselves as representing the taxpayers of their state/district but, in reality, they behave like contestants at the Miss America pageant. I truly believe that they think their job obligation consists of kissing babies and meeting “people from home” in his office when they visit DC, taking part in hearings that are largely set up to garner TV coverage that will help to replenish the soundbite library, and preen before the TV cameras, while occasionally letting loose with outraged spluttering about the rival party. Period.
If we’re going to pay these guys a good salary with expenses, staff and supply several offices, and pay them a lifetime pension after serving only a few years, I expect to get back something more than a kiss goodnight at the door.
Although I do think it’s sad that I’ve reached the point at which I’m grateful to Congresspeople who appear to be actually doing work.
CA renter
August 2, 2011 @
12:09 AM
aldante wrote:I figured I [quote=aldante]I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul.
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the “cuts” being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family “saving” $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of “cuts” that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to “cut”. It would only take us 5 years to “cut” $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger “cut” than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..[/quote]
Even I agree with many of his points, and certainly have more respect for Ron Paul than for most politicians, for the very reasons eavesdropper already described.
It’s not that I think we need to spend more…we just need to shift where that spending occurs. We also need to look at who’s gained the most from the policies of the past 30-40 years, and make them pay for what they’ve been given, often at the expense of many others.
We absolutely should freeze spending, but the interest we owe on all that debt makes it difficult. Also, we need to get our military out of all those countries where we don’t belong. I’m sick and tired of hearing those on the right say that we need to cut taxes, when they are responsible for so much of our spending.
aldante
August 2, 2011 @
10:58 AM
I guess I let my blood boil I guess I let my blood boil sometimes and I regret the vulger comment.
I agree that we should follow the money but our first priority needs to be to save this nation. RP is the only candidate that called all of today’s events 10 years ago. He is a terrible speaker. But follow his actions. Look at his writing and his track record. Most speak better then he does but no one – has had the forsight and guts to call the evils of big government better or more accurately.
He is as much against the military industrial complex as he is against the welfare state.
bearishgurl
August 3, 2011 @
10:24 PM
AN wrote:Their teachers are [quote=AN]Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years:…[/quote]
I understand what you are trying to say here, AN, but I find it easier to face reality. The truth is, teacher’s starting salaries are what they are across the nation. These salaries are divided over 12 months so they can get paid during school vacations. In CA, public school teachers of all ranks make double what they do in in the southwest part of the country. This is just anecdotal, based upon my conversations with relatives who are longtime teachers and school administrators. The duties and working conditions of public school teachers are such that they are often in positions of being damned if they do and damned if they don’t. A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere. You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.
an
August 3, 2011 @
10:47 PM
bearishgurl wrote:A teacher [quote=bearishgurl]A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere.[/quote]
I’m not talking about some whining parents. I’m talking about truly bad teachers. I can remember one from my HS. He was a AP chem teacher. During the WHOLE year, he never talked to the class. From class start to class end, he faces the board the whole time talking to the board. During AP time, only 1/4 even tried to take the AP test and I don’t think any of us pass. Secondly, do you know any profession where a good employee gets paid the same (or very close to) as a bad one? We should be rewarding our great teachers more than our good teachers. Our good teachers should get rewarded more than our OK teacher. Our bad teachers should be doing something else.
I personally don’t expect to see any change in our education system in my life time. The teachers’ union are just too strong. Don’t think for one second that I’m whining. I have my kids education planned out and saved for. So, even if nothing changed, it won’t affect me, since it would be meeting my expectation. I’m just debating for the fun of debating, since I love to talk about schools as much as RE. Just as I know I can’t change RE market, I know I can’t change the school system as well.
[quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.
bearishgurl
August 3, 2011 @
11:11 PM
AN wrote:bearishgurl [quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
AN, the way “bankers” and “mortgage brokers” are compensated are apples to oranges to that of a teacher. A teacher has no control over their raises or how much they will make. It is already spelled out in their contracts. There is no “commission” incentive or handsome “back-end load” waiting for teachers to sign up “principals” with little/no verifiable income (but who can fog a mirror) with “exotic mortgages” that they KNEW would eventually explode. Bankers and mortgage brokers simply got greedy in recent years doing this routinely because they had the opportunities to act on that greed. Teachers are in no such position. Other than teachers with seniority being able to list their choice of schools they wish to be assigned to for the next school year and sometimes being able to decorate their classroom as they wish, there is no other facet of their jobs that they have control over. They are mired in rules and regulations, there is no “incentive pay,” they have to work a particular schedule, mostly standing up and have a student body with very diverse needs to serve, day in and day out.
an
August 3, 2011 @
11:21 PM
bearishgurl wrote:AN [quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
AN, the way “bankers” and “mortgage brokers” are compensated are apples to oranges to that of a teacher. A teacher has no control over their raises or how much they will make. It is already spelled out in their contracts. There is no “commission” incentive or handsome “back-end load” waiting for teachers to sign up “principals” with little/no verifiable income (but who can fog a mirror) with “exotic mortgages” that they KNEW would eventually explode. Bankers and mortgage brokers simply got greedy in recent years doing this routinely because they had the opportunities to act on that greed. Teachers are in no such position. Other than teachers with seniority being able to list their choice of schools they wish to be assigned to for the next school year and sometimes being able to decorate their classroom as they wish, there is no other facet of their jobs that they have control over. They are mired in rules and regulations, there is no “incentive pay,” they have to work a particular schedule, mostly standing up and have a student body with very diverse needs to serve, day in and day out.[/quote]
This has NOTHING to do with their pay. It EVERYTHING about your statement saying I can’t judge someone because I haven’t walked in their shoes. Have you walked in those bankers’ mortgage brokers’ shoes for a year?
CA renter
August 4, 2011 @
5:23 AM
AN wrote:bearishgurl wrote:A [quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere.[/quote]
I’m not talking about some whining parents. I’m talking about truly bad teachers. I can remember one from my HS. He was a AP chem teacher. During the WHOLE year, he never talked to the class. From class start to class end, he faces the board the whole time talking to the board. During AP time, only 1/4 even tried to take the AP test and I don’t think any of us pass. Secondly, do you know any profession where a good employee gets paid the same (or very close to) as a bad one? We should be rewarding our great teachers more than our good teachers. Our good teachers should get rewarded more than our OK teacher. Our bad teachers should be doing something else.
I personally don’t expect to see any change in our education system in my life time. The teachers’ union are just too strong. Don’t think for one second that I’m whining. I have my kids education planned out and saved for. So, even if nothing changed, it won’t affect me, since it would be meeting my expectation. I’m just debating for the fun of debating, since I love to talk about schools as much as RE. Just as I know I can’t change RE market, I know I can’t change the school system as well.
[quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
BG is exactly right. I tried to explain it before, but teaching is very difficult because what one person considers “good” teaching is the very same thing that another person considers “bad” teaching — see my example about the two principals, one who demanded teachers use only the whole language approach, and the other who demanded they use phonics only.
When I taught, I was known as a very strict (but loving) teacher, and was all about academics. Most of the parents absolutely loved me because I was able to manage their children far better than they could, and the kids went home better behaved than when they left. The kids also did exceptionally well academically, and my classes always scored at or near the top for our “cluster” (the schools that all feed into a particular HS). I was the teacher that everyone else sent their “bad” kids to when they couldn’t tolerate them anymore, and was always able to manage whatever was thrown my way.
OTOH, there were some parents who couldn’t stand the discipline in my classroom. They thought their kids should have been doing more arts and crafts, and they thought their kids should have had as much say about how the classroom was run as I did. Some parents complained that I gave too much homework, and others complained that there was not enough. Some thought that teachers should not be allowed to “bench” kids or keep them in for recess when they misbehaved, etc. The list goes on and on…
As a teacher, you literally have 20++ bosses (the parents) — not including the *real* bosses (the administrators) — and many of them have totally disparate opinions about what makes a “good” teacher. Because of it’s subjective nature, teachers need to be protected from administrators and parents who just have a personal axe to grind. It’s one of the few professions where people who have NO experience or knowledge of any kind feel like they have the right to dictate how things should be done.
If you want choice, you’ve got it. You can send your kids to a private school, you can homeschool them, you can send them to another public school via open enrollment, or you can move to another district. Your options are endless, but taxpayers should not be obligated to pay for every possible “choice” a parent desires.
CA renter
August 4, 2011 @
4:28 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN [quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years:…[/quote]
I understand what you are trying to say here, AN, but I find it easier to face reality. The truth is, teacher’s starting salaries are what they are across the nation. These salaries are divided over 12 months so they can get paid during school vacations. In CA, public school teachers of all ranks make double what they do in in the southwest part of the country. This is just anecdotal, based upon my conversations with relatives who are longtime teachers and school administrators. The duties and working conditions of public school teachers are such that they are often in positions of being damned if they do and damned if they don’t. A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere. You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]
Very well said, BG!
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
9:40 AM
Here’s a good example of what Here’s a good example of what happens when a school accepts too many transfer-ins (from the six-month-prior deadline) and then finds out (after the new budget is implemented) that they will not be able to replace teachers who retired and were “laid off” last school year.
The schools in SUHSD began the new school year on 7/20. All classes which rec’d less than 20 enrollments were eliminated as of two days ago, due to lack of teachers. All students were placed in existing classes of 35-55 students. Some are still sitting on the floor.
The counselors supposedly worked all weekend and my kid just got their “final schedule,” yesterday … 12 days into the semester. Even though we signed up for “Algebra II” back in January, we just got a math class yesterday.
The unused classrooms are just sitting there empty, locked up 🙁 Hopefully, this weekend, desks will be moved out of them to classrooms which need them.
Do you think all these mostly “zone” and some interdistrict transfers will be re-admitted next year?? Not!!
an
August 5, 2011 @
9:46 AM
That’s a pretty horrible That’s a pretty horrible story BG. Can you explain something to me, since I don’t quite get the whole budget/teacher layoff thing. Each district supposed to spend $x/student, right? If there’s enough students, why do they need to layoff those teachers?
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
10:07 AM
AN wrote:That’s a pretty [quote=AN]That’s a pretty horrible story BG. Can you explain something to me, since I don’t quite get the whole budget/teacher layoff thing. Each district supposed to spend $x/student, right? If there’s enough students, why do they need to layoff those teachers?[/quote]
Districts in CA have to lay off teachers and (apparently) not replace retirees because their budget has been cut. Why?? Because the vast majority of property owners in CA whose taxes are NOT “held at bay” by Prop 13 have filed for a reassessment, causing county assessors to voluntarily reassess ALL properties, block by block, since they don’t have the staff to process all these Applications for Reassessment. My own tax has been reduced down to its 2003 level.
This results in far LESS property tax revenue for the schools then they previously operated with. In other words, whatever the state USED to pay them per student has gone down … significantly.
In the case of SUHSD, they now have five additional schools to service, which were built in the last 8 years, but are operating on the revenue they rec’d in approx 2003.
MR bonds paid for these schools’ construction but does NOT pay to operate them.
an
August 5, 2011 @
10:37 AM
bearishgurl wrote:Districts [quote=bearishgurl]Districts in CA have to lay off teachers and (apparently) not replace retirees because their budget has been cut. Why?? Because the vast majority of property owners in CA whose taxes are NOT “held at bay” by Prop 13 have filed for a reassessment, causing county assessors to voluntarily reassess ALL properties, block by block, since they don’t have the staff to process all these Applications for Reassessment. My own tax has been reduced down to its 2003 level.
This results in far LESS property tax revenue for the schools then they previously operated with. In other words, whatever the state USED to pay them per student has gone down … significantly.
In the case of SUHSD, they now have five additional schools to service, which were built in the last 8 years, but are operating on the revenue they rec’d in approx 2003.
MR bonds paid for these schools’ construction but does NOT pay to operate them.[/quote]
That makes sense. To solve this problem, instead of raising taxes on everyone, I wonder if we can let parents have a choice to pay some out of pocket money to reduce the class size.
Administrators’ cost are soaring? If so, why can’t we stop that?
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
10:12 AM
All Piggs that have All Piggs that have previously complained about these 30+ year teaching veterans that have “lost their touch” and are “slipping” should be grateful that you have them. After 30 years service, they don’t make any more $$ to continue teaching, due to being eligible for a 100% pension. They are only there for the love of teaching and to perhaps get their medical coverage a little cheaper until they can qualify for Medicare.
I’m here to tell you that retiring teachers will likely NOT be replaced in your child’s school in the coming years.
jstoesz
August 5, 2011 @
10:27 AM
Life of a bureaucracy
We need [img_assist|nid=15200|title=Life of a bureaucracy|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=503|height=600]
We need to just open new schools right next door. Start a new life.
bearishgurl
August 5, 2011 @
10:30 AM
Luv, luv, LUV your chart, Luv, luv, LUV your chart, jstoesz! Being a gov’mt “retiree” myself, this illustration is “spot on” IMO! Especially the last circle!!
jstoesz
August 5, 2011 @
10:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:Luv, luv, [quote=bearishgurl]Luv, luv, LUV your chart, jstoesz! Being a gov’mt “retiree” myself, this illustration is “spot on” IMO! Especially the last circle!![/quote]
Thanks…It is near and dear to my philosophy. Charles hugh smith can be a bit of a wingnut, but other times he really strikes genius.
July 12, 2011 @ 9:40 AM
I think the republicans are
I think the republicans are being very disingenuous. During the Bush years even during the bubble years with large revenues, how many times they voted to increase spending and raised the debt limit ceiling? Suddenly they are spending hawks again. They want large cuts with no cut in the $700 bil defense budget and no revenue increases even though the rich are paying much less tax even compared to the Reagan Era. I think it is completely irresponsible to think that you can reduce the deficit on cutting social security, and Medicare alone.
No I am not an Obama supporter and didn’t vote for him nor did I vote for Sarah Palin. I don’t like Obama’s staunch support for labor unions but I am fully behind him on this budget cutting issue. I think the Republicans are just hope that Obama fails even if it costs the country dearly.
July 12, 2011 @ 9:41 AM
This is what Obama said about
This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote]
July 12, 2011 @ 9:51 AM
Speech is speech, reality is
Speech is speech, reality is different. I totally didn’t like Obama giving incentives for home buyers, giving benefits extensions to the unemployed but realistically if you inherit a federal budget with $600 bil (2007) in the red and then revenue dropped by another $400 bil (2008 – now) and plus all the bailouts (that republicans also enthusiasstically signed on) what can you do to reduce the deficit? I think Obama might have spent $100 bil more than he should but the rest was unavoidable.
July 12, 2011 @ 9:59 AM
If you want to increase tax
If you want to increase tax revenue, why attack a some group and not others? Why not do real reform and remove most if not all deductions and lower tax rates.
So you’re saying that since both party spends a lot, no one can speak up about spending now, since it’s hypocritical?
July 12, 2011 @ 10:34 AM
I am all for removing all
I am all for removing all deductions and lower the tax rate. Why should GE pays no income tax? I and my wife are both Engineers and I think we belong in the group that pay the most taxes (as a percentage of income). The poors in this country don’t really pay tax and the rich pays much less tax because most of their income is in capital gain. But I don’t think it is feasible to cut government spending 30% (with no cut in defense) and not drastically affect the economy. Why increase tax on the rich. My take is that the rich with their influence on the politicians and government has created a society where the gap between rich and poor is becoming larger and larger. I believe this is not good for America’s stability in the long term. If you think that increasing rich-poor gap is not the problem then it is hard for you to agree with me.
[quote=AN]If you want to increase tax revenue, why attack a some group and not others? Why not do real reform and remove most if not all deductions and lower tax rates.
[quote]
July 12, 2011 @ 10:51 AM
You don’t really think that
You don’t really think that you can throw his own words back at him now do you?
That was because Bush was in power and he WAS an ineffective leader. Now Obama is in office and since he’s so awesome, the need to raise the debt ceiling has nothing to do with his ineffective leadership and everything to do with the Republicans (again).
[quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote][/quote]
July 12, 2011 @ 11:12 AM
Actually I think if McCain is
Actually I think if McCain is the president the deficit might be a little bit lower but not that much lower (might be $1.3 tril instead of $1.4 tril). These Presidents are not Gods and they can’t increase nor reduce the deficits much by themselves. What ever harm done to the nation in the past already happened and I believe both Republicans and Democrats are at faults. But I really think to solve the problem you need to be make compromises. You really think polically we can cut social security and Medicare alone? Even if the Republicans agree some increase in tax I am not entirely sure if Obama can convince the Democrats to sign on. But I think with some increase in revenue, there is much better chance that we can make cuts in medicare and social security.
Again, I am not a republican nor democrat. I fully support the California Republicans stance on no increase in tax because I want to see cuts to the public employees pension and pay first.
[quote=meadandale]You don’t really think that you can throw his own words back at him now do you?
That was because Bush was in power and he WAS an ineffective leader. Now Obama is in office and since he’s so awesome, the need to raise the debt ceiling has nothing to do with his ineffective leadership and everything to do with the Republicans (again).
[quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
I really worry about my 401K if America defaults. I don’t have many options. It is bonds, domestic stocks and a few foreign stocks. I just move most of my 401K to foreign stocks because I think US stocks and bonds will tank if we default.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006[/quote][/quote][/quote]
July 13, 2011 @ 10:17 PM
AN wrote:This is what Obama
[quote=AN]This is what Obama said about debt ceiling in 2006 as a Senator[/quote]
What Obama didn’t say is that he would not vote for a debt limit increase.
Congress has the power of the purse. The debt is money that Congress has spent already, so they should simply live up to their commitments and pay for the spending.
I’m sure Republicans who said that they would not increase the debt limit will eventually have to do quite the opposite.
July 13, 2011 @ 11:56 PM
briansd1 wrote:What Obama
[quote=briansd1]What Obama didn’t say is that he would not vote for a debt limit increase. [/quote]
He didn’t say it, but he didn’t vote for it. What make the debt ceiling more important today vs 2006 that make him want others to vote for it while he didn’t vote for it then? The most interesting thing he said in that speech was his opening sentence:
[quote=obama]The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.[/quote]
[quote=briansd1]I’m sure Republicans who said that they would not increase the debt limit will eventually have to do quite the opposite.[/quote]
I’m sure they’ll eventually have to vote for it too. They’re both the same.
July 14, 2011 @ 8:32 AM
I believe cutting social
I believe cutting social security and medicare benefits is similar to a tax increase on the middle class because that money come out of my paycheck and yours every two weeks. The cuts will amount to a 10% tax increase on the retirees. The rich on the other hand are much less reliance on social security and medicare so a small tax (1 to 3 percent) increase on them makes it more fair. I think if the republicans really want to solve the debt problem they should sign on to this deal especially when they are getting a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio on spending cuts and tax. If they don’t sign on to this deal it will show to the country that they just want Obama and the country to fail.
July 14, 2011 @ 9:17 AM
If you believe that ss and
If you believe that ss and Medicare benefits are taxes, then all the seniors who are getting them are getting a tax cut compare to their parents because they’re living longer today. Also, since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. Last I heard, it was 3 to 1, not 4 or 5 to 1. Both sides have different solutions for this problem and both sides don’t even agree on the magnitude of the problem. If your logic is that if you don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase is a sign that you want this country to fail, then Obama wanted this country to fail in 2006. BTW, I don’t agree with that view at all.
Lets have an analogy to everyday life. It’s like a family who bought too much house in 2005 and cars. Then one spouse lost their job. Do you go on and spend as if nothing has changed, or do you file for bankruptcy, or do you cut back on everything else and get a loan mod? Raising the debt ceiling is like getting another credit card, cutting ss and Medicare is like getting a loan mod, and city other things is like reducing your discretionary spending. How would you deal with this problem in your own home?
July 14, 2011 @ 10:26 AM
Not really,
How much is
Not really,
How much is Medicare worths annually for each senior? Lets say $10,000. If you cut this to $8,000 then it is a huge cut for a person with $50,000 annual income compared to a person with $2,000,000 annual income.
In addition, the maximum SS benefit is $2,366/month. If you cut this 10% to 20% it is a real cut for seniors who depend on this. But this is nothing for a rich person who makes most of his money from capital gains.
So essentially this is a huge cut for the middle class and very minimal cut for the rich if there is no tax increase on capital gain.
I already moved all of my 401K money to foreign stocks. I believe US stocks and bonds will tank next month. My 401K account doesn’t give me the option of buying precious metals so foreign stocks is the best I can hope for.
[quote=AN]since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. [/quote]
July 14, 2011 @ 10:31 AM
Debt clock
Debt clock live:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
July 14, 2011 @ 10:40 AM
I believe the rich have brain
I believe the rich have brain washed the politicians and many of us in supporting policies that benefit them more and more. Currently top 1% account for 24% of all income compared to 15% in the 1980s and there is nothing to stop this trend. As this trend increases, society will become unstable. US policies that support globalization is one cause of this as companies move production overseas to increase profit while US workers lose jobs. But one incredibly difficult to understand reason is that many in the middle class continue to support tax reduction for the rich as a result they rich as a whole is paying much less tax now compared to the Reagan era. Tax on the middle class is also lower when compared to the Reagan era but there are hidden taxes when you have cuts on schools, and colleges which the middle class rely on much more than the rich.
July 15, 2011 @ 2:05 AM
jimmyle wrote:I believe the
[quote=jimmyle]I believe the rich have brain washed the politicians and many of us in supporting policies that benefit them more and more. Currently top 1% account for 24% of all income compared to 15% in the 1980s and there is nothing to stop this trend. As this trend increases, society will become unstable. US policies that support globalization is one cause of this as companies move production overseas to increase profit while US workers lose jobs. But one incredibly difficult to understand reason is that many in the middle class continue to support tax reduction for the rich as a result they rich as a whole is paying much less tax now compared to the Reagan era. Tax on the middle class is also lower when compared to the Reagan era but there are hidden taxes when you have cuts on schools, and colleges which the middle class rely on much more than the rich.[/quote]
Agreed.
July 14, 2011 @ 10:49 AM
What I don’t get – why isn’t
What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.
July 14, 2011 @ 10:53 AM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get
[quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]
I would support that.
July 17, 2011 @ 12:20 PM
jstoesz wrote:UCGal
[quote=jstoesz][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]
I would support that.[/quote]
I would support that.
July 14, 2011 @ 10:55 AM
UCGal, Obama said that he is
UCGal, Obama said that he is willing to consider painful cuts to programs dear to Democrats.
The Republicans are unwilling to budge even on closing tax loopholes for corporate jets. They claim that raising the limit in itself is enough of a concession.
Maybe while on vacation you did not follow the politics.
Actually, Boehner was willing to deal and a grand bargain that’s good for the country…. but Cantor is the just-say-no guy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/bernanke-warns-of-calamity-if-us-defaults-republicans-decry-scare-tactics/2011/07/13/gIQAMbycCI_story.html?hpid=z1
July 14, 2011 @ 11:06 AM
This says it all:
“Just a
This says it all:
“Just a little reminder to those of you still fooled by the congressional and presidential sideshows: Neither the Democrat nor the Republican plan cuts the deficit.”
http://letteradicorsa.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/odious/
July 14, 2011 @ 12:27 PM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get
[quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]I totally with their proposal.
July 14, 2011 @ 12:49 PM
I think Obama is saying that
I think Obama is saying that he is willing to make cuts in social security and medicare but Republicans are not willing to make any compromise.
[quote=AN][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable.
But there’s this plan out there that can save face for everyone if they’d just vote on it. It makes cuts to social programs and entitlements. (Painful to the dems). It restructures taxes (painful to the GOP)… In other words – it’s a compromise that no one loves – but makes some moves in the right direction.
Neither side will get what they want and solve the problem.[/quote]I totally with their proposal.[/quote]
July 14, 2011 @ 1:57 PM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get
[quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit. [/quote]
This is what Alan Simpson (the Republican co-chair fo the commission) had to say about raising the debt limit:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/07/ap-interview-simpson-fears-failure-debt-talks
[quote=UCGal]
You’ve got the dems saying the entitlements are untouchable. You’ve got the GOP saying anything on the revenue side is untouchable… It’s unresolveable. [/quote]
It’s not like you said it.
Obama is willing to cut social security and other programs dear to his base.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/170557-labor-angered-by-obamas-willingness-to-cut-social-security-
The Republican response: they won’t even agree to close loopholes for useless corporate tax breaks.
This is a pattern of Republican intrangisence.
Another example: In hindsight, we now know that the auto bailout was good for the nation and saved American jobs. Obama demanded concessions from the industry in exchange for a bailout. The Republicans said no, hell no.
http://www.komonews.com/news/national/42122487.html
This is an interesting article in the Atlantic (a non-partisan publication) on the end game for Republicans:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/07/debt-ceiling-whats-the-end-game-for-republicans/241959/
July 14, 2011 @ 3:28 PM
UCGal wrote:What I don’t get
[quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
[/quote]
As I’ve mentioned before, the commission never issued a report. It was ignored, and rightfully so, because it didn’t meet the commission’s charter. Had they timely and properly issued a report, it would have (theoretically anyway) been a proposed bill before congress. They did neither. Nor did the untimely recommendations issued by the commission chairs, which did not have the required support of the commission members to meet their charge anyway, include the sufficient detail needed in a bill before congress.
So, they failed to file a timely report. Failed to get the required number of votes. And failed to produce a document sufficient to be voted on by Congress.
And probably more importantly, it was bi-partisan. Despite my disdain for the ignorance of Alan Simpson, I really don’t think they did a bad job with their report. But in the current political environment, there is no chance of either side proposing bi-partisan legislation. For whomever proposed it, it would be a starting point, from which to move backwards. That’s the legislative process. Every proposal moves towards the opposite side.
July 14, 2011 @ 4:22 PM
SK in CV wrote:UCGal
[quote=SK in CV][quote=UCGal]What I don’t get – why isn’t either side saying “hey, lets go with the Simpson Bowles bi-partison plan!”. It spreads the pain pretty evenly – everyone got hit.
[/quote]
As I’ve mentioned before, the commission never issued a report. It was ignored, and rightfully so, because it didn’t meet the commission’s charter. Had they timely and properly issued a report, it would have (theoretically anyway) been a proposed bill before congress. They did neither. Nor did the untimely recommendations issued by the commission chairs, which did not have the required support of the commission members to meet their charge anyway, include the sufficient detail needed in a bill before congress.
So, they failed to file a timely report. Failed to get the required number of votes. And failed to produce a document sufficient to be voted on by Congress.
And probably more importantly, it was bi-partisan. Despite my disdain for the ignorance of Alan Simpson, I really don’t think they did a bad job with their report. But in the current political environment, there is no chance of either side proposing bi-partisan legislation. For whomever proposed it, it would be a starting point, from which to move backwards. That’s the legislative process. Every proposal moves towards the opposite side.[/quote]
I think you’re somewhat, but not entirely, mistaken.
You mean this report was never issued?
http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/sites/fiscalcommission.gov/files/documents/TheMomentofTruth12_1_2010.pdf
The commission voted on the plan, and it passed with a majority. But it needed 14 of the 18 commissioners to be automatically sent to congress. 5 members voted against it – 13 voted for it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/bowles-simpson-deficit-cutting-proposal-is-within-one-vote-of-rejection.html
So to say they never issued the report is inaccurate. The report was issued.
To say it didn’t have enough votes is accurate. But it had majority support. It was one vote shy of being automatically referred to congress. 13-5 in favor of the report. Unfortunately, it needed at least 14-4.
July 14, 2011 @ 7:48 PM
UCGal wrote:
So to say they
[quote=UCGal]
So to say they never issued the report is inaccurate. The report was issued.
[/quote]
The recommendations were issued by the two chairmen of the commission and signed onto by 11 others. The commissions term, as a matter of law, expired on December 1st. The vote was taken and the recommendations were issued on Dec. 3. The commission never issued a report. On Dec. 3, the commission no longer existed. So even if it had the 14 votes, it would have had no legal status to be referred to congress for a vote. That was not an accident.
July 14, 2011 @ 8:14 PM
I don’t really want to hear
I don’t really want to hear about a 4 trillion cut in 10 years.
How about a $500 billion cut (below this years spending) next year.
If they are going to agree on a bunch of lies, it could at least be adequate lies.
July 14, 2011 @ 10:43 AM
AN wrote: How would you deal
[quote=AN] How would you deal with this problem in your own home?[/quote]
The debt limit is an arbitrary construct that’s not even legal because by spending, Congress implicitly raised the debt limit. Congress passed the budget so they should appropriate the funds.
At home, households can borrow until the markets decide to no longer lend to them. The markets (lenders) put a limit on the amounts households can borrow.
The free markets, right now are very eager to lend to the US government. There is no debt limit until the free markets demand higher interest rates and refuse to roll-over existing debt.
July 15, 2011 @ 1:30 AM
AN wrote:If you believe that
[quote=AN]If you believe that ss and Medicare benefits are taxes, then all the seniors who are getting them are getting a tax cut compare to their parents because they’re living longer today. Also, since everyoneis paying into those programs and everyone expected to be paid from those program, it would be a tax increase on everyone. Last I heard, it was 3 to 1, not 4 or 5 to 1. Both sides have different solutions for this problem and both sides don’t even agree on the magnitude of the problem. If your logic is that if you don’t vote for the debt ceiling increase is a sign that you want this country to fail, then Obama wanted this country to fail in 2006. BTW, I don’t agree with that view at all.
Lets have an analogy to everyday life. It’s like a family who bought too much house in 2005 and cars. Then one spouse lost their job. Do you go on and spend as if nothing has changed, or do you file for bankruptcy, or do you cut back on everything else and get a loan mod? Raising the debt ceiling is like getting another credit card, cutting ss and Medicare is like getting a loan mod, and city other things is like reducing your discretionary spending. How would you deal with this problem in your own home?[/quote]
Get another job/source of revenue (increase taxes to Clinton-era levels, at the least).
July 16, 2011 @ 11:08 AM
Wow brian I guess the debt
Wow brian I guess the debt ceiling wasn’t a national issue in 2006 when every single dem senator voted against raising it. Whew I am glad it is national now though.
July 16, 2011 @ 2:29 PM
Oh, it’s just theater to keep
Oh, it’s just theater to keep you all entertained. The economy is now run by Skynet, it’s all going according to plan
July 16, 2011 @ 4:23 PM
SD Realtor wrote:Wow brian I
[quote=SD Realtor]Wow brian I guess the debt ceiling wasn’t a national issue in 2006 when every single dem senator voted against raising it. Whew I am glad it is national now though.[/quote]
When it come to an issue of national interest, one must not obstruct doing what must be none.
It’s one thing to register a vote to make point when you’re in the minority. It’s another thing altogether to throw our country into a financial crisis.
You know what, SDR, the Republican house will raise the debt limit after refusing to do so.
This whole crisis shows how Republicans are willing to gamble with the well-being of our country for the sake of power.
July 12, 2011 @ 11:48 AM
jimmyle wrote:I think the
[quote=jimmyle]I think the republicans are being very disingenuous. [/quote]
Yesterday on the Newshours, I heard Peter Roskam, R-IL pretty much say that raising the debt limit is the only compromise Republicans are willing to make (what cockamamie compromise is that?!).
The Republican are not dealing in good faith, plain and simple.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec11/debt_07-11.html
July 13, 2011 @ 10:07 PM
I’m loving the brinkmanship
I’m loving the brinkmanship on the debt limit.
What should have been a routine thing (the debt limit has been raised 74 times) was turned into a political charade by the Republicans.
Their intrangisence painted the Republicans into a corner and they can’t get out.
Anyone want to take odds on the winner out of this impasse?
July 24, 2011 @ 2:46 PM
Obama could unilaterally
Obama could unilaterally raise the debt limit on his own. As a last resort, he should do so and let the Republicans take him to court.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/politics/25legal.html?amp=&pagewanted=all
July 24, 2011 @ 6:35 PM
Actually Brian the repubs
Actually Brian the repubs have already offered him a plan that lets him do that so why doesnt he take that plan. Also they sent a plan to the senate as well but obama already said he would veto that plan as well. Seems like someone else is “holding the country hostage” by rejecting plans that don’t get past the election year. Similarly him and Boner were on the cusp of an agreement but he slipped another 400 billion in “revenues” on Friday at the last minute. I like how they call tax hikes “revenues” it sounds so much friendlier…
Talk about playing politics. Both parties suck here… let’s not exonerate anyone… take the rose colored spectacles off just for a minute.
July 24, 2011 @ 6:43 PM
SD Realtor wrote:Actually
[quote=SD Realtor]Actually Brian the repubs have already offered him a plan that lets him do that so why doesnt he take that plan. Also they sent a plan to the senate as well but obama already said he would veto that plan as well. Seems like someone else is “holding the country hostage” by rejecting plans that don’t get past the election year. Similarly him and Boner were on the cusp of an agreement but he slipped another 400 billion in “revenues” on Friday at the last minute. I like how they call tax hikes “revenues” it sounds so much friendlier…
Talk about playing politics. Both parties suck here… let’s not exonerate anyone… take the rose colored spectacles off just for a minute.[/quote]
SDR: Good post. You’re right, both parties suck on this and both are using this to score political points (in advance of the 2012 elections) and for political theater.
I’d also ask to see Obama’s “plan”. We hear repeatedly about the Obama plan, but haven’t seen it. Nor have we seen any attempt at balancing the fed budget during his 2.5 year stint as prez.
There is enough bullshit flying about to choke a horse. Plus, when the Euros are doing a better job (relatively speaking) than we are, as far as attempting to find a path forward, well, that REALLY sucks.
July 24, 2011 @ 8:43 PM
Yes Allan they do both suck.
Yes Allan they do both suck. They really suck. I am not a fan a repubs, believe me but damn I am tired of the world saying they haven’t offered up any solutions. Paul freeking Ryan offered a solution and per my other posts, solutions have been offered that get past the debt ceiling yet we are told that nothing has been offered and the country is being held hostage.
What the hell has this nation done to deserve a AAA credit rating anyway. We can’t balance a budget. We havent even had a budget…We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…) we are on an astronomic spending trajectory… we have been monotizing our own debt…yet we keep spending…AND HERE WE ARE AGAIN… being told the sky will fall if we don’t allow for more debt… and we need more debt so we can keep spending!
Really? If the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised do you guys think we are gonna miss our interest payments to China? Furthermore how useless is a debt ceiling when we are monetizing our own debt anyways? Guess what guys? The FED will just keep buying treasuries anyways!
If it wasn’t so utterly ridiculous it would be sad.. but all one can really do is laugh…
July 24, 2011 @ 9:04 PM
From a historical context,
From a historical context, the Republicans are the obstructionists here.
The debt ceiling is a ceiling that Congress put on itself. But Congress has spent the money already. The debt ceiling is not about future spending but about spending that Congress already approved.
The Republicans are creating an artificial crisis that wasn’t there before. They should automatically raise the debt ceiling as it has been done so many times before.
Tax reforms, spending cuts and entitlements are separate issues to be dealt separately.
The Republicans are holding the country and the economy hostage.
PS: I think that Obama can unilaterally raise the debt ceiling but that won’t help with the credit rating.
[quote=SD Realtor] Furthermore how useless is a debt ceiling when we are monetizing our own debt anyways? Guess what guys? The FED will just keep buying treasuries anyways!
[/quote]
BTW, if he debt ceiling isn’t raised, the Treasury won’t be able to issue more treasuries for the Fed or anybody else to buy.
July 24, 2011 @ 9:47 PM
briansd1 wrote:From a
[quote=briansd1]From a historical context, the Republicans are the obstructionists here.
The Republicans are creating an artificial crisis that wasn’t there before. They should automatically raise the debt ceiling as it has been done so many times before.
The Republicans are holding the country and the economy hostage.
[/quote]
Brian: Here’s an interesting link: http://geekpolitics.com/obama-on-raising-the-debt-ceiling/
This is Obama in 2006 (when he was Senator Obama) opposing raising the debt ceiling and calling it a “failure of leadership”.
Huh. So, now its bad faith on the GOP’s part to not raise the debt ceiling, but it was good faith in 2006 when Senator Obama opposed it? Help me out with this, because I’m confused. I mean, it sounds like COMPLETE BULLSHIT to completely reverse course from then to now. Maybe I’m missing something?
July 24, 2011 @ 10:51 PM
WRONG. Prior to the TEA
WRONG. Prior to the TEA PARTY JACKASSES, nobody used the debt ceiling to negotiate policy. It’s a procedural thing, required to operate the government.
FOR THE MOTHER FUCKING RECORD:
DEFICIT = Bush Tax Cuts and Iraq War.
REPUBLICAN POLICY < 2008. CHENEY = "Deficits don't matter." 2009 < GOP OPPOSED to the deficit. Debt ceiling default = TAX INCREASE for USA. Flirting with disaster on the currency side.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:31 PM
gandalf wrote:WRONG. Prior
[quote=gandalf]WRONG. Prior to the TEA PARTY JACKASSES, nobody used the debt ceiling to negotiate policy. It’s a procedural thing, required to operate the government.
[/quote]
That’s my point here. This debt crisis is a manufactured crisis (a real crisis is an emergency that occurs unexpectedly).
The Republicans have grabbed onto the debt ceiling as a negotiating tactic and to hold the country hostage until they get what they want.
The Republicans know that the debt ceiling must be raised. They said so themselves.
This shows the Republicans’ desperation and their willingness to take all of us down with them.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:44 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Brian: Here’s an interesting link: http://geekpolitics.com/obama-on-raising-the-debt-ceiling/
This is Obama in 2006 (when he was Senator Obama) opposing raising the debt ceiling and calling it a “failure of leadership”.
Huh. So, now its bad faith on the GOP’s part to not raise the debt ceiling, but it was good faith in 2006 when Senator Obama opposed it? Help me out with this, because I’m confused. I mean, it sounds like COMPLETE BULLSHIT to completely reverse course from then to now. Maybe I’m missing something?[/quote]
As I’ve said before, the Democrats who in 2006 voted against the debt ceiling increase did so just to make a point and register opposition to Bush. They did so knowing full well that the measure would pass, as it necessarily must.
That is world of difference from opposing something that must be done, knowing full well that your vote would cause the imperative to fail.
July 24, 2011 @ 10:02 PM
Brian from a present
Brian from a present perspective the republicans have offered up solutions that have been rejected. The president who you support in an almost blind faith manner has said that he will not support any solution that doesn’t push the issue past the elections. That is not political? That is not obstructionist?
It was congress that KNOWINGLY voted for those spending measures knowing damn well they exceeded the debt ceiling. Your solution to being addicted to spending is to allow more borrowing. Luckily there is political balance in place otherwise this would have been rubber stamped with no spending cuts.
Furthermore while you clearly appear to be intelligent I clearly would rather trust expertise in the field of economics and finance who are not as threatened by the all knowing Geitner and Bernanke and Obama. (Seeing as how that threesome have done such a great job)
The bottom line is that the treasury is due to bring in 172B in August. As bonds come due the Treasury would use the income to pay them off. This actually LOWERS the debt owed. That then lowers the debt beneath the friggin ceiling (which is a joke anyways) and the treasury can then reissue more debt (which would be stupid but make spenders happy! YAY more debt!!)
How bout some math Brian?
That means there’s enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).
That leaves 39 billion to pay the following bills:
That leaves you with about $39 billion to fund (or not fund) the following:
Defense vendors ($31.7 billion)
IRS refunds ($3.9 billion)
Food stamps and welfare ($9.3 billion)
Unemployment insurance benefits ($12.8 billion)
Department of Education ($20.2 billion)
Housing and Urban Development ($6.7 billion)
Other spending, such as Departments of Justice, Labor, Commerce, EPA, HHS ($73.6 billion)
So who makes the decision on who gets paid and who does not?The treasury of course.
Will this likely be catastrophic? No… will it be very very painful? Yes. Will we miss interest payments? No. Is this going to have to be done sooner or later? Yes.
***********
You still have not qualified how the repubs are holding the country hostage? They have already sent a plan to the senate? They have been negotiating?
Why cant the president accept a short term plan Brian? What is the problem with that? Why couldnt they accept the plan delivered to the Senate on Friday?
********
Really it must be very interesting to have such blind faith in something that your party can never be at fault for anything and that any mode of thought that is not in line with what your party wants is completely wrong. That you can label any alternative thoughts as obstructionist, hypocritical, outlandish, racist, homophobic, or right wing crazy.
July 24, 2011 @ 10:38 PM
WRONG AGAIN. Federal
WRONG AGAIN. Federal discretionary spending has been CONSTANT on a percentage basis since Clinton.
DEFICIT?
– Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
– Iraq War (Retarded response to 9/11)
– Bush Medicare Part B Entitlement
The same GOP asses who voted FOR Bush’s Medicare increase, FOR the Iraq War and FOR Bush’s tax cuts for rich fucks…
…are now opposed to deficits.
July 24, 2011 @ 10:44 PM
At this point, it is
At this point, it is irresponsible to support the Republican Party.
I’m not a partisan.
The Republican party platform is BATSHIT INSANE.
July 24, 2011 @ 10:52 PM
Yes they are asses. The GOP
Yes they are asses. The GOP are assholes.
Does that make you feel better? I don’t like them. They are no better or worse then the democrats to me. Obviously to you they are much worse. Good to see you have such faith in at least one party.
They were terrible choices and I didnt like them then nor do I now. For the record look back at my posts in THIS THREAD saying WE WILL HAVE TO PAY HIGHER TAXES and that I am okay with that. I didn’t even say the rich. I said we meaning all of us.
Just dont say they haven’t put any proposals forward because they have.
Nobody has ventured an answer about why a solution has to be longer term then the elections either? Why is Obama so adamant about the solution being after the elections?
If this is a formality to keep everything skipping right along then why can’t it be short term?
What is the problem with that?
Also when does the deficit get dealt with? Was it dealt with over the past 2 years? It sure the hell didn’t get dealt with when Bush was in office. That was a joke. So I guess the answer is to keep f-cking up cuz we f-cked it up before. In fact let’s not just keep f-cking it up, lets crank up that spending even more and REALLY f-ck it up.
You can brush off the shortcomings of this administration by blaming the previous administration for how long? Another year? Another 3 years? When Obama is gone and the next pres comes in and is another party stooge (pick a party) then I am sure he will blame the previous 2 administrations as well… So yes your best response is a vehement attack on the previous stooges. The current repubs are just as much assholes as the previous ones. I know that. The plans they have offered are not great, I don’t agree with not accepting some tax hikes, (oh I mean revenue increases) but don’t say they haven’t offered anything up.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:04 PM
Obama is awful, a weak
Obama is awful, a weak President. No reforms, no accountability.
The GOP sucks worse, in a putrid, historic ‘suck-shit’ kind of way.
I have no answers. It is awful.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:05 PM
I have to admit that I got a
I have to admit that I got a good chuckle over “suck-shit”…
That was a good one.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:17 PM
Cheers, SDR…
If Piggs
Cheers, SDR…
If Piggs were a bar, I would buy you a beer.
It’s a crazy time. Yet another crisis. This too shall pass.
July 25, 2011 @ 12:06 AM
SD Realtor wrote:
Nobody has
[quote=SD Realtor]
Nobody has ventured an answer about why a solution has to be longer term then the elections either? Why is Obama so adamant about the solution being after the elections?
[/quote]
Because we need to provide some clarity to the markets.
A 6-month extension of the debt ceiling would not provide assurances to the rating agencies to keep our bond ratings at AAA.
Republicans, if they are as business oriented as they claim, should know that world financial markets need stability and predictability.
America, as the largest economy, has the responsibility to lead.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:21 PM
gandalf wrote: Bush Tax Cuts
[quote=gandalf] Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy[/quote]
For some point of reference here, the $800 billion revenue increase that the Republican could potentially agree to is roughly equal to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of Americans over the next 10 years.
But of course, the Republicans won’t let the Bush cuts expire on the richest 2% of Americans. The Republicans want to tax all Americans.
I really don’t see why the richest Americans can’t go back to the tax rates of the Clinton era when the economy was doing so well.
July 25, 2011 @ 12:45 AM
gandalf wrote:WRONG AGAIN.
[quote=gandalf]WRONG AGAIN. Federal discretionary spending has been CONSTANT on a percentage basis since Clinton.
DEFICIT?
– Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy
– Iraq War (Retarded response to 9/11)
– Bush Medicare Part B Entitlement
The same GOP asses who voted FOR Bush’s Medicare increase, FOR the Iraq War and FOR Bush’s tax cuts for rich fucks…
…are now opposed to deficits.[/quote]
You’ve nailed it again, gandalf.
July 24, 2011 @ 11:51 PM
SD Realtor wrote: We spent a
[quote=SD Realtor] We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…)[/quote]
Well, here’s an interesting article on how Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi argue that the Federal intevention was successful.
The reason the Federal stimulus programs were not more successful is because state and local governments have been bleeding jobs. The Federal programs, stabilized the economy and plugged the holes left at the state and local levels.
July 25, 2011 @ 1:08 AM
briansd1 wrote:SD Realtor
[quote=briansd1][quote=SD Realtor] We spent a trillion, (that we know of) that was filled with so much pork it is sickening, (all the while being told that if we didn’t do it we would suffer economic calamities that we would never dream of…)[/quote]
Well, here’s an interesting article on how Alan Blinder and Mark Zandi argue that the Federal intevention was successful.
The reason the Federal stimulus programs were not more successful is because state and local governments have been bleeding jobs. The Federal programs, stabilized the economy and plugged the holes left at the state and local levels.[/quote]
Brian,
They weren’t successful. All they managed to do was shift the risks from the private market to the taxpayers. It’s one of the main reasons we’re having this debt ceiling discussion right now. Who is going to pay the bills for all the speculation and bad loans that have been made during the past decade? We, the taxpayers, are going to pay for this.
It is not over, yet. They haven’t even had the chance to tally all the losses that we’ll be covering. Think of all the refinances to govt-backed loans. Those would have largely remained on private balance sheets if not for all the interventions. Now, WE are on the hook, and the losses will be rolling in for many years to come, IMHO.
The trillions of dollars spent to keep interest rates down and asset prices propped up? That’s on us as well.
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. I can’t understand why you think the problems have been fixed when we’re dealing with skyrocketing debt…and no painless way to pay it off. We’re digging ourselves into a deeper and deeper hole, and you’re calling it a success story.
July 26, 2011 @ 4:19 PM
I disagree with the premise
I disagree with the premise of the poll. You can’t bind future congresses (except for entitlement spending it seems!) so all cuts in the future are imaginary and not real. Simply cut spending. Right now. No need to wait. It was dramatically increased overnight and it can be cut quickly. The poor track record of the republicans does not give the Democrats a free pass to go hand in hand with their worse track record. We’ve gotten to the point where, like children, we’re arguing “Why can’t I? All the other kids are doing it!”
July 26, 2011 @ 5:19 PM
We need to cut defense
We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.
July 26, 2011 @ 5:48 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:We need to
[quote=mlarsen23]We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.[/quote]
I’ve got both some Kool-Aid in Guyana and a bridge in Brooklyn I’m trying to sell. Both would be perfect for you!
July 26, 2011 @ 6:02 PM
FWIW – Calculated Risk:
I’ve
FWIW – Calculated Risk:
I’ve been hearing from more and more people that they are concerned about the debt ceiling negotiations. Many of these people are busy with their daily lives, and they don’t usually pay close attention to politics or budget issues.
This concern is probably why consumer sentiment fell sharply in the Reuters / University of Michigan preliminary July survey.
No worries.
The debt ceiling is about paying the bills, not the deficit. However it is not uncommon for the party in control of Congress to try to use the debt ceiling as a tool to try to negotiate on budget priorities. That is what has been happening.
But at any time Congress can agree to pay the bills, and they will this time too. As Senator McConnell (R) noted this week, if the U.S. defaults, the American people would blame the party in control of Congress – the Republican party – and the “Republican brand” would be forever toxic. The leaders of the party can’t allow that to happen, and the are now looking for the exit.
From Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey at the LA Times: House Republicans brace for compromise on debt
Republican leaders in the House have begun to prepare their troops for politically painful votes to raise the nation’s debt limit … Republican leaders orchestrated a series of public moves intended to soften the blow for conservatives. They agreed to give the House an opportunity to vote on two top conservative priorities: a so-called cut-cap-and-balance bill, which would order $111 billion in cuts in federal programs for 2012 and impose a cap on future spending, and a constitutional amendment that would require a balanced federal budget.
The Democratic leadership in the Senate is also expected to allow votes on one, and perhaps both, measures. Neither is expected to become law … Congress is likely to spend much of next week on those measures, then could take up a debt ceiling measure in the Senate toward the end of next week.
Ignore the votes this coming week. These bills will not pass the Senate, and no Republican or Democratic President would sign them anyway – they are just for show. The real votes start the following week, and the debt ceiling will be increased.
This is almost over.
July 26, 2011 @ 9:27 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:We need to
[quote=mlarsen23]We need to cut defense spending substantially and adopt a cheaper, single payer healthcare system like almost every other developed country. Perhaps we could just hire the government of Canada to run our health care system — their system is much cheaper and gets equivalent or better outcomes. Then we need to raise taxes, preferably in the form of a high national gas tax. We need to raise taxes enough so that we can afford to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and to subsidize the development of green technology like they are doing in China. We should also be sure to raise enough money to have broad scale subsidization of childcare and college education, like they have in countries that are lately much happier, more economically successful, and are breeding taller people than we are, such as Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Also, we need enough taxes to generate a surplus so that next time there is a recession we don’t have to take out debt. We can take the excess money to invest in a sovereign wealth fund like they have in Singapore. Fortunately taxes shouldn’t have to go up too much because of the money saving potential from cheaper health care and much lower defense spending.
While we are at it, we should revise our constitution to eliminate the Senate and the Presidency, and adopt a parliamentary system with democratic representation (unlike what we have now, where nearly empty midwestern states have much more political power than highly populated states) and with a prime minister. That way we can dispense with the lack of accountability caused by divided government, and there will be no more confusion about who is to blame for whatever policies that are enacted.
Finally, we should revise our immigration policies so that we can get more of what made this country great in the first place – people from other countries.[/quote]
Pretty cool – I disagree with every sentence in your post except the part about a high gas tax. Vive le difference!
August 4, 2011 @ 3:18 PM
There are no cuts — the debt
There are no cuts — the debt will still increase by about $7 billion over the 10 years, assuming future congresses agree to be bound (they won’t). There are only reductions in the size of the future increases.
There are not enough differences between the majority of Republicans and Democrats for me to pick one over the other — they’re both wrong. There are a minority of so-called “Tea Party” representatives who have it more right.
July 12, 2011 @ 11:24 AM
Give it up people. No good
Give it up people. No good politician. Neither parties can balance a budget, nor to they really want to….
But hey, at least all the predictions about social security not being paid is becoming self fulfilling. Must suck for people that were counting in these entitlement programs that no longer can be paid….
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/07/12/debt.talks/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
“President Barack Obama, in a CBS News interview scheduled to air Tuesday night, warned that, absent a deal, he can’t guarantee older Americans will continue to receive their Social Security checks.
“There may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it,” Obama said, according to excerpts released by CBS.”
July 14, 2011 @ 9:39 AM
Seems to me no matter what we
Seems to me no matter what we do there is not enough money in the universe to pay our debt and obligations.
We print or default – simple as that!
Medicare costs have gone up many times in the last 30 years and seniors are living longer than ever which means are costing many times what they were projected to. This is the basic crux of our current problems today. (I am entitled according to my SS report to many many times what I paid in assuming I live to an average age, and it appears should have been paying some 50%+ of my income just in Social Security tax over my life)
Yeah, I know we don’t go there ….
Keep in mind, even IF we tax the daylights out of “the rich” whoever they are, overall taxable revenue is still falling and contrary to popular press, apart from a few high profile billionaires like Bill Gates, the group in the $250k a year bracket is drying up fast. Thus even with tax increases we need to assume overall tax revenue decreases.
A tax I would personally support would be a 100% tax on manufactured imported goods. Sure the cost of a big screen might go up, but then maybe the job making it would return here and we would have a “taxable” worker instead of a 99er.
July 14, 2011 @ 5:05 PM
GH wrote:Seems to me no
[quote=GH]Seems to me no matter what we do there is not enough money in the universe to pay our debt and obligations.
We print or default – simple as that!
[/quote]
Default is only if we don’t pay our interest payments. There is plenty of money coming in to pay all the interest, social security, active troops, and on and on. This idea of “if the debt limit isn’t met we default” is crap. The treasury has discretion to prioritize payments, and — unless Obama is so politically craven that he would deliberately starve seniors to score political points — if Congress fails to raise the debt limit by August 2 the gov’t will simply shut down, as it has before.
On the bright side, we at least finally have an admission from Obama that Social Security is not a trust fund, but rather only a traditional ponzi scheme. The money we’ve paid in Social Security taxes has already been spent, there is nothing left, and we only get money if new people pay in the future. Ponzi FTW!
BTW, partially privatized SS accounts would have avoided this risk…
July 14, 2011 @ 9:23 PM
This is really pretty
This is really pretty hilarious to watch.
The Republicans have backed themselves into a corner…they’ve let the Tea Party take control of the Republican Party and dictate unreasonable litmus tests – if they vote for a tax increase, or now even raising the debt limit, they can kiss re-election goodbye.
Doesn’t seem to matter that the debt limit has been raised 74 times in the last 50 years, if we raise it this time we’ll all go to hell in a handbasket according to Tea People.
So now the Reps are in a tight spot. Lose their job, or be held accountable when the well runs dry on August 2nd, which will no doubt tick the independents off and make it difficult for them to get re-elected anyway. Talk about a catch-22!
I think Boehner is a good, smart man actually. He’s just in a hell of a pickle. McConnell’s proposal to let Obama decide is actually a very smart move…it gets the Reps off the hook. I think he made that proposal this week to test the waters, see how the public reacts. I hope they react well, as it is really the best option at the moment.
And why the Republicans have been okay with reducing taxes this past decade – thereby giving us a deficit – but now seem to be aghast at the word deficit is the clearest example of hypocrisy I’ve seen in quite some time.
We do need to reduce the deficit for sure, no doubt about it. But returning taxes to a slightly higher level has to be part of the equation.
July 15, 2011 @ 12:13 AM
Balancing the budget right
Balancing the budget right now is not only unnecessary, but extremely dangerous.
The right thing to do for any sensible government right now would do a clean lift of debt ceiling with no strings attached, and then pass a $1T short-term stimulus, composed of a variety of infrastructure construction projects spread throughout the country. (As compared to the fairly ineffective 2009 Obama stimulus, which was, for the most part, composed of tax cuts and transfer payments.) Once that stimulus takes full effect, it will by itself reduce the deficit by about two thirds, and the rest of the gap can be balanced through defense cuts and tax loophole closures.
It is extremely instructive to compare the effect of the financial crisis on the United States and on China.
The United States went for a mild stimulus, followed by more tax cuts, followed by a whole lot of doing nothing (except debating whether it’s OK for its citizens to choose not to buy health insurance.) We are still stagnating. Contrary to the right-wing propaganda, government employment is down by something like 500,000 since Obama took office.
China went on an infrastructure spending spree. By now, Chinese economy is not only back at full employment, but it’s overheating. They have recently unveiled a new high speed rail line, roughly as long as the distance from San Diego to Portland, whose construction took place almost entirely during the post-Lehman period. The trip takes under 4 hours.
July 15, 2011 @ 1:40 AM
Eugene wrote:
The right thing
[quote=Eugene]
The right thing to do for any sensible government right now would do a clean lift of debt ceiling with no strings attached, and then pass a $1T short-term stimulus, [/quote]
Who on earth would lend us $1T so we can stimulate ourselves?
There will be immediate pain if we cut spending now.
There will be a complete disaster if our government had to pay the same rates as Italy is facing.
July 15, 2011 @ 4:16 AM
sreeb wrote:
Who on earth
[quote=sreeb]
Who on earth would lend us $1T so we can stimulate ourselves?
There will be immediate pain if we cut spending now.
There will be a complete disaster if our government had to pay the same rates as Italy is facing.[/quote]
Our country is awash in excess savings. Thirty-year inflation indexed securities trade at 1.62%. The market would swallow $1T in new federal bonds without as much as a hiccup.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/right-now-contractionary-fiscal-policy-probably-makes-the-long-run-debt-problem-worse.html
At this point, for us to be afraid of spending money on stimulus because we worry about having to pay Italy’s rates, is about as meaningful as it is for a person in the middle of Sahara desert to be worried about drowning.
July 15, 2011 @ 7:41 AM
I think deep down everyone
I think deep down everyone knows that 4T cut in 10 years is the best solution for everyone. Right now the rest of the world needs assurance that we are capable of cleaning up our mess and this 4T cut will restore their faith. And essentially bend the curve.
Problem is this thing is going to be historic. The president will be viewed once again as someone who can rise up to the occasion and make the tough and painful decisions. This will elevate this president and he will become undefeatable in 2012. Therefore, for the GOP, this 4T cut MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS, PERIOD.
July 15, 2011 @ 9:58 AM
ocrenter wrote:
Problem is
[quote=ocrenter]
Problem is this thing is going to be historic. The president will be viewed once again as someone who can rise up to the occasion and make the tough and painful decisions. This will elevate this president and he will become undefeatable in 2012. Therefore, for the GOP, this 4T cut MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO PASS, PERIOD.[/quote]
It’s clear the Republicans are not for a long-term solution.
They know that the debt limit must be raised… but they want to use it as election fights by holding several votes between now and the elections.
So much for reassuring the markets that we, as country, have the resolve to put our financial house in order.
And so much for shared sacrifice and doing what’s right by the country.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/obama-returns-to-the-podium-to-discuss-debt-talks/?hp
July 15, 2011 @ 9:49 AM
Eugene wrote:
Our country is
[quote=Eugene]
Our country is awash in excess savings. Thirty-year inflation indexed securities trade at 1.62%. The market would swallow $1T in new federal bonds without as much as a hiccup.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/right-now-contractionary-fiscal-policy-probably-makes-the-long-run-debt-problem-worse.html
At this point, for us to be afraid of spending money on stimulus because we worry about having to pay Italy’s rates, is about as meaningful as it is for a person in the middle of Sahara desert to be worried about drowning.[/quote]
If we can borrow as much as we want, forever, at nearly zero interest, then there is a easy solution. We should stop collecting any taxes and just let the federal government borrow all its funds. Nothing to it.
Two years ago, the Greeks were happily borrowing money at 3%. Now they can’t borrow at any price.
There is a limit. We aren’t there yet. When we get there, it will be like falling off a cliff.
There are no longer any easy answers. There aren’t even any good answers.
July 15, 2011 @ 10:36 AM
Obama is offering a
Obama is offering a legitimate compromise. The Republicans have shown no willingness to give at all. It’s really not fair for one party to completely fail to negotiate in good faith when the stakes are this high. And the idea you can eliminate the deficit without raising taxes at all is a laughable joke. We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.
I don’t love either package, I don’t think either is perfect. But compromises rarely satisfy anyone. Obama is being the grown up in the room. Boehner and especially Cantor are being children and playing a very dangerous game of chicken.
July 15, 2011 @ 10:51 AM
poorgradstudent wrote:We have
[quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
If only this was true.
Without borrowing, we can fund only 56% of our expenses in August. To balance our budget (interest only on the debt), we would need to increase revenue (taxes) by 79%.
This isn’t due to the Bush tax cuts and it isn’t going to solved but raising taxes on private jets.
July 15, 2011 @ 12:30 PM
poorgradstudent wrote:We have
[quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.
July 15, 2011 @ 12:34 PM
in general, on this forum,
in general, on this forum, whenever politics come into play, there would be a whole lot of Obama bashing.
I’m not seeing that this time around.
I think finally the Republicans have overplayed their hand.
July 16, 2011 @ 5:21 PM
briansd1
[quote=briansd1][quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.[/quote]
The Bush tax cuts are purported to be costing us about $530 billion over 2 years. We are spending $1.7 trillion per year more than we are taking in.
If we immediately rolled back the Bush tax cuts we’d still be spending almost a trillion and a half dollars more per year than we are taking in.
In what universe is that a ‘small spending problem’?
July 16, 2011 @ 5:44 PM
Brian you are missing the
Brian you are missing the point entirely. While I despise both parties, you have unbridled love for one while at the same time consistently admitting it is the best of the worst. You like to consistently hammer one and then when the identical behavior is identified to your party of choice, you always have a rationalization.
It really is quite amazing. Regardless of who had the majority in 2006 the vote would have gone the EXACT same way so please don’t try to double talk your way around the fact that it would not have.
As for the proposal that Obama made, I actually thought it actually had merit, IF what was reported was true. However what was reported to be offered varies wildly with what source you read it from. You of course blindly believe that whatever is reported by the press is bonafide. I do not. Nor do I believe what is reported by the conservative press is true either. Hopefully the truth is somewhere in the middle. I honestly have no clue what he put on the table. You of course tend to attack anyone who questions it in the name of having to defend a president that everyone attacks.
Needless to say that playing the card that social security checks may not be mailed out was one of the most outlandish statements he could make. Talk about playing the fear card.
**********
The repubs are screwed no matter how this plays out. They could not accept his proposal for the 4T because if they did he wins 2012 easily.
They cannot force a default because if they do he wins 2012 easily.
So the card they are trying to play is giving him the power to lift the ceiling while they can say they voted not to and put the blame on him each time he does so between now and 2012. It is remarkable what a f-cked up play that is.
*************
As usual you will not address the trajectory of the spending that has occurred under the administration. As I said I hate both parties but having one of those crooked parties in 100% control of all branches is a suicide pill. Just think if the dems still had the house do you honestly believe that any spending cuts at all would be proposed? I am sure you do.
************
As for the Bush tax cuts, they were another amazing example of fiscal irresponsibility. Bush spent like a drunken sailor and anyone with sense know the payback was gonna come in the form of tax hikes possibly higher then his reductions. I have no problem with tax hikes. I DO have a problem with over 40% of the country not paying a penny in taxes. Also as pointed out, the missed revenues from the tax cuts doesn’t come close to the spending increases.
*************
July 16, 2011 @ 8:38 PM
SD Realtor wrote:I have no
[quote=SD Realtor]I have no problem with tax hikes. I DO have a problem with over 40% of the country not paying a penny in taxes. Also as pointed out, the missed revenues from the tax cuts doesn’t come close to the spending increases.*************[/quote]
I am essentially VERY opposed to tax hikes. Having been in this position I can tell you that if you make little then start to make a lot, you will have NO protections against taxation such as home ownership most at high incomes take for granted. My OT was taxed at a rate of a percent or two under 60% of my gross income, making it very difficult to break out of years of low income living and get ahead, so IMO “the rich” are taxed up the babooki contrary to Obama gobbledygook on the subject.
That said, I would like to see a substantial decrease in “earned income” traded with a substantial increase in “unearned income”, which I believe would provide opportunity for businesses to grow while taxing capital gains etc at a higher level.
In either event taxes up or down, there is a lot less taxable income and in the future there will be even less, so raise taxes by all means, but expenses must be massively cut to accommodate the current economic times, and ALL citizens must share the downturn, not just young working people.
July 16, 2011 @ 8:55 PM
Here’s my take on the tax
Here’s my take on the tax increase. Those clowns (dems and reps) aren’t going to stop spending wildly until the money spigot is turned off. Once the spigot is off, they will start making cuts. At first it will be political BS like Social Security checks, or military pay until the public demands more responsible use of the money they have. Hopefully, at that point the government will finally have to start stripping away the disgusting bloated bureaucracies that are wasting so much of our money. In short, I wouldn’t mind a bit of a tax increase if I thought it would actually do some good.
Also, if we want to discuss cutting costs, what about foreign aid? It really annoys me that a chunk of my taxes goes to some other country.
July 17, 2011 @ 12:46 PM
SD Realtor wrote:
It really
[quote=SD Realtor]
It really is quite amazing. Regardless of who had the majority in 2006 the vote would have gone the EXACT same way so please don’t try to double talk your way around the fact that it would not have.
[/quote]
How is that the exact same way?
In 2006 the debt limit increase passed without a hickup. Democratic senators voiced disapproval of Bush Policies, but nobody held the country hostage.
People in power need to be mindful of the proportional consequences of their actions.
Today the debt ceiling increase would pass in the Senate just the same.
The Republican House is the problem. They are holding the country hostage.
July 17, 2011 @ 1:33 PM
I love responses that are not
I love responses that are not responses at all. Good job addressing no points. It just shows your blind partisanship. The point is that they all voted as a party the same way. Don’t give me this crap that it was a show of symbolism because had they had a majority they would have done the same damn thing and only allowed a debt increase under some conditions that would have been beneficial for them.
At least make a half hearted attempt at being honest.
July 17, 2011 @ 1:35 PM
I think it’s all an act. Both
I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.
July 17, 2011 @ 1:43 PM
paramount wrote:I think it’s
[quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
How is that an act?
Under Republican plans, new legislation will cut programs.
Under Democrats, the programs are preserved under law.
But if you believe what you believe, and you’re middle-class, what side of the two do you want to be on?
July 18, 2011 @ 2:59 AM
paramount wrote:I think it’s
[quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.
July 18, 2011 @ 12:55 PM
CA renter wrote:paramount
[quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Except for one thing.. lets take the CTU (California Teachers Union) – primarily Los Angeles area because contracts did vary by locale.
On retirement – it was 80% of medical – covered (Blue Shield was the carrier last time I saw).
Retirement pay – varied between 60% to 80% of final pay.
Social security, a person making over 100K a year, SS will pay them about 25K/year – for less than 25% of final pay.
Medicare doesn’t even cover close to what the CTU’s medical coverage will cover.
Though many Union workers – like CTU, do not get Social Security, they get a near equivalent. Most of the Union workers who do not get SS are State/Federal Union workers. If you a Union worker, working at a plant like GM, you do get SS and you get a pension at the same time.
July 18, 2011 @ 3:55 PM
ucodegen wrote:CA renter
[quote=ucodegen][quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Except for one thing.. lets take the CTU (California Teachers Union) – primarily Los Angeles area because contracts did vary by locale.
On retirement – it was 80% of medical – covered (Blue Shield was the carrier last time I saw).
Retirement pay – varied between 60% to 80% of final pay.
Social security, a person making over 100K a year, SS will pay them about 25K/year – for less than 25% of final pay.
Medicare doesn’t even cover close to what the CTU’s medical coverage will cover.
Though many Union workers – like CTU, do not get Social Security, they get a near equivalent. Most of the Union workers who do not get SS are State/Federal Union workers. If you a Union worker, working at a plant like GM, you do get SS and you get a pension at the same time.[/quote]
L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.
July 18, 2011 @ 7:16 PM
CA renter wrote:L.A. Unified
[quote=CA renter]L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.[/quote]
The reference I am using is a parent who is retired after teaching in LAUSD. Of course they hired on a while back (quite a while). I do know that after mid 90’s (actually more recently than that, late 90’s) pensions, retirement and health benefits were changed with some attempts at ‘retroactive’ changes affecting those who were employed when benefits were better.
Actually, it is quite a bit different than Soc Sec. 60% vs 25% of salary is not the same or even close. If you are contributing to SS, you should be getting mail from the SS administration showing what your retirement benefits would be at particular retirement ages.
July 19, 2011 @ 2:53 AM
ucodegen wrote:CA renter
[quote=ucodegen][quote=CA renter]L.A. Unified eliminated retiree healthcare for new hires in the mid-90s. Their pensions paid about 60% of final pay — I’ve not heard of anyone getting 80% of their final pay, but will look into it further. Overall, not much different than SS benefits.[/quote]
The reference I am using is a parent who is retired after teaching in LAUSD. Of course they hired on a while back (quite a while). I do know that after mid 90’s (actually more recently than that, late 90’s) pensions, retirement and health benefits were changed with some attempts at ‘retroactive’ changes affecting those who were employed when benefits were better.
Actually, it is quite a bit different than Soc Sec. 60% vs 25% of salary is not the same or even close. If you are contributing to SS, you should be getting mail from the SS administration showing what your retirement benefits would be at particular retirement ages.[/quote]
No doubt, benefits were very good many years ago. My dad worked for LACCD, and they had 100% medical coverage while employed, retiree healthcare for life, and a comfortable pension. Those days are long gone, I’m afraid.
The changes to LAUSD’s benefits were part of the changes that swept through local governments all across the state (maybe other states as well, but I’m not familiar with them). I know that it began in 1995-1996 because I was working for LAUSD at the time, and my husband was working in municipal government in a totally different capacity, and in a totally different county, and they went through the same thing at the same time (as did many of our friends who work in various capacities in govt throughout the state).
Quite frankly, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a municipal employer who still offers retiree healthcare benefits. This is one of the things that gets glossed over by those who complain about government workers, and who claim that they’ve never given anything up. The loss of retiree healthcare was a very big deal.
Yes, you are correct about SS not paying as much as a teacher’s pension, but according to the calculator:
http://www.ssa.gov/retire2/AnypiaApplet.html
…I entered the approximate wages for a teacher working over the past 30 years, and it pays about 34% of their final wages.
You also have to account for the fact that many private employers during that time were contributing to their employees’ retirement/401K plans, whereas the public employers don’t (outside of pensions, which is similar to the private employers contributing toward payroll/SS taxes).
July 26, 2011 @ 5:31 PM
delete
delete
July 17, 2011 @ 1:36 PM
Democrats had the majority in
Democrats had the majority in Congress under many Republican presidents. They have never held the country hostage and brought the country to the brink like Republicans are doing with the debt limit today.
July 17, 2011 @ 2:51 PM
briansd1 wrote:Democrats had
[quote=briansd1]Democrats had the majority in Congress under many Republican presidents. They have never held the country hostage and brought the country to the brink like Republicans are doing with the debt limit today.[/quote]
But Brian, understand they have constituents who support what they’re doing. It’s not like 200 or so inexplicably obstinate dudes are doing this on their own for giggles.
Perhaps the objections are fiercer this time because the debt went from $9T to $12.5T just, what, a year and a half ago and now they’ve already spent that and are coming back for more. Enough!
Would you support an individual running their finances in this way? I do not.
July 17, 2011 @ 2:56 PM
Bringing some data, and some
Bringing some data, and some perspective,
I find the bottom chart telling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png
July 17, 2011 @ 3:13 PM
Oh Brian please… holding
Oh Brian please… holding the country hostage. Really? Are they really doing that? Get a clue please… There is no way the dems don’t come out ahead in this debt deal. The timing is perfect for them and either way they win. As stupid as the republicans are they are going to hold anything up.
It would be damn good for this country to actually see what life is like when you ACTUALLY HAVE A LIMIT on what you spend.
The point is that both parties suck and they rely on blithering blind yahoos to support what they do unconditionally.
July 17, 2011 @ 4:07 PM
Holding the country hostage?
Holding the country hostage? You mean like attaching a bunch of pork to supplemental military spending bills? Is that a good example of holding the country hostage? I wish you would grow up and get an opinion of your own Brian. One other than the one the Dems have told you have.
July 17, 2011 @ 11:51 PM
KSMountain wrote:Bringing
[quote=KSMountain]Bringing some data, and some perspective,
I find the bottom chart telling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USDebt.png%5B/quote%5D
Some additional perspective: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CBO_Forecast_Changes_for_2009-2012.png
August 2, 2011 @ 2:03 PM
In general, I don’t agree to
In general, I don’t agree to anything US government said or done lately.
July 18, 2011 @ 12:45 PM
briansd1
[quote=briansd1][quote=poorgradstudent]We have a small spending problem (mostly due to defense and SS spending) and a large revenue problem thanks to the Bush tax cuts.[/quote]
I believe that you are correct.
We should remember that by the end of the Clinton presidency, surpluses were predicted into the future.[/quote]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
Much like how California’s budget was wrecked when they assumed that they could ‘straight-line’ the property and real estate sales tax revenue – until it all collapsed.
What was forgotten on both sides was that things always return to norm. If you get a Windfall – bank it, don’t assume it will always be there. Don’t adjust your spending as if it would always be there.
July 18, 2011 @ 9:03 PM
ucodegen wrote:
You forget.
[quote=ucodegen]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
Much like how California’s budget was wrecked when they assumed that they could ‘straight-line’ the property and real estate sales tax revenue – until it all collapsed.
What was forgotten on both sides was that things always return to norm. If you get a Windfall – bank it, don’t assume it will always be there. Don’t adjust your spending as if it would always be there.[/quote]
Doesn’t much matter how the surplus came about. It’s part and parcel of political lore now. Despite the fact that it was “accidentally” created, there are two completely different stories to the contrary. Which one you actually hear is dependent upon the political persuasion of the individual telling it. Neither is the truth.
That aside, I agree with you, ucodegen. Quite honestly, every congressperson since 1990 has been aware of the impending retirement of the first of the baby boomers, and the looming social security/medicare tsunami – in fact, well before then. The fact that they did nothing to address it is inexcusable, frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. However, squandering the existing surplus, and then running up a multi-trillion dollar debt demonstrates a level of incompetence that is beyond stratospheric.
Quite honestly, every government official responsible for approving the Medicare Drug Plan and the waging of two (!) wars, commitments that carry astronomical price tags, without finding appropriate sources of funding to pay for them should be kicked out of Congress and stripped of their pensions and any other benefits. This, in itself, is unbelievable. But to make deep long-term cuts in taxes during the same period??
Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.
July 19, 2011 @ 1:56 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
That
[quote=eavesdropper]
That aside, I agree with you, ucodegen. Quite honestly, every congressperson since 1990 has been aware of the impending retirement of the first of the baby boomers, and the looming social security/medicare tsunami – in fact, well before then. The fact that they did nothing to address it is inexcusable, frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. However, squandering the existing surplus, and then running up a multi-trillion dollar debt demonstrates a level of incompetence that is beyond stratospheric.
Quite honestly, every government official responsible for approving the Medicare Drug Plan and the waging of two (!) wars, commitments that carry astronomical price tags, without finding appropriate sources of funding to pay for them should be kicked out of Congress and stripped of their pensions and any other benefits. This, in itself, is unbelievable. But to make deep long-term cuts in taxes during the same period??
Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.[/quote]
There it is, in a nutshell. Well done, eavesdropper.
Again, when are you running for office? 😉
July 19, 2011 @ 2:34 AM
CA renter wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=CA renter][quote=eavesdropper] Seriously, how can ANYONE possibly defend these actions?! There is absolutely no way that these individuals should be entrusted with the treasury and the security of the United States. And in case anyone is wondering, this includes the incompetent Republicans who honestly DID resemble drunken sailors, and the chickenshit Dems, who, aside from a few brave souls, lacked the balls to say “no” to them.
I haven’t stopped muttering “WTF??!!” since the mid-aughts.[/quote]
There it is, in a nutshell. Well done, eavesdropper.
Again, when are you running for office? ;)[/quote]
When I get my friggin’ hardwood floors (refer to PIGGS R’ US thread).
Seriously, CAR, I have to run for governor first, so that I can quit two years into my four-year term to prove that I’m a selfless and dedicated public servant. THEN I can run for an office that you can vote for.
But if I have to learn to golf, all bets are off…..
July 18, 2011 @ 11:59 PM
ucodegen wrote:
You forget.
[quote=ucodegen]
You forget. The predicted Clinton surpluses were based upon straight line prediction of continued stock price increases and the resulting increases in taxes due to capital gains and corporate profits.
[/quote]
I didn’t forget. Bush used those same projections for his tax cuts.
If we had maintained the Clinton rates, we would have had 10 years worth of additional revenue and our debt problem wouldn’t as daunting today.
In fact, if we had paid for the wars, we would be in better financial shape today.
July 15, 2011 @ 1:22 PM
poorgradstudent wrote:
I
[quote=poorgradstudent]
I don’t love either package, I don’t think either is perfect. But compromises rarely satisfy anyone. Obama is being the grown up in the room. Boehner and especially Cantor are being children and playing a very dangerous game of chicken.[/quote]
I agree that this is what compromise is all about.
The national debt is a problem that Congress needs to fix. It’s an accumulation of decades of deficit spending. Obama doesn’t own the problem, Congress owns the problem because Congress spent the money over the years.
Holding the country hostage and threatening financial crisis is highly irresponsible.
The debt limit a national issue. It’s not a bargaining chip that belongs to Republicans.
July 15, 2011 @ 10:43 AM
Ah who gives a sh!t. Let’s
Ah who gives a sh!t. Let’s talk about more important questions that many people in our nation is more concerned about…
What’s going on with Charlie Sheen, and what’s he thinking?
July 17, 2011 @ 6:11 PM
The very sad truth of the
The very sad truth of the matter is that, despite the immense responsibility with which they are entrusted, most members of Congress don’t have a clue about what is happening with the economy of the United States. The fiscal IQ of this governing body is shockingly low, but what is far worse is their lack of curiosity about the present crisis and their unwillingness to acquire the knowledge necessary to address it effectively.
There was a clearly marked difference in the overall tone of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate this week, and many of the GOP members. This happened to coincide with the release of the Debt Limit Analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, authored in part by Jay Powell, a former undersecretary of the Treasury for President George H.W. Bush. Reading the report apparently represented a “come to Jesus” moment for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, scaring the hell out of them enough that they not only immediately dropped the “no tax hikes, no ceiling hikes” line, but corralled several of their fellow Republicans into an emergency presentation by Mr. Powell.
As several of my fellow Piggs have mentioned in this thread, the GOP has, by all appearances, been faithfully following the marching orders given them by the newer House and Senate members who follow a Tea Party agenda. To save time, space, and what’s left of my sanity, I will refrain from delving into their reasons for doing so. What is more important is that no one seems to be concerned that our leaders no longer feel the need to consult with experts, examine situations from every angle, and formulate solutions that are based on solid theory and evidence. Instead, we refer to our subject matter experts as “intellectual snobs”, and make constant references to the need for “common sense” in policymaking and problem-solving.
We have political leaders adopting recalcitrant attitudes in which they vow not to change their position, no matter what, who claim to be willing to work in a bipartisan manner. Explain to me again how that’s done? But what’s far worse is that they are basing these positions not only on their desire to win the next election, but on extremely limited, and often, critically-flawed information.
People – both political leaders and voters – are no longer concerned with gathering information in an effort to formulate a position on an issue, but only on gathering information that will support their preconceived positions. Thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, it has become so incredibly easy to do that. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve tried to check the source of “facts” quoted by popular politicians, and all I’ve come up with is a rumor that has traveled from blog to twitter post to radio show transcript to blog, gaining tacit veracity along the way.
Our nation is at a critical crossroads, and we have a Congress chock-full of intellectually-deficient members. What’s worse is that we have a country full of voters ready to vote even more of these loud obnoxious stubborn morons into office (largely because of their loud obnoxious stubborn moronic characteristics). I commend Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell for attempting to educate their fellow Republicans (once they were, themselves, educated about the big picture), but it will take more than that for them to undo the damage they’ve done in the last couple months.
And please do not interpret my post as an endorsement of the Democrats. IT IS NOT. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing about this Congress that is bipartisan is their overall lack of an intellectual foundation.
Please, please, PLEASE, can we bring the smart people back? I don’t expect my leaders to know everything. I DO expect them to (1) recognize and acknowledge what they DON’T know, and (2) make a concerted effort to find people who DO know, and take the time to listen to them BEFORE taking a position.
July 18, 2011 @ 6:22 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
Please,
[quote=eavesdropper]
Please, please, PLEASE, can we bring the smart people back? I don’t expect my leaders to know everything. I DO expect them to (1) recognize and acknowledge what they DON’T know, and (2) make a concerted effort to find people who DO know, and take the time to listen to them BEFORE taking a position.[/quote]
I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions
July 18, 2011 @ 10:59 AM
Arraya wrote: I don’t think
[quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.
July 18, 2011 @ 12:24 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
Eaves,
You could have just used two words to summarize what you said.
Sarah palin
July 18, 2011 @ 7:42 PM
flu wrote:
Eaves,
You could
[quote=flu]
Eaves,
You could have just used two words to summarize what you said.
Sarah palin[/quote]
You know, flu, that very thought occurred to me just as I hit the “Save” button.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:00 AM
eavesdropper, glad to see you
eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:16 AM
briansd1 wrote:eavesdropper,
[quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
I agree with you, Brian. Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:40 AM
zk wrote:briansd1
[quote=zk][quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
I agree with you, Brian. Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.[/quote]
zk, that is SO sweet! I mean it: that’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me all week. Except my husband. And he’s obligated to say nice things to me.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:34 AM
briansd1 wrote:eavesdropper,
[quote=briansd1]eavesdropper, glad to see you post again. I enjoyed reading your posts.[/quote]
A pleasure to be back, brian. Love the Piggs – my #1 source of civilized discourse, available 24 hours a day.
July 26, 2011 @ 5:20 PM
CA renter wrote:paramount
[quote=CA renter][quote=paramount]I think it’s all an act. Both Obama and the republicans are fully prepared to attack the middle class by using this so-called debt crisis to gut medicare and social security and whatever else.
But Obama has to appear that he really fought to keep whatever program the middle class depends on.[/quote]
Funny how you defend Social Security and Medicare, and understand how they affect the middle class; but you don’t defend pensions and other benefits for union workers that were earned in just the same way (and the vast majority of those union workers do not get SS benefits). There is no difference between the two.[/quote]
Good point.
[quote=eavesdropper][At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
eavesdropper – I’m in awe. Any chance you’ll run for office. Please.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
I’m in awe. Please run for office. I’ll be over to your place w/my DH and put in your hardwood floors ourselves!
August 2, 2011 @ 10:24 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] I don’t think it is lack of “smart people”, it’s that our environment is changing and old patterns of behavior, methods of problem solving, etc – that once used to look relatively competent, are looking worse and worse. Social institutions get ossified and and finally irrelevant over time.
I would expect more dramatic political theater in our future.
When the Mayan civilization was deteriorating and the population was getting restless. They would hold more sacrifices or build more pyramids and lots of ceremonies. Because, these things used to bring good fortune.
We are building more pyramids and holding ceremonies, I expect the sacrifices to come in a few years.
Historian, Arnold Toynbee spent his life studying societal decay and found some similar traits amongst every single one.
“Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, ironically, societies that develop great expertise in problem solving become incapable of solving new problems by overdeveloping their structures for solving old ones.”
Jared Diamond, who recently wrote “Collapse, how societies choose to succeed or fail” came to similar conclusions[/quote]
At the risk of coming off as politically incorrect AND as an intellectual snob, I do think that there’s a shortage. Like any valuable resource, truly intelligent, creative, educated people are in short supply everywhere. Always have been, always will be. The difference is that when we started the last decade, much of the population, including our esteemed leaders, would admit that they didn’t know everything about economics, biology, public health, genetics, finance, and other extremely complex fields of study. A decade later, these same people are admitting to no such shortcoming and, when challenged, are resorting to discounting the value of intelligence and education.
Someone like Sarah Palin, who has proven in interview after interview how woefully unprepared she is to handle the intellectual demands of the Presidency, would have been laughed off the national stage in the late 1990s. But 10 years later, we have a disturbingly high percentage of voters who aren’t even capable of recognizing that a President and members of Congress should possess an advanced level of mental competence on a wide breadth of subject matter.
Listening to autocratic representatives and senators repeatedly making sweeping pronouncements on the debt ceiling and the fiscal crisis has been one of the more frightening experiences of my life. These people not only are incapable of looking at the big picture, they aren’t AWARE that there IS a big picture. Many of them treat the deficit as though it was a single line item on their daily “to-do” list, along with signing the commendation acknowledging their constituents’ 50th wedding anniversary, and making time to meet with the Cub Scout troop from back home who is visiting D.C. for the first time. The fact that the deficit problem is inextricably tied in with the debt ceiling issue, and a hundred others, is beyond their comprehension.
The bailout of the automakers is a prime example. I was the last person on earth who wanted tax dollars going to companies operated with such incompetence, but I had to consider the “big picture”: namely, how an economy already awash in red ink, mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment, was going to be able to cope with the overnight layoffs (with concomitant loss of health insurance, pensions, and retirement savings) of over one-million auto company and support industry employees. There are still people (everyday citizens, pundits, and politicians) complaining bitterly about “Obama’s socialist takeover” of the industry, but not one of them has ever been able to answer that question. What’s worse is that neither the press, or the political opponents, demand an answer from them.
However, I agree with what you’re saying about our methodology in handling critical issues, Arraya. I didn’t get into it in my post but I believe that there’s no question that we are trying to solve our current financial crisis by addressing issues based on a 100-year-old model. We continue to bemoan the loss of manufacturing jobs when, for all intents and purposes, they’ve been gone since the early 70s. Most people, including our lawmakers, appear to be unaware that ALL of our jobs are going overseas. Based on the current trend, the vast majority of the jobs in the coming decade will be government-compensated positions related to taking care of the existing population (health care, farming, law enforcement, etc.). Since loss of jobs results in loss of tax revenue, the people holding these positions will be seriously underpaid and overworked.
In the late 60s, our nation was in an enviable position. We had just landed on the moon, and were generally acknowledged as the world leader in science and technology (whether true or not). At that point, we should have been making a concerted effort to change our economic model to one based on technology, not solely on industry and manufacturing. Our public school system was turning out graduates who were actually able to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic functions, and we had more college graduates and enrolled students than at any other time in our history.
However, we not only didn’t make the change, but we’ve spent the last forty years wasting trillions of dollars “fixing” problems in economic model that doesn’t exist anymore, and pissing away the economic and intellectual capital amassed by the generations who came before us. And instead of using our improved education and economic status to turn our children into the scientists and engineers and medical researchers of the future, we chose to reduce the academic demands on students in our nation’s elementary and secondary schools.
The saying “Think outside of the box” has been bandied about nonstop over the past decade by a population that hasn’t the remotest idea of what it actually means, and that continues, instead, trying to pound square pegs into round holes.[/quote]
eaves, excellent post! Agree 3x!!
August 2, 2011 @ 10:43 PM
bearishgurl wrote:eaves,
[quote=bearishgurl]eaves, excellent post! Agree 3x!![/quote]
Thanks, BG. Wow!! You ARE busy catching up. You’re gonna be up all night.
July 27, 2011 @ 3:56 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
There was
[quote=eavesdropper]
There was a clearly marked difference in the overall tone of the Republican leaders of the House and Senate this week, and many of the GOP members. This happened to coincide with the release of the Debt Limit Analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center, authored in part by Jay Powell, a former undersecretary of the Treasury for President George H.W. Bush. Reading the report apparently represented a “come to Jesus” moment for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, scaring the hell out of them enough that they not only immediately dropped the “no tax hikes, no ceiling hikes” line, but corralled several of their fellow Republicans into an emergency presentation by Mr. Powell.
[/quote]
It seems like no matter what Boehner does, the Speaker has lost control of his Tea Party troops.
July 18, 2011 @ 3:49 PM
Looks like there’s a new plan
Looks like there’s a new plan on the table. Sure to piss off everyone – proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn.
http://news.yahoo.com/coburn-proposes-9-trillion-deficit-cut-measure-192145582.html
July 18, 2011 @ 7:19 PM
UCGal wrote:Looks like
[quote=UCGal]Looks like there’s a new plan on the table. Sure to piss off everyone – proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn.
http://news.yahoo.com/coburn-proposes-9-trillion-deficit-cut-measure-192145582.html%5B/quote%5D
I have no problem with tax increases IFF(if-and-only-if) congress can be trusted to reign in and hold spending. So far, they have not demonstrated that ability. They see money, they got to spend it…
July 26, 2011 @ 5:20 PM
ucodegen wrote:
I have no
[quote=ucodegen]
I have no problem with tax increases IFF(if-and-only-if) congress can be trusted to reign in and hold spending. So far, they have not demonstrated that ability. They see money, they got to spend it…[/quote]
Agreed and their track record makes me opposed to tax increases b/c they just do not seem capable of controlling their spending. Heck. Forget about controlling spending. Cut back on what they’re spending. Hitting SS and Medicare is a joke. People have been into it and relying on it. But agree that it is a Ponzi. But if they are cutting it, how many would be still willing to pay into it? There’s a lot of money being spent that they could curb.
[quote=briansd1]If we had maintained the Clinton rates, we would have had 10 years worth of additional revenue and our debt problem wouldn’t as daunting today.
In fact, if we had paid for the wars, we would be in better financial shape today.[/quote]
Clinton had a surplus b/c he cut military drastically. Since then, we’ve had wars and enormous amount of money going towards our military, protecting our country, eroding our economy.
[quote=zk] Each of her posts is like a little masterpiece.[/quote]
x2
July 26, 2011 @ 11:40 PM
jpinpb wrote:
Clinton had a
[quote=jpinpb]
Clinton had a surplus b/c he cut military drastically.
[/quote]
Don’t forget he also benefited from a tech bubble. The economy was really humming then, but some of it turned out to not have legs. Even from just a San Diego point of view, do you recall what was going on with qcom, cymer, and copper mountain at that time? Craziness. “Irrational exuberance” and “wealth effect”. The NASDAQ is still only about half its level in early 2000. Sheesh, even CA had a surplus in 1999.
Also don’t forget Clinton definitely conducted a “conflict” in Bosnia. Not sure how much it cost. He also went after bin Laden, albeit ineffectively.
The planning for 9/11 was already under way at that time, we just didn’t know it. Whoever was in power on 9/12 was going to be spending a lot of money, regardless of their ideology, IMO.
July 27, 2011 @ 12:17 AM
KSMountain wrote:
Don’t
[quote=KSMountain]
Don’t forget he also benefited from a tech bubble. The economy was really humming then, but some of it turned out to not have legs. [/quote]
KSM, when Bush cut taxes in in 2001 and 2003, the tech bubble had already burst.
It was clear that tax revenue decreases would follow. So why cut taxes and add to the debt?
[quote=KSMountain]
Also don’t forget Clinton definitely conducted a “conflict” in Bosnia. Not sure how much it cost. He also went after bin Laden, albeit ineffectively.
[/quote]
Clinton’s “wars” were all part of his budgets.
I don’t remember special war appropriations that added to the debt.
[quote=KSMountain]
The planning for 9/11 was already under way at that time, we just didn’t know it. Whoever was in power on 9/12 was going to be spending a lot of money, regardless of their ideology, IMO.[/quote]
If that was known, then why cut taxes and add to the debt?
Bush never adequately budgeted for his wars. He requested special war appropriations again and again.
It was certainly irresponsible to cut taxes knowing that the bills were pilling up.
July 27, 2011 @ 9:06 AM
briansd1 wrote:
It was
[quote=briansd1]
It was certainly irresponsible to cut taxes knowing that the bills were pilling up.[/quote]
I concede that point.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:27 AM
UCGal wrote:Looks like
[quote=UCGal]Looks like there’s a new plan on the table. Sure to piss off everyone – proposed by Sen. Tom Coburn.
http://news.yahoo.com/coburn-proposes-9-trillion-deficit-cut-measure-192145582.html%5B/quote%5D
UCGal, trust me: I’m no Tom Coburn groupie. But these days, any member of congress who will come up with plans that appear to be based on actual study of the issues and that make a reasonable attempt to “share the pain” earns a modicum amount of respect from me. It’s a big plan, and I need much more time to look it over, but he ladles out pretty big helpings of steaming hot shit to everyone at the table. Not only that, many of the cuts he mentions take a significantly long time to take effect (like 2025). Not like Paul Ryan’s “heroic” plan to privatize Medicare. Not only has that failed miserably in the case of the Medicare (Dis)Advantage Plans, but -seriously – what are the chances that I’m going to be able to purchase anything but completely worthless health insurance plans with my little Ryan-voucher when I’m 65? And that’s only 11 years away. Not exactly enough time for me to lay aside another couple million in an HSA to cover serious or catastrophic illness expenses.
I’m tired of our elected officials throwing testosterone-fueled temper tantrums (and I include the female congressional members in that) in public, loudly declaring what they will not vote for, or signing increasingly bizarre pledges giving their allegiance to some individual or group for whom I did not vote. I’m tired of the verbal duels (which, interestingly enough, never take place face-to-face), and the machismo-soaked stand-offs. Frankly, that’s not why I’m paying these jerk-offs. I’m pretty sure that most other voters will agree with me when I say that what I DO pay these asshats for is to WORK. They need to get into a room with the guys from the “other side” – a room, NOT a golf course – and start pounding out ways of handling this critical situation that involves actual compromise. I’ll be happy tp donate a dictionary if that is too big a word for members of Congress to understand.
Like I said, I’m not a charter member of the Coburn Fan Club (and my niece in OK – a constituent – hates him), but he at least appears to be earning his taxpayer-funded salary, and that will always get a nod from me. A few weeks ago, he and Joe Lieberman released a Medicare overhaul plan, and I was favorably impressed with a lot of the stuff in it. It may not represent the perfect solution, but there are suggested measures that are not included simply to gain votes or curry favor from the insurance companies or the AMA or AARP. Once again, they distribute the pain across the board, and some of suggestions might actually work. If it will get a dialogue going, I’ll give the guy his props.
July 19, 2011 @ 12:39 AM
Every argument here on both
Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government. If we had a federal government which stuck to its constitutional bounds as laid out plainly, we would not be in this mess. But then of course we would not have a federal government which could evolve with the times (tongue in cheek).
If you want socialism move to a socialist state…if you want laissez faire capitalism and its cruelty move to a libertarian state…if they would exist.
All this discussion shows how important a united states of america is!
One where the majority of taxes, regulation, and commerce is decided by more local municipalities.
Now if you fear competition and desire control, you will probably disagree with me.
July 19, 2011 @ 2:25 AM
jstoesz wrote:Every argument
[quote=jstoesz]Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government. If we had a federal government which stuck to its constitutional bounds as laid out plainly, we would not be in this mess. But then of course we would not have a federal government which could evolve with the times (tongue in cheek). [/quote]
Ah, we are back to the Constitution, and Obama’s Tourette’s-like compulsion to continue violating it in any way he can.
You might find the opinion of this writer illuminating; by all accounts, he knew a little somethin’-somethin’ about the Constitution (but I couldn’t swear to it. It might just be another baseless rumor spread by godless liberals):
“Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, & deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. they ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. it deserved well of it’s country. It was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40 years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead. I am certainly not an advocate for frequent & untried changes in laws and constitutions … but I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind … we might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
[quote=jstoesz] If you want socialism move to a socialist state…if you want laissez faire capitalism and its cruelty move to a libertarian state…if they would exist. [/quote]
I’m confused here. Are you talking about actual “states”, as in California, Michigan, Arizona, etc.? In which case, you will have to enlighten me on which ones are socialist, capitalist, etc.
Or are you speaking of moving to other countries that are socialist or capitalist? In which case, you will probably still have to inform me, as established governments typically operate under the tenets of several systems. There are reasons for that – the fact that it just works better that way is paramount among them. But, just for shits and grins, I’ll play along.
I don’t want to move to a “socialist state” or a “socialist country”. And I don’t have a problem with capitalism or a free-enterprise system, but I’d be hard-pressed to find a true free-enterprise system in the U.S. these days. A relatively few megacorporations own and run everything these days. You might think that anyone is free to start a little business, and through their own hard work (and nothing else, especially from the big, bad government), can earn a spot between Hewlett-Packard and General Mills on the Fortune 500 list within a few years. But as soon as your plucky little company-that-could was large enough to be identified as a mosquito on the nose of a big company, they’d take steps to buy you out at a seriously undervalued amount (if you were lucky), or just find a way to make you and your company disappear (if you weren’t lucky). They seem to find #2 a more entertaining and efficient solution, so that’s probably the way it would go.
So I can’t vouch for whether the government has forced the US into socialism, but I can guarantee that they’re making capitalism hazardous to your health (or, at the least, your bank account).
[quote=jstoesz] All this discussion shows how important a united states of america is!
One where the majority of taxes, regulation, and commerce is decided by more local municipalities.[/quote]
There’s a good reason that the founding fathers created “one nation, indivisible…” instead of “the United Countries of America. I ask you – in all seriousness – do you honestly believe that we would have survived for over 200 years as a nation, much less achieved the level of world power if we had allowed the states to act as completely independent entities?
Look, there’s no question that the federal government has made some serious blunders over the years, and that they have, at times, overstepped their bounds of power. However, consider this:
Who do the people, municipalities, and the states turn to……
In times of war?
In public health emergencies (i.e., typhoid epidemics, or incidences of fast-moving unknown communicable diseases?
In natural disasters, like floods or hurricanes?
When major damage has occurred to infrastructure?
And the list goes on and on. There are some things that are too large in scope for a smaller entity (such as a state) to handle on their own, or things that occur in quick succession. If each state had to maintain a separate military; separate facilities to handle multistate crimes or events; separate public health facilities, the expense would be prohibitive, especially in states that are less populated.
At this point in time, the cost of health care has reached prohibitive levels for the individual states. Only an entity as large as the federal government is in a position to handle it. And it can’t be turned over to private insurers because they have made it crystal clear that they are interested only in “insuring” very young, extremely healthy people. And that really wouldn’t help much as an answer to our health care crisis, would it. At the same time, another reason for the crisis is because of the high level of expectations from the public where their health care is concerned. For health care to remain a reality for the anybody outside of the very rich in America, those expectations are going to have to be lowered significantly.
Everyone will have to make concessions. It’s referred to as compromise.
But back to the original statement: if the states had been allowed to act as completely independent entities, we’d have a mess of little poverty-ridden nonproductive states surrounding the intermittent well-developed highly populated ones. Or we’d have three or four really, really big states. If we still had a nation at all.
[quote=jstoesz]Every argument here on both sides of the aisle speaks to the need of a limited federal government….Now if you fear competition and desire control, you will probably disagree with me.[/quote]
We DO have a limited federal government. Their power has been curtailed to an unprecedented level, and many of the agencies don’t exert the power that they have (the SEC’s stellar performance in the Enron, Tyco, and Madoff cases are the ones that come to mind immediately).
This is not accidental. Look at the amount of pressure that has been brought to bear against Elizabeth Warren in her efforts to bring about some relatively innocuous changes in the ways banks sell consumer loans and credit cards. The Republicans have devoted an enormous amount of time and resources to preventing the establishment of a Consumer Credit Agency, and finally resorted to their time-honored AND proven method of liberally applied smear tactics.
I don’t fear competition. In fact, I’d welcome some sign that it is still alive and well in the United States. But that’s difficult to do with my cable bill staring at me from the top of my desk.
July 25, 2011 @ 8:02 AM
Completely agree, car. Lack
Completely agree, car. Lack of accountability from Obama administration has had disastrous consequences, both as a matter of policy and economics, and it enabled the tea party movement to take root.
July 25, 2011 @ 11:29 AM
CAR, are you so obsessed with
CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
July 26, 2011 @ 3:28 AM
briansd1 wrote:CAR, are you
[quote=briansd1]CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
[/quote]
For God’s sake, Brian, this has nothing to do with buying a house! Are you totally blind to what has been going on? The working and middle classes has been brutally raped, and you’re applauding it.
I’ve never said that we should sit back and let everything fall apart. From day one, I suggested WPA-style programs to maintain and improve our infrastructure; supported low/no-interest loans and grants to businesses and researchers for medical and energy R&D; supported nationalizing the financial entities that failed, so we could continue making **good, responsible** loans to business and people. On top of all that, I’ve always favored protecting American jobs by eliminating deductions for foreign labor, increasing tariffs on things that can just as easily be made here, reducing or eliminating certain credits or incentives to American companies that use foreign labor for goods that are sold in the U.S., etc. There’s more, but at least that’s a start.
What I’m angry about is the fact that all those trillions were funnelled through the very financial entities that caused the “financial crisis” in the first place. NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for destroying our financial system. People go to jail for stealing a $1000 car, but NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for causing a crisis that will cost us trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs, before we see the light of day.
I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong!
July 26, 2011 @ 8:27 AM
CA renter wrote:Those f**kers
[quote=CA renter]Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Well let’s be clear: you don’t own a yacht and you don’t buy 20k bottles of champagne on 250k a year (which is like 150k after even current taxes). And you don’t know any movie stars at 250k a year either. I think it’s disingenuous when folks use the 250k combined family income as “the rich” and then in the next sentence start talking about private jets. I’d bet 95% of folks with family income at 250k have never even seen a private jet (or a yacht) up close.
Further, I think there is too much focus on “the rich” as the cause or solution to our problems. Sure their wealth might be annoying or enviable, but it is not enough to solve our problems, not by a long shot.
Say you took the two richest americans, Gates and Buffet, and confiscated and liquidated all their assets. You’d get about $100B. Someone posted earlier in this thread that we are 1.7T in the hole *every year*. So you liquidate our two very richest guys, hang them for their “crimes”, and you’d only close 6% of the gap for only *one year*. What if we took ALL the money from ALL the American billionaires – what would that add up to? $2T? CBO projects us to go $10T in the hole just this decade.
The problem, IMO is entitlements. That’s the thing that has to be dealt with. We need to look at what is going on with the body of 300 *Million* people (many who will benefit more than they put in) rather than 1000 or so individual cases that are admittedly more interesting and titillating to talk about.
The tax code is already “progressive”, poor folks pay 0 and actually get paid earned income credit – richer folks pay close to 50% counting AMT etc.
Now if some really rich folks are skating due to loopholes – fine, close ’em! If they’re breaking the law – nail em! But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.
July 26, 2011 @ 9:51 AM
KSMountain wrote: But don’t
[quote=KSMountain] But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.[/quote]
If we had let the Bush cuts expire, we wouldn’t have to deal with the cuts today and the manufactured crisis that is the debt ceiling today.
Notice that the Republicans, today, are only willing to conced to about $800 in addition revenue over 10 years.
We should have let the Bush cust expire for everyone and be done with it.
And, of course, if Bush didn’t sign the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 (as we were are at war), we won’t have a problem at all today, as we would have had 10 years worth of tax revenue to pay for war and deficits.
July 26, 2011 @ 10:00 AM
Well, we’d still be in
Well, we’d still be in deficit, right? But I could agree with restoring the old rates and capital gains treatment. I don’t toe the whole repub platform. Otoh, I would like to see AMT fixed or eliminated.
July 26, 2011 @ 10:15 AM
KSMountain wrote:Well, we’d
[quote=KSMountain]Well, we’d still be in deficit, right? But I could agree with restoring the old rates and capital gains treatment. I don’t toe the whole repub platform. Otoh, I would like to see AMT fixed or eliminated.[/quote]
Yes, we still would have debts and deficits if we let the Bush cuts expire.
But notice that the solutions proposed by the Republicans today are much lesser than letting the Bush cuts expire last year.
The Republicans could have done nothing and solved more problems… but the Republicans manufactured crisis after crisis.
July 26, 2011 @ 11:20 AM
I wonder why the republicans
I wonder why the republicans didn’t solve this problem when they had the White House and congress? It was much easier back then because of the properous economy and high tax revenue. I believe poltically it will hurt republicans much more than democrats if the country defaults.
July 26, 2011 @ 11:30 AM
jimmyle wrote:I wonder why
[quote=jimmyle]I wonder why the republicans didn’t solve this problem when they had the White House and congress? It was much easier back then because of the properous economy and high tax revenue. I believe poltically it will hurt republicans much more than democrats if the country defaults.[/quote]
Same reason democrats didn’t solve the problem when they had the white house and congress. Why didn’t they end bush tax cut for the top two bracket then?
July 26, 2011 @ 12:23 PM
AN wrote:when they had the
[quote=AN]when they had the white house and congress. Why didn’t they end bush tax cut for the top two bracket then?[/quote]
Because Obama made a deal with Republicans to extend jobless benefits to those who are suffering:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/06/obama.taxes.debates/index.html
Notice that jobless benefits (unlike tax cuts for the richest 2%) are immediately spent into the economy to support jobs, and end up in corporate coffers as profits.
Also notice that back then, the Republicans were not interested in paying for the additional spending, they were interested in protecting the richest 2% of Americans.
Finally, notice which party has been more willing to compromise in a give-and-take manner.
July 27, 2011 @ 9:44 AM
KSMountain wrote:CA renter
[quote=KSMountain][quote=CA renter]Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Well let’s be clear: you don’t own a yacht and you don’t buy 20k bottles of champagne on 250k a year (which is like 150k after even current taxes). And you don’t know any movie stars at 250k a year either. I think it’s disingenuous when folks use the 250k combined family income as “the rich” and then in the next sentence start talking about private jets. I’d bet 95% of folks with family income at 250k have never even seen a private jet (or a yacht) up close.
Further, I think there is too much focus on “the rich” as the cause or solution to our problems. Sure their wealth might be annoying or enviable, but it is not enough to solve our problems, not by a long shot.
Say you took the two richest americans, Gates and Buffet, and confiscated and liquidated all their assets. You’d get about $100B. Someone posted earlier in this thread that we are 1.7T in the hole *every year*. So you liquidate our two very richest guys, hang them for their “crimes”, and you’d only close 6% of the gap for only *one year*. What if we took ALL the money from ALL the American billionaires – what would that add up to? $2T? CBO projects us to go $10T in the hole just this decade.
The problem, IMO is entitlements. That’s the thing that has to be dealt with. We need to look at what is going on with the body of 300 *Million* people (many who will benefit more than they put in) rather than 1000 or so individual cases that are admittedly more interesting and titillating to talk about.
The tax code is already “progressive”, poor folks pay 0 and actually get paid earned income credit – richer folks pay close to 50% counting AMT etc.
Now if some really rich folks are skating due to loopholes – fine, close ’em! If they’re breaking the law – nail em! But don’t delude yourself (as someone posted earlier) that just reversing the bush tax cuts will solve all our problems. Mathematically, it’s nonsense.[/quote]
+1
Bah… Until our government does something about repatriation of earned income by U.S. corporations overseas, I find any tax increase on individuals appalling. Come on. $250k household income is hardly “wealthy”. It’s taxing more the upper middle class and pulling them down, while corporations can escape paying for taxes…And WTF is up with some of our “leaders” entertaining the idea of “repatriation holiday”??????
I’ll ask again… How much did GE pay in taxes last year????
Yeah, I thought so…
Ridiculous….
I can’t believe a lot of you are arguing back and forth about which party is better when both parties have long cared less about the average person and respond only to corporations. Everything else they try to debate over is a just smokescreen to protect their respective corporate masters.
July 26, 2011 @ 10:14 AM
CA renter wrote: I do not
[quote=CA renter] I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
I agree with you CA renter.
But what coud have been is not reality. I’ve felt like you at times, but I’ve let it go. No need to be angry. Time to move-on, live, and fight battles you can win.
Actually, financial executives have gone to jail and prosecutions are being reviewed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-22/ex-omni-bank-official-levine-gets-five-year-prison-term-for-bank-fraud.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13871174
Granted, the very top executives at the top banks are still sitting pretty… but what do you expect with Republicans as the obstructionists?
More reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/business/14prosecute.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1311699642-do7pWw9G/mdHcPd9Ln6axA
July 26, 2011 @ 5:29 PM
CA renter wrote:
What I’m
[quote=CA renter]
What I’m angry about is the fact that all those trillions were funnelled through the very financial entities that caused the “financial crisis” in the first place. NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for destroying our financial system. People go to jail for stealing a $1000 car, but NOBODY WENT TO JAIL for causing a crisis that will cost us trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs, before we see the light of day.
I do not believe for a second that the way the bailouts were done saved more jobs than what would have been saved if things were done the right way. Those f**kers should be hanging from lamp posts, but they are drinking $20,000 bottles of champagne with movies stars on their yachts, instead. That is f’ing wrong![/quote]
Thank you. X2
July 26, 2011 @ 12:33 PM
briansd1 wrote:
That’s why we
[quote=briansd1]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis. [/quote]
Right, because they wouldn’t shift the cost of that tax onto the client.
When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.
July 26, 2011 @ 12:51 PM
meadandale wrote:Right,
[quote=meadandale]Right, because they wouldn’t shift the cost of that tax onto the client.
When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.[/quote]
That’s something I don’t get either. I don’t know any corporation that won’t pass on the cost to its consumer. The more cost you put on corporations, the more they’ll pass it on to the consumers.
July 26, 2011 @ 12:54 PM
meadandale, Republicans don’t
meadandale, Republicans don’t want to tax the banks or regulate the banks.
So how do we recover the costs of the bailouts lessen the likelyhood and impact of another financial crisis?
How about taxing the profits of the banks? I guess you’d claim that could be passed on too. So, let them pass it on. We could regulate the banks’ ability to nickel and dime small account holders. Plus we could use the revenue to pay down the debt.
July 26, 2011 @ 1:08 PM
briansd1 wrote:meadandale,
[quote=briansd1]meadandale, Republicans don’t want to tax the banks or regulate the banks.
So how do we recover the costs of the bailouts lessen the likelyhood and impact of another financial crisis?
How about taxing the profits of the banks? I guess you’d claim that could be passed on too. So, let them pass it on. We could regulate the banks’ ability to nickel and dime small account holders. Plus we could use the revenue to pay down the debt.[/quote]
How about we just stop bailing out the banks and put them on notice that if they crash and burn we are just going to watch the fire burn out from the sidelines? Maybe then they’ll stop engaging in short sighted, risky practices that they wouldn’t entertain if they knew there was no backstop.
While we are at it, let’s take the same approach with auto manufacturers and airlines.
July 26, 2011 @ 1:14 PM
meadandale, i agree.
But
meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.
July 26, 2011 @ 1:51 PM
briansd1 wrote:meadandale, i
[quote=briansd1]meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.[/quote]
Spending several trillions of dollars of taxpayer money is still systemic risk IMO. You’ve just moved the risk somewhere else (to the larger governance of the nation).
I have a feeling that the economy would have bounced back much quicker if we’d let the whole thing unwind on itself and bounce back healthier.
July 28, 2011 @ 3:53 AM
meadandale wrote:briansd1
[quote=meadandale][quote=briansd1]meadandale, i agree.
But that means dismantling too-big-to-fail companies and/or preventing them from getting too big to cause systemic risks.
Plus we have to define what too-big-to-fail is.[/quote]
Spending several trillions of dollars of taxpayer money is still systemic risk IMO. You’ve just moved the risk somewhere else (to the larger governance of the nation).
I have a feeling that the economy would have bounced back much quicker if we’d let the whole thing unwind on itself and bounce back healthier.[/quote]
Could not agree more.
July 26, 2011 @ 5:14 PM
meadandale wrote:When will
[quote=meadandale]When will people who continually shout “tax the corporations! tax the corporations!” ever get that it’s not the corporations who pay these taxes—it’s people like you.[/quote]
That’s a foolish comment.
Corporations transact business, buy and sell goods, book profits and capital gains and otherwise participate in almost every aspect of economic activity as a ‘person’. They are subject to taxes.
(In theory. In practice, large and sophisticated corporations evade and avoid their tax obligations through abuse of the tax code.)
Also, they do not ‘pass on’ taxes as a matter of course. Market pricing is a separate issue. They will try to ‘pass on’ the tax, if the market bears it. Otherwise, it comes out of their bottom line — same as everybody else.
July 26, 2011 @ 5:40 PM
Rich people pay less tax than
Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
Republicans want to default the USA over the Bush tax cuts.
Fuck you right-wing fucks.
July 26, 2011 @ 9:23 PM
gandalf wrote:Rich people pay
[quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…
July 26, 2011 @ 10:04 PM
KSMountain wrote:gandalf
[quote=KSMountain][quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…[/quote]
You’re clueless, kymountain.
Get a good tax lawyer.
Percentage tax prior to shelters and avoidance.
July 26, 2011 @ 10:52 PM
Gandalf – I’m curious: what
Gandalf – I’m curious: what do you mean by “rich” and what do you mean by “middle class working people”?
July 27, 2011 @ 9:22 AM
KSMountain wrote:gandalf
[quote=KSMountain][quote=gandalf]Rich people pay less tax than middle class working people.
[/quote]
That’s laughably untrue on both an absolute and percentage basis. What the hell are you talking about? And please don’t mention Warren Buffet’s secretary…[/quote]
The wealthy don’t get the bulk of their income from salary – they get it through investments, stock grants etc. All of which are taxed at the capital gains tax rate. If they hold onto the equity before selling, they get taxed at 15%. Much lower than the income tax rate.
I aspire to be wealthy, but I still think capital gains taxes should be at the same rates as income taxes. If only in the interest of fairness.
July 27, 2011 @ 9:51 AM
There’s ostensibly a reason
There’s ostensibly a reason for that treatment, right? To encourage investment. What if you gave an IPO and no one showed up?
Further, there are lots of middle/upper middle class folks who benefit from the current rules. You could have a secretary at a biotech company, for example. Lots of engineers nowadays get stock in the form of RSU’s. People who manage a portfolio in an after tax account. Not everyone is a hedge fund weenie or trust fund baby.
Perhaps we could tweak the rule so if that were your only income (cuz you’re a rich f**k) you have to pay at ordinary income rate. But that starts to get complicated (meaning it will be abused). I thought AMT was designed to ensnare those folks, anyway. Oops.
Flat tax? Would everyone here go for that? It’s simple, but not exactly progressive.
July 28, 2011 @ 3:51 AM
briansd1 wrote:CAR, are you
[quote=briansd1]CAR, are you so obsessed with buying a house when prices crash that you’d want to sacrifice 8.5 million jobs?
Yes, there’s debt to be paid, but… those who have jobs can live another day so they can pay taxes and help pay down the debt.
[quote=CA renter]
This whole thing sucks, and the ones who caused it are slinking away on their yachts while we’re left holding the bag. [/quote]
That’s why we should have a financial transaction tax so the industry that caused the crisis pays back the cost of the bailouts and so we can build a fund to prepare for the next crisis.
The Tea Party will not hold the financial industry accountable. It fact, Eric Cantor has been protecting hedge funds.
[/quote]
We should have a financial transaction tax, mostly because so much of our market today is made by high-frequency traders who can manipulate markets for their own benefit. A transaction tax would greatly affect their business, and (hopefully) drive them out for good.
July 26, 2011 @ 3:08 AM
gandalf wrote:Completely
[quote=gandalf]Completely agree, car. Lack of accountability from Obama administration has had disastrous consequences, both as a matter of policy and economics, and it enabled the tea party movement to take root.[/quote]
Yep. I’ve been extremely disappointed in Obama. We had the opportunity to reverse the destruction of our country and its growing wealth disparity (the cause of so much social and political unrest), and we had the most amazing opportunity to take out the most toxic people who sit at the top of the decision-making pyramid, and he blew it. Some, like Partypup, would say it was all by design. I tend to agree.
July 26, 2011 @ 7:53 PM
Really, some folks here can’t
Really, some folks here can’t see the difference between
(a) cutting revenue (tax cuts), starting two wars and asking for an increase in the debt ceiling. (2006)
versus
(b) trying to add revenue, cutting some spend and asking for an increase in the debt ceiling to avoid default because of what happened in 2006 (2011)
I call bullshit if you can’t distinguish between the two scenarios.
July 26, 2011 @ 8:18 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok
July 27, 2011 @ 8:01 AM
Vod-Vil
[quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.
July 27, 2011 @ 8:59 AM
jpinpb wrote:Vod-Vil
[quote=jpinpb][quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.[/quote]
I *love* George Carlin. He’s been making me laugh since the 70’s.
But that particular piece is defeatist.
With that worldview, how do you explain the success of the google guys, or the yahoo guys, all of whom became billionaires starting while they were in school? They were not part of any nefarious “cabal” when they started, and “the man” did not hold them back. Same with Apple.
To take a non-tech example, how about the Burt’s Bees lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_Quimby
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.
July 27, 2011 @ 11:10 AM
KSMountain wrote:I think jp,
[quote=KSMountain]I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
+1
I know people who came here less than 30 years ago with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They saved, lived extremely frugal, make appropriate risk to start businesses and now they’re what some would consider “rich”. If they live the way most if not all lived on here, they wouldn’t have the capital to start the business that they did. So, I feel that they deserved every dollar they earned. Much more so that most people who are on welfare.
July 27, 2011 @ 1:39 PM
KSMountain wrote:
I think jp,
[quote=KSMountain]
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
Upward mobility is largely a myth. It’s extremely rare to leave your social strata. Though the middle class’s social strata has improved in material comfort. This myth is propagated along with the “Just world myth” that success and failure are earned – which throughout history has had a modicum of truth(for maybe a century at the most), but largely has been decoupling from reality. People are waking up to this and getting angry. As society continues to deteriorate the “jealousy” you perceive is really anger at these myths being exposed for what they are. The truth is only 1 in 50,000 can produce a technological development worth a damn
The purveyors of Our Way of Life promulgate this odious lie, because if Debbie Middle Class truly understood that failure isn’t always earned, then then she just might figure out that success isn’t always earned either. And if success isn’t always earned, well… heavens to Mergatroid , Snagglepuss, maybe those richer-than-thous aren’t holier-than-thous after all.
Herecy! “Send ‘em off to that Gulag they call Europe”, I can hear them shouting. And unfortunately, most of that heckling won’t come from the orchestra seats, but from the peanut gallery. Because it is the working/middle classes, the ones who have toiled in the trenches of status anxiety and felt the fear of failure sting like a jockey’s whip, it is they who are most invested in this poisonous meme.
Nor could they suffer lightly the indignity of accepting that their economic inferiors might be their moral equals. No, no, no. Too many dangerous questions would follow. The hierarchy must be maintained at all costs, otherwise, they might have to reconsider WTF they’ve been doing with their precious time on this planet. Remember, this is their America, and in their America the one with the most toys at the end wins. So suck it up, walk it off, be a man, do your job, and take it to your grave
July 27, 2011 @ 2:11 PM
Arraya, I love your take of
Arraya, I love your take of the psychology of things. There’s a lot of truth to what you’re saying.
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[quote=Arraya] People are waking up to this and getting angry. As society continues to deteriorate the “jealousy” you perceive is really anger at these myths being exposed for what they are. [/quote]
I’d be very interested in your take of the anger felt by Tea Party adherents. I’m not talking about people like the Koch brothers who are bankrolling the Tea Party. But I’m interested in the White middle-class folks of the Red States — the troops of the Tea Party.
What’s fueling their anger?
July 27, 2011 @ 2:37 PM
Arraya, let’s take a random
Arraya, let’s take a random 9th grader, child of lower middle class parents. What’s to stop that kid from becoming an anesthesiologist and making $400K/yr? Nothing! The poorer they are, the more help they can get (academic and financial) and the more school acceptance opportunities. Minority status helps atop that. I’ve seen it personally.
Say you Arraya, wanted to open a restaurant tomorrow. What would stop you? If you had a good concept and kept the bathrooms clean, maybe it would be popular. Maybe you could get some investors, diversify into a chain. Before you know it, you’re franchising. What’s to stop you?
Just a few examples I can think of really quickly off the top of my head (try not to skewer me if some aren’t perfect): Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sam Walton, Sam Price (price club), Mrs. Fields lady, Meg Whitman. Ray Kroc (McDonald’s) didn’t even graduate from high school! How can he have done so well if the deck is stacked? Don’t you want to bet though that Joan Kroc in her later years was considered high society in Rancho Santa Fe.
You could argue those folks are “1 in 50000”. But maybe it’s the other way ’round: maybe it’s quite common, and we just don’t know the backgrounds of the folks whose businesses we frequent.
Personally in my life, I know many people who have jumped many levels financially. I know others who haven’t, for whatever reason.
Now true *social* “class” jumping – you may be right there. I think it’s pretty hard to become “old money”. It might be a lot easier here than in other countries though. I do agree with you those people are not superior though by any means simply by virtue of birth or fortune.
July 28, 2011 @ 8:24 AM
briansd1 wrote:
I don’t
[quote=briansd1]
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[/quote]
Well, some things are planned. Probably more than we like to admit. This can’t be proven definitively. Of course, the dominant minority did not get to where they are from not planning. So, it’s not crazy to think people of wealth and power talk out of publics view about the future. Though, it may be crazy to think they don’t. The problem arises when their interests are not aligned with large segments of the population coupled with the influence they have over the political/economic system.
Yes, most things are cultural(or as you say “self-reinforcing” patterns of behavior). Protecting the pecking order is a cultural reflex, it has been since the feudal age. These things are invisible if you don’t look for them. I have became very interesting in studying this process, and in doing so, have become interested in disturbing it.
Wealth worship has been around since the feudal ages. Before our scientific understanding of evolution, genetics and the vast array of behavioral sciences, it was culturally propagated the those with wealth and power were more in God’s favor or that those of little means have moral failings. It was actually said by early economists that god was teaching them a lesson with their plight. Now this mindset comes in handy while running a feudal system or any system with social stratification. Once we developed a more scientific world view, it became people with wealth were of better genetic “stock”. As science moved on(and morals) both these views became repugnant on some levels. The genetic view came to a head with eugenics and coupled with a economic collapse, spawned the Nazi project. Still, both views are still somewhat embedded in our culture – though diminishing.
Still, wealth and power worship is still prevalent today. And it needs to be, to some extent, to propagate the system. Certain collective understandings need to be in place for it’s maintenance. Though, it is something that is eroding – along with the mechanics of the system itself.
Now, culture is an outgrowth of our political/economic world view and systemic operation- which is closely related to our perception of biology. And cultural values and trained reflexes or patterns of behavior are propagated to support this world view and system. Today, systemic needs are propagated and encouraged with mass communications. In my view, we misplace cause and effect massively.
Reflexivity is an interesting sociological term that I recently came across. This is the fundamental feedback between what the brain maps for survival and how it choses to select for survival – along with social response to this selection. It’s basically ones perception of socioeconomic reality and how the perception influences individual and social behavior. Today, this process is fundamentally gone off the tracks, a large part due to the internet. Where many peoples selection for survival is in contradiction to systemic needs. Anyway, I digress.
[quote=briansd1]
What’s fueling their anger?[/quote]
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.
July 28, 2011 @ 12:55 PM
Arraya wrote:
briansd1
[quote=Arraya]
[quote=briansd1]
What’s fueling their anger?[/quote]
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.[/quote]
Thanks for the input. The big picture is very interesting. I wish more folks would study history and sociology so they can examine and explain the world we live in.
July 29, 2011 @ 1:59 AM
Arraya wrote:briansd1
[quote=Arraya][quote=briansd1]
I don’t believe that TPTB sit around and plan things out in a boardroom. It’s just that the system is self-reinforcing.
[/quote]
Well, some things are planned. Probably more than we like to admit. This can’t be proven definitively. Of course, the dominant minority did not get to where they are from not planning. So, it’s not crazy to think people of wealth and power talk out of publics view about the future. Though, it may be crazy to think they don’t. The problem arises when their interests are not aligned with large segments of the population coupled with the influence they have over the political/economic system.
Yes, most things are cultural(or as you say “self-reinforcing” patterns of behavior). Protecting the pecking order is a cultural reflex, it has been since the feudal age. These things are invisible if you don’t look for them. I have became very interesting in studying this process, and in doing so, have become interested in disturbing it.
Wealth worship has been around since the feudal ages. Before our scientific understanding of evolution, genetics and the vast array of behavioral sciences, it was culturally propagated the those with wealth and power were more in God’s favor or that those of little means have moral failings. It was actually said by early economists that god was teaching them a lesson with their plight. Now this mindset comes in handy while running a feudal system or any system with social stratification. Once we developed a more scientific world view, it became people with wealth were of better genetic “stock”. As science moved on(and morals) both these views became repugnant on some levels. The genetic view came to a head with eugenics and coupled with a economic collapse, spawned the Nazi project. Still, both views are still somewhat embedded in our culture – though diminishing.
Still, wealth and power worship is still prevalent today. And it needs to be, to some extent, to propagate the system. Certain collective understandings need to be in place for it’s maintenance. Though, it is something that is eroding – along with the mechanics of the system itself.
Now, culture is an outgrowth of our political/economic world view and systemic operation- which is closely related to our perception of biology. And cultural values and trained reflexes or patterns of behavior are propagated to support this world view and system. Today, systemic needs are propagated and encouraged with mass communications. In my view, we misplace cause and effect massively.
Reflexivity is an interesting sociological term that I recently came across. This is the fundamental feedback between what the brain maps for survival and how it choses to select for survival – along with social response to this selection. It’s basically ones perception of socioeconomic reality and how the perception influences individual and social behavior. Today, this process is fundamentally gone off the tracks, a large part due to the internet. Where many peoples selection for survival is in contradiction to systemic needs. Anyway, I digress.
[quote=briansd1]
What’s fueling their anger?[/quote]
Their anger, very simply, is based on perceived threats to their well being.
They are a subset of the dominant culture. Typically, this subset more aligns with the dominant minorities interests – which may or may not align with their own.[/quote]
Another great post, Arraya.
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
It is a known fact that extremely wealthy and powerful people run in the same social and professional circles. To think that they are NOT talking about ways to maximize their wealth and power — every chance they get — is painfully naive.
People do not “accidentally” become extremely wealthy and powerful. They had to plot and plan relentlessly to get there, and many of them couldn’t care less about harming someone else (including the entire country) if they can further increase their wealth and influence. These people, by their very nature, tend to have more sociopathic tendencies.
These people have managed to convince the masses that the debate is about dual-income engineers, when nothing could be further from the truth. Others seem to think it’s about envy or wanting to buy a house for a cheap price, which is not at all why many of us are angry.
The problem for the PTB is that people are starting to wake up to the truth, and even though “the rich” have the power and wealth, we have the numbers. They constantly strive to keep us distracted and divided so that we don’t revolt against them.
The original Tea Party was a true threat to them, IMHO, and the PTB quickly went into action via the two-party political system (created to keep us divided). The Dems brought out the healthcare bill, right in the middle of the “financial crisis”/”worst recession since the Great Depression,” which created the distraction that the Republicans needed to take over the Tea Party and turn it into an anti-tax, anti-healthcare group. Problem solved. Like magic, nobody knew anymore why the Tea Party originated, or why it originally attracted so many people — from all across the political spectrum!
The original Tea Party was anti-bailout, and anti-banker. They were gathering to oppose the bailouts of lenders and borrowers who created the credit/housing bubble. Most importantly, the origination of the Tea Party was was akin to the curtain being pulled away in The Wizard of Oz. People were beginning to question the superiority of those in power, and were beginning to hold the most wealthy/powerful accountable for the destruction they had wrought. Unfortunately, Americans’ distractibility and short attention span caused us to lose this precious opportunity to turn things around. We had it within our grasp, and we threw it away. That’s why I’m so angry.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:58 PM
CA renter wrote: The original
[quote=CA renter] The original Tea Party was a true threat to them, IMHO, and the PTB quickly went into action via the two-party political system (created to keep us divided). The Dems brought out the healthcare bill, right in the middle of the “financial crisis”/”worst recession since the Great Depression,” which created the distraction that the Republicans needed to take over the Tea Party and turn it into an anti-tax, anti-healthcare group. Problem solved. Like magic, nobody knew anymore why the Tea Party originated, or why it originally attracted so many people — from all across the political spectrum!
The original Tea Party was anti-bailout, and anti-banker. They were gathering to oppose the bailouts of lenders and borrowers who created the credit/housing bubble. Most importantly, the origination of the Tea Party was was akin to the curtain being pulled away in The Wizard of Oz. People were beginning to question the superiority of those in power, and were beginning to hold the most wealthy/powerful accountable for the destruction they had wrought. Unfortunately, Americans’ distractibility and short attention span caused us to lose this precious opportunity to turn things around. We had it within our grasp, and we threw it away. That’s why I’m so angry.[/quote]
If what you say about the Tea Party is true, then why are they oppoosing any taxes and regulations of the banks that received the bailouts?
Remember the banks already received the bailouts and we can’t go back in time. So why not get the banks to concede to taxes and regulations in exchange for the bailouts? Tea Partyers should logically support that.
It seems like Tea Party adherants are pretty gullible if they were so easily coopted by the Republicans.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:04 PM
briansd1 wrote:If what you
[quote=briansd1]If what you say about the Tea Party is true, then why are they oppoosing any taxes and regulations of the banks that received the bailouts?
Remember the banks already received the bailouts and we can’t go back in time. So why not get the banks to concede to taxes and regulations in exchange for the bailouts? Tea Partyers should logically support that.
It seems like Tea Party adherants are pretty gullible if they were so easily coopted by the Republicans.[/quote]
Because it’s not just taxes on the banks. More taxes will give government more money to bail out more banks if there’s another problem. That’s why they don’t support it.
July 31, 2011 @ 10:06 AM
CA renter wrote:[
This is
[quote=CA renter][
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
[/quote]
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s econ 101.
The distortions in capitalism that we see now are a direct result of of the extreme accumulation and centralization of wealth that Capitalism creates. The extreme accumulation of wealth ultimately and intrinsically becomes the distortion within the economy. Wealth is power and that power is the capacity to bend a socio-economic system (to one degree or another) to the will of a select few. Capitalism breeds those who destroy its theorized idealistic state by creating the means to do so. Quite the paradox. This is something economists denied for centuries. Though, they are starting to admit it.
Einstein in 1949
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism
July 31, 2011 @ 2:26 PM
Arraya wrote:CA renter
[quote=Arraya][quote=CA renter][
This is something that people often ask me about when I talk about how “the rich” are controlling everything in our country (and the world?) — with the intent to gain further control over the world’s assets and revenue streams. They accuse me of being a “conspiracy theorist” and claim that there is no cabal of rich people who try to maximize their wealth and power.
[/quote]
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s econ 101.
The distortions in capitalism that we see now are a direct result of of the extreme accumulation and centralization of wealth that Capitalism creates. The extreme accumulation of wealth ultimately and intrinsically becomes the distortion within the economy. Wealth is power and that power is the capacity to bend a socio-economic system (to one degree or another) to the will of a select few. Capitalism breeds those who destroy its theorized idealistic state by creating the means to do so. Quite the paradox. This is something economists denied for centuries. Though, they are starting to admit it.
Einstein in 1949
http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism
[/quote]
Precisely. FWIW, Einstein was a socialist.
July 27, 2011 @ 2:21 PM
Back on topic, the drama
Back on topic, the drama playing out on Capitol Hill is fascinating to watch. I fear for the economy our stock portfolios.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/reid-debt-reduction-proposal-would-save-more-than-boehner-plan-congressional-budget-office-finds/2011/07/27/gIQArgSkcI_story.html
What’s most interesting is that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee has remained silent on this issue.
July 27, 2011 @ 3:14 PM
briansd1 wrote:Back on topic,
[quote=briansd1]Back on topic, the drama playing out on Capitol Hill is fascinating to watch. I fear for the economy our stock portfolios.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/reid-debt-reduction-proposal-would-save-more-than-boehner-plan-congressional-budget-office-finds/2011/07/27/gIQArgSkcI_story.html
What’s most interesting is that Mitt Romney, the presumed Republican nominee has remained silent on this issue.[/quote]
If you believe we’ll see a big slide, time to load up inverse funds.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:00 PM
Some of your guys may know
Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.
I know a guy who’s full of shit about his business ventures, lives in a cheap rental, makes payments on his car, can’t afford to pick his share of restaurants checks. And that guy votes Republican.
Look at the Republican voters in Mississippi or Missouri.
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being.
You can always change your registration when you make it big. In the mean time, show some solidarity to people who need help. Or even when you “make it” you can still vote to help those who need it most.
KSM, let’s look at a poor immigrant child who makes it. Do you think that he, and his parents, and relatives who immigrated to America didn’t benefit from social services that gave them helping hand?
If that child became a doctor, did he not enjoy in-state tuition and student loans? Once that doctor practices in the immigrant community, his patients are likely or medicaid and medicare.
Plus a well-oiled economy is one that needs all kinds of workers at all different income levels to perform different kinds of services. Not everybody should be well-educated and well-paid otherwise that would cause very high inflation and the wheels of commerce would come to a halt, to everybody’s detriment.
As a well-educated person, one has a certain responsibility to look out for the interests of those who are not so well aware of the issues.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:13 PM
briansd1 wrote:Some of your
[quote=briansd1]Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.[/quote]
I love it when dual engineer incomes with a big nest egg due to extreme frugality or small (tiny) business owner who are extremely frugal are considered extremely rich folks.
No one ever said we should remove social safety net. Is that your best argument? If it is, then we agree, since I don’t believe we should remove all social safety net either.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:19 PM
AN wrote:briansd1 wrote:Some
[quote=AN][quote=briansd1]Some of your guys may know extremely rich folks.[/quote]
I love it when dual engineer incomes with a big nest egg due to extreme frugality or small (tiny) business owner who are extremely frugal are considered extremely rich folks.
[/quote]
I never said anything of the sort.
If you’re a dual engineer family, the taxes proposed by the Democrats don’t affect you.
Here’s an example: as an engineer, you’re paying proportionately more social security tax than the CEO. It would only be fair that the CEO pays social security on a greater portion of his salary when you pay social security on all (or nearly all) of your own salary.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:42 PM
briansd1 wrote:I never said
[quote=briansd1]I never said anything of the sort.
If you’re a dual engineer family, the taxes proposed by the Democrats don’t affect you.
Here’s an example: as an engineer, you’re paying proportionately more social security tax than the CEO. It would only be fair that the CEO pays social security on a greater portion of his salary when you pay social security on all (or nearly all) of your own salary.[/quote]
Didn’t you consider those making $250k or more are the wealth and their taxes should be increased?
CEO don’t make $250k. They make multi-million. If you want to attack those people, why not create new brackets for those making millions and then another one for billions?
July 27, 2011 @ 5:03 PM
AN wrote:
Didn’t you consider
[quote=AN]
Didn’t you consider those making $250k or more are the wealth and their taxes should be increased?
CEO don’t make $250k. They make multi-million. If you want to attack those people, why not create new brackets for those making millions and then another one for billions?[/quote]
AN, this debt ceiling battle is not about raising tax rates.
The revenues discussed are about closing tax loopholes for the very rich, taxing hedge fund managers, and ending subsidies to industries who no longer need them.
The Democratic plan will not affect you.
In fact, Republican brinkmanship, if it results in a credit downgrade, may cost you more in terms of higher interest rates and lower values of your 401k and inflation.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:48 PM
briansd1 wrote:
It makes
[quote=briansd1]
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being. [/quote]
But there are plenty of wealthy people voting Democrats, no?
July 27, 2011 @ 5:04 PM
AN wrote:briansd1 wrote:
It
[quote=AN][quote=briansd1]
It makes sense for rich folks to vote Republican. It makes no sense to vote Republican when Republican policies are detrimental to your own economic well-being. [/quote]
But there are plenty of wealthy people voting Democrats, no?[/quote]
Yes, those people are voting their conscience.
As I said before, there are plenty of invididuals who vote against their personal financial interests because of their own personal reasons.
That’s fine on and individual levels, but from an aggregate statistical point of view, it makes no sense at all. There is something other than economics at play here.
That’s why I asked Arraya his opinions on the motivations the Tea Party voters of the Red States who, by and large, are just average people.
July 27, 2011 @ 5:55 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Yes, those
[quote=briansd1]
Yes, those people are voting their guilt.[/quote]
There, fixed that for you.
July 28, 2011 @ 12:35 AM
@KSMountain
Are you
@KSMountain
Are you white?
Because if you think “minority status” makes things easier for folks, I’m sure minorities (like myself) will offer to trade places with you in a heartbeat. It’s a total nonsensical statement.
And if you’re Asian, try being the only Asian in your graduating class at a Texas high school (like myself). It wasn’t “easy”.
July 29, 2011 @ 8:26 AM
Are you white?
Because if you
I guess everyone has something to cry about. Whites cry about affirmative action in universities, that accept minorities with mediocre grades and test scores while rejecting top scoring white students. Or that a middle class white pays 100% of college fees or gets a loan, while minorities with similar grades and skills gets a full ride.
July 27, 2011 @ 2:56 PM
Arraya wrote:
Upward mobility
[quote=Arraya]
Upward mobility is largely a myth. It’s extremely rare to leave your social strata.[/quote]
The IRS data disagrees with you.
“But Internal Revenue Service data following specific individuals over time show that, in terms of people, the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the bottom 20% in income in 1996 rose 91% by 2005, while the incomes of those particular taxpayers who were in the top 20% in 1996 rose by only 10% by 2005 — and those in the top 5% and top 1% actually declined.”
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/ArticlePrint.aspx?id=517564
July 27, 2011 @ 3:39 PM
Arraya beat me to it. You
Arraya beat me to it. You can cherry pick the low percentage of people who succeed, some by a fluke. Call it luck. For one you present, I can present many more who work just as hard if not harder and are just spinning wheels in place, treading water and going no where.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:07 PM
jpinpb wrote:Arraya beat me
[quote=jpinpb]Arraya beat me to it. You can cherry pick the low percentage of people who succeed, some by a fluke. Call it luck. For one you present, I can present many more who work just as hard if not harder and are just spinning wheels in place, treading water and going no where.[/quote]
And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:19 PM
AN wrote:And for all those
[quote=AN]And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.[/quote]
LOL. Yes. That is a very simplistic solution.
July 27, 2011 @ 4:46 PM
jpinpb wrote:AN wrote:And for
[quote=jpinpb][quote=AN]And for all those who are spinning in place and don’t want to do that anymore, I have one simple solution, spend less than you make.[/quote]
LOL. Yes. That is a very simplistic solution.[/quote]
Yes, it’s very simple and it works every single time. It doesn’t matter how much you make if you spend more than you make. Just look at the many multi-millionaires sport stars who went broke. So, to get ahead long term, you have to spend less than you make. I know it’s possible even when you make just the median HHI.
July 29, 2011 @ 10:50 AM
Obviously there are many
Obviously there are many people in the US who improve their class situation, and many others who don’t. The real question is why we are doing so much worse now than other developed countries.
“It now appears that many EU countries have created an environment in which it is significantly easier for the poor to climb the social ladder than it is in the US. Structural reforms will be necessary in the US if it wants to emulate the success of European countries in organising social mobility.”
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/338
July 29, 2011 @ 11:12 AM
Is there similar historical
Is there similar historical data? Have we always been this bad?
July 29, 2011 @ 12:32 PM
I don’t know, although I
I don’t know, although I don’t find it hard to believe that we used to be better than Europe, especially the farther back you go in time. Certainly I would bet most Americans believe even now that were are less constrained by class in this country than other developed countries, based on a history where that had been true.
The reality is that many of the countries in Europe with far more “socialistic” economies are not only now doing better than us economically, but offer more social mobility, spend less money per person on healthcare (with equivalent outcomes), and take far better care of their children, their weak and disabled, and their elderly.
But god forbid we should rethink our own policies through making serious comparisons to other countries. USA! USA!
July 29, 2011 @ 2:45 PM
That’s my point exactly.
That’s my point exactly. Even today, most American think we are better than Europe when it comes to upward mobility. Yet, according to your source, we’re not. So, what make you think we were better than Europe in the past? We’re talking about the last 100 years, not several hundred years.
What do you mean by better economically? AFAIK, we’re still the biggest economy. What do you mean social mobility? I agree that they spend less per person on healthcare. We need to definitely fix that. But our demographic is a little different than theirs, so it’s not quite apple to apple comparison. Personally, I’d love to have Sweden’s social benefits. I’d take full advantage of the unlimited unemployment. If we ever get that, I’d get myself laid off and collect unemployment for life. But that’s the lazy selfish part of me talking.
July 29, 2011 @ 3:21 PM
I can’t find a source but
I can’t find a source but what I’ve read of US and European history suggests that at least in the 1800s we had more social mobility than Europe. At any rate, I am not sure why it matters so much. If you think social mobility is a good thing, than I would think you would want for us to have more of it. It follows that we should therefore look to Europe to learn about how we can get more of it.
By better economically, I mainly mean that many of the countries there have lower unemployment and an equal or higher standard of living. Obviously they are smaller countries, although in aggregate Europe has a larger economy than the US. There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have.
Perhaps you would be happy to enjoy a modest lifestyle of unlimited leisure – it’s true that 2 or 3% of younger Swedes end up choosing to do this. Despite this, Sweden has a strong economy, and the vast majority of citizens do not choose this path. Many Nordic countries are enacting policies to discourage people from taking advantage of the system that way, and Denmark is leading the way in making their labor market very flexible and dynamic but also without the very bad outcomes associated with unemployment in the US.
The fact is, northern European countries have found a mix of socialism and capitalism that by almost any measure is superior to what we have in the US. While we have been getting progressively worse at making good public policy, these countries have removed the worse excesses of Cold War socialism, and now are in many respects more free market oriented than the US. Its Sweden that privatized its post office, not the US. When their banks were about to blow up, instead of bailing them out, they took them over, kicked out the management, and eventually sold them off for a profit. These countries generally have lower, and fairer corporate taxes than the US, making for less economic distortion. Surveys regularly show that Danes and the Dutch are the happiest people on earth. We could learn a thing or two.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:03 PM
All very good points and I
All very good points and I totally agree. We can learn a thing or two from the Finnish education system as well. They can afford to pay for those social safety nets by not having a huge military, postal office, etc. They also seem to encourage education, which also help bring up the entire society. I love the voucher system the Finnish have. If only we can implement that here too.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:42 PM
Notably they also pay for
Notably they also pay for these safety nets with significantly higher taxes. Despite these higher taxes they have good economies and happy people. And arguably more freedom then we have.
I think we are coming to the point in our nation’s history where the Presidential system we have with power divided between two legislative houses (one of which requires a supermajority) and the President is proving to be damaging. It is extraordinarily difficult to enact new policies on anything, so we just get stuck with a lot of old bad policies. Both sides believe they have a mandate to govern, but neither side gets to implement their policies the way they promised or really want them to be. So to pass anything you end up with compromise half-measures that are often bad policy that don’t represent what anyone really wants. When it comes time to vote again, since both parties voted for the policies, it’s hard for a large swath of voters to determine what they are going to be getting when they vote for or against a given party.
We’d be much better off with a parliamentary system. If the Republicans are elected and want to gut programs for the poor and elderly, let them do what they want, and lets see what happens in the next election. Sames goes for the Democrats when they want to raise taxes. Give them each a chance to implement their preferred policies in something resembling a pure version, and let the voters decide. Call elections when there are issues to be decided, not just on arbitrary schedules! This is what other countries do and it works just fine, and they don’t have these stupid government shut downs and other nonsense that makes us look like buffoons.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:05 PM
mlarsen23 wrote: There is no
[quote=mlarsen23] There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have. [/quote]
Another thing is that we have a younger population, but we spend much more per person on heath care.
It’s clear that some things in our health care system have gone awry.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:41 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:I
By better
[quote=mlarsen23]I
By better economically, I mainly mean that many of the countries there have lower unemployment and an equal or higher standard of living. Obviously they are smaller countries, although in aggregate Europe has a larger economy than the US. There is no apples to apples comparison on healthcare, but nonetheless the differences in what we spend per person (without measureable better outcomes) are stark and not all a result of different demographics. This seems to me to be an extremely strong argument for something like the single-payer, government provided healthcare that these countries have.[/quote]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
You’re right, there’s no apple to apple comparison. We eat more and our portions are much bigger. We probably walk less as well, since our cities are not as dense. If there’s no real apple to apple comparison, we can’t really assume that if we implement their solution, it’ll work for us.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:03 PM
AN wrote:
If you compare
[quote=AN]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
[/quote]
Your probably correct in this assessment. Though, the west is all tied to the hip with this debt problem. Debt has fueled our economies over the past few decades. Paying down debt will reduce GDP, likewise, increasing it will not help anything. We are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. All of us.
The PIGGS are the periphery of the EU so they will get clobbered first, then it will move inward.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:06 PM
AN wrote:
If you compare
[quote=AN]
If you compare aggregate Europe vs US, I’m not sure if they’re doing any better, especially if you’re talking about Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland, and Spain. Is any of our state is in as bad of shape as Greece?
You’re right, there’s no apple to apple comparison. We eat more and our portions are much bigger. We probably walk less as well, since our cities are not as dense. If there’s no real apple to apple comparison, we can’t really assume that if we implement their solution, it’ll work for us.[/quote]
The southern European countries are not doing better, but the northern European countries are. Countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Germany and France for that matter show that is possible to combine an intelligent health care system and a compassionate safety net with a dynamic economy, and we should attempt to emulate the good policies they have. That’s not to say we should copy every policy – the Euro has turned out to be a disaster, and is in large part responsible for the depth of the problems in many of the Southern countries. Even a country like Greece, that is really poorly managed and not an example for anyone would be much better off if it could have devalued its currency.
As far as healthcare goes, take a look at this chart:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/2/38980580.pdf
We are spending 50% more than the average OECD country on healthcare as a percentage of our GDP, and well more than even the richest OECD countries. Healthcare is just one of those things where the market doesn’t work — it can’t when the seller gets to tell the buyer how much they need to buy and what they should pay and the buyer both has to and wants to listen. This expense difference isn’t happening because we eat too much.
Healthcare is STILL the single biggest long term fiscal problem we have, and the Obama reform is just a start in getting us where we need to be. Doctors, pharma companies, and med device companies all need to get paid less, health insurance companies should be transformed into MUCH smaller businesses focused on supplemental policies, and everyone else needs to get used to having the government (yes, the government) tell them that it can’t afford expensive care that isn’t proven to work.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:31 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:Healthcare is
[quote=mlarsen23]Healthcare is STILL the single biggest long term fiscal problem we have, and the Obama reform is just a start in getting us where we need to be. Doctors, pharma companies, and med device companies all need to get paid less, health insurance companies should be transformed into MUCH smaller businesses focused on supplemental policies, and everyone else needs to get used to having the government (yes, the government) tell them that it can’t afford expensive care that isn’t proven to work.[/quote]
I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t want the government to tell me that I can’t get a certain operation because it’s too expensive. Especially if I pay for the coverage. However, if I don’t pay into the system, then I can decide if certain operation is worth it to me. Just look at the plastic surgery industry or the lasik surgery industry. Their cost have been going down over time. Insurance doesn’t cover it, so people shop around and people decide if certain operation is worth it to them. Those Doctors are making great money too.
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:50 PM
AN wrote:
The biggest
[quote=AN]
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.[/quote]
I think that doctors and medical clinics have labs have cross ownership intersts. Ordering more tests puts more money in their pockets.
I think that one problem is patients never see bills and are never told of the costs ahead of time.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:02 PM
briansd1 wrote:I think that
[quote=briansd1]I think that doctors and medical clinics have labs have cross ownership intersts. Ordering more tests puts more money in their pockets.
I think that one problem is patients never see bills and are never told of the costs ahead of time.[/quote]
Do you have proof of the cross ownership? Even if you’re right about the cross ownership, I doubt they’re ordering extra labs to make money, especially when there’s always a threat of a law suite.
I do agree about patients not seeing the bills as one of the problem. People don’t shop around like they do w/ plastic surgery or lasik.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:29 PM
briansd1 wrote:Do you have
[quote=briansd1]Do you have proof of the cross ownership? Even if you’re right about the cross ownership, I doubt they’re ordering extra labs to make money, especially when there’s always a threat of a law suite.
I do agree about patients not seeing the bills as one of the problem. People don’t shop around like they do w/ plastic surgery or lasik.[/quote]
Doctors respond to financial incentives like anyone else, and they can and do manipulate various elements of how they practice and get reimbursed to do so, with no clinical benefit. Much more healthcare should be provided by doctors who get paid a flat salary, with no financial incentives tied directly to what care they provide.
When care starts really getting expensive, patients are not in a position to shop around. They don’t have the expertise to make an informed decision about what the best care choice is, they may in fact be incapacitated in any case. That kind of thing might work for the most routine care, but it would never work for the care that really is costing lots of money.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:18 PM
AN wrote:
I guess that’s
[quote=AN]
I guess that’s where we differ. I don’t want the government to tell me that I can’t get a certain operation because it’s too expensive. Especially if I pay for the coverage. However, if I don’t pay into the system, then I can decide if certain operation is worth it to me. Just look at the plastic surgery industry or the lasik surgery industry. Their cost have been going down over time. Insurance doesn’t cover it, so people shop around and people decide if certain operation is worth it to them. Those Doctors are making great money too.
The biggest difference in my eye between our system vs theirs is the lawyers. Which causes doctors to do defensive medicine. They order way more tests than needed to cover their a$$. Which drive up costs.[/quote]
Nobody wants anybody telling them how much healthcare they can buy. But very few people can afford to buy as much healthcare as they might want, especially as they get sicker and need more expensive healthcare to stay healthy or alive. So we have to buy insurance, and insurance companies tell you what operations you can get. In countries with government run health insurance, you get more for your money because the government is a powerful negotiator with all providers – much more powerful than any insurance company. That is the primary reason that healthcare is so much cheaper in other countries. The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.
Lasik, plastic surgery – for those the market works because they are optional. The doctor may tell you you need plastic surgery, but it’s easy to decide you don’t. Not so when it comes to cancer treatment.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:44 PM
mlarsen23 wrote:The providers
[quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.
July 29, 2011 @ 6:54 PM
AN wrote:
Which is why I’m
[quote=AN]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
I agree, I don’t think doctors should have personal liability for errors. In addition, I think the government should pay for Doctor’s education too. Doctors should be doctors because they want to help people, not because they want (or need) to make a bunch of money. Again, this is how they do it in many European countries.
July 30, 2011 @ 3:33 AM
mlarsen23 wrote:AN
[quote=mlarsen23][quote=AN]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
I agree, I don’t think doctors should have personal liability for errors. In addition, I think the government should pay for Doctor’s education too. Doctors should be doctors because they want to help people, not because they want (or need) to make a bunch of money. Again, this is how they do it in many European countries.[/quote]
Could not agree more.
July 30, 2011 @ 2:11 AM
AN wrote:mlarsen23 wrote:The
[quote=AN][quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
In reality, providers (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) have been refusing medicare patients for 30 years now. This is not anything new. In areas that lack generous health facility coverage, providers can get away with this more easily.
As for the lower prices being negotiated by Medicare, likewise, this is nothing new, and has been going on since the 70s. In reality, this represented a proactive, and highly effective, method of cutting health care costs. So effective, in fact, that private health insurance companies adopted many of the features of the Medicare system themselves (prior to that, they had been simply rejecting legitimate claims to save money).
The problem today isn’t the prices being negotiated by Medicare. It’s a combination of (1) the significant increase in the numbers of Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries; (2) the level and degree of care that they have come to expect; and (3) the fact that many of these patients are more sick more often than ever before; in many cases, it is lifestyle-related morbidity. Thanks to the uninformed public’s (the ones who, incidentally, are screaming for fiscal restraint) eager leap onto the Republican health care misinformation bandwagon, healthcare reformers are trying to counter the negative effects of nonexistent death panels and euthanasia protocols.
The plain truth of the matter is that there need to be limits on the type and amount of heath care provided. Indeed, there ARE limits being placed now – not by the government, but by private insurance companies who cherry pick their customers, and then refuse to authorize services for which they are legally liable, or dropping the enrollees once they are diagnosed with a serious illness. The increase in health insurance premiums is not due to Obamacare; every insurance plan that I or my husband have been enrolled in through work has significantly raised their premiums each year for the past 20 (If you doubt this, ask yourself why every major health insurer in the United States continues to make astronomical profits on their enrollees. This is not opinion, and I am not asking you to check a blog; the financial statements of every insurer is accessible to the general public).
As mentioned, there need to be limits. But not the type being utilized by insurance companies. Medicare/Medicaid dollars are resources, as are the health care providers and facilities. Those resources should be distributed according to a cost/benefit ratio. We currently provide services to 85 year-olds using the same protocols used for 30 year-olds. Cold and heartless as it may sound, people over the age of 80 should not receive experimental treatments, nor should they receive repeated, increasingly complex surgeries or procedures for conditions that respond minimally or not at all to basic intervention. In addition, they should not be candidates for harsh chemotherapy regimens that lower their immune system function to life-threatening levels. People who are non-compliant should be addressed as the extremely poor risk that they are, and not be placed on lists for transplants or other astronomically expensive procedures that carry extremely high morbidity rates.
By the same token, much more attention needs to be focused on palliative care for the elderly, particularly on giving seriously ill seniors a good quality of life. Very frequently, elderly people do not die from their diagnosed illnesses, but from the treatments for them. An elderly patient with breast cancer can have 3 or 4 functional, pain-free, high quality years of life with palliative treatment compared with the same number, or fewer years dealing with the pain and serious side effects of treatment that will not result in a “cure”.
Many people will complain loudly, stating that it should be their choice, when the reality is that the “choice” is not up to them or their providers. Because there are procedures and therapies available does not mean that they should be utilized. There are many things to consider, and a patient’s quality of life should be foremost among them. In reality, in the U.S., it is typically not. In fact, this is what was translated into talk of “death panels” by a GOP-hired public relations hack two years ago.
I’ve worked in this field for the past 30 years, and I was married for 12 years to an EVP for a leading health insurer. I’ve been able to study the complexities of this situation from all aspects. Dealing with this situation will require that the American public stop buying into the bullshit being spoonfed them by politicians on all sides, that they actually look at what the private insurance companies are DOING instead of believing everything they are saying, and, most of all, lose their entitled attitudes about the services and choices they should have. Quite honestly, those of them that are crowing about the superiority of the Paul Ryan voucher plan should ask themselves what kind of policy are they really going to be able to getfrom a private health insurer – at ANY price – when they are 65 years old. As for Ryan’s suggestion that seniors will be able to put aside extra money for uncovered expenses in Health Savings Accounts, I’m not sure how I’m going to come up with an extra $250K over the next 10 years to accomplish that. If someone out there with superior financial knowledge has any suggestions for me, I’d definitely welcome them.
As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.
July 30, 2011 @ 3:32 AM
eavesdropper wrote:AN
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=AN][quote=mlarsen23]The providers – doctors, pharma, med device – have much less leverage to negotiate higher prices, because the government is effectively the only customer. It’s why Medicare is so much cheaper than private health insurance.[/quote]
Which is why I’m hearing some doctors are refusing medicare patients. If they get paid less and their malpractice insurance increasing, at certain point, there’s no point in going into medicine. Again, if you want single payer system and pay doctors less, then we should also implement their malpractice law suite style too. Today, doctors graduate with well over $300k in debt and after malpractice insurance, family doctor don’t make that much. Add in the threat of being sue and losing your license after a law suite or two, what do you think reducing their pay will do to this profession? Remember that they don’t really start working until they’re in their low to mid 30s depend on specialty.[/quote]
In reality, providers (doctors, hospitals, labs, etc.) have been refusing medicare patients for 30 years now. This is not anything new. In areas that lack generous health facility coverage, providers can get away with this more easily.
As for the lower prices being negotiated by Medicare, likewise, this is nothing new, and has been going on since the 70s. In reality, this represented a proactive, and highly effective, method of cutting health care costs. So effective, in fact, that private health insurance companies adopted many of the features of the Medicare system themselves (prior to that, they had been simply rejecting legitimate claims to save money).
The problem today isn’t the prices being negotiated by Medicare. It’s a combination of (1) the significant increase in the numbers of Medicare/Medicaid beneficiaries; (2) the level and degree of care that they have come to expect; and (3) the fact that many of these patients are more sick more often than ever before; in many cases, it is lifestyle-related morbidity. Thanks to the uninformed public’s (the ones who, incidentally, are screaming for fiscal restraint) eager leap onto the Republican health care misinformation bandwagon, healthcare reformers are trying to counter the negative effects of nonexistent death panels and euthanasia protocols.
The plain truth of the matter is that there need to be limits on the type and amount of heath care provided. Indeed, there ARE limits being placed now – not by the government, but by private insurance companies who cherry pick their customers, and then refuse to authorize services for which they are legally liable, or dropping the enrollees once they are diagnosed with a serious illness. The increase in health insurance premiums is not due to Obamacare; every insurance plan that I or my husband have been enrolled in through work has significantly raised their premiums each year for the past 20 (If you doubt this, ask yourself why every major health insurer in the United States continues to make astronomical profits on their enrollees. This is not opinion, and I am not asking you to check a blog; the financial statements of every insurer is accessible to the general public).
As mentioned, there need to be limits. But not the type being utilized by insurance companies. Medicare/Medicaid dollars are resources, as are the health care providers and facilities. Those resources should be distributed according to a cost/benefit ratio. We currently provide services to 85 year-olds using the same protocols used for 30 year-olds. Cold and heartless as it may sound, people over the age of 80 should not receive experimental treatments, nor should they receive repeated, increasingly complex surgeries or procedures for conditions that respond minimally or not at all to basic intervention. In addition, they should not be candidates for harsh chemotherapy regimens that lower their immune system function to life-threatening levels. People who are non-compliant should be addressed as the extremely poor risk that they are, and not be placed on lists for transplants or other astronomically expensive procedures that carry extremely high morbidity rates.
By the same token, much more attention needs to be focused on palliative care for the elderly, particularly on giving seriously ill seniors a good quality of life. Very frequently, elderly people do not die from their diagnosed illnesses, but from the treatments for them. An elderly patient with breast cancer can have 3 or 4 functional, pain-free, high quality years of life with palliative treatment compared with the same number, or fewer years dealing with the pain and serious side effects of treatment that will not result in a “cure”.
Many people will complain loudly, stating that it should be their choice, when the reality is that the “choice” is not up to them or their providers. Because there are procedures and therapies available does not mean that they should be utilized. There are many things to consider, and a patient’s quality of life should be foremost among them. In reality, in the U.S., it is typically not. In fact, this is what was translated into talk of “death panels” by a GOP-hired public relations hack two years ago.
I’ve worked in this field for the past 30 years, and I was married for 12 years to an EVP for a leading health insurer. I’ve been able to study the complexities of this situation from all aspects. Dealing with this situation will require that the American public stop buying into the bullshit being spoonfed them by politicians on all sides, that they actually look at what the private insurance companies are DOING instead of believing everything they are saying, and, most of all, lose their entitled attitudes about the services and choices they should have. Quite honestly, those of them that are crowing about the superiority of the Paul Ryan voucher plan should ask themselves what kind of policy are they really going to be able to getfrom a private health insurer – at ANY price – when they are 65 years old. As for Ryan’s suggestion that seniors will be able to put aside extra money for uncovered expenses in Health Savings Accounts, I’m not sure how I’m going to come up with an extra $250K over the next 10 years to accomplish that. If someone out there with superior financial knowledge has any suggestions for me, I’d definitely welcome them.
As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
So glad you’re posting again, eavesdropper! Thank you for yet another one of your brilliant posts!
One thing that many of the anti-socialized-medicine types fail to address is the fact that we are **already** paying for the most expensive patients — the elderly, the uninsured infant and maternity patients, the indigent, and uninsured children. What we’ve done is passed on all the expensive patients to the taxpayers, leaving only the profitable patients to the private insurance companies. IMHO, by moving all the private-market patients to a public system, our relative costs would drop dramatically.
I don’t think we need to limit choices at all, BTW. Insurance companies could still offer supplemental policies, and people could always pay cash for whatever services they want. It’s just that we should have a basic, “socialized” healthcare system that covers all U.S. citizens (and non-citizen residents who pay into the system). This would free up workers who would be better utilized in other companies or industries, but who are stuck with a particular employer because they are afraid of losing their health insurance.
July 30, 2011 @ 8:50 AM
eavesdropper wrote:As for
[quote=eavesdropper]As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
Agree that med-mal is not as common as they claim it is. It takes a lot of money and time to file a med-mal suit. Most attorneys will NOT do it. There is just too much work involved and not much reward. You have to get an attorney that specializes in it and they have to find expert doctors who are willing to turn on their fellow doctors. Not saying it can’t be done. There are some doctors who will do the right thing and if another doctor really screws up, they will come forward.
For a med-mal case to be filed, there has to be a real meritorious claim with some major errors and serious injury. And even then you have to be lucky enough to find an attorney willing to take the case, since it’s not easy money for them and a lot of work they have to put into it.
Maybe a long time ago med-mal was a problem. But that’s no longer the case, yet they are still riding that wave of med-mal cases and insurance, blah, blah. Doctors have med-mal insurance to CYA themselves if they really screw up. The insurance company makes out again, b/c I question how often they have to pay out. But again, when they do on those really botched up cases, they probably have to shell out quite a bit.
It’s good that we as patients have some recourse, just in case. But it is not as easy and as common as being claimed.
July 30, 2011 @ 10:53 AM
jpinpb wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=jpinpb][quote=eavesdropper]As for malpractice suits, they are not as common as politicians would have you believe. They are costly to pursue, and extremely difficult to prove for a number of reason, the primary one being that doctors do not like testifying against other doctors (fearing that they, too, may also be in that position one day).
Most physicians are well-educated and extremely conscientious. However, as in any field, medicine has its fair share of incompetent people. If you were admitted for a biopsy of the lymph nodes in your neck, but awoke from anesthesia to discover that a surgeon had removed 2 cervical spine discs, and fused the affected spinal vertebrae, leaving you with chronic severe pain and paresthesia down your arms into your fingers, will you have a problem with the hospital telling you “Oops! Our bad!” and sending you on your way? If you repeatedly express concern about your pregnancy not proceeding normally, while your Ob-Gyn pooh-poohs your worries, are you okay with having no recourse when you give birth to a profoundly mentally and physically disabled baby (who will require extensive lifetime medical care and therapy) two months later? Particularly once you discover that the doctor involved had similar issues with three other patients over the prior five years, along with a history of substance abuse known to the hospital administration?
These are two actual cases with which I am personally acquainted. Even if patients are able to sue, many states have place arbitrary caps on the amounts they are able to receive (I believe their state is $1.5 million; their attorney will take a large portion of that as his fee, with litigation expenses exclusive of that). I can guarantee that whatever the family of the baby is able to recover, it will not begin to cover the astronomical expenses of her current and future care. Incidentally, the Ob-Gyn is still treating patients at the same hospital. Also, interesting is the fact that both parties were totally anti-malpractice prior to these incidents in their lives.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinions regarding malpractice litigation. However, you should also be aware that not only has your right to sue been affected in many states, but that the medical profession is ineffective at policing their own, and that many hospitals ignore complaints about problematic doctors and nurses.[/quote]
Agree that med-mal is not as common as they claim it is. It takes a lot of money and time to file a med-mal suit. Most attorneys will NOT do it. There is just too much work involved and not much reward. You have to get an attorney that specializes in it and they have to find expert doctors who are willing to turn on their fellow doctors. Not saying it can’t be done. There are some doctors who will do the right thing and if another doctor really screws up, they will come forward.
For a med-mal case to be filed, there has to be a real meritorious claim with some major errors and serious injury. And even then you have to be lucky enough to find an attorney willing to take the case, since it’s not easy money for them and a lot of work they have to put into it.
Maybe a long time ago med-mal was a problem. But that’s no longer the case, yet they are still riding that wave of med-mal cases and insurance, blah, blah. Doctors have med-mal insurance to CYA themselves if they really screw up. The insurance company makes out again, b/c I question how often they have to pay out. But again, when they do on those really botched up cases, they probably have to shell out quite a bit.
It’s good that we as patients have some recourse, just in case. But it is not as easy and as common as being claimed.[/quote]
Are you gals saying that the European system where patients can’t sue the pants off their doctor is not working? Their single payer system work in Europe because of everything that go around it. I doubt it’ll work in a vacuum. Which include free education for all (so doctors don’t graduate with a $300k+ of debt), low reward for suing doctors, etc.
My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.
July 30, 2011 @ 11:25 AM
you know the details on the
you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…
July 30, 2011 @ 11:38 AM
walterwhite wrote:you know
[quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
This is how hot the water has to be to cause 3rd degree burn: http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html
If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving. What’s your definition of supermolten? How hot do you boil your water? If you noticed, coffee shops coffee are still very hot, they just have a label saying it’s hot and the lady get millions.
July 30, 2011 @ 11:41 AM
AN wrote:walterwhite
[quote=AN][quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
This is how hot the water has to be to cause 3rd degree burn: http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html
If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving. What’s your definition of supermolten? How hot do you boil your water? If you noticed, coffee shops coffee are still very hot, they just have a label saying it’s hot and the lady get millions.[/quote]
She was a passenger. The car was parked and she’d taken the lid off to add cream and sugar. She was NOT driving.
July 30, 2011 @ 1:31 PM
UCGal wrote:
She was a
[quote=UCGal]
She was a passenger. The car was parked and she’d taken the lid off to add cream and sugar. She was NOT driving.[/quote]
You’re right. After researching this some more, I still don’t agree with the law suit. If the product was used properly, no injury would occur. All this law suit did was get McDonald and all other companies that sell hot beverage to put a label saying it’s hot. Just like have a label saying the knives and saws are sharp. If a really sharp knife was sold w/out that label and I accidentally drop it on myself and cut myself, can I sue the company?
July 30, 2011 @ 1:44 PM
AN wrote: This is how hot
[quote=AN] This is how hot the water has to be to cause 3rd degree burn: http://www.accuratebuilding.com/services/legal/charts/hot_water_burn_scalding_graph.html%5B/quote%5D
It’s a little more complicated: burns caused by hot liquid are compounded by clothing worn by the victim. Believe me, it would have been much better if she had been naked. She was wearing a heavy sweatsuit that was soaked, resulting in prolonged exposure of the affected area of skin to the burn-causing agent. Keeping this in mind, check your graph again.
[quote=AN]If it burn her genital, which means she had the drink between her legs while driving. If the water is 140 degrees and it stays on her genitals for 5 seconds, it’ll cause 3rd degree burn. Not that long of a period if she’s driving…..[/quote]
Note: Plaintiff was NOT driving, and car was at a complete standstill in a parking place.
She DID attempt to remove the cup lid while the cup was between her legs. She admitted to her negligence, and the jury factored her part in on their decision. Yes, this was not a very smart thing to do, and I’m willing to bet that she never again attempted to do so.
[quote=AN] How hot do you boil your water? [/quote]
Usually to the boiling point of water: 100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Farenheit.
[quote=AN] What’s your definition of supermolten? [/quote]
Can’t speak for scaredy, and definitely can’t verify the official temperature of “supermolten”. But I’ll give you you’re point 140 degrees Farenheit probably wouldn’t qualify.
However, McDonalds admitted that its franchise operations are REQUIRED to maintain the holding temperature of coffee between 180 and 190 degrees Farenheit. If the coffee had been recently brewed utilizing boiling water, the temp could have been even higher (see “boiling point” info above).
There’s no question that the lowest required temperature of 180 degrees is quite a bit removed from 140 degrees. Check the chart again.
[quote=AN]the lady get millions.[/quote]
The lady didn’t get millions. In fact, she didn’t even get a million. Settlement was less than $600,000, and this was before attorneys’ fees, and court expenses (which were likely in the tens of thousands of dollars, or more).
If you want to talk about frivolous lawsuits and abuse and overuse of the courts, consider that the plaintiff requested less than $20K for reimbursement of medical bills and lost wages. McDonalds offered $800.
Abuse of the courts can go both ways.
July 30, 2011 @ 1:11 PM
Yeah, I heard about that doc,
Yeah, I heard about that doc, scaredy. It’s supposed to be very good, but haven’t seen it yet. However, I did some research into that case about six months ago.
You’re right: I think McDonalds policy was to keep their coffee at a holding temp of close to 200 degrees Farenheit (That certainly explains why their coffee always tastes like roofing tar). I’m not sure why it is necessary to keep it that hot, but I digress.
The details of this case have been distorted, and used for political gains, for over 20 years now – plenty of time for it to become part of urban legend lore. Some of the highlights:
— The plaintiff in the case, a 79 year-old woman, was a passenger, NOT the driver of the vehicle
— The car was at a complete standstill in a marked parking area when the plaintiff attempted to remove the lid on the cup to add sugar (not a terribly nefarious act)
— While doing this, plaintiff spilled contents of the cup on herself, sustaining second and third degree burns over her genital area, her buttocks, and her thighs, some of which required skin grafting.
She required almost 2 years of treatment, and was left with large amounts of scar tissue that were very sensitive to stimuli (temperature, clothing, etc.), causing severe chronic pain. The physical and emotional effects of the burns and treatment were exacerbated by her advanced age, and caused a much greater degree of morbidity than would have occurred in a younger person.
The plaintiff approached McDonalds to request that they pay for the uncovered medical bills, and for time she had missed from work (approx. $20K). McDonalds refused, and ultimately a suit was filed, went to trial, and the jury found that McDonalds had been negligent (BTW, it was also determined that the plaintiff had also been negligent).
The concept of risk management had been discussed on Piggs before, and some posters were of a mind that corporate risk “management” consists of hoping that nothing happens, and pretending that it hasn’t and denying everything when it does. In the “hot coffee” case, McDonalds was “helped out” by one of their managers who admitted it was true that the company had received several hundred complaints from customers regarding burns they had received from the coffee (think it was around 800 in a 10-yr period), but that McDs didn’t believe the number was high enough to warrant the company’s taking any action on the issue (now THERE’S an honest employee! Short-sighted and incompetent, but honest.)
A lot of people think that a negligent company will recognize that they can be sued for a huge amount of money, and will, therefore, be ready and willing to deal when approached with a reasonable offer to settle. Nothing could be further from the truth. What’s even worse is that, in the almost 20 years since the coffee case went to court, changes made under the politically-charged guise of “tort reform” have taken away our basic right to even seek legal redress in many of our states. “Arbitration” is what our rights have been reduced to, and contrary to its reasonable-sounding name, it is anything but.
I still don’t know how I feel about this case. Part of me, while horrified by the descriptions and photos of the plaintiff’s injuries, still believes that she chose to engage in an unsafe act for which McDonalds should not be held liable. In addition, I don’t believe that the court system should be used to force change in a corporation that continues a practice that results in repeated severe injuries. However, if corporations refuse to manage risk properly, posing a threat to the welfare of the public, how else can that be addressed?
July 31, 2011 @ 1:17 PM
walterwhite wrote:you know
[quote=walterwhite]you know the details on the mcdonals suit? there was a recent documentary on it, it’s in my netflix cue. anyway, it wasn’t hot coffee, it was supermolten coffee that caused i think third degree burns to her genitals. mcdonalds knew it was serving superhot coffee but chose to do so, kinda taking a pinto gas tank risk…it was kind of an interesting situation…[/quote]
Yes. It’s easy for people to summarize it, and say that it was a BS lawsuit because the coffee was hot. That was not the case at all. McDonald’s knew the coffee was well above the recommended temperature, and it caused third-degree burns. IIRC, she had to have skin grafts, etc.
As much as people like to blame lawsuits for the high costs, it’s extremely important for patients/customers to have recourse when a doctor is negligent and causes extremely painful and/or life-long disabilities. Without this recourse, doctors would be even less careful, and these tragic mistakes would multiply. That’s not something I’m willing to tolerate; and yes, I’m willing to pay more so that the doctors are held accountable for their actions.
July 30, 2011 @ 11:39 AM
3rd degree burns over more
3rd degree burns over more than 5% of the skin and being willing to settle for less than the eventual 640k judgement is not a good example of frivolous tort. That case has been so distorted… and resulted in safer practices.
As to the argument that malpractice suits are common… here’s my anecdotal offering… as most of you know we built our granny flat to help in the care of my father in law who’s in a wheelchair. He’s in a wheelchair after going to the hospital for straightforward hip surgery, with robust health and full mental capacity. He came out of the surgery with aphasia of the brain effecting speech, motor skills, and mental faculty. The hospital circled the wagons and refused to release some of the medical records until the PA statute of limitations ran out… My mother in law talked to three attorneys who all refused to take the case because they felt the hospital would effectively stonewall. Of note, the hospital did NOT bill Medicare for the anesthia for the surgery – so we suspect that that’s the area that was botched. 3 lawyers agreed that malpractice had likely occurred, one was willing to take the case for a 200k retainer. 9.5 years later we are still dealing with this… Brain damage is not a acceptable result for hip surgery, IMO.
Here in CA there is tort limits on malpractice… I think it’s 200k plus actual expenses. This has not been adjusted for inflation since it went into effect in the 80’s.
July 30, 2011 @ 12:06 PM
AN wrote:My wife is in the
[quote=AN]My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.[/quote]
I work in the legal field and I can tell you that med-mal is the hardest and most difficult cases to file and you’d be hardpressed to find a good attorney to take on the case unless there is merit and money to be made. I am NOT saying that there aren’t any bogus personal injury cases that are filed against deep pocket companies, such as your example about suing McDonald’s over coffee. Personal injury and med-mal, two totally different things, comparing cantaloupe to tomatoes.
July 30, 2011 @ 12:34 PM
Ok, I’m convinced. Doctors
Ok, I’m convinced. Doctors are over paid and need to take less. The one stats I heard recently was, out of 130 doctors graduating out of UC medical, only 2 were family doctor. I wonder why?
Jp, if med-mal are so uncommon, why is the mal practice insurance so expensive? It seems like if you want government to help reduce cost, government should provide mal practice insurance at a cheap price too.
July 30, 2011 @ 1:54 PM
Malpractice premiums are high
Malpractice premiums are high because insurance companies are in the business of making money. They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums. I am an attorney and agree that medical malpractice claims are extremely tough to win and very hard fought. My dad is a doctor, so I am sympathetic to people in the medical industry, but it is also true that mistakes are made at hospitals (as anyone who’s had a family member in the hospital can probably attest). Those patients that are injured by their caregivers need some form of protection, and medical malpractice suits are all they’v got. Also, I’ll add that the McDonald’s story is worn out, and it’s true that it is frequently mischaracterized as nothing more than a “spilled coffee” suit (just as has been done here). It was more than that, as other people here have tried to explain. That’s not to say that the legal system isn’t imperfect, but it benefits huge corporations (who pay exhorbitant amounts of money to buy teams of lawyers to overwhelm the underfunded little guy) more often than it benefits the less powerful.
Of course, this budget fight has nothing to do with malpractice insurance or malpractice claims or plaintiffs’ suits. It has everything to do with intransigent zealotry and the difficulty of compromising with the narrow-minded.
July 30, 2011 @ 2:33 PM
eavesdropper, please see my
eavesdropper, please see my last post. I agree I had the facts wrong. But like I said, even with the correct facts, I still think it’s frivolous. If McDonalds’ coffee was hot enough to cause 3rd degree burn with normal use, then I would agree that the lawsuit is not frivolous. Like my knife example or if you buy a saw, not put it on proper footing and you have an accident and the saw cut off your hand. Can you sue if they don’t have a sign saying it’s sharp and can cut you?
So, the government should go after the insurance companies for charging too much for mal practice insurance then, since it’s not likely to get sue by mal practice. I do agree that mistakes do happen. We are human after all. I’m not envious of doctors. Their jobs are very stressful and mistakes are more likely to happen when you’re stressed and tired. We all make mistakes in our jobs, and to expect doctors to be free of mistakes is quite unreasonable. It’s one thing if the doctor is maliciously causing hard vs a mistake under pressure.
So, are you guys/gals say that doctors do not practice defensive medicine and they’re just milking their patients?
Back to the original topic, I wonder why Democrats didn’t raise the debt ceiling when they had all 3 branches, especially when they know they’ll have too by 2011 if they don’t.
July 30, 2011 @ 4:35 PM
gromit wrote:Malpractice
[quote=gromit]Malpractice premiums are high because insurance companies are in the business of making money. They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums. [/quote]
gromit, awesome!! Talk about hitting the nail on the head!
The only suggestion I would make is that insurance companies have always been in the business of making money, and have an impressive record of success, I might add. What they have done is to change the business model, and not in a good way.
Insurance, by its very nature, implies the acceptance of risk. 60 or 70 years ago, your success and profitability as an insurer was entirely dependent upon your skill at managing risk. This was accomplished through the employment and utilization of educated and experienced employees: actuaries, statisticians, underwriters, and claims examiners. There was not a single operation of the company in which risk was not carefully – indeed, obsessively – managed.
Without delving too deeply, that is no longer the model and hasn’t been for several decades. Plain and simple, insurance companies do not believe that they have to accept ANY risk. They do not make a profit by managing risk, but by refusing to honor the contracts they have with their policyholders. There is a myriad of methods by which they accomplish this, none of them ethical and only a few that are actually legal. But they spend huge amounts of premium revenue on lobbyists to keep public opinion at just the right temperature, and are equally generous with the crack in-house legal team they maintain to deal with pesky policyholders, and government officials who just won’t play ball. What is clear is that insurance companies engage in highway robbery with the full assistance and endorsement of much of America’s middle class.
Why does NO ONE ever question the role played by the insurance companies? They are right up there next to oil companies in terms of charging outrageous amounts of money for their product, while reporting dizzying levels of profitability each quarter. I do not understand this – it’s not like it’s rocket science. You’ve got journalists, pundits, politicians…all the “experts” examining the problems of high health costs in depth….and not one of them ever delves into the role of the insurance companies. Very, very few even mention the insurance companies as HAVING a role. WTF??!!
[quote=gromit] Of course, this budget fight has nothing to do with malpractice insurance or malpractice claims or plaintiffs’ suits. It has everything to do with intransigent zealotry and the difficulty of compromising with the narrow-minded.[/quote]
Permit me to replace “difficulty” with “impossibility” in what is, otherwise, a beautifully-crafted and disturbingly accurate summing-up of the situation.
July 30, 2011 @ 4:44 PM
gromit wrote:They capitalize
[quote=gromit]They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums.[/quote]
Why can’t doctors practice without malpractice insurance? Is that the law from the government?
July 30, 2011 @ 7:09 PM
They need more money so they
They need more money so they can spend $900 for a $7 switch: Report: U.S. Contractor in Iraq Charges Pentagon $900 for $7 Control Switch, http://fxn.ws/qHqRme
July 30, 2011 @ 8:32 PM
AN wrote:gromit wrote:They
[quote=AN][quote=gromit]They capitalize on the perception of risk, and the fact that doctors cannot practice without having malpractice insurance, to support their exhorbitant premiums.[/quote]
Why can’t doctors practice without malpractice insurance? Is that the law from the government?[/quote]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm.
However, many corporations/health systems require that their personnel carry professional liability insurance, also, so that their liability is limited in cases where charges of malpractice or incompetence are made.
This has been going on for a long, long time; the necessity for professional liability insurance is nothing new. However, about 20 years ago, the premiums began to rise at an astronomical rate. Coincidentally, that’s when you started to hear the “frivolous lawsuit” horror stories. Whether there really had been an exponential increase in the number of lawsuits, or if they had simply been a proactive PR effort on the part of the insurance companies, I’m not sure. Here is an excellent oversight of the situation by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a nonpartisan group that funds a wide variety of healthcare-related research. I definitely recommend reading it if onerous malpractice insurance requirements or tort reform are concerns of yours.
http://www.rwjf.org/pr/product.jsp?id=53988
The fact remains that the insurance companies have benefited enormously from the publicity surrounding malpractice insurance. They managed to create a perception of rampant malpractice lawsuit abuse that far exceeded the reality, that served to justify the necessity for the huge premiums they were charging doctors. Their campaign created such an atmosphere of resentment against all of the (nonexistent) people who were reaping millions from frivolous malpractice lawsuits, that it provided an enormous amount of momentum to politically-motivated “tort reform” legislation that, in reality, severely limited legal and economic redress by those who were seriously injured in genuine acts of medical malpractice.
I was asked earlier how I felt about the additional burden that malpractice premiums placed on high-quality physicians who were being forced to practice defensive medicine. Having worked in this environment, I was aware that, in many cases, the employer places more emphasis on the possibility of lawsuits than many physicians place on themselves. Good physicians are well aware of the reasons why patients choose to pursue litigation, and many are proactive in ways that do not require “defensive” medicine. A significant number of “defensive” medicine practices and regulations are actually set forth by hospitals and health systems, as “risk management” measures meant to reduce their own chances of being sued.
In many cases, decisions/responses by hospitals and health systems in certain circumstances are what trigger an injured patient’s decision to take legal action. In addition, many of these entities are reluctant to take action against obviously impaired or incompetent physicians/practitioners because of staff shortages or personnel costs. In addition, these employers can create an atmosphere of fear in which other personnel will be pressured to cover up for impaired/incompetent practitioners.
Perhaps if the laws were changed where hospitals and health systems were forced to assume all of the risk for any injuries caused by a practitioner in their employ (i.e., the practitioner could not be sued), it would discourage the methods of “risk management” I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Under those circumstances, a hospital might be more vigilant about policing the physicians/practitioners in their employ who had demonstrated impairment or incompetence in the past, and not exposing unknowing patients to the danger of being treated by them.
July 30, 2011 @ 9:10 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
Many
[quote=eavesdropper]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm[/quote]
I don’t know about other profession but I’m 100% sure nurses do not need to get their own insurance. The hospital they work for have their own insurance and it covers their nurses.
But, it seems like the government is giving the insurance company the free ticket to charge whatever price they want, since professional don’t have an option to opt out if it get too expensive.
July 31, 2011 @ 12:36 PM
AN wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=AN][quote=eavesdropper]
Many states require that anyone applying for a license to practice a particular profession be covered by professional liability insurance. This requirement is made of doctors, nurses, psychologists, lawyers, plumbers, contractors, insurance salesmen, financial planners, and a wide range of others. The logic behind this is that the issuance of a license implies some level of oversight, and gives many people a sense of security in hiring an individual or firm[/quote]
I don’t know about other profession but I’m 100% sure nurses do not need to get their own insurance. The hospital they work for have their own insurance and it covers their nurses.
But, it seems like the government is giving the insurance company the free ticket to charge whatever price they want, since professional don’t have an option to opt out if it get too expensive.[/quote]
AN– yes, most state governments require doctors to hold medical malpractice insurance in order to practice.
And yes, you’re right — insurance companies hold all the cards. I mentioned I’m a lawyer, and I had the chance to work for a federal judge, and I can tell you from seeing some of the lawsuits that come through the courthouse that (from my perspective) not only are insurance companies in the business of taking your money in the form of insurance premiums, but they are also in the business of keeping your money in the form of denying coverage if they can help it. Insurance coverage litigation is what it’s called when insurance companies decide to sue you rather than pay. They do it at the big boy level, when there are millions at stake; not so much at the garden variety individual consumer level.
The idea that old people have a chance of getting decent medical insurance from private companies, and that we don’t need Medicare to protect the aging and aged– all I can say is, and I say this with all the eloquence I can muster: HA!!!! Also: AS IF!!! As if there would be policies they could afford that would actually cover any medical condition they might, in the world of reality, develop. As if.
Just my two cents– but I’m a cheapskate, so please don’t waste ’em.
July 30, 2011 @ 12:27 PM
AN wrote:
My wife is in the
[quote=AN]
My wife is in the medical field and she tells me about lawsuits all the time, so it’s more common than you think. Disgruntled patients will sue even when they don’t have a case. If we have people suing McDonald for selling coffee being too hot and make millions, what make you think people won’t sue for something as serious as medical.[/quote]
“In Malpractice Trials, Juries Rarely Have the Last Word” -WSJ Large Awards Grab Attention But Often Aren’t Paid Out; Fodder for Debate on Caps.
“Large malpractice verdicts in New York were typically reduced to between 5% and 10% of the original verdict amount (90-95% reduction from headlines!). … Earlier this year, for instance, the U.S. Department of Justice published a study of medical-malpractice trials and verdicts rendered in 2001 in the nation’s 75 largest counties. Plaintiffs, it found, won only 27% of the time. That win rate, it noted, has changed little in the previous decade and is consistent with other studies that have examined the same issue.”
Ambulance lawyer has 73% chance of losing, so is he going to be able to afford to hire expensive experts, most who are are not affiliated with the hospital or region due to wall of silence for a frivolous case? Logically, one must deduct that most wins are due to at least partial negligence.
http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/archive/05jan/related_05jan_teacher_malpractice.htm
BTW, the McDonalds coffee case plaintiff (age 79, passenger in car) had non-frivolous injuries – 7 days in hospital with third degree burns. Plaintiff wanted $20K, MDC offered $800. Mediator for Judge proposed $200K before trial. Final outcome was private settlement in range of $500K. Note that this was most sympathetic plaintiff you could find. Why did they not privately settle with NDA? They must have wanted to lose the case and use the loss as way to get PR machine for tort reform. Worked perfectly, don’t see any coffee lawsuits today.
http://www.business.txstate.edu/users/ds26/Business%20Law%202361/Misc/McDonalds%20coffee.pdf
July 30, 2011 @ 12:34 PM
Again, ambulance chasers and
Again, ambulance chasers and personal injury and accidents are totally different than medical malpractice where a doctor was negligent. There is a lot involved in proving the standard of care, the injuries, the outright negligence and getting expert witnesses to testify as to the doctor’s errors. A lot of work for not that much money after all said and done. The fear of getting sued might linger over the heads of doctors and cause them to be more careful (as they should be) and as a result, the risk of suit causes higher insurance premiums, but the reality is that there are not many med-mal cases that exist, especially compared to personal injury and/or class action.
July 30, 2011 @ 12:40 PM
So, you’re saying mal
So, you’re saying mal practice suit are uncommon, yet the insurance premium is high. That doesn’t make much sense. Why is that?
July 30, 2011 @ 1:36 PM
AN wrote:So, you’re saying
[quote=AN]So, you’re saying mal practice suit are uncommon, yet the insurance premium is high. That doesn’t make much sense. Why is that?[/quote]
Because before laws changed, there was more money to be made by attorneys. Now there are limits and by the time the attorney pays for expert witnesses (which have increased their hourly to exorbident figures) the attorneys want a clear-cut case that is undisputable negligence. Way easier, quicker and more money to be made by doing class action and P.I. than med-mal. But since the risk is there for the doctors and b/c the med-mal cases that do occur, the payout is high, the insurance companies charge the doctors for the inherent danger, just b/c there is the possibility.
If an attorney has a chance to sue McDonald’s deep pocket w/clear-cut injury, versus working hard on a med-mal for a possible minimal award, the attorney will take the P.I. case. Seriously, the med-mal attorneys are specialists and fewer and fewer and very selective about the cases they take.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:09 PM
Given the transformation of
Given the transformation of the industrial revolution and educational and technological trends over the last 100 years “upward mobility” is very hard to measure. Because there was a general increase in living standards(education, health, access to technology) for everybody. So, it kind of gets blurred with the general material comfort increase and educational gains across the spectrum. The major population-wide educational gains went from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century, then have been receding since then. Interestingly, general population health improvement trends followed pretty closely. It started a little earlier, like 1800, with it peaking in the US, in the late 60s, and receding since then(Americans have been becoming less healthy for 50 years). As an aside, major health gains were made before modern medicine. They were actually achieved with basic public health measures and nutritional improvements.
If you go back 200 or so years ago, only white men were educated in significant amounts. Then the well educated, beyond the basics, were only the upper classes. Also, people only lived to their 40s 200 years ago.
But now, we’ve been banging our heads against the wall for decades. We’ve stopped improving as a society a long time ago and have started to decay. It’s systemic.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:39 PM
Scandinavia also has oil.
Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.
July 29, 2011 @ 4:42 PM
afx114 wrote:Scandinavia also
[quote=afx114]Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.[/quote]
The US was the Saudi Arabia of the 50s. But, yeah, Norway’s unemployment rate hoovers between 2-3% with massive safety nets
July 29, 2011 @ 4:55 PM
Arraya wrote:afx114
[quote=Arraya][quote=afx114]Scandinavia also has oil. That makes everything a lot easier.[/quote]
The US was the Saudi Arabia of the 50s. But, yeah, Norway’s unemployment rate hoovers between 2-3% with massive safety nets[/quote]
What’s Norway’s population and what are their major industries?
July 29, 2011 @ 5:00 PM
I don’t know. They do have a
I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:08 PM
Arraya wrote:I don’t know.
[quote=Arraya]I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.[/quote]
Norway has oil and it makes everything easier for them, but Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands don’t and they are doing well too.
July 29, 2011 @ 5:22 PM
Arraya wrote:I don’t know.
[quote=Arraya]I don’t know. They do have a tiny population in regards to the US. No doubt their nationalized oil endowment makes a huge difference – especially on a per capita basis. It did go into decline, so, It’s not going to last forever.[/quote]
That’s my point exactly. Similar to North Dakota and South Dakota right now with the oil sand. Their unemployment is 3-4% but their population is tiny and the jobs and $ from oil is doing wonder for them. But there’s not enough oil to support the entire US population like it can w/ Norway or North Dakota.
July 27, 2011 @ 5:08 PM
KSMountain wrote:If you
[quote=KSMountain]If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
What if you honestly believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle? That there are steep, rocky paths to success for those with ability, but the affluent enjoy wide, broad flat streets and open doors? That who you know is often more important than what you know, and who you know is a product of money and power?
The “Google Guys” were the son of two computer science professors and the son of highly educated former soviet PhDs. I’d be willing to bet the Burt’s Bees lady got a lot of financial support from her family in starting her business. Steve Jobs, while adopted, grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. Mark Zuckerberg is the child of a Doctor and a Dentist. Obviously it didn’t hurt to have good genes, but do any of us think Zuckerberg would have gone to Harvard if he grew up in a household making $50,000 a year?
Is the US the land of opportunity? Certainly. Is it a level playing field? Not even close. I’m grateful for the programs we do have for education; I personally benefited greatly from opportunities paid for by federal tax dollars. I’d love to see those kinds of programs expanded. We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.
July 28, 2011 @ 3:49 AM
poorgradstudent
[quote=poorgradstudent][quote=KSMountain]If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
What if you honestly believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle? That there are steep, rocky paths to success for those with ability, but the affluent enjoy wide, broad flat streets and open doors? That who you know is often more important than what you know, and who you know is a product of money and power?
The “Google Guys” were the son of two computer science professors and the son of highly educated former soviet PhDs. I’d be willing to bet the Burt’s Bees lady got a lot of financial support from her family in starting her business. Steve Jobs, while adopted, grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood. Mark Zuckerberg is the child of a Doctor and a Dentist. Obviously it didn’t hurt to have good genes, but do any of us think Zuckerberg would have gone to Harvard if he grew up in a household making $50,000 a year?
Is the US the land of opportunity? Certainly. Is it a level playing field? Not even close. I’m grateful for the programs we do have for education; I personally benefited greatly from opportunities paid for by federal tax dollars. I’d love to see those kinds of programs expanded. We have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.[/quote]
Good post, poorgradstudent. You are exactly right.
For every “success” story that gets bandied about (gotta keep that dream alive, so the unwashed masses will continue to vote against their own best interests), there are tens of thousands who have failed.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with founder-CEO types, who grow their own businesses, making millions/billions of dollars. That being said, if they want the limited liability provided by our legal system, then their rewards should be limited as well. If you want all the gains, you have to personally take all the risks, as well.
I DO have a problem with transient CEOs who just move from one corporation to the next — many of whom never seem to succeed, but always manage to find a new million-dollar+ position (because of connections, not talent); and I DO have a problem with parasites in the financial industry who simply profit from making speculative bets for a living — especially when they are the ones demanding to pay lower taxes than those who actually work for a living. Why in the world are these people paying lower taxes than those who work for a living?
I’ve never said anything about the “$250K club” being “rich.” That’s not at all what I’m referring to. IMHO, we need a steeply progressive income tax that begins to really take off after $1MM/year. Again, there can be exceptions for windfall profits, etc. by smoothing earnings over a few years, or something of that nature, but we cannot continue to pretend that speculators are entitled to 15% tax rates (or lower), while workers are asked to foot the bill for their reduced tax rates.
July 28, 2011 @ 4:18 AM
KSMountain wrote:jpinpb
[quote=KSMountain][quote=jpinpb][quote=Vod-Vil]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro_4bS7Wtok[/quote]
Says it all and then some.[/quote]
I *love* George Carlin. He’s been making me laugh since the 70’s.
But that particular piece is defeatist.
With that worldview, how do you explain the success of the google guys, or the yahoo guys, all of whom became billionaires starting while they were in school? They were not part of any nefarious “cabal” when they started, and “the man” did not hold them back. Same with Apple.
To take a non-tech example, how about the Burt’s Bees lady: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_Quimby
I think jp, you’ve actually hit on a crux here: If you believe the deck is structurally stacked against you in this country, of course you’d be angry at “the rich”. If you believe though that opportunity is wide open here for upward mobility for the clever, the hard working, the risk takers, the perceptive, or just the lucky, and if you’ve done it yourself or seen it yourself, if you know people who have who have started successful businesses or careers from very little and then pondered what led to their success, then perhaps you arrive at a different mindset.[/quote]
I’ve known quite a few people who have done very well for themselves in this country, and even more who have failed. So much of it is pure luck, and a lot of it involves having the right connections at the right time.
It’s also true that this was once a country where people could work hard and get ahead. They could work for the same employer for all/most of their working years, and retire with a comfortable pension. With their wages, they were able to buy a home for their family, a car, college for the kids, and the odd vacation. Those days are long gone, and it’s almost entirely due to the fact that these jobs have moved overseas because of cheap (not superior) labor, and a government that is 99% owned by the corporations/capitalists (those who make money via “investing,” as opposed to those who work for a living).
We have been royally screwed, and the credit bubble was used to mask the deterioration of the working middle class. Because of the credit bubble — and all the ensuing bailouts — we now have inflation that has destroyed what little purchasing power U.S. workers had left.
Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.
July 28, 2011 @ 8:14 AM
CA renter wrote:Again, all of
[quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU!
July 28, 2011 @ 10:34 AM
jpinpb wrote:CA renter
[quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.
July 28, 2011 @ 11:53 AM
surveyor wrote:jpinpb
[quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
NAILED IT 😀
July 28, 2011 @ 12:31 PM
Surveyor, it’s always the
Surveyor, it’s always the same broken record no matter the economic conditions, boom or bust.
Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion of unused cash right now.
Stop listening to that and look at how the policies affect you.
*
Back on topic to the debt ceiling.
Obama pretty much caved and gave the Republicans nothing but cuts. So what’s their problem. What else do they want?
It looks like the Republicans, by holding the economy hostage, won this battle. Let’s see how they do in the 2012 elections.
July 28, 2011 @ 1:19 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Corporations
[quote=briansd1]
Corporations are sitting on $2 trillion of unused cash right now.
[/quote]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. Railing about the evil of corporations and talking about taxing them more will certainly not do it.
[quote=briansd1]
Obama pretty much caved and gave the Republicans nothing but cuts. So what’s their problem. What else do they want?
It looks like the Republicans, by holding the economy hostage, won this battle. Let’s see how they do in the 2012 elections.[/quote]
Oh, I think they will do just fine Brian.
July 28, 2011 @ 1:40 PM
surveyor wrote: Railing about
[quote=surveyor] Railing about the evil of corporations and talking about taxing them more will certainly not do it.
[/quote]
Nobody said that corporations are evil.
What strikes me as really odd is that Republicans rail against the bailouts.
The bailouts are done with and cannot be undone. So do we give the banks a free ride? Or do we tax them to recover the bailout money and risk taxpayers took too bail them out.
Republicans should stop railing against bailouts if they won’t do anything to fix the situation.
July 28, 2011 @ 3:49 PM
Corporations are short-term,
Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.
July 28, 2011 @ 4:04 PM
Arraya wrote:Corporations are
[quote=Arraya]Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.[/quote]
How does it feel to work(ed) for a sociopath?
July 28, 2011 @ 4:07 PM
Arraya wrote:Corporations are
[quote=Arraya]Corporations are short-term, profit-maximizers that have proven time and time again that they are untrustworthy. Since, we like to anthropomorphize them, they show behaviors similar to sociopaths.[/quote]
Yes. They are profit maximizers. That is why they exist – people put money in corporations because they want to make money. Failure to attempt to maximize value for shareholders is a failure of the BoD and officers of the corporation to fulfill their fiduciary duty, and gives rise to lawsuits.
The problem is that people look to corporations for purposes for which they were not designed. Corps are required to act legally, but they are not designed to support the public good (unless that goal is directly written into their articles of incorporation.) Some do illegal things, but almost every business that you deal with is a corporation – do you really think all businesses are the equivalent of sociopaths? Ralph’s Supermarket? In-and-Out Burger? Bed, Bath and Beyond? It might be very exciting and dramatic to say that, but I don’t think it’s true.
July 28, 2011 @ 5:32 PM
I understand Arraya better
I understand Arraya better now.
He’s talking about the big picture, over decades. I agree with Arraya that corporations are a flaw in our system. Over the longer term, they are like sociopaths. We need to fix that flaw lest we endanger our long-term survival.
I believe that Arraya is saying that what works well in the short-term to medium-term might have destructive effects as they take on their own lives. Corporations are legal beings that never die.
Arraya is thinking at a higher level. That’s too lofty for me. It’s also hard for me to relate to the big picture over decades and centuries (as Arraya does when talking class stuggles and wealth/power worship by the poor).
I’d rather concentrate on the nitty gritty of everyday life and deal with what affects my life.
I enjoy Arraya’s comments because they make me think about the human character. I agree that humans need to evolve to a science-based society, otherwise, one-day we will destroy ourselves.
July 30, 2011 @ 8:35 AM
surveyor wrote:
Where would
[quote=surveyor]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. [/quote]
Business will tell you that don’t have enough demand. Capital is not a problem right now. Thanks to the central banks, there’s a glut of capital throughout the world.
July 30, 2011 @ 9:00 AM
briansd1 wrote:surveyor
[quote=briansd1][quote=surveyor]
Where would $2 trillion generate more money, in the U.S. or elsewhere? Change the answer to the U.S. and the $2 trillion will not be an issue. [/quote]
Business will tell you that don’t have enough demand. Capital is not a problem right now. Thanks to the central banks, there’s a glut of capital throughout the world.
[/quote]
More debt! More Advertising! We gotta keep the machine rolling!
Which is why the average american household tripled it’s debt in the last 30 years – to increase demand. Now, how did they know they needed to spend more to help the economy out? What could have possibly made them “chose” to change their consumption patterns from all of history ?
And the big question is: When the consumers are all up to their eyeballs in debt AND stuff… With mass bankruptcies and foreclosures abound. How do we get them to buy more stuff!
As I have said before. It is, ultimately, about demand. The economy runs on the assumption that their will always be enough demand to move enough money around so the system does not seize up. With larger and larger amounts of money and stuff, needed to be moved around, because of it’s exponential function. It’s a runaway train on a dark stormy night that just past a bridge out sign – that has resorted to pumping trillions of borrowed dollars into the economy just to keep it from falling apart and we still have anemic GDP!
Ah, the death of a consumption based economy. It’s going to be ugly, but it has to happen.
So who has a plan B?
July 30, 2011 @ 10:14 AM
Arraya wrote:
So who has a
[quote=Arraya]
So who has a plan B?[/quote]
Plan A should have been for the Fed to target higher inflation 3% to 4%, around the levels we had during the Reagan years. It could have done this by stating an inflation target and printing money until it was achieved. That could have been combined with a much larger fiscal stimulus that would take advantage of the extremely low (at different points essentially zero or even negative) interest rates that the US gov’t would have to pay on borrowing. If we were to do that, private debt would effectively gradually reduce, the economy would get going again from the stimulus, and as the stimulus wore off inflation would have reduced the effective debt people owned, helping the economy to keep going. Meanwhile the US gov’t tax revenues would go up as the economy picked up, and would go up more when we raised taxes. So we’d pay back the debt we owed putting the gov’t fiscal situation in order, people would be back to work, and we would have improved our physical infrastructure, laying the groundwork for growth for years to come.
July 30, 2011 @ 10:32 AM
Arraya wrote:
Ah, the
[quote=Arraya]
Ah, the death of a consumption based economy. It’s going to be ugly, but it has to happen.
So who has a plan B?[/quote]
We had 3 pillars of the global system. European stability, US consumption and Chinese growth.
The Chinese are now having problems creating a consumer economy to take the pressure off of America. Their intervention has resulted in a property bubble in China.
Europe is teetering and America is dysfunctional.
I guess plan B is to buy time and prevent the world economy from collapsing.
Eventually, China will become a big consumer market. India and other developing nations will also help.
In fits and starts, and ethnic and religious clashes, Europe will reform, increase immigration to build a younger population base and create more demand.
The USA, while in decline, will continue to provide economic and military stability. We will be facing similar problems to Europe as our population ages. But we still have a younger population and we can more easily increase immigration (with all the problems that creates).
Our big problem is health care. Who will pay and care for all the sick and obese Americans who will be handicapped in older age?
Thanks to the Tea Party, we will see cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and perhaps an indefinite delay in the implementation of health care reform.
I believe that in a few decades as Americans age, they will come to regret not having a “government-run health-care system.” But it will too late for them.
The wealth gap will continue to widen. Disenchanted Whites will continue to feel angry and throw their support to a Tea Party that works against their own economic interests, while at the same time railing against immigrants, Muslims and gays.
Michele Bachman could become vice-president to the next Republican president.
There could be revolution and regime change in China. That would throw a wrench in world economic growth but it will be good for American power.
Africa is potentially a next area for growth.
All in all, things won’t be easy but I believe that, with the right policies, we can keep economic growth going for another 50 to 100 years.
*
As much as people want to blame Obama, he’s just the fireman trying to put out fires to stabilize the system.
The self-induced debt ceiling crisis is making the economy worse, not better.
Cutting spending is the worse thing right now. The US government can borrow cheaply and can be a source of demand. American infrastructure is falling apart and it’s time to rebuild it.
I wonder if the Republicans care about the economy (as they claim they do), or they just care about sticking it to Obama.
BTW, I agree with mlarsen23 that the Fed should have done more.
July 30, 2011 @ 11:21 AM
Arraya wrote:
More debt!
[quote=Arraya]
More debt! More Advertising! We gotta keep the machine rolling!
Which is why the average american household tripled it’s debt in the last 30 years – to increase demand. Now, how did they know they needed to spend more to help the economy out? What could have possibly made them “chose” to change their consumption patterns from all of history ?[/quote]
You’re right Arraya, the growth of credit in America in the last 30 years has been amazing. Car sales would plunge if people had to put large downpayments like in the old days.
20% on house purchases? Unthinkable. The real estate industry would not stand for that.
Plan B? Give the Chinese credit to buy stuff. TPTB might be able to pull it off and create a consumer society in China. That will carry the world economy for another 50 years.
July 30, 2011 @ 2:58 PM
Arraya wrote: So who has a
[quote=Arraya] So who has a plan B?[/quote]
I do. Decriminalize drug use. At least marijuana.
We have lots of farmland; not nearly as much as fifty years back, but a goodly amount.
Let’s direct some research dollars to marijuana growing methods, and figure out how to grow the best grass in the world. Get Madison Avenue to use their incomparable marketing skills to push product globally.
Result: $$$$$$$$. Won’t last forever, but will help get us back on our feet until such time as we can turn our bad habits of the past around, and establish a new economy that is appropriate for the 21st century, instead of the early 20th century model to which we’ve been clinging.
What bad habits? Let’s see:
Aside from bemoaning the “loss of manufacturing”…
1. Looking to the undereducated, immature, “win-at-all-costs” idiots in Congress to fix what’s wrong. Seriously!! Many of them aren’t even aware of what IS wrong.
2. Stop looking for government handouts. This means all you people who loudly complain about “entitlement programs” at the same time you are benefiting from them. Social Security disability, SSI, food stamps, tax exemptions limited to small segments of the population, subsidies, Section 8 provisions (renters and landlords), school grants, government employees who charge nonexistent overtime and expenses…..the list goes on and on. And I’m not limiting the list to those who benefit from these things directly. If you have someone in your family who is drawing disability who doesn’t deserve it, or who is using school grant funds but never studies, or attends class, or who receives food stamps but manages to go gambling every weekend in Atlantic City, you’re a deadbeat as much as they are. We have ALL developed a sense of entitlement, and it frequently stems from being envious that the next guy is getting something that you’re not. Shit, get OVER it!
3. Start taking responsibility for our carelessly-spawned offspring. This means that you first have to stop being afraid of your toddler or second-grader. I mean, HOW does this happen? What I do know is that if you don’t stop being afraid of them now, you WILL have reason to be afraid of them in a few short years. And so will the rest of us.
Be a freakin’ PARENT already!
4. Start getting involved in your kids’ education. They are only in academics-oriented activities in school for about 16 to 20 hours a WEEK. Even if your kid was the only one that the teacher was responsible for, that wouldn’t be nearly enough time for him to learn what he needs. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one: there are 15 to 25 other kids just like yours in that same unfortunate teacher’s care, and they are all just as loud-mouthed, disrespectful, and disobedient as your brat is. Tell me again how this school thing is supposed to work?
Do your job, and participate in the education of your kids. Keep abreast of what they are studying in school, and how they are keeping up. Make sure that you are (1) aware of their assignments, (2) that they are actually doing them, and (3) that the quality of their work is age- and grade-appropriate. Do NOT make excuses for them, or rag on their teachers when they are “punished” for bad behavior. That’s not parenting. It’s not even “being your kids’ friend”. It’s saying, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you now, or your ability to survive life in the future”.
5. While you’re at it, recognize the gaps in your own education. If you aren’t helping your 4th grader with her math homework because you don’t understand it, or her social studies project because your reading comprehension skills fall short of being able to understand the teacher’s directions, DO something about it! BTW, I could be wrong, but it might have something to do with your ability to get or maintain a decent job. I’m just sayin’….
If we, as a nation, don’t stop burying our head in the sand (which we ARE doing by listening and believing the self-serving lies and inaccuracies of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and polarizing politicians, rather than having the balls to think for ourselves based on efforts to seek out the truth on our own), we are fucked. Excuse the expression, but I can’t think of one that expresses it better.
We’re in the shape we’re in because we didn’t face up to our responsibilities. We continue to claim the superiority of the U.S., but it is always based on the accomplishments of an earlier generation. The sad fact is that we took the hard-won accomplishments of that generation, and, essentially, flushed them down the toilet. We used them as a way to assert superiority rather than as our ancestors meant: a springboard from which we could launch a technology-based future that would result in sociological and economic advantages for our citizenry.
I’ll admit that we’re down, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say that we’re out. But we have to administer CPR now! We have to admit OUR mistakes, instead of blaming the “other guys”. We have to take personal responsibility, and we have to envision an austere, albeit rewarding, future that will not mirror our gluttonous past.
So I say let’s jump start the economy by legalizing grass, not only enjoying the fruits of a growth industry, but also saving the costs of fighting a losing battle against it.
July 30, 2011 @ 3:21 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Arraya
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=Arraya] So who has a plan B?[/quote]
I do. Decriminalize drug use. At least marijuana.
We have lots of farmland; not nearly as much as fifty years back, but a goodly amount.
Let’s direct some research dollars to marijuana growing methods, and figure out how to grow the best grass in the world. Get Madison Avenue to use their incomparable marketing skills to push product globally.
Result: $$$$$$$$. Won’t last forever, but will help get us back on our feet until such time as we can turn our bad habits of the past around, and establish a new economy that is appropriate for the 21st century, instead of the early 20th century model to which we’ve been clinging.
What bad habits? Let’s see:
Aside from bemoaning the “loss of manufacturing”…
1. Looking to the undereducated, immature, “win-at-all-costs” idiots in Congress to fix what’s wrong. Seriously!! Many of them aren’t even aware of what IS wrong.
2. Stop looking for government handouts. This means all you people who loudly complain about “entitlement programs” at the same time you are benefiting from them. Social Security disability, SSI, food stamps, tax exemptions limited to small segments of the population, subsidies, Section 8 provisions (renters and landlords), school grants, government employees who charge nonexistent overtime and expenses…..the list goes on and on. And I’m not limiting the list to those who benefit from these things directly. If you have someone in your family who is drawing disability who doesn’t deserve it, or who is using school grant funds but never studies, or attends class, or who receives food stamps but manages to go gambling every weekend in Atlantic City, you’re a deadbeat as much as they are. We have ALL developed a sense of entitlement, and it frequently stems from being envious that the next guy is getting something that you’re not. Shit, get OVER it!
3. Start taking responsibility for our carelessly-spawned offspring. This means that you first have to stop being afraid of your toddler or second-grader. I mean, HOW does this happen? What I do know is that if you don’t stop being afraid of them now, you WILL have reason to be afraid of them in a few short years. And so will the rest of us.
Be a freakin’ PARENT already!
4. Start getting involved in your kids’ education. They are only in academics-oriented activities in school for about 16 to 20 hours a WEEK. Even if your kid was the only one that the teacher was responsible for, that wouldn’t be nearly enough time for him to learn what he needs. Unfortunately, he’s not the only one: there are 15 to 25 other kids just like yours in that same unfortunate teacher’s care, and they are all just as loud-mouthed, disrespectful, and disobedient as your brat is. Tell me again how this school thing is supposed to work?
Do your job, and participate in the education of your kids. Keep abreast of what they are studying in school, and how they are keeping up. Make sure that you are (1) aware of their assignments, (2) that they are actually doing them, and (3) that the quality of their work is age- and grade-appropriate. Do NOT make excuses for them, or rag on their teachers when they are “punished” for bad behavior. That’s not parenting. It’s not even “being your kids’ friend”. It’s saying, “I don’t give a rat’s ass about you now, or your ability to survive life in the future”.
5. While you’re at it, recognize the gaps in your own education. If you aren’t helping your 4th grader with her math homework because you don’t understand it, or her social studies project because your reading comprehension skills fall short of being able to understand the teacher’s directions, DO something about it! BTW, I could be wrong, but it might have something to do with your ability to get or maintain a decent job. I’m just sayin’….
If we, as a nation, don’t stop burying our head in the sand (which we ARE doing by listening and believing the self-serving lies and inaccuracies of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and polarizing politicians, rather than having the balls to think for ourselves based on efforts to seek out the truth on our own), we are fucked. Excuse the expression, but I can’t think of one that expresses it better.
We’re in the shape we’re in because we didn’t face up to our responsibilities. We continue to claim the superiority of the U.S., but it is always based on the accomplishments of an earlier generation. The sad fact is that we took the hard-won accomplishments of that generation, and, essentially, flushed them down the toilet. We used them as a way to assert superiority rather than as our ancestors meant: a springboard from which we could launch a technology-based future that would result in sociological and economic advantages for our citizenry.
I’ll admit that we’re down, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say that we’re out. But we have to administer CPR now! We have to admit OUR mistakes, instead of blaming the “other guys”. We have to take personal responsibility, and we have to envision an austere, albeit rewarding, future that will not mirror our gluttonous past.
So I say let’s jump start the economy by legalizing grass, not only enjoying the fruits of a growth industry, but also saving the costs of fighting a losing battle against it.[/quote]
I agree with all of this. I’d also add to cut military spending by at least 1/2 and bring back all of our troops. Other 1st world countries can defend themselves. We can eliminate the department of education and put the power back to the parents and implement the voucher system. Give parents the choice to choose between public, charter, or private schools. We can remove pension for all future public employees. We can cap the pay of all public employee to be no more than the president of the USA. We can remove all tax deductions and lower the tax rates for both personal and corporations. Remove Fannie and Freddy. Let all corporation knows that we no longer bail out anyone. If you fail due to taking too high of a risk, you’ll fail.
July 30, 2011 @ 7:34 PM
AN wrote: I agree with all of
[quote=AN] I agree with all of this. I’d also add to cut military spending by at least 1/2 and bring back all of our troops. Other 1st world countries can defend themselves. We can eliminate the department of education and put the power back to the parents and implement the voucher system. Give parents the choice to choose between public, charter, or private schools. We can remove pension for all future public employees. We can cap the pay of all public employee to be no more than the president of the USA. We can remove all tax deductions and lower the tax rates for both personal and corporations. Remove Fannie and Freddy. Let all corporation knows that we no longer bail out anyone. If you fail due to taking too high of a risk, you’ll fail.[/quote]
AN, I totally agree that there is more than enough room for improvement in the schools. But, as a child who was educated primarily in parochial schools (at great personal sacrifice on the part of my parents), and as an adult who raised four children, utilizing both public and private schools along the way, I have never wavered in my perception of “voucher plans” as just another entitlement program.
The public school system is just that: education for the public at large, paid for by the public at large. If someone desires something different from what is being taught in that system, they need to pony up the resources necessary to move into the private school system.
In discussions on voucher systems, I typically see two motivations voiced:
1. They are upset by the content of the school curriculum, or by what they perceive as a lack of necessary content, particularly that events in history are being presented without the necessary social or religious context, or that science classes should include teachings that are derived from religious beliefs as opposed to proven scientific theory.
2. Parents and interested individuals are upset that school curricula are deteriorating, and children are not learning at the rate they should. Drop-out rates are increasing, and even student who graduate high school at the tops of their classes are often not adequately prepared for the academic challenges they will encounter at college.
In general, I have a problem with both lines of reasoning. Truthfully, I see a relatively small group of people saying, “I want to send my children to a school where their philosophies of the administration and teachers mirror mine, but I want the government to pay for it” (which translates into “I want this for my children, but not badly enough to pay for it”).
The fact of the matter is that the concerns raised in both these lines of reasoning can be addressed in a way that should also be used in correcting the shortcomings of the nation’s public school system. MORE PARENT INVOLVEMENT!
As long as parents see public schools as day care, not recognizing the essential nature of a complete education for their children, and do not care to even spend the time to ensure that their children are actually learning, the schools will not change. And It wouldn’t matter if they DID change, at least the physical changes enabled by more money. You could spend 10 times more, have the latest equipment and facilities, and employ the best and brightest teachers. You’d have a model environment for learning, but students would continue to receive low test scores, drop out in high numbers, and even the grads would remain functionally illiterate.
Schools will not improve until we, as a society, not only recognize their value, but also acknowledge their limitations. Schools are an extremely valuable resource for which parents, as individual taxpayers, pay very little. They should not be seen as an automatic right, but as a privilege, the existence of which is enabled by the taxes of millions of non-parents. To that end, I believe that:
— children entering the school system should be interviewed and receive behavioral testing. If they are lacking in maturity, remedial therapy is administered until they are able to behave appropriately in a classroom.
— parents are held responsible for their children’s actions. Period. Demanding that parents pay for the bad deeds of the children they spawned, but neglected, tends to get their attention.
— academic expectations (and repercussions for failure to meet them) are established at the start of each semester (grades 1 – 12), and communicated to parents and students.
— parent(s) and student both sign off on this academic contract. Failure to do so will result in the student being denied admission to classes.
— teachers are free from interference in their grading decisions as long as they adhere to the academic contract.
— students that are disruptive/disobedient in class are immediately escorted from the classroom by school security, and placed in a supervised detention area.
— there is a limit of two classroom removals per marking period. The third violation will result in expulsion for the remainder of school year. The parent will be responsible for paying for private schooling for their child during the period of expulsion.
— a second expulsion will result in permanent termination of access to the public school system.
I realize that this sounds harsh, but if we do not lay down expectations of behavior and academic achievement in our schools, our children will not learn. Period. Teachers need to be able to focus on teaching, and students need to be in an environment that is conducive to learning. Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?
July 30, 2011 @ 8:32 PM
I’m neither part of group 1
I’m neither part of group 1 nor group two. If you want to remove the private school part from the voucher system, then I’m fine with that too. I take the Finnish’s voucher system as an example of why I think voucher system is superior to ours. They are the #1 school system after all.
The reason why I add private school into the equation is because I view as a society, we should educate our kids anyway we can. I also believe parents should have the ultimate control of where to send their kids. We all pay taxes, so why can’t the education fund be tied to the student instead of the local schools? If the parents feel the local school is not doing a good job, why can’t they have a choice to take their tax money to another school.
Even without private school as part of the solution, why can’t parents who care send their kids to a better school? The way we have now, there is no competition between school, so there’s no real incentive to improve. Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. Also, voucher system allow parents who don’t have the funds to buy a house in the better school area to send their kids to the better school. We are currently keeping down the poorer student from getting the best possible education because they can’t afford to buy in a better area.
Although schools have its limitation, we’re hardly close to the limit. If we’re #1 in the world, then I might agree with you, but we’re not. We can take note from the Finnish system. The Finnish system does not have the harsh behavior expectation you mentioned, yet they’re doing just fine.
What would you do with those students who you escort out of the classrooms? There are plenty of students who are bad. Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? If you can implement that, then I’m sure most schools will be great, since you basically removed all the bad students. But what will we do with those bad students?
July 30, 2011 @ 11:03 PM
AN wrote: The reason why I
[quote=AN] The reason why I add private school into the equation is because I view as a society, we should educate our kids anyway we can. I also believe parents should have the ultimate control of where to send their kids. [/quote]
Remind me again how it is that you do not have that control now?
And why do your beliefs mean that I should share in the responsibility of paying YOUR child’s private school tuition?
[quote=AN] We all pay taxes, so why can’t the education fund be tied to the student instead of the local schools? If the parents feel the local school is not doing a good job, why can’t they have a choice to take their tax money to another school.[/quote]
Education is a huge undertaking. The problem is that there are certain fixed costs that cannot be divided in real life among separate students. Rough example: A district builds a school for 400 students. 3 years later, the parents of 125 students decide the school isn’t meeting the needs of their children. The reason: their parents don’t like the fact that they’re being taught human reproduction, including how contraception works (the physiology of contraception; they are NOT handing out condoms), in their biology class. But out of the 125 kids, the parents of 40 of them also are upset that intelligent design is not taught in the school.
All of a sudden, you need three school facilities instead of one. Your existing school has tax revenue from 275 students instead of 400. In addition, I’m not sure how you’re going to build and staff schools from the tax revenue for 85 students and 40 students.
Simplistic explanation, I know, but the idea under it all is that it’s a waste of already scarce resources.
[quote=AN] The way we have now, there is no competition between school, so there’s no real incentive to improve. Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. [/quote]
An, first I have to ask you to qualify the statement that begins, “If a school is failing…”. You’re a parent of a child at the school. What characterizes the school as “failing”?
Aside from that, I tried to address the “competition” issue in my earlier post. Do you honestly think that there is a school out there, especially one with academically-struggling students, that is totally satisfied with their facility and its performance? That isn’t already feeling like they are trying to keep up with schools that have better records? How exactly is removing students (along with their respective tax revenues) from a school going to foster a sense of competition?
Again, schools have students in a classroom setting for about 4 to 4.5 hours per day. For the remaining 19 or 20 hours per day, those students are exposed to a wide variety of living conditions and influences. There aren’t enough hours in a school setting for a student to both receive basic instruction and to use the information so that it becomes a permanent part of their intellectual inventory. In addition, teachers cannot force students to learn. What students are exposed to for that other 20 hours per day, combined with how much emotional and physical support they receive from their parents, makes a HUGE difference in how they progress in school.
[quote=AN] Voucher system inject competition into the public school system. If a school is failing, parents will have an option to send their kids to better schools. Also, voucher system allow parents who don’t have the funds to buy a house in the better school area to send their kids to the better school. We are currently keeping down the poorer student from getting the best possible education because they can’t afford to buy in a better area.[/quote]
My understanding of the voucher system was that part of the alternative (private) school tuition would be paid, not the entire amount. If it is a case where the ENTIRE amount is paid, I truly do not understand how the cost will be covered by the government. Is there a voucher-supporting conservative out there who can explain that to me?
As for whether it’s transferring from one public school to another in a “better” area, I cannot comprehend how that’s going to work. The planning of education, like any broadscale public service, requires short- AND long-term planning and forecasting. Students can’t be shifted around willy-nilly, per the whims of their parents.
In addition, you mention “poor” students. What income level are we talking about here? In reality, genuinely poor families are concerned with keeping a roof over their children’s heads, and food in their bellies. I’m fairly sure that most of them are happy just to have a place to drop their kids off in the morning before they go to one of their minimum wage jobs. I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t imagine the parent coming home from work at 2:30 am and pulling out the real estate map so that they can evaluate the relative benefits of one school district over another. Also you need to recognize the added burden that traveling a distance to a “better” school takes on a young student who comes from a poor family.
I’m sorry, but many of the justifications you provide here don’t seem to be motivated by a concern for better schools, or opportunities for the poor. As I said earlier, every argument I hear for vouchers melts down to a middle-class parent who wants their kid to have access to a private school education on the government dime (i.e., entitlement program??), or else someone that wants their church’s bible study/sunday school converted into a full-time facility with government-paid tuition. In reality, this proposal will benefit the upper middle class, not the poor or the lower middle class.
[quote=AN] We can take note from the Finnish system. The Finnish system does not have the harsh behavior expectation you mentioned, yet they’re doing just fine.[/quote]
I can’t speak as to the superior qualities of the Finnish schools, but would be very interested in finding out more. Do you have any links to websites that give some detail?
As for “harsh behavior expectations”, do you have first-hand experience with the Finnish system, and familiarity with their policies? That is, were you a student there, or did you have children in the Finnish system?
Many times, people see article describing educational systems in other countries, in which the students are doing very well. They wonder aloud why we can’t do that here in the United States, and from there it’s a quick descent into a fact-free blamefest: “It’s the teachers’ union that caused it all” “It’s the welfare kids that go to the school”, or my personal favorite, “It’s because they took God out of the schools”. Excuse me, but I’m all full up on anecdotal “evidence”.
In some countries of the world, education is afforded a place of high priority. It IS a privilege in some places, and the people recognize that. In many nations, behavior like that exhibited by many of today’s elementary and high school students would not be tolerated. The “rules” may not be in writing, especially in places where parents make sure that their children learn respect for their elders at an early age.
[quote=AN] What would you do with those students who you escort out of the classrooms? There are plenty of students who are bad. Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? If you can implement that, then I’m sure most schools will be great, since you basically removed all the bad students. But what will we do with those bad students?[/quote]
Yes, there are plenty of “bad” students….or, at least, students who frequently demonstrate bad behavior. My point is that they do it because they CAN do it. More and more students have no idea how to behave in the classroom, and for quite a few, it’s appropriate behavior to loudly express your resentment at having to be in the classroom when you would much rather be at the mall. Have you been in an American high school in the past five years? The students are not only openly disrespectful of their teachers, but they will often refuse to follow the instructions of their teachers, and carry on loud conversations that are disruptive, and keep other students in the classroom from learning.
You ask, “Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? “. I hope not. But the fact is that we currently have a society where a large portion of the citizenry is uneducated, either because they didn’t give a crap about their own education, or because their teachers were powerless to remove them from the class when they were loud and disruptive, and this prevented other students from learning. And it’s getting worse every year.
The responsibility for disciplining students, and teaching them to respect others and how to behave in a classroom is NOT the job of the school or the teacher. It is the sole responsibility of the parent, one from which they have completely abdicated. We should be discouraging that abdication of responsibility by refusing to tolerate the unacceptable behavior of their children in our schools.
Instead we dump these uncivilized cretins in the classroom, and tell the teachers that it’s their problem. And the people who are actually at the root of the problem – namely, the PARENTS – aren’t held accountable. So where is the motivation for them to change their irresponsible habits?
Parents see schools as government-sponsored daycare for their kids. That attitude needs to change. Education is a privilege, and if you don’t care enough to teach your children how to behave in a school, and make sure that they ARE behaving there, then you don’t get to take advantage of the privilege. Education isn’t daycare, and teachers aren’t babysitters.
July 30, 2011 @ 11:08 PM
I am middle class, I don’t
I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?
July 30, 2011 @ 11:25 PM
Were eavesdropper and BG
Were eavesdropper and BG seperated at birth?
July 31, 2011 @ 8:06 PM
sdrealtor wrote:Were
[quote=sdrealtor]Were eavesdropper and BG seperated at birth?[/quote]
Ooh, sdr, can’t tell if that’s a yea or nay on what I’ve posted.
However, I will tell you that, while we were not separated at birth, we are very close in age and, I suspect, our cultural backgrounds.
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!!
July 31, 2011 @ 8:44 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
All I
[quote=eavesdropper]
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!![/quote]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.
August 1, 2011 @ 12:02 AM
They struck a deal. I knew
They struck a deal. I knew they would. This is all political show. It has been going on for the last 25+ years. It doesn’t matter which party has the presidency, the other party would say no and debt ceiling get raised. Here’s a cool video from CNN:
http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2011/07/31/natpkg.debt.us.years.cnn.html
As you can see, during Reagan administration, Democrats were the one who were tooting deficit. Today, it’s the Republicans who are tooting deficit. Nothing has changed in the last 25+ years with regards to debt ceiling. Why can’t they just raise it to $10000000T and be done with it, especially when Democrats has all 3 branches a few years ago.
August 1, 2011 @ 1:41 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=eavesdropper]
All I know is that when I read that one of her most prized possessions as a teenager was a multicolored leather and rabbit fur jacket that she wore with a halter top, incredibly wide bell bottoms, and platform shoes, I knew that I had found my fashion mentor. Love ya, BG!![/quote]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.[/quote]
Okay, Allan, simmer down. I wouldn’t want you to be too disillusioned.
I will clarify, and say (truthfully) that I never wore a rabbit-fur coat during that era, and, what’s more, I thought they were pretty cheesy.
I was more a “Blackglama” type of gal
http://www.blackglama.com/
If you click on “Campaign” and then “Legends Gallery” at the top, they have pictures of all the great “What befits a legend most?” photos. There are some great shots, but I think my favorite has to be Barbara Stanwyck on Page 5.
My own portrait is on Page 6: second from the left, in the bottom row. I have to admit, I do look fabulous. No retouching, either.
But back to the rabbit-fur: despite my earlier disdain for them, as I grew older (and what some call “wiser”, but I recognize as “progressively senile”), I began to develop a warm spot in my heart – or was it heartburn – for the distinctive “style” (for lack of a better term) of the 1970s, and those who were fortunate enough to have had that enviable combination of bad taste and couture courage…..and the pictures to prove it.
When bearishgurl described that coat, I was blown away; when she followed up with color commentary on the outfit, including accessories, with which she wore it, I was positively enraptured. BG is my new fashion goddess.
But back then, I was a bit of a fashion purist. Turns out, I really did have excellent taste and could spot haute couture a mile away. Not really sure where it came from, and the really unfortunate part of it was that not only were we in an era during which what was available to teenage girls was truly awful (if a teenager wore some of the outfits today, they’d be hauled off to the cooler for prostitution), but I was born to a family for whom money was really in short supply. So I may have had Bergdorf and Bonwit Teller dreams, but my reality was Atlantic Thrift and I. Goldberg Army-Navy, two fine Philadelphia retailers at which I could stretch my $1.35/hour minimum wage checks.
But, no doubt about it: the 1970s were a total cultural dry gulch of a decade.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
But they’re all making a comeback, Allan. You’ll see.
Actually, I’d give my umbilicus for a Pacer. An electric lime green or bright yellow one. There’s something I kind of like about that design in retrospect. You can keep the Gremlins, though.
Back then, I was dependent upon the largesse of my parents if I wanted to drive. Sometimes I could get them at a good time, and get a loan of one of the late model family compacts. But, usually, I was offered the “kids” car, that my dad had gotten from his sister. In 1972, she bought a new LTD, and gave us her 1963 maroon w/white hardtop Ford Galaxie. Geez, that thing was a boat! Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).
Good times.
August 1, 2011 @ 10:20 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
Actually,
[quote=eavesdropper]
Actually, I’d give my umbilicus for a Pacer. An electric lime green or bright yellow one. There’s something I kind of like about that design in retrospect. You can keep the Gremlins, though.
Back then, I was dependent upon the largesse of my parents if I wanted to drive. Sometimes I could get them at a good time, and get a loan of one of the late model family compacts. But, usually, I was offered the “kids” car, that my dad had gotten from his sister. In 1972, she bought a new LTD, and gave us her 1963 maroon w/white hardtop Ford Galaxie. Geez, that thing was a boat! Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).
Good times.[/quote]
Eaves: A buddy of mine in HS had a Pacer, which we derisively referred to as the “moon unit” (not to be confused with Frank Zappa’s child of the same name). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a woman as vibrant and intelligent as you would want such a car, especially at the cost of your umbilicus (although, in truth, I’ll profess to not knowing the value of umbilici in today’s market).
This guy lived in Portola Valley (a tony Bay Area suburb near Redwood City) and both his folks taught at Stanford, so I was always left with the question: Why did they stick with him such a POS car?
Speaking of parental largesse: My dad’s largesse went so far as to offer a 1976 Mercury Capri as my starter car. That was a complete non-starter, so I picked up my second and third summer jobs (I was already working as a “petroleum transfer specialist” at the neighborhood Chevron) cleaning pools and stenciling street numbers on curbs for the City of Sunnyvale (union job!). I took the proceeds and bought a 1967 Ford fastback with a Boss 302, which I promptly wrapped around a lightpole in Mountain View.
Following summer, I moved to working on a tuna boat in the Bay for $16/hr, which in 1981 was BIG money. That jingle purchased my dream car: A 1969 Mustang Mach I with a 428CJ. I held that car right up until I bought my first house in 1991 and used the proceeds of the sale to help with the down payment.
Good times, indeed.
August 1, 2011 @ 1:21 PM
The combination of auditory
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
http://www.physorg.com/news204201579.html
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
This is what I think of advertising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
August 1, 2011 @ 3:56 PM
Arraya wrote:
The combination
[quote=Arraya]
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
http://www.physorg.com/news204201579.html
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
This is what I think of advertising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo%5B/quote%5D
Oh, Arraya– not only did you speak the truth in this post, but you worked in Bill Hicks! So well done. Props to you, Arraya, I am now a fan.
August 2, 2011 @ 12:44 AM
Arraya wrote:
The combination
[quote=Arraya]
I’m 37, working on my first child. I 100% agree. Though, I think this is part and parcel with the consumerism ethos and psychology that it fosters. Filling needs with material goods seems to have become embedded in our consciousness. Which leads back to the question I posited earlier. Where would our economy be if this was not cultivated? Culture is encouraged to support the economic system.
http://www.physorg.com/news204201579.html
We’re cultivating sociopaths and it’s metastasizing. Becoming anti-human.
This is what I think of advertising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo%5B/quote%5D
If “working on” your first child means that you guys are pregnant, congratulations!
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003627
August 2, 2011 @ 10:14 AM
CA renter wrote:
Trying to
[quote=CA renter]
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003627
[/quote]
Touchy-feely empathy is great.
But what about acquiring the skills to survive and thrive in a harsh world?
The hard part is bringing up a good, noble person who can deal with the world with self-confidence and aplomb.
August 2, 2011 @ 12:15 PM
briansd1 wrote:CA renter
[quote=briansd1][quote=CA renter]
Trying to keep you child from becoming one of the conformist, consumber-bots is a job in itself. It’s one of the many reasons we homeschool, watch very little TV, and have no video games. You have to be constantly aware of the messages that are being conveyed to kids, because they are the target market for many advertisers, and the messages they convey are often very damaging to kids — from junk food, to fashion, to movies and entertainment that sexualize very young children and try to convince them that “fitting in” is job #1. The battle begins very early these days.
IMHO, the violent video games and movies (technology, in general) are largely responsible for the growing lack of empathy. It’s frightening to watch young kids’ reactions to certain videos/movies. They think violence is entertaining, which is completely disturbing, IMHO. To see them laugh or cheer when a graphic image of someone being raped, tortured, or killed is shown…it’s surreal. One has to wonder who or what is behind all of this, and why they want to encourage our kids to become psychopathic monsters. They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
http://videogames.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=003627
[/quote]
Touchy-feely empathy is great.
But what about acquiring the skills to survive and thrive in a harsh world?
The hard part is bringing up a good, noble person who can deal with the world with self-confidence and aplomb.[/quote]
Brian, I can speak only for myself. But I was very careful about monitoring the media with my children. They are older now, so I’m not faced with many of the challenges with which parents of toddlers and grade-schoolers have to deal. However, the underlying essentials are setting up the ground rules (which should always include a plan of action for occasions when the rules are broken), ensuring that both parents in a two-parent family are equally committed), the willingness to monitor, and consistency in follow-thru. CAR, you’re spot-on: It is getting increasingly harder to monitor, as there are more and more options that kids can access. It’s doable, but I confess that the last time I grounded my teenage daughter, I needed a shopping cart to take away all of the devices through which she could access her friends and media sources.
Yes, I did protect my children from media that was not age appropriate. They grew up into self-confident young adults, who were not afraid to travel anywhere in the world by themselves by age 18. They’ve faced situations in Europe, Asia, and South America where they’ve lost money, missed trains, had to find shelter at the last minute, and they’ve always managed to deal with it on their own (I always found out about it a month after the fact when they’d be showing off their travel photos) They’ve been in some scary situations (terrorist bombings in London, political revolt in Thailand), and it hasn’t slowed down their desire to travel. All except my youngest (in high school) are employed, pay all their own bills, and live in places of their own. They seem to be managing the real world just fine.
I don’t understand parents who allow their children to watch slasher movies and films that are rated R when they are under the age of 12. It does not enhance or enrich their lives (so that excuse – which I’ve heard – is useless), and the extreme violence can really screw with their heads (same with the violent video games). Children do not see things in the same context as adults do. Adults are able to look at what’s on the screen and know that it’s fake, but kids aren’t able to do the same. They’re thinking, “That guy in the mask with the chainsaw killed 48 people in the movie they just saw, so how long will it be until he gets to my neighborhood?”
Likewise, exposing them to the crap on reality shows. They see some gum-cracking, sun-dried, hair product-immune bimbo, who contains more silicone than natural body tissue, stumbling drunk into a men’s room to confront her cheating boyfriend, or loudly declaring that she ALWAYS gets what she wants because she makes her parents’ lives miserable until they give it to her, or some greased-up creep who still lives with his mother, who also pays for his clothes, food, car, cell phone, and spending cash from her SSI check, swaggering through a nightclub declaring that he’s a player and a “businessman”, and that other people his age are losers “because they work” and they all really want to be him – again, kids are the only ones who see these shows as “reality”, and, from the looks of the public behavior all around us and on the internet, they see these shows as a tutorial on how people function when they reach adulthood. Nothing about these shows or movies teaches kids how to survive in the real world.
That’s a parent’s job. And the parents who try to shelter their child from every actual reality – homework, a failing grade, a missed turn at bat – are screwing up. As they are when they constantly tell the child he/she is accomplished and brilliant and talented, when there is no evidence to support those statements (there’s a wide chasm between supporting your child, and lying to him). To throw 18 years of totally unmonitored media exposure into that cocktail is to guarantee that you’re gonna be blessed with your child’s presence for most of his adult life, and also be responsible for paying his/her mental health treatment bills.
By the way, Brian, I didn’t deny my kids exposure to the real world. I just measured it out in age-appropriate doses. Sometimes they can surprise you: when my one son was 8, he elected to watch live infant skull surgery on the local PBS channel in lieu of “Wizard of Oz”. And I didn’t have any problem letting him (aside from the fact that I really wanted to see Wizard of Oz). He had a genuine interest in medicine and in the functions of the human body, and he was fascinated how the procedure followed by the reconstructive surgeons resulted in such a profound and positive change in the child’s appearance and function. He grew up and went into the bioengineering field.
August 2, 2011 @ 12:36 PM
Eavesdropper et al,
Agree
Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).
August 2, 2011 @ 1:42 PM
KIBU wrote:Eavesdropper et
[quote=KIBU]Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).[/quote]
Yes – their peers influence them. (I don’t homeschool). My standard answer when they say “But Mom – friend X gets to watch < insert inappropriate tv or movie here> and friend Y is allowed to play Grand Theft Auto”… My reply is always: “Lucky them, they have a nicer mom than you. I’m a mean mom and you’re stuck with me.”
Just because the kids are feeling pressure – doesn’t mean the parent has to cave. I don’t need to be liked by my kids. Often they’re not happy with the rules/restrictions/limitations. My job is to parent, not be their buddy.
August 3, 2011 @ 12:49 AM
KIBU wrote:Eavesdropper et
[quote=KIBU]Eavesdropper et al,
Agree with many that you mentioned, however, I have a question to ask you.
To me, media monitoring as you mentioned is relatively easy. Unfortunately, problem is when children go to school they get the peer pressures and this is the source for their drives to explore all the hype information that are out there, in addition to their natural curiosity as well. Then, pow, you are right there stopping their quest via what they may see as censorship. Oops, conflict of interest. So how does one resolve these? Do you also agree that more than media, the friends of your kids are really the most influential force on your kids’ life (it’s literally their life)….
And I wonder how one deal with this (because a lot of influences from the friends sucks big time).[/quote]
That’s a really tough one, KIBU. In answer to your question, I think the level of influence of media over friends, or vice versa depends on the kid. However, I think what matters most is that you do your absolute best to ensure that you are the force that most influences your child. I’m not saying that you should be all-controlling and severely limit your child’s access to media and to friends. That would not only be counter-productive, but has the potential to create serious psychological harm, and would also keep you child from acquiring skills and knowledge essential to his/her future.
However, you mention that you are reluctant to interfere for fear that your child will scream, “Censorship!!” He/she probably will, and they would be absolutely correct. My question to you is, “What’s the problem?”
Censorship (as a child or teenager sees it) = “you’re interfering with my desire and intent to do what I want to do”. Review the following:
Eaves: Are you interfering because your child wants to do something that will provide an immediate or future benefit to themselves, or to others?
KIBU: Of course not. Why would I ever do that?
Eaves: Are you interfering because your child wants to do something that will could harm him/herself or others now in the immediate future?
KIBU: Yes. I found out that my child is involved in activity that threatens his health and safety.
Okay, does what is described in that exchange qualify as censorship? For what it’s worth, I say no. I see it as basic parenting. You see your child contemplating dangerous activity. This is because (a) he isn’t experienced or knowledgeable enough to realize that it’s dangerous, or (b) he fully realizes the danger, and he plans to do it anyway.
Neither a nor b is a good thing. If your child is under the age of 18, you are morally and legally obligated to do everything in your power to stop him from hurting himself. If he is over 18, and completely self-supporting and living independent of you, he has a legal right to be free of your interference in his intentions to harm himself. But (and listen carefully here) if he is 18 and living in your house, he is subject to any policies you set forth.
What you are doing is parenting. It is NOT censorship. Children have the right to be loved, to be fed, clothed, cared for, treated with dignity, and protected from danger. Other than that, they are out of luck.
Censorship, conflicts of interest, WTF??!! This is not your business partner, not your neighbor, your landscaper, or your best friend – relationships in which you are on equal footing as humans.
This is your child, who is not on equal footing with you. Your child, as a minor, is your subordinate, and, by law, is subject to your rules and regulations. And strange as it seems, underneath it all, this is what kids want from their parents. And the more they can count on you being there, the less influence their friends will have.
I sent you a private message also. I wish you the best on figuring this out.
August 3, 2011 @ 7:48 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
What you
[quote=eavesdropper]
What you are doing is parenting. It is NOT censorship. Children have the right to be loved, to be fed, clothed, cared for, treated with dignity, and protected from danger. Other than that, they are out of luck.
Censorship, conflicts of interest, WTF??!! This is not your business partner, not your neighbor, your landscaper, or your best friend – relationships in which you are on equal footing as humans.
This is your child, who is not on equal footing with you. Your child, as a minor, is your subordinate, and, by law, is subject to your rules and regulations. And strange as it seems, underneath it all, this is what kids want from their parents. And the more they can count on you being there, the less influence their friends will have.
[/quote]
Eaves: This is one of the best written passages on parenting I’ve ever read.
I’m fond of telling my kids that, within our house, there is no democracy. Rather, we are a mix of benevolent despotism and totalitarian dictatorship. I have very forthright discussions with both my kids on topics ranging from religion/spirituality to drugs/alcohol to the various impacts of divorce (several of their friends are living through this right now). The discussions can be interesting in terms of response, reaction and feedback, but the roles of parent and child don’t blur. I think too often parents treat kids as smaller versions of adults, or peers, or “friends”, with negative results. This, combined with a modern aversion to discipline (and I don’t mean corporal punishment), has resulted in a generation of kids that are entitled, discourteous and poorly socialized.
Add to this the absolute plethora of “inputs”, ranging from video games to the internet to the 700 channel satellite TV cable box and policing becomes increasingly difficult, if not nearly impossible. I’ve sat and watched my son play xBox, text/email on his iPhone and carry on a conversation with me, all at the same time. I feel some of the same frustration my parents felt, in that I think I’m always missing something, as far as the kids having access, but eternal vigilance is part of the job. We have clearly established ground rules and my wife and I constantly spot check, including periodic (and unannounced) room searches. It can feel a little draconian at times but, again, part of the job.
August 3, 2011 @ 12:54 PM
Thank you for your input
Thank you for your input Eaves and Allan. Here is my opinion.
It’s one thing to have the legal rights to take care of your children in the home the way you set it. In many cases, it’s probably absolutely legal to set it as: it’s my way or the highway.
But I think it’s another matter how the children will respond to such, as they may view incorrectly, “totalitarian dictatorship” or “censureship” (even if we don’t care about such terms from our point of view) ?
The assumptions, perhaps, are that children understood that we are standing on their side, protecting their interest, their life, future. I think it’s hard if it’s the other case, where they probably react and rebel to our imposed will on them. All this also occur at a time where they are naturally developing their self identity and we are only one of the outside influences, source of information, that they are taking in.
It’s a hard balance. Thanks for sharing your ideas and you are doing great with your children.
August 3, 2011 @ 4:26 PM
KIBU wrote:
The assumptions,
[quote=KIBU]
The assumptions, perhaps, are that children understood that we are standing on their side, protecting their interest, their life, future. I think it’s hard if it’s the other case, where they probably react and rebel to our imposed will on them. All this also occur at a time where they are naturally developing their self identity and we are only one of the outside influences, source of information, that they are taking in. [/quote]
Trust me, KIBU, NO child EVER understands or accepts that you are doing something because you love them. Every one of them are positive that you are dead-set on destroying their lives, and that you get sick kicks from doing so.
You can’t change that, so don’t allow it to be a factor when you intervene. The focus should be to keep them alive and healthy into adulthood.
Incidentally, that’s when they have their own children, and suddenly come to the realization of just how much you loved them.
[quote=KIBU] It’s a hard balance. Thanks for sharing your ideas and you are doing great with your children.[/quote]
The electric cattle prod was a big help….
August 2, 2011 @ 1:17 PM
eavesdropper wrote:
Yes, I
[quote=eavesdropper]
Yes, I did protect my children from media that was not age appropriate. They grew up into self-confident young adults, who were not afraid to travel anywhere in the world by themselves by age 18. They’ve faced situations in Europe, Asia, and South America where they’ve lost money, missed trains, had to find shelter at the last minute, and they’ve always managed to deal with it on their own (I always found out about it a month after the fact when they’d be showing off their travel photos) They’ve been in some scary situations (terrorist bombings in London, political revolt in Thailand), and it hasn’t slowed down their desire to travel. All except my youngest (in high school) are employed, pay all their own bills, and live in places of their own. They seem to be managing the real world just fine.[/quote]
Sounds like you raised some great kids. Congrats.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.
August 2, 2011 @ 10:39 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Sounds like
[quote=briansd1]
Sounds like you raised some great kids. Congrats.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.[/quote]
Thanks, brian. It’s nice of you to say that. I don’t want to make it sound easy, because child-rearing never is. But I started with great raw material (ever hear cute little infants described in quite that way?)
It probably sounds odd, but I am proudest of them for that quality. The fact that they’ll get an unexpected couple days off, and decide to research a cheap fare, hop on a plane to somewhere they’ve never been, grab a train to some off-the-beaten-path city, and find a place to shack up once they get there makes me feel really good. I think it’s because I feel like if they have the self-confidence to do that, along with that driving level of curiosity, that they won’t go through life waiting for people to give them things, or for good things to just “happen”.
August 3, 2011 @ 12:03 AM
eavesdropper wrote:briansd1
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=briansd1]
Sounds like you raised some great kids. Congrats.
If I had kids, I’d want them to be like your kids.
There’s nothing like independent travel to learn about the world.
PS: I travel to Thailand once a year. Political revolt in Thailand is much safer than walking in certain parts of Philadelphia or DC.[/quote]
Thanks, brian. It’s nice of you to say that. I don’t want to make it sound easy, because child-rearing never is. But I started with great raw material (ever hear cute little infants described in quite that way?)
It probably sounds odd, but I am proudest of them for that quality. The fact that they’ll get an unexpected couple days off, and decide to research a cheap fare, hop on a plane to somewhere they’ve never been, grab a train to some off-the-beaten-path city, and find a place to shack up once they get there makes me feel really good. I think it’s because I feel like if they have the self-confidence to do that, along with that driving level of curiosity, that they won’t go through life waiting for people to give them things, or for good things to just “happen”.[/quote]
You’ve done a great job with your kids, eavesdropper.
Your posts about modern child rearing practices are scarily accurate. Mr. CAR and I have had a few discussions about them, already. 🙂
August 3, 2011 @ 7:42 AM
CA renter wrote:
If “working
[quote=CA renter]
If “working on” your first child means that you guys are pregnant, congratulations!
[/quote]
Shhh! Don’t jinx it! Actually, we miscarried a while back and are about to give it another go.
[quote=CA renter]
They are playing to kids’ most primitive instincts, and making billions in the process.
[/quote]
Well, I think you hit the nail on the head with this and it can probably be applied to a lot of modern stimulus. But, that is another long post that I will not burden the board with today.
I have to say, though, the fascination is probably not healthy.
A couple questions that I ponder;
[quote=eavesdropper] And even though violent crime is an abnormal, antisocial, and often deviant act, [/quote]
I 100% agree. Though, what I find interesting is the you include the word crime – which makes it subjective to legal interpretations. Which gives a lot of leeway for violence that is not abnormal, antisocial and deviant.
Personally, and I have spent some time recently thinking about this. I think any violence between humans is, at the very least, a failure. War, death penalty, violent geopolitical coercion etc.. Social failures.
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” – Mahatma Gandhi
[quote=afx114]So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
I mostly agree.
Art, on the one hand, probably has a duty to reflect societal ills. A lot of people misinterpret this and have tried to ban it in the past. Though, IMO, they miss the point. It’s a mirror. If you don’t like the reflection, maybe you should do some thinking. Conversely, I think Hollywood tries to pawn off a lot of mental pollution as art.
On the other hand, with video games – where the sole purpose is to kill as many people as possible, in exceedingly more vivid graphic detail, I don’t consider art, though it may have artistic qualities. This is also a reflection, IMO.
So, I decided not to play these games, for a lot of reasons, but because I see it as glorifying failure. I can stimulate my brain and hand/eye coordination in more productive ways.
So, as a potential new parent, it won’t be allowed in my house. With an age appropriate discussion on my perception of human violence. Outside of my house, they can do what the want in regards to video games.
And I know this line of thinking will rub some people the wrong way or come off preachy. But, I have not been shy about my personal projections on socioeconomic trajectories. If I did not change the way I look about things I would fail into nihilism and misanthropy(which is another growing unhealthy epidemic that I noticed in other internet circles I travel in). So, it was an act of mental health preservation.
On a lighter note – sort of:
Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone At Neighborhood Bar How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is
http://www.theonion.com/articles/drunken-ben-bernanke-tells-everyone-at-neighborhoo,21059/
August 1, 2011 @ 8:21 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Eaves: A buddy of mine in HS had a Pacer, which we derisively referred to as the “moon unit” (not to be confused with Frank Zappa’s child of the same name). I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why a woman as vibrant and intelligent as you would want such a car, especially at the cost of your umbilicus (although, in truth, I’ll profess to not knowing the value of umbilici in today’s market).[/quote]
I confess, neither do I. But, being the consumer-driven society that we are, I have absolutely no doubt that there is a demand for them, that they are bought and sold in at least a half-dozen commodities markets, and that there’s an opportunity to bid on one every 3 days on average on eBay (handy tip: on some auctions, you have to lie in wait until the last 3 or 4 seconds to sneak in your bid, depending on your preference for lint-free or fully-loaded).
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] This guy lived in Portola Valley (a tony Bay Area suburb near Redwood City) and both his folks taught at Stanford, so I was always left with the question: Why did they stick with him such a POS car? [/quote]
The Hallmark card-side of my brain likes to think that they were trying to keep him grounded, and give him some perspective.
But the rest of my brain (i.e. the best part) is pretty sure they just couldn’t resist an opportunity to humiliate him.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Speaking of parental largesse: My dad’s largesse went so far as to offer a 1976 Mercury Capri as my starter car. That was a complete non-starter, so I picked up my second and third summer jobs (I was already working as a “petroleum transfer specialist” at the neighborhood Chevron) cleaning pools and stenciling street numbers on curbs for the City of Sunnyvale (union job!). I took the proceeds and bought a 1967 Ford fastback with a Boss 302, which I promptly wrapped around a lightpole in Mountain View.[/quote]
So you’re a diva from waaay back, huh, Allan?
Love the “petroleum transfer specialist” job title!! You were politically correct before your time. And to think that all that talent went to waste when you didn’t become a lobbyist. A dirty shame!
They didn’t let us girls pump gas in those days. Job market growth areas were off-limits to females, except for prostitution. I was pretty much limited to babysitting (which dried up after a coupla incidents involving plastic bags and matches), retail clerking, or food service. I worked at a hoagie-cheesesteak place for a week, and spent the next two years trying to wash the smell of fried onions and grill grease out of my hair (Too bad you didn’t know me back then. I was irresistible.)
Nothing like that first car is there? It does help if you own it long enough to remember. But that’s what I’d expect from you, Allan: aspirations to be an insurance company loss leader.
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] Following summer, I moved to working on a tuna boat in the Bay for $16/hr, which in 1981 was BIG money. That jingle purchased my dream car: A 1969 Mustang Mach I with a 428CJ. [/quote]
I would have so trapped you by getting pregnant back in ’81! A guy who smells like tuna with a full wallet and a hot car. Trifecta!!
August 1, 2011 @ 11:39 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Massive
[quote=eavesdropper]Massive engine, power steering that made it very easy to lose control of the beast, room for about 12 of my friends, and standard transmission with the gear shift on the steering column. The damn thing was ALWAYS breaking down, usually right in the middle of an intersection when I was making a left turn, and it was a particularly festive occasion when the gear shift lever would disarticulate completely from the steering column in the process (a not uncommon occurrence, since it was held in place only by a deflated bicycle inner tube).[/quote]
Lol! Totally can relate. Power steering was so horrible in those days. If you never drove one of those cars you really can’t imagine how bad it was…
August 1, 2011 @ 11:23 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…
August 2, 2011 @ 12:12 AM
KSMountain wrote:Allan from
[quote=KSMountain][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
Love it!!! 🙂
August 2, 2011 @ 8:01 AM
KSMountain wrote:Allan from
[quote=KSMountain][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
Nice local list. I have fond memories of Licorice Pizza records and Organ Power Pizza.
I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)
August 2, 2011 @ 12:46 PM
UCGal wrote: I remember
[quote=UCGal] I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)[/quote]
Dingos. Brown leather biker boots. Looked fab with hip-hugger modified bell-bottoms (boot-cut jeans). They also made a great noise when you walked through the school hallway. My husband says he simultaneously lusted after and feared me back then. I work hard to keep that theme going in our marriage.
I also remember shelling out $36.00 (this is when min wage was a $1.35 an hour, fellow Piggs) for a pair of Adidas “Country” long-distance running shoes. However, it was a genuine need. I was a middle-distance runner, and did a lot of training on asphalt and concrete roads, and, even in my mid-teens, I was having joint impact issues. Hard to believe now, but you couldn’t get shoes specially made for road running (men had a bit more choice, but not women). All that was available to the mass consumer were spikes or shoes made for training on indoor tracks (at the most, a good cinder surface outdoors). When news leaked out that Adidas was introducing this radical new shoe, I started saving my pennies (literally). If you saw it now, you’d split a gut laughing: they look like something your grandmother would wear on her mall walks. But, compared to what I had been using, I really appreciated the technology, such as it was. But I wore them out quickly training, and at $36 a pair to replace, I did a lot of babysitting (good part was that there wasn’t a kid in a 100-mile radius who could outrun me, so babysitting wasn’t that bad of a gig).
August 2, 2011 @ 12:54 PM
Back to the original topic,
Back to the original topic, how cool is that we now have a SUPERCONGRESS! Most countries just have a crummy old congress. Not us, we have one that is SUPER. You can just feel the awesomeness when you say the word. Say it with me one time — SUPERCONGRESS. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Again we lead the way with our innovative problem-solving. We are indeed the envy of the world today.
I think that after they permanently fix our debt problem by slightly reducing the amount of money we borrow from China each day, the next act of the SUPERCONGRESS should be to change the flag to have 10 stars for each of our 10 glorious FEMA regions. We can keep the 13 stripes as they will represent the 13 members of the SUPERCONGRESS. Our flag would then be not only more appropriate but more awesome.
August 2, 2011 @ 1:20 PM
Concho,
Don’t give them any
Concho,
Don’t give them any more “great” ideas. This one sounds like one under serious consideration…..
I think our current country is more typified by a SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS……
August 2, 2011 @ 3:00 PM
aldante wrote:Concho,
Don’t
[quote=aldante]Concho,
Don’t give them any more “great” ideas. This one sounds like one under serious consideration…..
I think our current country is more typified by a SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS……[/quote]
“SUPERFK’edUPCONGRESS”. Excellent!!
There’s a rap in there someplace, and you, aldante, are just the guy to write it.
C’mon, Ron Paul needs an official campaign song.
August 2, 2011 @ 12:58 PM
eavesdropper wrote:UCGal
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=UCGal] I remember using babysitting proceeds to buy, with my own money, my first pair of Ditto pants (feel the fit was the tag line for their ads.) They were skin tight, high waisted, with the seam forming the inverse “U” on the butt. Later I saved more money and got mint green hip hugger dittos. I bought them at a Millers Outpost at the Clairemont square. I believe the appropriate shoe was Candies or perhaps Dr. Scholls wood sandals. (Which made a terrifically loud THWAP sound when you walked.)[/quote]
Dingos. Brown leather biker boots. Looked fab with hip-hugger modified bell-bottoms (boot-cut jeans). They also made a great noise when you walked through the school hallway. My husband says he simultaneously lusted after and feared me back then. I work hard to keep that theme going in our marriage.
I also remember shelling out $36.00 (this is when min wage was a $1.35 an hour, fellow Piggs) for a pair of Adidas “Country” long-distance running shoes. However, it was a genuine need. I was a middle-distance runner, and did a lot of training on asphalt and concrete roads, and, even in my mid-teens, I was having joint impact issues. Hard to believe now, but you couldn’t get shoes specially made for road running (men had a bit more choice, but not women). All that was available to the mass consumer were spikes or shoes made for training on indoor tracks (at the most, a good cinder surface outdoors). When news leaked out that Adidas was introducing this radical new shoe, I started saving my pennies (literally). If you saw it now, you’d split a gut laughing: they look like something your grandmother would wear on her mall walks. But, compared to what I had been using, I really appreciated the technology, such as it was. But I wore them out quickly training, and at $36 a pair to replace, I did a lot of babysitting (good part was that there wasn’t a kid in a 100-mile radius who could outrun me, so babysitting wasn’t that bad of a gig).[/quote]
Lol, UCGal and eaves! I bought my “inverse U” and “hip hashmark” Dittos (mostly at “Gemco”) with my tips. I was also able to get matching see-thru belts in both turquoise and purple 🙂
Re: running shoes, I was also a distance runner at the time, both on pavement and dirt. In SD, you could get good “lightweight-for-the-era” running shoes for women at “Second Sole.” I got my money’s worth when getting my “free” Second Sole after only 7-12 months of ownership :=]
August 2, 2011 @ 3:09 PM
bearishgurl][quote=eavesdropp
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=eavesdropper][quote=UCGal]
Lol, UCGal and eaves! I bought my “inverse U” and “hip hashmark” Dittos (mostly at “Gemco”) with my tips. I was also able to get matching see-thru belts in both turquoise and purple :)[/quote]
BG, was there a single deplorable 1970s clothing fad that you allowed to pass you by?
My money’s on “no” being your answer.
Love it, love it, love it! (you do realize that this whole thread offshoot started with my expression of intense envy over your rabbit coat, right?)
August 2, 2011 @ 3:25 PM
As with most things in life,
As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.
August 2, 2011 @ 3:34 PM
afx114 wrote:As with most
[quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Afx: What a great post and right on the money. Now that I have kids, I truly appreciate the job my parents did, but recognize that they were from a different generation entirely. I allow my kids to watch “R” movies, access to beer or wine (on a very limited basis) during family events/BBQs and openly discuss sex, alcohol, drugs, etc.
You’re right, presentation is a key, as is context.
August 2, 2011 @ 5:19 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Afx: What a great post and right on the money. Now that I have kids, I truly appreciate the job my parents did, but recognize that they were from a different generation entirely. I allow my kids to watch “R” movies, access to beer or wine (on a very limited basis) during family events/BBQs and openly discuss sex, alcohol, drugs, etc.
You’re right, presentation is a key, as is context.[/quote]
Absolutely, afx, balance is key. We don’t hide the real world from our kids, but we do want to be there when they are exposed to the uglier side of life so that we can explain things to them.
Too many people don’t seem to understand that a child’s brain is in different stages of development at different ages. There’s a lot to be said for being mindful of where they are physically, mentally, and emotionally…and making sure that what they are being exposed to is age-appropriate. IMHO, slasher movies and videos (and reality TV — thank you, Eaves) are not “real life.” There are bad people out there who do horrific things to others, and that needs to be explained; but parents are not doing their children any favors by exposing them to the most gruesome and heinous details of their crimes via movies and videos that glorify torture and killing.
August 2, 2011 @ 9:28 PM
afx114 wrote:As with most
[quote=afx114]As with most things in life, you need a balance. If you go too hard the other way and shelter your kids from “bad” things, they’re going to rebel and dive into them 10 times harder than if you allow them supervised access. My anecdotal evidence for this is my own very large extended family. All the cousins who were strictly parented and not allowed to watch anything rated above ‘G’ and grew up in supposedly moral Christian households ended up becoming arsonists, druggies, boozers, and pregnant at 17. The group of cousins who got to listen to NWA and play video games and watch Clockwork Orange and have a few sips of beer at family gatherings at 18 are all now college educated with well paying jobs and successful families. Go figure. So I’m of the belief that it’s not the content itself that really matters, but how it is presented.[/quote]
Absolutely, afx. Also, it’s a matter of what you consider “bad”. For instance, I don’t consider nudity “bad”, nor sex. While there are NO circumstances under which I would have let my preteens watch “Showgirls”, I wouldn’t hesitate to sit down and watch “Schindler’s List” with them. By the same token, I wouldn’t watch Schindler’s list with children under the age of 8, and then only if they were very bright, well read, mature-for-age 8/9 year olds. Not because of the nudity and sexual content, but because it would be extremely difficult for children that young to put it in context – one of those cases of “when are they coming here”.
Sex, drugs, crime, violence, people’s nastiness to each other are all part of “the big parade”. Children do need to become aware of them. However, as you say, they should learn about them at the proper stage of life, and in a context that presents them as they really are. As I mentioned, you have 4 and 5 yr-olds growing up thinking Freddie Kruger is going to move in next door because they’re unable to truly make the distinction between movie and reality. And even though violent crime is an abnormal, antisocial, and often deviant act, many films glorify that, and intensify the level of those qualities, while completely ignoring the tremendous human cost of such violent acts. More and more children are becoming anesthetized to the extremes in the media, which does not bode well for the rest of society.
However, people who perform categorical editing of their kids’ media exposure, like your relatives did, are putting them at a distinct disadvantage. There are young adults out there that cannot deal with the everyday realities of life because they’ve been so sheltered. If you’re so limited that you insist that your children watch nothing but G-rated movies until age 18, get them some classic films from the 30s, 40s and 50s, so they can at least acquaint themselves with life’s realities (and you won’t have to worry about the “curse words” or sexual references). I agree with you that some kids rebel and go the other way, but I also think that kids are totally unprepared for life’s dangers.
Growing up in the 60s, my friends and I (btw ages 6-12) were pretty much limited to G-rated films because of our parents AND the local theater owner, who’d throw you out of M and R films. But TV shows , though not realistic, were introducing themes that showed the dangers of drugs, talking to strangers, hitchhiking, teen drinking. By early 70s, they were even touching on teen pregnancy (anybody remember an ABC Movie of the Week called “Mr. & Mrs. Bo Jo Jones”? It starred Desi Arnaz, Jr. and sucked worse than its title.) I also read a helluva lot, including newspapers on a daily basis, during my childhood. So I was conditioned from what I read about the addictive potential of heroin and horrendous withdrawal descriptions to know that I never wanted to go near the stuff. I had a mom that never sat me down for the “talk” but, because I read at an advanced level, I found out all about sex from accurate sources, and then told all my friends whose moms were like mine. I knew all about a wide variety of birth control methods, how they worked, where to get them, and also that there is NO “safe time”.
But let’s face it: most kids didn’t read a lot back then, and even less read now. If they have families that limit them to G-rated movies, that means they are still watching preschool entertainment and whatever romance or adventure movies that are made by Christian entertainment media outlets. Then their parents send them out on their own, with no information about the dangers they may encounter. Sorry, but that’s not loving your children.
BTW, good responses from Allan and CAR, too.
August 2, 2011 @ 3:38 PM
eavesdropper wrote:BG, was
[quote=eavesdropper]BG, was there a single deplorable 1970s clothing fad that you allowed to pass you by?
My money’s on “no” being your answer.
Love it, love it, love it! (you do realize that this whole thread offshoot started with my expression of intense envy over your rabbit coat, right?)[/quote]
eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.
Also had several colors of “Dr. Scholl’s” wood sandals (that UCGal spoke of), incl: Jean fabric, tan, avocado green, navy and red!
Yeah, I remember this thread, lol!
http://piggington.com/ot_should_citibank_woman_be_fired_for_wearing_formfitted_clothin?page=1
August 2, 2011 @ 10:24 PM
bearishgurl wrote: eaves, I
[quote=bearishgurl] eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.[/quote]
BG, you’re killing me!! That jacket had all the food groups: white fur (were people, like, always mistaking it for ermine??), vinyl (and not any vinyl, but the shiny stuff), AND (be still, my “really bad taste” radar) CHAINS!!!!
You know, I once watched 10 minutes of “Can’t Stop the Music”, and, since then, I find myself wondering if California wasn’t responsible for the 1970s. You know, some kind of one-upmanship competition between Nancy Reagan and Imelda Marcos to see which of them could manage to humiliate their subjects more through the distribution of truly tasteless cultural trends.
But then I realize that I forgot to take my meds again, and I’m conspiracy theorizing. After I take my inexpensive lifesaving miracle drugs, brought to you by the wonderful folks at Pfizer Pharmaceutical$, I’m thinkin’ straight.
It’s obvious that the 1970s were a PTSD-induced reaction to Duane Allman’s untimely death on October 29, 1971 (HEY!!! A moment of silence, please??)
As for the jacket, you so ROCK!! Some people are just way ahead of their time, and that’s you, BG. Megakudos!!
August 2, 2011 @ 11:26 PM
eavesdropper
[quote=eavesdropper][quote=bearishgurl] eaves, I just saw your recent post about my “multicolor” rabbit-fur-and-vinyl jacket, lol! It was actually white rabbit fur and white shiny vinyl with silver chain fasteners. I wore it over my halter tops and turtlenecks with the Dittos.[/quote]
BG, you’re killing me!! That jacket had all the food groups: white fur (were people, like, always mistaking it for ermine??), vinyl (and not any vinyl, but the shiny stuff), AND (be still, my “really bad taste” radar) CHAINS!!!!
You know, I once watched 10 minutes of “Can’t Stop the Music”, and, since then, I find myself wondering if California wasn’t responsible for the 1970s. You know, some kind of one-upmanship competition between Nancy Reagan and Imelda Marcos to see which of them could manage to humiliate their subjects more through the distribution of truly tasteless cultural trends.
But then I realize that I forgot to take my meds again, and I’m conspiracy theorizing. After I take my inexpensive lifesaving miracle drugs, brought to you by the wonderful folks at Pfizer Pharmaceutical$, I’m thinkin’ straight.
It’s obvious that the 1970s were a PTSD-induced reaction to Duane Allman’s untimely death on October 29, 1971 (HEY!!! A moment of silence, please??)
As for the jacket, you so ROCK!! Some people are just way ahead of their time, and that’s you, BG. Megakudos!![/quote]
eaves, I never made it to Woodstock, but for the record, I saw a GREAT Allman Bros (remaining Bros) concert sitting on the grass at the “Mile High Stadium” (now “Invesco Field”) where we passed around a glorified “jumbo hairpin” (or bobby-pin) for a “roach clip.” Yeah, I was wearing my “bestest” halter top (that I tye-dyed myself) with my puka-shells-with-turq-accents, lol, at the time. Of course, it was too warm for the rabbit jacket, lol! Still have Polaroid pics!!
THANK YOU, but CO ALSO had a major responsibility to uphold the ’70’s (culture). My recent trip there showed me that most of my “counterparts” are very much alive and well and never left!!
see: http://piggington.com/looming_disaster_for_the_temecula_area_liberty_quarrymega_mine
August 2, 2011 @ 9:12 AM
KSMountain wrote:
An
[quote=KSMountain]
An excellent list Allan. Although mood rings fostered some deep discussions with peers of the opposite sex at the time so I remember them fondly. Allow me to counter-reminisce: Rolling Stones Some Girls, Van Halen I, Dittos Jeans, ok the vehicles of the period mostly sucked, The Clash, The Pretenders, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Led Zepp (please have we seen their equal?), feathered hair (lol), dolphin shorts, Organ Power Pizza in PB, much of san diego open space and undeveloped, drive-in movie theatres, Velcro “surf” wallets, Puka shell necklaces, Lowenbrau (crap but memorable), Licorice Pizza record stores, hmmm, just being “that age” in general…[/quote]
KSM: I can’t disagree; there were some fond memories, too, and some great music. Tom Petty, Styx, ELO, Dire Straits, Bad Co., Babys, Bob Seger and, of course, Randy Vanwarmer.
Speaking of feathered hair, did you have the Farrah Fawcett poster? I had that thing from about 5th grade until I tore it down in fury (when she married that a-hole Lee Majors!).
I had a buddy in HS that had a pink Caddie Eldo convertible that we’d take to Santa Cruz (via Highway 17, the so-called “suicide slot”, due to all of the accidents). It had a white leather interior, an 8-track player, and was stupid fast for a car that size. I remember blaring Rush’s “Moving Pictures” with the Ray-Bans on and the top down. Just being “that age” had a lot going for it.
August 2, 2011 @ 8:06 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Eaves: Jesus wept. The only good thing about the 1970s is that they’re now over.
No more Shaun Cassidy. No more disco. No more Pet Rocks. No more Bay City Rollers. No more Mood Rings. No more Brittanias. No more Angel Flights. No more fondue (as a main course). No more AMC Pacers. Or Gremlins. No more Parker Stevenson. No more “Little House on the Prairie”. No more wide lapels and wider ties. No more Barry Manilow (or at least a manageable amount of Barry Manilow). No more avocado green appliances. No more shag carpet. No more “Laverne and Shirley”.[/quote]
You left out ABBA!
As for old cars, my grandfather had a Chevy Nova. Wonder what happened to it.
UCGal – blowing dust off the memories – Millers Oupost and Candies – yeah.
Setting aside the off topic, this has been a great thread to read through. Thanks eavesdropper and others for your opinions and discussions!
July 31, 2011 @ 12:46 AM
Jacarandoso wrote:I am middle
[quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.
July 31, 2011 @ 3:21 PM
AN wrote:Jacarandoso wrote:I
[quote=AN][quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.[/quote]
A 3rd or 4th party would never work in America because we have a winner-takes-all system.
I think that someone mentioned a parliamentary system as more democratic.
July 31, 2011 @ 5:26 PM
briansd1 wrote:AN
[quote=briansd1][quote=AN][quote=Jacarandoso]I am middle class, I don’t feel like either party represents me on this one. Who should I vote for in the next elections? Democrats because they don’t really believe the lord is going to take care me and either do I?[/quote]
Vote 3rd party? I’m socially liberal and financially conservative. Neither party represent me as well, so I don’t vote for any of them. Why settle for the least of the two evils when you have a choice to actually pick a party that fit you. If you’re settling, then you’re just perpetuation this problem that we’re having.[/quote]
A 3rd or 4th party would never work in America because we have a winner-takes-all system.
I think that someone mentioned a parliamentary system as more democratic.[/quote]
I agree– in a parliamentary system, each party gets a number of representatives allocated to it in the parliament based on the percentage of citizens that vote for that party’s candidate. That means fringe parties can put representatives in the legislature in proportion to the citizens that vote for them; it also means they stay on the fringe if they’re in the minority, and there’s no need to kowtow to them (as with the GOP and tea party).
Also, American politics has turned into such a corporate money driven exercise, thanks in large part to our conservative Supreme Court, which thinks that a corporation is the equivalent of a sweet cuddly human being, rather than a legal fiction. Not much hope for a 3rd or 4th party (read: 3rd or 4th-best-funded) candidate.
July 31, 2011 @ 1:24 AM
eavesdropper wrote:Remind me
[quote=eavesdropper]Remind me again how it is that you do not have that control now?
And why do your beliefs mean that I should share in the responsibility of paying YOUR child’s private school tuition?[/quote]
Uh, last I checked, I have to send my kids to the designated local school. I can try to do inter/intra district transfer, but that’s hardly the same kind of control voucher system would provide.
You are paying for MY child’s public school tuition, so what difference does it make? If anything, it would save you some money if I decide to send my kid to a private school that charges less. If you truly believe that you shouldn’t pay for my kids’ education, then that’s perfectly fine. I shouldn’t have to pay for others’ children public school tuition as well. We all can just pay less property tax (reduce the amount that would go to schooling) and let everyone pay for their own schooling. I’d be perfectly fine w/ that too.
[quote=eavesdropper]Education is a huge undertaking. The problem is that there are certain fixed costs that cannot be divided in real life among separate students. Rough example: A district builds a school for 400 students. 3 years later, the parents of 125 students decide the school isn’t meeting the needs of their children. The reason: their parents don’t like the fact that they’re being taught human reproduction, including how contraception works (the physiology of contraception; they are NOT handing out condoms), in their biology class. But out of the 125 kids, the parents of 40 of them also are upset that intelligent design is not taught in the school.
All of a sudden, you need three school facilities instead of one. Your existing school has tax revenue from 275 students instead of 400. In addition, I’m not sure how you’re going to build and staff schools from the tax revenue for 85 students and 40 students.
Simplistic explanation, I know, but the idea under it all is that it’s a waste of already scarce resources.[/quote]
In reality, that logic doesn’t pan out, since you’d have a couple more zeros behind those numbers of students. Why is choice such a bad thing?
[quote=eavesdropper]An, first I have to ask you to qualify the statement that begins, “If a school is failing…”. You’re a parent of a child at the school. What characterizes the school as “failing”?[/quote]
Failing is different for every parent. It doesn’t matter what my personal definition of failing is, but if I think the school is failing my kid, I should have a choice to send my kid to a different school, be it public or private.
[quote=eavesdropper]Aside from that, I tried to address the “competition” issue in my earlier post. Do you honestly think that there is a school out there, especially one with academically-struggling students, that is totally satisfied with their facility and its performance? That isn’t already feeling like they are trying to keep up with schools that have better records? How exactly is removing students (along with their respective tax revenues) from a school going to foster a sense of competition? [/quote]
Yes.
[quote=eavesdropper]Again, schools have students in a classroom setting for about 4 to 4.5 hours per day. For the remaining 19 or 20 hours per day, those students are exposed to a wide variety of living conditions and influences. There aren’t enough hours in a school setting for a student to both receive basic instruction and to use the information so that it becomes a permanent part of their intellectual inventory. In addition, teachers cannot force students to learn. What students are exposed to for that other 20 hours per day, combined with how much emotional and physical support they receive from their parents, makes a HUGE difference in how they progress in school.[/quote]
First, 4-4.5 hours? Are you serious? My 3 year old preschool spend 7 hours in a classroom setting (6 if you take out lunch and PE). More if you add in after school activities like foreign language or music classes. You just describe what I’d consider a failing school. To some, it’s OK if their kids spend only 4-4.5 hrs. a day in a classroom setting while for me, it’s not. Right now, if I live in an area that have such school, I don’t have as easy of a path to send my kids to somewhere else.
[quote=eavesdropper]My understanding of the voucher system was that part of the alternative (private) school tuition would be paid, not the entire amount. If it is a case where the ENTIRE amount is paid, I truly do not understand how the cost will be covered by the government. Is there a voucher-supporting conservative out there who can explain that to me?[/quote]
Again, I’m paying less for my son’s private school tuition that the SDUSD is spending on each student. So, if anything, I’m saving the government and all its tax payer some money. But I’m willing to compromise and take partial tuition payment.
[quote=eavesdropper]As for whether it’s transferring from one public school to another in a “better” area, I cannot comprehend how that’s going to work. The planning of education, like any broadscale public service, requires short- AND long-term planning and forecasting. Students can’t be shifted around willy-nilly, per the whims of their parents.[/quote]
It works perfectly fine in Finland where their school system is ranked #1. You should study how they implement their voucher system if you don’t think it can work.
[quote=eavesdropper]In addition, you mention “poor” students. What income level are we talking about here? In reality, genuinely poor families are concerned with keeping a roof over their children’s heads, and food in their bellies. I’m fairly sure that most of them are happy just to have a place to drop their kids off in the morning before they go to one of their minimum wage jobs. I could be wrong, but somehow I don’t imagine the parent coming home from work at 2:30 am and pulling out the real estate map so that they can evaluate the relative benefits of one school district over another. Also you need to recognize the added burden that traveling a distance to a “better” school takes on a young student who comes from a poor family.[/quote]Those who don’t treasure education wouldn’t care, but there are poor parents who do care and want to send their kids to school that perform better. Have you ever heard of The Preuss School UCSD? This will tell you how many poor parents actually care.
[quote=eavesdropper]I’m sorry, but many of the justifications you provide here don’t seem to be motivated by a concern for better schools, or opportunities for the poor. As I said earlier, every argument I hear for vouchers melts down to a middle-class parent who wants their kid to have access to a private school education on the government dime (i.e., entitlement program??), or else someone that wants their church’s bible study/sunday school converted into a full-time facility with government-paid tuition. In reality, this proposal will benefit the upper middle class, not the poor or the lower middle class.[/quote]Wrong and wrong. First, where does the government get their money? Second, it doesn’t have to be private school. I’m perfectly fine w/ a voucher system that don’t include private school.
[quote=eavesdropper]I can’t speak as to the superior qualities of the Finnish schools, but would be very interested in finding out more. Do you have any links to websites that give some detail?[/quote]I watched a view documentaries and read up on it. I don’t have the link in hand but you can easily Google it. There are plenty of hits since it’s a well discussed topic and Finnish schools are ranking #1 in international testings.
[quote=eavesdropper]Many times, people see article describing educational systems in other countries, in which the students are doing very well. They wonder aloud why we can’t do that here in the United States, and from there it’s a quick descent into a fact-free blamefest: “It’s the teachers’ union that caused it all” “It’s the welfare kids that go to the school”, or my personal favorite, “It’s because they took God out of the schools”. Excuse me, but I’m all full up on anecdotal “evidence”.[/quote]I see the same argument for single payer system for healthcare. If we can use Europe as a model for healthcare since it work better ours, then why can’t we do the same for education?
[quote=eavesdropper]In some countries of the world, education is afforded a place of high priority. It IS a privilege in some places, and the people recognize that. In many nations, behavior like that exhibited by many of today’s elementary and high school students would not be tolerated. The “rules” may not be in writing, especially in places where parents make sure that their children learn respect for their elders at an early age. [/quote]This is not very different from the healthcare debate.
[quote=eavesdropper]Yes, there are plenty of “bad” students….or, at least, students who frequently demonstrate bad behavior. My point is that they do it because they CAN do it. More and more students have no idea how to behave in the classroom, and for quite a few, it’s appropriate behavior to loudly express your resentment at having to be in the classroom when you would much rather be at the mall. Have you been in an American high school in the past five years? The students are not only openly disrespectful of their teachers, but they will often refuse to follow the instructions of their teachers, and carry on loud conversations that are disruptive, and keep other students in the classroom from learning.[/quote]You must have never really meet real bad kids. Saying that gang members do it because they CAN do it and won’t if they can’t is foolish.
[quote=eavesdropper]You ask, “Does that mean we’ll have a society where a large portion of its citizen be uneducated because they were escorted out of their class? “. I hope not. But the fact is that we currently have a society where a large portion of the citizenry is uneducated, either because they didn’t give a crap about their own education, or because their teachers were powerless to remove them from the class when they were loud and disruptive, and this prevented other students from learning. And it’s getting worse every year.[/quote]If you think they’re uneducated now, just wait and see how really uneducated they are when you actually remove them from the classroom.
[quote=eavesdropper]The responsibility for disciplining students, and teaching them to respect others and how to behave in a classroom is NOT the job of the school or the teacher. It is the sole responsibility of the parent, one from which they have completely abdicated. We should be discouraging that abdication of responsibility by refusing to tolerate the unacceptable behavior of their children in our schools.[/quote]This I totally agree with, but unfortunately, the parents of those bad kids most of the time don’t give a crap. So, what do you do? If you kick them out and give them no education, then might as well ship them all to an island like England did to criminals and Australia.
[quote=eavesdropper]Instead we dump these uncivilized cretins in the classroom, and tell the teachers that it’s their problem. And the people who are actually at the root of the problem – namely, the PARENTS – aren’t held accountable. So where is the motivation for them to change their irresponsible habits?
Parents see schools as government-sponsored daycare for their kids. That attitude needs to change. Education is a privilege, and if you don’t care enough to teach your children how to behave in a school, and make sure that they ARE behaving there, then you don’t get to take advantage of the privilege. Education isn’t daycare, and teachers aren’t babysitters.[/quote]On one hand, you say parents need to care more about their kids’ education and on the other you tell parents that actually care that they can’t have the control they deserve because they are are too demanding. Make up your mind.
BTW, what you suggested is not that different in the end result than a voucher system. At least w/ a voucher system, the good students will be together and the bad students will be together. While with your solution, the good students will be together but the bad students get no education.
Also, with your solution, the “scarce resource” argument still apply if 1/2 of the students are bad and get kicked out. Now, you have a school that have less students.
BTW, Sweden, Denmark, and Netherlands are also other countries that have voucher system and their kids are scoring better than ours as well. AFAIK, parents get to pick public or private school and it’s all covered. Also, make no mistake that voucher system is NOT the silver bullet. There are many other things that need to be changed as well. But it NEVER hurt to have parents more involved and have more control of education their children.
Here’s a nice read on school choice vs performance: linky
Here’s a blurb:
[quote=Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D.]OECD data also indicate that school choice benefits students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. Among the top five countries with above-average performance and a below-average impact of student socioeconomic background, competition for students was the most common characteristic. On average, 80 percent of schools in Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, and Korea faced high levels of competition for students. Parental school choice was even a more common characteristic than selective school admissions (26 percent) or parental pressure on their children to do well in school (73 percent). Among these high-performing countries, students spent an average of less than three hours a week on out-of-school lessons and around five hours per week on homework.[/quote]
I would think that it’s common sense that when vendors compete, the customers win. In this case, the schools are the vendors and the customers are the students.
August 3, 2011 @ 4:16 PM
AN wrote: [The school
[quote=AN] [The school voucher system] works perfectly fine in Finland where their school system is ranked #1. You should study how they implement their voucher system if you don’t think it can work.[/quote]
AN, my apologies for the delay in responding to your previous post (July 31, 3:24 am). I take great pains to ensure that the facts and evidence I present are just that, and the research to ensure this can take a lot of time. In addition, when my correspondent’s argument against my POV is based on information with which I am not familiar, I don’t automatically tell him that he’s wrong. I can tell him that I don’t agree, but in the absence of knowledge or information, I cannot judge him wrong.
You REPEATEDLY referred, in several posts, to Finland’s academic superiority that resulted from its change to a competitive market model via school vouchers (see quote above); therefore, I felt obliged to read up, not only because I lacked perspective on the Finnish system, but because I was interested in how their system achieved such results. However, I was taken back a bit when, in response to my request for URLs of sources you found informative, I received this response: “I watched a view documentaries and read up on it. I don’t have the link in hand but you can easily Google it. There are plenty of hits since it’s a well discussed topic and Finnish schools are ranking #1 in international testings.”
Excuse me? You’ve been carrying on lengthy arguments, not only with me, but with other Piggs on alternate threads, fiercely defending the “proven” virtues of the school voucher systems, but this is all you’ve got?
Okay, I’ll let that go. I did read your linked article on “school choice” by Dr. Vicky Murray. This is not a research paper, but a very poorly-written opinion piece, and if the claims she made throughout the article are valid, I can’t prove it, as she apparently felt her status as a PhD and a senior fellow in education studies at the Pacific Research Institute excused her from having to include references and citations. However, I wanted to give your “expert” a fair shot, so I looked up AND read a number of her papers on the success of school voucher systems that were listed on the PRI and other websites. Her publications are all of a similar genre to the original: they are straight-out opinion pieces. Many had no references; the ones that did were almost laughable with regard to what she did or did not include (the work of any college freshman who tried to pass that off as a bibliography deserves an F).
Still wanting to be fair, I researched Dr. Murray’s education/qualifications as an educational policy expert. Unfortunately, I could not locate a CV anywhere (including her personal site, where the CV had been removed), and the only Google hits led to PRI or “papers” she had written posted by entities that had hired her. No info re: undergrad, but her Ph.D. is from a diploma mill (and is in Politics, not in education-related studies). The upshot is that Vicki Murray is a paid mouthpiece for PRI, a lobbying group that advocates what they term as “free-market policy solutions.” Why am I so concerned about her? Because when you search for pro-school voucher sites, she is represented on a huge number of right-leaning sites: either quoted as a “leading educational expert” who is “highly knowledgeable in the success of school vouchers”, or through publication of her “research”.
Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.
I have a number of other excellent sources regarding the structure and success of the Finnish education model and the Program for International Student Assessment study (testing results). These sources are ACCURATE and REPUTABLE. You’re right, AN: they were easy to find on Google. Which begs the question: Why didn’t you find them?
In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m pissed off. I come to Piggs because I meet people who, for the most part, are intelligent, well-informed, and who always welcome an opportunity to mix it up in challenging arguments. The political leanings of most are, to a degree, in one particular direction, but they have no problem with people who prefer to lean opposite. This is because there is no greater evidence that a nation is free than the open exchange and expression of widely diverging ideas and opinions on a public forum that is open to the eyes of all.
However, there’s a difference between what qualifies as an argument, and what is simply someone trying to shove their opinion down your throat. Successful argumentation requires both sides being presented: each side brings their facts and evidence, along with their opinions, to the forum.
You haven’t done that. You shoot down other people’s statements, but don’t offer evidence of your argument for doing so. You don’t answer questions, and you cherry-pick points you want to challenge. That doesn’t thrill me, but I’m okay with it. However, it really pisses me off when people repeatedly make baseless claims, or provide “evidence” that is, in actuality, opinion.
You’ve challenged a number of people on their opinions on the current educational model, but then I find out that your child isn’t in the public school system of which you speak. You use your 3 year-old child’s experience in a private preschool (with a 7-hour school day) to challenge my argument about the average PUBLIC high school student’s 4-hour day. I try to explain the logistics of removing and adding pupils to and from a variety of schools and districts, and you cling to your vision of “simply” moving X dollars per student from one entity to another (read this article, AN. [www.jrre.psu.edu/articles/v5,n3,p21-29,Thompson.pdf] It’s outdated, but it will familiarize you with a few of the challenges of changing to voucher education. It will also serve the purpose of introducing you to what an actual research paper looks like.) You persist in envisioning my concerns about problematic student behavior as limited to “gang members”, when, actually, I’m talking about ALL students in public schools, including those from upper middle class families.
Most clueless of all is the following response to my request that you characterize school “failure”. You said, “Failing is different for every parent. It doesn’t matter what my personal definition of failing is, but if I think the school is failing my kid, I should have a choice to send my kid to a different school, be it public or private.” Aside the fact that you DO have a choice of where to school your child (you just don’t have a choice of who will pick up the tab), I cannot even begin to address the – shall we say, naivete – of this belief. Let us speculate on the delicious possibilities* of such “freedom”:
—- “I have a beautiful, talented daughter who is in pageants. I want her in a school that replaces some of that stuff she’s never going to use, like spelling and fractions, with courses that will help her achieve her destiny of Hollywood stardom”
—- “My son’s Jupiter is in Sagittarius this year, so his pediatric astrologer thinks that’s the reason he’s flunking science. She recommended that he be bused to School X, whose principal’s chart is more closely aligned with my son’s than is his current principal.”
—- “I know that I transferred my kids to School B last year, because they teach Intelligent Design there. But I didn’t know that they also teach the Theory of Evolution. They say it’s “science”, but, after all, it’s just a theory. It’s not like it’s a law that’s been proven. He needs to go to a school where they only teach science that’s been proven, like Intelligent Design has.”
—- “Jamie needs to go to a school where they understand him. They, like, give him work to do at home. Isn’t that what school is for? He says he’s too busy to do homework, but they’re still giving him Fs claiming that he missed assignments. Then I have to go to school to get the grades changed to Bs. I missed Pilates the last time I had to do that. I want him in a school where the teachers are trained to recognize and grade talent that kids are born with.”
*if you think that such excuses are ridiculous examples, do some research into the reasons people have given for switching to home-schooling.
AN, you challenged views that were expressed by knowledgeable people, who were able to back their views up with evidence, but, in reality, you were unarmed. You don’t “research” issues, or try to acquire knowledge with which to make a decision. What you do is what most people in America (including members of our esteemed Congress) do: You formulate an opinion, which is actually a visceral reaction in disguise, and then you go to the always-reputable WWW for support for that position. You either follow a link given to you by a like-minded friend, or you go to your favorite completely one-sided blog or homepage, and harvest your “evidence” and “scientific data” there. But what’s really great about it is, all those people having the exact same opinion as yours gives you license to ignore the need for evidence. “I mean, all these people are saying the exact same thing. I’m sure they confirmed the evidence.” In reality, ANY one-sided website is an excuse for people to vent, and to pretend/assume that such consensus must have a foundation of proven facts.
Here’s a handy tip: when you go to a website where everybody thinks just like you do, chances are very strong that a significant percentage of the information there is flawed. Sorta like the websites that praised Finland’s school voucher system. You are a sitting duck for the powers-that- be who are using the masses to push through candidates, policy, and legislation that end up hurting them. You live in a nation where you still have freedom of choice. Treat that freedom like the priceless gift that it is: use it to make sure that you study everything. While it’s true that the Finnish National Board of Education and the OECD/PISA sites are not nearly as entertaining or easy to read as FreeRepublic.com or Drudge Report or Sean Hannity, they can be counted on to provide accurate information about their own school system. Also keep in mind that if the evidence on a site doesn’t match what you were hoping to find, that does NOT automatically disqualify the information source from being impartial. It IS possible that you were buying into a lie.
So either admit that you want a school voucher system so that you can send your child to a private school while the taxpayer picks up the tab (BTW, it’s okay to admit that. Every good parent wants the best for their children.), or spend less time on Piggs picking fights on subjects about which you know nothing, spreading misinformation in the process, and more time actually studying the issues that concern you.
Because when you’re on Piggs, the shots are being exchanged at a rapid pace. And AN, your ammo box is empty.
August 3, 2011 @ 6:00 PM
eavesdropper wrote:So either
[quote=eavesdropper]So either admit that you want a school voucher system so that you can send your child to a private school while the taxpayer picks up the tab (BTW, it’s okay to admit that. Every good parent wants the best for their children.), or spend less time on Piggs picking fights on subjects about which you know nothing, spreading misinformation in the process, and more time actually studying the issues that concern you.
Because when you’re on Piggs, the shots are being exchanged at a rapid pace. And AN, your ammo box is empty.[/quote]
Sorry, but I’ve said it many times, I’m fine if you removed the private school from the voucher system. I would be perfectly fine having an option to send my kids to TPHS, SRHS, Westview HS, etc. Those are ALL public schools. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my retirement security by living in such areas. For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.
FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. If those are not your point, prove me wrong. Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. I’m perfectly fine with more magnet schools, more charter schools, etc.
BTW, I would be perfectly fine with your system you proposed, where the bad students get expelled. But, I highly doubt either system will be implemented. I was only voicing my opinion because I want change, hoping our primary school will be as revered as our secondary schools. Another proven good system is our secondary school system. We can model after that.
I’m sorry I can type as long of a post as yours. But you haven’t proven to me why voucher system are bad, so although my ammo is empty, you’re aim is so bad you’re missing the point completely. I was only trying to offer another system that have produce better results. They’re being implemented my socialist countries no less. I love it that people living in these socialist countries have more choices in schools than we do. CHOICE is the key word here.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:05 PM
AN wrote:Sorry, but I’ve said
[quote=AN]Sorry, but I’ve said it many times, I’m fine if you removed the private school from the voucher system. I would be perfectly fine having an option to send my kids to TPHS, SRHS, Westview HS, etc. Those are ALL public schools. But I’m not willing to sacrifice my retirement security by living in such areas. For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.[/quote]
AN, I thought your schools in MM were ALL GOOD, from K-12! Isn’t that why you purchased in the area you grew up in … to raise your family there? Do you currently have kid(s) enrolled in public school in MM? If they’re not in MMHS yet, why can’t you attempt to “choice” them into one of the above schools when the time comes … SRHS? I just don’t see a big problem here.
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. This cost would be the same as paying a $5K annual MR, $2K annual HOA dues and borrowing $40K more in mtg purchase money to live in, say, 4-Closure Ranch. You won’t be able to save more “retirement” $$ for yourself by paying your current property taxes and then sending your child(ren) to private schools. Why not just rent if you’re going to do that??
[quote=AN]FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. If those are not your point, prove me wrong. Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. I’m perfectly fine with more magnet schools, more charter schools, etc.[/quote]
AN, I don’t think ALL parents know what’s best for their children. Some “well-intentioned” parents are actually getting in the way of a good education for their children by foisting their OWN jaded or paranoid beliefs about schools and/or districts (which they themselves never attended) and their OWN warped agendas on their children and/or trying to live vicariously thru them (read: “helicoptering”). If you just send your kid to your neighborhood school to get their class schedule and get settled (without “dissing” it to them first) they may very well come home happy and talking about their new classes and friends they are making.
I believe in “choice,” especially for those families served by schools which fail the “No Child Left Behind” test. However, I do NOT believe vouchers to attend private school should be paid for by the taxpayer. I also believe that those who pay more “property taxes” and much “higher rent” in particular areas “deserve” to have high-performing schools in their attendance areas. It doesn’t always turn out this way, however. Vouchers issued by the state just to pay for esoteric activities or a faith-based curriculum that a “few parents” (not necessarily students) want “for their child” is unjust enrichment to these families. The cost of these parents’ “special requests” and “private desires” for their children should be borne by them.
CA public schools are set up to graduate a very diverse population of students after successfully passing the state-sanctioned academic curriculum, passing their HS exit exam, serving their community service hours, and, in some districts, turning in a “portfolio” of their accomplishments. They can’t possibly cater to parents’ whims on class offerings, rules, attendance policies, etc.
AN, I don’t understand why you want vouchers for your child(ren) since you are living in the area of your choice already. It doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:28 PM
bearishgurl wrote:
AN, I
[quote=bearishgurl]
AN, I thought your schools in MM were ALL GOOD, from K-12! Isn’t that why you purchased in the area you grew up in … to raise your family there? Do you currently have kid(s) enrolled in public school in MM? If they’re not in MMHS yet, why can’t you attempt to “choice” them into one of the above schools when the time comes … SRHS? I just don’t see a big problem here.
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. This cost would be the same as paying a $5K annual MR, $2K annual HOA dues and borrowing $40K more in mtg purchase money to live in, say, 4-Closure Ranch. You won’t be able to save more “retirement” $$ for yourself by paying your current property taxes and then sending your child(ren) to private schools. Why not just rent if you’re going to do that??[/quote]
Yes, MM schools are good. But not great. I’m planning to only keep my kids in private school preK-6th grade. I personally don’t see as big of an advantage in Jr. High and HS. So I’ll be putting them in Challenger Middle School and MMHS. With K-6th grade, there’s 1 curriculum and all kids are lump together. While Jr. High and HS, kids are separated by their ability. Also, in HS, I will get my kids to go to Jr. College at night and summer as well.
With regards to cost, I’m paying much less than $10k. Also, talking to the parents who have their kids at the school I’ll be sending my kids to, they all loved it and they even look down to Carmel Valley schools in term of academics and they believe their kids are being learning much more. I have to agree when I ask what they’re learning at certain age and compare that to my cousin’s current curriculum. It doesn’t even compare. With regards to why buy? I’m paying less in my mortgage than comparable rent. So why rent?
[quote=bearishgurl]AN, I don’t think ALL parents know what’s best for their children. Some “well-intentioned” parents are actually getting in the way of a good education for their children by foisting their OWN jaded or paranoid beliefs about schools and/or districts (which they themselves never attended) and their OWN warped agendas on their children and/or trying to live vicariously thru them (read: “helicoptering”). If you just send your kid to your neighborhood school to get their class schedule and get settled (without “dissing” it to them first) they may very well come home happy and talking about their new classes and friends they are making.[/quote]Sorry, but I believe parents know more about what’s good for their kids than the government.
[quote=bearishgurl]I believe in “choice,” especially for those families served by schools which fail the “No Child Left Behind” test. However, I do NOT believe vouchers to attend private school should be paid for by the taxpayer. I also believe that those who pay more “property taxes” and much “higher rent” in particular areas “deserve” to have high-performing schools in their attendance areas. It doesn’t always turn out this way, however. Vouchers issued by the state just to pay for esoteric activities or a faith-based curriculum that a “few parents” (not necessarily students) want “for their child” is unjust enrichment to these families. The cost of these parents’ “special requests” and “private desires” for their children should be borne by them.
CA public schools are set up to graduate a very diverse population of students after successfully passing the state-sanctioned academic curriculum, passing their HS exit exam, serving their community service hours, and, in some districts, turning in a “portfolio” of their accomplishments. They can’t possibly cater to parents’ whims on class offerings, rules, attendance policies, etc.
AN, I don’t understand why you want vouchers for your child(ren) since you are living in the area of your choice already. It doesn’t make sense, financial or otherwise.[/quote]
It seems like you’re against voucher system because you think the current system is fine. I want to change, be it voucher or something else that’s better, is because I don’t think our school system is as good as it could be. That’s what I’m seeing from this debate.
With regards to my children and vouchers, it’s not really about me. I’m perfectly satisfied w/ private school for preK-6th (I see their academic performance as better than ANY public elementary school in SD) and MM schools for 6th-12th. I want voucher for the other kids who are stuck in their bad schools and don’t have an easier way to attend better schools. A friend of mine is a teacher and she used to teach at a Charter school before it closes. She said the District tried and tried to shut them down. They finally was successful. The current establishment doesn’t like choices is what I gather.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:44 PM
AN wrote:…With regards to
[quote=AN]…With regards to my children and vouchers, it’s not really about me. I’m perfectly satisfied w/ private school for preK-6th (I see their academic performance as better than ANY public elementary school in SD) and MM schools for 6th-12th. I want voucher for the other kids who are stuck in their bad schools and don’t have an easier way to attend better schools. A friend of mine is a teacher and she used to teach at a Charter school before it closes. She said the District tried and tried to shut them down. They finally was successful. The current establishment doesn’t like choices is what I gather.[/quote]
Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:51 PM
bearishgurl wrote:Families
[quote=bearishgurl]Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.[/quote]
Based on my understanding of “choicing” into school, it’s not as easy or straight forward as voucher. Even IF “choicing” for those bad areas is as robust and easy as vouchers, I DON’T believe only certain student have that luxury while the rest are denied such luxury. I know about inter/intradistrict transfer. But again, it’s not as easy and straight forward. Again, this luxury should be giving to ALL of our students, just not the one in failing schools. What about kids who are barely above the failing mark?
August 4, 2011 @ 4:57 AM
AN wrote:bearishgurl
[quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]Families who reside in attendance areas of schools which are not meeting the minimum criteria within the “No Child Left Behind” Act already do have choices. They can “choice” their children into better schools. In some cases, the district will even pay for their daily transportation! There is also VEEP and Magnet transfer options if your child qualifies. These affected families don’t need vouchers. They need to go down to their school district office with the appropriate paperwork and fill out forms. The wheel was invented long ago.[/quote]
Based on my understanding of “choicing” into school, it’s not as easy or straight forward as voucher. Even IF “choicing” for those bad areas is as robust and easy as vouchers, I DON’T believe only certain student have that luxury while the rest are denied such luxury. I know about inter/intradistrict transfer. But again, it’s not as easy and straight forward. Again, this luxury should be giving to ALL of our students, just not the one in failing schools. What about kids who are barely above the failing mark?[/quote]
What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.
August 4, 2011 @ 6:30 AM
CA renter wrote:What happens
[quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.
August 4, 2011 @ 11:53 AM
Scarlett wrote:CA renter
[quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
I’m almost certain that if a school already has reached its maximum capacity of CHOICE, VEEPS and Magnet (if applic) students, in combination with its already enrolled students within its attendance area (who have first priority), then it will turn away applications. I don’t know for certain, but would surmise that students out of an attendance area are admitted to a school in the following order:
1. Magnet students (who may have auditioned)
2. Choice (No Child Left Behind Act)
3. VEEPS
4. Choice (Other intra-district)
5. Inter-District transfers (outside of district)
Perhaps there is Pigg who works/worked for a school district who can help us here.
Schools usually will not exceed their physical capacity unless another school is under construction nearby (it’s a temporary accommodation). The excess in capacity results from new construction projects which bring in more students from a particular attendance area. I have seen schools in Chula Vista shut down ALL methods of accepting incoming students from out of their attendance areas when they had an overcapacity of “local” students, as well as bus some of the “new-construction” students to schools in further away, older areas.
I don’t see any school populations dwindling to empty. First of all, a CHOICE transfer is not always connected to free transportation. Not every parent has the time or even vehicle to transport their child to a different area to school every day. Second, the NCLB Act students have first priority on a CHOICE transfer and each school has a certain number of slots available (some have none). Third, if most or all the CHOICE transfers in a school are from NCLB schools, then that leaves few to no transfer-in opportunities from the pool of “other” CHOICE applicants. VEEPS are ahead of “other” CHOICE applicants. Many VEEPS originate from a NCLB attendance area and transportation is often provided to the CHOICE school. These are deserving and hardworking students whose families are designated “low-income.” I have no doubt that some NCLB schools (or “recovering NCLB” schools) have specialized magnets, drawing students in from other areas into their magnet programs.
My kids have always attended their local schools but I have noticed that schools which are located in areas with fewer children (read: older areas) accept more transfers of every kind because they have more room. I know many people who have successfully used all those methods of school transfers. However, the student’s application must be renewed every year and their attendance year-to-year is NOT “guaranteed.” IMO, if you’re trying to choice into a school in an older area (which is NOT upper middle/upper class, such as LJ), you can get your application accepted and keep attending year after year successfully if the area is already built out (no new construction pending).
August 4, 2011 @ 1:58 PM
After all the debates, they
After all the debates, they managed to cut $200 bil out of a $1200 bil deficit so we are still adding at least one trillion dollars in debt every year?
When Bush was in office, the deficit was near $600 bil and now it is $1200 bil. I wonder how much of the difference is because of lower revenue and how much of it is because of extra spending? Could anyone find out?
August 5, 2011 @ 3:29 AM
Scarlett wrote:CA renter
[quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.
August 5, 2011 @ 9:23 AM
CA renter wrote:Scarlett
[quote=CA renter][quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.[/quote]
It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity.
I’m just speaking out loud here, but if we implement an admission process like we do with our colleges, then the student body would be more homogeneous in term of academic capability.
August 5, 2011 @ 9:53 AM
AN wrote:It might look
[quote=AN]It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity…[/quote]
AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:24 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN, “new
[quote=bearishgurl]AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.[/quote]
“new classrooms” would only be needed if all classrooms are full and there are still more students that were turned away every year.
I’m not proposing anything concrete. I have certain opinion about how to improve our schools and I’d like to hear others’ opinion as well. My opinion is constantly evolving as I take in more information. You’re right, I think schools that fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. Maybe rent out that space to a private school or a charter school or a magnet school that can use that space and yield better results.
With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:27 AM
AN wrote:…With regards to
[quote=AN]…With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.[/quote]
AN, do you have a link for your $10K per student claim? I would surmise the reality is more like $4500 per student but I don’t know where to find this info.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:35 AM
$14,220
http://www.signonsand
$14,220
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/22/readers-debate-san-diego-unifieds-budget-struggles/
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:40 AM
jstoesz
[quote=jstoesz]$14,220
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/22/readers-debate-san-diego-unifieds-budget-struggles/
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
That seems incredibly high to me. Wonder if that much will be spent in the coming school year?
I don’t think private schools are “50% less than that.” I think the cost is very close to that or more, esp for private high school.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:46 AM
bearishgurl wrote:jstoesz
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=jstoesz]$14,220
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/22/readers-debate-san-diego-unifieds-budget-struggles/
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
That seems incredibly high to me. Wonder if that much will be spent in the coming school year?
I don’t think private schools are “50% less than that.” I think the cost is very close to that or more, esp for private high school.[/quote]
That number does seem high, when compare to CA Dept of Edu numbers.
Private elementary schools around ~$8-10k. Private HS can be as low as ~$13k (http://www.cathedralcatholic.org/admissions/about-tuition) and as high as $27k for (http://www.ljcds.org/page.cfm?p=1982).
August 5, 2011 @ 10:46 AM
delete
delete
August 5, 2011 @ 10:52 AM
Wow! There are some big
Wow! There are some big numbers in there. Owens valley is pushing 40 g’s. I guess the state education budget is bailing them out.
I wonder too if those numbers are the state expenditure with the city/county adding to the state contribution, bringing the grand total to 14k. Although the SOSD article does not site a reference, so it does not appear terrible credible.
August 5, 2011 @ 11:05 AM
jstoesz wrote:Wow! There are
[quote=jstoesz]Wow! There are some big numbers in there. Owens valley is pushing 40 g’s. I guess the state education budget is bailing them out.
I wonder too if those numbers are the state expenditure with the city/county adding to the state contribution, bringing the grand total to 14k. Although the SOSD article does not site a reference, so it does not appear terrible credible.[/quote]
jstoesz, the state funds the schools, not cities or counties. The state actually intercepts county property-tax coffers (not MR) and doles a portion of it back out in the form of “Teeter Funds” to operate city and county governments.
This is a ridiculous outlay per student for Owens Valley (pop 17K). The Inyo County seat is Bishop. This area no doubt can fill one K-12 school or two small adjacent buildings (one K-6 and one 7-12). A former co-worker of mine worked in the court up there about 15 years ago and said they had ONE judge at that time – for ALL types of cases, incl traffic, filled in occasionally by a (ret) Commissioner, lol!
August 5, 2011 @ 11:10 AM
BG…Thanks for that info. I
BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.
August 5, 2011 @ 11:55 AM
jstoesz wrote:BG…Thanks for
[quote=jstoesz]BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.[/quote]
Roughly, it has to do with the portion of property tax recovered by the state within that school district which is set aside for school district operation – divided by the number of students enrolled in the district. A property owner can see how much money they are contributing to operate their school district(s) on their property tax bill.
The smaller districts (esp where the land is worth less) can’t possibly collect enough property tax to operate their schools. Perhaps districts such as the one in the Owens Valley were factoring in the cost of building a new school in 2009 (to replace a very old one). I haven’t checked but I don’t think there are any CFD’s there. There isn’t really room (or an “audience”) to build an entire new housing development up against the back of the Sierras. Nor are their jobs in that area.
At the time of my friend’s leaving the employ of Inyo County (about ’98-99), its population was just over 16K. So it hasn’t really grown due to “bubble-era” construction.
edit: just checked a map of Inyo County and Independence is the County seat (my bad). My friend lived in Bishop but worked in Independence. I also noticed that the Death Valley area is part of Inyo County. The Death Valley area is too far to bus students to/from school. There would need to be school(s) there, as well, even though its population is very small. A/C costs are very high out there and transporting kids from other locales 40+ miles to school into Bishop or Independence is expensive. The vast majority of these kids probably qualify for free transportation.
“Economies of scale” prevails here.
August 6, 2011 @ 12:47 AM
bearishgurl wrote:jstoesz
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=jstoesz]BG…Thanks for that info. I thought it was a combo deal. State give some to operate and the city kicks in depending on how much it wants to spend.
How come some districts spend so much more than others? How is that determined? Tell me it is not simply politics and lobbying which determines what district gets what.[/quote]
Roughly, it has to do with the portion of property tax recovered by the state within that school district which is set aside for school district operation – divided by the number of students enrolled in the district. A property owner can see how much money they are contributing to operate their school district(s) on their property tax bill.
The smaller districts (esp where the land is worth less) can’t possibly collect enough property tax to operate their schools. Perhaps districts such as the one in the Owens Valley were factoring in the cost of building a new school in 2009 (to replace a very old one). I haven’t checked but I don’t think there are any CFD’s there. There isn’t really room (or an “audience”) to build an entire new housing development up against the back of the Sierras. Nor are their jobs in that area.
At the time of my friend’s leaving the employ of Inyo County (about ’98-99), its population was just over 16K. So it hasn’t really grown due to “bubble-era” construction.
edit: just checked a map of Inyo County and Independence is the County seat (my bad). My friend lived in Bishop but worked in Independence. I also noticed that the Death Valley area is part of Inyo County. The Death Valley area is too far to bus students to/from school. There would need to be school(s) there, as well, even though its population is very small. A/C costs are very high out there and transporting kids from other locales 40+ miles to school into Bishop or Independence is expensive. The vast majority of these kids probably qualify for free transportation.
“Economies of scale” prevails here.[/quote]
That would be my thought as well.
August 5, 2011 @ 11:07 AM
The first private school that
The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
http://www.therockacademy.org/tuitionandfees/
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day.
I just checked, the private schools I went to in MN are also slightly less than half that for base tuition with plenty of finacial aid to lower it further. But I went to the middle class private schools. If you want a status school, you are going to spend 3X.
August 5, 2011 @ 11:14 AM
jstoesz wrote:The first
[quote=jstoesz]The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
http://www.therockacademy.org/tuitionandfees/
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day. ..[/quote]
jstoesz, the Rock Church has many thousands of members, some very well-heeled. So many that they took up nearly ALL the street parking on Liberty Station for years even though there was a huge public parking lot just over a block away. They expanded rapidly in SD when they acquired the old military chapel on NTC and rehabbed it. I haven’t been out there recently but would venture that they have built onto their parking lot due to voluminous neighborhood complaints of Sunday parking problems, loudspeaker noise and traffic.
Those tuition levels are based upon the Church’s ability to fundraise and they also offer partial scholarships. Perhaps some of their members are well-connected in the non-profit world and so they have the expertise and ability to raise the funds to keep their tuition low.
August 5, 2011 @ 11:19 AM
bearishgurl wrote:jstoesz
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=jstoesz]The first private school that came to mind in SD is indeed half the cost for elementary.
http://www.therockacademy.org/tuitionandfees/
I have no idea if it is a good school or not, and it is christian. I just used to drive by it every day. ..[/quote]
jstoesz, the Rock Church has many thousands of members, some very well-heeled. So many that they took up nearly ALL the street parking on Liberty Station for years even though there was a huge public parking lot just over a block away. They expanded rapidly in SD when they acquired the old military chapel on NTC and rehabbed it. I haven’t been out there recently but would venture that they have built onto their parking lot due to voluminous neighborhood complaints of Sunday parking problems, loudspeaker noise and traffic.
Those tuition levels are based upon the Church’s ability to fundraise and they also offer partial scholarships. Perhaps some of their members are well-connected in the non-profit world and so they have the expertise and ability to raise the funds to keep their tuition low.[/quote]
To add to the speculation…
The growing trend in private education is to apply tuition based on need. So only the rich, or the kids with behavior issues, Pay the full price. (maybe not the second one depending on the school).
Talking to my friends who graduated from Private U’s. Almost no one with a brain or in a cash strapped position pays the full price of the tuition.
My wife went to Loma Linda School of Allied Medicine and certainly didn’t pay the full price. Still paid a lot though!
August 6, 2011 @ 12:43 AM
jstoesz
[quote=jstoesz]$14,220
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/22/readers-debate-san-diego-unifieds-budget-struggles/
A lot of good private schools out there cost 50% less than that…Granted you don’t get all those sweet administrators, bleachers, flat screens, and ipads for that kind of money.[/quote]
You also don’t get the special ed, high-needs, low-income, free breakfast/lunch crowd, either.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]…With regards to class size, I’m disgusted that it’s getting worse. I don’t know the inner working of school finances, so maybe someone can enlighten me, but why are public school class size MUCH worse than private school while spending about the same? Are we spending less per students that what’s reported? Which is $10k/student for SDUSD.[/quote]
AN, do you have a link for your $10K per student claim? I would surmise the reality is more like $4500 per student but I don’t know where to find this info.[/quote]
Go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp. They say in 09-10, SDUSD spent $9855/student. Sweetwater spent $8612/student.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:47 AM
AN wrote:Go here:
[quote=AN]Go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp. They say in 09-10, SDUSD spent $9855/student. Sweetwater spent $8612/student.[/quote]
I downloaded the chart. It’s shocking how much was paid per student in rural and mountain districts in’09. Probably due to “economies of scale.”
It will be interesting to see what the outlays for each student will be for the 11/12 school year and beyond.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:55 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN wrote:Go
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]Go here: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp. They say in 09-10, SDUSD spent $9855/student. Sweetwater spent $8612/student.[/quote]
I downloaded the chart. It’s shocking how much was paid per student in rural and mountain districts in’09. Probably due to “economies of scale.”
It will be interesting to see what the outlays for each student will be for the 11/12 school year and beyond.[/quote]
I agree and it boggles my mind as well. These mountain districts probably have enough students to fill 1 school. So, their cost due to “economies of scale” should be similar to private schools, no? Example: Oro Grande Elementary spent $33,673/student. That’s ridiculous. Or Pacific Unified. They spent $59,638/student.
August 6, 2011 @ 12:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN wrote:It
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity…[/quote]
AN, “new classrooms” won’t do any good. MANY schools in CA today have to lock up classrooms. There isn’t the money to pay teachers to staff them or to heat/cool an empty classroom.
Some schools don’t have a large enough campus to install temporary buildings. These bldgs also tend to be hotter and colder in inland climates and cost more in utilities.
If I understand correctly, what you are proposing here is that schools who fail the NCLB Act benchmarks should be closed. It is a waste of money to close down entire campuses when the land can’t be sold easily and deprives the students in a particular attendance area (who often don’t have reliable transportation) of their neighborhood school.[/quote]
LOL! Just saw your post, and see you’ve already addressed some of my points, BG.
August 6, 2011 @ 1:43 AM
AN wrote:CA renter
[quote=AN][quote=CA renter][quote=Scarlett][quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
That is a good point, CA R. And the best schools would be way overbooked while others would be almost empty and forced to close.[/quote]
That’s the funny part. As BG pointed out, those other schools wouldn’t be empty because the “best” schools would fill up, and then the students would flow back, in priority, from most desirable to least desirable school, until everyone has filled an available slot. It would end up looking very much like…what we already have.[/quote]
It might look similar to what we currently have at the initial point of implementation, since the amount of class rooms are limited. However, schools can expand and add more class rooms. If they see that there’s always a certain demand that’s being turned away, those good schools can add more class rooms. Also, due to the flow back that you describe, all good schools will be running at 100% capacity.
I’m just speaking out loud here, but if we implement an admission process like we do with our colleges, then the student body would be more homogeneous in term of academic capability.[/quote]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?
As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
Here’s an article about the different arguments:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20091214_5320.php
August 6, 2011 @ 9:05 AM
CA renter wrote:
All of the
[quote=CA renter]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?[/quote]I’m not sure what’s better, stick with the current school size or expand the good school. There’s pros and cons for both. But lets say we want to expand the good school, if the money follow the student, then the school can either borrow money from the state or the school can say to the state, I’m running at 100% capacity and we are currently turning away X students every year. That would be enough students for x classrooms. The state then can just give money to that school to build more classrooms. With regards to the empty school that’s left behind, they can rent it out to private schools or allow charter/magnet school to open there. My kid’s current school was once a public school. But ideally, the local public school would see that students are leaving due to their bad performance. They would then do whatever they can to improve to stop or reverse the flow of students.
[quote=CA renter]As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
Here’s an article about the different arguments:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20091214_5320.php%5B/quote%5D
That’s a good article CAR, fair and balance on both sides. With regards to using Preuss (they miss spelled the school name in the article) as an example of detracking is better, I’m a little confused. Preuss school is charter school that only low income student can apply. Here are the 3 requirements all applicants must meet:
• All families must meet income eligibility criteria as defined by Federal guidelines. You may view these guidelines here.
• The parents or chief guardians are NOT graduates of a four year college or university.
• Student applicants must demonstrate motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college.
They prove that just because you’re poor and your parents are not college graduate doesn’t mean you can’t outperform. The biggest factor I think is the #3 requirement. Because of #3, the student body are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability.
I’m not sure what to think about this statement: “But in practice, the discussion inevitably revolves around race and equality. This is because, predominantly, the students in low-track classes are minorities and low-income.” Yes, it’s true that certain minority groups perform poorly. So, tracking will separate them from the higher performing students. However, I personally don’t think it’s because of their race but it’s more because of their desire to outperform in academic. I think Preuss school is an example of the contrary. Just because you’re a minority and poor doesn’t mean you can’t outperform.
Personally, I think tracking has a good track record of allowing most students to perform at their max potential. Our Secondary/vocation school is the prime example that support my view. Not everyone can go to Harvard, Stanfard, etc. Yes there are a small group that can buy their way in, but in general, our Universities are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability. This, I think is the main reason why we have the best higher education system. That’s why people from all over the world want to come here to study. Preuss school and private schools are another example that support my view. I also believe that not everyone is cut out to go to college. We should find a way to track every students to see what they’re good at and what they’re interested in. With that data, we can help every student outperform in an area they’re good at and love. There’s nothing wrong w/ vocational school. You don’t need to learn calculus if you want to be a carpenter. Some European countries like Germany implement this segregation (dividing students into two tracks, academic and vocational) as well.
August 6, 2011 @ 6:34 PM
AN wrote:CA renter wrote:
All
[quote=AN][quote=CA renter]
All of the good schools are already at 100% capacity. Let’s pretend that schools can just “add more classrooms” on a whim. Where do they get the money for the new construction? Who is going to pay for the empty schools that are left behind? Do we close them permanently? Do we sell the properties? Who will service the local students from those areas, and how?[/quote]I’m not sure what’s better, stick with the current school size or expand the good school. There’s pros and cons for both. But lets say we want to expand the good school, if the money follow the student, then the school can either borrow money from the state or the school can say to the state, I’m running at 100% capacity and we are currently turning away X students every year. That would be enough students for x classrooms. The state then can just give money to that school to build more classrooms. With regards to the empty school that’s left behind, they can rent it out to private schools or allow charter/magnet school to open there. My kid’s current school was once a public school. But ideally, the local public school would see that students are leaving due to their bad performance. They would then do whatever they can to improve to stop or reverse the flow of students.
[quote=CA renter]As far as students being homogeneous in terms of academic capability, that’s what public schools are trying to fight against. If they allow it, they open themselves up to discrimination lawsuits — big time. As a matter of fact, when I was teaching, we were not allowed to “track” students by ability (grouping them in classrooms with academically/intellectually similar students) — not sure if it was a district rule or broader state or federal law.
Now, you and I can debate the merits of tracking, and it’s certainly obvious why parents of high-achievers favor it, but the fact remains that it’s not “politically correct” to track students by ability.
Here’s an article about the different arguments:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/no_20091214_5320.php%5B/quote%5D
That’s a good article CAR, fair and balance on both sides. With regards to using Preuss (they miss spelled the school name in the article) as an example of detracking is better, I’m a little confused. Preuss school is charter school that only low income student can apply. Here are the 3 requirements all applicants must meet:
• All families must meet income eligibility criteria as defined by Federal guidelines. You may view these guidelines here.
• The parents or chief guardians are NOT graduates of a four year college or university.
• Student applicants must demonstrate motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college.
They prove that just because you’re poor and your parents are not college graduate doesn’t mean you can’t outperform. The biggest factor I think is the #3 requirement. Because of #3, the student body are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability.
I’m not sure what to think about this statement: “But in practice, the discussion inevitably revolves around race and equality. This is because, predominantly, the students in low-track classes are minorities and low-income.” Yes, it’s true that certain minority groups perform poorly. So, tracking will separate them from the higher performing students. However, I personally don’t think it’s because of their race but it’s more because of their desire to outperform in academic. I think Preuss school is an example of the contrary. Just because you’re a minority and poor doesn’t mean you can’t outperform.
Personally, I think tracking has a good track record of allowing most students to perform at their max potential. Our Secondary/vocation school is the prime example that support my view. Not everyone can go to Harvard, Stanfard, etc. Yes there are a small group that can buy their way in, but in general, our Universities are pretty homogeneous in term of academic capability. This, I think is the main reason why we have the best higher education system. That’s why people from all over the world want to come here to study. Preuss school and private schools are another example that support my view. I also believe that not everyone is cut out to go to college. We should find a way to track every students to see what they’re good at and what they’re interested in. With that data, we can help every student outperform in an area they’re good at and love. There’s nothing wrong w/ vocational school. You don’t need to learn calculus if you want to be a carpenter. Some European countries like Germany implement this segregation (dividing students into two tracks, academic and vocational) as well.[/quote]
The bolded part of your post definitely has its merits, but there are issues with that, as well. It prevents people who might be more “immature” in their youth from pursuing a more rigorous academic path later in life. My mother was Austrian, and they did this in her country. But what’s different there (at least in the past…not sure about current times) is that the students who don’t go on to the university track go into apprenticeship programs that really teach them skills with which they can support themselves and their families. Also, “blue collar” work is very much respected and admired. They have skilled craftsmen who are paid well for what they do. In the U.S., we’ve done away with our higher-skilled craftsmen, and replaced them with (often illegal) low-skilled workers from poor countries. If we track our students this way, and force them into non-university tracks, we would be forcing them into poverty, with very little opportunity for turning their lives around.
As to the rest of your post, you’re still working from the assumption that it’s the **teachers** who are failing these students, when those who are familiar with education will tell you that it’s the **students** and **parents** who are failing themselves. Sticking a private school where a public school once was — and educating the same population there — will not likely yield better results. As a matter of fact, because of a private school’s inability to meet the needs of special ed and higher-needs students, they would likely perform worse than the public school that was replaced.
Regarding Preuss, it’s the third requirement that explains why they do well. The first two simply mean that they accept the **highest performing students with the most dedicated parents** from low-income families where the parents don’t have college degrees. The students need a teacher’s recommendation from their previous school, and, “student applicants must demonstrate high motivation and potential to attend an academically competitive university or college,” which most likely means they have a better-than-average I.Q.
You cannot compare Preuss with a typical public school in a low-income neighborhood. They are not even close. Preuss enjoys the benefits of having VERY wealthy, private donors, in addition to the typical funds given to public or charter schools. They also have use of the UCSD campus and many of the university’s ammenities (there’s a cost component there), and UCSD students who provide FREE tutoring to these students — we use tutors for our kids, and I can assure you, it is EXTREMELY expensive. They have top-of-the-line classrooms, technology, sports facilities/equipment, and materials. Do you have any idea what all of that costs? I can assure you, their program costs more than twice what the typical public school costs.
As I’ve mentioned before, you have to consider ALL sources of income when comparing what schools spend on students. With traditional public schools, most of those income sources and costs are public information; there is very little private money, compared to what private (or special charter) schools get. Read the bottom of the piece linked here, to see how much things cost, and how they are trying to get PRIVATE funding to provide these things. It’s nice when you’re a high-profile component of a very wealthy community, with nice, wealthy people who want to “do good” in their communities. How many rich people are willing to consistently donate millions of dollars to support a single school in the gang-infested parts of the inner city?
Here is a small sampling of what Preuss offers (regular public schools can’t even begin to offer all of this, or the state would have been broke decades ago):
The Tutoring Program
To give its students extra academic help with its challenging curriculum, the Preuss School also conducts a tutoring program in partnership with the University. The program employs two different groups of tutors. One is enrolled in a class through UCSD’s Teacher Education Program; the class awards credit for a certain number of hours of tutoring per month. The other is made up of UCSD student volunteers from Thurgood Marshall College. Through these avenues, the Preuss School typically has 150-200 tutors available to help assist students at any given time.
Counseling Program
The Preuss School’s counseling staff plays a central role in the school, seeing to it that those students who are lagging behind get academic help as soon as possible and providing guidance in the college selection and application process. Students living in poverty often confront many difficult issues that call for support beyond regular school counseling, however. To help them, UCSD professor Peter Gourevitch established an endowed fund in memory of his late wife, Lisa Hirschman, a teacher and psychologist. The Hirschman Fund enables two psychotherapists and an intern to work with Preuss School students, providing them with the psychosocial services they need to overcome the problems they face.
Mutual Benefits
The benefits of the relationship between the school and UCSD are extensive and reciprocal. For example, University students volunteer at the Preuss School as tutors and mentors, and many have found the experience so rewarding that they are now considering careers in teaching. Preuss School students do internships on campus with UCSD faculty to gain experience in fields that interest them and also interact with professors when they are researching senior papers. At the same time, UCSD mathematics faculty have been turning to the school to help determine how students best learn the subject, and social sciences faculty have been examining the academic performance of Preuss School students compared with that of peers who were not selected by the lottery. Preuss School teachers have received training at the University, and students in UCSD’s teacher education program observe classes at the school. UCSD undergraduates serve as tutors for students and interns for teachers. Engineering faculty help with the school’s robotics teams.
Shared Resources
Access to such outstanding University resources as its library, athletic fields and San Diego Supercomputer Center translates into unprecedented opportunities for students and teachers. As one example, in 2003, the school dedicated a visualization center that will provide a virtual reality gateway to the world, eventually enabling students to interact in real time with images stored thousands of miles away, such as a fly-over of the surface of Mars and navigating deep inside a human cell. The center, part of the National Science Foundation’s OptiPuter project, has brought together the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (a partnership between UCSD and UCI) and the Visualization Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Connected to a high-performance network, it will permit students to work collaboratively with University faculty and graduate students on research projects.
http://www.sarahlifton.com/pdf/case_statements/Preuss_School_case.pdf
—————————–
From that same link, some possible evidence that “old, tenured teachers” are NOT the problem:
Master Teachers/Teacher Supplements
While the teachers at the Preuss School are dedicated, enthusiastic and innovative, a high percentage are comparatively new to the field. The school’s limited funds for personnel have hampered its ability to attract more experienced teachers, who command higher salaries. As a consequence, the younger teachers on the faculty, who could benefit from mentoring by the most experienced, highest-caliber teachers, lack access to this important resource for career development.
To address this need, one of the Preuss School’s highest priorities is to generate private support for teacher salary supplements and/or hiring bonuses in order to add more veteran teachers to the faculty. Specifically, the school is seeking funds to hire teacher leaders in all the core subject areas, including a literacy chair, who will be responsible for mentoring other teachers in the area of literacy.
In addition, the school is seeking contributions to implement a formal resident scholar program, providing release time for UCSD professors to work with the Preuss School faculty in their subject areas to ensure that curriculum and content are state of the art and preparing students properly for college.
August 6, 2011 @ 10:08 PM
CAR, with regards to your
CAR, with regards to your point about illegal immigrants, I have to agree to a large extent. About your point on immature youth, I totally agree, but the solution to that is to not lock the student into a particular path/school. Like in college where you still need to take GE, I think you can do something similar. If the student decide they want to switch path, they should be able to and because of a GE like portion of the curriculum, they won’t be too far behind.
Let me be clear, I don’t think the teacher is the main reason for failure. On the contrary, if I have to put a % to the blame, I would say, say, teacher = 5%, teachers union = 10%, school system = 45% and parents & students = 40%. The reason why I don’t think teachers are blameless is because I know there are some bad teachers out there. Also, I believe some teachers are complacent. IIRC, tenure came from university professors who want to be protected from getting fired due to their political view. I agree with that but IIRC, they don’t have automatic tenure either. If my memory serves me right, then primary school teachers shouldn’t get automatic tenure as well. I believe the teachers union prevent the bad teachers from getting fired and the good/great teachers from being property rewarded. The students and parents do have a big cause of the failure. Unfortunately, some parents and students don’t care, so you can’t really change them. This leads to the biggest point of blame for me, the school system.
I personally believe in homogeneous academic capability, and our current system does not allow for that. If you look at all the bad schools out there, not all the students in there are bad. Imagine if you can combined all the top students in those schools and have them compete with each other. Also, have the best academic teachers to teach theses students and push them all to their max potential. I think they will be even better than what they would be with the current system. We need MORE Preuss like schools. We also need to have more vocational schools to allow students who want to go into vocational profession to be trained. Yes, they still need to take basic math and English classes, but they don’t need to be pushed to go to college. We should also have special schools for special ed students. We should have special teachers who are specialized in teaching these students to bring out their best capability. The biggest bulk of the schools are your average school for your average kids. Since these kids are of similar academic capability, it might be easier for the teachers to bring out the best in them.
After reading my above paragraph, I now don’t think voucher system would be the best solution. I still think voucher system give more choice (and I personally think choice is good) than the currently system. However, what I described above is our secondary education system and I think that system is the BEST.
With regards to the money, I think there are some wastes in the system. We can have more teachers and less administrators. I mean, if private school can provide good education with an annual cost of $6k-13k ($20k+ for the very elite private school), public schools should be able to provide similar results for similar cost. I personally wouldn’t mind spending more for education, we can definitely find more money from other areas of the government that’s not as important. Do you think if we spend 2X the amount we currently do, we’ll see all the school perform at Preuss’s level? Maybe we can implement something similar to what we do with our college system. We can have completely free school that students don’t have to pay, then we can have school where it’ll cost more than what the government covers, and the parents can choose to pay the difference to get similar quality education like the Preuss school.
August 7, 2011 @ 12:38 AM
AN wrote:CAR, with regards to
[quote=AN]CAR, with regards to your point about illegal immigrants, I have to agree to a large extent. About your point on immature youth, I totally agree, but the solution to that is to not lock the student into a particular path/school. Like in college where you still need to take GE, I think you can do something similar. If the student decide they want to switch path, they should be able to and because of a GE like portion of the curriculum, they won’t be too far behind.
Let me be clear, I don’t think the teacher is the main reason for failure. On the contrary, if I have to put a % to the blame, I would say, say, teacher = 5%, teachers union = 10%, school system = 45% and parents & students = 40%. The reason why I don’t think teachers are blameless is because I know there are some bad teachers out there. Also, I believe some teachers are complacent. IIRC, tenure came from university professors who want to be protected from getting fired due to their political view. I agree with that but IIRC, they don’t have automatic tenure either. If my memory serves me right, then primary school teachers shouldn’t get automatic tenure as well. I believe the teachers union prevent the bad teachers from getting fired and the good/great teachers from being property rewarded. The students and parents do have a big cause of the failure. Unfortunately, some parents and students don’t care, so you can’t really change them. This leads to the biggest point of blame for me, the school system.
I personally believe in homogeneous academic capability, and our current system does not allow for that. If you look at all the bad schools out there, not all the students in there are bad. Imagine if you can combined all the top students in those schools and have them compete with each other. Also, have the best academic teachers to teach theses students and push them all to their max potential. I think they will be even better than what they would be with the current system. We need MORE Preuss like schools. We also need to have more vocational schools to allow students who want to go into vocational profession to be trained. Yes, they still need to take basic math and English classes, but they don’t need to be pushed to go to college. We should also have special schools for special ed students. We should have special teachers who are specialized in teaching these students to bring out their best capability. The biggest bulk of the schools are your average school for your average kids. Since these kids are of similar academic capability, it might be easier for the teachers to bring out the best in them.
After reading my above paragraph, I now don’t think voucher system would be the best solution. I still think voucher system give more choice (and I personally think choice is good) than the currently system. However, what I described above is our secondary education system and I think that system is the BEST.
With regards to the money, I think there are some wastes in the system. We can have more teachers and less administrators. I mean, if private school can provide good education with an annual cost of $6k-13k ($20k+ for the very elite private school), public schools should be able to provide similar results for similar cost. I personally wouldn’t mind spending more for education, we can definitely find more money from other areas of the government that’s not as important. Do you think if we spend 2X the amount we currently do, we’ll see all the school perform at Preuss’s level? Maybe we can implement something similar to what we do with our college system. We can have completely free school that students don’t have to pay, then we can have school where it’ll cost more than what the government covers, and the parents can choose to pay the difference to get similar quality education like the Preuss school.[/quote]
We agree very much about vocational schools, but they’ve been cutting back on those in order to get more students on the college track — which, like you, I disagree with.
For various reasons, most countries with the “university/vocational track” system that I’m familiar with do not allow students to cross over with ease (or at all). They invest too much money, and feel that students cannot catch up in the required time it takes to graduate from the university track if they’ve previously been placed in the vocational track. Since it’s publicly funded, these governments do not allow for “professional students” who take many, many years to graduate.
You can’t compare primary schools with colleges/universities because primary education is compulsory. Trying to compare the two is like trying to compare a low-income, inner-city school with Preuss. One is compulsory, and will have to take everyone who applies, irrespective of their academic abilities or behavioral tendencies. The other has strict admisssions guidelines, and gets to pick and choose from the cream of the crop of a given population. It’s a foregone conclusion that you will get two totally different outcomes from these two groups. It does NOT mean that one is more “successful,” with the same student population, especially if they normalize for parent involvement, I.Q., and total costs per student.
You and I have very different views WRT tenure. Teachers (and many other public workers) are very much in a political position, as I’ve described before. This is a profession where experience counts, and there are occasions when the most experienced teachers need to take a politically or socially unpopular stance. As was pointed out above, the definition of a “good” or “bad” teacher is very subjective, and we cannot allow administrators, politicians, or parents to hire/fire teachers based on personal whims.
There are already methods for firing teachers who do not perform well. No, it’s not easy, nor should it be. There should be proof that a teacher is “bad,” using objective criteria.
August 7, 2011 @ 10:20 AM
Now to the results of the
Now to the results of the poll. Does that mean that Pigg readers are blaming the Republicans for the debt ceiling mess and will be reelecting Obama next year?
I looks that way.
August 7, 2011 @ 10:57 AM
briansd1 wrote:Now to the
[quote=briansd1]Now to the results of the poll. Does that mean that Pigg readers are blaming the Republicans for the debt ceiling mess and will be reelecting Obama next year?
I looks that way.[/quote]
If he still looks good in France compared to the competition, he gets my wife’s vote.
August 8, 2011 @ 12:24 PM
I generally can think of few
I generally can think of few spending holes blacker than “education” in which to waste public funds. The timing of some of the posts here and these articles amused me:
http://news.yahoo.com/duncan-states-school-testing-waivers-040359534.html
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/duncan-states-will-get-school-testing-wa
August 4, 2011 @ 7:13 AM
CA renter wrote:What happens
[quote=CA renter]What happens when “ALL” of the students in a district try to get into a single school? How do you determine who gets to attend, and who doesn’t?
There are some logistical issues here that you’re not considering, IMHO.[/quote]
You’re right, there are some logistical issues. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m sure countries like Sweden who have implemented voucher system can answer that question much better than I can. There has to be a good solution to that problem, or else they wouldn’t have implemented it.
What I’m reading on here so far is nothing meaningful will change in the foreseeable future. Thank you all who tried to enlighten me without calling me names. I’m just a simple parent who like to talk about education.
August 3, 2011 @ 11:07 PM
AN wrote:bearishgurl
[quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]
(…)
Most private schools are expensive in SD. They can easily cost $10K+ for one year (for the first child in a family) and more for secondary grades. [/quote]
Yes, MM schools are good. But not great. I’m planning to only keep my kids in private school preK-6th grade. I personally don’t see as big of an advantage in Jr. High and HS. So I’ll be putting them in Challenger Middle School and MMHS. With K-6th grade, there’s 1 curriculum and all kids are lump together. While Jr. High and HS, kids are separated by their ability. Also, in HS, I will get my kids to go to Jr. College at night and summer as well.
With regards to cost, I’m paying much less than $10k. Also, talking to the parents who have their kids at the school I’ll be sending my kids to, they all loved it and they even look down to Carmel Valley schools in term of academics and they believe their kids are being learning much more.[/quote]
AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.
August 3, 2011 @ 11:51 PM
Scarlett wrote:AN, I think
[quote=Scarlett]AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.[/quote]
Yes, it’s MBMA. I can use Dependent Care Spending Account to save another $2k-$3k. Adding in Coverdell ESA tax free on earnings and custodial account that will be taxed at 0% for certain earning makes it MUCH less than $10k.
August 4, 2011 @ 6:37 AM
AN wrote:Scarlett wrote:AN, I
[quote=AN][quote=Scarlett]AN, I think many here would love to know which private school costs MUCH less than 10K AND it’s so good that it surpasses the Carmel Valley public schools? The cheapest one were just under 10K. The best one, IMHO, was Mission Bay Montessori Academy in Univ. City- which has a very good reputation – it’s barely under 1000$ a month – $950. I just checked it out myself for my daughter. So it’s Children’s School in LJ Shores. And this is without any after hours and extracurricular activities, for 9-10 months of the year.[/quote]
Yes, it’s MBMA. I can use Dependent Care Spending Account to save another $2k-$3k. Adding in Coverdell ESA tax free on earnings and custodial account that will be taxed at 0% for certain earning makes it MUCH less than $10k.[/quote]
You CANNOT use DepCare account to pay for private education, I’m pretty sure. Better check that. You can use it only up to kindergarden, AFAIK. Why would it be a tax break for private education? Once your kid is in school (K), you can use DepCare only for after-school-hours and maybe summer programs.
August 4, 2011 @ 6:53 AM
Scarlett wrote:
You CANNOT
[quote=Scarlett]
You CANNOT use DepCare account to pay for private education, I’m pretty sure. Better check that. You can use it only up to kindergarden, AFAIK. Why would it be a tax break for private education? Once your kid is in school (K), you can use DepCare only for after-school-hours and maybe summer programs.[/quote]
You’re right. Since my son is 3, I can use it.
August 4, 2011 @ 12:21 AM
AN wrote: For the same
[quote=AN] For the same housing premium, I can send my kids to private schools instead on my own dime.[/quote]
Sorry, but I cannot comprehend what it is that you are trying to say here
[quote=AN] FYI, my MAIN point about vouchers is parents knows what’s best for their child and giving them choices can’t be a bad thing. Do you think choice is a bad thing? That’s the main question. It seems like all opposition argument I’ve heard against voucher system is that parents don’t deserve the choice and/or choice is bad and will be destructive. [/quote]
#1 I am not against choice, in principle.
#2 Informed decision is an essential component of choice (translation: you need to know what the hell you’re talking about before you choose.
#3 Read this carefully, and ask someone for help if you don’t understand it, because I’m tired of repeating it: CHOICE COSTS MONEY. I keep asking you to explain how this will be accomplished, and you keep telling me that I should Google Finland to figure out how they’ve implemented their (non-existent) voucher system.
I don’t have a problem with choice, but I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it. Sorry, but you don’t seem to have the faintest glimmer of the complexities of school finance. So instead of ME having to prove to you that it CAN’T be done, why don’t you SHOW ME how we’re going to pay for choice. Get a copy of your school district’s financial statements and annual reports for the past 5 years, so you can get a very small taste of what you’re up against.
#4 I’ve read a LOT of material on the school voucher debate, from a wide variety of sources. I have never heard ANYONE say that “parents don’t deserve choices” or “choice is bad and will be destructive”. Perhaps it’s a matter of inference on your part.
[quote=AN] Your long post about your hypothetical kids actually prove my points. Those kids schools are failing them based on what you want for them. [/quote]
AN, did you actually read those hypothetical situations? They were meant as tongue-in-cheek cynical commentary on how crazy things will get if parents get to have unlimited leeway in their ability to move their children from school to school. If you believe that these proved your points, you’re as nuts as the parents of these hypothetical kids.
[quote=AN]BTW, I would be perfectly fine with your system you proposed, where the bad students get expelled. [/quote]
Look, I’ve tried to explain to you at least twice that my idea wasn’t to get the bad kids expelled, but to move toward a system which would change American parents’ attitudes that school is actually daycare, and teachers are babysitters. You’re just not going to get this, so lets forget about it.
[quote=AN] I was only voicing my opinion because I want change, hoping our primary school will be as revered as our secondary schools. Another proven good system is our secondary school system. We can model after that.[/quote]
Your kid is still in preschool, for fuck’s sake. How do you know the friggin’ school needs changing? Or that you want to change schools?
[quote=AN] But you haven’t proven to me why voucher system are bad, so although my ammo is empty, you’re aim is so bad you’re missing the point completely. I was only trying to offer another system that have produce better results. They’re being implemented my socialist countries no less. I love it that people living in these socialist countries have more choices in schools than we do. CHOICE is the key word here.[/quote]
Cripes, AN, what the fuck IS the point? It keeps changing with you. Worse yet is having to try to follow your nonexistent logic in posts that are filled with spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and grammatical errors. Stop worrying about CHOICE, and just focus on making sure your kid’s school is better than the one you went to. Holy shit, my eyes are like two burning coals at this point, reading your tortured prose and attempting to understand what you’re trying to say.
And you couldn’t resist throwing one more cheap shot in about “socialist” countries. And, by the way, the people in Finland DON’T HAVE CHOICE when it comes to schools.
And you weren’t “only trying to offer another system that have produce better results” (BTW, it’s “has produced”. I don’t normally nitpick like that, but you’ve made that error 47 times in the last 5 days). Over and over again, AD NAUSEUM, you kept talking about Finland as your PROOF of how well a voucher system works. Now you’re trying to create a whole different story. Your predisposition for denial has passed the point of being pathological.
If you want to continue this “discussion” with some other poor sucker, good luck. But stop bothering me. You are (1) astoundingly limited in your ability to think critically, (2) a lazy and incompetent researcher, (3) not interested in, or capable of, true argumentation.
Pack up your CHOICE in Ziploc bag, take it down to Scripps, and use it to choose a neurosurgeon to finish that half-completed lobotomy.
August 4, 2011 @ 1:59 AM
Way to be classy
Way to be classy eavesdropper. Your main argument against voucher is cost. Let me give you a very simple solution. We are currently paying $x/student for their education. Give that $x to the parents. They can a)send their kids to a public/charter/magnet/vocational school of their choice and it’ll cost them $x or b)they can take that $x and send them to private school. If it costs less than $x, give the difference back to the government. If it costs more, pay the difference with their own money.
This will mean the government doesn’t spend more per student than they currently do.
You said Finland doesn’t have choice, but their private schools are paid by the government. I wonder who goes to those school if the kids have to go to the local public school.
BTW, I’m sorry my Engrish suck. I’ll refrain from commenting on your personal attacks with my broken Engrish.
August 4, 2011 @ 3:16 AM
AN wrote:Way to be classy
[quote=AN]Way to be classy eavesdropper. Your main argument against voucher is cost. Let me give you a very simple solution. We are currently paying $x/student for their education. Give that $x to the parents. They can a)send their kids to a public/charter/magnet/vocational school of their choice and it’ll cost them $x or b)they can take that $x and send them to private school. If it costs less than $x, give the difference back to the government. If it costs more, pay the difference with their own money.
[/quote]
No, no, NO!! Your answer definitely qualifies as “simple”, but it’s not a solution. This is the THIRD time you’ve come back with that incredibly CLUELESS response. If there was no other evidence of your inability to participate in a discussion of this subject (and, unfortunately for you, that is not the case), that answer alone makes your limitations crystal clear.
And shove your “way to be classy” remark where the sun don’t shine. This is not the type of exchange in which I usually allow myself to engage on Piggs, and the reason I’m ending my part in the discussion now. I can assure you that I’m not proud of myself. But you left yourself wide open with both your repeated claims that were not backed by evidence, and by your employment of a superior attitude, where none was warranted. You are way out of your league, AN. You can continue to delude yourself – it’s the one area in which you excel, apparently – but not on my time.
[quote=AN] BTW, I’m sorry my Engrish suck. I’ll refrain from commenting on your personal attacks with my broken Engrish.[/quote]
How about if you simply refrain from being hypocritical through your selective pulling of the ethnic card? I have no idea whether English is your first, second, or sixth language. The fact of the matter is that your posts are difficult to read at times, and when I’m dealing with someone having a supercilious attitude like yours, I’m expecting to see a quality writing sample.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:06 PM
eavesdropper wrote:Still
[quote=eavesdropper]Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.[/quote]
What make you think all Finnish people value education? Are you trying to say most of or none of American value education? Took you 2 days and that’s what you come up with? If you would just Google “Finnish School”, you’d get this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/finland-schools-curriculum-teaching
[quote=article]Private schools
The vast majority of children attend comprehensive schools in Finland. The country has a handful of faith-based and alternative schools, which are legally private but funded by the state. They cannot charge fees but may set their own catchment areas. In England, 7.2% of children attend private schools, which are free to select pupils and charge fees. A private education costs parents an average of £10,100 a year.[/quote]
Or this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/are-finnish-schools-the-best-in-the-world-2289083.html
[quote=article]It is illegal to charge fees in the Finnish education system, so even those schools that are run privately take their funding from the state.[/quote]
What does illegal to charge fees… even private school mean to you? Sounds a lot like voucher to me. So, who’s lacking ammo now?
[quote=article]A common theme among three of the top-performing nations – Singapore, South Korea and Finland – is that they all attract the best talent into the profession by setting high standards for recruitment. Mr Gove’s answer to this is to limit entrance to the profession to those who have better than a third-class degree.[/quote]
Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Their teachers all requires to have a master. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pri_tea_sal_aft_15_yea-teacher-salary-after-15-years
US:$34,705.00 vs Finland:$24,799.00
Here’s statistic of starting teacher salary:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pri_tea_sal_sta-education-primary-teacher-salary-starting
US:$25,707.00 vs Finland:$18,110.00
We spend more time in school than Finnish students, but only by 3 weeks a year: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tea_wee_per_yea_pri-teaching-weeks-per-year-primary I’m sure the gap is smaller now, after all of the budget cuts.
Students attitudes toward schools (Students who find school boring): http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_stu_att_fin_sch_bor-student-attitude-find-school-boring
$ spent per student:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pub_spe_per_stu_pri_lev-spending-per-student-primary-level
August 4, 2011 @ 2:44 AM
AN wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=AN][quote=eavesdropper]Still wanting to give you the benefit of the doubt, I went on to do some research on the Finnish education system itself. However, I chose to go to http://www.oph.fi/english/education, which happens to be the website of the Finnish National Board of Education. It supports your claims of Finnish educational success/achievement. But can you imagine my reaction when I read that FINLAND HAS NO SCHOOL VOUCHER SYSTEM. What’s more, AN, they have taken well-thought-out steps to their success, many of which correspond to my recommendations. The citizens of Finland value education, regard it as a privilege even though it is a citizen’s right, and treat their teachers with the highest level of respect. Schooling isn’t confused with daycare in Finland.[/quote]
What make you think all Finnish people value education? Are you trying to say most of or none of American value education? Took you 2 days and that’s what you come up with? If you would just Google “Finnish School”, you’d get this article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/05/finland-schools-curriculum-teaching
[/quote]
1. What makes me think all Finnish people value education? Perhaps the fact that I found direct references and/or direct quotes relating to that particular quality of of the Finnish people: they value education highly and this was a major factor leading to the improvement in their education system. I found these references on the website of the Finnish National Board of Education, and in documents issued by them, and on the website of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Incidentally, you don’t get better “proof” as you put it, than these sources.
2. I’m saying that I believe a significant number of Americans do not value education.
3. You may flatter yourself by assuming that I spent two days trying to prove you wrong; however, that is not the case. I did spend a couple hours trying to prove you RIGHT, and that’s what angers me. You don’t give enough of a crap to do that yourself, so don’t come into a discussion with opinion disguised as evidence (You didn’t even find these newspaper articles until tonight, and then only after a mad search to find proof that I was wrong)
4. That being said, can you explain why someone in the U.S. looking for information on the Finnish education model and its effect on the testing scores and academic success of its students would choose to consult a 1000-word promotional article in a British newspaper rather than going to the Finnish National Board of Education, who actually designed the current system, and operates it in its entirety, and the Program for International Student Assessment who collects and analyzes the international student test data (i.e. how they know Finland is #1). AN, you are incapable of doing even the most basic of research.
[quote=AN]
The vast majority of children attend comprehensive schools in Finland. The country has a handful of faith-based and alternative schools, which are legally private but funded by the state. They cannot charge fees but may set their own catchment areas. In England, 7.2% of children attend private schools, which are free to select pupils and charge fees. A private education costs parents an average of £10,100 a year.[/quote][/quote]
Again, you’ve got a crummy source of info: a very brief, incomplete article. All of the schools in Finland must strictly adhere to the curriculum set forth by the FNBOE (government), as must home schooling situations. When they mention “faith-based and alternative schools”, it is not what you think. They, too, must follow the same curriculum, and anything additional must be approved by the FNBOE. In addition, they can choose where to open their school, but they cannot turn down students for admission for any reason (i.e., the government does not open a public school AND a faith-based school in the same catchment area), and students who live in other catchment areas (districts) cannot go to the faith-based or alternative schools if they are not in their catchment area. As far as the Finnish government is concerned, all of their schools offer the same level of excellence in education, and the very small variations between schools on PISA and other testing bear this out. So, AN, if you buy or rent a home in a particular area, that is where your child will go to school. Period.
Again, I got this info from the Finnish National Board of Education.
[quote=AN] Or this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/are-finnish-schools-the-best-in-the-world-2289083.html
[quote=article]It is illegal to charge fees in the Finnish education system, so even those schools that are run privately take their funding from the state.[/quote]
What does illegal to charge fees… even private school mean to you? Sounds a lot like voucher to me. So, who’s lacking ammo now?[/quote]
Are you freakin’ serious? Does your parole officer know that you’re this far down Delusional Lane? Not only does it NOT sound “a lot like voucher” (or even a little) to anyone else in the world, but you haven’t been presenting it as such in any of your posts. It’s apparent that you’re not only out of ammo, but operating brain cells seem to be in dangerously low supply, too.
ONCE AGAIN, your laziness and inability to conduct research worthy of a 3rd grade book report. The author is referring to the faith-based and alternative schools discussed above.
[quote=AN] [quote=article]A common theme among three of the top-performing nations – Singapore, South Korea and Finland – is that they all attract the best talent into the profession by setting high standards for recruitment. Mr Gove’s answer to this is to limit entrance to the profession to those who have better than a third-class degree.[/quote]
Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Their teachers all requires to have a master. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired.[/quote]
Okay, AN, it’s been a long time (what, 3-4 days) so I’ll do a little refresher for ya. The point of my original post wasn’t to say that any one entity – parents, teachers, kids, administration – is to blame. What I wanted to point out was that, in virtually all discussions of the problems of the U.S. educational system, either teachers or administration (or the government) is blamed. The behavior of kids is sometimes mentioned, as kind of an abstract thing. But the one variable in kids’ school performance that I never see cited is the role of parental involvement. So my post was to suggest that parents be held as accountable as everyone else in improving primary and secondary school education in the U.S.
That being said, YES, there are bad teachers and there are good teachers. No shit, Sherlock. My question is (and I’m asking you because you’ve demonstrated incomparable critical thinking skills at every turn of this “discussion”) in terms of rewarding good teachers/getting rid of bad teachers, what are the criteria for determining and measuring good and bad? As you pointed out, “I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired.” Yeah, you and six million others over the past 100 years (Sorry. I know you were feeling special about that brilliant gem of an idea.) But no one’s been able to answer that question. So go ahead, and take a stab at it. This ought to be good.
[quote=AN] Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pri_tea_sal_aft_15_yea-teacher-salary-after-15-years
US:$34,705.00 vs Finland:$24,799.00
Here’s statistic of starting teacher salary:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pri_tea_sal_sta-education-primary-teacher-salary-starting
US:$25,707.00 vs Finland:$18,110.00
We spend more time in school than Finnish students, but only by 3 weeks a year: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tea_wee_per_yea_pri-teaching-weeks-per-year-primary I’m sure the gap is smaller now, after all of the budget cuts.
Students attitudes toward schools (Students who find school boring): http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_stu_att_fin_sch_bor-student-attitude-find-school-boring
$ spent per student:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pub_spe_per_stu_pri_lev-spending-per-student-primary-level%5B/quote%5D
And we end with a bang. Statistics!! Nothing carries an impact like stats. I’m one of those people for whom statistical data are essential in the decision-making process. I particularly like making a decision on a current issue with up-to-date statistics at my fingertips, just like these…….12 year-old….stats…..
Look, AN, hate to break it to you. But, unless you’re in a profession like Civil War historian or a CDC researcher trying to figure out how many returning GIs gave their wives syphilis during WWII, you kinda want your statistics to be…..well, fresh. And while we’re on a roll here, when you’re including stats on whether students are …..bored (???)….anyhow, that’s rather vague, not to mention subjective, so it really helps to have a copy of the instrument that was used in order to interpret the data in the context of your issue (i.e., school vouchers). Not to mention that the website kinda screamed, “I have no idea what I’m talking about but I want to look like I do.” I gotta ask: when you Google something (and it looks like you do a lot of catch-up cover-your-ass Googleing), do you just grab at the first thing that comes up, and not bother to see if maybe something else would be a good fit? I mean, it LOOKS that way. Do you really think that none of the people that you “debate” have actually read up on subjects they broach on Piggs? That, if they refrain from some of the threads, it may just be that they don’t feel that they…hmm, how do I put this……KNOW ENOUGH about the subject at hand? What do you think?
Yeah, this stab at trying to be taken seriously was kind of a bust, too. But try again. With somebody else.
July 31, 2011 @ 5:59 AM
eavesdropper wrote:
Both
[quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.
July 31, 2011 @ 10:59 AM
Arraya wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.[/quote]
Thanks for the comments on the Warren book. Sounds like something I would be interested in reading.
July 31, 2011 @ 12:25 PM
Jacarandoso wrote:Arraya
[quote=Jacarandoso][quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them.
Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.
DINKs earn less today than a single income families did 40 years ago.[/quote]
Thanks for the comments on the Warren book. Sounds like something I would be interested in reading.[/quote]
Eavesdropper– I agree it starts with the parents. I mean, to use a race car analogy, the parents provide the engine and the fuel; the school provides the track. And Arraya– great call citing Warren. She’s a rare gem. Here’s the thing: I think what you’re saying (or what Warren is saying) is that parents (or DINKs, I mean the phenomenon isn’t limited to parents, as you point out) have less real income than previous generations and thus feel pressured to work more, such that their stressful lives make them poorer caretakers.
But that doesn’t mean that’s the only option. There’s a simpler, and healthier, way to live: stop buying so much crap. Stop being such consumerists. If you want to know what I’m talking about, check out Jacob Lund Fisker’s website, Early Retirement Extreme (easily googled so I won’t paste a url here). If you can get off the consumer treadmill, you can build up your capital, stop working so much, and experience freedom from that stress. We’ve been STRONGLY conditioned to believe that things have to look like this: morning latte from Starbucks, individually pre-packaged microwave lunch (or worse, buying lunch from a fast food franchise) every day at work, bring home a “convenient” pre-packaged frozen meal purchased at the grocery store. Expensive, unnecessary, and that description is just of the ways we are inefficient about food; it says nothing about all the other ways we waste our money. Incredibly expensive to live that way, very stressful, and wholly unnecessary.
Of course, our inefficient behavior, and our belief that this is the only way we can live– this is the very fuel that keeps our Starbucks, our McDonalds, humming along. You won’t see TV commercials encouraging you to buy less. Getting off that consumer treadmill requires the cognitive shift equivalent of taking a red pill (if you’re a Matrix fan), but it opens up a world of creative living choices if you’re open to it.
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.
July 31, 2011 @ 12:55 PM
gromit wrote:
I say this
[quote=gromit]
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.[/quote]
I agree, to a point. Warren actually deals with what she calls a “myth” that the “average” family is buying tremendously more. Health care, education and housing costs relative to income have skyrocketed Certainly the upper 20% is, but that is not average. Though, I have not dove into the data too intensely to really come to a firm conclusion. But my gut, is people are probably unnecessarily stressing themselves out. Conversely, that is the name of the game that we all play and is fostered culturally. Status anxiety drives the economy and makes us sick. And, if they did not consume more – would they have a job? Paradoxes everywhere. If everybody was frugal over the past 40 years and did not increase their average debt loads by 300% would we even have the economy we have?
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.
July 31, 2011 @ 1:11 PM
Arraya wrote:gromit wrote:
I
[quote=Arraya][quote=gromit]
I say this because it’s worth recognizing that there are options to living a stressed-out, dual-income lifestyle, and if the kids are suffering the effects of the parents’ stress, it seems like a choice that would merit serious consideration.[/quote]
I agree, to a point. Warren actually deals with what she calls a “myth” that the “average” family is buying tremendously more. Health care, education and housing costs relative to income have skyrocketed Certainly the upper 20% is, but that is not average. Though, I have not dove into the data too intensely to really come to a firm conclusion. But my gut, is people are probably unnecessarily stressing themselves out. Conversely, that is the name of the game that we all play and is fostered culturally. Status anxiety drives the economy and makes us sick. And, if they did not consume more – would they have a job? Paradoxes everywhere. If everybody was frugal over the past 40 years and did not increase their average debt loads by 300% would we even have the economy we have?
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.[/quote]
There are a lot of ideas here, all of them worth plenty of discussion. I’ll just respond to a couple of them. First– I’m not saying middle class families are buying more than in the past; I’m saying that they should downgrade their lifestyles to help build capital and attain freedom from reliance on dual incomes. And by lifestyles, I mean nuts and bolts things like downgrading the housing, changing habits regarding food shopping, that sort of thing.
Second– I wonder the same thing: what would happen if we all stopped buying too much crap? It’s a fair question. Lots of people have already, and the shift to saving cash is contributing to the slowdown of our economy. But I don’t think we will ever be in danger of everyone shifting out of their consumerist lifestyles, because I just don’t think there are that many sane people in the world. 🙂
August 1, 2011 @ 1:51 PM
Arraya wrote:
Interestingly,
[quote=Arraya]
Interestingly, many people are encouraging “stress free” patterns of behavior that would kill the economic system – or seriously maim it. It’s a paradox I noticed where individual survival runs contrary to social survival. That is a systemic problem.[/quote]
Very good observation.
Eventally the system runs out of gas. Hopefully we can discover something new and transition to that new system.
Arraya, you’re discussed how the richest portion of the population has always controlled the wealth. But they have transitioned from agriculture and slaves, to trains, to cars, to planes, to oil, to banking and the Internet. Their main sources of wealth have changed.
I find the health care situation interesting. The health care economy needs more patients/customers to take drugs, be sick and utilize the most advanced services. That leads more revenue which leads to more discoveries, more drugs and more advance procedures.
Sure, people will cut back on housing and other consumption before they cut back on health care. But what happens when eventually the whole population is obese, sick, and in debt to their eyeballs.
August 1, 2011 @ 12:32 AM
Arraya wrote:eavesdropper
[quote=Arraya][quote=eavesdropper]
Both teachers and students are being punished for the negligence of parents. How can we expect our children to learn self-control and responsibility if we don’t demand it of the adults to which they are exposed for the greatest amounts of time?[/quote]
And you are blaming parents for their increasingly stressful environment. The decline of the middle class family started 40 years ago. There are A LOT of reasons for this. How can we demand parents to be more involved with their children’s education if they have had continuously less time to spend with them. [/quote]
Arraya, I see your point, and I did consider this reality when I wrote the post. There’s no question that there are people who are burning the candle at both ends trying to keep food on the table, and a roof over it. It’s not only people who come from poor backgrounds, and are struggling to give their children something better. There are also a fair amount of involuntary single parents out there (myself included, 20 yrs ago) who, prior to their spouses unilaterally deciding that the marriage should end, led comfortable middle-class lives in which they were able to spend much more time with their kids. Thanks to decisions made by others, they are suddenly pushed into another socioeconomic class, often having to work two or more jobs.
I recognize that today’s parents are stressed and have limited time. But I’m not talking about spending hours playing Barbies or GI Joes, or playing video games. If parents just provided the necessary structure to their child’s life, there would be a huge improvement. I’m willing to bet that there has never been a parent who was not shocked by the level of physical and emotional demands of parenting. Nothing can prepare you for that moment during the first evening home when you suddenly realize that the baby’s parents aren’t coming to take this screaming red-faced infant home, along with his crap-filled diaper: he/she IS home. But the difference today is that many parents somehow think that the choice to be parents comes AFTER the baby is born, instead of before he is conceived. They don’t see their children as having needs because they are solely focused on their own wants.
I don’t know how old you are, but I had the first of my 4 kids almost 30 years ago. Back then, holding and rocking and interacting with your child was pretty much a parent’s M.O.
But, more and more, I’m seeing parents respond to their crying or distressed child with looks that are a mixture of fear, disgust, and “Whose kid is this?Often, they’re seemingly reluctant to interact, hold, or even touch their children. Infants are fed by placing them in a carrier seat and propping a bottle up its mouth, and 15 month-olds are parked in front of TV daily for 3 or 4 hours at a time. When their cries finally permeate the self-focus of the parents, attempts are made to stop the crying through distraction (a toy or video image) or a bribe (pacifier or a cookie). Very quickly, toddlers learn that negative behavior gets attention. It may not be “good” attention, or lengthy, but to children starved for interaction, it doesn’t matter.
The combination of auditory and visual overstimulation, and the lack of interpersonal interaction, causes anxiety and fatigue in these kids, who then act out. Their parents deal with that by either hitting their kids, or trying to distract them or “buy them off” with toys, videos, sweets (even more stimulation) to try and stop the behavior. Eventually this cycle becomes so extreme that the result can be an overweight 4 yr old who can’t travel 3 blocks to the preschool without a cookie and a DVD playing.
At age five, the result is a child who is immature, angry, frustrated, and sad. He/she is turned over to the school system by parents who are also angry and frustrated, and who lack the backbone to deal with their own child. We see these kids going ballistic in malls, in restaurants, on the street, at amusement parks, and in the homes of friends and relatives. Why doesn’t it occur to people that the same out-of-control behavior is being exhibited in schools? And the same parents who don’t deal with it at home and other places, don’t address their kid’s classroom actions either. They don’t accept responsibility, preferring instead to blame it on the school and the teachers.
So what I expect from parents is that they send their child to school with a clear understanding of what is acceptable vs. unacceptable classroom behavior. If the teacher/school contacts them to report that the child is being disruptive or the child is not doing the assigned work, I expect the parent to either take corrective action themselves (no, NOT spanking!), or accept the school’s assistance in doing so. I do not expect them to ignore the problem, or, even worse, to make the problem all about them, heaping verbal abuse on school personnel for daring to criticize their parenting (apparently, the 21st century translation for “your child isn’t doing his homework). They need to stop looking at the school as their government-sponsored daycare, and the teacher as a volunteer babysitter.
[quote=Arraya] Elizabeth Warren, the one decent person in Washington(who got run out of town for being so), wrote a book called “The two income trap” that goes over the financial changes to the average family over the decades. Essentially, the economic environment has become a much more stressful place for a myriad of reasons.
This has manifested in societal wide epidemics that include mental, physical and economic(bankruptcies) health problems. Though, she only deals with one aspect.
You had mentioned people in policy positions should carefully weigh data from all sides. Well, here is somebody that spent a lifetime doing it and was essentially incapacitated for trying to apply empirical study research to policy.[/quote]
I adore Elizabeth Warren. I’ve been following her for about 10 years now, and have never ceased to be enormously impressed with her research, her insights, and her persistence. Having working in an academic environment similar to her home institution, I found that many faculty were too impressed with themselves to give a crap about some of the less fortunate. Even those who conducted research on socioeconomic issues often had difficulty bridging the academic-human divide. With Warren, that is not the case.
Warren recognized the dangers of deregulation, decreasing oversight, and the easing of credit right from the get-go. Her warnings WERE heeded, only not by the poor and middle class consumers at whom they were directed. Her detractors – America’s most powerful bankers, mortgage company CEOs, radio/TV pundits, and internet bloggers ridiculed her publicly, but, behind the scenes, fully recognized the depth, breadth, and accuracy of her research findings, and the dangers they posed to their business operations.
However, they felt reasonably safe until Obama gave her a national public platform from which to speak. Once that occurred, the right-leaning political/media/lobbying behemoth went into action. The size of the arsenal they employed against her confirmed their fear at the threat she posed. She did not disappoint. She maintained her calm, unflappable, unfailingly polite public persona, and kept the focus on what she was trying to achieve with the opportunity she had been given. While the pundits (on all sides) were making a fuss over the fact that she would not be the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she continued to work on getting it up and running. I do not know Ms. Warren personally, but I’ve been privileged to make the acquaintance of many like her over the years: extremely bright, committed, goal-driven individuals who recognize opportunities, focus on the task at hand, and once it is accomplished, move on to the next challenge. It is my exposure to women like this that fuel my outrage at the exploitative maneuvers, cheap tricks and short cuts of public figures like Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin.
I realize that this is starting to sound like a nomination for canonization. It’s not: Elizabeth Warren is human, and, I’m sure, no saint. But her message over the years I followed her was simple and straightforward, yet curiously missing from the national dialogue during a time when its inclusion would have been most appropriate. With the formation of the CFPB, she’s demonstrated that she could not only walk the walk, but that she could – and would – walk the gangplank.
July 28, 2011 @ 12:26 PM
surveyor wrote:jpinpb
[quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Lets say I’m a fat cat businesswoman.
And I see chance to NET more profit by expanding my business. I’m going to do it. After all – I want more money.
So if, after paying taxes, I can net some green – I’ll hire more people to take advantage of that.
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.
July 28, 2011 @ 12:51 PM
UCGal
[quote=UCGal]
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
[/quote]
But how much money will it take to make that million dollars? Will I have to spend $100 million to make that million (a 1% rate of return?). Who here has $100 million? Why should I risk $100 million and put up with the hassle of trying to get the business expanding, deal with the increased regulation, deal with the unions, the increased taxes, just to get a 1% rate of return when I can just dump it into a tax exempt muni rate of 3% to 5%? Which one results in more jobs?
Which results in more jobs, a business that can provide a rate of return of 5% or 1%? Which would you rather invest in? Would you rather invest in a tax exempt muni of 5% or a business that can only promise 1%? Which action provides more jobs?
And your primary assumption, that the business or industry will actually provide a profit, that’s not for sure that all. Also, your premise is incorrect. If a business expansion in a low tax environment will require 100 jobs, in a high tax environment it will result in less than 100 jobs.
That’s how money works.
[quote=UCGal]
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
[/quote]
The “rich” that you talk about are generally about using their money in the easiest and best way possible. If it’s into moving money into their own accounts and letting it sit, great they will do it if that’s what they want. If they want to use it to leverage more wealth, they will do it also. Which results in more jobs? If they can generate a better rate of return by investing in a business or by just sitting on money, which will they do? If you tax them too much they will try to protect their money by sheltering it. Does that create more jobs? It doesn’t? Huh.
[quote=UCGal]
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
Where are many of those job creators getting the capital to start and expand those businesses and get hiring? From the banks? Banks don’t want to lend. It couldn’t be from the RICH right?
That’s how money works.
July 29, 2011 @ 3:10 AM
surveyor wrote:UCGal
[quote=surveyor][quote=UCGal]
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
[/quote]
But how much money will it take to make that million dollars? Will I have to spend $100 million to make that million (a 1% rate of return?). Who here has $100 million? Why should I risk $100 million and put up with the hassle of trying to get the business expanding, deal with the increased regulation, deal with the unions, the increased taxes, just to get a 1% rate of return when I can just dump it into a tax exempt muni rate of 3% to 5%? Which one results in more jobs?
Which results in more jobs, a business that can provide a rate of return of 5% or 1%? Which would you rather invest in? Would you rather invest in a tax exempt muni of 5% or a business that can only promise 1%? Which action provides more jobs?
And your primary assumption, that the business or industry will actually provide a profit, that’s not for sure that all. Also, your premise is incorrect. If a business expansion in a low tax environment will require 100 jobs, in a high tax environment it will result in less than 100 jobs.
That’s how money works.
[quote=UCGal]
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
[/quote]
The “rich” that you talk about are generally about using their money in the easiest and best way possible. If it’s into moving money into their own accounts and letting it sit, great they will do it if that’s what they want. If they want to use it to leverage more wealth, they will do it also. Which results in more jobs? If they can generate a better rate of return by investing in a business or by just sitting on money, which will they do? If you tax them too much they will try to protect their money by sheltering it. Does that create more jobs? It doesn’t? Huh.
[quote=UCGal]
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
Where are many of those job creators getting the capital to start and expand those businesses and get hiring? From the banks? Banks don’t want to lend. It couldn’t be from the RICH right?
That’s how money works.[/quote]
Many businesses originate in homes or garages, and they expand because there is enough **demand** for their products or services. Oftentimes, they can use their own money, or borrow from relatives. If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.
One of the main problems I have with “investors” is that too few of them are actually investing in businesses. Instead, they are buying up assets (houses, commodities, etc.) which pushes up prices for those who legitimately need to buy those assets for shelter or for running their businesses. We also have the high-frequency traders who simply manipulate markets. They are not looking to “invest,” but to speculate. They (speculators) are the cause of booms and busts, which I think is even worse than having a “shortage” of investors.
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
No, the problem is the off-shoring of our manufacturing jobs. Fix that, and we will begin to see our economy stabilize. Ignore it, and we will continue to drift down until we are all living in mud huts and subsisting on a bowl of gruel per day.
July 29, 2011 @ 8:12 AM
CA renter wrote:
If they need
[quote=CA renter]
If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.[/quote]
Those “investors” wouldn’t happen to be the “rich”, would they?
[quote=CA renter]
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?[/quote]
Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin. Two of them are low tax states. According to you, this must be a coincidence.
But here’s the newsflash: low taxes are only part of the equation. I agree with you, certainly a business will go into a high tax area if the profit is there. But is the area business friendly? Are there lower regulations? Is there a talent pool there? Texas and North Carolina have been historically business friendly states. California has been anti-business, with its high tax rates and its high regulations.
[quote=CA renter]
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
[/quote]
GE has a cadre of lawyers and lobbyists to go after tax deductions. Do most businesses have the time, effort, and money to go after that? No. When you have a complex tax structure, the big corporations are the ones who win.
Not one business ever says we are looking for a place with high taxes and high regulations.
My point is, make is simpler and make it cheaper to hire people. This does not have to result in a lower cost of living. It will even increase the taxes collected. The reason why jobs are offshored and there are no jobs created here is simply because this is not the environment we have now.
With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it’s going to be later—much later. Here’s why.
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She’s been with us for over 15 years. She’s a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That’s the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She’s lucky she doesn’t live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers’ comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally’s Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally’s pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally’s job each year.
Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation. With government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.
Companies have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the insanity, there is ObamaCare.
Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%.
To offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this “summer of recovery.” We can’t pass the additional costs onto our customers, because the market is too tight and we’d lose sales. Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.
And even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government’s message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
Mr. Fleischer is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J.
July 29, 2011 @ 8:21 AM
Jobs Jobs Jobs: Proof
[img_assist|nid=15171|title=Jobs Jobs Jobs|desc=Proof positive regulations lower jobs growth|link=node|align=left|width=70|height=100]
July 30, 2011 @ 2:56 AM
surveyor wrote:Jobs Jobs
[quote=surveyor][img_assist|nid=15171|title=Jobs Jobs Jobs|desc=Proof positive regulations lower jobs growth|link=node|align=left|width=70|height=100][/quote]
surveyor, while catching up on Piggs, I came upon this heated discussion between you and several well-informed regulars. Even though there are things you’ve written with which I don’t necessarily agree, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt until now.
This one piece of paper is your smoking gun? Your clear-cut evidence that firmly establishes the validity of your argument? It’s a graphic issued by the Heritage Foundation. It is limited in the information that it provides, and I see more implications than facts.
I may use the websites of politically-oriented organizations in terms to gathering material to counterbalance that acquired from organizations at the opposite end of the spectrum. But I never use them as a source of facts and figures to establish grounds for an argument, especially when the information is readily available on government websites.
Normally, I would not have mentioned this. But the language in your discussions was coated with a thin veneer of sarcasm and superiority, and you appear to be particularly fond of using the phrase, “That’s the way money works”.
I have been privileged to engage in discussions about a wide variety of topics on this site with many wonderful individuals, many of whom possess high levels of intelligence (including the often-mentioned, much vaunted “common sense”). These include the individuals with whom you were discussing the current debt crisis and the role of taxation and government oversight. All of these individuals are well aware of “how money works”.
The truth is that this graphic is essentially useless because (1) if offers an extremely limited amount of information, which does not adequately support the views you’ve so forcefully expressed, and (2) it comes from an extremely biased source.
In reality, job loss has been in steady decline since the Bush tax cuts were passed. If you recall, the tax cuts were sold to Congress using the same “logic”: that the “rich” who would benefit from the cuts would reinvest the money in U.S. business, creating jobs. Regardless of “how money works”, the tax cuts didn’t….at least where job creation was concerned.
July 30, 2011 @ 4:02 AM
surveyor wrote:CA renter
[quote=surveyor][quote=CA renter]
If they need more money, there is a pool of hungry investors who are looking for any opportunity to make money. If there is sufficient demand for a company’s product, and if there is a high liklihood that the company will be profitable, investors will flock to it.[/quote]
Those “investors” wouldn’t happen to be the “rich”, would they?
[quote=CA renter]
We have some of the lowest tax rates in history, so if low taxe rates drive job creation, where are the jobs?[/quote]
Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin. Two of them are low tax states. According to you, this must be a coincidence.
But here’s the newsflash: low taxes are only part of the equation. I agree with you, certainly a business will go into a high tax area if the profit is there. But is the area business friendly? Are there lower regulations? Is there a talent pool there? Texas and North Carolina have been historically business friendly states. California has been anti-business, with its high tax rates and its high regulations.
[quote=CA renter]
Tax policy can certainly affect where and how one wants to invest, but even high taxes can’t keep investors away from something that is truly profitable. Businesses can deduct expenses for hiring and expanding, so taxes shouldn’t affect whether or not they hire. What **will** affect their decision to hire/expand is if there is sufficient DEMAND to justify expanding the business. If it takes 100 new employees to meet the demand for their product, then they will hire 100 employees. Demand comes from other people having jobs. Until we get our jobs back, demand will remain low, and hiring/expansion will remain low as well.
It is obvious that low taxes do not drive hiring growth. If they did, we’d have full employment by now. You can’t get lower than 0%, so why isn’t GE (and others like them) hiring like gangbusters?
[/quote]
GE has a cadre of lawyers and lobbyists to go after tax deductions. Do most businesses have the time, effort, and money to go after that? No. When you have a complex tax structure, the big corporations are the ones who win.
Not one business ever says we are looking for a place with high taxes and high regulations.
My point is, make is simpler and make it cheaper to hire people. This does not have to result in a lower cost of living. It will even increase the taxes collected. The reason why jobs are offshored and there are no jobs created here is simply because this is not the environment we have now.
With unemployment just under 10% and companies sitting on their cash, you would think that sooner or later job growth would take off. I think it’s going to be later—much later. Here’s why.
Meet Sally (not her real name; details changed to preserve privacy). Sally is a terrific employee, and she happens to be the median person in terms of base pay among the 83 people at my little company in New Jersey, where we provide audio systems for use in educational, commercial and industrial settings. She’s been with us for over 15 years. She’s a high school graduate with some specialized training. She makes $59,000 a year—on paper. In reality, she makes only $44,000 a year because $15,000 is taken from her thanks to various deductions and taxes, all of which form the steep, sad slope between gross and net pay.
Before that money hits her bank, it is reduced by the $2,376 she pays as her share of the medical and dental insurance that my company provides. And then the government takes its due. She pays $126 for state unemployment insurance, $149 for disability insurance and $856 for Medicare. That’s the small stuff. New Jersey takes $1,893 in income taxes. The federal government gets $3,661 for Social Security and another $6,250 for income tax withholding. The roughly $13,000 taken from her by various government entities means that some 22% of her gross pay goes to Washington or Trenton. She’s lucky she doesn’t live in New York City, where the toll would be even higher.
Employing Sally costs plenty too. My company has to write checks for $74,000 so Sally can receive her nominal $59,000 in base pay. Health insurance is a big, added cost: While Sally pays nearly $2,400 for coverage, my company pays the rest—$9,561 for employee/spouse medical and dental. We also provide company-paid life and other insurance premiums amounting to $153. Altogether, company-paid benefits add $9,714 to the cost of employing Sally.
Then the federal and state governments want a little something extra. They take $56 for federal unemployment coverage, $149 for disability insurance, $300 for workers’ comp and $505 for state unemployment insurance. Finally, the feds make me pay $856 for Sally’s Medicare and $3,661 for her Social Security.
When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally’s pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. Bottom line: Governments impose a 33% surtax on Sally’s job each year.
Because my company has been conscripted by the government and forced to serve as a tax collector, we have lost control of a big chunk of our cost structure. Tax increases, whether cloaked as changes in unemployment or disability insurance, Medicare increases or in any other form can dramatically alter our financial situation. With government spending and deficits growing as fast as they have been, you know that more tax increases are coming—for my company, and even for Sally too.
Companies have also been pressed into serving as providers of health insurance. In a saner world, health insurance would be something that individuals buy for themselves and their families, just as they do with auto insurance. Now, adding to the insanity, there is ObamaCare.
Every year, we negotiate a renewal to our health coverage. This year, our provider demanded a 28% increase in premiums—for a lesser plan. This is in part a tax increase that the federal government has co-opted insurance providers to collect. We had never faced an increase anywhere near this large; in each of the last two years, the increase was under 10%.
To offset tax increases and steepening rises in health-insurance premiums, my company needs sustainably higher profits and sales—something unlikely in this “summer of recovery.” We can’t pass the additional costs onto our customers, because the market is too tight and we’d lose sales. Only governments can raise prices repeatedly and pretend there will be no consequences.
And even if the economic outlook were more encouraging, increasing revenues is always uncertain and expensive. As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government decisions to raise taxes, to policies that make health insurance more expensive, and to the difficulties of this economic environment.
A life in business is filled with uncertainties, but I can be quite sure that every time I hire someone my obligations to the government go up. From where I sit, the government’s message is unmistakable: Creating a new job carries a punishing price.
Mr. Fleischer is president of Bogen Communications Inc. in Ramsey, N.J. [/quote]
The investors may or may not be “rich.” They might simply be a large pool of small-time investors, or a small pool of very wealthy investors. They might be relatives, co-workers, friends, etc.
There is a myth that only rich people create jobs. “I’ve never worked for a poor person,” the saying goes. Personally, I’ve worked for more “poor” people than “rich” people. Most small business owners and start-up entrepreneurs that I’ve known were not rich, especially when they started.
That being said, I absolutely agree with you about regulations and all-around “red tape.” Local, state, and federal regulations should be streamlined, and certain fees and costs should be reduced or eliminated.
IMHO, socialized healthcare would greatly help businesses, as they could shed the responsibility of providing and maintaining healthcare for their employees. Healthcare should not be tied to employment (though one would think that the Republicans would champion this, as it prevents “the lazy” from getting proper healthcare).
July 29, 2011 @ 1:18 AM
UCGal wrote:surveyor
[quote=UCGal][quote=surveyor][quote=jpinpb][quote=CA renter]Again, all of the debt/deficit rhetoric is meaningless until somebody steps up the plate and honestly addresses the real reason for the deterioration of our economy — the offshoring of our jobs.[/quote]
THANK YOU![/quote]
And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Lets say I’m a fat cat businesswoman.
And I see chance to NET more profit by expanding my business. I’m going to do it. After all – I want more money.
So if, after paying taxes, I can net some green – I’ll hire more people to take advantage of that.
Hypothetical:
Lets say we’re in a low tax environment (like now)… Lets say I could net a million by hiring 100 people and expanding my business.
Compare to a higher tax environment – where, hypothetically, I will need to expand and hire 150 people to net that same million.
Which scenario creates more jobs?
The problem with saying that the “rich” (whoever they are) are the job creators is that it is false. The rich are about consolidating and moving money to their own accounts, and out of the general economy. The rich already have their money and don’t want to risk it. Even profitable companies have been downsizing and paying their c-execs big bonuses on the “savings”. And don’t get me started on the compensation going to the c-execs of less profitable companies.
The REAL job creators are the folks who WANT to get rich and aren’t there yet. They’re the ones hiring.[/quote]
NAILED IT!!!!!
July 29, 2011 @ 8:24 AM
surveyor wrote:And yet look
[quote=surveyor]And yet look at some of the solutions being promoted by some of you here and in DC:
1. Transaction tax on financial transactions: will result in killing of jobs by limiting amount of capital available for businesses and will drive the stock market down.
2. Tax “millionaires” and “billionaires”: will result in less investment in businesses and less jobs because money will be driven in tax havens and tax exempt munis.
3. Tax corporations more: corporations will downsize even more and hoard their profits away from the United States.
4. More regulation: of course this will kill jobs. Those of you who don’t believe that more regulations won’t are frankly deluding themselves.
When a business has to pay $71k to give a person a $59k job, of course it will result in less jobs. When a business has to spend more time on overhead because of regulations instead of more time on actual production, of course you will get less jobs.
This should be frankly apparent to many of you. Businesses have always said it has become too expensive hiring, working, and investing in the United States. Too many regulations to deal with, and now Obamacare. Taxes are too difficult to understand, too difficult to comply with, and too expensive to deal with. Of course corporations will find a way to not deal with it.
You want more jobs, make it easy and not so expensive to hire somebody. Simplify and lower the tax rate. Eliminate the barriers to job creation. Those jobs will come back when that happens. Until then, like all those ideas being pitched here, we will have the opposite effect.[/quote]
Yes, corporations are out to make the biggest profit possible. Laws should be changed so they can’t get cheap labor abroad. We are supposed to have a higher standard of living in America, including pay and working conditions. Not bring our labor down to the levels of Third World countries.
We are making it too easy and cheap for corporations to outsource AND too easy and cheap for items MIC to be brought and sold here. Definitely import/export laws needs to be changed.
IMO corporations are not going to “help” us when they make a profit. Not going to happen. There will always be cheap labor elsewhere in the world and they will go that route for the sake of profit. That means unless we are willing to work for $3 a day, or laws get changed, we will be shedding jobs.
July 28, 2011 @ 10:23 PM
Back to the three ring circus
Back to the three ring circus that started this thread…
So the Republicans decide that they will put on a sideshow that has no hopes of passing the Senate by passing a Republican only House package for raising the debt ceiling…that, I suppose the thinking is, will show the American public that at least the Republicans can unite and get something done.
Well, at least for now, has gone down faster than a sorority girl on spring break. Boehner would not have delayed the vote if he had enough votes! The Republicans weren’t even able to unite behind a package by ignoring Democrat desires!
But tomorrow is a new day….maybe the Republican leadership can pistol-whip enough members to push it through…
July 29, 2011 @ 7:55 AM
Also, since everyone is
It’s a tax increase for everyone, but the tax increase is greatest on the younger generation. That’s because the cut to social security is, as I understand it, a change in the way inflation is calculated, and thus a change in the annual cost of living increase to social security. For a current retiree, I believe it was estimated that it would amount to 3% less total benefits over a lifetime. But who cares about that when you’re paying in for another 20+ years? Because of a change like this, the monthly payout to people like me will be much less than current retirees (inflation adjusted) and yet I’m still stuck paying in the same amount every 2 weeks.
Anyway I think they should just abolish social security and expand the welfare program, because that’s what it is in the end anyway.
July 29, 2011 @ 11:37 AM
I thought politics was off
I thought politics was off limits here after it became indisputable that an idiot was elected to the White House.
August 1, 2011 @ 1:11 PM
I figured I would let all of
I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul.
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the “cuts” being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family “saving” $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of “cuts” that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to “cut”. It would only take us 5 years to “cut” $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger “cut” than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..
August 1, 2011 @ 9:13 PM
aldante wrote:I figured I
[quote=aldante]I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul……Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..[/quote]
Much as I truly hate to pass up this opportunity to blow you, aldante, I gotta confess that I respect Ron Paul. Quite often I don’t agree with what he says, in whole or in part. But I like the fact that HE DOES HIS JOB.
There is a relative handful of people in Congress who appear to comprehend the fact that they are there to do a job, just like the rest of us do. They actually think about the serious problems, gather information (not propaganda), and formulate problem-solving strategies. Ron Paul is one of these.
The majority present themselves as representing the taxpayers of their state/district but, in reality, they behave like contestants at the Miss America pageant. I truly believe that they think their job obligation consists of kissing babies and meeting “people from home” in his office when they visit DC, taking part in hearings that are largely set up to garner TV coverage that will help to replenish the soundbite library, and preen before the TV cameras, while occasionally letting loose with outraged spluttering about the rival party. Period.
If we’re going to pay these guys a good salary with expenses, staff and supply several offices, and pay them a lifetime pension after serving only a few years, I expect to get back something more than a kiss goodnight at the door.
Although I do think it’s sad that I’ve reached the point at which I’m grateful to Congresspeople who appear to be actually doing work.
August 2, 2011 @ 12:09 AM
aldante wrote:I figured I
[quote=aldante]I figured I would let all of you SPENDERS shoot this reasoning down from Ron Paul.
One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the “cuts” being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family “saving” $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of “cuts” that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to “cut”. It would only take us 5 years to “cut” $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn’t have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger “cut” than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.
Happy to hear your critcism….as long as it deal with his points. Blow me if you try and tear apart the man……..[/quote]
Even I agree with many of his points, and certainly have more respect for Ron Paul than for most politicians, for the very reasons eavesdropper already described.
It’s not that I think we need to spend more…we just need to shift where that spending occurs. We also need to look at who’s gained the most from the policies of the past 30-40 years, and make them pay for what they’ve been given, often at the expense of many others.
We absolutely should freeze spending, but the interest we owe on all that debt makes it difficult. Also, we need to get our military out of all those countries where we don’t belong. I’m sick and tired of hearing those on the right say that we need to cut taxes, when they are responsible for so much of our spending.
August 2, 2011 @ 10:58 AM
I guess I let my blood boil
I guess I let my blood boil sometimes and I regret the vulger comment.
I agree that we should follow the money but our first priority needs to be to save this nation. RP is the only candidate that called all of today’s events 10 years ago. He is a terrible speaker. But follow his actions. Look at his writing and his track record. Most speak better then he does but no one – has had the forsight and guts to call the evils of big government better or more accurately.
He is as much against the military industrial complex as he is against the welfare state.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:24 PM
AN wrote:Their teachers are
[quote=AN]Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years:…[/quote]
I understand what you are trying to say here, AN, but I find it easier to face reality. The truth is, teacher’s starting salaries are what they are across the nation. These salaries are divided over 12 months so they can get paid during school vacations. In CA, public school teachers of all ranks make double what they do in in the southwest part of the country. This is just anecdotal, based upon my conversations with relatives who are longtime teachers and school administrators. The duties and working conditions of public school teachers are such that they are often in positions of being damned if they do and damned if they don’t. A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere. You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.
August 3, 2011 @ 10:47 PM
bearishgurl wrote:A teacher
[quote=bearishgurl]A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere.[/quote]
I’m not talking about some whining parents. I’m talking about truly bad teachers. I can remember one from my HS. He was a AP chem teacher. During the WHOLE year, he never talked to the class. From class start to class end, he faces the board the whole time talking to the board. During AP time, only 1/4 even tried to take the AP test and I don’t think any of us pass. Secondly, do you know any profession where a good employee gets paid the same (or very close to) as a bad one? We should be rewarding our great teachers more than our good teachers. Our good teachers should get rewarded more than our OK teacher. Our bad teachers should be doing something else.
I personally don’t expect to see any change in our education system in my life time. The teachers’ union are just too strong. Don’t think for one second that I’m whining. I have my kids education planned out and saved for. So, even if nothing changed, it won’t affect me, since it would be meeting my expectation. I’m just debating for the fun of debating, since I love to talk about schools as much as RE. Just as I know I can’t change RE market, I know I can’t change the school system as well.
[quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.
August 3, 2011 @ 11:11 PM
AN wrote:bearishgurl
[quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
AN, the way “bankers” and “mortgage brokers” are compensated are apples to oranges to that of a teacher. A teacher has no control over their raises or how much they will make. It is already spelled out in their contracts. There is no “commission” incentive or handsome “back-end load” waiting for teachers to sign up “principals” with little/no verifiable income (but who can fog a mirror) with “exotic mortgages” that they KNEW would eventually explode. Bankers and mortgage brokers simply got greedy in recent years doing this routinely because they had the opportunities to act on that greed. Teachers are in no such position. Other than teachers with seniority being able to list their choice of schools they wish to be assigned to for the next school year and sometimes being able to decorate their classroom as they wish, there is no other facet of their jobs that they have control over. They are mired in rules and regulations, there is no “incentive pay,” they have to work a particular schedule, mostly standing up and have a student body with very diverse needs to serve, day in and day out.
August 3, 2011 @ 11:21 PM
bearishgurl wrote:AN
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
AN, the way “bankers” and “mortgage brokers” are compensated are apples to oranges to that of a teacher. A teacher has no control over their raises or how much they will make. It is already spelled out in their contracts. There is no “commission” incentive or handsome “back-end load” waiting for teachers to sign up “principals” with little/no verifiable income (but who can fog a mirror) with “exotic mortgages” that they KNEW would eventually explode. Bankers and mortgage brokers simply got greedy in recent years doing this routinely because they had the opportunities to act on that greed. Teachers are in no such position. Other than teachers with seniority being able to list their choice of schools they wish to be assigned to for the next school year and sometimes being able to decorate their classroom as they wish, there is no other facet of their jobs that they have control over. They are mired in rules and regulations, there is no “incentive pay,” they have to work a particular schedule, mostly standing up and have a student body with very diverse needs to serve, day in and day out.[/quote]
This has NOTHING to do with their pay. It EVERYTHING about your statement saying I can’t judge someone because I haven’t walked in their shoes. Have you walked in those bankers’ mortgage brokers’ shoes for a year?
August 4, 2011 @ 5:23 AM
AN wrote:bearishgurl wrote:A
[quote=AN][quote=bearishgurl]A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere.[/quote]
I’m not talking about some whining parents. I’m talking about truly bad teachers. I can remember one from my HS. He was a AP chem teacher. During the WHOLE year, he never talked to the class. From class start to class end, he faces the board the whole time talking to the board. During AP time, only 1/4 even tried to take the AP test and I don’t think any of us pass. Secondly, do you know any profession where a good employee gets paid the same (or very close to) as a bad one? We should be rewarding our great teachers more than our good teachers. Our good teachers should get rewarded more than our OK teacher. Our bad teachers should be doing something else.
I personally don’t expect to see any change in our education system in my life time. The teachers’ union are just too strong. Don’t think for one second that I’m whining. I have my kids education planned out and saved for. So, even if nothing changed, it won’t affect me, since it would be meeting my expectation. I’m just debating for the fun of debating, since I love to talk about schools as much as RE. Just as I know I can’t change RE market, I know I can’t change the school system as well.
[quote=bearishgurl]You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]That’s a poor argument. If you truly believe this point, then none of us can judge bankers, mortgage brokers, etc. until we have been in their shoes.[/quote]
BG is exactly right. I tried to explain it before, but teaching is very difficult because what one person considers “good” teaching is the very same thing that another person considers “bad” teaching — see my example about the two principals, one who demanded teachers use only the whole language approach, and the other who demanded they use phonics only.
When I taught, I was known as a very strict (but loving) teacher, and was all about academics. Most of the parents absolutely loved me because I was able to manage their children far better than they could, and the kids went home better behaved than when they left. The kids also did exceptionally well academically, and my classes always scored at or near the top for our “cluster” (the schools that all feed into a particular HS). I was the teacher that everyone else sent their “bad” kids to when they couldn’t tolerate them anymore, and was always able to manage whatever was thrown my way.
OTOH, there were some parents who couldn’t stand the discipline in my classroom. They thought their kids should have been doing more arts and crafts, and they thought their kids should have had as much say about how the classroom was run as I did. Some parents complained that I gave too much homework, and others complained that there was not enough. Some thought that teachers should not be allowed to “bench” kids or keep them in for recess when they misbehaved, etc. The list goes on and on…
As a teacher, you literally have 20++ bosses (the parents) — not including the *real* bosses (the administrators) — and many of them have totally disparate opinions about what makes a “good” teacher. Because of it’s subjective nature, teachers need to be protected from administrators and parents who just have a personal axe to grind. It’s one of the few professions where people who have NO experience or knowledge of any kind feel like they have the right to dictate how things should be done.
If you want choice, you’ve got it. You can send your kids to a private school, you can homeschool them, you can send them to another public school via open enrollment, or you can move to another district. Your options are endless, but taxpayers should not be obligated to pay for every possible “choice” a parent desires.
August 4, 2011 @ 4:28 AM
bearishgurl wrote:AN
[quote=bearishgurl][quote=AN]Their teachers are in the top 1/3 of their profession. Can we say the same for our teachers? You like to bag on our students but you fail to put the same critical eyes on our teachers as well. I’ve been saying many times before, good teachers should be paid much more, but bad teachers should be fired. Here’s statistic of teacher salary after 15 years:…[/quote]
I understand what you are trying to say here, AN, but I find it easier to face reality. The truth is, teacher’s starting salaries are what they are across the nation. These salaries are divided over 12 months so they can get paid during school vacations. In CA, public school teachers of all ranks make double what they do in in the southwest part of the country. This is just anecdotal, based upon my conversations with relatives who are longtime teachers and school administrators. The duties and working conditions of public school teachers are such that they are often in positions of being damned if they do and damned if they don’t. A teacher whom some parents think is incompetent or slipping may have actually been praised by another subset of parents or even won recent district or state awards! After gaining tenure, a particular teacher’s performance is entirely subjective. For these reasons and more, the vast majority of public educators are represented by unions, and rightly so. Teachers rights of collective bargaining have been embedded in the states’ educational code for many decades. There is nothing anyone can do about this.
Instead, I believe parents would be better served to help their public school student and/or give him/her the tools to excel in the subjects they need to graduate and also fulfill the state’s A-G requirements for admission into a public university. Whining for a private school voucher or that your child’s teacher is paid too much or not enough or needs to be fired is counterproductive and will get you and your student nowhere. You can’t judge a public school teacher until you have been in their shoes yourself, for their entire career.[/quote]
Very well said, BG!
August 5, 2011 @ 9:40 AM
Here’s a good example of what
Here’s a good example of what happens when a school accepts too many transfer-ins (from the six-month-prior deadline) and then finds out (after the new budget is implemented) that they will not be able to replace teachers who retired and were “laid off” last school year.
The schools in SUHSD began the new school year on 7/20. All classes which rec’d less than 20 enrollments were eliminated as of two days ago, due to lack of teachers. All students were placed in existing classes of 35-55 students. Some are still sitting on the floor.
The counselors supposedly worked all weekend and my kid just got their “final schedule,” yesterday … 12 days into the semester. Even though we signed up for “Algebra II” back in January, we just got a math class yesterday.
The unused classrooms are just sitting there empty, locked up 🙁 Hopefully, this weekend, desks will be moved out of them to classrooms which need them.
Do you think all these mostly “zone” and some interdistrict transfers will be re-admitted next year?? Not!!
August 5, 2011 @ 9:46 AM
That’s a pretty horrible
That’s a pretty horrible story BG. Can you explain something to me, since I don’t quite get the whole budget/teacher layoff thing. Each district supposed to spend $x/student, right? If there’s enough students, why do they need to layoff those teachers?
August 5, 2011 @ 10:07 AM
AN wrote:That’s a pretty
[quote=AN]That’s a pretty horrible story BG. Can you explain something to me, since I don’t quite get the whole budget/teacher layoff thing. Each district supposed to spend $x/student, right? If there’s enough students, why do they need to layoff those teachers?[/quote]
Districts in CA have to lay off teachers and (apparently) not replace retirees because their budget has been cut. Why?? Because the vast majority of property owners in CA whose taxes are NOT “held at bay” by Prop 13 have filed for a reassessment, causing county assessors to voluntarily reassess ALL properties, block by block, since they don’t have the staff to process all these Applications for Reassessment. My own tax has been reduced down to its 2003 level.
This results in far LESS property tax revenue for the schools then they previously operated with. In other words, whatever the state USED to pay them per student has gone down … significantly.
In the case of SUHSD, they now have five additional schools to service, which were built in the last 8 years, but are operating on the revenue they rec’d in approx 2003.
MR bonds paid for these schools’ construction but does NOT pay to operate them.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:37 AM
bearishgurl wrote:Districts
[quote=bearishgurl]Districts in CA have to lay off teachers and (apparently) not replace retirees because their budget has been cut. Why?? Because the vast majority of property owners in CA whose taxes are NOT “held at bay” by Prop 13 have filed for a reassessment, causing county assessors to voluntarily reassess ALL properties, block by block, since they don’t have the staff to process all these Applications for Reassessment. My own tax has been reduced down to its 2003 level.
This results in far LESS property tax revenue for the schools then they previously operated with. In other words, whatever the state USED to pay them per student has gone down … significantly.
In the case of SUHSD, they now have five additional schools to service, which were built in the last 8 years, but are operating on the revenue they rec’d in approx 2003.
MR bonds paid for these schools’ construction but does NOT pay to operate them.[/quote]
That makes sense. To solve this problem, instead of raising taxes on everyone, I wonder if we can let parents have a choice to pay some out of pocket money to reduce the class size.
According to http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp, in 2001, we spent $39.7B, in 09-10 school year, we spent $47.2B. That’s about 2.2% increase each year. So, we’re spending more than we did in 2001, yet class size is getting MUCH larger. Why is that? Does this article have any merit? http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politicsinvesting/1911-california-school-spending-soared-on-administrators
Administrators’ cost are soaring? If so, why can’t we stop that?
August 5, 2011 @ 10:12 AM
All Piggs that have
All Piggs that have previously complained about these 30+ year teaching veterans that have “lost their touch” and are “slipping” should be grateful that you have them. After 30 years service, they don’t make any more $$ to continue teaching, due to being eligible for a 100% pension. They are only there for the love of teaching and to perhaps get their medical coverage a little cheaper until they can qualify for Medicare.
I’m here to tell you that retiring teachers will likely NOT be replaced in your child’s school in the coming years.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:27 AM
Life of a bureaucracy
We need
[img_assist|nid=15200|title=Life of a bureaucracy|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=503|height=600]
We need to just open new schools right next door. Start a new life.
August 5, 2011 @ 10:30 AM
Luv, luv, LUV your chart,
Luv, luv, LUV your chart, jstoesz! Being a gov’mt “retiree” myself, this illustration is “spot on” IMO! Especially the last circle!!
August 5, 2011 @ 10:39 AM
bearishgurl wrote:Luv, luv,
[quote=bearishgurl]Luv, luv, LUV your chart, jstoesz! Being a gov’mt “retiree” myself, this illustration is “spot on” IMO! Especially the last circle!![/quote]
Thanks…It is near and dear to my philosophy. Charles hugh smith can be a bit of a wingnut, but other times he really strikes genius.