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$168 Per Day

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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 3:50 pm

Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:The 20th and 21st century view is that the government can take care of those people, which is also an easy get-out for people who don't want to think too hard or actually solve the inherent problems.

Does your public school suck? Let's just throw another $2 million at it like we did every year for the past 30 years.
Out of work? Let's just keep you on unemployment for a year or more.
Underemployed? Let's just make sure you get enough food stamps and welfare checks to keep you there.

We can land on the moon, we can pull a device from our pocket and communicate with anyone else in the world through any medium we like, we can buy a car that can accelerate faster than gravity, we can rent an apartment that is over half a kilometre off the ground.

Yet we cant set up a simple and efficient public framework in which to fund improvements to our schooling?

...

.....

.......

Oh thats right we can, in fact theres lots of them all accross the political spectrum, we are just, collectively, too belligerant as a species to ever possibly agree on one.


I'm not really talking about funding public schooling. I'm suggesting that there are reasons other than money why public schools are failing and yet the only solution we are provided and pushed towards is increasing the funding. Mostly because, in my jaded view, the people that receive that funding are the ones that are pushing for it.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 3:52 pm

Symmetry wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Symmetry wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Symmetry wrote:Agreed, but there is a well-established way of avoiding that moral obligation for people who really don't want to deal with the problem of poverty. Make poverty itself a moral crime. Call the poor feckless, lazy, ignorant and inherently criminal. It's one of those pervasive 19th century ideas that equates poverty with mental illness and criminality.

It's an easy get-out for people who don't want to think too hard.


The 20th and 21st century view is that the government can take care of those people, which is also an easy get-out for people who don't want to think too hard or actually solve the inherent problems.

Does your public school suck? Let's just throw another $2 million at it like we did every year for the past 30 years.
Out of work? Let's just keep you on unemployment for a year or more.
Underemployed? Let's just make sure you get enough food stamps and welfare checks to keep you there.


Ah, all those magic jobs out there in a recession. What a shame that people are just too lazy to work. I'm totally with you on this. The Great Depression too. Just a load of bums who didn't want to get a job. Dust bowl? Try paying your water bills.


Woah there killer. Jumping the gun aren't we?

I guess my question to you would be this:

(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

(2) How much money is spent on unemployment benefits? How many people have gotten jobs at the end or towards the end of their unemployment run?

(3) How much money is spent on welfare? How many people who have been on welfare have been able to get themselves out of welfare?

And throw in this one as well - What leads you to believe that the people who write and administer these laws are interested in anything other than their own self-preservation, power, and wealth? And who do you think ensure that those people will continue to enjoy power and wealth?


These are questions that you find much more interesting than me, but I'd be happy to look at your findings and discuss them. Sadly, I'm not going to be doing the legwork for your own vague points. If you have some answers, I'll discuss them with you, but a Lionz style list of vague leading questions is just tiresome. Especially when they're immediately followed by another vague list.


Oh yeah, I forgot. You're doing this thing where you post an ad hominem rant and then bob and weave.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 3:59 pm

thegreekdog wrote:(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

I take your rhetorical and come back with:
a) How much more time did children spend with at least one parent in the 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
b) How much has the nutritional value of our diets decreased from 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
c) How much more outdoor exercise did children in the 1960's do compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
d) How much have cultural behaviour standards decreased from 1960 to 2012 due to the impact of pop culture? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
e-h) All the "this country has gone to the dogs" rhetoric that conservatives blame for todays sorry state (e.g. elimination of corpereal punishment, decrease of religion etc). how has these changes affected in-class behaviour?
i) How has the location of supportive extended family changed since 1960? (i.e. are we more dispersed geographically now?) how has this affected behaviour?

Should I go on? I reckon I still have a few more in me.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:00 pm

thegreekdog wrote:I'm not really talking about funding public schooling. I'm suggesting that there are reasons other than money why public schools are failing and yet the only solution we are provided and pushed towards is increasing the funding. Mostly because, in my jaded view, the people that receive that funding are the ones that are pushing for it.

I'd completely agree with that, though I usually do :P

(in fact its pretty much the same point as I was making with my rhetorical question post lol)
Last edited by Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby AndyDufresne on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:00 pm

And now, for something almost entirely different, but still on topic, from Futurama:




--Andy
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:02 pm

Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

I take your rhetorical and come back with:
a) How much more time did children spend with at least one parent in the 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
b) How much has the nutritional value of our diets decreased from 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
c) How much more outdoor exercise did children in the 1960's do compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
d) How much have cultural behaviour standards decreased from 1960 to 2012 due to the impact of pop culture? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
e-h) All the "this country has gone to the dogs" rhetoric that conservatives blame for todays sorry state (e.g. elimination of corpereal punishment, decrease of religion etc). how has these changes affected in-class behaviour?
i) How has the location of supportive extended family changed since 1960? (i.e. are we more dispersed geographically now?) how has this affected behaviour?

Should I go on? I reckon I still have a few more in me.


Yeah, this is what I'm saying. There are factors other than public school funding that affect the quality of public education. Perhaps we need to address those factors rather than just throwing more money at the problem.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:09 pm

Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

I take your rhetorical and come back with:
a) How much more time did children spend with at least one parent in the 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
b) How much has the nutritional value of our diets decreased from 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
c) How much more outdoor exercise did children in the 1960's do compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
d) How much have cultural behaviour standards decreased from 1960 to 2012 due to the impact of pop culture? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
e-h) All the "this country has gone to the dogs" rhetoric that conservatives blame for todays sorry state (e.g. elimination of corpereal punishment, decrease of religion etc). how has these changes affected in-class behaviour?
i) How has the location of supportive extended family changed since 1960? (i.e. are we more dispersed geographically now?) how has this affected behaviour?

Should I go on? I reckon I still have a few more in me.


In a sense, that doesn't really answer TGD's rhetorical. If you are going to concede that more public funding for the education system is not helpful, because of all these external factors you mention, then he has made his point. What is wrong with his argument is to assume that because money has not solved these problems, more money is a bad idea. I strongly disagree with this. In either case when we spend more money on the education system, we are investing in our future by being able to provide better classrooms and equipment, smaller class sizes, higher-paid and higher-quality teachers, etc. It is not an easy thing to answer the question, why have students not gotten better with time? Lootifer's list is surely part of it. Also surely part of it is that we have an enormous number of students to serve, and the best method we have found to determine how to appropriate funding and other government resources for all those millions of students is through standardized testing scores, which leaves less opportunity for creative teaching methods (e.g. inquiry-based learning in the classroom). Perhaps all of these things together dwarf what more money put into public education can do; but that is not an argument for less funding of public education.

Numerous studies have shown that one of the best public investments you can make is in universal preschool for children. Students are better prepared for their grade school experience, and later in life are significantly more likely to have stable economic and home situations. Some estimates say that you get back seven times what you put in through this investment. So I don't think the argument can be substantiated, that simply more funding for more schooling cannot have a positive impact.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:17 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

I take your rhetorical and come back with:
a) How much more time did children spend with at least one parent in the 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
b) How much has the nutritional value of our diets decreased from 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
c) How much more outdoor exercise did children in the 1960's do compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
d) How much have cultural behaviour standards decreased from 1960 to 2012 due to the impact of pop culture? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
e-h) All the "this country has gone to the dogs" rhetoric that conservatives blame for todays sorry state (e.g. elimination of corpereal punishment, decrease of religion etc). how has these changes affected in-class behaviour?
i) How has the location of supportive extended family changed since 1960? (i.e. are we more dispersed geographically now?) how has this affected behaviour?

Should I go on? I reckon I still have a few more in me.


In a sense, that doesn't really answer TGD's rhetorical. If you are going to concede that more public funding for the education system is not helpful, because of all these external factors you mention, then he has made his point. What is wrong with his argument is to assume that because money has not solved these problems, more money is a bad idea. I strongly disagree with this. In either case when we spend more money on the education system, we are investing in our future by being able to provide better classrooms and equipment, smaller class sizes, higher-paid and higher-quality teachers, etc. It is not an easy thing to answer the question, why have students not gotten better with time? Lootifer's list is surely part of it. Also surely part of it is that we have an enormous number of students to serve, and the best method we have found to determine how to appropriate funding and other government resources for all those millions of students is through standardized testing scores, which leaves less opportunity for creative teaching methods (e.g. inquiry-based learning in the classroom). Perhaps all of these things together dwarf what more money put into public education can do; but that is not an argument for less funding of public education.

Numerous studies have shown that one of the best public investments you can make is in universal preschool for children. Students are better prepared for their grade school experience, and later in life are significantly more likely to have stable economic and home situations. Some estimates say that you get back seven times what you put in through this investment. So I don't think the argument can be substantiated, that simply more funding for more schooling cannot have a positive impact.


Actually, I'm not even suggesting that we take money away from public education and would like to see most federal tax dollars go to public education than any other institution.

What I am suggesting is that, if we're going to collect these tax dollars, that the tax dollars be used in different ways than purchasing a new microscope or paying for a director of public communications position.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:24 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:(1) How much more money, incrementally, has been spent on public education from 1960 to 2012? How much have the US public schools improved?

I take your rhetorical and come back with:
a) How much more time did children spend with at least one parent in the 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
b) How much has the nutritional value of our diets decreased from 1960's compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
c) How much more outdoor exercise did children in the 1960's do compared to 2012? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
d) How much have cultural behaviour standards decreased from 1960 to 2012 due to the impact of pop culture? how has this affected in-class behaviour?
e-h) All the "this country has gone to the dogs" rhetoric that conservatives blame for todays sorry state (e.g. elimination of corpereal punishment, decrease of religion etc). how has these changes affected in-class behaviour?
i) How has the location of supportive extended family changed since 1960? (i.e. are we more dispersed geographically now?) how has this affected behaviour?

Should I go on? I reckon I still have a few more in me.


In a sense, that doesn't really answer TGD's rhetorical. If you are going to concede that more public funding for the education system is not helpful, because of all these external factors you mention, then he has made his point. What is wrong with his argument is to assume that because money has not solved these problems, more money is a bad idea. I strongly disagree with this. In either case when we spend more money on the education system, we are investing in our future by being able to provide better classrooms and equipment, smaller class sizes, higher-paid and higher-quality teachers, etc. It is not an easy thing to answer the question, why have students not gotten better with time? Lootifer's list is surely part of it. Also surely part of it is that we have an enormous number of students to serve, and the best method we have found to determine how to appropriate funding and other government resources for all those millions of students is through standardized testing scores, which leaves less opportunity for creative teaching methods (e.g. inquiry-based learning in the classroom). Perhaps all of these things together dwarf what more money put into public education can do; but that is not an argument for less funding of public education.

Numerous studies have shown that one of the best public investments you can make is in universal preschool for children. Students are better prepared for their grade school experience, and later in life are significantly more likely to have stable economic and home situations. Some estimates say that you get back seven times what you put in through this investment. So I don't think the argument can be substantiated, that simply more funding for more schooling cannot have a positive impact.

I never said take money away. I'm pretty left leaning :D

My point was that the money could very well have been spent wisely, and the decrease in quality of education could be a result of a million other things; hence we'll never know.

I guess my post wasnt aimed at TGD per se (since I generally understand and mostly agree with where he's coming from), it's a follow up addressed at the PS/NS's of this world who see what TGD says and think to themselves "Damn right ya'll, DOWN WITH GOVERNMENT!".
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 4:27 pm

I would normally be on board with the "down with the government" thing, but I think public education should be a top priority.

I guess I am sort of "down with the government" on this since I'm fairly sure the government's only goal with respect to public education is to appropriate more funds to throw at teachers' unions and other government employees. There was a rather talked about Philadelphia school district decision recently that basically created a bunch of unneeded positions in the school district, paying upwards of $100,000 each. A lot of people, from both sides of the aisle, questioned the decisions. To me, this kind of quid pro quo that goes on is no different from that going on between large corporations and the government. They are probably both equally not transparent and both bother me.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:36 pm

thegreekdog wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Symmetry wrote:Agreed, but there is a well-established way of avoiding that moral obligation for people who really don't want to deal with the problem of poverty. Make poverty itself a moral crime. Call the poor feckless, lazy, ignorant and inherently criminal. It's one of those pervasive 19th century ideas that equates poverty with mental illness and criminality.

It's an easy get-out for people who don't want to think too hard.


The 20th and 21st century view is that the government can take care of those people, which is also an easy get-out for people who don't want to think too hard or actually solve the inherent problems.

Does your public school suck? Let's just throw another $2 million at it like we did every year for the past 30 years.
Out of work? Let's just keep you on unemployment for a year or more.
Underemployed? Let's just make sure you get enough food stamps and welfare checks to keep you there.

I see, becuase its now the government's job to create jobs, not just to provide a safety net.

What ever happened to your lauded free market that was to solve everything completely on its own.


What? No seriously, what are you saying?

The government's job is not to create jobs. The government can provide a safety net. But there is providing a safety net, and then there's what the government does now, which is perpetuate the state that people find themselves in.

I understand you wish to make that claim, but then where are all these jobs just open and available.. and how many of them actually pay enough for a person to live upon? As Symmetry noted, its easy to point the finger.

Why aren't there more jobs out there? According to you, it must be government assistance, because according to you, if it were not for that assistance more people would be working. Therefore you are asking the government to provide jobs. I say, instead that the governmetn provides a safety net and when people who work still qualify for assistance then maybe the problem is that the wages are too low... particularly when the percentage income of CEOs proportional to lowest wage workers is skyrocketing in so many organizations, when stock prices determine far more about company policy than long term product integrity and quality...I say THAT is the problem, not government assistance.
thegreekdog wrote: It seems clear, at least to me, if we just take public schools, as an example. Public schools in the United States get more money per student, by far, than any other public school system in the world, yet we have very poor schools for the most part. I certainly don't have a solution to that problem, but I do know that the solution should not be making the per student amount higher when throwing more money at the problem has not worked the 2,000 other times we've done it. But I don't see anyone proposing anything other than throwing more money at the problem. Why?
For starters, our students are not equal to other students. In other countries, most kids get universal medical care, so you don't have that whole myriad of issues with which to deal. They generally don't have the serious crime issues and various social service disasters we allow in our country. Also, kids in other countries who have disabilities, particularly the most serious are classed under different programs, not just lumped with regular students.
There are other issues, but too much money is not the problem. You are correct that "just throwing money" at the problem is not the answer, but neither is saying "Public schools suck, private schools do better.. so put all kids in private schools". The truth is that there are some pretty bad private schools, even that stay in business. In some cases, these poor schools stay in business because some parents care more about religion or other belief systems than they do about overt quality of education -- to them, things other than how well their child reads and writes or, particularly, understands science. Further, the biggest advantages private schools have is just the ability to be selective. They don't have to take the difficult child. Public schools do. That makes a HUGE difference.

Its not that public schools are perfect or as good as they could be. Its that the claim that privatization will fix everything is patently and proven false.. but people still keep making the claim becuase it meets their political agendas.

thegreekdog wrote:
I'm also not a 100% free market person, as you well know. What I am in favor of is limiting the government's control over things, especially when the things it does are abject failures in nearly every way.

Except, is welfare truly an abject failure or is it just a bit too much of a success? You have said that your income exceeds $200K. I don't consider that "rich", but at the same time, you don't seem to recognize or to be willing to admit that it does very much put you in the very upper escheleon of income earners in this country. Nor do I think you have really and truly looked objectively at why you are there instead of, say, working in a factory or flipping burgers. Don't get me wrong, you are certainly intelligent, have certainly worked hard..... but so are and have many other people who don't make $50,000. More than a few of those people even studied law, passed their bar exams.

I have no problem with people making millions or billions. I have a problem when people making those kinds of incomes turn around and declare that they "have" to move their company overseas because they just "cannot afford" the taxes and/or the pay unions demand.. or follow the environmental regulations. I have a problem with this idea that its OK to ignore impacts of pollution in an industry because it is creating jobs -- never mind that the pollution is going to last a couple hundred years and the jbos maybe a decade. Yet, when you say that welfare is too high, that people should just go out and get jobs... when people cannot feed their families, they are willing to ignore impacts of pollution or abuse by bosses or any other negative situation just to put the food on their table. Having welfare gives a few people who are idiots a jerks a "pass", but it also serves as the fall back for many, many hardworking people -- people who work in their communities even when getting welfare or who work hard looking for a job (until depression or desperation make them give up for a time), people who maybe "could" geta job.. if they were willing to let whomever take care of their kids, (and I mean truly abusive or negligent providers!), or willing to put up with truly nasty abusive bosses or deal with truly dangerous situations.

Have you ever read Steven Covey's 7 Habits? One of the things he points out is that a poor manager will always blame the employees for failures.. he cannot find good work, etc, etc. Good managers, to contrast, seem "magically" to find good employees. The difference is not the employees, its the manager. Today, too many companies simply want to take the easy route and say "those lazy bastards... welfare is too high" instead of looking honestly at the choices THEY have made. They are the first to explain to employees how they must take pay cuts, work more... etc, etc.... but somehow when the balance sheets come out great, all they can do is give out a nice dinner or some kind of award. Those things are nice, but not as nice as a fatter paycheck!
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Dec 11, 2012 7:51 pm

thegreekdog wrote:I would normally be on board with the "down with the government" thing, but I think public education should be a top priority.

I guess I am sort of "down with the government" on this since I'm fairly sure the government's only goal with respect to public education is to appropriate more funds to throw at teachers' unions and other government employees. There was a rather talked about Philadelphia school district decision recently that basically created a bunch of unneeded positions in the school district, paying upwards of $100,000 each. A lot of people, from both sides of the aisle, questioned the decisions. To me, this kind of quid pro quo that goes on is no different from that going on between large corporations and the government. They are probably both equally not transparent and both bother me.

This stuff is wrong and needs to be changed, but the problem is when instead of saying "we need to fix some problems", it becomes "public education is failing..we have to do away with public education".

However, in government, we at least have the legal authority to challenge and investigate, to get answers. It can take time and there are a few limits, but not many. Corporations largely are designed to be opaque. The executives often have fiduciary responsibilities to not give out information. They have far fewer reporting and recording responsibilities, so that even if something is essentially known, it can be hard to get proof (about pollution, for example, but also worker abuses, shifty business dealings, etc, etc,)
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby PLAYER57832 on Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:00 pm

Funkyterrance wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Funkyterrance wrote:Ok, let's look at it from this perspective:
Do you personally buy any products/services from corporate owned companies? Isn't it really consumer buying habits then that are to blame? If nobody bought products/services from corporate owned enterprises there would be no big fat CEO's grubbing all the profits. The low prices gained by the corporate structure are what's attractive to people but then they don't like the consequences of their support. Why is it so easily forgotten that the two things are connected?


Or I could take a knife and go kill the sons-of-bitches like Mary Harris Jones said?! Just because it's an option doesn't make it a good one.
There's no question of who to support anymore. People who make $19K a year don't have any options for where to shop. And in my community, we have Wal*mart, JCP, Walgrens, CVS, F&F, Shop*Ko, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Cub Foods, Sullivan's Grocery, and Menard's. That's it for 45 miles. All big-chain stores. Our beloved Kmart will be closed by January.

The low prices argument is bullshit. Just because a company has low prices does not mean they get low prices by ripping off their employees and giving the money to the CEO. Like Hostess did. The two things were 'not connected' until recently. That's what's so easily forgotten. Union power peaked in 1970, and this out-of-control CEO pay sh*t didn't start until around '78. And that's not a coincidence. The system didn't work like this until now, and these assholes don't have to continue making more money than God for our country to function. They don't earn this, the workers are the ones who create the wealth.


I'm not disagreeing that the workers create the wealth, that's pretty obvious.
So let's take your example of your options within 50 miles: Do you happen to know which of these corporate owned chains are better to their employees? Does this affect where you shop or do you generally go where it's most convenient at the time/slightly cheaper? Everyone has options in an open market, it's just "too hard" to make an effort one way or another. So you save $5 choosing one place over another, even on a $20k salary this doesn't amount to a hill of beans.


There are options and options...
I can buy from one of 4 grocery stores, including Walmart. There are 14 others within an hour driving radius. Several of those are duplicates (there are 3 Walmarts, for example and 2 Aldis), so not really different options. However, if you look at the suppliers, then you have far fewer options. Teh 18 stores are all supplied by essentially the same 3 suppliers, plus Aldis (2, each an hour away). In truth, the only real option is the farmer's market or a few direct sellers. However, they only sell limited items and only during certain seasons. (meat and produce, plus some handcrafts, woodworking, etc.)

Funkyterrance wrote:My point is that we Americans are very good at pointing out what's wrong but terrible at adjusting our habits in an effort to make things better. Armchair politicians can spout all they want but until they actually reflect their beliefs in their own consumer choices they can keep it to themselves as far as I am concerned.

Our system is so entrenched that its a lot more than convenience standing in the way of the corporate supply chain. The more we support it, though, the more we support low wage jobs and increase dependence upon government aid, instead of independence.

The answer is to require more of the companies, not to require less in assistance for those in need.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:01 pm

thegreekdog wrote:I would normally be on board with the "down with the government" thing, but I think public education should be a top priority.

I guess I am sort of "down with the government" on this since I'm fairly sure the government's only goal with respect to public education is to appropriate more funds to throw at teachers' unions and other government employees. There was a rather talked about Philadelphia school district decision recently that basically created a bunch of unneeded positions in the school district, paying upwards of $100,000 each. A lot of people, from both sides of the aisle, questioned the decisions. To me, this kind of quid pro quo that goes on is no different from that going on between large corporations and the government. They are probably both equally not transparent and both bother me.

Heh, I can understand the whole down with government sentiment - the US government has a track record that has done superbly well to create it! But I perceive your attitude to be "Id rather a small libatarian government but if there are some areas of governement involvement I dont neccessarily agree with, but are performing in a relatively efficient and rational manner, then I have no issue" compared to others attitudes (not naming names ;) ) where any government involement is immediately bad, regardless of the way in which it's run.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:20 pm

Lootifer wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:I would normally be on board with the "down with the government" thing, but I think public education should be a top priority.

I guess I am sort of "down with the government" on this since I'm fairly sure the government's only goal with respect to public education is to appropriate more funds to throw at teachers' unions and other government employees. There was a rather talked about Philadelphia school district decision recently that basically created a bunch of unneeded positions in the school district, paying upwards of $100,000 each. A lot of people, from both sides of the aisle, questioned the decisions. To me, this kind of quid pro quo that goes on is no different from that going on between large corporations and the government. They are probably both equally not transparent and both bother me.

Heh, I can understand the whole down with government sentiment - the US government has a track record that has done superbly well to create it! But I perceive your attitude to be "Id rather a small libatarian government but if there are some areas of governement involvement I dont neccessarily agree with, but are performing in a relatively efficient and rational manner, then I have no issue" compared to others attitudes (not naming names ;) ) where any government involement is immediately bad, regardless of the way in which it's run.


BBS is still in school, so don't fault him.

I will continue to make comments like these until BBS comes back, by the way.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby Lootifer on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:27 pm

Haha, BBS wasnt who i was referring to. His anti-any-government-ideals ideals are based on research and rational opinion at the holistic level; I was referring to those dressed up in libatarian disguises, but are actually some other alignment and just riding the anti-government sentiment.
I go to the gym to justify my mockery of fat people.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:37 pm

Player wrote:I understand you wish to make that claim, but then where are all these jobs just open and available.. and how many of them actually pay enough for a person to live upon? As Symmetry noted, its easy to point the finger.

Why aren't there more jobs out there? According to you, it must be government assistance, because according to you, if it were not for that assistance more people would be working. Therefore you are asking the government to provide jobs. I say, instead that the governmetn provides a safety net and when people who work still qualify for assistance then maybe the problem is that the wages are too low... particularly when the percentage income of CEOs proportional to lowest wage workers is skyrocketing in so many organizations, when stock prices determine far more about company policy than long term product integrity and quality...I say THAT is the problem, not government assistance.


Again, for the fifty millionth time in the five or so years I've been here, I'm not pointing the finger at poor people. Please, for godssake, stop trying to lump me in with the Fox News-consuming non-thinkers that frequent this website.

I am, however, pointing the finger at the government. For the third time in this thread... what is the point of welfare or unemployment insurance or any of the other myriad benefits the federal government provides? We've been told the point is that these are safety nets, and perhaps they were in FDR's time. They are no longer safety nets. They are programs that do not help people help themselves. Isn't that what we want?

And yeah, some small portion of people do not make a livable wage. But it's a small portion. The rest of the 99% that grouses about this stuff is grousing about the greed of the CEO-types. And people should unionize; they can help people. But you also have to keep in mind that there is job competition in non-union shops and a Walmark checker isn't going to be able to demand a $50,000 a year salary.

PLAYER57832 wrote:Its not that public schools are perfect or as good as they could be. Its that the claim that privatization will fix everything is patently and proven false.. but people still keep making the claim becuase it meets their political agendas.


I'm not in favor of privatizing schools.

PLAYER57832 wrote:Except, is welfare truly an abject failure or is it just a bit too much of a success? You have said that your income exceeds $200K. I don't consider that "rich", but at the same time, you don't seem to recognize or to be willing to admit that it does very much put you in the very upper escheleon of income earners in this country. Nor do I think you have really and truly looked objectively at why you are there instead of, say, working in a factory or flipping burgers. Don't get me wrong, you are certainly intelligent, have certainly worked hard..... but so are and have many other people who don't make $50,000. More than a few of those people even studied law, passed their bar exams.


Whether welfare is a success or failure is dependent upon the reason we have welfare. If we have welfare to help people get back on their feet or move up out of the "welfare class," then it's a failure. If we have welfare so that a certain percentage of the population is dependent upon and will vote for the people who support welfare, then it is a success.

I don't make $200K yet. If and when I do, I will still not be in the upper echelon of people in the US. What you do not seem to understand is that there is little difference between me and someone making $25,000 a year when it comes to exerting influence over the government or most private institutions. If we turn to the fiscal cliff, for example, there is a lot of discussion about who is going to pay more taxes. I would choke on my chewing gum if capital gains tax rates were increased or if taxes were increased on people making upwards of a million dollars. Any tax burden that comes out of this is going to hit people like me and people like you. The president knows it, the Democrats know it, the Republicans know it. But they don't really care about it because that's the whole point. Make sure the people that pay taxes are the people that can afford to pay taxes but cannot influence the government. That's the plan.

As for the rest of your crap, there are a number of things that have contributed to my relative success, some of which is luck, sure. Not sure what your point is, unless it's the usual.

PLAYER57832 wrote:They have far fewer reporting and recording responsibilities, so that even if something is essentially known, it can be hard to get proof (about pollution, for example, but also worker abuses, shifty business dealings, etc, etc,)


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Public companies have incredibly complex and transparent reporting responsibilities. The federal government is about as opaque as you can get. Just look at the freaking Internal Revenue Code and regulations. The nine books are sitting on my desk right now, thousands of pages each, with extremely small type. I can pull up the 10K for a public company right now which will be 100 pages or so and will have all you need to know.
Last edited by thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: $168 Per Day

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:38 pm

Lootifer wrote:Haha, BBS wasnt who i was referring to. His anti-any-government-ideals ideals are based on research and rational opinion at the holistic level; I was referring to those dressed up in libatarian disguises, but are actually some other alignment and just riding the anti-government sentiment.


Nothing makes me angrier than fake small government people. Although I suppose I am one of this given my support of public education.
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