BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

kenberg, on 2016-February-02, 15:02, said:

I think the point he was making is that if we don't have a good education system, even the students who have potential will have a hard time achieving it. A car with a Ferrari engine won't go very fast if you put crappy fuel in it.

No one is saying that a good education system will give everyone a fancy career. But at least it won't handicap everyone.

Here are some numbers on money spent on education.

http://www2.ed.gov/a...lite-chart.html

reply to barmar

Right. Except possibly for our friend from New York, there does not appear to be any disagreement about our basic obligation to provide decent education, decent nutrition, decent health care and ensure public safety for all kids. Or about the wisdom of making it clear to kids that at some point -- in my family it was age 18 -- they are responsible for making the decisions that will affect the rest of their lives and that if you want to be a nuclear engineer, good for you, but you have to do more than just show up and make Ds.

y66, on 2016-February-03, 11:56, said:

I just wish we did one of these things in my old neighborhood on the south side of Chicago Roseland/Pullman. Chicago seems to be a war zone for kids, esp kids of color. on the southside.

I know flooding the area with national guard troops, cops that can stop and frisk and perhaps making gun crime a federal crime with mandatory sentencing sounds drastic but we need do something drastic there. We pour money in and it just gets worse not better.

barmar, on 2016-February-03, 10:44, said:

On this, we have full agreement.

PassedOut, on 2016-February-02, 09:37, said:

I swear I thought the link would take me to The Onion.com

A surprise canadacy. https://www.youtube....h?v=sCyzdD0vYOw

kenberg, on 2016-February-02, 15:02, said:

And it will be harder yet when the folks who are kids now grow up. I wouldn't be surprised if in twenty years, the two or three guys who put the tiles on your roof will be one guy with a roofing machine, and that one guy will at least be good enough to program the machine (I don't mean like a computer programmer - I mean like programming a VCR) and make minor repairs when it breaks. The guy probably won't know how to solve differential equations, but he'll need to be smarter than the guys doing the job now.

From where I sit, I'm seeing a significant portion of the population, whether because of lack of innate ability, poor education, or whatever else, who simply will not have the ability to support themselves. Frankly, this is true already; just look at the explosion of people who have been put on long-term disability on some excuse or other. Many people won't be able to add anything to the available technology. I agree that students with a D in pre-pre-algebra trying to be nuclear engineers don't help. The truth though, is that most (though not all) kids with a D in pre-pre-algebra aren't good enough at anything to make it. It's not as if pre-pre-algebra is a skill completely uncorrelated with everything else.

Maybe the Unabomber was right, though I certainly don't think sending mail bombs was the right way to make his point.

Winstonm, on 2016-February-03, 13:41, said:

Even the article smacks of satire when it quotes a real estate agent in FL.

Winstonm, on 2016-February-03, 13:41, said:

Borowitz is similar to the Onion except that his jokes are almost always political.

akwoo, on 2016-February-04, 02:00, said:

First, perhaps you are right. But I resist such pessimism until/unless there is no other choice.

The WP had an interesting article about the iron range

The guy featured lost his job when the mine shut down. He has other skills, but he is going through a very rough time. A good summary would be that he knows how to work and knows how to learn. Disaster can strike anyone, but I would hope we can still follow policies that can work out for such a person.

Economic forces can roll over very decent people. But policies matter.

Now there are people who can't or won't do what he could and would. Absolutely this is true, and I doubt anyone knows what to do about that. But I give up on someone only as a last resort so I hope the number of such people is of modest size. People such as this miner, and I have known a fair number including some miners, may not look all that good in a college class. But that is far from the end of the story, and I hope that we pay more attention to their needs than we have been doing. They need work that will allow them to raise a family.


Added: The article mentioned that one worry this guy had was that his medical benefits from his work in the mines could run out, and they are expecting a child. The author does not explain how the ACA would or would not help with this. Does anyone have any knowledge on this? I would assume it helps.

It seems to me most everyone wishes this guy and his family the best of luck

kenberg, on 2016-February-04, 20:02, said:

You've led a productive life and are retired. You've earned the right not to worry too much about what the world is going to be like 30 years from now. But some of us are still going to be alive and kicking then, and we have to worry about it.

I don't want to give up on anyone. But this is a matter of attitude towards the person in front of me, not a matter of reason. Even as we hope for the best for everyone, it strikes me as reckless not to try to prepare for things not working out.

You say you doubt anyone knows what to do about this problem. You are probably right, but that doesn't mean we all throw up our hands and bury our heads in the sand. Again you've earned the right to do that, but we have to worry. Pessimism serves a purpose after all; it pushes us to try to prepare in case things don't work out. If there is going to be a problem, any feasible solution is going to take a lot of work to come up, and even more work to implement. Social solutions to social problems take a long time to put in place. If we let things drift, and keep hoping for the best, then no one comes up with anything, and we won't be prepared if technologically-induced mass unemployment starts happening.

If it really becomes a problem, I imagine it would end rather poorly. Some nuclear-armed state in dire economic straits is going to choose, democratically or not, a Hitler as their leader, and we'll be leaving Earth to the cockroaches.

akwoo, on 2016-February-05, 02:17, said:

The question is what to do? These guys ask themselves this question every Friday morning. They also do stuff, including working with Rob Grunewald and others on the early childhood development front (Grunewald, who works for the Minnesota Fed, has been a leader on this front for more than 10 years).

Fact Checks of the Fifth Democratic Debate.

y66, on 2016-February-05, 05:55, said:

It includes the republican debate as well.

akwoo, on 2016-February-05, 02:17, said:

There are quite a few things that I favor doing. Addressing education is near the top of my list and we probably agree on that as a general principle.. I regard inequality of access to a decent education as more serious than inequality of income, although of course they are strongly linked.

One place that we perhaps disagree is on the emphasis on college. College is, of course, important. But when someone suggests making post-secondary education free, I want to ask if this includes training at trade schools. Sure trades become more technical, although I am not expecting robot roofers any time soon. Take car repair. 60 years ago I used a torque wrench. There was a dial that gave an estimate of the amount of torque being applied. When tightening down a cylinder head you tightened the bolts going through them in a prescribed order, first tightening to a certain torque, then going through again tightening further. Now mechanics have computer stuff they read They can do it. And I expect they still need to use a socket wrench. Advocates speak of making students college or career ready but if you listen to the follow-up, they usually are thinking of college ready.

The (very useful) fact checker posted by Y66 addresses Rubio's claim that welders make more money than philosophers. Of course it depends on how you classify. Having a BA in Philosophy is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a philosopher. Regardless, the interesting question for me is whether someone ( I almost said guy but I have seen Flashdance and anyway I know there are women welders) can make a decent living at it. Maybe S/he doesn't want to be a philosopher.

There are many problems in education. Some schools, quite a few of them, are just crappy. Some kids are in such bad circumstances that it is really difficult to help them. And there is more to education than job preparation. But job prep is very important, I doubt anyone disagrees.

And now for something completely different:

https://www.youtube....h?v=V_yxGsWHx9o

https://www.youtube....h?v=ufGlBv8Z3NU

Flem72, on 2016-February-06, 08:35, said:

I suppose someone should comment but I was unable to watch more than the first minute or so of the first one so, other than that, I don't know what to say. Well, dumb beyond belief comes to mind.

I watched the republican debate and am glad that I'm not the only one who picked up on this: The real problem with Marco Rubio’s scripted debate performance: His ideas

Quote

As disturbing as this campaign has been, lots of it has been darkly funny. But this is just nasty.

I am now revising my view that Hillary will, in the end, withstand the challenge from Bernie. Many Dems welcomed the challenge as an opportunity for Hillary to show how she could cope with a challenge. I think that the results are not favorable for her.

When Obama was running, the idea, and in fact the shouted slogan, was that race doesn't matter. Of course this is not entirely factually correct. Some took his race into account in one direction, others took his race into account in the opposite direction. But the underlying approach was that he was running for president on the basis of his qualifications. Going further back the argument Jack Kennedy advanced was not that it was high time for a Catholic to be president but rather that his religion should not be a factor. Again some took his religion into account, but the argument was that he was running on his qualifications.

Hillary is in trouble, and she cannot seem to resist the temptation to bring up the historical importance of her gender. This is a huge error. Most of us at least strive to support the candidate that we believe will do the best job. Suggestions that we should vote for her because of historical importance do not sit well with us.


In the last day or two we have had Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinhem and Bill Clinton all weighing in on this. If I were Hillary's campaign adviser I would have her tell her husband to shut &*%# up, have her express gratitude for the support of Albright but make it clear that Albright's views were not her views, and acknowledge that Steinhem had said something silly that she had since acknowledged was silly. I would tell Hillary that under no circumstances is she to talk further about the historical importance of her candidacy.

Economic issues are complex, foreign policy issues even harder, but here we see a simple issue of judgment. Hillary is not looking good.