But he's just being professorial. With his state-funded university stipend, and state-subsidized bus line to shop for groceries, with other federal subsidies hidden under his belt, it must look so clear and easy! Anyone else just isn't doing it right.Originally Posted by Illusions
Again with the name-calling? Loki, it just doesn't work.You're speaking to someone who spoke no English, and whose parents spoke no English, had no money, and were working for the minimum wage as of a decade and a half ago.You're also speaking to someone who's never lived in anything larger than a one-bedroom apartment, never stepped foot into a private school, never had a car, and never made more than $20k a year. I spent half of my life living in a fairly poor immigrant neighborhood, and almost everyone I've met until the last few years were decidedly lower/lower-middle class. So please stop it with your brand of champagne socialism and your pretensions of knowing more about what poor people want and need more than they do.
I could tell a much more difficult and challenging anecdotal story about my brother-in-law, arriving in the US speaking no English at the age of 13, with parents who didn't speak English, public schools with no ESL program, being ridiculed for having dark skin and an accent, no internet network to help him, working a fucking hot dog trailer in downtown Philly.....to finally make it to Drexel.
But you dismissed anecdotes as being relative to the discussion. tsk
I'm fairly certain an anecdote war isn't going to be productive, and neither is the tired fallacy of "I did it, others should be able to as well". I also don't see how being realistic is champagne socialism. I'm also fairly certain that there are people with backgrounds similar to yours who are much better off than you are or are more successful than you (monetarily). Does that imply that you are somehow lazier than they are, dumber, less motivated, not as hard working, less desiring of success, etc.? No? Then why do you choose to view it that way for people less successful than yourself?You're speaking to someone who spoke no English, and whose parents spoke no English, had no money, and were working for the minimum wage as of a decade and a half ago.
Edit: Suggestions for an alternative to "Fairly certain"...I need a new phrase...
. . .
Reality check 2010. Grads from 2008 and 2009 are competing with 2010 grads for jobs.
A law degree ain’t what it used to be.
The market is so rough that the American Bar Association felt compelled to issue a striking warning to prospective students.
“Far too many law students expect that earning a law degree will solve their financial problems for life,” a bar commission warned in a November 2009 paper. “All too often, students who bank on reaping a positive financial return from law school lose out.”
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Humming? How about picking up the gasping corpse from the emergency room floor?
1) Yes, our standard of living has risen for most everyone in the US, and that's great. Public education is the key for accessibility and continued progress. But we're failing at that. The ones that don't drop out aren't keeping up with the rest of the world. There's been such a systemic LAG between education and skills to match the changing world, that we're playing catch-up for at least 2 generations, maybe 3.
2) We focus too much on wealth and not enough on the basics, while the definition of Basic has escalated and progressed. This isn't romanticism about The Good Old Days (when an 8th grade education landed a job in a Detroit auto-assembly line), but a condemnation about our slowness to evolve with the world.
No, we bicker about teacher pensions, the DoE, charter schools, property taxes, costs per pupil, government grants and student aid for college....all about the money aspects....but little toward making the US a First Class A-One nation for education. The proof is in our willingness to cut funding for public education (save some bucks), at a time when education is more important than ever. Go go USA #1!
I don't see why you're sidetracking this. We spend more money on education per student than most, but we get sub-par results in some of the most high-spending areas. That's not about income inequality, it's about ineptitude.Humming? How about picking up the gasping corpse from the emergency room floor?
1) Yes, our standard of living has risen for most everyone in the US, and that's great. Public education is the key for accessibility and continued progress. But we're failing at that. The ones that don't drop out aren't keeping up with the rest of the world. There's been such a systemic LAG between education and skills to match the changing world, that we're playing catch-up for at least 2 generations, maybe 3.
2) We focus too much on wealth and not enough on the basics, while the definition of Basic has escalated and progressed. This isn't romanticism about The Good Old Days (when an 8th grade education landed a job in a Detroit auto-assembly line), but a condemnation about our slowness to evolve with the world.
No, we bicker about teacher pensions, the DoE, charter schools, property taxes, costs per pupil, government grants and student aid for college....all about the money aspects....but little toward making the US a First Class A-One nation for education. The proof is in our willingness to cut funding for public education (save some bucks), at a time when education is more important than ever. Go go USA #1!
Actually, that was my point. We spend a lot of money on education, we bitch about the money spent, because the results have not paid off. Ditto for healthcare, by the way. We've ended up with vast inequality in both, because we were too focused on the money and not about the goal.
I have a feeling that if someone would give you a million dollars, you'd find a reason to complain. You complain about action and inaction. You complain about support and opposition to the same policies. You complain about programs being immune from cuts and then complain about programs not being immune from cuts.
Hope is the denial of reality
Critique would be a better word. And why the hell not? Is Professor Loki the only legitimate critic in these here parts?I have a feeling that if someone would give you a million dollars, you'd find a reason to complain. You complain about action and inaction. You complain about support and opposition to the same policies. You complain about programs being immune from cuts and then complain about programs not being immune from cuts.
As I see it, the US is full of ambivalence and duality, and millions of people are asking for a reality check. That might be why our politics has become so polarized. That's just conjecture, though.
Do I need to apply for a government grant to conduct a study or poll, under the umbrella of a "reputable" university, with a federally and state subsidized TA to grade my thesis --- before I can opine on a fucking forum?
Yes, many super-rich robbed their way to wealth, but many others earned it.
I'm less concerned about the super-rich, and more concerned about the growing poor. Compare average housing prices in my state in a few highly populated relatively poor urban cities with housing prices to the north, west, and south: they are two, three, four times higher. (and the poor ones vote Democratic a proportionate amount more...)
It should be that the poor occupy a small percentage of the total population, but it is more like they are eclipsing the middle class. (And yes, basic subsistence existence (with no savings) and using cheap, smelly detergent makes you poor.)
Nice one, my Prince. While that may be true in general for college educated people, we are talking about new college grads!
Many Americans are poor (in terms of wealth, not income) because they spend too much, not because they earn too little. There's a high proportion of doctors and lawyers who are living paycheck to paycheck. Many prefer getting a new fancy car to paying back their student loans. Only a few percent of the population earns a minimum wage, and even that's not a problem outside of a handful of major cities. I'd like to know by what standard the poor are eclipsing the middle class. Last I checked, only about 20% of the population made under $20k.
Yeah, because non-college grads right now are having an easier time getting jobs.Nice one, my Prince. While that may be true in general for college educated people, we are talking about new college grads!
Hope is the denial of reality
I added a reply to another one of your posts... but anyway, Loki, if $20K is the cutoff point for you... well, that's a problem. How do you buy a $500K house (which is often low range price) in the suburbs with a $20K salary? You'd be hard-pressed to buy half the junk-crap in my city's central area for a family making $50K. And that $500K house? It's junk, too.
Edit: Maybe I am just too high-brow for you people. I guess most mansions wouldn't be good enough for me.
Median salaries in the suburbs are substantially above the national average. And if you still can't afford it, maybe you shouldn't be living in suburbs where houses cost $500k. Or maybe you shouldn't own a house. Last I checked, it wasn't a constitutional right, despite many Americans treating it like one. I'm from Brooklyn. Most people in Brooklyn don't own houses (house ownership is at about 32%) and don't have much of a shot of getting them. The world hasn't ended, people aren't committing suicide en masse, or going on a crime spree.
Maybe you should make sense. Too much to ask, I know.
Hope is the denial of reality
There's a difference between renting decent housing and living in (and owning!) squalid housing. And btw, in my city at least it seems like crime is edging up.
Edit:
Well, I don't think that at all. It's what comes after the college education that's the troubling part.You made it seem like poor people find impenetrable obstacles when it comes to getting a college education, and that's simply a lie.
Maybe you should make sense. Too much to ask, I know.I see. Your pieces of data are undermining your own argument.An existence proof (i.e. one piece of data) undermines his hypothesis.
What's your argument, again? That income inequality doesn't affect our power structure, because YOU pulled yourself up by your Brooklyn Bootstraps?
Back to median income. You could live the lifestyle of a Manhattanite, on an income of about $30,000, but you'd have to live in Mississippi to do that. It's obviously not so easy to transfer a Mississippi education to a NYC job, though. The barista and cashier jobs are filled. Any open applications for a hot dog cart or t-shirt street vendor?
Too many broad, undefined terms, Professor. "Many", "wealth", "prefer", "problem", "handful", "middle class".
You're also using a national metric to define true poverty-income ($20K). Maybe you should look at national numbers of recipients for food stamps, section 8 housing, Medicaid, unemployment benefits. Or look at the growing numbers of people without health insurance, numbers of medical bankruptcies, or the millions of foreclosures. There are real people behind all those numbers, and it's not painting a pretty picture.
I know reading isn't your specialty
The last person here you should be calling a CHAMPAGNE SOCIALIST is Illusions. Excuse me for saying so. You donkey.
Your comparison is invalid. You brought up college education as the cure-all to being poor. I showed you a flaw in your argument. No comparison with non-grads will prove your argument correct.Yeah, because non-college grads right now are having an easier time getting jobs.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
It is a cure all for being poor because it gives you better job prospects than someone without a college degree. And making broad conclusions about a college education based on labor conditions following a severe recession is idiotic even by your standards.
Hope is the denial of reality
I say we borrow our way out of this. And since we're borrowing anyway, let's give tax cuts to everybody. Let's sell our wealth to China. Let's become Squanderville.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
Let's not forget also about the insane amount foreclosures that are still going on. That really drives down the mean prices, especially when if one were to (incorrectly) utilize mean square footage -- small shacks will have very cheap per-sq.foot price, just like cheap CPUs have incredible per-score-point-value, but are not actually able to run anything.
And people do seem to use this measure, especially when these people are actually enormous government-owned mortgage holders requiring ridiculous appraisal schemes for refinancing.
I love how you always assume you know better than the experts. If you thought of something, chances are some economist thought of it decades ago. The economists who study this know far more about the current HR process deal with HR people far more than you do.
Probably after you started assuming that you're the only wise person on the planet.
Hope is the denial of reality
And I love how you claim to know the experts, while trying to become one. Maybe that feeds your chutzpah?
I've never claimed to have one single original thought, not once. Not on economy, politics, or philosophy. I'm not that intelligent. Not even clever enough to pretend.
Still, I can read. You've mentioned HR a few times, in a couple of threads. I don't think you really know how HR works today from an employer view, let alone employment from an applicant view. New college grads have an automatic benefit that old college grads have lost. Universities partner with employers to weed out extraneous applicants, their job fairs are more specific, certain schools have preference.
When's the last time you applied for a job?
While college or graduate degrees are of course at times unnecessary to do a job, that's not true for a wide range of professions. Generally, the wage premium of an education goes much higher for so-called 'useful' degrees (e.g. STEM) rather than more fluffy ones (e.g. Music Theory). That means that even though there's some minimal value placed on the more vague things you learn in college, there's a lot of value placed on the specific skill sets and knowledge you learn in application-oriented coursework. We have a great deal of specialization in society, and that level of specialization frequently requires more knowledge and skills than are imparted to a high school student.
I personally don't think that a 4-year degree is necessary or even a good idea for everyone, but there definitely are reasons for the wage premium.
I guess this goes here. It gives an opinion about why unemployment extensions are more important than extending tax cuts for the rich.
The Unemployed Held Hostage, Again
Other opponents would have you believe that the nation cannot afford to keep paying unemployment benefits: a yearlong extension would cost about $60 billion. The truth is, we cannot afford not to. The nation has never ended federal benefits when unemployment is as high as it is now, and for good reason: Without jobs, there is inadequate spending, and that means ever fewer jobs. A wide range of private and government studies show that unemployment benefits combat that vicious cycle by ensuring that families can buy the basics.Nor do jobless benefits bust the budget. Just the opposite. They do not add to dangerous long-term deficits because the spending is temporary. And because they support spending and jobs, they contribute powerfully to the economic growth that is vital for a healthy budget. Extending the Bush high-end tax cuts would be budget busting, because they are likely to endure, adding $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years. Tax cuts for the rich provide virtually no economic stimulus, because affluent people tend to save their bounty.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
I know what you mean. But that also means sharing a value system based on need, not just knowledge.
Example: most of us can find medical help on the internet. Diagnosing rashes or sore throats, migraines, back pain or obesity. Plenty of that information can empower us, and we can act on recommendations. We can learn how our bodies work, and how to make them work at optimum levels. That's a good thing.
However, other things aren't so easy, like cars. I can learn what bad suspension sounds or feels like, or how performance suffers from misaligned steering, but I can't fix that by changing fuel or keeping the tires inflated. I really need a mechanic for my car. A car isn't like a human body, where prevention and self-help or nutrition goes a long way.
Based on that, auto mechanics should earn more than physicians.
Being, you should really stop linking to the NYT. It's a left wing liberal propaganda machine. Their experts have an agenda! tsk.
Also, you and I should be ashamed for posting in this forum. Our spam *and absurdity* is keeping current members from posting, and holding back new people from joining, too!
Let's go sulk in the corner, with our tails between our legs. Master Loki says we are bad dogs, and haven't learned the proper tricks. He will show us the way, though....soon, very soon.
Last edited by GGT; 11-28-2010 at 07:24 AM. Reason: *
Are you kidding me?! Car trouble is far easier to diagnose than body trouble, and much easier (and cheaper and safer) to fix. The level of knowledge and expertise doesn't even come close.
I'm not talking about physician specialists or surgeons. They are a highly specialized group of doctors. I'm talking about the basics.
We all know basic health screening and level I diagnostics can be done by an RN or PA, often by the patient themselves. You can't say the same about your car. Not many people have the computer diagnostics, or the lift, or the materials. Most people can't even change their own oil even if they wanted to.
Apples and oranges. The fanciest car repairs require expert help (though said help doesn't require as much knowledge or training as an MD), but the vast majority of stuff can be done on your own with fairly basic tools. If you want to compare the fanciest and most expensive car repairs to routine medical treatment, you can, but that's extremely disingenuous.
No, I'm comparing our vast amount of knowledge and self-help for our own bodies vs vehicles. Humans have many temporary ailments that are either self-limiting, or simple to treat. Colds, flus, headaches, sprains, nausea, diarrhea. OTC meds and devices.
No such thing for a car: if there's a problem, there's a problem. Chicken soup and rest won't change a damn thing for a car, they don't self-repair like humans. That's why mechanics charge at least $65/hour. They do earn that, though. Anyone who's gone to a physician to be told they have the flu, drink fluids and rest, and gets a $100 bill for that 15 minutes knows exactly what I'm saying.
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