President Obama gave an excellent speech last week in Kansas about inequality in America.
“This is the defining issue of our time.” He said. “This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.”
He’s right. The spread between rich and poor has gotten wider over the decades. And the opportunities for the 99% have become harder to realize.
The President’s speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city. My kids have it much easier than their counterparts from West Philadelphia. The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011.
I am not a poor black kid. I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don’t believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.
It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.
And I would use the technology available to me as a student. I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home than on the streets. And libraries and schools have computers available too. Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet. Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all.
If I was a poor black kid I’d use the free technology available to help me study. I’d become expert at Google Scholar. I’d visit study sites like SparkNotes and CliffsNotes to help me understand books. I’d watch relevant teachings on Academic Earth, TED and the Khan Academy. (I say relevant because some of these lectures may not be related to my work or too advanced for my age. But there are plenty of videos on these sites that are suitable to my studies and would help me stand out.) I would also, when possible, get my books for free at Project Gutenberg and learn how to do research at the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia to help me with my studies.
I would use homework tools like Backpack, and Diigo to help me store and share my work with other classmates. I would use Skype to study with other students who also want to do well in my school. I would take advantage of study websites like Evernote, Study Rails, Flashcard Machine, Quizlet, and free online calculators.
Is this easy? No it’s not. It’s hard. It takes a special kind of kid to succeed. And to succeed even with these tools is much harder for a black kid from West Philadelphia than a white kid from the suburbs. But it’s not impossible. The tools are there. The technology is there. And the opportunities there.
In Philadelphia, there are nationally recognized magnet schools like Central, Girls High and Masterman. These schools are free. But they are hard to get in to. You need good grades and good test scores. And there are also other good magnet and charter schools in the city. You also need good grades to get into those. In a school system that is so broken these are bright spots. Getting into one of these schools opens up a world of opportunities. More than 90% of the kids that go to Central go on to college. I would use the internet to research each one of these schools so I could find out how I could be admitted. I would find out the names of the admissions people and go to meet with them. If I was a poor black kid I would make it my goal to get into one of these schools.
Or even a private school. Most private schools I know are filled to the brim with the 1%. That’s because these schools are exclusive and expensive, costing anywhere between $20 and $50k per year. But there’s a secret about them. Most have scholarship programs. Most have boards of trustees that want to give opportunities to kids that can’t afford the tuition. Many would provide funding for not only tuition but also for transportation or even boarding. Trust me, they want to show diversity. They want to show smiling, smart kids of many different colors and races on their fundraising brochures. If I was a poor black kid I’d be using technology to research these schools on the internet, too, and making them know that I exist and that I get good grades and want to go to their school.
And once admitted to one of these schools the first person I’d introduce myself to would be the school’s guidance counselor. This is the person who will one day help me go to a college. This is the person who knows everything there is to know about financial aid, grants, minority programs and the like. This is the person who may also know of job programs and co-op learning opportunities that I could participate in. This is the person who could help me get summer employment at a law firm or a business owned by the 1% where I could meet people and show off my stuff.
If I was a poor black kid I would get technical. I would learn software. I would learn how to write code. I would seek out courses in my high school that teaches these skills or figure out where to learn more online. I would study on my own. I would make sure my writing and communication skills stay polished.
Because a poor black kid who gets good grades, has a part time job and becomes proficient with a technical skill will go to college. There is financial aid available. There are programs available. And no matter what he or she majors in that person will have opportunities. They will find jobs in a country of business owners like me who are starved for smart, skilled people. They will succeed.
President Obama was right in his speech last week. The division between rich and poor is a national problem. But the biggest challenge we face isn’t inequality. It’s ignorance. So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them. Many come from single-parent families whose mom or dad (or in many cases their grand mom) is working two jobs to survive and are just (understandably) too plain tired to do anything else in the few short hours they’re home. Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it. Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids. Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction.
Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped. Yes, there is much inequality. But the opportunity is still there in this country for those that are smart enough to go for it.
GENE MARKS'S blog post on Forbes.com, ostentatiously headlined "If I Was a Poor Black Kid", didn't actually offend me as much as it did many of the plethora of bloggers who've pilloried it over the past few days. As Forbes's Kashmir Hill later posted, most of the vitriol seemed to be responding to the title. The post itself went out of its way to be polite, understanding, and non-partisan, and was mainly guilty of tone-deafness and of an unauthorised attempt by an unqualified ethnic-majority person at racial empathy with an imaginary ethnic-minority person, a gesture which is just extremely risky and basically shouldn't be ventured. (Notably, responses by Karl Smith and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who actually know what it's like to grow up as poor black kids, were more even-tempered in their rebuttals than most.)
What mainly struck me about the post was that it was off-topic. And it was off-topic in a characteristic way. The post was supposed to be a response to Barack Obama's speech in Kansas last week about the erosion of the American middle-class dream and the growth of radical inequality in American society. Mr Marks responded with a post offering advice for a member of the economic underclass on how to become more employable: study hard, stay out of trouble, take advantage of existing educational and training opportunities, get a job. This had nothing to do with what Mr Obama was talking about. Mr Marks's advice would have been equally valuable (or worthless) if offered to a hypothetical "poor black kid" in Philadelphia 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago. What Mr Obama was talking about was an entirely different issue: assuming that poor black kid did manage to make it to median income today, he would be more economically insecure than he would have been had he performed the same feat in 1971. He would more likely be indebted and without health insurance, employer's pension or long-term job security, and he would actually be making a lower hourly wage in inflation-adjusted terms. In fact, what Mr Obama was saying had no more to do with poor black kids in Philadelphia than with working-class white kids in Philadelphia.
To some extent Mr Marks's instinct to turn a discussion about economic hardship into one about "poor black kids" is a legacy of an earlier, less unequal era in American life, the 1950s-80s, when discussions of poverty tended to focus on poor urban blacks because they were the people who were clearly on the wrong side of a major gap in prosperity. We are no longer having that discussion. It is not just poor urban blacks left out of growing prosperity these days; it's the entire bottom and middle of the income scale. Mr Obama's point, the familiar point made by everyone focusing on growing inequality in American society, is that the income curve has become vastly steeper over the past 30 years, and while the top end keeps shooting up, the bottom and middle parts of the curve are stuck and sometimes falling behind. To respond to this statistical argument with a motivational story about how to get yourself out of the lower end of the curve and try to climb that ever-steeper slope is to miss the point entirely. But it is also entirely characteristic of the conservative side of the American political spectrum to make this move.
One thing I find paradoxical is that highly numerate people, people in the engineering, business and technical fields (Mr Marks writes about the tech industry), are often most reluctant to consider social problems from a statistical point of view, and prefer to consider them as individual moral or motivational stories. We have a curve composed of 150m dots that is becoming steeper and more parabolic. Go down to Occupy Wall Street, and you'll find a lot of cultural-studies majors working for environmentalist nonprofits who support changing systemic rules to flatten the slope. Go into the financial-institution office buildings that surround them, and you'll find a lot of math majors devising computer models for risk-weighting assets who think the dots on the bottom end should try harder to get into the top end. It's weird.
Yesterday a white guy named Gene Marks solved the Negro Problem, anew. His solution is outlined in a traffic-getting two-page blog post on Forbes.com, provocatively entitled “If I Was a Poor Black Kid.” Never mind that we’ve been debating this question for about 400 years, and that for the past 150 years, conservatives have been basically telling us the same thing that Marks does.
Never mind that it’s incredibly paternalistic to pen an open-letter to poor black people instructing them in the finer points of being good Negros. Never mind that people who actually want to help get in the trenches and volunteer their time or donate their money. Marks went there anyway. And these are the highlights of what he came up with:
It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible.
If I was a poor black kid I’d use the free technology available to help me study. I’d become expert at Google Scholar.
Is this easy? No it’s not. It’s hard. It takes a special kind of kid to succeed.
The division between rich and poor is a national problem. But the biggest challenge we face isn’t inequality. It’s ignorance. So many kids from West Philadelphia don’t even know these opportunities exist for them.
Technology can help these kids. But only if the kids want to be helped.
Before I begin to critique this article, let me crack my knuckles, and say first, that I love his blog post, because its simplistic analysis is the perfect target for a rebuttal.
Now, it’s obvious that hard work, intelligence, and assistance from others are necessary to succeed. I grew up in a trailer in rural Alabama and I graduated from Stanford University. I am publishing this blog post at a start-up magazine that I founded with capital that I — along with my African-American husband, a Brown University graduate — saved from our wage earnings. We work hard and our families have always worked hard too (See slavery). The problem is that Marks seems to think it’s okay to require black kids to be “special” to “succeed.” I don’t.
The economic and social policies that require black children to be “special” to succeed in America made a lot of sense to the racist lawmakers who designed them during Reconstruction. When they sat down after the Civil War to decide how freed slaves and southern whites would interact, Congress explicitly rejected proposals to level the playing field between them, refusing to provide blacks with land, reparations, or equal education. They did not want to create actual equality between blacks and whites. In fact, at the time, many Americans still believed that black people were genetically inferior and therefore incapable of achieving equality. As the Reverend Jared Waterbell, a northern liberal writing for the American Tract Society, opined in 1865, “Hence, even with strenuous efforts for their improvement, the African race must still acknowledge the superiority of the Saxon race.”
In lieu of equality, Congress opted to give black people so-called ‘equality before the law,’ and began amending federal law to give our ancestors the same rights on-paper as whites. We all know what happened next. For the first 100 years, the U.S. government didn’t actually enforce the laws at all, giving rise to the Civil Rights Movement. But even more important than their failure to enforce those laws is this: those lawmakers knew full-well that equal rights would never create equality between blacks and whites, and for most of them, that was precisely the appeal of the policy. Even Thaddeus Stevens, then the most powerful and vocal proponent of black rights in the House of Representatives, assured his fellow Congressmen that equal opportunity for blacks wouldn’t jeopardize white status. “Any who are afraid of the rivalry of the black man in office or in business, have nothing to fear” and should know that “there is no danger that his white neighbors will prefer his African rivals to himself.”
The architects of equality before the law, or equality of opportunity, knew that it would only allow a few special black people to succeed, and shrugged their shoulders about the rest. As the Reverend Horace James, the former Superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, said in 1865, “Give the colored man equality, not of social condition, but equality before the law, and if he proves himself the superior of the Anglo Saxon, who can hinder it? If he falls below him, who can help it?” (Side note: lynch mobs were the south’s response to the question who can hinder successful black people.)
An Ode to a 'Poor Black Kid' I Never Knew: How Forbes Gets Poverty Wrong
One of the best parts about being an educator's son is getting to hear all the crazy things your parent has to deal with courtesy of the "bad kids." I was a relatively mild-mannered student, thanks in large part to the fact that my mother, a teacher turned school administrator, had raised me to be. Even when she wasn't verbally doling out conduct lessons, I saw how an interaction with a mean or violent student would leave her frazzled at the end of a long day, and I knew I never wanted to inflict the same kind of torment on anyone else's mom or dad. Nevertheless, a gut instinct of youthful rebellion underpinned by hip-hop and Propagandhi always led me to inquire about the wild kids at my mom's schools, the ones who didn't just listen to punk, but who acted it as well.
It was in pursuit of one of these vicarious thrills that I asked my mom why she was so upset one day when I was about 12 years old. "Just something from today with a student," she said. I pestered her for more details, and she told me the story. A kid at her school—a primarily low-income, high-minority middle school serving sixth- through eighth-graders—was acting out. His outbursts were not normal, especially considering how young he was: He was rude, aggressive, destructive, foulmouthed, so angry. I remember my mom saying she was amazed at how much rage could fit into such a tiny body.
At first, the student's teachers tried putting him in timeout. When that didn't work, they escalated to trips to the principal's office. When those didn't work, he got detention after school. And when that didn't work either, they started sending him home. But when he'd return from a couple of days at home and immediately start tearing his classrooms apart, the suspensions grew to a week, two weeks.
Still nothing worked, and one day things got scary enough that my mom, accompanied by a police officer, felt it necessary to escort the student home to speak with his parents. When they got to his apartment about a mile away from the school, the weeks of mystery surrounding the boys' behavior were replaced with instant clarity. His mother, his only guardian, answered the door ashamedly, and out scurried a man, her most recent john.
After some talking and crying, the truth surfaced: The reason the "problem student" behaved so badly is because he knew that if his tantrums were chronic, he'd be sent home. And that was a good thing, because when he was home, his mother couldn't work as a prostitute. He couldn't tell any of his teachers this, of course, because then he'd run the risk of child welfare services taking him away from his mother, and he needed to be there to protect her. The boy never hated school, he just loved his mom more. This is how you get so much rage into such a tiny body.
I think about that little boy every time I read someone like Gene Marks, the Forbes writer behind "If I Was a Poor Black Kid," complain that minority children just aren't working hard enough. "If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible," writes Marks, a self-described middle-class white accountant. "I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best."
You find this sort of thing a lot among the white, moneyed, conservative set: "If only blacks and Latinos would work harder, they'd be fine." I don't think Marks and people who think like that are malicious, but I'd love to ask them how best to focus on your studies when all you can think about is the very real possibility that your mother is being assaulted in the bedroom where you're supposed to find sanctuary at night. How best to prioritize learning to read rigorously over scheming to get home and be the man of the house in the stead of the father who left? How best to find joy in school with so much hate and bitterness poisoning the rest of your life?
There's a lot wrong with "If I Was a Poor Black Kid," not the least of which is the grammar in the title. But the biggest issue with the piece and everything like it is that it assumes being poor and black are the only two things on poor black kids' plates. Content to generalize based on simplistic depictions of black poverty from TV and film, Marks believes that the only thing low-income minorities have to overcome is terrible teachers and a lack of technological knowledge; the rest of their problems stem from outright laziness. "If I was a poor black kid," writes Marks, "I’d become expert at Google Scholar." I'm not sure a more tone-deaf sentence has ever appeared in Forbes. To Marks, poor children exist in a vacuum where their only problem is poverty. In real life, poverty is a cloud that darkens every facet of a child's life, from his academic career to how he sleeps at night knowing his home is a brothel.
There are a huge number of resources available for Marks to read and watch to better understand the plight of poor minorities, and many of them can be found online. Alas, it seems that even he, a wealthy white professional, has yet to master Google Scholar.
We had a lot of fun with this on Twitter last night:
The President's speech got me thinking. My kids are no smarter than similar kids their age from the inner city. My kids have it much easier than their counterparts from West Philadelphia. The world is not fair to those kids mainly because they had the misfortune of being born two miles away into a more difficult part of the world and with a skin color that makes realizing the opportunities that the President spoke about that much harder. This is a fact. In 2011. I am not a poor black kid.
I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background. So life was easier for me. But that doesn't mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city. It doesn't mean that there are no opportunities for them. Or that the 1% control the world and the rest of us have to fight over the scraps left behind. I don't believe that. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed. Still. In 2011. Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia. It takes brains. It takes hard work. It takes a little luck. And a little help from others. It takes the ability and the know-how to use the resources that are available. Like technology. As a person who sells and has worked with technology all my life I also know this.
If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn't care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you're severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.
When I read this piece I was immediately called back, as I so often am, to my days at Howard and the courses I took looking at slavery. Whenever we discussed the back-breaking conditions, the labor, the sale of family members etc., there was always someone who asserted, roughly, "I couldn't been no slave. They'd a had to kill me!" I occasionally see a similar response here where someone will assert, with less ego, "Why didn't the slaves rebel?" More commonly you get people presiding from on high insisting that if they had lived in the antebellum South, they would have freed all of their slaves.
What all these responses have in common is a kind benevolent, and admittedly unintentional, self-aggrandizement. These are not bad people (much as I am sure Mr. Marks isn't a bad person), but they are people speaking from a gut feeling, a kind of revulsion at a situation which offends our modern morals. In the case of the observer of slavery, it is the chaining and marketing of human flesh. In the case of Mr. Marks, it's the astonishingly high levels of black poverty.
It is comforting to believe that we, through our sheer will, could transcend these bindings -- to believe that if we were slaves, our indomitable courage would have made us Frederick Douglass, if we were slave masters our keen morality would have made us Bobby Carter, that were we poor and black our sense of Protestant industry would be a mighty power sending gang leaders, gang members, hunger, depression and sickle cell into flight. We flatter ourselves, not out of malice, but out of instinct.
Still, we are, in the main, ordinary people living in plush times. We are smart enough to get by, responsible enough to raise a couple of kids, thrifty to sock away for a vacation, and industrious enough to keep the lights on. We like our cars. We love a good cheeseburger. We'd die without air-conditioning. In the great mass of humanity that's ever lived, we are distinguished only by our creature comforts, but on the whole, mediocre.
That mediocrity is oft-exemplified by the claim that though we are unremarkable in this easy world, something about enslavement, degradation and poverty would make us exemplary. We can barely throw a left hook--but surely we would have beaten Mike Tyson.
Some weeks ago I met a student who was specializing in economy and theater. She said that what she loved about both fields was that she had to presume a kind of rationality in studying her actors. She had to surrender herself--her sense of what she would like to think she would do--and think more of what she might actually do given all the perils of the character's environs. It would not be enough to consider slavery, for instance, when claiming "If I was a slave I'd rebel." One would have to consider, for instance, family left behind to bear the wrath of those one would seek to rebel against. In other words, one would have to assume that for the vast majority of slaves rebellion made no sense. And then instead of declaration ("I would do..."), one would be forced into a question ("Why wouldn't I?").
This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this--You are not extraordinary. It's all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it's much more interesting to assume that you wouldn't and then ask "Why?"
This is not an impossible task. But often we find that we have something invested in not asking "Why?" The fact that we -- and I mean all of us, black and white -- are, in our bones, no better than slave masters is chilling. The upshot of all my black nationalist study was terrifying -- give us the guns and boats and we would do the same thing. There is nothing particularly noble about black skin. And to our present business it is equally chilling to understand that the obstacles facing poor black kids can't be surmounted by an advice column.
Let us not be hypothetical here. I am somewhat acquainted with a poor black kid from West Philly, and have been privileged to grapple with some of the details of his life. When he was six he came home from school and found his entire life out on the sidewalk. Eviction. He says he saw some of his stuff and immediately reversed direction out of utter humiliation. He spent the next couple of weeks living on a truck with his father, his aunt and brother. Everyday they'd search the trash for scrap to take to the yard for money. His father abused everyone in the family. He last saw his father alive when he was 9. At 17, convinced he would die if he stayed in Philly,he dropped out of high school and lied his way into a war.
You will forgive me if I've written in these pages of my father with a kind of awe. It is not merely the fact of being my father, but having acquainted myself with his childhood conditions, I shudder to think of what might have become of me.
The answers are out there. But they will not improve your self-esteem.
And others I'm sure; much has been written about it.
What's your opinion? Personaly I favor the Economist's response, myself, but then I'm not a poor black person...
The Forbes Piece is essentially the same talking points that are used to write that sort of "just work harder little black kid" article that is the staple of clueless middle class white writers who want to appear "progressive" but have never stepped foot in those schools two miles away, or spent any time with those kids.
It is almost a form letter at this point, that pretends to offer a "plan", but barely scratches the surface of a far more complex and difficult issue then this guy is apparently aware of.
It's the sort of article white guys write to make themselves feel better...
According to a different one of Forbes' authors (linked to in the bottom of the page), Forbes is wondering if he's trolling because the guest writers are paid by page hits.
Joey wrote:I don't get it.
Some random blogger writes something and everyone's up in arms?
No,no,no... Some random WHITE blogger. Jeez it's like you don't even know what racism is without BET or the NAACP or various other white exclusionary organizations telling you.
Joey wrote:I don't get it.
Some random blogger writes something and everyone's up in arms?
No,no,no... Some random WHITE blogger. Jeez it's like you don't even know what racism is without BET or the NAACP or various other white exclusionary organizations telling you.
Lloyd Blankfein is a Jewish minority, was born in Bronx, grew up in tenement housing, and attended public schools. His Dad was a postal worker, his Mom a receptionist.
Food for thought.
I'm not glossing over the fact that some people lose the genetic lottery and are born into more difficult starting positions, but at some point individuals have to become accountable for their own progress, or lack thereof, in elevating their status.
sourclams wrote:Lloyd Blankfein is a Jewish minority, was born in Bronx, grew up in tenement housing, and attended public schools. His Dad was a postal worker, his Mom a receptionist.
Food for thought.
I'm not glossing over the fact that some people lose the genetic lottery and are born into more difficult starting positions, but at some point individuals have to become accountable for their own progress, or lack thereof, in elevating their status.
You are, however, ignoring the fact that noone is disputing that hard work and trying hard is important.
Reading through the Economist's response, I see that this is more an issue with the growing wealth gap between upper and lower echelons.
I'll say this: I have no problem with a wealth gap when wealth is being created. The wealth gap will probably get wider as corporate profits continue to perform well into 2012 and investments provide higher returns for those with enough income to invest--and doubly so for those whose entire income is investment.
The issue for lower wage earners is the nature of a jobless recovery. Corporate profits are up, yet corporations are not hiring. This behavior is being directly driven by policy--uncertainty about what sort of onerous conditions are going to have to be met by employers domestically thanks to healthcare costs and headwinds to demand from the Eurozone.
sourclams wrote:Lloyd Blankfein is a Jewish minority, was born in Bronx, grew up in tenement housing, and attended public schools. His Dad was a postal worker, his Mom a receptionist.
Food for thought.
I'm not glossing over the fact that some people lose the genetic lottery and are born into more difficult starting positions, but at some point individuals have to become accountable for their own progress, or lack thereof, in elevating their status.
You are, however, ignoring the fact that noone is disputing that hard work and trying hard is important.
But if you don't tell the poor to work hard and improve yourself, how else can you generalise the poor as being lazy and worthy of their fate?
You can ignore piss-poor education and nepotism by simply saying that they haven't worked hard enough.
After all, working minimum wage in a factory job is so much easier than sitting at a desk all day earning 40k/year...idle buggers.
Manufacturing jobs today don't pay minimum wage. The plants at the company I work for (agricultural, hardly the richest positions in the sector) pay $12/hour starting with benefits. If you have experience on the job or are willing to do one of the more demanding positions, $12/hour bumps up to $16/hour pretty quickly. That's between $25k and $30k per year with benefits, and as I said, that's middling for the sector and ignoring overtime (which can increase your top line salary by more than 20%).
An individual can absolutely live on $30k/year with a 40 hour work week. You are not living lavishly, but you are living comfortably.
sourclams wrote:Manufacturing jobs today don't pay minimum wage. The plants at the company I work for (agricultural, hardly the richest positions in the sector) pay $12/hour starting with benefits
Maybe not land of the free, home of the brave, but here they most definately do. I mean assembly line jobs, standing there and shoving stuff into boxes and what have you, obviously mechanical engineers and the like are very well paid.
Hell just go to a supermarket and you'll see a dozen people who've worked their hands to the bone for minimum wage (or about 20p above it) their entire lives.
Processing jobs in ag fields tend to have about 30% turnover. They often require (and pay for) relocation to a rural area 1-3 hours travel from the nearest big metro area. However, if the decision is between being destitute in an urban area or increasing one's earning potential outside of one, I know what I would pick.
Frankly the whole unemployment situation is improving markedly, there's just a schism between skill-less and skilled positions. Job openings, which is a measure reported alongside unemployment every month, are in a relentless uptrend and have been since 2009. Currently job openings are nearly 70% of their 2007 high, but employers are looking for trained technical people, not skilless laborers. Whose responsibility is it to accrue workplace skills?
Processing jobs in ag fields tend to have about 30% turnover. They often require (and pay for) relocation to a rural area 1-3 hours travel from the nearest big metro area. However, if the decision is between being destitute in an urban area or increasing one's earning potential outside of one, I know what I would pick.
Frankly the whole unemployment situation is improving markedly, there's just a schism between skill-less and skilled positions. Job openings, which is a measure reported alongside unemployment every month, are in a relentless uptrend and have been since 2009. Currently job openings are nearly 70% of their 2007 high, but employers are looking for trained technical people, not skilless laborers. Whose responsibility is it to accrue workplace skills?
It's the government's to teach them. All I got at school were media/business/health and social care, crap like that.
Turned out if they'd taught us all engineering and system controls, we'd all have jobs now. But they're difficult subjects that stupid people don't do well in, so it's politically unpopular to teach them in schools or it looks like they're "failing".
Joey wrote:Maybe not land of the free, home of the brave, but here they most definately do.
Socialism clearly hasn't worked out that well over the past few years.
I mean assembly line jobs, standing there and shoving stuff into boxes and what have you, obviously mechanical engineers and the like are very well paid. Hell just go to a supermarket and you'll see a dozen people who've worked their hands to the bone for minimum wage (or about 20p above it) their entire lives.
'Mechanical engineer' isn't a manufacturing job. And I ask you, have you ever actually worked in a factory or processing plant? Assembly line roles like what you described no longer exist. Machines and automation have completely taken them over. A manufacturing role would be the person running QA on what the machines doing, or a person doing a job that a machine is not flexible enough to perform.
A register jockey working for minimum wage is not a manufacturing job. It is not a demanding job requiring technical skill, which is why part-time young people often fill those roles. It's already being replaced all over the world with self-service terminals where individuals can check themselves out. If someone ends up bagging groceries for their entire lives, why weren't they seeking to do better? Whose responsibility is it?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Joey wrote:Turned out if they'd taught us all engineering and system controls, we'd all have jobs now. But they're difficult subjects that stupid people don't do well in, so it's politically unpopular to teach them in schools or it looks like they're "failing".
Your schools do not teach math, economics, or hard science? In America they most certainly do, and even in America we have issues with an oversupply of 'soft sciences' majors graduating from college and not wanting to pay off their student loans.
Joey wrote:Maybe not land of the free, home of the brave, but here they most definately do.
Socialism clearly hasn't worked out that well over the past few years.
Well when Britain was "socialist" we had no unemployment and wages were the same as they are today. But I'm not advocating socialism here.
sourclams wrote:
'Mechanical engineer' isn't a manufacturing job. And I ask you, have you ever actually worked in a factory or processing plant? Assembly line roles like what you described no longer exist. Machines and automation have completely taken them over. A manufacturing role would be the person running QA on what the machines doing, or a person doing a job that a machine is not flexible enough to perform.
Yeah, those were the high-paid engineering jobs I was referring to. And we most certainly do have jobs like that here, I did a little temporary work in one a while ago and I have a friend who works in one at the moment, putting cheese on pizzas all day long (actually I think he does packing stuff now).
sourclams wrote:
Your schools do not teach math, economics, or hard science? In America they most certainly do, and even in America we have issues with an oversupply of 'soft sciences' majors graduating from college and not wanting to pay off their student loans.
Of course they teach them, they're just piss-poor. Anyone who isn't an inherant genius struggles to get anything out of education.
As an example for you, on the first day of the computer systems module on my Software Engineering degree, they had to explain to us what the little number in the top-right of another number means (i.e. squared, cubed etc). There were people who'd gotten to degree level programming course who didn't know how powers worked. It's really not their fault they'll be packing boxes their whole life.
Right these semantics are pretty boring but, socialism is not the opposite of capitalism, socialism builds on capitalism as a framework upon which the state controls the economy for the benefit of its populace rather than always necessarily for profit.
Forbes Magazine's blog isn't "some random blogger"...
Forbes as source? Nice.
The same Forbes that published an article on how men should run like hell away from women that had careers since those make the most awful wives and are most prone to cheat and make your life miserable.
sourclams wrote:Manufacturing jobs today don't pay minimum wage. The plants at the company I work for (agricultural, hardly the richest positions in the sector) pay $12/hour starting with benefits. If you have experience on the job or are willing to do one of the more demanding positions, $12/hour bumps up to $16/hour pretty quickly. That's between $25k and $30k per year with benefits, and as I said, that's middling for the sector and ignoring overtime (which can increase your top line salary by more than 20%).
An individual can absolutely live on $30k/year with a 40 hour work week. You are not living lavishly, but you are living comfortably.
Post at least 2 job listings of these magical no-special-training-required factory positions. The only employment I can find around here is barely above minimum wage in a right-to-fire state. I did apply for a $9/hour job (which is the most I've ever made) and get interviewed but the guy thought I looked too skinny to do the work despite saying "I give everyone a chance to prove themselves" and that he'd, repeatedly mind you, call me regardless of whether I get the job or not which he didn't. Another of my friends ended up getting the job and he said he was forced to handle chemicals in an assembly line with minimum standard safety gear. He wasn't allowed to wash chemicals that were burning his arms as that would slow the line. He came to work sick one day and got canned for something unrelated, but it was because he was sick and wasn't moving fast enough despite being told he would be canned if he called in as well. Honestly everything you're saying in this thread is the opposite of what life has taught me. Hell, if someone loses their car how the hell are they supposed to get anywhere to work a better job?
And as for the people who "didn't seek better," some (much more than you'd like to admit) have no or little choice.
I like the original article, it offers concrete steps that someone can take and offers suggestions about how to acquire the benefits that are available.
A lot of people stay in poverty because they don't know that there are avenues to help them out of poverty. The original author is providing some pretty good advice.
However, I particularly enjoyed this part in the linked Economist article:
One thing I find paradoxical is that highly numerate people, people in the engineering, business and technical fields (Mr Marks writes about the tech industry), are often most reluctant to consider social problems from a statistical point of view
This indicates a glaring and complete misunderstanding of the basic concepts of statistics. This sort of writing is why The Economist is getting more and more disappointing.
biccat wrote:I like the original article, it offers concrete steps that someone can take and offers suggestions about how to acquire the benefits that are available.
A lot of people stay in poverty because they don't know that there are avenues to help them out of poverty.
biccat wrote:I like the original article, it offers concrete steps that someone can take and offers suggestions about how to acquire the benefits that are available.
A lot of people stay in poverty because they don't know that there are avenues to help them out of poverty.
Uh. Like what?
I'm not sure which part of my post your question pertains to. I'll assume it's the second sentence.
Many kids who don't have access to the internet and news probably don't know that private schools offer scholarships for impoverished minority students. If these kids don't know about these opportunities, then they're not going to have a chance to get them.
biccat wrote:I like the original article, it offers concrete steps that someone can take and offers suggestions about how to acquire the benefits that are available.
A lot of people stay in poverty because they don't know that there are avenues to help them out of poverty.
Uh. Like what?
I'm not sure which part of my post your question pertains to. I'll assume it's the second sentence.
Many kids who don't have access to the internet and news probably don't know that private schools offer scholarships for impoverished minority students. If these kids don't know about these opportunities, then they're not going to have a chance to get them.
a)Not everyone who's impoverished is intellectually in the top 1% and
b)Not everyone in poverty is young enough to go to university
That discounts 99% of the poor already.
Joey wrote:
a)Not everyone who's impoverished is intellectually in the top 1% and
b)Not everyone in poverty is young enough to go to university
That discounts 99% of the poor already.
a) You don't need to be intellectually in the top 1%. I'm sure that most of the rich white kids who go to private schools aren't in the top 1% intellectually.
b) The article is addressed to "young black kids". I'm pretty sure that the target audience is old enough to go to school. You know, 'cause they're kids.
Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Post at least 2 job listings of these magical no-special-training-required factory positions. The only employment I can find around here is barely above minimum wage in a right-to-fire state. I did apply for a $9/hour job (which is the most I've ever made) and get interviewed but the guy thought I looked too skinny to do the work despite saying "I give everyone a chance to prove themselves" and that he'd, repeatedly mind you, call me regardless of whether I get the job or not which he didn't. Another of my friends ended up getting the job and he said he was forced to handle chemicals in an assembly line with minimum standard safety gear. He wasn't allowed to wash chemicals that were burning his arms as that would slow the line. He came to work sick one day and got canned for something unrelated, but it was because he was sick and wasn't moving fast enough despite being told he would be canned if he called in as well. Honestly everything you're saying in this thread is the opposite of what life has taught me. Hell, if someone loses their car how the hell are they supposed to get anywhere to work a better job?
And as for the people who "didn't seek better," some (much more than you'd like to admit) have no or little choice.
On any given week, that location is generally looking for twenty or more people. It's at least representative of most hourly meatpacking facilities in the industry so Tyson, Farmland, Smithfield, JBS, National, and Swift are going to offer similar openings and wages.
Generally all that's required is a GED and all training and necessary equipment is provided; the pay scale and benefits are structured that way. Because bladework is often a requirement, the screening is usually pretty strict; drug screenings, no history of violent crime. From personal experience, I can tell you that it's hard work.
Sorry life has thus far cut you a raw deal. You can bemoan your fate and wail and gnash your teeth, or you can go find something better--because it exists. I know plenty of people with no car who still got to work every day. It's called carpooling, a bike, or a bus. There are temporary measures you can take to build capital in order to move to an area with better long term employment opportunities. Many companies like I just listed offer moving assistance; bus tickets, temporary housing. You can always get a minimum wage job and save for a few months. Just about every larger urban area has some sort of plasma donation clinic, and some even have advanced medical studies facilities where you can 'sell yourself to science' for a week in pharmaceutical studies. I did this myself during a tough stretch in college and made $600 in 4 days (and I'm fine).
The kicker is, if there's no opportunity in your area, be willing to leave your area.
Sorry life has thus far cut you a raw deal. You can bemoan your fate and wail and gnash your teeth, or you can go find something better--because it exists. I know plenty of people with no car who still got to work every day. It's called carpooling, a bike, or a bus. There are temporary measures you can take to build capital in order to move to an area with better long term employment opportunities. Many companies like I just listed offer moving assistance; bus tickets, temporary housing. You can always get a minimum wage job and save for a few months. Just about every larger urban area has some sort of plasma donation clinic, and some even have advanced medical studies facilities where you can 'sell yourself to science' for a week in pharmaceutical studies. I did this myself during a tough stretch in college and made $600 in 4 days (and I'm fine).
Spot on!
The whole entitlement gimmegimme mentality is disgusting, people are so used to getting everything for free these days that few even work that extra mile to find something or come up with something better.
Its far easier to simply wallow in the same spot out of old habit just complaining and getting free things then putting ass on the line and grabbing what you want by using work, intellect and sweat.
...at least over here.
But I guess the governments want that too as long as the population is docile and doesnt question things they will keep voting for whatever sucker promises them the bigger welfare check.
This one kind of annoys me, because its an extremely familiar issue.
To be brief, Google Scholar is useful for only one thing: finding the names of articles so you can then acquire them via other means. The issue is that these "other means" generally are not free. Some libraries have access to robust full-text services like Jstore and EBSCO, but the majority of them are not public institutions, and are instead affiliated with Universities; many of which restrict access to their facilities or simply are not easily accessible for those living in poverty (while poverty is still concentrated in urban areas, it is increasingly spreading to formerly affluent suburban communities as well).
Okay, what about people who work their asses off but get next to nothing?
You guys-- yes, you, Pyriel, and you, sourclams, dont' work very hard. You don't come home every day exhausted, barely able to muster up the strength to eat dinner and then collapse on your bed (I know this because you're posting here fairly frequently, so obviously you have plenty of free time). You don't work three jobs like some people I know. I dare say you have a pretty happy life, not because you worked hard for it, but because you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time so your efforts actually counted for something whereas someone else's just maintained the status quo of suck.
dogma wrote: (while poverty is still concentrated in urban areas, it is increasingly spreading to formerly affluent suburban communities as well).
Source?
I simply don't buy into this creeping miasma of doom and depression that those who primarily have far-Left OR far-Right agendas are trying to perpetuate.
The last three years have sucked. Yes, quite. But 2010 sucked less than 2009, 2011 sucked less than 2010, and all forecasts point to 2012 sucking less than 2011. Economic measures and the markets themselves have told us this. Unemployment has gone down. Job openings have gone up. Companies' profitability and value is generally higher now than a couple years ago.
Yes, there are problems. Net worth was crushed at an individual homeowner level when the housing market crashed. This had far-reaching consequences because for years people believed that their house was their single greatest asset and invested into their house as such. Throw incredibly leveraged home balance sheets via over-reliance on credit on top of it and irresponsible lending to people who could not make their payments, including low-income families, and we built a bubble that only a good stout recession could pop.
The US has actually got its feet back under itself, economically. Things aren't improving as fast as we want, but GDP is still growing and we're making progress. The big problem currently is the unwinding of the Eurozone's own unsustainable social welfare programs, the lack of productivity in southern Eurozone, and the very real risk of European recession that creates headwinds for the Americas and Asia.
Melissia wrote:Okay, what about people who work their asses off but get next to nothing?
Working hard does not equate to creating value. I do not 'work hard' anymore. I no longer put in 14 hour days or 6 day workweeks, I no longer get up at 4:00 am, and I no longer have my arm wrist-deep in a hog carcass or work 3rd shift kill floor sanitation, washing a day's accumulation of blood into a trough, which was largely what my work life looked like between 2007 and 2009. In college I worked, donated plasma, sold myself to science. Professionally, as a liberal arts graduate in late 2007 I took the first and best job that was offered to me, moved across the country twice, and did absolutely everything that my employers asked of me and asked for more once I got that done. My goal was to constantly re-update my personal skill set to have ever-increasing value to my employers and leverage myself the biggest paycheck and bonus contribution possible. I've watched 8 people on a floor of ~75 employees get fired or demoted in the last 3 years, and they were always the poorest-performing individuals.
I now have a desk job as a livestock economist and futures trader that allows my wife to stay home and take care of our child while our family earning remains well above the median for the nation.
Working hard does not mean you should get paid a lot. If I went to my current job with thumbtacks in my shoes and hopped up and down on one foot blindfolded, I would be exhausted, injured, and incompetent by the end of my first workday. I would have also created less value for my employer, be worth less to my company, and any rational hiring professional would want to replace me with someone better. A minimum wage, part-time job is never going to be a 'career'. It was never intended to be a career; it's a starting point for people to build work experience before finding a career track. In a world of increasing automation, unskilled manual labor has next to no intrinsic value anymore. 'Working Hard to Get Ahead' does not equate to showing up in a field 14 hours a day anymore; you need to improve your skill set, sniff out opportunity, and build upon a technical skill/knowledge base.
dogma wrote: (while poverty is still concentrated in urban areas, it is increasingly spreading to formerly affluent suburban communities as well).
Source?
Here is an example from Cleveland, and here is an example from Chicago. Here is one surveying major US metro areas, here is another (though it doesn't link to source material).
sourclams wrote:I took the first and best job that was offered to me, moved across the country twice, and did absolutely everything that my employers asked of me and asked for more once I got that done.
Funny, many people do things like this but STILL have gak jobs with tons of debt.
It sounds like you refuse to admit that you got lucky and got a job able to support your lifestyle.
There's just not enough jobs out there for everyone to be as lucky as you. For myself, I worked my ass off in manual labor jobs, got fet up with it and got went and became a certified pharmacy technician, couldn't find a pharmacy tech job anywhere-- there were openings, but nowhere near as many opens as there were people who need a job or want a better job. So I went to college. Now as I try to find part-time work to help pay for college and I can't (including going back to the same jobs I had before even), because noone wants to hire students because there's so many people who don't have jobs that employers can be so picky.
sourclams wrote:Working hard does not equate to creating value.
Summed this up in a nutshell. I'm not clear were Melissia is going here; is the argument that being a janitor or garbageman is more physically taxing than, say, a stockbroker and so they should be paid more?
Either Biicat or Sebster or someone made a good point on here about that once. Working hard in and of itself is not useful, compared with working at something someone else wants that requires something less common then two hands and a strong back.
Ouze wrote:I'm not clear were Melissia is going here
Don't know why, it's rather plainly obvious.
People say "work hard and you'll succeed", people say "work smart and you'll succeed", but nobody is willing to admit the plain fact that luck is more important than either working hard or working smart.
Just look at the application process itself, trying to get a better job: When ten people apply for a job and only one position is available, it comes down to luck as much as anything who gets picked. If the interviewer was in a particularly good mood that day, or a bad one; judgement calls between several potential employees of equal potential value comes down to essentially random guessing by the employer on which one they think might work better with their company. You can try to influence this value, but then again, so does everyone else; if you're lucky enough to be more charismatic than your competition (or less, if that's what they're looking for), then that again goes to prove my point.
If you get a job because you know someone at the place, again, that's also as much luck as anything, luck in that you happened to befriend them; for that matter even if you specifically TRY to get to know someone at your desired place of employment, if you catch them at a bad time they'll probably mark you down as an annoyance and not want to hire you, whereas if they're in a good mood chances are they'll remember you and be more likely to hire you.
And this assumes equality of skill-- which would be a lucky situation indeed for most younger people. The older generations are retiring later and later, or not retiring at all, keeping their jobs or taking part time jobs to supplement their income, all the while sapping away at the younger generation's income and quality of life for their own benefit through the AARP and other organizations' death grip on social security. If you want to whine about entitlements, there's your goddamned entitlements. Even in good economic times a person with no work experience is going to have a difficult time finding a job that's worth a damn, whether they're a college graduate or someone fresh out of high school; and these are not good economic times.
And so on and so forth. I'm sure it's easier for you to look down your nose at people who are having hard times, though.
One thing I find paradoxical is that highly numerate people, people in the engineering, business and technical fields (Mr Marks writes about the tech industry), are often most reluctant to consider social problems from a statistical point of view
This indicates a glaring and complete misunderstanding of the basic concepts of statistics.
Not so much. Its one man's qualitative assessment regarding what he views as a paradox; that people who seem insistent on using numeric data to understand one particular type of the world are reticent to do the same regarding another. Of course, this isn't really a paradox as one wouldn't necessarily expect an engineer to look to numeric data in order to form opinions regarding anything not related to engineering, just as a philosopher won't necessarily look to qualitative data to form opinions on matters not related to philosophy (presuming his philosophy is not already based in quantitative data).
However, the statement above provides no evidence which suggests that the author does not understand the nature of statistics, you're merely drawing an inappropriate inference.
Ouze wrote:I'm not clear were Melissia is going here
Don't know why, it's rather plainly obvious.
People say "work hard and you'll succeed", people say "work smart and you'll succeed", but nobody is willing to admit the plain fact that luck is more important than either working hard or working smart.
(snip)
And so on and so forth. I'm sure it's easier for you to look down your nose at people who are having hard times, though.
At first I thought this was possibly the opening to an interesting discussion, but I saw how you chose to close it. Since It doesn't appear that you actually require me to express an opinion for you to determine my thoughts or motivations, I've decided I'd be better off doing something more productive with my time, like teaching myself the banjo or staring at a lightbulb.
sourclams wrote:
Working hard does not equate to creating value.
True.
sourclams wrote:
Professionally, as a liberal arts graduate in late 2007 I took the first and best job that was offered to me, moved across the country twice, and did absolutely everything that my employers asked of me and asked for more once I got that done. My goal was to constantly re-update my personal skill set to have ever-increasing value to my employers and leverage myself the biggest paycheck and bonus contribution possible.
I now have a desk job as a livestock economist and futures trader that allows my wife to stay home and take care of our child while our family earning remains well above the median for the nation.
So, what happens if you would have choosen the wrong personal skill set to learn?
What would of happened if your wife suddenly became termianlly ill and you had to spend time helping her and raising the children instead of you supporting her by simply working?
How about your business decides to relocate to Southeast Asia?
Let's fac eit. All of us are self-made to a certain degree due to choices you make at any one juncture of your life. However, a lot of luck, right place right time, knowing the proper people, and simply being healthy mentally and physically is necessary to be "successful" in life. Take a closer look at your own personal story of success and think about what would have happened if you would have made a different choice at any different time, or the existing pre-conditions hadn't been there at all.
As for the core article, it seemed like pretty by-the-numbers entitled guy trying to justify why he didn't have to look out for anyone else and was self-made. Typical claptrap type of article that I have read 100's of times. Yeah, pretty practical advice; in a vaccuum.
Sorry life has thus far cut you a raw deal. You can bemoan your fate and wail and gnash your teeth, or you can go find something better--because it exists. I know plenty of people with no car who still got to work every day. It's called carpooling, a bike, or a bus. There are temporary measures you can take to build capital in order to move to an area with better long term employment opportunities. Many companies like I just listed offer moving assistance; bus tickets, temporary housing. You can always get a minimum wage job and save for a few months. Just about every larger urban area has some sort of plasma donation clinic, and some even have advanced medical studies facilities where you can 'sell yourself to science' for a week in pharmaceutical studies. I did this myself during a tough stretch in college and made $600 in 4 days (and I'm fine).
Spot on!
The whole entitlement gimmegimme mentality is disgusting, people are so used to getting everything for free these days that few even work that extra mile to find something or come up with something better.
Its far easier to simply wallow in the same spot out of old habit just complaining and getting free things then putting ass on the line and grabbing what you want by using work, intellect and sweat.
...at least over here.
But I guess the governments want that too as long as the population is docile and doesnt question things they will keep voting for whatever sucker promises them the bigger welfare check.
Interesting stuff SC, I'm looking for similar opportunities in a realistic proximity now.
I fail to see how just because someone isn't rich or well-off they automatically have a "gimme" mentality. Try not talking out of your butt.
Ouze wrote:At first I thought this was possibly the opening to an interesting discussion, but I saw how you chose to close it.
Apologies-- my irritation got the best of me.
Hopefully given the amount of people in this thread and online who were doing exactly that, you can understand my annoyance.
Fair enough, we cool. /fistbump
We mostly agree, you know. If you look at, back during when OWS was first getting a good head of steam about a month ago, there was a very popular argument - well, why not take a job flipping burgers, you think you're too good for it? Which I always thought was a little off. Many of the protesters are fresh college graduates, and it's sort of a strange argument to make that people should get a degree so they can get entry level fast food jobs. Another point is that, since we have segued into McDonalds anyway, they did have a job fair recently for 50k jobs - they apparently got a milion applications. At that point all the hard work and training you did is sort of irrelevant, it's a lottery.
These are unusual times, but one of your points - that there is a lot of luck involved regardless of anything else - I totally agree with. I'm 35 years old and have only gotten one job in my entire left where I didn't know someone.
Let's see... 62k people hired, 1,000,000 applications... so McDonald's could only hire 6.2% of the unemployed that are willing to work at McDonald's. So for every one person being hired, there were more than 16 people left unemployed. That's pretty tough competition for dead-end job like that.
They hold a job fair every year at my college. They NEVER have enough jobs for the students seeking to have jobs, not even close...
I am quiet entertained by the Forbes rebuttal. The writer goes through all the steps we have heard before about pulling yourself up by your boot straps then writes this gem:
"Many have teachers who are overburdened and too stressed to find the time to help every kid that needs it. Many of these kids don’t have the brains to figure this out themselves – like my kids. Except that my kids are just lucky enough to have parents and a well-funded school system around to push them in the right direction."
According to the writer, not only do the wealthier kids have access to all the same amenities as the "poor black kid" plus an additional what money can buy type deals and a better funded school due to their parents wealth, the wealthy do not need to be smarter than the normal student to succeed. Now the poor black kid in this topic the writer has shown has to put forth an amazing amount more effort than wealthy kids and be smart enough to overcome the obstacle of being poor in the poor part of town as to get the same result as the wealthy kids. And somehow this inequality is ok with him.
Easy E wrote:
So, what happens if you would have choosen the wrong personal skill set to learn?
I made the wrong choice, and I need to learn a new skill set. Either that, or I move to an area where that skill set is valuable/can support a standard of living. At no point in this life do I expect that I can simply stop acquiring or refining my skills, because I know if I remain sedentary in my personal development then the market will overtake me.
What would of happened if your wife suddenly became termianlly ill and you had to spend time helping her and raising the children instead of you supporting her by simply working?
I take my child to daycare every morning, put in my day, and tend to my family after work. If that's insufficient, I pay a healthcare professional to visit x times/day/week. If necessary, I can take paid leave under FMLA. My wife's father was a stroke victim in his late 30's. Her mother had to take care of him (bedridden) and also watch the family. They still got by. We would too.
How about your business decides to relocate to Southeast Asia?
My business already has a presence in SE Asia. And if necessary, I'd be moving to SE Asia. More realistically, I would move to any of the other companies looking for my expertise and take the first job that was offered me there, probably at a paycut.
Let's fac eit. All of us are self-made to a certain degree due to choices you make at any one juncture of your life. However, a lot of luck, right place right time, knowing the proper people, and simply being healthy mentally and physically is necessary to be "successful" in life. Take a closer look at your own personal story of success and think about what would have happened if you would have made a different choice at any different time, or the existing pre-conditions hadn't been there at all.
Life really is kinda like chutes and ladders; I acknowledge that there is a degree of luck. But the funny thing is, the more I learn, perform, and improve, the 'luckier' I get. Had I gone into high-end retail shoes or retail management instead of wholesale ag, then my life would be different for better or worse. But at no point was I handed a silver spoon on this journey. Why was I able to go to a relatively elite university? Because I filled out a crapton of scholarship applications to afford the tuition. Why did I get hired with the equivalent of a Fortune20 company? Because I impressed in the interviews. How come I have received two promotions and five significant raises in four years? Because I outperformed.
Ouze wrote:
We mostly agree, you know. If you look at, back during when OWS was first getting a good head of steam about a month ago, there was a very popular argument - well, why not take a job flipping burgers, you think you're too good for it? Which I always thought was a little off. Many of the protesters are fresh college graduates, and it's sort of a strange argument to make that people should get a degree so they can get entry level fast food jobs.
There is very little demand for some degrees. I believe the highest unemployment by degree are those dependent upon government funding, like teaching (although this varies by geography) and social work, general liberal arts degrees like sociology, gender studies, communication (my degree), history, library sciences, and more or less other non-STEM disciplines.
STEM degrees by contrast have very little unemployment, some in the fraction-of-a-single-digit percentages with starting salaries in the upper 10's and lower 100's of thousands.
And frankly, I believe that has to be a very real consideration for people choosing a major, Joseph Campbell's 'follow your bliss' aside. What is my market value going to be when I graduate? You have to know the answer to that question if your only option for higher education is accumulating debt. In the leaner and meaner economy of the 2010's, there simply isn't the same demand for the generalist lib arts majors to fuel the managerial bureaucracy of corporations aggressively increasing headcount.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:
Why did I get hired with the equivalent of a Fortune20 company? Because I impressed in the interviews.
Because you got lucky and they happened to like you more than the other applicants, whom were trying equally as hard to impress them.
Then the poor black kid better work on getting likeable fast, shouldn't he?
Edit: You know, I would really like to hear some constructive advice from YOUR perspective on how somebody born into a lower income bracket can get into a higher one. I've given several, based on what I've done and what has worked for me.
Do you have any worthwhile ideas, or do you intend to remain stagnantly bitter at 'The Man' while demanding he give you his money via gov't?
sourclams wrote:Either that, or I move to an area where that skill set is valuable/can support a standard of living.
One common trap that people run into when it comes to finding work is relocation. It costs money, and often involves abandoning social networks that serve as a sort of informal safety net.
Simply saying to someone "Move to where the jobs are." is about as sound in terms of advice as "Get a job." in that both overlook the obvious, and often intractable, complications people are presented with.
sourclams wrote:
They still got by. We would too.
No offense, but that's a platitude on the level of "Things will get better." It might inspire personal confidence, but it has no bearing on what is going to happen, and ultimately ignores the vagaries of circumstance.
I'm well insulated from any possible personal catastrophe by a reasonably large bank account, but without that relatively small hiccups in my overall financial plan would likely prove crippling. Indeed, I've seen exactly that sort of thing happen to many of my friends who say, have the means by which they make their living (often a laptop) stolen, subsequently fail to make rent, and be forced to abandon their career ambitions due to relocation expenses footed by way of a short term loan which further crippled their finances, but enabled them to live with relatives while attempting to find alternative work.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sourclams wrote:
Do you have any worthwhile ideas, or do you intend to remain stagnantly bitter at 'The Man' while demanding he give you his money via gov't?
That's actually a shockingly effective means of securing personal advancement by way of collective action.
sourclams: I agree people need to be smart in choosing their majors, but keep in mind it takes four to eight years to get a degree. In that amount of time, the market can change greatly, including being oversaturated with potential employees (as most places are now).
One common trap that people run into when it comes to finding work is relocation. It costs money, and often involves abandoning social networks that serve as a sort of informal safety net.
The job site I posted earlier in the thread provides relocation assistance. There are also things you can do short-term to boost your capital, of which I already posted several that I personally have utilized. Although I don't disagree that it's easy to brush off legitimate issues in job hunting with 'just go to where the jobs are', I think it's equally easy to brush that off with 'oh but it's so easy to just say 'go to where the jobs are'.
No offense, but that's a platitude on the level of "Things will get better." It might inspire personal confidence, but it has no bearing on what is going to happen, and ultimately ignores the vagaries of circumstance.
No, it's not, because my family has already dealt with a personal health disaster of that magnitude. If it happened again, my family is probably better suited to dealing with it again than any other posters on this thread (unless you too have dealt with something similarly tragic).
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:sourclams: I agree people need to be smart in choosing their majors, but keep in mind it takes four to eight years to get a degree. In that amount of time, the market can change greatly, including being oversaturated with potential employers (as most places are now).
I don't mean to rebut everything you say, but when I was in college, the average student changed their major twice before graduation. Although college takes years, it's not a rail-shooter where you can't alter your path mid-stream. Student advisers are a free resource. I worked with a girl who had spectacular grades in gender studies. She dropped out of school after 2 years because as she learned more, she simply didn't see herself pursuing a career path in that field and didn't know what she really wanted to do. I admire that decision.
sourclams: Your responses basically look like you're saying "I've was lucky enough to have the resources to deal with it, so I get to look down on anyone who wasn't" to me...
sourclams wrote:
STEM degrees by contrast have very little unemployment, some in the fraction-of-a-single-digit percentages with starting salaries in the upper 10's and lower 100's of thousands.
It depends. Certain STEM degrees have rates of unemployment nearly as high as many liberal arts degrees, at least as I recall. General degrees in mathematics, physics, and even computer science often see relatively poor employment prospects due to the relatively esoteric nature of the fields in question requiring specialization at the graduate level. This is much the same way for fields like political science, where employment prospects are poor with an undergraduate degree, but surprisingly good with an MA in something like public policy, statistics, or even an MSF.
In fact, looking at the alumni from my alma mater, the highest rate of employment, and in-field employment is among economics majors where only one major is considered, and economics/political science double majors where all relevant combinations are considered.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sourclams wrote:
No, it's not, because my family has already dealt with a personal health disaster of that magnitude. If it happened again, my family is probably better suited to dealing with it again than any other posters on this thread (unless you too have dealt with something similarly tragic).
Prior experience does not equate to certainty regarding future circumstances, which was my point. It is common for many people to talk about how "They will be fine." if X happens, but the reality is that what you will be in that event is a unknown commodity. For example, it is unlikely that I will be faced with a significant draw on my present savings in the future, and those that are likely to impact me would probably be absorbed by those savings. However, as an only child whose parents are detached from the larger family network, I also realize that any eventuality which befalls one of them would require that I either ignore their suffering, or significantly derail my present career path in order to deal with it.
I am prepared for likely eventualities, but unlikely ones would not leave me considering whether or not I would "Be fine." as my particular field does not lend itself to relatively local travel (within the United States).
Melissia wrote:sourclams: Your responses basically look like you're saying "I've was lucky enough to have the resources to deal with it, so I get to look down on anyone who wasn't" to me...
You know, if that's all you've gotten out of our discussion, then I have nothing further to say. There was a week in 2005 where I had 60 cents and a jar of peanut butter and two boxes of Ritz crackers to my name-- for a week. A boiled egg that I bought with the 60 cents tasted like high living. I'm still sick of peanut butter and generally try to avoid it, to this day.
That's my starting point. My parents didn't give me money.
I've thrived on my own merits. I think I will continue to do so. Best of luck to you and the unfortunate among your friends, but know that in the very near future government spending is going to be tighter and there's only so much that defense spending and foreign aid can be cut before the social welfare programs feel the axe.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:
In fact, looking at the alumni from my alma mater, the highest rate of employment, and in-field employment is among economics majors where only one major is considered, and economics/political science double majors where all relevant combinations are considered.
Where'd you graduate?
Prior experience does not equate to certainty regarding future circumstances, which was my point.
Nothing equates to certainty regarding future circumstances. Yet experience builds competency. Which was my point.
No, you've thrived based off of your own luck combined with your merits. Imagine if you didn't land that job, if you couldn't find a job at all, no matter all your hard work and charm in trying to do so. You used up your sixty cents, and your jar of peanut butter is running low and you're out of crackers.
What now? Your merits don't count for jack if you aren't lucky enough to find a job in the first place. If the competition is too great, you end up being just another number in the system, and the competition is very damned harsh right now.
Really, the idea that you've thrived on your own merits alone is nothing but a conceit you tell yourself to make yourself feel better about your position in life.
If so, it's because I know what it's like to search for two years to find a job, ANY job, and failing to do so no matter how hard I try. Fething minimum wage manual labor even-- I put in applications to construction companies and was turned down because they had too many applicants and they felt I was overqualified. McDonald's, Arby's, KFC, Taco fething Bell. Gardening, groundskeeping, painting or cleaning jobs. Wal-Mart, Kroger's, Walgreens, Target. I had a pharmacy technician certification and license, and I tried putting in applications to every pharmacy within fifty miles of where I live, anywhere from Wal-Mart to CVS to Walgreens to any number of local places.
And I got nothing. I had a two year degree, a high school diploma, and three years of work experience-- I wasn't an unqualified newbie who waited until they were twenty one to get a job, I had worked for quite some time already, but my job let me go because they were cutting down on their groundskeeping department. In the end, despite putting out over a thousand applications and talking to dozens of interviewers without success, I was forced to accept government financial aid and go back to college. If there was no government financial aid for colleges, I'd have to take a massive amount of debt just to find a FETHING job-- any FETHING job.
The people who say "get a job" or "be smarter" or other gak don't know jack all about what's going on with unemployment right now, and the stubborn ignorance is pissing me off.
The man who wrote the article is pretty damn clueless, to be quite honest.
I kind of just chuckle at how he says "use technology to help yourself" and "get the best grades you possibly can"
Those "inner city black kids" don't have internet.
Its whatever. Things won't change anytime soon, and no "inner city black kids" will even know this guy spewed his ignorance in their general direction because they don't get Forbes.
Karon wrote:The man who wrote the article is pretty damn clueless, to be quite honest..
I think he knows exactly what he is doing. He's a guest writer that gets paid on how many hits his articles brings to Forbes. Needless to say he's got a followup article in the works and will probably get a book deal or some other media driven job after that. Controversy sells. Look at all of those Fox News people.
All he really did from what I gather was paraphrase Bill Cosby's rant from a few years ago about how lower income blacks aren't holding up there end of the bargain. True to an extent but the delivery needs work.
Karon wrote:The man who wrote the article is pretty damn clueless, to be quite honest..
I think he knows exactly what he is doing. He's a guest writer that gets paid on how many hits his articles brings to Forbes. Needless to say he's got a followup article in the works and will probably get a book deal or some other media driven job after that. Controversy sells. Look at all of those Fox News people.
All he really did from what I gather was paraphrase Bill Cosby's rant from a few years ago about how lower income blacks aren't holding up there end of the bargain. True to an extent but the delivery needs work.
I usually assume that the writer is being honest and actually believes what he is saying, and not just trying to draw attention to himself.
Karon wrote:The man who wrote the article is pretty damn clueless, to be quite honest..
I think he knows exactly what he is doing. He's a guest writer that gets paid on how many hits his articles brings to Forbes. Needless to say he's got a followup article in the works and will probably get a book deal or some other media driven job after that. Controversy sells. Look at all of those Fox News people.
All he really did from what I gather was paraphrase Bill Cosby's rant from a few years ago about how lower income blacks aren't holding up there end of the bargain. True to an extent but the delivery needs work.
I usually assume that the writer is being honest and actually believes what he is saying, and not just trying to draw attention to himself.
I notice the word luck being used quite a lot in this thread. Let me remind you all what luck actually means, and there are studies on this as well.
Luck = Oppurtunity and Preperation.
This means that if you prepare yourself, through study, and learning skills, you then seek out oppurtunity, via social networking, sometimes it just finds you, and then being prepared, you can grasp said oppurtunity.
After working several "gak" jobs, manufacturing, assembly line, temp, learning skills on how to operate various pieces of machinery and welding, I ran into an oppurtunity via social networking.
I was attending some local social events, and a guy also at the events learned of my skills, and offered to go into business with me. Now I run a business, not making the best wage, but no risk of firing myself.
@Melissa - A job at MacDonalds is not really a dead end job. Entry level no doubt. But if you show up to work on time, do your work well, and strive to learn more things there, you can work up to shift supervisor, then assistant manager, then manager. Assistant Managers and Managers at MacDonalds usually do fairly well with benefits, and if they are not paid well, can easily move employment to another fast food place. If you are responsible with your personal spending and living expenses, you can save some money, and open your own MacDonalds franchise, and then you instantly become a millionaire.
A poor latina girlfriend of mine did this at another company. In a little under 2 years, she went from cashier, to store manager. Now they are talking of her being regional sales manager. She went from minimum wage to 50k a year salary in about 2 years. She had earlier worked at a couple other major retailers as a cashier making minimum, giving her the experience needed to more easily walk into this job.
This is how life works.
This is how it was always taught to me growing up, when you are different, native and a woman, or black, latino, etc, you had to be 2 to 4 times better than anyone at something, or work 2 to 4 times harder to get those oppurtunities.
I have to say, today vs 30 years ago. Today looks easier with all the technology access, and networking via the internet. I would say it is more like 2 times the work now. Still harder, but even more managable than it used to be.
.
There was a French man who suffered a stroke and was almost totally paralysed. He managed to write a book, called The Diving Bell And The Butterfly" by the following method.
A reader would read out letters in frequency order and he would blink his eyelid when the one he wanted was reached.
It took immense guts, determination and mental ability to do this. Even so, it wasn't a good way to write a book. Non-disabled authors with word processors find it much easier to succeed.
In the same way, society is a series of hurdles you have to clear to succeed. The hurdles in the path of poor children are higher. The fact that some poor people have the ability to clear them does not mean that the system is balanced or appropriate.
Maybe the shorthand would be that getting any job is a game of luck where the more you apply, the more rolls you get, and a degree in general gets you a 5+ save, a degree in a field that's hard to find in your area gets you a 4+...
It's not my problem, it is the leader of those Countries problem. They are spending money on Weapons insteads of important essentials for their citizens.
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:I notice the word luck being used quite a lot in this thread. Let me remind you all what luck actually means
Luck is success or failure through chance rs opposed to one's own actions; good or bad fortune which occurs beyond one's control, without regard to any input.
Your definition of luck is wrong.
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:@Melissa - A job at MacDonalds is not really a dead end job. Entry level no doubt. But if you show up to work on time, do your work well, and strive to learn more things there, you can work up to shift supervisor, then assistant manager, then manager. Assistant Managers and Managers at MacDonalds usually do fairly well with benefits, and if they are not paid well, can easily move employment to another fast food place. If you are responsible with your personal spending and living expenses, you can save some money, and open your own MacDonalds franchise, and then you instantly become a millionaire.
Assuming you can actually get a job there. For every one person hired at McDonald's, there's another 16+ that didn't get hired.
And that assumes that you're the only one trying. Because there's never just one employee at a McDonald's, and they already have shift supervisotrs, assistant managers, managers, etc, so you have to replace someone that is already there, or be lucky enough to be chosen for the position when it opens up out of the many, many other employees competing for it. Especially since you're also competing against people outside the company too.
That's how job markets work when they're oversaturated, and most job markets these days are, even the professional ones given the number of people turning to college (it used to be that there were nowhere near enough nurses, but now nursing is so competitive that you have to have a 4.0 average just to have the opportunity to enter the lottery that is them picking who gets in their classes).
Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
@Melissa - A job at MacDonalds is not really a dead end job. Entry level no doubt. But if you show up to work on time, do your work well, and strive to learn more things there, you can work up to shift supervisor, then assistant manager, then manager. Assistant Managers and Managers at MacDonalds usually do fairly well with benefits, and if they are not paid well, can easily move employment to another fast food place. If you are responsible with your personal spending and living expenses, you can save some money, and open your own MacDonalds franchise, and then you instantly become a millionaire.
Considering all of McDonalds' employees, or even simply all McDonalds' employees that are sufficiently competent to engage in the pursuit of the goal you describe, how many actually succeed?
I imagine that the rate is rather low.
Luck may be a confluence of opportunity and preparation, but opportunity wins out in terms of significance.
Sourclams: I like your posts generally, but I think your posts in this thread are pretty blinkered.
If you are a kid growing up in a disadvantaged area with a disadvantaged family, there are many blocks to getting a good education that haven't got much to do with you.
Say for example, your dad is a drunken and violent layabout and your mother smokes large amounts of weed to escape from it. You are the eldest and you have three younger siblings. This is not at all an uncommon set up, in my time teaching in a deprived area of Dublin I saw much worse.
So, where does the inequality start? Well, one, your parents are likely to be illiterate or innumerate, without the good sense or motivation to help you learn to read or help with your homework. So you fall behind in school. As a small child, you are not really capable of perceiving the reasons for this, so you may think you are just "dumb". So maybe you try to work harder, but with Dad watching TV and yelling at Mam and Mam forgetting to cook for your siblings, you've got no real place to focus on your work- maybe not even a clean space to put your books down in. There is no one to demonstrate simple things to you, like reading a bus timetable, or how to organise your schoolbag. You get in trouble in school for being disorganised and not having stationary, and you take that as a sign that you are a "bad kid." Some days your parents just tell you to go outside and play in the street, where you hang out with a bunch of other kids, convincing you that this is all normal.
Carry this on a few years to when you're a teenager. Now you are really behind in school, but you are becoming more self aware. Teenagers are also not the best at self discipline or sorting themselves out without support, but you're still not getting it. You muddle through. In the end you come out with absolutely mediocre results if you are middling to high ability and utterly crap results if you are low ability.
Where, in all this, does the CHILD have a chance to improve? A small child who doesn't get the support they need at home is fethed. And it is NOT their fault. The rot sets in early, and without intervention it is a near impossible trend to reverse.
Your comments may sound "hard headed and sensible" to you, and indeed, if the kids could follow your advice, they might do well. But you should face up to the fact that life has not in any way equipped these kids to deal with what is going to happen to them because their parents are crappy ineffectual people. The end result is that they will grow into crappy ineffectual people themselves by and large, perpetuating the cycle. Sometimes a lucky or especially brilliant kid breaks the cycle. Fantastic. This still doesn't do much to help the kids who are being failed by their parents.
I had kids in my classes who were carers for their younger siblings because their mother was a heroin addict. I had kids who were walking the streets or living homeless. Some students stopped coming to school and became prostitutes. Others discussed the pros and cons of drug dealing vs getting a proper job. It's a fething bleak existence and the kids didn't do ANYTHING to deserve it.
We're talking 12 to 15 year olds here.
Please reconsider your stance as it is far from rational and shouldn't be applied to children from disadvantaged areas.
Interesting stuff SC, I'm looking for similar opportunities in a realistic proximity now.
I fail to see how just because someone isn't rich or well-off they automatically have a "gimme" mentality. Try not talking out of your butt.
Never said everyone but sure as hell most or else you wouldnt have the working welfare politics in most of the europe.
Try not to assume things out of your butt!
It is an unavoidable side-effect of institutionalized racism and those who ignore its existance...
Kind of like the opposite side of the scale where the other end is taken up by brainwashed politically correct people believing anything they are told by the leaders.
And we all know that Institutionalized political correctness is sooo much better.
Da Boss wrote:Sourclams: I like your posts generally, but I think your posts in this thread are pretty blinkered.
That's a completely fair statement given that I'm speaking from personal experiences driven by my lower-mid middle class upbringing.
Let me ask then, what's the solution?
For those who don't share my viewpoint, what are actionable steps that somebody in dire circumstances can/should take to get ahead in life? Or is there no solution?
Sourclams: It's something that I have given a LOT of thought to, and I have not come up with any really good answers.
I think one of the ways we could solve it is by running schools in those areas a little better. Employing a couple more teachers (with a small salary bonus to reward them for working in such difficult positions compared to their buddies in middle class areas) to reduce class sizes is one step, but it won't work on it's own. The schools also need to be designed to sort of "step in" for the kids on any number of issues. They need somewhere they can get healthy food and learn social skills, as well as somewhere quiet to do their homework or other work. They need to feel like school is something of a haven from their gakky lives. All support staff in these schools should be trained and briefed on the mission of the school, they should be considered as important in terms of educating and caring for the kids as the classroom teachers.
At the same time, discipline must be strictly maintained and good behaviour rewarded while bad is punished. Support staff would be needed in the classroom and structures would be needed to deal with particularly disruptive kids quickly and efficiently.
This would need to be in place from primary school onwards. I also think kids in these schools should get a slightly longer school day to help them catch up, and shorter summer holidays so they don't fall behind in the summer (when their middle class peers are getting some stimulation and they are mostly running feral in the streets). The school would have to be strictly monitored also, to ensure that teachers and support staff are making use of the extra funding and smaller class sizes to actually help the kids (And earn their money).
Now, the problem with that is that it means schools in these areas will cost probably double to triple the amount to run as a similar sized school in a middle class area. I would see it as an investment into making these people productive so that they are a positive force for the country and not a drain on resources, but many would object to that kind of spending. So what we generally end up with are half measures which don't succeed because the program must be comprehensive. There are some success stories though. But that is why I consider it important to break the "get a job" or "work harder " narratives because the solution I can think of will only come about with popular political support.
I think generally the pro-social welfare folks aren't disagreeing that the steps outlined in the original article are generally the kinds of things the individual should do, or should try to do. While some of the recommendations are dumb or ignorant (as Dogma point out about the Google Scholar recommend), the general advice to work hard and try to maximize your chances is not bad advice.
That being said, it's also not a substitute for a functional social safety net and systems to help the people who are stuck at/starting at the bottom through no fault of their own.
And it's also not really a response to the broader point about economic inequality and the ever-growing divide between the richest and the poorest, or even between the richest and the other 99% of us. The system isn't working fairly or equitably if the average worker has seen their income stagnate or shrink over a given period of time, but the executives at the very top have seen theirs rise astronomically.
It's a natural consequence of a Capitalist system that wealth creates more wealth. And that wealth also grants political power. While those aren't inherently terrible things, if left alone without some external re-balancing, it does mean that wealth and power get concentrated into fewer and fewer hands, and others are increasingly shut out. Is it a sign of a healthy democracy (or Republic, to be pedantic), if the only people who can afford to be elected to be national representatives are millionaires or those funded by millionaires? Does that system result in the best representation possible for those who are not millionaires themselves?
Da Boss wrote:Sourclams: I like your posts generally, but I think your posts in this thread are pretty blinkered.
That's a completely fair statement given that I'm speaking from personal experiences driven by my lower-mid middle class upbringing.
Let me ask then, what's the solution?
For those who don't share my viewpoint, what are actionable steps that somebody in dire circumstances can/should take to get ahead in life? Or is there no solution?
The real solution is redistribution of wealth from the top 5% of US society to enable the funding of an effective public education system and adequate support services for poor families.
Melissia wrote: (it used to be that there were nowhere near enough nurses, but now nursing is so competitive that you have to have a 4.0 average just to have the opportunity to enter the lottery that is them picking who gets in their classes).
My ex-gf and my brother in law are both RNs and it was the same for him almost 15+ years ago and her 3 years ago. I think you are confusing competitiveness for limited classroom seats and wanting those seats filled with those who will pass the courses with a competitiveness in the job market. Its not a lottery, they just want the best to go to the front of the line of the wait list.
A LPN or RN who is out of work is doing something drastically wrong or prefers unemployment.
That just means they need more teachers or classrooms for training nurses. In the workplace, there is a nursing shortage and that shortage is expected to get worse in the coming years as baby boomers age and near retirement nurses retire.
NELS1031 wrote:You are only reading half the sentence, btw.
I read the whole thing.
You seem to think that people don't compete for items of limited quantity... when really, that's what most people compete for.
Even if you get a perfect 4.0 grade average, it doesn't guarantee you'll get in any area you want. Because there's plenty of other people with a 4.0 grade average who are competing with you.
That's one of the problems many of the people in this thread seem to be ignoring. Even if you do everything right, you're still having to deal with pure luck because the people you're competing with are trying to do everything just right, too, and oftentimes it's as much up to the whims of the people making the decisions as anything.
Melissia wrote:You seem to think that people don't compete for items of limited quantity... when really, that's what most people compete for.
I'm not sure how you gathered that from anything I stated. I acknowledged that there is competition in entry to schooling but refuted (or tried to, maybe I wasn't clear) your statement that "there used to not be enough nurses" while its clear there is a worsening shortage of them.
Melissia wrote:Even if you get a perfect 4.0 grade average, it doesn't guarantee you'll get in any area you want. Because there's plenty of other people with a 4.0 grade average who are competing with you.
That's one of the problems many of the people in this thread seem to be ignoring. Even if you do everything right, you're still having to deal with pure luck because the people you're competing with are trying to do everything just right, too, and oftentimes it's as much up to the whims of the people making the decisions as anything.
In terms of what I was specifically replying too, getting into RN training programs, its a waiting list thats based on GPA. Not a lottery or anything thats up to someones "whims" (at least in Maryland schools). The higher the GPA, the higher up on the waiting list you are placed and you aren't arbitrarily displaced by someone with the same GPA who comes after you. The only reason it is so competitive like that is because there aren't enough teachers to train all of the applicants, so they want the best so their time/space isn't wasted. If you read the article or even perused it, you can see that colleges and uni's are taking steps to get more training staff in place to be able to meet that demand, ease the standards for entry and get more applicants into seats and train them up.
I acknowledge that finding a job is tough, even at the best of times, I'm merely disagreeing with your statement that the nursing industry, that is constantly hiring even at the worst economic times, is somehow oversaturated when its the limited resources and avenues of schooling that make entry into it competitive.
NELS1031 wrote:The only reason it is so competitive like that is because there aren't enough teachers to train all of the applicants, so they want the best so their time/space isn't wasted.
Melissia wrote: Which is exactly what I said, as well..
Too many applicants, not enough positions.
But you also used nursing as an example of oversaturated professions which is what I'm disagreeing with, because its recognized by people in the industry to be far from oversaturated.
addendum : Too much back and forth that I didn't intend, as civil as this has been, I'm done as its offtopic. Good luck on your job search Mel.
Melissia wrote: Which is exactly what I said, as well..
Too many applicants, not enough positions.
But you also used nursing as an example of oversaturated professions which is what I'm disagreeing with, because its recognized by people in the industry to be far from oversaturated.
Perhaps, but whether it's oversaturated at the employer end or in the education level isn't entirely relevant to the person who's trying to find a job-- either way it's an insane level of competition which ends up being a matter of luck as much as anything, as one can still get a 4.0 average but not be accepted because there were too many people with 4.0 averages applying.
It is an unavoidable side-effect of institutionalized racism and those who ignore its existance...
Kind of like the opposite side of the scale where the other end is taken up by brainwashed politically correct people believing anything they are told by the leaders.
And we all know that Institutionalized political correctness is sooo much better.
I agree, that is just as bad.
However it is possible to see the existance of and effects of institutionalized racism without being what you describe.
Objecting to inequality and social injustice isn't political corectness. Nice try though...
I don't think that anything you wrote is necessarily in-actionable or foolish, but if the origination in all this difficulty is a dysfunctional familial unit where a father figure is absent, mother is out working her minimum wage no-career job, and the kids are running feral and debating the merits of pushing drugs vs getting jobs, I don't see how the most accountable, most incentivized school administration program is going to be able to overcome the violence and poor parenting that it seems we're taking for granted. Ultimately the individual has to seize upon the opportunities being provided. If people who are unqualified to raise kids are at the root of the issue, it seems like a much more proactive approach would be to disallow unqualified individuals to raise children; maybe by automatically ceding children born into X income bracket to the State via wardship programs, with fully paid delivery healthcare and one-time payments to the mother to partially compensate the emotional/physical duress of childbirth and to get her on her feet afterwards.
I mean, if legislation is the answer, then let's take it to a level that legislation can truly be the answer, with centralized federal oversight and rigorous census-taking so that it's impossible to fall through the cracks. Throw underperformers in jail, with the only way out being passing grades.
This plan offends my sensibilities and I would fight to the death anyone attempting its implementation, but that's where we have to ultimately take this process to yield maximum results for the very good of the irresponsible and downtrodden that the system thus far has failed to serve.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote:Perhaps, but whether it's oversaturated at the employer end or in the education level isn't entirely relevant to the person who's trying to find a job-- either way it's an insane level of competition which ends up being a matter of luck as much as anything, as one can still get a 4.0 average but not be accepted because there were too many people with 4.0 averages applying.
Do you really believe that there is a glut of 4.0 GPA average students in any given field, such that a 4.0 GPA is devalued to the point of irrelevance (blind luck)?
sourclams wrote:
I don't think that anything you wrote is necessarily in-actionable or foolish, but if the origination in all this difficulty is a dysfunctional familial unit where a father figure is absent, mother is out working her minimum wage no-career job, and the kids are running feral and debating the merits of pushing drugs vs getting jobs, I don't see how the most accountable, most incentivized school administration program is going to be able to overcome the violence and poor parenting that it seems we're taking for granted. Ultimately the individual has to seize upon the opportunities being provided.
While that's true, the purpose of policy is the maximization of a desired set of results within the parameters set by fiscal, social, and political considerations. Its never going to be perfect, but it can be better or worse according to accepted measures (in this case the condition of the impoverished relative to the not-impoverished). Ultimately, I think that's what Da Boss was getting at when he spoke to breaking the "Work harder." meme that pervades much of the debate on social policy (at least in the UK and the US).
sourclams wrote:
Do you really believe that there is a glut of 4.0 GPA average students in any given field, such that a 4.0 GPA is devalued to the point of irrelevance (blind luck)?
In my experience your time is better spent earning a 3.0 GPA, and subsequently pursuing alternative qualification (internships, jobs, certifications, whatever).
GPA has almost no meaning outside the college admission process (And even there its a simple threshold consideration), and a few select fields, both due to grade inflation, and the realization that GPA is not a solid predictor of competence.
I know I am a self made man. I invented mathematics, English, History, engineering, science, and all other subjects as well as creating the books to keep the information stored. When I make an apple pie I start by creating the universe becuase I am a self made man that has pulled himself up by his bootstraps, which I invented of course, and have relied on no one else for anything.
In my experience your time is better spent earning a 3.0 GPA, and subsequently pursuing alternative qualification (internships, jobs, certifications, whatever).
GPA has almost no meaning outside the college admission process (And even there its a simple threshold consideration), and a few select fields, both due to grade inflation, and the realization that GPA is not a solid predictor of competence.
The conversation regarding GPA thus far was about college GPA, which employers still look to as one predictor for employee performance and which graduate-level programs most certainly still take into account when considering applicants.
sourclams wrote:
The conversation regarding GPA thus far was about college GPA, which employers still look to as one predictor for employee performance and which graduate-level programs most certainly still take into account when considering applicants.
I work in an academic department at a major state university, and I can tell you for a fact that, even at the PhD level, once you crest a certain GPA (for us its 3.0) your score is irrelevant. Basically, your application gets sorted into a "review" pile which is further pared down according to whether or not you've published, whether or not you have in-field work experience, whether or not your research experience aligns with that of the professors, etc.
I'll also say that I've never encountered an employer that has ever even thought to ask me about my GPA in an interview, even though I deliberately do not have it on my CV/resume.
dogma wrote:
While that's true, the purpose of policy is the maximization of a desired set of results within the parameters set by fiscal, social, and political considerations. Its never going to be perfect, but it can be better or worse according to accepted measures.
I love these sentences.
I spend a lot of time at my local public school. It is amazing to me how fast a kid is labelled by the teachers and administrators as a "problem" child and shunted off/isolated by the system. Why? Frankly, because the teachers and administrators don't/can't take the time to work with the kids that do not have supportive home environments. It's really depressing to see, because none of these kids are inherently bad, they just learn differently and have different emotional needs than the larger majority of the children. When you work with them one-on-one as a volunteer, it is as plain on the nose on your face what they need from the system individually but will never be able to get from a "system".
So, how do you fix this? I honestly don't know. I think the first step, is to remove property taxes as the key funding metric of schools. It doesn't serve to strengthen a community, but destablizes it as those with school age kids are pitted against those without in the property tax levy elections. Plus, places that are all ready wealthy will naturally get more cash from this metric than areas that are not wealthy, thereby depriving the schools that have a higher percentage of different learners the fundign they need to address them.
Secondly, the issue is cultural. Society as a whole thinks teachers are a poor investment in time and resources. They don't think education is worth much. Of course, when it comes to their kid, it's a different story. In general, not a national priority.
sourclams wrote:Do you really believe that there is a glut of 4.0 GPA average students in any given field, such that a 4.0 GPA is devalued to the point of irrelevance (blind luck)?
Believe? No. I know it, from talking to both students and teachers. Classes are full, and there's still qualified students who haven't been able to get in.
Yeah, it's not really a surprise. Lots of people are both smart enough and able to put forth the effort needed to get a 4.0 GPA in college...
It's not a matter of devaluing it so much as there's THAT many students at the moment, because lots of people who are un- or under-employed are trying to get an education to improve their lot in life.
dogma wrote:Honestly, it has more to do with a 4.0 GPA not being indicative of competence.
To be blunt, lots of colleges suck.
Dunno about that. But I do know that the basics classes you have to have before getting in to your majors courses are usually pretty easy no matter where you go.
dogma wrote:Honestly, it has more to do with a 4.0 GPA not being indicative of competence.
To be blunt, lots of colleges suck.
This is very, extremely true.
As you said, it's much better to have good grades, a job related to to your field and involvement in professional organizations than it is to have a 4.0 by itself. I mean, if you can swing both, good on you, but your GPA isn't really as important as people make it out to be.
Me, I've been 4.0 up until this quarter. I apparently have hit my sophomore slump, as this term I have dropped to a 3.7. The shame of it!
Melissia wrote:But I do know that the basics classes you have to have before getting in to your majors courses are usually pretty easy no matter where you go.
No offense, but if you're attending a school with that sort of requirement set, you're already at a disadvantage; academically speaking.
State colleges are awful a preparing their students for graduate work. In general, the student has to display exceptional ingenuity in order to proceed (and even then, they tend to be behind).
Melissia wrote:But I do know that the basics classes you have to have before getting in to your majors courses are usually pretty easy no matter where you go.
No offense, but if you're attending a school with that sort of requirement set, you're already at a disadvantage; academically speaking.
State colleges are awful a preparing their students for graduate work. In general, the student has to display exceptional ingenuity in order to proceed (and even then, they tend to be behind).
It was either pay 50 a semester hour for the state college, or pay 500+ a semester hour for a private one.
Oh, I know, believe me I've paid those bills (1,500 per c-hour, actually). I don't begrudge anyone for making sound fiscal choices, I'm simply speaking to the reality of student preparation, on average.
American higher education (and lower education) is in a state of shambles.
When I was in undergrad, most technical programs did not qualify for student loans.
That said, I'm an arrogant ass that has a high opinion of his own academic ability, so I wagered against that and ended up winning; though only because of the incidental athletic experience I was provided.
Also, I'm from a family that is fairly well off, so failure entailed "Working with uncle Howard." as a salesman at a national food conglomerate.
The real solution is redistribution of wealth from the top 5% of US society to enable the funding of an effective public education system and adequate support services for poor families.
Not reallym the solutuion would be to make laws and policy to make the top 5% want to give to an effective education.
By simply "making" them do it you risk running them of to better pastures taking all their money with them.
But then again how would such a sponsored educational system remain non biased towards those who sponsor it?
But you also used nursing as an example of oversaturated professions which is what I'm disagreeing with, because its recognized by people in the industry to be far from oversaturated.
Then again, what is oversaturated, sure as hell not all the math and civil engineer seats.
Most people go the easy route believing just getting an education and all the loans and debt that brings with it will entitle them to cozy jobs.
Hence why you see loads of history, art and social goof classes (simple to pass) that will inevitable lead to at best a burger flipping job and very few science people applying for the really hard educations where jobs with fat paychecks await afterwards.
It´s the whole educational system that is flawed as the US doesnt really produce any internal scientists and engineers but take in those from abroad.
More effort should be made by attracting and helping people pass the "harder" educations so you dont end up with what you have today, a nation full of art majors working in Mcdonalds with foreign IQ immigrants taking the top paid job spots.
State colleges are awful a preparing their students for graduate work. In general, the student has to display exceptional ingenuity in order to proceed (and even then, they tend to be behind).
This is very true for our school system as well, getting into uni for a science themed education was a complete and total shock.
Neither was any real effort given by the educators to help and make sure students would pass. Teachers on those levels have their work and research they want to do and holding classes is more of a must-thing a certain amount of hours a month so as long as they do their tutoring hours the students can go screw themselves.
We were dropped with brick thick books with physics, chemistry and math nobody ever in their life had seen beforehand nor was the slightest prepared for (since pre uni school system basically prepares you to be told by the teacher what lame homework you need to read in order to be prepared for and pass that future art major or social goof course)
and it was all up to us to grind through it or go die.
No wonder a lot of people fluke out and we end up with thousands of goofy art majors who later in life compete in the cue outside Mcdonalds but are still burdened with insane levels of debt.
I see far more nursing, medical, and biology majors than art majors. Might just be the college I go to though (I've only seen one person with a physics major and I'm the only one Iv'e heard of who's a chem major).
The real solution is redistribution of wealth from the top 5% of US society to enable the funding of an effective public education system and adequate support services for poor families.
Not reallym the solutuion would be to make laws and policy to make the top 5% want to give to an effective education.
By simply "making" them do it you risk running them of to better pastures taking all their money with them.
But then again how would such a sponsored educational system remain non biased towards those who sponsor it?...
If the political will existed, means could be found to redistribute wealth.
sourclams wrote:Lloyd Blankfein is a Jewish minority, was born in Bronx, grew up in tenement housing, and attended public schools. His Dad was a postal worker, his Mom a receptionist.
Food for thought.
Not every ethnic minority suffers the same level of economic marginalisation.
I'm not glossing over the fact that some people lose the genetic lottery and are born into more difficult starting positions, but at some point individuals have to become accountable for their own progress, or lack thereof, in elevating their status.
Sure, but society is capable of levelling out the opportunities, and giving more people more even starting positions. And yet we get stupid, stupid opinion pieces like the one in Forbes.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sourclams wrote:Manufacturing jobs today don't pay minimum wage. The plants at the company I work for (agricultural, hardly the richest positions in the sector) pay $12/hour starting with benefits. If you have experience on the job or are willing to do one of the more demanding positions, $12/hour bumps up to $16/hour pretty quickly. That's between $25k and $30k per year with benefits, and as I said, that's middling for the sector and ignoring overtime (which can increase your top line salary by more than 20%).
We pay 15 year old kids $12 an hour for pushing trolleys around shopping centres. You're the richest country on Earth, you could really, really afford to be little more generous with your lowest levels of pay.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:This indicates a glaring and complete misunderstanding of the basic concepts of statistics. This sort of writing is why The Economist is getting more and more disappointing.
Perhaps it's just an idiot blogger.
The point made by the guy writing in The Economist was a perfectly sensible, and entirely succinct point. I have no idea how you missed it.
The writer of the original piece was writing an article in response to a young black kid, who might be denied access to a wealthy, growing economy by his impoverished upbringing. Which is a somewhat reasonable way of addressing poverty in four or five decades ago, when there really was a wealth of opportunities available in a wealthy, growing economy. But today's economy, with wealth increasingly concentrated among the top 1%, that 'buck up young black fella and learn some skills' is a woefully inadequate answer.
The most basic reading of the stats involved will make that clear. I don't know how you missed this.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sourclams wrote:Working hard does not mean you should get paid a lot. If I went to my current job with thumbtacks in my shoes and hopped up and down on one foot blindfolded, I would be exhausted, injured, and incompetent by the end of my first workday. I would have also created less value for my employer, be worth less to my company, and any rational hiring professional would want to replace me with someone better. A minimum wage, part-time job is never going to be a 'career'.
Nor does getting paid a lot automatically equate to the value of one's contribution. We use the market to price things because it's an efficient allocation of resources, but it is by no means perfect, and it sure as hell isn't fair. So making it a little more fair by having a more generous minimum wage is only sensible.
And it is a hell of a lot easier to move past a minimum wage job when it pays enough that a person can survive on one only working 40 hours a week, so they can study or otherwise prepare for another career.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ouze wrote:Summed this up in a nutshell. I'm not clear were Melissia is going here; is the argument that being a janitor or garbageman is more physically taxing than, say, a stockbroker and so they should be paid more?
Either Biicat or Sebster or someone made a good point on here about that once. Working hard in and of itself is not useful, compared with working at something someone else wants that requires something less common then two hands and a strong back.
Biccat has made a point much like that one before.
My counter is that getting paid lots is by no means an indicator of value, because value is almost impossible to properly determine. We use 'whatever the market pays' as a starting point for pay because, well, it's about as good as any point, but that doesn't mean the nurse is in fact contributing one tenth as much healthcare as the doctor. Thing is, ultimately both are essential to the system, remove either doctors or nurses and the system would fail.
So it's impossible to say what either one of them is 'worth'. Instead we just go with the entirely pragmatic view of paying enough to make sure we get enough sufficiently capable people in each position. Which works well enough for most jobs, but on the extremes you get problems. For instance, we know we could pay as little as we want for jobs with a greater supply of impoverished people than positions available, and people would work them, because the alternative is starvation. In fact, economies operated on this idea for generations... it's just that we recognised it as a really fethed up way of doing things. On the other end of the scale, we get the issue of people with select skill sets getting paid incredible amounts of money for catching a football.
So instead we recognise that while the market price of labour is a good starting point, we need to adjust that system with things like minimum wages and progressive income tax rates.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
dogma wrote:Not so much. Its one man's qualitative assessment regarding what he views as a paradox; that people who seem insistent on using numeric data to understand one particular type of the world are reticent to do the same regarding another. Of course, this isn't really a paradox as one wouldn't necessarily expect an engineer to look to numeric data in order to form opinions regarding anything not related to engineering, just as a philosopher won't necessarily look to qualitative data to form opinions on matters not related to philosophy (presuming his philosophy is not already based in quantitative data).
However, the statement above provides no evidence which suggests that the author does not understand the nature of statistics, you're merely drawing an inappropriate inference.
I think it is a very strange thing that so many people who apply stringent, academic levels of thought to their own profession are happy to the lurch into any other profession without bothering to read anything on that field. The paradox comes in when people will condemn amateurs for sounding off about their own field, and then do the same in someone else's field.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
sourclams wrote:Then the poor black kid better work on getting likeable fast, shouldn't he?
Edit: You know, I would really like to hear some constructive advice from YOUR perspective on how somebody born into a lower income bracket can get into a higher one. I've given several, based on what I've done and what has worked for me.
Do you have any worthwhile ideas, or do you intend to remain stagnantly bitter at 'The Man' while demanding he give you his money via gov't?
Improved state funding for primary and seconday schools in impoverished areas, so the quality of education is closer to that given in wealthier districts.
Higher minimum wage so the parents don't need to each work two jobs to make ends meet, allowing them to spend more time raising and educating their children.
Improved sex education to reduce the teenage pregnancy poverty trap.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pyriel- wrote:Kind of like the opposite side of the scale where the other end is taken up by brainwashed politically correct people believing anything they are told by the leaders.
And we all know that Institutionalized political correctness is sooo much better.
That's complete gibberish. You don't get to just to shout 'political correctness!' and pretend it means something.
The real solution is redistribution of wealth from the top 5% of US society to enable the funding of an effective public education system and adequate support services for poor families.
Not reallym the solutuion would be to make laws and policy to make the top 5% want to give to an effective education.
By simply "making" them do it you risk running them of to better pastures taking all their money with them.
But then again how would such a sponsored educational system remain non biased towards those who sponsor it?...
If the political will existed, means could be found to redistribute wealth.
Will is nothing without power. I have the will power to redistribute wealth (to me) but lack the power sufficient to insure that that occurs.
Frazzled wrote:Will is nothing without power. I have the will power to redistribute wealth (to me) but lack the power sufficient to insure that that occurs.
Then you lack sufficient will. If you had more will you'd be out there breaking into the homes of elderly people and not here on Dakka.
Same thing applies on a political level. If the political will was really there to raise taxes on the wealthy really existed in great numbers, and as a firm commitment held to long term and not just as a political pressure valve during the present recession, then the mainstream left wing party in the US would be, well, like mainstream left wing political parties elsewhere in the world, and not like the Democrats.
The democrats were mainstream, but then they bungled around for a year in a pissing contest amongst themselves, and people threw in with the republicans because the republicans promised they'd get something done (they haven't, but they're good at shifting the conversation away from this fact).
Melissia wrote:The democrats were mainstream, but then they bungled around for a year in a pissing contest amongst themselves, and people threw in with the republicans because the republicans promised they'd get something done (they haven't, but they're good at shifting the conversation away from this fact).
They're both mainstream. They are the only two parties that will put forward presidential candidates capable of winning. In the next round of elections those two parties, between them, will include just about every successful candidate at every level of government. The only way to get something done is to join on of those two parties, or make enough noise about that issue that one of the two major parties picks up the issue. You might not like one or the other of the two parties right now, but they are the mainstream of your politics.
Melissia wrote:The democrats were mainstream, but then they bungled around for a year in a pissing contest amongst themselves, and people threw in with the republicans because the republicans promised they'd get something done (they haven't, but they're good at shifting the conversation away from this fact).
How could you think the republicans aren't also mainstream? How?
Here's a wonderful piece that was written in response to the opening story. It starts out rather nicely condemning the basic mistake of the original piece in a far more accurate and far more succinct manner than I tried and failed to do;
"It is comforting to believe that we, through our sheer will, could transcend these bindings... (if we) were we poor and black our sense of Protestant industry would be a mighty power sending gang leaders, gang members, hunger, depression and sickle cell into flight. We flatter ourselves, not out of malice, but out of instinct."
"This basic extension of empathy is one of the great barriers in understanding race in this country. I do not mean a soft, flattering, hand-holding empathy. I mean a muscular empathy rooted in curiosity. If you really want to understand slaves, slave masters, poor black kids, poor white kids, rich people of colors, whoever, it is essential that you first come to grips with the disturbing facts of your own mediocrity. The first rule is this–You are not extraordinary. It’s all fine and good to declare that you would have freed your slaves. But it’s much more interesting to assume that you wouldn’t and then ask “Why?” "
It might be nice to think that people should be able to rise out of poverty, because it is possible for an exceptional few to work two jobs and get an education. But well, the majority don't for the very same reason that most of us middle class haven't risen up to become captains of industry - because we're not extraordinarily smart, incredibly dedicated people gifted with more than a small dose of good luck. Most of us are, in fact, just as modestly capable as everyone else. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just how it is. But it makes it pretty crazy to pretend that the poor ought to rise up through exceptional personal characteristics, and then being constantly surprised when it doesn't happen.
I think this idea from psychology sums up what happens to a lot of people's thinking around this subject:
All people, beginning in their twenties and continuing until the end of their lives, tell themselves stories about their own journeys to make sense of life. This is one of the biggest ideas in psychology: that identity is story. The psychologists call these stories personal myths, life scripts, or self-narratives. The stories are not logical and linear strings of autobiographical facts. Rather, they’re selective memories with magnified turning points — a trauma, for example — that give shape to a life so that the young adult can view himself as part of the complex, confusing, and demanding adult society around him. An adolescent does not yet know who he is. But a young adult — having to choose a career, sexual partners, political affiliations, and so much more — needs to believe that he knows who he is. So he begins making up a story line, with himself as the hero.
Once the life script is made, it is easy to see yourself as the one who overcame all obstacles to be "successful" and conveniently forget about all the random stuff that happened to help get you there.
Ouze wrote:Summed this up in a nutshell. I'm not clear were Melissia is going here; is the argument that being a janitor or garbageman is more physically taxing than, say, a stockbroker and so they should be paid more?
Either Biicat or Sebster or someone made a good point on here about that once. Working hard in and of itself is not useful, compared with working at something someone else wants that requires something less common then two hands and a strong back.
That's correct.
Value is a subjective thing made by the people consuming the good or service. However, if there's no value in the exchange for the producer, then there's no incentive to produce and sell the good or service. The price of a good is the least the producer will accept and the most the consumer will pay (or thereabouts).
If there were a dearth of janitors and everyone wanted a janitor, the price of janitorial services would increase and working as a janitor would be pretty lucrative. Which might cause more people to become janitors, dropping the price of the services back to what is considered a more reasonable level, probably increasing demand.
While there is a certain amount of momentum in the market (we'll only pay X because that's what we've always paid), Sebster vastly overstates the effects of that momentum. Nurses may not make as much as doctors, but because there's a shortage of nurses it's possible to earn a very nice living as a nurse, much nicer than what would have been possible 20+ years ago when nurses were more available.
Melissia wrote:The democrats were mainstream, but then they bungled around for a year in a pissing contest amongst themselves, and people threw in with the republicans because the republicans promised they'd get something done (they haven't, but they're good at shifting the conversation away from this fact).
How could you think the republicans aren't also mainstream? How?
I never said they weren't. Only that they gained the majority thorugh the incompetence of the dems.
Value is a subjective thing made by the people consuming the good or service. However, if there's no value in the exchange for the producer, then there's no incentive to produce and sell the good or service. The price of a good is the least the producer will accept and the most the consumer will pay (or thereabouts).
If there were a dearth of janitors and everyone wanted a janitor, the price of janitorial services would increase and working as a janitor would be pretty lucrative. Which might cause more people to become janitors, dropping the price of the services back to what is considered a more reasonable level, probably increasing demand.
Well yeah, but that's just Year 8 economics at it's most simple. The point is that when you start looking at actual economic practices in place, and recognise the complexities that exist in the market place, then the above just starts looking hopelessly simplistic.
While there is a certain amount of momentum in the market (we'll only pay X because that's what we've always paid), Sebster vastly overstates the effects of that momentum. Nurses may not make as much as doctors, but because there's a shortage of nurses it's possible to earn a very nice living as a nurse, much nicer than what would have been possible 20+ years ago when nurses were more available.
No, that simply isn't my point at all, and I have honestly got no clue as to how you ever decided that it was.
My point, that I have explained to you many, many times now, is that the doctor isn't an independant unit selling his doctor services. There isn't a guy with a hernia saying "I need three hours of surgeon" and a doctor saying "I will sell you three hours of surgeon for $450" with absolutely no-one else involved. Instead, the doctor delivers his service as part of a complex medical system, in which the doctor is only one small part. His service is not only boosted by, but can only exist with support from nurses and orderlies, to say nothing of admin staff and cleaning services and all the rest. Were the doctor to run his own hospital and handle his own nursing, do his own admin, do his own cleaning, he'd be vastly less efficient, and probably not as good at half those jobs.
So, to price everyone's time in an incredibly complex system such as a hospital, we basically throw it open to the market, and see what demand a supply gets us as prices. It's a good starting point, quite efficient. But it sure as hell isn't fair, and it sure as hell isn't without it's problems.
sebster wrote:My point, that I have explained to you many, many times now
Simply repeating it doesn't make it true. Even if it's a big lie.
sebster wrote:is that the doctor isn't an independant unit selling his doctor services.
Actually they usually are.
sebster wrote:There isn't a guy with a hernia saying "I need three hours of surgeon" and a doctor saying "I will sell you three hours of surgeon for $450" with absolutely no-one else involved.
No, there's a guy who shows up at a hospital and says "I need a hernia operation". The hospital works out the details: hires the doctor and nurses, buys medical supplies, arranges payment, etc. Distorting the relevant actors doesn't mean you're right about this.
You could just as easily have said "there isn't a guy with a factory saying 'I need three hours of mopping.' and a janitor saying 'I will sell you three hours of mopping.'" No one actually does this. But the guy with the factory does say "I need someone to clean my factory" and a janitor does say "I will clean your factory for $X."
sebster wrote:Instead, the doctor delivers his service as part of a complex medical system, in which the doctor is only one small part. His service is not only boosted by, but can only exist with support from nurses and orderlies, to say nothing of admin staff and cleaning services and all the rest. Were the doctor to run his own hospital and handle his own nursing, do his own admin, do his own cleaning, he'd be vastly less efficient, and probably not as good at half those jobs.
You're right, he wouldn't do very good as his own nurse, administrator, cleaning, etc. Which is why doctors hire other people to handle those issues.
You're also ignoring the fact that for quite a long time many doctors did operate independently and not "as part of a complex medical system." If you had an ailment, you called a doctor who might operate out of his house or would make housecalls. He would charge you a flat or hourly fee. Medical care suffered because doctors did do all (or most) of their own nursing, administration and cleaning, meaning that they spent less time honing their skills as a physician.
With the advent of modern hospitals and clinics, doctors have been able to specialize their skills (and that's what makes a market more efficient, specialization) without having to worry about sundry duties. Medical care has improved as a result; I'd much rather have a modern surgeon operate on me than a 19th century sawbones, even given the same tools.
sebster wrote:So, to price everyone's time in an incredibly complex system such as a hospital, we basically throw it open to the market, and see what demand a supply gets us as prices. It's a good starting point, quite efficient. But it sure as hell isn't fair, and it sure as hell isn't without it's problems.
I like how you just throw the word "fair" in there at the end as if it somehow strengthens your argument. In fact, it muddies your whole comment because what is "fair" is an individual and subjective measure.
Stepping away from the medical system for a moment, are you going to argue that there's a hugely complicated janitorial services market?
Kilkrazy wrote:How many janitors research and manufacture their own cleaning equipment?
Much like physicians, very few practicing janitors manufacture their own cleaning equipment.
However, there are people who research and manufacture new cleaning and janitorial equipment, much like there are people who research and manufacture new medical equipment.
biccat wrote:Simply repeating it doesn't make it true. Even if it's a big lie.
No, but repeating something that is common fething sense, and seeing you continue to pretend it isn't true, only to keep repeating your original claims makes it about as true as things can be (though in this case you didn't raise the issue, so I'm not calling you out on repeating it this time).
Actually they usually are.
No, they're part of a system, in which other people take on other roles, in order to allow the doctor to focus his time. Let's use the words of oh, umm, say, you, in establishing this; "No, there's a guy who shows up at a hospital and says "I need a hernia operation". The hospital works out the details: hires the doctor and nurses, buys medical supplies, arranges payment, etc."
Oh look, a system, in which people take on different roles to produce far greater outcomes than if each person was left to operate entirely in isolation. It's almost as if the increase in efficiency of specialisation is the entire driving force behind the creation of sophisticated business systems.
You could just as easily have said "there isn't a guy with a factory saying 'I need three hours of mopping.' and a janitor saying 'I will sell you three hours of mopping.'" No one actually does this. But the guy with the factory does say "I need someone to clean my factory" and a janitor does say "I will clean your factory for $X."
Yes, and that mopping, in and of itself, it completely worthless, without there being a factory there, slaughtering chickens and making a dirty floor in the process. Nor is the slaughtering of chickens a valuable thing, if there isn’t a factory worker there to clean the floors and make sure the chicken remains hygienic.
It is the interaction of the cleaner, the manager, the line worker, the receptionist and everyone else involved in the process that gives value to the whole operation. There is no inherent value in the actions of any individual person.
You're right, he wouldn't do very good as his own nurse, administrator, cleaning, etc. Which is why doctors hire other people to handle those issues.
Exactly. It’s like you don’t even know what you’re arguing against, but you’re determined to argue against it.
You're also ignoring the fact that for quite a long time many doctors did operate independently and not "as part of a complex medical system." If you had an ailment, you called a doctor who might operate out of his house or would make housecalls. He would charge you a flat or hourly fee. Medical care suffered because doctors did do all (or most) of their own nursing, administration and cleaning, meaning that they spent less time honing their skills as a physician.
So the existence of a sole trader means that larger, more complex organisations don’t exist. What the hell?
With the advent of modern hospitals and clinics, doctors have been able to specialize their skills (and that's what makes a market more efficient, specialization) without having to worry about sundry duties. Medical care has improved as a result; I'd much rather have a modern surgeon operate on me than a 19th century sawbones, even given the same tools.
Yes, exactly. Specialisation allows for greater efficiency and improved results. I dearly love that you’ve launched into arguing against me without bothering the read what I’m saying, and accidentally ended up repeating my own argument.
I like how you just throw the word "fair" in there at the end as if it somehow strengthens your argument. In fact, it muddies your whole comment because what is "fair" is an individual and subjective measure.
Well, obviously it’s subjective. That’s the point, there is no objective measure of what a person is really worth. Which is why the simplicity of ‘you are worth what you are paid’ is such a hopelessly shallow measure.
Stepping away from the medical system for a moment, are you going to argue that there's a hugely complicated janitorial services market?
I’m going to argue that the value of janitorial services is dependant on the value of other systems in place around the janitor. This is evident in the fact that a janitor in a hospital in New York is priced more highly than a janitor in a hospital in Burkina Faso. And note the the doctor in Burkina Faso is also paid a lot less than his counterpart in New York.
This is my point. That a person’s worth is not fixed, but defined by their interaction within the system. You can't isolate one part of that system and determine it's true, absolute value. Instead you have to guess. Pricing that labour under the market is a good starting point, but one with well established systemic flaws. So we do what we can to modify those systemic flaws (minimum wages, progressive tax), this is not perfect, but it remains infinitely preferable to just pretending those systemic flaws don't exist.
sebster wrote:I’m going to argue that the value of janitorial services is dependant on the value of other systems in place around the janitor. This is evident in the fact that a janitor in a hospital in New York is priced more highly than a janitor in a hospital in Burkina Faso. And note the the doctor in Burkina Faso is also paid a lot less than his counterpart in New York.
Yes, welcome to understanding capitalism. The value of a person's labor is not fixed, instead it depends on the value the person confers by means of his labor. I'm glad you're finally realizing this, insead of insisting that there's some fair labor price that can be controlled
sebster wrote:This is my point. That a person’s worth is not fixed, but defined by their interaction within the system. You can't isolate one part of that system and determine it's true, absolute value. Instead you have to guess.
Of course I agree that you can't establish an absolute value, because that value is subjective. Like I said in my last post.
But you don't have to "guess" at the value, the market takes care of that problem. I offer $5/hour, the guy next door offers $6/hour. Janitors will move next door until his need is met or I raise my offer, because people will work in their own self interests. I'm not "guessing" when I offer a wage, I offer an amount of money that covers my costs and provides an incentive to work for me.
sebster wrote:Pricing that labour under the market is a good starting point, but one with well established systemic flaws.
This is the part where you're creating problems. What are those "well established systemic flaws?" You can't just simply throw out a line like that without any support, especially when it's central to your entire argument.
sebster wrote:So we do what we can to modify those systemic flaws (minimum wages, progressive tax), this is not perfect, but it remains infinitely preferable to just pretending those systemic flaws don't exist.
Is it really preferable? Even assuming those "systemic flaws" exist, which again you haven't identified, do minimum wage laws and progressive taxation actually solve those problems or do they create new problems that are worse than the flaws you're trying to overcome?
biccat wrote:do minimum wage laws and progressive taxation actually solve those problems
Yes, especially when the minimum wage laws are tied to inflation (they usually aren't).
As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?
Melissia wrote:As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?
The two are, in fact, mutually exclusive.
Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?
Melissia wrote:As an aside, do you honestly believe that things like "trickle down economics" actually work, or have you been paying attention to the past twenty years?
The two are, in fact, mutually exclusive.
Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?
What is this, non-sequitur day?
That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.
biccat wrote:Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?
What is this, non-sequitur day?
That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.
Of course it does, assuming you're not making a non-sequitur yourself.
"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others. Note that this is not at all what I was talking about, so I'm assuming (now) you're not using this argument because it would be a non-sequitur, which you apparently have little taste for.
One alternative definition of "trickle down economics" is as a perjorative for tax cuts. This relies on the uninformed belief that by not taking as much money from someone you're providing them an intrinsic benefit. You probably realize the obvious flaw in this argument.
However, assuming you're taking this view (and arguing in favor of progressive taxation), then I'd point out that the concept of progressive taxation is irrelevant when uncoupled from the broader economic issues I was addressing in Sebster's post. A relevant response would be pointing out what flaws exist in the market economy and how this is rectified by progressive taxation.
Again, assuming you're not engaging in non-sequiturs, this definition of "trickle down economics" is probably not what you intended.
A final definition of "trickle down economics" is as a synonym of supply-side economics. Which is basically the idea that economic growth is best accomplished by removing artificially created barriers to trade and making the market more free. Since it is the government that imposes these artificial barriers, either through regulation or manipulation, government regulation and involvement in the market are relevant as to whether trickle down (or supply-side) economics makes sense.
Because the government has grown over the past 20 years - explosively I might add - to argue that trickle down/supply side economics has been the practice for the last two decades is quite silly, although not outside the realm of possibility.
Therefore, because I assumed you were trying to stay on topic and address the issues being discussed I attributed your use of the term "trickle down" to mean "supply side." My comment then was addressing the fact that the government has not removed barriers to trade over the last 20 years, because as it grows it continues to distort the market.
If you intended one of the other definitions, then I understand how my post might not make sense. But hopefully you understand why those definitions wouldn't make sense in terms of the broader issues we're discussing.
biccat wrote: This relies on the uninformed belief that by not taking as much money from someone you're providing them an intrinsic benefit. You probably realize the obvious flaw in this argument.
There are no flaws in that argument. Not taking Y from X, where Y is beneficial to X, is necessarily beneficial to X. The only way that not taking Y can not be beneficial to X, is if Y is not necessarily beneficial to X which, in this particular case, would entail an argument that X does not benefit from additional money. There are, of course, circumstances in which X would not benefit from additional money, or in which taking said money from X leads to greater benefit, or even circumstances in which X might be harmed as a result of possessing additional money.
biccat wrote:Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?
What is this, non-sequitur day?
That has nothing to do with what I said. Nothing. At all. Not even remotely.
Of course it does, assuming you're not making a non-sequitur yourself.
"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others.
.
I always understood it as the idea that capitalism with fewer government fetters would allow the economy to grow faster, thus enriching everyone else by the wealth inevitably "trickling down" the scale.
At least, that was how Ronald Reagan and Maggie Thatcher promoted it, in order to justify deregulation and anti-union legislation, etc.
biccat wrote:"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare will "trickle down" through the channels of commerce and benefit others.
Yeah, and it has never worked.
In the past twenty years we've been seeing deregulation and tax cuts for the rich and big business. And yet despite the government practically bending over backwards for these interestes, our economy's tanked. Repeatedly, without recovery and with very little job growth.
Melissia wrote:In the past twenty years we've been seeing deregulation and tax cuts for the rich and big business. And yet despite the government practically bending over backwards for these interestes, our economy's tanked. Repeatedly, without recovery and with very little job growth.
Um, what?
Under what metric has there been significant deregulation and tax cuts "for the rich and big business"? The number of federal regulations is higher now than ever and "the rich and big business" are paying more of the federal tax burden.
We're talking about the US, right? Not some other country?
Dunno if you've paid attention to the news recently, but in the finance sector has been heavily deregulated, or have had enforcement effectively turned to nothing. It was kind of a big thing when said deregulation ended up leading to a major economic recession. Which we're still in.
Melissia wrote:We're talking about the US, right? Not some other country?
Yup. The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.
Melissia wrote:Dunno if you've paid attention to the news recently
I have, in fact.
Melissia wrote:but in the finance sector has been heavily deregulated
It has? Are you sure? Could you point out a Congressional bill that deregulated part of the market?
I recall Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003 and Dodd-Frank in 2010. The only recent deregulatory move I recall would be the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999.
Melissia wrote:or have had enforcement effectively turned to nothing. It was kind of a big thing when said deregulation ended up leading to a major economic recession. Which we're still in.
You've made this claim many times, usually without any evidence, and completely ignored the role that the government had in creating the financial mess.
Lets start with an easy case: what do you mean by "regulation"? Perhaps a bit more difficult, what type of regulation would have prevented the financial crisis?
I can throw together a random, unsourced and low quality chart too, but I doubt you'd care either.
I'd just like to let you know that you're probably one of my favorite posters. If you posted more weiner dog pics, you'd probably kick Frazzled out of the top 3.
Wow, a page count. It is as if someone is saying the content of the pages have no bearing. Are you arguing that if we used smaller font it would be more beneficial for business and the economy? (besides from saving paper)
I can throw together a random, unsourced and low quality chart too, but I doubt you'd care either.
I'd just like to let you know that you're probably one of my favorite posters. If you posted more weiner dog pics, you'd probably kick Frazzled out of the top 3.
J-Roc77 wrote:Wow, a page count. It is as if someone is saying the content of the pages have no bearing. Are you arguing that if we used smaller font it would be more beneficial for business and the economy? (besides from saving paper)
There's no easy way to measure the number of federal regulations because no one in the government keeps track of them.
A measure of pages in the federal regulations does give us an idea of the rate of growth of regulations. Presumably you're aware of this.
biccat wrote:The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.
When the Heritage Foundation is able to point out why the page count of the CFR is not a particularly good measure of regulatory weight, then perhaps you should revisit your evidence.
Yet the CFR also has significant drawbacks as a measure of the regulatory burden. Foremost among these is that the number of pages in a regulation does not necessarily indicate a heavier burden. For instance, a 500-page regulation that outlines numerous exceptions and conditions could actually impose a much lesser burden than a one-line prohibition of a certain activity.
biccat wrote:
It has? Are you sure? Could you point out a Congressional bill that deregulated part of the market?
I recall Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, the Fair Credit Reporting Act in 2003 and Dodd-Frank in 2010. The only recent deregulatory move I recall would be the repeal of Glass-Steagal in 1999.
Are we now pretending that the number of bills intended to deregulate the finance industry is more important than what steps were actually taken towards deregulation?
biccat wrote:The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.
When the Heritage Foundation is able to point out why the page count of the CFR is not a particularly good measure of regulatory weight, then perhaps you should revisit your evidence.
However, the answer is not easy to determine. There is simply no explicit, complete, and accurate way to track changes in regulatory costs from year to year.26 However, a number of measures can illuminate the picture, albeit imperfectly. Together, they may provide a fair picture of what is happening in the regulatory world. Among these are:
Number of Federal Register Pages.
...
Length of the Code of Federal Regulations.
...
Number of Major Rulemaking Proceedings.
...
Cost Estimates.
Thanks for the support.
dogma wrote:Are we now pretending that the number of bills intended to deregulate the finance industry is more important than what steps were actually taken towards deregulation?
If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it.
I think what you're trying to do is called affirming the consequent.
Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones. Then you go and post a page count saying that magically a large number of pages proves your point without any reference to the content of the pages written in the documents. It is almost as if you have no grasp of what your graph shows or are purposefully trolling as you have yet to prove a decent point in your favor. If your point was that the entirety of Federal Regulations is a lengthy read well then, you have shown that and nothing else.
J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.
Welcome to the internet!
Protip: Sources that disagree with you are biased.
J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.
Welcome to the internet!
Protip: Sources that disagree with you are biased.
/resumes lurking cringe-inducing thread
Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.
Ahtman wrote:Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.
My uncle would get all hopped up on internetz and... I don't want to talk about it.
Ahtman wrote:Don't listen to MR, he is biased against the internet, and somewhat to charts and graphs. He was beaten up by the internet as a child and has held a grudge ever since.
My uncle would get all hopped up on internetz and... I don't want to talk about it.
Finally the level headed posters take the thread in a direction we can all agree on.
I have talked with biccat before about his appalling posting style. I usually say nothing but sometimes the hypocrisy is too thick! I admit, I sometimes take troll bait when I have free time.
biccat wrote:If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes
Gramm-Leach-Bliley ring a bell?
It repealed a HUGE amount of regulation involving the finance sector, including Glass-Steagal, and was directly responsible for us having megabanks that are too large to let fail.
Really, almost every major example of deregulation has had a disastrous aftermath.
biccat wrote:If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes
Gramm-Leach-Bliley ring a bell?
It repealed a HUGE amount of regulation involving the finance sector, including Glass-Steagal, and was directly responsible for us having megabanks that are too large to let fail.
Really, almost every major example of deregulation has had a disastrous aftermath.
Strangely enough, every major example of regulation has had a disastrous aftermath. Also, Gramm-Leach-Bliley was the Glass-Steagal repeal I referenced above.
Also, what about airport deregulation?
J-Roc77 wrote:Biccat, I find it odd that you regularly claim that other posters who post graphs and sources not to your liking are poor examples and that the posters do not know what graphs and sources are good ones.
biccat wrote:Yes, welcome to understanding capitalism. The value of a person's labor is not fixed, instead it depends on the value the person confers by means of his labor. I'm glad you're finally realizing this, insead of insisting that there's some fair labor price that can be controlled
And once you've come to understand that the value a person confers by means of his is dependant upon the system with which he interacts, you would have caught up to economic theory developed in the 1970s. On the one hand, your inability to understand this shouldn't make you feel too bad, because it caused quite a hullaballoo back then as well. On the other, you are arguing against economic concepts established 40 odd years ago, and that's pretty ridiculous.
And no-one is claiming there is an objective. true value for any unit of labour. Don't make up nonsense. It just drags this out further.
But you don't have to "guess" at the value, the market takes care of that problem.
But only if you pretend that the market itself provides an absolute estimation of worth. Which is nonsense.
I offer $5/hour, the guy next door offers $6/hour. Janitors will move next door until his need is met or I raise my offer, because people will work in their own self interests. I'm not "guessing" when I offer a wage, I offer an amount of money that covers my costs and provides an incentive to work for me.
But the system of demand and supply setting the price of labour is an arbitrary game. It's a fairly good game, being an efficient first step in providing resources, but that's all it is.
This is the part where you're creating problems. What are those "well established systemic flaws?" You can't just simply throw out a line like that without any support, especially when it's central to your entire argument.
Sorry, I thought you were aware of some basic economic limitations on markets. If not from undergraduate economics classes, which it now appears obvious you've never taken, at least from the other dozen times I've walked you through this argument.
Information assymetry - the problem that negotiations will not be fair because one person entering deal knows a lot more than the other party. This is a problem where a businessman, who's likely to be very well aware of market conditions, and an employee, particularly a low skilled employee, who is not.
Weakened bargaining position - the problem that one person in negotiations will be under duress, most commonly desperation due to a long period of unemployment, and will not be able to negotiate for his full value.
Non-adaptive resources - while price changes are a positive in most situations as it provides an incentive to produce less in demand resources in favour of more in demand resources, that model assumes resources can be quickly swapped from one thing to another. But training of a person takes years. If a man finds he is no longer of value as a factory machinist, he can't simply start selling his skills as a computer operator.
Externalities - paying as low a wage as possible might be profitable to the individual company, but otherwise harmful to society. An example is that wages are so low that a person is left in squalid conditions, causing health problems for him and his family.
Is it really preferable?
What? I'm left wondering if it is actually possible to have a conversation where one party is willing to question the absolute foundations of the field in question? The question you're basically asking is 'is it really preferable to identify and act to correct market failures?', which is like walking into a brainstorming session for developing new weapons of war and asking 'do we really need to fight wars?'
The answer to both questions is 'yes, fething obviously yes.' It's the core of the question at hand. Just like any new weapons development that left out the idea of actually having to win the war would be an utter nonsense, any concept of economics that left out the idea of 'how do we fix market failures' is just as stupid. Identifying market failures and building systems to account for those failures is what economics is.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:Are you seriously trying to make the case that government involvement in the economy has decreased in the last 20 years?
The idea that 'government involvement' is a bulk category that can be measured is just nonsense. I mean, on the one hand growing high tech industries have evolved to work with government to develop new technologies in faster and more efficient ways. On the other hand we've seen massive deregulation of finance and international trade, and the dissolution of most industry boards of control. How do you conclude this has across the board has produced more or less government regulation.
The only way that question can make any sense is if you start from an ideological point of view that deals with 'government regulation' almost completely in the abstract, and then proceed to not think about the issue at all.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:"Trickle down economics" is well understood to be the idea that by providing government welfare to companies the benefits of that welfare
No, it isn't. It's the idea that you leave the rich to get as rich as they can, however they get there. Government welfare might be one source, but it is almost always understood to be embracing laissez faire capitalism.
Your redefinition of it as corporate welfare is a whole new kind of crazy.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:Under what metric has there been significant deregulation and tax cuts "for the rich and big business"?
In 1991, a person earning $82,150 ($135k in today's money) would pay the top rate of tax, of 31%. Nowadays a person earning that much money will be paying 28%, and would have to earn $174k before he looked at paying more than 28%. This was called the Bush tax cuts. You might have heard of them.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
biccat wrote:Yup. The one with 80,000 pages of Federal Regulations.
It's kind of funny, but mostly sad, that you think regulation is measured by word count, as opposed to actual controls on behaviour.
Without wanting to get into a thesis defense, or to debate the semantics of the term "value", nationwide unions and similar organizations kind of do assign a value to certain jobs and professions.
Monster Rain wrote:Without wanting to get into a thesis defense, or to debate the semantics of the term "value", nationwide unions and similar organizations kind of do assign a value to certain jobs and professions.
So, you know, it happens.
Well yeah, we give values. Of course we give values. Whenever you get paid for labour you're getting a value for your labour.
The point is that pretending the market always absolutely gives the best value for labour and that we can't question or modify that value is simply wrong.
Monster Rain wrote:I'm just saying that in many cases there is a set value attributed to various professions and jobs.
Okay, yeah, I'm with you. Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant.
There certainly are set values attributed to professions, over here we've had a series scaled wages, called Awards, for each job within each industry. So instead of having one minimum wage, we've had a minimum wage for all kinds of different jobs. It worked fairly well, for the most part, as a means of establishing a base pay for certain skill levels. It wasn't perfect, no system of pay probably ever could be.
However, the answer is not easy to determine. There is simply no explicit, complete, and accurate way to track changes in regulatory costs from year to year.26 However, a number of measures can illuminate the picture, albeit imperfectly. Together, they may provide a fair picture of what is happening in the regulatory world. Among these are:
Number of Federal Register Pages.
...
Length of the Code of Federal Regulations.
...
Number of Major Rulemaking Proceedings.
...
Cost Estimates.
Thanks for the support.
Ah, I see you've, most cleverly, eliminated any explanatory text in order to affirm your earlier statement. It certainly takes a master of argument to do so in such a brazen fashion given that the relevant portion of said explanatory text has already been posted in this thread, and is easily available via the link provided.
Others might consider this to be a transparent attempt to avoid having to address any criticism, deflection in a word. Personally, I cannot help appreciate this wholly novel approach to the exchange of ideas.
But, to reiterate, I can create a collection of regulations that would fit on a single page that would be significantly more restrictive than the present CFR, which is ultimately why page count is not a useful measure of regulation vs. deregulation. Indeed, the article I linked to points out that, considering only measures of page count, the Bush Administration was significantly more regulatory than the Clinton Administration, but when considering measures that are actually materiel to the results of regulatory considerations the former comes out ahead.
biccat wrote:
If you've got some evidence of deregulation other than platitudes, I'd certainly be interested in hearing it.
I believe the bill was called the Gramm-Leach-Biley Act. It repealed significant portions of the Glass-Steagall Act. It was only one bill, of course, but that would be the purpose of the comment...
Are we now pretending that the number of bills intended to deregulate the finance industry is more important than what steps were actually taken towards deregulation?
...but please, carry on deliberately ignoring evidence that you have explicitly referenced in this thread.
biccat wrote:
I think what you're trying to do is called affirming the consequent.
Not at all. Affirming the consequent would entail something similar to this:
If bill X deregulates sector Y of the economy, then sector Y has been deregulated.
Sector Y has been deregulated.
Therefore bill X deregulates sector Y of the economy.
This is not the argument to which I'm alluding, which looks more like this:
If bill X deregulates sector Y of the economy, then sector Y has been deregulated.
Bill X deregulates sector Y of the economy.
Therefore sector Y has been deregulated.
