Here's the keys:
1. Graduate high school.
2. Don't get pregnant/get a girl pregnant before marriage.
3. Get a job for 2+ years (work hard, be on time, be neat)
4. Try and go to college.
Follow that and you won't be poor, and the stats pretty much bear that out. Look into it.
Thus the idiocy, though well-intended, of NCLB. It was expecting improvement (which schools in lower-income areas needed, like New Orleans) and was a bit too one-size-fits-all. I don't debate your overall stance, but it hurts in particulars. Keep in mind, though, that it was the standards Mass put in place, and not the money thrown at the problem that made part of the difference.
However, the general principle of Unions remains the same - the more teachers the union has, the more money and power it can wield in any situation, and enacting teacher standards and accountability can come secondary to job protection.
You hit exactly on what I am talking about - a parent knowing who and what their child is being taught. I'm not the type that minds alternative values - to an extent - being taught in the classroom, but I AM opposed to them being taught in a manner that makes the ones I want my kids to pick up being the wrong ones.
Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.
Welcome to homeschooling. No wasted time spent on stuff children already learn, and no "busy-time" spent bored in classroom with a ton of pent-up energy.
MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards. We spend more money - under left and right administrations - per student and don't see the results, which means the overall system is broken.
I don't see him actively supporting homeschooling as well, and we know he's going to be against vouchers.
The biggest problem, however, will NEVER be government involvement. I don't care who is in power, but the ONLY real influence on children's education is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. It doesn't matter what teachers, principals, politicians, and everyone else does if a parent doesn't care about how well their kid is doing in school - it's nearly too great a hurdle to overcome.
I think that the only thing that I have ever seen that may do something is a performance-based state-sponsored tuition program (like Louisiana TOPS or Georgia HOPE) which is directly tied to secondary school performance with college tuition on the line - there are a LOT of parents in those states that I know of who pushed their kids to get good grades simply because there was a near-free college tuition at stake (it's what paid for my own tuition at Louisiana Tech).
You're skipping HSA (Health Savings Accounts) and HRA (Health Reimbursement Accounts) which work well for those who rarely need to see the doctor and those who are there all the time. Mine is incentivized - I get more money added, at no cost to me, for getting regular checkups.
I realize that I am already paying for the idiocy of others (hence the "further" comment in my previous post), and I have great reservations about putting my health care in government's hands. If insurance companies screw it up, I sure don't trust a government bureaucrat to be more effective. Let me control my own health care decisions. Put the consumer in the doctor-insurance-pharmacy triangle.
You're acting like it will essentially be the same situation, pricing, and service that it is now at times when looking for private insurance. It's won't. There may be scams, but there will also be an element for the consumer that really isn't in health care and WON'T be with a universal system - personal responsibility. Insurance and care will HAVE TO provide good service at competitive prices to stay in business.
Two things - diversification prevents extreme losses, and if you put this economic downturn in context, and wait 3-4-10 years instead of being dumb and thinking that the norm is only what has occurred in the last 12 months. If someone has invested intelligently, they can either weather the storm or haven't lost all that much. If you expect the last few years to be the new normal rather than a period of high abnormal profits, you weren't being smart. If you think the current environment is going to keep dropping over a long (5+ years), you aren't looking at the economy properly.
With universal coverage, every person in the US could obtain preventive, clinic based care (which is the least expensive way to receive care) rather than letting problem go unaddressed and eventually seeking care in an emergency room (the most expensive way to receive medical care).
This is the ONE spot that you really don't make sense. Americans WON'T go for preventative care without incentive. Simply providing universal care may even exacerbate the problem, and get people to thinking that they can do whatever they want with their health and go to the hospital when something goes wrong. It's the elephant in the room with universal health care in the USA - I REALLY don't want to have my money go further and pay for someone who is an unhealthy idiot who made poor decisions about their health and gets a free ride.
Good. Get rid of what are essentially healthcare insurance trusts in each state on insurance by letting me go outside of state lines to find cheaper insurance. Put the consumer in the loop on the doctor-insurance-pharmacy triangle, where I have a say in a true open market. Put ME in the driver's seat of my health care, not the government.
BTW, I would like to be able to put my social security money in private interest-bearing accounts as well. Long-term, no one loses money in the market.
Disenfrachised? Really? From this side of the pond, it appears that the Brits are bending over backwards to appease even some radical elements of Islam in their midst, allowing Sharia law in various places and half-fearing possible rioting. Muslims in Europe are NOT Europeanizing, as opposed to those in America (where less radicals come to live and tend to "Americanize" and not isolate themselves).
Perot didn't just buy his way on - it's not like he cashed a check with the networks. He had to raise the requisite support and beat the 10% or so number that the networks require to participate in debates.
Your argument on the state-wide balloting doesn't quite hold water - Dem and Rep candidates would have NO problem gaining the needed number of signatures. I don't want to see my ballot - and my tax dollars wasted to print it or produce it - clouded up with every Tom, Dick, and Jane who decides on a whim they want to be President or Senator or whatever. If you want to run for President, you have to prove that enough people want you there or you're going to waste the time and resources and tax money it takes to get there.
Make that "arresting presidential candidates who have such a small minority following that they can't garner enough support to for a Presidential debate and so they disrupt it trying to make a point...and by the way, Nader's a nutball."
Remember Ross Perot? He got the support and made it into the debates. Using that one instance in 2004 as the standard doesn't work, because we have recent history to prove you wrong. The third party candidates may be right, but when they can't get three out of one hundred people to go along with them, they don't belong in the debate.
They were rather excessive up until the 1980s, and were a SERIOUS limitation to growth; cutting them encouraged investment and helped us out of the early 2000s semi-recession. Yes, rich people make money regardless, but capital gains and dividends also have a SERIOUS effect on retirement income - a 30% rate instead of 15% can mean the difference between a $500,000k nest egg and $2mm after 30+ years (math is off, but I'm shooting for a principle here), which can be typical for someone making a middle-class income with modest investment over 30-40 years.
If you're into Keynes. Reagan reduced taxes, putting more money into the pockets of Americans, and helped get us out of one as well, but that could be interpreted as "spending." McCain has talked about freezing a bloated federal budget, and that would keep more money in the American economy as well (hence the "hatchet"). Scalpels don't work for big jobs - we need to take a serious look at a broad spectrum.
Obama is going to go overboard in the other direction. Look at the Union voting issue - he supports doing away with secret ballots, which will only encourage Unions to muscle in on businesses, and that's going to result in places shutting down.
Deregulation has never been a problem - it's always been irresponsibility.
Re-watch the third debate - McCain at least talks about attacking spending with a hatchet, and has rarely supported earmarks (admittedly a small portion of the overall deal, but it does, in a sense, follow Goldwater's footsteps).
That's the truth - if they could get behind a handful of US Representatives and one or two senators, and maybe not even run nationally for the Presidency, they could make some headway - particularly in a state that may be more open to their ideas (a pro-life libertarian may do well in the West or New Hampshire).
Obama will tax those savings. He's wanting to remove the lowered taxes on dividends and capital gains - items which encourage investment and enable better retirement.
Here's the other side of things - large corporations don't pay taxes, either - they do one of two things - get out through loopholes and add the taxes to the cost of the product the regular joe buys.
Obama promises a lot of things to his own definition of "wealthy," but I honestly don't see it working.
It constantly surprises me how a third party can't put up a palatable candidate. If the libertarians could drag up their version of Obama, they may actually have a seat at the table. Instead they keep coming up with old white guys.
Too many Americans wind up settling for the "lesser of two evils," and this is the ultimate election for that, I think.
What's the point in feeling bad if I hurt someone? Why should I bother feeling at all? If it feels good to hurt others, and I take care to simply protect myself, who is to say whether I am right or wrong? If there's no objective values, there's no reason to follow rules other than retribution, even at the core. Who would you do away with if you know that you could get away with it? What would you steal? Who would you take advantage of?
How does having (or pretending to have) a Correct Answer prevent me from learning from my mistakes? What's a mistake if there's nothing objective? Shouldn't finding - or having such an Answer help me to realize that there are mistakes and wrong actions that are inherently wrong because of a higher Standard?
If there's no objective reason anything matters, then what is the matter if I break laws and hurt people? What is the point for me to control my actions?
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the keys: 1. Graduate high school. 2. Don't get pregnant/get a girl pregnant before marriage. 3. Get a job for 2+ years (work hard, be on time, be neat) 4. Try and go to college. Follow that and you won't be poor, and the stats pretty much bear that out. Look into it.
Thus the idiocy, though well-intended, of NCLB. It was expecting improvement (which schools in lower-income areas needed, like New Orleans) and was a bit too one-size-fits-all. I don't debate your overall stance, but it hurts in particulars. Keep in mind, though, that it was the standards Mass put in place, and not the money thrown at the problem that made part of the difference.
However, the general principle of Unions remains the same - the more teachers the union has, the more money and power it can wield in any situation, and enacting teacher standards and accountability can come secondary to job protection.
Get away from homework, let kids live a life after school and make school about learning.
Welcome to homeschooling. No wasted time spent on stuff children already learn, and no "busy-time" spent bored in classroom with a ton of pent-up energy.
MAYBE Obama will get rid of NCLB, but I don't see him getting away from the typical left position of supporting the teachers' unions goals and just throwing money at education without real standards. We spend more money - under left and right administrations - per student and don't see the results, which means the overall system is broken.
I don't see him actively supporting homeschooling as well, and we know he's going to be against vouchers.
The biggest problem, however, will NEVER be government involvement. I don't care who is in power, but the ONLY real influence on children's education is PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT. It doesn't matter what teachers, principals, politicians, and everyone else does if a parent doesn't care about how well their kid is doing in school - it's nearly too great a hurdle to overcome.
I think that the only thing that I have ever seen that may do something is a performance-based state-sponsored tuition program (like Louisiana TOPS or Georgia HOPE) which is directly tied to secondary school performance with college tuition on the line - there are a LOT of parents in those states that I know of who pushed their kids to get good grades simply because there was a near-free college tuition at stake (it's what paid for my own tuition at Louisiana Tech).
You're skipping HSA (Health Savings Accounts) and HRA (Health Reimbursement Accounts) which work well for those who rarely need to see the doctor and those who are there all the time. Mine is incentivized - I get more money added, at no cost to me, for getting regular checkups.
I realize that I am already paying for the idiocy of others (hence the "further" comment in my previous post), and I have great reservations about putting my health care in government's hands. If insurance companies screw it up, I sure don't trust a government bureaucrat to be more effective. Let me control my own health care decisions. Put the consumer in the doctor-insurance-pharmacy triangle.
You're acting like it will essentially be the same situation, pricing, and service that it is now at times when looking for private insurance. It's won't. There may be scams, but there will also be an element for the consumer that really isn't in health care and WON'T be with a universal system - personal responsibility. Insurance and care will HAVE TO provide good service at competitive prices to stay in business.
Two things - diversification prevents extreme losses, and if you put this economic downturn in context, and wait 3-4-10 years instead of being dumb and thinking that the norm is only what has occurred in the last 12 months. If someone has invested intelligently, they can either weather the storm or haven't lost all that much. If you expect the last few years to be the new normal rather than a period of high abnormal profits, you weren't being smart. If you think the current environment is going to keep dropping over a long (5+ years), you aren't looking at the economy properly.
With universal coverage, every person in the US could obtain preventive, clinic based care (which is the least expensive way to receive care) rather than letting problem go unaddressed and eventually seeking care in an emergency room (the most expensive way to receive medical care).
This is the ONE spot that you really don't make sense. Americans WON'T go for preventative care without incentive. Simply providing universal care may even exacerbate the problem, and get people to thinking that they can do whatever they want with their health and go to the hospital when something goes wrong. It's the elephant in the room with universal health care in the USA - I REALLY don't want to have my money go further and pay for someone who is an unhealthy idiot who made poor decisions about their health and gets a free ride.
Good. Get rid of what are essentially healthcare insurance trusts in each state on insurance by letting me go outside of state lines to find cheaper insurance. Put the consumer in the loop on the doctor-insurance-pharmacy triangle, where I have a say in a true open market. Put ME in the driver's seat of my health care, not the government.
BTW, I would like to be able to put my social security money in private interest-bearing accounts as well. Long-term, no one loses money in the market.
I mean the rate of inflation - it decreased. There's ALWAYS inflation.
Inflation went down under Reagan.
http://www.lospadrescounty.net/et/inflation.html
Disenfrachised? Really? From this side of the pond, it appears that the Brits are bending over backwards to appease even some radical elements of Islam in their midst, allowing Sharia law in various places and half-fearing possible rioting. Muslims in Europe are NOT Europeanizing, as opposed to those in America (where less radicals come to live and tend to "Americanize" and not isolate themselves).
Perot didn't just buy his way on - it's not like he cashed a check with the networks. He had to raise the requisite support and beat the 10% or so number that the networks require to participate in debates.
Your argument on the state-wide balloting doesn't quite hold water - Dem and Rep candidates would have NO problem gaining the needed number of signatures. I don't want to see my ballot - and my tax dollars wasted to print it or produce it - clouded up with every Tom, Dick, and Jane who decides on a whim they want to be President or Senator or whatever. If you want to run for President, you have to prove that enough people want you there or you're going to waste the time and resources and tax money it takes to get there.
Make that "arresting presidential candidates who have such a small minority following that they can't garner enough support to for a Presidential debate and so they disrupt it trying to make a point...and by the way, Nader's a nutball."
Remember Ross Perot? He got the support and made it into the debates. Using that one instance in 2004 as the standard doesn't work, because we have recent history to prove you wrong. The third party candidates may be right, but when they can't get three out of one hundred people to go along with them, they don't belong in the debate.
You'll notice that the Greens are running a crazyblack woman as their presidential candidate.
There, Fixed That For You. McKinney is certifiable...
They were rather excessive up until the 1980s, and were a SERIOUS limitation to growth; cutting them encouraged investment and helped us out of the early 2000s semi-recession. Yes, rich people make money regardless, but capital gains and dividends also have a SERIOUS effect on retirement income - a 30% rate instead of 15% can mean the difference between a $500,000k nest egg and $2mm after 30+ years (math is off, but I'm shooting for a principle here), which can be typical for someone making a middle-class income with modest investment over 30-40 years.
If you're into Keynes. Reagan reduced taxes, putting more money into the pockets of Americans, and helped get us out of one as well, but that could be interpreted as "spending." McCain has talked about freezing a bloated federal budget, and that would keep more money in the American economy as well (hence the "hatchet"). Scalpels don't work for big jobs - we need to take a serious look at a broad spectrum.
Obama is going to go overboard in the other direction. Look at the Union voting issue - he supports doing away with secret ballots, which will only encourage Unions to muscle in on businesses, and that's going to result in places shutting down.
Deregulation has never been a problem - it's always been irresponsibility.
Re-watch the third debate - McCain at least talks about attacking spending with a hatchet, and has rarely supported earmarks (admittedly a small portion of the overall deal, but it does, in a sense, follow Goldwater's footsteps).
That's the truth - if they could get behind a handful of US Representatives and one or two senators, and maybe not even run nationally for the Presidency, they could make some headway - particularly in a state that may be more open to their ideas (a pro-life libertarian may do well in the West or New Hampshire).
Obama will tax those savings. He's wanting to remove the lowered taxes on dividends and capital gains - items which encourage investment and enable better retirement.
Here's the other side of things - large corporations don't pay taxes, either - they do one of two things - get out through loopholes and add the taxes to the cost of the product the regular joe buys.
Obama promises a lot of things to his own definition of "wealthy," but I honestly don't see it working.
It constantly surprises me how a third party can't put up a palatable candidate. If the libertarians could drag up their version of Obama, they may actually have a seat at the table. Instead they keep coming up with old white guys.
Too many Americans wind up settling for the "lesser of two evils," and this is the ultimate election for that, I think.
What's the point in feeling bad if I hurt someone? Why should I bother feeling at all? If it feels good to hurt others, and I take care to simply protect myself, who is to say whether I am right or wrong? If there's no objective values, there's no reason to follow rules other than retribution, even at the core. Who would you do away with if you know that you could get away with it? What would you steal? Who would you take advantage of?
How does having (or pretending to have) a Correct Answer prevent me from learning from my mistakes? What's a mistake if there's nothing objective? Shouldn't finding - or having such an Answer help me to realize that there are mistakes and wrong actions that are inherently wrong because of a higher Standard?
Unless it does.
If there's no objective reason anything matters, then what is the matter if I break laws and hurt people? What is the point for me to control my actions?
Well...it runs....sort of...
What makes intelligent life intrinsically valuable if all we are is a mass of living, thinking, and breathing cells? What's the point?
I'm implying that either there is a definite reason that we matter which is defined outside of ourselves, or there is no reason at all.