"i wonder how they measure that, because the middle class is eroding at an exponential rate, and real housing prices have now exceeded by a wide magin the realistic income of most americans."
By GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living, life expectancy, industrial capacity, average rate of inflation, average rate of unemployment, nearly every other indicator in the world.
As for your other assertion, that the American middle class is "eroding" at an "exponential rate", why do you say that?
Unemployment is very low, probably below NARU, and will not get any lower without a huge increase in inflation. Inflation is also very low.
GDP growth is very high for a industrialized country(though it was a bit low this year), and after we adjust for cost of living, Median American wage is higher than every other country except Liechtenstein.
Most importantly, median income(notice I said median, not average, rich people cannot bring up a median) has been going up for every income segment(except unskilled workers). Wages, adjusted for cost of living, are still going up. By and large, middle class and poor Americans are getting richer every year, not as fast as rich Americans are, but still getting richer every year.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a single statistic to support the common meme "the middle class is eroding". Our economy has problems: our high current account deficit is unsustainable(though it looks like the new congress is getting that under control), Our productivity growth is decelerating(a symptom of a horrible educational system), and inflation is perking up a bit(though it seems that is tapering down too). But these are long term problems that will only slow growth, not stop it.
"i wonder how they measure that, because the middle class is eroding at an exponential rate, and real housing prices have now exceeded by a wide magin the realistic income of most americans."
By GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living, life expectancy, industrial capacity, average rate of inflation, average rate of unemployment, nearly every other indicator in the world.
As for your other assertion, that the American middle class is "eroding" at an "exponential rate", I why do you say that. Unemployment is very low, probably below NARU, and will not get any lower without a huge increase in inflation. Inflation is also very low. GDP growth is very high for a industrialized country(though it was a bit low this year), and after we adjust for cost of living, Median American wage is higher than every other country except Liechtenstein. Most importantly, median income(notice I said median, not average, rich people cannot bring up a median) has been going up for every income segment(except unskilled workers). Wages, adjusted for cost of living, are still going up. By and large, middle class and poor Americans are getting richer every year, not as fast as rich Americans are, but still getting richer every year.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a single statistic to support the common meme "the middle class is eroding"
"Who cares? The important thing is that racism by blacks is the bigger problem now. When you have kids getting beaten for being white because they do well in school and valuing being 'black' over being successful, it isn't the man keeping people down. It's your neighbors."
I've been in poor schools (which were predominately black) and rich schools (predominately white), and I can say that being successful is not valued anywhere. I took Trigonometry and Calculus in middle school, and that didn't really get me many party invitations, but I can say that in both schools I got a grudging respect from my peers. Grudging respect is about as good as you'll get in white schools or black schools.
As for violence, I was never physically attacked, though some neo-Nazi kids from Georgia threatened me a couple times because I'm Jewish when I was in the poor school(Contrary to expectation, the black kids ignored their calls for a return to slavery and turned the other cheek). In addition, in today's school environment, any violence is going to be quickly met with harsh administrative action.
"I find that it's not so much skin color that I pay attention to as it is culture - the recent illegal alien marches still irk me. We have a large group of people who don't even have the right to be here demanding concessions to their culture and needs. They don't have any intention of joining the dream, they're here for the money. So far as they're concerned, they're still mexican, and don't you forget it. We haven't kicked them out because they're cheap labor and we like that."
Come on, your ancestors came for money too. Doesn't Boston have its Irish pride marches all the time? I bet you must be fuming at the large number of American Jews who join the Israeli Military.
America does not have a culture, this is what sets us apart from tired nation-states like France and Russia. We are a nation of opportunists, who realized that America was a free and stable nation with huge economic potential. When the Irish and German immigrants came fleeing famine and corruption, they were taught German in schools (Irish was not common in Ireland yet, it was a nearly dead language until recently). In fact, at its height, the proportion of the US population speaking German was higher than the current proportion speaking Spanish.
I fail to see how Latin American immigrants are any different.
A lot of people took it personally, and many of these people were Imus listeners. Hence, advertisers pulled out. Personally, I'm a Middle eastern Jew, so I didn't take much offense, even if I found the comments distasteful. Entertainment personality's can only say racist things when their audience is mostly racist(John Gibson and his "we need more white babies" remark, Mel Gibson, etc.)
You're right about incentive issues that traffic tickets generate. For example, traffic authoritys often set speed limits artificialy below what engineering dicipline dictate(85th percentile of drivers) in order to maximise revenue.
This is why I propose that all traffic ticket revenue generated by local and state law enforcement be funneled directly to the federal government, where ticket revenue is too small for it to have an effect on the budget.
I'm not sure about that. It is illegal to give kids porn, but is it illegal for a kid to lie about his age and download some online? If so, I'm sure everyone is a felon.
But regardless, if we were going to prevent kids from viewing porn, I think that it should be the responsibility of the adult supervising them to make sure they are not misusing them. Seems more efficient than a complicated and leaky IT infrastructure.
I use Myspace to access their Math group, professors and math majors from around the country use it to work on problems. There really is not anything comparable elsewhere. Not only that, but I can understand an AP psychology teacher pulling up a kid's Myspace to illustrate certain aspects of behavior or motivation, or a web design teacher editing a Myspace to make the class more relevant to students.
Think of the context in which these computers are used. Either 1) this is a computer lab in the Library for kids to use before school and during lunch or 2) The teacher is giving an assignment that requires the computer to complete in the class or media center.
If 1) then kids are not in class, and they can do what ever the hell they want. Most students' use Myspace's messaging system more then email to communicate with each other. Students commonly print or finish homework during this time, and cutting Myspace off could jeopardize group projects.
If 2) then if stay off task and go on Myspace, they'll fail the assignment and get an F.
Or, as is more common, they finish the assignment, and use their remainder time to fool around. This gives kids an incentive to finish their work on time, a very valuable skill. Porn and P2P are security concerns more than anything, but most of these machines are frozen anyway. Teachers always monitor kids during this time, and can promptly write referrals to any kids watching porn.
My point is that internet is a resource, and it should be up to individual teachers how to utilize it.
Myspace is a private corporation, it can do whatever the fuck it wants.
And once its on archive.org, he has no more legitimate claim for damages. It would be very clear to anyone who searched for the myspace, found it taken down, and then looked at a backup, that the claims on the website were not true. The only real conclusion they would draw is that he must have been unpopular with students, which almost certainly is true.
The parents were not the only ones who paid, every other adult did too. Any network that is paid for and maintained by public funds should not be filtered in anyway.
One thing you are ignoring is that parents do not have a legal right to prevent their kids from viewing information. If I were to give away M rated video games to children, I would not be prosecuted, as I have broken no law. Parents are free to craft their own policies for child-raising, but it is not the state's responsibility to enforce such policies.
And for good reason: Just as a parent would forbid their daughter from viewing porn, they might ban her from dating. Would you support the police following her as she walks home from school to make sure she kisses no classmates?
No, the school board is who appointed this asshole. Schooling is extremly competitive, and even tiny punishments can have extremly large effects on the childs future wage. If a child is unfairly punished, he has incurred signifigant financial damage, and the asshole responcible should pay.
Honestly, adults make fun of each other all the time. If a bunch of coworkers spread rumors about the boss, or if they are savy enough- post it on their Myspace, they will not get in any trouble. Why should kids be treated any differently?
Not really true. I use Myspace to collaborate with math majors around the world on problems, high school students post all the time. For students with advanced and obscure acedemic interests, Myspace can't really be beat.
I realise that the vast majority of users will not use it for such things, but why give students unsupervised computer time during school hours anyway?
"If you are not paying for the connection (and the kids in the K-12, the people Bennett seems to be targeting), you have no right to make any demands. Period."
These kids, or their parents, did pay for these connections through taxes. That is his point, censorship on public networks is wrong, and is barely better than China. Period.
"Which continent is the one that allows Sharia law courts? Which is the one where Muslims nearly riot over a CARTOON?"
Show me a single case in Europe where a man's hand was chopped off. You can't, because that is against European law (I don't think it is done through the EU, but there is a common treaty of human rights in Europe with reasonable enforcement). What you are referring to is devolving small claims
Authority to voluntary community courts, where they deal with petty disputes as dictated by Sharia law.
As a Jew living in America, I can say that we have the same thing: Jews who choose to can have a court of Rabbi's deal with divorce cases and small civil claims. This is similar to arbitration organizations, and the case can always be brought to real court if either party is dissatisfied. [And to pre-empt, Rabbinical law can be just as strict, archaic, and cruel as Sharia.]
This is the same system that exists and Europe, and frankly, I don't see anything wrong with it.
"I also believe it was France that had a ton of Muslim youths rioting all over the place. I don't recall massive Muslim riots in America."
The riots had no religious overtones, had massive non-Muslim participation, and several investigations showed that there were no links to terror groups. I would say that extremely high unemployment (40% in this particular demographic) and France's inefficient labor law were far more responsible for the riots than religion.
"The reason that parts of Europe are going to go Islamic is because of the attitude that all ways of life are equal - even to the point that it allows views as extreme as Sharia law which takes away basic civil rights."
No, the reason is demographics, average birth-rates for white people are falling faster than for Muslims (though they are falling pretty quickly too). It will eventually stabilize over the next couple decades.
That incentive structure is fucked up, certain roads are more valuable than others, and should be given more resources to build. What mechanism controls resource allocation?
I believe he was in a dormitory, universities can break into those whenever they like. In mine, we are not allowed to add an extra lock precisely for that purpose.
Try getting into Grad school from Devry. I am a math major, and I want to learn math. I spent all of high school putting up with all the other subjects, and now I just want to learn what I need to know. Why should I be required to learn art history?
Before you draw up a tortured connection between the two: remember that time and money I spend on an art history class I could have spent on an additional math class. Can you honestly tell me that Art history is morerelevant to my career than Topics in Real Analysis?
There have been many brilliant scientists with significant skills in the humanities, but this does not prove anything. There have also been many brilliant scientists who can't stand anything outside of theirFields.
Antigua's particular complaint is that online gambling is legal in the United States, as long as it is for horse racing and within the state the person gamples in.
The WTO has strict procedures for when a country can ban items for "Moral" reasons, for example, Saudi Arabia bans the importation of alchohol. But if a nation bans things for "Moral" reasons, then the they must apply the ban equaly to foreign and domestic industries. We failed to do thos.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
If you actualy read the proposal, we are building new nuclear weapons so we can destroy the old ones. In nuclear war, the US wants to ability to hit X targets, to further MAD. But because of current nukes unreliability and old age, in order to garentee X functioning nukes, we need to maintain far more then X nukes at any given time. By building modern reliable nuclear weapons, we can eliminate the redundancy and just maintain X nukes.
Slashdot Mirror
By GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living, life expectancy, industrial capacity, average rate of inflation, average rate of unemployment, nearly every other indicator in the world.
As for your other assertion, that the American middle class is "eroding" at an "exponential rate", why do you say that?
Unemployment is very low, probably below NARU, and will not get any lower without a huge increase in inflation. Inflation is also very low.
GDP growth is very high for a industrialized country(though it was a bit low this year), and after we adjust for cost of living, Median American wage is higher than every other country except Liechtenstein.
Most importantly, median income(notice I said median, not average, rich people cannot bring up a median) has been going up for every income segment(except unskilled workers). Wages, adjusted for cost of living, are still going up. By and large, middle class and poor Americans are getting richer every year, not as fast as rich Americans are, but still getting richer every year.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a single statistic to support the common meme "the middle class is eroding". Our economy has problems: our high current account deficit is unsustainable(though it looks like the new congress is getting that under control), Our productivity growth is decelerating(a symptom of a horrible educational system), and inflation is perking up a bit(though it seems that is tapering down too). But these are long term problems that will only slow growth, not stop it.
By GDP per capita adjusted for cost of living, life expectancy, industrial capacity, average rate of inflation, average rate of unemployment, nearly every other indicator in the world.
As for your other assertion, that the American middle class is "eroding" at an "exponential rate", I why do you say that. Unemployment is very low, probably below NARU, and will not get any lower without a huge increase in inflation. Inflation is also very low. GDP growth is very high for a industrialized country(though it was a bit low this year), and after we adjust for cost of living, Median American wage is higher than every other country except Liechtenstein. Most importantly, median income(notice I said median, not average, rich people cannot bring up a median) has been going up for every income segment(except unskilled workers). Wages, adjusted for cost of living, are still going up. By and large, middle class and poor Americans are getting richer every year, not as fast as rich Americans are, but still getting richer every year.
In fact, you'll be hard pressed to find a single statistic to support the common meme "the middle class is eroding"
I've been in poor schools (which were predominately black) and rich schools (predominately white), and I can say that being successful is not valued anywhere. I took Trigonometry and Calculus in middle school, and that didn't really get me many party invitations, but I can say that in both schools I got a grudging respect from my peers. Grudging respect is about as good as you'll get in white schools or black schools.
As for violence, I was never physically attacked, though some neo-Nazi kids from Georgia threatened me a couple times because I'm Jewish when I was in the poor school(Contrary to expectation, the black kids ignored their calls for a return to slavery and turned the other cheek). In addition, in today's school environment, any violence is going to be quickly met with harsh administrative action.
"I find that it's not so much skin color that I pay attention to as it is culture - the recent illegal alien marches still irk me. We have a large group of people who don't even have the right to be here demanding concessions to their culture and needs. They don't have any intention of joining the dream, they're here for the money. So far as they're concerned, they're still mexican, and don't you forget it. We haven't kicked them out because they're cheap labor and we like that."
Come on, your ancestors came for money too. Doesn't Boston have its Irish pride marches all the time? I bet you must be fuming at the large number of American Jews who join the Israeli Military.
America does not have a culture, this is what sets us apart from tired nation-states like France and Russia. We are a nation of opportunists, who realized that America was a free and stable nation with huge economic potential. When the Irish and German immigrants came fleeing famine and corruption, they were taught German in schools (Irish was not common in Ireland yet, it was a nearly dead language until recently). In fact, at its height, the proportion of the US population speaking German was higher than the current proportion speaking Spanish.
I fail to see how Latin American immigrants are any different.
A lot of people took it personally, and many of these people were Imus listeners. Hence, advertisers pulled out. Personally, I'm a Middle eastern Jew, so I didn't take much offense, even if I found the comments distasteful. Entertainment personality's can only say racist things when their audience is mostly racist(John Gibson and his "we need more white babies" remark, Mel Gibson, etc.)
Not in any way I'm aware of. Unless you have specific proposals.
This is why I propose that all traffic ticket revenue generated by local and state law enforcement be funneled directly to the federal government, where ticket revenue is too small for it to have an effect on the budget.
Shh.. You'll give them ideas
But regardless, if we were going to prevent kids from viewing porn, I think that it should be the responsibility of the adult supervising them to make sure they are not misusing them. Seems more efficient than a complicated and leaky IT infrastructure.
Think of the context in which these computers are used. Either 1) this is a computer lab in the Library for kids to use before school and during lunch or 2) The teacher is giving an assignment that requires the computer to complete in the class or media center.
If 1) then kids are not in class, and they can do what ever the hell they want. Most students' use Myspace's messaging system more then email to communicate with each other. Students commonly print or finish homework during this time, and cutting Myspace off could jeopardize group projects.
If 2) then if stay off task and go on Myspace, they'll fail the assignment and get an F.
Or, as is more common, they finish the assignment, and use their remainder time to fool around. This gives kids an incentive to finish their work on time, a very valuable skill. Porn and P2P are security concerns more than anything, but most of these machines are frozen anyway. Teachers always monitor kids during this time, and can promptly write referrals to any kids watching porn.
My point is that internet is a resource, and it should be up to individual teachers how to utilize it.
And once its on archive.org, he has no more legitimate claim for damages. It would be very clear to anyone who searched for the myspace, found it taken down, and then looked at a backup, that the claims on the website were not true. The only real conclusion they would draw is that he must have been unpopular with students, which almost certainly is true.
One thing you are ignoring is that parents do not have a legal right to prevent their kids from viewing information. If I were to give away M rated video games to children, I would not be prosecuted, as I have broken no law. Parents are free to craft their own policies for child-raising, but it is not the state's responsibility to enforce such policies.
And for good reason: Just as a parent would forbid their daughter from viewing porn, they might ban her from dating. Would you support the police following her as she walks home from school to make sure she kisses no classmates?
Call Myspace and have them take the profile down.
Honestly, adults make fun of each other all the time. If a bunch of coworkers spread rumors about the boss, or if they are savy enough- post it on their Myspace, they will not get in any trouble. Why should kids be treated any differently?
I realise that the vast majority of users will not use it for such things, but why give students unsupervised computer time during school hours anyway?
Not really.
These kids, or their parents, did pay for these connections through taxes. That is his point, censorship on public networks is wrong, and is barely better than China. Period.
As a Jew living in America, I can say that we have the same thing: Jews who choose to can have a court of Rabbi's deal with divorce cases and small civil claims. This is similar to arbitration organizations, and the case can always be brought to real court if either party is dissatisfied. [And to pre-empt, Rabbinical law can be just as strict, archaic, and cruel as Sharia.]
This is the same system that exists and Europe, and frankly, I don't see anything wrong with it.
"I also believe it was France that had a ton of Muslim youths rioting all over the place. I don't recall massive Muslim riots in America."
The riots had no religious overtones, had massive non-Muslim participation, and several investigations showed that there were no links to terror groups. I would say that extremely high unemployment (40% in this particular demographic) and France's inefficient labor law were far more responsible for the riots than religion.
"The reason that parts of Europe are going to go Islamic is because of the attitude that all ways of life are equal - even to the point that it allows views as extreme as Sharia law which takes away basic civil rights."
No, the reason is demographics, average birth-rates for white people are falling faster than for Muslims (though they are falling pretty quickly too). It will eventually stabilize over the next couple decades.
And weapons of mass descruction too! This is a slam dunk case.
That incentive structure is fucked up, certain roads are more valuable than others, and should be given more resources to build. What mechanism controls resource allocation?
I believe he was in a dormitory, universities can break into those whenever they like. In mine, we are not allowed to add an extra lock precisely for that purpose.
Try getting into Grad school from Devry. I am a math major, and I want to learn math. I spent all of high school putting up with all the other subjects, and now I just want to learn what I need to know. Why should I be required to learn art history?
Before you draw up a tortured connection between the two: remember that time and money I spend on an art history class I could have spent on an additional math class. Can you honestly tell me that Art history is morerelevant to my career than Topics in Real Analysis?
There have been many brilliant scientists with significant skills in the humanities, but this does not prove anything. There have also been many brilliant scientists who can't stand anything outside of theirFields.
The WTO has strict procedures for when a country can ban items for "Moral" reasons, for example, Saudi Arabia bans the importation of alchohol. But if a nation bans things for "Moral" reasons, then the they must apply the ban equaly to foreign and domestic industries. We failed to do thos.
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
Hitler?
If you actualy read the proposal, we are building new nuclear weapons so we can destroy the old ones. In nuclear war, the US wants to ability to hit X targets, to further MAD. But because of current nukes unreliability and old age, in order to garentee X functioning nukes, we need to maintain far more then X nukes at any given time. By building modern reliable nuclear weapons, we can eliminate the redundancy and just maintain X nukes.