The prediction of pundits doesn't really count, as they're not interested in being accurate. They're interested in being entertaining or shocking, so they get invited back on TV more.
No they don't. The swing states are just the ones that have a somewhat evenly divided populace. If California or Texas was evenly divided as well, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Well, more states could adopt California's Citizen's Redistricting Committee, which controls distracting in the state, as opposed to the legislature. X Democrats, X Republicans, and X Other make up the committee (I think it's 5 of each).
You can tell they did a decent job because many of the legislators were unhappy with the decision.
That's because people don't vote for Congress. They vote for their representatives. And if you look at the approval ratings of individual legislators in their districts, they generally have high/average approval ratings.
Bush's approval was in the toilet when he left office, and Obama beat McCain/Palin by over 7 points. There is no way that he would have won then, nor today.
When people don't do the latter, you get the situation we have in the U.S. - where people who would really prefer the Libertarian candidate end up voting for a Democrat or Republican. Because everyone "knows" the Libertarian candidate could never win. (There are other ways to combat this, e.g. instant run-off voting, but that's a different discussion.)
No, that's due to a completely different problem. The people who would rather vote Libertarian end up voting Democrat or Republican because they would rather someone who kinda matches their views get into office than for someone whom they extremely disagree with get into office.
That hugely depends on the person, though. There are people who are more creative while high. There are also lots of people who just behave like stoned idiots. I'm one of them.
The stance that makes the most sense to me, given their claims of not liking big government, is to let people do what they want as long as it doesn't impact others.
For many of those issues, this would be a perfectly acceptable stance.
Social issues, their position should be "sort it out for yourself."
That's not an acceptable stance for a couple of the issues you mentioned. They would still be required to vote on these issues, unless they all planned on abstaining from the vote, which isn't a good idea either.
In fact this is true in education. There are private enterprises right now that are providing superior education levels at lower prices in many parts of the world, including USA. Also Khan academy allows people to learn various subjects at a superior level and superior price (look up the price tags) than do public schools.
I would love to see you try to shoehorn these systems into the same general education system that is obligated to give EVERYONE an education. Most of the systems you stated are successful mainly because they can be selective on who they serve.
your comment is using a very common trick, as the rest of people who do not understand real economics (or who is generally against real economics), you think that without a 'study' you cannot know things.
No, I'm saying that I don't trust you talking out of your ass. And you want to fuck everything up because you have a feeling.
Again, provide some actual evidence, or STFU.
first of all falling prices allow poor people to buy education
You don't have any evidence that prices would fall. You're making an assumption.
just like poor people can buy LCD or Plasma TVs today, while only the wealthy and corporations could buy them just 15 years ago
Education isn't like the production of semiconductors and electrical components. Awful example.
Obviously primary and secondary education is the parents' responsibility towards their kids. But it is not responsibility of anybody else
Bullshit. As a member of society, it is your responsibility as well. You benefit from higher levels of education, both economically, socially, and through things like lower crime rates. Therefore, as you get those benefits, you should pay for it.
I find people with this idea that they are an island, and everyone should be completely separated like this to have absolutely no idea what actually makes a society work.
as much a product and or a service that can be delivered much more efficiently and cheaply via free market private interests.
There is absolutely nothing to back up this idea.
I could start a primary school if I had an interest in it (which I personally do not) if I knew I could make money on that education.
I don't give a fuck about you making any kind of profit on anything. I care about people being educated. People who are concerned with profit tend to cut corners on their product in order to maximize profits.
There should be no government funding in education that's how the prices would fall
Except you have absolutely no concrete evidence to back that up.
once every Jim, Tom and Sally can no longer afford going to college for a sociology major, because no bank would give them a loan to go for such a useless degree
And no poor person would be able to get any kind student loan at all, meaning far fewer of them would be able to actually go to college.
All of a sudden without government guaranteed loans there are only people going to college that can afford it
You mean only rich people go to college.
Everything in your post is nothing but pure fantasy with absolutely no facts whatsoever to back it up.
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The prediction of pundits doesn't really count, as they're not interested in being accurate. They're interested in being entertaining or shocking, so they get invited back on TV more.
No they don't. The swing states are just the ones that have a somewhat evenly divided populace. If California or Texas was evenly divided as well, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Well, more states could adopt California's Citizen's Redistricting Committee, which controls distracting in the state, as opposed to the legislature. X Democrats, X Republicans, and X Other make up the committee (I think it's 5 of each).
You can tell they did a decent job because many of the legislators were unhappy with the decision.
It's up to the state to decide that. There are a couple states that do that.
That's because people don't vote for Congress. They vote for their representatives. And if you look at the approval ratings of individual legislators in their districts, they generally have high/average approval ratings.
Bush's approval was in the toilet when he left office, and Obama beat McCain/Palin by over 7 points. There is no way that he would have won then, nor today.
There are states which split their electoral votes based on proportion of popular vote received in that state.
When people don't do the latter, you get the situation we have in the U.S. - where people who would really prefer the Libertarian candidate end up voting for a Democrat or Republican. Because everyone "knows" the Libertarian candidate could never win. (There are other ways to combat this, e.g. instant run-off voting, but that's a different discussion.)
No, that's due to a completely different problem. The people who would rather vote Libertarian end up voting Democrat or Republican because they would rather someone who kinda matches their views get into office than for someone whom they extremely disagree with get into office.
But isn't that how the media portrayed the Obama/McCain race 4 years ago?
Agreed. Anyone who tries to say that a company is like a "family" is an asshat trying to get free labor out of his subordinates.
That hugely depends on the person, though. There are people who are more creative while high. There are also lots of people who just behave like stoned idiots. I'm one of them.
The stance that makes the most sense to me, given their claims of not liking big government, is to let people do what they want as long as it doesn't impact others.
For many of those issues, this would be a perfectly acceptable stance.
Social issues, their position should be "sort it out for yourself."
That's not an acceptable stance for a couple of the issues you mentioned. They would still be required to vote on these issues, unless they all planned on abstaining from the vote, which isn't a good idea either.
No, they never actually tried it. That means its been debunked.
In fact this is true in education. There are private enterprises right now that are providing superior education levels at lower prices in many parts of the world, including USA. Also Khan academy allows people to learn various subjects at a superior level and superior price (look up the price tags) than do public schools.
I would love to see you try to shoehorn these systems into the same general education system that is obligated to give EVERYONE an education. Most of the systems you stated are successful mainly because they can be selective on who they serve.
your comment is using a very common trick, as the rest of people who do not understand real economics (or who is generally against real economics), you think that without a 'study' you cannot know things.
No, I'm saying that I don't trust you talking out of your ass. And you want to fuck everything up because you have a feeling.
Again, provide some actual evidence, or STFU.
first of all falling prices allow poor people to buy education
You don't have any evidence that prices would fall. You're making an assumption.
just like poor people can buy LCD or Plasma TVs today, while only the wealthy and corporations could buy them just 15 years ago
Education isn't like the production of semiconductors and electrical components. Awful example.
Yeah, that doesn't count. I'm talking actual statistics, which the burden is on YOU to provide.
Bullshit. You're going to have to provide hard evidence to prove this was EVER a problem.
Except that with more STEM people in their workforce, their economy will grow.
A wait list indicates they're underpriced
Or that they take time to produce. Not everything is about prices, nor should it be about maximizing profit.
Obviously primary and secondary education is the parents' responsibility towards their kids. But it is not responsibility of anybody else
Bullshit. As a member of society, it is your responsibility as well. You benefit from higher levels of education, both economically, socially, and through things like lower crime rates. Therefore, as you get those benefits, you should pay for it.
I find people with this idea that they are an island, and everyone should be completely separated like this to have absolutely no idea what actually makes a society work.
as much a product and or a service that can be delivered much more efficiently and cheaply via free market private interests.
There is absolutely nothing to back up this idea.
I could start a primary school if I had an interest in it (which I personally do not) if I knew I could make money on that education.
I don't give a fuck about you making any kind of profit on anything. I care about people being educated. People who are concerned with profit tend to cut corners on their product in order to maximize profits.
There should be no government funding in education that's how the prices would fall
Except you have absolutely no concrete evidence to back that up.
once every Jim, Tom and Sally can no longer afford going to college for a sociology major, because no bank would give them a loan to go for such a useless degree
And no poor person would be able to get any kind student loan at all, meaning far fewer of them would be able to actually go to college.
All of a sudden without government guaranteed loans there are only people going to college that can afford it
You mean only rich people go to college.
Everything in your post is nothing but pure fantasy with absolutely no facts whatsoever to back it up.
If there are more engineers, but a lack of jobs, the newly-trained engineers will create startups.
There's absolutely nothing to guarantee this will happen, and depending upon it is folly.
We provide jobs, but we don't provide a lot of high paying jobs compared to other things like business majors.
If auditors could find the theft/waste/whateverishappening and get the cost down by a factor of ten, then you could quintuple the expendatures
You're making the assumption that these things are significant. There's a very good chance that it's not, and this "waste" is not significant.
Shouldn't schools charge more for degrees that cost more?
Depends on if you want more of them or not. Making science-based degrees more expensive means we're going to have less of them. That's a bad thing.