Is the US education system poor, at best? If so, why?
In your answer, please include the words, "The majority of the world's scientific, technological, cultural, and artistic creation originates in the United States of America."
just because you throw one article at me, and it's from a.gov, doesn't completely disprove the entire discussion
You know what, you're right. When I want to find information about labor statistics, the last place on earth I should go is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Silly me. I should definitely get my information from MyDixieWrecked (548719) with his two data points, and frankly, we can just fire all of the Economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He may not be an Economist by training, but he can write some mostly-above-average PHP scripts.
That link of yours is trying to sell something. it's trying to sell the job of a teacher to people.
That's a little silly. Why should the BLS care if you become a teacher? For that, you want the Department of Education. BLS just crunches numbers.
but your article doesn't say where it's getting those salary numbers. Is that public schools? Are they including private schools? higher learning institutions?
The numbers I pulled were for public high schools. The article didn't address higher education at all. And if you give one click over to the Occupational Outlook Handbook for teaching, you'd see what I knew and that you probably did not: that private school teachers make less than public school teachers on average.
I just want more solid fact
What would you like to know?
By the way, the original article was grousing about how they were only getting two qualified applicants per math and science teaching vacancy. Please excuse me while I go cry a river for them. I mean, how will they ever fill those positions?
This should be a simple supply-and-demand problem,
No, it should not, can not, and will not be simple Supply and Demand.
If you think it should, then riddle me this, batman: I looked up the highest-paid teacher in my state--about ready to retire, full PhD, etc. He makes a lot of money. But realize that by the time I was in my late 20s, as an entrepreneur, I was making over double what he makes now (I imagine he's in his late 50s or early 60s). So how is my state going to, through market forces alone, lure me, an Economist by training, to teach high school econ? Are they going to find enough money in the budget to pay me what they are currently paying 10 teachers?
I tend to get upset about gross disparities in pay
Indeed.:)
Anyhow, back to S&D. It's obviously not possible to lure those in private industry into teaching by matching what we earn. Fortunately, once you pass Econ 101, you learn that not everyone behaves in a perfect profit-maximizing fashion (many famous economists write about Homo economicus, or Economic Man, with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks). Real Men, as opposed to Economic Men, purchase lottery tickets, borrow money at 18% interest to buy designer clothes, take out $200,000 loans to go to college with the intention of working a low-wage job, and even become public school teachers when they could make more in the private sector. It would seem that life is not one profit-maximization function.
The real reason why more people don't go into teaching (taken with a bushel of salt, of course... the original article was grousing about only having two qualified applicants for each math and science teaching open need.. I'll let you know when I'm finished crying a river for them) is teacher morale issues. Geneticists who might otherwise be interested in teaching recoil at the idea of teaching Creationism at an equal level with Evolution. Entrepreneurs recoil at the idea of punching a time clock each day. Chemists recoil at the thought of not being able to have the students do experiments because of budget constraints or "safety" issues. In short, Professionals are not willing to be treated like tradesmen. And what do you think teaching has been reduced to?
So treat your college-educated professionals like assembly-line workers and this is what you get. You repel the very candidates you need to attract: those who are motivated by teaching and enriching the lives of others, as opposed to those who are motivated by money. After all, schools can't compete on salaries.
a teacher's salary starts around 30 and doesn't really go much higher than that.
False. "The highest-paid 10 percent earned more than $71,370 a year." And that is over the entire country. If you live in higher cost of living areas, you can make significantly more than $70k. Yes, you read that right. As a high school teacher. With summers off. With a full pension. It's a very common misconception, so I won't fault you for perpetuating it, but teachers can make a lot of money.
Also remember, those high salaries are earned through seniority and continuing education. Anyone who can survive as a teacher can make really good money. Eventually. And anyone who wants to put in the extra effort (a friend of mine is a band director and she gives music lessons on the side for $50/hr because she feels uncomfortable charging more, which she easily could) can do very well. It ain't CEO pay, but it's nothing to sneeze at, and it's certainly above $30k! According to the BLS, fewer than 10% of teachers earn under $30k.
That kind of invalidates the rest of your post so I won't comment anymore. Cheers!
Someone not working for the cops (and not a cop, of course) can gather admissible evidence during what would be, for the cops, an illegal search.
For instance, if I break into your house and see 100 marijuana plants, I can call the cops. They'll get a warrant and bust your ass. On the other hand, if a cop breaks into your house (without a warrant) and sees 100 marijuana plants, that evidence could never be used in court since it was discovered during an illegal search.
Your kids learn through repetition, so they're in a great program. Good for them.
Some people get bored, though. And some people don't like doing busywork. When I was in 7th grade, I did Algebra I and II in one year. That would not have been possible if I did so many practice problems. In fact, at that age, I would not have done the homework at all if I didn't see the point.
Kumon sounds like it would have been a great program to make me both despise and never understand mathematics at all.
It's important to get kids into programs that teach how they learn most effectively.
Does anyone think that perhaps corporations shouldn't pay taxes at all?
Corporations do not pay taxes. Living, breathing, human beings pay taxes. Corporations are pieces of paper. Pieces of paper pay no tax.
Who pays the corporate income tax, then? Some combination of the owners, employees, and customers. Since the owners set the prices and wages, guess who is the group of last resort to pay the corporate income tax?
the corporate income tax is paid based on the corporation's profit, not on its sales. So corporations do not raise prices in order to pay taxes and make a profit.
First, you have obviously never heard of Gross Receipts Tax. Secondly, as the owner of two corporations, please let me assure you that I do raise prices in order to pay taxes. When taxes go up, my prices go up, and so do those of my competitors. If my customers didn't pay my taxes, who would?
Fortunately, the field of economics provides an answer. Corporate income taxes are paid, in some ratio, by the following groups: the business owner(s), the employees, and the customers. The ratio varies by industry, company, market, etc., but guess who sets wages and prices? The owners do, so guess which group is the last resort for paying corporate taxes? C'mon, guess. If you guessed corporate profits, you've guessed the last resort! Congratulations! You have just won higher prices and lower wages for yourself.
Also, as other posters pointed out, the market usually sets a price that a company can charge for its product or service.
True. Everyone remembers that little one from Econ 101. Everyone trumpets "Supply and Demand! Supply and Demand!" but then they totally ignore Supply. Negative pressures on supply (such as taxes, fees, etc. on business) raise prices and constrict quantity sold. Ask your econ teacher. I can't make this stuff up. I was a C student, after all. Not too bright.
A financial device which allows local governments to spend more than they collect in taxes. Isn't that sweet?
Muni bonds are like a mortgage. Did you pay all cash for your home? Well, your county didn't pay all cash for your kids' school, either. Muni bonds allow localities to borrow money at low rates of interest. Muni bonds are a good thing.
Of course, this is just one of the many tax breaks available to rich people. Thanks for helping me make my point.
Anyone can buy muni bonds. Anyone can buy shares muni bond funds and take advantage of the tax breaks. This is not a tax break targeted at the rich. It is a tax break targeted at those who want to help localities build infrastructure.
If we were to move to the Fair Tax, she'd pay out 17% of whatever she spends, and have no way to avoid it.
First of all, that's 23% or 30%, depending on how you state the rate (H.R.25/S.25). (When you buy a $1 item at the Dollar Store, the total at the register would be $1.30 under FairTax. You tell me what tax rate that was: 17%, 23%, or 30%.)
Secondly, the "Fair" tax is anything but fair. The current largest US population group is the baby boomers who have lived their working years under a tax system that concentrates taxation on their income. And once they retire and no longer generate income, now we switch to a tax system that concentrates on their consumption. Yeah, real friggin' fair.
Your argument is fallacious as well. You argue that a music track is not a physical good, therefore it has no value. Somebody must see value in entertainment, because I doubt people have been purchasing music CDs for $15 a pop all these years because they like the shiny media it comes on.
The real fallacy in his argument is that he takes a perfectly valid economic point and draws a crazy conclusion from it out of left field. The author says, in a nutshell, "the economy awards money to those that add value [a true statement], and adding DRM to what would have been unrestricted content does not add value--it subtracts value [also a true statement], therefore there exists no viable business model that involves DRM [wild and incorrect conclusion]."
Content distributors can still add value to their content, DRMed or not: quality ripping, quality distribution over high-speed pipes, centralization of content availability (because The Pirate Bay doesn't have everything), better usability (because my grandma doesn't know, and never will know, what a torrent is), authenticity, etc. All that stuff is worth something; just ask iTunes. DRM purports to allow distributors to protect their value-added distribution channel (to the extent that their DRM doesn't get cracked, which it always does).
Unfortunately, the content distributors have totally misread the threat to their business model. They can keep screaming, "Piracy! Piracy is theft!" until they're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that artists do not need the distributors anymore to sell their creative works. It used to be that if you wanted to see your music at Tower Records, you had to go through a label. Now, anyone can set up a website and circumvent the distributors entirely. That is the threat to their business models, not piracy.
Since I'm sure you paid for the two seats you're taking up on the airplane.
I mean, I can sit next to a black person on the metro and not even look up from my newspaper long enough to be aware of it. But a morbidly obese person?
I've always been puzzled by the term "tolerance" as the opposite of "racism". I mean, what is so offensive about a nonwhite person that would require me to "tolerate" that person? But I can definitely point out several attributes of fat people that require Gandhian levels of tolerance.
I know someone who was a passenger in a commercial airliner where the captain came on and said, "well, the control tower looked at the landing gear twice and assures me that they're down, but the indicator says they're not, so we're asking everyone to assume crash positions for landing."
I was a systems and network administrator. According to job description, that's part of the job.
You didn't happen to save a copy of your official duties, did you? I'd love to see an official Network Administrator's job description that includes "Creating security vulnerabilities in the network infrastructure and on individual server machines", "Misappropriation of CPU resources to crack password files of Intel machines and machines of other companies", etc.
Look, I was sympathetic toward you until I read that last comment. What you did was wrong and it was certainly not part of your official duties. Obviously the punishment meted out was excessive in proportion to the "crime", but please do not try to claim that you were somehow fscked while doing the job Intel hired you to do.
For security clearance, they pretty much want to see if you are vulnerable to blackmail, dishonest, willing to take a bribe, etc.
So you see some weird things: a current drug addiction might be a problem, whereas a previous illegal drug use would not be. Having an affair with the neighbor's dog might be a problem, but not if your wife/priest/minister/rabbi already know about it and don't care. A felony conviction for money laundering, misuse of company resources, corporate espionage, etc., might be a problem while a felony rape conviction might not. If you lie to your interviewer, you are definitely denied.
Secret clearance is basically a credit and criminal background check. Pretty hard to get denied. Once you get into the higher levels, that's when they start interviewing the neighbor's dog.
To the extent that most non-economists have no earthly clue what "Tragedy of the Commons" means, other than it sounds kinda neat.
On the flip side, I think it's fair to say that an economic externality does exist in this transaction to the extent that it costs more to dispose of electronics properly than it does to dispose of, say, newspapers, "last Thursday's leftovers", etc. Externalities include: environmental cleanup costs (have to be paid sooner or later unless you enjoy drinking lead, arsenic, etc.), recycling costs if you go that route (mother nature will recycle last Thursday's leftovers at no cost), and probably others.
When you walk into your neighborhood Best Buy and purchase a new PC, nobody is paying for the eventual disposal of all those harmful materials, so an externality to that transaction must exist.
I Am A Landlord, and have many low-income residents. Included in the rent are property taxes, apartment taxes (such as registration fees, etc.), sales taxes that I pay on everything I put in that apartment, the tools and materials I use to keep the apartment in top shape, etc. My income taxes are included. I could probably think of a dozen more. But my point is, when any one of these goes up, rent goes up. I don't have to worry about my competition, because the tax went up for them too, so they have to raise.
Misc Materials is hard to classify, but they are the things richer families buy on credit. The poor however often cannot do that. Things like a bed for their child can easily cost $500 which is more than they can get with their limited credit and so instead are 'rent to own'.
Reread that and decide if it makes sense. Any of it.
First of all, $500 for a child's bed? I have never spent $500 on any bed. Not for myself, and not for a child. This is poor decision-making. Get a crib or bed from a friend. Buy one at goodwill or salvation army. Put a mattress on the floor. Make a bed (it's not hard. My wife made her bed that she used throughout college.). Do any number of creative things to get a bed for under $500.00.
One thing you'll notice in my response, is I don't believe that "rich" or "poor" is in someone's bank account. I don't believe it can be found on someone's W-2. You can't see it in a person's home, and you can't see it in someone's clothes. Rich or poor is only a state of mind.
Just as a point of fact (not bragging or showing off), my family is more or less well-off. We don't have a 7-figure household income or anything like that, but we get by ok. As a result, most of our peers are also well-offish. A friend of the family just had a kid and they paid nothing for the crib (borrowed from a friend). Could they afford $500 for a crib, not on credit (just write a check)? Of course they could. They could lose $500 and never even realize it. My wife and I never paid for a crib, either. So why are people with fewer resources spending $500 on a crib? Heck, you can get a brand-new bottom of the line crib (but still meeting all safety standards, of course) for under $100.
Oh, and another thing. That rent 2 own $500 crib is costing a lot more than $500. But you already knew that. Again. Poor decision-making.
"Rich families buy stuff on credit, poor families cannot, so they rent to own". Renting to own is buying on credit, just worse terms.
I know a family where the mom has dreamed for 6 years of owning a blender (~$30 from Walmart), but hasn't been able to afford it. Do you even think of a blender as an amenity?
I've had residents ask for things like that before. Each year I give an anniversary gift and I've given ceiling fans, microwaves, etc. I give a choice and residents select a gift. Maybe she should ask her landlord. ("You know, I've always wanted a blender. If someone moves out and leaves one behind, instead of throwing it out, do you think I could have it?") If a resident showed good thinking skills like that, I'd prolly just order her one on amazon and have it shipped to her. But they never do.
In the family from the above example: the mother has had a entry level mail room job at a good company for ages, but she can't afford nice 'business' style clothing and so she has been repeatedly passed over for real jobs
I've bought suits for under $10 at ragstock. Try salvation army, goodwill, churches, etc. Nobody is going to check the label at a job interview.
Her problem isn't that she can't get a better job. Her problem is that she isn't even trying. Remember, rich is a state of mind.
if Jane or Tyrom wants an iPod for christmas they will try their hardest to get it for them... They want better for their kids than themse
Parents are afraid to talk about it with their kids, and they protest loudly when the schools attempt to educate their children about it.
This is not true at all. The majority if parents do want the schools to teach their children about sex so they don't have to.;)
Philosophically, I'd rather kids learn about sex at home where they can ask questions that they might be embarrassed to ask in front of their friends (and not-so-friends who would tease them).
On the flip side, I have a friend whose wife is pregnant with their second child. He described the pregnancy as an accident. They had been using the "rhythm" method of birth control and she had gotten pregnant "accidentally". As though "rhythm" was some type of effective way to prevent pregnancy.
I'm sorry, but those two parents are not equipped to teach their children about sex; so I think it's absolutely essential that children be taught about sex in school. At least then their kids have a prayer of getting some accurate information.
Slashdot Mirror
Is the US education system poor, at best? If so, why?
In your answer, please include the words, "The majority of the world's scientific, technological, cultural, and artistic creation originates in the United States of America."
Thank you for your time.
By the way, the original article was grousing about how they were only getting two qualified applicants per math and science teaching vacancy. Please excuse me while I go cry a river for them. I mean, how will they ever fill those positions?
If you think it should, then riddle me this, batman: I looked up the highest-paid teacher in my state--about ready to retire, full PhD, etc. He makes a lot of money. But realize that by the time I was in my late 20s, as an entrepreneur, I was making over double what he makes now (I imagine he's in his late 50s or early 60s). So how is my state going to, through market forces alone, lure me, an Economist by training, to teach high school econ? Are they going to find enough money in the budget to pay me what they are currently paying 10 teachers?Indeed.
Anyhow, back to S&D. It's obviously not possible to lure those in private industry into teaching by matching what we earn. Fortunately, once you pass Econ 101, you learn that not everyone behaves in a perfect profit-maximizing fashion (many famous economists write about Homo economicus, or Economic Man, with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks). Real Men, as opposed to Economic Men, purchase lottery tickets, borrow money at 18% interest to buy designer clothes, take out $200,000 loans to go to college with the intention of working a low-wage job, and even become public school teachers when they could make more in the private sector. It would seem that life is not one profit-maximization function.
The real reason why more people don't go into teaching (taken with a bushel of salt, of course... the original article was grousing about only having two qualified applicants for each math and science teaching open need.. I'll let you know when I'm finished crying a river for them) is teacher morale issues. Geneticists who might otherwise be interested in teaching recoil at the idea of teaching Creationism at an equal level with Evolution. Entrepreneurs recoil at the idea of punching a time clock each day. Chemists recoil at the thought of not being able to have the students do experiments because of budget constraints or "safety" issues. In short, Professionals are not willing to be treated like tradesmen. And what do you think teaching has been reduced to?
So treat your college-educated professionals like assembly-line workers and this is what you get. You repel the very candidates you need to attract: those who are motivated by teaching and enriching the lives of others, as opposed to those who are motivated by money. After all, schools can't compete on salaries.
Also remember, those high salaries are earned through seniority and continuing education. Anyone who can survive as a teacher can make really good money. Eventually. And anyone who wants to put in the extra effort (a friend of mine is a band director and she gives music lessons on the side for $50/hr because she feels uncomfortable charging more, which she easily could) can do very well. It ain't CEO pay, but it's nothing to sneeze at, and it's certainly above $30k! According to the BLS, fewer than 10% of teachers earn under $30k.
That kind of invalidates the rest of your post so I won't comment anymore. Cheers!
V.A.T.
Now quit 'yer bitching about US sales taxes.
Someone not working for the cops (and not a cop, of course) can gather admissible evidence during what would be, for the cops, an illegal search.
For instance, if I break into your house and see 100 marijuana plants, I can call the cops. They'll get a warrant and bust your ass. On the other hand, if a cop breaks into your house (without a warrant) and sees 100 marijuana plants, that evidence could never be used in court since it was discovered during an illegal search.
Did I help you put two and two together?
Not everyone learns the same way.
Your kids learn through repetition, so they're in a great program. Good for them.
Some people get bored, though. And some people don't like doing busywork. When I was in 7th grade, I did Algebra I and II in one year. That would not have been possible if I did so many practice problems. In fact, at that age, I would not have done the homework at all if I didn't see the point.
Kumon sounds like it would have been a great program to make me both despise and never understand mathematics at all.
It's important to get kids into programs that teach how they learn most effectively.
Who pays the corporate income tax, then? Some combination of the owners, employees, and customers. Since the owners set the prices and wages, guess who is the group of last resort to pay the corporate income tax?
Fortunately, the field of economics provides an answer. Corporate income taxes are paid, in some ratio, by the following groups: the business owner(s), the employees, and the customers. The ratio varies by industry, company, market, etc., but guess who sets wages and prices? The owners do, so guess which group is the last resort for paying corporate taxes? C'mon, guess. If you guessed corporate profits, you've guessed the last resort! Congratulations! You have just won higher prices and lower wages for yourself.True. Everyone remembers that little one from Econ 101. Everyone trumpets "Supply and Demand! Supply and Demand!" but then they totally ignore Supply. Negative pressures on supply (such as taxes, fees, etc. on business) raise prices and constrict quantity sold. Ask your econ teacher. I can't make this stuff up. I was a C student, after all. Not too bright.
Secondly, the "Fair" tax is anything but fair. The current largest US population group is the baby boomers who have lived their working years under a tax system that concentrates taxation on their income. And once they retire and no longer generate income, now we switch to a tax system that concentrates on their consumption. Yeah, real friggin' fair.
Your argument is fallacious as well. You argue that a music track is not a physical good, therefore it has no value. Somebody must see value in entertainment, because I doubt people have been purchasing music CDs for $15 a pop all these years because they like the shiny media it comes on.
The real fallacy in his argument is that he takes a perfectly valid economic point and draws a crazy conclusion from it out of left field. The author says, in a nutshell, "the economy awards money to those that add value [a true statement], and adding DRM to what would have been unrestricted content does not add value--it subtracts value [also a true statement], therefore there exists no viable business model that involves DRM [wild and incorrect conclusion]."
Content distributors can still add value to their content, DRMed or not: quality ripping, quality distribution over high-speed pipes, centralization of content availability (because The Pirate Bay doesn't have everything), better usability (because my grandma doesn't know, and never will know, what a torrent is), authenticity, etc. All that stuff is worth something; just ask iTunes. DRM purports to allow distributors to protect their value-added distribution channel (to the extent that their DRM doesn't get cracked, which it always does).
Unfortunately, the content distributors have totally misread the threat to their business model. They can keep screaming, "Piracy! Piracy is theft!" until they're blue in the face, but that doesn't change the fact that artists do not need the distributors anymore to sell their creative works. It used to be that if you wanted to see your music at Tower Records, you had to go through a label. Now, anyone can set up a website and circumvent the distributors entirely. That is the threat to their business models, not piracy.
Since I'm sure you paid for the two seats you're taking up on the airplane.
I mean, I can sit next to a black person on the metro and not even look up from my newspaper long enough to be aware of it. But a morbidly obese person?
I've always been puzzled by the term "tolerance" as the opposite of "racism". I mean, what is so offensive about a nonwhite person that would require me to "tolerate" that person? But I can definitely point out several attributes of fat people that require Gandhian levels of tolerance.
I know someone who was a passenger in a commercial airliner where the captain came on and said, "well, the control tower looked at the landing gear twice and assures me that they're down, but the indicator says they're not, so we're asking everyone to assume crash positions for landing."
The plane landed fine.
Look, I was sympathetic toward you until I read that last comment. What you did was wrong and it was certainly not part of your official duties. Obviously the punishment meted out was excessive in proportion to the "crime", but please do not try to claim that you were somehow fscked while doing the job Intel hired you to do.
For security clearance, they pretty much want to see if you are vulnerable to blackmail, dishonest, willing to take a bribe, etc.
So you see some weird things: a current drug addiction might be a problem, whereas a previous illegal drug use would not be. Having an affair with the neighbor's dog might be a problem, but not if your wife/priest/minister/rabbi already know about it and don't care. A felony conviction for money laundering, misuse of company resources, corporate espionage, etc., might be a problem while a felony rape conviction might not. If you lie to your interviewer, you are definitely denied.
Secret clearance is basically a credit and criminal background check. Pretty hard to get denied. Once you get into the higher levels, that's when they start interviewing the neighbor's dog.
On the flip side, I think it's fair to say that an economic externality does exist in this transaction to the extent that it costs more to dispose of electronics properly than it does to dispose of, say, newspapers, "last Thursday's leftovers", etc. Externalities include: environmental cleanup costs (have to be paid sooner or later unless you enjoy drinking lead, arsenic, etc.), recycling costs if you go that route (mother nature will recycle last Thursday's leftovers at no cost), and probably others.
When you walk into your neighborhood Best Buy and purchase a new PC, nobody is paying for the eventual disposal of all those harmful materials, so an externality to that transaction must exist.
Download the free trial of CS3. I think you'll agree that it is not even close to version 6.
That's why you have a rebate. That makes it progressive.
Say you make 20/yr and the tax rate is 30% with a rebate of $6k. You pay $6k in taxes and get $6k back so your tax rate is 0%.
Say you make 250k/yr. You pay 75k in taxes and get $6k back, making your tax burden 69k or roughly 28%
See? Progressive.
I wish.
I Am A Landlord, and have many low-income residents. Included in the rent are property taxes, apartment taxes (such as registration fees, etc.), sales taxes that I pay on everything I put in that apartment, the tools and materials I use to keep the apartment in top shape, etc. My income taxes are included. I could probably think of a dozen more. But my point is, when any one of these goes up, rent goes up. I don't have to worry about my competition, because the tax went up for them too, so they have to raise.
Reread that and decide if it makes sense. Any of it.
First of all, $500 for a child's bed? I have never spent $500 on any bed. Not for myself, and not for a child. This is poor decision-making. Get a crib or bed from a friend. Buy one at goodwill or salvation army. Put a mattress on the floor. Make a bed (it's not hard. My wife made her bed that she used throughout college.). Do any number of creative things to get a bed for under $500.00.
One thing you'll notice in my response, is I don't believe that "rich" or "poor" is in someone's bank account. I don't believe it can be found on someone's W-2. You can't see it in a person's home, and you can't see it in someone's clothes. Rich or poor is only a state of mind.
Just as a point of fact (not bragging or showing off), my family is more or less well-off. We don't have a 7-figure household income or anything like that, but we get by ok. As a result, most of our peers are also well-offish. A friend of the family just had a kid and they paid nothing for the crib (borrowed from a friend). Could they afford $500 for a crib, not on credit (just write a check)? Of course they could. They could lose $500 and never even realize it. My wife and I never paid for a crib, either. So why are people with fewer resources spending $500 on a crib? Heck, you can get a brand-new bottom of the line crib (but still meeting all safety standards, of course) for under $100.
Oh, and another thing. That rent 2 own $500 crib is costing a lot more than $500. But you already knew that. Again. Poor decision-making.
"Rich families buy stuff on credit, poor families cannot, so they rent to own". Renting to own is buying on credit, just worse terms.
I've had residents ask for things like that before. Each year I give an anniversary gift and I've given ceiling fans, microwaves, etc. I give a choice and residents select a gift. Maybe she should ask her landlord. ("You know, I've always wanted a blender. If someone moves out and leaves one behind, instead of throwing it out, do you think I could have it?") If a resident showed good thinking skills like that, I'd prolly just order her one on amazon and have it shipped to her. But they never do.
I've bought suits for under $10 at ragstock. Try salvation army, goodwill, churches, etc. Nobody is going to check the label at a job interview.
Her problem isn't that she can't get a better job. Her problem is that she isn't even trying. Remember, rich is a state of mind.
I think sales tax on food and clothing is truly awful, and I do live in one of the above states. :(
And yes, many states tax prescription medication, and even more states tax nonprescription medication. Ouch.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Care to open your mouth again?
Didn't think so.
I have a daughter, and I thought he was serious. But I guess that's what I get for living in a Red State.
Philosophically, I'd rather kids learn about sex at home where they can ask questions that they might be embarrassed to ask in front of their friends (and not-so-friends who would tease them).
On the flip side, I have a friend whose wife is pregnant with their second child. He described the pregnancy as an accident. They had been using the "rhythm" method of birth control and she had gotten pregnant "accidentally". As though "rhythm" was some type of effective way to prevent pregnancy.
I'm sorry, but those two parents are not equipped to teach their children about sex; so I think it's absolutely essential that children be taught about sex in school. At least then their kids have a prayer of getting some accurate information.
Rhythm, indeed.