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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday January 20 2018, @10:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the eat-the-rich dept.

Donald Trump and Angela Merkel will join 2,500 world leaders, business executives and charity bosses at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland which kicks off on 23 January. High on the agenda once again will be the topic of inequality, and how to reduce the widening gap between the rich and the rest around the world.

The WEF recently warned that the global economy is at risk of another crisis, and that automation and digitalisation are likely to suppress employment and wages for most while boosting wealth at the very top.

But what ideas should the great and good gathered in the Swiss Alps be putting into action? We'd like to know what single step you think governments should prioritise in order to best address the problem of rising inequality. Below we've outlined seven proposals that are most often championed as necessary to tackle the issue – but which of them is most important to you?

  • Provide free and high quality education
  • Raise the minimum wage
  • Raise taxes on the rich
  • Fight corruption
  • Provide more social protection for the poor
  • Stop the influence of the rich on politicians
  • Provide jobs for the unemployed

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/19/project-davos-whats-the-single-best-way-to-close-the-worlds-wealth-gap

Do you think these ideas are enough, or are there any better ideas to close this wealth gap ? You too can participate and vote for the idea that, you think, works best.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:35AM (52 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @12:35AM (#625432)

    I'll bite here:

    Provide free and high quality education - seems necessary, both for increasing the opportunity for wealth and for population control. Increasing teacher salaries would seem to be a necessary first step in most US public schools, if you want to retain motivated high quality teachers.

    Raise the minimum wage - meh, I'd prefer a liveable, but far from luxurious Universal Basic Income. Get that and you can abolish minimum wage.

    Raise taxes on the rich - only if you can get global buy-in, otherwise you're just asking the money to run and hide.

    Fight corruption - sure, because we actively encourage corruption today?

    Provide more social protection for the poor - what, exactly, are we trying to say? Healthcare? Shelter? Food? See above re: UBI.

    Stop the influence of the rich on politicians - seems unlikely, though it's clearly a major contributor to increasing wealth inequality. I have written elsewhere about the idea of sponsoring citizens to audit the political process, demand transparency, bring political actions to account, etc.

    Provide jobs for the unemployed - how about we stop trying to make work for people and start focusing on accomplishing the things that need to be accomplished? If everything that needs doing is getting done, and half the population is laying about idle, that seems like an opportunity to reduce the workload for the employed by allowing the idle who want the opportunity to step up and participate. If we've got excess skilled unemployed, I'd say that's time to reduce the standard workweek hours, not time to make up new jobs for them to do.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:44AM (#625483)

    Fight corruption - sure, because we actively encourage corruption today?

    Yes you do! When you constantly reelect 95% of your corrupt congress for a bigger handout or a tax cut (same thing). The corrupt politicians are only reflecting the voters' disinterest. If the voters cared this wouldn't be a problem. It's that simple. Apathy breeds more corruption. That includes apathetic voting for candidates being spoon fed by your mass media because people are too content and lazy to seek out anything better!

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by qzm on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:31AM (48 children)

    by qzm (3260) on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:31AM (#625524)

    [fwiw most of what I am writing supports what you say..]
    1 - paying teachers more without SACKING THE BAD TEACHERS is simply stupid - the problem with teachers is a lack of reward for performance - not the base pay (although the destruction of the male teacher is a larger problem, and the removal of the techical institute and apprenticeships/journeyman systems, whilst trying to force everyone through universities are arguably worse).
    2 - raising minimum wages is a class and dangerous social game played by the left on the basis that out of work people vote for them - and therefore they like more out of work people! it has been well proven that raising minimum wage is damaging to the poor.
    3 - raising taxes on the rich simply doesnt work as they often dont have much money or income - it lives in trusts and companies - I am astounded how many people dont realise this. THAT is why company tax must be made functional - and right now it is not. it is HILARIOUS when people argue to lower company tax to 'help' people - it only helps the right protect their money, unfortunately.
    4 - Yes, we do actively encourage corruption today - in many ways, however mostly by allowing collaboration between the political, legal, and corporate systems to make rich/powerful untouchable. The media is part of the problem here of course. Especially in the USA it seems to be 'ok' to slap the rich gently on the wrist for things that would imprison the middle classes (look at the mass of people defending Ms Clinton
    for things that would have sent a normal state employee straight to prison, for a long long time).
    5 - Protection for the poor is a hugely double edged sword, as it can also remove motivation to work, and therefore not be poor. THIS is the major failing of most support packages targetted at the poor - without that effort, you are just helping them dig their hole deeper (and, often, that of generations ahead).
    6 - Actually it is quite easy, through a combination of the public demanding laws be applied evenly, political spending being strictly limited (ie: NO funding of election advertising, promotion, etc), and LIMITED TERMS OF OFFICE. Go and learn about greek democracy - it is very VERY different from what we call democracy today.
    7 - Sorry, simply doesnt work. Why should I work if my neighbor isnt, and how can they live to the same standard as me if they dont. The only 'solution' is to throw away the stupid artificial viewpoint that the only 'fair' system is when everyone gets a nice house, playstation, new car every few years, and plenty of holidays. People who try harder MUST be allowed to succeed harder, and what they earn must not then be taken from them.

    UBI however is a great idea - but it must be REAL UBI, which is rarely what is discussed by either the left or the right.
    Real UBI is a centralist/slightly right concept linked to small government.
    Real UBI involves abolishing payments for such things as unemployment, sickness, housing, old age (note: not medical, thats very separate), etc as well as the jobs and organisations that administer those things. You then take all the money saved, divide by the population above a certain age, and give everyone a monthly equal payment.
    That way UBI funds from the savings that are made (and the savings are HUGE, because you remove a large amount of the government staffing, as well as costs).
    After that, it becomes sink of swim.
    The other factor in UBI of course is that it can help in the re-starting of actual local social support structures - which have been demolished by state intervention. Churches, Family, Town Organisations, etc need to be kicked back in to their function of helping people deal with unexpected financial problems - LIKE THEY USED TO.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:59AM (18 children)

      by Whoever (4524) on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:59AM (#625536) Journal

      1 - paying teachers more without SACKING THE BAD TEACHERS is simply stupid

      So is sacking the "bad teachers" without paying the remaining teachers more.

      Many posters here seem to think that there is a pool of unemployed teachers who would do a stellar job of teaching, if there were vacancies. There isn't.

      Why would anyone go into teaching? It's probably the lowest paid job for the level of qualifications required.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:11AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:11AM (#625576)

        My brother is into teaching. Science.

        I thought it was bad in Aerospace when the Executive/Management layer seemed to completely disconnect with physics.

        The same lunacy runs through teaching as well. Teacher gets all set up, often teaching from a basic science book for a few years. After several runs of students, he learns exactly where all the misprints, and misleading statements are in the book, after having previous generations of students stumble in it.

        Now, his latest crop of students finally benefit from the experience garnered from their predecessors, just as an audience benefits from several rehearsals...

        So, what does the tie-guys do? Change the book! Same friggen stuff! But different. Did the basic science change? No... someone is gonna get paid because everyone has to go out and BUY a NEW book. Hands emerge from suit jackets, extend, and are shaken, and students and school systems are shackled with yet another expense for something they did not need.

        The school system refuses to calculate the Total Cost of Ownership of hiring their leadership layer. Even though the cost of his salary is astronomical compared to those doing the work, the cost of his handshakes is even worse.

        I wonder how much more efficient the school would work, if the handshaker was removed, kinda like wondering how much efficient my radiator would work if I removed all the dead bugs.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:21AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @10:21AM (#625592)

          So, what does the tie-guys do? Change the book! [after all the mistakes have been identified in the old book]

          Richard Feynman was once on a committee that judged/recommended textbook.
          In his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", he adds another piece of the puzzle.
          From pages 294-295: [textbookleague.org]

          they asked me what I thought about [a certain book].

          I said, "The book depository didn't send me that book, but the other two were nice."

          Someone tried repeating the question: "What do you think about that book?"

          "I said they didn't send me that one, so I don't have any judgment on it."

          The man from the book depository was there, and he said, "Excuse me; I can explain that. I didn't send it to you because that book hadn't been completed yet. There's a rule that you have to have every entry in by a certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent to us with just the covers, and it's blank in between. The company sent a note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books considered, even though the third one would be late."

          It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other members! They couldn't believe it was blank, because [the book] had a rating. In fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do with the rating.

          I believe the reason for all this is that the system works this way: When you give books all over the place to people, they're busy; they're careless; they think, "Well, a lot of people are reading this book, so it doesn't make any difference." And they put in some kind of number -- some of them, at least; not all of them, but some of them. Then when you receive your reports, you don't know why this particular book has fewer reports than the other books -- that is, perhaps one book has ten, and this one only has six people reporting -- so you average the rating of those who reported; you don't average the ones who didn't report, so you get a reasonable number. This process of averaging all the time misses the fact that there is absolutely nothing between the covers of the book!

          -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:16PM (#625631)

        Many posters here seem to think that there is a pool of unemployed teachers who would do a stellar job of teaching, if there were vacancies. There isn't.

        Its not just posters here.

        There is another major problem - teaching unions cannot accept that some teachers are better than others. Its perfectly OK to agree that some
        football players are better than others, but its not socially acceptable to say that some teachers are better than others. Teachers are committed to Communism or
        Christianity or something, and consequently they are all equal.

        The only solution is to send them all to Venezuela ... or something.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:34PM (14 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:34PM (#625661) Journal

        It's probably the lowest paid job for the level of qualifications required.

        They could always lessen those qualifications. They obviously aren't working.

        Many posters here seem to think that there is a pool of unemployed teachers who would do a stellar job of teaching, if there were vacancies.

        I know a fair number of ex-teachers. They don't stay unemployed. My bet is that if schools were more pervasively to come up with non-dysfunctional work environments and incentives to hire and keep good teachers, then some of those ex-teachers would come back.

        • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:26PM (10 children)

          by Whoever (4524) on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:26PM (#625707) Journal

          My bet is that if schools were more pervasively to come up with non-dysfunctional work environments and incentives to hire and keep good teachers, then some of those ex-teachers would come back.

          Like perhaps reasonable pay?

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:51PM (9 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:51PM (#625724) Journal
            The US already spends massive amounts per student. The pay should already be reasonable.
            • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:29PM

              by Whoever (4524) on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:29PM (#625733) Journal

              "should" is not "is".

              It's another case where distribution needs to be fixed.

              In a school district near me, the Superintendent got a pay rise this year, but the teachers? No money for that.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:01PM (7 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:01PM (#625765)

              Ah yes, the typical khallow disconnect from reality where opinions can be carried to term without the slightest hint of factual support.

              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:54PM (6 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:54PM (#625825) Journal
                Look at Chart PF1.2.B [oecd.org] please. That's a chart of expenditures per student (elementary through tertiary) by OECD country. The US is third place on that list. Even if we drop tertiary education (which is relatively high), we still end up with the US placing well. Yet where is the outcome to go with that spending?
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:59PM (5 children)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:59PM (#625831)

                  Again, you have no clue about reality. You are looking at a chart and making a LOT of assumptions. The actual teachers are the ones not getting decent pay, being overworked and understaffed. I'm sure quite a bit of money could be more efficiently used instead of squandered on superintendent salaries and redundant textbook purchases. That however is a different conversation precluded by your ASSUMPTIONS which make the conversation impossible.

                  You and your ilk have a long way to go learning about actual reality before we can have much of a productive conversation.

                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:41PM (4 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:41PM (#625874) Journal

                    You are looking at a chart and making a LOT of assumptions. The actual teachers are the ones not getting decent pay, being overworked and understaffed.

                    In other words, I'm using data and you're just pulling stuff out of your ass. I grant that there may be problems with the data or how I'm interpreting it. But merely asserting that there are problems without supporting the claim in any way is not something I take serious.

                    • (Score: 2) by Mykl on Monday January 22 2018, @02:10AM (3 children)

                      by Mykl (1112) on Monday January 22 2018, @02:10AM (#625917)

                      Perhaps it would be helpful to point out that the US has some of the widest wealth disparity in the developed world. This extends through most business in the US (how much do you think the average Amazon worker is paid?).

                      This trend can reasonably be expected to continue through the education system, with the majority of funding ending up at the executive level, and only scraps remaining for the teachers at the bottom.

                      Explain to me how this little piece of school funding distribution [businessinsider.com] improves academic results?

                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 22 2018, @05:48AM (2 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 22 2018, @05:48AM (#625958) Journal

                        Perhaps it would be helpful to point out that the US has some of the widest wealth disparity in the developed world. This extends through most business in the US (how much do you think the average Amazon worker is paid?).

                        While that is in part true, US teachers do get paid well over normal wages (for example, glancing at Bureau of Labor Statistics data by state confirmed that both California and Texas teachers were paid on average well above average wages for the state).

                        This trend can reasonably be expected to continue through the education system, with the majority of funding ending up at the executive level, and only scraps remaining for the teachers at the bottom.

                        Meh, I don't buy that as a whole though I believe there are examples of such disparity. Government is not the business world.

                        Explain to me how this little piece of school funding distribution [businessinsider.com] improves academic results?

                        First, it's coaches not teachers. Their job is not to teach, but to entertain. Second, we're ignoring the vast revenue generation that takes place in these sports venues. For example, the top person on that list, Nick Saban made $7.1 million in 2015 (had to check the original source for that information). The next year, he made [forbes.com] $7.9 million and generated a profit for the University of Alabama of $46 million which buys a lot of education staff and resources. That's the academic results he delivers.

                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:13PM (1 child)

                          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @08:13PM (#626727)

                          Ah yes, education as an entertainment industry. I'm so glad our societal priorities are in good hands!! /sarcasm /barf /stupid

                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:21PM

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:21PM (#627235) Journal

                            Ah yes, education as an entertainment industry.

                            So nothing to say about how much non-entertainment education one can buy with $46 million?

        • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:43PM (#625756) Journal

          They could always lessen those qualifications. They obviously aren't working.

          They do -- and have. I taught in public and private high schools for a few years. When I started teaching at a public school, I walked in off the street with a degree in a different field and was in a classroom teaching the next week. I was granted an "emergency permit." Why? Because the state I was teaching in opened its school year with thousands of vacancies. No: not "unqualified" teachers in classrooms -- thousands of classrooms that have substitute teachers in the classroom as their only teacher from day one. Substitutes often have NO training -- often you only need a high school diploma. And there were thousands of classrooms in that state that year who had subs as their only teachers.

          So when I walked in with a college degree -- partly because I had heard the stats on the radio and was appalled by them, so I decided I wanted to do something about it -- they were thrilled to have me. And I was told that over the next three years I needed to fill my "deficiencies" and obtain certification, though I think that could be extended by another year or two if absolutely necessary. I did attain certification, through an "alternative certification program" meant to fast-track teachers to certification, rather than requiring them to take a bunch of education classes in college. Instead, I spent most of a summer doing 9 to 5 classes and random other stuff over the course of two school years, but I also saw the general caliber of most of the other people trying to get science certification... and, frankly, most of these people were science majors who couldn't find a job elsewhere because they were so incompetent... so they were trying teaching. I was horrified to imagine some of them in classrooms.

          I was doing this right around the time that No Child Left Behind got passed, which supposedly required "highly qualified" teachers in every classroom... which ultimately meant that at first they were kicking the emergency permit folks out of classrooms because they couldn't legally teach anymore, and instead had substitutes with NO qualifications whatsoever. Then most states found ways around the language of the law to allow them to keep doing what they were doing before.

          I know a fair number of ex-teachers.

          Yeah, because I believe the stats are still that around 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years. So even many of those who bother with certification may not last longer.

          Bottom line is that if you have any vague qualification that might make you a science or math teacher (the person the first school hired along with me had a psych degree and was immediately put in a math classroom), you can probably walk into a classroom in many states already with pretty low bars. In southern states in rural schools or in nasty urban centers, you may be able to walk in and teach in other fields as well. (All 50 states have reported "shortages" in the beginning of the academic year in at least some areas.) So, I'm not sure how to "lessen those qualifications" when we have such a crisis that tens of thousands of classrooms nationwide (probably more) are already filled with people that don't even have the minimum requisite qualifications...

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:56PM (1 child)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:56PM (#625829) Journal

            So, I'm not sure how to "lessen those qualifications" when we have such a crisis that tens of thousands of classrooms nationwide (probably more) are already filled with people that don't even have the minimum requisite qualifications...

            That's how.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:32PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:32PM (#626811)

              The ever amazing Republican solution at work!! Are things not working out quite as you'd planned? Stop trying to fix the problem and just wallow around in despair! The lowest common denominator is usually the cheapest anyway!!!

              Suck a dick you turd.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:37PM (8 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:37PM (#625646)

      You are of course somewhat right, but...

      the problem with teachers is a lack of reward for performance

      The problem there is in developing meaningful metrics for performance, metrics that aren't corruptable by political maneuvering, can't be gamed by "teaching the test" and above all: reflect on the effectiveness of the whole educational process turning out productive, or at least not negative social value graduates.

      I'd rate those meaningful metrics as "temporally challenging" to develop - no matter how much data you collect, there's not much in the way of clear, meaningful indicators that develop within a short time after the teacher has worked with a student, and by the time the meaningful indicators have developed, it's very hard to trace them back to the specific teachers who made a difference.

      I think the best we can actually do is rely on human judgement to rate teachers, and that is an approach fraught with corruption.

      not the base pay

      When a teacher's base pay enables them to finance, alone, a home with a child, transportation to work, healthcare, etc. at a standard equal to or better than the median students' families in their district, then I would consider the base pay to not be a problem. Until then, we are implicitly stating that we value teachers less than even the middle of the other professions - and that's a great way to send the best performers off to other industries to do better for themselves and their families.

      I know too many teachers, and especially classroom aides who are doing much of the important work of education, who are wholly dependent on a spouse's income just to be able to afford food, shelter and transportation necessary to do their job. I grew up in the 70s in a 2 teacher family of 4, and with my father working full time in the day plus 3 nights a week at the junior college, and both working summer school, we had a decent middle class income. Without the extra work, we were in the "only run the air-conditioning when it's >80 degrees outside, and any meat other than ground chuck is a once a month special occasion" class.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:40PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:40PM (#625719)

        Starting with some stats that are from various years 2011 to 2017...

        There are 126 million households in the USA. There are 51 million students in public schools. There are about 3,377,900 teachers. Student to teacher ratio is 15 to 25.

        We thus need to support a teacher with tax funds raised from about 37 households.

        It used to be that women were excluded from many jobs. They were either single or they had husbands to help support them. This meant that the cost of their labor was pushed down. Intelligent women were cheaply available to serve as teachers. This is no longer the case; we'll need to offer decent pay.

        We're asking a well-educated person to tolerate a nasty work environment without flex-time. Decent pay for a person with the education we are demanding (often a master's degree) is something like $120,000 per year. It might dip to $100,000 in a really low-cost area, or rise to $180,000 in San Francisco or New York City.

        So right there, picking the middle value for income, we need to raise $3,243 per family via taxes. But wait...

        That is just salary. The employer pays extra social security taxes. The employer pays for a pension (ought to be a 401K), for health insurance, for life insurance, and for many minor benefits. Teachers need to be managed, so we need to hire management. Teachers need IT support, so we'll need to hire that. Teachers need security forces, so we'll need to hire that.

        Granted, we're already paying much of that, so we can sort of subtract out what we already pay. Still, considering the increased taxes and all, we're looking at an additional $3000 on top of what is already paid.

        The poor greatly outnumber the rest of us. If you are posting on soylentnews, you are probably pretty well off. Maybe an extra $250 per month is nothing to you. Maybe an extra $70 per week is nothing to you. Well... that doesn't work so well for the poor.

        The total pay for teachers really can't go up like that. The only way to pay teachers more is to have fewer of them. We could get pay to be reasonable with about 45 kids per class, but that degrades the working conditions. We'd also have to change all the buildings.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:19PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:19PM (#625808)

          Nice stats, and appropriate - since education is financed mostly on property taxes.

          Also, the better school districts I have lived in do raise about $5000 per household in annual property taxes. One neighborhood in Miami actually voted in a bond issue, raising their taxes for the next 15 years, to better fund education.

          I don't buy the "additional $3000" - assume that the only thing that needs to happen is we take teacher salaries from where they are today up an average of $10K per teacher, that's an additional $270 per household, and I think education is well worth that. Unfortunately, most school boards are elected full of people who vow to "spend the absolute minimum required by law" and thus we get what we've got.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:56PM (1 child)

        by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday January 21 2018, @07:56PM (#625759) Journal

        Yeah, I think many folks really have no clue how much "sacrifice" is required in salary to be a teacher today. They hear stories about some fancy suburban public schools in New York in rich areas and teachers with salaries that sound decent if not generous. That happens occasionally, but it's not common.

        I taught high school for a few years, and for the first couple years I was in a major urban area in the south. To take a teaching job doing science or math, I was looking at a 40%+ pay cut from from what I could have walked into for an engineering or science job straight out of college with a bachelor's degree in the same geographic area.

        And no, for those few years I taught, I didn't even get "summers off" or short hours. Most of the good teachers I knew at the schools I worked with were working at least 8-hour days, and frequently 9-10 hour days. In summers, I did a certification program one year, and in other years I was required to do continuing education hours that took up several weeks, not to mention planning for the following year. It might be possible to get a part-time summer job around those sorts of constraints, but not one that would likely pay very well.

        Even for humanities folks, teaching jobs are often a chore for not-too-great pay comparatively. For science or math folks, they could often easily earn double in the "real world" and often a lot more if they are a competent person once they have a little experience. I chose to take a few years when I was younger to devote to this stuff because I was concerned about the horrific teacher shortages I heard about... but then I realized it wasn't really sustainable for me, both economically and psychologically in terms of the stress and amount of work. I toy with the idea of going back to it some day, because I really feel like it's one of the most important things we need in society. But it's hard to make that commitment.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:27PM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:27PM (#625810)

          It might be possible to get a part-time summer job around those sorts of constraints, but not one that would likely pay very well.

          My mother used to do phone-sales in the summers, cold calling lists of numbers (often lists of educators), to try to sell... whatever. No, it didn't pay well, no she didn't enjoy it, but being a two teacher income household, we needed the money. Remember, in those days cold calling meant inputting 7 digits into a rotary dial... not fun, even before the awkward sales pitch.

          --
          🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @12:32PM (3 children)

        by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Monday January 22 2018, @12:32PM (#626048)

        On top of what you say, I would add that the single biggest factor in a child's educational success is still their home environment. So if awesome teacher Alice has a classroom full of kids with safe homes and parents that nurture them and care about education while equally awesome teacher Bob has a classroom full of kids and many have abuse at home, or neglect, or parents that don't care about education or are just dealing with a serious illness or working two jobs to cover costs then Bob's class performance will suck and it won't be his fault.

        It's impractical to judge teachers accurately in that situation, unless you want to pay as many monitoring bureaucrats as there are teachers.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @01:37PM (2 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 22 2018, @01:37PM (#626057)

          See, this is my great hope for UBI: that the people who are so inclined to be monitoring busybodies can GTFO of the productive workforce and become freelance contractors, sticking their nose in all sorts of public programs and making sure that they not only meet standards, but continuously improve and adopt best practices. In my impossible utopia, these busybodies would develop an open standards system where they globally share information and self-regulate into politically neutral balanced commentary on all the projects they monitor, from elections to education to healthcare to public works and construction projects, and maybe even the more open aspects of defense.

          But, yeah, without an army of low cost auditors with exemplary scruples and standards of behavior, there's not a feasible method that I can see for establishing merit among teachers - it can be done "by feel" but that's always going to be open to cries of favoritism, discrimination, etc.

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          • (Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Monday January 22 2018, @02:07PM (1 child)

            by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Monday January 22 2018, @02:07PM (#626065)

            I support UBI too, but I think it's still political suicide in the US. The conservatives have been selling the idea that everyone has to work hard for what they get on their own, and everything else is nonsense. So for too many people UBI is an ultimate evil.

            The problem is, that ignores context and history. In the present day context, businesses employ people educated in public schools and businesses conduct business partnerships and sell product to people educated in public schools. Businesses need infrastructure - roads, telecommunications, standards - supported by public funding. Businesses rely upon security and safety from police and firefighters. They rely upon the courts to settle legal disputes and help deal with breaches of contract. They rely upon financial institutions that are regulated so they don't collapse and lose all of their financial assets. Success through 'rugged individualism' doesn't exist, everyone is implicitly drawing upon trillions of dollars of public investment to reach their situation. But further and just as importantly, the worker treatment today didn't come just because employees in the 1940s and earlier thought it was fair. It came because of organizing, unions, lobbying, and fighting for better treatment. Strip away those laws, and you don't get a worker utopia. You get the 19th century with 70 hour work weeks for junk pay in deadly conditions, air quality like Chinese cities, people injured at work that have to hope their family can support them.

            With respect to education, my understanding is that the countries in the world with the best education outcomes don't spend a lot on teacher monitoring. What they do is spend more on social welfare programs and require better benefits for all workers and parents, so there are fewer kids with a terrible home life.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @02:41PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 22 2018, @02:41PM (#626074)

              it's still political suicide in the US.

              Absolutely true, no matter how well framed the UBI presentation is made by those in favor, there will be those who oppose it simply because it is an easy political win to "fight free money to the lazy."

              the countries in the world with the best education outcomes don't spend a lot on teacher monitoring. What they do is spend more on social welfare programs and require better benefits for all workers and parents

              So, I feel like you're talking about Finland, or perhaps Scandinavia at large, and you're right. Due to the harsh winters, I think they have a slightly different view of social welfare there, and they have evolved more quickly to a modern system that addresses more root causes than acute symptoms.

              fewer kids with a terrible home life.

              Oh, but now you're on the wrong side of every voter who (even thinks they) had abusive parents but managed to get away from them and have a better life on their own. They did it without namby-pamby social programs coddling them, everyone else who's worth keeping alive can do it the hard way too, am I right? /s

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    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:48PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:48PM (#625647)

      the mass of people defending Ms Clinton for things that would have sent a normal state employee straight to prison, for a long long time.

      Not defending Ms. Clinton specifically, but in general "that level" of government, the top, and even our current carrot top to a small degree... part of the job of diplomacy, as practiced for the last 500 years, involves lying. Part of the job of the president is to explicitly override the law, with the power of the pardon among other things. So, in a sense, yes, the people at the top are exempt from the same type of accountability as their lower level functionaries.

      Should that extend to heads of large corporations? I think not, but clearly in practice it currently does. I think the recent jailing of the VW executive level engineer for "cheating" is a good start, and that sort of thing should be much more common (and in that particular case the criminal penalties should have run higher in the company as well...) It is problematic, because "the buck stops" at the top level, and it is humanly impossible for a single person, no matter how diligent, to be actually responsible for the day to day actions of tens of thousands. I think a broad/global increase in transparency would go a long way toward improving this situation, but that seems slow in coming.

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    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:54PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:54PM (#625648)

      6 - Actually it is quite easy, through a combination of the public demanding laws be applied evenly, political spending being strictly limited

      In theory, that's good. In practice, each law aimed at stopping, or even reducing, the influence of concentrated wealth on politics is like a stone thrown in a river - the money will flow around that law and find other ways to get to where it buys influence. It will take many, many stones and a good bit of earth-packing between them to stop the current river of money buying political influence, and each of them needs to be placed by the system that is currently influenced by that money.

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    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:11PM (17 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:11PM (#625653)

      People who try harder MUST be allowed to succeed harder

      Absolutely.

      and what they earn must not then be taken from them.

      That's a matter of perspective, some people will always see taxes as theft no matter how they are collected nor what they are used for. Some social engineering (like the "invisible" collection of VAT in Europe as opposed to the line-item at checkout collection of sales tax in the US, or the invisible collection of some social security tax on US paychecks vs the annual torture session of income tax filing)

      Why should I work if my neighbor isnt, and how can they live to the same standard as me if they dont.

      I'd prefer a liveable, but far from luxurious Universal Basic Income.

      UBI shelter: 200 square feet per person.

      UBI food: rice, beans, enough veggies to be healthy.

      UBI transportation: the bus or bicycle.

      UBI healthcare: basic preventative, simple antibiotics, trauma care when needed

      UBI safety from crime and exploitation: the same as everyone else

      UBI education: better than today's public school system, far from Ivy league coddling and privilege.

      Whatever that costs, that's what UBI pays. If an individual chooses to spend their UBI on hookers and crack and live on the street, that's fine - up until they become a problem for other people (see: safety from crime and exploitation), at which point their UBI can pay for their incarceration until such time as they are ready to be let out and stop being a problem for other people. There may be cases where the shelter and food is provided for people and deducted from their UBI (without incarceration) if it is determined that that is a better solution for all involved.

      Try harder, figure out a socially acceptable way to earn extra income (get a job, busk on a street corner, education, career, whatever) and you can have more / better.

      Giving people the freedom to say "take this job and shove it" in the myriad of cases when employers richly deserve to hear that would go a long long way to "the free market" providing better working conditions and/or better pay when working conditions can't be easily improved.

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      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:36PM (15 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:36PM (#625663) Journal

        Giving people the freedom to say "take this job and shove it" in the myriad of cases when employers richly deserve to hear that would go a long long way to "the free market" providing better working conditions and/or better pay when working conditions can't be easily improved.

        People can get that anyway, just by saving money. Sorry, I don't buy that the people who are unable to save money due to bad luck are that numerous.

        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:52PM (14 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @04:52PM (#625696)

          Sorry, I don't buy that the people who are unable to save money due to bad luck are that numerous.

          You never do.

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          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:38PM (13 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:38PM (#625718) Journal

            You never do.

            So what? Where's the evidence to support changing my opinion?

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:03PM (12 children)

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:03PM (#625728)

              Where's the evidence to support changing my opinion?

              Try getting a real job, with real people, not your echo chamber of highly paid, educated, and otherwise moneyed cronies. If you're in the top 20%, try hanging with the bottom 20% for a while.

              Go spend a few weeks working for WalMart, or your local grocery store, or fast food, get to know these people somewhat and have some sense of why they do what they do. In the 1980s lots of them were kids earning extra pocket money, but even then, there were lots of people trying to support an adult lifestyle, with or without children, on that job - the best job they could get at the time.

              Whether or not you think it's their fault, they put themselves in that circumstance, etc. there are indeed millions of them in this country working like that. And what is wrong with giving them the option to tell an abusive work environment "I don't need this job."?

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              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:19PM (11 children)

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @06:19PM (#625731) Journal

                Try getting a real job, with real people

                Like I've been doing for 30 years? Done that.

                Go spend a few weeks working for WalMart, or your local grocery store, or fast food

                Done that. I've worked fast food and grocery store (almost three years in fast food and a summer working grocery). Currently, I work seasonal accounting for a national park concessionaire (private business) that hires near the minimum wage line. I started near minimum wage myself.

                I see plenty of people who figured out how to save money on those salaries. And I see people who can work the whole summer, with some of the lowest cost of living you can find in the US, and barely scrap together enough money to leave the park when their season ends. Drinking your paycheck does that.

                Whether or not you think it's their fault, they put themselves in that circumstance, etc. there are indeed millions of them in this country working like that. And what is wrong with giving them the option to tell an abusive work environment "I don't need this job."?

                They already have that option. And they take that option all the time. One of the things about the list of jobs you mention is that they all have high turnover. And they have high turnover in large part because people quit.

                I have to say for someone lecturing me on this stuff, you don't seem so in touch yourself.

                • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:32PM (10 children)

                  by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:32PM (#625785)

                  with some of the lowest cost of living you can find in the US

                  That may be impacting your perspective on life, my perspective has come from cities like Miami, New York, Houston, and surrounding areas which have significantly higher cost of living challenges.

                  If all the people having cost of living problems in the cities moved to your national park, you'd have cost of living problems there, too.

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                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:38PM (9 children)

                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:38PM (#625873) Journal

                    If all the people having cost of living problems in the cities moved to your national park, you'd have cost of living problems there, too.

                    I guess they better not do that then.

                    It remains that I not only have experience with the poor, but have been at times a member of said group. What I routinely see is that people who get their act together can save money and find better work. While people who can't just kick around from job to job or struggle with situations that never change (like relatives that are always borrowing money and getting into trouble).

                    So yes, I see a number of problems that can't be fixed by hard work, mostly illness, but I also see a lot of problems that are fixed or improved every summer by hard work.

                    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @05:39PM (8 children)

                      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 22 2018, @05:39PM (#626148)

                      It remains that I not only have experience with the poor, but have been at times a member of said group.

                      So, of course, there's all kinds of poor. How many people are you supporting? What kind of local, and/or extended, family support network do you have / are you providing? Any special needs in this group? Elder care? When I was single, making a tiny fraction of my current salary - I had much more disposable income / financial freedom than I do today. As an income earner, I could ditch all the people who are dependent on me and get myself in fine financial shape in no-time, while leaving a train wreck behind me - that's not a good option for the big picture.

                      You completely glossed over your low cost of living perspective. Taking that into account, you live in one of the highest purchasing power for minimum wage areas in the country (excepting for places which locally raise it higher). It's not surprising that some of your friends and neighbors can bootstrap up and "make it" on any kind of job at all.

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                      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 22 2018, @08:38PM (7 children)

                        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 22 2018, @08:38PM (#626225) Journal

                        So, of course, there's all kinds of poor. How many people are you supporting? What kind of local, and/or extended, family support network do you have / are you providing? Any special needs in this group? Elder care? When I was single, making a tiny fraction of my current salary - I had much more disposable income / financial freedom than I do today. As an income earner, I could ditch all the people who are dependent on me and get myself in fine financial shape in no-time, while leaving a train wreck behind me - that's not a good option for the big picture.

                        Well, that is the thing about drowning victims. Sometimes they pull the rescuer in with them. Here, it's the difference between leaving the train wreck behind you and becoming part of the train wreck. For example, lottery winners who can't figure out how to separate themselves from their poor brethren, end up joining them [cnbc.com] in a few years:

                        Another major struggle that winners often face is saying "no" to friends and family who hope to join in on the good fortune.

                        Charles Conrad, senior financial planner at Szarka Financial, told Teresa Dixon Murray, "Once family and friends learn of the windfall, they have expectations of what they should be entitled to." He explained, "It can be very difficult to say 'no.'"

                        Of course, some lottery winners survive the tumult and go on to thrive. Missouri lottery winner Sandra Hayes has managed to keep her head above water even after splitting a $224 million Powerball jackpot with 12 coworkers.

                        "I had to endure the greed and the need that people have, trying to get you to release your money to them. That caused a lot of emotional pain," she told The Associated Press. "These are people who you've loved deep down, and they're turning into vampires trying to suck the life out of me."

                        The former social worker has avoided financial misfortune by maintaining her frugal lifestyle even though she no longer lives paycheck to paycheck. "I know a lot of people who won the lottery and are broke today," she said. "If you're not disciplined, you will go broke. I don't care how much money you have."

                        Some support networks aren't when it comes to wealth.

                        You completely glossed over your low cost of living perspective. Taking that into account, you live in one of the highest purchasing power for minimum wage areas in the country (excepting for places which locally raise it higher). It's not surprising that some of your friends and neighbors can bootstrap up and "make it" on any kind of job at all.

                        Cost of living is one of the things you need to learn to control when you are poor. Those bootstrappers learned how to do that.

                        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @09:27PM (6 children)

                          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 22 2018, @09:27PM (#626241)

                          Cost of living is one of the things you need to learn to control when you are poor.

                          So, for those who start out in higher cost of living areas, where they are integrated into a (functional) family network with at least some level of mutual support... they should abandon that and migrate away to seek lower cost of living? I mean, we did that, once, for a little less than 3 years - it bridged a tough time, but ultimately it wasn't the right answer for us, and in the big economic picture it was very costly. My employer paid roughly 6 months of my salary to relocate me out there with a 2 year agreement - then, thankfully just after the two year mark, they started slashing benefits amounting to a nearly 30% pay cut for me... so I left.

                          Thinking downmarket to people who can't get potential employers to pick up the cost of their move, footing the bill for the move yourself when you're already down on your luck - with what? Credit? If we all had functional crystal balls that told the future, it would make the decision making process much more reliable, and break the stock market overnight - until that time... mistakes happen.

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                          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 22 2018, @09:58PM (5 children)

                            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 22 2018, @09:58PM (#626256) Journal

                            So, for those who start out in higher cost of living areas, where they are integrated into a (functional) family network with at least some level of mutual support...

                            Notice the cognitive dissonance of demanding social benefits because one needs to support poor peoples' "family networks" in bad locations. The obvious solution is move them out - family networks be damned.

                            What you miss here is that moving is a key way to address regional differences in wealth and income inequality.

                            More troublings till, Americans are no longer moving from poor regions to rich ones. This observation captures two trends in declining mobility. First, fewer Americans are moving away from geographic areas of low economic opportunity. David Autor, David Dorn, and their colleagues have studied declining regions that lost manufacturing jobs due to shocks created by Chinese import competition. Traditionally, such shocks would be expected to generate temporary spikes in unemployment rates, which would then subside as unemployed people left the are a to find new jobs. But these studies found that unemployment rates and average wage reductions persisted over time. Americans, especially thos e who are non-college educated, are choosing to stay in areas hit by negative economic shocks. There is a long history of localized shocks generating interstate mobility in the United States; today, however, economists at the International Monetary Fund note that “following the same negative shock to labor demand, affected workers have more and more tended to either drop out of the labor force or remain unemployed instead of relocating.”

                            Second, lower-skilled workers are not moving to high-wage cities and regions. Bankers and technologists continue to move from Mississippi or Arkansas to New York or Silicon Valley, but few janitors make similar moves, despite the higher nominal wages on offer in rich regions for all types of jobs. As a result, local economic booms no longer create boomtowns. Economically successful regions like Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, and Boston have seen only slow population growth over the last twenty five years. Inequality between states has become entr enched. Peter Ganong and Daniel Shoag have shown that a hundred-year trend of “convergence” between the richest and poorest states in per-capita state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) slowed in the 1980s and now has effectively come to a halt.

                            In other words, the economic effects of moving where the jobs are is more useful and important than the "family network" to the extent that it's actually lessened economic differences between the states for the better part of a century with a drop in this economic improvement once people stopped moving so much.

                            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 22 2018, @09:59PM

                              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 22 2018, @09:59PM (#626257) Journal
                              Link [ssrn.com] to quote. See pages 82-83.
                            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 22 2018, @10:46PM (3 children)

                              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday January 22 2018, @10:46PM (#626301)

                              The obvious solution is move them out - family networks be damned.

                              A couple of months after we moved, NPR was running a sound-bite from W that was along the lines of "I know a lot of you have had to relocate, but we are stronger for it... blah blah blah" my family was squarely in the group he was talking about, and, for us at least, he was completely full of shit. The moving companies, and realtors, and all those people were economically enhanced by our move, but my family and the company that moved me still paid a high price for that move, and within 3 years we moved right back, giving another round of cash to the moving company and realtors.

                              It's not just family networks, its entire social networks, friends who can watch the kids... do things for the house when you're not there, etc. When you've lived in a place for 10 years, you develop a reliable network of those people, when we were new in Houston our older (3 year old) had a fever spike of 107, when we took him to the ER we left our toddler with a "new friend" - nice family, dad's a big mucky muck with a local NASA contractor, but what we didn't know, yet, is that the wife was strung out on anti-depressants, and while our toddler was in her care their yappy little dog barked him over onto an open cabinet door - cut his face, that scar is still visible now 13 years later, but faint - and he's still terrified of little yappy dogs. And, that's a minor bad outcome...

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                              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:16AM (2 children)

                                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 23 2018, @01:16AM (#626373) Journal
                                And yet, so what? You've made a lifestyle choice when you could have made a choice with lower costs of living. I don't see even the slightest reason to have the state pay for that when you can pay instead.
                                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:16PM (1 child)

                                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:16PM (#626801)

                                  You are a true sociopath, if you led the country we'd be back to the dark ages by supper time. Who cares about community? I need better efficiency for my Excel bean counting!

                                  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:33PM

                                    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:33PM (#626813) Journal

                                    You are a true sociopath, if you led the country we'd be back to the dark ages by supper time.

                                    And if we were still running on feelz like you desire, we would have never left the Dark Ages.

                                    When you're demanding something that society has to pay a lot for, you need to have a better justification than what JoeMerchant presented here. There's a lot of bad lifestyle choices out there presented as economic necessity. For example, most farm subsidies are partially rationalized on the basis that it protects a way of life.

                                    Well, my view is that if your way of life costs so much that you are unwilling to pay for it, then that means you don't want it enough to justify me paying for it either.

      • (Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:44PM

        by fritsd (4586) on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:44PM (#625720) Journal

        current situation: "Soup is good food"

        desired outcome: "Take this job and shove it"

        Jello Biafra for US president!!

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @05:54AM (#625532)

    Raise taxes on the rich - only if you can get global buy-in, otherwise you're just asking the money to run and hide.

    So tax when money runs and hides. Wealth transferred overseas (above a certain amount) should be subject to a significant tax. I never understood why the US has this backward - taxing money brought *into* the economy.

    Also, tax inheritance (over a certain amount) at 100%. Wealth inequality persists because rich families can keep getting rich by continuously growing grand-grand-grand-grandpa's lucky break.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:20PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:20PM (#625643)

      I never understood why the US has this backward - taxing money brought *into* the economy.

      Have you seen the recent flap about foreign meddling in the US election process? That is nothing new. Foreign influence runs deep in US laws, tax codes, etc.

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