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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:28PM
(9 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:28PM (#1248615)
Vote for ptogressive candidates that support universal healthcare, education, and police reform. Those are the three most fundamental changes needed right now in the USA.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @11:14PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday May 28 2022, @11:14PM (#1248637)
How about voting for secessions, so that the people in progressive-dominated states can have all the goodies that they want, and the basket of backwards deplorables who are suckling off the teat of the wealthy coasts can have ... well, whatever's left to them? As long as the coasts have this political millstone, there's no reason to believe that they'll be able to swim up to what they really want. Massachusetts and Maryland, California and Connecticut can step aside and like Mississippi and Missouri, Texas and Tennessee shrivel and die, clinging to their guns, gold and whatever god-bothering they want.
Nothing like giving folks what they want - that's democracy, after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:00AM
(7 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:00AM (#1248733)
Absolutely agree on universal healthcare.
Education? WTF do you mean? We already have an education system (that sucks) that forcibly takes money from citizens, even to the point of seizing their home and property and auctioning it at pennies on the dollar to pay for the very broken horrible wasteful "education system". Home schooled and private schooled children are leaps and bounds ahead of the horrific public school system. More $ thrown at it will fix it? All my life I've observed that complaint and more and more and more $ thrown into the giant money pit of public "education". Not enough time to discuss the mindset of people who suck on the tit of taxation. Let's just say they're not the most productive people. And then you have the problem of children's horrific behavior and how discipline is gone. Time for the school system to sue parents of badly behaved children who disrupt the classes and system, often physically harming, beating, even killing teachers, administrators, and other children.
Police reform. Yes, definitely. That's a tricky thing. Much rational psychological analysis needed to figure out how to hire people who can be good police, without hiring the people who enjoy power far too much.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @08:55PM
(6 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday May 29 2022, @08:55PM (#1248831)
"All your life" which means you're under 30. Things were going alright till around 2000 when means-testing got popular and higher education was defunded in favor of government backed student loans. This made perverse incentives to raise tuition rates every yesr by extreme amounts and spend that money on corrupt projects like new unnecessary buildings. They did similar with some k-12 schools, one place they spent millions on a fancy gym, pool, and track then people complained that more money does nothing.
Yes, it does nothing when the money is not spent on hiring more teachers and better materials for the actual students. Republican motto: "Government doesn't work, elect us and we'll prove it." Same thing UK conservatives are doing to the NHS because they want to privatize it and suck more money from the working class.
So thanks and good points, but universal education works very well in less-corrupt countries. Private schools can still exist, but saddling young people with insane debt so they can get a shit paying job is a recipe for societal collapse. We're going through it right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:35PM
(4 children)
by Anonymous Coward
on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:35PM (#1248861)
Wow, thank you, great post. I'll upmod when I have points.
You're spot-on re: corrupt countries. We have horrifically corrupt corporatocracy here in US.
As other AC wrote, it was more like 1980 when the huge tuition increases started. And "free market" doesn't fix it. Once you've started at university A, you lose credits and incur many other overhead costs to move to university B.
Funny you mention "unnecessary buildings". University I attended has been doing that aggressively for the past 20+ years.
How can we clean up the corruption? Better asked, since the corrupt people are in power, how do you replace them? Wasn't it Trump who ran on "drain the swamp"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:36PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:36PM (#1251385)
Yeah, we do. It's always a crapshoot between dumb and dumber, or bad and worse. Many vote D or R because. Many vote for someone but wish for some things from the other.
Cynical me thinks that the whole system is so corrupt that only corrupt people even get involved and run for office.
How about: no parties. Just represent We The People?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @03:01AM
(1 child)
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday May 30 2022, @03:01AM (#1248890)
it was more like 1980 when the huge tuition increases started.
And the huge tuition increases are the direct result of too much "student loan" money.
When students pay for their schooling with free money (and to an 18 year old, a student loan is "free money" -- few yet even begin to understand what a "student loan" means, they lose all desire to care one bit what their school of choice charges per year.
When the schools learn that the students are no longer price sensitive, they realize they can charge whatever they want, and the students will just pay (by pulling in more "free money") whatever the school asks, then the schools all start increasing their tuition at a rapid pace, in order to grab more of that "free money".
The sad part is that this very exact scenario is taught, in those same schools, in the Econ. department, when the economic theory gets brought out that pumping too many free dollars into a market leads to rampant price inflation. The student loans pumped loads of dollars into the university tuition market, and what was the result? Rampant inflation of the costs of college. Just exactly like the Econ. theory predicts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:41PM
by Anonymous Coward
on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:41PM (#1251387)
You could not be more correct. In fact, I took 3 econ courses and learned all that good stuff.
Every time a school or "education system" whines about needing more money and raising taxes, all I can think about is how the greedy leeches latch on and soak up more of the $. Same goes for medicine of course. It's a runaway system.
I feel strongly that econ should be required courses in much or most of K - 12, certainly high school. I have to wonder how different (better?) the US and maybe the whole world would be if people were more in tune with economic forces, power of money, etc. Instead of buying the cheapest thing possible at X-mart, buy that slightly more expensive, made in somewhere other than China thing, for the betterment of the future for all.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:28PM (9 children)
Vote for ptogressive candidates that support universal healthcare, education, and police reform. Those are the three most fundamental changes needed right now in the USA.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @11:14PM
How about voting for secessions, so that the people in progressive-dominated states can have all the goodies that they want, and the basket of backwards deplorables who are suckling off the teat of the wealthy coasts can have ... well, whatever's left to them? As long as the coasts have this political millstone, there's no reason to believe that they'll be able to swim up to what they really want. Massachusetts and Maryland, California and Connecticut can step aside and like Mississippi and Missouri, Texas and Tennessee shrivel and die, clinging to their guns, gold and whatever god-bothering they want.
Nothing like giving folks what they want - that's democracy, after all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:00AM (7 children)
Absolutely agree on universal healthcare.
Education? WTF do you mean? We already have an education system (that sucks) that forcibly takes money from citizens, even to the point of seizing their home and property and auctioning it at pennies on the dollar to pay for the very broken horrible wasteful "education system". Home schooled and private schooled children are leaps and bounds ahead of the horrific public school system. More $ thrown at it will fix it? All my life I've observed that complaint and more and more and more $ thrown into the giant money pit of public "education". Not enough time to discuss the mindset of people who suck on the tit of taxation. Let's just say they're not the most productive people. And then you have the problem of children's horrific behavior and how discipline is gone. Time for the school system to sue parents of badly behaved children who disrupt the classes and system, often physically harming, beating, even killing teachers, administrators, and other children.
Police reform. Yes, definitely. That's a tricky thing. Much rational psychological analysis needed to figure out how to hire people who can be good police, without hiring the people who enjoy power far too much.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @08:55PM (6 children)
"All your life" which means you're under 30. Things were going alright till around 2000 when means-testing got popular and higher education was defunded in favor of government backed student loans. This made perverse incentives to raise tuition rates every yesr by extreme amounts and spend that money on corrupt projects like new unnecessary buildings. They did similar with some k-12 schools, one place they spent millions on a fancy gym, pool, and track then people complained that more money does nothing.
Yes, it does nothing when the money is not spent on hiring more teachers and better materials for the actual students. Republican motto: "Government doesn't work, elect us and we'll prove it." Same thing UK conservatives are doing to the NHS because they want to privatize it and suck more money from the working class.
So thanks and good points, but universal education works very well in less-corrupt countries. Private schools can still exist, but saddling young people with insane debt so they can get a shit paying job is a recipe for societal collapse. We're going through it right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @09:41PM
A little before. Remember "America's Bridge to the 21st Century."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @11:35PM (4 children)
Wow, thank you, great post. I'll upmod when I have points.
You're spot-on re: corrupt countries. We have horrifically corrupt corporatocracy here in US.
As other AC wrote, it was more like 1980 when the huge tuition increases started. And "free market" doesn't fix it. Once you've started at university A, you lose credits and incur many other overhead costs to move to university B.
Funny you mention "unnecessary buildings". University I attended has been doing that aggressively for the past 20+ years.
How can we clean up the corruption? Better asked, since the corrupt people are in power, how do you replace them? Wasn't it Trump who ran on "drain the swamp"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @01:50AM (1 child)
By voting for somebody else. The entire House of Representatives is up for grabs every two years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:36PM
Yeah, we do. It's always a crapshoot between dumb and dumber, or bad and worse. Many vote D or R because. Many vote for someone but wish for some things from the other.
Cynical me thinks that the whole system is so corrupt that only corrupt people even get involved and run for office.
How about: no parties. Just represent We The People?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @03:01AM (1 child)
And the huge tuition increases are the direct result of too much "student loan" money.
When students pay for their schooling with free money (and to an 18 year old, a student loan is "free money" -- few yet even begin to understand what a "student loan" means, they lose all desire to care one bit what their school of choice charges per year.
When the schools learn that the students are no longer price sensitive, they realize they can charge whatever they want, and the students will just pay (by pulling in more "free money") whatever the school asks, then the schools all start increasing their tuition at a rapid pace, in order to grab more of that "free money".
The sad part is that this very exact scenario is taught, in those same schools, in the Econ. department, when the economic theory gets brought out that pumping too many free dollars into a market leads to rampant price inflation. The student loans pumped loads of dollars into the university tuition market, and what was the result? Rampant inflation of the costs of college. Just exactly like the Econ. theory predicts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2022, @09:41PM
You could not be more correct. In fact, I took 3 econ courses and learned all that good stuff.
Every time a school or "education system" whines about needing more money and raising taxes, all I can think about is how the greedy leeches latch on and soak up more of the $. Same goes for medicine of course. It's a runaway system.
I feel strongly that econ should be required courses in much or most of K - 12, certainly high school. I have to wonder how different (better?) the US and maybe the whole world would be if people were more in tune with economic forces, power of money, etc. Instead of buying the cheapest thing possible at X-mart, buy that slightly more expensive, made in somewhere other than China thing, for the betterment of the future for all.