It's time for Federal Guaranteed Employment

terp said:

Do you think that our efforts to help the poor have increased or decreased social mobility in this country?  Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy against the poor?  

I think that our efforts to help the rich have ABSOLUTELY hurt the poor and yes I do think they represent a conspiracy against the poor and the middle class. 

Klinker said:

terp saido you think that our efforts to help the poor have increased or decreased social mobility in this country?  Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy against the poor?  

I think that our efforts to help the rich have ABSOLUTELY hurt the poor and yes I do think they represent a conspiracy against the poor and the middle class. 

 Ok.  Which efforts to help the rich and hurt the poor?

terp said:

Klinker said:

terp saido you think that our efforts to help the poor have increased or decreased social mobility in this country?  Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy against the poor?  

I think that our efforts to help the rich have ABSOLUTELY hurt the poor and yes I do think they represent a conspiracy against the poor and the middle class. 

 Ok.  Which efforts to help the rich and hurt the poor?

 Yeah, I could have a 100 post argument with you about that but I am just going to skip to the end and stipulate that we almost certainly don't agree about that.  If you really want the details you can review the archives and read one of the countless threads that have already covered this topic.

You make a compelling argument.  

Not....one....example...

There are many types of government subsidies to many types of businesses,

Now a case can be made that they benefit the employees of said businesses but they also benefit the stockholders.

LOST said:
There are many types of government subsidies to many types of businesses,
Now a case can be made that they benefit the employees of said businesses but they also benefit the stockholders.

 I agree.  And you won't find me defending those. 

jimmurphy said:
Shoshana, 


This idea certainly has merit and warrants study, however if the baby gets a UBI right away, this will incentivize the poor to have more children, which is not really a good thing, IMO. 


Unless you are suggesting that the money be put in a trust or something?

This post just shows how deeply ingrained into our brains is the notion that the poor are evil people who will have kids just to get a few more bucks from the government.

terp said:

Klinker said:

terp saido you think that our efforts to help the poor have increased or decreased social mobility in this country?  Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy against the poor?  

I think that our efforts to help the rich have ABSOLUTELY hurt the poor and yes I do think they represent a conspiracy against the poor and the middle class. 

 Ok.  Which efforts to help the rich and hurt the poor?

omigod - are you actually going to play dumb to the idea that government economic/labor/welfare/education policy for the last 40 years has done nothing but help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else?

jeebus, what do they feed you Austrians* anyway?

(*a reference to followers of those keerazy Austrian economists)

the systematic marginalization of labor unions certainly has had a negative effect on a whole lot of working peop. 

ml1 said:
the systematic marginalization of labor unions certainly has had a negative effect on a whole lot of working peop. 

of course. Like the growing numbers of "right to work" states. Like the ongoing attempts to decimate public employee unions. After years of starvation-level education budgets, our teachers are (finally) revolting across the country because they're paid like sh!t.

Is someone actually going to try and argue that all that stuff is good for the working person?

drummerboy said:

terp said:

Klinker said:

terp saido you think that our efforts to help the poor have increased or decreased social mobility in this country?  Do you really think there is some kind of conspiracy against the poor?  

I think that our efforts to help the rich have ABSOLUTELY hurt the poor and yes I do think they represent a conspiracy against the poor and the middle class. 

 Ok.  Which efforts to help the rich and hurt the poor?

omigod - are you actually going to play dumb to the idea that government economic/labor/welfare/education policy for the last 40 years has done nothing but help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else?
jeebus, what do they feed you Austrians* anyway?



(*a reference to followers of those keerazy Austrian economists)

It's apparently crazy to ask for clarifications now.    

ml1 said:
the systematic marginalization of labor unions certainly has had a negative effect on a whole lot of working peop. 

 OK.  Well maybe.  But I would be a bit more precise.   Any "marginalization" of unions has a negative effect on union members. Those in the club get higher wages as the union controls the supply of labor.  But everyone else pays more for whatever good or service is being produced by this labor.  Rich, poor, what have you.  Most people miss this as it is an indirect effect.  The seen and the unseen.

drummerboy said:

ml1 said:
the systematic marginalization of labor unions certainly has had a negative effect on a whole lot of working peop. 

of course. Like the growing numbers of "right to work" states. Like the ongoing attempts to decimate public employee unions. After years of starvation-level education budgets, our teachers are (finally) revolting across the country because they're paid like sh!t.


Is someone actually going to try and argue that all that stuff is good for the working person?

 Education budgets are not at starvation levels by any objective measure.  See chart.  Perhaps teachers unions should lobby for fewer administrators and then they can get some of that salary.  

I'm not sure who you're arguing with, but it sure seems like you're arguing with a straw man.  Education is a disaster in this country.  It is a disaster created by government and unions.  It is not due to any keeeraaazees cutting funding. 

Different parts of the nation have different standards of living.  Would the UBI be flat for all or based on location?   If the latter, what's to preclude mass migrations to higher paying regions, which would incur more costs to the system? If it's flat, might it not drastically decrease populations of cities?

A second danger is that UBI may encourage more reliance on AI.  The more my daily needs are covered, the less I feel the need to pay attention to politics, getting or continuing an education, making career goals, etc.  

looking at education costs aggregated across the entire U.S. gives a somewhat distorted picture.  States like CA, NY, and NJ have decided to pay teachers as professionals.  Costs are up dramatically in those states.  But in the places where teachers are striking, like Oklahoma, teacher compensation has been falling in inflation adjusted dollars.  There are many, many states where education spending on inflation adjusted terms has been falling for about 30 years.

How tax cuts for the rich led to the Oklahoma teachers strike

I know that on this board there are a number of people who are disdainful of the teaching profession, teachers, and teacher's unions.  But like everything else, you get what you pay for.  If you pay teachers like McDonald's fry cooks, you're not going to get as many bright people with expertise.

ml1 said:
looking at education costs aggregated across the entire U.S. gives a somewhat distorted picture.  States like CA, NY, and NJ have decided to pay teachers as professionals.  Costs are up dramatically in those states.  But in the places where teachers are striking, like Oklahoma, teacher compensation has been falling in inflation adjusted dollars.  There are many, many states where education spending on inflation adjusted terms has been falling for about 30 years.
How tax cuts for the rich led to the Oklahoma teachers strike

I know that on this board there are a number of people who are disdainful of the teaching profession, teachers, and teacher's unions.  But like everything else, you get what you pay for.  If you pay teachers like McDonald's fry cooks, you're not going to get as many bright people with expertise.

That's possible. I haven't really seen the state numbers.  I did look for an Oklahoma historical educational spending graph, but I can't seem to find one.  However, in the aggregate there does not seem to be any nefarious plan to cut education spending.  There seems to be a trend of growing administration spending though.

I am not disdainful of the teaching profession at all.  It is a critical function of society.  That being said, I do think our public schools are failing.  Overall, 2/3 of college freshmen require remedial classes in math & English.  I think you would agree that this is unacceptable.  

I just can't have this discussion again.

Nobody is making you discuss this issue.  All I am saying is that the decline in the quality of education is not due to some nefarious plot by the rich.  If it were there would actually be evidence of it.  The statistics are clear.  As spending has increased quality has decreased.   We can discuss reasons why, but there's no evidence it's  due to the rich screwing over the poor.

terp said:

Overall, 2/3 of college freshmen require remedial classes in math & English.  I think you would agree that this is unacceptable.  

Before others take at face value that statement, which terp has floated before (though it appears to have gone up from 60 percent), they might want to look into the study behind it in a little more detail. It has some holes in it. From a couple of years ago:

DaveSchmidt said:

terp said:

I wasn't referring to those statistics.  I was referring to the previously cited statistics that 60% of college entrants require remedial courses entering college.  When I first heard about this my reaction was "16%?  That's a pretty big problem." I was blown away when I heard it was 60%.  

Like a lot of "blow away" statistics, this one warrants some scrutiny. You'll find it's "as many as" 60 percent. You'll find it encompasses all postsecondary schools, including "nonselective (open access) institutions." You'll find it comes with an acknowledgment that "readiness standards vary widely across states and across institutions within states, which further clouds the meaning of national statistics on remedial rates." You might find other caveats, too, like the ones that jfburch and I briefly discussed in an earlier Education thread. As always, whether you find them useful or not is up to you.

And note that the chart that terp posted earlier, which came from a BidNet article, has an x axis that, among its distortions and cherry-picking, treats 1950 to 1953 as the same span as 1900 to 1930. Also, the spending that’s reflected includes higher education.

Here’s a truer representation, from usgovernmentspending.com, which was the source of the data used by BidNet. It shows only K-12 spending.

drummerboy said

This post just shows how deeply ingrained into our brains is the notion that the poor are evil people who will have kids just to get a few more bucks from the government

Nope, that post showed how the desperately poor will sometimes do anything to get more money to put a roof over their heads and feed themselves, including have children.

terp said:

Overall, 2/3 of college freshmen require remedial classes in math & English.  I think you would agree that this is unacceptable.  

 Where does this number come from?

dave23 said:

terp said:

Overall, 2/3 of college freshmen require remedial classes in math & English.  I think you would agree that this is unacceptable.  

 Where does this number come from?

 Seems like it varies, and some students need one or the other, not necessarily both.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/e...

ridski said:

dave23 said:

terp said:

Overall, 2/3 of college freshmen require remedial classes in math & English.  I think you would agree that this is unacceptable.  

 Where does this number come from?

 Seems like it varies, and some students need one or the other, not necessarily both.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/e...

 Thanks. I made the mistake of thinking that this number (it's high, but not 2/3) applied only to four-year schools. Turns out 1/5 of freshmen require remedial work, and a lot more of those starting 2-year schools do.

DaveSchmidt said:
And note that the chart that terp posted earlier, which came from a BidNet article, has an x axis that, among its distortions and cherry-picking, treats 1950 to 1953 as the same span as 1900 to 1930. Also, the spending that’s reflected includes higher education.
Here’s a truer representation, from usgovernmentspending.com, which was the source of the data used by BidNet. It shows only K-12 spending.

 If we take your graph, I don't think it changes the fact that there has not been a trend to starve education of funds.  I think its more likely to how those funds are spent. 

Regarding how many High School grads are not prepared for post-High School work, I think we can quibble on the exact numbers as they are up for interpretation(different states reporting differently, 2 and 4 year colleges, non-college seeking not quantified).  That being said, these numbers are not good. 

But this all stems from the argument that I and people like me are "keerazy" because we don't believe that "policy for the last 40 years has done nothing but help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else?" is a pretty empty one, and in fact I think I might call it "keerazy".   

This is of course obvious.  It's just not something you will point out because the person who made the assertion thinks like you do. 

terp said:
There are no guarantees in life and everything isn't always totally fair. However, if you work hard, conduct yourself well, you will move forward.  
I would agree that education is an issue.  However, AFAICT the more the government gets involved and the further that government is from the community, the more of a mess they seem to make. 

We ought to make a list of things the government does well to remind you that this is not true categorically. It's really easy for us to think of examples of government messing up, and a person on any point on the political spectrum can do this.

Do you like your GPS? The federal government runs the satellites.

terp said:
But this all stems from the argument that I and people like me are "keerazy" because we don't believe that "policy for the last 40 years has done nothing but help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else?" is a pretty empty one, and in fact I think I might call it "keerazy".   
This is of course obvious.  It's just not something you will point out because the person who made the assertion thinks like you do. 

 How, then, do you account for the huge growth in the disparity of wealth over the past 40 years? If it's not policy, then what caused it?

terp said:
Nobody is making you discuss this issue.  All I am saying is that the decline in the quality of education is not due to some nefarious plot by the rich.  If it were there would actually be evidence of it.  The statistics are clear.  As spending has increased quality has decreased.   We can discuss reasons why, but there's no evidence it's  due to the rich screwing over the poor.

 "Nefarious plot" ? Not how I would characterize it but things happen for a reason. We've had Public Schools as the principal source of education since the 19th century. We had Teacher's Unions since the late 50s and early 60s.

What changed?  In 1954 the Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in the schools. That led to long, drawn-out and at times violent turmoil and to "white flight" from Public Schools and from urban areas (not completely related to the education issue). Public school populations became more minority and society's view of public schools diminished.

Women's Liberation gave women more choices of profession so that the "best and brightest" were far less likely to choose teaching as a career.

I also think the student-led revolts of the 60s led certain elements of the ruling class to conclude that perhaps too much education was not such a great thing. Less education might result in a more malleable work force. 

There are other political forces at work as well, principally the alliance by Teachers' Unions with the Democratic Party.

I do not mean this as an in-depth analysis. It's just off the top of my head and could be completely right or partially right. I am not completely wrong.

Tom_Reingold said:

terp said:
But this all stems from the argument that I and people like me are "keerazy" because we don't believe that "policy for the last 40 years has done nothing but help the wealthy at the expense of everyone else?" is a pretty empty one, and in fact I think I might call it "keerazy".   
This is of course obvious.  It's just not something you will point out because the person who made the assertion thinks like you do. 

 How, then, do you account for the huge growth in the disparity of wealth over the past 40 years? If it's not policy, then what caused it?

 I anticipate that Terp believes it results principally from government interference in the economy.

terp said:
There are no guarantees in life and everything isn't always totally fair. However, if you work hard, conduct yourself well, you will move forward.  

History suggests that merely working hard and conducting oneself well does not ensure "moving forward."

dave23 said:

terp said:
There are no guarantees in life and everything isn't always totally fair. However, if you work hard, conduct yourself well, you will move forward.  

History suggests that merely working hard and conducting oneself well does not ensure "moving forward."

 For a thousand years serfs worked their arses off and rarely made it beyond the borders of their own villages.

DaveSchmidt said:
And note that the chart that terp posted earlier, which came from a BidNet article, has an x axis that, among its distortions and cherry-picking, treats 1950 to 1953 as the same span as 1900 to 1930. Also, the spending that’s reflected includes higher education.
Here’s a truer representation, from usgovernmentspending.com, which was the source of the data used by BidNet. It shows only K-12 spending.

Do these numbers include all K-12 expenditures including healthcare, energy, facilities?  If so, given that those costs have increased at a much higher rate than wages, it certainly suggests that wages are being squeezed rather hard.