Jan 16, 2022 17:07:12 GMT c said:

Jan 16, 2022 10:34:50 GMT iNCY said:

You might be right.
I have travelled a lot and am familiar with different employment conditions.
As you know here we have a good society, but it maintained by controlling the spread of wages.
Heaps of my mates are on union jobs and the good workers cant get paid more because enterprise bargaining makes it illegal foran employer to pay anyone more than someone else.

That's the way it works here, high minimum wages but you have to do seven times the work of someone on the minimum wage to make 50% more.

I also think our university repayment rules are nonsense the way people don't have to repay until they earn a certain amount per year, creates full time students in dead end jobs.

Unions are a product of socialism.

Everything the right in the US calls socialism you all already have.  Free healthcare.  Strict gun control.  High min wages.  Unions.  Welfare for abled bodied adults.  Green energy programs.  Living wages.  Publicly funded higher education.  The right to vote without impediment.  Worker rights.  Women's rights.  Taxes on the your rich and corporations that have to be paid.  Government mandated COVID response.  You literally let illegal immigrants live on islands.  Hell, you do not even elect an absolute leader and instead use a parliamentary system.

Your opposition party is the labour party, a socialist party.  How much clearer does this need to get.  To the American right, you are what will happen if we allow democrats to push their policies.

As I have said to you numerous times, if the US launched an Australian suite of policies your country would be bankrupt.
If you had our minimum wages, there would be thousands upon thousands of US citizens out of work tomorrow.
This is not a guess, US companies are the most labor intensive and draconian businesses in the first world.

What your brief googling wouldn't have told you is that we have ZERO automotive manufacturing left in the country.
The auto-makers wanted the salaries to be performance based and our shit-stain unions would rather win an ideological battle than preserve the jobs of thousands of workers.

In my industry there is a machine that replaces one to two workers off each production line, in a factory here that's about 15 people per shift across three shifts.
There is not one factory that doesn't have these machines.
Minimum salary is 65k and three shifts is 195k and the machine is around 200k.
Nearly every plant I visit in the US has these machines hand-fed because it is economically viable to do so. at 18k per year per worker.
I am not saying this is the way the world should work, only that it is:

McDonalds:



Grocery shopping:




Airports:




I am neither a pessimist or an optimist, I am a REALIST.

Jan 17, 2022 5:40:50 GMT KITN said:

No, again, fuck that. A degree shouldn't be some kind of holy grail that only the most special of boys can have the privilege of obtaining. Everyone should have the ability and the means to reach higher education if that's what they desire, and it should be attainable to them without having to drown in debt for the rest of your life, you sociopath.

if you want higher education to be a fundamental right, then go and open it to everyone.
The problem is only if you seek to be rewarded as if your education is exceptional when it would be commonplace.

I don't expect you to understand, you have demonstrated no ability to grapple with any sort of complex issue.
But by all means, label me a sociopath if that makes your worldview nice and simple to consume.
It won't fix anything, but it will make your world simpler, and I doubt if you can tell the difference between the two concepts.

Absolutely do not support any society that needs to have a large group suffer so the others can live comfortably. You say it is not possible to raise the quality of life for all workers, I saw watch Americans do just that. Frankly there is no reason we cannot do what every other first world country already figured out except for corporate greed.

What is happening now is what the rich have sowed for years though. They told people if they cannot afford to raise a family do not start one. They told people that if you can't afford a house you do not deserve one. So people put off having families and dogpile into houses to save cash.

They told people if they cannot their rent to just start a side hustle. Now people are quitting their jobs and living off that side hustle short term until they find a new one.

They told kids that no one deserves a free education. Enrollment is dropping in every college now and kids are starting to move into trade based careers. Give it 8 years or so and jobs will be complaining they cannot find skilled workers and be forced to finally pay to train workers or risk losing profits.

They told people that no one deserves free healthcare. Now close to a million are dead, with several million more disabled, almost every employer needs to find replacements for their work staff that died or can no longer work.

And most importantly, every seen what they did with they did with the last bailout, and next time, voters will pressure democrats to just let the housing market and crypto industries fail.

More people now than ever know that what happens with the economy has almost zero effect on their daily lives. They will not jack up the debt trillions of dollars to save corporations again.

While I would love to roast Bezos alive and swim in a pool of his money, what workers are doing now is clawing back some of the profits for themselves.  The pandemic showed people what they can reasonably live without, and the lower classes if prices rise on many items will simply no longer pay for them, as as the survivors of the great depression did.  Money will slowly flow back towards the people.  And corporate America better pray that the US does not split, as half the states are more than happy to move to a democratic socialist state.  And the other half will have freedom but Alabama and Mississippi are states most Americans actively avoid as it is.  Imagine what will happen if the GOP were in charge and slashes most federal anti-poverty measures?  There are literally rivers of shit right now in those states since many cannot afford septic tanks, what happens when they get even poorer?

///

And behave people. People can have differences of political opinions. Not like any of the ideals will ever work in reality anyway as every single pure idea gets so much pork and hidden amendments when politicians get ahold of it that we are most arguing fantasy not reality. You fight for idealistics extremes because the actual implementation will be a piss poor representation of what anyone wants as you let 100 different people tack on their pet projects and exemptions. This is the "compromise" of politics. Until we find a way to remove the influence of money and power from politics, we all got to live with it.

Also it is reasonable for people out of the country to not know the ins and outs of more regional or local politics.  I mean, Mississippi is not a place most people outside of America learn shit about, outside of it is the worst state in almost every measure and never to visit there if you can avoid it.

And since I brought it, Mississippi has implemented the exact society that the GOP wants. They cut almost all socialist programs and want people to work for what they have. The results speak for themselves.

Number 1 in poverty rate. Two income households make about 50k a year. Wages are set to min 7.25 an hour, when most of the country pays 15 and hour.

Worst performing schools in the nation.

15% of people there cannot read or write.

Most companies will not put any job that requires more than a elementary school education if they can at all avoid it because only 32% of the state is college educated, and only another 30% or so have the equal to a high school education using national standards. As a result they have the worst economy in the US.

Almost no one has healthcare and the life expectancy is amount the lowest in the US. Only time many go to the doctor is when kids give birth. Mississippi has the highest rate of teen pregnancy since they do not teach sex ed and it is common to have kids in high school.

Infrastructure is near the worst in the US with bridges collapsing. Most homes have serious problems as well, and boarded up windows is just expected, as are straight holes in the houses. Many houses lack electricity and indoor plumbing, and those with indoor plumbing in rural areas just run shit pipes out of their house and drain their shit into the yard because they have no septic systems.

A large minority do not even own cars, just a tractor they attach a hitch to so people can ride in a trailer that they take out as their main form of transportation.  

The state is so awful to live in, there is a phrase in the South, "Thank God for Mississippi." No matter how bad your life is, it could always be worse, you could be living in Mississippi who is the worst state for everything.

Alabama is not much better than Mississippi but they got sports teams at least.  West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, ect all have similar problems.  Jobs just do not want to really lay down hard roots in these states, as despite the low taxes, the politics of the states make it almost impossible to attract skilled workers, and sometimes even literate ones.

This is how we know what the GOP wants does not work. Because they tried it in their own states, and they are absolute shitholes. The reddest states in America are also the absolute worst in every metric of measurement including economies. Meanwhile the most liberal ones are often the best in the country in terms of education, economy, healthcare, ect. Cali is the most liberal state in the US and about to do universal healthcare, while having the best economy. This is how we know socialist policies actually work. It is not a matter of what if, we seen what red states and blue states look like when local politics are able to align to right wing and left wing ideas. It really is night and day.  

If the GOP ideas could work, they would have by now.

Jan 17, 2022 6:46:52 GMT c said:

They told people if they cannot afford to raise a family do not start one. They told people that if you can't afford a house you do not deserve one. So people put off having families and dogpile into houses to save cash.

They told people if they cannot their rent to just start a side hustle. Now people are quitting their jobs and living off that side hustle short term until they find a new one.

How is this not good advice?

It might be heartbreaking to hear, but it's good advice.

If you can't afford a family, don't commit to starting one. If you can't afford a house - don't buy one, or buy within your means or better, below it to ensure an increased degree of financial stability.

Less than a generation ago, if you couldn't afford the rent or mortgage, you worked a second job. That was life. Or you sacrificed. That's how adults dealt with difficult times. You didn't blame the capitalists and don a Guy Fawkes mask.

Our Grandparent's generation would be embarrassed listening to some Generation Z's lists of expectations.. no entitlements z versus the minimal effort and work ethic put in to achieve it.

You don't deserve a big, new home because you expect it or want it. And just because the bank will let you borrow until you're blue in the face, doesn't mean you should. Work for it. Earn it.

It becomes a problem when the US population growth slows as our social security system depends on having more people working than retiring to fund it. As the boomers retire, they may not be enough social security to pay them.

I am sure the Boomers will be totally ok though without their entitlements.

Median for houses in my area are 700k. Median income is 40k. Figure gonna need 10k of that to survive with a bear minimum standard of living, so just have to live at home until you are 50 before you can start a family.

What part of this seems reasonable?

Again though, we have state that embrace the attitude of no entitlements and people should earn what they want. They have the worst economics in the country, people have the lowest quality of life in them and die 10 to 15 years earlier.

States with socialist programs have some of the best economics in the US, people have far higher qualities of life and live longer.

So tell me again why we would adapt the bootstrap attitude when it is clear that states with socialist programs are far better off for people and business?

Jan 17, 2022 6:46:52 GMT c said:

Absolutely do not support any society that needs to have a large group suffer so the others can live comfortably. You say it is not possible to raise the quality of life for all workers, I saw watch Americans do just that. Frankly there is no reason we cannot do what every other first world country already figured out except for corporate greed.

Except they didn't figure anything out... You get that?

Countries overseas have overseen the destruction of their low-skill manufacturing sectors and replaced those jobs with cheap imported products.
Visit Singapore and find out what people do if they're not academically gifted, it might surprise you.
There's also a big difference in what can be done in a geographically concentrated country of 10-50 million versus a country the size and scale of the USA.
You think it is corporate greed standing in the way, because this suits your worldview, you are too blind to see human nature as it is.
Self interest always wins, the same people who are losing their jobs to Walmart are shopping there.

I know you want socialism, just have the courage to ask for it through the front door rather than the anti-work and such movements seeking to propagate communist philosophy through another name.
if I am wrong, tell me what jobs people currently on minimum wage are going to do once replaced with automation.

You won't answer though, you never answer you just make sweeping generalizations.
My country is going broke, sociliased democracies cannot work as people envisage they should.
Unless you are going to invent money AOC style.

The point of this thread was the rise of the anti-work sentiment.
I agree too, I ma anti-work... I just don't know why more people don't decide to play the game properly.
Maybe I am not neuro-typical but most of the approaches and views in this thread make sense to me, they are emotional appeals to a system without feelings.

My specialization in work is "Systems" (no offence System) and the trick to working on any system is to understand how it operates.
To imagine that a system has grown out of the whims of the uber-rich is ironic coming from a group of people who generally frown on intelligent design.
The system built the system because the system is representative of the people (as a whole) who created it, which is all of us and our ancestors.

Again, why are the worst states economically, the ones that embrace these ideologies while the ones who embrace more socialist ideals among the top states in the country economically.

Jan 17, 2022 10:01:05 GMT c said:

Again, why are the worst states economically, the ones that embrace these ideologies while the ones who embrace more socialist ideals among the top states in the country economically.

By what metric?
Not that you answered any of my questions.

Metrics are generally GDP. But also education, quality of life, lifespan, healthcare, corporate growth, private patents, income and so on.

These states do not fund education. Then companies do not want to use workers in most Southern states due to low education rates, literacy issues and unfamiliarity with computers. So they do not invest in these communities. These communities then lack growth as anyone who can leave tends to leave and college graduates tend not to return since there is no work in deep red states, and the work that does exist pays far less than it does in other states.

Jan 17, 2022 10:50:21 GMT c said:

Metrics are generally GDP. But also education, quality of life, lifespan, healthcare, corporate growth, private patents, income and so on.

These states do not fund education. Then companies do not want to use workers in most Southern states due to low education rates, literacy issues and unfamiliarity with computers. So they do not invest in these communities. These communities then lack growth as anyone who can leave tends to leave and college graduates tend not to return since there is no work in deep red states, and the work that does exist pays far less than it does in other states.

That's what I thought you were going to say.
Interesting to look at the numbers beneath it though:

California has a GDP per capita of $85,460 which sounds impressive, placing it as 7th in the USA.
On per Capita income it is  $30,441 which sits it in 16th place.

Not sure where this sits as a beacon of equality...
Keep in mind I am not saying that it should, you are...
The more people you have in a state making a decent wage, the more baristas there are to pay.

Jan 17, 2022 5:33:59 GMT iNCY said:

Jan 16, 2022 15:39:31 GMT nazzer said:

To raise some, you have to take from somewhere... 

I mean, I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Which is fine. Surely there is a better way than have a class system that relies upon certain amount of people to be poor.

If the system requires some to be 'have nots' in order for you to 'have' then why should the have nots even bother trying? Why bother working? If your system you espouse touts for some to be have nots, then surely you can understand why those people who are resigned to be have nots would just stop participating in the system... thus, the anti work movement

Jan 16, 2022 21:02:33 GMT NATH45 said:

nazzer , I've just tried to understand where it stems from, as opposed to just banging a drum and screaming " capitalism bad! " which is what everyone seems to do on topics like this, in regards to the great resignation. Which I started a thread on.

And all in all, some degree of personal responsibility. If I've studied and obtained a degree in a somewhat niche field with limited options for engaging and satisfying employment and thus, value, I've got to consider maybe my individual choice wasn't the best, at least in regards to what is available in the job market. And trust, I've been there myself.

I've also promoted looking at "work" differently a number of times, particularly in response to the covid pandemic and what is largely 2 years of lost times, socially. And I've been critical of the hustle mentality that is incredibly toxic.

I don't have anything smart to reply to this, but just wanted to express an appreciation for your thoughts here. 

What matters is the traditional southern GOP states that implements the GOP dream society blueprints are solidly in the bottom of almost every metric of assessment. The only areas of them that are surviving are generally Dem run cities. The rest are becoming ghost towns. And the poverty in these states is unreal. Like families living without water or power in their houses poor and children only eating when they go to school since the family lives off the land poor.


As for making socialism work, it is fairly easy here to fund. Have the US do like every other country does and make paying taxes not optional for corporations and the wealthy. Right now most billionaires have effective tax rates of 0 due to loopholes and corporations can lobby to for tax write offs to be added to spending bills and also pay 0. No other civilized country in the world believes the wealthiest people should pay less absolute taxes than the lower middle class. Close the tax loopholes, makes taxes no longer optional for corporations and the wealthy and stop giving the rich and corporations welfare and we can fund at least universal healthcare. That alone will see the real profit of most workers jump up and allow southerners to actually seek healthcare instead of drinking their own urine to fight COVID.

Jan 17, 2022 11:34:58 GMT nazzer said:

Jan 17, 2022 5:33:59 GMT iNCY said:

To raise some, you have to take from somewhere... 

I mean, I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Which is fine. Surely there is a better way than have a class system that relies upon certain amount of people to be poor.

If the system requires some to be 'have nots' in order for you to 'have' then why should the have nots even bother trying? Why bother working? If your system you espouse touts for some to be have nots, then surely you can understand why those people who are resigned to be have nots would just stop participating in the system... thus, the anti work movement

This is the nature of inequality though.  The US by design was a society where a few would live like kings, while the rest would be servants to them whether they were immigrants in slums, slaves or indentured servants.  And this attitude never died.  This is why we are one of the only countries with people worth over 100 billion and corporations valued at over a trillion dollars.  No other first world country will tolerate this degree of inequality.  And their worth currently doubles every two years.

Jan 17, 2022 11:45:21 GMT c said:

Jan 17, 2022 11:34:58 GMT nazzer said:

This is the nature of inequality though.  The US by design was a society where a few would live like kings, while the rest would be servants to them whether they were immigrants in slums, slaves or indentured servants.  And this attitude never died.  This is why we are one of the only countries with people worth over 100 billion and corporations valued at over a trillion dollars.  No other first world country will tolerate this degree of inequality.  And their worth currently doubles every two years.

This is nonsense

Jan 17, 2022 11:34:58 GMT nazzer said:

Jan 17, 2022 5:33:59 GMT iNCY said:

To raise some, you have to take from somewhere... 

I mean, I fundamentally disagree with your premise. Which is fine. Surely there is a better way than have a class system that relies upon certain amount of people to be poor.

If the system requires some to be 'have nots' in order for you to 'have' then why should the have nots even bother trying? Why bother working? If your system you espouse touts for some to be have nots, then surely you can understand why those people who are resigned to be have nots would just stop participating in the system... thus, the anti work movement

You can fundamentally disagree with a whole range of scientific principals, I don't much expect that gravity cares whether we reject it or not.
What we are talking about here is no different and I am not cheerleading for it, I am just saying that it is the way the world works.

If we look at the first law of thermodynamics:




For the most part (let's ignore quantum mechanics) the amount of energy before and after the system remains the same.
Economics is not really any different.
There is the size of the economy, which is the total spending power of a nation, plus exports, plus debt.
That is it, a finite amount of resources.
if we are saying that people need a greater share of that money, new money is not created unless someone borrows it.
For someone to get more, someone has to get less, it is the literal truth of economics whether it be at a company, at a household level or as a nation.

And you are exactly right, the underclass is playing a mugs game, they can never make it because as their wages rise, costs rise, the system is a closed loop.
The only method of control you have is limiting the wages of some to boost the wages of others, this is what my country does pretty much through tax and welfare.
It is a fine balancing act, because as you rightly point out the under class of workers can jack-up and refuse to work...
That would hurt no doubt, but when the people who literally drive the economy check-out that's when you get USSR levels of a nation falling apart.

I am not saying it is right, I am not saying it is fair I am just saying that it is.

Where the world is all up it's own arse at the moment is asset classes like Bitcoin and TESLA convincing people they're rich.
It's like buying a pallet of bricks for 2k and selling a brick to yourself for 10k and then claiming your pallet is worth 10 million, sell it all and I will agree.
Some people have made bank... Most still have their money in play.

iNCY, I can't read that. You have bastardized the word science in an attempt to make a metaphor. Colour me a scientist or something, but my Bachelor of Science majoring in chemistry just recoiled at everything you typed in the word of science. I just puked in my own mouth a little. Science =/= economics.

I'm saying the world can work a different way than that if we wanted it to.

But like literally due to how average works if some have more others have less. And amount you work does not determine wages. People who do manual labor are often paid less than office workers despite working in far more exhausting conditions.

And again, in the US we found when you promote economic freedom you get states like Mississippi or Alabama that have collapsed economies. So we shown that it does not work and in fact the opposite is true, when you tax and provide welfare everyone is better off as is in seen in many dark blue states.  We literally had states try it your way and they failed miserably.  States went closer to my fav and have incredible economic success.

The logic is also there.  States that do not invest their people are getting left behind as their people then are just not smart enough to self-teach or learn complex skills that will be needed in the computer based society the US is transitioning too.  Red states will graduate students who cannot read and cannot do algebra at all.  Like x + 5 = 6 is fucking voodoo to them.  

Jan 17, 2022 12:27:07 GMT nazzer said:

iNCY , I can't read that. You have bastardized the word science in an attempt to make a metaphor. Colour me a scientist or something, but my Bachelor of Science majoring in chemistry just recoiled at everything you typed in the word of science. I just puked in my own mouth a little. Science =/= economics.

I'm saying the world can work a different way than that if we wanted it to.

Okay, so show me where it has successfully worked a different way? China? Cuba? Russia? Venezuela?
it's easy to wave your hand expansively and say 'There has to be a better way"

But what is it? Are you going to introduce more money into the system? or are you going to redistribute the money already in the system?
They are your two options and I am all ears if you have a way to do either without blowing up the economy.

There is a better way, it involves in creating a generation of innovators and creators and then creating the conditions for those people to succeed.
Of course such mechanisms are not fair...

It's weird how someone being rich is a big problem but someone making it in the NFL or NBA or the Olympics isn't... I mean isn't it all just unfair genetics at the end of the day?

Doesn't have to be all or nothing. Closing the inequality gap is considered good economically though as it leads to greater economic growth overall. And again, it checks out logically, when people on the low end have more money they spend money. People on the high end of the inequality gap remove the money from society to avoid it being taxed.

Jan 17, 2022 12:28:46 GMT c said:

But like literally due to how average works if some have more others have less. And amount you work does not determine wages. People who do manual labor are often paid less than office workers despite working in far more exhausting conditions.

And again, in the US we found when you promote economic freedom you get states like Mississippi or Alabama that have collapsed economies. So we shown that it does not work and in fact the opposite is true, when you tax and provide welfare everyone is better off as is in seen in many dark blue states.  We literally had states try it your way and they failed miserably.  States went closer to my fav and have incredible economic success.

The logic is also there.  States that do not invest their people are getting left behind as their people then are just not smart enough to self-teach or learn complex skills that will be needed in the computer based society the US is transitioning too.  Red states will graduate students who cannot read and cannot do algebra at all.  Like x + 5 = 6 is fucking voodoo to them.  

The number one key to making any sort of money in this world is to break the link between hours worked and dollars earned.
They don't teach this in school though, they teach NOTHING about how the world works.
Schools are for producing drones for the capitalist machine...
They want people working and indebted desperately lusting after the latest iPhone.

I agree with you c the system is shit.
Sure you can up your education levels, it  just makes you a shinier and slightly large cog in the machine.

As we have discussed many times, the only way to succeed as a society is to completely unhitch ourselves from the "good education, good job, good life, gold watch" nonsense.
The white picket fence and a 9-5 job is a creation of MGM, it existed in the movies years before it was the American way of life.
Work hard and consume harder is the mantra of the machine.

You cannot beat the machine, you cannot talk the machine into paying out.
So you can either understand the machine and make it work for you... Or you can check-out like the anti-work people, won't stop the machine though.

Jan 17, 2022 12:50:15 GMT c said:

Doesn't have to be all or nothing. Closing the inequality gap is considered good economically though as it leads to greater economic growth overall. And again, it checks out logically, when people on the low end have more money they spend money. People on the high end of the inequality gap remove the money from society to avoid it being taxed.

But this is an argument of monetary flow.
You pay people more, they spend more and costs rise to meet the market.
It is how our country works, as long as people keep spending more than they earn the economy grows and wages can grow with it, but the $2 extra in your pocket is a result of spending $3 more than you earnt.
It's all a house of cards.

As much as nazzer, may have vomit in his mouth or whatever, this is the way economics works.

And the larger inequality grows, the less money flows. Money does not flow there is little economy. If a person's whole income goes towards rent, transportation and food, much of the economy will collapse. But as inequality in the US grows many are moving in that direction.


Also the 9-5 life with the house and white picket fence was the reality the baby boomers grew up in. In the 1950's the job you got out of high school paid enough to buy a house on a single income. This was not fantasy but America post WWII until Reagan. Reagan's trickle down economics changed America and started us on the path of hyper-inequality through tax cuts for the wealthy and big businesses and deregulation. Again this is known American history and Reagan's plan did exactly what it was designed to do. Except the rich and businesses then kept the cash and invested in themselves instead of enriching America like everyone claimed it would. They also invested heavily in lobbies to make sure the good times did not end.


As for education I have read a few great takes on reform over the years that I may breakout into a thread. Jist is to do early grades what we teach now plus logic and computing. Middle school let kids specialize in a broad area like science and tech, communication, trade labour, business, ect. Then high school focus on turning knowledge and interests into a career with the goal of having a career and knowledge of the career by graduation. College would then be paid for by industry to prep people to enter the workplace with the skills that companies want and essentially be a labor funnel saving companies training cost and job search costs as they can simply raid the school grad school style for seniors. All bells and whistles would be removed and most goals of college dropped. It becomes straight career training. Never will work in reality until perhaps the higher ed market crashes, or industry starts their own training schools and competes, but fun thought experiment as to what can be done differently if we are willing to tear the current system down.

Jan 17, 2022 13:23:08 GMT c said:

And the larger inequality grows, the less money flows. Money does not flow there is little economy. If a person's whole income goes towards rent, transportation and food, much of the economy will collapse. But as inequality in the US grows many are moving in that direction.


Also the 9-5 life with the house and white picket fence was the reality the baby boomers grew up in. In the 1950's the job you got out of high school paid enough to buy a house on a single income. This was not fantasy but America post WWII until Reagan. Reagan's trickle down economics changed America and started us on the path of hyper-inequality through tax cuts for the wealthy and big businesses and deregulation. Again this is known American history and Reagan's plan did exactly what it was designed to do. Except the rich and businesses then kept the cash and invested in themselves instead of enriching America like everyone claimed it would. They also invested heavily in lobbies to make sure the good times did not end.


As for education I have read a few great takes on reform over the years that I may breakout into a thread. Jist is to do early grades what we teach now plus logic and computing. Middle school let kids specialize in a broad area like science and tech, communication, trade labour, business, ect. Then high school focus on turning knowledge and interests into a career with the goal of having a career and knowledge of the career by graduation. College would then be paid for by industry to prep people to enter the workplace with the skills that companies want and essentially be a labor funnel saving companies training cost and job search costs as they can simply raid the school grad school style for seniors. All bells and whistles would be removed and most goals of college dropped. It becomes straight career training. Never will work in reality until perhaps the higher ed market crashes, or industry starts their own training schools and competes, but fun thought experiment as to what can be done differently if we are willing to tear the current system down.

Make the thread, I like your education model.

What happened in the USA in the 1950's is not unique, neither is it sustainable.
The US out of policy crafted itself a middle class, it did this by selling them on an American dream that didn't exist yet.
Then everyone had to have their picket fence and top load washing machine to compete with the Jones's.
As a result this exploding expenditure of the middle class fueled the middle class, as long as everyone was willing to buy a washing machine then you could pay people a decent wage to make washing machines.

The problem with all emerging middle classes is they hit saturation point, everyone has a washing machine, so you start making televisions, then DVD players.
Pretty soon the market is saturated and there is not the domestic volume to sustain the production of these units.
Then you try to shift the market into higher earning jobs, but there aren't enough of them.

Since the USA did this we have watched it happen on repeat in; Japan, Taiwan, Korea, China
Except these markets realized they could hit the FFWD button on the creation of their middle classes by exporting products to the USA.
The USA consumer couldn't imagine their luck... Imagine being able to earn in the WEST making Cars but then being able to buy a car from the FAR EAST for far less than the cost of the US cars you manufactured.

Of course this then destroys the economies and people are too lazy and stupid to care.
It is the exact opposite of spending $3 to grow the market to get paid $3.
Instead you buy something for $4 and $2 goes to China $1 goes to the shareholders and you get $1 in wages instead of the $4 you had before.
Ain't life grand?

Jan 17, 2022 13:23:08 GMT c said:

And the larger inequality grows, the less money flows. Money does not flow there is little economy. If a person's whole income goes towards rent, transportation and food, much of the economy will collapse. But as inequality in the US grows many are moving in that direction.

On this point specifically, that doesn't help the individual it helps governments, the more that money moves around the economy the greater the share the government collects as taxation.

Saturation was not what killed the middle class here, rather trickle down economics did and deregulation. Deregulation lead to several serious crashes in the stock market and housing markets that wiped out the savings of millions of Americans. Trickle down economics meant that as production increased and cost of living increased wages stayed frozen. They claim it was consumerism, but the excessive consumerism was at the top. It was changes that Reagan made to corporations, in particular allowing corporations to repurchase their stocks, that killed the middle class. Once they could repurchase their sales, the number most important thing to them was profit at all costs as this started the era of the corporated raider and hostile takeovers. All of the money spent on stock was money that used to be spent on better wages, keeping their employees happy or innovation. These days 60% or more of profits are spent on rebuying stocks, which is also why innovation largely stopped in the US entirely. Last year companies were rebuying stock at levels never before seen doing the fun merry go round of taking out loans to pay corporate expensive and using profit to buy stock, knowing the loans are at 0 percent interest. They can leverage their stock against the loans. This essentially allows them to buy stock with loans, a common practice the rich and corporations use to avoid taxes since stocks to the tax code have no value.

Particularly insidious about allowing corporations to buy back stocks, is it is a way for corporate leaders to turn corporate profit into personal profit.  Before corporate profits were kept separate from personal profits so the board could not directly benefit without approval from shareholders or getting taxed.  Now they dump all of the corporate cash into buying stocks, and take their pay in stocks, and they pay no taxes while their asset value increases.  Then they take loans leveraged against their stock holdings to pay their bills.

Suddenly the rich are no longer paying taxes and are incentivized to maximize profits and cut American labor costs.  Fast forward 40 years and suddenly the middle class is disappearing and tax revenue is dropping because no corporations or people are making profits after expenses since they are all leveraging assets for loans and technically not making any profit at all.

Sure there is a risk that the stock market crashes and they lose all their cash, but then they threaten to shut down the businesses entirely unless the American taxpayers pay for their losses with corporate bailouts.  And we have to the tune of trillions of dollars bailing them out during all of the crashes over the years.

I love this place. The 2000 panel summarizes my high school experience in one sentence. Meanwhile McDs is offering more than some places with degree requirements lmao.

This is what we were all told all through school then while job searching. This and well if you just work hard you will easily rise up in a company, despite companies not doing internal promotions in most places.

Teachers around the country are walking out because they make less than 15 an hour in many states still.  Accounts all over from ones who quit and work at walmart or a fast food place and say it is heaven in comparison.  Less stress, less hours and more pay.

Really think 2023 it will be why does no one want to teach anymore, after states are looking at putting in cameras so teachers can be monitored 24/7 to make sure they do not teach any lessons about race, including racial slavery in US history, because it is now a criminal offense.  

Teaching you really have to love it with the shit pay, which often times requires a fucking masters for glorified babysitting for what is actually going down. Basically a non-starter if you're a man, I think there's only like 5 non-tenured men left in teaching. The pandemic parents wanting to be paid handsomely for e-learning meanwhile universally shoot down all levies to increase school budget so they are paid enough to survive.

Certain fields really need addressed because the pay is out of whack. I still can't believe there are places that are literally paying the federal minimum. Like there is no reason to be making less than 15 in this day and age. I see it in my own workspace... like dude the threat of better than mcdonalds is not what it used to be...

That said I do hope we have someone in 🤯 's class of not gonna take this wageslave shit anymore. It ain't gonna be me though.