Posted on 02/08/2015 2:17:20 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg harped on the importance of vocational education and blasted Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana as stupid Friday evening before a sold-out crowd at the Aspen Institute.
When an audience member asked the 72-year-old Bloomberg about Colorado marijuana, he responded that it was a terrible idea, one that is hurting the developing minds of children. Though he admitted to smoking a joint in the 1960s, he said the drug is more accessible and more damaging today.
“What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose IQs are 5 and 10 points lower than they would have been?” he asked. “I couldn’t feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it’s no different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of the stupider things that’s happening across our country.”
On education, Bloomberg said the U.S. should deliver the kind of schooling that will help people become self-sustainable and increase a sense of dignity. If a person has the option of going to Harvard or becoming a plumber, he said he would suggest thinking about the plumbing career.
“The Harvard graduate on average will never catch up to a plumber,” Bloomberg said. “Partially because the first four years — instead of spending $60,000, you make $60,000.”
Cities should create jobs that meet the skills of its residents, he said, not potential residents. In New York City, where $56 million tourists visit annually, Bloomberg said the hospitality and service industries are key. Though some might say those aren’t good jobs, he claimed that a waitress in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel makes $150,000 a year because of strong union negotiations. A waitress in a decent New York restaurant will make $50,000 to $60,000 a year, he said.
Bloomberg, who is now worth $36.6 billion, according to Forbes, said the poor in the U.S. need better education. By the end of his life, he said he’s going to write a book about why the poor remain poor.
“It’s always the poor that get screwed,” said the founder of Bloomberg L.P.
Moderator Jennifer Bradley, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Institute, then asked what the U.S. can do to get people out of poverty. Bloomberg responded that conventional wisdom points to education, but education isn’t going to help uneducated adults. Bradley later asked how government can offer basic fairness to the children “who have been failed.”
Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said.
“These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Bloomberg said. “They just don’t have any long-term focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”
At one point, the former mayor brought up New York City’s stop-and-frisk practices, which gained national attention in 2011. Bloomberg said that during his last year in office, a minister at a Baptist church in Harlem invited him to speak.
“While I’m sitting there waiting for him to introduce me, he said to his congregation, ‘You know, if every one of you stopped and frisked your kid before they went out at night, the mayor wouldn’t have to do it,’” Bloomberg said. “And so I knew I was going to be okay with that audience.”
My question is how someone who is so successful -- and that's by his own work, not by inheritance or connections -- could possibly be completely wrong about so much.
In reality, I think the age range is 15 to 45, the minority group is African-Americans (not "Asian" minorities) it's about half of all homicides that are committed by about 2-3% of the US population, and it often involves the illegal drug trade. African American households have, overall, one of the lowest rates of firearm ownership of any group. Obviously, disarming them even more isn't going to fix the problem.
(Maybe Bloomie suffers from "BWS" -Brian Williams Syndrome -- it some point of success you believe all your own nonsense.)
(And just as an aside, it's already illegal for 60% of his 15 to 25 group to buy a pistol, the minimum age is still 21 unless I missed something.)
Don’t get Bloomberg wrong. He’d never expect someone he knows, or the children of anyone he associates with to opt for the life of a plumber over the life of a Harvard grad.
(And those Harvard grads who choose to optimize their earnings easily surpass the plumber.)
Mitigated in society perhaps (the normal-brained individuals taking up the slack of the shrunken-brain dopes), but not mitigated on the individual level.
Giving a stupid person a tablet computer doesn't make that person smart.
Yes, that's the way it is. Not just English, but good English. A few people make it big without a command of standard English, but they make it big on the backs of millions who couldn't compose three correct sentences if their lives depended on it.
I'm reminded of the Don Williams song Good Old Boys Like Me:
When I was in school, I ran with a kid down the street,
and I watched him burn himself up on bourbon and speed.
But I was smarter than most, and I could choose ...
learned to talk like the man on the 6 o'clock news ...
Comrade Bloomberg only wants what is best for hard working lower class people. The glories working class at the bottom need no guns, freedom or pot. Only party leaders should have money, guns, pot and rule over lower class in N.Y.
“In New York City, where $56 million tourists visit annually”
What exactly is a “$56 million tourist” and is he considered better than a “$55 million tourist”?
“Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, he said. “
Hmmm, SNIFF, SNIFF.
As someone with decades of following politics closely, I smell a TACTICAL SHIFT here on the part of the gun-grabbers. Bloomberg is the king pin, head huncho, big mama, when it comes to gun grabbing - he chooses his words VERY CAREFULLY.
Until now, the push has always been for national laws that affect everyone, but nothing will come of that - they couldn’t even get that through the Senate in 2013, even though a horrendous Amnesty bill sailed right through that same body.
So now it’s DIVIDE AND CONQUER. Make it a black/white issue, maybe that will get the Tea Party to calm down. So the problem is no longer that there are too many guns, or that we need “common-sense reforms”, rather the problem is that too many scary young black and Hispanics have access to guns. Take away that access, and gun problems go away.
Of course it’s not very easy to take away that access without stepping on the rights of legal gun owners...but as Chairman Mao famously said, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet. So now we write legislation to target Black/Hispanics - this will get interesting.
By the way, I also think that 95% number is bogus...probably more like 70 or 80%, but he’s using it to isolate on those ‘youths’, so what’s a little embellishment?
So now Bloomie is a neurologist and an epidemiologist. Is there anything this genius can’t do?
No Bloombutt you can’t have my 2nd Amendment just because the system refuses to enforce the law and lock criminals up for good.
Just like the immigration system isn’t “broken” just because the system refuses to enforce those laws. We’re not stupid children.
While I don’t own a media empire and probably no one will hear me:
I think Michael Bloomberg is stupid.
“These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Bloomberg said. “They just don’t have any long-term focus or anything. It’s a joke to have a gun. It’s a joke to pull a trigger.”...nor is there anything to argue with about calling Colorado stupid for legalizing marijuana.At one point, the former mayor brought up New York City’s stop-and-frisk practices, which gained national attention in 2011. Bloomberg said that during his last year in office, a minister at a Baptist church in Harlem invited him to speak.
“While I’m sitting there waiting for him to introduce me, he said to his congregation, ‘You know, if every one of you stopped and frisked your kid before they went out at night, the mayor wouldn’t have to do it,’” Bloomberg said. “And so I knew I was going to be okay with that audience.”
I’d add second generation immigrant whose family has never put a man in uniform. Poster child for military conscription.
Neither Colorado nor any other state has legalized for children - what they've done by legalizing for adults is create an economic disincentive to sell to children.
It is different than alcohol.
Yes, alcohol is more addictive and can kill in a single night of use (whereas the lethal dose of pot is several dozen joints).
Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive
Reminding us that gun-grabbing and pot-banning are birds of a feather.
>>Giving a stupid person a tablet computer doesn’t make that person smart. <<
It makes them stupid faster across a broader audience lol
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