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I do feel we need to invest heavily in education.

For what? Business, teaching, science, engineering, etc.?

Not everyone is cut out for that and never will be in this life.

Even if they were, who will sweep the floors, run the carwashes, and all the menial labor our society requires and what and how will they be paid?

The thing that really bothers me to maintain the standard of living some of us demand/desire/require, we must continually have an underclass in one form or another to do the jobs nobody is willing to do unless they are well compensated and even then . . . A continual stream of untrained, uneducated illegal immigrants isn't sustainable forever.

I respect where you are coming from, much of it makes sense, but the education mantra is not a cure-all for our societal ills. What you have said raises many questions that will need practical solutions.

In reality, we will probably always be playing musical chairs between the rich and poor, in one form or another until the end of time, with a diminished middle class, despite the efforts of all the social planners. We will have to adapt, and adaptation may well mean social chaos and other very negative consequences sooner or later.

A) Education is never wasted. For someone digging a ditch or mopping a floor knowing the definition of a prime number or the history of country probably won't help them dig a better ditch or mop a floor any cleaner, but it will make them a better citizen. And it will allow them to pass that knowledge on to their children who might not want to go into the ditch digging or floor mopping game.

B)We will always have an underclass, but if that underclass grows too large, then we have a problem. In Victorian England the underclass was called "the dangerous class" for a reason. Poverty breeds a whole host of unpleasant pathologies.

C)We will also probably always have a middleclass, but I suspect it won't look like the middleclass we have today. It will look more diverse, Asian, hispanic, etc. These will be second generation Ameicans will to work those 16 days and whose parents pushed them in a maniacal immigrant fashion to succeed. These are the people who still have faith in the "American Dream" and have no expectations of "entitlement" whatsoever. Living in NYC, I see these people in action every single day of my life. There are many, many NYC cab drivers working double-shifts six and seven days a week for years on end to pay for college educations. There are many deli owners who have a cot in the storeroom to sleep four and five hours a night before returning to work, so they can put a down payment down on a house in Jersey.

D)This is still America and the same people have always won: the rich, the brilliant and the clever who somehow manage to combine their talents with hard work.

Even if they were, who will sweep the floors, run the carwashes, and all the menial labor our society requires and what and how will they be paid?

Throwing another monkey wrench into the mix, at some time, these jobs will be more automated and maybe even robots will do them at some point so we will end up having another conundrum here that will have to be dealt with.

The thing that really bothers me to maintain the standard of living some of us demand/desire/require, we must continually have an underclass in one form or another to do the jobs nobody is willing to do unless they are well compensated and even then . . . A continual stream of untrained, uneducated illegal immigrants isn't sustainable forever.

True, also there are problems with having an immigrant workforce for the low jobs, look at Europe where a lot of the Moslem immigrants are having an affect on how and where Europe is headed, I think there is potential for conflict there. Same here, already there are ideas by certain fringe groups of taking back the Southwest into Mexico or as it's own separate country. That's the problem we face because there is no will because of the PC crowd to intergrate them into our society like our ancestor had to.

I respect where you are coming from, much of it makes sense, but the education mantra is not a cure-all for our societal ills. What you have said raises many questions that will need practical solutions.

In reality, we will probably always be playing musical chairs between the rich and poor, in one form or another until the end of time, with a diminished middle class, despite the efforts of all the social planners. We will have to adapt, and adaptation may well mean social chaos and other very negative consequences sooner or later.

Yeah, I'm still for a good education, especially if it imbeds a desire to learn. Plus an educated workclass is needed so they know when they are getting shafted. B-) B-P I think durasell eluded to the point to where our fall is coming, especially so if we don't address this issues. I've always believed it myself, my father has been saying to me since 1973 (when I was 7), "America will not exist in its present form when you grow up." He told me different paths we could take from a civil war, an atomic war (back then, the USSR although I still see it possible from other powers today) or most likely, we will just collapse into something like the Balkans on steroids.

If you want something that will curl your hair, I would like to suggest the site, www.johntitor.com, where I heard the story on Art Bell. Basically, Titor was a time traveller from 2036 where basically America collapsed into a dictatorship and Russia freaked out and nuked us and we end up in a civil war. I am dubious on the time traveller aspect of it, I guess I do leave the door slightly cracked for the tiniest possible chance that it could be true, but more likely, the person or people behind Titor and/or the site I feel are trying to warn us of what could happen. Between the rabid left and the free traders, they are going to do this nation great harm.

Getting down to the basics, again, we have many issues that need to be addressed and answers provided for, we cannot sweep them under the rug and the old answers from the past are not going to work.