[ClearCase_guy]

Government should back off from all education. Government schools should fade away and be replaced by Voucher programs.

Government aid for college should cease. A lot of college graduates get lousy, low-paying jobs. College is not really a path to riches. If a well-to-do family has $200,000 in cash and wants to pay that much for a 4-year degree so that Junior can be a Communications Major and blog for a living, that’s fine. I have no problem with that.

Families that don’t have $200,000 laying around will just have to watch their children become plumbers, welders, or programmers. They will be rich and successful. Heck they can even blog for a living, if they don’t mind being as poor as the college graduate down the street.

People are happier when they have less stuff in their life. Big House? Stressful corporate job? Big tax bill? Massive college debt? Pressure to have a better vacation than your neighbor? We need to scale back and just have simpler lives.

We’ve built a very damaging culture.

[Gen.Blather]

I know somebody who got a fine he couldn’t pay for burning garbage illegally. (You can burn yard waste but no paper or cardboard and any plastic including a Walmart bag, is a CRIMINAL offense.) To force payment they take away your driver’s license until you pay. He lost his job and then his wife and then his house. He’s on all kinds of help now.

Incidentally, this county has two self-funded EPA’s, one for the county and one for the city. These people have a staff who spend their day writing fines to pay their own salary. In order to write enough fines to pay their salaries they have lots of regulations. Things you wouldn’t think twice about will net them $250 and a potential criminal arrest for you. But the good news is you can attend an early offender intervention program, pay the fines and $1500 for the program and the criminal part of the arrest will be erased from your record.

[central_va]

Unbridled immigration has made labor too plentiful and almost free.

[InterceptPoint]

From the article:

"... but the long-term trend shows a mismatch between what students learn in school and the skills and knowledge businesses need. Colleges and universities need to better prepare our young people by closely linking future employment opportunities with their current fields of study. In addition, we need to have more vocational schools that can teach young people employable skills."

For example, we need a lot fewer Psych Majors and lot more Engineers. Psych majors have relatively high unemployment levels and we have to import a large percentage of our engineers and technical wizards. They are mostly good people but Americans could have those jobs if they were just willing to put in the effort.

[exDemMom]

I would put “welfare” in the #1 position. The disdain for manual work is a direct result of giving people more money to do nothing than they can earn through work. If the choice, instead, were to work or starve, most of them would choose work.

The college problem is slightly different. Colleges have academic counselors who should routinely discuss the potential for future employment with any given major. If they don’t discuss that, or fail to encourage students to do their own research into the marketability of various majors, they do their students a disservice.

[central_va]

Had American businesses been forced to raise minimum wage to $20 an hour, the cost of doing business would have skyrocketed, which in turn would have forced businesses to choose between passing the higher cost on to consumers (which businesses have limited power to do) and reducing hiring.

While $20.00/hr is hyperbolic rubbish the premise is unsound here also. If Company X needs Y man-hours per wk/mo/year to provide product/service Z then Y is fixed. Either they cut man-hours and produce less product or raiae prices. If they can get the same amount of product/service with less man-hours Y-R then the company was being mismanaged. Reduction R was waste and should have been done regardless of the per hour labor cost.

[I want the USA back]

Sending manufacturing abroad. Importing people to replace Americans at a lower rate. Paying higher taxes to support the new arrivals and their 4 wives who don’t work.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

The biggest problem is that so much of our manufacturing has left the country. In China, those who work on Apple iPhones and the like are paid a fraction of what a US worker would get. If the products were made here, they would cost several times as much as they do now. I’m not making any value judgments here, just stating economic facts. US workers are very highly paid, relative to third world workers, and our safety and other regulatory oversight adds even more to the cost of manufacturing here. So jobs go elsewhere and unemployment here soars.

[dinodino]

I refuse to read an article that has a grammar error in the title (apostrophe).

[Soul of the South]

When I was a middle class teenager growing up in suburbia in the 1960’s I performed manual labor to earn money. I worked on a farm, mowed yards in my neighborhood, painted houses, had a newspaper route, and did odd jobs for neighbors. When I was old enough to work (age 16) I flipped hamburgers at a fast food restaurant while continuing my paper route and mowing jobs. At 18 I was able to get a job with a moving and storage company paying slightly above minimum wage.

My high school had vocational programs in woodworking, graphic arts, and printing. Students at my high school interested in learning a trade could attend vocational classes at the local community college half day. Many of my fellow students who didn’t want a 4 year college degree or couldn’t afford one learn to be auto mechanics, electricians, cabinet makers, HVAC repairmen, dental hygienists, plumbers, and machine tool operators. Others joined the military where they served 4 years and learned skills which turned into careers.

Today, there are no vocational classes at my former high school and no cooperative vocational program with the community college. The community college has dropped most of the vocational classes and is focused on liberal arts instruction for students who will transfer to a four year college.

Today illegal immigrants mow yards and work on the harvest instead of local teenagers. Today our politicians and academia are obsessed with four year liberal arts education in subjects providing no skills for earning a living.

Today we have lost respect for manual labor.

[kabar]

What a BS article. We have a surplus of labor fueled by mass immigration. We bring in two immigrants for every job created.

Government data collected in December 2014 show 18 million immigrants (legal and illegal) living in the United States who arrived in January 2000 or later. But only 9.3 million jobs were added over this time period. In addition, the native-born population 16 and older grew by 25.2 million. Because job growth has not come close to matching immigration and population growth, the share of Americans in the labor force has declined dramatically — a clear indication there is no labor shortage.

For Every New Job, Two New Immigrants

[Dust in the Wind]

Bfl

[US Navy Vet]

Sin and PRIDE! And THIS:
Laodicean Church

The Laodicean Church in the Revelation of John (Revelation 3:14–22)[edit]
In John’s vision, recorded in the book of Book of Revelation, Christ instructs John to write a message to the seven churches of Asia Minor. The message to Laodicea is one of judgement with a call to repentance. The oracle contains a number of metaphors.

“I wish that you were cold or hot” (Revelation 3:15–16)[edit]
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” (KJV).

The traditional view has been that the Laodiceans were being criticized for their neutrality or lack of zeal (hence “lukewarm”).[6] One problem with this is that Christ’s desire that they be either “cold or hot” implies that both extremes are positive. The traditional view saw “cold” as a negative, the idea apparently being that Jesus either wants the readers to be either zealous (“hot”) for him or completely uncommitted (“cold”), but not middle-of-the-road.[7]

However, a more recent interpretation has suggested that this metaphor has been drawn from the water supply of the city, which was lukewarm, in contrast to the hot springs at nearby Hierapolis and the cold, pure waters of Colossae.[8] The archaeology shows Laodicea had an aqueduct that probably carried water from hot mineral springs some five miles south, which would have become tepid before entering the city (see main Laodicea article).[9] The imagery of the Laodicean aqueduct suggests not that “hot” is good and “cold” is bad, but that both hot and cold water are useful, whereas lukewarm water is emetic.[7]

“Poor, blind, and naked” (3:17–18)[edit]
“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” (KJV).

The words attributed to the Laodiceans may mark an ironic over-confidence in regard to spiritual wealth; they are unable to recognize their bankruptcy. However the image may also be drawing on the perceived worldly wealth of the city. The city was a place of great finance and banking. In 60 A.D the city was hit by a major earthquake. The city refused help of the Roman empire and rebuilt the city itself.[10]

The reference to the “white raiment” may refer to the cloth trade of Laodicea. The city was known for its black wool that was produced in the area.[10] The reference to eye medication is again often thought to reflect the historical situation of Laodicea. According to Strabo (12.8.20) there was a medical school in the city, where a famous ophthalmologist practiced.[citation needed] The city also lies within the boundaries of ancient Phrygia, from where an ingredient of eye-lotions, the so-called “Phrygian powder”, was supposed to have originated.[citation needed]

[Nifster]

Excstly wrong. Try government over regulation, ridiculous interference with small business, and illegals who will work for cash

[Alberta's Child]

This is a good article, but it overlooks one important factor that underlies the entire employment situation in an advanced economy like ours:

1. In any financial transaction, buyers will seek the lowest price possible for the type and quality of a product or service they are buying. At the same time, sellers will look for the highest price possible.

2. An employment arrangement involves a "buyer" (the employer) and a "seller" (a worker).

3. One of the simple realities of an economy is that a worker will usually demand far more for his/her services than he/she would ever pay another worker for the same services.

Point #3 underlies almost every policy decision that is made by a government, and every business decision that is made by a private employer, in an advanced country like ours where labor costs are extremely high. As a result, things like automation and foreign trade give us the ability to offset the higher cost of paying American workers by reducing our reliance on them.

[mulligan]

Government is the root of all evil.

[justlurking]

While I agree there are a lot of problems with the school system, there's a big factor affecting the success of the students that is rarely discussed -- because there's really no good solution. The biggest factor in the success of an individual student in school is... [drumroll....]

His/Her Parents.

It's not whether there is both a mother and father in the home, although that is a contributing factor. It comes down to: Do the parents consider education to be important?

If the parents do not consider education to be a priority for their child, the child will not take school seriously either. The child will fail or just barely get by, and repeat the same cycle with their children.

The importance of education is a cultural attitude. It's mostly linked to socioeconomic status, and that's why you will find that students at certain schools perform better (as a group), than others in the same district. School districts knowingly draw lines to pack higher socioeconomic groups into the same schools, because the parents demand it.

Are you skeptical? The data makes it pretty clear, if you aren't politically correct in your analysis.

In the US, race is a reasonable approximation of socioeconomic class. It's not completely accurate, because there are exceptions. Being a member of a particular race doesn't predestine you to a particular outcome, but as a group, students of the same race have similar rates of success in school.

There have been many studies of test scores of students across various states in the US. Some states are ranked high, while other states rank low. But, if you can get the detailed data and you look closely at it, you'll notice an interesting phenomena: there are very similar results across the 4 major racial groups in every state. Most of the variance between states can be "equalized" by simply accounting for the racial composition of students in the schools.

The ranking won't be much surprise:

1. Asian
2. White/Caucasian
3. Black or Hispanic

Again, I'll reiterate: this doesn't mean that any of these racial groups are smarter than the other. In this context, race is simply a proxy for socioeconomic class. And the lower socioeconomic classes have a dismissive attitude about the importance of education.

Unfortunately, it's self-perpetuating. If a student doesn't take education seriously, he/she won't succeed in school. After growing up and having children, he/she will pass that same attitude on to the next generation.

[Sir Napsalot]

Simplistic view -

Too many excuses for “You are not responsible for the choices you’ve made.”

[upsdriver]

End welfare.

[Organic Panic]

It is easiest to buy votes with other people’s money than make simple political changes that would improve the economy.