juansavage1

These are very very smart kids with a different set of ideas or ideology. Lots of smart people were Nazis, Communists, or cultists of one kind or another.

I'm also a pimp. People think it's a cushy job, but it's not. It's hard out there. Lots of competition and biatches be stealin' 

CF8, i disagree about teaching, in terms of saying it isnt stressful. Teachers today are dealing with the failures at home, so not only are they having to deal with slower kids (not because they were born defective, but because their parents never taught them fundamentals before they got to school) as well as what juan savage is talking about in breakdown of morals (which again, starts in the home).

I agree with you about teachers wanting more money when they havent increased their job skills. Same as cops, firfighters, nurses, etc etc (any job). Im of the belief as long as youre making a fair wage, youre not owed more being that its your choice to stay or leave for greener pastures.

Switching gears, i also think theres been a shift in what defines middle class. I assume (too young to say for sure) that in the "wonder years", middle class homes had one car that they drove into the ground. They owned one tv (which obviously were a lot more expensive). And the only "toys" kids had were sports equipment, dolls, comic books and things like that. Id also assume the kids had "a" jacket, a few pairs of levis and a pair of converse.

Today, the middle class has all kinds of materialistic things. Except in the really low economies like appalachia, the south, the desert, etc, even the lower classes have these things. Every dumpy apartment i go to, which has roaches crawling everywhere, usually has an SUV in the parking spot, a giant tv, an xbox and smart phones. Lots of jordans, etc etc. Youd also be suprised how many of these homes has a single income, and ine that doesnt pay anything much to begin with.

So i think again, its a failure on us as a culture to learn to invest our money and make a better life a decade down the road

Teaching bad kids is stressful. Teaching with certain principals is stressful. I'm only saying that many people feel stress because their employment is tenuous. Teachers don't usually have that kind of stress. I think teaching one hour in some situations is like working two or three in other occupations as far as effort and stress.  

Why can't Obama trade for the people held with Iran? They're our new friends, after all. 

Agreed.

You know what else would be the game changer, who no one ever mentions? Arty. They never make hollywood movies so the public doesnt really ever mention them. But theyre responsible for upwards of 70 percent of casualties since WW1. We didnt use them too much in iraq because we mostly fought in built up areas. But a 6 gun battery of 155s can do in a minute what would take a few f-16s several passes to do, at a fraction of the cost

I'm not really afraid of artillery. I drive a Chevrolet. They're hardened against this type of thing. 

This Algebra is culturally biased

Algebra was invented by white men as repayment to Asians for agreeing to bomb Pearl Harbor.

Since I'm ranting:

Have you heard those PSAs that tell parents to talk to their babies? Can you point out a woman who has a baby and doesn't talk to him? And, if there is one, do you think she'll be persuaded by a PSA? Man!

The same for parenting classes. Are parents or teachers better now that we have theory and classes. Oh, and yes, there's a lot of politics. One of the things every teacher reads is "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" by a real Brazilian Communist.

What do you mean exactly?

Education is largely intuitive. People have been teaching since the beginning of people. So, you have a bunch of people who try to apply social science techniques to what is natural. We're all people who have been taught things--it's not like we're training monkeys.

It's like taking a class in sales. Yes, there are things to learn, but it's not that difficult a concept.

But, the kicker is that teachers' salaries increase with more classes. Colleges get paid. Teachers get paid. However, the correlation between teacher courses and performance is probably weakly correlated and probably not causal.

I'm talking specifically about theory classes, not classes that teach practical things like lesson plans and discipline techniques.

Now, I'm not 100% cynical. If teachers have a different experience, I respect that.

Absolutely, if you go into teaching high school students you shouldn't be surprised by the pay. IMO, teachers aren't necessarily underpaid. It's a pretty cush job without a lot of stress of deadlines, problem solving, meeting of goals, etc. Plus you get massive amounts of vaca. If making $300K is important to you and you want to make it while teaching, there are ways to do it but not in the traditional teaching career path.

Some teachers believe that they should make more based on seniority, education, etc. That may be true in some cases but it doesn't men that getting a PHD in Literature and whatever teaching degree should catapult you into a new financial stratosphere. Schools sell the idea that if you get X degree then you will get X financial rewards. The reality is that it is only the cost of entry into the profession. You then have to take the necessary steps to earn your desired income. It could be going after high paying jobs or properly starting your own business.

I use teaching as an example but the same goes for any other profession. A high school educated receptionist believes that she should make more money because she's been doing it for 10 years even without a increase in valuable skills. You are generally paid what you are worth. There are always outliers but it doesn't change the reality.

Teaching can be cushy or a very stressful experience, although most of that stress isn't from fear of losing your job. Sometimes I wish i could only deal with adults.

Absolutely, if you go into teaching high school students you shouldn't be surprised by the pay. IMO, teachers aren't necessarily underpaid. It's a pretty cush job without a lot of stress of deadlines, problem solving, meeting of goals, etc. Plus you get massive amounts of vaca. If making $300K is important to you and you want to make it while teaching, there are ways to do it but not in the traditional teaching career path.

Some teachers believe that they should make more based on seniority, education, etc. That may be true in some cases but it doesn't men that getting a PHD in Literature and whatever teaching degree should catapult you into a new financial stratosphere. Schools sell the idea that if you get X degree then you will get X financial rewards. The reality is that it is only the cost of entry into the profession. You then have to take the necessary steps to earn your desired income. It could be going after high paying jobs or properly starting your own business.

I use teaching as an example but the same goes for any other profession. A high school educated receptionist believes that she should make more money because she's been doing it for 10 years even without a increase in valuable skills. You are generally paid what you are worth. There are always outliers but it doesn't change the reality.

Most education courses are a scam.

As long as schooling costs as much as it does, it should be tied to earnings or college loans will never get paid back.

That's actually the way it's done now. Every parent fills out a fafsa and financial aid adjusts.

Not that I've always followed my own advice but since high school my best friend and I would always say, "work hard and good things will happen."

Generally, everything I have I earned and everything i don't have, i don't deserve.

I make it a point, not just to work hard and do a good job, but to learn as much about my job as possible, that includes what other areas do, how they do it, and even how it could be improved. Not only that but complaining does absolutely nothing. Not only does it make you miserable, but it usually makes the people around you miserable as well.

If you work hard enough, most of the time you will be rewarded. You just have to be patient.

Im not sure, but my feeling is that murderous, rapine ISIS would fall quickly. They'd do IED attacks, but wouldn't hold any territory.

Resentment can be an ugly thing. Mass resentment usually leads to evil. 

By the way, if you want to know about the values of a certain time, ALWAYS go to contemporary sources. Besides avoiding revisionism, it's usually pretty fun. Read "The Gift of the Magi" and see if that's how most people in a bad neighborhood would act today. 

I'm thinking out loud and not really arguing so don't get upset. Besides income, there's a growing values gap. Far fewer poor people think they're going to marry than middle and above people. That wasn't the case years ago.

People point out that men marry other elite earning women than they did years ago when doctors would marry nurses and women of wealthy men rarely worked.

Manufacturing loss and some of the other things mentioned may have some validity.

It has worked out pretty well for Australia too.

...and it would be a good idea here too, I assume you mean.

See, the NRA has a point

No, you tried to imply that Australia had some sort of gun grab when it was something that was voted on. How is that related to the point you were trying to make?

Use logic. The two arent exclusive.

The people voted for a gun grab. If 49% of the people wanted to keep their guns, they were out of luck.

If it happens in the US, it will be because of elected representatives and/or their court appointees.

America needs more good kids. Countries with low birth rates dont have lower unemployment. In fact, their economies deteriorate.

Just like there are good and bad immigrants there are good and bad kids. We need good immigrants and good kids.

If you want a larger middle class, uou support "middle class" values.

First clock boy and now this. Clearly Americans are the new Nazis and Muslims the new Jews. 

not sure if i remember correctly, but didnt the aussies vote (the population) to get rid of their guns after a mass shooting? I thought it was a ballot vote, not the lawmakers?

And they can still own firearms, there just regulations on what kind. I think hunting rifles and shotguns are allowed

You're right. They passed a law and people turned in their guns. The point I was making is that it's perfectly reasonable to suspect that many people in the US want to ban gun ownership. 

goes beyond that as well.

Public schools.....

Obviously i want our kids educated as much as the next person, and believe school at the k-12 level should be free. But they really arent free. Someone (tax payers) pays for those schools. There are too many people out there who cant afford to have kids, having kids. And they continue to have them. They send far too many kids (even if its one) to the public schools that everyone else has to pay for (including the free lunches)

Again, im all for free schools, thats just an example of cost that no one ever really thinks about when it comes to social programs.

Bigger cities with higher crime. Go to the bad neighborhoods...they arent paying for the food and medical costs of inmates that come from their neighborhood. They arent paying for the hospital bills of the gangster who gets shot.

Again, i feel like we have enough money as a society to provide education, emergency health care, etc to those who cant afford it. But its one of those things people dont think about that costs a ton.

People having kids isn't the problem. We need kids. The problem is that many of the kids turn out to be bad citizens who don't do things that make them productive. 

I don't know the answer to this, but I would like information of how much of the people not climbing from or falling into the lower class is because of poor habits. To get this information, we need to see how many people in the lower classes are single parents, uneducated, criminals, etc. 

Seems like the primary beneficiaries of that chart is the highest level

Yay capitalism

Capitalism is why we're the wealthiest country on earth with butt loads of universities, hospitals, and leisure. I'd be a little more grateful. 

Whitey educates themselves with FOX News and other conservative media.  FOX News and other conservative media then become a fantastic recruiting medium for Islamists who are on the fence about radicalizing or not.  It's an impressive circle jerk. 

How do you know this? You really think that Fox news drives people to be terrorists? What news source did you get this from? I'm serious. Where did you hear this?

Your comment about families and minorities have nothing to do with it.  There already aren't enough jobs so it isn't like the reason people are paid less is because they don't have the skills.

 

So much outsourcing and taxing of small businesses and the middle class means a smaller middle class.

I didn't mention race. 

If there aren't enough jobs, why do we have immigration? A family member of my wife's came here illegally and got a job in like a week. Also, jobs expand and decline based on the performance of the country.

I'd still look into who is dropping out of the middle class. Is it single mothers and skill-less immigrants who are swelling the lower class? If it's behavior-based, then all of us who try to live responsible lives can breathe easier and those who don't should consider doing so. 

If you want to come to intelligent conclusions, you have to break things down and think. If not, well, then you can parrot political talking points.