Random Politics

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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

Lots of good stuff in these recent posts.

The GOP wants educated people for their hierarchy and under-educated people for their voter base. Anyone in between is a socialist scumbag getting indoctrinated by the Left.

Ted Cruz is a 2 time Ivy League school graduate and extremely intelligent. He knows where the money is. But the people that voted for him? Tea Party Patriots that were TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY. The GOP latched itself to a rage train of white grievance and obvious, but subtle racism.

And in terms of college overpopulation? Too many of my generation were pushed by too many of our parent's generation to "go to school, get a degree, and make more money than I ever will be being a professional and not a tradesman." My dad was a tailor. His dad was a tailor. Many of my dad's friends were plumbers, carpenters, etc. All the kids of his friends? College students getting Feel Good degrees in areas that don't pay, but a degree is a degree. (And with that boom in attendance, there was a boom in tuition costs and thus a crap ton of student loans.)

But yeah. Not shocking that those left in the middle who get educated (no matter what the degree, really) start to read, go to institutions that, by design, want you to question everything and think for yourself, and then call bullshit when it's merited. Also not shocking that they want to run their political party like a religious cult where asking questions is a tool of the devil. Gee! No wonder they align with Christian fundamentalists so well!
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

I'll go one further because I get the sense that if you don't get your grade 12 now you are considered a failure or dropout.

Growing up I went to school with kids that were academically useless, but you could put a blindfold on them and they could strip and rebuild an engine, or build you a house because that sort of thing came naturally to them.

They left school at 16, went to the local training centre and did their three year apprenticeship program and were well qualified in their trade before 20. The more academic kids stayed on. I didn't see any evidence that the kids that left earlier were any less successful than those that stayed in academia. In fact the trades kids were the ones buying cars in their teens and houses in their mid 20s.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I feel even the grade 12 thing is over hyped. I feel that grade 1-12 education puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of a university education. As Johnnie said, parents strongly encouraged their kids to get a post-secondary education as well. There is a strong implication that a university degree was necessary to be successful.
Do kids understand that plumbers, for example, are more than dudes who came over to unclog a shitty toilet. Are kids even considering learning a trade or is it post-secondary or bust.

In school there needs to be a better effort put toward explaining the many different educational and career paths available. This is why I don't agree with the free college premise. What kind of college? If were talking free trades school for after grade 12 or even high school dropouts, that something to consider.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by rass »

Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

The thing you learn about school once you've graduated many levels of school is that the majority of school is pointless as fuck.

I was excellent at memorization and regurgitation. That's what school bases your agency on. Like, everyone in my class was great at that and they all got into good schools because of it. To challenge ourselves we came up with the most creative and blatant ways to cheat on tests.

I can still recite Shakespeare's Sonnet 94, but that didn't teach me how to do taxes, diagnose car trouble, or learn how to interact with other people and network.

Sure, you should strive to be good at learning and to not be a slouch. But if you're good at the thing you need to be judged on in order to get an arbitrary letter grade to show YOU DONE GOOD, what did you learn in the first place? To work the system.

And that's the life lesson you really have to understand early on. Where's the system I need to work in order to get ahead, get what I want, and to be "successful"? But that's not being taught in school. It's a whitewashed curriculum touching in basic stuff.

Trust me. I'm not saying end school because early childhood education is critical for long term development. But as Degen states, sometimes the overprocessing mechanical mind of a young person prevents a "traditional" method of learning. And he's certainly the guy I'm calling when something on my house starts fucking up.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by EnochRoot »

degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:47 am I'll go one further because I get the sense that if you don't get your grade 12 now you are considered a failure or dropout.

Growing up I went to school with kids that were academically useless, but you could put a blindfold on them and they could strip and rebuild an engine, or build you a house because that sort of thing came naturally to them.

They left school at 16, went to the local training centre and did their three year apprenticeship program and were well qualified in their trade before 20. The more academic kids stayed on. I didn't see any evidence that the kids that left earlier were any less successful than those that stayed in academia. In fact the trades kids were the ones buying cars in their teens and houses in their mid 20s.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I feel even the grade 12 thing is over hyped. I feel that grade 1-12 education puts a lot of emphasis on the importance of a university education. As Johnnie said, parents strongly encouraged their kids to get a post-secondary education as well. There is a strong implication that a university degree was necessary to be successful.
Do kids understand that plumbers, for example, are more than dudes who came over to unclog a shitty toilet. Are kids even considering learning a trade or is it post-secondary or bust.

In school there needs to be a better effort put toward explaining the many different educational and career paths available. This is why I don't agree with the free college premise. What kind of college? If were talking free trades school for after grade 12 or even high school dropouts, that something to consider.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by rass »

degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:45 am
rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
You asked a question at the end of the post prior.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:52 am
degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:45 am
rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
You asked a question at the end of the post prior.
Yes I did. Thanks for posting the link.

I dont quite buy it yet. It needs to be expanded more.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Joe K »

degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:45 am
rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
You can try to dismiss it as “victimhood” but the class and race disparities are very real on this issue. I think it’s ironic that one of the criticisms of Bernie’s plan is that students need to have “skin in the game” when many of the students benefiting from the current system have zero personal investment because their parents are wealthy enough to pay the full cost of tuition out of pocket. It’s not even debatable that there are significant racial wealth disparities in America so there’s no question that the spike in predatory student loans would disparately affect minority students.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by govmentchedda »

Johnnie wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:36 am The thing you learn about school once you've graduated many levels of school is that the majority of school is pointless as fuck.

I was excellent at memorization and regurgitation. That's what school bases your agency on. Like, everyone in my class was great at that and they all got into good schools because of it. To challenge ourselves we came up with the most creative and blatant ways to cheat on tests.

I can still recite Shakespeare's Sonnet 94, but that didn't teach me how to do taxes, diagnose car trouble, or learn how to interact with other people and network.

Sure, you should strive to be good at learning and to not be a slouch. But if you're good at the thing you need to be judged on in order to get an arbitrary letter grade to show YOU DONE GOOD, what did you learn in the first place? To work the system.

And that's the life lesson you really have to understand early on. Where's the system I need to work in order to get ahead, get what I want, and to be "successful"? But that's not being taught in school. It's a whitewashed curriculum touching in basic stuff.

Trust me. I'm not saying end school because early childhood education is critical for long term development. But as Degen states, sometimes the overprocessing mechanical mind of a young person prevents a "traditional" method of learning. And he's certainly the guy I'm calling when something on my house starts fucking up.
I wrestle with this as someone who, with my wife's prodding, has decided to homeschool his 3 kids. There's so much waste, pointlessness, etc. in most schooling, but I feel like a big part of that helps you get used to it because life is that way. Sure, in an ideal world, everyone and everything would run at zero waste and full efficiency, but the learning how to personally move through at least some of the bullshit in life without just moving to the woods and living completely off the grid does have some value.
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Re: Random Politics

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Joe K wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 9:06 am
degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:45 am
rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
You can try to dismiss it as “victimhood” but the class and race disparities are very real on this issue. I think it’s ironic that one of the criticisms of Bernie’s plan is that students need to have “skin in the game” when many of the students benefiting from the current system have zero personal investment because their parents are wealthy enough to pay the full cost of tuition out of pocket. It’s not even debatable that there are significant racial wealth disparities in America so there’s no question that the spike in predatory student loans would disparately affect minority students.
As many of the older folks here know, it's insane how expensive college has gotten. A single year at the University of Utah, in-state tuition, costs $24,000 (including cost of living). Out-of-state costs at the surrounding state schools are twice that.

Providing money to help kids attend is important, but they also need to attach enough strings so that there is no incentive to further jack up costs. Maybe some kind of Medicait approach where the feds offer money as long as the states kick in enough and manage costs.
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Re: Random Politics

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Couldn't they just provide a tuition cap and a fixed or per-student gov't incentive and any additional spending has to be covered by university raised revenue?
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

Joe K wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 9:06 am
degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:45 am
rass wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:57 am Did you read this?
When Bernie is in the White House, he will:
Pass the College for All Act to provide at least $48 billion per year to eliminate tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities, tribal colleges, community colleges, trade schools, and apprenticeship programs. Everyone deserves the right to a good higher education if they choose to pursue it, no matter their income.
Most of the article is about colleges and minority/class victimhood.
You can try to dismiss it as “victimhood” but the class and race disparities are very real on this issue. I think it’s ironic that one of the criticisms of Bernie’s plan is that students need to have “skin in the game” when many of the students benefiting from the current system have zero personal investment because their parents are wealthy enough to pay the full cost of tuition out of pocket. It’s not even debatable that there are significant racial wealth disparities in America so there’s no question that the spike in predatory student loans would disparately affect minority students.

This is my bias but the article mentions women, blacks and latinos by name but not asians. Are asians no longer minorities or are they just not affected by this so let's keep their stats out. In fact Asians are the problem we discussed above. It's college or die with them. And not just any college, only Ivy League. And I'm sure they rack up huge student loans as well.

This part bothers me.
Almost two-thirds of all student debt — nearly $929 billion as of 2019 — in the U.S. is held by women. One-third of Latino borrowers do not complete their degrees, compared to only one-fourth of white borrowers. 35 percent of Latino student loan borrowers who started college in 2003-2004 defaulted on their loans, compared to only 20 percent of white borrowers. Black students take out loans at a higher rate to pay for school, graduate with more student debt than white counterparts and, because of income disparities, take longer to pay it off while paying more interest. This proposal would cut the racial wealth gap for young Americans by more than half– from 12:1 to 5:1. Bernie believes our country is morally bound to close the racial wealth divide. In order to do that we are going to cancel all student debt.
It's cherrypicking. More women, blacks and latinos are going to college, this is good. But of course the lower your income, but more money you get to borrow. So of course you owe more and if you default on it, it's even worse. Are kids dropping out because they can no longer afford to or because they are failing? I don't think loans suddenly stop if you continue to progress.

Maybe it should be harder to get loans or poorer students should not go to college at 18 and spend a year or two working. Don't Australians have a gap year in between high school and college? Either to find work or recharge.
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Re: Random Politics

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Common sense has to play part of it. If my daughter hadn't received significant financial support from BU, she wouldn't have gone there. If you don't get enough from where you want to go, taking out exorbitant student loans is a bad decision. Go somewhere more affordable, or, as you say, take some time off to save up. Just like when I go to get a pre approval for a mortgage and they tell me I can get approved for a house worth twice what I'm looking for, I don't just say well shit yeah sign me up. I make the decision within my means. Just because they're predatory by nature doesn't mean I can't take precautions to become prey.

A lot of people don't and I ABSOLUTELY think every high school should have some kind of mandatory class for Seniors that talk about the basics of handling money/loans/credit cards/basic budgeting.
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Re: Random Politics

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Well how else is Utah going to pay Kyle Wittingham 2.7+ million dollars a year if they don't have sky high tuition?
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Re: Random Politics

Post by A_B »

Ehhh. Most Power 5 conference school end up paying for themselves through revenue and boosters. And free labor.

UK's tuition has gone up something like 18K since I went twenty years ago, and it's mostly due to infrastructure and buildout of the campus/medical complex, I believe.
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Re: Random Politics

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mister d wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:21 am Couldn't they just provide a tuition cap and a fixed or per-student gov't incentive and any additional spending has to be covered by university raised revenue?
That sounds good. I imagine it's something similar to what they do for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. Though you'd also need incentives to discourage or prevent universities from having classes taught by adjuncts and TAs and treating those adjuncts and TAs like shit.
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Re: Random Politics

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A_B wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:42 am Ehhh. Most Power 5 conference school end up paying for themselves through revenue and boosters. And free labor.

UK's tuition has gone up something like 18K since I went twenty years ago, and it's mostly due to infrastructure and buildout of the campus/medical complex, I believe.
Yeah, I would imagine that Utah's share of Pac-12 money covers the cost of football, including exorbitant coaching salaries.
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Re: Random Politics

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Using slave labor helps too.
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Re: Random Politics

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degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:32 am


This is my bias but the article mentions women, blacks and latinos by name but not Asians. Are Asians no longer minorities or are they just not affected by this so let's keep their stats out. In fact Asians are the problem we discussed above. It's college or die with them. And not just any college, only Ivy League.

Asians usually aren't grouped as "minorities" in the US in these discussions, because as a group, they succeed above the average rate. While Asian immigrants were treated as subhuman in the 1800s and the Japanese Internment Camps during WWII were horrific, Asians don't tend to suffer the generational societal oppression that still holds down many black and hispanic communities. I feel like Jews fall into the same characterization, but many of us have the ability to pass as majority (it's part of our devious cunning), so we aren't all instantly visually identified as "other." [I wanted to call out a particularly Jewy looking Swamper, but I can't think of any].
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Re: Random Politics

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A_B wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:37 am

A lot of people don't and I ABSOLUTELY think every high school should have some kind of mandatory class for Seniors that talk about the basics of handling money/loans/credit cards/basic budgeting.
This is a great idea, I just don't know how effective it would be. I'm sure it would sink in for some kids, but probably not the ones who need the lesson. All that adult shit seems a million miles away in HS. What my generation needed in HS, was a lesson on not signing up for credit cards to get free tshirts. Looking back, why the fuck would anyone want a MasterCard shirt anyways? Just stupid.

Actually, in 6th or 7th grade, my son took a home ec course. They all were assigned salaries and various regular payments, and they had to learn to budget the money and pay rent or mortgage, loans, etc... He was lucky with one of the highest salaries, and it was eye opening for him to see how little he could save, and most could barely squeak by.
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Re: Random Politics

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That last part is why i think it needs to be in the Senior year. at least somewhat fresh.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

The Sybian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:04 am
A_B wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:37 am

A lot of people don't and I ABSOLUTELY think every high school should have some kind of mandatory class for Seniors that talk about the basics of handling money/loans/credit cards/basic budgeting.
This is a great idea, I just don't know how effective it would be. I'm sure it would sink in for some kids, but probably not the ones who need the lesson. All that adult shit seems a million miles away in HS. What my generation needed in HS, was a lesson on not signing up for credit cards to get free tshirts. Looking back, why the fuck would anyone want a MasterCard shirt anyways? Just stupid.
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Re: Random Politics

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A_B wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:11 am That last part is why i think it needs to be in the Senior year. at least somewhat fresh.
Absolutely agree, especially for kids who aren't going to college. I think my son's class was effective, because it was a fun game for that age, and they got into it. That particular approach wouldn't work for seniors, but I think it gives them a base for understanding the more advanced concepts when they are older.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

I agree that high schools should teach more real-life skills.

For example, when I was in Grade 10 we spent an entire month doing a mock criminal trial. While that was fun I don't know if we needed a month. The 8 kids (I was one) that were on the jury really spent a month doing nothing.

Why not spend a week having a mock grocery store, with exercises on how to operate a cash register or how to balance the day.
Or even having business sponsored job shadowing for a day. And not an office job. Supermarkets, retailers, car dealerships, real estate etc....
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

degenerasian wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:33 am I agree that high schools should teach more real-life skills.

For example, when I was in Grade 10 we spent an entire month doing a mock criminal trial. While that was fun I don't know if we needed a month. The 8 kids (I was one) that were on the jury really spent a month doing nothing.
My class did that too for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

I was the monster. I got called to the stand to answer one question that was quickly objected to, sustained, and then no further questions were asked of me. I didn't read the book and the defense won.

That's the kind of creative stuff that happens when your English teacher went to law school.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

I mean, I know there's wealth. But when it's broken down like this, fuuuuuck.
Billionaries aren't just a policy failure, they are the embodiment of immorality. You can't be a billionaire and a good person, despite what their astroturfing PR teams on reddit may try to tell you for some of the 'good ones'.

It's literally impossible to accumulate that much wealth without the mass exploitation of others and the profits their labor generated. Not to mention the exploitation of the earth until it's uninhabitable for human life.

George Washington was the richest man in the country when the US was founded, and he "only" had today's equivalent of 500 million. That wouldn't even get him in the room with some of these ghouls today.

If people only understood just how obscenely rich these monsters were, they wouldn't be able to show their face in society while millions suffer. I like to use the analogy of a staircase, with each step on the staircase representing $100,000 of net worth. That's several years of working wages saved up for tens of millions of Americans:

* HALF of people in the united states are on the **base** or the very **1st step**. Almost 200 million people who can't even get one step up in this system.

* Those households at the 80th percentile, richer than 4/5 Americans, are on the **5th step**. That's about five seconds of walking to get up there.

* Those with more money than 90% of fellow Americans, millionaires who we consider our upper-middle class professional class and live more than comfortably, are on the **11th** step. A few more seconds of walking up from that previous middle-class step. Most Americans won't even come close to accumulating this much over an entire lifetime of working.

* **A billionaire is ten thousand steps up the staircase**. That's enough to walk up five Empire State buildings. That's almost three hours of walking non-stop. You think they care about the petty squabbles of anyone on those first few steps or so? From these heights they couldn't tell the difference even if they wanted to. And yet those who've maybe ascended or were born on the first few dozen steps think they identify with this group as a class.

* And Jeff Bezos? He's so high up it only makes sense to describe his staircase in distance. His stairs take him up **133 miles**. That's more than halfway to the space station. That's more than **24 consecutive Mt. Everest's** stacked on top of each other. It would take walking, non-stop, no sleep, over two weeks to ascend that high, each single step worth more than five poverty-level families in America combined.

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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

Sure but what system ensures equality?

I'd like to find a calculation of how much percentage of wealth Kim and his cronies have of North Korea's total.
Or any African dictator. Or Putin. Isn't he worth 700B?
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Pruitt »

degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:56 pm Sure but what system ensures equality?

I'd like to find a calculation of how much percentage of wealth Kim and his cronies have of North Korea's total.
Or any African dictator. Or Putin. Isn't he worth 700B?
I think you'd find that other western democracies do not have such a severe situation. Not saying that Canada, Japan, Netherlands etc., are fully equal, but there is nothing like this.

Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by degenerasian »

Pruitt wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:08 pm
degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:56 pm Sure but what system ensures equality?

I'd like to find a calculation of how much percentage of wealth Kim and his cronies have of North Korea's total.
Or any African dictator. Or Putin. Isn't he worth 700B?
I think you'd find that other western democracies do not have such a severe situation. Not saying that Canada, Japan, Netherlands etc., are fully equal, but there is nothing like this.

Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
It's that argument again. All men are equal. Equal opportunity, not equal outcome. I do agree what it's gone way to far and there is no reason why the US cannot funnel that money back into taxes. The GOP trickle down economics is a scam.

But hey, the US at least doesn't have a royal family to fund like these three countries do.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by The Sybian »

Pruitt wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:08 pm
Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
Heh, sure they started the Declaration of Independence with that phrase, but our system was always skewed towards the rich and powerful. Ignore the whole slavery and concept that black people were subhuman, and women were property, but the purpose of the Electoral College was that they didn't trust average people to vote, the needed better people to decide who the masses wanted to vote for.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Pruitt »

The Sybian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:27 pm
Pruitt wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:08 pm
Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
Heh, sure they started the Declaration of Independence with that phrase, but our system was always skewed towards the rich and powerful. Ignore the whole slavery and concept that black people were subhuman, and women were property, but the purpose of the Electoral College was that they didn't trust average people to vote, the needed better people to decide who the masses wanted to vote for.
Oh, believe me, I didn't write that as a Pollyanna.

Just pointing out that it is more of an outrage and a grotesque hypocrisy that this imbalance exists in a supposedly egalitarian nation as opposed to Russia or the third world.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by BSF21 »

degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:08 pm
Pruitt wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:08 pm
degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 6:56 pm Sure but what system ensures equality?

I'd like to find a calculation of how much percentage of wealth Kim and his cronies have of North Korea's total.
Or any African dictator. Or Putin. Isn't he worth 700B?
I think you'd find that other western democracies do not have such a severe situation. Not saying that Canada, Japan, Netherlands etc., are fully equal, but there is nothing like this.

Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
It's that argument again. All men are equal. Equal opportunity, not equal outcome. I do agree what it's gone way to far and there is no reason why the US cannot funnel that money back into taxes. The GOP trickle down economics is a scam.

But hey, the US at least doesn't have a royal family to fund like these three countries do.
We live by a system written for hundreds of thousands, amended for millions, and now trying to serve closer to half a billion people. That’s it. It’s a numbers game. A royal family wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket to fund here.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by sancarlos »

degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:08 pm But hey, the US at least doesn't have a royal family to fund like these three countries do.
I understand we're spending plenty funding el presidente's golf outings.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by DSafetyGuy »

The Sybian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:27 pm
Pruitt wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 7:08 pm
Remember, the USA was founded on the principle that all men are equal. That is certainly not the prevailing ethos in the countries that you cite.
Heh, sure they started the Declaration of Independence with that phrase, but our system was always skewed towards the rich and powerful. Ignore the whole slavery and concept that black people were subhuman, and women were property, but the purpose of the Electoral College was that they didn't trust average people to vote, the needed better people to decide who the masses wanted to vote for.
Our nation's entire history is the wealthy doing everything in their power to expand their wealth by exploiting the poor as a resource to enrich themselves while treating them in a manner that prevents them from ever threatening the status quo.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

sancarlos wrote: Sat Aug 24, 2019 2:31 pm
degenerasian wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 9:08 pm But hey, the US at least doesn't have a royal family to fund like these three countries do.
I understand we're spending plenty funding el presidente's golf outings.
Oligarchy, monarchy.... It's empowerment by a small number in spite of the masses and their money wasted regardless.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by DaveInSeattle »

Former Real World participant resigns from Congress...



Jeez...9 kids?
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Re: Random Politics

Post by Johnnie »

Also didn't realize his wife was a Real World alum too.

Sidenote: Is The Miz from WWE the most successful Real World/Road Rules alum? Because if not, it has to be Duffy. Karamo is on Queer Eye. Kyle has his show on The NFL Network. And Jamie Chung from Real World San Diego is an actress.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by brian »

Never seen The Real World. Never seen Survivor or Big Brother. Or honestly almost any reality show now that I think about it.
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Re: Random Politics

Post by sancarlos »

brian wrote: Mon Aug 26, 2019 3:17 pm Never seen The Real World. Never seen Survivor or Big Brother. Or honestly almost any reality show now that I think about it.
Ditto
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