Capitalism Guarantees Rising Inequality

[bedowin62]

inequality is rising faster under Progressive majority rule in this the EIGHT-STRAIGHT YEAR OF OVERALL DEM-MAJORITY GOVERNMENT; than it did at ANY point in the Bush years; even at the end

who woulds thunk it?
the richer are getting richer FASTER and the poor are getting POORER FASTER under Obama and Dems than they were under Bush and Republicans



but left-wing niutjobs have their talking points to regurgitate


idiots and hypocrites

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

I wonder if he realizes that calling you home school is not an insult. Home schooled kids consistently out score public school kids here in Alabama, as the AEA has consistently lowered education standards in the process of improving their own lot.

"Homeschooled" is an insult. It is obviously pejorative, both in the intent demonstrated by the immediate context, and by the isolationism exhibited by homeschooling. It is this isolation and the subsequently implied closed-mindedness that stigmatizes homeschooling as an activity for extremeists who want to teach their children that God put dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith in Creationism.
If one cannot cope with the existence of others who are not the same so much so that one must sequester oneself in ones house, then one might have some serious psychological problems.
An interesting point:
"However, Rudner has said that these same students in public school may have scored just as well because of the dedicated parents they had."
Homeschooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Which implies that comparing performance against all public school kids, including the demonstrably challenged ones from dysfunctional home, is an apples-to-oranges comparison. If we cherry picked and compared against science olympiad kids, I don't think homeschoolers would do as well given too many think Jonah lived in a whale.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions.

"They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

– "The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s"

Who Owns The Federal Reserve? | Global Research

Good old Louis was nuttier than you.

Thanks for the link. Ellen Brown is a moron......an amusing moron.

How much of the Fed's stock is owned by the government?

None. And yet, the Treasury was getting around 50 times more earnings than the "stock holders" these last few years.

 

[dblack]

Who controls US Government, Wall Street or Main Street?

The question is what benefits are derived from controlling the government. I'm always a little surprised to realize that you recognize the problem, yet advocate for policies that only exacerbate it.

You're right, that what pollutes our government the most is the efforts of those who would use government to enhance their wealth (increase their financial power). But you're wrong in assuming that they are advocates of a free market They are its staunchest opponents.

Can we get specific about what steps you would take to reduce the influence of financial elites on government?

I wouldn't. I don't think it's their influence that's the problem. It's what that influence affords them. Instead, I'd work to prevent government from interfering in economic matters on behalf of anyone, wealthy or otherwise.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

I have asked several times for anyone who thinks they know something to tell us peons what economic system would be better than capitalism. No one has bothered to answer. I presume they know there is no system which makes as many people prosperous as does capitalism.

Define Capitalism.

So for the moment, let us digress to a discussion relative to the OP. The truth is, it is not capitalism which has created such inequality.

When we get past the "pundits" who express lots of opinions without real proof, we can discuss what the REAL problem of inequality is. It can be summed up in two words, CHOICES & EDUCATION. Our education system in the US does not consider the child being educated the reason for the schools to exist. As a result kids are not adequately counseled to follow a path most relevant to the child's capability. European education systems have one of the best ideas of education, as does Japan. Beginning in high school, early on, each kid is tested for what his best achievement can be. Those who are better with hands on trades are aimed in that direction. Those who are better of in Academia, are tailored for the University. Thus they do not waste billions of $$$$s grooming a kid who is not academically qualified toward a college education. Here is where the choices start to go wrong. TEACHERS AND COUNSELORS tend to push for academia, even if the kids are not really up to it.

I actually prefer to not designate paths for kids. I was once right of center, until the center moved, you know? I understand the logic behind designating students for college prep or vocational paths. The problem is that our service-based economy too often requires college educations for even menial clerical jobs, which of course increases the demand for college education increasing the cost of college education. I would be more amenable to a European style program if we had real career paths for vocational students and did not treat VoTech High School as holding pens. But ultimately, I would prefer young people finding their own path.

Then comes our political system which treats kids as if they are full grown adults, thus the apprentice programs that exist the world over causes the economy to pay more for their lack of experience than they are worth in production.

I cannot discern what you mean by this.

Capitalism has for many years told the designers of education for years that insisting on a kid receiving minimum wage, when in fact he should be paid IAW his abilities, which will in an apprentice system gradually improve until he reaches Journeyman status, at which time he is ready for adult wages, doing adult things, and living like an adult.

How many such programs remain? Electricians? Plumbers? Are you suggesting there exists a demand for apprentices that can absorb millions of job seekers? If so, why not offer post-secondary vocational training, to make up for the lack of vocational training in secondary education?

As it is, we have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of kids who have not learned a trade, and who have had the school system fail them such that they are inadequately trained for a trade or to do any job, possibly beyond flipping hamburgers. That, of course, is a dead end job.

So, do I blame the kids? No, I blame the failure of our public school system and the choices made for the kids by teachers and counselors. As these kids grow up, they are not sufficiently educated to know how to make good decisions, especially financial decisions.

Lots of people make bad financial decisions. Perhaps the worst is to be a poor student getting a degree in a field without clear job prospects or further academic pursuits; doing so purely for the sake of having the degree, and then getting deep into student debt.

One of the major issues why our schools fail the kids, is based on the school believing that all kids have parents who can or will assist them with lessons. Let us look at the 15% to 20% whose parents, for what ever reason, do not help their kids with homework. Homework is one of the most useful tools in education, PROVIDING the kid is smart enough to do it or a parent is smart enough to take over from the teacher and help the kid learn at home.

So how about the kids who ARE NOT smart enough, and whose PARENTS DO NOT/CAN'T help them learn? They go to school, and are frequently belittled for not doing the work and graded down such that the kids self esteem is wounded from the git go. Our public school teachers do not do enough to take the kids who did not learn and TEACH THEM instead of blaming the parent for not doing their part.

Uhm... What happened to the old critique that schools simply pass the problems onward to the next grade-level by not being strict enough? And we do need more support from home. I think a lack of involvement on the part of the parents, albeit parents tired from working two jobs, is a major factor in poor academic performance. If the parents place no importance on academic performance, then the child emulating the parents will place no importance on academic performance.

There are things we as a society can do. Let's not put all the pressure on teachers. We could, as a society, give children in impoverished situations better role models than rappers and misbehaving athletes. We could advance headstart programs. We could end the policy of funding schools based solely on real estate taxes which keeps better funding in wealthier areas. We could dismantle schools so bad that incoming teachers are told to allow the mainstay of the students behave in any manner they choose and focus only on a small subset of children actually paying attention. There is no need to tolerate such failures. If the school is so bad, then maybe those kids need to be sent to different school districts where they can benefit from the influence (and potentially, initially, scorn) of the students in their new school. I actually know a teacher who, upon arrival at their first assignment, was told exactly what I said above and the class was as unthinkably chaotic as described above. The teacher was instructed to ignore the problem and only focus on the small handful of students that sat close to his desk and tried.

There is no need for this to continue. Such a place needs to be dismantled and the students sent to the more affluent public schools.

So what happens to those kids? THEY ARE THE ONES IN THE BOTTOM QUINTILE OF INCOME. They are the ones who were failed by society, not by any economic system.

The answer is to put the priority back where it belongs, on the kids.

Yes, that happens. Do you know how few ladders of upward social mobility we have left as a society? I strongly support programs that produce a workforce eager to seize opportunities and with the skills needed to do so.

We have a system here in Alabama called "Alternative School." When the kids show signs of falling behind, or of disrupting the class room with bad behavior (usually brought on because the kids do not understand the work) they go to the Alternative School wherein they are immersed in the basics until they are capable of succeeding in main stream education.

Those schools, in my experience, are nothing but holding pens. When a student falls into them, they can't get back out. There are truly disturbed young people who do need to be isolated from the rest of the student body. But if we applied that rule to the situation I described above, what you would have are people born and dying in an "alternative society". There needs to be a distinction between the situation where the students are only behaving badly because the norm is so bad and the students who have real psychological problems. And if we don't make that distinction early, I fear the destructive "norm" will condemn an older student into a minimum-wage life.

Where there is a specific learning disorder, the kids are sent for a period of time to a private education system and helped until they are ready to go back. It usually is accomplished in 2 or 3 hour periods a week, most for less than a semester.

I imagine that depends on the severity of the learning disorder, but I see your point.

BTW, let's not pretend that there are those who would define public school as some exercise in Sociaslism and its failure thereby destined. When I ask that we define Capitalism, it is in no small part such that the sophistry to which I alluded can be avoided.

 

[dnsmith35]

All politicians depend on one percent of the voters to fund their election campaigns and retirements. The same one percent who earned about 9% of US income forty years ago and currently earns over 20% of US income.

The same one percent Wall Street serves by bribing politicians to privatize profit and socialize loss.

If we didn't give our government the power to socialize loss they wouldn't be able to sell it.

When someone hires a hitman and the police catch wind of the plot, they don't only jail the guy who did the hiring and let the hitman go free.

All these transactions have buyers -AND- sellers. Try to keep that in mind.

That's good advice.
When you say "if we didn't give our government the power to socialize loss they wouldn't be able to sell it", I'm not clear about how you would limit that authority? US corporations hire lobbyists to petition government to privatize the commons, i.e., cheap land, unlimited air and water, abundant minerals, and expendable workers. The profits are reserved primarily for 1% to 10% of all Americans, and the costs are shared by the vast majority of US workers. Would you deny government the right to privatize the commons or insist government do a better job negotiating the trade-offs between costs and profits?

How does the government negotiate the trade-offs between costs and profits? What gives you the idea the government does anything but see to the self interests of the politicians?

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

Hi gnarly,

Thank you for your insight. I snipped your quote because I think it would be best if we got this discussion back on track.

Thirdly, do you suspect a boom-bust pattern or the business cycle is sustainable? Hasn't government necessarily served as the safety valve for the normal processes of mass transfer of wealth upwards that capitalism succeeds in doing so well? The 40s-60s were egalitarian-ish but then free market ideology took over and we see the results. Wouldn't it make sense to investigate whether this boom-bust pattern is really beneficial for society in comparison to potential alternatives? I'm not advocating for anything in particular, merely an inquiry. I don't think regular crisis is appropriate for wealthiest and most free nation in history.

I think the boom and bust cycle occur naturally. Let's consider Tulip bulbs in the Netherlands. The reason Tulip bulbs became worth so much is because everyone wanted to have them. People would invest in and then resell Tulip bulbs to cash in on the mania. Then the price collapsed.
First, do people have the right to be so inexplicably infatuated with some material thing? I think they do. Second, do other people have the right to observe this infatuation and begin making speculative investments to profit from this demand? I think they do.
What I'm describing is a speculative bubble not a boom-bust cycle, but these two concepts share some traits. And at least for me visualizing the rise and fall of one commodity is easier than visualizing aggregate demand. If we establish that people have the right to throw their money at tulip bulbs, and thus allow popular demand to determine worth, then I think the boom and bust cycle is a pattern that must be endured. It is not that the boom and bust cycle is beneficial to the total output of a society, but rather the effect of having millions of individuals making individual decisions and sometimes not good ones.
I think that the boom-bust cycle makes people happy overall. They suffer in the bust, but they are so elated in the boom. In order to take away boom and bust, the government would have to engage in significant economic planning.

I believe there is an alternative. Keynes offered this alternative. The boom and bust cycles can be mitigated by government policy. The extensive literature of Keynesianism would offer a better explanation than I would. Ultimately I conclude that laissez-faire Capitalism is unworkable; regulated Capitalism is an economic system fit for actual use.

As for the accumulation of wealth in a few hands, there are concepts like Distributism, from where we get our anti-trust legislation.
Distributism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
We have distributist influences in our modern laws.
Distributism does not prevent boom-bust cycles, but it does seek to maximize the spread of property ownership.

I am familiar with Keynes. But capital accumulation can only be mitigated. And as we are seeing in our political arena, wars etc. which are fully subservient to capital and economic interests. Thus the safety valve known as regulation cannot work properly since the interests of the government and private sector align. So at our stage in history we are seeing the trend and it's obvious economic concerns rule the day, regardless of the divergence of the have and have nots, climate change and pollution in general. So as policy increasingly allows for capital accumulation, we can expect greater busts and catastrophes since the economy is global unlike the Tulip cycle you mentioned. So as speculators continue to amass huge sums of wealth, we are faced with a very concrete problem:

"The abstract possibility [of an inverted relation between real assets and speculative assets] lay in the fact, emphasized by both Marx and Keynes, that the capital accumulation process was twofold: involving the ownership of real assets and also the holding of paper claims to those real assets. Under these circumstances the possibility of a contradiction between real accumulation and financial speculation was intrinsic to the system from the start."

"There is no necessary direct connection between productive investment and the amassing of financial assets. It is thus possible for the two to be “decoupled” to a considerable degree. However, without a mature financial system this contradiction went no further than the speculative bubbles that dot the history of capitalism, normally signaling the end of a boom."

"It took the rise of monopoly capitalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the development of a market for industrial securities before finance could take center-stage, and before the contradiction between production and finance could mature."
The Financialization of Capitalism

I think it's quite obvious such a system is unsustainable given sophistic politics, environmental degradation, and the endless goal and legal maxim of increasing profits each quarter without respect for the long term stability. It will reach a point at which the speculative nature will create a problem no government can counter. The paper/digital claims to assets will disappear since those assets didn't exist in reality to begin with thus drying up the alleged wealth of potentially billions. Ensuing thereafter will be the most lasting crisis to have ever tango-ed with mankind, especially if the climate is involved. I do not trust regulated capitalism to present a sustainable future.

The government and private sector must have some alignment given that it is the duty of government to safeguard the private sector. But I do understand that you meant that alignment as a term of opprobrium.
When government is composed of representatives who honestly believe that their duty to the greater welfare of the nation involves belittling the most vulnerable in our society, we do have a problem. But it is not a problem we cannot solve through democracy.

You mention environmental problems. I don't think any change we make to our system of government can in any way effect the very man-made damage to our environment. The problem is that we Westerners consider ourselves all powerful. We are not. We have successfully empowered other societies to the point that these other sovereign nations now pollute more than us by leaps and bounds, and they show no interest in stopping. You can shutdown every coal plant in North America and you won't stop the warming of the Globe. No one will address this problem for the sake of addressing the problem until it becomes undeniable. Example:

Deforestation ran rampant in China as part of the Man-Over-Nature policy
The Increasing Costs of Development: Threat's to China's Biodiversity: Deforestation
Once the negative effects of desertification became undeniable, afforestation began.​

No I don't think it will be "too late" in the sense that I don't believe Hollywood movie depictions of rapid environmental changes. If we could somehow make it profitable to address the problem of climate change, then you'll see people climbing over each other to do so.

As for the accumulation of wealth, have you ever seen the equation
r>g

 

[dnsmith35]

" JPMorgan agreed to pay $20 bln in 2013 to clear up legal claims

"U.S. prosecutor in Manhattan has brought 8 mortgage-fraud suits..."

"WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co settled the latest in a string of legal claims on Tuesday when it agreed to pay $614 million to the U.S. government and admitted that it defrauded federal agencies by underwriting sub-standard mortgage loans.

"JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank by assets, said as part of the settlement that for more than a decade it approved thousands of insured loans that were not eligible for insurance by the Federal Housing Administration or the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to court papers."

UPDATE 2-JPMorgan to pay $614 mln in U.S. mortgage fraud case | Reuters

Do you find this "believable evidence"?

No, I do not! The fact that JPMorgan Chase and Co chose to pay off the suits instead of letting them go to trial is not proof that they caused any of the problem instead of the government being at fault for bad fiscal/monetary policies which include: excessively low interest rates, the push to put more people into homes they could not really afford, allowing ARMs to be used by people not savvy enough to understand that when the interest went way up, they could not pay that loan. Do I believe that the loan agencies were part to blame for allowing the government to brow beat them into offering those loans? Maybe some, but mostly not, because the government made it too clear what they wanted, and they got it in spades.

Do you blame "government" or the Federal Reserve for setting "excessively low interest rates?"

How many times does it have to be said for you to digest the fact that government fiscal and monetary policy, IE low interest rates with the expectation of homes being made "available" and "affordable" to people who could not afford them? Of course the government was wrong allowing excessively low interest rates and pushing home ownership to people without good credit and could not afford to pay the payments. Not only did homeowners lose big bucks, but so did the banks; so much so the government had to shore them up with more big bucks. So I guess you blame the banks for trying to mitigate their loses with bundled loans to be sold to keep their losses down.

 

[dnsmith35]

Just a quick note on formatting, addressed to anyone for whom this might be a help...

First and foremost there is a button captioned "Preview Post". This is a very useful feature to review how your post will appear before you hit the "Submit Reply" button.

The format tags specify the formatting. Each format tag begins with an open tag
[format]
and a close tag
[/format]

I will give some examples and use "whitespace" to prevent the format tags from being interpreted.
Some format tags are relatively simple, such as italics
[ I ]
[ / I ]

Quotes are an example of formatting with a few more rules and features. Quotes can be nested.
[ quote ] [ quote ] [/ quote ] [/ quote ]
Quotes can be linked.
[ quote= Zombie_Pundit; 9198478]
Notice the little arrow that will navigate your browser to the original post. The linked and nested properties are not exclusive.
There is a limiting to the nesting. The forum will automatically delete quoted text if the nesting level is too "deep", meaning too many layers of nested quotes.

Format tag balancing...
If the format tags are unbalanced, the formatting will not take effect in the manner the author intended (unless for some reason the author intended unbalanced format tags).
Consider this unbalanced format tag which I am deliberately adding to make something
BOLD

But the word bold won't be bold because the format tags are unbalanced. Now when I do this again but balance the tags
BOLD
The first close tag corresponds to the most recent open tag, leaving the original incorrect.

Now, if I inadvertently delete (or break) a close and open tag
I [/ B ] could leave a large chunk of text [ B ] bold when only certain words were supposed to be bold.

It is difficult to quote someone when the original post contains unbalanced quotation format tags.

If you want to be concerned with formatting, be my guest. I don't have that much patience. So gee, how do we make the sentence in italics? or to underline it? If formatting helps you get your rocks off, be my guest. But when you quote my words, be damned sure it is my name within the quote. GOT THAT?

 

[dnsmith35]

"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions.

"They are private monopolies which prey upon the people of these United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.”

– "The Honorable Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee in the 1930s"

Who Owns The Federal Reserve? | Global Research

Good old Louis was nuttier than you.

Thanks for the link. Ellen Brown is a moron......an amusing moron.

How much of the Fed's stock is owned by the government?

THAT is really irrelevant, as the Fed will invariably do what the current administration wants them to do

 

[SAYIT]

No, I do not! The fact that JPMorgan Chase and Co chose to pay off the suits instead of letting them go to trial is not proof that they caused any of the problem instead of the government being at fault for bad fiscal/monetary policies which include: excessively low interest rates, the push to put more people into homes they could not really afford, allowing ARMs to be used by people not savvy enough to understand that when the interest went way up, they could not pay that loan. Do I believe that the loan agencies were part to blame for allowing the government to brow beat them into offering those loans? Maybe some, but mostly not, because the government made it too clear what they wanted, and they got it in spades.

Do you blame "government" or the Federal Reserve for setting "excessively low interest rates?"

How many times does it have to be said for you to digest the fact that government fiscal and monetary policy, IE low interest rates with the expectation of homes being made "available" and "affordable" to people who could not afford them? Of course the government was wrong allowing excessively low interest rates and pushing home ownership to people without good credit and could not afford to pay the payments. Not only did homeowners lose big bucks, but so did the banks; so much so the government had to shore them up with more big bucks. So I guess you blame the banks for trying to mitigate their loses with bundled loans to be sold to keep their losses down.

I realize gov't social engineering often fails but in this case we, as a nation, tried to include our least capable in the American dream. It was a noble idea that, other than a few exceptions, failed miserably.

 

[dnsmith35]

Ultimately I conclude that laissez-faire Capitalism is unworkable; regulated Capitalism is an economic system fit for actual use.

Snipped for brevity. I agree, laissez-faire Capitalism is unworkable. Can you give me an example of where on exists today?

Nowhere, of course. At least as I think we both define "laissez-faire Capitalism".

I think the problem is that we have not begun with a set of definitions. Is Capitalism understood to mean "laissez-faire" Capitalism?

N0!

Let us not pretend there is no one who considers "laissez-faire" an unadded and unnecessary qualifier.

Since no example exists, it is obvious that unless you add the "laissez-faire" it is not.

It's been quite the talking point for a number of years. Is Keynesianism synonymous

No! Keynesian is generally bad government actions as most issues whould have improved with out the "government meddling" in the economy. Reason being, "every nickle of Keynesian stimulation comes from the economy through taxation or borrowing, and just moved around but because that borrowing and taxing has overhead, the ampunt put back into the economy is never as much as is taken out. Keynesian policies are not synonymous with "Capitalism".

Let us not pretend there is no one who considers Keynesianism to be akin to Socialism. Arguments are abound on the internet over differences stemming from what people consider a putative definition of terms like these. And no one will stop, catch their breath, and ask "what did you mean by that" because they assume everyone defines things they way they do and cannot imagine the world any differently.

I don't assume any of you know what it means because so many of you are dumb as a post when it comes to economics. You may know (I am not really sure) how to FORMAT a post, but you have shown little understanding of economics.
Let's take a look at Wikipedia
Capitalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to this article, "Marxian" is an economic theory under the subject of Capitalism. Of course, once one clicks on the link there is no easy navigation back except the browser back-page button. That's rather poetic if you stop and think about it.

Contrast this with the wikipedia article on Market Economy
Market economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article lists several ideologies on economic systems including Capitalist and Laissez-faire as separate ideologies.[/quote]Since laissez-faire is such a non existing system of capitalism I suppose considering it a separate ideology is fine.

So even if we try to use wikipedia to provide a common set of definitions, wikipedia contradicts itself on the relationships between these systems and ideologies. BTW, the ideology link "Capitalist" links to the article above on Capitalism.

Since Wikipedia is edited by the people who use it there is no doubt as to why it is not a very good source.

We need to agree on what Capitalism entails.

How about using a valid reference book? Merriam-Webster says it well.

Full Definition of CAPITALISM

: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

Most of us tend to modify that definition by adding that government regulation is most likely needed to mitigate an less than level playing field which exists between capital and consumption.

We then go further, by saying that capitalism is AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM to EVER DEVISE a means to distribute prosperity the highest % of the population.

 

[dnsmith35]

.....

I wonder if he realizes that calling you home school is not an insult. Home schooled kids consistently out score public school kids here in Alabama, as the AEA has consistently lowered education standards in the process of improving their own lot.

Zombie-"Homeschooled" is an insult. [It is obviously pejorative, both in the intent demonstrated by the immediate context, and by the isolationism exhibited by homeschooling.

Only to education snobs who are not aware that homeschooling tends to produce better intellectual students because the parents do what it takes to educate their children. Our home schooled children continuously out perform public school students in every subject.

It is this isolation and the subsequently implied closed-mindedness that stigmatizes homeschooling as an activity for extremeists who want to teach their children that God put dinosaur bones in the earth to test our faith in Creationism.

You are not only ignorant, you are bigoted. So much for idiots like you.

Zombie-If one cannot cope with the existence of others who are not the same so much so that one must sequester oneself in ones house, then one might have some serious psychological problems.

Sequestering oneself in a public school which does not treat the student as the important point certainly does not produce significantly better qualified students.

An interesting point:
"However, Rudner has said that these same students in public school may have scored just as well because of the dedicated parents they had."
Homeschooling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Which implies that comparing performance against all public school kids, including the demonstrably challenged ones from dysfunctional home, is an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Challenged students from dysfunctional home deserve as good an education as anyone else. It is a shame that our AEA run public schools do not take good care of their education.

If we cherry picked and compared against science olympiad kids, I don't think homeschoolers would do as well given too many think Jonah lived in a whale.

For your information, most homeschooling is not done to teach religion, it is done to better educate ones children. Many home schooled kids are very special kids with various learning disabilities and the parents know that the school will not do right by them.

As to cherry picking and comparing, if the public schools continue to mainstream learning disabled, and special education kids, all we are doing is reducing the overall education experience for everyone.

But as usual, you have shown your ignorance. So now we know, you have no idea what makes for good education, nor do you know anything about economics.

 

[Chris]

Do you blame "government" or the Federal Reserve for setting "excessively low interest rates?"

How many times does it have to be said for you to digest the fact that government fiscal and monetary policy, IE low interest rates with the expectation of homes being made "available" and "affordable" to people who could not afford them? Of course the government was wrong allowing excessively low interest rates and pushing home ownership to people without good credit and could not afford to pay the payments. Not only did homeowners lose big bucks, but so did the banks; so much so the government had to shore them up with more big bucks. So I guess you blame the banks for trying to mitigate their loses with bundled loans to be sold to keep their losses down.

I realize gov't social engineering often fails but in this case we, as a nation, tried to include our least capable in the American dream. It was a noble idea that, other than a few exceptions, failed miserably.

Wall Street ran a derivatives based Ponzi scheme that destroyed the world economy.
It wasn't the housing market.

 

[dnsmith35]

.....

I have asked several times for anyone who thinks they know something to tell us peons what economic system would be better than capitalism. No one has bothered to answer. I presume they know there is no system which makes as many people prosperous as does capitalism.

Define Capitalism.

Full Definition of CAPITALISM
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

So for the moment, let us digress to a discussion relative to the OP. The truth is, it is not capitalism which has created such inequality.

When we get past the "pundits" who express lots of opinions without real proof, we can discuss what the REAL problem of inequality is. It can be summed up in two words, CHOICES & EDUCATION. Our education system in the US does not consider the child being educated the reason for the schools to exist. As a result kids are not adequately counseled to follow a path most relevant to the child's capability. European education systems have one of the best ideas of education, as does Japan. Beginning in high school, early on, each kid is tested for what his best achievement can be. Those who are better with hands on trades are aimed in that direction. Those who are better of in Academia, are tailored for the University. Thus they do not waste billions of $$$$s grooming a kid who is not academically qualified toward a college education. Here is where the choices start to go wrong. TEACHERS AND COUNSELORS tend to push for academia, even if the kids are not really up to it.

Zombie - I actually prefer to not designate paths for kids.

Then you are part of the problem.

I was once right of center,

Shame on you.

until the center moved, you know?

I do know. Everything shifted to the left.

Zombie - I understand the logic behind designating students for college prep or vocational paths. The problem is that our service-based economy too often requires college educations for even menial clerical jobs, which of course increases the demand for college education increasing the cost of college education. I would be more amenable to a European style program if we had real career paths for vocational students and did not treat VoTech High School as holding pens. But ultimately, I would prefer young people finding their own path.

It does not help the student to push him the wrong way. Our economy and society has swallowed the academia bit, but that doesn't mean its right, and it can be resolved.

Z - I cannot discern what you mean by this.

I am not surprised.

Z - How many such programs remain? Electricians? Plumbers? Are you suggesting there exists a demand for apprentices that can absorb millions of job seekers? If so, why not offer post-secondary vocational training, to make up for the lack of vocational training in secondary education?

I agree, but instead of a student paying for that post secondary education in a trade, why not he earn a stipend to do an apprenticeship? The list of tradesmen is very long.

Z - Lots of people make bad financial decisions. Perhaps the worst is to be a poor student getting a degree in a field without clear job prospects or further academic pursuits; doing so purely for the sake of having the degree, and then getting deep into student debt.

A large part of my point. Wouldn't it be better for the school through achievement and ability testing to help him choose something more in his favor?

Z -Uhm... What happened to the old critique that schools simply pass the problems onward to the next grade-level by not being strict enough? And we do need more support from home. I think a lack of involvement on the part of the parents, albeit parents tired from working two jobs, is a major factor in poor academic performance. If the parents place no importance on academic performance, then the child emulating the parents will place no importance on academic performance.

Ah, so you recognize that all parents either can't or won't help the kids. So don't you believe that the responsibility subsequently falls to the schools and the teachers?

Z - There are things we as a society can do. Let's not put all the pressure on teachers. We could, as a society, give children in impoverished situations better role models than rappers and misbehaving athletes. We could advance headstart programs. We could end the policy of funding schools based solely on real estate taxes which keeps better funding in wealthier areas. We could dismantle schools so bad that incoming teachers are told to allow the mainstay of the students behave in any manner they choose and focus only on a small subset of children actually paying attention. There is no need to tolerate such failures. If the school is so bad, then maybe those kids need to be sent to different school districts where they can benefit from the influence (and potentially, initially, scorn) of the students in their new school. I actually know a teacher who, upon arrival at their first assignment, was told exactly what I said above and the class was as unthinkably chaotic as described above. The teacher was instructed to ignore the problem and only focus on the small handful of students that sat close to his desk and tried.

You are getting my point, little by little. We as a society need to ensure our school systems do the whole job, whether it is head start systems, better determining a students basic capabilities, seeing to it that we maximize their abilities, maybe by using alternative schools, contracting for specific needs education. What ever it takes. We can't just continue to blame parents, who may be at fault, but recognize that the school is more at fault for letting some students down, thus creating another generation low quintile income students.

There is no need for this to continue. Such a place needs to be dismantled and the students sent to the more affluent public schools.

All schools must be successful, or as you said, SHUT THEM DOWN AND FIRE ALL THE TEACHERS AND STAFF.

Z - Yes, that happens. Do you know how few ladders of upward social mobility we have left as a society? I strongly support programs that produce a workforce eager to seize opportunities and with the skills needed to do so.

GOOD! That was the point of the post to which you responded.

We have a system here in Alabama called "Alternative School." When the kids show signs of falling behind, or of disrupting the class room with bad behavior (usually brought on because the kids do not understand the work) they go to the Alternative School wherein they are immersed in the basics until they are capable of succeeding in main stream education.

Those schools, in my experience, are nothing but holding pens.

You must live in a viper pit of poverty. We take full usefulness of alternative schools to help the students.

When a student falls into them, they can't get back out.

In our small southern community that is not the case.

There are truly disturbed young people who do need to be isolated from the rest of the student body. But if we applied that rule to the situation I described above, what you would have are people born and dying in an "alternative society".

They are doing so now, and the mainstream school is not helping them.

There needs to be a distinction between the situation where the students are only behaving badly because the norm is so bad and the students who have real psychological problems.

The point is to help EACH student according to his needs.

And if we don't make that distinction early, I fear the destructive "norm" will condemn an older student into a minimum-wage life.

That is exactly what our failing public schools are doing now.

Where there is a specific learning disorder, the kids are sent for a period of time to a private education system and helped until they are ready to go back. It usually is accomplished in 2 or 3 hour periods a week, most for less than a semester.

I imagine that depends on the severity of the learning disorder, but I see your point.

BTW, let's not pretend that there are those who would define public school as some exercise in Sociaslism and its failure thereby destined. When I ask that we define Capitalism, it is in no small part such that the sophistry to which I alluded can be avoided.

School is not "socialism". It is really not a social program. It is an essential part of any healthy society. Until we DEMAND that our schools produce high quality education such that all of the kids learn how to live and become trained/educated to lead a successful economic life, we are destined to have even greater inequality in income than we have now. As you can see, it is not the 1% causing the problem of inequality, it is a complacent society.

 

[dnsmith35]

How many times does it have to be said for you to digest the fact that government fiscal and monetary policy, IE low interest rates with the expectation of homes being made "available" and "affordable" to people who could not afford them? Of course the government was wrong allowing excessively low interest rates and pushing home ownership to people without good credit and could not afford to pay the payments. Not only did homeowners lose big bucks, but so did the banks; so much so the government had to shore them up with more big bucks. So I guess you blame the banks for trying to mitigate their loses with bundled loans to be sold to keep their losses down.

I realize gov't social engineering often fails but in this case we, as a nation, tried to include our least capable in the American dream. It was a noble idea that, other than a few exceptions, failed miserably.

Wall Street ran a derivatives based Ponzi scheme that destroyed the world economy.
It wasn't the housing market.

Your harping on an incorrect cause of the recession proves your ignorance of the entire subject.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

Snipped for brevity. I agree, laissez-faire Capitalism is unworkable. Can you give me an example of where on exists today?

Nowhere, of course. At least as I think we both define "laissez-faire Capitalism".

I think the problem is that we have not begun with a set of definitions. Is Capitalism understood to mean "laissez-faire" Capitalism?

N0! Since no example exists, it is obvious that unless you add the "laissez-faire" it is not.No! Keynesian is generally bad government actions as most issues whould have improved with out the "government meddling" in the economy. Reason being, "every nickle of Keynesian stimulation comes from the economy through taxation or borrowing, and just moved around but because that borrowing and taxing has overhead, the ampunt put back into the economy is never as much as is taken out. Keynesian policies are not synonymous with "Capitalism".
I don't assume any of you know what it means because so many of you are dumb as a post when it comes to economics. You may know (I am not really sure) how to FORMAT a post, but you have shown little understanding of economics.
Let's take a look at Wikipedia
Capitalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
According to this article, "Marxian" is an economic theory under the subject of Capitalism. Of course, once one clicks on the link there is no easy navigation back except the browser back-page button. That's rather poetic if you stop and think about it.

Contrast this with the wikipedia article on Market Economy
Market economy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article lists several ideologies on economic systems including Capitalist and Laissez-faire as separate ideologies.

Since laissez-faire is such a non existing system of capitalism I suppose considering it a separate ideology is fine.

So even if we try to use wikipedia to provide a common set of definitions, wikipedia contradicts itself on the relationships between these systems and ideologies. BTW, the ideology link "Capitalist" links to the article above on Capitalism.

Since Wikipedia is edited by the people who use it there is no doubt as to why it is not a very good source.

We need to agree on what Capitalism entails.

How about using a valid reference book? Merriam-Webster says it well.

Full Definition of CAPITALISM

: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market

Most of us tend to modify that definition by adding that government regulation is most likely needed to mitigate an less than level playing field which exists between capital and consumption.

We then go further, by saying that capitalism is AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM to EVER DEVISE a means to distribute prosperity the highest % of the population.

Your treatment of Keynesian Economics is both woefully inadequate and simply wrong. And just for the record, Keynes very much thought he was a Capitalist.

Keynes wanted to create a revolution in the way the world thought about economic problems, but he was more open-minded about capitalism than is commonly believed. He saw capitalism as essential to a society’s well-being but also morally flawed, and he sought a corrective for its main defect: the failure to stabilize investment. Keynes’s nuanced views, the authors suggest, offer an alternative to the polarized rhetoric often evoked by the word “capitalism” in today’s political debates.​

Capitalist Revolutionary ? Roger E. Backhouse, Bradley W. Bateman | Harvard University Press

As for the rest of this post:
1) I'm not cleaning up this mess to correct the parts where dnsmith has, most inadvertently and probably not to his liking, taken credit for my words.
2) A set of definitions is a requirement for any productive dialogue.
3) When one person talks about the ambiguity of "putative definitions" and a second person counters with "Most of us tend to modify that definition" it is obvious the second person does not know what putative means.

pu·ta·tive
adjective
generally considered or reputed to be.​

4) "NO!" is not spelled with a zero.
5) Shouting is annoying.

Come back when you have something other than belligerence to add to this discussion.

 

[Zombie_Pundit]

School is not "socialism". It is really not a social program. It is an essential part of any healthy society. Until we DEMAND that our schools produce high quality education such that all of the kids learn how to live and become trained/educated to lead a successful economic life, we are destined to have even greater inequality in income than we have now.

I agree that school is not socialism, but it is most certainly a social program for the general welfare of our nation. And I agree that education is the primary pathway to ladders of upward social mobility.

As you can see, it is not the 1% causing the problem of inequality, it is a complacent society.

I don't think the 1% are evil, if that's what you mean. I don't blame them for being the 1%. I don't think they need to be worshiped either, like building a golden calf to their glory.

Charging Bull - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Then comes our political system which treats kids as if they are full grown adults, thus the apprentice programs that exist the world over causes the economy to pay more for their lack of experience than they are worth in production.

I cannot discern what you mean by this. Our political system has an age of majority precluding treating children as adults. Juvenile workers are not necessarily eligible for the federal minimum wage.

It does not help the student to push him the wrong way.

I do not share your enthusiasm for socialist programs which predetermine what each student will achieve in life, as is done in other education models.

Our economy and society has swallowed the academia bit, but that doesn't mean its right, and it can be resolved...

I agree with some of what you said, sans the snark.

You must live in a viper pit of poverty.

I don't live in southern fried homeschool praise the lord and pass the ammunition utopia, but we get by.

 

[Andylusion]

I wonder if he realizes that calling you home school is not an insult. Home schooled kids consistently out score public school kids here in Alabama, as the AEA has consistently lowered education standards in the process of improving their own lot.

Of course not. This guy debates like he's STILL in a public middle school debate club.

It's people like him, that are perfect examples of what Thomas Sowell said years ago.

Sowell was set debate a well known economist I believe, and the night before the debate told his people he was going home to get rest. When they thought he should prepare for the debate instead, Sowell explained:

“I don’t mind debating smart people. They know the limitations of their position. It’s debating stupid people that’s hard.”

This guys is exactly who Sowell was talking about. Too dumb to even know the limits of his own position.

"On Friday, the city of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase accusing it of pushing minority borrowers to take on risky home loans that would ultimately cost the city at least $1.7 billion in lost revenue and maintenance.

"According to the city, these risky home loans triggered numerous foreclosures that disproportionately affected people of color.

"The alleged predatory lending resulted in cratering property values, lost tax revenue and increased costs to the city as there are now no homeowners paying for the maintenance of those foreclosed properties.

"The Los Angeles Times reports that JPMorgan is charged with responsibility for some 200,000 foreclosures in the city between 2008 and 2012.

"Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer has already gone after Bank of America and Wells Fargo, and will argue that JPMorgan has continuously practiced mortgage discrimination since 2004."

Feel free to continue making an ass out of your self, Bitch.

L.A. Sues America?s Biggest Bank Alleging Predatory Lending - Truthdig

See what I mean? You are so dumb, you don't even realize that what you just posted, contradicts absolutely nothing of what I said. Nor did I ever suggest what is written here was wrong otherwise.

You are just simply too stupid to know what you don't know.

Thomas Sowell is right.
“I don’t mind debating smart people. They know the limitations of their position. It’s debating stupid people that’s hard.”

 

[Andylusion]

How many times does it have to be said for you to digest the fact that government fiscal and monetary policy, IE low interest rates with the expectation of homes being made "available" and "affordable" to people who could not afford them? Of course the government was wrong allowing excessively low interest rates and pushing home ownership to people without good credit and could not afford to pay the payments. Not only did homeowners lose big bucks, but so did the banks; so much so the government had to shore them up with more big bucks. So I guess you blame the banks for trying to mitigate their loses with bundled loans to be sold to keep their losses down.

I realize gov't social engineering often fails but in this case we, as a nation, tried to include our least capable in the American dream. It was a noble idea that, other than a few exceptions, failed miserably.

Wall Street ran a derivatives based Ponzi scheme that destroyed the world economy.
It wasn't the housing market.

Again... we've covered this. The only derivatives that were a problem, were those based on Sub-prime loans.

The rest of the derivatives market didn't have a problem.

And here's the key.... before sub-prime loans came along, we had a perfectly fine derivatives market for decades.

Furthermore, government came up with derivatives. So if you really want to claim that derivatives are a Ponzi scheme, then government is still to blame. They created it.