DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Xavier_Onassis on September 09, 2014, 01:30:05 PM
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http://truth-out.org/news/item/26042-elizabeth-warren-on-fighting-back-against-wall-st-giants (http://truth-out.org/news/item/26042-elizabeth-warren-on-fighting-back-against-wall-st-giants)
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Guns actually, are not very important. Freedom and the Constitution are
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Freedom to do what?
Constitution to do what?
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Freedom to do what we want, when we want, so long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of someone else
Constitution isn't a function, its merely a blueprint (the rules to the game of living in the United States), that specifically outlines the limits to what the Government can do, reinforcing the Freedom component, as referenced above
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Dear Elizabeth Warren, are you clear on the concept that there are cheats in the stock market , banking, pension management, brokerage, land rental and investment, but , the purpose of the investment community is not to cheat , but to facilitate progress and safety.
Just as not all Congressmen are honest , not all businessmen are dishonest.
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I did not hear Elizabeth Warren say that all businessmen were corrupt.
It is the function of good government to prevent them from corrupting the society as they have done.
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And what prevents the Government from corrupting the function of Government, as they have done?
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Not electing goddamn Republicans is a good start.
People who think that "government is the problem" have no business in government.
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Do you really want a laundry list of all the corrupt, indicted, and imprisoned Democrats that have graced our political landscape?? So no, not electing Republicans doesn't defacto help even a little, much less a good start.
Do you seriously want to have this debate, or you just going to go off on one of your ususal hyperpartisan rants of how evil the GOP is??
Government IS the problem, WHEN it decides for itself, that it can supercede its authority & clear boundries granted to it, by the Constitution. Party affiliation need not be the deciding issue.
But I appreciate how you helped hilight the problem.....that those who think the above, shouldn't be in Government...that way those who do see the opportunity for endless power, have no one to really stop them...cloaking their actions in a need to "fundamentally transform how they're going to do things, in Washington"
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There is far more corruption in the Republican Party. Most of them are corporate whores of the worst order. They support anything that will get them campaign contributions.
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Your 99% erroneous opinion aside, Government corruption is arguably as bad, if not worse than anything in corporate America. And Dems are just as religiously greedy to special interests, and their campaign contributions, as largely being paid mouthpieces, for folks like Unions, Enviromental lobby, and pro-illegial immigration lobby. And currently you have the Justice Dept actively coordinating talking points with the Democrat party, that would be causing an apoplectic outrage & 24/7 reporting, if it were a Republican administration
So, Dems are just as bad, if not worse whores to special interest contributions, including corporations. I could provide a list of all those Dems RICHLY connected to corporations, as well as the list of Dems who've been found guilty in a whole host of corruptive actions, that you would of course ignore, (Didn't Nagin just start his prison sentence?) ... But getting back to the point, that being supportive of the concept of limited government neither equates to no government nor no taxes to function as a Government. The concept of limited government is consistent with the founding of this country, where Government is a tool, specifically to protect its citzenry, while promoting everything else. And anything not specifically layed out in the Constitution, is then the purvue of the States. The Bill of Rights is SPECIFIC RESTRICTIONS UPON THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, rights of its citizens that SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED
That's the point of Freedom & the Constitution. And no amount of trying to ignorantly lay claim to something that it's not, such as abolishing taxes or even Government for that matter, is going to change that reality
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Not electing goddamn Republicans is a good start.
People who think that "government is the problem" have no business in government.
Oh no!
People who think government is never the problem should be in some other government , preferably an enemy's.
Anything a corporation can do wrong , a government can do just as wrong , and no less likely.
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The Republicans seem to think government always the problem.
Such people should never be elected to anything.
Government can be the solution to many problems. Regulations prevented banks and S&Ls from collapsing from FDR until the American people were so stupid as to elect Reagan. Then regulations were removed and the S&Ls collapsed. Now banks dp not hold your mortgage, they peddle it off in pieces to God knows where.
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They peddle it to the government , who ever bought more weak mortgages than Fannie May?
I do wish that the small government Republicans were more genuinely small government, the government seems to grow larger and more important to our lives no matter who is in power.
Using government to solve some problems is appropriate , there are some things that require the governments size and power .
Using the government for things that could be done by private organizations or persons is objectionable,
Using government for absolutely everything is nuts.
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If there had been no Fannie Mae, many people would never have owned a home. Fannie Mae was not a bad idea, it was run by incompetent people for a spell. The solution is not to abolish it (as "small government hacks would do), it is to make sure that there are proper regulations and that it is run by competent people, as it was for many, many years.
There are many countries with fewer resources than this one that have almost abolished poverty. They have done it through good government. None is run by a goddamned asshole Republican.
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But Fannie Mae was a proximal cause of the collapse of the mortgage market , even though it was intended as a support for housing ownership for those with lesser means , it would up being a dump for bad loans, why should a bank try to vet a borrower when the risk is sold for a profit to the government?
The US has abolished poverty , very nearly completely.
But we have reset the baseline , my grandfather was not poor, but I earn more in a month than he did in two years , and my inflation corrected buying power is better too.
When was the last time you heard a serious discussion of Pellagra ? The poor have multiple TVs , cars, and et cetra. Diseases of obesity have taken the place of diseases of insufficient protein.
Perhaps it is not a house of cards , perhaps our stability which depends on the rich taxation of a few is sustainable , it just does not look stable or sustainable to build a pyramid with the point down.
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We have come nowhere near as close as the Scandinavians, the Germans and the Dutch.
We still have homeless people sleeping in the streets here. We have people begging at traffic intersections.
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So much for the "war on poverty"
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The War on Poverty would have been a success if not for all that money they pissed away in Vietnam.
We need another LBJ
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The U.S. Government has their own money making printing press, so they can print all the money they supposedly need. So no, throwing more money, while I realize is the left's answer for everything, isn't the answer
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Like you know anything about it.
It is to laugh, Ha!
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LOL...the perfect response as exemplified by a hard core liberal. Forget debate, claim victory, ridicule, and hit enter. You realize if money were the "secret", we'd have the BEST education system on the face of the globe. Far from it now, isn't it
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We do not spend more on education than other countries. not per capita. Nor do we treat educators with the respect they deserve, and routinely get many other places. Hence, we do not attract as many good minds to education as we could otherwise do..
In school districts where we DO spend major money, we mostly get excellent results.
Beverly Hills, Shaker Heights, Short Hills, Palm Beach, Marin County, the Seattle islands.
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We spend more per pupil than pretty much every other country. And what do we have to who for it? Not to mention the answer the left keeps giving is MORE $$$
The fact that the unions have been able to game the system in such a way that bad teachers don't get fired, just moved to the poorer school districts, just keeps those stundents in a perpetual system of bad educators, and ironically more cries for MORE $$$
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All you know is the crap you hear on Fix, and it is mostly all BS.
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Didn't think you could refute it, thanks 8)
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All you know is the crap you hear on Fix, and it is mostly all BS.
Since your experience with education is as an educator, I have a special regard for your opinion.
Please don't disparage us when we disagree , that is kinda our job , in here anyway.
I wouldn't be surprised if you were more in the know about Education than I am , but I want to have a decent argument anyway.
Where indeed are the best sources for the cost and efficiency of American education?
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In the US, school budgets depend on local school districts, which get their funding from property taxes. Property taxes, in turn, depend on the value of real estate in the communities served by the school districts. Per capita allotments vary from under $1000 per student to as much as $9,000 per student, if you compare a rural Mississippi districts with Beverly Hills. Student learning varies as a rule with the degree of money spent on the student as well as the educational experience of the student's parents.
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That sounds reasonable, does this make it hard to make realistic national comparisons?
Are efforts to make national standards doomed?
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......and in the U.S. we spend more money per pupil than pretty much every other country on the globe
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......and in the U.S. we spend more money per pupil than pretty much every other country on the globe
If you know that is a fact I would like to see more about it.
Got links?
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Are you unable to use Google?
As I recall, a years or so ago we had a debate lasting several months in which Michael T provided extensive links to everything.
If you want to continue blaming the teachers and their unions for students that cannot perform, be my guest.
Do you blame a teachers union for your inability to spell English?
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Are you unable to use Google?
As I recall, a years or so ago we had a debate lasting several months in which Michael T provided extensive links to everything.
If you want to continue blaming the teachers and their unions for students that cannot perform, be my guest.
Do you blame a teachers union for your inability to spell English?
I am sorry I should have made it more clear that I was addressing this to Sirs.
He is talking as though he has already found something.
I use google all the time , but I might not find what sirs is talking about that way , because it would show up with a haystack of related stuff.
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sirs likes to ask dumb questions, but he seems to possess few answers. Much of what he calls "priceless" tends to be unworthy of mention.
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More projection I see. Tsk tsk
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You really like that word, don't you, sirs?
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I don't "like" any words. I use words that are appropriate, however
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If you want to continue blaming the teachers and their unions for students that cannot perform, be my guest.
Do you blame a teachers union for your inability to spell English?
I am sorry I should have made it more clear that I was addressing this to Sirs.
He is talking as though he has already found something.
Unlike those who merely wish to opine & ridicule, while managing to never back up anything they claim, we have multiple sources that back up the fact that the U.S. spends far more per-pupil on education, than retty much everyone else
CBS has this (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-education-spending-tops-global-list-study-shows/)
The National Center for Educational Statistics backs that up (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp)
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development backs that up (http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/u.s.-education-spending-tops-other-countries)
Business Insider has us near the top (http://www.businessinsider.com/us-education-spending-compared-to-the-rest-of-the-developed-world-2012-1)
And so on, and so on, and so on. Point being, all we keep hearing is that public schools "need more money". Or this failing program needs more money. Or that failing government organization needs more money. It's always more money, and poof....that's gonna fix the problem. And when it doesn't its because....need more money. Notice the pattern?
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That would be because many school districts do, in fact, need more money.
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Yea, the ones that keep offloading their worse teachers, into those districts, instead if firing them. Point being we already spend more per pupil than nearly every other nation, and yet there you are still decrying that we need more money........because that's worked so well in the past ::)
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More money HAS worked quite well in many, many communities. It has not worked well everywhere.
The United States does not have a national school system with national standards. It has thousands of school systems. In most of them, unions have done more good than harm. Rightwingers think that pointing out dumb shit that goes on in DC and NYC or used to means that the same stuff goes on everywhere. Pat Torniullo, who used to be the leader of the AFT here in Miami, was corrupt and generally useless at leading teachers. I had one chance to vote for or against him when I was a permanent sub for three months, and I voted against him, because he was responsible in part for the absurd system that the Miami Schools had for requiring records. I was required to keep records of student performance in a certain complicated order. When I asked to see the records I had submitted to check on something, I was told they had been destroyed, which they did unannounced with all records two weeks before the end of classes. I resented having to spend hours sorting stuff when it could not possibly serve any purpose to anyone. I heard this had been instituted according to some deal that Tornillo had negotiated, and no one could tell me why. Tornillo was caught in some scandal three years after that and they tell me that schools have improved. At least the rankings of schools according to the state guidelines have improved.
All school problems must be dealt with on a district to district basis, perhaps they do spend too much money in a few places. I have never seen any examples of that in the four districts where I taught. To make some blanket statement like "spending more has not improved schools, so we should not pay more money" is simplistic and in no way could possibly apply to every school district. Reactionaries hate teachers because teachers vote Democratic mostly and teachers unions are among the best at organizing get out the vote drives. Reactionaries hate get out the vote drives, because it means they lose elections, which is to the advantage of most of the citizens of this country. Democrats are occasionally corrupt. Republicans are nearly all suckups who will follow the desires of the fatcats who have purchased them.
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JUST more money has not worked for our Public Education system. HISTORY has demonstrated that....in particular, recent history.
So no, you don't have any standing to proclaim a broadbrush need for more money, when we already spend more per pupil than nearly every other country, while our graduation rates & test scores remain abysmal compared to other countries that spend far less
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There is no American Public Education System. There never has been.
There are thousands of school districts. Some do well, others do not.
You insist on simplistic blather because you are a simpleton.
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Nor have I ever claimed there was an "American Public Education System". We do have a Public Education system, supported by our tax dollars, and highly regulated by the Dept of Education
I realize to folks like yourself, who just "know better" than the rest of us simpletons, cloaking your intentions in rhetorical rabble, and proclaim how others just aren't nuanced to understand the complexities of whatever issue it is you can't bothered to actually support with any credible facts. Your problem is, you only fool yourself into beliving others are too dumb to grasp both the nuance and the intentions. FACT is we spend more $$$ per pupil than pretty much every other country on the globe. And if money alone was the cure all to so many of these social ailments, we'd have the greatest education results on the globe. The inconvenient truth however, is its FAR from it.
And the gall to think that to "fix" this education debacle is simply MORE MONEY, is one even a simpleton would thow back in your face, given the track record of that effort already employed to this point
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The Dept opf Education only tells schools that if they want this grant or that one, they have to do this or that. They don't have to do anything. Compared with France ort Denmark or Finland, the Dept of Education has no significant power. Most state governments have a lot more power than the D of E.
There is no Public Education System. There are thousands of them. And some of them need more money.
Are you going to tell me that NONE of them need more money?
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There is a Public Education system...its payed for by our tax dollars....period.
If you want to get schools that supposedly have more of our tax dollars than others, and don't need it as much, to share them with those that supposedly need more, then by all means, go for it. But you don't get a blanket "we need more money", when we already spend MORE money per pupil than nearly every other country with their own version of a public/Government education system
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There is a Public Education system...its payed for by our tax dollars....period.
If you want to get schools that supposedly have more of our tax dollars than others, and don't need it as much, to share them with those that supposedly need more, then by all means, go for it. But you don't get a blanket "we need more money", when we already spend MORE money per pupil than nearly every other country with their own version of a public/Government education system
Ok,.......... but Xo s right about how the education system is divided and that most of the money for schools is from local and state taxes.
This is a legacy from the situation that prevailed early in our history, and schools were often established by land grant .
Some good comes of local tax support, highly populated areas need more money and tend to have more money.
The downside is that some districts are poorly run and some are low on resources.
Unions are doing what Unions do, someone has to be responsible for asking for more someone else is responsible for demanding quality and refusing waste.
Federal money isn't the majority of the money , but it is a lot, and is a useful boost even where there is already plenty. By offering this money with conditions Congress claims a measure of national control.
I think all of the parts of education spending and implementation are negotiable, and times are ripe to make big changes, better efficiency would be good , but so would a more individualized experience for the student.
Debate is fun and necessary in the process of change , also necessary but a lot less fun is the drudgework of observing what does and doesn't work and deriving real science for the question.
It would be silly to keep everything the same when there are clearly wasteful and ineffective parts , how do we make the changes , and how do we ensure that the changes are positive and effective?
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Oh, I'm fully aware that Federal tax dollars aren't the bulk. In fact, I think I made it pretty clear that its a public education systen, as in tax dollars at all levels.
The 1st thing about addressing any change is to localize the primary vs 2ndary/tertiary problems. Addressing the 1st generally fixes the 2nd. Addressing the latter generally guarantees a perpetuation of the primary problem, with more cries to .....fix the 2ndary problems
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Look at the Toyota method.
Which derives from the Deming method.
There are small improvements , and there are big improvements, the point being to ensure that they are genuinely improvements and that they happen as frequently as is possible.
Never settle into a rut.
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Again, there is NO American Public Education system. There are thousands of Boards or Education that are mostly funded from property taxes. When you have a lot of rich old retired people who came here to avoid taxes, they tend to not give a damn about the children of the Black and Hispanics who have most of the children, and they starve the public school districts. This is a problem in Florida, but even more of one in Arizona and parts of California. Hawaii has avoided this by using sales taxes more and property taxes less, I think, and as a rule, the schools are pretty good there.
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and again, I never claimed there was an organization referred to as the American Education System. What I have said is that there IS a Public Education System in this country, supported by our tax dollars. Tax dollars spent more per pupil than nearly every other country
Deflection duly noted ::)
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But what you say is false. There is no system that is unified or organized in any way. There are thousands of systems, and perhaps when there are national standards, then improvements can be made that mean something.
Until then, it is just plain stupid to blame it all on unions and evil teachers.
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Per your parameters maybe. Since I never claimed everything was run out of DC, kinda debunks the whole deflection attempt to begin with. Union leadership however can squarely be blamed for much of our education system maladies
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But what you say is false. There is no system that is unified or organized in any way. There are thousands of systems, and perhaps when there are national standards, then improvements can be made that mean something.
Until then, it is just plain stupid to blame it all on unions and evil teachers.
So abolishing the Department of Education would make only small difference?
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Probably it would be possible, but it would be a very, very bad idea. It is the only part of government by which we will ever have national standards, which we need.
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Why?
What do national standards do?
What would we miss without them?
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They are useful in attracting and retaining businesses that require educated people.
If we seek to compete with other countries, and we do, then the knowledge base is an important component.
I can;t see how anyone could be opposed to national educational standards.
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Aren't half of our schools below the average?
It is more difficult to raise the low standard than it is to spoil the high standard.
So I have an intuition that a national standard must necessarily be lower than the present level of excellence that half of the schools already achieve .
The party that needs to be motivated to demand excellence is not the government , but parents.
There is a definite reason that "good enough for government work" is funny.
People seem to hand responsibility to the government and loose interest in the subject because it is not their problem anymore.
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If you ask Americans, most will say that want every school in this country to have Word Class Educational Standards.
I agree with that.
But it is not possible at all to have world class standards on anything unless you know what standards exist in the US.
You cannot know what standards exist unless you have standards.
You can set the standard that the average student should be reading at grade level.
You can set the standard that every student should be able to do the times tables up to 12 X 12 by the end of Grade Three.
You can set the standard that every student can explain, in essay form, how a vaccine works.
To say, as some do, that somehow Mississippi students should not be required to attain the same standards as students in Seattle or Des Moines. But this is bogus, because we have a very mobile population. People leave Mississippi for other states all the time.
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People that move see a lot of difference.
If you want to see standard , take a look at MacDonald's, the golden arches men the same thing in Oregon as Georgia, Montana and Maine .
And this is a good thing for getting the standard mass production adequacy.
Now could you point me to the five star restaurant MacDonald's?
Enforced standards are alright when it is more important to have little substandard product and strict standards are an impediment to surpassing excellence.
Whatever schools are having tough times or mismanagement would be good to have intervention and uplift.
Where ever schools are already above the median , they do not need to be pulled down to it.
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Standards are understood to be MINIMUM standards. Any school board or state can increase their standards. No one advocates lowering standards.
The fact remains that we cannot provide a World Class education to our children without some sort of basic standards.
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Standards are understood to be MINIMUM standards. Any school board or state can increase their standards. No one advocates lowering standards.
The fact remains that we cannot provide a World Class education to our children without some sort of basic standards.
You have half the picture there.
Where do you put the minimum and why bother the half of the nation that is already above the middle?
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The US needs to raise its standards more than a bit for the average to be world class. At present there are no standards. In the same state, one school district might spend three times more than another, and have three times as many students reading below grade level.
If the standards were up to world class, then there would be no reason to "bother" those above the median, as they would already be producing graduates that had complied with the minimum or better.
You are playing silly word games here.
The fact is that most American schools are far from being able to yell "We're number one!" and wave their giant rubber fingers.
The difficult part is testing to assure the standards have been met. Multiple choice exams are the usual way, but they are far from being adequate.
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We are tops at baseball and a type of football that most of the world ignores.
I wish that achievement in engineering or art produced the same adulation as the big sports .
Getting everyone to care would do more for the problem than handing more control to the government.
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The rest of the world does not care about American football. Baseball is popular in Japan and some Caribbean countries, but all sports are recreation. Professional football and basketball are spectator sports in which freakishly tall and huge men are the only ones who excel. Baseball is less for the freakish, and only 2/3rds as boring as cricket.
I also wish that people admired originality and creativity in art, architecture and science more than they do in sports. Sports are simply an amusement for those who watch. They are mediocre to good exercise to those who play. Football is as damaging to play as it is beneficial. I would rather watch an architect or artist work than any game played with a ball. Watching a mechanic rebuild an engine is also more amusing for me. And there are never commercials, which I loathe.