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Jul 9, 2009
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Stupid public sector should really learn to do things the way private enterprise does them.
Promise the same, then go bankrupt, f**k the workers out of their pensions, then their jobs. CEO keeps his millions and hires a bunch of Indians, business as usual after "reorganization".
It's the American Way.
 
Scott SoCal said:
Yep. We don't need roads and bridges, we just need more public employees with smoking benefits packages. That way public employee unions will have an ever larger pool of dues to buy politicians who will reward their deeds with even greater perks from the public trough.

You are describing your typical workday in the last paragraph there, aren't you? It's ok Rhub. No need to feel guilty. The world is made up of givers and takers.

Since the private sector in America has demolished the public domain, and since it has squandered all the cash at Wall Street and in off-shore investments, all the while bringing the nation into its appalling debt ridden state, the world's largest, which becomes the public's onus, I'm afraid those roads and bridges will have to wait, Scott SoCall. This means you are fighting a war that's both ridiculous and grotesque at once.

Railing against 5 people who have gotten a sweet deal, as they say, within the state's employment, while not seeing all the rest, is failing to establish a correct analysis of what's wrong.

As regards my typical workday, Scott SoCal, everyday your posts have shown me a totally uninteresting world that has progressively paralyzed my mind, a world in which life is basically not worth living, whereas, when I left your world, I have found people that have shown me the same world as one to be invariably interesting. Thus, from that moment I already had a choice between two worlds: yours, which I have always found uninteresting and merely tiresome, and theirs, which seemed packed with adventures and in which one could never be bored but wished to live forever, hoping that it would never end; the automatic consequence was that I wanted to live in this world perpetually, for all eternity. To put it simply, you always took everything as it came, whereas they never took anything as it came. From your birth you have lived by the laws laid down by your predecessors and never dreamed of making yourself new laws to live by, laws of your own, whereas they lived solely by their laws of their own, which they made themselves. And these self-made laws they were forever overturning. You followed a preordained path, and you never would have thought of deviating from it for a moment, but they went their own way.

To cite another difference between you and them, to bring things back to our respective workdays, Scott SoCall, you have always hated what you call idleness and could not imagine that a thinking person simply did not know what idleness was and could not afford it, that when a thinking person indulged in apparent idleness he was actually in a start of extreme tension and excitement. This was because yours was true idleness and you did not know what to do with it, for when you were idle there was actually nothing going on, as you were incapable of thinking, let alone in engaging in rigorous mental process. For the thinking person there is no such thing as idleness. Your idleness was of course a genuine idleness, for when you did nothing there was nothing going on in you. By contrast, one might say, the thinking person is at his most active when he is supposedly doing nothing. This is beyond the comprehension of genuinely idle people like yourself and people like yourself in general. Yet on the other hand, Scott SoCal, you probably do have an inkling of the nature of my idleness, and this is why you hate me, for you guessed that my idleness, being quite different from yours, not only could become dangerous, but always was dangerous. The thinking person who is idle appears as the greatest threat for those whom idleness means simply doing nothing, who actually do nothing when they are idle. You hate me because, in the nature of things, you can't despise me.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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Reagan supported unions

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-10-2011/moment-of-zen---ronald-reagan-supports-unions

What else is new, the Republican party: the world's worst collective memory.

I mean seriously, trying to cut education as an austerity measure? GFY. How about this budget balancing measure: Iraq war = waste of money. I love how Repubs are all up in the fiscal responsibility now, after undertaking a war that costs billions (billions per week), under false pretenses.

When was the last balanced federal budget again?
 
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Anonymous

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Hugh Januss said:
Stupid public sector should really learn to do things the way private enterprise does them.
Promise the same, then go bankrupt, f**k the workers out of their pensions, then their jobs. CEO keeps his millions and hires a bunch of Indians, business as usual after "reorganization".
It's the American Way.

HJ, this is exactly what will happen. The only reason it hasn't is there has always been an unending supply of additional revenue.

Hey man, give the people what they want. Say "yes" to everything.... anything. Let the chips fall where they may.
 
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Anonymous

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rhubroma said:
Since the private sector in America has demolished the public domain, and since it has squandered all the cash at Wall Street and in off-shore investments, all the while bringing the nation into its appalling debt ridden state, the world's largest, which becomes the public's onus, I'm afraid those roads and bridges will have to wait, Scott SoCall. This means you are fighting a war that's both ridiculous and grotesque at once.

Railing against 5 people who have gotten a sweet deal, as they say, within the state's employment, while not seeing all the rest, is failing to establish a correct analysis of what's wrong.

As regards my typical workday, Scott SoCal, everyday your posts have shown me a totally uninteresting world that has progressively paralyzed my mind, a world in which life is basically not worth living, whereas, when I left your world, I have found people that have shown me the same world as one to be invariably interesting. Thus, from that moment I already had a choice between two worlds: yours, which I have always found uninteresting and merely tiresome, and theirs, which seemed packed with adventures and in which one could never be bored but wished to live forever, hoping that it would never end; the automatic consequence was that I wanted to live in this world perpetually, for all eternity. To put it simply, you always took everything as it came, whereas they never took anything as it came. From your birth you have lived by the laws laid down by your predecessors and never dreamed of making yourself new laws to live by, laws of your own, whereas they lived solely by their laws of their own, which they made themselves. And these self-made laws they were forever overturning. You followed a preordained path, and you never would have thought of deviating from it for a moment, but they went their own way.

To cite another difference between you and them, to bring things back to our respective workdays, Scott SoCall, you have always hated what you call idleness and could not imagine that a thinking person simply did not know what idleness was and could not afford it, that when a thinking person indulged in apparent idleness he was actually in a start of extreme tension and excitement. This was because yours was true idleness and you did not know what to do with it, for when you were idle there was actually nothing going on, as you were incapable of thinking, let alone in engaging in rigorous mental process. For the thinking person there is no such thing as idleness. Your idleness was of course a genuine idleness, for when you did nothing there was nothing going on in you. By contrast, one might say, the thinking person is at his most active when he is supposedly doing nothing. This is beyond the comprehension of genuinely idle people like yourself and people like yourself in general. Yet on the other hand, Scott SoCal, you probably do have an inkling of the nature of my idleness, and this is why you hate me, for you guessed that my idleness, being quite different from yours, not only could become dangerous, but always was dangerous. The thinking person who is idle appears as the greatest threat for those whom idleness means simply doing nothing, who actually do nothing when they are idle. You hate me because, in the nature of things, you can't despise me.

You are so boring. Wall St, Wall St, Wall St. I'll counter with the nearly 1Trillion "stimulus". Or the "war" on poverty. We all square now??

Your mind is paralyzed because it's just easier to be in that state than to realize your world view.... might not actually work?

And (please, please) remember, I'm a worker too. Your vitriol really hurts my feelings.

Lastly, type slower, it's Scott SoCal. If you are going to try and insult me at least do me the honor of spelling my UN correctly.
 
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Anonymous

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Rip:30 said:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-10-2011/moment-of-zen---ronald-reagan-supports-unions

What else is new, the Republican party: the world's worst collective memory.

I mean seriously, trying to cut education as an austerity measure? GFY. How about this budget balancing measure: Iraq war = waste of money. I love how Repubs are all up in the fiscal responsibility now, after undertaking a war that costs billions (billions per week), under false pretenses.

When was the last balanced federal budget again?


So you are OK with the product public education is producing?

Don't tell me, let me guess.... the problem with our education system is a lack of adequate funding. Did I get that right?

You love how the Repubs are talking about fiscal responsibility? Well, 5 Trillion in new debt since BO was sworn in. 220 Billion upside down in February 2011 alone.

There's a difference between talking about fiscal responsibility (Obama) and having the stones to do something about it.

Edit: Balanced budget? The better question is when will the next balanced federal budget be? Certainly not under this administration.
 
May 23, 2010
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Scott SoCal said:
So you are OK with the product public education is producing?

Don't tell me, let me guess.... the problem with our education system is a lack of adequate funding. Did I get that right?

You love how the Repubs are talking about fiscal responsibility? Well, 5 Trillion in new debt since BO was sworn in. 220 Billion upside down in February 2011 alone.

There's a difference between talking about fiscal responsibility (Obama) and having the stones to do something about it.

Edit: Balanced budget? The better question is when will the next balanced federal budget be? Certainly not under this administration.

Once again you credit Obama with Bush's promised new debt, and the price to fix his/your mess. I'm sure your city is like many others that give tax abatements to a Jack in the Box and new (cds played)apartment complexes and then want home owners and school teachers to pony up the revenue shortfalls while the elected officials(R) make more than ever and their children/consultants make 6 figures. Meanwhile your angst is successfully aimed at your neighbor.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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Scott SoCal said:
So you are OK with the product public education is producing?

Don't tell me, let me guess.... the problem with our education system is a lack of adequate funding. Did I get that right?


You love how the Repubs are talking about fiscal responsibility? Well, 5 Trillion in new debt since BO was sworn in. 220 Billion upside down in February 2011 alone.

There's a difference between talking about fiscal responsibility (Obama) and having the stones to do something about it.

Edit: Balanced budget? The better question is when will the next balanced federal budget be? Certainly not under this administration.

No. Not ok with the results of public education. I teach these kids when they get to university. It's not good, overall.

Sure, it's certainly a bigger problem than just funding, but how is compensating teachers less going to improve quality? Upper management uses the same logic: we need to pay ourselves a lot so we attract the best talent. Yeah, I agree. Maybe the magnitude of their "a lot" is disproportionate, but the principle is true. Talented people tend to want to get compensated for their higher quality work. Teachers make a crap salary in the US and our educational system has fallen WAY behind. Solution, hmmm, let's pay them less?
 
Dec 7, 2010
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Scott SoCal said:
You are so boring. Wall St, Wall St, Wall St. I'll counter with the nearly 1Trillion "stimulus". Or the "war" on poverty. We all square now??

Your mind is paralyzed because it's just easier to be in that state than to realize your world view.... might not actually work?

And (please, please) remember, I'm a worker too. Your vitriol really hurts my feelings.

Lastly, type slower, it's Scott SoCal. If you are going to try and insult me at least do me the honor of spelling my UN correctly.

Hey Scott SoCALL....... you called them out like redtreviso does me on the YOUR useage.
I RALLY caint HERE Redtreviso when he does that because I am slow to NO the ROLL. You have to ALLways NO YOUR ROLL. I NO this because I SEA it all the time. THERE just mad because FoxNews is not playing THERE favorite shows....GlennBack ....SeanVannity.....and the Leprechaun. :D
 
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Anonymous

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Rip:30 said:
No. Not ok with the results of public education. I teach these kids when they get to university. It's not good, overall.

Sure, it's certainly a bigger problem then just funding, but how is compensating teachers less going to improve quality?

Well, how is compensating them more going to help? We now have a system, thanks in part to teachers unions, that rewards incompetence (very hard to fire bad public school teachers) and provides little incentive for excellence. Why should a teacher excel at his/her craft when the comp plans are based on time of service? There's no incentive to be good at what they do but plenty of incentive to be there a long time. Furthermore, the incompetent can't be dealt with. That's got to be just great for morale.

Vouchers? Choice? Charter Schools? Private Education? Tenure. Protectionism. Defined Benefit Packages.

How about the govt getting out of the education business?
 
Scott SoCal said:
You are so boring. Wall St, Wall St, Wall St. I'll counter with the nearly 1Trillion "stimulus". Or the "war" on poverty. We all square now??

Your mind is paralyzed because it's just easier to be in that state than to realize your world view.... might not actually work?

And (please, please) remember, I'm a worker too. Your vitriol really hurts my feelings.

Lastly, type slower, it's Scott SoCal. If you are going to try and insult me at least do me the honor of spelling my UN correctly.

One trillion stimulus? For what, all those building crimes! Indeed things are actually working just beautifully under this business leadership and its mad, precipitous rush toward developing everything, without careful planning so that everything is just chaos.

I don't believe I hurt your feelings, but there is no need to cave into sentimentalism. I just like to philosophize and break things down to their bear particles and, in this way, engage you playfully, if not to say tear the philosophical guts out of you.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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Scott SoCal said:
Well, how is compensating them more going to help? We now have a system, thanks in part to teachers unions, that rewards incompetence (very hard to fire bad public school teachers) and provides little incentive for excellence. Why should a teacher excel at his/her craft when the comp plans are based on time of service? There's no incentive to be good at what they do but plenty of incentive to be there a long time. Furthermore, the incompetent can't be dealt with. That's got to be just great for morale.

Vouchers? Choice? Charter Schools? Private Education? Tenure. Protectionism. Defined Benefit Packages.

How about the govt getting out of the education business?

I'm publicly funded at a large university, and I can say it's hyper-competitive to the point of absurdity--both for grant $ and faculty positions. (No unions). I really don't know how public schools work, but the results speak for themselves. It seems reasonable that if you offer more attractive compensation that you will attract better applicants, and thus can choose better teachers. Agree that there should be ongoing evaluation throughout their careers. It doesn't seem like that issue of low competition/motivation you bring up is restricted to teachers or unions or the public sector. (Bank/auto bail out?)
 
Scott SoCal said:
Well, how is compensating them more going to help? We now have a system, thanks in part to teachers unions, that rewards incompetence (very hard to fire bad public school teachers) and provides little incentive for excellence. Why should a teacher excel at his/her craft when the comp plans are based on time of service? There's no incentive to be good at what they do but plenty of incentive to be there a long time. Furthermore, the incompetent can't be dealt with. That's got to be just great for morale.

Vouchers? Choice? Charter Schools? Private Education? Tenure. Protectionism. Defined Benefit Packages.

How about the govt getting out of the education business?

The system stinks because the culture in which it has been set up has ruined it. And private education has caused the further degradation of the public schools.

The whole concept of a sound public school system has been systematically attacked and debilitated by the private sector, and the result is that we have a conservative part of government and a conservative and affluent part of the population that in fact couldn't care less about public education in America.

This is what happens when the interests of the few replaces those of collective society.

For public education in America to get better US society needs to change. The fault is not the schools, nor the educators, in this sense, but a negative perspective on the public system that has been inculcated within the masses by the influence privatization plays in American life.

If you have a strong enough force working unremittingly against something, that thing will suffer as a result.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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Higher education in the U.S. has become one giant scam. Its method is to sucker the youth into taking out huge loans. The money then gets transferred into the pockets of the bankers, the professors, and the administrators. Essentially it works by transferring public money into private hands and leaving the students with life of crushing non-dischargable debt.

The most egregious example is the 200+ law schools, many of which are private. Even the ones that are not private are used as cash cows for the universities they are attached to. The average student gets out with roughly $100K in debt and no possibility of ever practicing law because the field is overcrowded and shrinking. There is no difference between the law school scam and the two year private schools that fill the advertising time on cable TV with ads about how you can get your "degree" in video game design or some other useless skill.

College textbooks are flat out robbery. A brother got to pay $200 for a Physics textbook, the first third of which is three hundred year old Newtonian physics. The system is one giant rip-off.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
rhubroma said:
One trillion stimulus? For what, all those building crimes! Indeed things are actually working just beautifully under this business leadership and its mad, precipitous rush toward developing everything, without careful planning so that everything is just chaos.

I don't believe I hurt your feelings, but there is no need to cave into sentimentalism. I just like to philosophize and break things down to their bear particles and, in this way, engage you playfully, if not to say tear the philosophical guts out of you.


I didn't mention TARP, so add another Trillion.

Hugs and kisses from Cali.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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BroDeal said:
Higher education in the U.S. has become one giant scam. Its method is to sucker the youth into taking out huge loans. The money then gets transferred into the pockets of the bankers, the professors, and the administrators. Essentially it works by transferring public money into private hands and leaving the students with life of crushing non-dischargable debt.

The most egregious example is the 200+ law schools, many of which are private. Even the ones that are not private are used as cash cows for the universities they are attached to. The average student gets out with roughly $100K in debt and no possibility of ever practicing law because the field is overcrowded and shrinking. There is no difference between the law school scam and the two year private schools that fill the advertising time on cable TV with ads about how you can get your "degree" in video game design or some other useless skill.

College textbooks are flat out robbery. A brother got to pay $200 for a Physics textbook, the first third of which is three hundred year old Newtonian physics. The system is one giant rip-off.

Pretty much every field is overcrowded and many get through their degree(s) and end up serving coffee. It's presumptions to assume you are really going to be successful just by getting a bunch of degrees--it takes a lot more in this day and age. Still, you need to get that degree to at least have a chance in your field. How many lawyers didn't go to law school. Having a higher degree is better than not having one. It's true though, there are many many people who should not be in college. But there's not a whole lot of viable alternatives (in their mind). And the universities do help perpetrate the myth that they are there to help these overly entitled snots to get some prestigious job. If you look at the history of academia, this is not at all what it was or is about (law school is different being a professional school of course).

I don't think rip off is the right term, although I can see why it looks that way to many (myself at one point). It's not the educational system's fault that there are too many people who feel they are entitled to an extremely high standard of living--and all they have to do to get there is go to school.

Text books: yeah, larceny. But so is a lot of stuff. Like bike tires or carbon frames.
 
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Anonymous

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BroDeal said:
Higher education in the U.S. has become one giant scam. Its method is to sucker the youth into taking out huge loans. The money then gets transferred into the pockets of the bankers, the professors, and the administrators. Essentially it works by transferring public money into private hands and leaving the students with life of crushing non-dischargable debt.

The most egregious example is the 200+ law schools, many of which are private. Even the ones that are not private are used as cash cows for the universities they are attached to. The average student gets out with roughly $100K in debt and no possibility of ever practicing law because the field is overcrowded and shrinking. There is no difference between the law school scam and the two year private schools that fill the advertising time on cable TV with ads about how you can get your "degree" in video game design or some other useless skill.

College textbooks are flat out robbery. A brother got to pay $200 for a Physics textbook, the first third of which is three hundred year old Newtonian physics. The system is one giant rip-off.

Interesting that secondary education only became stupidly expensive once federal money for student loans became readily available.
 
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Anonymous

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Rip:30 said:
I'm publicly funded at a large university, and I can say it's hyper-competitive to the point of absurdity--both for grant $ and faculty positions. (No unions). I really don't know how public schools work, but the results speak for themselves. It seems reasonable that if you offer more attractive compensation that you will attract better applicants, and thus can choose better teachers. Agree that there should be ongoing evaluation throughout their careers. It doesn't seem like that issue of low competition/motivation you bring up is restricted to teachers or unions or the public sector. (Bank/auto bail out?)

Public schools don't work and that's the point.

I suppose more money offered would get a more competent applicant. I honestly don't have a problem with that. But when almost half of all tax revenue generated in the world's eighth largest economy (State of California) is channelled to public education and then we are saddled with a finished product that nearly everyone agrees is not up to acceptable standards... what are we to do?

I just don't think throwing more money at the situation is going to give us anything other than a more expensive version of what we have now.
 
Mar 18, 2009
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Rip:30 said:
I don't think rip off is the right term, although I can see why it looks that way to many (myself at one point). It's not the educational system's fault that there are too many people who feel they are entitled to an extremely high standard of living.

In the case of law schools I would definitely say it is a rip-off. In fact fraud is a more appropriate term. The schools publish average salary and employment statistics that are flat out lies, and these lies are then used to rank the schools. So the more the schools lie, the better their ranking by US New and World Report. When you go get your basket weaving degee at a regular university, the school does not tell you that the average salary of a graduate is $120K. But law schools tell you that.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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BroDeal said:
In the case of law schools I would definitely say it is a rip-off. In fact fraud is a more appropriate term. The schools publish average salary and employment statistics that are flat out lies, and these lies are then used to rank the schools. So the more the schools lie, the better their ranking by US New and World Report. When you go get your basket weaving degee at a regular university, the school does not tell you that the average salary of a graduate is $120K. But law schools tell you that.

Basket weaving. LOL.

Hmm, well how are they lying? By excluding all the non-lawyer graduates? I mean obviously some lawyers are raking it in...
 
Mar 18, 2009
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Scott SoCal said:
How about the govt getting out of the education business?

This has to be one of the more idiotic things I have ever read. Under your plan, if I can call such stupidity a plan, what becomes of the child of a family living under the poverty line? Do they not get any education? Does the country then deal with a huge and uneducated underclass? Tens of millions of people who never went to elementry school, that will help the country.
 
Apr 29, 2010
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Scott SoCal said:
Public schools don't work and that's the point.

I suppose more money offered would get a more competent applicant. I honestly don't have a problem with that. But when almost half of all tax revenue generated in the world's eighth largest economy (State of California) is channelled to public education and then we are saddled with a finished product that nearly everyone agrees is not up to acceptable standards... what are we to do?

I just don't think throwing more money at the situation is going to give us anything other than a more expensive version of what we have now.

Yeah agree there are some deep rooted fundamental problems. I wonder how much of that education funding actually goes to the teachers of Ca though?
 
Mar 17, 2009
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rhubroma said:
One trillion stimulus? For what, all those building crimes! Indeed things are actually working just beautifully under this business leadership and its mad, precipitous rush toward developing everything, without careful planning so that everything is just chaos.

I don't believe I hurt your feelings, but there is no need to cave into sentimentalism. I just like to philosophize and break things down to their bear particles and, in this way, engage you playfully, if not to say tear the philosophical guts out of you.

Grizzly bear, polar bear,what kind of bear? And why are they in particles?
 
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