Re: What happened to Japan?

From: Chief (Chief_at_Home.com)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: Mon, 19 Jul 2004 19:26:40 -0000

Jim Blair <see@sig.com> wrote in news:cdgq5c$4vl$1@news.doit.wisc.edu:

> Chief <Chief@Home.com> wrote:
>
> ...
>>
>>I have no worries about my life but I wish my grandkids could have
>>lived in a world better than the one I grew up in. It's not the case.
>
> Hi,
>
> I predict that young kids today will have a lot better life and more
> opportunities than any previous generation. They will live longer,
> travel more, know more about just about everything (that they care to
> Google), etc.
>

I don't see that happening. I see the ones with healthcare living longer.
That leaves out 40% of Americans. I see more opportunity for those born
to upper middleclass and above families - that leaves out 75% of
Americans. The rollback of environmental protections, labor safety laws,
and general labor laws will only insure 25% live better. Someone once
said that a society is judged by how well the least of its members do.
With the recent reports of stagnated wages, increase in low paying
service jobs and loss of manufacturing/tech jobs. I don't see a bright
future for todays children. I see a future simular to what's found in
Mexico today - a huge lower class and a small ruling upper class.

Globalism is good for every citizen on the planet - except the American
citizen that has to live through the decades of changes. The same
mistakes made in our education system - lower the standards to level the
playing field are the same mistakes we are making to 'globalize' America.
We are lowering our expectations for some distant fictional future with
little concern for the common good.

>>...Both my
>>kids have good educations from top tier colleges but go in and out of
>>work occasionally. If they didn't have a good education, I could see
>>where they would be in trouble in today's world.
>
> Yes, education will (I predict) become ever more important.
>
>>
>>Unless your one of the truely wealthy, education is the only way to
>>enjoy a somewhat decent lifestyle and that education is disappearing
>>as an option to the kids who by no fault of their own were born to
>>poor parents.

 
>
> Nonsense. Just about every kid in the US has the OPPORTUNITY for a
> "good eduction" IF THEY CHOOSE TO TAKE IT. The problem is that many
> do not: they spit in the face of that opportunity. But it is there
> for those who want it.

That like saying since you can lead a horse to water but can't make it
drink no horses will be led to water. I disagree completely.
 
> I worked with a recent MS in chemistry from the UW. His family was
> from China and I think he was born there. He went to grade and high
> schools in an inner city school system where most kids dropped out,
> but he learned enough to get a scholarship to the UW.
>

Apples and oranges - The Chinese family structure is completely different
than todays American family and the solution is not for our poor to
become Chinese in their ability to sleep twenty to a room, eat rice and
fish day in and day out and sacrifice every aspect of their lives for the
future of their children. That is not the American dream - it is the
reversal of every gain progressive liberals have made for the common
good. It is the American nightmare brought to us by folks that long for
the days of Mckinnely, privilege and greed.
>
>>...If I were president for a day the first thing I'd do was make
>>public education extend through the first two years of college or
>>trade school and to four years or even higher for kids who choose a
>>hard science.
>
> Kids can't be given an education: they can be given the opportunity to
> earn one. I agree that money should not be the limitation, but I think
> that today it is not.

Of Course they can be given an education. That's what the GI Bill after
WWII did successfully. That's what public education did until it's end
result was less than what was needed to obtain a decent job. When I
graduated from HS I could have had any number of entry level jobs - not
so today. One must have a skill or a degree to obtain what my generation
did with a HS education.

Bush's father gave an education to young george. Wealth doesn't mean a
kid is more deserving or more energized - just more able.
 
> Remenber that rich guy who went to a poor innercity Baltimore school
> (mostly white then but black now) who returned to his old grade school
> to give a pep-talk? At the last minute he decided he could not
> inspire them with words alone, so he promised them that anyone who
> graduated from highschool and qualified for a college, he would insure
> that they could afford to attend the college.
>
> Some 6 years later many in that class did graduate from highschool and
> get accepted to a college. They were motivated by his promise and the
> idea that they COULD do it.
>
> But it turned out that his promise didn't cost him very much. All
> those kids got full scholarships to college!

A good man - is that what the youth of today have to rely on - a wealthy
benefactor? The government could be and should be that benefactor as it
was for my generation. The participation of all of us to the benefit of
all of us. Not handled like a lottery where kids who happen to come
across the exception to the rule do well and the vast majority do not.

>>....I wouldn't mind a tax increase for that at all.
>
> I don't object to paying taxes to fund the education for those who
> want to learn.
>
>>....But I do mind a
>>tax increase for Bunker nukes, corporate welfare, mistakes that lead
>>to wars, ....
>
> Me too.
>
>>...and rebuilding countries for folks that are shooting at our young
>>troops.
>
> Only SOME shoot at our troops. Many want a free and democratic Iraq.
> At any rate IF the middle-east can be transformed to be like Turkey,
> it would be good for the world.

Just like the Vietnamese, During the day they waved American flags and at
night VC flags. It would be fairly stupid for an Iraqi to express open
dislike when occupied. All the polls that have been done have indicated
their view fairly well - thanks but leave.

>
> Too soon to tell if that will work out. And Bush will need to help
> (and/or pressure) Sharon to pull out of Gaza and the West Bank and aid
> in setting up an Arab Palestine.
>

 I went there for 6 months and flew all over Iraq meeting locals and
buying gear for my units. The decent Iraqis left Iraq years ago. They
live in France, England and to a lesser degree the US. What is left in
Iraq today are friends of Saddam and people that had dealings with
Saddam. Years of killing ones enemies eventually leads to a country full
of friends. That is the case in Iraq. The founding fathers lived amoung
people hundreds of years more civilized than the majority of current
Iraqi's. Giving the Iraqi's democracy is like giving eyeliner to the
pygmies in the rain forrest. It will be accepted but after a few months
it will be totally unrecognizable. The factions will erupt and the
country will undergo a civil war as soon as we leave. With half the
population strict moslims supported by Iran, the other half moderate
muslims and Kurds it ought a humdinger when it starts. They still shoot
at each other as well at our troops.

>>
>>The current crop of business owners remind me of the farmers of old
>>who planted the same crop year after year after year and were
>>surprised when their final crop was a dust bowl. Todays farmers
>>learned to rotate crops and take care of their land. Todays businesses
>>seem to somehow be unable to relate the worker with the consumer and
>>are consequently competeing for a shrinking pie.
>
> The economy is changing so fast that new companies and new industries
> are popping up everywhere, and old ones are dying off. I think the
> "pie" is getting ever bigger, just always different.
>
Different is a strange word to hang ones hat on. Different can be good or
bad and good is not supported by the jobs data or the wage data.
 
>>...The current administration's tired old trickle down
>>policy isn't working any better than it did under Reagan.
>
> Actually the US economy has been better than ever for the last 20
> years. Low inflation and low unemployment and just two shallow and
> short recessions. That is good by historic standards.
>
The economy in 60's was better that the 70's and the 80's. It perked up
in the nineties and has dwindled since. In the early 70's the minimun
wage was hooked to one half of the average manufacture workers hourly
wages. Nixon change it to 'at the whim of the politicians' who's own
raises are automatic unless they vote to stop them. In the 60's a HS grad
could work for minimum wages and with a buddy share an apartment, buy a
car and start living the American dream. Today the minimum wage is a
joke. Families are now working two and three jobs to live where one job
was sufficient before. That is not progress by any stretch of the
imagination.

Unemployment numbers and the way they are figured has changed several
times and just like a 1200 sat test result today is not the equal of 1200
sat test result in the 60's the uemployment figures of 5.6 are more like
10%-12%. A resent study shows a 25% unemployment rate for black males.
That's bad whether your a liberal or a conservative. The current Bush
policy of not extending unemployment insurance is only to avoid seeing a
more realistic jobs picture. The articles I've read indicate that 170,000
to 240,000 jobs are needed each month to break even just because of new
workers being added to the work force. These increases we have seen are
barely keeping even and this month was below again. Supply side economics
has never worked to do anything other that shrink the middle and enrich
the upper. It's time to put that puppy to bed once and for all. Not once
has a raise in the minumum wage decreased the availability of jobs and
not once has enriching the rich benefitted the poor. The recent retail
sales data was a perfect picture of the outcome. The extremely small
luxuary goods sector grew while the large discount sector remained flat.
To think all the road workers, retail clerks and lower management folks
have started buying BMWs is fairly foolish. The facts don't support the
words of this administration. Four more years of the same may well bring
about a depression. In my lifetime this is the worst president, the worst
administration and the worst congress I have ever experienced. Just the
other day I saw something that I never expected to see. A government TV
Ad warning pregnant women to not eat fish because of high mercury
content. An entire food group judged to be bad for our unborn children.
Amazing, especially when one looks at the recent increases in the
allowable limits of mercury emissions. So instead of lowering the output
of mercury our government decided the best course was to just spend a few
million of TV ads.

Our TV's are inundated with get rich schemes, miracle cures for every
desease and ailment known to mankind, and even fountains of youth in a
pill. In my generation the fleecing of the public would not have been
allowed by the FDA or the government. Today it's common. In my time
punishment was reserved to a court of law. Today banks, video stores and
just about anybody selling anything on credit punish their customers with
grossly high late fees.

I read an article that said the Blockbusters primary source of income was
late fees. In my time they were allowed to recover the cost incurred but
not allowed to profit from anothers inabilty to pay on time.

The best defination I've heard for a 'gentleman' is one who is more
concerned for those about him than he is for himself.

There is a severe shortage of gentlemen in this country. That combined
with the surplanting of Christianity with a religion more akin to the
philosophy of Epicurus.

 
>>
>>Do you teach?
>
> I did for 15 years (chemisrty, physics, geology, astronomy.
> oceanography) but not for the last 15 years.

I retired from the military but start teaching at a community college
this fall.
 
>
>>>
>>> > ,,,,,,,
>>>>> _______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________
>>>>> (_)
>>>>> jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
>>>>> USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable
>>>>> binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth. For a good time
>>>>> call: http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/4834
>
>
>

I retired from the military and teach now.

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