Re: What happened to Japan?
From: Jim Blair (see_at_sig.com)
Date: 07/20/04
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Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 17:49:09 +0000 (UTC)
Chief <Chief@Home.com> wrote:
>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.
Hi,
Average life expectancy keep rising, as it has for the last 100 years (or
more). And that "average" includes those who die young.
>...The rollback of environmental protections, labor safety laws,
>and general labor laws will only insure 25% live better.
Real (ie inflation corrected) family incomes reached their all time high
in 2000 for all 5 income quintiles, not just for the "rich".
http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/f03.html
Table F-3.
>
>Globalism is good for every citizen on the planet - except the American
>citizen that has to live through the decades of changes.
Some US workers lose when jobs move to India or China. But workers there
benefit. I say better the jobs go there than that they move here for
those jobs.
>...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.
I think the fact that US student know they must compete with those in
Korea and China and India motivates them. (at least it motivates some of
them).
>
>
>>>...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.
You can send a kid to school, but you can't make him think.
>
>> 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 -
No students and students. Those who want to learn and those who don't.
>...The Chinese family structure is completely different
>than todays American family ...
Yes. And that is the problem.
>...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.
Actually it WAS the desire of families to work hard and to sacrifice for
the future of their children that made the US great. And if/when we lose
that, we will fall behind other countries (like China and India) that
still have it.
>>>...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.
They can be sent to school. But that is not the same thing.
>...That's what the GI Bill after
>WWII did successfully.
Before WW II, going to a college was limited to the children of the
wealthy few. But many more WANTED an education, and the GI bill gave them
the opportunity. That plus the increase in (mostly state) universities.
>...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.
And in the centuries before that, if you could read and write you could
get a good job. Yes, as Mason Clark said, today it takes 2 years of
college to get a high school education.
>
>Bush's father gave an education to young george.
He sent Dubwa to Yale, but did he get an education? Or just a degree?
>...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.
Note that he didn't actually give them money. He just made them appreciate
an opportunity that they already had.
> 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.
It is likely that the Kurds in the north will appreciate our efforts and
use the opportunity. And to a lesser extent, the Shiites in the south.
The Sunni center may well be left with the sand and the terrorists, since
the oil is in the north and south.
>
>>>...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.
The federal minimum wage is not the measure of much of anything. The
average income of families is. And that has increased since the 1960's.
>
>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%.
??? An even larger fraction of the population is now in the workforce
than was in the 1960's
>..A resent study shows a 25% unemployment rate for black males.
And what was that figure in 1960?
>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 ...
Break even with the 1.6 million immigrants each year? I hear Kerry wants
to create 10 million new jobs for those 8 million Americans he say want a
job. So are we to assume the other 2 million jobs are for the immigrants
that will come for them?
I predict that by November the economy will be a plus for Bush. Kerry
should push stem cell research as his difference with Bush.
>.... Supply side economics
>has never worked to do anything other that shrink the middle and enrich
>the upper.
The US has been operating in the Reagan Supply Side for the last 20 years,
and we have done OK. Both as compared to Europe and Japan, and as compared
to the past. Remember there were 2 recessions during the 1960's.
And what do you mean "shrink the middle"? How do you define "middle"?
(I say lots of "middle income" people have moved up to "upper income"
during the last 20 years.)
>...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
Hey lets make it $20 per hour since we KNOW that this cannot possibly cost
any jobs.
>...and
>not once has enriching the rich benefitted the poor.
When poor people become rich, is that enriching the rich?
>....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.
I can remember when Nixon was the worst president ever. He was going to
cancel the 1972 (or was that the 1976?) election and rule as dictator. And
this was a certainty, as my Leftish friends KNEW from inside information.
>...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.
??? Mercury has been in fish for decades. Only now they warn people about
it. Is that BAD?
If you want to reduce mercury emissions (as well as CO2), support shutting
down coal power plants. And nuclear is the only technology that is ready
to replace them now.
>
>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.
Er, a late fee is not because someone could not PAY on time. It is because
they didn't return the item on time. I say that means that money is less
important to them than time.
I also see people buying bottled water for $1.75 a pint, when standing
beside a drinking fountain (and Madison city water is the best there is,
at least as good as anything in a bottle).
I say this means those people have more dollars than sense.
>
>There is a severe shortage of gentlemen in this country.
There may be just the two of us ;-)
>>>
>>>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.
Good for you. I hope you have students that are there because they want to
learn. Will you be teaching them to field strip an AK 47? (just kidding).
,,,,,,,
_______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________
(_)
jim blair (jeblair@facstaff.wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin
USA. This message was brought to you using biodegradable
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