[late]

If he wasn't taking part in the protest, he wouldn't have said "giving US the finger".

Stuck on literal..

[Politics_Observer]

@Julian658

I don't blame immigrants since I am an immigrant too. But, in my neck of the woods the entire construction industry is Hispanic. They do the job for less money and they outbid long standing American firms. My wife loves to hire Hispanic workers as they LOVE to work, are honest, and charge less. I don't remember when was the last time she hired a non-hispanic for house remodeling. The consumer and the business owners profit from this immigration bonanza. Meanwhile American citizens that used to do these jobs are nowhere to be seen. Nevertheless, in most instances immigrants likely do jobs that Americans don't want. All cooks in restaurants in my area are Hispanic. This is hard to figure out.

Yes they do and the reason why these immigrants work hard is they appreciate the opportunities they have been given. American citizens take for granted their freedom, their republic and the opportunities they have. This is why immigrants are good for the country, they make good citizens. Many would make better citizens than born and raised Americans. You can't blame the immigrants for appreciating and taking advantage of the opportunities this country has afforded them and we all benefit from these immigrants. Many of these undocumented workers who don't have social security number also pay taxes into medicare and social security and in many cases, never see a dime of it. And it's the American citizen who benefits from this and not just the business owner.

That being said, as I said before, my belief is strengthening union laws so that workers can organize and make it harder for businesses to replace striking workers. Businesses need to have a darn good reason before they can replace striking workers and it should only be as a last resort before they are permitted to do so. In addition, Americans need to have more access to education.

Education in the right field is key to good paying jobs. I also feel that in areas that are disadvantaged, we need to invest more money in the public schools than the areas that are not disadvantaged because it costs more money to overcome the disadvantages those disadvantaged areas suffer. The greatly advantaged areas will in most cases have money for a good education for their children. I feel it's important to invest in our citizens and develop ways to where university education is also more accessible for those who perform well academically. Not everybody is going to perform well academically and for those people, they need to have strong union laws to help them organize and bargain for wages to where they can earn "enough" so to speak as I spoke about in my previous posts. They don't have to be rich, they just need to be able to earn "enough" to be able to live a decent life without suffering the scourge of poverty.

[late]

1) A "signal" has no force and effect of law. The only unions that would worry about that are government unions in essential functions, which legally cannot strike--like air traffic controllers.

2) You people and your phony histories of Ronald Reagan: when are you ever going to give it a rest?


3) Actually, it was Nixon taking the US off the gold standard

4) The lack of responsible monetary policy led to cost-push inflation in the 1970s, which wasn't corrected under Carter either.

5) Bretton-Woods had to come to an end, but generally governments have to make a guns-or-butter decision, and Nixon chose both.

6) Oil exporters responded to this by forming OPEC and jacking up oil prices, and further used it to protest US support of Israel. By 1973, guns-and-butter alone had inflation to 8.8%. By the Carter years it was 12%. When Reagan took office, inflation was 14%.

7) Unions wanted special treatment--non-union workers be damned. Corporations simply could not afford to pay unions more under cost-push inflation.

In fairness to Jimmy Carter, he did appoint Paul Volker late in 1979, and Reagan kept him on hand until 1987. They had to break inflation by raising interest rates. The Fed Funds rate hit 21% in 1980--one reason for Carter's unpopularity.

9) Reagan was busting cost-push inflation. Today, we have very low inflation and low interest rates and we can thank the great Ronald Reagan and his administration in part for getting that under control.

1) Reagan made is abundantly clear business could screw people without consequence.

2) You need to prove me wrong. Which you simply can not do. Sorry if I popped your fantasy bubble.

3) The Bretton Woods agreements were utterly brilliant. But they were designed to punish bad actors. With our massive spending on the empire, that was us. The result was our gold reserves going to France. You are looking at effect, not cause.

4) Carter appointed Volcker, who may have been the best head of the Fed in that century. So he kinda did, but it took a while.

5) Social spending wouldn't get big until the 80s. That was just massive military spending.

6) It's a lot more complicated that that. But if you want to start, read Daniel Yergin's Oil.

7) Europe still has Unions... The reality is that CEOs wanted more money, and stole it from the workers.

The decision you are talking about was a mistake that happened a couple years before Volcker made his move on inflation. The cause was external to the economy (oil) and kicking the economy had no effect on inflation. I was trying to get my first house at the time. Double digit mortgages, that was crazy.

9) Nope, Reagan's big spending made Volcker's job harder, a lot harder.

[late]

Paradoxically this task of educating people is easier in an authoritarian nation where the system can impose the education methods and ignore the protestations of the masses. Our public schools are way too lenient and wishy washy. I would install military type schools and would only teach the basics. The students and parents would be required to clean the school. This would require a massive change in cultural values where the students would be expected to respect for teachers. The basic education is many schools is diluted by a lot of other meaningless activities that do not belong in school. England's public education in the 1950s was quite good with emphasis on discipline.

Japan teaches the basics rather well. We try to teach it all rather poorly.

A lot of kids are burned out by the time they reach college in Japan. English education is terrible, even worse than us.

You need to make a choice. Do you want problem solvers or cannon fodder.

[Politics_Observer]

@Julian658

I am not in favor of military type discipline. Students are not soldiers, they are civilians. That being said, teachers need to be granted authority and be able to teach as they see fit (and in my view before being allowed to be a teacher, hold a Master's degree and paid very well). The ironic thing about education where you teach people to think for themselves and to question authority, is that you need to have authority in the classroom to produce citizens who are able to critically think for themselves and be able to question illegitimate authority in society. Some authority is legitimate, link giving teachers authority and power in their classrooms. Of course, like anybody granted authority and power, they should be closely monitored and watched to be sure they are not abusing that authority or power.

[jimjam]

In 2017, President Trump made nearly 1,999 false or misleading claims. In 2018, he added another 5,689, for a total of 7,688.

Now, with a few weeks still left in 2019, the president already has more than doubled the total number of false or misleading claims in just a single year.

As of Dec. 10, his 1,055th day in office, Trump had made 15,413 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker’s database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That’s an average of more than 32 claims a day since our last update 62 days ago.

Fatso has been lying in overdrive during his impeachment. I think lies are a form of therapy for America's wannabe King.

Every year, the fact-checking service PolitiFact picks the biggest whopper told by a politician. This isn't the standard-issue deception or misleading statement; this is a lie that has implications well beyond just the lack of truth. This is a lie for the ages. This year's biggest lie? President Donald Trump's repeated assertions that the Ukraine whistleblower got the story about his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky all wrong.

[Julian658]

@Julian658

I am not in favor of military type discipline. Students are not soldiers, they are civilians. That being said, teachers need to be granted authority and be able to teach as they see fit (and in my view before being allowed to be a teacher, hold a Master's degree and paid very well). The ironic thing about education where you teach people to think for themselves and to question authority, is that you need to have authority in the classroom to produce citizens who are able to critically think for themselves and be able to question illegitimate authority in society. Some authority is legitimate, link giving teachers authority and power in their classrooms. Of course, like anybody granted authority and power, they should be closely monitored and watched to be sure they are not abusing that authority or power.

Ask anyone that passed military basic training. They will tell you it was a rewarding experience that built confidence, self esteem, and team effort. Good luck with finding teachers with Master degrees. There is a shortage of teachers in many parts of the country. They are now recruiting and importing foreign teachers. Sadly the unions will not allow the hire of highly educated people that are retired and still want to work.

[Julian658]

A lot of kids are burned out by the time they reach college in Japan. English education is terrible, even worse than us.

You need to make a choice. Do you want problem solvers or cannon fodder.

Are you joking???

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by OECD in 70 nations of 15-year-old students’ scholastic performance on mathematics, science and reading.
Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong leave the USA in the dust. Even VietNam scores ahead of the USA.

http://factsmaps.com/pisa-worldwide-ran ... e-reading/

[Julian658]

@Julian658

It seems you are contradicting yourself.
You favor immigration ( I also do), but fail to see that some Americans will lose their jobs. As I said above, we hire nothing but Hispanic construction workers.
And you are in favor of unions so Americans can keep jobs.

Which one is it?

We should provide free college to students that show academic talent. Those that cannot meet the academic standards should be provided with free vocational training so they can at least have a job. Giving a free college education in a meaningless liberal art major will not solve anything.

[Politics_Observer]

@Julian658

It seems you are contradicting yourself.
You favor immigration ( I also do), but fail to see that some Americans will lose their jobs. As I said above, we hire nothing but Hispanic construction workers.
And you are in favor of unions so Americans can keep jobs.

Which one is it?

We should provide free college to students that show academic talent. Those that cannot meet the academic standards should be provided with free vocational training so they can at least have a job. Giving a free college education in a meaningless liberal art major will not solve anything.

What do you mean which one is it? That came out of nowhere from left field somewhere. Asking such a question makes no sense at all. Logic dictates if you read what I wrote that such a question would not even come into play. I am in favor of unions so that Americans can bargain for a reasonable living wage, medical insurance and retirement. Remember, if you read what I wrote, you would see that American workers were doing much better when union laws were stronger despite the fact we had illegal immigrants here in this country even during those times. That is a fact. We can have unions and immigrants both and immigrants should have the right to unionize like any American worker. Of course if a business is employing immigrants illegally they could face being shut down. So, it sounds like this notion of "which is it" came out of nowhere. Our trade deals need to also take workers rights into account as well not just forget about them while making rich people richer.

Immigrants are not costing Americans jobs, they are doing jobs most Americans are unwilling to do. And, they should be able to bargain with a union as well much like American workers. Much of the trade deals in the past were centered around making rich people richer while neglecting the right of workers to unionize and bargain in these trade deals. So, the only people that benefited were wealthy people with capital because the welfare and rights of workers were not even considered. But that's to be expected when you have a government that doesn't represent the will of the people and is instead bought, paid for and controlled by the wealthy.

See, immigrants are not the problem here. Big business stopping the right or workers to unionize and go on strike without fear of replacement is the problem. Big Business of course wants the average American worker to blame "the other" so that the attention is not on the real problem, them stopping workers from unionizing, striking without fear of replacement and getting a more fair wage with benefits. We have seen this pattern before throughout history for example with Hitler scapegoating the Jews for the economic problems of Germany. But the Jews had nothing to do with their economic problems.

So, here is my question to you. What is your plan to make the life of an average American who wasn't lucky enough to be born into advantage and privilege better off? Or do you even care or are even interested in seeing their lives improved? What are your ideas or do you have any concern improving the life of average Americans? Do you want our country to be just a third world banana republic where the wealthy have everything and everybody else is poor? Is that your plan?

[Julian658]

@Julian658



What do you mean which one is it? That came out of nowhere from left field somewhere. Asking such a question makes no sense at all. Logic dictates if you read what I wrote that such a question would not even come into play. I am in favor of unions so that Americans can bargain for a reasonable living wage, medical insurance and retirement. Remember, if you read what I wrote, you would see that American workers were doing much better when union laws were stronger despite the fact we had immigrants here in this country even during those times. We have unions and immigrants both and immigrants should have the right to unionize like any American workers. That is a fact. Of course if a business is employing immigrants illegally they could face being shut down. So, it sounds like this notion of "which is it" came out of nowhere. Our trade deals need to also take workers rights into account as well not just forget about them while making rich people richer.

Immigrants are not costing Americans jobs, they are doing jobs most Americans are unwilling to do. And, they should be able to bargain with a union as well much like American workers. Much of the trade deals in the past were centered around making rich people richer while neglecting the right of workers to unionize and bargain in these trade deals. So, the only people that benefited were wealthy people with capital because the welfare and rights of workers were not even considered. But that's to be expected when you have a government that doesn't represent the will of the people and is instead bought, paid for and controlled by the wealthy.

See, immigrants are not the problem here. Big business stopping the right or workers to unionize and go on strike without fear of replacement is the problem. Big Business of course wants the average American worker to blame "the other" so that the attention is not on the real problem, them stopping workers from unionizing, striking without fear of replacement and getting a more fair wage with benefits. We have seen this pattern before throughout history for example with Hitler scapegoating the Jews for the economic problems of Germany. But the Jews had nothing to do with their economic problems.

So, here is my question to you. What is your plan to make the life of an average American who wasn't lucky enough to be born into advantage and privilege better off? Or do you even care or are even interested in seeing their lives improved? What are your ideas or do you have any concern improving the life of average Americans? Do you want our country to be just a third world banana republic where the wealthy have everything and everybody else is poor? Is that your plan?

I agree with most of what you have said. But, it is naive to think immigrants will not compete with citizens for jobs. And they will do the job for less. Truth of the matter is that capitalism loves low wages labor and immigration is an endless source of that.

I get it! None of us want to be called a xenophobe, but I am an immigrant from Latin America and I don't see it that way. And I want immigration since long standing citizens of Western nations have fertility rates that are quite low, not enough to maintain population. If we do not take immigrants social security will fail. However in my neck of the woods Hispanic construction workers are the order of the day and those jobs pay well. Many are now plumbers and electricians. The Heating and Air workers are still American, but that will soon fall. It is what it is. I think many only look at this thru a racial lens and fail to see other angles.

[Politics_Observer]

@Julian658

But, it is naive to think immigrants will not compete with citizens for jobs. And they will do the job for less.

Yeah, and when Trump started really cracking down on immigration and immigrants disappeared from the farms they worked for fear of being deported by ICE, where were the Americans who rushed to fill their place to go to work in the fields of those farmers?

[jimjam]

Stuck on literal..

The point of my post was to illustrate the hatred, anger and mental illness that Donald is infecting America with. Understandably this point was missed by Large Steve and he got his rocks off instead by lying about me AND calling me a liar which paradoxically made my point that Trump cultists thrive on hatred and anger. Just look at Large Steve's pofo card collection ………. it's a good one .

[blackjack21]

I'm very hateful and very angry... where can I join a cult... hrmmmm

[late]

where can I join a cult...

You are already in like Flynn.

[late]

Are you joking???

Nope.

They clearly push kids too hard. Their pedagogy relies far too much on memorisation, and far too little on analysis.

Your goal is fine, that's just not the way to do it.

[BigSteve]

Stuck on literal..

Why would I not take what he says literally? He said he "came upon a rally".

Then he said that a woman "gave us the finger".

Why would I assign that some cryptic meaning? He said it. He took part in it. He's ashamed to admit it.

It's all good...

[late]

Why would I not take what he says literally?

You only would if your politics didn't use reality as toilet paper.

He's not an activist, never was.

[Julian658]

Nope.

They clearly push kids too hard. Their pedagogy relies far too much on memorisation, and far too little on analysis.

Your goal is fine, that's just not the way to do it.

Sure, but on the whole that would be a MASSIVE improvement for the uneducated American lower social strata.

The Japanese actually teach less, the curriculum is much smaller. In America the curriculum is larger and more ambitious and the kids end up learning nothing. America assumes ALL kids are college material and hence you have people that have no business going to college clamoring for free college. In Japan and Germany those kids are sent vocational school and do way better.

[Julian658]

@Julian658



Yeah, and when Trump started really cracking down on immigration and immigrants disappeared from the farms they worked for fear of being deported by ICE, where were the Americans who rushed to fill their place to go to work in the fields of those farmers?

Not all immigrants are here to work the fields in farms. That is a low expectation condescending view of Hispanics, I guess not as bad as actual xenophobia. Sure, many are illiterate and come from extreme poverty, but many become police officers, carpenters, electricians, and many other more highly technical jobs. Our business IT person is Hispanic.