Lines Blur as Texas Gives Industries a Bonanza

[GoldenRivet]

I have to wonder how many illegals are factored into that equation.

I know my my dads OB unit conducted at least 30+ deliveries a week in young teen Mexican girls who hopped the border

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

One in four Texans is has no health insurance. Texas ranks last in percentage of adults with a high school diploma. We have the fourth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. Every year since 1980, Texas has had a higher poverty rate than the U.S. as a whole. Texas ranked sixth in the nation in income inequality in a 2005-2009 Census Bureau study. The average income in Texas consistently ranks below the national average.

Corporate welfare comes with consequences.

I agree, there's always room for improvement.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I agree, there's always room for improvement.

Indeed. A lot of people love to crow about the unemployment statistics for Texas, but they forget those others. I think that government should work for all citizens, not just the most wealthy. We can certainly do better in education, which I think is the key. If children are the future, then we're mortgaging our future for meaningless gains today.

[em2nought]

People don't have health insurance because they choose to have things like cable tv, cigarettes, iphones, ipads, whatever instead.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by em2nought

People don't have health insurance because they choose to have things like cable tv, cigarettes, iphones, ipads, whatever instead.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Indeed. A lot of people love to crow about the unemployment statistics for Texas, but they forget those others. I think that government should work for all citizens, not just the most wealthy. We can certainly do better in education, which I think is the key. If children are the future, then we're mortgaging our future for meaningless gains today.

To a degree, em2nought is right. The school where I teach, 85% of the kids are on free breakfast and lunch. But each and everyone has a smartphone.

I doubt we agree about how to fix the education problem I hear a lot about teachers and tests, but from what I've seen first-hand, it needs to start with the parents.

[GoldenRivet]

I don't have health insurance just because i choose not to.

I work hard, i work often and i earn good money and if i get sick i go and get treatment.

the amount of money i would have spent on health insurance vs the number of times i have needed it pretty much equals out.

I was treated for pneumonia last year... first visit to a health professional other than a routine aviator's physical in about 6 years and it cost me about $2500.

$2500 / 6 yrs = $416.67 per year

$416.67 / 12 months = $34.72 per month

thus any health insurance i would have paid for over the last six years would have to cost less than $34.72 a month to be worth it.

that doesnt account for anything like a motor-vehicle accident, but with the right coverage you have medical expenses covered anyhow.

There will come a day when i will buy health insurance (especially now that i'm a treasonous enemy of the United States if i dont have it)

but the thing about counting beans into a pool of statistics is that the circumstances of the individual bean are not taken into consideration. Just because someone doesnt have health insurance doesnt mean they are destitute.

Are people really implying that providing perks and incentives to do business in the Republic of Texas is causing people to get pregnant at 16? or causing them to drop out of high school?

these are social issues that every state has. some state will always be number one on the tippy top of that list, another will always be last. Thats the thing about lists. But i dont see the connection that trying to make business profitable and providing incentives to bring those 50,000 jobs to Whereverville, Texas is causing teens to get pregnant and drop out of high school.

Chase the pipe dream of utopia into oblivion all you want the one thing remains... there will always be those people who have, and those who don't and that will never be eliminated from any society unless you just take the unwashed poor to the incinerator at the end of every week.

want to blame something for homelessness or lay fault for unemployment? i think social issues almost always boil down to the individual. Try as you might some people just want to be crack head drunks. some people are just trashy and there's nothing you can do about it. You could give them $500,000 and they would spend $300 for a week at a motel $50,000 on a car and the rest on drugs and liquor and ass and be right back in the same spot in no time flat and while $500K would make for one hell of a great week, you havnt changed the person for the better. and the problem of unemployment is only made worse since we live in a society where it is often more profitable to be unemployed than to have a job

you want to blame something for teen pregnancy? we live in a society encircled by sex. its everywhere. I sat in the waiting room at a quick lube just the other day and there was a seventeen magazine or something on the coffee table and it featured articles on the cover "10 ways to give him the best orgasm" and "what your brests need in order to stay perky" and "7 things you can do to have a sexy ass"... young women are reading this crap... and we actually encourage teens to do it from a very early age with schools handing out condoms etc... we send these kids the message that its ok to start screwing whenever they want, we have this old enough to bleed old enough to breed mentality when it comes to our kids, so of course teen pregnancy is going to be an issue in a society like that, thats not lockheed martin's fault, thats not Samsung's fault, and no its not even "Dubbya's" fault.

So they want to give a tax break to a massive corporation that builds widgets. fine! who cares? bring it on! you need 25 employees for corporate? you need 300 for upper management? you need 600 for middle management? you need 1200 supervisors? you need 15,000 widget builders? great come to Texas and lets get you cranking out widgets son hell you can break ground on a new building tomorrow morning for all i care damn you can come over to my house and you can screw my sister because guess what thats going to mean umpteen hundred construction workers and electricians and demolition laborers and countless other people doing the work to build your factory.

yes, someone is going to become a billionaire in the process and for some reason thats villainous in today's culture. and it wasnt a tax break that got them there.

I dont understand why it has become vilified to be a wealthy person.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Are people really implying that providing perks and incentives to do business in the Republic of Texas is causing people to get pregnant at 16? or causing them to drop out of high school?

If you can't see how giveaways to corporate special interests and the state of the education system are connected, do a little research to connect those dots.

these are social issues that every state has. some state will always be number one on the tippy top of that list, another will always be last. Thats the thing about lists. But i dont see the connection that trying to make business profitable and providing incentives to bring those 50,000 jobs to Whereverville, Texas is causing teens to get pregnant and drop out of high school.

Ok, I'll do it for you then: If you give money to one thing, it necessarily is not available to be spent on another thing.

Chase the pipe dream of utopia into oblivion all you want the one thing remains... there will always be those people who have, and those who don't and that will never be eliminated from any society unless you just take the unwashed poor to the incinerator at the end of every week.

But why is it that a state that's especially generous to corporate special interests is also especially high in poverty, wealth inequality, teen pregnancy and high school dropouts. Hmm....

want to blame something for homelessness or lay fault for unemployment? i think social issues almost always boil down to the individual.

As my mechanic would say, "Well that's yer problem right there." Willfully ignoring systemic issues because it's more convenient to believe in the welfare queen narrative is being willfully blind. You are correct in saying that there will always be people who make poor choices or end up with poor circumstances and you will always have teen pregnancy, wealth inequality, poverty and dropout problems. But the question you need to ask yourself is why does Texas speficially have more of a problem with those things than nearly every other state? Are you saying we have more people making poor decisions or running into bad luck? We just happen to have ended up with a higher rate of bad apples? If you were in the apple business, wouldn't you start wondering why so many of those apples in your shipment of apples are bad?

you want to blame something for teen pregnancy?

Bad education systems turn out teen mothers and dropouts. Look at the statistics for a given country's education level and compare that to its teen birth rate. I'll save you the trouble - they're negatively correlated.

I dont understand why it has become vilified to be a wealthy person.

Look at this list of most admired people in 2011. Tell me how many are millionaires. Then try and say what you just said with a straight face.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

To a degree, em2nought is right. The school where I teach, 85% of the kids are on free breakfast and lunch. But each and everyone has a smartphone.

You can get a smartphone for $50 nowadays. Technology is cheap. Not sure why everyone points to having a phone as evidence that they could be rich if they just tried.

I doubt we agree about how to fix the education problem I hear a lot about teachers and tests, but from what I've seen first-hand, it needs to start with the parents.

I would most likely defer to your ideas as you're the one with more expertise in the system.

[Onkel Neal]

Well, yeah, you're right, Mookie, but $50 and $30 a month, isn't that a lot of money for someone who cannot feed his children? And many of these families have 3, 4, 5+ kids. Each has a phone. (Not too mention the inevitable beer and cigarettes money that the parents and often the kids spend).

As for the education problem, I don't think there is anything government can do to make people better parents. All I can see is that government should reward, not handicap, students that actually do choose to make education an important part of their life, who behave, work diligently, and who may become successful "1%er"s at some point.

While the kids who cannot sit down and stop talking, won't do their work unless you do it for them, who want everything done for them... eventually grow up to have lives where low wages are a result, and may be part of the crowd that protests and wants to overtax the group mentioned above.

[Gerald]

Parents need to take more responsibility for achieving a memorable goal, while the school draws its bit.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Well, yeah, you're right, Mookie, but $50 and $30 a month, isn't that a lot of money for someone who cannot feed his children? And many of these families have 3, 4, 5+ kids. Each has a phone. (Not too mention the inevitable beer and cigarettes money that the parents and often the kids spend).

As for the education problem, I don't think there is anything government can do to make people better parents. All I can see is that government should reward, not handicap, students that actually do choose to make education an important part of their life, who behave, work diligently, and who may become successful "1%er"s at some point.

While the kids who cannot sit down and stop talking, won't do their work unless you do it for them, who want everything done for them... eventually grow up to have lives where low wages are a result, and may be part of the crowd that protests and wants to overtax the group mentioned above.

I don't disagree. Many parents these days are quick to blame the schools for issues that they should be addressing as parents. But I think there's a problem when you have people crowing about Texas' job situation and how cushy the business climate is when schools are overcrowded and facing crumbling facilities due to funding cuts. I really do thing we're mortgaging our future when we do this. If Texas wants to continue to be a national leader in technology and industry, we need a school system that turns out students that are ready to make that happen. Higher educated people contribute more in taxes, they use fewer government services and contribute more to the quality of life in an area.

And I know the argument is going to be that teachers and administrators are overpaid, but I just don't see how underfunding education by $5.5 billion can all be pinned on administrators making too much money. Yes, you can find examples of where that's the case, but to say that it's the entire problem is due to that is ignoring all of the other issues that contribute to the problem.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

And I know the argument is going to be that teachers and administrators are overpaid

In fairness, that 'overpaid' argument usually stems from people who have never stepped foot in a classroom in the capacity of educator. Once they see what the job is really like, they usually change their tune.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

In fairness, that 'overpaid' argument usually stems from people who have never stepped foot in a classroom in the capacity of educator. Once they see what the job is really like, they usually change their tune.

So I've been told by my teacher friends.

[Takeda Shingen]

Of course, teacher pay differs from district to district, usually based on the relative affulence of the community. I worked in one such high-paying district with median salary in the $40k range, which is not terrible when compared with other districts in Pennsylvania. I spent two years at the elementary level, which provided me with some surreal experiences, given that you typically have more frequent contact with the parents at that level. The drop-off line, where parents who drove their children to school would let them out, was a parade of Lexuses (Lexi?), BMWs, Lincolns, ect. The faculty lot, by contrast, was a collection of Hondas, Toyotas, Chevrolet, el al. And despite all of the community affluence, there were plenty of gripes about teacher salary. I'll tell you; one has not experienced a true Twilight Zone moment until you've seen a woman in a fur coat and pearls telling her son's teachers that they were overpaid for essentially raising her child.