America on its way down. Is it?

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

@ August,

If you base your view on the group of people you are teaching at that trade school, then you are basing on a very specialised audience that neither could surprise anyone with it'S attotude and interest for trade, nor is is a representative sample of the social structure of the american society.It is a highly specialised group.

So you're claiming that an interest in improving ones situation is not representative of the social structure of American society? If so you don't know us very well.

Is the lecturing for free or almost free (an equivalent to German Volkshochschulen), or do the courses cost money like at university? If more like the latter, then you already would have a specialisation of that group by the fact that these are exclusively people who can afford the costs of the education (which I would expect to make a difference since education in the US and Germany gets handled very differently). Which would be illusionary for a poor family where both parents have lost their jobs recently, work in three different low wage jobs both, and find their family financially floating just above the limit at the end of the month (not to mention time).

The tuition of well over half my students is paid via several worker retraining programs, so they pay little or nothing. The rest are there on student loans which are granted based on a persons future earnings potential rather than their present wealth. Call it illusionary if you want but if so it's an illusion that is personified in thousands of vocational schools like mine spread across the country.

I perfectly understand how the american model was supposed to work. But the important question is if the ideology adequately decribes the reality, and this I always have put in doubt: I see a huge contrast between the historic claim how america wants to be, and how it really is. the social polarisations seem to massively increases as well, since somewhere in the 70s.

That's because you get your information from rags like Speigel and the NYT who make their livings on spreading gloom and doom, or you read the crap the political parties are always slinging at each other and think that it is gospel. Like I've said twice so far. Folks have been prognosticating our imminent doom for over 200 years. They ain't been right yet.

And on that note let me end this with a few appropriate words from the immortal American Bard Charles Daniels, Esq.:

Well the eagles been flying slow,
and the flag's been flying low,
and a lotta people say that America's fixing to fall.
But speaking just for me,
and some people from Tennessee,
we got a thing or two to tell ya all.
This lady may have stumbled,
but she ain't ever fell.
And if our enemies don't believe that,
they can all go straight to hell.

[gimpy117]

Okay im gonna say this:

The poor make more: its will damn well gonna get spent. EVERYBODY will be happier. The economy also moves from increased spending

The rich make more: It sits in their bank account and they get to brag about how much money they make.

what do you want more? People spending, or money accruing interest in some moneybags account?

[Ducimus]

Personally, I think the article makes a damn good point. Some of what it was about I see at my work.

You know what pisses me off?

Combine all of this together:

- I haven't seen a raise in 5 years.

- I haven't seen ANY bonus in the same amount of time.

- We get this new fat cat CEO in our company, who kills our 401K matching because "nobody else is doing 401K matching in this economy". Which is bullschit, espeically considering the company has been making it's sales figures.

- Instead we get these stock options with a wishy washy letter saying, "if , when, maybe, and someday". Did i mention this is a private corporation?

- Our expenses have been climbing, because of our new CEO's travel expenses from what i hear. Apparently this guy likes to fly around and meet with "investors" . Gee, i wonder where our bonuses are going.

- I'm not sure I want to know how much this guy's making, or what bonuses HE's making, AT OUR EXPENSE!

- This same fat cat, has positioned himself with his own private.... everything. Eviciting the current occupents of some office areas and turning it into his own private thrown room.

- Rumor's persist that my job will be OUTSOURCED by, at, or sometime around the end of the year. All im sure, in an effort to lower expenses, so the CEO can keep his current pay level.


Executives.. It's a dirty word. A word of a money grubbing scumbag that is lower in character then an ambulance chasing lawyer. They'd sell the entire country down the river and off to china if it meant lining their pockets.

So of other American's are encountering stuff like this? I think the article makes a VERY good point.

[gimpy117]

exactly ducimis. They don't want to pay us! They see our our wages and benifits as an expenses! something that has to be reduced so they can profit.
Also august, the only reason that prices would go up for many companies is because they would want to retain their profit margins. Ducimis' company is doing exactly what any other company does when they want to make the same amount money, but start paying their executives more with static productivity. You pay your workers less, but expect them to do the same job. With the "costs" cut from actually paying worth a damn your CEO for example, can fly all over the world on what sounds like a 24/7 vacation and the company won't lose a dime in its profit margins.

I love how big companies work!

[August]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

Okay im gonna say this:

The poor make more: its will damn well gonna get spent. EVERYBODY will be happier. The economy also moves from increased spending

The rich make more: It sits in their bank account and they get to brag about how much money they make.

what do you want more? People spending, or money accruing interest in some moneybags account?

And what happens when the poor are too old or feeble to make anything to spend? They'll be wishing they had that interest income. Bank accounts aren't just for "Moneybags". They're how intelligent (note I didn't say "rich") people prepare for the future.

The poor are done a far greater disservice by not having that reality stressed enough when they are still young enough to do something about it.

[August]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

- I haven't seen a raise in 5 years.

- I haven't seen ANY bonus in the same amount of time.

So why do you continue to work for them? Somebody chain you to your desk or something?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

So you're claiming that an interest in improving ones situation is not representative of the social structure of American society? If so you don't know us very well.

That is not what I said. Wh you think I did, escapes my understanding.

The tuition of well over half my students is paid via several worker retraining programs, so they pay little or nothing. The rest are there on student loans which are granted based on a persons future earnings potential rather than their present wealth. Call it illusionary if you want but if so it's an illusion that is personified in thousands of vocational schools like mine spread across the country.

Ah, worker retraining programs we have en masse in Germany, to, arranged by the socalled Job-Centres, the former state-run employment offices. Our statistics show us that many graduates get channeled thorugh such prgams in order to count them out oif the official unemployment statistics, while the majority of them do not get jobs after such training programs even if they get send to two or even three such programs in line. that is not because the programs leave them too incompent, but because jobs do not get created by these courses and thus they still have the problem of not finding work.

I want to call it nothing (your illusory-remark), I do not know why you so often must think that I have meant or said things that I did not say and have not meant. It does not make it easier to communicate with you.

That's because you get your information from rags like Speigel and the NYT who make their livings on spreading gloom and doom, or you read the crap the political parties are always slinging at each other and think that it is gospel.

Aha. I stand corrected.

Like I've said twice so far. Folks have been prognosticating our imminent doom for over 200 years. They ain't been right yet.

Somehow I think you always take it personal and emotional immediately when somebody - not necessarily me only - asking something that puts the wanted picture into question. The statisticsI linked in my last time - ignored. the arguments they hold - cleaned of the table. An essay from an outside observer that hints and points at things - just wishing bad to the US.

Well, at least this behavior pattern also could be taken as an answer to my orignal question at the very beginning - although it is none based on argument and counter-argument.

Have you ever taken into account the possibility that the dog you think wants to bite you and that you chase away by throwing stones, in fact does not mean to bite and maybe is just approaching you for - curiosity?

Well, i leave it to this.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

Okay im gonna say this:

The poor make more: its will damn well gonna get spent. EVERYBODY will be happier. The economy also moves from increased spending

The rich make more: It sits in their bank account and they get to brag about how much money they make.

what do you want more? People spending, or money accruing interest in some moneybags account?

And you will "fix" this how?

[gimpy117]

start paying people more and we will spend more. Were supposed to drive the economy but we have no money to do it with!

[HundertzehnGustav]

low wage jobs and the economic down spiral...
gonna packj my bags now and get my lazy arse out of here. to a place like africa or siberia, where my life will be spent in mabour, no electricity; no internet... and i will never see anything of the world starting a WWIII.

except the rising clouds of the nuke explosions. and the radioactive rain killing me.

at least a guy can still step out of the system, if he wants to...

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Have you ever taken into account the possibility that the dog you think wants to bite you and that you chase away by throwing stones, in fact does not mean to bite and maybe is just approaching you for - curiosity?

And have you ever taken into account the possibility that the rejection of your proposals do not also mean a personal rejection of you?

I mean you like to advance these editorial criticisms, then when people tell you that it's conclusions not matched by their personal knowledge of the situation you claim "perfect" understanding (read "better than theirs") and dismiss their opinion as non typical, often taking their disagreement personally even when they aren't, like now, meant that way.

In any case, if this experiment in talking to each other can be at all salvaged, i'd really like to know what about the mechanic, medical assistant, building trade, electronic installer and similar jobs that we teach makes our students so unsuitable as a "representative sample of the social structure of the American society"?

America is going down as the protector of countries in Europe. NATO is a shell, and only a very few realize the danger.

[Castout]

It's a year old video but

for some minutes I thought it was a joke



Then it dawned on me that life could be one too

[Aramike]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

start paying people more and we will spend more. Were supposed to drive the economy but we have no money to do it with!

So when more people have more money and there's a greater strain on resources, what happens?

Oh yeah, inflation. Prices go up. Now the "more money" that people have as less buying power, and that's what ultimately matters.

So the rich stays rich and the poor stays poor.

Dude, do you really think that if you gave everyone enough money to buy sports cars there would be enough of them to go around? Of course not. So what happens? The prices rise.

$1,000,000 doesn't mean a thing if milk costs $200,000.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

start paying people more and we will spend more. Were supposed to drive the economy but we have no money to do it with!

Well it's not really a question of simple wage increases. As Aramike points out, if you just raise wages, you'll end up spurring inflation (which actually might not be a bad thing with the risks to deflation that we're facing.) You need to bolster confidence - and the only thing that's going to do that is people feeling relatively confident that their job will be there tomorrow and their house is going to have a steady value. If people are fearful for what happens tomorrow, their wallets will remain shut.