pardos, "livin' in poverty" means different things in different nations. The average European wage earner with a family of 4 has an income that would be borderline poverty level for the same demographic in the US. The average European householder is not a home owner, over 75% of Americans, across all demographics and income levels, are. One thing about the "Alarming US Consumer Debt Levels" is that a huge component of US consumer debt is mortgage service, and in particular consideration of current real estate trendin's and interest levels, a mortgage not only is a return-yieldin' investment, its a damned good one. Sure, we have our "poor" - always have, always will. None the less, our "poor" are much less badly off on average than the "poor" of just about any other nation. Our "poor" generally have a car or truck or both (older, of course, but most have at least one), a couple TVs (many with either cable or satellite), a cellphone, a microwave oven, and a mortgage ... and generally entirely free access to medical, legal, educational, and societal services that are the equal of - even the envy of - those available anywhere else. Yes, there are those "poor" here much worse off than the average of our "poor" ... but extremes are extremes, not representative.
Education? The US spends more per student, and more per-capita-per-student, than just about any nation (and the Bush Administation has been responsible for historic increases in education spending - more increase in 4 years than were implemented under 8 of Clinton and 4 of Carter combined), yet the education achievement levels of US students lag those of just about everywhere else, whereas when education meant discipline, core studies, and preparin' students for the real world, the US education system was second-to-none. What happened to it? Look no further than the ridiculous, laughable-if-not-that-it-is-so-tragic mismanagement of the US educational system which has been accellerating since the mid-to-late 1960s - our kids today, and our nation tomorrow, are left to pay the price of Liberal/Progressive kneejerk, feelgood, nicey-nice policies. Now, I have little or no complaint or problem with teachers - its the folks who define and codify the methods of teachin' - the administrators - who are raping our future. It is imperative we institute and impose accountability and purely objective merit-based evaluation standards on our educational system. Let the teachers teach what needs to be learned - readin', writin', 'rithmetic - and geography, history, civics, and responsibility and discipline. And proper American English grammar, useage and vocabulary. The "multicultural studies"/"nourish the child's self esteem and individuality" approach is crap, doesn't work, and sets us back.
As for affirmative action ... very, very simple; addressin' a wrong with another -even if an opposite wrong - is wrong. Period, end of discussion. An artificial gateway is just as artificial and wrong as an artificial barrier. Again, The Constitution guarantees equal opportunity, not equal result. Some will achieve spectacularly, some will fail just as spectacularly - all given equal opportunity. In the meanwhile, the rest will get along more or less just fine. Some will luck into better breaks than will others, some worse - thats the real world, like it or not, and there is no legislation that can materially affect that. Discipline, personal responsibility, and personal achievement are real, they build on one another, and build success and prosperity in society. They're the foundations of civilization.
Living in poverty is easy to define. Its when you and your family went without dinner, heat and water because they dident have the money to buy them. I dont know about your town but it happens all the time where I live.
Re: Can't see the Federal goverment for the forest
parados wrote:Claiming you get no personal benefits from the Federal government is like claiming you get no benefit from trees while you live in a house made of wood and filled with wood products, eat food out of cardboard containers, use electricity made from coal, and breath out CO2 that trees turn back into O2 so you can breathe it in again.
Without the Federal government, your life would be a miserable existence. Try driving anywhere without using a road mantained or built with some Federal dollars. Your schools were partially built with Federal grant money. 50% of the internet routing system that gets you this message is paid for by government in one form or another. Just because you don't get a check doesn't mean you don't benefit.
To answer your question again, I do not receive any personal benefits from the US govt. The roads I drive on are paid for by the US govt, but they are not personal to me, they are general to everyone. The schools my children use are or were partially paid for by the govt, the rest were paid for with my tax money. I own property and there for pay for the schools, can you say the same?
Please tell me how the govt paid for the internet? From what I know, the govt mandated that com companies place the fiber in the ground so that it could be used. A vast majority of the lines used by the internet are privatly owned and not govt paid for.
To be fair, the internet grew out of a US Government project,
ARPANET
Timber,
This is the kind of thing I am talking about.. you post supposed facts but then when I check them out you are flat out wrong..
US home ownership - 68.3% in 2003 (US Census)
European home ownership in the 90s when US home ownership went from 61-65% (US Census again)- Spain had 80%, Ireland -76%, Britian 70%, Italy 68%, France 56%, W Germany 42%, Finland 78%, Sweden 56%, Netherlands 45%, Switzerland 28%, Netherlands 45%
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/faculty/oswald/homesnt.pdf
Not only do the MAJORITY of Europeans own their home the home ownership is fairly comparable to US.
Quote:pardos, "livin' in poverty" means different things in different nations. The average European wage earner with a family of 4 has an income that would be borderline poverty level for the same demographic in the US.
Again. a flat out falsehood. Poverty rate is defined as 50% of median income. The median income in US is 37K so poverty rate is 18.5K. the median income rate for 14 of the 15 European countries in the study was above 24K with Norway being only 6K behind US in median income. The average wage earner in Europe is NOT borderline poverty of US income. Not even close. Only Portugal had a median wage close to US poverty rate and that was 18K, about $500 below US poverty rate. (Portugal is not the majority of Europeans by any stretch of the imagination.) The majority of those 15 countries were within 25% of US income. This is the interesting point Norway had income of 31K to US 37K but had poverty child rate of less than 4% to US 21%.
http://www.epinet.org/books/swa2004/news/swafacts_international.pdf
I don't mind that you have opinions Timber but when you preface them with false facts I will question it EVERY TIME.
Quote:As for affirmative action ... very, very simple; addressin' a wrong with another -even if an opposite wrong - is wrong. Period, end of discussion. An artificial gateway is just as artificial and wrong as an artificial barrier
Once the gate is close there is no need to open it. OK. I guess we should just lock them out and unless they are so good they can jump over the wall they should STAY on their side.
69% of households, yes. Within those households, however, live nearly 3/4 of Americans. A large proportion of households which do not own their home are one-or-two-person households, whereas owned homes are more preponderantly occupied by spouses, offspring, and even extended family. That skews things a bit.
The whole point of establishin' a "poverty rate" as a percentage of median income is a smoke-and-mirrors accountin' game. Compare incomes to a fixed constant to get a meaningful result. A middle-class Somalian would prolly qualify for every poverty assistance program available in the US if actual income were considered.
As for your last comment, I don't see how you get there startin' from what I said - but if it works for you I suppose thats fine for you.
timberlandko wrote:To be fair, the internet grew out of a US Government project,
ARPANET
It was a group project between the military and major universities. It has also had other names like Archie and Gopher just to name two. It was private business that put the internet inot the form as we use it today.
Quote:To answer your question again, I do not receive any personal benefits from the US govt. The roads I drive on are paid for by the US govt, but they are not personal to me, they are general to everyone
.
Um, you'd take it personally if those roads were not kept up, and your children died because a certain pothole was not tended to. And I guess we can assume that you won't receive any personal benefits from SS when you retire. Right?
Quote:The schools my children use are or were partially paid for by the govt, the rest were paid for with my tax money. I own property and there for pay for the schools, can you say the same?
Which is it? Does the government partially pay for your children's public education, or do you "pay for the schools because you own property?" The fallicies in your arguments are deafening. Perhaps a course in English will help.
Quote:Please tell me how the govt paid for the internet? From what I know, the govt mandated that com companies place the fiber in the ground so that it could be used. A vast majority of the lines used by the internet are privatly owned and not govt paid for.
http://billslater.com/internet_history.htm
Read up on the history, then get back to us, Baldimo. It would seem that the government has had quite a hand in the development of the internet. My guess is that they probably spent some money in that development.
What do you think?
Baldimo writes:
Quote:It was a group project between the military and major universities. It has also had other names like Archie and Gopher just to name two. It was private business that put the internet inot the form as we use it today.
Your ignorance just amazes me. You do realize that all major universities get FEDERAL grants for research, don't you? You also realize that universities get Federal grants for infrastructure, don't you? Archie and Gopher were the original search engines and lived on university campuses run on state and Federal grants. The internet was originally set up so universities could talk to other universities on research projects. A lot of the internet DNS servers and mirrors and internet routers are still found on university campuses.
I am all for moving all people like you to Texas, kicking them out of the union then seeing how quickly they get educated on what Federal govt really provided to them.
Quote:Quote:
Authors Say Expanding US Home Ownership Helps Republicans
... The percentage of home ownership in the United States is double that of industrial countries in Europe. In 2004, 69-percent of U.S. households were living in their own home, up from 50 percent five decades earlier ...
69% of households, yes. Within those households, however, live nearly 3/4 of Americans. A large proportion of households which do not own their home are one-or-two-person households, whereas owned homes are more preponderantly occupied by spouses, offspring, and even extended family. That skews things a bit.
The whole point of establishin' a "poverty rate" as a percentage of median income is a smoke-and-mirrors accountin' game. Compare incomes to a fixed constant to get a meaningful result. A middle-class Somalian would prolly qualify for every poverty assistance program available in the US if actual income were considered.
As for your last comment, I don't see how you get there startin' from what I said - but if it works for you I suppose thats fine for you.
Gee. I guess your source for homeownership was a political opinion piece then you just changed the numbers from it as you saw fit. 69% is not 75%. I will accept your extrapolation if you do the same for all numbers.
The numbers I presented from Europe stand as the official numbers of home ownership. I don't see how 45-80% home ownership across European manufacturing countries can even come CLOSE to half of 69. Are you going to now argue that in Europe it is only the young and single that own homes? Your statement makes no sense in light of the facts. I think in Europe it is MORE likely for households to include extended family than it is in US. I will have to check that out. But if that is the case it makes your argument even less accurate.
As for your Somalia statement, it is completely off topic. Somalia is NOT in Europe, nor is it a member of the OECD.
My comment came from yours. Discrimination created a wall for minorities in US. They were locked out of positions of economic and political power. 200 years of discrimination is not changed over night nor does simply claiming they are equal suddenly give them access to economics and politics on an equal footing. You are not proposing equality but continued discrimination based on where they are when you declared discrimination over; locked out of the process. My simple analogy, don't open the gate, force them to climb over the wall.
Well, now, if whatever moves you around on those roads uses petroleum, rolls on tires, and bears registration tags, you're payin' a considerable bit for the privelege of exposin' yourself to traffic hazards - and add a bit more if you use toll roads or bridges. Those roads ain't a gift from the government, we pay the government to put 'em there and to maintain 'em.
As a property owner who hasn't had school-aged children in the household for decades, I pay the same property taxes, and state and local sales taxes, - with the same school levy - as do folks who do have kids in public schools, whether thats one kid or six, and so do folks who's kids are in private schools, and folks who've never had kids. Public schools ain't a gift from the government, either.
It has been mentioned here already, though, that government pretty much set the conditions which allowed for the development of the internet. The initial government involvement included seed funding - but what has come of that start - the internet as we know it, and the World Wide Web which rides on the internet - is somethin' almost wholly apart from those beginnin's, a phenomonon spawned of, sustained through, and driven forward by private, profit-oriented investment. If anything, the porn industry deserves far more credit for the development of today's "connected world" than does government.
On that note, the porn industry was a key factor in the development of home multimedia recordin', and in the ascendency of the VHS format over the technically superior BetaMax format, too. But thats another story.
And I suppose none of this recent digression - for which I bear no small responsibility - has a thing to do with the fact a private firm legitimately engaged in a defense-related business - a business for which only government has legitimate need - might have legitimate, unremarkable connections throughout the defense establishment, an establishment highly governmental in nature, and might, in the course of fulfillin' the terms of a governmental contract turn a legitimate, unremarkable profit, a profit which through earnin's distribution and share-value increase be of benefit to folks with legitimate, unremarkable, incidental interests in that firm, does it?
Quote:Those roads ain't a gift from the government, we pay the government to put 'em there and to maintain 'em.
Quote:Public schools ain't a gift from the government, either.
No one ever said they were a "gift". What we are saying is that we don't pay taxes and get nothing in return like Baldimo wants to claim. The benefits might not be readily visible for someone that isn't willing to look but take them away and you would notice.
As for the start of this thread. I don't mind that companies make a profit from selling things to the US Govt.
What I do have a problem with is when companies defraud the government but still get rewarded with more work or bonuses.
I have a problem with cronyism instead of competetive bidding.
I have a problem with war profiteering by businesses and by politicians.
I have a problem with "privatizing" government services that makes a few companies and some politicians very rich but we the tax payer end up having to pay more.
I have a problem with a government system that isn't open to public scrutiny because of some false notion of "national security."
parados, I go along with your observation regardin' "invisible benefits".
The things you have a problem with are things I have a problem with, too. I have a problem, however, seein' that the things you and I have a problem with are operative in this instance.
