Where is the US economy headed?

@hawkeye10,

As you are likely aware, I favor conservative policies for the most part, but I have come around to the idea of possibly raising marginal tax rates on individuals to pretty stiff rates. I would only be in favor of that however if we eliminated all corporate and business taxes as part of the reform. My first choice would be to eliminate all income tax completely in favor of a retail sales tax. The idea here is to reform the system in a way that would still bring in the tax revenue needed, but have a system that would drastically grow and encourage manufacturing and business in this country. We need jobs, especially in the manufacturing sector.

Eliminating the income tax or increasing the marginal rates on individuals would still collect the revenue, but it would collect it at a different point in the economic stream, in a way that would help domestic companies ability to compete in the world market.

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@okie,

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As you are likely aware, I favor conservative policies for the most part, but I have come around to the idea of possibly raising marginal tax rates on individuals to pretty stiff rate

As you likely are aware, I think that the current global financial system/economic system is too far gone to save. I have no idea what we will do next, but I would like to move the process along. Trying to ignore reality is almost always a bad idea.

For about 5 minutes after the Great Recession Europe and Asia were calling for reform, but the Americans resisted and nothing has been done. We will not need to wait too many years for the big crash.

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@okie,

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It was basically a rejection of the moral standards previously established

Wrong.

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@cicerone imposter,

Rhode Island laid off 1,000 teachers.

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@plainoldme,

By my calculation NCLB was responsible for about a 300,000 increase in the number of employees required to run our schools. We could and should start the ecomomizing the system by repealing the whole scheme. The problem with current efforts is that federal law makes it very difficult to save money, because most of the best moves would be illegal under current law. We should also repeal title IX, as women no longer need the preferential treatment and we cant afford all of the costs this law throws into the system.

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@hawkeye10,

The problem with teachers is the towns that think hiring someone with a degree in teaching English as opposed to a degree in English is the best choice.

There were 60 kids in my first grade class taught by a sadistic nun. Our reading groups were Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Assignments like that meant you were doomed for life. Sounds like you might like a return to those days.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

There were 60 kids in my first grade class taught by a sadistic nun.

60 kids in your 1st grade class? That must have been chaotic. Where was that?

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@plainoldme,

That poor nun lost her sanity long before the 60 students of your class.

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@realjohnboy,

Suburban Detroit. The town was known as Dearborn Heights, immediately adjacent to Dearborn. As it was a Catholic school, town lines didn't matter.

A new parish was established to take the load off St. Sebastien's Church and I started third grade at St. MArtha's with a different order of nuns.

Physical punishment was practiced and approved of. In fact, one of the two annual letters from the ArchBishop encouraged parents to spank their children.

As there were only 43 students in my 3rd grade class at St. Martha's, we shared the room with the fourth grade. We continued to share the following year. We had our own class only in the fifth grade.

Frankly, I remember only two girls from the class just above us and one boy. Everything else is blurr.

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@cicerone imposter,

When the principal, who we called Mother Superior (why? we weren't little novices!) came into the room or when one of the other nuns came in, we rose and said, "Praise be to Jesus Christ, Good Morning, Sister."

I told that to a professor at graduate school and he loved that story. We still joke about when we see each other.

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@plainoldme,

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The problem with teachers is the towns that think hiring someone with a degree in teaching English as opposed to a degree in English is the best choice

Education has failed not because it is under resourced or because the wrong methods are used, as is commonly argued, but because the culture sucks. Hiring the wrong people and poor teacher training are strong components of the failed culture.

Conservatives latch on the unions being the major problem, but while they are part of the problem the main issue is poor leadership. Failing to stand up to the bossy and wrong parents and failing to make demands upon the students are far and away the biggest reasons for the failure.....for this I blame school boards and school admins, not the teachers.

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@plainoldme,

The student/teacher ratios seem high, but what do I know about Dearborn, MI.
Sister Linus was my teacher in the 1st grade. Dominican nun, back in 1952 or so, with the garb. She was a sweet lady and quite old.
My friend Bobby was brought in one day. He was in Kindergarten but was thought to be smart enough to get into 1st grade.
He began crying. He wept loudly. He was sent back.
I asked him later what the problem was.
He said: "She has so many wrinkles."
He lost a year of his life, perhaps, because of an old nun's wrinkles.

That's my story for today and I am sticking to it.

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@realjohnboy,

It's both sweet and sad. It is about a very young boy's perceptions. Are you still in touch with him? How does he feel about his first grade tryout as an adult.

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@hawkeye10,

Well, we agree on something. I, too, blame parents. I blame parents for allowing music and art to be cancelled. I blame parents for looking the other way when the schools demand a single book to be read for the entire summer. I blame parents for not insisting on better science instruction.

When I was subbing, an activist mom cornered me. She said that "tracking" in the high school wasted money. I asked her whether she would enlarge class size. She said no. I asked whether she wanted a book for each child. She said yes. I then asked how tracking costs money? The same number of teachers are still needed.

I then explained that the weak points were including the sweet but not smart students in the lowest rung with the trouble makers and not offering enough for the brightest and the best.

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@realjohnboy,

... wrinkles and all! Mr. Green

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@plainoldme,

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Well, we agree on something. I, too, blame parents. I blame parents for allowing music and art to be cancelled. I blame parents for looking the other way when the schools demand a single book to be read for the entire summer. I blame parents for not insisting on better science instruction.

I have many memories from the 70's of teachers and admins trying to do the right thing, but facing stiff opposition from parents, with the school boards ultimately siding with the parents. Thing is it was the vocal minority of parents who fought with the schools and beat the staff into submission.

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I then explained that the weak points were including the sweet but not smart students in the lowest rung with the trouble makers and not offering enough for the brightest and the best.

I hear ya. My kids take a lot of AP classes but even with that they routinely ditch class because it would be a waste of time, and would bore them to tears. The teachers look the other way, trying to make the best of a bad situation.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

I have many memories from the 70's of teachers and admins trying to do the right thing, but facing stiff opposition from parents, with the school boards ultimately siding with the parents. Thing is it was the vocal minority of parents who fought with the schools and beat the staff into submission.

Also, I have a sense that the court ordered bussing played into the problem big time as well, as there was a palpable sense of loss of control of the schools by those who were running the schools, which ended with demoralization. The bitch of it is that we later decided the bussing was a bad idea, so it was all for nothing, but the bussing was massively disruptive in the schools for years, and there was nothing anyone could do about it because of court control.

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@hawkeye10,

History is full of failed experiments. What is important is to give an idea or method an honest try. If it doesn't work, abandon it. Then either find a new idea or return to the old way.

I wish the Kenneth Koch idea (or, whoever inspired Koch) of just allowing the kids to write would go away.

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@plainoldme,

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I wish the Kenneth Koch idea (or, whoever inspired Koch) of just allowing the kids to write would go away.

Were were a bit into that, as we were told not to get hung up on spelling and punctuation...what she wanted to see was truth/emotion/heart crisply and clearly stated through writing. We got marked down for using too many filler words or writing BS more than for not following the rules...

EDIT: from what my kids tell me most students today would get an F in her class, as they write page after page with no content....sounds nice/means nothing.

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@plainoldme,

A beautiful idea. Most though, people get so hung up on their own theories that when they fail, they decide on the same, but more of it. Seems like human nature.

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Where is the US economy headed?

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