Only 25 percent of Americans are qualified???

Mott the Hoople said:
I'm sorry you think that but those are the facts. Look at the chart Dung posted. It tells the story right there. It shows that our industrial productiving has nearly tripled in 40 years while at the same time the numbers of people employed in manufacturing has decreased by nearly 50% in that same time. How would you explain that fact? If your assertion was true that graph would look nothing like that.
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Obviously automation has cost jobs. It always has, since the first time an ox pulled a plow instead of a human. No on is denying this.
The point is that automation is unavoidable lest each factory worker turn luddite. Outsourcing is, however, avoidable.

http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6717/economics/the-luddite-fallacy/
 
cawacko said:
You've been pretty spot on with all of this Mott. The fact of the matter is America is (and has been) moving towards more of a service economy. As you referenced that will entail the need for higher levels of education. The old days of getting a high school diploma and then living a middle class life working in a factory are pretty much gone. The technological revolution helped put an end to it.
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What, pray tell, will we all be servicing Cawacko?
How does service create wealth?
 
Steelplate said:
When has a tshirt ever cost $70? Hyperbole much?
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That's about what they'd be if they were made here.

How about we tone down profits a little, bring CEO pay back to a reasonable level, and pay the workforce enough that they don't need government assistance to survive?
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So we should use the force of law to dictate what people can be paid and what they can charge for a product?
 
Steelplate said:
When has a tshirt ever cost $70? Hyperbole much?

How about we tone down profits a little, bring CEO pay back to a reasonable level, and pay the workforce enough that they don't need government assistance to survive?
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You obviously don't hang out in the high rent district. High end t-shirts with designer labels go for $70+.
 
cawacko said:
You've been pretty spot on with all of this Mott. The fact of the matter is America is (and has been) moving towards more of a service economy. As you referenced that will entail the need for higher levels of education. The old days of getting a high school diploma and then living a middle class life working in a factory are pretty much gone. The technological revolution helped put an end to it.
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The problem with that Wacko is that higher education has become prohibitively expensive for far to many people. Institutions of higher education keep spending astronomical amounts of money on administration and services that don't support the primary aim of education and the cost of higher education has sky rockected well in excess of the rate of inflation in the last 30 years. Something needs to be done to fix that. We can't afford to have so many talented young people sitting on the side lines cause it cost $100,000 to obtain a college degree or technical taining.
 
Steelplate said:
But Mott...what good is education when young people are saddled with huge amounts of debt before they start their lives and jobs so mercurial in availability. What you major in today may be saturated by the time you graduate....then you either go to work for cheap or go back to school...incurring more debt.

How about making education free and then people can retrain regardless of their situation?
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Well I don't know about free. I do agree that our higher educational system is broken in that it costs far to much leaving to many talented and ambitious kids sitting on the sideline and that something needs to be done to control costs for higher education.
 
Chapel The Evergreen said:
That's about what they'd be if they were made here.

So we should use the force of law to dictate what people can be paid and what they can charge for a product?
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Ok....first....link?

Second....bullshit. when we have to subsidize billionaires so they can get away with paying unsustainable wages, it becomes.our business.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Well I don't know about free. I do agree that our higher educational system is broken in that it costs far to much leaving to many talented and ambitious kids sitting on the sideline and that something needs to be done to control costs for higher education.
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No....the problem is that education, just like many other industries, has become a racket run by Greedy Bastards who don't give a shit about anything except their own self interest.
 
Steelplate said:
No....the problem is that education, just like many other industries, has become a racket run by Greedy Bastards who don't give a shit about anything except their own self interest.
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Trust me...I've worked in academia......you couldn't be more wrong. If the Greedy Old Pricks ran academia a Bachelors degree would cost a million.
 
cawacko said:
Who are the greedy bastards that run education?
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For profit Universities, Tech Schools that cost an incredible amount of money and NONE of their Credits are transferrable to any other legitimate school in the Nation... causing the student to virtually.have to start over if they want to go further than the diploma or Associates degree that they received.

Oh let's see....we could probably throw Public School teacher's. Unions into the mix. Not because of them negotiating good contracts for their members...I believe that folks with Bachelor's. And Master's degrees.in Education should be well paid. My problem with them lies in the way they tend to protect inferior teachers because they pay their dues. I think Districts were stupid to allow their autonomy be negotiated away. I think the worst thing you can do is create an environment where there is little to no accountability. It makes it OK to do the minimum and people naturally gravitate to that minimum.

I also think we fail our students by teaching to tests instead of knowledge. Every student has strengths and weaknesses....aptitudes and liabilities....a "one size fits all" approach is the easiest to implement, but lacks in success.

And no...."for profit" isn't the way to go either.
 
Steelplate said:
For profit Universities, Tech Schools that cost an incredible amount of money and NONE of their Credits are transferrable to any other legitimate school in the Nation... causing the student to virtually.have to start over if they want to go further than the diploma or Associates degree that they received.

Oh let's see....we could probably throw Public School teacher's. Unions into the mix. Not because of them negotiating good contracts for their members...I believe that folks with Bachelor's. And Master's degrees.in Education should be well paid. My problem with them lies in the way they tend to protect inferior teachers because they pay their dues. I think Districts were stupid to allow their autonomy be negotiated away. I think the worst thing you can do is create an environment where there is little to no accountability. It makes it OK to do the minimum and people naturally gravitate to that minimum.

I also think we fail our students by teaching to tests instead of knowledge. Every student has strengths and weaknesses....aptitudes and liabilities....a "one size fits all" approach is the easiest to implement, but lacks in success.

And no...."for profit" isn't the way to go either.
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For profit schools and tech schools are a small percentage of the schools in the country. Costs at UC Berkeley haven't exploded because University of Phoenix came along.
 
cawacko said:
For profit schools and tech schools are a small percentage of the schools in the country. Costs at UC Berkeley haven't exploded because University of Phoenix came along.
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Plus, California is a different animal...I remember when if you were a resident of CA, you could go to school for free. I think that's gone by the wayside...but I don't know if they still subsidize at some level.

I put one kid through college..well...we did....my wife and I. The only thing that we insisted was that he take out the Stafford loan(which we make too much for subsidies). He initially went to Penn Tech in Williamsport and got his Associates in Forest Technology, then decided to go and get his Bachelor's in Forestry from Penn State. Other than the Stafford, we paid for everything. When he graduated from PSU, he STILL had $26k in student loans.

Our daughter is a sophomore at Penn State Harrisburg Campus and we gave her the same deal...she already has close to $12k in student loan debt and has two more years to go.

Now....take that and imagine a kid who's parents aren't capable or willing to do what we did....that debt load would be close to triple what our kids have.
 
Steelplate said:
No....the problem is that education, just like many other industries, has become a racket run by Greedy Bastards who don't give a shit about anything except their own self interest.
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Anybody better off than this nancyboy and his wife who makes twice what he does is a greedy bastard.
 
Steelplate said:
Plus, California is a different animal...I remember when if you were a resident of CA, you could go to school for free. I think that's gone by the wayside...but I don't know if they still subsidize at some level.

I put one kid through college..well...we did....my wife and I. The only thing that we insisted was that he take out the Stafford loan(which we make too much for subsidies). He initially went to Penn Tech in Williamsport and got his Associates in Forest Technology, then decided to go and get his Bachelor's in Forestry from Penn State. Other than the Stafford, we paid for everything. When he graduated from PSU, he STILL had $26k in student loans.

Our daughter is a sophomore at Penn State Harrisburg Campus and we gave her the same deal...she already has close to $12k in student loan debt and has two more years to go.

Now....take that and imagine a kid who's parents aren't capable or willing to do what we did....that debt load would be close to triple what our kids have.
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California never had free education but the UC and State system was pretty cheap back in '60's. It's steadily climbed to today it's $25k/yr for an in state resident. It costs private school money if you are from out of state. Not easily affordable anymore.
 
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