America in Four Graphs
- Thread starter TheItinerantSon
- Start date
I think the idea is to be prepped for college. As one of the 2010 graduates that article was talking about, all my entry level science and math courses have been kicking my *** repeatedly. I understand that some people are "artists" and do not need it for a career. But the way the current system works, they give you the least training possible to be an acceptable human being, and in the way that jr. high prepared one for high school... high school does NOT prepare for college. Hell I got above a 4.0 my junior and senior year, and rarely if ever did homework and was challenged.
Better yet, how many people have the brain capacity to do calculus? The first step in educational reform is realizing that the human intellectual skill set is not equally distributed across the entire course content. As a side note, using graph paper and a pencil when one can be taught to master a graphing calculator is beyond idiotic.
Granted. So the solution is to set the bar for the lowest common denominator?
Furthermore, do you find writing a letter by hand just as idiotic because you can send it via email?
First off, people to should be free to get up to their eyeballs in debt if they choose to do so. Greed and jealousy are emotions virtually impossible for humans to control. The financial acumen of the "depression era" generation is highly overrated and exaggerated. These folks paid for things in cash because they had no choice. Consumer credit did not exist. Even then, car loans are not a new "modern" phenomenon. GMAC was started in 1919. The depression era folks largely behaved the way they behaved due to the vast sums of money lost in the banking system. There was FDIC at the time. People from that generation were highly scarred. With that said, this generation did not shun the modern trappings of everyday life. They dived right in for fridges, cars, houses, tv's, etc just like any other generation.
Each generation is aghast at what the generation below spends their dollars on. I am old enough to remember when a serious technological upgrade to one's living conditions was getting a rotary TV antennae on the roof. Hell, my dad blew a gasket when he I told him I pay for Onstar.
This NBER paper by Robert Gordon is a good start. https://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/SFONBER_Combined_090902.pdf
This isn't my favorite area, so I'd need a week or so to find the good stuff.
This is why I wonder if we need a new Lewis Turning Point.
I wasn't meaning to mock your ideas, and thought you made really good points the first time through. Maybe you've defined the challenge of today.
Graphs like these are constantly misused to spread doom and gloom, which happens to feed on itself and cause more doom and gloom.
You teach calculus to the kids that can do calculus and are pursuing careers that require calculus. Regarding writing a letter, that is a poor comparison. If I am at Harvard Business School in a finance class, I am not doing financial calculations with a piece of paper and a pencil. My mechanic isn't fixing my vehicle using 6 tools under the shade tree.
Spending creates jobs. If everyone saved like a puritan then we'd be much less productive. Then again, housing would not have gotten outlandish--talk about the middle class shooting themselves in the foot and complaining about it--and maybe we'd all have more time for fishing.
This whole spend vs. save thing is entirely gray area. Who can really define the perfect point? We can only hope the savers and spenders offset each other.
Of course, the thought that every single American holed up in there house and filling the coffee cans with quarters and burying it the back yard will somehow be good for the country is idiotic beyond belief. Those that got caught up in the housing frenzy and fell victim to it got exactly what they deserve. The American system isn't broken, it did exactly what it was supposed to do. It flushed the turd balls down the toilet along with the worthless realtors, appraisers, mortgage brokers, contractors, and Mr. and Mr.s suburbia clinging to their granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances. It truly is a marvelous thing to witness. Middle class American's didn't like the process so now they are sulking like teenagers grounded for the weekend. Nobody under 50 ever experienced a real cleansing recession. Welcome to 1980.
The politicians are politicians. Despite the morons on the far left and the far right, no politician is going to sit on their hands in a position of "leadership" and proclaim the cleansing of the system will be good for everybody. They will do what people in charge do, do "something instead of nothing".
If the point is to produce accurate graphs, you are correct. If the point to give the student a feel between how the function behaves and of what the function is composed, I disagree.
Too, too true.
As long as these kids are being encouraged to explore their potential, sure. Some kids who belong in calculus need to be pushed to get there.
My point was that looking 3-4 generations back there is an obvious and clear change in attitude towards money, spending and saving. And not necessarily for the better.
I'm not advocating that everyone should live like my grandparents/Depression era generations. Good Lord, I saw my grandparents save some weird **** and go without many luxuries to the point that their quality of life was affected.
On the other end of the spectrum there are those that spend every last penny they have and then spend thousands of dollars more that they don't have. Don't get me wrong, they have every right to do so however when they retire and are in debt and have no pot to piss in why should the government bail them out?
Regarding your On Star, if you have the money to pay for it, great. More power to you. If you are making the monthly payments on revolving credit that's your right but it doesn't make much sense.
How does the government bail these people out? I know of no program that does this nor of one in the planning stages.
Next time before you think don't. Carter if anything temporarily advanced the rest of the worlds view of the US with a very active stance in foreign policy.
Did not do much for the US in domestic policy.
Now reagan, some of his "inside buddy" deals definitely had an impact on our standing today.
Right back at you, before you state something, murmur it to yourself, recheck your facts and then come back at me regarding my statement with a better counter, from what you have stated, it probably comes to a better understanding that you haven't heard all sides and are being deaf to the atrocities this man has done towards the world, oh yes, what he did in Palestine was truth be told amazing but for every good he has done, Jimmy has done ten times worse, read history the joker but may be your name fits you appropriately for someone who does not know the difference between good and evil or in this case jimmy carter the myth and the reality.
And, for you, I shall elaborate let us start with my own country and his creation of this deplorable regime, yes, he did create this regime under the pretense that Ayatollah Khomeini is Gandhi, that Islamic fundamentalists are easier to control than nationalist and in turn this piece of dirt created a domino effect to the world we are seeing now, Ill go to my country's neighbor, Afghanistan, the creation of this Mujahideen groups were promulgated and fostered by this piece of crap, Jimmy Carter, he was actually pushing a fundamentalist country more akin to delusional Islamic culture than to the real thing, but it seems you are blinded by his fallacy of helpfulness.
Next, lets go to El Salvador, you would love what this piece of **** did to El Salvador, he backed the murders of innocents and continued the massacre in this country for your so called stance of foreign affairs, here, just for fun, lets read a quote
"You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people." Oscar Romero
Carter said "the soul of our foreign policy is human rights", amazing, is it? you seem to read press releases instead of facts, in East Timor, he backed and paid the Jakarta government with the murder of 200,000 men, try typing it, there are dozens of AP articles stating this, the man did the same in Haiti, all over africa, half of south america and the Philippines.
yes, foreign policy, now lets start with the economy of the country when he started and when he ended, you can use google for this, you would see a difference.
by the way, I apologize for sarcasm and a statement filled with snide but you started it with an insult, seems westerners start an argument with you are stupid instead of proving the opposing side as wrong but just goes to show you are indeed a jimmy carter follower, foreign policy with insults but jimmy adds the quotient of death, famine, pillaging and destruction in his wake.
People are free to get up to their eyeballs in debt, and that is what is happenning to our economy. You are free to make the choice, not free to choose the consequence of that choice. The only reason greed and jealousy would be nearly impossible to control is if you dont try. A little effort goes a long way. Whatever bad habits we have, we tend to pass on to our kids.... who may just take it to the next level. My parents never once talked to me about finances, or how to handle money and spending. I had to learn it the hard way. First I could not buy something because they or I did not have the money, then I learned it on my own as I was on my own. My point is the way to fix this is to teach our kids by example how to do things right, along with words. As far as I can tell it is not happenning either way, and each succeeding generation has been worse.
If we spend more than we make, it is like a tree. What we make is the trunk and roots, and what we spend is the branches and leaves. At some point if the branches and leaves keep growing much faster than the trunk, it is going to crack/split/fall. Not if, but when. We need to prune our trees as individuals to be in line with our trunks. Until this happens, expect much more of this up and down economy until something really bad happens.
Bankruptcy, social security, medicare...