Really interesting article in the current issue of Inc. magazine. About Finland. Very high taxes there. Very socialistic approach to government, excellent social safety net, free health benefits for all. Terrible for business and entrepreneurs, right? WRONG!!! Finland went through the recession pretty much unscathed. Three percent annual growth rate throughout, IIRC. Also, Finland has a much higher rate of successful entrepreneurship. Why? Because the cost of failure is so much lower! You fail, you still have food to eat, a place to live, and you can go to the doctor when you get sick.
DO NOT BELIEVE CONSERVATIVES ON ECONOMIC MATTERS!
They are proven failures. They do not know what they are talking about. They have a terrible, burning need to promote whatever will benefit the wealthy elite. They have no ideas, just rationales.
Sure. The Texas Education Agency is offering student loan forgiveness even now in critical need areas because enough qualified applicants can’t be found at the wages we are paying.
It’s unlikely my wages are going to be cut, but for most of us in Texas our work load will be greatly extended: there will be a lot more teachers teaching 30-40 more students than before, and a lot more teaching more preps than they taught before. That’s an effective wage cut–more work for the same pay–and there is no doubt in my mind that that will decrease productivity. It’s insulting to teachers to say that many AREN’T already working as hard as they can, and that increasing their work load won’t lead to a decrease in quality.
I don’t really understand what you are saying. Say you invest your savings in a taco stand, which goes bust. Who exactly will pay your rent and give you food? Where’s the taxpayer program for that? Plus, I think you meant to say “isn’t very high,” right?
I did not realize that. Ignorance fought. The fact remains, however, that education is still a whopping 23% of the state budget, and health care is even less open to change.
Except “should you consider the long term and short term effects” wasn’t the question posed, was it? Making up a question to answer isn’t really a very honest way of debating.
So you did invent a question - that makes things a lot clearer.
Where did I say that? Do you actually know the definition of short term and long term when considering economic matters? Because that would be kind of helpful.
And the Holocaust was evil. Why are you arguing it was legitimate?
See - making up questions and then answering them makes for a pretty silly debate.
Doesn’t really matter. Teaching is a job, and it is (or should be) subject to market forces, both long and short term, like any other job.
Again, it doesn’t really matter. However the state in question decides to define it. That could be test scores, teacher evaluation, graduation rates, or any combination of metrics one comes up with.
My point, though, is that it makes no sense to talk about teacher’s pay in the abstract. This is not rocket science. Companies figure this sort of stuff out all the time without agonizing about in public.
(a) Unless you challenge the quoted figures, you fail at simple arithmetic. $109 bill/$1.6 trill is more than 5%.
(b) The present high deficit is, all hope, a brief anamoly due to the severe slump. You seem not to acknowledge that.
(c) “Lifting” the middle class is an ambiguous goal, and may indeed be unattainable. I’m just trying to maintain services like public education at levels they had before wrong-headed governance took over.
(d) You didn’t read the quote I provided did you? When all taxes are considered, America already almost has “flat tax”, with super-rich paying 31% and median household paying 25%.
Given that taxation is almost flat, your concern about increasing taxes on the rich “destroying civil liberty or bankrupting the country” seems … (uh oh, we’re not in BBQ Pit) … hyperbolic.
Well it absolutely does matter. If you are saying you can tell whether teachers are overpaid by looking at the effect of a 10% drop in wages, then it absolutely matters whether you look in the short or long term.
If you drop wages 10%, and no one leaves in the short term, it says nothing whatsoever about whether the people were overpaid. If, however, they don’t leave in the long term then it is indicative that, under a free market analysis, they were overpaid.
This really isn’t complicated, and goes to the very heart of what the terms short and long term mean.
Actually, again, it fundamentally matters. If your measurements of student success are relative, then there being no drop in them doesn’t tell you anything at all. If they are absolute, on the other hand, then no reduction in standards when salaries are reduced is a possibility indicator that, under a free market analysis, teachers were overpaid.
You are right. It’s not rocket science. But seeking to reduce education to deliverables in the same fashion that a profit maximizing corporation (which we have to assume exists for free market analysis to work) isn’t necessarily a possible thought experiment.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, because I don’t think we’re in disagreement. Note that I said you have to look at “both long and short term” effects, emphasis added.
Sure it is. How do you think private schools operate? There are plenty of service industries out there that have to define customer satisfaction as a set of deliverables, and there is no reason schools can’t do that in the same way. This should be, if it’s not, one of the key things a schools board should be doing. What does it take to give us the best education we can get at the lowest cost. If they can’t, then they should be booted out of office and replaced.
The short term effects (actually by definition) don’t tell you anything about whether the rate was above the market clearing level. The short term effects are, of course, important, but not to telling you if someone was overpaid. They can’t be. Because the teachers can’t up and leave in that time period, even if they feel they are underpaid…
I don’t understand. Why are teachers less able to “up and leave” than any other type of worker? But there’s no reason that a state might have to ask teachers to take a temporary pay cut if they think the problems are short term.
They’re not necessarily - but that’s not what I am saying. The short term is the time overwhich you can’t change the inputs. Teachers being an input here, under our crazy attempt to apply free market analysis to a non-free market situation.
You could actually argue they are less able to upa nd leave if you think their skills are more specialized. And I am nto talking about the PAY CUT being short term - but that a permanent pay cut may have different effects in the long and the short term. In other words, if you slash teachers pay, you won’t see an outflow of teachers the next day. You may not even see one the next semester. But in 5 years time (number of years chosen unscientifically as an example), that is when you need to look to see if your pay cut showed teachers were overpaid or not. It’s really simple economics. Compare it to an increase in the price of gas. My car is a gas guzzler. If gas were to double overnight, I wouldn’t stop driving. I already drive a very small amount - 7 miles to work each day and back, and probably 20 miles total on weekends. But you can bet your bottom dollar than in 4 years or so when I am ready to buy a new car, if gas prices remained at that level, I wouldn’t buy a car that gets around 20 highway miles to the gallon.
GWB’s annual deficit averaged $250 billion ballpark and never exceeded $500 billion. The 2009 and 2010 deficits were $1400 and $1500 billion respectively. Granted, even $250 billion (contrary to Mr. Stone’s opinion) isn’t “chump change” but the quote extracted was from a discussion of the much larger figure.
I don’t know how to reconcile your comment except with innumeracy.
