The govt. can create jobs. There are a lot of jobs out there that need to be done right now, and could be done with cheap credit available, that would benefit the country and the people: repairing bridges, streets, water pipes; improving the four seperate power networks the US have into one to share power; build new wind parks on the coasts and solar plants in the desert; just paint all houses white to reduce AC cost in the summer with reflection…
It’s the conservatives who are bent on reducing spending that are blocking them.
Just because the parents don’t think education is important doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It means that the govt. needs to step in and spend initial money to get the kids motivated and show them that somebody cares. There are enough success stories of one teacher or volunteer at a youth center believing in a kid enough for the kid to believe in himself and pursue their dreams and make something better than a job slave.
I still think that the US should overhaul the college system to the dual apprenticeship system Germany has, where for lower blue-collar jobs and crafts, people train 2-3 years as apprentice parallel to visiting a vocational school. And they get paid from the employer during this time instead of racking up thousands of dollars in debt. The employers do this because it’s an investment into the future to have skilled Facharbeiter (craftsmen) available for hire with a minimum of both practical and theoretical knowledge, and because after the first year the apprentices can already do some minor work under supervision.
Not everybody needs a college education aimed at academia for a blue collar job; but many blue collar professions need more than 2 weeks to train somebody properly.
A McDonalds job not to earn pocket money, but as full-time job because you can’t find anything else is what I was referring to, and that is widely regarded as bad.
Because children aren’t set in their ways. And because parents aren’t the only influence (thankfully) in a child’s life. I know how sacrosanct the rights of parents over the welfare of the children are in the US, but still - what you are saying is contrary to both established pedagogic and psychology knowledge about children, and to studies done on projects aimed specifically to help lower-class children.
Those studies show e.g. that if you take a child at age 3 and pay (the state) to have it attend not only Kindergarden, but additional Early Childhood intervention based on the needs of the individual child (Addtional speech therapy, music lessons, dance/gymnastic/movement lessons …) - then it costs a few thousands Euros at this stage, but the children have a much higher success rate later on at completing High School plus learning a profession and becoming real employed (permanenently) than the children from the same ghetto who didn’t get them, saving hundreds of thousands of Euros in welfare later on.
Even outside school, there are grandparents and aunts. Then there are peers, which starting with High School have a much higher influence than parents anyway.
And any adult who’s regularly in the kids life, whether it’s a youth pastor, teacher, club volunteer … who can connect to the child, and genuinly cares, can turn a kid around.
A lot of people already are volunteering their time, all the state needs is a place (youth club, school after hours) some money for materials and general acknowledgment that This Is A Good Thing We Will Keep Doing It even after the next election, and won’t cut it first thing when spending cuts are discussed.
Because that also plays a role: children see from their parents struggle (they aren’t dumb) that poor people are criticized and dumped on and blamed as being lazy, no matter what they do, and that politicans cut their stuff first. In rich neighborhoods, parks aren’t given up as quickly as a baseball court in a poor area. They rightfully feel that nobody cares about them.
Well, we found something that we agree on. Yes, a McDonalds job is generally bad. I guess the managers can make a decent living, but working the register at McDonalds isn’t a career. No shame in it, would rather work there than not at all, but certainly just a fill the time job until a real one comes along.
Now that we agree on something, how do we fix it? I still contend that the only way to fix the unemployment/underemployment in this country is through the expansion of private sector jobs. They might be in manufacturing, sales, medical or whatever but until the private sector starts to expand and needs more people this won’t get any better. The best way to do that is for the Government to place as little restrictions on companies as possible. You have to make hiring people and expanding your business a smart thing to do from a financial standpoint or they wont do it. Companies are in business to make money for either their owners or the shareholders. If hiring new employees causes a net decline to the bottom line there is no reason to do so. Don’t saddle small business with regulations that they can’t afford, let them grow.
Newt is correct, the phrasing of it makes it ripe to be taken out of context to seem like he is blaming the poor children. When you look unempoloyment rates in this country the rate for black teenagers was historically lower than for white teenagers. However, with the passing of minimum wage laws this started to reverse. Now the unemployment rates of black teenage are significantly higher than for white teenagers. This despite the fact that black teenagers are more likely to be poor and have more need to work. Studies have shown that late entry into the labor force significantly effects lifetime earnings. The reason for this is that minimum wage laws price labor higher than the market clearing price for black teenage labor which is low because of poor schooling, higher rates of family dysfunction, lower rates of human capital. On the job training is crucial for people from poor neighborhoods because of the general poor quality of education in those areas. Outlawing jobs for poor kids is removing the lowest rung of the ladder out of poverty. Restricting this program to teenagers seeks to go sidestep the union opposition.
There is a grain of truth in that pile of horseshit:
japanese students are used from primary school onwards to clean their classrooms themselves, with broom and wet cloth. It’s often remarked on by outsiders that there is no graffiti or other petty destruction at japanese schools.*
If a decent director of one particular school wanted to make the children feel closer to the school, and among other measures, like letting the children paint their own classroom**, then making the children clean the school themselves would be a good idea. It would also teach responsibility (you make a mess - you clean it up; you see a mess, even though you didn’t cause it, you clean it up because you live here); and appreciation of people doing lower jobs.
But coming from a tainted source of a guy who mistreats people and lies about the poor to score points, no suggestion is sensible.
Though I wonder how much the strong japanese peer pressure at group conformity also plays a role in this - graffiti and destruction are also ways at asserting individuality and showing your hate of the school. If group conformity forbids feelings of hate or expression of individuality, then they don’t get expressed.
** Not white paint to save costs, but with a picture - we did that as art project in 10th grade. Only on wallpaper so it wasn’t permanent, to allow the next year’s class to do a different one, though.
puddleglum welcome to the insane world of the liberal mind. If you have a belief and agree with something a Conservative says you are “drinking the Kool-Aid”, however if they believe in something best not say anything because then you will be accused of being closed minded and not respecting them. :smack:
Wrong, we need more Govt. As I already said in my earlier post, Govt. can create a lot of jobs by spending money on infrastructure jobs (which also benefit the country mid- and long-term). These jobs will be carried out either directly by small businesses or by training people first to do them and then hiring them.
However, small business have a hard time not primarliy because of govt. regs., but because of competition from big corps., where govt. regulations have been relaxed. All the troubles that the banks cause hits not only private Joes, but also small businesses.
So if govt. introduced stricter regs. against corporations, with the intention of levelling the playing field a bit again, then small business could create some jobs. But as long as companies can locate thousands of jobs to China, get a special deal from the city when opening a new plant, close it down again after 1 year and keep all the benefits from the special deal although the jobs are now destroyed again … so long jobs won’t be created.
If Newt’s proposition was to make all school children clean their schools as part of the curriculum, that would be one thing. His proposal is to fire most of the janitors and have the poor children clean the schools for very little money. His reasoning is that’ll teach poor kids what it means to work since they would have no clue otherwise. Because all they know is crime.
I am amazed at what some people think it is like to be poor. I can’t even say these ideas came from TV. I mean, along with NYPD Blue there was Good Times and Roseanne.
In her defense the staus quo is working out so well for black teenagers that any proposal to change it must be hidden call out to racists.
Of course if it was a dog whistle and only racists can hear it, what does it say about BiGirl that she heard it?
But we’re talking about teenagers. They’re supposed to get the crap jobs because they typically have no or few skills. You originally complained that a McDonald’s job was not good training for “real” jobs, but I contend that it’s just fine for someone at that stage in life. It’s not that they hope to be the world’s best burger flipper when they grow up. It’s that you start at the bottom rung and work your way up. It also teaches them that this isn’t what they want to be doing when they’re 35 (or even 25).
There a simply oodles of Americans who are, at least for the moment, more or less middling class. But they are on the very brink, and they know it, or they aren’t, but are afraid they might be. All you gotta do is tell them what they are likely to believe, that they are deserving, they are the good people. But their well-being is threatened by all those lazy no-accounts sucking on the tax teat. Austerity, that’s what this country needs!
Its an appealing message for the fearful. And there are few notions easier to sell than “you are more deserving than the other guy”. I wish I could say it won’t work. But to one degree or another, its bound to. And if he can subtly blend in a little racism without actually saying it? So much the better.
First, the younger teens are when you shove them out into the adult workplace, the less education they are going to get. And not only formal education - the whole “broadening your mind that there other issues besides short-time monetary gain” that goes on in higher schools and universities, to produce people able to look and plan beyond one fiscal quarter, people with a vision, people who care about art and nature and future.
If a 15-year old starts working full-time instead of going to school to learn about the Illiad, he’ll think only of things to buy with his money, and slack the evenings off on the couch, or ride around on the motorbike he bought with the money. He’ll use interest in pursuing further education.
So if you want people to see that education is important, forcing them into shitty jobs is the wrong path for that.
And teens need to learn how to think in school to be able to continue education. There’s an age beyond which it’s incredibly hard (or impossible) to learn critical thinking if you haven’t learned it by then. So keeping children in school is important. A full-time job at the age when teens need a lot of sleep is contraproductive to furthering education. (That’s why all those extra-curricalur actvities, the parties to attend to be popular, and the jobs to earn pocket money plus hours-long homework are seriously bad for US teens - they lead to lack of sleep, which affects the mind, the mood, and development).
There’s also the problem that letting teens slave at MacDonalds doesn’t teach them how to do better. Sure, they don’t want to do that job for life. What’s the alternative path they can take if their parents are poor? Go to college? Not in the US where it’s expensive.
Learn a real job as apprentice? Not in the US which doesn’t offer that choice.
Another aspect: It’s useless to know how to work 8 hrs straight and be diligent and all that … if there are 10 or 50 applicants for every job opening. Even for McDonalds.
Because that’s what all those “lets bash the lazy poor people” asshole conservatives are not telling: it’s not laziness that prevents people from getting a job, it’s lack of jobs. Which, again, is largely the fault of the Conservatives in govt. preventing programs that created jobs in the last depression (the New Deal under FDR). And before, the recession that killed jobs being caused by deregulation of private industry by conservatives. Who now bash again the poor instead of the rich.
Well, why I appreciate your view I can see that chances are we aren’t every going to see eye to eye on this. In my view, the more Government gets involved the more problems it causes. As far as jobs (specifically manufacturing jobs) going overseas I for the most part put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the American consumer. See, the American consumer is a strange creature. He/she insist on paying the least amount for a product, why do you think WalMart has been so successful? But on the other hand the same people that demand lower prices for the items they purchase demand higher wages for the worker. It is a paradox. If you have workers making high salaries (and I am in no way saying they shouldn’t, just explaining something I see) then the prices of the goods they produce are going to go up in order to cover the cost of that labor. Problem is, if the average consumer isn’t willing to purchase more expensive items even though they are made in the USA by Americans then the company that makes them can no longer, and then the worker loses his/her job.
I had this discussion in another thread, the one about Japanese products, and used the example of my mother. My mother is a die hard union person, having worked in a union job until she retired. She is very vocal about her desire to have unions in just about every single workplace, because among other things union employees make more money than non-union employees. I have no problem with that at all, but when I went shopping recently with her she was purchasing a new item (a toaster I think it was). She looked at the offerings, 10 or more different models and she gravitated directly to the least expensive one (Mom has never cared about style, features and the like. She almost always buys based on price). Feeling like making a point I showed her that the model she choose was made in China. I went through everyone of the offerings and found one made in the USA. I don’t know if it was union, but certainly made in the US. It was almost $13 more than the one she choose. Even though I pointed out that it was made in the USA, maybe by unions and the one she picked was made in China I couldn’t change her mind. She thought about it, but ultimately choose price over belief.
I mention this because I feel that this is repeated thousands of times a day throughout our country. You cannot have high paying jobs and then choose to purchase foreign items because they are cheaper. The only things that happen are the USA companies end up not being able to compete. In the end they move their manufacturing arms out in order to compete with the lower priced imports. It might be moral to stand by your guns, hire Americans and a good wage, but it is not sustainable if most won’t buy your product because you can’t sell it for a price they are willing to pay.
I do realize that this is off the OP, but you brought jobs leaving overseas, so I thought I would address it. I don’t believe foreigners are doing jobs Americans don’t want to do, but I do think they are willing to do it at a price that Americans can’t do it for. And we have to make a choice in this country. Buy American and pay more or watch our jobs keep going overseas to save a dollar.
I wonder if anybody has ever pointed out to him that a majority of retail and waitstaffing positions actually may have a full 30+ hours, but the specific days and hours worked rotate as the needs of the employer dictate … my friend Lisa never has the same days off each week and shifts around between opening and overnights pretty much randomly. [she works at Walmart, it is ope 7/24]