Do you believe in a living wage?

I'm only pushing for us to get kids through college when they want to and are capable. Think about what Germany does as a start.

Blocking kids from college on the grounds that the parents aren't wealthy enough is not good enough.


University STEM programs usually discount credit hours that are over 5 years old.

That, along with the requirement for courses to be taken in sequence and in conjunction with related courses (such as differential equations and physics, or whatever), makes it hard to take a slow path through college.

Plus, earning potential as a part time worker with only a high school background is not much help in terms of paying today's tuition, fees, books, room/board, etc.


Remember that kids coming from low income families must consider the ramifications of paying for part of college before dropping out for any reason. Kids and their parents are well aware of the possibility that they could spend tens of thousands of dollars in debt and NOT graduate. Now, consider that many families include more than one kid.

I don't mean to overblow this - the financials speak for themselves and aren't overwhelming for all.

But, the cost of college IS blocking many from attending. And, again, I see that as bad for America.

 

Maybe.

I suspect a lot voted for him based more on feelings than policy. They liked "lock her up" and "drain the swamp" and "make America great again", and "Make Mexico Pay", etc.

They wanted change and saw Trump as more likely to change stuff - regardless of whether any of that was going to lead to specific policy.

Also, many just didn't like Clinton.

 

If you take the loyal Republican and Democrat voters out of the equation and simply focus on the swing voters, I think it is safe to say that most of them were an anti Hillary vote. Whatever hesitancy they may have had about Trump, the prospect of Hillary was apparently worse.

 

Probably the opposite. Non-instruction costs are outpacing instruction costs in university budgets. With fewer students to compete for, colleges would become more even more outlandish in their non-instruction spending to attract the fewer students.

 

Don't be so sure.

"Difference-in-difference-in-difference estimates suggest that a 10% increase in the minimum wage is associated with a short-run 1% to 2% decline in state GDP generated by lower-skilled industries relative to more highly skilled industries. This differential appears larger during troughs as compared to that during peaks of the state business cycle. (JEL J3, J4, L5)"

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/coep.12099/abstract

The second study examines both teenagers and 16−24 year olds without a high school diploma using census data from 1989 to 2012. The author finds that a 10% increase in the minimum wage results in a 0−2% decline in employment during state
economic expansions, but a 3−5% decline in employment during recessions.

Allegretto, S. A., A. Dube, and M. Reich. “Do minimum wages really reduce teen employment? A Journal of Economy and Society
50:2 (2011): 205–240

There are negative affects increasing the minimum wage, which is why the federal government should cease and let State and local governments deal with the issues.

 

It isn't necessary to relocate anyone. The entire point of the exercise was to demonstrate that 50 Billion people would not necessarily occupy large amounts of space, which leaves plenty of land for growing food-crops.

Absolutely, all those things will be available.

Water use would need to be heavily regulated, which is the only down-side to 50 Billion people.

You might want to recheck your figures.

The US has about 915 Million acres of active farmland, down from 922 Million acres in 2007 (that would be part of the Millions and Millions of fallow farmland I mentioned).

https://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publi...nd_Farmland/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf

 

Trump is doing what he said he would do...keep the US safe.

 

The fundamental problem in the US is the lack of economic velocity in local economies. Unless the whole system is fundamentally changed, there is nothing that is going to change this. You send your money o the fed in taxes, to your mortgage company far away, to Amazon for stuff from other places, to your student loan provider far away, to your credit card company far away. Unless you structure your life so that the bulk of your income stays in the local economy, it is pointless and it is increasingly impossible to do that.

 

In this day, rise of technology and automated processes it's unreasonable to expect everyone to find jobs. Not when there is clearly a decrease in demand for work. This, coupled with the acknowledgement that we should NOT employ people just to employ them. We have a limited amount of resources on this rock, we shouldn't produce just to produce. That's moronic.

We have the means and resources, not everyone should need to work. So, how do you choose who does or doesn't? I don't have an answer for you. Some jobs like doctors will never go away. But the goal of technology should be to free us of the maintenance of society yes? We have a ways to go on that.

I guess my point is, with an evolving society and technology, we should also evolve our expectations of each other and our own roles in said society. Only makes sense to me. So yeah I agree, living wage is good.

 

My study is the 80 yrs or so of min wages, and the USA and the world are doing just fine.

 

If we shouldn't produce just to produce due to our finite resources, then what would be the point of a living wage?

 

Uh... seriously? Because there are necessities for life.. things like food and shelter.

Producing just to produce.. I'm not talking about everything, food and the like we obviously need to make. Most things in society are designed to move volume. To keep selling. Things are designed to break so you need new and more. There's no reason we can't supply fundamentals to life. And we should be cognizant of the amount of useless crap we make. We should have humility and not be short sighted. Which as a whole we clearly are. Understand?

 

Sounds to me like you want to waste our finite resources on people who contribute nothing to society except more babies to consume our dwindling resources. It would be more humane just to euthanize them like we do unwanted pets.

 

Interstate commerce has ben a fact of life from our beginning, it used to be the Sears and Roebuck catalog that was the Amazon of its day.

 

I'll agree to disagree on this...IMO even if the US provided free under-graduate degrees, there will not be an increase in the number of graduates...

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Don't agree...voters bought into his promises and placed him in office...those who hated Clinton simply did not vote...

 

I meant to say 4 million square miles of arable land in the US...my mistake.

Today there are already people across the world starving, etc. from a lack of resources...over time if they cannot migrate to other areas with adequate resources they will vanish.

"all those things' aren't even available today across the world or even in the USA.

BTW; how much arable land is Earth losing each year?

 

I agree...it is so essential to invest in local economies! We've always been good local consumers, and involved with charitable giving, but since the election, we have dialed this up as much as we can...

 

Hey put 10% in your 401K so your boss kicks in 5% and 15% of your revenue is exported to New York City so somebody can afford to pay $30 for a burger.

 

My daughter is involved in secondary education and can name individuals who were accepted by universities and did not go, with the only reason being money.

And, that makes total sense. The amount of money that must be borrowed is huge compared to what some kids have access to. And, they are fully aware that they could borrow that money and then not get a degree. AND, they don't really get what happens after getting the degree, for that matter, when they have nobody in their family who has taken that route.

You can tell them that they could graduate in engineering and be assured a job that pays twice what their parents make, but that sounds like a stupid fairy tale to a kid whose only experience with education is high school and who has ample experience with poverty and discrimination and NO experience being welcomed by corporations willing to shower them with cash.

 

Those people are starving because there is no infrastructure to deliver food food resources.

Arable land may be reclaimed, if and when it is needed.

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There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

 

I see the our economy has not been hurt in over 80yrs of min wage. You don't see this? I guess it's because you don't live here.

 

And 15% of theirs is exported down here so what's your point?

 

As noted earlier on average the college degree gets you $1,000,000 in more lifetime earnings so they can pay for the $15,000 degree out of that. That is what borrowing/investing in yourself means, you don't have the money yourself so you borrow it and pay it back with the huge increase in future earnings.

 

Except is isn't. Every dime you put of your income into an IRA/401K is a dime less you are spending at Phil's Greasy Barbecue Hut which is a dime less Phil has to pay the 45 year old waitress with the hacking menthol cough. I have repeatedly made the point--local economies export cash to Wall Street. The reason we are at the natural rate of unemployment and wages are stagnant is because we would prefer to save $1 at Amazon and put a couple hundred dollars a week or a month into the stock market.

 

Absolutely. But, that wasn't the point.

The point is that there is a known risk represented by the rate of failure to graduate.

Those with nothing are taking a gigantic risk - not that they are likely to fail, but that if they do they are in serious trouble.

Also, high school kids are not prepared to face the challenges of negotiating this process, and tend to be ill informed of the difference that college can make in their lives.

And, $15,000 per year won't get your kid into a private non-profit high school here in Seattle.