Capitalism threatens to throw us back to the Dark Ages

You have no clue what you are talking about.

Title 1.... Ever heard of it? The schools that pass the 50% free and reduced lunch threshold receive substantially MORE funding than schools that don't. Not to mention all the other BS positions shitty schools have to fill. Trauma counselors, family counselors, community outreach specialists, campus police, EL specialist, compliance officers, school psychologist etc. The schools in the poorest areas receive more money. Please stop talking when you have no clue.

 

The Corona virus did not cause this economic crisis. The virus was the trigger.

Just like Gavrilo Princip did not cause W.W.I. There was plenty combustible material there when his assassination of Archduke Ferdinand ignited the spark that set in motion the catastrophic war that followed.

 

Nothing wrong with feeding the poor . . . .

 

My sentiment exactly - many black clouds were on the horizon - slowing global economy - inverted yield curve - investors so scared of "investing" that they are willing to sit in cash at near zero or negative interest rates.. ... you can smell the fear.. gold rallying ..

Then you had weak links such as the shale oil ponzi scheme - Capital was already headed for the doors since 2018 - and running for the doors in 2019. Russia/OPEC dropping prices was a well played move - at the right time.. boom

There is some talk of making cheap loans available - which is just more good money after bad - and even that seems to be fading.

Other weak links will fall - Airlines will need a bailout.

 

Capitalism works like that. "This time it's different" ...and the response, "No, it's not!" is a staple of those investment advisors that warn about doom ahead, buy gold, etc. I've read it a hundred times. And they're always right.... eventually. It goes up and down. Something to do with the psychology of investors, I guess.

Is it necessary for us to experience the absolute peaks and troughs, though? No, it's not.

Conservatives instinctively recoil from Keynsianism, counter-cyclical government spending measures like unemployment insurance, infra-structure projects etc. [Unless it's building bombers and tanks and groovy stuff like that ].... but they are wrong to do so. It's the way to save capitalism, as Keynes realized.

And there is another benefit, tiny in comparison to saving the wonderful capitalist system that is pulling humanity out of the mud, but a benefit nonetheless -- namely ... it allows our friends on the Left to console themselves for the horrible failures of genuine government-owns-everything socialism, because then they can pretend that capitalism-tempered-by-government is really what they meant all along by socialism! Sweden, not North Korea!

Now I know we are the 'nasty party' but ... still ... we should be kind where we can. And here is an opportunity, costless, to do so.

Anyway, I'm not at all worried about genuine socialism rising up out of the grave. No one even tries to defend the Planned Economy any more -- at least I've never found anyone who can make a coherent argument against the Socialist Calculation Question, and believe me, I've tried. Louis Proyect, all those professors whose books on socialism you can buy -- ParEcon, etc etc. Nothing to do with the planned economy, just praise for that big co op in Spain, or nice generalities.

Probably there is an argument to be built around Artificial Intelligence and a worldwide internet of things that can tell when the elastic in your underwear has worn out and -- while consulting social media to deduce the latest trends in underwear fashion and your own tastes -- can send a signal to the underwear factory to increase production of Style 983AB3 by one.

And that argument may be right! Who knows, as humanity advances, what our 'economy' -- how we make stuff and get it out to people -- will look like several generations into the future? Given advances in genetic engineering and AI and in two other fields we're not aware of yet, and three others that don't even exist yet ... our descendants may be living lives that are as incomprehensible to us now, as our current lifestyles would be to one of Cromwell's soldiers suddenly brought back to life.

(Hell, it's almost that way to me now... I've just been exploring the 'boog world' on Facebook, looking for recruits for the militia, and I can't understand what these kids are saying half the time. [For those interested: go to Facebook, and type in "Bohajadeen". You'll see me arguing with these people -- join in, if you like! We need other greybeards with some common sense. Even if you're a youngster yourself. ] When I tell them they had better not play around with the idea of armed resistance to gun confiscation or they'll end up in a body bag, they think it's a sufficient refutation to say, "Ok, Boomer!" Or "I found Fudd!" Well, maybe Duncan Leam is going to get some company soon, or maybe they're just full of hot air, I hope it's the latter. But Darwin Awards are infinitely divisible.)

When you think about it, digitalization-of-everything is a kind of socialism. Knowledge is now free. Even piracy doesn't hurt much, with the growth of the market so that a million people can buy your book or musical video leaving it to the ingenious poor to steal it.

A bit of ingenuity and vision on the part of the leaders of the advanced countries, and we could supply a good micro to every child on the planet. (It's been tried, called One-Per-Child, didn't succeed for some reason, but still a good idea.) With that micro, we could easily supply a wealth of computer-aided-learning packages in all major languages, at every grade/intelligence level. We could probably get all the labor to create them on a volunteer basis, as well. You would still need teachers, but how much easier their job would be, if explanations of Newton's Laws could be shown on screen, by people in the International Space Station. (It's already been done, by the way. In fact, every law of science, every classic experiment, everything ... every subject in history ... is already out there, on YouTube and elsewhere. We're just waiting for some billionaire with vision to draw it all together.)

We mustn't be dogmatic. One of my favorite lines from Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress -- a libertarian classic -- is a bit of dialogue between the hero, and Mike/Michelle, the sentient computer, who tells the hero how the people on the Moon will be earning their living in the future, after their armed revolt for independence from Earth has succeeded. "But we don't know how to do that!" the hero objects. "But we WILL know how to do it!", Mike/Michelle responds. And history is on the computer's side.

"Pshaw!!" to all the old pessimists out there! You ain't seen nuthin' yet!

 

We are going to have to come up with something new - Technology is great but it is controlled by a very few. As more and more humans are replaced with AI the wealth equation is going to get even more skewed.

 

There was nothing brewing in the economy to indicate or cause any economic crises, except maybe a natural stock market correction. When you have millions not go to work or essentially lose their jobs, a economic crises is a direct result.

 

That is why I said I had great parents. And I have no knowledge of the influence income on good parenting. But we also do know that adequate money is way better than inadequate money.

So in your opinion the best public schools are in the poorest areas. You obviously have no clue about school funding other than your uninformed opinion that federal school money overcomes the disparity between property revenues in rich areas and in poor areas.

 

Comparing schools in one county to schools in America is probably only logical to a Trump supporter. Now when you can find results showing that schools in poor areas have better outcomes than schools in wealth areas you migh be worth taking seriously.

 

So your position is that the federal grants to poor schools results in equal spending between schools in rich and poor neighborhood.

And you think I should stop talking when I have no clue! Suggest you follow your own advice!

And if you actually are willing to educate yourself this would be worth your time

https://nces.ed.gov/pubs/web/97916.asp

 

Unsupportable nonsense.
GLOBAL pandemic, see...

 

I think the question here is: would simply giving more money to under-performing schools, say, to equalize spending, cure the problem?

 

And there are plenty of people in China who are dying in the silence.

Common sense tells us that this particular economic impact will not be as bad as what Obamacare caused.

 

Trump did not disband anything.


The only people he didn't replace were on the NSC panel. Those people simply left the NSC on their own.

The lies, and misinformation in general, coming out of the mouths of the media are creating urban legends that can be easily researched by intelligent people. But the Dem lemmings are quick to accept the tripe.

 

I think everyone who is interested in education, and how to improve it for children from under-privileged backgrounds, should become familiar with two things:

(1) Michaela School: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaela_Community_School

(2) Operation Follow-Through, an empirical test of teaching methods: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Follow_Through_(project)

The first one is very short, the second one, not. The second Wiki article is about an empirical test of teaching methods, roughly, 'traditional' ('direct instruction') vs 'progressive' (student-centEred, teacher as guide, not sage, etc). Despite the names, the 'progressive' method is NOT necessarily logically associated with leftwing politics. In fact, the founder of the 'traditional' 'direct instruction' method was a liberal. (I met him personally about five years ago.) In practice, there is a correlation, but there need not be. I'll quote an extract from the results of the second Wiki article for those who don't have the time to read through the whole thing:

 

Oh BS too. You may argue that Trump really couldn't have prevented this, but you can't argue that he couldn't have been a good deal better prepared for it than he was. There is NO excuse for this catching us as flat-footed as it did and it was TRUMP and nobody else who was responsible for that.

 

That's the full purpose of propaganda - feed it to the useful idiots.

 

Restating your premise does nothing to support it.
Thus:
Unsupportable nonsense.

 

Uh... just having somebody "on staff" is not the same as actually having people who do something as a full-time job. The silliest thing I heard is that they had transferred some of the epidemiologists to work on biological weapons but they were " still at the agency".

If anybody was doing misinformation it was Trump and his acolytes, but they see that as their full-time job now.

 

The problem is also that that IQ and personality are inherited traits. Never before in human history have people who are unable to care for themselves been able to mass reproduce. People who live in perpetual poverty typically aren't too bright and have a tendency to make poor decisions. Their offspring inherit these traits and thanks to the endless stream of funding from those who actually pay into the system they keep having offspring to not only perpetuate, but make the problem worse.

There are some outliers in the upper end of the intelligence curve who go on to make good decisions and work hard to utilize the intelligence they inherited. But these are few and far between and should not be used to justify pouring money into a system that is scientifically doomed. I thought libs were all for science? Unfortunately when it comes to human achievement they are not.

 

Trump has the power to pick up the telephone, call the CEO of General Motors and order her to begin transitioning to the manufacturing of ventilators immediately and that the prices will be negotiated at a later date. [GM would actually serve as a subcontractor] However, he doesn't seem to want to exercise this power. Why not? Perhaps, because it is more politically advantageous to him to work "a deal" and then brag about it as another example of his "Art of the Deal" talents as the world's greatest "dealmaker?"

 

Our behavior is determined not only by "genes," but by our individual life experiences as well. I assume that gene deficiencies may, to some degree, be compensated for through improving those individual experiences.

 

You assume? No. The science is clear. I know it is inconvenient and doesn't fit into the Worldview you have, but it is reality.

 

Actually, your "world view" seems to b e based on "The Bell Curve," by Herrnstein and Murray, 1994. I believe the book was criticized at the time for failing to account for cultural bias in IQ tests. Until we can create tests w/o such bias we're comparing apples and oranges. IOW, the "science" is not clear at all...and many believe "The Bell Curve" to be about as "scientific" as phrenology.

 

Of course. It is an inconvenient truth and phrenology is also pseudoscience right? No.