your statements are fair, I may disagree with some conclusions which you have drawn, but I agree also with much of what you have stated. In fact I am very pleased to see some broader fundamental agreement than I might have suspected.
Yay!
Are you listening, Congress?1) I agree very strongly on relevant education for the young, the middle and the aged. Earlier I opined that one of the problems is an educational system that has become irrelevant for many of our youth. I suggested the German model of a two track system of an academically oriented education paralleling an technical oriented education.
But don't you think, broketrash, that this is a risky move given the changes in employment opportunities due to automation and outsourcing? To me, everybody could use a basic standard high school education. After that, it's another matter, I guess. But I've never felt that a shortage of technical-education opportunities is a big problem for young people today, especially because many high schools offer tech-ed programs. And they are downright plentiful after high school.
again, I agree on the "culture of poverty" or the culture of the underclass. this is a mentality which blocks any hope of growing out of dependency on charity.
Yes. Though what you have described as a sense of entitlement I see as an unawareness of, or ignorance of, the methods for creating a different kind of life.
Here's the analogy I always think of. Let's say I decide I want to be a movie star. Now, we know it's theoretically possible, because non-famous middle-class Midwesterners DO become movie stars sometimes. Still, I wouldn't know exactly how to go about it. Do I volunteer for community theater and hope to work my way up? Major in drama at my state university? Go get a job at a soda fountain in Hollywood and wait to be discovered? Without any guidance, becoming a movie star seems approximately as feasible as going to the moon.
Compare my situation to that of Jane Fonda, or Kate Hudson, or Tom Hanks' son ... etc. etc. They not only know what to do and where to go to try for movie roles, but they already have the contacts, and their backgrounds and identities will get them in the door. Sure, they eventually have to prove themselves, but in the beginning the path is there for them and they know how to take it.
That's the difference I see between poor people living living in a "culture of poverty," surrounded by the undereducated and unemployed ... and middle- or upper-class people who grow up among dentists and professors and architects and lawyers and shoe-store owners and commercial artists and marketing consultants -- people who are able to show them the ropes and, perhaps more important, make their lives seem easily attainable.
And our different perceptions, I think, influence what we see as solutions. If you think people remain on welfare because they like playing the system, then it makes sense to change the system so it's unplayable. If you think people remain on welfare because they don't know how to live any other way, then it makes sense to help them learn how it's done.
4) the rising taxes on the middle class are the fuel in this debate. the system as it exists makes the tax structure for a middle class person such as yourself unfair vis a vis someone such as myself in a different income bracket.
Yes, that's unfair. Taxes aren't my biggest personal economic worry, though, and I'm certainly not losing sleep over the 1 percent that goes to pay for Welfare -- which in my case amounts annually to less than I'd spend on a single dinner in a nice restaurant. I'm far more concerned about unemployment, the cost of higher education, the housing market, inflation, the stock market ... the stuff that determines whether I can afford to eat in restaurants at all.
