Young adults today: No school, no job, living at home with mom and dad

Universities accept donations ... Given the public schools record on academic achievement, and understanding that classroom sizes are part of the dysfunction, makes your vision problematic.

 

Capitalism "at work" in America today results in this:


Do you SEE the unfairness of "capitalism" as practiced in America ever since Reckless Ronnie lowered drastically Upper-Income Taxation to prefer the rich and super-rich in the 1980s? In what years does that red-line above inflect upwards?

There's nothing wrong, in principal, with capitalism. What goes wrong is the way some countries implement it to favor of a select group - who then employ their riches to maintain the preferential treatment ...

 

It aint "problematic" in Europe. I put my kids through university here in France and it never cost more than $1K in tuition (plus room 'n board). (The US has some of the highest tertiary level degree costs on earth - see here.)

Where there's a will, there's a way. Bernie's idea of subsidizing Tertiary Education at state institutions of higher learning for all families earning below $100K a year (in a country where the average salary is $54K per person) was adopted by Hillary. Which is likely one reason why she won the Popular-Vote by a whopping 2% - the largest popular-vote plurality in the history of the US of any losing PotUS candidate.

The anachronism of an Electoral College robbed her of the presidency, and our kids who WONT BE OBTAINING AN ADVANCED DEGREE will pay the full cost. As a result therefore, nearly 45% of today's high-schoolers will NEVER EVER obtain a post-secondary degree.

Somebody please explain how that outcome is a benefit to either our kids or America as a whole ...

 

I teach economics. Economics is an example of what you cannot learn fully in a class.

In fact, I flunk so many kids nowadays, it is impossible to imagine how they would ever learn adequately the subject in a fully electronic course.

You give far too much weight to Electronic Learning. Otoh, I see it playing a very important role in primary and secondary school teaching by allowing teachers to pass more time with the slow-learners ...

 

Not exactly but a College Degree is the new High School Diploma and if one goes to a technical school or were in the army and learned a trade or just went to work and gained work experience but don't have that piece of paper it seems to put on at a disadvantage. For example say you were an Army Nurse and served for your twenty and then want to work in Florida as a nurse - they insist you get a Nursing Degree even with a pile of military training and years tending people maybe in combat zones. I would think the veteran should be seen as the same as a registered nurse but nope.

So what choices is given do some other thing and not be employed well enough to make a go of it (with exceptions) or go get the piece of paper called a Bachelor's Degree maybe your only good enough to get some degree like English or something else soft and get a big debt and get out make more money but due to the debt bills be not much better off. Now if your well prepared, get a STEM degree or go to a elite school and network hard and abuse the connections maybe it is different but most students don't belong in a college by any standards used in say the 1940's where you were in that elite 15% of students who earned a college shot everyone else learned employment skills in HIGH SCOOLS or APPRENTICING or okay the MILITARY or were veterans matured by service and went because they had the money and were committed to doing well.

I personally think the system fails because not everyone should consider college and now they made that the benchmark while honest hard work and dedication to making a go of it and gaining experience from working matters very little to work into many areas. Factory work is gone in the way it used to be the go to job for our parents where you could expect to support the family on one income and now hobbled by the changes left nothing for many people to do the same.

 

I'll not dispute what you say above.

I will dispute the fact that your explanation above is predominant in an economy. It tends to happen mostly when economies swing downward, and companies are forced to cut costs drastically - as happened in the Great Recession in 2008/2010.

My favorite reasoning nonetheless is the transformation (worldwide) from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. Advanced countries are making the leap-forward but at a high cost of unemployment amongst those who do not have the higher-set of qualifications needed in the Services Industries. (Only 12% of America's employees are in Manufacturing Industries nowadays.)

Moreover, with Mall Merchandising beginning to suffer in the US, even that part (of the Services Industries) will take the impact.

Which is why I keep harping about free Tertiary Education. It has to happen if today's kids (as well as the not-so-young) must adapt to the need by taking tertiary-level courses (vocational, 2- and 4 years) and perhaps repeatedly over their work-lifetimes ...

 

I don't. The nature of work (and therefore employment) in developed Western-nations has changed.

It is simply not the same ever since most lower-cost manufacturing fled to the far-east (when the Bamboo Curtain came crashing down in 1991) thus opening China to world-trade. We are now a quarter-century later, and we've done nothing but lament the fact that the jobs are gone.

We should have spent that time preparing for the future - which is now upon us ...

 

I'm sure democrats would love it if the dumbest, least connected members of society would actually go vote.

 

Capitalism is completely fair.

Those who work hard, are intelligent, and apply themselves succeed.

Those who play the lottery as a job get what they deserve.

 

So are you saying that one cannot learn economics from free, on-line sources?

 

Yes, because companies have not believed that the country is definitively exiting finally the Great Recession. So, because Demand (for products/services) has been so shaky, they don't like to keep employees for too long.

But, as Demand firms itself - which it has been doing since 2014/5 - this concern will diminish and the Demand for workers will be more permanent than temporary. However, I suspect that the wages of new-hires will be lesser in the present than they were in the past. Which is due to the fact that China (and the Far East in general) maintain a strangle-hold cost-advantage on some less-than-sophisticated products - like pots-n'-pans.

To be employed permanently and at a decent salary nowadays in the West (Europe and the US), you have got to have a post-secondary education (as well as be able to work with sophisticated devices/processes) ...

 

Pedantry ... life is soooo simple in your world.

You live on which planet ... ?

 

No, not well. The intricacies of the subject must be "discussed" since they are so highly variable; and in person not on a blog as we are doing.

Frankly, aside from learning how to do some very basic stuff - like repair a motor - I don't see the Internet being exclusive in teaching. It is a vast treasure of information available at our finger-tips.

But information requires coordination and thought to be employed as hey tools for teaching.

The teacher remains nonetheless the craft-master ...

 

Earth.

And yeah, it is that simple.

People who are poor are poor because they're irresponsible and make bad decisions.

The only people that don't fall into that category are those who have some kind of catastrophic event in their life.

 

If they don't vote, for sure they are dumbest.

The Replicants are however the most shrewd and exploitative. They have proven that money in gerrymandered elections can purchase political power.

BFD ...

 

No, YOU are that simple.

Anyone with a true knowledge of how a market-economy works would disagree with your, as I have ...

 

Well then, dazzle us with your symphony on the effectiveness of handing people money as welfare.

While you're at it, explain why 70% of the people who win the lottery lose it all within 5 years.

 

At least they don't keep people in poverty to garner votes like Democrats.

 

Piffle.

Moving right along ...

 

What's wrong, got nothing on either of my points?

Show us that brain power.

 

Mark Thoma, Economist, has written adeptly well on the subject already. From here: Commentary - How social welfare benefits help the economy - excerpt:

In very un-economic terms, Welfare is Social Insurance. It helps people to prevent the worst from happening to them and their families. It certainly does not make them rich, and all the BS about welfare recipient being "lazy basterds" is from the Replicant Right that cannot abide anything with the word "social" in it.

Aside from, of course, a Church Social ...

 

Sure. That probably works for people who experience a catastrophic life event, which I mentioned earlier.

That's not the predominate category of poverty.

Poverty, in the US, is systemic and spans generations. Today's children on welfare will grow up to be on welfare, and have more children.....who go on welfare.

The "war on poverty" in the US has resulted in the rapid growth of single parents, as well as the growth of the number of people on welfare.

That fact is unavoidable, as is the fact that dumping more and more money into welfare programs has not made it any better.

In fact in the last few years, it's even gotten worse.

 

The above is a very naive perception of poverty.

Yes, one is born into it. The question remains, aside from winning the lottery, how does one exit it?

And the answer to that question is "a well paying job". But that just aint gonna happin at a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour ...

 

If you knew how to read properly you'd have seen it by now.

You too go onto IGNORE ...

 

LafayetteBis may I ask this do you think every student can go into college and leave with a meaningful degree regardless of aptitude and get by meaningful a degree with the needed skills your talking about? And would you agree it might be necessary to eliminate certain requirements if they do say college mathematics and foreign languages especially since students might be poor in those areas?

My take is from those who aren't college material I never even got basic algebra, geometry and was good at everyday math but I would never be able to handle college level math and foreign languages I never could get those well I'm not my father in that he was a natural but me - English is it. Your going to also expect me in your mind to get lots of skills which might be as much of an issue for me as those other subjects.

What about people who can't do this in the modern workplace its critical people like you have ideas for this?

I'm not lazy I worked hard when I could get some work but in the end its not enough is it and now due to lack of health care earlier am unfit to work at all and there are no jobs I can get with what I have to offer.