S&P downgrades US rating from AAA

[callmeslick]

nice, the Sarge weighs in against education. Go Ignorance, that's what makes this nation what it is!

And it's not ignorant to claim that I'm weighing in against education when that's not what I've said? I'm not against education by any stretch of the imagination. I'm of two minds on the subject: on the one hand it seems to me that education institutions are shooting too low and doing the young people a disservice by educating to the level of getting them into a "good job" (not to forget that at this point they're in debt now for however many years). On the other hand I think there is a place for vocation-based training. It just seems to me that schools should be aiming a lot higher. Try to have a more open mind, oh highly educated one--I think education could be better than what I see being produced around me. One of my ultimate goals/dreams is to start an education institution.

having read this clarification, I will agree with you.

[callmeslick]

What made this nation are the electricians, pipe fitters, carpenters, painters and all the other skilled trades. You can have all the money in the world Slick but if no one is there to build your house, build the road you drive on or farm the land to feed you,,,,what would you have? Wealth might of funded Christopher Columbus's trip to America, but it was average people with a dream that built it. Most all of whom had no formal education.

but, they generally did so, scrimping and sacrificing for the generations of their families to follow. That is one key thing out the window. How many poor immigrants scraped by precisely to send their kids to college? And, the nation was better for it. Hell, there will always be manual laborers....always. People need to make money to survive, and without higher levels of education, that is the only option. What makes you think those people are not still here? The problem, as I see it, is that far too many people with limited skills, limited income and limited education have lived their lives focused on shallow, material things, to the detriment of their descendants. And that, not liberalism, nor religion, nor conservatism, is the root of the mess we are currently in.
It goes like this: Mr and Mrs Middleclass make, say, $80,000 per year. Yet, despite these facts, they EXPECT to send little Susy and Johnny off to school with around 15 new sets of clothes each year. Hence, you get the WalMarts of the world, selling them Pakistani clothing at cheap prices. Goodbye, US clothing industry. They expect to own a couple of $35,000 cars. Goodbye, college savings. Same for cheap electronic gadgets(Hell, we didn't own a color TV until I was 10 years old, and my dad could have bought a damn TV factory.....hmmmm, ever wonder why some families advance economically?). Finally, these folks expect they need a 2800 square foot home, at some inflated price, but don't have the money to pay the rational 20% downpayment. Bingo! You have a really risky mortgage, and a soon-to-bite-us price bubble.
On the other end of such unrealistic expectations are the greedy and unscrupulous, all too willing to make a quick, large chunk of money off of these millions of fools.
How does this relate to politics? Easy, certain politicians on the national scale(ex. Reagan) played up the unrealistic expectations and tried to make the road easier for the greedy. Others(ex. Clinton) made the road for the greedy even easier, and lowered the barriers to unfair trade(here is an area in which I would gladly back Sgt T's call for tariffs) balances, screwing the economy damned near permanently for the working class. And, along the way, why didn't the patrician class step in to right the wrongs, as they did in the early to mid 20th century? Mainly, I suspect, for two reasons. They had the money to invest and get even wealthier due to these practices, coupled with a level of disgust and disdain for the unrealistic expectations of the very folks who desperately needed their intervention, but were too self-centered to see it. Hence, we arrive at 2011, with an economy that likely will never recover employment levels of the past, ever more dependent on other natons, and likely, headed for some sort of major social upheaval as a result. Not exactly the USA I would like to see, nor the one my forefathers worked to build, but it is what it is.
Meanwhile, the rightwing types will blame liberals, or the loss of Christian virtues. The left will blame the 'corporations'(go to any truly left-wing site and you know what I mean here), and the downward spiral continues and accelerates.

[callmeslick]

If that's true Slick, tell them to get some fake names, get on the DBB, and let's talk

in this day and age, any elected official that posts, fake name or not, to an Interweb forum is insane.
Maybe I'll try and talk Gerlach into it, though, as I disagree with him SO often, I can use it against him, should the Dems here ever find a competent candidate to run against him.....

[Sergeant Thorne]

Clarification of a few points for the Sarge:

I said what I did about the American Dream, as most people view it as the ideal that you can raise yourself out of poverty by sheer willpower and diligence. Now, reading your words, you seem content with a vastly lower level of acheivement, not surprising blah blah blah blah blah...

Ok. As I understand it you have misunderstood what the American Dream is. The level of achievement I depicted--working for yourself and owning property--is the American Dream. If you disdain that as a low level of achievement, so be it. A person doesn't have to be super rich, powerful, and influential to be happy in life.

My problem comes with a couple of notions I find bandied about endlessly. First, the idea that the US is the land with endless opportunities to rise from poverty. That one, sadly, just is not true, nor has it been for a while. We have sunk far from the top in socioeconomic mobility at the present time. Interestingly, most studies link such mobility to educational opportunity, which blah blah blah. Hmmm.

I don't know about endless, but I don't see the dearth you present. All a person has to do is find something that no one is making a provision for and capitalize on it.

Problem number two is your bizzare idea that somehow, a cadre of 'liberals' is calling the shots for the nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, the group of folks ultimately calling the shots is the same group that has been calling the shots since the Civil War.

That's someone else's "bizarre idea" you're attributing to me, there. We do have a whole slew of liberal-leaning folks in office, and the liberals in general have been trying to change the country since I was paying attention to politics (with a disturbing degree of success), but money interests are clearly steering the boat (not our money interests, certainly).

Most folks, from what I've seen, go through life oblivious to the massive advantage the aristocracy have in life, and this is why I argue for more progressive wealth distribution. I am not suggesting that we ever can or wish to redistribute most of the wealth, but that some such transfer would maintain a better society for all.

Here's a good point to key in on where you and I don't see eye to eye. It isn't the wealth that's the problem. The fact that I did not grow up in wealth with all of the advantages is not an injustice, its just the way it was. The problem is laws that serve the minority at the expense of the majority--unjust laws. Another problem, in my mind, going beyond mere straightforward justice are laws that operate in ignorance of the way things work--of human nature. Laws that ultimately tend toward harm or abuse. It would be a truly lothar-like post to try to give a few good examples, but for lack of time I'll just throw out government support of unmarried women with children. The harm or abuse being unmarried women who are motivated to have even more children because it will bring them more money.

I do find it odd that someone in your position is so sure of the impossibility of working one's way up from poverty. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and your experience alone doesn't make you wrong, but what do you know about it? No slight intended. I don't begrudge you anything but a bit of arrogance that seems to show its face every once in a while. Other than that I think your perspective is interesting.

[callmeslick]

Ok. As I understand it you have misunderstood what the American Dream is. The level of achievement I depicted--working for yourself and owning property--is the American Dream. If you disdain that as a low level of achievement, so be it. A person doesn't have to be super rich, powerful, and influential to be happy in life.

I was viewing in more of the Horatio Alger sense. Your view is far more practical and reasonable.

I don't know about endless, but I don't see the dearth you present. All a person has to do is find something that no one is making a provision for and capitalize on it.

and, to return to my earlier point, if that person has had little opportunity to develop intellectually, and zero access to capital, then how does that happen? Examples would be nice.

. The fact that I did not grow up in wealth with all of the advantages is not an injustice, its just the way it was. The problem is laws that serve the minority at the expense of the majority--unjust laws.

which 'minority' are you referring to?

for lack of time I'll just throw out government support of unmarried women with children. The harm or abuse being unmarried women who are motivated to have even more children because it will bring them more money.

so, to your mind, it seems altogether reasonable for unmarried women to go out and seek the joys of trying to raise children in overall poverty just because there is some meager level of assistance for them? Do you have any clue what little is provided, and exactly how many challenges they face?

I do find it odd that someone in your position is so sure of the impossibility of working one's way up from poverty. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and your experience alone doesn't make you wrong, but what do you know about it? No slight intended. I don't begrudge you anything but a bit of arrogance that seems to show its face every once in a while. Other than that I think your perspective is interesting.

fair enough critique, but I base my views on a few decades of trying to assist folks in poverty through charitable efforts. While I can never state that I truly understand the whole process, I know what odds I see, and the overall outcomes. I know a stacked deck when I see it. Why do I care? Because, the America we have developed over the past 30 years is on an historical collision course with massive social upheaval. Such is the outcome in every known society when the gap between rich and poor becomes too vast. We had a great system worked out to avoid that, and it worked for quite a long time. We, unfortunately, have , as a society, forgotten a lot of the key aspects of how to govern and how individuals should conduct themselves in order to maintain that system.

[flip]

Maybe I'll try and talk Gerlach into it, though, as I disagree with him SO often, I can use it against him, should the Dems here ever find a competent candidate to run against him...

Initially any man that gets into politics does it for the good of everyone else. Then when he gets there he gets overwhelmed by the flattery. He should say his piece then let the cards fall as they may. Otherwise he''s a chickenshit that conned his way there there in the first place.

[callmeslick]

Initially any man that gets into politics does it for the good of everyone else.

you think so? My guess is that most get into it for reasons of ego in the first place, or the desire to have more power and money than they currently are getting. By way of example, I recall attending a meet and greet for a young man(who was currently an assistant DA or such) running as a Dem for a State House seat in the last election. After the usual boo-rah softball questions, I got a chance to ask him what he wanted to get into politics to accomplish. The lack of a clue was visible on his face. I think he was typical,
and that most folks who want to do good things for others probably realize that politics(especially present day politics) is among the least likely venues in which to accomplish much of anything......

[flip]

Do you feel that way about Gerlach?

[callmeslick]

Do you feel that way about Gerlach?

well, I moved here after he got into politics, so the person I've met is a full-blown politician. To his credit, he runs a solid office, and is responsive to the little constituent issues that Congresspeople have to deal with.
He tends to run pretty conservative, catering to his primary base, but compared to many I have encountered, doesn't seem to be quite as ego-driven as some. That said, I'll repeat that I didn't see his entry into politics, so can't speak to the why of the matter.

[Tunnelcat]

If the government controlled imports better...........

How? Using tariffs?

Yes, tariffs.

Better be careful. Your starting to sound like a liberal. Re-instituting tariffs is one idea I've heard several liberal radio commentators bring up as a way to stem the invasion of cheap goods from China and help bring back jobs to the U.S.

[callmeslick]

Better be careful. Your starting to sound like a liberal. Re-instituting tariffs is one idea I've heard several liberal radio commentators bring up as a way to stem the invasion of cheap goods from China and help bring back jobs to the U.S.

literally, I could think of no other way. Now, to get the general public used to the concept of paying around
double the price for clothing and manufactured goods.

[woodchip]

Better be careful. Your starting to sound like a liberal. Re-instituting tariffs is one idea I've heard several liberal radio commentators bring up as a way to stem the invasion of cheap goods from China and help bring back jobs to the U.S.

literally, I could think of no other way. Now, to get the general public used to the concept of paying around
double the price for clothing and manufactured goods.

I don't buy into your double the cost scenario Slick. If that was the case Japanese cars would cost half of their American counterparts. I suspect once the conditions exist for companies like Nike to come back to the US to manufacture as the tariffs would cause US made shoes to be less than the imported version, then I suspect you will see a mass run of manufacturing companies to come back to the US. Once here good old competition will drive selling prices downs.

[Tunnelcat]

Better be careful. Your starting to sound like a liberal. Re-instituting tariffs is one idea I've heard several liberal radio commentators bring up as a way to stem the invasion of cheap goods from China and help bring back jobs to the U.S.

literally, I could think of no other way. Now, to get the general public used to the concept of paying around
double the price for clothing and manufactured goods.

Whether that's true or not, I would gladly pay more to get a quality product, especially if it was produced in country with American workers working for a corporation that cared about quality and service. Wake up corporate America, I'm tired of cheap Chinese or third-world country junk products that break as soon as they're out of the packaging. By the time I purchase a product and throw it out and replace it, all because it was cheaply produced in the first place, broke and couldn't be repaired, I've probably spent more money than I wanted to. There's waaaaaay more focus on price instead of quality in the global corporate ethic today. Even the Japanese have slipped. But the Chinese don't have anywhere near the quality ethic that the Japanese now have. What's driving that is the new corporate ethic to get the most goods out as cheaply as possible to make the most profit. People just don't realize that they're probably spending more of their money in the long run shopping for cheap prices. Ah, the new disposable society.

[Spidey]

Whether that's true or not, I would gladly pay more to get a quality product, especially if it was produced in country with American workers working for a corporation that cared about quality and service.

Well...you missed the boat on that one...