[Nicodimas]

I read this as a government ploy to keep kids to wait two more years before they hit the Work force as a way to help adjust employment numbers. I mean if you think about it this is just two more years of delaying self growth in an individual by relying on the government..Smart thinking Obama!

What next can we make free?

[Vengeance]

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 06:38 PM, said:

I read this as a government ploy to keep kids to wait two more years before they hit the Work force as a way to help adjust employment numbers. I mean if you think about it this is just two more years of delaying self growth in an individual by relying on the government..Smart thinking Obama!

What next can we make free?

How having a highly educated work force benefits the economy.

Education = production

How having one deeply in debt prevents growth and hurts the economy.

Student debt

Debt hurts growth

Do you agree that California has a good economy? Well you should since it has the 8th largest in the entire world. Why is that? Is it the sunshine? Excellent port location? Or abundance of highly educated skilled workers. A lot of whom moved there to establish residency in the 1980's and 1990 to take advantage of the free or greatly reduced tuition at the state schools. People moved there from all over the country and then became educated and stayed.



California link



Now lets talk about older folks who would like to change carrier but lack the money to go to school to reeducate themselves so that they don't have to be a greeter at the local walmart. Cheaper yes even free higher education would allow for someone to go back to school and change careers. Perhaps be able to take more risks in starting a business because they where not burdened with 100k in student loans. You claim not to like sheep and you want people to be able to think for themselves. Well a highly educated populace will have the ability to do that. What is better to spend a trillion dollars on wars to kill people or billions of dollars on a private prison system to incarcerate fellow citizens or billions of dollars on educating a country's population. This should really be a no brainer. A educated work populace will cut down on crime as low income people will not feel that crime is there only path to a better quality of life. They will be able to see that if they study and do well in school they will have a chance to study and if they do well in a community college then they might have a chance at a better life for themselves and their children.

Why is it in this country we fight to hold people at the lowest income level down but are happy when a drone missile only costs 100k not a million.

Perhaps with a higher educated populace we would be able to get past bullshit abortion issues (Leave women the fuck alone. A baby isn't a fucking baby until it is able to breath. Until then it is a parasite. Period.) and on to more important issues like fixing our crumbling roads and bridges.

Sorry for the rant. You last post just set me off a bit.

[Obdigore]

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 06:38 PM, said:

I read this as a government ploy to keep kids to wait two more years before they hit the Work force as a way to help adjust employment numbers. I mean if you think about it this is just two more years of delaying self growth in an individual by relying on the government..Smart thinking Obama!

What next can we make free?

Free? Or see as a public good and a public utility?

Healthcare, Internet, and Education are absolutely some things our current government needs to work on to make cheaper and fully tax funded, along with working on Mass Transit and our aging infrastructure.

[Obdigore]

Sombra, on 09 January 2015 - 03:01 AM, said:

Pffft, Obama could put forth the GOPs own policies and they'd still savage them because he proposed them.

[amphibian]

Those are also two years that the private industry doesn't have to spend training young adults to better develop skills like reading, writing, technical skills etc.

Those two years of "free" community college are relieving the private industry of the burden of training these people/us for that amount of time. Most will also pick up part time jobs on the side as well.

I honestly don't understand why people would be against this.

1) This isn't a huge expansion, as many of the low income people already have the capacity to get grants to go to some form of college

2) Two years at an okay or eghh community college for many people equals the ability to get a living wage and work more skilled jobs. It also means the ability to transfer to a four year school and get a degree that would have been out of reach otherwise.

3) The ones who eschew it are already the ones who have a way to pay for college already or the ones who won't go to post-high school academia in the first place.

This also incentivizes bright young people from all over the world to come here - which is a great thing for the US. Paul Graham wrote something about great programmers being found mostly outside the US due to sheer numbers, but it applies to all sorts of jobs and the American society itself. http://www.paulgraham.com/95.html#f1n

[Nicodimas]

No. This makes zero sense, terrible idea. Terrible! I see where you are coming from, but think about it this way as education is important, but completely the wrong path by expanding it to be longer. This current information should already exist by the time they make it to CC. It's all remedial and for the kids that the current govermental system failed!

You should reform school K-12 curriculum, way before making k-14.

I believe New Hampshire has tried for this in the past:

A) Start Kids at a younger age with quality techniques that have been proven to exist.
Teach based off different learning styles. Mandate lower classrom sizes.
C) Have stricter/reinforce the current current curriculum to end at 10th grade. 11-12 grade should include and have all the classes modern colleges teach as General Education.
D) Mandate all high-school's to include skill-sets and teach alternative paths from Art, Nursing, Fire/Police/Military, You could branch this out anyway you see fit.

This would Force colleges to teach more meaningful structure as gen/eds can be met by the time they reach 18. There is no reason this cannot and does not currently exist. My bad padding the Ivory Towers profits. We don't seek change, but are looking for more goverment quanity.

Quality Education should be given inside the k-12 and make high school education count, before we give the government *any* more money that could easily be spent on the current problem. Fix k-12..first!!

I have touched the Debt Issue Vengy and our current state of affairs would require a revamp..a huge one. I could go into this again...but other areas have to change too..Ill be back.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 09 January 2015 - 08:55 PM

[Terez]

I kind of agree that we would be better off focusing on improving our K-12. Most of the rest of the world thinks we're strange for requiring a liberal arts core at university; I remember that a lot of people found it strange that, as a music student ("major" being US lingo), I was taking math and science courses. Yet somehow Europeans generally know more about history and sociology and the rest than we do. They learn this stuff in K-12 and somehow manage to retain it.

That said, many of the other countries in question provide free tuition for higher education. Most kids who go for an associate's degree at a community college are just doing the liberal arts core, which is mostly useless when it comes to providing work training. Some, however, go for vocational associate's degrees. These can be more useful, but they're still watered down with the core classes—like Nico said, basically remedial classes for people who didn't manage to learn this stuff in K-12, either because they were slackers or because their options weren't great.

As a music nut, I fell into the latter category; I didn't take languages or sociology or any of that stuff in high school because all of my electives were tied up in music. They went to a semester schedule my senior year, though, and if I'd had that during my early years of high school I might have done better. Junior high and elementary, even more so.

[Gnaw]

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 08:34 PM, said:

No. This makes zero sense, terrible idea. Terrible! I see where you are coming from, but think about it this way as education is important, but completely the wrong path. This current information should already exist by the time they make it to CC. It's all remedial and for the kids that the system failed!

You are effectively signing the okay on K-14 Remedial education based systems.

You should reform school K-12 curriculum, way before making k-14. You are essentially downgraded the quality of Education by expanding the scope of quantity.

I believe New Hampshire has tried for this in the past:

A) Start Kids younger with quality techniques that have been proven to exist. You all know these exist and have been proven.
Teach based off different learning styles.
C) Have stricter/reinforce the current current curriculum to end at 10th grade. 11-12 grades now becomes the current curriculum. Skill set program is high school to include: Nursing/Fire/General Education College/etc/You name it..bridge it to college/skill based.
D) Enhance all high-school's to include skill-set learning and/or academic collegiate learning. This occurs on some, but not others.

This would Force colleges to teach more meaningful structure as gen/eds can be met by the time they reach 18. There is no reason this cannot exist.


Quality Education should be given inside the k-12 and make high school education count, before we give the government any more money that could easily be spent on the current problem. Fix k-12..first!! 18 a person is adult, let them go and learn to be one successfully.

I have touched the Debt Issue Vengy and our current state of affairs would require a revamp..a huge one. I could go into this again...but other areas have to change too..Ill be back.

So you essentially support the idea but want the program to be compressed into an already stressed time frame?

You want kids better educated? The fist step is admitting that the sheer size of the knowledge set needed in our complex world is far larger than it was a century ago. You can only cram X much info into Y amount of time. If the information requirement is larger then the time frame must be widened. The school year should be lengthened and split into shorter segments. 12 years of 180 days of "first semester, 3 week gap, second semester (broken by one or two single week gaps), ending with a 3 month gap" just doesn't cut it anymore. It is simply insufficient time.

But try suggesting a 220 day school year at your next school board meeting. You might make it out alive.

[Vengeance]

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 08:34 PM, said:

No. This makes zero sense, terrible idea. Terrible! I see where you are coming from, but think about it this way as education is important, but completely the wrong path. This current information should already exist by the time they make it to CC. It's all remedial and for the kids that the system failed!

You are effectively signing the okay on K-14 Remedial education based systems.

You should reform school K-12 curriculum, way before making k-14. You are essentially downgraded the quality of Education by expanding the scope of quantity.

I believe New Hampshire has tried for this in the past:

A) Start Kids younger with quality techniques that have been proven to exist. You all know these exist and have been proven.
Teach based off different learning styles.
C) Have stricter/reinforce the current current curriculum to end at 10th grade. 11-12 grades now becomes the current curriculum. Skill set program is high school to include: Nursing/Fire/General Education College/etc/You name it..bridge it to college/skill based.
D) Enhance all high-school's to include skill-set learning and/or academic collegiate learning. This occurs on some, but not others.

This would Force colleges to teach more meaningful structure as gen/eds can be met by the time they reach 18. There is no reason this cannot exist.


Quality Education should be given inside the k-12 and make high school education count, before we give the government any more money that could easily be spent on the current problem. Fix k-12..first!! 18 a person is adult, let them go and learn to be one successfully.

I have touched the Debt Issue Vengy and our current state of affairs would require a revamp..a huge one. I could go into this again...but other areas have to change too..Ill be back.

An 18 yr old is no more an adult then a 16 yr old is. Brain developement and judgement ability do not solidify until you are into your 20s.

Adolesent Brain development

Sure it would be great to have k - 12 be top notch. However to do that you would need a complete change and basically a federal take over with a single curriculum across all schools. Where the only differences are between how the teachers teach the curriculum. However that will never happen in this country as long as we view education to be a winner take all competition, one where local partially educated politicians have more of a say then seasoned educator with a Masters. Look at Finland they are everything we are not.

Finlands schools


Top in Math, Top in Science. Quality education for all kids regardless of economic status that the government pays for.

That is something that will never happen in this country ever. The closest we can come is to shift some of that education on to the CC. Now I went to a CC to get my Geneds out of the way and honestly I had some brilliant teachers there. Just brilliant. It was 1/5 of the price that I paid when I transferred to my 4 year college to finish my undergrad. The education was not better at the 4 year then what I got at the CC it was roughly the same. I was just paying a hell of a lot more. I was working full time and was able to pay for my CC classes. If I could have done those years and not had to pay then it would have been exceedingly helpful when I transferred. I pay a disgusting amount of taxes which I am fine doing. I would even pay a little more if it meant that kids who got out of college didn't have to work 2 jobs or a full time job to get through CC just to have to realize that they were still going to have to take out 50k in student loans. To me all education (we already subsidies education why not just do it fully and not burden and make each generation indebted for life) should be free if you have the grades and the ambition to educate your self and to better your self it is to the benefit of the entire country.

I also think that Prek education should be free (as it is in almost every other western country) and that there should be a lot more of it. But that is a topic that has never been brought up.

[Vengeance]

It boils down to people who are selfish and don't care about anyone and people who do care and want to live in a society that takes care of each other. Personally I would rather live in a society that cares enough about each citizen to give them all of the tools and opportunity to succeed if they wish it, then in a society that gives up on people and would rather build bombs then educate. Now before you say go to Euro you commy. I work in a highly competitive business and I do work to make this a society that cares about everyone.

[Nicodimas]

Vengeance: From my point of view, very few care because the system traps them living month to month. Or are so obscenely rich ..those problems don't touch them. This divide is a canyon. This is a small statement on a big problem.

@ all. To make this occur--current reforms would have to take place across the board. I believe this could only happen if we invoked Article 5. That big of a change as several areas need a top up look. We need to change.

@ Gnaw. Not stressful. Just a proper attitude and structure. of course I'm that type that plans..everything. day over day. so that might be a Nico line of thought.

[Obdigore]

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Vengeance: From my point of view, very few care because the system traps them living month to month. Or are so obscenely rich ..those problems don't touch them. This divide is a canyon. This is a small statement on a big problem.

@ all. To make this occur--current reforms would have to take place across the board. I believe this could only happen if we invoked Article 5. That big of a change as several areas need a top up look. We need to change.

@ Gnaw. Not stressful. Just a proper attitude and structure. of course I'm that type that plans..everything. day over day. so that might be a Nico line of thought.

All you do is complain. You suggest no actual solutions to the stratifying caste system that has developed in the US, nor do you seem to accept any solution that isn't 100%? Why can't there be 4 solutions, each that solve 25% of the issue?

Why do you think a 2 year tax-funded technical education is bad, in any way, shape, or form, for this country? Especially for people who have the grades or the experience to actually take advantage of it?

[amphibian]

Let's take one thing: Make all day pre-kindergarten programs at local schools free for every age-eligible kid in a state (2 and 3 year olds).

The knock-on effects are massive and although there are some cons, I strongly believe the pros vastly outweigh them.

The cons are likely going to those of adding more kids, support staff and teachers to an already shaky school system.

The pros are the freeing up of the parents/caretakers to take paying jobs. These adults can put their children in a safe place (if dudes with guns aren't shooting these safe places up) for a day, where the kids will learn much more in a group at school than they would individually at home. The adults who genuinely want/are able to take care of kids can keep their kids at home or get a double bonus and work at the school in some capacity. The additional money-earning capacity that the reduced caretaker role allows improves the stability of home, food stability can be easier to achieve, the kids who were previously going without get to interact more at younger ages with positive role models, there's less figuring shit out for the parents individually (which doesn't work unerringly) and so on. It's a great deal for attacking some of the big problems of poverty.

It's a significant investment in terms of time, energy, personnel and political capital - but I think it'd be a bigger deal than community colleges or the like. I am probably the 30 millionth person to talk about something like this, so there's plenty of people who see that it would do good things. However, it's not going to happen because... American politics is American politics and the politicians within it aren't capable of getting that done.

[Nicodimas]

Obdigore, on 09 January 2015 - 09:30 PM, said:

Nicodimas, on 09 January 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Vengeance: From my point of view, very few care because the system traps them living month to month. Or are so obscenely rich ..those problems don't touch them. This divide is a canyon. This is a small statement on a big problem.

@ all. To make this occur--current reforms would have to take place across the board. I believe this could only happen if we invoked Article 5. That big of a change as several areas need a top up look. We need to change.

@ Gnaw. Not stressful. Just a proper attitude and structure. of course I'm that type that plans..everything. day over day. so that might be a Nico line of thought.

All you do is complain. You suggest no actual solutions to the stratifying caste system that has developed in the US, nor do you seem to accept any solution that isn't 100%? Why can't there be 4 solutions, each that solve 25% of the issue?

Why do you think a 2 year tax-funded technical education is bad, in any way, shape, or form, for this country? Especially for people who have the grades or the experience to actually take advantage of it?

Let me backpedal a moment. Not trying to complain.

I view the solution is starting children earlier with a curriculum that is *modern* in scope. Everything exists in this current strategy just improving on the current system k-12..just become Pk-10.

11-12th then becomes Skill/tech/art/Current/whatever we deem useful/etc/ college Gen-ed credits. 18 should be the goal.

This is totally accomplishable. Now if you state hey Nico..that's unrealistic to state that Gen educations classes are NOT accomplishable by 18. ok. I guess my viewpoint if a adult is legally defined at 18, then they should have have a proper education by this point. Does that sound Whiny? This makes sense in my head. Someone can join the military and DIE/KILL, but is really under-educated at this point. We all know a certain class is picked on for the volunteer military.

A few idea's like Gnaw ( best argument yet) stated would require conversation to make it work..and would be modern leap forwards, but could occur.

Maybe I didn't explain that well.

This post has been edited by Nicodimas: 10 January 2015 - 05:25 AM

[Terez]

There was some stuff that came up earlier in other threads to do with the 2016 presidential election. I believe we have done this before on this thread at least once, but basically our presidential election campaigns last about two years. They unofficially begin at the commencement of the preceding year, in this case January 2015.

The time between that January and the beginning of debate season is called (by some) the invisible primary. Debate season usually starts a few months before the first primary, which happens in January of election year. This year, the debates start in August (since the GOP has already announced their debate schedule). The primaries last for several months and the nominees of each party are crowned about a year after the debates start, officially (at the conventions, 2-3 months before the general election in November). Sometimes it's clear who will be the nominee by the end of the first quarter of election year.

The invisible primary is the time when would-be candidates start sounding out big money donors and bundlers to see if they have a chance in hell of raising the money needed to run a campaign. And then they start actually raising the money, which continues throughout the campaign. When the first debates come around, only those with serious money, endorsements and poll showings are invited, hence it being called the "invisible primary". You can't just announce you're going to run at the last minute.

There is basically no competition on the side of the Democrats this time. It's almost like in 2012 when Obama was running for reelection; Hillary has no credible competition, yet. And it's hard to see who could challenge her, aside from Elizabeth Warren who has stated multiple times that she's not running.

On the GOP side, Romney is thinking about running again, and he started letting hints slip about a week ago. But Jeb Bush is already wooing some of his old donors and bundlers, and so many people have told Romney it's a terrible idea that he might actually back off.

The reason Romney wants to run again is 1) the polls right now show him ahead of Jeb Bush, and 2) he thinks he was vindicated about Russia. He had a really embarrassing debate with Obama (quoted in my signature) and at one point Obama mentioned mockingly that Romney thought Russia was our number one geopolitical enemy.

As for 2, a lot of people in the US did say that Romney was vindicated when Russia invaded Crimea. I'm not so sure. I think Russia is the Ukraine's #1 geopolitical enemy, and the same goes for many former Soviet states, but it's a stretch to say they're our #1 geopolitical enemy, especially now that it has been exposed (again) how weak the country really is, financially, diplomatically, even militarily. I think Obama was right that the statement is demonstrative of a Cold War time-warp mentality. Romney brings up the UN security council as his reasoning, but that veto hasn't protected Russia and its allies very much lately. And if Putin keeps pushing, he might discover how easily the UN can be dissolved and recreated from scratch, with different rules and maybe a new name. It has happened before, and it can happen again.

As for 1, I think Romney is leading Jeb Bush in the polls because of name recognition. People know "Bush", but "Jeb" not so much. Some youngsters are probably surprised to discover he exists; he hasn't run for office since 2002 (governor of Florida). He has been out of the game for a while, and hardly anyone expected him to run for president after we had a 2nd Bush and he turned out so badly. I think the only reason he's running is because he's the only person with presidential ties to match Hillary's. He has never lived in the White House, but his parents spent 4 years there, and his brother and fam 8.

All that is just in case anyone was wondering how we ended up with such a potentially dynastic race. I have been dreading it for a long time now and hoping it wouldn't happen, but now that the invisible primary has begun, it's clear Jeb is running. And his competition is questionable.

Chris Christie (governor of NJ) is drowning in scandal and there are indictments coming for members of his administration, possibly even for himself. Rick Perry (gov of TX) has been indicted. Scott Walker (gov of WI) barely escaped it. All corruption.

That leaves Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindal, and Rand Paul of the big names in the GOP field. Maybe Lindsey Graham. Probably Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee for the social conservatives. There are a few other contenders I tend to take not so seriously at this point.

In that field, Jeb is looking likely. I think the only one who can challenge him is Ted Cruz, the Tea Party darling. But if all these guys run, they'll be stealing his non-establishment votes.

If the GOP decides to be smart, they'll realize that matching Hillary's dynasty is a bad idea. People in the middle—generally people who might or might not vote, rather than people who might vote for either party—will be looking for an alternative to dynasty. I honestly think the only person in that whole GOP field who has a chance of beating Hillary is Marco Rubio. That probably sounds crazy to other Americans, but I think Hillary has the edge on Jeb, Cruz will lose the Latino vote (unlike Jeb who has a Mexican wife), Paul is too fringe, Jindal is too dorky, and Rubio is just a really, really likable guy, smarter and more pragmatic than any of them except Jeb, and he's not quite foaming at the mouth on immigration like his fellow Cuban-American Cruz. But I wouldn't be surprised if Rubio sits this one out. He's still young.

[Gorefest]

If that's the options packet, with the most likely candidate another Bush pup, the next elections will be a shoe-in for the Democrats.

[Illuyankas]

Cruz doesn't have a chance, literally everyone on both sides of the divide hates his guts. He's the accelerationist candidate of choice.

[amphibian]

Bobby Jindal is like an evil version of Obama. Here's a great article pointing out the differences between the two (and how Jindal will be remembered as one of the worst governors in the state's modern era): http://cenlamar.com/...arry-and-bobby/

It's a weird phenomenon where a superstar biology major/Rhodes Scholar starts manipulating everything about himself and his past in order to get elected. Jindal essentially turned his back on everything he was as a youngster/young man to cater to Louisianan Republicans (usually right of the Republicans' center) and became the quintessential "where the wind blows" politician for them.

[Nicodimas]

It's going to be Bush Vs Clinton for 2016.

They will be the ones that draw the dollars, cause they are brands American's can recognize. Kind of like Quality establishments, like Wal-Mart and Taco Bell.

The media is going to channel all their hate into Bush, but he will squeak on by for....President.

[Terez]

Illuyankas, on 19 January 2015 - 12:49 PM, said:

Cruz doesn't have a chance, literally everyone on both sides of the divide hates his guts. He's the accelerationist candidate of choice.

He does have a shot at the nomination, though. Things get kind of wild when there are so many candidates of similar strength in the ring. We'll see how many are still in come August when the debates start, but even if it's just Bush, Romney, Cruz, Paul, Huckabee and Santorum (I think these are the most likely of that name-recognition group to actually run), it can still get wild. All the candidates are competing all at once for the same pool. Cruz is looking to become the Tea Party candidate of choice early on to shut out his competition, but he might not be able to do anything about Paul taking his Tea-libertarian votes and Santorum (more than Huckabee) taking his Tea-religious vote. But if Romney runs, the establishment vote might also be divided, in which case Cruz might show better in the vote totals.The Tea Party coalition accounts for close to half of Republican voters, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. In recent history Republicans have always gone with the establishment guy, the guy no one really wanted to vote for when the primary began. McCain and Romney particularly fit that bill; W not so much because people actually liked him, but Bob Dole fit the bill, and HW. These guys do not have good records of winning elections, and the only guy in the whole bunch who won twice was probably the worst president in modern history.Republicans know that. And Cruz is telling them that they need to learn from these past lessons and nominate a real conservative. Not that this is a new argument (it just has a new face), but I'd guess that at least half of Republicans sympathize with him and with that argument. If Romney backs out, then Jeb will probably beat Cruz handily enough; Republicans are generally pragmatic in the end. But if Romney stays in, this could get messy and Cruz could have a real chance at the nomination.

amphibian, on 19 January 2015 - 05:16 PM, said:

Bobby Jindal is like an evil version of Obama. Here's a great article pointing out the differences between the two (and how Jindal will be remembered as one of the worst governors in the state's modern era)...

That's saying something.

PS: I should also mention that Christie, Walker, and Perry could take away from Jeb's establishment vote, but I personally suspect that none of them will make it to the primaries, if they even make it to the debates. I could be wrong, but all three have corruption problems to various degrees, and the only compelling candidate out of the three is Christie, who has more issues than I feel like enumerating at the moment.

This post has been edited by Terez: 19 January 2015 - 08:51 PM