Borbality (61.93)

6 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On July 13, 2011 at 4:25 PM, smartmuffin (< 20) wrote:

"The average income of U.S. households headed by 25-year-olds and younger has been declining relative to the average income of the baby boomer population. This is a reasonably good indication that the productivity of the younger part of our workforce is declining relative to the level of productivity achieved by the retiring baby boomers."

This is like, hilariously stupid.  I think the average high school, despite 'scoring poorly in international educational match-ups' student could easily identify the flaws in this argument.

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#2) On July 13, 2011 at 5:36 PM, TDRH (99.92) wrote:

Think what he is saying is that the american worker has to compete against an increasingly competitive global pool of individuals.     Relatively speaking, the level of education, training and productivity of the younger US workers does not offer a clear advantage.

Without this advantage the US workers will experience a decline in their standard of living vs the previous generation(s).

 

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#3) On July 13, 2011 at 5:51 PM, leohaas (98.69) wrote:

Greenspan, for once, is 100% correct.

***START RANT*****

And although he seems to praise the Babyboomers (I am one of them), he is actually faulting us: after all, the younger generation is the generation that was brought up by us boomers. And it was the boomers who turned their children into a bunch of wh1ners, by giving them whatever they wanted, rather than whatever they needed.

When I grew up, if I made a mistake, I learned from it. Why? Because bad behavior was not tolerated. If I did something in school and my parents were notified, I was punished at school AND at home. Babyboomers, however, tend to blame the school when they are notified about their kids misbehavior.

When I grew up, my parents typically said "No" when I wanted stuff. They could not afford much stuff. Boomers typically say "yes" when their children want stuff.

I know a lot of boomers who spoil their children rotten. Boomers often have money. Kid doesn't want to go to public school? OK, get them into a private school. Kid wants to "find himself"? OK, let the kid "find himself". Kid wants to go to a school costing $50k/year? Let the kid go, we'll pay for it! Kid wants to move back in after finishing school? No problem.

When will us boomers ever say "no" to our kids?

While spoiling our kids, us boomers also spoiled our economy. Sure, we are productive. We know how to work hard, because we were brought up by the Greatest Generation. But while doing so, we created a Government system that systematically spent more than it took in. We gave out too many benefits, while lowering the taxes. We used accounting tricks to obfuscate the true size of the problem.

The biggest of those tricks? Using "excess" Social Security money to pay for a significant part of the excess spending, while writing IOUs. The result of that trick: taxes could remain low, while spending could go up and deficits could seem managable.

Soon, the chickens will come home to roost: the IOUs come due. I say: let us boomers pay for it. Cut our Social Security check and raise our retirement age. If not, it will be up to those younger generations to pay those IOUs through higher taxes. That won't happen: their average income is declining.

****END RANT*****

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#4) On July 14, 2011 at 12:08 AM, rofgile (59.61) wrote:

leohaas,

 It sounds like the boomers have no idea about revenues versus costs.  I keep saying, the simple truth is that if we are spending too much, we just need to raise the damned taxes already.  We've got a smart president who understands and is trying to lead, why are the republicans so darned thick?

 Heck, just listen to Warren Buffet, people! 

 -Rof 

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#5) On July 19, 2011 at 12:32 PM, dwot (99.89) wrote:

leohaas,

Thank you so much for your comments on the difference in schools.  I often hardly want to talk to parents about their children for the attack and blame I get for, imho, their parenting skills that make their children so difficult to deal with in the first place. 

Your comments sent me off looking for a parenting disciple site I saw in May or June which had a children's bill of right and one of them was that they have a right to that which they need, not what they want.  It seems to me when I was growing up there was a lot of effort to not spoil children and that seems to have been lost without recognition of how much greater a challenge they will have in life when they have to deal with the fact that the world doesn't revolve around them and an employer will just fire them rather then deal with the bs.

My first year in the north we put out a school yearbook.  The school had done a few in its history, but nothing consistent and the previous one had been about 5 years earlier.  I ended up with a lion's share of the work to make it happen.  The second year I was all excited by it, but I couldn't get my students to do what they were supposed to, so I ended up cancelling it and made no plans for it during my third year.  Well, my students came to me and asked if we could do a year book around February and I told them they could do a year book, but it would be them doing the yearbook.  I still did far more then they realised.  This year I did what a teacher is supposed to do on a yearbook, I supervised, made sure they had the resources they needed, and I really stepped back and let them make their own decisions and guide the yearbook.  I didn't push them to do more and I didn't make up for shortfalls.  Well, it was lean, lol.  But out of this the one girl who is graduating next year goes and says, "next year we are having a big yearbook," and I am pretty sure she will take the leadership to make sure that happens. 

It has been a huge process to get to the point where empowerment and personal responsibility happens, and this is going to be my 5th year with these students. 

And the thing is, this is probably one of the most important things that happens in a school, but nowhere is it in the curriculum... 

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#6) On July 19, 2011 at 1:03 PM, dwot (99.89) wrote:

I just had a look at the video and the degree they talk about education.

Just to point out that it used to be that students that didn't want to be there dropped out, now with have programs to keep them there that really do very little academically, but they've increased graduation rates by 10-20%.  These people are academic deadweights in terms of the standards that are being compared.  They pull the average way down, so the demographic mix of the comparison has enormously changed and I'm not so sure it has gotten worse, but rather more people that fair poorly in academics are being "tallied" for an academic comparison.

Another thing that we've gone to is reference based grading.  If you can do "this" and everyone in the class can do "this" everyone gets and A.  Other places do bell curves and do things the increase student competition to out do their peers on marks.  We seem to have gone a route that that kind of competition is evil, perhaps because of that lower academic group.  

Also, my generation could get into university with a C+ average.  Today's youth need high Bs and As. 

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