They won't "have the money" if they get fired.WWGD said:Once they have the money...
You can spin it any way you want, but the net effect of your proposal is the government picking winners and losers. Intent doesn't matter.Dr. Courtney said:The government should let the free market be the free market. Students should be able to major in anything they want if they are paying for it themselves.
The question at hand is not government control, and it is dishonest to frame it that way. The question is what the government should subsidize through guaranteed loans and how much the government should be willing to lend based on the anticipated value of the degree. Lending over $100,000 for any and every degree with no more requirement than a 2.0 GPA is foolish, and it has resulted in many many students who cannot repay their loans or who are strapped for the first decade or two of their adult lives due to these large debts.
$30-40k makes a lot more sense as an upper debt limit for most students seeking degrees with track records of average earnings below $50k for the first decade after graduation. This is not an attempt of government to control production, it is just smart lending.
Using shoes as a way to decide is not a bad thing to do; just think about a bit...Evo said:I'm sorry but you cannot get a degree and think that means you're going to get a job. If you think that, you're a fool. Sorry, but it's true, there are so many factors involved in getting hired, personality is a large factor. I hate to say it but appearance is also a factor, I know that's unfair, but it's true. I don't mean so much physical attractiveness, although that can be part of it, but how you dress, I watched an interview of people in hiring positions and one woman said she based her hiring decisions on people's shoes. There are so many candidates for positions, employers can be that stupid and picky. Sad but true. If all else is equal, she liked your shoes more, so you got the job.
Who/what guarantees they will get fired? This was, BTW, the intent behind GWB's tax breaks, to put money on people's pockets in order to allow them or make it easier to consume . Problem is it was aimed at those who already had most of their needs met. OF course, you don't do the raise abruptly, nor by an amount that is too large. By the same token, if people don't have money, they will not consume and the economy will remain down.russ_watters said:They won't "have the money" if they get fired.
The answer @Vanadium 50 gave you: supply and demand.WWGD said:Who/what guarantees they will get fired?
I addressed that in a previous post. Having more disposable income will increase demand and the market will increase supply to meet demand.russ_watters said:The answer @Vanadium 50 gave you: supply and demand.
No, you didn't. You are assuming people won't get fired and will therefore have more disposable income and ignoring what supply and demand tells you must happen: some people must get fired or businesses will fail.WWGD said:I addressed that in a previous post. Having more disposable income will increase demand and the market will increase supply to meet demand.
Actually you seem to be assuming these businesses have zero margin and cannot handle a wage increase. It may be true in some cases, but not all, not for all amounts. There are additional savings by having a lower turnover when a worker has some basic stability s/he cannot have when s/he can barely afford food/transportation, etc. So it is not necessarily a zero sum. You may also have more loyal workers which results in increased productivity. Yes, supply and demand is one aspect to consider for sure, but not the only one.russ_watters said:No, you didn't. You are assuming people won't get fired and will therefore have more disposable income and ignoring what supply and demand tells you must happen: some people must get fired or businesses will fail.
Yes, I have been a union member, but not of a very powerful union. And the problem is not necessarily with unions per se. They are part of a system of checks and balances. If the system is out of whack it is not necessarily the union's fault. And I believe many of the stories you refer to are accounted by one side, and not the union side. Unions have no interest in biting the hand that feeds them. Why would they willingly bankrupt the company that pays their salary? Yes, there are greedy idiots conducting union negotioations, but, then again, there are greedy idiots in every walk of life.Vanadium 50 said:WWGD, at best you are making a macroeconomic argument, at worst you are denying a fundamental tenet of microeconomics.
If the former, this is an argument not for individual union membership or even individual unions, but an argument for massive unionization of the economy. As such, it doesn't really fit the topic, but in any event Russ is right. Union membership has fallen, and one reason for that is that there have been unions that have driven their companies into bankruptcy.
Just out of curiosity, have you ever been a member of a labor union? I have, and one thing I find interesting is that they tend to be viewed a lot better from the outside than the inside.
One of the things the unions do, is force a raise in wage rate; sometimes large increase in wage rate. Do you think this might affect employee hours and number of employees who will be hired? The answer is "yes".WWGD said:Yes, I have been a union member, but not of a very powerful union. And the problem is not necessarily with unions per se. They are part of a system of checks and balances. If the system is out of whack it is not necessarily the union's fault. And I believe many of the stories you refer to are accounted by one side, and not the union side. Unions have no interest in biting the hand that feeds them. Why would they willingly bankrupt the company that pays their salary? Yes, there are greedy idiots conducting union negotioations, but, then again, there are greedy idiots in every walk of life.
_The_ unions? Or _some_ unions? I just have trouble accepting that people would, by default, act in self-destructive ways. Why would union members knowingly kill off the source of their paychecks?symbolipoint said:One of the things the unions do, is force a raise in wage rate; sometimes large increase in wage rate. Do you think this might affect employee hours and number of employees who will be hired? The answer is "yes".
No...WWGD said:Actually you seem to be assuming these businesses have zero margin and cannot handle a wage increase.
Correct! So you do agree that some businesses run thin margins, so some people must lose their jobs! So please: adjust your answers to include those job losses. The way you presented it before makes it look like you are choosing to ignore an uncomfortable downside of what you would like to see happen. But that downside doesn't go away just by ignoring it.It may be true in some cases, but not all...
It may be true that if you make the cause small enough the effect will be hard to detect, but the effect is there. It has to be. Otherwise, you could create a perpetual motion machine with such policies (that is a common fallacy behind the PMMs we see presented on PF)....not for all amounts.
Up to this point, it has appeared to me that you have been denying that supply and demand was an "aspect" at all.Yes, supply and demand is one aspect to consider for sure, but not the only one.
Right. I should have said, "some unions".WWGD said:_The_ unions? Or _some_ unions? I just have trouble accepting that people would, by default, act in self-destructive ways. Why would union members knowingly kill off the source of their paychecks?
russ_watters said:No...
Correct! So you do agree that some businesses run thin margins, so some people must lose their jobs! So please: adjust your answers to include those job losses. The way you presented it before makes it look like you are choosing to ignore an uncomfortable downside of what you would like to see happen. But that downside doesn't go away just by ignoring it.
It may be true that if you make the cause small enough the effect will be hard to detect, but the effect is there. It has to be. Otherwise, you could create a perpetual motion machine with such policies (that is a common fallacy behind the PMMs we see presented on PF).
Up to this point, it has appeared to me that you have been denying that supply and demand was an "aspect" at all.
That is just so not true:WWGD said:Unions have no interest in biting the hand that feeds them.
It's a scorched-earth, big picture, who-will-blink-first negotiating technique(and heck, sometimes it is just an accident - a miscalculation). If you drive one company out of business you can use that as a demonstration of the threat your union poses to the next business you negotiate with. It happens so much that it appears to me to be their primary tactic! The companies, of course, use the same tactic.Why would they willingly bankrupt the company that pays their salary?
I feel like you are still dancing around the point, and I am reluctant to move on until it is made clear:WWGD said:Of course this is not possible for all businesses, and even for those for which it is, this can be phased in and negotiated for both parties' interest.
And, yes, there is an effect from supply and demand, but this effect may be offset by other factors, like the ones I mentioned: increased productivity from grateful employees, increased productivity through better living standards. So, no, I am not denying the part that supply and demand plays. I am just arguing that it is one of many factors and that a weighted sum may be more accurate to describe the issue as a whole.
You are retracting that, right? At least in the immediate, micro sense?I mean, the two (wage increase and employment level) are not intrinsically contradictory to each other.
russ_watters said:I feel like you are still dancing around the point, and I am reluctant to move on until it is made clear:
You are retracting that, right? At least in the immediate, micro sense?
This is overall a god idea, but it has a problem: the world/economy changes so fast nowadays that the need for certain occupations is very likely to change while students are in school. What do you do then?symbolipoint said:As WWGD and russ_watters continue to discuss supply & demand, and unions, let me refer to the list of major fields in Dr. Courtney's linked article and just show three of those fields:
- Project Management
- Studio Art
- Human Development & Family Studies
An undergraduate degree in any of those might help to make someone into a better person; but are they vocational skills/degrees? Are they professional degrees? If not, then maybe they as fields to study/learn in college, are not geared toward making someone employable in business, industry, or government.
symbolipoint said:As WWGD and russ_watters continue to discuss supply & demand, and unions, let me refer to the list of major fields in Dr. Courtney's linked article and just show three of those fields:
- Project Management
- Studio Art
- Human Development & Family Studies
An undergraduate degree in any of those might help to make someone into a better person; but are they vocational skills/degrees? Are they professional degrees? If not, then maybe they as fields to study/learn in college, are not geared toward making someone employable in business, industry, or government.
gleem said:It may be that the problem is not that there are no jobs but there are not jobs that they want.
True, but you seem to assume this state of affairs will remain constant throughout the worker's life. What if their skills become irrelevant, unneeded at some point?XZ923 said:You've hit the proverbial nail on the head. There is a severe disconnect between what sort of jobs are actually needed in the real world and the jobs that the universities claim are needed. It turns out the demand for philosophers is a lot lower than the demand for welders. So they may be very proud of their philosophy degree, but guess what, there are no jobs for it (other than teaching philosophy, of course) so most will never use this degree. Skilled labor, on the other hand, is in demand so the blue-collar guy who went to a trade school will often end up with a higher-paying job than someone who blew six figures on an Ivy league education that has no real-world application and now needs to figure out how to manage a debt that's closer to a mortgage than a car loan while working at McDonalds.
A life of leisure, free of bosses and bills, sure sounds like the dream — and it turns out millions of millennials are living it. But don't congratulate them yet. They're doing it under their parents' roof and not necessarily by choice.
About a third of 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.S. live at home, the Census Bureau reported on Wednesday. That includes college dormitories. Among 25- to 34-year-olds living at home, one in four is neither enrolled in school nor working. That's 2.2 million people, a small percentage of the nation's more than 70 million millennials 1 but a striking figure nonetheless.
More 18- to-34-year-olds live with a parent than with a spouse, according to the report, The Changing Economics and Demographics of Young Adulthood: 1975–2016 (pdf). That's a major shift from the 1970s, when young people were more than twice as likely to live with a spouse. Young adults today are also likelier to be enrolled in college or graduate school than their counterparts in the '70s.
Most of those who live at home but neither work nor study have a high school diploma or less, and about a fifth have a child. Half are white, and the majority are male. About a quarter have a disability 2 .
russ_watters said:Rebooting:
The reason this thread grates on me so much is that it is predicated on accepting a double-failure (failure to teach/learn algebra in both high school and college) and then doubles (quadruples?) down on it by codifying the failure and then rewarding it as if it were a success. In my view, it is several steps in the wrong direction from what the American spirit is supposed to be:
0. "Failure is not an option." [from "Apollo 13"]
-1. Failure is an option. [failed to teach algebra 2 in high school]
-2. Failure is inevitable. [failed to teach algebra 2 in college]
-3. ...so don't even try. [remove it from the curriculum]
-4. ...but reward it as if it were a success anyway. [give the same degree as a reward for succeeding at something easier]
Each one is progressively worse than the last, on the skin-crawl index. The idea (from an educator!) that the purpose of education is not to educate, but to declare people educated whether they have become so or not, is utterly mind-blowing to me.
Meanwhile, our parents and kids in other countries succeed[ed] in learning algebra. So are we getting uniquely dumber? No, as my "American spirit" comment and the post above mine indicate, I think it is primarily an attitude problem: as a society, we've stopped believing and trying so thoroughly that we just reward failure instead.
I don't see a viable discussion starting point or direction for any of that. The idea that got pulled in later is better, but still narrowly focused on most of those initial bads. But it could be made better by broadening it and approaching it with an open mind, seeking to optimize what is taught in schools (which, I would assume, school administrators never stop doing). I would frame the problem with this question:
What could you have learned better in high school that would have mitigated a failure you experienced as an adult?
This question is premised on the idea that high school, by virtue of the standing it gets as government provided, is the minimum education a person should have in order to become a minimally functional adult. So how do we make better functional adults?
Well, my list, roughly in order by severity of failure:
1. Financial mistakes (math, and finance specific classes)
2. Health/lifestyle mistakes (science/health class)
3. Failure to understand the physical consequences of your actions (physics)
4. Failure to write/speak in proper English (English class)
5. Generic: failure to learn what is needed to succeed in college and in a job
Yes, they're mostly STEM. The reality is we live in a technical world and it requires technical skills to navigate. If any are unclear, please ask and I can expand. But the point is, I think we need more STEM in high school and less humanities. This includes Algebra 2. Indeed, if I could make it happen, I'd say that Calculus 1 and Statistics are both essential for minimally functional adults to know.
#5 is probably too generic and isn't exactly classroom knowledge, but I suppose it could be. It's a problem we see particularly as a physics forum, where people being given bad advice and taught bad philosophy for approaching school/life. "Follow your dreams! study physics and become a physicsist!" This isn't generic advice that should be given to everyone: if a person doesn't have an aptitude for physics, don't tell them they should follow that dream. You're lying to them by implying it is readily achievable.