drsmooth wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:We need to somehow teach students to be adaptable to rapid changes in the economy.

We can teach people to be more flexible in the face of changes in what their work is; to acclimate to lifelong learning, or something of that kind.

Adaptability to rapid changes in the economy requires social support of a more material kind. We've known this since at least TR's time.

Squire wrote:I'm pretty consistent an R on scope of government issues and business issues, etc. But I think I have come around on the notion that the minimum wage ought to be raised from the 7.25 it currently is to the 10ish range.

CalvinBall wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't really even think education does the job, no matter how great we make our schools, unless we change what we mean by educated. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the things people talk about as far as education goes are the exact opposite of what we need to do. We DON'T need more computers and technology in classrooms, we don't need to (in terms of specific skills) make our students career ready. We need to somehow teach students to be adaptable to rapid changes in the economy. The skills that are in high demand today may not be in high demand in 10 years, so people need to be able to constantly learn to retrain themselves. What they really need is a pretty solid grounding in how the world works--not just technology, but its politics, science, and economy. They need to learn to think strategically and tactically and to learn which rules are changing and which ones are constant.

basically this theory

http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succ ... +4%2C+2012

CalvinBall wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:I don't really even think education does the job, no matter how great we make our schools, unless we change what we mean by educated. Indeed, it seems to me that most of the things people talk about as far as education goes are the exact opposite of what we need to do. We DON'T need more computers and technology in classrooms, we don't need to (in terms of specific skills) make our students career ready. We need to somehow teach students to be adaptable to rapid changes in the economy. The skills that are in high demand today may not be in high demand in 10 years, so people need to be able to constantly learn to retrain themselves. What they really need is a pretty solid grounding in how the world works--not just technology, but its politics, science, and economy. They need to learn to think strategically and tactically and to learn which rules are changing and which ones are constant.

basically this theory

http://www.amazon.com/How-Children-Succ ... +4%2C+2012

TomatoPie wrote:

Squire wrote:I'm pretty consistent an R on scope of government issues and business issues, etc. But I think I have come around on the notion that the minimum wage ought to be raised from the 7.25 it currently is to the 10ish range.

I dunno how we can legislate people out of poverty.

At the end of the day, the min wage has very little effect. It has almost none of its intended effect to help a working fella support his fambly. It is a nice pay bump for suburban teens. It does not have the calamitous effect that its opponents sometimes claim in reducing overall employment (it does, but just by a blip).

The minimum wage is feel-good, window-dressing activity. We can pass a law that someone has to pay you more than your labor is worth -- but if that is going to have any long term effect, it will be to make automation more attractive and human labor less attractive. Or, of course, make overseas labor more attractive.

Any fix involves humans having skills sufficient to warrant a decent wage by means other than fiat.

TomatoPie wrote:Your granma told you that, right?

jerseyhoya wrote:sometimes it's better to just not make that 360,302,439,682nd post

TomatoPie wrote:Any fix involves humans having skills sufficient to warrant a decent wage by means other than fiat.

Squire wrote:Yeah, I get all that. I took Econ 101 too. That being said I think we'd be better off stretching the gap between the value of the safety net/public assistance and actual productive work. And these dollars are the most likely to get recycled back into the economy over and over since the marginal spending rates of the poor is higher than the rich. The bottom line is that the any economic growth of the last 5 years has not been experienced by those at that the bottom of the workforce. I'm willing to try this. If it doesn't work then it gets frozen for another decade they way it has been now.

drsmooth wrote:I imagine the current SEALS shenanigans are giving our General Luzinski's Gut a gutache

how long before a drone jockey starts taking public credit/movie rights for his/her role in snuffing targets

eh, it's probably already happened

td11 wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Is it really that dangerous at high school? I mean, there's a difference between a 320 pound monster who can run a 4.9 40 running into a QB and a 150 lb. kid running into another 150 lb. kid. In addition, at the HS level, the season is usually 10 or 12 games.

have you been to a high school game recently? i played for maybe the worst high school (sports wise) in DE and everyone on varsity was pretty jacked. definitely not 150 pounders running into each other. i mean, on JV, maybe. but the vast majority of the varsity guys were 170+. i don't think any of the linemen were less than 190-200

i regularly saw guys getting berated and cursed out by coaches because they stayed down a tad too long after taking a big hit. it's vicious

drsmooth wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:Any fix involves humans having skills sufficient to warrant a decent wage by means other than fiat.

no.

because before you get your wrongheaded law passed, another swath of suitably "skilled", perfectly educable - but increasingly uncompetitive, because technology - people comes along who cannot earn a decent wage, or a wage that will remain decent for their working lifetime.

You have GOT to start thinking WAYYYYY differently about this