Schadenfroh
Elite Member
- Mar 8, 2003
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- Oct 9, 1999
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That may or may not be the case. The point is that the US cannot just compete on knowledge alone when wages around the world are so low. Other countries are catching up in the knowledge dept. while their wages remain low enough to take the rest of the jobs from us.
To First: As for while unemployment has stayed "low" as you say....we've replace GM (good paying factory jobs with benefits) with Walmart (shitty jobs with shitty pay and benefits). Hide your head in your economics theory all you want.
Also, from Evan's linked tables, an interesting decade it has been (since NAFTA kicked in with full force along with cheap, Chinese and Indian labor...
.
Of course, it could be explained as just a blip though, and not a trend in the making. 2008 and 2009 data would be much better, eh?
- Oct 9, 1999
- 39,230
- 701
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You're probably right. Those that fail the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. It's all emotion (greed, fear, etc) and it repeats in cycle after cycle (stock market for example). No matter how much information is given about said emotions running cycles and history, they still repeat. That's why the charts work so well in the stock market...and most likely, in every empire too.
To be fair, there are a lot of students taking on student loan debt to obtain degrees that don't really translate into marketable skills upon graduation. From a financial perspective, many of these students might have been better off going to a vocational school.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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The influx of women in the workforce created a huge pool of new workers, and this transition from single-earner to dual-earner occurred mainly in the 60's and early 70's, it did not continue substantially (and there is no proof to the contrary) by the late 70's. And even if it did continue throughout the 70's, I think it's quite clear by the 80's (both statistically and observationally) that dual earners were standard fare, meaning your explanation still doesn't account for the real income growth of the past 29 years.
Of course, that's to say nothing of the fact that women finally started to become equal citizens by being able to pursue individual careers outside their husbands, greatly expanding the pool of labor and resulting in a moral and human rights victory unparalleled in our history, behind only Lincoln freeing the slaves or the Civil Rights Act.
This is a specious argument that holds little to no weight. There is no evidence that a significant portion of the (non-handicapped) population is simply not "wired" for college or that it would not benefit them. The statistics are also absolutely undeniable as to the benefits of college education, the studies have been clear and numerous. It's absolutely clear how private industry hires, and they hire and pay astronomically more for college graduates over their lifetimes than they do HS graduates. That's because college graduates bring more skills, better learning ability, better people skills, and are generally simply better workers. This isn't really debatable, either.
Citing a link without actually citing (or even explained) what it says is a pointless exercise.
Except you cite no evidence, no research, and no statistics to back up any of your claims. The best you can do is link to a book you didn't bother explaining.
Except your position here is absolute crap since anyone can argue that the insurance industry as a whole adds little to no "value" yet it has been around for hundreds of years. It would be just as uninformed a statement as your barb about how we created bubble sub-prime jobs that caused the financial crisis, which is just laymen BS since anyone worth their salt knows sub-prime had little to no impact on the recent financial crisis.
No it isn't.
Oy. This is just getting sad. The availability of more bad food does not mean the quality of food has gone down. It means more bad food is available than used to be the case, which of course ignores the reality that far more good and safe food is available today than used to be the case years ago.
Late Edit: Forgot corrected link.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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Again, the statistics say otherwise and are quite clear about going to a vocational school vs. going to college. College education also isn't as prohibitively expensive as the nominal numbers show since college loans and interest rates have enabled low cost financing for a huge swath of Americans:
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-3/value.htm
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/...tics/a/collegepays.htm
http://moneycentral.msn.com/co...geandFamily/P74829.asp
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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And you can call it theory all you want, but that "theory" is more concrete than your best guess musings, no?
You think international trade only starting kicking in since 98? We've been hearing about the perils of outsourcing since the late 80's. How'd 88 to 98 fare? Or for that matter, how did middle class income fare during the 14 year period between 69 and 83? That same link you referred to shows that income decreased during this period of time; real income was $41,675 in 1969 and $41,522 in 1983. Of course we know what happened over the next 20 years. The overwhelming point being that business cycles are a part of life and sometimes you're not going to get any income growth for a long period of time, sometimes a decade, but that does not mean the seeds for future booms are not already in place. Capital gains also have to be factored in, and are not, in real income.
But look, clearly unmitigated outsourcing and trade is bad. But that's why there are reasonable controls to NAFTA, why there are reasonable tariffs on traded goods. This aversion to outsourcing labor, though, isn't supported by the facts. Private industry has been reducing benefits to workers over the years, sure. Which is why you need controls in place to make up for those trends, like gov't pensions or SS or public healthcare. As every well informed, intelligent person knows by now, private industry left to its own devices is by no means going to result in equitable income distribution. The remaining inequity is rightfully left up to the federal and state governments. As are controls on trade and outsourcing.
1prophet
Diamond Member
- Aug 17, 2005
- 5,313
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And as every well informed, intelligent person knows that private industry runs the government, from the White House on down to the local level is run by those formerly in private industry, either directly as government officials or indirectly as advisors or lobbyists.
This guy does a better job than me getting the point across.
First,
(1) Your first link to what appears to be an electronic catalog of "The Distribution of Household Labor Among Women in Dual-earner Families" doesn't prove that dual earners were the standard fare by the 1980's. This study has to do with whether women who are in dual income households still maintain full responsibility for household tasks. This is not a relevant issue.
(2) Your second link to "In Dual-Earner Couples, Family Roles Are Changing in U.S." also does not support your proposition that the major transition from 1 to 2 income households occurred prior to 1980.
Did you even read your own link?
(3) The claim that a 4-year college is good for everyone defies common sense. Observational studies based on past graduates are inappropriate here because in the past, only the more academically inclined students were encouraged to go to college. Of course they would do well -- they were already the smartest.
Not everyone learns well in a classroom or lecture setting. I don't know why it is so hard for you to accept that people might learn differently than yourself.
(4) Sub-prime had little impact on the recent financial crisis? That is factually incorrect.
Frontline did a fairly exhaustive documentary on the roll of subprime backed securities in the collapse of Bear Sterns and other major components of the Financial System.
PBS Frontline report
(5) "Good" and "safe" food is neither good nor safe if it kills you in the long run. Read Michael Pollan's book. Look at the leading chronic illnesses in this country. Cancer. Heart Disease. Diabetes. Modern food is killing Americans -- not by poisoning them with lead or botulism, but through excess empty calories.
(6) The expense of college education.
Read some of the stories:
http://www.studentloanjustice.org/
Low cost loan financing through government interference in the student loan markets has caused a mountain of bad student debt.
I have numerous friends and colleagues who are tens of thousands, or even $150,000+ in student loan debt. It's not easy paying $1200/month in loans.
Read my thread for links on the real-life consequences of excessive student loans.
This is not good for our economy, and its made worse by the recession:
WSJ: soaring default rates
(7) Engineer is probably right. I have wasted my time discussing this with you, but I wanted to post counterarguments for the benefit of the spectators reading this thread. Your assertions are generally false, or misleading. Your links fail to prove what you say they prove. I can only conclude that you are either uninformed, or intentionally trolling.
(1) Your first link to what appears to be an electronic catalog of "The Distribution of Household Labor Among Women in Dual-earner Families" doesn't prove that dual earners were the standard fare by the 1980's. This study has to do with whether women who are in dual income households still maintain full responsibility for household tasks. This is not a relevant issue.
(2) Your second link to "In Dual-Earner Couples, Family Roles Are Changing in U.S." also does not support your proposition that the major transition from 1 to 2 income households occurred prior to 1980.
Did you even read your own link?
(3) The claim that a 4-year college is good for everyone defies common sense. Observational studies based on past graduates are inappropriate here because in the past, only the more academically inclined students were encouraged to go to college. Of course they would do well -- they were already the smartest.
Not everyone learns well in a classroom or lecture setting. I don't know why it is so hard for you to accept that people might learn differently than yourself.
(4) Sub-prime had little impact on the recent financial crisis? That is factually incorrect.
Frontline did a fairly exhaustive documentary on the roll of subprime backed securities in the collapse of Bear Sterns and other major components of the Financial System.
PBS Frontline report
(5) "Good" and "safe" food is neither good nor safe if it kills you in the long run. Read Michael Pollan's book. Look at the leading chronic illnesses in this country. Cancer. Heart Disease. Diabetes. Modern food is killing Americans -- not by poisoning them with lead or botulism, but through excess empty calories.
(6) The expense of college education.
Read some of the stories:
http://www.studentloanjustice.org/
Low cost loan financing through government interference in the student loan markets has caused a mountain of bad student debt.
I have numerous friends and colleagues who are tens of thousands, or even $150,000+ in student loan debt. It's not easy paying $1200/month in loans.
Read my thread for links on the real-life consequences of excessive student loans.
This is not good for our economy, and its made worse by the recession:
WSJ: soaring default rates
(7) Engineer is probably right. I have wasted my time discussing this with you, but I wanted to post counterarguments for the benefit of the spectators reading this thread. Your assertions are generally false, or misleading. Your links fail to prove what you say they prove. I can only conclude that you are either uninformed, or intentionally trolling.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
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They're absolutely relevant, read the links:
"In 1979, women who worked full-time earned 63 percent as much as their male counterparts. By 2006, they earned 81 percent of what men earned....Since the mid-1960s, there has been a tripling of time fathers devote to child care". The conclusions aren't hard to draw if you aren't an absolute dullard.
Of course, this could have been avoided if you had done a 2 second Google search, where the first and second links that come up would have confirmed I am 100% justified in my stance that the bulk of the labor transition occurred in the 60's and part of the 70's. Quote from the both the 1st and 2nd links from a search of "number of women in the workforce 1950":
"As more women are added to the labor force, their share will approach that of men. In 2008, women will make up about 48 percent of the labor force and men 52 percent. In 1988, the respective shares were 45 and 55 percent."
The obvious conclusion being that women were nearly entirely fully integrated into the workforce by 88, invalidating a minimum of 20 years of the income sample data you claim is distorted by dual earners.
There's even more; page 4 of here shows that the bulk of the labor force increase from women occurred in the 60's and 70's, depending on what year you concentrate on. They show a substantial increase for the 80's too but mostly early in that decade. A little different than I originally thought, but still invalidates your claims of a distorted dual earner income entirely.
The general conclusion is overwhelmingly easy to figure out.
You'll first have to point out exactly where I said a college education is good for "everyone", as in literally 100% of the population. Notice how I qualified my statement with "non-handicapped" and purposefully did not say that "everyone" outside of that group should go to college. Read what I wrote: "There is no evidence that a significant portion of the (non-handicapped) population is simply not "wired" for college or that it would not benefit them."
So yes, not everyone, but probably a vast supermajority. You claimed "many people" aren't suited. Yeah, perhaps a fraction of the population. Hardly "many".
You're implying that people have to have a genetic advantage of "smarts" to go to and graduate college and that's where your argument falls apart, since it's an arbitrary qualifier. It is not beyond the average American to attend college and graduate, and if you really believe it is, then no one can really help you. They may not attend Harvard, but they can still graduate college. The increasing amount of college graduates seen every year and how much more they make than non-college graduates is pretty clear too. If the population wasn't capable of it we wouldn't continually see people go to college.
If you honestly think that college is about how well you learn in a classroom setting nowadays, I don't know what to tell you. People have been getting educated online for a good 15 years now, attending brick and mortar colleges via mostly online class postings from profs has essentially nullified your point entirely. Besides, a classroom setting is hardly any different than the real world where you actually have to learn things on the fly by interacting with people. This idea that some people aren't meant for it doesn't mean we should de-emphasize those skills. It's an inane argument that suggests we throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Then you didn't actually pay close attention or word your argument carefully. There is a difference between "pushing subprime shit paper", as you called it, and using subprime as an MBS (mortgage backed security). The issue with subprime had nothing to do with the subprime loan itself and everything to do with financial firms securitizing the loans and spreading the (high) risk around to other people despite the loan carrying a high risk of default as ARMs readjusted upward. Had we not had financial institutions taking people's loan (subprime and otherwise) and floating it as a security, ARMs readjustment wouldn't have had anywhere near the same negative effect as it did, because loan defaults would have been localized to the people taking out loans and not half the damn financial sector as ended up being the case.
And again, the quality of food is better, you're making a different argument. Just because cancer rates or heart rates have increased doesn't mean food quality is worse; it means that (in part) Americans are choosing to eat unhealthy, cheap food. Quality food is far more widely available then it used to be. What Americans are choosing is of no consequence to the fact that they more access to better quality food than ever before. Unfortunately, they also have access to horrible quality food than ever before, and it gets eaten because it's cheap. But that's a different argument I wasn't making.
If you're paying $1200/month in loans and suffering then you're simply not very well informed or prepared. It is extraordinarily easy to get FHA loans that, after graduating, allow you to keep your bills at $200-$300 a month. For a $100,000 education I'm paying $194.33 a month.
And you'll actually have to cite what is said on the web site if you want to be taken seriously.
It's not my fault you did not read the links carefully nor draw common sense conclusions nor conduct 2 second Google searches to confirm my claims. I had to do all the legwork for you. To each his own. Next time try a little harder.
Doesn't FHA only do mortgages? Federal Stafford loans have interest rates according to this schedule:
link
Subsidized loans will drop to a minimum of 3.4% in 2011-12, and will then jump back up to 6.8% during the 2012-13 school year. Graduate students are stuck paying 6.8% for all loans, or 8.5% if they opt for the GradPlus loans. While these interest rates aren't terrible, I wouldn't exactly call them low either.
Is this using an extremely long repayment period and/or income-adjusted repayment schedule? The old Stafford loans used to be based on the 91-day Tbill yield and could have been locked in at < 2% if one condolidated them now or during 2004-2005. Unfortunately these options are no longer available for loans taken out after July 2006.
First
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2002
- 10,518
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Haha, yeah, I meant FSA. See here: <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.dl.ed.gov/bo.........elcomePage.jsp"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.dl.ed.gov/borro......werWelcomePage.jsp"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/BorrowerWelcomePage.jsp"><a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://www.dl.ed.gov/borrower/BorrowerWelcomePage.jsp">https://www.dl.ed.gov............ge.jsp</a></a></a></a>
Well remember, most grad school students are attending 2-3 year programs, they don't incur as much debt as college students who attend for 4-5 years. The ones attending grad school for 5-8 years (like doctors or psychologists) are in the minority. It's not as prohibitively expensive if you're paying it off over 10 years anyway. $20K-40K at 6-7%% is quite decent and can be paid off within a reasonable amount of time.
A lot of people also go to community colleges for undergraduate school for their first 2 years before transferring. Here in Los Angeles you can attend Santa Monica College for 2 years and transfer to UCLA (SMC has the highest transfer rates to UCLA in the world), and do it for $6000-$10000 depending on your major. You can't beat that.
I'm using a 15 year repayment period (for now) and did get in on several good rates before 06 (I don't know them off hand). And my debt load is more like half that since I was lucky enough to have parents that could afford to help me with the repayments (about half). Of course, had I not had parents like that I would have likely attended a community college instead, which would have saved me $40000-$44000 including interest. Of course, as your own link delineates, you can still get rates as low as 3.4%. It always varies and is always changed for subsequent years.
DivideBYZero
Lifer
- May 18, 2001
- 24,117
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