The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
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why some people become poor in the first place...
View attachment 26402
View attachment 26402
Wealth Inequality in America
- Thread starter John P
- Start date
madoctopus
Supreme Member
- Apr 4, 2010
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Don't blame students for not learning. It is only partly their fault. Mostly is the fault of a fucked up educational system and teachers who not only dont give a fuck but go to school to abuse their position of authority and be assholes and make students' life hard just bc they are weak people with problems they solve by feeling powerful against people who by definition are in a position of inferiority.
The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
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ever watch the documentary, "waiting for superman".
shad0wslay3r
Newbie
- Mar 10, 2013
- 17
- 7
I'd have to agree with this.
The middle class was pretty much based on manufacturing up through the late 90s, wasn't? I'll admit though, I don't know much about it.
It would be interesting somebody who knew a fair bit about it could add some information
orzyman
Senior Member
- May 22, 2011
- 807
- 198
take a look at how the poor often spend their time and their money:
* watching reality shows.
* watching sitcoms.
* watching sports.
* reading tabloids.
* hanging out with friends.
* buying junk food.
* buying cigarettes and alcohol.
* buying recreational drugs.
* buying lotto tickets.
* posting to facebook and twitter.
exactly what i do, hmmmmmm
* watching reality shows.
* watching sitcoms.
* watching sports.
* reading tabloids.
* hanging out with friends.
* buying junk food.
* buying cigarettes and alcohol.
* buying recreational drugs.
* buying lotto tickets.
* posting to facebook and twitter.
exactly what i do, hmmmmmm
bashx
Regular Member
- May 2, 2012
- 206
- 78
Also the comment I made on your post was not meant to be hurtful or disrespectful.
I was only trying to point out that in your case the system worked perfectly.
Would you have not succeeded if help was not available? I don't know but you sound like a determined hard worker so I would guess yes.
Also if you all thought the housing bubble was bad just wait till the college loan bubble bursts, that is going to be catastrophic.
We have more student loan debt in this country than credit card debt and almost of all of is exempt from any form of bankruptcy relief.
Sacrilege
Regular Member
- Sep 16, 2008
- 234
- 158
This video is misleading and here is how:
A lot of people seem to confuse wealth with income. These are two very different metrics - because wealth is accumulated capital, it is sure to skew the chart toward the people who make more than they care to spend. Let me illustrate this with my own situation:
I make $125k/year - which, according to that chart would put me in smack dab in the middle of that evil 10 percent, assuming that the chart were measuring personal income - but it's not.
In fact, the chart is measuring wealth - so what is my wealth? Well I bought a house for $425k in 2007 (big mistake) and it's now worth $275k, while I still owe about 340k on it. So I'm in the hole $65k. Between the price of my car, the money I keep in the bank, and stocks and stuff I could liquidate, I probably have like $70k.
So - doing the math - my net worth (Wealth) is a whopping $5000 - which is roughly 1 paycheck. Yep.
Now my case isn't typical, but here's the thing... Even though i'm in the top 5% of earners... a guy who makes 30k a year and has a paid off house worth 100k has 20 times as much wealth as I do... a guy who is worth $1 Million has 200 times as much wealth as I do. A billionaire has 200,000 times as much wealth as I do.
The fact of the matter is... wealth isn't a very good metric for measuring quality of life. I have very little wealth and still live a great life - i have a nice house, drive an SRX, and don't ever worry about financials. Of course people who make more than they care to spend will have 200,000 times as much wealth.
Wealth really says very little about anything that matters. If the chart measured INCOME equality - it would be a lot closer to people's expectations.
A lot of people seem to confuse wealth with income. These are two very different metrics - because wealth is accumulated capital, it is sure to skew the chart toward the people who make more than they care to spend. Let me illustrate this with my own situation:
I make $125k/year - which, according to that chart would put me in smack dab in the middle of that evil 10 percent, assuming that the chart were measuring personal income - but it's not.
In fact, the chart is measuring wealth - so what is my wealth? Well I bought a house for $425k in 2007 (big mistake) and it's now worth $275k, while I still owe about 340k on it. So I'm in the hole $65k. Between the price of my car, the money I keep in the bank, and stocks and stuff I could liquidate, I probably have like $70k.
So - doing the math - my net worth (Wealth) is a whopping $5000 - which is roughly 1 paycheck. Yep.
Now my case isn't typical, but here's the thing... Even though i'm in the top 5% of earners... a guy who makes 30k a year and has a paid off house worth 100k has 20 times as much wealth as I do... a guy who is worth $1 Million has 200 times as much wealth as I do. A billionaire has 200,000 times as much wealth as I do.
The fact of the matter is... wealth isn't a very good metric for measuring quality of life. I have very little wealth and still live a great life - i have a nice house, drive an SRX, and don't ever worry about financials. Of course people who make more than they care to spend will have 200,000 times as much wealth.
Wealth really says very little about anything that matters. If the chart measured INCOME equality - it would be a lot closer to people's expectations.
The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
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yes, there are a lot of worthless teachers but they're not the only ones at fault. several years ago the local newspaper printed a letter from a high school teacher who said that american students had gradually shifted from "i want to learn" to "i don't care about learning" to "i refuse to learn." which is where we are now.
today many parents don't care about their kids' low grades and don't push them to do better. back in the 90s there was an ep of "60 minutes" that showed how two schools
dealt with low test scores. one school installed computers while the other school prepared an agreement between teachers and parents.
the school that added computers got little improvement, but the school that used an agreement saw higher test grades. when they tried this method at another school they discovered a lot of the parents refused to sign the agreement because they were, "too busy to make sure their kids did the homework."
the teachers don't care; the students don't care; and the parents don't care...
ShadeDream
BANNED
- Nov 27, 2008
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jazzc
Elite Member
- Jan 27, 2009
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What did you expect a teacher to say? "It 's my fault"? Of course not, he has a vested interested in this.
What he prefers to say instead, is: "It 's the students fault! You pay a gazillion of money to fail in education because the raw material sucks, not because we do a lousy work."
Seems legit. 
Jonny Quick
BANNED
- Aug 26, 2010
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The Education System is old tech. We have the internet now. Students should be given a structured education until age 14, then immediately put to work. Most "education" past age 14 is really indoctrination. How to work cooperatively together with other people that you would never voluntarily choose to associate with if you were given a choice, in order to pursue someone else's goals for no tangible benefit, and after years of struggle and filling your head with shit that is of no value to yourself, they give you a piece of paper with some shiny shit on it for a reward. Then, thrust you into the workforce where your real education begins: How to Survive.
unclemike
BANNED
- Nov 6, 2012
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In my opinion the schools have developed to the point of needing allot of work and bullying should be taken seriously
by the way. School should be more focused on work like a job for the Children. All Children dressed nice with their mouths quiet
getting prepared. Bullying and harassing imho should carry out legal implications. When I did not work for myself I never allowed
anyone to harass or bully me. And I think Children should have the same environment.
And teachers should be held to a high standard. No more bumping the kids along getting your Government paycheck.
From now on be expected to be paid on performance.
Very few jobs you can be paid for sorry performance...
Teacher
Weatherman
Doctor
Sure as hell not an Internet Marketer
by the way. School should be more focused on work like a job for the Children. All Children dressed nice with their mouths quiet
getting prepared. Bullying and harassing imho should carry out legal implications. When I did not work for myself I never allowed
anyone to harass or bully me. And I think Children should have the same environment.
And teachers should be held to a high standard. No more bumping the kids along getting your Government paycheck.
From now on be expected to be paid on performance.
Very few jobs you can be paid for sorry performance...
Teacher
Weatherman
Doctor
Sure as hell not an Internet Marketer
jazzc
Elite Member
- Jan 27, 2009
- 2,964
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@unclemike:
Indeed, public means cater amounts to the common denominator (i.e. the lowest one).
At least in the US they allow homeschooling & private schools to have their own curriculum. Where I live, it 's either what the government wants to teach or jail for the parents And of course, private universities are banned in the constitution
Indeed, public means cater amounts to the common denominator (i.e. the lowest one).
At least in the US they allow homeschooling & private schools to have their own curriculum. Where I live, it 's either what the government wants to teach or jail for the parents
And of course, private universities are banned in the constitution
unclemike
BANNED
- Nov 6, 2012
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@unclemike:
Indeed, public means cater amounts to the common denominator (i.e. the lowest one).
At least in the US they allow homeschooling & private schools to have their own curriculum. Where I live, it 's either what the government wants to teach or jail for the parents
You are right Jazzc. At least we can in fact send out Children to private schools or choose homeschooling.
But odds are it will not be to much in the future this goes away.
Oh well it is up to the parents to make sure at least their Children have common sense and maturity. Something the school system cannot
teach.
The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
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What did you expect a teacher to say? "It's my fault"? Of course not, he has a vested interested in this.
What he prefers to say instead, is: "It's the students fault! You pay a gazillion of money to fail in education because the raw material sucks, not because we do a lousy work."
except that i've witnessed the classroom mentality that the teacher described. i've seen students not doing assignments, and i've heard students almost bragging that they'd already forgotten everything they were taught.
in many circles (both poor and rich) doing well in school is considered embarrassing or unimportant. and this has been going on for decades.
madoctopus
Supreme Member
- Apr 4, 2010
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My first thought was "yeah he kinda has a point, can't really disagree", but instantly had a physical feel in my guts knowing is not true and then I went "fuck no!". Let me explain...
If you go and pay $100 for a dedicated server you expect 99.9% uptime and decent throughput and at least decent support. If you have 5% uptime, 1mbps bandwidth and when you contact them to tell them about it they go "is not our fault, the internet won't work faster and is the server's fault it has poor uptime and stop bothering us you should go and attend your server not bother us" would you find that ok?
If you hire a web developer to build you a ecommerce site and he builds a 5-page wordpress blog with a free template, do you like that? Then he says it is not his fault, first of all WP is better because everybody does WP and the lack of functionality ... well what can you expect from a free CMS... and shopping cart, well WP doesn't support a shopping cart. Oh it does? Well, it just doesn't work with YOUR WP setup for some reason and it is your fault for wanting an ecommerce site.
If you order a steak at restaurant and you get running egg whites with some burned out steak pieces from 3 days ago do you like that?
Do you find all that to eb completely fucked up? Would you demand your money back? Would you consider yourself scammed?
Same thing with teachers. Their job is to TEACH. Period. That is not like an optional thing or a bonus thing. That is the fucking job core requirement. It is just as irrelevant to find an excuse why you wasn't able to teach a child just as it is to find an excuse why you had 5% uptime or why the shopping cart couldn't install or why the steak is 3 day old and you got runny egg whites. Though it distracts most people from the essence, it is just that - a distraction. A redirect of blame from themselves to something or somebody else.
It is not the fault of the student. It is not the fault of the parent. It is the fault of the teacher and the system behind him - which it just happens to be operated by other teachers.
A child is born in default state. Default state, among other things, is: creative, curious, fast-learning, joyful, etc. Not only that is not capitalized by a teacher it is frowned upon and "fixed" and the child is abused and punished for doing it, thus developing a Pavlov's dog response where he will conform to the environment and become a zombie. His creativity and joyfulness are so strong that most of you don't even realize the power of it. It will take a great deal of years to reduce it almost completely. It is that powerful. But teachers (and in this case parents and environment) do a damn good job.
Leaving aside the psychological degradation of the child and shifting focus back on the core job - teaching - as I said, teachers don't deliver. Period. It is irrelevant that Sally is a very intelligent human being with high IQ and a great student and Joe is an average one and Paul is dumb as dirt. Those are not characteristics of Sally, Joe and Paul but a SYMPTOM they manifest. It is their individual RESPONSE to the teaching process. Unless we talk about cutting edge quantum physics and uber advanced stuff, a difference in IQ is completely irrelevant. Why? Because what you teach in a school should be (and it currently is) at a level that can be consumed by any student regardless of IQ. And it can be if you do a good job as a teacher because it is really not that complicated. Problem is teachers are so bad at teaching that they over-complicate everything or teach it in such a messy way that a student will lack any kind of logical structure for the fresh information he has to assimilate.
Now back to the pointing a finger part. It is the teacher's fault. Completely! And the teacher includes and is included in the educational system. It is both a component of the system - like a brick for a house - as well as the creator of the system - like the mason who builds the house - and it is also the house itself. Every single student PAYS to be taught something. He pays either directly (college fee) or indirectly (taxes that eventually will be infused into the educational system). Hence, he payed for a service and a service must be provided. And just like you should be able to complain if a restaurant serves you 3-day old food or a web host has 5% uptime, the same way you should benefit from the option to be refunded, complain and take action towards your lack of satisfaction with the service provided. This in turn would be healthy for the whole system because it will put the system in survival mode where it has to provide quality in order to survive. This is as you may have guessed, a very capitalist approach. But it would not work to be purely capitalist. Socialist and communist ingredients are required and they have to be combined together well because teaching is not ONLY a business. It is more complex and has more aspects.
(Do not get hooked on the political aspect of the philosophical currents - socialism, communism, capitalism - as I am not referring to the political aspect of them nor to their broken implementations. I am referring to the healthy core principles and philosophies of each of them)
A lot of excuses and redirects of fault simply disappear, or rather become obvious for what they are, when you stop buying into the crap they offer as reason. Most people accept reasons. A reason why an apple falls, a reason why a person died, why birds sing, etc. Interestingly enough not many people actually think at the reason, they just accept it. They do not think whether it is a real reason and a true one. There are reasons and there are excuses disguised into reasons and you should not confuse one with the other.
If you go and pay $100 for a dedicated server you expect 99.9% uptime and decent throughput and at least decent support. If you have 5% uptime, 1mbps bandwidth and when you contact them to tell them about it they go "is not our fault, the internet won't work faster and is the server's fault it has poor uptime and stop bothering us you should go and attend your server not bother us" would you find that ok?
If you hire a web developer to build you a ecommerce site and he builds a 5-page wordpress blog with a free template, do you like that? Then he says it is not his fault, first of all WP is better because everybody does WP and the lack of functionality ... well what can you expect from a free CMS... and shopping cart, well WP doesn't support a shopping cart. Oh it does? Well, it just doesn't work with YOUR WP setup for some reason and it is your fault for wanting an ecommerce site.
If you order a steak at restaurant and you get running egg whites with some burned out steak pieces from 3 days ago do you like that?
Do you find all that to eb completely fucked up? Would you demand your money back? Would you consider yourself scammed?
Same thing with teachers. Their job is to TEACH. Period. That is not like an optional thing or a bonus thing. That is the fucking job core requirement. It is just as irrelevant to find an excuse why you wasn't able to teach a child just as it is to find an excuse why you had 5% uptime or why the shopping cart couldn't install or why the steak is 3 day old and you got runny egg whites. Though it distracts most people from the essence, it is just that - a distraction. A redirect of blame from themselves to something or somebody else.
It is not the fault of the student. It is not the fault of the parent. It is the fault of the teacher and the system behind him - which it just happens to be operated by other teachers.
A child is born in default state. Default state, among other things, is: creative, curious, fast-learning, joyful, etc. Not only that is not capitalized by a teacher it is frowned upon and "fixed" and the child is abused and punished for doing it, thus developing a Pavlov's dog response where he will conform to the environment and become a zombie. His creativity and joyfulness are so strong that most of you don't even realize the power of it. It will take a great deal of years to reduce it almost completely. It is that powerful. But teachers (and in this case parents and environment) do a damn good job.
Leaving aside the psychological degradation of the child and shifting focus back on the core job - teaching - as I said, teachers don't deliver. Period. It is irrelevant that Sally is a very intelligent human being with high IQ and a great student and Joe is an average one and Paul is dumb as dirt. Those are not characteristics of Sally, Joe and Paul but a SYMPTOM they manifest. It is their individual RESPONSE to the teaching process. Unless we talk about cutting edge quantum physics and uber advanced stuff, a difference in IQ is completely irrelevant. Why? Because what you teach in a school should be (and it currently is) at a level that can be consumed by any student regardless of IQ. And it can be if you do a good job as a teacher because it is really not that complicated. Problem is teachers are so bad at teaching that they over-complicate everything or teach it in such a messy way that a student will lack any kind of logical structure for the fresh information he has to assimilate.
Now back to the pointing a finger part. It is the teacher's fault. Completely! And the teacher includes and is included in the educational system. It is both a component of the system - like a brick for a house - as well as the creator of the system - like the mason who builds the house - and it is also the house itself. Every single student PAYS to be taught something. He pays either directly (college fee) or indirectly (taxes that eventually will be infused into the educational system). Hence, he payed for a service and a service must be provided. And just like you should be able to complain if a restaurant serves you 3-day old food or a web host has 5% uptime, the same way you should benefit from the option to be refunded, complain and take action towards your lack of satisfaction with the service provided. This in turn would be healthy for the whole system because it will put the system in survival mode where it has to provide quality in order to survive. This is as you may have guessed, a very capitalist approach. But it would not work to be purely capitalist. Socialist and communist ingredients are required and they have to be combined together well because teaching is not ONLY a business. It is more complex and has more aspects.
(Do not get hooked on the political aspect of the philosophical currents - socialism, communism, capitalism - as I am not referring to the political aspect of them nor to their broken implementations. I am referring to the healthy core principles and philosophies of each of them)
A lot of excuses and redirects of fault simply disappear, or rather become obvious for what they are, when you stop buying into the crap they offer as reason. Most people accept reasons. A reason why an apple falls, a reason why a person died, why birds sing, etc. Interestingly enough not many people actually think at the reason, they just accept it. They do not think whether it is a real reason and a true one. There are reasons and there are excuses disguised into reasons and you should not confuse one with the other.
IamNRE
Elite Member
- Aug 18, 2010
- 7,164
- 10,717
If you want to be popular in school then not doing your home work (or doing the very bare min.) is a must.
Students that do their home work are picked on, get abused and called book worm, teachers pet... etc. Even the smartest kids want to be popular so eventually some of them fall into the system.
I have have studied in both Private and public schools, and in private schools its was the opposite. The person that was the smartest was admired and popular and the "dumdums" were ostracized and unpopular. That's how public should be.... instead its the jocks, the dumb cool kids that don't care, the sleezy wannabe sluts come mean girls that are popular.
I'm sending my kids to private school (won't have kids for at least another 7+ years, as I need to build wealth first).
The Scarlet Pimp
Supreme Member
- Apr 2, 2008
- 1,422
- 4,464
education is at least at least a two-prong deal: able to teach + willingness to learn = educated student.
note: it's fairly easy to spot the ones who don't want to learn. they're often seen wandering around the classroom, cutting classes, and/or bothering the real students.
one of the biggest problems with the schools is how they let the troublemakers stay and disrupt the class instead of expelling them.
and just how does one teach someone who doesn't want to learn anyway?
note: it's fairly easy to spot the ones who don't want to learn. they're often seen wandering around the classroom, cutting classes, and/or bothering the real students.
one of the biggest problems with the schools is how they let the troublemakers stay and disrupt the class instead of expelling them.
and just how does one teach someone who doesn't want to learn anyway?
BLIXX
BANNED
- Mar 26, 2012
- 390
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These analogies (omitted) don't hold a lot of weight. Easily enough illustrated with a proposition similar to: 'there are aspects to the teacher-student relationship required by the teacher to teach those that are hard-to-teach, that are entirely outside of the teachers control.'
Not all explanations are excuses. Indeed, most are pleas from individuals (or groups) that have, for reasons existing within the dynamic, itself, been forced to shoulder most if not all of the blame for some or another thing. In this instance, teachers' poorly performing students.
This is false prima facie, since hundreds of thousands of instances can be detailed in which student x in classroom b, with teacher a, has excelled; whilst student y, in the same classroom, with the same teacher, has failed.
Your conclusion does not follow from its premises. And I assure you, my friend, idiots are harder to teach than the average; the average are harder to teach than the gifted. Throw in problems at home, malnutrition, a culture whose mores and folkways do not prize education, hormones, peer pressure, status, and that spoiled rotten Kim Kardashian tart, and things get complicated.