BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

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barmar, on 2017-April-17, 08:54, said:

It won't happen under democrats neither. $20T in debt. 51% of baby boomers are ill prepared for retirement.
The money doesn't exist.

jogs, on 2017-April-18, 10:36, said:

The money is there; it a matter of prioritizing on what to spend.

Cyberyeti, on 2017-April-16, 01:48, said:

Before globalism, history was written by the winners. If the West doesn't vote out the progressive left, China will be the world economic power soon.
Then China will write history. You guys will all be required to watch Jet Li movies on how free Chinese fought the Manchus.

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 07:55, said:

This was true before the internet age, now people can allow you to see what's happening when it doesn't match what the victors say.

Winstonm, on 2017-April-18, 09:10, said:

It's a mix. Some are part of the Trump Organization, others just license the name. http://www.trump.com/hotel-collection/ lists the portfolio of Trump Hotels. Of the ones in AsiaPac, it looks like only Waikiki, Hawaii actually belongs to Trump.

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 07:55, said:

You do love your right-wing talking points, don't you?

Let's see how those talking points compare to reality.

China is the world leader in research into and use of green technology. It is starting late, and has a long way to go in terms of the environment, but in terms of renewable energy it is investing at a far higher level than is the US, and this is largely driven by the government.

Ok: within the US system, which side wants to promote green energy and to use government funding to help develop it and bring it to market? Hmmm....the Republicans? Hah...they think that the answer to any energy issue is a combination of coal mining, fracking, offshore drilling, and eliminating national parks.

China is rapidly educating its youth, with massive financial assistance from the government.

Ok: within the US system, which side wants to make college education more accessible and less financially ruinous for those not fortunate enough to have rich parents?
Hmm...the Republicans? Nah, DeVos has recently undone an Obama regulation that prevented student loan collection agencies to add punitive penalties to the debt of students who have fallen behind on loan repayments, and she wants to increase the role of 'for-profit' and fundamentalist Xian organizations in the provision of basic education, ensuring a generation of children inoculated against rational thinking. Meanwhile, the Democrats want to expand eligibility for and lower the costs of post-secondary education.

China is finally taking steps to clean up the environmental damage caused by decades of explosive economic growth. Ok: within the US system, which side wants to protect the environment (which actually protects ...you know....people)? The Republicans? Nah...they're the ones denying human involvement in global warming and they are actively destroying the EPA, ironically an agency created by earlier Republicans, who would fail to recognize themselves within the current party.

Btw, another reality in the growth of any economic superpower seems to be that it is helpful to have a combination of a large population, access to raw materials, and start from a low level of infrastructure.

The UK had those factors during the Industrial Revolution. Changes in agricultural practices led to an explosive population growth. The burgeoning empire, and the possession of tremendous maritime power, enabled the importation of resources, and the lack of any industrial infrastructure meant that what they built was 'leading edge' for its time.

Move forward to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the US had an explosive population growth, enormous internal resource availability, and started from scratch. So when the rust-belt factories were shiny and new, they were built with leading-edge technology, while in Europe industries were understandably reluctant and slow to destroy the factories, smelters, and other industrial facilities and bring them up to date. Of course, the financial and demographic damage sustained by Europe in WWI also played a role.

Japan and Germany, post WWII, experienced some elements of this. They didn't have population growth and had limited access to raw materials, but they benefited from a combination of the destruction (or theft) of virtually all existing industrial infrastructure and the massive investment (not for altruistic reasons, but as part of the cold war strategy) of monies to build shiny new, leading edge facilities.

Meanwhile, in the US, manufacturing was hurt in part by a reluctance to basically destroy and write-off old-style factories.

China is simply doing what others have done in the past.

I suspect writing this has been a waste of time. Thinking about how one's pet beliefs relate or don't relate to reality is difficult...for people on the left as well as the right. However, and this is far from universal, most people who do examine reality in order to inform their beliefs, rather than the reverse, end up as what you would call 'progressives'. You might want to think carefully about why that is.

mikeh, on 2017-April-19, 10:23, said:

From a recent CBS news article (http://www.cbsnews.c...st-study-shows/):

The United States spent more than $11,000 per elementary student in 2010 and more than $12,000 per high school student. When researchers factored in the cost for programs after high school education such as college or vocational training, the United States spent $15,171 on each young person in the system — more than any other nation covered in the report.

The Program for International Student Assessment measurement found the United States ranked 31st in math literacy among 15-year-old students and below the international average. The same 2009 tests found the United States ranked 23rd in science among the same students, but posting an average score.

ldrews, on 2017-April-19, 11:13, said:

What conclusions do you draw from this?

ldrews, on 2017-April-19, 11:13, said:

Statistics like this are of debatable utility.

While I have never attended any school in the US, I know several Canadians who did, including someone who spent a year in Texas, in high school, and someone who had athletic scholarships to two major US colleges.

My understanding is that the US system prides itself on allowing local control of education. Not only are there local area school boards but the states set the curricula, with Texas playing a large role in how textbooks are written, because it is such a large market.

The US populace has, by the standards of the Western world, an extraordinary level of religious belief, and a corresponding tendency to reject logical thinking and evidence-based theories of reality. A CBS poll showed that nearly 80% of Americans believe in angels. A majority rejects evolution. A substantial and influential minority believes that the bible is the inerrant word of god (altho few seem to recognize that this 'inerrant' work contains a number of glaring contradictions).

Spending money on teaching children is likely to be ineffective if the subject matters being taught are influenced more by religious belief than by rigorous thinking.

Furthermore, a national average level of expenditure tells one very little about the education afforded by the public schools in, say, Louisiana or Alabama compared to New York, California, or Washington State.

Allowing religious bigots to edit history books or the 'teach the controversy' or allow the promotion of 'intelligent design' is not the best way to prepare students to engage in critical thinking.

GIGO used to be a very common acronym in computing (I have no idea if it is still in use) and it remains true in many areas of life. When the curriculum is flawed, spending lots of money to instill misinformation and illogical thinking will do more harm than good.

Once again, with posts like the one to which I am responding, we see the use of facts without context, and without any attempt to understand the subject matter beyond the sound-bite/talking point.

Incidentally, the apparent drop in US test scores seems to correlate well with the increasing power of Republicans at the state level. Many states, under republican control, have been gutting educational programmes for years: see Kansas as a prime example. See Wisconsin. See how those states fare in comparison to the national averages for virtually all measures of a successful society.

mikeh, on 2017-April-19, 11:37, said:

Right. Whenever someone talks about averages like this, you should always remember the statistics joke: When Bill Gates walks into a bar, the average patron is a multi-millionaire. What we probably have is lots of poor areas (rural districts, inner cities) that have low per-student expenditures, and a handful of very affluent areas that spend a lot, and the latter raise the average expenditure more than the average test scores.

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True, although it's not immediately obvious how teaching bogus history and science results in poor math scores.

barmar, on 2017-April-19, 13:48, said:

I'd argue that a school system that chooses to teach superstition and hagiography as factual probably doesn't place much emphasis on teaching thinking skills of any kind. Math does require a certain discipline of mind (I seem to vaguely recall....I did train as a chemical engineer back in the day, so at one point I knew ...fortunately I doubt that any profs of mine read this forum, assuming any are still alive.... some fairly advanced calculus. I'd lost it all within 10 years, as I found when throwing away my text on Heat, Mass and Momentum Transfer and glancing inside

As readers here will know from some of my bridge posting, I also lost most of my training in statistics

Inculcation of logical thinking can not be compartmentalised i.e on one hand you will ask pupils to follow some absurd or bogus curricula bereft of any logic on the other hand goad them to be proficient in Maths(which is the most logical of any subject) ; does not happen for average students.

Winstonm, on 2017-April-19, 11:37, said:

That the US is not as competent as other countries in implementing their educational system. The US outspends all the others but does not achieve better results, in fact worse results in many cases.

To me this is a wakeup call to review the US educational delivery system, compare it to other countries doing a better job, and try to improve the US system. Of course the problem will be all of the sacred cows and vested interests in the current system. It seems unlikely that the people running the current system would be the ones that could or would improve it, so outside input will probably be needed.

A recent quote I read (cannot remember the source at the moment): "It is difficult to make a person understand a problem when their paycheck is dependent upon them not understanding the problem-"

Winstonm, on 2017-April-19, 11:37, said:

The teachers' union is stronger in America than in any other country.

Cyberyeti, on 2017-April-10, 12:22, said:

Islam does not allow women to pray with the men. That's got to be unconstitutional.
Islam practices female genital mutilation. That is against the law.
http://www.wxyz.com/...ordered-to-jail
The doctor is claiming religious freedom.
Utah was not allowed to continue the practice of polygamy when it became a state.

Islam is the religion of misogyny.

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 20:34, said:

Pakistan has no teachers' union: the literacy rate there is 54.9%. Unions bad; Trump good? Is that all you can offer the discussion?

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 20:41, said:

Neither does orthodox Judaism

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FGM pre-dates Islam, it was an African thing, although it's true now that it is mainly practiced in Islam.

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Not arguing with that, Islam is very misogynistic in lots of ways, but so are many religions. Do you really think the Catholic ban on birth control/abortion is not to control women ? (and to create more Catholics to tkae over the world/make more money for the church)

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 20:34, said:

You are right in comparison to Germany. There is no teacher's union. You know why? Almost all German teachers are (fairly well paid) civil servants. That's a job with effectively a lifetime of employment guaranteed by law.

Try again.

The problems with US schools have been discussed in this (and other) threads and have little to do with teachers unions. They are:

1. Poverty. Kids who need to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or who is taking care of a younger sibling, or how they are getting to and from school safely are going to have a tougher time learning than more affluent kids. Kids whose parents have time to help them with homework will do better than kids with parents who are hustling 12-hour work days to make ends meet. US has much higher percentage of children in poverty than other comparably affluent countries. While we spend relatively a lot on schools, we spend very little on social safety net.

2. Allocation of spending. Since schools are funded primarily by local property tax, the wealthy communities spend a lot and bring up the average, while poor community schools are underfunded. We could fix this without increasing overall spending, but the wealthy communities are very powerful in local politics and will lobby heavily against it.

3. Use of spending. A series of laws requiring equity in education mean that the US spends a lot of money educating kids with mental or physical disabilities. This is laudable in some ways, and many countries do not do as good a job for such children. But it raises the average (mean) spending per pupil significantly while not helping the majority of kids.

4. Attitude towards teachers in culture. This is not so much pay (although that could also be better) as promotion to leadership, respect in writing on education, etc. The way teachers are treated in US discourages people from entering or staying with the profession. Other countries give teachers a lot more respect.

jogs, on 2017-April-19, 20:41, said:

Look up the quiverfull movement. Hint: it is a Christian sect. Second hint: it is arguably one of the most misognyist religious sects on the planet. Also: take a look at the power structure of the RC church and ask yourself whether women have equal rights within that religion.

It is an interesting question as to whether subordination of women arises because of religion, and the drive to obtain and maintain control over society, or whether subordination of women arose culturally and was adopted by (most) religions for the same reason that all religions coopt the myths and traditions of religions they seek to replace. It is clear that religions tend to slowly adapt to cultural change in order to maintain control of their flocks. Look at how Catholicism has slowly accept d some scientific thinking.

Islam will almost certainly follow suit, but as a younger religion, its attitudes on many things are reminiscent of how Christians believed several hundred years ago, when women were the property of the men within their family until married off to become the property of their husband.

And as with xianity, different sects will proceed at different speeds.