I understand his feelings. I just don't agree with his solutions. I hate to say this but if Bill Gates split his wealth with everybody on the planet that would be about $100/person. The folks in inner city Detroit would promptly piss that away on lottery tickets. The solutions are NOT simple!
I just did a Google search on the average wealth of the top 1% in the entire world. The result is $770,000. If you do the math and divide that up between all of the world that's roughly $7,700/person. Its absolutely fucking ridiculous to think that would be enough to change everybody's life on the planet. It took me all of two minutes to figure that out.....
The average wealth on the planet is $34,428 (again, Google search so no reason for bias). That's WEALTH not income. Lets split it all evenly so we can all be equally poor. That would be fair. Sorry, I just got a bug up my butt about this and I've had a few too many beers...
A certain amount of inequality is normal. But inequality has been going up in the United States over the years, and I don't think rich people are that much better than poor people. Some of that inequality is undeserved.
A certain amount of inequality is normal. But inequality has been going up in the United States over the years, and I don't think rich people are that much better than poor people. Some of that inequality is undeserved.
The average income in the world is $9,700. The poverty level for one person in the US is slightly more than $12,000. Even the poor are better off in the U.S. I agree that the trend of inequality is disturbing, to blame it solely on the rich though is ridiculous. I have a friend who makes most of his money wheeling and dealing comic books on the internet. He hasn't even filed a tax return in years despite making a substantial income. His wealth is probably more than mine but it's not documented. There is no way to track that as of yet so people like that fly under the radar. I guarantee there are a lot of people like him! That makes these statistics not representative of income or wealth. Even so there just isn't enough wealth to make everybody a millionaire!
A lot of inequality is normal and sometimes it's the result of some form of barriers, whether cultural or legal or economic (we would disagree on the scope of this) or what have you. What we should do is eliminate the barriers people might face in making the choices that they want to, not trying to force an equality that doesn't exist from the top down. I think, mostly, we do a good job of this. Very little stops any individual from pursuing any path in life other than their own inadequacies. If you're poor, society has aid to offer to get you job training, housing, an education. That's about all you can do.
A lot of inequality is normal and sometimes it's the result of some form of barriers, whether cultural or legal or economic (we would disagree on the scope of this) or what have you. What we should do is eliminate the barriers people might face in making the choices that they want to, not trying to force an equality that doesn't exist from the top down. I think, mostly, we do a good job of this. Very little stops any individual from pursuing any path in life other than their own inadequacies. If you're poor, society has aid to offer to get you job training, housing, an education. That's about all you can do.
Trump wants to execute drug dealers. Say, that's Duetere's thing. At first people were excited, oh he's so tough he wants to fix the drug problem! Then he turned loose his people executing drug dealers - and once that well ran dry he just started executing people they didn't like.
It warms my heart to know that I am referenced over weekends when I am not around as often.
re: family ancestry...I have come to the conclusion that I don't care about ancestry at all. My parents were born in Texas, their parents were born in North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas, their parents were probably from there, as well, and beyond that is completely irrelvant to me. I am much more concerned about where I will be in the future as opposed to where I came from in the past.
re: the Florida sheriff resigning.... I suppose the buck for the logistical failures lands on his desk but it really isn't his "fault", per se. Forcing him to resign solves nothing.
re: the Founding Fathers.... They were mostly highly educated folks but recall that no one had ever built a country the way they did before. Yes, initially its birth was steeped in bloodshed because of an armed rebellion but after that their desire to frame a nation based on political principles epitomized the Enlightenment.
Unfortunately, as with pancakes and children, the first one never turns out perfectly. Because no one had ever designed a nation that way before there were bound to be errors; recall how many dramatic failures occurred before the Moon Landing as well as Edison's philosophy on finding ways not to make a light bulb. Although we must never forget that this nation was founded on slavery, violence, and land grabs that doesn't mean that those atrocities are the sum total of our existence. The *idea* of America in its next iteration, one where a nation does not incorporate atrocity into its foundation, will be able to fully express the ideas of "equality" and "freedom" as they were *supposed* to be expressed here. All great nations throughout history committed atrocities and created wonders of art, architecture, science, etc. Those zeniths of thought do not outweigh the nadirs of shame, to be certain, but the former is not canceled out by the latter.
re: income inequality.... This is what happens when we allow money to influence politics, when we allow deep-pocketed donor to buy politicians outright. Once bought, the politician either drafts legislation which skews the playing field in favor of their large donor or the donor pre-drafts legislation and the politician introduces it. Either way, what was supposed to be a level playing field is tilted in favor of those with more money. About the only way to stop this would be to prevent nameless PACs though which people may donate tons of money, allowing politicians to accept only a certain capped amount from an individual person, as well as requiring that all donations be made public.
Hillary Clinton wanted to provide public funding for job training programs. Bernie Sanders wanted to provide public funding for higher education. The government already subsidizes affordable housing. These kind of programs aren't just random handouts of cash to people who don't have it; they're designed to fix the root causes of poverty, instead of just alleviating the symptoms.
Back at the homeless shelter, we got people back on their feet just by providing some basic training, resources, and information for them. All we needed was access to a computer and printer and a little time to work with people.
Curing poverty is dirt cheap. We should do more of it.
I don't care about inequality at all. The existence of inequality does not do any harm.
I care deeply about material poverty, which is by far the world's biggest problem.
The concentration on income inequality is just a way to get middle class people on board with wealth redistribution. I think that is a bad thing, as it has resulted in wealth redistribution that is not actually targeted at the poor. One area I agree with @jjstraka34 on is that there is too much animosity toward the poor in America, and people will not get on board with a government program unless they personally benefit from it.
The result in the US: we have the world's most progressive taxation system (meaning the wealthy pay a greater percentage of Federal Tax revenue than anywhere else in the world) but we one of the least progressive outlay system. In other words, we do not means test, and this results in a shortage of resources that are dedicated toward people who really need it.
Government programs should specifically target vulnerable populations. While I completely understand the problem of increased dependency, I'd be happy if we spent more on food stamps and other programs that help needy populations than on programs that all of Americans receive benefits from.
Having fabulously wealthy people in the country isn't bad, but it indicates that there are a lot more resources that could otherwise go to the poorest members of society.
In what would possibly be the most ridiculous appointment yet (with very stiff competition) Trump is actually considering putting his personal pilot in charge of the FAA. This shit is really getting out of hand:
The average wealth on the planet is $34,428 (again, Google search so no reason for bias). That's WEALTH not income. Lets split it all evenly so we can all be equally poor. That would be fair. Sorry, I just got a bug up my butt about this and I've had a few too many beers...
Not that I want to divide all wealth equally; but I think 34,428$ is a lot more than you think. The price of a lot of things depend on how wealth is concentrated geographically; there are a lot of countries where you would be very well off with 34,428$.
Regarding the earlier discussion of correlation/causation and which factors to include for: in some ways this makes it more complicated than necessary. Let us switch from the race thing to gender inequality for a change: people with scientific education that do not think it is a problem often argue that the gender gap vanishes if you control for things like job, job title, experience and education. Note that I do not agree with that; I have also seen studies that indicate that a (admittedly considerably smaller) gap remains even if controlling for these factors. This is a helpful observation, as it can help pinpoint where the disparity starts, but it does not really make it less of an issue.
The question then is, why have women jobs that tend to pay worse? Why do they have degrees that are not as valuable? Why do they have the lower seniority job titles? In fact, one important observation is that once a job is opened to women, there is a trend to it becoming both less respected and not as well paid. E.g. secretary and teacher were both more respected and comparatively better paying than they are now. Some people will put this down simply to supply-demand, and there is certainly some truth to this. But average salary is not only a function of supply-demand, but also of societal respect, so I doubt that is all. So even if you claim that by naturee women choose jobs that don't pay as well, the question remains why "typical" woman jobs are less paid than "typical jobs for men".
The point of this long discourse is that it is easy to make the claim that due to gender/race not having a large impact after controlling for other factors. I think you could even have done that in the pre civil war US. Blacks are not really worse off, after controlling for whether you are a slave or not... Sure, that example is over the top, but it still the same logic.
This is also especially the case when you put it down to culture; if it due to culture, is affirmative action not also an invitation to experience a more effective (in terms of material success) culture?
I would also argue that there is a strong possibility that with affirmative action you tend to pick more effective students on average... Someone with a 3.8 degree GPA from a poor school with overworked teachers and working class parents is likely to have a lot more potential than someone with a 3.9 GPA from a rich school district and academic parents who hired private teachers whenever their kid struggled in a class. This would be an interesting hypothesis to test; for example, you could predict that affirmative actions kids will perform better than non-affirmative action kids with similar grades in the same college. Though this also assumes that no college teacher will discriminate against or for affirmative actions kids, which shows how complicated these things are.
Someone with a 3.8 degree GPA from a poor school with overworked teachers and working class parents is likely to have a lot more potential than someone with a 3.9 GPA from a rich school district and academic parents who hired private teachers whenever their kid struggled in a class.
Yes, but this would be true regardless of race. If the characteristic being selected is success in an under-performing school, then it would encompass people of all races who were disadvantaged by their background.
There is still the problem of mismatching students with schools. If a student is accepted into a difficult program they might not succeed and see their confidence crushed and their employment prospects hindered slightly. However, if they are accepted into a less competitive program they might thrive.
In what would possibly be the most ridiculous appointment yet (with very stiff competition) Trump is actually considering putting his personal pilot in charge of the FAA. This shit is really getting out of hand:
In what would possibly be the most ridiculous appointment yet (with very stiff competition) Trump is actually considering putting his personal pilot in charge of the FAA. This shit is really getting out of hand:
Someone with a 3.8 degree GPA from a poor school with overworked teachers and working class parents is likely to have a lot more potential than someone with a 3.9 GPA from a rich school district and academic parents who hired private teachers whenever their kid struggled in a class.
Yes, but this would be true regardless of race. If the characteristic being selected is success in an under-performing school, then it would encompass people of all races who were disadvantaged by their background.
There is still the problem of mismatching students with schools. If a student is accepted into a difficult program they might not succeed and see their confidence crushed and their employment prospects hindered slightly. However, if they are accepted into a less competitive program they might thrive.
Yes, this is to a large degree for all poor people and should be taken into account. However, there is an extra disadvantage beyond being poor in also being black, due to stereotyping.
The point of not necessarily doing them a favor is in principle a reasonable one. My personal feeling on this is the more select institutions have more qualified applicants than they can handle, so I think even with affirmative action that they should be able to get sufficiently well qualified students.
The point of not necessarily doing them a favor is in principle a reasonable one. My personal feeling on this is the more select institutions have more qualified applicants than they can handle, so I think even with affirmative action that they should be able to get sufficiently well qualified students.
My objections to affirmative action are not based on universities not being able to find qualified students. It is that it actively discriminates against people on the basis of race. I'm not seeking to protect the academic institutions, but the applicants.
I also don't believe this is an issue only for the most selective institutions. At the very top there is little to separate applicants. But if you look at first-tier institutions that are not the very elite (say, US News's 20-50 ranked schools) you might find a bigger problem.
The Brookings article seems to concentrate on graduation rates rather than academic success (in terms of grades) and earning potential. The problem is that upper level schools (particularly those just below the elite schools who have their choice of many qualified applicants) graduate students at a much higher rate than mid tier and lower schools. Academic success and earning potential is a much better measure of whether there is a mismatch problem.
Also, if you base preferential admission on race as opposed to individualized characteristics, the mismatch would presumably be greater. This is consistent with the point you made in your initial post: people who succeed despite disadvantaged backgrounds are likely more qualified than their peers who came from well-off families.
However, when you select on the basis of race this would include minority students from well off backgrounds. Assuming that they have had the same ability to maximize their potential as white students from well-off families, they are more likely to be mismatched on account of preferential admission.
Keep in mind we are not working in a world where quotas are legal in public schools, meaning that many of the proposals mentioned on this thread have not been adopted.
If we were to implement affirmative action programs, we could definitely use a more precise criterion than race by itself. Geography and family income and net worth would be excellent alternatives that could zero in on the folks who were truly the most disadvantaged and therefore show the most promise due to overcoming the obstacles in their early lives.
The SCOTUS just decided that it was not going to hear the Trump Administration appeal of a Federal Judge's ruling preventing it from ending the DACA program. In other words, the SCOTUS just told Trump "no"...or they told the DACA recipients to dream on (see what I did there?).
The SCOTUS just decided that it was not going to hear the Trump Administration appeal of a Federal Judge's ruling preventing it from ending the DACA program. In other words, the SCOTUS just told Trump "no"...or they told the DACA recipients to dream on (see what I did there?).
Fun fact: "Dream On" was actually featured on Aerosmith's debut album, and was a local smash in Boston, in 1973. However, it didn't became the classic rock staple it is today until it was re-issued as a single in 1976, between Toys in the Attic and Rocks. Nothing like that will ever happen again in the music industry.
As for the Supreme Court, it seems to me that Anthony Kennedy must be on the side of DACA. If I have one wish for the next 3 years, it's that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy manage to live through all of them. Because another Trump appointment (much less two) will cause untold disaster over the next 3 decades. The current make-up of the court (plus and minus individual people but not it's ideological mix) enshrined unlimited money in politics (barring a constitutional amendment) forever in Citizens United. God only knows what kind of rulings a 6-3 conservative court would usher in. Right now, it is essentially 4-4 with Kennedy as a wild card, but a wild card that believes in a woman's right to choose and gay rights (at least up to a point). Add another Gorsuch and Alito?? That is a recipe for a total corporatocracy. The Presidency and Congress have nothing on the power of the Supreme Court. It's our least talked about branch, and by far the most important.
If we were to implement affirmative action programs, we could definitely use a more precise criterion than race by itself. Geography and family income and net worth would be excellent alternatives that could zero in on the folks who were truly the most disadvantaged and therefore show the most promise due to overcoming the obstacles in their early lives.
@semiticgod and I think that if a school has an interest in diversity in order to create a certain type of learning environment, then I think race can be considered for that purpose. I just don't think it is just for it to be the dispositive characteristic for selection, especially when it disadvantages others on account of an immutable trait.
The Presidency and Congress have nothing on the power of the Supreme Court. It's our least talked about branch, and by far the most important.
It was never designed to be, nor should it have ever been, the most important branch. It was specifically intended to be the weakest branch.
As Hamilton said in Federalist 78 "the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them"
The Presidency and Congress have nothing on the power of the Supreme Court. It's our least talked about branch, and by far the most important.
It was never designed to be, nor should it have ever been, the most important branch. It was specifically intended to be the weakest branch.
As Hamilton said in Federalist 78 "the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them"
They are the weakest branch in that they can't initiate anything. Their only function is to rule on whether laws are constitutional or not. They also don't ever have to run for office so they shouldn't really be beholden to any special interests. It's always enlightening to me that on any ruling you can pretty accurately predict how individual justices will decide. That shouldn't be the case unless their minds are already up before they look at the evidence. Another example of how polarized we are as a people. Everyone seems to think that their side is 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong. Compromise is seen as weakness in that context.
It's always enlightening to me that on any ruling you can pretty accurately predict how individual justices will decide. That shouldn't be the case unless their minds are already up before they look at the evidence.
They are not a trial court. In most cases, you WANT to be able to predict how they will decide, especially since over half the cases in recent terms were unanimous.
If you are deciding cases on the basis of your individual opinions, unbound by the actual law then a look at the record must be integral. Luckily none of them (save maaayyybe Breyer) do so.
Even apart from that, predictability in the law is an important value all on its own. Its why precedent carries weight. We organize our lives around Supreme Court decisions. They better be at least somewhat predictable
You may choose to believe me or not, but one of the members on my previous board--the board which died--was a lawyer in a New York firm and she had actually presented arguments in the Supreme Court chamber. According to her, most of the time everyone on both sides pretty much knows how the decisions are going to go since the text of the oral arguments had already been submitted and reviewed. Most of what transpires in the chamber is nothing more than going through the motions--they had all already read the book so now they are watching the movie together, therefore there are no surprises.
Comments
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wants-to-execute-drug-dealers-2018-2?utm_content=bufferb6ab2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer-bi
re: family ancestry...I have come to the conclusion that I don't care about ancestry at all. My parents were born in Texas, their parents were born in North Carolina, Missouri, and Texas, their parents were probably from there, as well, and beyond that is completely irrelvant to me. I am much more concerned about where I will be in the future as opposed to where I came from in the past.
re: the Florida sheriff resigning.... I suppose the buck for the logistical failures lands on his desk but it really isn't his "fault", per se. Forcing him to resign solves nothing.
re: the Founding Fathers.... They were mostly highly educated folks but recall that no one had ever built a country the way they did before. Yes, initially its birth was steeped in bloodshed because of an armed rebellion but after that their desire to frame a nation based on political principles epitomized the Enlightenment.
Unfortunately, as with pancakes and children, the first one never turns out perfectly. Because no one had ever designed a nation that way before there were bound to be errors; recall how many dramatic failures occurred before the Moon Landing as well as Edison's philosophy on finding ways not to make a light bulb. Although we must never forget that this nation was founded on slavery, violence, and land grabs that doesn't mean that those atrocities are the sum total of our existence. The *idea* of America in its next iteration, one where a nation does not incorporate atrocity into its foundation, will be able to fully express the ideas of "equality" and "freedom" as they were *supposed* to be expressed here. All great nations throughout history committed atrocities and created wonders of art, architecture, science, etc. Those zeniths of thought do not outweigh the nadirs of shame, to be certain, but the former is not canceled out by the latter.
re: income inequality.... This is what happens when we allow money to influence politics, when we allow deep-pocketed donor to buy politicians outright. Once bought, the politician either drafts legislation which skews the playing field in favor of their large donor or the donor pre-drafts legislation and the politician introduces it. Either way, what was supposed to be a level playing field is tilted in favor of those with more money. About the only way to stop this would be to prevent nameless PACs though which people may donate tons of money, allowing politicians to accept only a certain capped amount from an individual person, as well as requiring that all donations be made public.
I mean, in theory, yeah. Have you ever tried to access any of it?
Back at the homeless shelter, we got people back on their feet just by providing some basic training, resources, and information for them. All we needed was access to a computer and printer and a little time to work with people.
Curing poverty is dirt cheap. We should do more of it.
I care deeply about material poverty, which is by far the world's biggest problem.
The concentration on income inequality is just a way to get middle class people on board with wealth redistribution. I think that is a bad thing, as it has resulted in wealth redistribution that is not actually targeted at the poor. One area I agree with @jjstraka34 on is that there is too much animosity toward the poor in America, and people will not get on board with a government program unless they personally benefit from it.
The result in the US: we have the world's most progressive taxation system (meaning the wealthy pay a greater percentage of Federal Tax revenue than anywhere else in the world) but we one of the least progressive outlay system. In other words, we do not means test, and this results in a shortage of resources that are dedicated toward people who really need it.
Government programs should specifically target vulnerable populations. While I completely understand the problem of increased dependency, I'd be happy if we spent more on food stamps and other programs that help needy populations than on programs that all of Americans receive benefits from.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/375542-axios-trump-wants-longtime-personal-pilot-to-head-faa
Regarding the earlier discussion of correlation/causation and which factors to include for: in some ways this makes it more complicated than necessary. Let us switch from the race thing to gender inequality for a change: people with scientific education that do not think it is a problem often argue that the gender gap vanishes if you control for things like job, job title, experience and education. Note that I do not agree with that; I have also seen studies that indicate that a (admittedly considerably smaller) gap remains even if controlling for these factors. This is a helpful observation, as it can help pinpoint where the disparity starts, but it does not really make it less of an issue.
The question then is, why have women jobs that tend to pay worse? Why do they have degrees that are not as valuable? Why do they have the lower seniority job titles? In fact, one important observation is that once a job is opened to women, there is a trend to it becoming both less respected and not as well paid. E.g. secretary and teacher were both more respected and comparatively better paying than they are now. Some people will put this down simply to supply-demand, and there is certainly some truth to this. But average salary is not only a function of supply-demand, but also of societal respect, so I doubt that is all. So even if you claim that by naturee women choose jobs that don't pay as well, the question remains why "typical" woman jobs are less paid than "typical jobs for men".
The point of this long discourse is that it is easy to make the claim that due to gender/race not having a large impact after controlling for other factors. I think you could even have done that in the pre civil war US. Blacks are not really worse off, after controlling for whether you are a slave or not... Sure, that example is over the top, but it still the same logic.
This is also especially the case when you put it down to culture; if it due to culture, is affirmative action not also an invitation to experience a more effective (in terms of material success) culture?
I would also argue that there is a strong possibility that with affirmative action you tend to pick more effective students on average... Someone with a 3.8 degree GPA from a poor school with overworked teachers and working class parents is likely to have a lot more potential than someone with a 3.9 GPA from a rich school district and academic parents who hired private teachers whenever their kid struggled in a class. This would be an interesting hypothesis to test; for example, you could predict that affirmative actions kids will perform better than non-affirmative action kids with similar grades in the same college. Though this also assumes that no college teacher will discriminate against or for affirmative actions kids, which shows how complicated these things are.
I really like this comic:
https://digitalsynopsis.com/inspiration/privileged-kids-on-a-plate-pencilsword-toby-morris/
There is still the problem of mismatching students with schools. If a student is accepted into a difficult program they might not succeed and see their confidence crushed and their employment prospects hindered slightly. However, if they are accepted into a less competitive program they might thrive.
I really hope his copilot was named Donut.
The point of not necessarily doing them a favor is in principle a reasonable one. My personal feeling on this is the more select institutions have more qualified applicants than they can handle, so I think even with affirmative action that they should be able to get sufficiently well qualified students.
This article here https://www.brookings.edu/research/are-minority-students-harmed-by-affirmative-action/ seems at first glance to be a fairly reasonable analysis of the situation, but I will readily admit I did not follow the links to the papers that disagree or follow up the sources.
I also don't believe this is an issue only for the most selective institutions. At the very top there is little to separate applicants. But if you look at first-tier institutions that are not the very elite (say, US News's 20-50 ranked schools) you might find a bigger problem. The Brookings article seems to concentrate on graduation rates rather than academic success (in terms of grades) and earning potential. The problem is that upper level schools (particularly those just below the elite schools who have their choice of many qualified applicants) graduate students at a much higher rate than mid tier and lower schools. Academic success and earning potential is a much better measure of whether there is a mismatch problem.
Also, if you base preferential admission on race as opposed to individualized characteristics, the mismatch would presumably be greater. This is consistent with the point you made in your initial post: people who succeed despite disadvantaged backgrounds are likely more qualified than their peers who came from well-off families.
However, when you select on the basis of race this would include minority students from well off backgrounds. Assuming that they have had the same ability to maximize their potential as white students from well-off families, they are more likely to be mismatched on account of preferential admission.
Keep in mind we are not working in a world where quotas are legal in public schools, meaning that many of the proposals mentioned on this thread have not been adopted.
As for the Supreme Court, it seems to me that Anthony Kennedy must be on the side of DACA. If I have one wish for the next 3 years, it's that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Anthony Kennedy manage to live through all of them. Because another Trump appointment (much less two) will cause untold disaster over the next 3 decades. The current make-up of the court (plus and minus individual people but not it's ideological mix) enshrined unlimited money in politics (barring a constitutional amendment) forever in Citizens United. God only knows what kind of rulings a 6-3 conservative court would usher in. Right now, it is essentially 4-4 with Kennedy as a wild card, but a wild card that believes in a woman's right to choose and gay rights (at least up to a point). Add another Gorsuch and Alito?? That is a recipe for a total corporatocracy. The Presidency and Congress have nothing on the power of the Supreme Court. It's our least talked about branch, and by far the most important.
As Hamilton said in Federalist 78 "the judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them"
If you are deciding cases on the basis of your individual opinions, unbound by the actual law then a look at the record must be integral. Luckily none of them (save maaayyybe Breyer) do so.
Even apart from that, predictability in the law is an important value all on its own. Its why precedent carries weight. We organize our lives around Supreme Court decisions. They better be at least somewhat predictable