|
|
On June 22 2012 01:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 01:42 Lightwip wrote:
Employers will screw over their employees without a second thought if it would be more profitable. This has been proven many, many times throughout history. So what? I could also say that employers get rid of lazy employees that are not productive enough to warrant the compensation that employers give those employees. The purpose of private enterprise is not to give jobs to people and pay them. The purpose of private enterprise is to be profitable, and the employment of people is incidental to that goal.
I take it your an advocate of slavery then? since thats just ensuring profit at the expense of employees?
Forced prostitution the best thing since sliced bread? After all a lot cheaper then legal.
Dream about utopia's all you want. Private businesses have proven at every corner that they will abuse and exploit all they can get away with.
|
On June 22 2012 01:59 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 01:46 xDaunt wrote:On June 22 2012 01:42 Lightwip wrote:
Employers will screw over their employees without a second thought if it would be more profitable. This has been proven many, many times throughout history. So what? I could also say that employers get rid of lazy employees that are not productive enough to warrant the compensation that employers give those employees. The purpose of private enterprise is not to give jobs to people and pay them. The purpose of private enterprise is to be profitable, and the employment of people is incidental to that goal. I take it your an advocate of slavery then? since thats just ensuring profit at the expense of employees? Forced prostitution the best thing since sliced bread? After all a lot cheaper then legal. Dream about utopia's all you want. Private businesses have proven at every corner that they will abuse and exploit all they can get away with.
Okay, let's play "I'm going to make the most absurd strawman argument imaginable that has zero relevance to the conversation at hand" game and see how it goes.
You went first, so now it is my turn....
I take it from your post that employers should be enslaved to employees and be obliged to give them six-figure salaries, free healthcare, free dental care, 100% pensions after two years of work, and only require 5 hours of "work" per week while giving six months vacation per year?
Oh wait, this game isn't very fun or interesting.
|
Come now, this game is extremely fun.
Let's privatize the military so that we can have the free market resolve any inefficiencies in the program that aren't profitable. The power of free enterprise will prevail.
Moneygrubbing businessmen are just as bad as lazy government workers. They both have plenty of problems and advocating free enterprise as the solution is a foolish position.
|
On June 22 2012 02:13 Lightwip wrote:
Come now, this game is extremely fun.
Let's privatize the military so that we can have the free market resolve any inefficiencies in the program that aren't profitable. The power of free enterprise will prevail.
Moneygrubbing businessmen are just as bad as lazy government workers. They both have plenty of problems and advocating free enterprise as the solution is a foolish position.
I know it was supposed to be an absurd example, but we actually have privatized massive portions of military logistics already, and the result has generally been a increase in the cost and decrease in the quality of services.
|
On June 22 2012 02:13 Lightwip wrote:
Come now, this game is extremely fun.
Let's privatize the military so that we can have the free market resolve any inefficiencies in the program that aren't profitable. The power of free enterprise will prevail.
Uh. And you think we haven't?
Lockheed Martin?
Boeing?
General Dynamics?
Northrop Grumman?
Raytheon?
Ever hear of those guys?
Do you want to even begin to compare those guys to a state-owned militrary company like in China or Russia?
|
On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over.
This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors.
There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years.
|
On June 22 2012 03:28 Vega62a wrote:Show nested quote +On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over. This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors. There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years.
I agree. There are some educational assistance programs in the US but for the most part you have to pay your own way. And education costs in this country have spiraled completely out of control. It should actually be a much bigger campaign issue than it is.
|
On June 22 2012 03:13 HunterX11 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 02:13 Lightwip wrote:
Come now, this game is extremely fun.
Let's privatize the military so that we can have the free market resolve any inefficiencies in the program that aren't profitable. The power of free enterprise will prevail.
Moneygrubbing businessmen are just as bad as lazy government workers. They both have plenty of problems and advocating free enterprise as the solution is a foolish position. I know it was supposed to be an absurd example, but we actually have privatized massive portions of military logistics already, and the result has generally been a increase in the cost and decrease in the quality of services.
It is a question of how you end up licensing it. If you go for one big enterprise willing to provide hundrets of services for billions of dollars, you will end up with almost no bidders and a massive over-price. That has been proven very often.
What is even wrorse: license it all in small chunks and you will end up with a lot of specialised bits but absolutely no cohesion and therefore huge amounts of double-, triple- and higher number- work. BBC has been one of those. 100 £ for changing a lightbulb anyone?
If you really do not believe in governments abilities, then do not let them waste money on outsourcing. Make it so that any kind of enforcement of laws gets done by specialized police-units with no political association. That would make it so much easier to rearrange things after elections and the officials cannot assure political pressure to provide them with absurd laws to enforce and thereby the need for more workers.
At the moment Ministry of commerce has about 47.000 workers and ACTA and TPP will most likely provide a need for increasing that number...
|
On June 22 2012 03:35 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 03:28 Vega62a wrote:On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over. This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors. There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years. I agree. There are some educational assistance programs in the US but for the most part you have to pay your own way. And education costs in this country have spiraled completely out of control. It should actually be a much bigger campaign issue than it is.
In addition, nobody really knows about what kind of training is available, or what kind of jobs are out there, and for whatever reason, nobody's willing to pack up and move anymore (possibly because they can't afford it) to where the jobs are (largely mid-sized towns of between 10- and 100,000 people are where a lot of these manufacturing jobs live now).
All this combined with the absurd cost of higher education in this country and an attitude towards downsizing federal involvement in the same really means that we've shot ourselves in the foot. It's like everyone forgot how to invest in the future.
|
On June 22 2012 03:35 TheToast wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 03:28 Vega62a wrote:On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over. This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors. There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years. I agree. There are some educational assistance programs in the US but for the most part you have to pay your own way. And education costs in this country have spiraled completely out of control. It should actually be a much bigger campaign issue than it is.
I agree, too, which is why I said that the education system was the first place that I'd go reform. We spend a ton of money on public education in this country, and the return that we get on that investment is absolutely horrific. The fault for the poor state our educational system is in lies solely at the feet of bureaucrats running it at federal, state, and local levels.
However, I do want to make clear that parents share some of the blame as well for not keeping their kids focused on school work.
|
On June 22 2012 04:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 03:35 TheToast wrote:On June 22 2012 03:28 Vega62a wrote:On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over. This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors. There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years. I agree. There are some educational assistance programs in the US but for the most part you have to pay your own way. And education costs in this country have spiraled completely out of control. It should actually be a much bigger campaign issue than it is. I agree, too, which is why I said that the education system was the first place that I'd go reform. We spend a ton of money on public education in this country, and the return that we get on that investment is absolutely horrific. The fault for the poor state our educational system is in lies solely at the feet of bureaucrats running it at federal, state, and local levels. However, I do want to make clear that parents share some of the blame as well for not keeping their kids focused on school work.
This is an absurd post, and an example of how easy it is, and how dangerous it is, to oversimplify problems and to pretend like there's a magic bullet solution.
Our educational system has numerous problems, from unmotivated students to a culture which devalues education to inadequate funding (believe me, as the child of an educator and a product of an inner-city school, it is hugely inadequate) to, yes, bureaucratic difficulties in changing curriculum to extremely low standards.
To sit there and say "It's all the government's fault" that education is failing is absurd and the kind of easy thinking that we need to avoid.
|
On June 22 2012 04:13 Vega62a wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:01 xDaunt wrote:On June 22 2012 03:35 TheToast wrote:On June 22 2012 03:28 Vega62a wrote:On June 21 2012 23:03 TheToast wrote:On June 21 2012 15:58 smarty pants wrote:On June 21 2012 14:36 TheToast wrote:
That's somewhat misleading. While many manufacturing jobs have moved overseas, many have simply been eliminated due to increasing automation. There's plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in this country, in fact many employers in some parts of the country are constantly scrambling to find skilled welders and die makers. I saw a news story last week about the Manitowac ship building company in north eastern Wisconsin. They've got a bunch of major navy contracts and can barely fulfill them because of the lack of skill welders in the area. I've got a friend from high school who went into custom machining work, he's been doing pretty darn well for himself. Depending on where you are, there are still plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs in many areas.
What there aren't are unskilled manufacturing jobs; that is jobs which require no education or training. Those jobs are gone and they're never coming back. It's simply not economical to pay someone 30k + benefits to do repetitive monkey work and it never will be again. Especially when workers try to unionize and cause trouble, it's simply not worth trying to keep those jobs here. That's not to say there aren't disadvantages to moving jobs overseas; greatly increased lead times, legal issues, and shipping costs do hurt. But the labor is so cheap and you don't have to worry about unions causing issues that it makes sense. If you were to bring the jobs back, any reasonable company would increase automation to the point where few workers are needed. The few remaining steel mills in the US are almost entirely automated; some mid sized ones have only about a dozen people working in them. The "good" manufacturing jobs of the 60s and 70s are a thing of the past.
That's very true but I believe there is still a sizable workforce of manufacturing still needed. Automation is surely the greatest opponent of the modern manufacturer, with technology advancing it is trend that is to continue as it always has. But then again those machines need repair and maintenance, and could be done by the same people. I think in the end it's still important to have large industries no matter what they are and who operate them. We export far too little even for a ultra service based country like ours. I suppose a solution would be to ramp up production of desirable goods and self consumption of said goods. Cars are a good example, but are tarnished by external factors like unions. That's why right to work states like South Carolina has a large work force seeking jobs and a demand for those candidates. It would really take too much either, as Germany seems pretty solid as a manufacturer with a 33% occupation in industry vs the United States's 22%. Then again Germany has been for so long an industrial giant. (to the bolded part) I agree, but those would be skilled jobs that would require some training or education. The point I'm trying to make is that the era of the high paying unskilled factory job is over. This does not need to be an issue, though. In Germany, there are still many skilled manufacturing jobs, which are essentially the modern blue-collar job. They require roughly six months to a year of training, and the German government has decided that for those who don't want to go to college, but want to work manufacturing, or those whose jobs have been lost due to shifting markets, they will provide financial assistance for training in these sectors. There is no reason the US couldn't do the same. There are plenty of skilled manufacturing jobs available, but nobody has the skills to fill them. It's cheaper to train an unemployed worker once and set them to working again than it is to provide them with unemployment for years. I agree. There are some educational assistance programs in the US but for the most part you have to pay your own way. And education costs in this country have spiraled completely out of control. It should actually be a much bigger campaign issue than it is. I agree, too, which is why I said that the education system was the first place that I'd go reform. We spend a ton of money on public education in this country, and the return that we get on that investment is absolutely horrific. The fault for the poor state our educational system is in lies solely at the feet of bureaucrats running it at federal, state, and local levels. However, I do want to make clear that parents share some of the blame as well for not keeping their kids focused on school work. Our educational system has numerous problems, from unmotivated students to a culture which devalues education
Undervalues education but drastically overvalues pieces of paper. Which is why the general public is stupid and people pay 100k for an undergrad degree. But I'm a bit off topic I guess 
|
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it.
|
On June 22 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it.
Well, as of 2009 you're mostly right (Switzerland and the US are neck and neck) and that may have changed. But yet teachers are paid atrociously low salaries and schools usually don't have the resources necessary to do everything that needs doing.
You have to realize that the US has a vastly larger population than most of the other OECD countries. Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, the cost of hiring additional workers, and deminishing utility of labor, among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results.
I agree that the US educational system needs streamlining, and soon. It's a huge, burgeoning organization, and it can and should be run better. But that is not an excuse not to fund it adequately when it is clearly not getting enough money to suit its needs. In the meantime, it needs cash. Teachers are being laid off, supplies are inadequate, and the system is floundering. And there's no denying that.
|
On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:
Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results.
Not necessarily. Scaling up is also subject to economies of scale, which tends to make a the per-unit cost of production lower as quantity produced increases. At "low" levels of production, economies of scale is more important than the effort required to acquire additional resources. As those resources become more scarce, the cost of acquiring even more of them becomes more impactful than the benefits of economies of scale.
The derivative of total cost with respect to quantity tends to start high, get lower, reach a minimum, then rise.
It could well be that we're to the right of the per-unit production cost minimum. I don't know.
|
On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it. Well, as of 2009 you're mostly right ( Switzerland and the US are neck and neck) and that may have changed. But yet teachers are paid atrociously low salaries and schools usually don't have the resources necessary to do everything that needs doing. You have to realize that the US has a vastly larger population than virtually all of the other OECD countries. Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results. I agree that the US educational system needs streamlining, and soon. But in the meantime, it needs cash. Teachers are being laid off, supplies are inadequate, and the system is floundering. And there's no denying that.
You have it backwards. In most simple cases, the marginal cost per additional unit goes down as fixed costs are spread over a larger quantity of units. In more complicated cases, you will see cases where there's an interchange between economies of scale and dis-economies of scale as additional fixed costs have to be incurred to allow higher production at the margin (like building a new school that is not yet filled to capacity). Basically what I am saying is that when you're talking about national populations numbering in the tens of millions, there shouldn't be any functional difference in economies of scale.
|
On June 22 2012 04:49 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:On June 22 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it. Well, as of 2009 you're mostly right ( Switzerland and the US are neck and neck) and that may have changed. But yet teachers are paid atrociously low salaries and schools usually don't have the resources necessary to do everything that needs doing. You have to realize that the US has a vastly larger population than virtually all of the other OECD countries. Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results. I agree that the US educational system needs streamlining, and soon. But in the meantime, it needs cash. Teachers are being laid off, supplies are inadequate, and the system is floundering. And there's no denying that. You have it backwards. In most simple cases, the marginal cost per additional unit goes down as fixed costs are spread over a larger quantity of units. In more complicated cases, you will see cases where there's an interchange between economies of scale and dis-economies of scale as additional fixed costs have to be incurred to allow higher production at the margin (like building a new school that is not yet filled to capacity). Basically what I am saying is that when you're talking about national populations numbering in the tens of millions, there shouldn't be any functional difference in economies of scale.
You're mistaking marginal cost for average total cost.
There are two fundamental things wrong with your post. When you talk about adding fixed costs and spreading them out per unit, you're speaking about the movement of average total cost (ATC). This is not the same as marginal cost, which is the partial derivative with respect to quantity. It's true that there is a stair-steppy motion with respect to quantity that factors into cost, we consider it as a variable cost during a model, because the point of a fixed cost is that it's fixed. If you let it vary with quantity in your model, it's not a fixed cost.
The second is that you've said that economies of scale / diseconomies of scale play against one another to adjust the marginal cost, which is true. However, you decided arbitrarily that they did not factor into marginal cost at the level of production that we're at, which you have no evidence for.
On June 22 2012 04:46 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:
Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results.
Not necessarily. Scaling up is also subject to economies of scale, which tends to make a the per-unit cost of production lower as quantity produced increases. At "low" levels of production, economies of scale is more important than the effort required to acquire additional resources. As those resources become more scarce, the cost of acquiring even more of them becomes more impactful than the benefits of economies of scale. The derivative of total cost with respect to quantity tends to start high, get lower, reach a minimum, then rise. It could well be that we're to the right of the per-unit production cost minimum. I don't know.
This post is correct (although you don't address the deminishing utility of labor) and you're right, it's entirely possible that our production level is on the diminishing end of the MC curve. However I am more likely to assert that we're not, simply because we educate one of the largest numbers of children in the world. This may be arbitrary, but it's also a conservative estimate, which is generally a safer route economically.
|
On June 22 2012 05:00 Vega62a wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:On June 22 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it. Well, as of 2009 you're mostly right ( Switzerland and the US are neck and neck) and that may have changed. But yet teachers are paid atrociously low salaries and schools usually don't have the resources necessary to do everything that needs doing. You have to realize that the US has a vastly larger population than virtually all of the other OECD countries. Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results. I agree that the US educational system needs streamlining, and soon. But in the meantime, it needs cash. Teachers are being laid off, supplies are inadequate, and the system is floundering. And there's no denying that. You have it backwards. In most simple cases, the marginal cost per additional unit goes down as fixed costs are spread over a larger quantity of units. In more complicated cases, you will see cases where there's an interchange between economies of scale and dis-economies of scale as additional fixed costs have to be incurred to allow higher production at the margin (like building a new school that is not yet filled to capacity). Basically what I am saying is that when you're talking about national populations numbering in the tens of millions, there shouldn't be any functional difference in economies of scale. You're mistaking marginal cost for average total cost. There are two fundamental things wrong with your post. When you talk about adding fixed costs and spreading them out per unit, you're speaking about the movement of average total cost (ATC). This is not the same as marginal cost, which is the partial derivative with respect to quantity. It's true that there is a stair-steppy motion with respect to quantity that factors into cost, we consider it as a variable cost during a model, because the point of a fixed cost is that it's fixed. If you let it vary with quantity in your model, it's not a fixed cost. The second is that you've said that economies of scale / diseconomies of scale play against one another to adjust the marginal cost, which is true. However, you decided arbitrarily that they did not factor into marginal cost at the level of production that we're at, which you have no evidence for. Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 04:46 Signet wrote:On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:
Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results.
Not necessarily. Scaling up is also subject to economies of scale, which tends to make a the per-unit cost of production lower as quantity produced increases. At "low" levels of production, economies of scale is more important than the effort required to acquire additional resources. As those resources become more scarce, the cost of acquiring even more of them becomes more impactful than the benefits of economies of scale. The derivative of total cost with respect to quantity tends to start high, get lower, reach a minimum, then rise. It could well be that we're to the right of the per-unit production cost minimum. I don't know. This post is correct (although you don't address the deminishing utility of labor) and you're right, it's entirely possible that our production level is on the diminishing end of the MC curve. However I am more likely to assert that we're not, simply because we educate one of the largest numbers of children in the world. This may be arbitrary, but it's also a conservative estimate, which is generally a safer route economically.
Yes, yes, you're correct in that I commingled the concepts. However, I don't see why you're dinging me for arbitrary assumptions when you're the one who is presuming that the marginal cost of educating a student in the US is higher than in other countries because the US has a higher population. This is not intuitive at all, and I kinda think that the burden is on you to explain this one.
|
On June 22 2012 05:12 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On June 22 2012 05:00 Vega62a wrote:On June 22 2012 04:49 xDaunt wrote:On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:On June 22 2012 04:25 xDaunt wrote:
The US spends more per capita on education than any other country in the world. It's not a funding problem. Hell, my favorite studies are the ones of the DC school districts showing that the per child cost of education in public schools is higher than the per child cost of education in the private schools. Distribution of the funds can be better in many circumstances, but this is not a problem that needs more money thrown at it. Well, as of 2009 you're mostly right ( Switzerland and the US are neck and neck) and that may have changed. But yet teachers are paid atrociously low salaries and schools usually don't have the resources necessary to do everything that needs doing. You have to realize that the US has a vastly larger population than virtually all of the other OECD countries. Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results. I agree that the US educational system needs streamlining, and soon. But in the meantime, it needs cash. Teachers are being laid off, supplies are inadequate, and the system is floundering. And there's no denying that. You have it backwards. In most simple cases, the marginal cost per additional unit goes down as fixed costs are spread over a larger quantity of units. In more complicated cases, you will see cases where there's an interchange between economies of scale and dis-economies of scale as additional fixed costs have to be incurred to allow higher production at the margin (like building a new school that is not yet filled to capacity). Basically what I am saying is that when you're talking about national populations numbering in the tens of millions, there shouldn't be any functional difference in economies of scale. You're mistaking marginal cost for average total cost. There are two fundamental things wrong with your post. When you talk about adding fixed costs and spreading them out per unit, you're speaking about the movement of average total cost (ATC). This is not the same as marginal cost, which is the partial derivative with respect to quantity. It's true that there is a stair-steppy motion with respect to quantity that factors into cost, we consider it as a variable cost during a model, because the point of a fixed cost is that it's fixed. If you let it vary with quantity in your model, it's not a fixed cost. The second is that you've said that economies of scale / diseconomies of scale play against one another to adjust the marginal cost, which is true. However, you decided arbitrarily that they did not factor into marginal cost at the level of production that we're at, which you have no evidence for. On June 22 2012 04:46 Signet wrote:On June 22 2012 04:35 Vega62a wrote:
Anybody with any sort of economics background will tell you that when you're producing a product (in this case, education), marginal cost (the cost of adding one additional student, and the first partial derivative of total cost with respect to quantity produced) will rise as your overall production rises. This is due to a variety of factors - logistics, coordination, and the cost of hiring additional workers among them. Simply from that perspective, I would expect to see a larger average total cost from the US than from, say, Norway, and not expect better results.
Not necessarily. Scaling up is also subject to economies of scale, which tends to make a the per-unit cost of production lower as quantity produced increases. At "low" levels of production, economies of scale is more important than the effort required to acquire additional resources. As those resources become more scarce, the cost of acquiring even more of them becomes more impactful than the benefits of economies of scale. The derivative of total cost with respect to quantity tends to start high, get lower, reach a minimum, then rise. It could well be that we're to the right of the per-unit production cost minimum. I don't know. This post is correct (although you don't address the deminishing utility of labor) and you're right, it's entirely possible that our production level is on the diminishing end of the MC curve. However I am more likely to assert that we're not, simply because we educate one of the largest numbers of children in the world. This may be arbitrary, but it's also a conservative estimate, which is generally a safer route economically. Yes, yes, you're correct in that I commingled the concepts. However, I don't see why you're dinging me for arbitrary assumptions when you're the one who is presuming that the marginal cost of educating a student in the US is higher than in other countries because the US has a higher population. This is not intuitive at all, and I kinda think that the burden is on you to explain this one.
You didn't comingle the concepts, you mixed them up. They are not the same. Marginal cost tends to rise as production rises, that is the general rule. There is a period where it drops, as explained best in Signet's post, but the general trend is that it rises. If you look at real graphs of marginal cost, the general trend is upward. Even if there is a minor dip at certain quantities, it is fairly certain that a higher production has a greater MC than a lower production. Therefore a higher population is reasonably certain, especially if it is orders of magnitude higher, to have a higher marginal cost of education than a lower population, especially if the population is orders of magnitude lower. It's not on me to explain that to you any further if you refuse to understand it, simply because it is not intuitive to you.
Edit: Because I'm bored, here's a link to a page which explains it decently.
|
I was under the impression that education is almost entirely decentralized in the United States. I don't really know what the Department of Education actually does (other than the occasional bad legislation like No Child Left Behind). It's more the fact that a lot of states are horribly incompetent, corrupt, or uneducated, so those states have serious problems.
It just seems weird to characterize it as a nationwide problem if it's decentralized. Isn't it up to the states/counties to get their act together? What can the federal government realistically do?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
