Can't get excited
Its just more of the same: Iran is hiding the 666 under its hairpiece, Democrats are hiding under their hairpieces to avoid Feingold's resolution, Republicans would have you believe that all is well in Iraq and I just saved a lot on my car insurance.
What is really buggin me is the notion that is creeping into my mind about the similarities between ancient Rome and the US today. Since things didn't happen very fast in a non-computing age, Rome's decline was slow. By comparison, our decline could be as meteoric as the speed of information today. Not hundreds of years of misrule and squander of riches, but a few generations -- or worse a few administrations....
American kids are so far behind the curve academically, I'd rather my kids went to school in Poland, or at least adopted their standards of learning. Or better yet, take best of breed and score the Chinese and Indian mathematics, computer and engineering schools, anyone else's social studies or language arts, and perhaps even French political sciences ... in short, almost anything is to be found abroad of better quality and quantity. Starting from kindergarten we are taught to "think out of the box." The idea, apparently, is that we can then outsource mundane tasks and keep value added ones here in the US, keep the cutting and profitable edge. Trouble is, all the technical skills required for value added work are best (or most copiously) learned abroad ... the crux here being that this very fact makes a mockery of the notion that we keep the good, value added enterprises here. The people to staff them are living in India, or China.
The only things that people really come here to learn anymore is management: how to outsource for the greater good of the quarterly report. And then they go home to make their fortunes.
Our graduates? They know absolutely nothing of value: sociology prepares one to ask "would you like fries with that?" Accounting (assuming that one is ambitious and actually wants to make money) is outdated ... the computers and software are in India as is the people who e-mail you back your "pdf"s to print out and sign. Doctors? We have great medicine ... if you or your insurance company can afford it, and if your doctors feels like taking you as a patient. But why work as a doctor when you are choked by litigation and "the practice of medicine of fear?" No person worth a damn really wants to be anything less than a specialist, so they can afford the malpractice insurance and still have enough left over to buy a nice house and car. OBGYNs? Going to be harder to find, unless we import some nice Indian doctors.
Solutions? Let's get a grip on it and admit that we have failed in the great social experiment of the 1960's onwards. We need a meritocracy where those best suited get the chances. We need to establish whether someone has any aptitude, before trying to jam mathematics into an artist. And then force them to learn it ... really learn it. Up or out. Sorry. Do you think that the Chinese or Indians have any sympathy for the "challenged?" If so, you are frikkin nuts, as well as delusional. And their students pratically kill themselves trying to get ahead: there is no safety net, no notion that everything will be alright if they screw around an smoke dope through college. Instead, there is a good chance that they will starve if they mess up. Amazing what that threat might do to incent someone to try. No Daddy to pick up the pieces.
And the US USED to be like China and India. There was no safety net. And America was the most dynamic society the Earth has ever seen. How did we screw it up? Easy. The faulty logic of socialism told us that it was OK. We are all created equal and we all deserve to enjoy the wealth and riches of our country ... the wealth and riches that generations built. No doubt that a return to the masses of working poor is not palatable and can be avoided: what cannot is a return to responsibility. No free handouts. No spending money on bullshit like multilingualism -- like before, you come to the country and you learn the language. If not, you get someone to interpret ... on your dime, not ours.
Trial Lawyers of America, your time is up. Tort reform will go a long way to cutting expenses of many types to reasonable levels: and making health care affordable again. EVERYONE pays taxes. You make more, you pay more. You CONSUME MORE, you pay more. This one is critical: we need to curtail consumption to start the saving ethic once again: remove taxes from investments. It is not regressive in the greater scheme: if you buy a Mercedes, say $70,000 worth, you pay %15,000 in tax. You buy a civic (we don't make a small car that I'd buy -- lots of reasons there too), you pay $2,000. Your car drink 12 mpg? You pay big. If you are poor, you will drive a small car: there is no GOD (or other) given right to drive a big car. Driving is still a privilege and not a right. Everyone to their means: you want more, work for it and save.
Make staple foods tax free. Any pre-prepared foods (byond "minimally processed") you pay tax. If it does not meet certain requirements for nutrition, you pay double taxes or more. Coke, sodas, beer, booze, chips, pretzels, junk foods of all types (including candy) need to be hit with a sledgehammer. Make it easier to eat cheese and sausage than Cheetohs and Sprite. Anyone heard that water is still good for you? No calories, either.
Gas, yes I am back there, needs $1.00 per gallon in tax. Now. Too bad if you are stuck with a lemon SUV. Pass legistlation to phase it in over 5 years, if we have to, but give the car companies and eveyone else a chance to bail now. Cars over a certain weight and engine displacement should be whacked. We do not need heavy cars, the technology exists to have light small cars with adequate space. Large engines just use more fuel ... so what if you Lincoln Navigator cannot accelerate to 60mph in less than 10 seconds. If you need a car that big, you may have to be stuck with an absolute pig of a vehicle, both in size and performance: THERE IS NO REASON THE EARTH AND ALL ON IT SHOULD PAY FOR OUR FETISH FOR THESE VEHICULAR CRIMES. None. It is not justifiable and accordingly, you want one, you need to pay for it. Alternatives exists and are used ALL over the rest of the world.
Kids in school (back there too) ... if you flunk the grade you need to be held back until you get the picture. Or, at the age of 16, drop out to a technical school where you MUST learn a trade until the age of 18 plus an apprentice period of two years. No options. Or enter the military at 18 for four years. So, high school, or tech school or the army. Your choice. If you are just too "challenged" (we used to call it "stupid") to make it, well, the rest of society should not be made to suffer your misfortune with you. There is no fundamental right for the "challenged" to keep their class mates with them at their level of ineptitude. Rather that smacks more of unusual punishment for those who are capable and being deprived the opportunity of success -- almost a tort.
We have to dump almost all of the crap we have burdened ourselves with since 1960. Enforce color/race/gender blind laws. Equal pay. Equal opportunity. Provide those with ability the opportunity to advance: our nation's future depends on getting the best and the brightest out there, unencumbered by America's economic and commerical dead-ends.
What is really buggin me is the notion that is creeping into my mind about the similarities between ancient Rome and the US today. Since things didn't happen very fast in a non-computing age, Rome's decline was slow. By comparison, our decline could be as meteoric as the speed of information today. Not hundreds of years of misrule and squander of riches, but a few generations -- or worse a few administrations....
American kids are so far behind the curve academically, I'd rather my kids went to school in Poland, or at least adopted their standards of learning. Or better yet, take best of breed and score the Chinese and Indian mathematics, computer and engineering schools, anyone else's social studies or language arts, and perhaps even French political sciences ... in short, almost anything is to be found abroad of better quality and quantity. Starting from kindergarten we are taught to "think out of the box." The idea, apparently, is that we can then outsource mundane tasks and keep value added ones here in the US, keep the cutting and profitable edge. Trouble is, all the technical skills required for value added work are best (or most copiously) learned abroad ... the crux here being that this very fact makes a mockery of the notion that we keep the good, value added enterprises here. The people to staff them are living in India, or China.
The only things that people really come here to learn anymore is management: how to outsource for the greater good of the quarterly report. And then they go home to make their fortunes.
Our graduates? They know absolutely nothing of value: sociology prepares one to ask "would you like fries with that?" Accounting (assuming that one is ambitious and actually wants to make money) is outdated ... the computers and software are in India as is the people who e-mail you back your "pdf"s to print out and sign. Doctors? We have great medicine ... if you or your insurance company can afford it, and if your doctors feels like taking you as a patient. But why work as a doctor when you are choked by litigation and "the practice of medicine of fear?" No person worth a damn really wants to be anything less than a specialist, so they can afford the malpractice insurance and still have enough left over to buy a nice house and car. OBGYNs? Going to be harder to find, unless we import some nice Indian doctors.
Solutions? Let's get a grip on it and admit that we have failed in the great social experiment of the 1960's onwards. We need a meritocracy where those best suited get the chances. We need to establish whether someone has any aptitude, before trying to jam mathematics into an artist. And then force them to learn it ... really learn it. Up or out. Sorry. Do you think that the Chinese or Indians have any sympathy for the "challenged?" If so, you are frikkin nuts, as well as delusional. And their students pratically kill themselves trying to get ahead: there is no safety net, no notion that everything will be alright if they screw around an smoke dope through college. Instead, there is a good chance that they will starve if they mess up. Amazing what that threat might do to incent someone to try. No Daddy to pick up the pieces.
And the US USED to be like China and India. There was no safety net. And America was the most dynamic society the Earth has ever seen. How did we screw it up? Easy. The faulty logic of socialism told us that it was OK. We are all created equal and we all deserve to enjoy the wealth and riches of our country ... the wealth and riches that generations built. No doubt that a return to the masses of working poor is not palatable and can be avoided: what cannot is a return to responsibility. No free handouts. No spending money on bullshit like multilingualism -- like before, you come to the country and you learn the language. If not, you get someone to interpret ... on your dime, not ours.
Trial Lawyers of America, your time is up. Tort reform will go a long way to cutting expenses of many types to reasonable levels: and making health care affordable again. EVERYONE pays taxes. You make more, you pay more. You CONSUME MORE, you pay more. This one is critical: we need to curtail consumption to start the saving ethic once again: remove taxes from investments. It is not regressive in the greater scheme: if you buy a Mercedes, say $70,000 worth, you pay %15,000 in tax. You buy a civic (we don't make a small car that I'd buy -- lots of reasons there too), you pay $2,000. Your car drink 12 mpg? You pay big. If you are poor, you will drive a small car: there is no GOD (or other) given right to drive a big car. Driving is still a privilege and not a right. Everyone to their means: you want more, work for it and save.
Make staple foods tax free. Any pre-prepared foods (byond "minimally processed") you pay tax. If it does not meet certain requirements for nutrition, you pay double taxes or more. Coke, sodas, beer, booze, chips, pretzels, junk foods of all types (including candy) need to be hit with a sledgehammer. Make it easier to eat cheese and sausage than Cheetohs and Sprite. Anyone heard that water is still good for you? No calories, either.
Gas, yes I am back there, needs $1.00 per gallon in tax. Now. Too bad if you are stuck with a lemon SUV. Pass legistlation to phase it in over 5 years, if we have to, but give the car companies and eveyone else a chance to bail now. Cars over a certain weight and engine displacement should be whacked. We do not need heavy cars, the technology exists to have light small cars with adequate space. Large engines just use more fuel ... so what if you Lincoln Navigator cannot accelerate to 60mph in less than 10 seconds. If you need a car that big, you may have to be stuck with an absolute pig of a vehicle, both in size and performance: THERE IS NO REASON THE EARTH AND ALL ON IT SHOULD PAY FOR OUR FETISH FOR THESE VEHICULAR CRIMES. None. It is not justifiable and accordingly, you want one, you need to pay for it. Alternatives exists and are used ALL over the rest of the world.
Kids in school (back there too) ... if you flunk the grade you need to be held back until you get the picture. Or, at the age of 16, drop out to a technical school where you MUST learn a trade until the age of 18 plus an apprentice period of two years. No options. Or enter the military at 18 for four years. So, high school, or tech school or the army. Your choice. If you are just too "challenged" (we used to call it "stupid") to make it, well, the rest of society should not be made to suffer your misfortune with you. There is no fundamental right for the "challenged" to keep their class mates with them at their level of ineptitude. Rather that smacks more of unusual punishment for those who are capable and being deprived the opportunity of success -- almost a tort.
We have to dump almost all of the crap we have burdened ourselves with since 1960. Enforce color/race/gender blind laws. Equal pay. Equal opportunity. Provide those with ability the opportunity to advance: our nation's future depends on getting the best and the brightest out there, unencumbered by America's economic and commerical dead-ends.
posted by Zaphod at Wednesday, March 15, 2006
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