Gallup went and did a poll....to find that 4 out of ten Americans....approve or support the ideals of socialism.
The problem with this poll....it really doesn't lay out the landscape. If you went state by state....you'd probably find fewer than ten-percent of the folks in Mississippi or Georgia who approve of socialism. If you went to New York City, it's probably closer to sixty-percent of adults. In the entire state of Alaska, I doubt if you'd find more than 300 residents who support the idea of socialism. So the poll is questionable.
Growing in rural Alabama, I would take a guess that in today's environment, in a county of 25,000 people....fewer than three-hundred might support plain basic socialism.
The problem is that a journalist will hype this up....getting folks all pepped-up or pepped-down on socialism, and drive some new agenda.
All of this is driving some Democrats to question themselves, and this socialism angle to politics. You could end up pushing a quarter of the Democratic Party voters out.....looking for some third-party situation and just plain suggesting that they can't favor a socialism agenda.
Tuesday, 21 May 2019
Monday, 20 May 2019
Bernie's Call for $60k Minimum Salary for Teachers
It's a curious statement that Bernie made over the weekend.....that we need to establish $60k as the minimum starting point for teachers.
The current rate in Montana? Around $31k a year. Alabama? Just a notch above the $31k a year.
Average pay (meaning ten plus years) as a teacher in Kentucky? $52,000. For Arizona, it's around $47,000.
The problem I see is that you'd have to go to almost all of the fifty states, and raise levels up. Into the billions? Yes.
So naturally, you'd ask the question....are some of these teachers (fresh out of college) even worth $60,000 a year? Are some of these teachers, even at age 38....worth $60,000 a year.
If you got around to them....why not the road department employees for the state of Texas? Shouldn't they be all making $45,000 a year minimum salary?
Where would all this fresh new money for teachers come from? Well.....more taxation.
The current rate in Montana? Around $31k a year. Alabama? Just a notch above the $31k a year.
Average pay (meaning ten plus years) as a teacher in Kentucky? $52,000. For Arizona, it's around $47,000.
The problem I see is that you'd have to go to almost all of the fifty states, and raise levels up. Into the billions? Yes.
So naturally, you'd ask the question....are some of these teachers (fresh out of college) even worth $60,000 a year? Are some of these teachers, even at age 38....worth $60,000 a year.
If you got around to them....why not the road department employees for the state of Texas? Shouldn't they be all making $45,000 a year minimum salary?
Where would all this fresh new money for teachers come from? Well.....more taxation.
Fake Parents Story
The border patrol folks....ICE....started up a brief test program to DNA-test kids and parents that they pick up....ONLY in the McAllen and El Paso, Texas region. Statistical comeback.....30-percent of parents don't match up. In fact, some parents (fake parents) when told of the impending test....went ahead and admitted that they weren't the real parents, and thus cancelled out the family situation.
If they did this in all cases? My humble guess is that 30-to-40 percent of family situations would fall apart. But this kinda begs questions....how did the guy find the kids to do this....and what exactly was the plan after settlement into the US?
Well, you don't know.
All of this begs questions, but you really don't know how to stack the consequences. Do you automatically send kids and the fake dad back? Are these fake women with fake kids? Do the kids even care about the fake parent?
If they did this in all cases? My humble guess is that 30-to-40 percent of family situations would fall apart. But this kinda begs questions....how did the guy find the kids to do this....and what exactly was the plan after settlement into the US?
Well, you don't know.
All of this begs questions, but you really don't know how to stack the consequences. Do you automatically send kids and the fake dad back? Are these fake women with fake kids? Do the kids even care about the fake parent?
Friday, 17 May 2019
The Best Fascism?
The best fascism.....is anti-fascism.
People are stupid enough to believe anti-fascism isn't fascism.
People are stupid enough to believe anti-fascism isn't fascism.
Political Chatter
"As I like to tell the president when he says he likes tariffs, I try to remind him that Smoot-Hawley brought about the Great Depression, brought about Adolf Hitler, brought about World War II, brought about 60 million people losing their lives as a result of it."
-- Senator Chuck Grassley (Rep, Iowa)
Well, lets take a handle to this and discuss Chuck's poor vision of history.
There's at least a dozen 'warning' signals that were occurring from 1920 to 1929 that massive collapse of Wall Street was going to occur. Various signals were taken and explained to the major banks, Senators, Congressmen, the Fed, and the Presidents. None of them reacted. You can count through dozen-odd speculation events that went into stock, real estate, and bonds.
The Smoot-Hawley Act? The idea (roughly a year into the depression era) was to prevent cheap products from overseas from coming to the US market. In a sense, it was to protect US jobs. If the priority was NOT US jobs, then this could have been avoided, and some other fake stance by the House and Senate could have easily been accomplished.
The suggestion by economic historians of some great 'evil' being done with the Act? The Depression was already into the first entire stage, and nothing that Hoover had done....had accomplished much of anything in terms of resolving this issue. Action by the Fed? Almost non-existent.....they were the last people on Earth who wanted to resolve the Depression. Some felt that the dire warnings for almost a decade....now had to be dished out in painful amounts to prevent the massive amount of speculation that had occurred.
As for this bringing about Hitler? No. There are three key observations here:
1. The Weimar Republic was one of the weakest democracy platforms ever created. It was doomed from day one.
2. Hitler was already enjoying from the 1925 era on....the great benefit of radio. He had a platform to pump out speeches, and talk about suffering of the 'people'.
3. All that hostility and resentment by vets of Germany over WW I? No one ever wants to go and discuss their hostility and how that brewed for almost an entire decade.
Senator Grassley and his assessment? Mostly worthless. But this is why the general public has such a low opinion of the bulk of GOP Senators and Congressmen in DC.
Do Southerners Discuss Civil War and Pre-Civil War History Much?
No.
This is a rather odd piece of misunderstanding that journalists and intellectuals seem to have....that 153 years later....it's just not that big of a deal.
If you find a guy who did family research and found that six members of his family were members of some state militia....then he gets into this, and maybe the guy starts attending Civil War reenactments.
Most folks go back on family history and find in 99-percent of cases....their family never owned any slaves.
Structure in high school history? You can go and pull out the history books used for 8th grade or 10th grade American history and find that there's one single chapter on the period, and it's mostly over the northern perception of the war. Some teachers might try to force kids to go and read Uncle Tom's Cabin.....to ensure they have some understanding. Beyond that? Nothing much.
If you held a history test over the 1800 to 1865 period.....General Lee and President Davis are about the only two southerners brought up by a majority. Some might bring up another five or six generals, but otherwise, they really don't know much of this period.
All these statues? Well....the vast majority were put up around twenty to fifty years after the war ended. Most were paid for by private donations or private parties. In the vast number of cases, this whole statue phase ended by the 1930s (having peaked out between 1900 and 1920).
The Klan business? That's another odd thing. The FBI says, for the most part....real membership hasn't existed in over forty years. Even today, they hint that official members is probably in the 1,000 to 2,000 range across the entire US. It would be safe to say that 99.9-percent of people who live in the state of Georgia....aren't members of the Klan.
The sad truth? More people in Alabama know more about the University of Alabama football record over the past forty years, than about the Civil War or the sixty years prior to the war.
Black emergence over the past couple of decades? That's another curious development. Go look at the number owning relatively new cars and having a home-ownership situation....the statistics have rapidly risen over the past five decades. Kids in a two-parent black families continue on to educational goals....end up in a community college, trade school, or college.....then get jobs and pay taxes. Kids in the disjointed family situation get into screwed-up situations and then don't rise.
So all this hype over the Civil War and the years since? Just fake chatter? One might get that impression.
This is a rather odd piece of misunderstanding that journalists and intellectuals seem to have....that 153 years later....it's just not that big of a deal.
If you find a guy who did family research and found that six members of his family were members of some state militia....then he gets into this, and maybe the guy starts attending Civil War reenactments.
Most folks go back on family history and find in 99-percent of cases....their family never owned any slaves.
Structure in high school history? You can go and pull out the history books used for 8th grade or 10th grade American history and find that there's one single chapter on the period, and it's mostly over the northern perception of the war. Some teachers might try to force kids to go and read Uncle Tom's Cabin.....to ensure they have some understanding. Beyond that? Nothing much.
If you held a history test over the 1800 to 1865 period.....General Lee and President Davis are about the only two southerners brought up by a majority. Some might bring up another five or six generals, but otherwise, they really don't know much of this period.
All these statues? Well....the vast majority were put up around twenty to fifty years after the war ended. Most were paid for by private donations or private parties. In the vast number of cases, this whole statue phase ended by the 1930s (having peaked out between 1900 and 1920).
The Klan business? That's another odd thing. The FBI says, for the most part....real membership hasn't existed in over forty years. Even today, they hint that official members is probably in the 1,000 to 2,000 range across the entire US. It would be safe to say that 99.9-percent of people who live in the state of Georgia....aren't members of the Klan.
The sad truth? More people in Alabama know more about the University of Alabama football record over the past forty years, than about the Civil War or the sixty years prior to the war.
Black emergence over the past couple of decades? That's another curious development. Go look at the number owning relatively new cars and having a home-ownership situation....the statistics have rapidly risen over the past five decades. Kids in a two-parent black families continue on to educational goals....end up in a community college, trade school, or college.....then get jobs and pay taxes. Kids in the disjointed family situation get into screwed-up situations and then don't rise.
So all this hype over the Civil War and the years since? Just fake chatter? One might get that impression.
Thursday, 16 May 2019
'Useful Idiots' Story
I sat today reading over a story out of Brazil. Basically, the President there (a Trump-like character) announced that he wants to pursue cutting state contributions to colleges (30-percent). Naturally, students got all hyped up. The accompanying statement by the Brazilian President? Well....he said that the Brazilian people really don't need so many 'useful idiots'.
Yep.....'useful idiots'.
I stood at a car rental shop back around 2010.....late at night....trying to get the keys and just drive out. The only lady left was the manager of the shop there at the airport. Young gal....maybe 24 years old. While waiting on a process....conversation started up. She was a recent college graduate....four-year degree....hired on with this car rental shop as manager.
I questioned this. A decade or two prior.....these manager jobs with the car rental shops were mostly guys from the Vietnam era....no college degree. It's not the kind of job that you really need to waste on a college graduate (at least in my mind).
I asked about the pay....they were marginally paying her $30k a year. She'd have to stay on for at least four years to reach the next bump-up....$35k.
I kinda asked, in a nice way.....weren't there better jobs (more challenging ones) and paying better? Well....this was the only job that she'd found with her business degree.
No one does the data collection, but I would take a guess that roughly twenty-to-thirty percent of all people wrapping up their bachelor degrees.....are in jobs without any real promise for the future. The colleges? They are pumping out 'useful idiots'.....a degree attached to someone.....thinking they will move up in the world. The sad thing is that you could create some one-year degree program, and maybe forty-percent of kids in high school and aiming at some four-year degree....would be better to aim for something like that.
This Brazilian President taking on a lot of trouble? There's no doubt.
Yep.....'useful idiots'.
I stood at a car rental shop back around 2010.....late at night....trying to get the keys and just drive out. The only lady left was the manager of the shop there at the airport. Young gal....maybe 24 years old. While waiting on a process....conversation started up. She was a recent college graduate....four-year degree....hired on with this car rental shop as manager.
I questioned this. A decade or two prior.....these manager jobs with the car rental shops were mostly guys from the Vietnam era....no college degree. It's not the kind of job that you really need to waste on a college graduate (at least in my mind).
I asked about the pay....they were marginally paying her $30k a year. She'd have to stay on for at least four years to reach the next bump-up....$35k.
I kinda asked, in a nice way.....weren't there better jobs (more challenging ones) and paying better? Well....this was the only job that she'd found with her business degree.
No one does the data collection, but I would take a guess that roughly twenty-to-thirty percent of all people wrapping up their bachelor degrees.....are in jobs without any real promise for the future. The colleges? They are pumping out 'useful idiots'.....a degree attached to someone.....thinking they will move up in the world. The sad thing is that you could create some one-year degree program, and maybe forty-percent of kids in high school and aiming at some four-year degree....would be better to aim for something like that.
This Brazilian President taking on a lot of trouble? There's no doubt.
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