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| ▲ | jimbokun 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up. | | |
| ▲ | rightbyte an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted I don't see your point. Those rules does not apply to the upper class and middle class workers have way more leeway regarding that than the lower class. | |
| ▲ | jrjeksjd8d 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The existence of an upper class necessitates the existence of a lower class. You can't just pull everyone up to be above average. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | What's your point? I didn't make any claims about averages. We could do a lot more to improve opportunities and social mobility for people caught in the permanent underclass. | | |
| ▲ | Ferret7446 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | But we have. The underclass today has much better lives in many aspects than the highest class from many decades ago. The absolute level of wealth has increased, it's simply that the delta between the high and the low is widening. Would you rather live equally in poverty or live comfortably with others who are way more wealthy than you? Surprisingly people do seem to prefer the former, though I'd prefer the latter |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | bonsai_spool 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. This is wrong. The increase in administrator pay began well after the crises cited in OP. You could cite spending on the sciences (and thus Silicon Valley), but the spending by the US did not accrue to administrators; and further, federal money primarily goes to grants and loans, but GP is citing a time over which there were relatively low increases in tuition. Edit: Not at home, but even a cursory serious search will turn up reports like this one that indicate the lack of clarity in the popular uprising against money "[going] to administrators" https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-u... | | |
| ▲ | malcolmgreaves 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. | | |
| ▲ | bonsai_spool 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. First, where is your data? Second, this discussion is clearly about post-secondary education ("the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.") |
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| ▲ | palmotea 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >>> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. >> What does this sentence mean? > Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Cheaper education? Public K-12 schools, the GI bill, generous state subsidies of higher education (such that you could pay for college with the money you made working a summer job). Free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support? Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. | | |
| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. I work in edutech and our goal is to cut costs faster than revenue. Enrolments are down, students are over burdened with student loans, and new grads can't compete in the market. Also, do you think kids going to K-12 in the US can compete with kids who go to international schools in China and India? High end schools in those countries combine the Asian grind mindset with western education standards. > Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a common western idiom based on centuries of observations. Just because there was 20-30 years of unnatural economic growth doesn't make it the global or historical norm. | | |
| ▲ | nradov 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Education is a tough one. Like healthcare, it's highly subject to Baumol's Cost Disease. Technology holds some potential but fundamentally we still need a certain ratio of teachers to students, and those teachers get more expensive every year. https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/baumols-cost-disease-long... Education should be well funded. But at the same time, taxpayers are skeptical because increasing funding doesn't necessarily improve student outcomes. Students from stable homes with aspirational parents in safe neighborhoods will tend to do well even with meager education funding, and conversely students living in shitholes will tend to do badly regardless of how good the education system is. If we want to improve their lot then we need to fix broader social issues that go beyond just education. Anyone who has gotten involved with a large school district has seen the enormous waste that goes to paying multiple levels of administrators, and education "consultants" chasing the latest ineffective fad. Much of it is just a grift. | |
| ▲ | palmotea 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | >> Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? > Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. So? That's not really relevant to the historical period you were referring to when you said: "It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs." At the time, Americans already had many of the things you're saying they should've invested in to get. How were they supposed to predict things would change and agitate for something different without the hindsight you enjoy? > This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. Exactly why do you think it is it unnatural? I think you should be more explicit about how you think things should be for families. Because going on an on about how the times when things were easier was "unnatural" may create the wrong impression. Also keep in mind where talking about human society here, the concept of "natural" has very little to do with any of it. What were really talking about is the consequence of the internal logic of this or that set of artificial cultural practices. | | |
| ▲ | jitix 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > How were they supposed to predict things would change and agitate for something different without the hindsight you enjoy? By comparing themselves to their counterparts in other countries. By 1955 there should have been alarm bells ringing as Europe re-industrialized. Same with 70s oil crisis but the best that US could do was to cripple Japan with Plaza Accords. Americans even now have a mindset that nothing exists beyond their borders, one could assume it was worse back then. > Exactly why do you think it is it unnatural? Because only two industrialized countries were left standing after WW2 and those two countries enjoyed unnatural growth until others caught up - first the historical powers in Europe then Asia. | | |
| ▲ | palmotea 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > By comparing themselves to their counterparts in other countries. ... Americans even now have a mindset that nothing exists beyond their borders, one could assume it was worse back then. That's not realistic, except in hindsight. Most people everywhere pay more attention to their immediate environment and living their lives. Not speculating about what is the global economy is going to look like in 50 years, and how would those changes affect them personally. You're talking about stuff only some PhD at RAND would be doing (or would have the ability to do) in the 1960s. Without the democratic pressure of common people either 1) having a need or 2) seeing things get worse, no changes like you describe would happen. > Because only two industrialized countries were left standing after WW2 and those two countries enjoyed unnatural growth until others caught up - first the historical powers in Europe then Asia. What's natural? And more importantly: how do you think things should be for families. |
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| ▲ | sparrc 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The US is not perfect by any measure, but your argument that the US doesn't have innovative nor "high-value" jobs is absurd beyond belief. | |
| ▲ | judahmeek 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Right, because Europe is so innovative. The mother of invention is idiomatically necessity, not comfort. Ultimately, increased levels of competition should lead to higher levels of innovation. Btw, what is "the GCC era" a reference to? | | |
| ▲ | jitix 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Europe is quite innovative on per-capita basis. Not like US but the workers there have much happier lives and their societies don't have extreme inequality and resulting violence like the US. China is arguably more innovative than all and has terrible work life balance, but their society is stable and you won't go from millionaire to homeless just because you had to get cancer treatment. GCC = global consulting companies, the bane of innovation. Outsourcing of all kinds (even domestic C2C) should be banned. | | |
| ▲ | toomanyrichies 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Is GCC an acronym you just now came up with, or is does it commonly mean “global consulting company” in your part of the world? I ask because, when I do a Google search, the two most common meanings for that term are “Global Capacity Center” and “Gulf Cooperation Council”. |
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