Chicago professor: It's tough to get by on $250K!

Thank God Howard Jarvis led the tax revolt that saved California and its schools!

 

There might be mounting dissatisfaction, but is that an objectively bad thing (from an economics perspective)? Check out this link from a progressive type: http://www.progressivefix.com/inequality-living-standards-and-the-middle-class

 

Interesting piece, which incidentally has a strong parallel in baseball's current market system with the Yankees and Red Sox pushing the game's growth (growing the pie for everyone) but putting distance between themselves and the middle and smaller markets. I'm all for this system in baseball, but in baseball that includes REGULATIONS such as REVENUE SHARING to ensure ALL boats are lifted.

I'm not for soaking the rich. I agree that they, like the Yankees, are generally the people responsible for growth. In fact, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I would be affected if the tax cuts for the wealthy lapse. However, I'm 100 percent in favor of paying the additional taxes. Just like I don't want the middle market baseball teams to become dissatisfied, I want a strong, upwardly mobile middle class.

America needs revenue sharing, too.

 

I think inequality alone and presented in a vacuum, as it is in this essay, isn't much of an issue.

It's when that inequality arises out of one group preying on the other - whether by shipping whole companies overseas, or chopping up financial derivatives at the expense of a stable mortgage market, etc. - that the debate gets heated.

And rightly so.

 

D'oh.

 

Comparing our schools to Finland's is the ultimate apples to hand grenades comparison.

Finland has less than 6 million people. New York City alone has 2 million people more than Finland.

Finland's literacy rate is 99%. Finland's birth rate is lower.

Finland is a nearly homogeneous society with less immigration.

Drug abuse and crime are lower.

The biggest problem our schools face is kids who are not prepared to learn and/because of parents who are unable to provide the support they need.