The Atlantic: "Can the Middle Class Be Saved?"

What about the larger picture here?

Aren't we just creating bureaucratic crap jobs in the medical industry just because there's so much back and forth between the insurance companies and health care providers? Essentially none of that is sustainable. Prices will continue to rise. Insurance companies will cover less. Less people will be insured. Those seeking care will be socked with debt. Bankruptcies all around. Bubble bursts.

 

Ha. I must have missed it. Just went back and looked at some of the discussion over there. Funny to see printdust immediately assume it is a liberal propaganda piece, and Az hit him over the head with what I mentioned here: The article suggests targeted de-regulation as well as lower corporate taxes.

It is definitely a nuanced examination of a nuanced problem(s).

 

This is a very complex discussion.

Just a few points:

-- Not all job fields that have demand are jobs like the ones Siemens is needing (granted, this is an assumption). There are some jobs that are trade-school oriented, like my wife's and many others in the medical field. There are many BS degree-level people who are hesitant to go back to acquire necessary training because the cost on top of costs. And there are, of course, many essentially uneducated people who have poor primary school performance AND cost as barriers.

-- The issue is culture-related. We don't value science and math enough as a culture and our performance reflects it.

-- The issue is also a failure of our education system. We don't value our education system enough and it reflects in performance.

To sum up the last two points, I'll say this: Is it parents' fault? Yes. Is it the fault of our lack of investment in public education? Yes. You can answer yes to both questions as opposed to nit-picking which one is more to blame.

 

I'm picturing Eastwood in Gran Torino. I suppose both the route to the mill and the walk home were covered in snow and uphill, eh?

 

and into the wind.

 

LA Unified and spends wildly on education, $30,000 per student a year (some studies include capital spending, some do not - but nobody denies that LA Unified spends spectacularly).
http://www.calwatchdog.com/2010/08/20/lausd-spends-30k-per-student/

Their tests scores are horrible. They produce horrible students. The emphasis on education just plain is not there in the culture of many who attend.

You are dreaming if you think that money is on par to blame with parental issues.

 

Yeah but we can't blame the parents. It's not their fault...

 

I think money is an issue for the high-end kids who aren't getting what they need to compete globally. I think it is an issue for early childhood education - think pre-kindergarten. I think it's an issue in the summer, when all of the inner-city and rural kids lose ground. Malcolm Gladwell had a chart in "Outliers" showing that impoverished kids compete quite well during the school year with others, progress-wise. They lose all their ground in the summer.

 

I don't know about this. My understanding is coding procedures make things more efficient, not less.

I think the next step is to increase the responsibility of coders or make it part of specialized training for existing administrators.

 

We can. But politicians won't because it will anger voters they need to win their next election.

 

After having gone through a local parcel tax election a few months ago here in California I can tell you that the state and local spending for each child in California has gone down nearly 20% in just the past 3 years. That's actual dollars, not inflation adjusted. Those are very real costs that directly affect the level of education. This year, we narrowly avoided losing 2 weeks of instructional days. There is no way to sustain education while losing education days.

 

Good for Malcolm Gladwell. Its going to take more than a chart to make me believe that you can overcome crappy parenting to create good students.