Necesary Reforms

[icebear]

The nature of money itself, who has the authority to coin it, what it consists of, how it gets put into circulation, was THE major political issue all during the 18'th and 19'th centuries. In particular, the combination of a gold standard and fractional reserve bankingcaused business cycles and unbridled grief all during those years. Plainly the interest on gold-based money lent out on a fractional basis at 9-1 or whatever could not come back in the form of ten times the amount of gold which actually existed; it came back in the form of assets and capital goods.

In 1913 they tried to implement Hamilton's idea of using govt. debt as a primary basis for money by creating the federal reserve and income tax at the same time. The idea was to use debt as a basis for money and the income tax to pay interest on the debt while rolling the principle over in perpetuity. At best it was a fragile system, at worst it was a time bomb with a 100-year fuse. Minus a guy like Obama walking in and adding ix or seven trillion to that debt in a space of four years, we might have had another decade or so to try to figure out what to do. At this point, that cushion is gone.

www.webofdebt.com

http://publicbankinginstitute.org

As I noted in the original post, things we need to do immediately are re-implement the Glass/Steagall act, and eliminate the so-called super-priority of derivatives.

 

[icebear]

In case the subject should ever come up...

Silver has some real-world-use basis for its value while the value of gold is based almost entirely on psychology and psychiatry, and not economics or physics.

But there actually is one thing which gold would be good for and for which nothing else would ever do as good a job:

Half again denser than lead, soft, and totally inert, gold would be the ideal metal for waterfowl shot. You could kill ducks and geese all day long with 2.75" shells and #7 shot. You'd have to alloy it with something harder to let it withstand the acceleration.

 

[Spindrift]

In case the subject should ever come up...

Silver has some real-world-use basis for its value while the value of gold is based almost entirely on psychology and psychiatry, and not economics or physics.

But there actually is one thing which gold would be good for and for which nothing else would ever do as good a job:

Half again denser than lead, soft, and totally inert, gold would be the ideal metal for waterfowl shot. You could kill ducks and geese all day long with 2.75" shells and #7 shot. You'd have to alloy it with something harder to let it withstand the acceleration.

Gee it's a good thing they don't need gold for electronics or aerospace.

 

[icebear]

Leave the politicians out of it, I definitely agree. But I put a lot more stock in education scholars ....

In 1957 public schools still worked in the sense of being able to teach fairly dumb kids to read, write, and have some facility with numbers...

But being in one of them was nobody's idea of fun. They were never intended to produce scholars or self-reliant people; our public school system was based on the Prussian system and intended to produce cannon fodder and bricks in the wall. Thre was no such thing as well-off people sending kids to public schools.

http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2011/04/meaning-of-liberal-education.html

Quote:
In 1909, Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, delivered an address to the New York City High School Teachers Association. That address is best remembered from this quote, which I have repeated before in this blog.

Quote:
"We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks."

John Gato describes the problem and the problem with our continuing to use a 19'th century Prussian model for education:

http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm

Quote:

....Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:
1) To make good people.
2) To make good citizens.
3) To make each person his or her personal best.

These goals are still trotted out today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong. Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L. Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

Quote:
to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. . . . Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim.. . is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States . . . and that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article, however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s. Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here. That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising, given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many German- speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws. But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens - all in order to render the populace "manageable."

Again the public schools worked to some minimal extent in 1957. It was theoretically possible that somebody like myself could manage to educate himself and halfway learn to think despite the best efforts of public schools... whether that's still possible is highly questionable.

My own preference at this juncture would be to eliminate public schools altogether and let the chips fall where they might. The sums of national treasure saved would be so enormous as to open up worlds of possibilities for actually educating young people.

 

[icebear]

Gee it's a good thing they don't need gold for electronics or aerospace.

There are cheaper things to make connectors from and the value of gold has nothing to do with connectors.

 

[icebear]

Long interview with John Gatto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxCuc-2tfgk

 

[icebear]

http://hslda.org

 

[Unabogie]

http://hslda.org

The problem with homeschooling is that it turns out kids who only know what their parents know. It's like inbreeding for knowledge. Even if your parents are well educated you're missing out of the things you learn from other cultures and differing viewpoints.

 

[elbe]

There are cheaper things to make connectors from and the value of gold has nothing to do with connectors.

Did you not know that there are valid reasons to prefer gold for certain uses? I really recommend you try to become more informed on topics before trying to argue against them.

 

[Kopji]

Republicans have put themselves way out on this one. They wouldn't go to this much trouble on their own initiative or for the sake os ideology. You've got huge numbers of people being cut back to <30 hours on account of this, labor unions crying over it, polls (Rasmussen) noting that 51% of the public wants this thing stopped even if it means shutting down the government, and pretty nearly all of Obunga's favored groups demanding and mostly getting waivers from it.

Like I noted, the thing apppears to be a redistribution scheme, and that HAS TO raise costs for the people who pay for it. Again, it does not fix anything.

I don't see any survey that supports your 51% claim. You will need to provide more than someone's say-so, that would be an appeal to authority.

My opinion on businesses 'cutting back' is "ok fine". They can go out of business or adapt. I think businesses will adapt. As it is, businesses paying for their employees health care is a far better solution than ME paying for it, which is the way it is right now. They can pass the costs on to their customers. Make it a level playing field - I'd agree with that.

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/whats-name-lots-when-it-comes-obamacare-aca-8C11270154

Now for the difference: 29 percent of the public supports Obamacare, compared with 22 percent who support ACA. Forty-six percent oppose Obamacare and 37 percent oppose ACA.

Frankly, I don't know if Americans are just a bit stupid, or victims of FUD created by politics. Probably some of both.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101053976

Republicans who do not identify themselves as Tea Party supporters hold views closer to those of Democrats than to Republicans that do identify themselves as Tea Party supporters: They oppose defunding Obamacare 44 percent to 36 percent with 20 percent unsure.

I think there are plenty of reasonable Republicans, but they really need to jettison the tea party anchor they've attached themselves to.

 

[A'isha]

In 1957 public schools still worked in the sense of being able to teach fairly dumb kids to read, write, and have some facility with numbers...

The public school system has worked and still works, your unsupported assertions to the contrary.

They were never intended to produce scholars or self-reliant people; our public school system was based on the Prussian system and intended to produce cannon fodder and bricks in the wall.

No, that's not why the Prussian system was looked to when creating the US public education system, and that's certainly not what the public education system is currently producing.

Thre was no such thing as well-off people sending kids to public schools.

That's because the public school system was intended to address the problem of only the well-off being able to send their kids to school.

http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2011/04/meaning-of-liberal-education.html

Seriously? Did you even read what that blog said about that single sentence quote of Wilson's?

John Gato describes the problem and the problem with our continuing to use a 19'th century Prussian model for education:

Why do opponents of public education always cite sources that are at least a hundred years old, as if the modern public education system in the United States has remained unchanged all that time (not to mention is the same as in early 19th Century Prussia). A Prussian schoolteacher from 1840 transported to a 2013 American high school would would find it utterly unrecognizable in function and purpose.

 

[icebear]

The problem with homeschooling is that it turns out kids who only know what their parents know.

Maybe on an island with just the family... In real life, home-school people band together and form up their own little mini schools, which they control. One parent understands math, another French, another biology.....

 

[A'isha]

One parent understands math, another French, another biology.....

Except that, virtually all of the time, they don't.

 

[Spindrift]

Maybe on an island with just the family... In real life, home-school people band together and form up their own little mini schools, which they control. One parent understands math, another French, another biology.....

Any evidence to back that up?
My anecdotal experience with some home schooling families in my area (about 4) is that they all did it on their own and 3 out of the 4 sent their kids to public high schools eventually.

 

[Unabogie]

Maybe on an island with just the family... In real life, home-school people band together and form up their own little mini schools, which they control. One parent understands math, another French, another biology.....

And that "biology" just happens to include the incorrect assertion that evolution is a myth and dinosaurs walked with humans.

In other words, even if your mythical mini-school is somehow real, you still end up in an echo chamber of like-minded parents who fail to give their children any sort of well rounded experience.

 

[DavidJames]

Any evidence to back that up?
My anecdotal experience with some home schooling families in my area (about 4) is that they all did it on their own and 3 out of the 4 sent their kids to public high schools eventually.

Yup - One of the reasons people home school is because they think they can educate their kids better then the pubic (or private) schools. In other words, they know best. That means they know more then their neighbors as well.

 

[icebear]

And that "biology" just happens to include the incorrect assertion that evolution is a myth and dinosaurs walked with humans.
.

The Stegosaur glyph at Agawa Rock, Massinaw Lake Superior:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Agawa_Rock,_panel_VIII.jpg

Soft tissue increasingly being found in dinosaur remains:

http://kgov.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue

Vine Deloria's "Red Earth, White Lies:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Earth-White-Lies-Scientific/dp/1555913881

 

[icebear]

In other words, they know best. That means they know more then their neighbors as well.

When you consider that more than half of those who voted in 2012 voted to re-elect Barrack Obama, that means that on average in this country, knowing more than your neighbors isn't asking for terribly much.

 

[Polaris]

The Stegosaur glyph at Agawa Rock, Massinaw Lake Superior:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Agawa_Rock,_panel_VIII.jpg

Soft tissue increasingly being found in dinosaur remains:

http://kgov.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue

Vine Deloria's "Red Earth, White Lies:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Earth-White-Lies-Scientific/dp/1555913881

I wasn't aware that stegosaurs had trunks.

So what if soft tissue is increasingly found in dinosaur remains? (Coincidentally this is as detection technology improves).

Got a synopsis of that book? Sorry, but an Amazon page isn't evidence, it's spam.

 

[Unabogie]

The Stegosaur glyph at Agawa Rock, Massinaw Lake Superior:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Agawa_Rock,_panel_VIII.jpg

Soft tissue increasingly being found in dinosaur remains:

http://kgov.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue

Vine Deloria's "Red Earth, White Lies:

http://www.amazon.com/Red-Earth-White-Lies-Scientific/dp/1555913881

I'm just calling Poe right now.