Trickle down economics

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DarkLight said:
“Go into debt to get skills” isn’t really a sustainable economic method. A lot of methods of getting out of poverty require some initial investment of money, which is precisely the problem for poor people.

There’s also concerns about educational inflation. Basically, if too many people get degrees, compared to the number of jobs in the field, employers will raise their standards of who they take. Either people end up with degrees they can’t use, or they have to go into more debt to get further qualifications. Or sometimes the initial qualifications get harder - e.g. you now need a degree from a top school, not just a degree from an accredited institution. Or you need a degree plus suitable extracurriculars (which takes up time you could be working).

While you can make some predictions, it’s very hard for your average person to tell what fields are good now but may be oversaturated by the time you finish. And there’s a question of if there are enough of those skilled jobs in the current economy at all - we’ve seen many cases where skilled jobs go away and are replaced by unskilled jobs at much lower wages.
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There are some basic skills or talents that can be easily honed.

Math, physics, chemistry, to name three.

If a student has basic skills and background, they will be able to choose further academics that will serve them well.

If you want to cure cancer, then you will need advanced chemistry, biology and physics and math skills.

If you want to fly an airliner, then you will need math skills and some ability to fly a plane, which you can get from schools that teach flying.

Right now, this minute, there are needs for somewhere around 4,000 pilots by the airlines and by the military. The military trains its own. And there are well know civilian schools [read aviation magazines and look at the adverts] that will train individuals to be airline pilots.

But like anything worthwhile, you have to apply yourself. And you have to pass some basic entrance exams.

If you want to be an aeronautical engineer, then you have to study that in college and to do that you need to study the basic courses before college.

It all depends on what you want to do with your life.

And then you apply yourself.

There is an interesting YouTube … some guy in California was interested in aeronautical engineering and took an entry level job with Lockheed … his boss disappeared … and he got a call from the boss who wanted to recruit him for a special project. So the guy got on a bus that took him to a plane and he ended up in a place he never heard of. And the next 30 years he worked at the Skunk Works … on the SR-71 and the A-12 and the YF-12. He couldn’t talk about any more recent things.

Google YouTube SkunkWorks Robert Rodert of Project Oxcart - YouTube

But you throw yourself at something you like.
 
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I literally can’t do any of those things.

I’m a disabled veteran, I rely 100% on government assistance just to survive.
 
You don’t need to attend Harvard or Yale.

Visit your local community college and see what they offer and talk to one of their counsellors about what courses you would need to take.

OR, join the military and they will test you and send you to service schools … they have LOTS of service schools.

And avoid worthless courses and worthless majors.
 
Spyridon said:
I literally can’t do any of those things.

I’m a disabled veteran, I rely 100% on government assistance just to survive.
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How disabled are you?

For 20+ years I ran a program for re-employment and our best software teacher / instructor was almost totally blind. It was funny to watch … he had to put his face right against the computer screen … and he got people trained in various software products.

Have you been to local colleges to see what they might have for you?

How many temp agencies have you been to? In my experience, temp agencies are the best sources for employment opportunities.
 
Point is, school takes money. Money that the poor often don’t have. It also takes a lot of time, which is time you’re not spending working, which is difficult for those who are spending a lot of time working to pay their bills.

I think I would also be wary of too many exceptional examples. Remember, 50% of the population is below the median. There have to be jobs for those who aren’t particularly talented at some in-demand skill.

I think encouraging people to apply themselves as individuals is very good, but I have concerns about applying it to the poor as a class. It’s like, in a competition, we encourage every athlete to train and try their hardest and aim for the gold. But at the end someone’s got to be in the bottom.
 
Yeah, it’s kind of absurd to tell all poor people to get top grades and become a STEM major and work in a specific understaffed field if they want dignity. That is a necessarily limited amount of opportunities and assumes a whole lot of unlikely circumstances in the first place. What about the average or below average people, or those with hard luck?
 
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Absolutely! It’s human dignity. All work deserves to garner a decent living wage. I have ultimate respect for those working in the “humblest” occupations. Breaks my heart to hear that any of them are just scraping by.
 
Not only that, but poverty cramps a person so much that escaping from it is much more difficult than multiplying existing wealth. When your spirit is exhausted by finding some way to feed and clothe the kids —and the number of kids grows because exhaustion interferes with your ability to control your reproduction (even, or perhaps especially, by NFP); when you face the problem that life can actually be more expensive for the poor; when your health is affected by the tough job you do and your poor housing: etc etc … when all that is going on it is not easy, however much you might want it, to work your way out of poverty. Pass the entrance exams? Sorry, the kids are crying and there’s damp in the walls and the noise from next door is making me feel ill. Haven’t got time.

If you have never felt like that, thank your God. I have, and I never want to feel that way again. I escaped from it, but most of the people around me didn’t.

The undeserving poor, no doubt.
 
If Americans don’t want these companies to have the money, why do they keep buying their products? Haha. We have to have our 900 smart phones. Oh, but after that, the poor!
 
The poor with their EBT cards buy all kinds of stuff that I can’t afford and drive home in better cars than I have. They have health insurance that I help them pay for so that I can’t afford my own. I dare say the average poor American has a much better phone than I carry.
 
Lemuel said:
The poor with their EBT cards buy all kinds of stuff that I can’t afford and drive home in better cars than I have. They have health insurance that I help them pay for so that I can’t afford my own. I dare say the average poor American has a much better phone than I carry.
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I’m not sure that this is an argument that the idea itself is bad, just that it’s badly implemented.

Welfare cliffs are definitely a major issue. And it’s one thing that’s going to encourage people to stay on welfare - if you lose money by going to work, why go to work? Especially if your actual income doesn’t meet your needs. Definitely a major issue with healthcare right now. I support universal healthcare in general, but the ACA was an attempt at compromise that pretty much just managed to not accomplish what anyone wanted.

That said, I’ve been the person on welfare with designer clothes and a smartphone. Sometimes it just means the person is good at thrift or outlet shopping (plus in my case, the phone was several years old and at that point not exactly valuable).
 
MonteRCMS said:
Taxing the rich is like having a wonderful asset and then throwing it away.
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Does God throw away those who are spiritually gifted by requiring more of them? Does the Church not teach that the rich nations have an obligation before God to share with the poor? (Caritas in Veritate)
stinkcat_14 said:
But who is going to pay for the additional defense spending?
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I noticed President Trump did not propose in slashing defense spending to help himself and his fellow rich out of their tax burden.

I shake my head at the anger of those Trump supporters I know who are mad about this bill. What did they expect when the supported some rich New York wheeler-dealer but to this sort of trickling designed to make the rich richer and the poor poorer? It is the fox and the scorpion.
 
Spyridon said:
I literally can’t do any of those things.

I’m a disabled veteran, I rely 100% on government assistance just to survive.
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You may not find much compassion among Catholic Republicans, but rest assured:

This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;he saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.
 
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How much money would it realistically cost to solve world hunger? The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that it would cost around $30bn per year over a ten-year period to completely wipe out global hunger.Jan 20, 2017

According to the comScore report, the number of mobile users surpassed desktop users in 2014. Gartner’s prediction narrates that over 268 billion mobile downloads will generate an income of $77 billion in 2017.
Read more at The 2017 Mobile App Market: Statistics, Trends, and Analysis - Business 2 Community

Just apps…
 
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The estimated cost of the program is $47 billion a year. That would cover, Sanders estimates, 67% of the $70 billion it costs for tuition at public colleges and universities. States, he proposes, would cover the remaining 33%. Read more at heres-how-much-bernie-sanders-free-college-for-all-plan-would-cost

The folks who make apps made a lot of money. Publishers picked up nearly $89 billion in revenue from downloads, in-app purchases and advertising. Google and Apple profited as well, keeping some $15 billion in commissions from the app revenues. Read more at This is how much we spent on apps last year

Just apps
 
Total U.S. teen spending (Products bought by and for teens) $264,038,000,000

Read more at Teenage Consumer Spending Statistics - Statistic Brain

264,038,000,000 / 30,000,000,000 equals about 8.8 times what the un needs per year to end global hunger.

264,038,000,000 / 70,000,000,000 equals 3.77 times total cost of tuition at public colleges and universities

Just teen spending in the u.s.
 
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I’ve taught college chemistry. It is preposterous to suggest poverty would be solved if we all got As in chemistry. If everybody went and got As in chemistry and math then we would have lots of competition for a limited number of STEM jobs and there would be people with STEM degrees working on construction sites and at coffee bars.

Not everyone needs a college degree. Manual laborers do honest work that needs to be done. They deserve a living wage and they shouldn’t be one financial disaster from living on the streets. “You could have gone to college” is a “let them eat cake” excuse to underpay them.
 
Are people who lose their jobs supposed to sell everything of value that they own before accepting aid, just to keep jealous people from resenting them?

If you have the capability to support yourself, give thanks. When you see some accepting help, pray they’ll be employed and self-supporting soon. Can’t go wrong with that.
 
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