Oh my god! I was just joking!

Anyone who thinks Global Warming is a hoax at this points needs to fuck off and die.

You are a waste of a human life.

What database? You mentioned the salary of one teacher who is friends with your wife, and used that to infer that all teachers are very well paid. I pointed to a national database that collects the median salaries of teachers across the country to demonstrate that, in general, no they’re not.

As for the continuing education, it’s pretty basic stuff, not even really high school level work.

wtf do you know about it, hotshot? Most states now require public school teachers to obtain a masters degree within five years of entering the classroom. (And the school systems don’t generally pay for it, either.) That’s significantly more work than your “continuing education.”

“Anecdotal evidence, meaning a conclusion based on one or two examples which may or may not be evidence of a trend.”

As opposed to a database that lists the name, hours contracted, benefits paid, and salary for every single public school teacher in the state.

As for the continuing education, it’s pretty basic stuff, not even really high school level work.

Anecdotal evidence, meaning a conclusion based on one or two examples which may or may not be evidence of a trend.

The number I quoted was the national median salary of teachers with twenty years of experience. What other profession requiring post-graduate work – as all public school systems do these days – pays less than $60k after twenty years?

I deeply resent it when politicians try to run roughshod over the Constitution. An erosion of one liberty is as erosion of all liberties. Constitutional malfeasence is a bipartisan affair but I’d bet Democrats harbor more violaters.

My friends wife is a decent teacher, not great but decent. Her own education, although she got almost straight A’s in college did not prepare her to teach our students. She is terribly deficient in science and history, I wouldn’t say she is a drain on society but she is inadequatly trained to be teaching kids.

I’ve put 2 kids through school and I’ve seen plenty of teachers who are in way over thier heads and have no business teaching and are a drain on society. The level of ignorance kids have about our common history and American civics is shocking.

As for going Galt, what is your opinion of objectivism? You are clearly a member of the class Rand detested and whose literary heros struggled against. I find it interesting in this age of Obama popularity that Rands classics are enjoying a great boom in sales. What do you suppose that means?

Southern Quaker,
You may have not read my post very carefully, In my state the hours contracted, salary paid and benefits accrued are a matter of public record, not antecdotal evidence at all. My point of median vs average has to do with a starting teachers wages skewing the numbers when compared to a teacher in mid to end career. Teachers are damn well paid for 1220 hours a year. Certainly more than many are worth.

Sorry. Game over.

Do you often tell her what a shitty teacher she is and a drain on society?

I swear to god if you hate it all so much, why don’t you just go Galt and move to Somalia?

um, yeah, that was my point. Average pay can be skewed by a relatively small percentage of high-paying school systems, such as the one your wife apparently works for. The median is a much better measure of what most school teachers make in this country. I’ll take my statistical, nation-wide data over your anecdotal evidence, thanks. (www.payscale.com)

Bus duty is handled by seperate staff as is cafeteria duty. Subsidized breakfast really is the business of the parents, but alas far too many parents can make babies but can’t take care of them.

I can’t speak intelligenty about your pay statistics but simply point out the difference between median pay and average pay. In my stste teachers pay is a matter of open record, My friends wife is a gradeschool teacher, She is contracted for 1220 hours a year and brings home $78,00.00 per year plus a real decent bennies package.

Quaker in a Basement,
The Laffer curve works best in a pro business climate of falling taxes and decreasing regulation. Let us not forget that most government regulation is not of the earth shattering types that set industries free to rape and pillage but of mindnumbing forms to be filled out that have nothing to do with the corner hotdog stand that is wasting his time dealing with them.

Duros,
I’m talking about the next generation of Americans Obama is sticking with the bill for his grandios plans to rework the world. Given the sophisticated view of the world you offer,, quite possibly your kids.

Teachers get an hour a day for lesson planning. Lesson planning has a grand ring to it. As a teacher I once dated admitted, the first year you create your mimeograph masters for the tests, repeat. Plus you have to keep track of what page you.re on.

Bus duty and

No, no, no. Taxes won’t go up. Taxes will go down! Government revenue increases when you cut taxes. Morris, Rush, and the GOP tells me so.

Just who the FUCK do you think you’re talking about?

In what world do you live in AO, because that’s definitely not my kids’ school system.

Teaching as a profession does not attract the right side of the bell curve despite the lucrative pay scale and short work day.
Bull.Shit. The bell rings at 2:30. Teacher spends another 2 hours grading and preparing lessons for the next day. And let’s not forget that she came in early to get the kids off the bus and supervise the subsidized breakfast being served in the cafeteria. That’s a 7:30-4:30 work day, easily 9 hours. And the national median salary for a teacher with 20 years of experience is $56k

You are absolutely right that not enough smart, motivated people are attracted into teaching these days. I can’t imagine why, given the 45+ hour work weeks, mediocre pay, and wonderful prestige our teachers are given these days.

No, I really don’t think you do.

My kids went through an extremely well funded school system and would have received a poor quality education if not for our intervention. And please, please, don’t whine to me about underfunding. Facilities are top notch and a teacher halfway through her career can easily be taking home $80,000.00 per yr.

The sad truth is the teachers are not qualified. They are woefully ignorant, lack intelltual diversity and seem determined to teach kids what to think in a PC fashion rather than how to think and ground them in thier common roots and history. Teaching is a degree that any warm body can get through. They have great built in leverage through thier unions and consistantly strike just as school is about to begin, holding students and parents alike hostages. One of the advantages of growing uo in a small community is I know my kids teachers. I grew up with them and I remember them learning to read and learn math. Teaching as a profession does not attract the right side of the bell curve despite the lucrative pay scale and short work day.

I can only imagine the horrors of trying to teach a tough inner city school populated basically with criminals from unstable at best family dynamics. Self esteem over discipline is a poor substitute for an actual unbiased education that provides students with the horsepower need to actually compete with the smart kids around the world. In this new global society we live and compete in make no doubt about it, a nations most valuable resource will be it’s smart people.

It’s no bed or roses in Asia right now either. All advanced economies are suffering due to the hyper-deregulation of the markets and banks.

But like I said, Obama’s deficit spending is a necessity in the wake of the Bush/Republican Recession. And I’m not surprised you said nothing (here or elsewhere) about the outrageous deficit spending that started under Bush II and Dick “deficits don’t matter” Cheney.

At least the recent stimulus bill is aimed at creating working and middle-class jobs, which will lead to long-term cyclical income and tax base growth, as opposed to a failed military occupation that will empower Iran for generations to come.

It is indeed ironic that the chineese communists are proposing the stiff bitter medicene that may actually help us. The Russians are piling on mostly out of spite.

If Obama does the tough thing and tells Detroit to let GM go bankrupt and breaks the Union grip on the American car industry possibly they might survive. More likely he will shift thier legacy costs for healthcare for retirees onto the backs of the general populace. That will feel like a tax increase to you.
You are going to be taxed to pay for my poor retirement decisions and to my subsidized but rationed healthcare.

You will be paying everincreasing taxes on CO2 while trying to compete against emerging asian economies un burdened by such constraints filled with an intelligent educated workforce. You’ll know the tide has turned when bright American kids start working in ever increasing numbers for Asian concerns. Leaving an unedcated workforce of American dead end kids fighting for the scraps of the jobs left over from our once mighty manufactoring legacy.

None of which has much to do with Ollie;s shameful lying regarding that political whore Dick Morris.

China, like the rest of the world, wants to go into Euros more than dollars because in the long-term it’s probably a safer bet. If, God forbid, Republicans ever had the Whtie House and Congress again, the world knows that the dollar isn’t a safe bet any longer. This is not the same as saying “ZOMG CHINA WANTS A NEW WORLD CURRENCY.”

I realize basic literacy and economics are beyond most wing-nuts but please, try and educate yourself a little.

“Taxes will go up all over the place as we borrow our way to a new prosperity.”

Funny, my taxes aren’t going up. Then again, I don’t make 250K+.

The borrowing is a necessity right now because of what Bush Jr. and the Republican Party did to our economy (i.e., they fucked it up royally). Right now, markets are stagnant because nobody can get a loan. The idea is that in the short-term, the Fed will step in to lubricate the markets and get big-time investors spending again, thus producing jobs.

Believe me, I don’t think it’s perfect. But it’s better than doing nothing as American unemployment gets higher and higher each month. Obama’s plan is aimed at helping lower and middle class folks keep and/or get jobs, not at tax breaks for George Soros and Paris Hilton. This is why Americans overwhelmingly support him and the Democratic party right now. After six years of complete Republican control over the reigns of power, Americans know that Republicans are only interested in wealth redistribution to the Hilton’s and Soros’ among us.

But please, feel free to link to something your wrote back in 2005 about soaring American debt. Because I’m sure you were just as worried about deficit spending under a Republican as you were under a Democratic president, right?

China is pushing for a new global market currency because they fear the traditional solution that a government uses when thier mouth writes a check thier butt can’t cash. INFLATION

Our kids are going to pay a huge generational debt to give Boomers one more shot at a decent retirement after thier one big asset reaches it’s true market value.

Anyone who thinks the feds are going to do a better job of running car companies might want to examine the success of British Leylands resounding job of management.