Why are the richest in the US getting another tax break?

InternetAuthor said:
I walked away from a Big 5 consulting job to teach (and took a XX,XXX paycut at the same time) because I realized rather early on that there is more to life than drinking scotch straight-up, joining the right club and selling my soul for cash when I make manager/partner.
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It's easy to walk away from money when you have a roof over your head and enough money to comfortably feed yourself and your family. Sounds like you accumulated at least a decent amount of financial wealth at your old job. But ask anyone who is currently struggling to afford essentials. They would call you an insane stupid bitch for forfeiting $xx,xxx.

There are people who sell their souls (e.g. small-time drug dealers, prostitutes, etc.) for a few hundred bucks, and there are people who sell their souls for billions (a la Bernie Madoff). You can't really lump them into one group though because the motives are quite different (i.e. survival instict/hustle vs. unwarranted greed/gluttony).
 


YouDontKnowMe said:
There are people who sell their souls (e.g. small-time drug dealers, prostitutes, etc.) for a few hundred bucks, and there are people who sell their souls for billions (a la Bernie Madoff). You can't really lump them into one group though because the motives are quite different (i.e. survival instict/hustle vs. unwarranted greed/gluttony).
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Exactly my point. Saying anyone who makes less than $30k is poor and therefore an idiot, a liberal democrate and willing to vote for a bunch of entitlements is lumping everyone together when there are really endless reasons and categories why people may choose to make more or less, not the mention their choice of means.
 
^ I don't care if you don't want to make money, but don't bitch about it. I am a banker and get to hear people bitch about the fact that they spend more than they make many of them being artist/teachers factory workers, laborers blah blah. Poor people always blame everyone else except themselves.

Just don't expect people like me to pick up the fucking tab (food stamps,welfare, etc. why the fuck are poor people my problem? if you aren't literally retarded or handicapped in someway fuck off... and no drug addicts/ alcoholics don't count). I don't make shit tons of money but I make enough to live comfortably and deserve the right to save for my family,and to not support some lazy ass person through bullshit entitlements.

That's why poor people are stupid who cares if you are good at something if you can't understand the simple concept of don't spend more than you make you're an idiot.

and I didn't say you made 30k, I was speaking in generalities. If you can't hack it in the big apple move in with mom, move to an area where cost of living is better or don't bitch.... yeah it is logical.
 
If we ended all entitlement programs I'd have no problem with paying teachers much better, seriously. Private schools still end up better so often though.
 
^ as long as we weed out all the dumb teachers I would agree with that... Ohio just got rid of CBA and some friends of mine actually thought because of this they would be making minimum wage (their union reps. told them this) LOL
 
US want back their economy on track right now US economy suffer in big problem like job cuts consumer expense really decline. President of US trying his best. For that he propose of tax on those person who have more money and less tax on those who have not more money for re balancing of money circulation
 
Lets not forget what Thomas Jefferson said - "fuck poor people they smell".
 
YouDontKnowMe said:
2. Teachers - You know why our teachers are so fucking dumb? Because the pay is so shitty that no smart person would want to become a teacher. So we have a bunch a dummies teaching the next generation. What do you think will happen? What we need to do is make teaching a well-paying prestigious job
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Teachers are overpaid. This teachers are underpaid bullshit has to stop.

Romoland, a little rural ghetto - very very rural - in Southern California pays its elementary school teachers median of $60K per year - 90th percentile gets $89K a year - and that's for a 9 month year! You can buy a new house in Romoland for $150K - that's what, $800 a month? Less than rent. Yet the teachers make that much for 9 months work and a shitload of vacation, perfect benefits, and 100% job security?

WTF?

Add to this the fact they can get $250K of mortgage debt forgiven by the state every 5 years - that's an extra $50K per year benefit stacked on that $60K-$90K salary.

Teachers are overpaid.
 
maybe this will explain why tax increases on anyone is irresponsible:

Milton Friedman: I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes.



(that and because it punishes success and rewards laziness)


and here is my rebuttal to all the liberals who will say the rich are greedy pigs...


"A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
Donahue: When you see around the globe the mal-distribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed’s a good idea to run on?
Friedman: Well, first of all, tell me is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? You think Russia doesn’t run on greed? You think China doesn’t run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy; its only the other fellow who’s greedy.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear: that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.
Donahue: But it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.
Friedman: And what does reward virtue? You think the communist commissar rewards virtue? You think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think – excuse me, if you will pardon me – do you think American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self interest is nobler somehow than economic self interest? You know I think you are taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us? Well, I don’t even trust you to do that.
​
I recommend watching the whole interview between him and Donahue, he makes several valid points.
 
REIMktg said:
Teachers are overpaid. This teachers are underpaid bullshit has to stop.

Romoland, a little rural ghetto - very very rural - in Southern California pays its elementary school teachers median of $60K per year - 90th percentile gets $89K a year - and that's for a 9 month year! You can buy a new house in Romoland for $150K - that's what, $800 a month? Less than rent. Yet the teachers make that much for 9 months work and a shitload of vacation, perfect benefits, and 100% job security?

WTF?

Add to this the fact they can get $250K of mortgage debt forgiven by the state every 5 years - that's an extra $50K per year benefit stacked on that $60K-$90K salary.

Teachers are overpaid.
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Quoting figures from a fiscally retarded district in the most fiscally retarded state in our union is not sufficient grounds for concluding that teachers are overpaid.

And regardless I'm guessing you're not a teacher, you don't know many teachers personally, and you're not involved in city budget planning or local politics. I'll make another guess and say you don't have school aged children either. Which would mean that you have slim to none in the way of first hand knowledge of public education and cannot speak to remunerating people in positions of education with any kind of informed authority.

If you are a teacher or involved in local municipal work or have kids well then do excuse me, I beg to differ.

And if you want job descriptions of overpaid professions let me know. I can think of a few.
 
MSTeacher said:
Quoting figures from a fiscally retarded district in the most fiscally retarded state in our union is not sufficient grounds for concluding that teachers are overpaid.

And regardless I'm guessing you're not a teacher, you don't know many teachers personally, and you're not involved in city budget planning or local politics. I'll make another guess and say you don't have school aged children either. Which would mean that you have slim to none in the way of first hand knowledge of public education and cannot speak to remunerating people in positions of education with any kind of informed authority.

If you are a teacher or involved in local municipal work or have kids well then do excuse me, I beg to differ.

And if you want job descriptions of overpaid professions let me know. I can think of a few.
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Why does it matter if I am involved in local politics or if I am a teacher? The fact is that they are overpaid, and if you want to look at the results they produce, they are way way way overpaid.

Not just cash compensation, consider the benefits, the vacation, the pensions, the retirement, the days off during the year. It is a big joke on the American people. Teachers are overpaid - given their output.

Here, I picked another state - Iowa. Iowa teacher salaries. Remember these people are working only 9 months out of the year (maybe Iowa is year round who knows but most places it is a 9 month salary). I do not know about all of Iowa but my brother has a house on land that would cost $1MM in CA for only $200K in Iowa. So overall cost of living does not justify the pay.

The woman on the list makes $80K per year for 9 months per year to teach elementary school.

The weight training instructor makes $80K+ also. This is cash compensation, not considering the benefits, pension match etc.

I left out the names because that of course would be inappropriate or I would have copy and pasted the whole chart.

This is crap. Teachers, given their output, are overpaid.'

I see in Maine the teachers average $40K per year with a 13 student to teacher ration - 13? I mean come on. How hard can that job be?
 
REIMktg said:
Teachers are overpaid. This teachers are underpaid bullshit has to stop.

Romoland, a little rural ghetto - very very rural - in Southern California pays its elementary school teachers median of $60K per year - 90th percentile gets $89K a year - and that's for a 9 month year! You can buy a new house in Romoland for $150K - that's what, $800 a month? Less than rent. Yet the teachers make that much for 9 months work and a shitload of vacation, perfect benefits, and 100% job security?

WTF?

Add to this the fact they can get $250K of mortgage debt forgiven by the state every 5 years - that's an extra $50K per year benefit stacked on that $60K-$90K salary.

Teachers are overpaid.
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Romoland school district is stupid as fuck. Public school teachers are paid far less than that in most places.

Often, they are overpaid RELATIVE to their skill set. But like I said, anyone who has a top 10% GPA from a competitive 4-year college/uniersity (and a useful major like math, engineering, accounting, etc. -- no bullshit art stuff) can usually get a corporate job, and work their way up to 6 figures in a few years. Or they go to professional school to become doctory, lawyers, dentists, etc. Why the fuck would they want to teach kids at a public school?

If I send kids to a school, I want someone who actually succeeded academically to teach them. Not some fucking retard who got a 2.5 GPA from community college and then got a "certification" from the state to teach. For these types of people, yes even $20k is too much IMO. But if we were to get actual academically competent people to teach, $50k isn't gonna be enough to convince most of them to quite their current job that pays 2x or 3x as much.

So how can we start attracting Ivy League caliber teachers to public schools? Raise the pay. It's the only way. Also, pay should be based on merit. Not tenure.

papajohn56 said:
If we ended all entitlement programs I'd have no problem with paying teachers much better, seriously. Private schools still end up better so often though.
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This. As long as we review and fire every currently incompetent teacher first. Then if teachers were offered six-figure salaries, then we would have MIT graduates lined up to teach high school science (which is how it needs to be).
 
YouDontKnowMe said:
Romoland school district is stupid as fuck. Public school teachers are paid far less than that in most places.

Often, they are overpaid RELATIVE to their skill set. But like I said, anyone who has a top 10% GPA from a competitive 4-year college/uniersity (and a useful major like math, engineering, accounting, etc. -- no bullshit art stuff) can usually get a corporate job, and work their way up to 6 figures in a few years. Or they go to professional school to become doctory, lawyers, dentists, etc. Why the fuck would they want to teach kids at a public school?

If I send kids to a school, I want someone who actually succeeded academically to teach them. Not some fucking retard who got a 2.5 GPA from community college and then got a "certification" from the state to teach. For these types of people, yes even $20k is too much IMO. But if we were to get actual academically competent people to teach, $50k isn't gonna be enough to convince most of them to quite their current job that pays 2x or 3x as much.

So how can we start attracting Ivy League caliber teachers to public schools? Raise the pay. It's the only way. Also, pay should be based on merit. Not tenure.



This. As long as we review and fire every currently incompetent teacher first. Then if teachers were offered six-figure salaries, then we would have MIT graduates lined up to teach high school science (which is how it needs to be).
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as I said, teachers are overpaid, given their output.

By the way, the top of class people do not need to waste their time on students. It does not take a genius at higher education to teach algebra. It takes someone that knows algebra and how to communicate/teach.

The key is not in taking the creme de la creme and thrusting them into teaching jobs - we need them in jobs that produce economic output - not jobs that can be done by anyone who has a simple mastery of the subject being taught. Think about it - the answer is not in getting higher pay - the pay is too much already. The key is in getting people that know how to teach and holding them accountable for results.
 
jonas33h said:
I am a banker and get to hear people bitch about the fact that they spend more than they make many of them being artist/teachers factory workers, laborers blah blah. Poor people always blame everyone else except themselves.
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How ironic that you posted this on your WF profile:

"Personal Banker for one of the largest banks in the US it sucks don't ever work at a bank ever"

Now who's bitchin?

jonas33h said:
and I didn't say you made 30k, I was speaking in generalities. If you can't hack it in the big apple move in with mom, move to an area where cost of living is better or don't bitch.... yeah it is logical.
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Some people don't have moms (or dads for that matter). Just because you have a mom who's alive... and has a home, you assume that everyone else does. Again, just more proof about how naive and simple-minded you are. You've used numerous logical fallacies throughout this entire thread and you think you understand what logic is.

So you think all poor people are dumb. Okay, fine. Then explain the following:

Then are all dumb people poor? Are all smart people rich? Or are all rich people smart?

(I'm not trying to argue whether the above statements are true or false. It's just a rhetorical question to prove that you have no understanding of what logic is. Perhaps you should read through this list: List of fallacies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and I'm being serious here. It's a good list for anyone to know; when I first read it a couple years ago I was surprised at how many there were.)
 
REIMktg said:
as I said, teachers are overpaid, given their output.

By the way, the top of class people do not need to waste their time on students. It does not take a genius at higher education to teach algebra. It takes someone that knows algebra and how to communicate/teach.

The key is not in taking the creme de la creme and thrusting them into teaching jobs - we need them in jobs that produce economic output - not jobs that can be done by anyone who has a simple mastery of the subject being taught. Think about it - the answer is not in getting higher pay - the pay is too much already. The key is in getting people that know how to teach and holding them accountable for results.
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Algebra is an example of an easy high school subject. What about Calculus? Or AP Chemistry?

Anyways, I'm not arguing that the current pool of teachers are being over or under paid. I think that most of them are incompetent and shouldn't be teaching in the first place.

However, if we lower teacher's pay even further, that would only further deteriorate the quality of teachers in the educational system.

As you said, we need teachers with mastery in a subject, good communication skills, and diligence/self-control (kids can be such annoying pricks). What I am saying is that people who fit this description of skillset can find better paying jobs in private industrial sectors. So what could possibly motivate them to become teachers? (Other than altruism, a good heart, etc.)

Teaching might not directly contribute much to economic output, but in the long run it can leverage a LOT of output.

If we sampled 10,000 children and sent them to some shitty, backwards public school system, how much economic output would they produce when they become adults?

On the other hand, if those same 10,000 children were sent to a different school system with superior teachers and resources, how much economic output would they produce as adults?

Obviously it's impossible to take the exact same kids and have them go through school twice, so we can't really do a controlled experiment. But I reckon they would do a lot better in the second scenario.

Now scale this to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of students. The difference in output would be massive. So my point is, finding higher caliber teachers and paying them more right now might seem like an economic inefficiency, but it's a long term investment that's supposed to pay off when the students graduate and start producing output. If we only looked at the short run, then why even bother sending kids to school when we can have them deliver newspapers or wash dishes full-time?
 
YouDontKnowMe said:
Algebra is an example of an easy high school subject. What about Calculus? Or AP Chemistry?

Anyways, I'm not arguing that the current pool of teachers are being over or under paid. I think that most of them are incompetent and shouldn't be teaching in the first place.

However, if we lower teacher's pay even further, that would only further deteriorate the quality of teachers in the educational system.

As you said, we need teachers with mastery in a subject, good communication skills, and diligence/self-control (kids can be such annoying pricks). What I am saying is that people who fit this description of skillset can find better paying jobs in private industrial sectors. So what could possibly motivate them to become teachers? (Other than altruism, a good heart, etc.)

Teaching might not directly contribute much to economic output, but in the long run it can leverage a LOT of output.

If we sampled 10,000 children and sent them to some shitty, backwards public school system, how much economic output would they produce when they become adults?

On the other hand, if those same 10,000 children were sent to a different school system with superior teachers and resources, how much economic output would they produce as adults?

Obviously it's impossible to take the exact same kids and have them go through school twice, so we can't really do a controlled experiment. But I reckon they would do a lot better in the second scenario.

Now scale this to hundreds of thousands, or even millions of students. The difference in output would be massive. So my point is, finding higher caliber teachers and paying them more right now might seem like an economic inefficiency, but it's a long term investment that's supposed to pay off when the students graduate and start producing output. If we only looked at the short run, then why even bother sending kids to school when we can have them deliver newspapers or wash dishes full-time?
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The point is that you over estimate the capability of the masses. There is a small few that take AP -Chemistry - they can get that from a College. I took college courses for college credit while in my public HS. The College Professors came to us.

My point was that you do not need higher salaries to increase productive output from these teachers. You need accountability. I have many times had to take a group of low producing employees and turn them into a superstar team that produces. I have done this repeatedly. The key is leadership.

The problem is with poor management and poor allocation of resources. It is not in the pay nor in the substandard skill set. It is in the motivation and leadership of the teachers. It is also a factor of the Unions ensuring zero accountability.
 
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