Cut pensions. The young are more important than the old.dayarath wrote:
The point of the system that's in place, and in many other european countries aswell, was to give our society a large, highly educated and skilled workforce (atleast, that was the argument over here for installing the system). The support for students allows them to exit university with a masters degree at only 22-24 years old, leading to more people for longer periods of time in a higher paygrade, a large population of people in possession of a degree and because of that, as a society, you'd secure a fairly stable spot in the international community in regards to trade.JohnG@lt wrote:
The only thing I was serious about was the rise in tuition fees not being a terrible thing. 15k extra in loans is relatively nothing if you treat your education as an investment in your future.
Increasing tuition fees with such a large margin will up the average age of people entering university and cause the total population of students to shrink probably leading to less people exiting with a degree, and being older as they do so.
Not a bad thing per se but it makes me wonder what they're actually planning to do with our society in the long term. I believe there should be more than enough alternative ways of decreasing the cost of the educational system, or perhaps not at all and cutting somewhere else, in order to keep working towards that original goal - after all it's a good idea.
Problem being, people that are 65+ cost shitloads of money to employ and usually work slowly, and are somewhat stuck in outdated systems.Turquoise wrote:
Cut pensions. The young are more important than the old.
You can cut pensions but nobody wants to hire old people.
Last edited by dayarath (2010-12-15 07:09:30)
inane little opines
I just think we should go back to the concept of living with extended family. You should be responsible for taking care of your own aging parents rather than forcing the costs onto the rest of society. If they saved, you're lucky. If they didn't, well, it's your family's responsibility, not the government's.dayarath wrote:
Problem being, people that are 65+ cost shitloads of money to employ and usually work slowly, and are somewhat stuck in outdated systems.Turquoise wrote:
Cut pensions. The young are more important than the old.
You can cut pensions but nobody wants to hire old people.
That's how I look at it anyway.
The older they get, in many cases the less they can do. Eventually it's like taking care of a newborn. Sucks if your grandad ends up getting dementia or severe physical handicaps - your career's going to fly out of the window.Turquoise wrote:
I just think we should go back to the concept of living with extended family. You should be responsible for taking care of your own aging parents rather than forcing the costs onto the rest of society. If they saved, you're lucky. If they didn't, well, it's your family's responsibility, not the government's.
That's how I look at it anyway.
inane little opines
You seem to have taken the worst ideas from both ends of the political spectrum and mashed them together wonderfully. It's like watching a puppy eat its own face.Turquoise wrote:
I just think we should go back to the concept of living with extended family. You should be responsible for taking care of your own aging parents rather than forcing the costs onto the rest of society. If they saved, you're lucky. If they didn't, well, it's your family's responsibility, not the government's.dayarath wrote:
Problem being, people that are 65+ cost shitloads of money to employ and usually work slowly, and are somewhat stuck in outdated systems.Turquoise wrote:
Cut pensions. The young are more important than the old.
You can cut pensions but nobody wants to hire old people.
That's how I look at it anyway.
I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.
That depends on a lot of things. My parents currently take care of my grandfather. My father works full time, but my mother stays at home to take care of him.dayarath wrote:
The older they get, in many cases the less they can do. Eventually it's like taking care of a newborn. Sucks if your grandad ends up getting dementia or severe physical handicaps - your career's going to fly out of the window.Turquoise wrote:
I just think we should go back to the concept of living with extended family. You should be responsible for taking care of your own aging parents rather than forcing the costs onto the rest of society. If they saved, you're lucky. If they didn't, well, it's your family's responsibility, not the government's.
That's how I look at it anyway.
My grandfather does get a sizable pension, but it's mostly private in funding rather than public, and even if all of the public funds were gone, he saved responsibly. He wasn't exactly a high wage earner either.
So, I'm not saying that everyone is responsible in their habits, but a lack of responsibility shouldn't be an excuse to make everyone else foot the bill.
Government should be responsible for helping people at the beginning of life (a.k.a. education), but how you spend your later years is a personal responsibility.presidentsheep wrote:
You seem to have taken the worst ideas from both ends of the political spectrum and mashed them together wonderfully. It's like watching a puppy eat its own face.Turquoise wrote:
I just think we should go back to the concept of living with extended family. You should be responsible for taking care of your own aging parents rather than forcing the costs onto the rest of society. If they saved, you're lucky. If they didn't, well, it's your family's responsibility, not the government's.dayarath wrote:
Problem being, people that are 65+ cost shitloads of money to employ and usually work slowly, and are somewhat stuck in outdated systems.
You can cut pensions but nobody wants to hire old people.
That's how I look at it anyway.
I'm not sure why you find that such a bad idea.
I don't really support it, there's way too many things that can happen outside of one's control that will severely limit one's freedom if people themselves are entirely responsible for taking care of their parents. Ofcourse they should save properly in the first place, but I don't think it's a good idea to remove the net entirely. The last thing I'd want to happen is that if both want to make a career is forcing one to give theirs up, or having family fights about who's going to take care of the parents (yeah, egocentric but I bet you in 80% of the cases it's going to happen).Turquoise wrote:
That depends on a lot of things. My parents currently take care of my grandfather. My father works full time, but my mother stays at home to take care of him.
My grandfather does get a sizable pension, but it's mostly private in funding rather than public, and even if all of the public funds were gone, he saved responsibly. He wasn't exactly a high wage earner either.
So, I'm not saying that everyone is responsible in their habits, but a lack of responsibility shouldn't be an excuse to make everyone else foot the bill.
Instead I'd save on healthcare in the sense of having people pay part of the bill for surgery by default, and having those who are themselves at fault for entirely avoidable injury pay the full price. (Obese people getting problems with their knees / heart etc, smokers getting problems with their lungs, alcoholics needing new livers, drug addicts with all sorts of injuries - etc). If they're unemployed have the government fix a job for them and charge through that.
Next to that I feel the scandinavian system of fining people based on their income as they break the law is a pretty good idea.
There's lots of things that can be cut on, but not stuff like that.
inane little opines
See, I prefer the approach of keeping socialized medicine the same. Since the majority of expenses in an old person's life are medical, socialized healthcare already covers most of their costs. Anything beyond medical expenses should be up to the family.dayarath wrote:
I don't really support it, there's way too many things that can happen outside of one's control that will severely limit one's freedom if people themselves are entirely responsible for taking care of their parents. Ofcourse they should save properly in the first place, but I don't think it's a good idea to remove the net entirely. The last thing I'd want to happen is that if both want to make a career is forcing one to give theirs up, or having family fights about who's going to take care of the parents (yeah, egocentric but I bet you in 80% of the cases it's going to happen).
Instead I'd save on healthcare in the sense of having people pay part of the bill for surgery by default, and having those who are themselves at fault for entirely avoidable injury pay the full price. (Obese people getting problems with their knees / heart etc, smokers getting problems with their lungs, alcoholics needing new livers, drug addicts with all sorts of injuries - etc). If they're unemployed have the government fix a job for them and charge through that.
Next to that I feel the scandinavian system of fining people based on their income as they break the law is a pretty good idea.
There's lots of things that can be cut on, but not stuff like that.
Socialized healthcare makes sense because it benefits everyone rather than just one age group. To me, that's more relevant to the function of government -- helping everyone with equal access.
Helping you pay for rent or enjoy your retirement is more personal.
So many people abuse that system it's unreal, half of the people who end up on the operating table are there for not taking care of themselves properly. Most only notice once they hit 50.Turquoise wrote:
See, I prefer the approach of keeping socialized medicine the same. Since the majority of expenses in an old person's life are medical, socialized healthcare already covers most of their costs. Anything beyond medical expenses should be up to the family.
Socialized healthcare makes sense because it benefits everyone rather than just one age group. To me, that's more relevant to the function of government -- helping everyone with equal access.
Helping you pay for rent or enjoy your retirement is more personal.
I don't see the retirement as more personal, you've contributed to the system for decades, why not be allowed to retire without any issues?
I'm all for upping the retirement age as people start living longer all the time aswell, but not for removing government funded retirement.
Last edited by dayarath (2010-12-15 07:42:08)
inane little opines
im paying damn near close to that amount a year in my shitty little state university
Tu Stultus Es
True, hmmm... Maybe we should cut both, I guess. Turn socialized care into somewhat of a copay system, while limiting pensions to half of what they currently provide.dayarath wrote:
So many people abuse that system it's unreal, half of the people who end up on the operating table are there for not taking care of themselves properly. Most only notice once they hit 50.Turquoise wrote:
See, I prefer the approach of keeping socialized medicine the same. Since the majority of expenses in an old person's life are medical, socialized healthcare already covers most of their costs. Anything beyond medical expenses should be up to the family.
Socialized healthcare makes sense because it benefits everyone rather than just one age group. To me, that's more relevant to the function of government -- helping everyone with equal access.
Helping you pay for rent or enjoy your retirement is more personal.
Public debt would shrink very quickly with that.
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.dayarath wrote:
The point of the system that's in place, and in many other european countries aswell, was to give our society a large, highly educated and skilled workforce (atleast, that was the argument over here for installing the system). The support for students allows them to exit university with a masters degree at only 22-24 years old, leading to more people for longer periods of time in a higher paygrade, a large population of people in possession of a degree and because of that, as a society, you'd secure a fairly stable spot in the international community in regards to trade.JohnG@lt wrote:
The only thing I was serious about was the rise in tuition fees not being a terrible thing. 15k extra in loans is relatively nothing if you treat your education as an investment in your future.
Increasing tuition fees with such a large margin will up the average age of people entering university and cause the total population of students to shrink probably leading to less people exiting with a degree, and being older as they do so.
Not a bad thing per se but it makes me wonder what they're actually planning to do with our society in the long term. I believe there should be more than enough alternative ways of decreasing the cost of the educational system, or perhaps not at all and cutting somewhere else, in order to keep working towards that original goal - after all it's a good idea.
"Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough."
-Frederick Bastiat
-Frederick Bastiat
The support society gives you should be somewhat related to your potential usefulness to society. Depending on genetics and how well you take care of yourself, this potential may last for a long time or it may drop off considerably.dayarath wrote:
I don't see the retirement as more personal, you've contributed to the system for decades, why not be allowed to retire without any issues?
I'm all for upping the retirement age as people start living longer all the time aswell, but not for removing government funded retirement.
Utilitarianism is especially necessary in stark economic times.
alternatively we can scrap some expensive and pointless government programs. Trident for example.
edit: cost is £15-20bn... Sure we could put a few people through university and pay a few pensions with that spare money.
inb4 military-conservative-shitstorm.
edit: cost is £15-20bn... Sure we could put a few people through university and pay a few pensions with that spare money.
inb4 military-conservative-shitstorm.
Last edited by presidentsheep (2010-12-15 07:49:13)
I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.
That depends on economic structuring. If you fill all of the unskilled jobs with immigrants, then "native" citizens that are highly educated will have a better shot at finding work due to the productivity and savings from having cheaper basic services due to immigrant labor.JohnG@lt wrote:
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.
It's basically like what we're doing with illegal labor, but this way, there would be a legal framework involved, and everyone would pay the necessary taxes.
Yet there's still a shortage of people with any sort of technical background, the more of those the more technical sectors can expand, too. As the demand for complex products increases particularily in developing countries the system should be able to support itself. Our own society is becoming more and more dependant on technology too, it's an ever-expanding business.JohnG@lt wrote:
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.
The problem is that there's an excess of bullshit courses and degrees receiving gov. funding and that there's not enough effort put into getting high schoolers to study subjects in which there's a shortage of people. I also believe the quality of schooling in the beta subjects should be vastly improved - it's absolutely crap at high school - adding to their impopularity.
inane little opines
Good points... maybe you could scrap the programs that aren't employable and replace them with more technical education.dayarath wrote:
Yet there's still a shortage of people with any sort of technical background, the more of those the more technical sectors can expand, too. As the demand for complex products increases particularily in developing countries the system should be able to support itself. Our own society is becoming more and more dependant on technology too, it's an ever-expanding business.JohnG@lt wrote:
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.
The problem is that there's an excess of bullshit courses and degrees receiving gov. funding and that there's not enough effort put into getting high schoolers to study subjects in which there's a shortage of people. I also believe the quality of schooling in the beta subjects should be vastly improved - it's absolutely crap at high school - adding to their impopularity.
Art is generally just a luxury for the rich.
It's important for the international market aswell, you have countries like China which can cheaply and easily produce all the things that need further refinement, and you provide that.Turquoise wrote:
That depends on economic structuring. If you fill all of the unskilled jobs with immigrants, then "native" citizens that are highly educated will have a better shot at finding work due to the productivity and savings from having cheaper basic services due to immigrant labor.JohnG@lt wrote:
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.
It's basically like what we're doing with illegal labor, but this way, there would be a legal framework involved, and everyone would pay the necessary taxes.
inane little opines
http://search.ucas.com/cgi-bin/hsrun/se … utton1.y=0Turquoise wrote:
Good points... maybe you could scrap the programs that aren't employable and replace them with more technical education.dayarath wrote:
Yet there's still a shortage of people with any sort of technical background, the more of those the more technical sectors can expand, too. As the demand for complex products increases particularily in developing countries the system should be able to support itself. Our own society is becoming more and more dependant on technology too, it's an ever-expanding business.JohnG@lt wrote:
The jobs don't change though. You just end up with an overqualified workforce for the jobs they are performing and an unrealistic expectation of higher pay. When a college degree is as common as a high school diploma, you end up with an upward spiral of people investing more and more of their time and effort to stand out and actually gain those lucrative positions. Perhaps that's good for the employers, but it ultimately sucks for the employees who end up overinvesting for minimal returns.
The problem is that there's an excess of bullshit courses and degrees receiving gov. funding and that there's not enough effort put into getting high schoolers to study subjects in which there's a shortage of people. I also believe the quality of schooling in the beta subjects should be vastly improved - it's absolutely crap at high school - adding to their impopularity.
Art is generally just a luxury for the rich.
I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.
Ok, let me rephrase... Empty some of the universities and replace them with purely technical ones. I didn't realize some of your schools are even more focused on liberal arts than ours are.presidentsheep wrote:
http://search.ucas.com/cgi-bin/hsrun/se … utton1.y=0Turquoise wrote:
Good points... maybe you could scrap the programs that aren't employable and replace them with more technical education.dayarath wrote:
Yet there's still a shortage of people with any sort of technical background, the more of those the more technical sectors can expand, too. As the demand for complex products increases particularily in developing countries the system should be able to support itself. Our own society is becoming more and more dependant on technology too, it's an ever-expanding business.
The problem is that there's an excess of bullshit courses and degrees receiving gov. funding and that there's not enough effort put into getting high schoolers to study subjects in which there's a shortage of people. I also believe the quality of schooling in the beta subjects should be vastly improved - it's absolutely crap at high school - adding to their impopularity.
Art is generally just a luxury for the rich.
Last edited by Turquoise (2010-12-15 07:56:48)
could be possible. For the USA military expenditure could be decreased by a large margin. You're not going to lose any sort of headstart either, still the best technology and still a very large military. The EU in combination has a military that's just about the same size if not a little larger with only 2% of GDP on average spent on it, maybe a little less.Turquoise wrote:
True, hmmm... Maybe we should cut both, I guess. Turn socialized care into somewhat of a copay system, while limiting pensions to half of what they currently provide.
Public debt would shrink very quickly with that.
You guys spend a whopping 6% and have troops deployed literally all over the world for no particular reason.
inane little opines
Oh believe me, I would love to cut our military expenses in half. I'd also love to pull out of most of the countries we have bases in and close about half of the domestic ones.dayarath wrote:
could be possible. For the USA military expenditure could be decreased by a large margin. You're not going to lose any sort of headstart either, still the best technology and still a very large military. The EU in combination has a military that's just about the same size if not a little larger with only 2% of GDP on average spent on it, maybe a little less.Turquoise wrote:
True, hmmm... Maybe we should cut both, I guess. Turn socialized care into somewhat of a copay system, while limiting pensions to half of what they currently provide.
Public debt would shrink very quickly with that.
You guys spend a whopping 6% and have troops deployed literally all over the world for no particular reason.
It's absolutely retarded. Could be that only 2 out of 10 students study in technical and practically applicable fields.Turquoise wrote:
Ok, let me rephrase... Empty some of the universities and replace them with purely technical ones. I didn't realize some of your schools are even more focused on liberal arts than ours are.
inane little opines
I'm all for that. The link was to illustrate how many useless degrees are offered, there's more to.Turquoise wrote:
Ok, let me rephrase... Empty some of the universities and replace them with purely technical ones. I didn't realize some of your schools are even more focused on liberal arts than ours are.presidentsheep wrote:
http://search.ucas.com/cgi-bin/hsrun/se … utton1.y=0Turquoise wrote:
Good points... maybe you could scrap the programs that aren't employable and replace them with more technical education.
Art is generally just a luxury for the rich.
I'm not saying that a degree in an arts/humanities subject is useless, more the fact that those subject areas offer degrees that arent worth the paper theyre printed on.
I'd type my pc specs out all fancy again but teh mods would remove it. Again.