One of Reason TV's Best

Excellent video about what happened on the local level in an LA High School. Well done, Drew Carey.

10 minutes well spent.

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I've often heard from

I've often heard from teachers in my family the same line,"private schools can just dump the students they don't like right back into the public system".  But when schools aren't even bothering to care for their "good" students I find it hard to feel sympathetic.  I can't say I really had any teacher(s) that stood out and convinced me to strive.  It was my parents that did that.  And I do think a lot of that is missing which goes a very, very long way toward dragging down the schools and can even go so far as to demotivate the staff as well.

But that's no reason, or a very bad one, to oppose something that's been delivering positive results to students.  And I just don't see why people so adamantly oppose a system that lets a parent take the tax money they are required to pay toward education and use it how they wish.  It's one thing to make everyone pay in for roads (I know it's a sticking point for some here) and it's quite another when doing the same thing with regard to something directly effecting one's own children.  And especially their mind.

That being said, I have little confidence in a voucher system that will have some kind of metric applied to satisfy the Democrats that the taxpayers money is being used for a "good education" for two reasons.  No Child Left Behind is a joke.  I believe that given the anecdotal evidence of how it's been applied in the schools where my relatives work.  The ideas may be sound (although I'm not convinced of that, either) but it really is more important how it actually ends up applied.  And two, if I'm spending my money and I don't feel my child is being properly educated, I go somewhere else.  With the public education system, my only choice is to continue to pay my taxes and then pony up even more to send my child elsewhere.  That's an unfortunate and powerful disincentive...

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Yes of course...

...in charter schools control is local, so there is accountability and a genuine desire to get the job done.

Thats why I always thought schools should be like government should be, from the bottom up, as opposed to the top down.

If you have a problem, you should get it solved as close to the problem as possible..neighborhood, town, city, county, area, state, region, and then federal.

So it is no wonder why our schools, which is where our kids go everyday from home, in our neighborhoods, in our towns and cities, in our respective counties, states, and regions, but are run by the Federal Government...are so incredibly screwed up!

 

Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman

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Great Video.

I have a special place in my heart for charter and magnet schools. They are public and focus on education without all the bureacracy. Plus, I'm a product of one, so that helps. We have charters popping up all over Harlem, to the chagrin of entrenched interests. It's kinda divisive here, but it works.

http://wealthweekly.blogspot.com Wii FC:2805-8311-8040-2678 Brawl: 2277-7051-2186

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Drivers and Performance Evalutions

If teachers are in a "bad" district, all the charter schools would need to do is measure those students performance based on other teachers in that district and teachers in similar distracts. That take care of the conscript student body ill-effects of many public schools.

If the teachers aren't giving a good faith effort, then nearly none of the students will.
If the teachers give a good faith effort, then even the formally indifferent students will just go alone with the flow and care slightly.

In our society, people are rewarded for pretending to be certain about things they're clearly not certain about. -- Sam Harris,

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I've repeatedly said: no unions in government.

They should be banned by law.  If what you're most interested is your pay and your benefits and your job security and your right to exert pressure on management thru strikes, then public service is not the place for you IMO.

Can you imagine if the military had a union, for instance?  Imagine the strikes over unsafe working conditions!  And how about a union lawsuit protecting the jobs of the Abu Ghraib guards from termination?

I believe that public school teachers should no more be allowed to unionize than our armed forces.  In the public sector, the public serves as the board of directors--  we hire and fire upper management via elections.  The teacher's union, by definition, works at cross purposes to the interests of the management team we the public have put in place-- working to delve deeper into the taxpayer's pocketbook, protecting teachers from the consequences of their performance, leaching authority from administrators at the school level.  The principal should be the boss of a school and should absolutely be able to fire a teacher on the spot, for instance. 

Recognizing that the video was crafted to put the union leader in an unflattering light, I still find myself wanting to punch the guy in his mouth :-[  

 

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Gosh, I love it when you rant like that.

hehehe

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can unions in government serve some purpose?

I'm generally disdainful of public sector unions, but I'd hesitate before banning them or refusing to deal with them out of hand.

One reason is that I could see an admistration with fascist tendencies nationalizing industries specifically to destroy the unions in those industries. Many state-controlled industries don't have to be state-controlled (the military is an exception).

More generally, I like to think that unions serve some sort of service to the general public. For example, teachers are the people who have direct contact with the students and the best sense of what is good for their students. In contrast, principles are a level removed from the actual teaching, and often have more in common with politicians than teachers -- they often play favorites, micro-manage, or otherwise misuse their power.

I think unions could have a productive role in schools...but there needs to be a change in their attitudes. They should drop the attitude that it is "us against the world" and focus more on what it takes for them to effectively provide a public service.

In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.

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The rise of teachers unions in public schools

...has not been matched by a corresponding rise in student performance, and we've had a near 50-year trial run.  So I fail to detect the "service to the general public".  The union serves the union members in terms of attempting to garner better pay and benefits.

 

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maybe the unions should be split up?

I agree that teachers unions, as they exist, have placed too much emphasis on protecting/enriching their members. However, I know that administrators do the exact same thing, so I see no benefit in shifting power from one group of selfish pricks to another group of selfish pricks.

One objection that I have to current labor law is that it only recognizes majority unions, and it treats them as the exclusive bargaining agent for the workers. This forces all workers to agree on one bargaining agenda, so that workers with meritocratic attitudes are stuck with workers who just want job security.

Maybe we could improve the situation by recognizing minority unions -- allowing the administration to establish a separate contract with those teachers who are willing to have their pay linked to a (fair) performance review.

In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.

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Unions wouldn't have it

Power is everything. But rest assured that defenses by them against such a proposal would be veiled in cries that they are being threatened by the powerful.

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Being a federal employee is in and of itself...

...in large part essentially like being part of a big union anyway.

Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman

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Here's a more interesting question

than "Can you imagine if the military had a union, for instance?"

How about, " Can you imagine if we had a private military?"  I often wonder why the libertarians and the residuals of the left and right of libertarian thought do not question that one?   If the private sector is so über-fantastico and if the government is so bad and incompetent, why trust them with the most improtant job in the nation? 

Give me an answer to that one. 

We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/

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Specter!

Nice of you to pop by!

Looks like you are a little rusty though, coming back with loaded questions jam-packed with strawmen... for intance, your implication that libertarians do not consider the implication of the use of private security forces in the military is clearly made of straw... a five second search of Google revealed an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute who has written a book on the use of private contractors in the military , for instance. 

I personally am troubled by the implications of our extensive use of private armed security forces in our military actions.  But as the Cato institute points out:

If people don't want to use private contractors, the choices are simple. Either scale back U.S. geopolitical commitments or enlarge the military, something that will entail more gargantuan expenditures and even, some argue, a return to the draft down the road.

Personally, I prefer the former. But most people prefer substituting contractors for draftees. As former Marine colonel Jack Holly said, "We're never going to war without the private security industry again in a non-draft environment."

Still, what I would really like to see is a national debate on this. Instead, we bury our heads in the sand and bemoan the presence of private contractors. That is a waste of time. Private security contractors, after all, are just doing the job we outsourced to them.

I mostly agree with this, particularly that we ought to scale back our military commitments abroad to a level that is sustainable and affordable without resorting to private security forces, and that if we do not want to use private security forces for future wars, we ought to go to a draft.

As far as the "über-fantastico" private sector and "bad" government thing, you've never heard that from me.  Just yesterday, I was arguing that it is possible to build a culture in government financial regulatory bodies that would allow them to effecively police the highly compensated "talent" of the private sector; as a model for this, I chose other government organizations of past and present, such as the FBI (Hoover's G-men) and the Marines.  And at the risk of speaking for yellow-bar types and small-government libertarian leaning conservatives, don't these groups typically allow for national defense as one of the few legitimate and constitutional roles of the Federal government?  And since they do allow that the provision of national security is a rightful role of government, doesn't that implicitly answer your loaded question as to why they are not pounding the table for "bad" government military to be replaced by "fantastico" private sector forces?

Finally, while claiming that libertarian types have avoided this question of private contractors in the military, I would point out that you've effectively avoided both the issues bought forth in the video and my side issue about unions in government. Care to offer your views on those subjects?

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uber-fantastico

From start to finish.

 

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I will blame it on

BUI (Blogging Under the Influence) rather than rustiness.

Perhaps it was a strawman (though honestly it was more of a reference to your question rather than a commentary of the video which I honestly did not watch), though I could easily come back with the charge that your comparison of the military to teachers is easily a false analogy fallacy, but I did not.  :-)

Anyhow, I think the reason that teachers (and firefighter, policemen, among other public servants) tend to unionize is that there is no supply and demand formula that we have created for them (well, in public education at least) that can give adequate representation to how much these workers should get paid and what their benefits should be.  Pay for a test-score is about as close as we have  come in the teachers' situation, but there are so many arbitrary variables in these situations (in regards to the socio-economic area a teacher teaches in--teachers in rich areas are by default going to score higher on standardized tests than their counter-parts in poorer areas) that I question these results. 

Since the public often gets to basically throw these workers aside with ease in budget cuts (or through tax cuts, etc.) the best plan is to create a safety net through unionization.  While it may not be the best situation, I can not fault them.

We are all mediators, translators. - Derrida
http://signicide.blogspot.com/

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I don't fault them either

I understand why they formed the unions: to get more money for themselves, and to create job security above and beyond what economics and their performance would dictate.  But since I feel the unions are hostile to the public interest, I would ban them anyway.

You assert that without unions public workers are in jeopardy of being cast aside with ease; I dispute that.  I think that even without unions, public service jobs would still be amongst the most secure jobs that you could have.  The government has a 200 year history of paying its bills, whereas most businesses are lucky to last a generation.  The government can also borrow large sums of money and raise taxes to pay its bills, while private companies tend to quickly run out of options when times get tough.  Put it this way: I don't think that good teacher and good cops are going to be hurting for job opportunities in a union-free environment.

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Military is a public good

and best not provided by the private sector.

It doesn't work the same way.

The idea of dispersed benefits plays a role.

 

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small-military libertarians

How about, " Can you imagine if we had a private military?"  I often wonder why the libertarians and the residuals of the left and right of libertarian thought do not question that one?   If the private sector is so über-fantastico and if the government is so bad and incompetent, why trust them with the most improtant job in the nation?

First, most libertarians would like the military to be substantially shrunk. I think that the vast majority of Americans would agree that the military, in principle, is a public good -- however, at its current size it seems to be focused on providing services to trans-national corporations.

Second, some libertarians (of the "anarcho" schools) have put extensive thought into how to separate the military from the state. Most libertarians are interested in the idea of militias, and emphasize the need for the military to be voluntary -- both serving as controls that keep military power close to the people-- preventing the state from taking the initiative to start a war without popular support.

The core issue is not what we call the institution that organizes military action, but who has control over the decision to use military force-- the people or the state.

In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.

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large government is unaccountable government

There is also a trend in libertarian that is in favor of a small state, rather than being anti-state. Since state powers rest upon the threat of violence, the state will necessarily include armed forces.

A state that is focused on the defense of persons and property would be small, and easier to control than a state that gets involved in all types of things.

  • It will be easier for the public to monitor how the armed forces are used.
  • It will be easier to hold politicians accountable for misuse of armed forces, because it will be the only issue in an election; we won't be choosing politicians based on the fact that they are the lesser of two evils with respect to other issues.
  • government officials will have less tools with which to manipulate the public (e.g. propaganda, patronage)

So from this perspective, the expansion of government is bad specifically because it increases the chance that the armed forces will be misused.

In my expert opinion, you should do what I tell you to do.

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Large business is unaccountable business

Can't you make similar claims about mega-corporations.

 Look what happens when private institutions become to big to fail, ie: Citigroup or AIG

These companies have merged so  many facets of the banking industry under their umbrella that no one had the power to hold them accountable for their actions.

 The people in these institutions are the same people that contribute (lobby) government for competitive advantage, at great cost to the stability of our society at large.

 

 

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Not really,

Can't you make similar claims about mega-corporations.

Well, then again, I suppose you could but I really don't see what the relevance is since they the two don't come into being in the same way...at least not in the sense that you would like.

Being "too big to fail" is the offspring of corporatism which involves government helping business through subsidies as well as special regulation as opposed to simply regulating it on the basis of core market principles involving incentives.

The idea of large and unaccountable government is a function of it having too much influence and too much money in too many areas....and that is the result of the people yielding to ideas that enlarge the power and scope of the government. Government doesn't do this by itself. Interest groups cajol the common people into giving it to them. As the government becomes larger and has more direct say in more things, you invariably get regulatory capture from those best positioned to use the power the government. Millennia of human history bear this out.

Therefore: Big, unaccountable government begets "too big to fail" large mega-corporations.

There's plenty of writing and literature....especially from a more left-ish libertarian perspective...that shows that companies would have a harder time getting so big and powerful without government involvement to smooth out the economic landscape for them.

Remember: Big Business doesn't like freer markets. They like regulated markets to offer them the sure and predictable footing that allows them to grow unsusually large.

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I disagree

 I think it is the other way around.

 Mega-business has enough money to bribe politicians into writing laws that favor them. We saw this with the passage of Medicare D. 

 We learned all these kind of lessons in 1929, yet here we are again with another  pyramid scheme that has proven  unsustainable.

 Which country is the only country to have never had a bank fail? Canada. Why because they have regulations. They learned the lessons of 1929.  The shrill anti-tax crowd in America wants to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and we are all paying the price.

 Big business does not operate without big banks. The banking sector is the worst culprit here, as I stated, allowing the investment side of banking to become a part of the regular bank structure was stupidity squared. IN other words, deregulating the banking and investment industry is the cause of the problem.

 It's the old argument of the chicken or the egg.

 

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Not quite...

Mega-business has enough money to bribe politicians into writing laws that favor them.

You can't bribe a limited government with a simple and defined scope to go to the lengths that government...mostly under the veil of the public good...has to make make businesses grow to "too big to fail" status. That's just the point. A limited government can't do that. Consider that Bill of Rights creates "limited government" on many issues. History is full of examples of what special interests have tried to do in spite of it...mostly failing on constitutional limitations. And it's not one simple law that can be researched and pinned.

So, no. It is NOT the other way around.

We saw this with the passage of Medicare D.

Indeed. Hardly the act of limited government.

 We learned all these kind of lessons in 1929, yet here we are again with another  pyramid scheme that has proven  unsustainable.

What lessons? I don't quite follow your assumptions as what these lessons were.

 Which country is the only country to have never had a bank fail? Canada. Why because they have regulations. They learned the lessons of 1929.

Couple things on this point. First, we have regulations on our banking industry as far as they eye can see and then some. Saying "because they have regulations" is rather meaningless.

However, on that point, Canada  lacks two crucial regulations that our banks are subject to. These lacks are credited with giving the Canadian system the foundational soundness to avoid what we had here.

One big one was the lack national deposit insurance or deposit requirements during the entire run up to the Depression, the Depression and its aftermath. This instills market dicipline and affects incentives of banks in terms of their capitalization.This didn't change during the depression.

Another prominent one is a lack of regulation on branch banking and diversification (did not inhibit it) which affects competition down to the local level and weeds out weak banks rather than helping them survive and grow and pose problems later. Remember that whole "smoothing the landscape" point I made.

Such proper alignment of incentives based on sound market principles precede other kinds of regulation and provide a simple and starightforward way for the market to correct itself on daily basis. Why must we be so complicated here in the states? Such a bizarre array of regulation combinations that undermine soundness through bad incentives.

 

 

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How off base can you get.....?

Canada has had no banking crises. Why? Because it has firm enforceable regulations. That's meaningless to you? Ok. The sound reasoning on that one eludes me. But you are entitled to your opinion.

 

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Off base?

No. Right on target.

We had enforcebale regulations as well. Nothing unique in and of itself. So, yes, your "because they had regulations" assertion is as meaningless  as saying it's because Canada had democratic government. So did we. hardly enlightening. You had nothing to say about why the actual and concrete points I made don't shed light on the matter.

The sound reasoning on that one eludes me.

Sorry.

But what we have here MissL is you making an empty, vapid and ideological talking point about "regulation" while I gave a very clear and real explanation in response....one that you can research. To all that, you have said nothing...again. Absolutely nothing.

Try again.

 

 

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No thanks

 I am also positive nobody's mind will be changed and it's not worth the vitriol.

 Glad I could offer you and  the mags a bit of entertainment with my vapid arguments. 

 Now, if you will excuse me I am going to go 'envy' the square footage of my neighbors house.

 ~Have a great day.

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Nobody's mind will be changed?

That's the sign of ideological blindness and bias. You simply ignore factual and reasoned arguments that go against what you want to believe...as if accepting those arguments or at least looking into them somehow threatens or undermines every opinion you hold. Mind you, you don't actually take the arguments and explain what's wrong with them. You simply look the other way as if hard analysis carries no weight against vague assertions....just because you're entitled to your opinion. Moreover, it's not like I said something "off base" like Canada had magical bank dust to prevent failures or God guided them through a burning bush. No, I actually gave something plausible and concrete explanation that can be easily looked into and even understood by simply thinking about it and conceptualizing the stream of thought.

Beyond an empty, murky platitude about regulation, you have forwarded nothing to explain your assertion of why Canadian banks had no failures during the Great Depression. NOTHING.

And from where I first responded to you upthread on this tangent, you have danced away from every point I made in response to what you said like frog hopping from one sinking lilly pad to another.

If you just like throwing zingers out there and wanting them to stand unquestioned, you're better off making these zingers to a wall or door or maybe your kitchen table. At least they'll have nothing to say. But if you wish to make them here, you should expect responses from sentient beings with something to say based on clear thought and the evidence of neural activity. Of course, the whole idea of debate and discussion is kind of moot when every solid and researched point is simply evaded with that magical trap door called "we'll just have to disagree".

Had I made a counter point about Canadian Banks that was as unsubstantiated and vague as what you said, this would all be different. It would be one of those thoroughly subjective disagreements with no answers that are clearly correct...or at least more correct or plausible than others....like the abortion question or capital punishment or "is there a God?" Yes, those are simply more conviction in the end. But when it comes to this matter of Canadian Banks, there are truly defensible answers than can be argued and proven to have merit over others. I gave one. You didn't. The only thing resembling an answer that you did give is so vague and non-specific that the only stance you made in there somewhere is that Canada had regulations...or firm enforceable regulations. And neither of those two answers shed any light on anything. They don't explain anything. And like I said already: They don't distinguish the Canadian system from ours. You could have said ours had failures because the U.S. has greed....as if to say that Canada doesn't. Well, I seriously doubt there are no greedy people in Canada so that doesn't work.

You say your mind will not be changed? Great. But I can tell you that it isn't because you actually made an argument that stands up to the slightest scrutiny. It's simply because you plug your ears and close your eyes and refuse to defend your statements or address those of others.

 

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John just gave specific

John just gave specific reasons that refute your assertion that the success of their banking industry was "because they have regulations" (which, incidentally, sound a lot like you are saying we have none, which, as John pointed out, is untrue).  Your latest statement changes that dynamic a bit.

Because it has firm enforceable regulations.

Now that might actually be something you could provide some data to defend.  And I would appreciate it if you did.  And by defend I don't mean by asking me to "look around" or using our current situation as anecdotal evidence.  And yes, I am aware of the testimony regarding the Madoff case et. al.  I mean what about our regulations make them unfirm and unenforceable?

What John is arguing is not that regulations are bad and they should go away.  He just stated that the regulatory structure of the Canadian Financial system appears to work with regard to preventing the current disaster.  In fact, Canada has it's own CRA-like legislation.  And so someone such as yourself might be able to interject as to why theirs worked and ours didn't.  Hint:  They passed a bill in 2001 that significantly changed their system for the direction of ours.  What was it?  But CRA style regulatory requirements aside, I don't think you've properly addressed the differences between John's specific examples and our current regulatory system enough to justify your reaction.  Both the US and Canada have regulations that are firm and enforceable.  Will you even concede to the fact that the differences in specific regulations are what make the difference and not simply having "firm and enforceable regulation"?  Because I'm pretty sure that was John's point...

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Excellent point

You can't bribe a limited government with a simple and defined scope to go to the lengths that government...mostly under the veil of the public good...has to make make businesses grow to "too big to fail" status. That's just the point. A limited government can't do that.

That is exactly right...but there is a very large "but" in here:

No one wants a limited government.  Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is a lot easier if the stealing is done by a proxy on your behalf.

I can either work hard, gain customers, and make things people want or bribe the government to make it harder for the competition.  I can convince my workers that the government needs to have the power to make it harder for the competition so that they can keep their jobs.

Even with the assumption that free markets are better for all of us as a whole, I don't care about the whole.  I care about me.  Free markets might not be best for me.

(obviously, the "I" here refers to the businessman who wants government help, not me)

I never broke the law; I am the law! -- George W. Bush Judge Dredd
I'm listening to...

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Because that is one of the few things the government...

...actually does that it is supposed to do, and is constitutionally obligated to do. And it does it well, and it would do it very well if it wasn't busy trying to unravel its involvement in all the things it has no business doing, and does so poorly!

Also, it is so at the heart of government, and our citizens security, that it would be unwise to "outsource" our national defense as a whole.

 

Underlying all arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. ~M. Friedman

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