Due to time zone difference there are usually 100+ posts to read on the way to work every morning.


Ha, this was my initial thought.



Not life changing pieces of advice here but a few things that have stuck with me.

1) From my grandmother,

Learn to laugh at yourself and not take yourself too seriously.


2) From my Dad,

Never hold a grudge.


3) From me,

"You know what they do with engineers when they turn forty?"

"They take them out and shoot them."

yo zimm, prob not the best place to ask, but what do you think abt the student loan bubble/sustainability? nothing specific, j/c what the future bodes.

Yeah, this is a brilliant thread. You Americans are defo #1.

so basically in the end, weed is bad.

You mad that we got all these problems and still run the world?

There are people with more expertise than me, and I would encourage you to look at resources where people have much more experience in economics for the answer.

My take is that it is extremely unsustainable, and I don't see a solution to it beyond massive government intervention. Whether that comes in the form of forgiving loans, controlling prices, or something else, I don't know. But it is going to happen eventually.

Colleges have no incentive to reduce costs as long as loans are still freely available. They still will keep building new buildings and research facilities so they can maintain their academic prestige, and as long as that happens then costs will still go up.

The "bubble" will burst eventually, but that can take a wide variety of forms in how it actually happens, and I have no clue what exactly would cause it, or what the higher education system will look like once it does.

Internet making University system obsolete.

Teacher pay varies widely by location, and in many places they are indeed overpaid. But the problem isn't the wages. It is the union-extracted benefits that are completely out of line with anything available in the private sector combined with the near impossibility of firing a bad teacher and a complete lack of accountability.

The research is very clear about how to improve education in America. Reward good teachers and fire bad ones. Teachers' unions vehemently oppose this, effectively fighting for their worst members while doing nothing for their best members. Now teacher apologists will tell you that its really hard to measure teacher performance. Bull****. Spend one month in a school and you'll know who the bad teachers are. It's that simple.

Chart outlining the absurdities associated with trying to fire a Washington, DC public school teacher

Los Angeles teacher mocks student who attempted suicide ("carve deeper next time"), retains job

New York City spends $22 million a year for teachers who are awaiting hearings to sit in rooms and do nothing

California state teachers retirement fund is underfunded by $70 billion

I could go on. You get the drift.

I'm in sales. It was my plan A coming out of college. Whether or not most people realize, sales is the backbone of business and structured so basically anyone can do it. Sales is almost totally mathematical.

I've seen many people start out in sales that people would say "have no business being there" and some of them are very successful. Its basically the one job that almost anyone can get as long as you come across as professional and can communicate fairly well, and every company is always hiring sales people.

You realize the purpose of a union is to get the best pay and benefits for its members and protect their jobs right?

Rather you lads than the Chinese tbh

Well, that is one possible purpose. Protecting the worst and doing little or nothing for the best is indeed one way to run a union.

These clowns run around talking about how it is all about the kids then oppose anything that will actually help kids. They're a joke.

Speaking of the Chinese, the segment on Vice about their giant vacant cities is absolutely ridiculous and the implications of it are pretty scary, especially considering everyone knows the Chinese gov't is going to fight to the death before allowing it to harm them.

I mean anyone who reads stories about teachers not getting fired after verbally abusing students and thinks 'good job union' is just not someone who is ever going to get it.

My mom is in a teacher's union and it doesn't help her at all. She is thinking of leaving it and just keeping the 400-600 a year they charge. She's been there for 14 years, thats like 7k of useless.

Edit: She's in special ed. and the classroom teachers are basically using the union to try and do less and less in the classroom. Basically when the classroom teachers have special ed kids they are supposed to be responsible for teaching the kids, but they don't want to have to tailor the lesson plans to the individual students.

I mean I totally agree that more bad teachers should be fired but that's on the administrators, school boards, politicians, parents, voters, etc. The union can't say, "well, what you did is really bad so we're not going to fight for your job."

If you don't defend the **** ups or don't represent the non paying members, then you lose a ton of power.

Why is it all on the union and not the schools for hiring bad teachers in the first place?

Def think there's a place for public money in education obv, but unions' vehement opposition to allowing any sort of choice as to where students go to school show where the unions' allegiances lie.

It's particularly nasty and vile with teacher unions, because anytime someone wants to open up school choice (and by extension, teach choice), their go to line is that those opposed to the unions' demands "don't care about the kids." it's a very advantageous position they put themselves in.

I normally lol Europe, but public education is one thing many European countries get way more right than the us.

Also, my mom's union is currently protesting something, so they told teachers to show up exactly when the contract says they have to, and leave right away, so most people are ignoring that.

nath just got so easily rustled by about anything

School choice helps, but unfeasible for those that could show the most improvement from it.

Chicago is a nice example that exposes the 'its about the kids' bull****.

Last year they went on strike because they didn't think they were getting enough of a raise. They were already paid an average of $71,236 per year EXCLUDING benefits. For that, the city got the shortest school day in America plus summers off of course. Another sticking point: the union fought very hard to include a provision in the agreement explicitly prohibiting principals from hiring the best candidates for open jobs, instead requiring them to hire laid off teachers (who are almost certainly horrible) first.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...teacher-strike

That post from Clark definitely seems like he's saying teaching isn't a real job

nath is probably just embarrassed about choking in f3 of that SE WW game

itt Riverman is gonna go full politard and call teachers jokes?