President Obama's 2015 State of the Union Address

[Dan T.]

If CC is free for everyone, you just devalued CC. It will become the new HS, and soon enough the standards will begin to lower.

I hate this idea. I would he way more supportive of federal grants to cover technical/vocational schools the US is sorely lacking in. Plumbing. Electrical. Welding. Tradecraft.

Don't devalue CC, something the working class is already using to better themselves.

 

That comes uncomfortably close to saying the real value of a college education isn't the knowledge gained, but the exclusivity of it based upon its cost. Which doesn't seem fair in an egalitarian society.

[@DCGoldPants]

The Republican Rebuttal was an illustration of how bankrupt the GoP policy agenda really is. The only claim they've staked out for themselves was the Keystone pipeline. If that and passing some trade agreements are all the GoP really has on it's agenda, then they've got nothing and are going to get destroyed in 2016. Especially since the optics of Keystone are going to be negatively effected following the pipeline spill in the Yellowstone River over the weekend. The GoP has been totally reactionary since the decline of neoconservatism as the dominant policy ideology of the party. They've been in reaction mode to everything the Obama administration has done for six years and it looks weaker than ever now that the administration's progressive policies are becoming status quo and the country is healthy again.

 

 

The rebuttal didn't even mention the pipeline by name. She called it the Keystone Jobs Bill. All 50 of the long term permanent jobs (that she didn't mention).

 

Love him or hate him. Like so many people are saying online right now. Obama had his "Zero-****s" moment last night. From the comment after they cheered that he wasn't running again with a "I know because I won them both." 

 

I do find it funny that the calls now are that he's ignoring the people because of the mid-term elections. But when he won twice and the mission statement was only about defeating him, what is the difference?

 

If he has any balls, he'll tell the Dems to do whatever they want, but he's going to veto a lot of what passes if it conflicts with the ACA/Immigration/whatever. That was kind of Bulworth of him. He knows even if he showed up hat in hand asking for help and willing to offer anything the GOP wanted, that still wouldn't have been enough. He would have been called weak and aimless. 

[PF Chang]

I liked the jab at the "I'm not a scientist" crowd. 

[PeterMP]

I've been thinking about this a lot.  Honestly, the only solution is to redefine what we mean by productive. Once we get to the stage (probably within 20 years) or automated cars, we will no longer need truckers, bus drivers or taxi drivers. That'll happen slowly, but it will happen. Look how many of our grocery lines are automated these days. Those used to be clerks.  Offices are lucky to have one secretary these days (who's usually a receptionist). Automation is going to change how we live and we ought to start thinking about what that means.

 

One thing it may mean is that what comes next won't require people!  Every other economic shift, the workplace shifted from A to B. That may not happen this time.  There may be no B.

 

Do we create three day work weeks, so more people can get a job? Do we accept the idea that 30% unemployment is healthy and normal? We need to develop a totally new paradigm or philosophy when it comes to what it means to be a productive member of society. 

 

Maybe this is a thought for a hundred years in the future or maybe it's right around the corner, but we ought to be making plans.

 

This has been a concern with every new age of automation and it hasn't happened yet.

 

At some level that's because people will continue to make money, and they will continue to buy stuff and even if the system is heavily automated, you'll see jobs become a part of it.

 

And you see that happening today.

 

Look at lawn care.  It is easily more automated today than ever, but we actually pay more people to do lawn care than ever in the past.

 

I head on a thing on NPR, but the wealthy buying hand made suits.  They are actually rejecting the products made by automation.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/09/magazine/whats-a-4000-suit-worth.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

You see the same thing happening in the food industry with the rejection of "factory" farming.

 

At some level, people will continue to have money, and they will continue to spend their money.  If automation decreases costs of somethings, then they'll shift their spending to other things.

 

They money isn't going to leave the system I doubt (I don't think people will start to just burn money).

 

If you go back to the 1940s (and even not as far in many places for many cases), the idea of paying people to seed, water, and fertilize grass so it would grow so that you could then just pay those some people to cut the grass that they seeded, water, and fertilized so that it would grow, would just astound most people.

 

Yet today, in middle class neighborhoods, it is common.

 

I have no clue how much automation is going to come and how that will affect costs, but I have no doubt that people will find ways to spend their money that will require somebody to do some labor in some way that today we would consider astounding.

[skinsmarydu]

Way to go, GoldPants.  We all need the reminder every once in a while that they wouldn't even vote yes for their own bills once they knew the POTUS liked said bills.  They took "cranky 2-year old" to a whole new level.

[Popeman38]

That comes uncomfortably close to saying the real value of a college education isn't the knowledge gained, but the exclusivity of it based upon its cost. Which doesn't seem fair in an egalitarian society.

How so? We NEED technical workers. There is a shortage. We don't "need" more college grads. In fact, we have too many. For too long we have been espousing the argument that "everyone needs to go to college to be successful" not because it's true, but because it makes money. The fact that everyone applies for college after HS is one of the reasons college keeps getting more expensive. There is unlimited demand, and they know people will pay whatever the cost no matter how much debt they have to take on. There is no breaking point. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of technical workers. Yet no one is suggesting we incentivize that. Why not? The POTUS just proposed incintivizing CC even though we don't need to. There is already demand for CC and the poor and middle class are already taking advantage of federal benefits to pay for it.

[PeterMP]

But the CNAs down at the nursing home who are making $10? They'll get a raise, too. Because they have a skill which makes them more valuable than the burger flipper. Same reason why they make more than minimum wage, now.

 

This isn't inherently any more true than the idea that prices will go up.

'

Now, there are some cases where contracts are negotiated based on minimum wage and so at least short term (i.e. the life of those contracts) that will happen, but longer term I doubt it.

 

CNAs don't get paid more simply because they have more skill.  They get paid more because of supply and demand.  There is either less supply of CNAs or more demand for them (realistically less supply).

 

Now, the net effect might be that because there will be less incentive to become a CNA if I can make just as much doing something else thus lowering the supply.

 

Now, note this is one of the down sides of raising the minimum wage, which is what I'm not really for it.  It distinctiveness (further) education.

 

(And I will point out that I am worried about things like the growing wealth gap, but I think there are better ways of dealing with it.)

[tshile]

First, this post by and large represents a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

Entirely possible. Economics is something I read about in my spare time, not something I claim to have a great understanding of

I'm always open to being shown why I'm wrong. Research and studies are my preference, I find articles on media websites to be... lacking in objectivity and substance.

 

Costs to consumers for the vast majority of goods we buy are primarily not a function of production costs.

 

Costs for most things are determined primarily by supply and demand.

 

If Walmart was forced to pay their minimum wage workers more, there is no real reason to believe that would have a significant impact on the costs of most of their products unless there was also a concomitant shift in supply and demand.

 

What would primarily happen (given no shift in supply and demand) is that Walmart the company would make less money, which may or may not result in other people in the company making less money.

Having these types of conversations without at least this level of understanding is useless

This last part is where my common sense and real world experience starts screaming at me. I hear quite often that the expected outcome is those that make more would make less, so that those that make less can make more.

The problem I have with that is it doesn't fit anything I know of or have experienced. The idea that the execs are going to do the math and say ' Darn, guess our bonuses will go down this year ' seems like a complete pipe dream that neglects reality. What seems to fit with my basic thoughts and experience is that increased prices will be used to supplement it, while those execs continue to see their bonuses go up (or stay the same.)

I get that people want to try to balance things so that money isn't concentrated the hands of few. And not everyone who wants that wants to take hard earned money away from some to give it to others (the 'wealth redistribution' argument we often see.) I just don't see raising minimum wage working that way. I think it's significantly more likely that the result will be the middle class (and poor) paying more for their goods, and the poor still being poor. It's a feel good move where a group of people can feel good about themselves because they think they supported something meaningful. Meanwhile the actual problem continues, unaddressed, and any benefit (the idea of which is far from undeniable) could be short term (or very short term.)

If my understanding is flawed because of my lack of study of economics, then so be it. But there's a lot of people that feel the same way I do and there hasn't been much evidence presented that shows a minimum wage increase will not come out of the pockets of the rest of us. I'm willing to have the conversation, but if you feel it's useless then I feel you have a pie in the sky idea of how the world works and we've reached an impasse.

 

But even if that was the case, as should be obvious by your own post, you realistically ARE paying for those workers because you are paying for things like food stamps and other associated social benefits to them (unless you fall into the class of people that aren't net paying taxes, which doesn't sound like the case).

I'm not a fan of the welfare system as it is currently constructed, so raising minimum wage and not addressing welfare is not exactly a great solution to me.

 

Second, I'm not sure what state your relative lives in, but I suspect she'd done a miscalculation with respect to staying in a minimum wage job.  The nature of Chip programs is that they tend to be a good deal for people of even significant incomes.

The one working at walmart is in Florida.

She's done a number of miscalculations. That's my point. The system has created this mentality and a bunch of people are asking me to feel sorry for those with this mentality and give them more. When the obvious solution is to get a better job. No amount of reasoning with her gets her past the 'but then I have to pay for all these things and I won't be making enough', much less the idea that she's raising her kids on welfare when she's capable of setting a better example. Or that she'd be starting an actual career and in the long term would be making more. All miscalculations brought about by the way the current system is constructed.

And my main point was that people like this exist - people that can better their situation but choose not to. The narrative is i should feel sorry for them and support raising what they make an hour so they can continue to choose to live like this. I think that is a bad idea.

[pjfootballer]

I would humbly submit that not everyone is equally blessed with upward mobility opportunities.   A family that has spent generations in poverty will have a harder time digging out of it.  Raising the minimum wage will help.

 

Mary,

 

I wanted to expound on this. I hear this from people all the time. I grew up middle class.  I mean, my parents could pay the bills and occasionally we'd go to the drive in (real treat back in those days as you know) and my sister and I never went hungry or lacked a roof over our head.  We had some pretty good Christmases, but my parents had to save for those special times and things.

 

I had (wanted) to work when I was old enough to have my own money and car.  I worked restaurants picking up people's chewed grissle (steakhouse) and worked retail at Kmart/Walmart and U-Haul.  I literally dug ditches in 2000 as a pool installation apprentice with my dad making $100 a week in the hot Florida sun for a year at age 32 until I could find full time work.  And the FL sun is "bad" for a pasty blonde Irish guy like me.

 

Anyway, my sister and I had the same opportunities to go to college. We were lucky that my parents had saved for our educations.  My Mom worked full time jobs and babysat kids to make extra money to put in our funds. We both grew up with the same values and morals.  But my sister chose a different route.  She chose to have 4 kids before the age of 23.  She is on her 3rd marriage and has worked any and all retail/restaurant jobs.  She struggled up until a few years ago when she met her 3rd husband. He does well, so she doesn't have to work.  But her college money was used by my parents to bail her out of a lot of financiall situations. I got my college degree and I have no student loan debt at all.

 

Her four kids:  3 girls and a boy (youngest) .  My sister hated school and doesn't believe in education.  She never passed that along to her kids.  They are all intelligent kids, the boy probably is near genius level.  He's 21 now, so all her kids are grown.  The oldest deceided early on that she was not going to live like her mom.  She took out Grants/Loans, anything in order to get her education. She did it on her own.  She's 28, married with 3 kids and both her and her husband work and make good money.  The 2nd oldest.  She has limited college completed, but never got her degree.  She's married with 1 child. Her husband is in the service, so she doesn't have to work, but before she met him, she struggled terrible.  The 3rd oldest girl?  She is living with my sister, unmarried with a child working at Sonic. She passed her Phlebotomy test, but is finding it really hard to find a full time job on just a HS degree.  The youngest?  He recently moved to Boston to live with his girlfriend.  He has just a HS degree and is working as a security guard.  He reminds me of Matt Damon as the janitor in Good Will Hunting.  Genius IQ.

 

My point?  Three of her four kids are struggling because she didn't stress education.   Now I'm not here to say everyone is made for college or that college guarantees a great salary. More of my point is...there IS a way out.  If kids graduating HS REALLY want to go to college, there are ways to do it.  But unfortunately the cycle needs to be broke.  I was a food stamp/medicaid worker for a couple of years down in FL (the job I finally got after digging ditches) and I saw multiple generations of grandma, mother, daughter and so on that all had cases. 

 

I wish there was a way to break the cycle. There are ways out of poverty, but people need to be proactive like my oldest neice.  She just put her foot down and said, "I'm not living like that anymore."  And it starts with the parents educating their kids from an early age. It still pisses me off to this day that my sister never told her kids "don't make the same mistakes I made and get your education."  She ended up with a GED.

 

I'm not sure what the solution is, but I have to shake my head when people say there is no way out of poverty.  I've seen many people overcome it. There is always a way.

[Dan T.]

How so? We NEED technical workers. There is a shortage. We don't "need" more college grads. In fact, we have too many. For too long we have been espousing the argument that "everyone needs to go to college to be successful" not because it's true, but because it makes money. The fact that everyone applies for college after HS is one of the reasons college keeps getting more expensive. There is unlimited demand, and they know people will pay whatever the cost no matter how much debt they have to take on. There is no breaking point. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of technical workers. Yet no one is suggesting we incentivize that. Why not? The POTUS just proposed incintivizing CC even though we don't need to. There is already demand for CC and the poor and middle class are already taking advantage of federal benefits to pay for it.

 

I actually agree with your point.  I guess my point is that an academically inclined poor kid should be able to achieve a college degree without incurring an overly burdensome debt in the process.  But you are right... the academic route isn't for everyone, regardless of means. I think the point of Obama's proposal is that which path is taken should not dictated by financial means alone. 

[Larry]

This isn't inherently any more true than the idea that prices will go up.

'

Now, there are some cases where contracts are negotiated based on minimum wage and so at least short term (i.e. the life of those contracts) that will happen, but longer term I doubt it.

 

CNAs don't get paid more simply because they have more skill.  They get paid more because of supply and demand.  There is either less supply of CNAs or more demand for them (realistically less supply).

1) I would also argue that the fact that the CNA performs a job which is more highly valued by society, figures in to the wage calculations.

2) And, even if you assume that supply and demand are the only things that matter, what do you suppose happens to the supply of CNAs, if employers decide to pay them the same as burger flippers? Think people are going to go out and spend the money, the time, the effort, to get that CNA certification, if it pays exactly the same?

----------

I assert that, if the min wage raises to $10, then the market will eventually stabilize such that the CNA who currently makes $10, will be making more like $11.75 or $12.

And my evidence to support that assertion is that that's the "balance point" which the market has freely arrived at, right now.

I see no reason at all to just assume that those too-numerous-to-calculate forces will somehow arrive at a different result, than they have already arrived at.

----------

Note: I'm talking eventually. No, I'm not in any way assuming that, if min wage goes up July 1, then all the CNAs in the country will get a corresponding raise, the same day.

But, two years down the road? They'll be making more. Because if they aren't, they'll go flip burgers, instead, and quit working the graveyard shift and putting up with icky old people and changing diapers.

[tshile]

That comes uncomfortably close to saying the real value of a college education isn't the knowledge gained, but the exclusivity of it based upon its cost. Which doesn't seem fair in an egalitarian society.

That's one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at is reading some of the studies done on the rising costs of education, and some of the thoughts behind it being (in part) caused by the federal government providing such easy access to money for people to get into the education system.

Also - the idea that not everyone should go to college. There's a variety of reasons behind that, none of which need to be based on the idea that it ruins some group's exclusive access to it.

The idea that we need to raise the education level of our society, and that it would really help with some of the disparity issues, is one I whole heatedly subscribe to. I just think the initiative of free community college has a lot more issues than the simplistic idea of - we need our people to be more educated. There's cost concerns to the tax payer, inflation concerns to the cost of education in general, the question of who gets to decide who gets free community college and how will they decide (more often than not it's a 'if you make under this amount you get it, if you make over then you can "afford" to pay for it yourself' type BS)

[Dan T.]

I'd like to hear reactions to Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and the Republican response she delivered.

[Vilandil Tasardur]

I really liked the speech. It brought back memories of the man I voted for.

 

I doubt any of it will actually matter, as nothing will get done. Because unfortunately, that's also the man I voted for.

[tshile]

How so? We NEED technical workers. There is a shortage. We don't "need" more college grads. In fact, we have too many. For too long we have been espousing the argument that "everyone needs to go to college to be successful" not because it's true, but because it makes money. The fact that everyone applies for college after HS is one of the reasons college keeps getting more expensive. There is unlimited demand, and they know people will pay whatever the cost no matter how much debt they have to take on. There is no breaking point. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of technical workers. Yet no one is suggesting we incentivize that. Why not? The POTUS just proposed incintivizing CC even though we don't need to. There is already demand for CC and the poor and middle class are already taking advantage of federal benefits to pay for it.

Disagree. We have too many college graduates with degrees that don't get them into a meaningful career. An entirely different problem.

Our largest tech companies are pleading with congress every year to increase the number of H1B's to be handed out. They're also pleading for a new system in addition ot the H1B's. Their reasoning is all the same - the US tech labor force is inadequate and we need to pull from other other countries that have a better pool of candidates.

Studies on economic status of those with and without college education show those with do significantly better, especially in times of economic recession. Wages for those with have been trending up, wages for those without have been tending down. There are various measures to look at, they all show this.

The idea that college, for the average person, is not necessary or that the arguments of the importance of having a college education are false/overstated is wrong. It's shown in numerous studies about happiness and economic status. It's easily seen by watching what our largest employers are doing.

There are problems with the college system in this country. None of them are that having a meaningful education is not a good thing.

[Dan T.]

That's one way of looking at it.

Another way of looking at is reading some of the studies done on the rising costs of education, and some of the thoughts behind it being (in part) caused by the federal government providing such easy access to money for people to get into the education system.

Also - the idea that not everyone should go to college. There's a variety of reasons behind that, none of which need to be based on the idea that it ruins some group's exclusive access to it.

The idea that we need to raise the education level of our society, and that it would really help with some of the disparity issues, is one I whole heatedly subscribe to. I just think the initiative of free community college has a lot more issues than the simplistic idea of - we need our people to be more educated. There's cost concerns to the tax payer, inflation concerns to the cost of education in general, the question of who gets to decide who gets free community college and how will they decide (more often than not it's a 'if you make under this amount you get it, if you make over then you can "afford" to pay for it yourself' type BS)

 

Some fair points here, tshile. 

[Larry]

Perhaps a better way of expressing my assertion, Peter:  (Re:  the assertion that raising min wage will raise the wages of everybody else at the low end of the wage scale.) 

 

When the market negotiates prices for something, those negotiations do not take place in a vacuum. 

 

The price of natural gas affects the price of oil. 

 

Well, when the market decided that that CNA was worth $10, one of the forces that affected that price, was the minimum wage.  (And the wages of lots of other, similar, jobs.) 

 

Change that force (and lots of other, similar, forces), and you are going to get a different "balance point". 

[The Evil Genius]

O - "I have no more campaigns to run", pause..sarcastic cheer from the GOP.

 

O - "I know - because I won both of them". 

 

Silence.

 

 

BURN.

He should have dropped the mic and left the stage after that. 

[skinsmarydu]

O - "I have no more campaigns to run", pause..sarcastic cheer from the GOP.

 

O - "I know - because I won both of them". 

 

Silence.

 

 

BURN.

He should have dropped the mic and left the stage after that.

Roland Martin said that exact thing on Morning Joe earlier. I agree with you both, it was a thing of beauty.

[tshile]

as someone who otherwise liked the speech, i thought it was completely unnecessary and part of the problem in politics right now - the constant need to up one each other and take jabs when there are real issues on the table that need to be addressed.

i also didn't think it was that witty. something more along the lines of "yeah, cheer now. you're going to have to come up with something better than birth certificates and accusations of being a muslim in 2016" would have been better, but maybe that's because my sense of humor sucks.

[Burgold]

I think one of the things always missed or discounted in the min wage debate is that it would boost the economy. Poor people spend. Americans are terrible at saving. Combine the two and you have more money circulating through the economy. The reality is everyone wins and I believe this has been demonstrated every time we have raised the min wage.

As for the technical school argument... Isn't that a function of many/most of our community colleges? Wouldn't providing access to them lead towards the skilled workforce some complain we

don't have?

The expense argument I buy. I also think that AA diplomas will be demoted to HA degree status. Those are fair complaints and should be addressed. I like a reverse GI model personally for this kind of thing. You get cc for free, but you owe your community a debt of service for it.

[Dan T.]

 

 

as someone who otherwise liked the speech, i thought it was completely unnecessary and part of the problem in politics right now - the constant need to up one each other and take jabs when there are real issues on the table that need to be addressed.

i also didn't think it was that witty. something more along the lines of "yeah, cheer now. you're going to have to come up with something better than birth certificates and accusations of being a muslim in 2016" would have been better, but maybe that's because my sense of humor sucks.

 

So just to be clear, you don't have a problem the Republicans who jeeringly cheered, just Obama's ad lib comeback?

[tshile]

Heh Dan T., you messed up the quoting

I don't like any of the outbursts. The You Lie shout wasn't something I thought was necessary either. The President is at a podium to deliver an important speech about his thoughts on the country, recent past, present, and near future.

I'd prefer they all sit and clap when they want to, but otherwise not be involved. Regardless of their feelings on the current President, or the policy/issue he's currently discussing.

I'd actually prefer they hold their applause till the end, that he (she in the future?) and not have such a grand entrance/exit. The less circus and more substance the better in my opinion.

[Burgold]

Yeah, the jeering is a bit childish and classless. Obama stooped to their level. He won the pissing match, but he still stooped.

[@DCGoldPants]

The whole event is nonsense. We only have opposition responses since the 60's. The clapping or now booing and outbursts. 

 

He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

—Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution

 

 

 

Hats off to the President or Party who changes how all this goes down in the future. I don't know how. Make it shorter. Ask for no applause or boos until the end. End the response, at least the night of. The past few its been like they are guessing what he'll say and then end up to responding to something totally different. Hell, I'd be fine with once every other year for the damn thing.