DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Poverty and The Brain

More excuses for lack of effort.

Once again...

If excuses were horses, beggars would ride.

keep talking about my parents like that...

Yeah, that was sad but typical. 40 acts like everyone who works hard makes it. that isn't the case at all.

I couldn't bring myself to read the entire post do to the way it started. I was responding to this...

"what are you talking about?

see this is what i mean. you and 40 go off on all these extremes, it makes conversation on this topic difficult.

rent in cleveland in a decent area is around 700-900 bucks a month for a 2 bed room, 1 bath apartment.

it's even more if you want to rent a house.

Having a JOB, minimum wage or not, should cover my rent, at the VERY least.

if not, then whats the point of even working?

you have a drone mentality. this whole idea of "working your ass off and it pays off in the end" isn't even close to the average life of an american.

your starting point matters. luck, who you know, who your parents know, who's competing with you for that job."

I apologize for making it look like an insult to your parents.

That's not an excuse. That's reality.

man, the way a lot of y'all talk about your lives, i WISH i grew up like y'all did. I'd be rich.

You just don't get it!
If you grew up like I did, you would be me. Think about it.

yea, enough to pay my gardner 15k a year.

doesn't sound too bad.

Having money only solves money problems in life. All the other problems are still there. Kids get sick, injuries, family issues, living in a Nation surrounded by Libs, all the same problems as anyone else.

But my wife doesn't clean and I don't play in the dirt anymore!

It's a lot easier to score in baseball when you start on 3rd base than when you're standing in the batter's box waiting for a pitch.

Of course, a sizable chunk of the "self-made" inherited their money or make it from capital gains - Where the rich make their money

I was walking around admiring my garden and poking around a bit. Suddenly I noticed a drop of water had formed on my forehead! I ran to my gardener and asked him what it was! Was I dying?

He told me it was only sweat. I was so thrilled I had him get a small bottle and we put the drop in it so I could show the wife!

I'd love to be able to pay my gardener 15K a year. That poor schmuck is lucky to get a cold glass of water after he's done.

Of course he is me.

I would share some beers with you afterward if you didn't mind paying for them.

Oh, and someone was talking about rents, just looked it up and they start at $2000 per month in my area.

Thankfully, I don't drink beer.

I have two children with autism as well, a daughter and a son.

Okay, I'll bow out of this. Obviously I have no clue according to you.

I only went to a public school. I wasn't afforded the option of private school like you.

My mom never missed a game of mine that I can remember. She was a lowly school teacher ya know.

Apparently the friend I spoke of - you missed the point? He sacrificed a year, hoping he could get moved to 3rd shift from 2nd, so he could watch his kids play sports. He missed a year of them playing.

Now? After 1 year, he doesn't miss a single event.


You said: "Having a JOB, minimum wage or not, should cover my rent, at the VERY least." That would be awesome. How much skill does it take to be a cashier at the local gas station? Hey, if you work at McDonalds, show up, do your job......it doesn't take long to make more money. Rich money? No.

Why does a company literally 12 miles from me struggle to find people that are willing to work for $12 per hour starting off, then over the years, move up to $20 an hour. It's not a rocket science kind of job - it's "show up on time, do your job, put in time, and you'll be moving up." High school diploma appreciated, but not needed. $12 to $20 an hour. And they can't find people to do the work.


Raise the damn minimum wage. Make minimum wage $20 an hour. Watch the guy that now makes $15 an hour either sink, or demand HIS wages go up. And, at the end of the day - ever hear of inflation?

While we're at it, every business ought to pay 100% of every employees health care. Plus, 4 weeks paid vacation, and 12 sick days a year.

Who needs work ethic when things are just given to you?

Hope you put your poverty upbringing and private schooling to good use.

once again, you had to go extreme.

nobody is saying everybody has to be paid 20 bucks an hour. NOBODY.

by the way, if minimum wage rose with inflation like it should have, it should be at 10/hour.

I'll say it again, NOBODY said everybody has to be paid 20.

ALL I said was having a job should be able to cover monthly rent.

you pointed to you friend as an example. i pointed to my parents as a counter to your example.

you said your mom never missed a game. so guess what? you DON'T know what i'm talking about with regards to that experience. That's not a shot at you. i wish my mom could come to my games.

a brain dead kid could be a cashier at a gas station. that doesn't matter. it should be able to cover monthly rent.

stop acting like i'm advocating that minimum wage should cover a yacht or something, with a 401k..

i simply said rent. just rent.

for the last time, rent.

if the minimum wage was where it was suppose to be (10/h), a kid working through college could work a part time job 4 hours a day/5 days a week.

thats 200 bucks a week, or in 4 weeks, 800.

that's rent.

Even though i went on a rant, that ties into this thread.

if my parents were comfortable, how would my, or other peoples brain? be. how would my thought process be? would i still join the army? or gone to school?

a lot of people talk about adults and such and "work ethic" without taking into account that kids have no control over who they are born to.

More "can't do" excuses.

My 14 year old niece has a job. Scooping ice cream. What should she make per hour?

Work ethic.

And for the record bud, I didn't say everyone should be paid $20 an hour. Once again, YOU go to extremes.

You complain about growing up poor - but you also went to a private school? I didn't have that opportunity.

I went to a public shcool. With no a/c by the way. And my text books were old.

So, what should my niece be making per hour? $12 an hour? What should the min. wage be - you tell me. What should an ice cream scooper make? Let's say my niece was 22 and had 2 kids. What should she be making?

You assume raising the minimum wage would encourage people to work. I'm saying whatever the min. wage is won't be enough to encourage people to work unless you jack it up to dumb levels. Even then, everything else goes up in cost.

Minimum wage was not designed to be a living wage. Minimum wage is a minimum paid to people starting off, with basically no job skills. It really is that simple.

If they are making money on capital gains, then they already paid taxes on that money when they originally earned it. It would be unfair of the system to tax it again.

Why stop there? I mean if we are going to force employers to shell out more money. Why not go big so everyone can have nice things?




It does matter. What you don't understand is the job market is supply and demand. Anyone can flip burgers. It's a low skill job. That's why they don't get paid a lot. When you have a surplus, prices are lower.

Now take an engineer. Not everyone can do that. Higher skill level, lower supply leads to higher prices, so they get paid more. It's the way the market is. Like or hate it.

Rock post a link that literally described minimum wage as being a living wage.

Try again.

Once again, I never said anything about encouraging. Nothing. Zero.

I said minimum wage should cover rent.

The current minimum wage is suppose to be at 10/h

Your niece should be making 10/h.

Anybody can be an American soldier. It's a low skilled job.

We should be making minimum wage.

So where does it stop?

You're reaching again, and you do the same nonsense arch and 40 do. Extremes.

I said minimum wage should cover rent. If it adjusted for inflation like the government should've been doing, it should be 10/h.

You wanna name all this other nonsense, the fact is I said it should cover rent. That's it.

Oh and this idea that employers shell out more money, and lose their profit is false. Minnesota already killed that.

You don't understand the job market or economics, apparently. Here's a hint: trickle down economics doesn't work.

Oh and Arch.

You went to a public school? With actual books?

Man I wish I went to a high school like that my first two years!! If only I lived like arch.

I read your post, and nothing seems out of the ordinary to me. My dad retired a Senior Chief from the USN, and my mom didn't work. I lived in government housing until I was 10, and I got one year of sports after that. We never had any money until my dad retired after his 20 and got a job doing what he was doing in the Navy. Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs until I started buying them myself. As he had his retirement pay and a decent salary from his new company, he was able to save up enough for me to go to one year of college, which was local and still cheap. I still had no idea what I wanted to do for a living, so I dropped out.

And some of you wonder why hearing of 'white privilege' ticks me off. I worked for a few years, then put myself through school. I got a good job, and kept my education up so I could keep moving up. A few years later I started taking over all my dad's yard work after he had a couple heart attacks. I've busted my butt since I was 13 either cutting grass, doing odd jobs for the elderly, or working with actual companies. The only thing I haven't done was start my own business, which I had a chance to do when I was 18. I just didn't want to cut grass for the rest of my life.

Life is what you make if it. Circumstances of birth mean nothing.

I didn't say anything about white priveldge, but I understand what you mean.

The thing is this, I got (unfortunately) lucky.

I get 100 percent va disability. So I'm good.

But both my parents were in the military, they didn't get any disability(luckily). They are currently more psychically healthier than me, even though I'm kinda ripped.

But I'd be in the same situation as them if I didn't get this money. Out the militsrh, struggling to makes ends meat, supporting kids.

People need to understand that for some, the ball just doesn't roll in your court.

There's an unemployment rate. That means at any given time, there aren't any jobs for 5-10 percent of the population. Yet people like 40 WANNA say no excuses.

Somebody HAS to lose. Unfortunately it looks like my parents did, and they worked their absolute asses off.

Not to go on a pity party, but what am I suppose to do if I didn't get this money? Man I was thankful Honda hired me. I got so many mental issues, I could barely talk in that interview because of everything going on.

I just hate being talked about by guys like 40 and arch like some of us are just so,e dead beats.

Yeah, and we had to read those books. We had to be in class. We had to pass tests. All 4 years.

I wish I had gone to private school like you for 2 years of high school......wait, no, I'm glad I didn't go to a private school.

Swish - you speak from your reality - which at times is perplexing since you claim poverty, but also private school.

I speak from my reality.

My 14 yr. old niece should be making $10 an hour? Please. She's scooping ice cream.

If you don't like your reality - change it. Move. Move out of the city.

How about this: make the minimum wage location based as well as education based. What one needs in NYC is not at all what one needs in n.w. Ohio. Take your $700 to $900 rent in Cleveland and tell them "stuff it", I'm moving to the country where for that amount of money I'll have a house with 3 bedrooms, a 2 car garage, and an acre of ground.

Oh......but, I wish I lived like Swish - able to smoke pot at will, hate on cops doing their jobs........life just isn't fair.

Swish, you might like rural life. But, you need work ethic. I think you have it - but you need to leave the attitude behind.

My parents made enough around my junior year to pay what extra money they had for me to go to a private school.

I never moved out the hood til I joined the military.

Please don't talk to me about work ethic. You know nothing of my work ethic.

NEW YORK — Most Americans born since the mid-1960s have a favorite “Sesame Street” skit. Jennifer Kotler Clarke watched hers on a black-and-white television set in her family’s Bronx apartment. There were two aliens: One of them had long arms that didn’t move, while the other had short, moving arms. The aliens wished to eat apples from a tree, and they succeeded, after a couple of minutes, by working together. “Let’s call this cooperation,” one of them says. “No,” the other replies, “let’s call it Shirley.”

Clarke grew up to be the show’s vice president for research and evaluation, and she has long believed that the program’s laughs and lessons stick with children. Now, landmark academic research appears to back her up.

The most authoritative study ever done on the impact of “Sesame Street,” to be released Monday, finds that the famous show on public TV has delivered lasting educational benefits to millions of American children — benefits as powerful as the ones children get from going to preschool.

The paper from the University of Maryland’s Melissa Kearney and Wellesley College’s Phillip Levine finds that the show has left children more likely to stay at the appropriate grade level for their age, an effect that is particularly pronounced among boys, African Americans and children who grow up in disadvantaged areas.

After “Sesame Street” was introduced, children living in places where its broadcast could be more readily received saw a 14 percent drop in their likelihood of being behind in school. Levine and Kearney note in their paper that a wide body of previous research has found that Head Start, the pre-kindergarten program for low-income Americans, delivers a similar benefit.
View Graphic
How to explain the impact of 'Sesame Street' to your kids

The researchers also say those effects probably come from “Sesame Street’s” focus on presenting viewers with an academic curriculum, heavy on reading and math, that would appear to have helped prepare children for school.

While it might seem implausible that a TV show could have such effects, the results build on Nixon-era government studies that found big short-term benefits in watching the show, along with years of focus-group studies by the team of academic researchers who help write “Sesame Street” scripts. Several outside researchers have reviewed the study, and none are known to have questioned its results.

The new findings offer comforting news for parents who put their children in front of public TV every day and/or memorized entire Elmo DVDs, unwittingly.

They also raise a provocative question, at a time when many lawmakers are pushing to expand spending on early-childhood education: Do kids need preschool if a TV show works just as well?

Yes, say the economists — and the “Sesame Street” educational team. Head Start, Kearney and Levine write, was designed to provide more than an academic boost: It delivers family support, medical and dental services, and development of emotional skills that help kids in social settings.

Levine and Kearney see the study as a clear lesson in the value of a (very cheap) mass-media complement to preschool. The potentially controversial implication they embrace from the study isn’t about early-childhood education. It’s about college, and the trend toward low-cost massive open online courses, or MOOCs.

“Sesame Street,” Levine and Kearney write, was the original MOOC. “If we can do this with ‘Sesame Street’ on television, we can potentially do this with all sorts of electronic communications,” Kearney said in an interview. “It’s encouraging because it means we might be able to make real progress in ways that are affordable and scalable.”

The research can’t say whether the show continues to deliver such high benefits to children, said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, an economist at Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy, who has read drafts of the paper and given feedback to the authors.

But, she said, it clearly shows “the importance of childhood education, which is really having its moment right now.”
Natural experiment

The economists’ study was brought to you, so to speak, by the letters U, H and F.

“Sesame Street” debuted in 1969 with a diverse cast of humans and brightly colored fuzzy Muppets, including Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie, and, of course, Big Bird. It was the country’s first explicitly educational children’s program, and it was an immediate hit: In the early 1970s, one-third of all American toddlers watched it.

That’s a Super Bowl-level audience share. But it’s even more striking because another third of the nation’s toddlers couldn’t have watched the show if they wanted to — they didn’t have the right antenna to tune in to their local public television station.

This was well before the popularization of cable. TV broadcasts arrived over the air, on two different kinds of signals. The higher-quality signal was known as VHF, or Channels 1 to 13 on a standard TV set. The lower-quality signal was called UHF, and many households at that time were unable to tune it in. By a quirk of federal licensing, the public broadcasting channels in many major cities, including New York and Boston, aired on VHF channels, while others, including Los Angeles and Washington, aired on UHF.

As a result, about two-thirds of the nation’s households were able to watch “Sesame Street.” The other third weren’t.

Levine read about that divide in early 2014. He realized it was the sort of rare natural experiment that economists live for — two groups of people, divvied up by fate and the Federal Communications Commission, who could be compared over time to see whether there was a difference in their educational outcomes.

“It’s econometrically phenomenal,” he said, “because it’s essentially random, who had UHF and who had VHF.”

Levine and Kearney pinpointed which cities had high or low levels of access to the show. Then they used census data to track children from those cities throughout school, to see whether they were staying at grade level. They couldn’t study individual people, or even determine whether people in particular areas watched the show. But they found a large and statistically meaningful effect on the educational progress of children who, because of where they lived, were much more likely to be able to watch. (The effect appears to fade out before high school graduation, they also found.)
Shared experience

“Sesame Street” writers design their shows to have those effects.

From the start, the program rooted its scripts in an academic curriculum designed to help children — particularly low-income urban kids — prepare for school.

At first the writers focused on basics: letters, numbers, cooperation. Over the decades they expanded to incorporate research on what children needed to succeed in the classroom and in life. “We’re constantly changing the show, for good reasons,” said Rosemarie Truglio, the senior vice president of global educational content at Sesame Workshop.

When writers wanted to emphasize science learning, Truglio said in an interview in “Sesame Street” offices just off Central Park in Manhattan, they turned Super Grover into a one-Muppet embodiment of the scientific method.

When they realized that media-soaked children needed more help paying attention and controlling impulses, they decided to make an example out of Cookie Monster — the character who cannot resist sweets.

“As an educator, I was a little worried about that,” Truglio said. “Because he was going to fail, a lot.” Then she realized that was the point: Children needed to see someone struggle with the attention issues they struggle with, and try multiple techniques to overcome them. In one recent skit, modeled on the “Karate Kid” movies, Cookie Monster needs three tries to learn a special move from his sensei, but he finally masters listening with his whole body and, as a reward, he earns a cookie belt.

Which he eats.

“Sesame Street” researchers aggressively test their shows via focus groups to see what works. Their success, they said, rests on a simple formula that wraps education in entertainment, harnessing the power of human narrative. They said the approach could easily extend to college students — to MOOCs — as well as preschoolers.

“Storytelling is critical,” Clarke said. “If you organize information in storytelling, children are more likely to learn it. And adults are, too.”

Like Clarke, Kearney grew up loving “Sesame Street.” (Levine, her co-author, was of school age when the show hit the air.) Kearney remembers running through her house with her sisters, singing a Big Bird song about the alphabet. Her favorite character was the Count — the one who most resembled an economist.

Linky


We can think about this in the context of throwing money at a problem smartly.

So the next time there is talk of privatizing PBS, just think about it. It is not a waste of money.

Actually, I think I know a little bit about your work ethic. You seem to have some.

Wasn't it you that called me out about people having a second job? And how that affects family life - and how that's so terrible that someone would have to spend time working at the expense of family time and therefore minimum wage should be increased?

And you sell cars. That affects your time at home, doesn't it? I bet you don't get a minimum wage.

Maybe you ought to start getting after your employer to guarantee you more than minimuw wage, and guarantee you get to not work evenings and Saturdays.

I sold cars for many years - some months I hardly made my "draw". I spent many 60 hour weeks. Monday and thursday was 8:30 a.m. til 8 p.m. - unless I had a customer that showed up at 8 pm. I went home at 10 pm as often as I went home at 9 pm. (even after you're closed, you still have to lock things up, park cars, etc).

Saturdays? Yup, worked them. Most of them. I'm not selling cars now, but I still work Saturdays.

Swish, you're barking up the wrong tree here. There are opportunities for people that want them. And, want to work for them. I've told you about one place that is looking for employees that have a work ethic. The company can't find people willing to show up on time and put in 40 hours a week, let alonge getting overtime.

Our money is made off commission.

And some? I'm working a job, while going to school, while juggling VA mental health appointments, while still being a husband and dad.

Before that, I was deployed, while going to school. While trying to be a husband and dad.

Saying " some"quite frankly is a slap in the face as far as I'm concerned.

My job lets me go to my kids events. I choose to work at that job because I need the experience for the industry I want to go into. I don't need the job for income.

It's rick case Honda. I don't have to worry about the draw because it's Honda. People walk in there and sign the paperwork. This ain't beford Nissan.

So once again, don't tell me about work ethic. You're the one barking up the wrong tree.

I never said you did, but it has been brought up before. I'm not sure if you brought it up. There is a simple rule of nature - Life is competition. Those who survive and reproduce win. Those that fail are food for the rest of us. There will always be poverty until someone figures out a way to make things for free. Raising the minimum wage will only raise prices until the wage increase is wiped out. Our world is one of supply and demand, and unless human nature is changed, it always will be. All we can do is our best to rise to the top.

I went to no extremes, I simply asked you a question which you did not answer. Nor did I ever say soldiers should make minimum wage. Seems you are the ones going to extremes. I also didn't say anything about companies losing profits.

I bring no facts, only opinion. I'm merely stating that as a God fearing nation we should work to ensure children shouldn't starve. Glad you believe starving children should die. How dare you call yourself a christian. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Btw I'm still waiting on your proof that the majority of immigrants in the early 20th century made it to the 1%. Dodging my query into your initial statement ?

[quote]I bring no facts, only opinion. I'm merely stating that as a God fearing nation we should work to ensure children shouldn't starve. Glad you believe starving children should die. How dare you call yourself a christian. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Btw I'm still waiting on your proof that the majority of immigrants in the early 20th century made it to the 1%. Dodging my query into your initial statement ?/quote]

Our nation already does what it can for those less fortunate. No reason anyone should be starving with the safety net we have here.

He never said 'majority'. He said 'many'. While the word 'many' means quite a few, it does not mean 'most', like the word 'majority' does.

I'm not a Christian. I believe that people should give to charity. I believe those charities should take care of those people they choose to help. I don't believe our government should take money from all of us and waste it like they do. I'm not sure if a study has been done, but I would bet my opportunity to see the Browns in the Super Bowl in my lifetime that more money is spent on the administration of government benefits than the money that is given out. Let's not forget that part of that welfare is providing government jobs, and most of those have duplicated effort.

Many can mean majority depending on context. Either way, I would happily settle for a lesser number that could be illustrated as many. Did 25% of immigrants make it to the 1% in their lifetime? Did 10%? I don't consider 10% to be many but maybe I could be swayed. No number at all and I'm left to presume that 40 made his statement out of thin air.

I don't disagree that welfare is wasteful. And I'm not supposing to provide the best answer as to deal with poverty. I believe there will always be a percentage of the population dealing with poverty, no matter the social construct. Maybe in a few hundred years we will have fixed it (ala star trek) but we simply don't have the social capability to do so right now.

Charities have some downsides that can't easily be addressed on their own. They are highly local, so depending on where you live you may have a lot of charities or none at all. Also during times of economy turmoil (when people need charity the most), giving goes down. Also the money we donate to charity is only a tiny fraction of the budget afforded welfare services such as food stamps.

But for 40 to dismiss poverty claims as people not working hard enough is ignorance. A guy working 3 jobs just to break even with his family is not working hard enough? I'd counter he's working harder than most. Especially when people who work multiple jobs tend to work in unskilled labor, where you earn your dollar from your back, not your brain. Yet we assume if he just worked a fourth job, or worked more overtime (which he isn't always going to be paid for btw) that he'd magically ascend to the 1%. We dismiss poverty as being character flaws on the poor.

It's not an extreme. You said low skilled workers, and I named a profession that is considered low skilled.

I'm only using your logic.