Laugh at Trump all you want

[spookini]

I'm onboard with eastbound...  These new "education reserves" lending instruments could be further divided into "tranches", so that new derivatives could be created, offering large institutional investors the opportunity to access a diversified basket of tranches across all employment sectors.  What could possibly go wrong??

On the other hand, how 'bout:  two wages.. a "young adult" minimum wage (under age 18, and/or student), and "adult minimum wage" (over age 18, non-student, 24hrs/week or more).
The burger joints and pizza places get their cheap, pimply-faced, transient low-cost labor force.  The folks who actually need a living wage get something a bit better.

Seems like a reasonable solution.  Which will never happen.

(An aside:  magenta', how would you describe your political worldview?  "Total anarchist"?  Just curious...)

[Subber]

I'm onboard with eastbound...  These new "education reserves" lending instruments could be further divided into "tranches", so that new derivatives could be created, offering large institutional investors the opportunity to access a diversified basket of tranches across all employment sectors.  What could possibly go wrong??

Government Subsidized and Government Guaranteed, I'm sure.

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

Magenta, I'm truly sorry you had a bonecrushingly awful education. I know that happens. I had some pretty awful teachers too. I can only say that public education can also be pretty good. I teach at a terrific school. My home district is one of those districts people think is awful, but those kids gave a beautiful concert last night. I was proud to have my kids a part of that.

Teaching can be a beautiful thing, and it can be torture. I do my best to make it good.

I gotta say I could have used a little educational help growing up. My divorced parents were dead poor when I was in high school, and my father was slipping into the depths of alcoholism. One morning I had to pick that drunk bastard out of puddle of his own blood and convince him he was wounded enough to go the the hospital. I was also going to one of the best public high schools in the country. Crazy situation!

It took me fifteen years to get a college degree. I dropped out three times because of poverty. I was running a very high GPA too. Everyone always told me, "Go to school, Ian! The money will work itself out!" And it never f---ing did. I had to have a first career (IT) in order to get a college degree. Talk about picking yourself up by bootstraps.

So that educational reserve could have helped my ass a lot. I wouldn't have given a crap where it came from — the government, charity, relatives, or the Jolly Green Giant. A little help would have made a huge difference for me growing up.

[pdxmike]

On the other hand, how 'bout:  two wages.. a "young adult" minimum wage (under age 18, and/or student), and "adult minimum wage" (over age 18, non-student, 24hrs/week or more).
The burger joints and pizza places get their cheap, pimply-faced, transient low-cost labor force.  The folks who actually need a living wage get something a bit better.

Seems like a reasonable solution.  Which will never happen.

That does make some sense in concept.  There is the part, though, where the adult, non-students who really need the work get shut out of jobs that employers fill with students and kids, even if the adult would be happy to work at the same wages as the kids.  And the better-off young adults who can afford to stay in school have their job applications moved in front of everyone else's, because the students can be paid less.  Although I'm not trying to pick on this idea--there are no ideal solutions.

[Califoilia]

If you pay property taxes then there's no such thing as "free" education. And frankly, the use of the term "education" in regards to the boring soul-crushing, creativity smashing indoctrination that goes on in public schools is one helluva stretch. How about the public schools actually teach kids usable life skills like entrepreneurship instead of the current paradigm where most leave high school totally clueless about their future?

So teaching "kids usable life skills like entrepreneurship" is the answer to all of our governmental and unemployment, or low pay employment woes?  Maybe the next time I need need someone to work on my car, add an addition to my house, or just repipe it, I can call one of your "entrepreneurs" to take care of that for me.  I think someone watches too much Shark Tank, if he thinks entrepreneurship is the answer to everyone's employment/low employment woes.

So you are suggesting that a $5.00 per hour job killing TAX should be imposed to create another useless government make-work program is a solution? Gawd help us. 

No, I was more or less just thinking out loud, rather than simply just whine, bitch, moan, and complain about something without ever offering a supposedly better solution to whatever "government" problem(s) you continue to blubber about.

So you got any ideas for improving things other than just creating more unemployed "entrepreneurs" working for minimum wage while waiting for their "dream" to take off (which we already plenty of), or do you need another shipment of "government" tissues to wipe your spiteful tears with? 

[Califoilia]

I'm onboard with eastbound...  These new "education reserves" lending instruments could be further divided into "tranches", so that new derivatives could be created, offering large institutional investors the opportunity to access a diversified basket of tranches across all employment sectors.  What could possibly go wrong??

On the other hand, how 'bout:  two wages.. a "young adult" minimum wage (under age 18, and/or student), and "adult minimum wage" (over age 18, non-student, 24hrs/week or more).
The burger joints and pizza places get their cheap, pimply-faced, transient low-cost labor force.  The folks who actually need a living wage get something a bit better.

Seems like a reasonable solution.  Which will never happen.

(An aside:  magenta', how would you describe your political worldview?  "Total anarchist"?  Just curious...)

Yep, or something like a "starting wage", for the burger flippers, pizza tossers, part-time student workers, and then a "minimum/living" wage for those in the workforce at a more "permanent" or long term status, which might have a more detailed, technical, or vocational job description attached to it.

Again, just thinking out loud...and I'm sure there's a bunch of potential negatives to it, but if many/most are in agreement that something needs to be done differently than just the status quo, or paying the "guilt tax" as Suppa so correctly called the in the near future, CA $15 minimum wage increase that I too have a problem with, being a CA resident, tax payer, and more importantly consumer who will be effected by it first hand.

[PonoBill]

My wife is working with a young lady, went to a supposedly very good private high school, has a bachelors degree from Johnson and Wales......planning on going for her masters soon. She saw the video  combining a kiwi with a banana that is circulating on FB and is all excited to try it. If that much education can't fix stupid......... . Of course stupid can't be fixed but don't tell those selling higher education that.

My least favorite job in our agency was interviewing prospective employees, their expectations simply floored me. I'd sit there asking questions and listen to the answers and sink lower into my seat. People applying for positions as copywriters submitted resumes that sucked--not just poor writing, but simple proofreading. People with degrees. Work history even. One such miscreant told me she wanted to be copy chief in two years. I said "we don't have that position here". Her reply was--"you should." Okay, I'll get right on that. She also kept telling me her experience was "very unique", which felt like someone sticking a needle in my ear.

[spookini]

That does make some sense in concept.  There is the part, though, where the adult, non-students who really need the work get shut out of jobs that employers fill with students and kids, even if the adult would be happy to work at the same wages as the kids.  And the better-off young adults who can afford to stay in school have their job applications moved in front of everyone else's, because the students can be paid less.  Although I'm not trying to pick on this idea--there are no ideal solutions.

Well, I'm saying throw the business owners a bone by saying, "Anyone under age 18, and anyone under (say) 20hrs/wk, gets the lower min wage."  In that scenario, yep most biz owners would obviously choose to staff 95% w/ folks working under the threshold.   But they'd still choose a few ppl (5%) who are reliable, hard-working, dependable.. who can be counted on.   Those folks would get the govt'-mandated 'big-boy real adult age'.

As a recent small-biz owner, I can somewhat attest to this...  we have one employee who says she "spells phonetically".  Aka, just makes words up. 
Here's a note I found on my desk recently.  "Mr. O'Brine called.  He needs a recipe for all of 2015.  For taxes." 
(We have no 'Mr. O'Brine'.  And.. we are not in the food service business.).

This same employee asked for extra hours, doing clerical tasks.  Which is fine except she can't spell or even file alphabetically. 
I also call her the 4'oclock ghost.  (When she decides to leave, she just vaporizes.)

Under the above scenario, she'd definitely be on the "no big-boy wage for you" list..
Conversely, if we had one person that could truly be depended upon, more hours @ higher-mandated wage would be easily justified.

[magentawave]

Thinking out loud is okay but taxing small businesses $5.00 per hour per employee PLUS all the other taxes (workmans comp, social security, etc.) to create another bureaucracy would kill small business startups and result in the closure of existing small businesses. There are always consequences to government intervention.

Entrepreneurship doesn't have to mean finding investors with deep pockets so you can start the next business empire like you've seen on Shark Tank. One example could be a kid starting a simple service business like washing and detailing cars for the neighbors, or a service to get their neighbors Windows computers working properly, or a million other businesses that can be started with little to no startup capital. Why is learning usable life skills in school such an unbelievable concept to you?

If you pay property taxes then there's no such thing as "free" education. And frankly, the use of the term "education" in regards to the boring soul-crushing, creativity smashing indoctrination that goes on in public schools is one helluva stretch. How about the public schools actually teach kids usable life skills like entrepreneurship instead of the current paradigm where most leave high school totally clueless about their future?

So teaching "kids usable life skills like entrepreneurship" is the answer to all of our governmental and unemployment, or low pay employment woes?  Maybe the next time I need need someone to work on my car, add an addition to my house, or just repipe it, I can call one of your "entrepreneurs" to take care of that for me.  I think someone watches too much Shark Tank, if he thinks entrepreneurship is the answer to everyone's employment/low employment woes.

So you are suggesting that a $5.00 per hour job killing TAX should be imposed to create another useless government make-work program is a solution? Gawd help us. 

No, I was more or less just thinking out loud, rather than simply just whine, bitch, moan, and complain about something without ever offering a supposedly better solution to whatever "government" problem(s) you continue to blubber about.

So you got any ideas for improving things other than just creating more unemployed "entrepreneurs" working for minimum wage while waiting for their "dream" to take off (which we already plenty of), or do you need another shipment of "government" tissues to wipe your spiteful tears with? 

Wow, what a great story. You've been through some stuff, stuck with it, and came out okay on the other side. I'm glad you do your best to make it good because I only had two teachers that actually cared about teaching and they were great teachers. The crazy thing is that the private school I went to for 8 years was just as bad as the public school I attended later.

Magenta, I'm truly sorry you had a bonecrushingly awful education. I know that happens. I had some pretty awful teachers too. I can only say that public education can also be pretty good. I teach at a terrific school. My home district is one of those districts people think is awful, but those kids gave a beautiful concert last night. I was proud to have my kids a part of that.

Teaching can be a beautiful thing, and it can be torture. I do my best to make it good.

I gotta say I could have used a little educational help growing up. My divorced parents were dead poor when I was in high school, and my father was slipping into the depths of alcoholism. One morning I had to pick that drunk bastard out of puddle of his own blood and convince him he was wounded enough to go the the hospital. I was also going to one of the best public high schools in the country. Crazy situation!

It took me fifteen years to get a college degree. I dropped out three times because of poverty. I was running a very high GPA too. Everyone always told me, "Go to school, Ian! The money will work itself out!" And it never f---ing did. I had to have a first career (IT) in order to get a college degree. Talk about picking yourself up by bootstraps.

So that educational reserve could have helped my ass a lot. I wouldn't have given a crap where it came from — the government, charity, relatives, or the Jolly Green Giant. A little help would have made a huge difference for me growing up.

Actually, if there must be a minimum wage, your idea for a two-tiered minimum wage is a pretty dang good one.

Yes, anarchist, or to be more specific, voluntaryist.

On the other hand, how 'bout:  two wages.. a "young adult" minimum wage (under age 18, and/or student), and "adult minimum wage" (over age 18, non-student, 24hrs/week or more).
The burger joints and pizza places get their cheap, pimply-faced, transient low-cost labor force.  The folks who actually need a living wage get something a bit better.

Seems like a reasonable solution.  Which will never happen.

(An aside:  magenta', how would you describe your political worldview?  "Total anarchist"?  Just curious...)

[Califoilia]

Entrepreneurship doesn't have to mean finding investors with deep pockets so you can start the next business empire like you've seen on Shark Tank. One example could be a kid starting a simple service business like washing and detailing cars for the neighbors, or a service to get their neighbors Windows computers working properly, or a million other businesses that can be started with little to no startup capital. Why is learning usable life skills in school such an unbelievable concept to you?

Not an unbelievable concept to me at all, and why I simply suggested expanding it one level up from simply teaching "life skills" to a bunch of high school teenagers, many of whom have not reached a maturity level, or experienced enough "life lessons" to make a true cognizant correlation to what is attempted to being taught to them, and thus having the "in one ear, and out the other" syndrome that many (most?) have at that age, and phase of their life.

And sadly, pretty much at any level of "education", the most important of "life skills", that of money management, personal finance, and investing is never taught...beyond that of handing over your hard-earned money to some "financial analyst" who's only advise is to "buy, hold, and hope" with the mutual funds/stock(s) of the day...or more likely, the ones that pay him/her the most for plopping your money into them.

Teaching folks how to make the most of whatever money it is they're capable of earning, would go a whole lot future than thinking that simply throwing more money at them will do more....then simply giving them more money to spend ineffectively much of the time.

I was fortunate enough to have a grandfather who did it for me, and I was able to purchase my first house in SoCal at 22, just five months after entering my "career" job (without a college degree), when interest rates were 17%, and not the measly 3-4% we see today....with a down payment saved, and invested from all of the various "minimum wage" jobs I had held since a teenager.

I share that not to be braggadocious, but rather to say that "minimum wage" is not the problem or increasing it the solution, nor is teaching "entrepreneurship" or whatever else you consider "life skills", unless one of those "life skills" is teaching kids, and adults what to do with their money...regardless of how much or how little they're able to earn of it.   

So as to keep this in the spirit of the thread, and not have "stoneaxe" blow another gasket ....it will be interesting when we finally get to hear if the self-proclaimed, world's best, Wharton educated, "entrepreneur"....actually turned his daddy's $100M inheritance into billions as he claims....or simply into 100's of thousands as other have said he's done with his "fortune".


JMO mind you....again, YMMV.

[Area 10]

That does make some sense in concept.  There is the part, though, where the adult, non-students who really need the work get shut out of jobs that employers fill with students and kids, even if the adult would be happy to work at the same wages as the kids.  And the better-off young adults who can afford to stay in school have their job applications moved in front of everyone else's, because the students can be paid less.  Although I'm not trying to pick on this idea--there are no ideal solutions.

Well, I'm saying throw the business owners a bone by saying, "Anyone under age 18, and anyone under (say) 20hrs/wk, gets the lower min wage."  In that scenario, yep most biz owners would obviously choose to staff 95% w/ folks working under the threshold.   But they'd still choose a few ppl (5%) who are reliable, hard-working, dependable.. who can be counted on.   Those folks would get the govt'-mandated 'big-boy real adult age'.

As a recent small-biz owner, I can somewhat attest to this...  we have one employee who says she "spells phonetically".  Aka, just makes words up. 
Here's a note I found on my desk recently.  "Mr. O'Brine called.  He needs a recipe for all of 2015.  For taxes." 
(We have no 'Mr. O'Brine'.  And.. we are not in the food service business.).

This same employee asked for extra hours, doing clerical tasks.  Which is fine except she can't spell or even file alphabetically. 
I also call her the 4'oclock ghost.  (When she decides to leave, she just vaporizes.)

Under the above scenario, she'd definitely be on the "no big-boy wage for you" list..
Conversely, if we had one person that could truly be depended upon, more hours @ higher-mandated wage would be easily justified.

It sounds like your employee may be dyslexic. This is a registered disability in the UK, and employers are required by law to make reasonable adjustments for it. There are usually simple workarounds for people with dyslexia, and showing understanding and flexibility in dealing with the problem is often rewarded with greater loyalty and commitment from the employee. Many people are embarrassed by their dyslexia and find it hard to discuss with an employer, especially one who is ignorant about brain-related disabilities.

The Wikipedia page on dyslexia is pretty good, and may help you understand the problems that your employee may be trying to cope with. It is a very common problem, and a person is no more able to do something about it than if they were eg. hard of hearing, or had a visual impairment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

[PonoBill]

Possibly, but probably not. There is also simply lack of effort, or the simple belief that they don't have to try to improve, or perhaps just a disrupted and inclement classroom environment in the few years of school when spelling and grammar take root. If you don't get it by the fourth grade, it takes a herculean effort to catch up. Learning spelling and grammar after high school or college is a foreign concept to most people, not matter how pathetic their skills are.  I suggested a spelling/grammar course to kahn academy, but no result yet.

Of course spending the winter in Hawaii makes me even more cynical. Public education in Hawaii is unbelievably bad.

My experience in dealing with Gen Y employees mirrors some of the issues raised here: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

[spookini]

It sounds like your employee may be dyslexic.

Area, that was my 1st thought... until she casually told us that she was home-schooled until age 14...  And, her own mother?  Married at age 17, no higher education.  So probably mom taught her to spell by watching television.  (Seriously, how does someone think "receipt" is spelled r-e-c-i-p-e?    )

Our very 1st hire was someone who could not calculate 10% of round numbers..  even after we explained it, and left a calculator and working copy of Excel on her desktop.  We would tell her "pls apply a 10% courtesy to this person's $150 bill."  We'd come back to see she had given them a $3 discount.

After that, we realized potential hires need to be given a math test.  Next interviewee?  Couldn't do it.  "Ok relax, you're at a restaurant and your bill is $50.  You wanna tip 20%, how much would that be?  No?, How' bout 10%?"  Total blank stares.  Made me feel really bad for local restaurant workers.

Next interviewee had no problems with basic math.  We hired her.  She's the one who can't spell.

[PonoBill]

Sad, huh. When I hear teachers say the problem is not enough money it makes my head spin. If the budget got doubled what percentage improvement could we expect? I think the "man in the street" interviews where college students are revealed to know nothing other than pop culture are nonsense, since they could simply represent the viewpoint of the producer. Interview enough people, edit out the non-idiots, and you prove your point. But my irritation is not because people aren't that dumb (they are), it's because the viewers are too stupid to understand that any viewpoint could be supported by that approach.

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

The money issue comes in Bill because kids in poverty need more services than those who are not disadvantaged. You're not going to get that return in investment like you mention. People, especially kids, don't work that way. The best you can hope for is that you'll help them out of whatever hole they're in.

That doesn't excuse kids who are terribly incurious though. I get them too. They really don't care about much besides their friends or whatever the thing of the moment is. The world doesn't interest them. Kids like that sadden me. Their world is so small, and they don't even know how small it is.