What happened to American optimism?

[MillauFr]

I have to laugh at this. It actually really is hard. Simple solutions are simplistic and don't take important factors into account.

I can't think of a better way to increase economic activity that improving the education system of your state/city. Are their any other factors that are more highly correlated with a good economy than the quality of education institutions? The only ones I can think of are due to luck not any actions of our leaders. I know the quality of a college's football team has nothing to do with improved economic outcomes.

 

[mom2rtk]

I can't think of a better way to increase economic activity that improving the education system of your state/city. Are their any other factors that are more highly correlated with a good economy than the quality of education institutions? The only ones I can think of are due to luck not any actions of our leaders. I know the quality of a college's football team has nothing to do with improved economic outcomes.

Money doesn't always equate to higher quality education.

 

[mjkacmom]

They're around $5,000 - 8,000+ here. There may be a cheaper one that I don't know about. My son's academic team coach pays $2500 a week for full-time in-home care for her mother. I can't imagine.

We pay $1100 a week for an unlicensed caregiver for my dad in home, 5 1/2 days a week. She doesn’t drive, though.

 

[Spencer Wright]

Money doesn't always equate to higher quality education.

And also excellent education (especially relatively prestigious public school districts) can often raise the cost of living making an area totally unattainable.

I am originally from Chester County, PA and we are seeing it there, where offers for my mother's house are constantly made, with prospective buyers citing the school district as a reason to pay exorbitant prices for homes.

A three bedroom modest ranch house on the street I grew up on just sold for $480K in a couple of hours. That is how demanding it has gotten out there.

Also, these top universities can easily run $40-$60K per year, making them unattainable for most unless you go into huge debt.

 

[mjkacmom]

They were $2,500 to $8,000 a month here if you are a private pay/long term care insurance client when I had to select one for my mom. We have residential care facilities for the elderly here in California. They are homes in residential areas with no more than 6 residents, and 24 hour care. I selected one of these for my mom. The base rate there was $3,000 plus $300 for special care she needed as a stroke patient.
I know care/ nursing homes that accept Medicare/Medicaid eligible patients are less expensive.
Another popular option here is senior housing that has on sight assisted living, nursing home care and hospice. Those have a one time payment of $200,000 per person. Many choosing that option have sold their homes, that they owned outright. With an average home selling price of $347,000 in my county, enough people can come up with $200,000 that there is a waiting list a couple years long to get into those facilities.

There are similar places here, but I think it’s closer to $400,000. That’s around the same median home price here.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

Written by Billy Joel • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group

Ya know, that song WAS the first thing that popped into my mind when I read this thread!!!!

 

[punkin]

Money doesn't always equate to higher quality education.

True, and also, a) not everyone can be #1. You're competing against everyone else; b) where's all this money supposed to come from, particularly in a depressed area with a lowered tax base.

 

[Colleen27]

I can't think of a better way to increase economic activity that improving the education system of your state/city. Are their any other factors that are more highly correlated with a good economy than the quality of education institutions? The only ones I can think of are due to luck not any actions of our leaders. I know the quality of a college's football team has nothing to do with improved economic outcomes.

But the reason that works is competitive advantage - a state or city only boosts their economic prospects by investing in education *because* so many other places don't or can't. It moves the pieces around the board but it doesn't add more pieces overall.

It is like the "college for all" push to end poverty; it sounds good as a political position but not much more. If such a strategy were ever successful in ensuring a college education for everyone (excluding those truly incapable, i.e. the severely disabled), it wouldn't change the fact that we need a certain percentage of our workforce to be jockeying cash registers and flipping burgers. A college education commands higher wages specifically because most people don't have one. And an educated workforce grows local economies specifically because most places don't have one.

 

[crjack]

I can't think of a better way to increase economic activity that improving the education system of your state/city. Are their any other factors that are more highly correlated with a good economy than the quality of education institutions? The only ones I can think of are due to luck not any actions of our leaders. I know the quality of a college's football team has nothing to do with improved economic outcomes.

I live in a city that is filled with top ranking colleges (Harvard, MIT, etc) as well as top ranked hospitals and tech companies and for all of the pros that brings to a city it also creates challenges. Home prices here are very high so more and more traffic as people have to go much further out to buy a home. Boston is an older city so road and urban planning is even harder. Commute times and a very old inefficient public transit system make for very long days for workers.

Our child care costs are some of the highest in the country, when combined with high home prices make it hard for young families despite the "good" job you may have. Companies everywhere will still outsource work if there is significant savings opportunities.

Boston Public Schools don't benefit financially from the strong higher education here unless a donation is made. Most city workers struggle to meet residential requirements unless you have lived here for a long time.

High salaries are needed to live here now but not everyone has that and it makes it even harder for small business to launch and succeed. No city or state is immune to the financial stresses challenging the country right now.

 

[Magpie]

Hm... interesting stuff to think about in this thread!

Yesterday, one of my students complained to me that his mother keeps saying to him, "You're so big!" He's actually a very little guy for his age, compared to his peers, so this stings a bit. I pointed out to him that he's only been alive for 11 years. His mother, on the other hand, is 50 (or so he tells me). I said to him, "These 11 years are your whole life, so they seem like a very long time. But, for your mum, they're not that long at all. So, she's always surprised when she sees you, because to her, it seems like only yesterday when you were a toddler. To her, you're big. And you got big all at once, very suddenly."

I think optimism kind of works the same way.

In order to be optimistic, we have to imagine ourselves in the future. We have to be able to put ourselves there and think about it in a good way. Now, if we've only been alive for a little while, we've got a lot of future to imagine. If life has generally been good to us in this little while we've been alive, then we have little difficulty imagining that it'll be even better in the future.

However, this ability to mentally time travel has its downside, too. We can imagine disaster. Illness. Poverty. Death. The longer we've been alive, and the more troubles we've endured or seen our friends and family (or even strangers in the news) endure, the more pessimistic we become about our own future. And quite reasonably so. It's important to spot danger ahead of time, so we can try to work toward a future without troubles like these. Unfortunately for us, we're also smart enough to realize that some catastrophes are unavoidable and inevitable and coming closer with every passing year. ("Death!!" "Oh, Grandpa, you always say that!")

This is, of course, all mediated through our personality - some of us are naturally more optimistic than others.

And I think countries, as a whole, can be similar. When the US was young, it was natural to be optimistic about its future. Having less access to media also helped maintain a sense of unity and optimism, since people only knew what they read in the daily paper about their country. (Why do you think authoritarian regimes try to control the media?)

Personally, my theory is that the US is going through a rocky adolescence right now. This cynicism, self-loathing, antagonism and ennui is just a passing phase, and doesn't define it. Because, underneath there's still starry-eyed optimism, and a determination to change the world for the better.) Sooner or later, the country will make it to adulthood, settle down, and get comfortable with its identity.



(Canada is nearly the same age, but still living in Mom's basement - "It's just like having a real apartment!")

 

[Gumbo4x4]

I can't think of a better way to increase economic activity that improving the education system of your state/city. Are their any other factors that are more highly correlated with a good economy than the quality of education institutions? The only ones I can think of are due to luck not any actions of our leaders. I know the quality of a college's football team has nothing to do with improved economic outcomes.

I can: factories, distribution centers, military bases, etc.

St Louis boasts excellent medical facilities and 2 highly acclaimed universities. And the city's economy is in the toilet.

Your one size fits all cure to the economy is not well thought out. Besides, the kinds of facilities you mention are typically the result of a robust local economy, not the cause.

 

[hopemax]

I would just find it frustrating to live in a place where the state and local governments aren't doing more to grow the economy. Too many places could have great research universities that attract people that would start companies that hire people. It really isn't that hard to figure out how to grow the economy. You just spend tons of money on education and make sure your schools and colleges are #1.

And in some of those depressed communities there exists a prevalent thought that schools and colleges and the so called "education" they give, are responsible for the decline of America, and wouldn't welcome the investment. Here in Colorado, the Denver Post recently ran an article about how one former mining community is adapting and embracing hemp production, CBD oil extraction etc. I can't help but think that in other parts of the country, the economic impact would be totally overlooked because of perception, "we don't want that stuff in our town." This is why I said the US is on a path with two trajectories.

 

[NFLDERS]

Really? Both my parents died from cancer, and I have diabetes. I had no issues at all getting coverage.

See, it just goes to show you not everyone's experience is the same. The factors for risk here in Canada may be very different?

 

[cabanafrau]

There is a generation that is content living in Mom and Dad's basement.

ISIS' robust recruitment and radicalization results worldwide suggests contentment might just be a serious overstatement on your part.

 

[tvguy]

See, it just goes to show you not everyone's experience is the same. The factors for risk here in Canada may be very different?

So long term care is not covered by your Provincial Health Care, or does it vary from Province to Province? I'll have to ask my cousins in Saskatchewan and Ontario how they paid for their parents long term car.

 

[NFLDERS]

So long term care is not covered by your Provincial Health Care, or does it vary from Province to Province? I'll have to ask my cousins in Saskatchewan and Ontario how they paid for their parents long term car.

Province by Province.

Our Health care does but, there are shortages of beds. Business' growing here from the need are more favourable IMHO. Also, more costly.

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

There is a generation that is content living in Mom and Dad's basement.

I have a different view. I think the Millenials (Gen Y) and Gen Z are better generations than the two that preceded them and I am hopeful that once these generations start to come to the forefront that they don't lose the things that are good about them and that things will get a lot better.

 

[Colleen27]

I have a different view. I think the Millenials (Gen Y) and Gen Z are better generations than the two that preceded them and I am hopeful that once these generations start to come to the forefront that they don't lose the things that are good about them and that things will get a lot better.

I hope for the same. I think there's a material difference between the Boomers, who came of age in a rapidly expanding economy with tons of opportunities open to them, and Gen Xers and Millennials who have really had to struggle. I don't think we'll lose the lessons we learned from that and the empathy that comes with it. Or at least, that's what I'd like to think. I hope I'll never be like my kids' Boomer grandparents, preaching about how when they were young they worked to pay their own college tuition, moved out as soon as they graduated high school because they "valued independence", put 20% down when they bought a house, and "put in the hard work" of staying with one company to build a career and earn a pension, all the while condemning the younger generations as lazy, disloyal, or morally deficient because they can't do those same things today.

 

[tvguy]

Province to Province.

Our Health care does but, there are shortages of beds. Business' growing here from the need are more favourable IMHO. Also, more costly.

I do recall one of my Uncles (in Ontario) spent time in the hospital because there were no open slots in nursing homes.

And an Aunt (in Saskatchewan) spend just one day in a nursing home and my cousins decided to bring her home and have visiting nurses care for her. But one cousin involved in this is an RN also, and she told me she felt nursing homes were just warehousing senior citizens

 

[LSUmiss]

But the reason that works is competitive advantage - a state or city only boosts their economic prospects by investing in education *because* so many other places don't or can't. It moves the pieces around the board but it doesn't add more pieces overall.

It is like the "college for all" push to end poverty; it sounds good as a political position but not much more. If such a strategy were ever successful in ensuring a college education for everyone (excluding those truly incapable, i.e. the severely disabled), it wouldn't change the fact that we need a certain percentage of our workforce to be jockeying cash registers and flipping burgers. A college education commands higher wages specifically because most people don't have one. And an educated workforce grows local economies specifically because most places don't have one.

Plus, I think you could argue that it would devalue that education. It would be like no more than finishing high school is now of most ppl had it.