Again, these type of discussions suck because the definitions and ideology based debates are so far away from reality. Blanket statements about “socialism vs free market” and “deregulation”.
It’s not that freaking simple and Republicans in the states have used these blanket statement hack talking points to push their own agendas to cut programs for poor people to save money for their donors.
Saying “regulation is bad so we need to randomly cut 50% of regulations” is more of the trump/republican retardation strategy.
I like the fact that you aren’t allowed to sell poisonous food to customers, and aren’t allowed to pollute my drinking water. Apparently Trump Disagrees.
Japan and Korea have high depression rates because of their insanely stressful school system and work environment that put so much value on studying, working late, and appeasing your superiors. I know the government of Japan has been struggling to enforce work hours laws that require companies close at a reasonable time. but companies find ways around this and employees are still encouraged to work late.
“I like the fact that you aren’t allowed to sell poisonous food to customers, and aren’t allowed to pollute my drinking water. Apparently Trump Disagrees.” It is completely illegal to sell poisonous food and Trump has no intention of changing that. Clean drinking water is actually one of the things Trump is pushing hard for. And regulation DOES matter tho obviously you should talk about specific regulations that needs to be fixed like the dodd-frank and the over-regulated medical industry rather than general regulation numbers
Dude, trump just signed an EO allowing coal companies to pollute our
waters.
“And regulation DOES matter tho obviously you should talk about specific regulations that needs to be fixed”
yes, this was in part my point. I agree. I’m saying that republican rhetoric has been to blanket blame peoples problems on “overregulation” as reason to cut medicaid, education, and planned parenthood. And especially, his rhetoric on the EPA. That really, really pisses me off, since I don’t want new york to look like it did before the EPA http://11735-presscdn-0-72.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/GWB_1973_2-580x377.jpg
“…Japan and Korea have high depression rates because of their insanely stressful school system…”
Yeah. Having some respect for teachers isn’t bad, but I think the folks in Japan take this concept and crank it up to an insane level. I remember how, some years ago, there was a story about how a young girl was just a few seconds late for school, and a teacher slammed down some kind of metal shutter on her as she was trying to get in the door. She was actually killed! :-0
Well I’m sure that is an unusual case, but I know this is a problem in terms of innovation: Outside the box thinking can often be discouraged in favor of placating your superiors. I also wonder how much of this super competitive type school culture results as a reaction to living in really, REALLY high population densities in Japan (and Korea) relative to available opportunities.
“It’s not that freaking simple and Republicans in the states have used these blanket statement hack talking points to push their own agendas to cut programs for poor people to save money for their donors.”
“yes, this was in part my point. I agree. I’m saying that republican rhetoric has been to blanket blame peoples problems on “overregulation” as reason to cut medicaid, education, and planned parenthood. And especially, his rhetoric on the EPA. That really, really pisses me off, since I don’t want new york to look like it did before the EPA”
The one issue I have when I hear statements like these is the idea that the amount of money spent is equal to the quality received, it is truly a horrible metric to measure the success of any program. For most things, relative to other countries we are usually one of the top countries in terms of how much we pay for things like healthcare, social programs, educations, military, etc. Yet, we consistently rank low in many of the categories in ways you might measure the success of these programs.
When any new idea/plan/strategy is proposed, if any funding is cut, people cry foul since they believe that any money being cut means that “party x” is attacking healthcare, education, social programs, military, etc. I am not saying any of the proposed solutions are any good, but when you are overpaying and under receiving, you need to try a new approach instead of adding to the problem that we know isn’t working.
The bigger issue I have noticed is that everything in the school system has to do with passing entrance exams. Imagine if everything you can do for college was based on your SAT score and everyone who goes to college has to take the test. This determines what college you can go to and what you can major in which controls your future. But Yutaka might be able to elaborate on the situation better than any of us.
No no, I completely agree with you about that. In my state of New Jersey we spend the most of any state in the country on roads yet we have some of the worst roads in the country. I totally agree that there is a difference between Big Government and competent government.
My problem is that the republican congress’s solution is always to simply cut funding to valuable programs and do nothing. There is absolutely no reason to gut medicaid in the new health bill unless you are one of the 1% people who will receive a large tax cut.
We’ve tried deregulation before. It caused the 2008 meltdown. We’ve even tried lowering the taxes on the rich and the middle class in hopes that wealth would trickle down. That didn’t work either!
The thing about freedom of choice from deregulation, is it only benefits people if they play by the rules!
“Entrance to public universities is based on two entrance examinations: the highly competitive National Center for University Entrance Examination, which is administered throughout Japan over a two-day period each year, and examinations administered by the individual universities at which the student wishes to enroll. The most prestigious national universities have such high applicant volumes that the national test is often used as a screening device for qualification into their own admission tests.”
National Center for University Entrance Examinations
This is my point. Policies of Bill Clinton and George Bush of deregulation and wealthy tax cuts were an unmitigated disaster. Ever since Reagan “turned the bull loose” on Wall street we have Big boom or bust cycles in the Economy. We need to stop with this bullshit of “wall street is over regulated and hurting our economy”.
“Takahashi clocked up 105 hours in overtime over the course of a month from Oct. 9, 2015, according to labor inspectors at the Mita Labor Standard Inspection Office in Tokyo. But her reported overtime was kept within the 50-hour ceiling.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201611170051.html
Deregulation in the labor market that me-first employers demand will not make workers’ lives happier.
At least in Japan as well as in the U.S., deregulation and tax cuts will NOT make the lives happier.
The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism by Richard Sennett
"In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed bureaucracies Max Weber once called an ‘iron cage.’ Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. "
I don’t know if deregulation and tax cuts will help anybody, except the super rich who Trump is most interested in helping, but I do know that today I got 2000 Euros refunded to me by the Austrian government after I clicked a few buttons on their tax-something-something website. Fantastic!!!
“Are there any limits to how much people are forced to bend? Can government give people something like the tensile strength of a tree, so that individuals do not break under the force of change?”
Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998), pp. 52-53.
“Living with people who differ—racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically—is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today. We tend socially to avoid engaging with people unlike ourselves, and modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city. In this thought-provoking book, Richard Sennett discusses why this has happened and what might be done about it.” http://www.richardsennett.com/site/senn/templates/home.aspx?pageid=1&cc=gb
Richard Sennett, a sociologist, is one of my favorite writers.
“Richard Sennett has explored how individuals and groups make social and cultural sense of material facts – about the cities in which they live and about the labour they do. He focuses on how people can become competent interpreters of their own experience, despite the obstacles society may put in their way.” http://www.richardsennett.com/site/senn/templates/general.aspx?pageid=8&cc=gb
