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However more needs to be done to look at the root of the problem and prevent it from happening again. Lending needs to be tightened back to where it was in the mid-90's. It wasn't impossible to get a mortgage or car loan or credit card or even small business loan, but it was a lot harder than it is now. PEOPLE looked at loan applications instead of computers and those people relied on gut instincts to ask questions when something seemed not quite right.
Computers actually can screen quite a bit out in regardless to loan applications. That wasn't the problem. lenders deliberately loosened lending standards because the banks would package the loans as securities and sell them. So therefore the banks weren't terrible concerned about the quality of the people they were lending to.
However, the financial meltdown also meant that it was much harder to sell these securities, so banks got stuck with bad loans on their books.
So currently, it is harder to get a loan than it was in 2005-2006, the height of the real estate boom. I might add that Alan Greenspan help contribute to this. When the dotcom market collapse, the Fed set the interest rates insanely low. So it became much cheaper to borrow. That led to the housing market boom, which went BUST. Greenspan could have simply let the previous recession run its course, instead, he created a MUCH worse recession.
If that straight A student is that smart, they will get private grants and scholarships and can fund the rest in student loans. I've got no problem with that. I do have a problem with taxpayers actually funding education in the form of outright grants and public scholarships.
That was pretty much what I got for my undergraduate degree. It was mostly private grants and scholarships, along with student loans. Though I did win some public scholarships too, and yes, I gladly took the money as I put in the work to earn them.
Now we'll see what I have to do for grad school. Who knows, maybe I'll have even saved up enough money from working.
As well they should! Instead of buying drugs they should be paying for the roof over their head. It irks me to no end when people receiving any sort of public benefit has the money to pay for drugs, cigarettes, tattoos, the list goes on--when the reality is that the rest of us are the ones covering the costs for those things. Total BS.
That kind of "assistance" merely enables people's bad habits/addictions/poor lifestyle choices. So yes, I'm happy drug testing is occurring.
And in the end, though they may not see it that way, by dumping a bunch of undesirables in ****ty places and enabling their bad lifestyles, we're not just harming the society, we're harming the individuals who are allegedly being "helped".
Certain things should be publicly funded. Roads, police, fire/ems (even in areas where the people are volunteers, taxpayers should fund some of the equipment), military (but that needs to be chopped off at it's knees), public education through grade 12, and mass transit (although it needs to become much more self-supporting by charging higher fares and stopping waste. I could tell you about a $60M waste of tax dollars by NYC MTA that's being cleaned up right now by dumping another $40M into the problem).
Libraries, health care, the arts, etc. should be privately funded.
And the EIC needs to be abolished immediately.
The arts are privately funded. There's the commercial film industry, the theatre industry, the music industry, publishing, etc. All profitable businesses.
Well, fares are going up for NY MTA services in March, so it looks like you got your wish their. The MTA has huge real estate holdings, and it could do more for rentals. In Grand Central they rented out to Apple for an Apple store at a rate of one million a month. They leased out the Hudson Yards Air Rights for one billion to related. I last read they hired a broker to help them rent out space in the 59th street station. And they put in an Italian restaurant LaFamilgia in the Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Avenue station.
Healthcare pretty much is privately funded, unless its research done at an university (NIH will fund this) or unless the person has medicare or medicaid. Teaching hospitals have their students treat medicaid and medicare patients, as this is how people learn how to be doctors and dentists, by practicing on welfare recipents and other poor people. That way by the time they get to you, a person with money, they know what they're doing. LOL Actually, Obama's health care reform was loved by the insurance companies, since it forces people to buy insurance or basically pay a fine/tax.
As for libraries, I'm all for public funding of libraries. I know that even people who normally have everything in order can sometimes use their free services. When I lost everything due to hurricane sandy, at times I had to use cheap cybercafes (I had some money, so it was more comfortable doing that than waiting on line in a library). But I know people did use the computers in libraries, and that's an importance resource for people legitimately putting their lives back together. Not to mention the books. I see nothing wrong with communities paying for books, and encouraging reading and learning for all.
I volunteer at a soup kitchen out here in NJ, and some of these people are just NEVER going to be able to to become productive members of society. They just don't have the mental capacity or the ability to function the way you need to function in order to hold a job or feed yourself. No, I don't know all their backgrounds or how they got to the place that they're in, but I just see them--toothless, one eye off in another direction, some with crutches, unable to speak properly, etc., so happy and grateful to get their turkey sausage, scrambled eggs and grits--these people are NEVER EVER going to wake up one day, go apply for a job, find an apartment and start paying taxes. It is just not going to happen, and we will always have people like this amongst us.
There will always be a small and finite number of people who are disabled enough that they can't care for themselves, and of course, they should be taken care of by society. However, there's no reason that the guy with no teeth or eyes facing different directions can't push a broom for a living--which is what they did 30 and 40 years ago. (Remember the freaky assistant janitor in your elementary school?)
That said, instead of a hand out for all but the profoundly mentally retarded and physically disabled, employers should be encouraged to hire the mild to moderately disabled for low level positions in exchange for a small tax break--perhaps no employer paid taxes on these individuals. It's a win-win. They work and contribute to society (which many WANT to do) and it saves the taxpayer money over fully subsidizing their existence.
PS--Having no teeth or not being able to speak properly is not a disability. If it's a result of additional underlying mental or physical disease, it's one thing, but otherwise, they have no excuse for not finding suitable work. You don't have to have teeth or be able to speak to pick tomatoes or sort items in an industrial laundry. Unfortunately there are far too many people who think they are too good for that type of work.
There's an industrial laundry near me that can't keep employees because no one wants to do the work. It's monotonous and often the items being sorted are beyond gross (they wear gowns, gloves, and respirators in the sorting line) but it's honest work. Yet we've got tens of thousands of people collecting entitlement benefits in the area. I still haven't been able to get an answer as to why they aren't simply being forced to work wherever they are sent, or be dropped from the rolls.
I volunteer at a soup kitchen out here in NJ, and some of these people are just NEVER going to be able to to become productive members of society. They just don't have the mental capacity or the ability to function the way you need to function in order to hold a job or feed yourself. No, I don't know all their backgrounds or how they got to the place that they're in, but I just see them--toothless, one eye off in another direction, some with crutches, unable to speak properly, etc., so happy and grateful to get their turkey sausage, scrambled eggs and grits--these people are NEVER EVER going to wake up one day, go apply for a job, find an apartment and start paying taxes. It is just not going to happen, and we will always have people like this amongst us.
This is true. In some cases people are born with cognitive issues, and they never would have had the mental capacity to be productive. Others may have had long term central nervous system damage due to disease, addiction, etc. And of course there are people who are physically disabled, who simply cannot work either.
For people with those issues, I have no problem with them getting disability or receiving other services. I argued against those who thought that we should just subsidize the "poor" for reasons I've already mentioned. That often all you do is encourage even more welfare dependency and poor lifestyle choices (addiction, crime, underage mothers, etc).
But a person who just can't work because of true disability, whether mental or physical, is a very different matter. I have a cousin who always has to be taken care of by his parents because he is autistic. He can't even talk, so obviously he isn't going to get a job or find his own apartment.
As for libraries, I'm all for public funding of libraries. I know that even people who normally have everything in order can sometimes use their free services. When I lost everything due to hurricane sandy, at times I had to use cheap cybercafes (I had some money, so it was more comfortable doing that than waiting on line in a library). But I know people did use the computers in libraries, and that's an importance resource for people legitimately putting their lives back together. Not to mention the books. I see nothing wrong with communities paying for books, and encouraging reading and learning for all.
I think that instead of publicly funding them they should charge a small fee to get a library card ($2-3 a year) and charge a very small fee for some of their services--for example $.25 hour for computer time or DVD rentals. Then they can solicit further funding and donations. I'm an avid user of my public library--I always have at least one book and one audio book checked out. We make an annual donation--usually $250 and then my husband's company donates another $250 in matching funds. I could probably buy used books/audiobooks for the year for less, but I like the idea of having things available for others to use as well.
we have been continuely hiring at our company for years now. the quality of lower end labor and entry level sucks. most we see can barely be understood when they speak or use such street slang you have not a clue what they are saying . they have no math skills for even simple stuff. its hard to find people who have no record or can even pass a drug test.
talk about the dumming down of ny, no wonder so many are out of work. or make minimum wage. i got to be honest, more ofton then not those that come in for the job slots are just verbally and educationally ignorant lacking even the most basic skills. .
Last edited by mathjak107; 12-29-2012 at 07:47 AM..
How is their work ethic? Call centers in India and the Philippines had trouble finding workers with good communication and problem solving skills so they (the call centers) invested in training their workers. Those workers were willing to work hard though. IMO if the work ethic is there then that's a good starting point.
couldnt tell you about their work ethics. it really doesnt matter if they can't present themselves favorably to even get to first base,
it's all about first impressions.
if they can't speak and can't do simple math they are out in the cold.
we do alot of in house training and promoting. we need even the lowest levels to have the ability to learn,to grow and to eventually talk intelligently with our customers.
my associate who started 35 years ago with me was a picker packer who worked himself up through the ranks to become our top outside salesman earning 200k plus a year.
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