The City on Fire

June 18th, 2020 at 11:04:46 AM permalink
Gandler
Member since: Aug 15, 2019
Threads: 27
Posts: 4236
Quote: terapined
Slavery is wrong. The history on this planet of slavery is meaningless to me. It's wrong. I could care less about comparisons to other countries. Who cares if other countries are corrupt. I hold this country to a higher standard due to our constitution and declaration of independence. ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.



That is bold to say in 2020.


Also, not my point of my reply, he was skewing a quote to make it look like I support slavery, which I don't feel the need to state... Terrible example of selective quotation...
June 18th, 2020 at 11:10:58 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: terapined
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.


Nope. First of all, nobody was 'created'.
Second, you really think you're equal
to Michael Jordon or The Rock or
Einstein? What you mean is all laws
should pertain to people equally.
The equality ends there.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
June 18th, 2020 at 11:21:14 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: Evenbob
Juneteenth, what a stupid meaningless
name for something. I must admit
before this week I'd never heard it
before. Yawn, who cares..


My brother just came over to
get his Harley. I asked him how
he was celebrating Junteenth
on Fri. He said 'what the F are
you taking about'. I said it's the
day they freed the slaves 155
years ago. He said, and I quote,
"Who gives a s**t."

And I rest my case.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
June 18th, 2020 at 11:43:01 AM permalink
ams288
Member since: Apr 21, 2016
Threads: 29
Posts: 12422
Quote: Evenbob
My brother just came over to
get his Harley. I asked him how
he was celebrating Junteenth
on Fri. He said 'what the F are
you taking about'. I said it's the
day they freed the slaves 155
years ago. He said, and I quote,
"Who gives a s**t."

And I rest my case.


Is your brother black?
“A straight man will not go for kids.” - AZDuffman
June 18th, 2020 at 2:44:29 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: ams288
Is your brother black?


I can guarantee if I never heard of
it, my brother and Duffman never
heard of it, 80% of Blacks have
never heard of it either. Like Trump
implied, nobody had heard of till
he brought it up. The day the slaves
were freed in Texas? Why would
anybody give a rip..
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
June 18th, 2020 at 2:49:08 PM permalink
Gandler
Member since: Aug 15, 2019
Threads: 27
Posts: 4236
Quote: Mission146
I don't know when that was, but they certainly didn't tell me about it.

Oh, never mind, they said my parents made too much money. I remember that now. Just looked it up. Of course, they didn't contribute anything to my education financially, though I did live extremely low-rent my first two years of college until I transferred out of state, so that's definitely a contribution.

Also, the Federal Government shouldn't do that. It creates an artificial demand floor which enables the schools, many of which are already public, to charge more.



Good deal. Get rid of both. Also, the Federal Government should not back student loans whatsoever AND they should be eligible for bankruptcy filing after a certain number of years.


Pell grants are like 6k a semester I believe.
I am just pointing it out because you find it repulsive that I get 4.5k a year (which I don't even use most of) to take classes...…

If you took classes at a community college Pell Grants should have more than covered it.... If you took your undergrad degree at State colleges it probably would be mostly covered (if not fully) by grants. The fact that you were living with your wealthy parents as their dependent made you ineligible.

Sorry, but not everyone has a wealthy family they can live with and ride on through school, some people need financial aid to attend even part time classes.

Personally I would be fine with both being abolished if community college becomes 100% free (like it used to be through the 70s in some states). And, State Universities become tuition free (only charge for room and board).



Quote: Mission146
Okay, so did I managing a hotel. That's if you looked at it in terms of minimum wage with getting 1.5x for anything over forty. After I got a few raises I was above that. I guess another exception would be the part where I worked 70+ hours per week with five vacation days per year. I guess you could also say I was technically 24/7, since I had to go in if something happened.


Yes, but you got paid overtime for being called in and working extra hours.

When you are Active Duty, you get a flat monthly salary. I think for the lowest ranks its like 1.6k a month, not much for working constantly.... .



Quote: Mission146
You would obviously have your medical care covered if the cause of the medical necessity was directly related. I would HOPE that would already be the case.

Also, people do dangerous jobs with no health benefits all the time. Want me to list some?


I agree which is why I also support expanded healthcare. I don't want people to have no benefits. I want more people to have better benefits.

Most of the list you will pull from do have benefits (except maybe some fisherman and loggers who are private contractors, but they get paid well in actual payment, so they can easily afford their own).

The others on those lists like garbage men and utility workers usually work for a city or county or large corporation and are unionized with good pension and benefits.



Quote: Mission146
That's kind of interesting. Have you ever had to be deployed?

Not with this unit. I have deployed as a medic when I was in the NJ Guard with a combat unit to a pretty nice area in the Middle East (as far as going to the Middle East with a combat unit goes, its probably the best place to end up).

I volunteered for COVID response if needed, but never got called (I guess dental assistants were not in demand for COVID).



Quote: Mission146
Employers can do as they wish. Theoretically, better pay/benefits will result in retaining better employees. That's precisely why the Federal Government should not offer anything even close to better, or even as good, as the private sector does. They should offer the worst that the private sector can theoretically offer, which is Federal (or state) minimum wage and zero benefits.


Yeah that is a terrible idea. I think the military should continue to raise their standards, and the only way to keep attracting increasingly physically fit and academically successful people is to offer competitive wages. (All ready under the current standards which are too low, only like 5% of the population is eligible to even apply to enlist). 33.4 million target population, only 9.7 million (and that is young healthy people, when you take the population of the country as a whole its less than 5%).
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/10/12/top-recruiter-just-136000-out-of-33-million-young-americans-would-join-the-army/



Quote: Mission146
I think it's $365/year, or American Public University might be the free one. I'm sure Walmart profits off of it somehow. I should know more about it, but since I already have a Bachelor's Degree, I took all of two seconds to glance over those materials and threw them in the trashcan. I think you're supposed to only major in business with a lot of them, but American Public University might be an exception.

Walmart has really good health insurance, too. It's only slightly more expensive than being uninsured and having direct costs bankrupt you. The nice thing about the alternative, of course, is not having to work at Walmart.

If you want to know why I worked there, start with the $18.45/hour base pay and start adding up the per hour incentives. Everything else is worthless. I don't know how many employers care about APU, but I do know my Alma (it doesn't) Mater is maybe slightly better than that...and I'd consider it fairly worthless if I saw it on an application.


I would say APU gets a bad rep. Its a pretty solid online university with an intense curriculum.

A lot of people make fun of online courses. They don't realize that will soon be the norm (COVID kind of proved that). I love APU, I got my previous degree at a regular college, and it was a total joke, basically a glorified high school diploma. If you show up to class and pretend to pay attention anyone can graduate a with a liberal arts degree at a physical campus....
I have taken traditional classes, hybrid classes (half hours online half hours on campus) and online classes. Online classes are always the hardest, because they always have the most assignments and unforgiving deadlines. I love having the opportunity to expand my education online. I love the age of the internet.



Quote: Mission146
Maybe they should, maybe they shouldn't; I don't care what they do.  I just know the Federal Government should not offer any of it. The taxpayer is Peter and the college/university is Paul. But, I don't blame you for taking full advantage of it.


I disagree. Though maybe not totally. I think states should go back to making their colleges free, but this is hard with Federal Grants, so it would need to be directed from the center in some way.
June 18th, 2020 at 3:25:44 PM permalink
Mission146
Administrator
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 23
Posts: 4147
Quote: Gandler
Pell grants are like 6k a semester I believe.
I am just pointing it out because you find it repulsive that I get 4.5k a year (which I don't even use most of) to take classes...…

If you took classes at a community college Pell Grants should have more than covered it.... If you took your undergrad degree at State colleges it probably would be mostly covered (if not fully) by grants. The fact that you were living with your wealthy parents as their dependent made you ineligible.

Sorry, but not everyone has a wealthy family they can live with and ride on through school, some people need financial aid to attend even part time classes.

Personally I would be fine with both being abolished if community college becomes 100% free (like it used to be through the 70s in some states). And, State Universities become tuition free (only charge for room and board).


No, what made me ineligible is that my parents combined for a hair over 60k a year annually, 50k being the cutoff, despite the fact that my father hadn't contributed financially to me in years. None of it matters, anyway, because it doesn't change the underlying fact that I don't think any Federal education grants should exist, let the states do it if they want to. The main thing I did wrong at the time was not being smart enough to just lie on the application.

This will definitely be the first time I've been accused of being wealthy!

I disagree with Community Colleges and State Colleges/Universities becoming tuition free as a matter of Federal Law, though individual states could certainly do anything they wanted to do with it. It would probably be unfair to the private institutions that they would have to compete with free, but oh well. I can't say much if it's left up to the individual states.

Quote:
Yes, but you got paid overtime for being called in and working extra hours.

When you are Active Duty, you get a flat monthly salary. I think for the lowest ranks its like 1.6k a month, not much for working constantly.... .


No, I didn't. I could have worked 110 hours and it wouldn't have changed my paycheck. My benefits were basically having one day off a week and five of what amounted to flex days per year, nothing else.

Quote:
I agree which is why I also support expanded healthcare. I don't want people to have no benefits. I want more people to have better benefits.

Most of the list you will pull from do have benefits (except maybe some fisherman and loggers who are private contractors, but they get paid well in actual payment, so they can easily afford their own).

The others on those lists like garbage men and utility workers usually work for a city or county or large corporation and are unionized with good pension and benefits.


I don't care what benefits they do or don't have, but any such needs to be handled by the individual states, not the Federal Government. I can list several others, or not, it's up to you.

Quote:
Not with this unit. I have deployed as a medic when I was in the NJ Guard with a combat unit to a pretty nice area in the Middle East (as far as going to the Middle East with a combat unit goes, its probably the best place to end up).

I volunteered for COVID response if needed, but never got called (I guess dental assistants were not in demand for COVID).


I would imagine not. Again, I'm just trying to learn more about the nature of this thing. What is the purpose of you being a reservist, from the Army's standpoint?


Quote:
Yeah that is a terrible idea. I think the military should continue to raise their standards, and the only way to keep attracting increasingly physically fit and academically successful people is to offer competitive wages. (All ready under the current standards which are too low, only like 5% of the population is eligible to even apply to enlist). 33.4 million target population, only 9.7 million (and that is young healthy people, when you take the population of the country as a whole its less than 5%).
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2017/10/12/top-recruiter-just-136000-out-of-33-million-young-americans-would-join-the-army/


Good, it shouldn't be an attractive thing to do. It definitely shouldn't replace private sector employment, in terms of desirability.

Quote:
I would say APU gets a bad rep. Its a pretty solid online university with an intense curriculum.

A lot of people make fun of online courses. They don't realize that will soon be the norm (COVID kind of proved that). I love APU, I got my previous degree at a regular college, and it was a total joke, basically a glorified high school diploma. If you show up to class and pretend to pay attention anyone can graduate a with a liberal arts degree at a physical campus....
I have taken traditional classes, hybrid classes (half hours online half hours on campus) and online classes. Online classes are always the hardest, because they always have the most assignments and unforgiving deadlines. I love having the opportunity to expand my education online. I love the age of the internet.


Maybe it does, I don't know. Might be everything, or almost everything, is online soon. I really don't see any great advantage to in-person, other than socialization purposes (which are a waste of time) for most classes/degrees. I don't know anything about Liberal Arts, my degree is in Business Administration with a minor in Economics; you could also basically sleep (in classes) your way to that degree, as well. I think my single toughest class, at least for me, was Plant Biology at the Community College.


Quote:
I disagree. Though maybe not totally. I think states should go back to making their colleges free, but this is hard with Federal Grants, so it would need to be directed from the center in some way.


Yeah, you would just 86 all Federal Grants and all Federal backing of any college loans that do not already exist.
"War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen..let us give them all they want." William T. Sherman
June 18th, 2020 at 3:48:41 PM permalink
Gandler
Member since: Aug 15, 2019
Threads: 27
Posts: 4236
Quote: Mission146
No, what made me ineligible is that my parents combined for a hair over 60k a year annually, 50k being the cutoff, despite the fact that my father hadn't contributed financially to me in years. None of it matters, anyway, because it doesn't change the underlying fact that I don't think any Federal education grants should exist, let the states do it if they want to. The main thing I did wrong at the time was not being smart enough to just lie on the application.

This will definitely be the first time I've been accused of being wealthy!


I simply don't agree. But, I don't think we are going to change each other's mind at this point.

Quote: Mission146
I disagree with Community Colleges and State Colleges/Universities becoming tuition free as a matter of Federal Law, though individual states could certainly do anything they wanted to do with it. It would probably be unfair to the private institutions that they would have to compete with free, but oh well. I can't say much if it's left up to the individual states.


It was not Federally mandated, but through the 70s, maybe 80s in some states community colleges were largely free, you literally just signed up and brought books from what I have been told by older people. And State Universities were sometimes free, but always cheap (maybe with the exception of housing for on campus students, which I don't think should be free anyway). I think this was a better system and I wish some states would work towards going back to it.

But, the problem is States are fighting to get more Federal grant dollars so there is a race to raise tuition so that they can give you free education to those that qualify. Its almost a regressive system, instead of just being free or cheap for everyone.



Quote: Mission146
No, I didn't. I could have worked 110 hours and it wouldn't have changed my paycheck. My benefits were basically having one day off a week and five of what amounted to flex days per year, nothing else.


Sorry then I misunderstood. That does not sound like a good workplace unless you loved your job.



Quote: Mission146
I don't care what benefits they do or don't have, but any such needs to be handled by the individual states, not the Federal Government. I can list several others, or not, it's up to you.


I don't agree. But, this is another topic where I don't think we will change each others mind.

I want people to be able to have access to healthcare, and we have a system where people without access are generally young middle class (poor people get free healthcare through medicade, old people through medicare, rich people can buy any plan they want, so the only people who have to worry about insurance are young middle class workers without an employer paid plan, and many are healthy and don't care about it until something terrible happens and then they go into absurd levels of debt) .



Quote: Mission146
I would imagine not. Again, I'm just trying to learn more about the nature of this thing. What is the purpose of you being a reservist, from the Army's standpoint?


My specific position? I don't know, I know my unit needed somebody to fill the slot, it probably looks good on paper to be 100% real with you, they can talk about enlisted members in various medical capacities. I was pretty much asked to take this class out of nowhere and said sure.

The textbook answer would be to provide backfill for the active Army when they are in need.




Quote: Mission146
Good, it shouldn't be an attractive thing to do. It definitely shouldn't replace private sector employment, in terms of desirability.


Totally disagree, but your opinion on the military is clear. Another topic I don't think we will agree upon here.



Quote: Mission146
Maybe it does, I don't know. Might be everything, or almost everything, is online soon. I really don't see any great advantage to in-person, other than socialization purposes (which are a waste of time) for most classes/degrees. I don't know anything about Liberal Arts, my degree is in Business Administration with a minor in Economics; you could also basically sleep (in classes) your way to that degree, as well. I think my single toughest class, at least for me, was Plant Biology at the Community College.


Exactly people will see how wasteful having massive campuses for liberal arts degrees are. When you can literally access the same material online, probably in a more efficient manner.

Campuses are very much like military bases. People live there, use a lot of land and resources, and occasionally go to class, but most of the time is BS, people could easily take 90% of the classes at home.

I mean paper libraries alone and paper textbooks so wasteful. I can read my textbooks on an Ereader and not pay 400 dollars for a book which will be thrown out in a few weeks (that is one thing I like about APU 100% digital textbooks unless you request physical copies for extreme circumstances like if you are at sea or no regular internet access). Book stores and libraries are so wasteful to both personal finances and the environment. Every time a new edition comes out, throw out millions of old books and reprint, super wasteful....




Quote: Mission146
Yeah, you would just 86 all Federal Grants and all Federal backing of any college loans that do not already exist.


I partially agree that would be the only way to encourage states to make it happen. But, I don't know if I trust states to follow through which is why I am hesitant to agree with removing Pell Grants.

I think low income adults should have a right to attempt an education (many would not be able to get private student loans or afford to pay cash).
June 18th, 2020 at 3:51:08 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: Gandler


I think low income adults should have a right to attempt an education (many would not be able to get private student loans or afford to pay cash).


Private student loans basically do not exist anymore, banned under Obama. Sallie needs the interest for herself.

In any case, too many people are still going to college, not too few. Though it is getting better.
The President is a fink.
June 18th, 2020 at 4:00:04 PM permalink
zippyboy
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 2
Posts: 665
Quote: Evenbob
I can guarantee if I never heard of
it, my brother and Duffman never
heard of it, 80% of Blacks have
never heard of it either. Like Trump
implied, nobody had heard of till
he brought it up. The day the slaves
were freed in Texas? Why would
anybody give a rip..

I grew up in Texas, so yes, I've heard of it. It wasn't much of a holiday in Texas though.