The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

I want to point out that it's a graph of collage enrollment, not graduation. Would be far more interested in that. My expectation would be that less money-abled people would work more, reducing time they have for school and thus decreasing chances of graduating

The top 20%, according to wikipedia, are those who make above $100,000 a year. So, we don't need a totally accurate baseline for a conversation, as I'd say that $100,000 is a good enough number for us. But I think that a 30% difference is a big deal. It may not correlate 1:1 with income percentile, but it does correlate pretty strongly with income percentile (correlation=/=causation!).

I agree that this would be a more useful statistic. Coming from just outside of the Appalachian mountains, where there is an 80% poverty rate in my local schools, I can already see that the nation-wide statistics are too broad. I'd estimate that 20 out of 70 students who graduated my high school went to college within one year. Of them, 2-3 dropped out or failed out. So that's about a 30% enrollment rate, which is well below the "low" income enrollment rate in the graph. From there, how many fail to graduate? How was their secondary education (High School)? From what I see, pretty awful. Graduating high school and having to take remedial courses in every subject? How do you think that's going to affect their performance later on, if they decide to stick with it?

[An addition: the support for students around here is pretty much 0, something that definitely makes it harder to learn, especially when you can't sleep because your parents are partying, or when they are never around, or keep you busy all the time]

My point is that the enrollment vs income percentile statistic only tells a limited part of the story, and it already tells a pretty poor one. Income should NOT affect enrollment rate or education in general. That literally points towards a bias of having more money meaning better opportunities. It's not even about equality of outcomes, there seems to be an inequality of opportunity! Being born into a poor area should not indicate the odds of going into college, nor should it be an indicator of performance.

I'm not actually sure that free college is the solution. I'm not sure that it is even part of the solution, but it may be an intermediate step in finding the solution. I don't have enough information to decide whether college should be free, or if something else should be done, and I don't have the knowledge to make use of the information. But what I do have enough information and knowledge to see is that there is a problem that needs to be addressed by those with the ability to enable a solution, and have both the knowledge and information to enable the best solution available.

I forgot to type my last point! I think that using nation-wide data makes this a lot harder than it needs to be. Using regional or state-level data is probably far more accurate, since different portions of the US have different capabilities for helping those in need in any way, in this case, education. For example, having a financially independent county-level government that functions primarily autonomously is one of the most effective ways to help combat poverty (Lobao et al, 2012). In rural areas (such as where I live), with minimal tax income, it's hard for that to happen. In denser areas, the number of people helps to make up for the minimal tax income.

[I looked up the numbers for "poverty rate" of the high school from which I graduated. It's 88%.]
[I also looked up the full-time student (12+ hours) graduation rate from the local Universities (NOT community college) that I'm attending. It's a bit on the old side, and I can't access newer data, but 12.9% graduate on time, 28.3% within 5 years and 30.7% within 6 years. I do not know if this excludes students who transferred out of the University. It does include students who changed majors. The other local University has about double the on time graduation rate, at 31%. I suspect that there is such a large difference because my University is in a heavily depressed city that has a high crime and poverty rate, with few jobs.]

Lobao et al: "Poverty and Place across the United States: Do County Governments Matter to the Distribution of Economic Disparities?" International Regional Science Review, Volume 35, issue 2 (April 2012), p. 158-187.

Final edit, I swear: For the sake of discussion, can we all just assume that we aren't pulling numbers out of thin air and that nobody is intentionally lying? Even if it's off, they can be used to discuss, since for the most part, we're not looking through studies and academic articles about this. Just assume that the ideas are real, that nobody is trolling and that nothing is a personal attack. Don't get worked up over a debate. Believe it or not, this thread is pretty awesome, especially considering how much I've learned about beliefs outside of my local area, especially of the Trump supporters.

That's funny because I could say the opposite about my school.

Even mils-ish socialism here is hated like communism.

The most certainly biggest surprising thing I learnt from this thread.

People don't like giving money up to the unendowed; they are allowed to be like that though. Seeing 1/4 (arbitrary example) of your paycheck going to a welfare program is not a good sight. I think this is especially the case where I live (high middle class area).

EDIT: http://project.wnyc.org/median-income-nation/#9/39.1311/-77.2559

It's a map of my area (I live above DC)

So it comes down to "I wanna keep my money for myself" after all

No it comes down to "I don't want to give up my hard-earned money to random people"

But you do that in taxes to your government, the cut you pay on imported goods, the subsidies your taxes provide to funded corporations . . . etc, et al. You might not like it, but I don't see people campaigning to break that particular set of rules.

Those rules are necessary for any functioning government. People don't campaign against taxes because they know taxes are needed. But when the taxes are so high that it makes a considerable difference in their income just to pay for people 1000 miles away living in the streets they get mad.

Fun fact: social redistribution is necessary too, for the folks living under you, squashed by your status, that you rely on to complete the menial tasks.

What you're quibbling over is the amount of redistribution, surely. Which is an argument that none of us are well-versed enough to satisfy, especially when we're arguing from positions of personal bias (i.e. "I don't feel like people deserve to share my wealth").

And the amount of redistribution is directly tied to maintaining the status quo. If you're unhappy at the unwashed masses hogging your taxes, the government is what controls that. The government is directing your ire at those beneath you, so you don't look upwards and criticise those that are benefiting.

I mean, given the inverse pyramid that is wealth distribution in general, ignoring the non-solvable issue of national debt (because that's how capitalism functions, baby), you're blaming the people that earn the least for the taxes that are imposed on you by the people who earn the most.

Does that blame, when I phrase it like that, seem at all logical? Because to me, it doesn't.

When did I ever say I'm blaming the unendowed? That does make sense no matter how you word it.

But thanks for the fun fact.

That does sort of imply that you're linking high taxes to better social security and we also discussed about that mainly. I mean the whole point of socialistic ideas is to get everyone to pay some part of their income in taxes that is then redistributed to those who need it the most.

The question really just is: Do you want to live in a society that takes care of all it inhabitants? Or are you fine with the poor sitting on the street, bagging for money to pay for their next meal and just hoping that they'll not get sick as nobody will pay their doctor?
And if you don't want to live in such a society how much are you willing to pay of your own wealth for that?

The "all socialism is evil" stance that even opposes basic things like mandatory health care insurances takes the most extreme "I do not care about whether or not everyone has access to a doctor, I just care about low taxes" on this question.

Yeah, that.

We could probably do a lot more on the social services front without raising taxes. If the government had to fund medical it wouldn't let pharmaceuticals get as expensive, and we already pay for a shitload of corn we don't use.

The problem is getting in people that can efficiently lay down the legal infrastructure.

Too bad the best qualifications to be elected often are not related to having the best qualifications for the job. A bunch of engineers and many therapists for the engineers (as they will all lose their miss) would sort things out.

Are you the same people that give money to the hobos on the street? Just wondering... for now.

Is this how you misdirect attention from debates you no longer want to continue? By making subtle insinuations and assumptions about character?

Makes it hard to debate openly with making assumptions in the opposite direction.

In front of a super market around here there is one guy who always really nicely asks people for a few pennies. I occasionally give in and give him a little small change.
Then one day he suddenly approached me and instead of his usual "do you have a bit of change?" went "hey I found some awesome stuff, here have some" and gave me a ton of random sweets and food he'd gotten that the super market would've thrown away so he had managed to get his hand on it.
He was in a really good mood and I went home with a ton of chocolate and stuff he had given me.

So are you trying to make this out to be a bad thing?!

Aw how nice.

Our hobos just buy heroine.