Why It Seems Everything We Knew About the Global Economy Is

[KUTradition]

i think they’re learning plenty at that age, given the right environment

they may not be learning classic “school” sorts of things, but they’re definitely learning important social skills

^^^

It depends on the quality of the preschool, but the benefits of the socialization process alone is enormous. Kids who attend preschool learn how to learn, and start kindergarten ahead of kids who don't.

The benefits are greater for low-income children, perhaps because their homes don't accommodate, encourage, facilitate learning as well as higher income homes, and are especially beneficial for kids from dual-language homes.

as was alluded to above, there’s also generally the benefit of actual meals included in such programs (and obviously beyond pre-K as well)

kids won’t learn shit if their bodies don’t have the necessary sustenance

[jfish26]

i think they’re learning plenty at that age, given the right environment

they may not be learning classic “school” sorts of things, but they’re definitely learning important social skills

^^^

It depends on the quality of the preschool, but the benefits of the socialization process alone is enormous. Kids who attend preschool learn how to learn, and start kindergarten ahead of kids who don't.

The benefits are greater for low-income children, perhaps because their homes don't accommodate, encourage, facilitate learning as well as higher income homes, and are especially beneficial for kids from dual-language homes.

as was alluded to above, there’s also generally the benefit of actual meals included in such programs (and obviously beyond pre-K as well)

kids won’t learn shit if their bodies don’t have the necessary sustenance

But it's not just about the kids, right?

Say it IS "just" free daycare.

Well that is still something that lets the parents maintain/advance their own careers, rather than dropping out of the workforce or taking temporary/transient work that is not really "career" work.

[KUTradition]

^^^

It depends on the quality of the preschool, but the benefits of the socialization process alone is enormous. Kids who attend preschool learn how to learn, and start kindergarten ahead of kids who don't.

The benefits are greater for low-income children, perhaps because their homes don't accommodate, encourage, facilitate learning as well as higher income homes, and are especially beneficial for kids from dual-language homes.

as was alluded to above, there’s also generally the benefit of actual meals included in such programs (and obviously beyond pre-K as well)

kids won’t learn shit if their bodies don’t have the necessary sustenance

But it's not just about the kids, right?

Say it IS "just" free daycare.

Well that is still something that lets the parents maintain/advance their own careers, rather than dropping out of the workforce or taking temporary/transient work that is not really "career" work.

there’s absolutely that aspect, obviously

imagine having the daycare option so you could be free to do things like…stand in line for hours to participate in our democratic process

[TDub]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.


On a related topic though...I may be ready to jump on the universal Healthcare bandwagon though.

Thats a huge departure from my small government stance. But, I think that is an area where government could make the most drastic positive impact in the shortest amount of time.....and really wouldn't need to change a ton.

This isn't really an advocation for bigger government as much as it is an indictment against predatory insurance companies which essentially operate as terrorist hostage scammers.

[KUTradition]

i’m tempted to quote Gandhi, but i’ll refrain

[KUTradition]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.

the issue, as i see it, is that it isn’t the kids that put themselves in this situation…they are innocents in this, and don’t have the agency to remedy the situation on their own

[jfish26]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.


On a related topic though...I may be ready to jump on the universal Healthcare bandwagon though.

Thats a huge departure from my small government stance. But, I think that is an area where government could make the most drastic positive impact in the shortest amount of time.....and really wouldn't need to change a ton.

This isn't really an advocation for bigger government as much as it is an indictment against predatory insurance companies which essentially operate as terrorist hostage scammers.

I would also tend to lean toward private rather than government solutions; I'd love to see the insurance market go to work in a world where gun owners (like me) are required to maintain liability insurance.

But at this point I've seen enough to conclude, along your lines, that the private market makes healthcare worse, not better. There's just too much leakage.

[jfish26]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.

the issue, as i see it, is that it isn’t the kids that put themselves in this situation…they are innocents in this, and don’t have the agency to remedy the situation on their own

And: we can. We have the resources to do this, easily and painlessly. It is CLEARLY an investment, not a handout.

[Shirley]

"...Well that is still something that lets the parents maintain/advance their own careers, rather than dropping out of the workforce or taking temporary/transient work that is not really "career" work.

^^^

"...imagine having the daycare option so you could be free to do things like…stand in line for hours to participate in our democratic process..."

lol, true.

I've told the story before about calling the police on my father when I was 8 y/o because he was beating and threatening to kill my mother. At the time my little sister was 4 y/o. We, my older brother and my mother and I, were waiting for the two years when my sister would start first grade and my mother could then get a job and divorce my father, because then my sister would be in school all day. In May before my sister would start school in late August, my mother discovered she was pregnant with my little brother... 6 years later, within a few days of my little brother starting first grade, my mother finally was able to file for divorce, the best thing that ever happened to me as a kid.

[DCHawk1]

Who knew it was so easy?

[zsn]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.


On a related topic though...I may be ready to jump on the universal Healthcare bandwagon though.

Thats a huge departure from my small government stance. But, I think that is an area where government could make the most drastic positive impact in the shortest amount of time.....and really wouldn't need to change a ton.

This isn't really an advocation for bigger government as much as it is an indictment against predatory insurance companies which essentially operate as terrorist hostage scammers.

Government providing health insurance (not health care) is actually more entrepreneurial than you might expect. It really frees up people to do what they want rather than being tied up forcefully to an employer for a basic need. People would have the freedom to start new businesses without fear of falling sick.

[ousdahl]

I saw some Qusdahl take that it would save corporations tons of money to have universal healthcare, rather than employer-provided.

But, they/them alleges corporations would rather keep it employer-provided precisely cuz employers, as zsn puts it, would rather have the folks “being tied up forcefully to an employer for a basic need“

[TDub]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.


On a related topic though...I may be ready to jump on the universal Healthcare bandwagon though.

Thats a huge departure from my small government stance. But, I think that is an area where government could make the most drastic positive impact in the shortest amount of time.....and really wouldn't need to change a ton.

This isn't really an advocation for bigger government as much as it is an indictment against predatory insurance companies which essentially operate as terrorist hostage scammers.

Government providing health insurance (not health care) is actually more entrepreneurial than you might expect. It really frees up people to do what they want rather than being tied up forcefully to an employer for a basic need. People would have the freedom to start new businesses without fear of falling sick.

I think being a small business owner may have helped shift my thought process on it. Its one if my biggest obstacles, there are no good options for Healthcare for us at the moment. There are options, but they all are severely painful.....either limited and essentially non functional or insanely expensive.


I think more than freeing up to people to do what they want....(life's all about choices, do whatever you want now...or later....its all about weighing out the consequences)..

I think the biggest benefit to society is economical. The capital it frees up for the individual citizen to use on other things is not insignificant. The capital it frees up for business to use on other improvements is not insignificant.

The amount of people that may go to the doctor before they become beyond repair....things could be prevented that would allow them to become productive members of society instead of waiting so long they become disabled or a drain on society .


*note 1....yea im aware many of the capital gains would be eaten up by further increased taxes....



*note 2....I think there is so much damn fat in our bloated federal system that we should be able to cull the worthless bullshit and provide Healthcare with little to no increase in taxes. It would take a self audit. But...im no CPA and I bet I could find hundreds of millions in waste.

[KUTradition]

The amount of people that may go to the doctor before they become beyond repair....things could be prevented that would allow them to become productive members of society instead of waiting so long they become disabled or a drain on society.

this, to me, is the biggest benefit

it seems as though we’d end up getting more return on our investment. there’s zero reason, beyond bloat and corruption, that we should have the health metrics we do given how much we spend on healthcare

[zsn]

kids should all be able to eat, kids should all be able to learn. Im not sure that burden should fall on the government to ensure though....I dont know the answer there.


On a related topic though...I may be ready to jump on the universal Healthcare bandwagon though.

Thats a huge departure from my small government stance. But, I think that is an area where government could make the most drastic positive impact in the shortest amount of time.....and really wouldn't need to change a ton.

This isn't really an advocation for bigger government as much as it is an indictment against predatory insurance companies which essentially operate as terrorist hostage scammers.

Government providing health insurance (not health care) is actually more entrepreneurial than you might expect. It really frees up people to do what they want rather than being tied up forcefully to an employer for a basic need. People would have the freedom to start new businesses without fear of falling sick.

I think being a small business owner may have helped shift my thought process on it. Its one if my biggest obstacles, there are no good options for Healthcare for us at the moment. There are options, but they all are severely painful.....either limited and essentially non functional or insanely expensive.


I think more than freeing up to people to do what they want....(life's all about choices, do whatever you want now...or later....its all about weighing out the consequences)..

I think the biggest benefit to society is economical. The capital it frees up for the individual citizen to use on other things is not insignificant. The capital it frees up for business to use on other improvements is not insignificant.

The amount of people that may go to the doctor before they become beyond repair....things could be prevented that would allow them to become productive members of society instead of waiting so long they become disabled or a drain on society .


*note 1....yea im aware many of the capital gains would be eaten up by further increased taxes....



*note 2....I think there is so much damn fat in our bloated federal system that we should be able to cull the worthless bullshit and provide Healthcare with little to no increase in taxes. It would take a self audit. But...im no CPA and I bet I could find hundreds of millions in waste.

You’re not going to get much argument from me. At this point the bulk of the $$ that the employer is spending on healthcare is going to profits and CEO pay for insurance companies. While “Medicare for All” has taken on a political dimension that is by far the easiest to implement.

The cost would be covered using a tax (remember that suddenly as much as $2000/mo/employee is freed up!) and leveraging the Federal Government purchasing power (like Medicare and VA). Essentially it would be paid for like Medicare, but from birth. One could buy supplemental insurance for moving up in line for certain medical situations (non-emergency procedures like knee replacement). Just about every industrialized western nation has figured this out. It’s time we do as well.

But then again they have all figured out the much simpler metric system and we’re……….in any case I remain hopeful. Both for healthcare and the metric system!

[KUTradition]

what kind of an idiot designs a system of measure based on 12?

(fahrenheit is another idiotic idea)

[Sparko]

what kind of an idiot designs a system of measure based on 12?

(fahrenheit is another idiotic idea)

Jesus?

[KUTradition]

what kind of an idiot designs a system of measure based on 12?

(fahrenheit is another idiotic idea)

Jesus?

lol

[zsn]

what kind of an idiot designs a system of measure based on 12?

(fahrenheit is another idiotic idea)

I agree about the Fahrenheit scale. But I wouldn’t be so dismissive of the base 12 (and by derivative base 60) convention. It’s mathematically sound but not scalable, like the Roman numeral convention. It was fine to do fast math for a limited number of applications. But it falls apart fast.

One convincing explanation I heard for its origin was how early humans did math using their fingers. Hold your hand with the palm facing up. Now use your thumb to count out the segments of each finger from the base to the top starting with the pinky. You’ll count 12 segments. They could do calculations by folding and adding fingers. My grandfather taught me the process of how you have the entire multiplication tables in your hand, but of course I forgot!! If anyone lived in the UK in the 70s you’ll know how bad non-metric system could be prior to converting their currency to metric!!

I’m still hopeful that we’ll come around on both health care and measurement!

[ousdahl]

*note 2....I think there is so much damn fat in our bloated federal system that we should be able to cull the worthless bullshit and provide Healthcare with little to no increase in taxes. It would take a self audit. But...im no CPA and I bet I could find hundreds of millions in waste.

Here’s your friendly reminder the pentagon has failed an audit for 5 years straight, yet still got another budget increase anyway