CDZ American workers competing with "world" workers

[usmbguest5318]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

milk jugs of water

I'm going to have to remember that one. I know will come the day when that is the perfect punchline to something.

Here's a guy milking a cow for water to put in his jug.

Perhaps you had in mind the good old days when America was great.

For many a milman, the perqs beat the pay.
For many a woman, the milkman made their day.
That's easy to understand in every way,
For "comes" twice is of the milkman what wives say.​

Models get visa priority as people of extraordinary talent. The people wondering through the desert with milk jugs of water not so much.

Please, tell me you don't seriously mean/think that.

What has visa priority to do with anything pertaining to Americans being able to compete in a global labor market? Nothing.

• VISA Free Countries For US Citizens - Global Immigration

Americans can go to the overwhelming majority of nations on the planet and upon presenting a U.S. passport, be instantly welcomed into the country. A woman from a nation where are routinely found "people wondering [sic] through the desert with milk jugs of water" literally lacks the freedom of movement about the planet to compete on a level playing field with American models.

Just how long do you think the window is between a designer starting the model selection process and actually selecting one? Long enough for a beautiful woman from a "milk jugs of water" country to apply for a visa, be "extremely vetted" and then show up to audition? No, they aren't going to wait that long to interview a woman who, for all the designer knows, isn't any better or worse than any other model whom they may select.

If there's anyone who's most able to compete in a global labor market, it's Americans, not people from "milk jugs of water" countries.


The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself.
-- Ecclesiastes 10:12

That you can enter without a visa has no bearing on whether or not you can work there, and yes models get green card priority in the US.

Oh, nevermind....

 

[Onyx]

THe Trade imbalance is hugely tilted against US. Japan has become a First World nation off of trade surpluses with US.

What are you even talking about? A trade deficit is a meaningless number that has no bearing on anything. All trade deals are mutually profitable, or else they would not be undertaken in the first place.

You just confirmed that you don't have a fucking clue about economics.

I want growth in jobs and wages for American workers.

Then promote global competition.

I don't see that having to use and thus PAY American women would be that much of a handicap for American modeling agencies.

Although you acknowledge it would be a handicap....

1. Dismissing the interests of the American workers is not an answer. My point stands. There are more American models than there are American modeling agencies and thus their interests should count for more.

You clearly didn't comprehend anything I just said, did you?

As the modeling industry grows, so do the number of opportunities available to models. You conceded that a larger labor pool was better for business, and therefore would increase growth.

It matter to everyone who identifies as an+ American and thus feels some group loyalty to that person.

Doesn't change the fact that it is all in your head, and therefore stupid.

America is an imaginary community. You have never made contact with even 0.0001% of those that identify as Americans in your lifetime.

 

[Correll]

THe Trade imbalance is hugely tilted against US. Japan has become a First World nation off of trade surpluses with US.

What are you even talking about? A trade deficit is a meaningless number that has no bearing on anything. All trade deals are mutually profitable, or else they would not be undertaken in the first place.

You just confirmed that you don't have a fucking clue about economics.

a. If a Trade deficit is meaningless, then, what's the problem? Throw US a bone and let our trade partners take the deficit for a few decades and see if it is as meaningless as you say.

b. Your pretense that all trade deals are mutually profitable is absurd. OBVIOUSLY some people get fucked in some deals. Your lie on this does nothing but reveal that you are not being forthright on your position for some reason.

c. Your pretense that the two sides of a trade deal are homogeneous blocks is just as absurd. Anyone that has ever driven though a Rust Belt town knows that there have been PLENTY of people fucked by our trade deals of the last couple of generations.

In a democratic republic, those people have a Right to have their interests represented in the crafting of American trade policy.

YOu dismissing them is not an answer.

I want growth in jobs and wages for American workers.

Then promote global competition.[/QUOTE]

I don't see that having to use and thus PAY American women would be that much of a handicap for American modeling agencies.

Although you acknowledge it would be a handicap....[/QUOTE]


Aw..., that was so clever the way you took my rhetorical device and pretended that it was a formal albeit partial acceptance of your point.

My point stands, I don't see that having to use and thus PAY American women would be that much of a handicap for American modeling agencies.

1. Dismissing the interests of the American workers is not an answer. My point stands. There are more American models than there are American modeling agencies and thus their interests should count for more.

You clearly didn't comprehend anything I just said, did you?

As the modeling industry grows, so do the number of opportunities available to models. You conceded that a larger labor pool was better for business, and therefore would increase growth.[/QUOTE]


Larger numbers of lower paid jobs that go to other people is not a benefit to American workers.

You keep wanting to dismiss the interests of the American workers in this comparison.

It matter to everyone who identifies as an+ American and thus feels some group loyalty to that person.

Doesn't change the fact that it is all in your head, and therefore stupid.[/QUOTE]

Yes, it does.

Hell, that is WHY those foreign models in the OP come to the US to work. THey know that those lines on the map are real, and crossing them will change their lives.

America is an imaginary community. You have never made contact with even 0.0001% of those that identify as Americans in your lifetime.

Noting in your statement supports your point.


Your denial of the reality of nations is a rationalization for your personal ideology of Universalism.

What you need to do here is to support your viewpoint that Universalism is better than Nationalism, and then convince people that rejecting Nations in favor of some Global State is the answer. Various lefties have been making this argument for a long time. You are welcome to join them.


Simply dismissing other people's views because you don't share them is not an argument, it is just you being a smug condescending liberal. But I repeat myself.

 

[Onyx]

a. If a Trade deficit is meaningless, then, what's the problem? Throw US a bone and let our trade partners take the deficit for a few decades and see if it is as meaningless as you say.

Holy shit, I can't even...

A trade deficit is meaningless. The trade policy behind it isn't. All a trade deficit shows is that a nation imports more than it exports, which isn't inherently a bad thing. Consumer imports are resold for a higher value in consumer markets, and industrial imports are used to create domestic manufacturing (machines, materials, ect.).

b. Your pretense that all trade deals are mutually profitable is absurd.

No, it's an absolute fact. All trade is designed to create mutual profit. No exceptions.

A factory in China wouldn't manufacture a wrench for 5$ and sell it to an American company for 3$. Likewise, an American company wouldn't purchase a wrench for 5$ and resell it for 3$.

c. Your pretense that the two sides of a trade deal are homogeneous blocks is just as absurd. Anyone that has ever driven though a Rust Belt town knows that there have been PLENTY of people fucked by our trade deals of the last couple of generations.

In a democratic republic, those people have a Right to have their interests represented in the crafting of American trade policy.

You're right, what's good for the majority of Americans screwed over the minority of American manufacturing. Not all American manufacturers though, since some competitive factories were able to lower their costs and balance their quality.

Those people have no moral right to lobby the state just because the economy isn't evolving in their favor. I thought you hypocrites were for free markets, and not special interest groups?

Actual picture of Detroit (clearly you have never been there)

What America looked like in the 1930s as a result of protectionist policy

My point stands, I don't see that having to use and thus PAY American women would be that much of a handicap for American modeling agencies.

You admit that it would be a handicap. What else matters?

Larger numbers of lower paid jobs that go to other people is not a benefit to American workers.

A modelling rep isn't a low paying job. Nor is being a model itself.

If the modeling industry grows as a result of expanding the labor pool, then there will be more opportunities in which models have access.

Hell, that is WHY those foreign models in the OP come to the US to work. THey know that those lines on the map are real, and crossing them will change their lives.

Nah, it just goes to show that the arbitrary lines don't matter, because there is a wider range of opportunities outside the imaginary boundaries we create in our heads.

hat you need to do here is to support your viewpoint that Universalism is better than Nationalism, and then convince people that rejecting Nations in favor of some Global State is the answer. Various lefties have been making this argument for a long time. You are welcome to join them.

You are going off in a flurry of strawman and hearsay. I don't believe in a global state, and I do not believe in nation states. I actually do believe the concept of nations has some value, but I find the ideology of nationalism utterly idiotic.

All this is beside the point. You have the burden to prove that real policy should be based around imaginary concepts. I have already taken it upon myself to show why that is retarded.

This is my last response, because you need to take a course on basic economics and get your head out of la la land.

 

[hadit]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

 

[hadit]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

The only policies I see dumbing down education do not come from conservatives. In fact, I see conservatives wanting to stress actual learning over fluff so we don't have to spend the first year of college teaching students how to read and write.

 

[Correll]

a. If a Trade deficit is meaningless, then, what's the problem? Throw US a bone and let our trade partners take the deficit for a few decades and see if it is as meaningless as you say.

Holy shit, I can't even...

A trade deficit is meaningless. The trade policy behind it isn't. All a trade deficit shows is that a nation imports more than it exports, which isn't inherently a bad thing. Consumer imports are resold for a higher value in consumer markets, and industrial imports are used to create domestic manufacturing (machines, materials, ect.).

So, you have it both ways. Trade deficits are meaningless when I complain about them, but any attempt to turn it around is BAD.

Got it.

b. Your pretense that all trade deals are mutually profitable is absurd.

No, it's an absolute fact. All trade is designed to create mutual profit. No exceptions.

A factory in China wouldn't manufacture a wrench for 5$ and sell it to an American company for 3$. Likewise, an American company wouldn't purchase a wrench for 5$ and resell it for 3$.[/QUOTE]


YOur pretense that all trade deals are mutually profitable is absurd.

c. Your pretense that the two sides of a trade deal are homogeneous blocks is just as absurd. Anyone that has ever driven though a Rust Belt town knows that there have been PLENTY of people fucked by our trade deals of the last couple of generations.

In a democratic republic, those people have a Right to have their interests represented in the crafting of American trade policy.

You're right, what's good for the majority of Americans screwed over the minority of American manufacturing. Not all American manufacturers though, since some competitive factories were able to lower their costs and balance their quality.

Those people have no moral right to lobby the state just because the economy isn't evolving in their favor. I thought you hypocrites were for free markets, and not special interest groups?[/QUOTE]




They were not screwed over by an "Evolving economy", they were screwed over by bad trade policy.

They do have a legal and moral right to "lobby" to have their voices heard and interests represented.

Your emotional appeals (hypocrites, free markets) is noted and dismissed.

Actual picture of Detroit (clearly you have never been there)

[/QUOTE]


My picture is a more accurate representation of the cost of globalization.

What America looked like in the 1930s as a result of protectionist policy

Different times.

My point stands, I don't see that having to use and thus PAY American women would be that much of a handicap for American modeling agencies.

You admit that it would be a handicap. What else matters?[/QUOTE]

All the stuff that I keep bringing up that you keep dodging.

Larger numbers of lower paid jobs that go to other people is not a benefit to American workers.

A modelling rep isn't a low paying job. Nor is being a model itself.[/QUOTE]



That is nice. My point stands, Larger numbers of lower paid jobs that go to other people is not a benefit to American workers.

.

If the modeling industry grows as a result of expanding the labor pool, then there will be more opportunities in which models have access.

Sounds a lot like what economists told US would happen to the laid off steal and auto workers in the 70s and 80s.


We're still waiting.

Hell, that is WHY those foreign models in the OP come to the US to work. THey know that those lines on the map are real, and crossing them will change their lives.

Nah, it just goes to show that the arbitrary lines don't matter, because there is a wider range of opportunities outside the imaginary boundaries we create in our heads.

The opportunities don't just "Arise". They are a result of culture and policy driven actions. As different nations have different cultures, governments and policies, those lines matter a lot.


Your denial of the difference between FIrst World Nations, and Third World nations, is the act of a madman.

hat you need to do here is to support your viewpoint that Universalism is better than Nationalism, and then convince people that rejecting Nations in favor of some Global State is the answer. Various lefties have been making this argument for a long time. You are welcome to join them.

You are going off in a flurry of strawman and hearsay. I don't believe in a global state, and I do not believe in nation states. I actually do believe the concept of nations has some value, but I find the ideology of nationalism utterly idiotic.[/QUOTE]


You don't believe in nation states. You have ridiculed and dismissed the idea of any nationalism or loyalty.

Your words and positions define you as an Universalists.

All this is beside the point. You have the burden to prove that real policy should be based around imaginary concepts. I have already taken it upon myself to show why that is retarded....

YOu just claimed, above, that you believe the concept of nations HAS some value.

NOw you are ridiculing the idea that "real policy" should be based on that.


That is you trying to have it both ways.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

Among conservatives, the dumbing down transcends specific policies. It's an accursed movement. Even conservatives know that to be the case. Writing for the American Conservative, Daniel McCarthy notes:

In the years after Reagan but before the solidification of the talk radio/Fox/anti-Clinton right, there was much talk of a “conservative crack-up,” and the Pat Buchanan movement tried to carve out an identity that was conservative but not just part of the by-then-standard GOP formula: Buchanan is remembered as a populist, which he was, but as David Brooks observed in a 1996 Weekly Standard piece (“Buchananism: An Intellectual Cause”), his movement was also rife with Ph.D.s and exhibited undeniable signs of intellectual vitality — a world removed from Sarah Palin and the Randian cliches of the Tea Party.

Television and radio, though, had a homogenizing effect on the right, and the tension between class (with a high tone) and ideology (rabble rousing) worked itself out, with the millionaires learning how to sound angry and enjoy it, and the grassroots getting trained to accept anger as a substitute for policy results. The populist New Right and Buchananite right lost their manpower to Roger Ailes, while the elite right gave up the fight for realism and broadmindedness.

[The New Yorker's John] Cassidy is wrong to say of movement conservatism, “The tensions between its social and economic wings robbed it of any internal cohesion.” The wings of the GOP coalition over the last half-century have not primarily been separated by “issues” social or economic; they were separated by class markers and style. The ideological differences were secondary to those. But now there’s a politically and economically successful, if brain dead, fusion of the classes. The rich sound like the poor, and the poor angrily demand policies that favor the rich. The only problem for the GOP is that external conditions — the real-world economy and the distaste younger people have for the Baby Boomers’ version of the Republican Party (and their version of Christianity) — are eventually going to overpower this mercenary fusionism.
​

McCarthy is not alone. Acclaimed conservative David Brooks in 2008 remarked:

Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, “Ideas Have Consequences.” Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn’t believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect.

Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counter establishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind. But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.

Over the past 15 years, the same argument has been heard from a thousand politicians and a hundred television and talk-radio jocks. The nation is divided between the wholesome Joe Sixpacks in the heartland and the oversophisticated, overeducated, oversecularized denizens of the coasts. What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.

Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone. The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it’s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it’s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it’s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.

Once conservatives admired Churchill and Lincoln above all — men from wildly different backgrounds who prepared for leadership through constant reading, historical understanding and sophisticated thinking. Now those attributes bow down before the common touch.
​

Brooks' points, are I think, well-taken. Republican politicians these days largely engage in crude intellectual-bashing and a plurality, maybe even majority, of them embrace ridiculous unscientific ideas, such as denial of evolution in favor of extreme forms of creationism. Curiously aspects of conservatism -- including free market economics -- which traditionally had limited appeal to intellectuals, have now found favor in learned American circles where it's understood that for better or worse, the U.S. comparative advantage, thus its economic position, is most facilely maximized by free trade.

More recently, Kevin Williamson, in a lamentation about the literacy crisis in America -- something I'd never have thought exists, but my experiences on here have convinced me otherwise -- explains how Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy (thus subsequent win), and that of others like him, is only possible in a society that doesn’t read or think much.

Trump is something that could not happen in a nation that could read. This is the full-flower of post-literate politics. There are still individual Americans who can read, a fact for which writers should say daily prayers of gratitude. There are even communities of sort, and not only ladies’ pinot parties loosely organized around ’50 Shades of Grey. Conservatives are great readers, which is why the overwhelmingly left-leaning world of New York City publishing constantly is looking forward to the next offering from Mark Levin or Bill O’Reilly, whose works produce literary profit sufficient to subsidize the careers of any number of poets and high-minded novelists. But we are not a nation that reads, or a nation that shares a living tradition of serious contemporary literature, fiction or nonfiction.

The American Founders could have a conversation among themselves because they had in the main all consumed the same library of Greek and Roman classics, British and Continental literature ranging from fiction to political economy, legal literature, and the like. This did not ensure agreement or like-mindedness…What it ensured was literate and enlightened argument.​

What Williamson gripes about is, at its heart, anti-intellectualism, and anti-intellectualism is overwhelmingly a Republican problem. Dim voters exist on both sides of the political aisle, of course. Americans may too perhaps be more doltish than in the past, but Trump’s platitudinous "Make America Great" slogan won over far more Republicans than Democrats. He’s their problem, and he exists only because a sufficient number of conservatives want him to. A left-wing analogue of Trump was and is impossible in the Democratic Party. One observes that, like Trump, Bernie Sanders bucked the establishment quite similarly, but his political philosophy was consistent and clear, whereas Trump offered nothing in the way of substantive content.

Mind you, it’s not that conservatives don’t read; it’s that they only read or listen to people like Mark Levin, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, who are conservative entrepreneurs profiting from blinkered rage, ireful petulance that fed Trump’s campaign and succors even now his idless presidency and boundless ego. Those characters don’t propound a serious or coherent worldview for one simple reason: they don’t have one. They’re entertainers chasing ratings. These forces and farces impelled the Tea Party movement; they define the Republican Party now, and there’s simply no functional equivalent on the left.

I’m deeply sympathetic to Williamson’s argument, but one can’t lament the death of intelligent discourse in this country without conceding that one party -- and the media-industrial complex supporting it -- is more responsible than the other. The GOP is the party of Fox News and talk radio now, not the National Review, and that’s the problem.

In conclusion, you are correct. It's not deliberately a policy thing. It's not because the smart conservatives aren't the ones surrounding Trump. They're not the ones making policy. No, the dumbing down is the result of policy so profoundly stupid that the country has no alternative but that of rearing an entire generation of even more deucedly moronic, feeble-minded, sub-literate mental midgets than are the clods making the rules.

 

[JimBowie1958]

It makes no sense to you because you keep thinking in terms of national interest when the players involved have evolved into a new way of thinking. They have little use for national interest, aside from keeping the unit of currency that they conduct business in strong.

And so it is time to strip these bastages of what they have and give it to patriotic Americans.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

The only policies I see dumbing down education do not come from conservatives. In fact, I see conservatives wanting to stress actual learning over fluff so we don't have to spend the first year of college teaching students how to read and write.

Well, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening, it just means you don't want to look.

 

[Correll]

It makes no sense to you because you keep thinking in terms of national interest when the players involved have evolved into a new way of thinking. They have little use for national interest, aside from keeping the unit of currency that they conduct business in strong.

And so it is time to strip these bastages of what they have and give it to patriotic Americans.

These people think that they are part of some "Evolution" to a higher, more advanced paradigm.


But our trading partners are not playing by these rules. They WANT large trade surpluses and the jobs that go with them.

 

[Tehon]

It makes no sense to you because you keep thinking in terms of national interest when the players involved have evolved into a new way of thinking. They have little use for national interest, aside from keeping the unit of currency that they conduct business in strong.

And so it is time to strip these bastages of what they have and give it to patriotic Americans.

These people think that they are part of some "Evolution" to a higher, more advanced paradigm.


But our trading partners are not playing by these rules. They WANT large trade surpluses and the jobs that go with them.

An example of how smart trade policy works can be found in China's 25% import tax on automobiles. Cadillacs are selling in China. Lincoln wants in on the action. The tariff didn't dissuade Lincoln from moving into the market as Neo-Liberals would have us believe. It persuaded Lincoln to build a plant in China. It is supposed to be operational by 2019. Win, win for China.

 

[Correll]

It makes no sense to you because you keep thinking in terms of national interest when the players involved have evolved into a new way of thinking. They have little use for national interest, aside from keeping the unit of currency that they conduct business in strong.

And so it is time to strip these bastages of what they have and give it to patriotic Americans.

These people think that they are part of some "Evolution" to a higher, more advanced paradigm.


But our trading partners are not playing by these rules. They WANT large trade surpluses and the jobs that go with them.

An example of how smart trade policy works can be found in China's 25% import tax on automobiles. Cadillacs are selling in China. Lincoln wants in on the action. The tariff didn't dissuade Lincoln from moving into the market as Neo-Liberals would have us believe. It persuaded Lincoln to build a plant in China.
It is supposed to be operational by 2019. Win, win for China.

The Chinese government gets what it wants.

The Chinese workers get jobs.

Lincoln gets it's profits.

Canadian workers get fucked.

This is not "Mutually Beneficial" trade.

Good example.


Only a liar or a fool would pretend this is not commonplace.

 

[hadit]

Last evening I dropped in on my son and found that he was hosting a party. It seems that my son is friends with a lot of fashion models....Well, "a lot" is probably the wrong term; there were seven that I met. Not big name ones, per se, but working ones nonetheless.

In chatting with his modeling friends I discovered that modeling in the fashion industry is a work situation in which the workers, the models, regardless of where they are from, compete with peers all over the world to get jobs. A designer wants models for a runway event or print engagement and the models who end up being chosen may be from a dozen different countries. American, French, Spanish, Italian, Ethiopian, South African, Mexican, Argentine, etc.models all competing to get the same job.

I thought that was interesting because I have seen folks on here griping about the challenges of competing with foreign labor. I think the complaints are nothing more than the bitching and moaning of people who just aren't willing to do what they need to do to competitively offer labor that buyers want to purchase.

Then, quite by chance, I come upon a small bevy of women who are very much regular women -- aside from being really good looking -- and who to get a job compete against foreign workers from around the world and on the most personal level possible, and they're thriving and making good livings. Do they get every modeling assignment they try for? No, but they keep at it and they get enough to make a decent living (the range is rather large, but the girls at the party ranged from ~$110K/year to $300K/year). Frankly, that's not bad money for being 18 to 20-something.

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

The only policies I see dumbing down education do not come from conservatives. In fact, I see conservatives wanting to stress actual learning over fluff so we don't have to spend the first year of college teaching students how to read and write.

Well, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening, it just means you don't want to look.

Name some "conservative policies" that are "dumbing down" education, since you appear to believe it's happening.

 

[frigidweirdo]

In order to compete with the world, you have to be better than the others, or at least on par.

The funny thing is the right seem to want to dumb down education, rather than beef it up. It's strange, when has less skills been more desirable? It hasn't, it's just the US seems to want to go after lower paid jobs that can make one person richer, and the rest poorer, rather than trying for hi tech jobs where people are better off. It's strange, China is pushing to make their young highly educated, to get better jobs, and the US is going in the opposite direction...

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

The only policies I see dumbing down education do not come from conservatives. In fact, I see conservatives wanting to stress actual learning over fluff so we don't have to spend the first year of college teaching students how to read and write.

Well, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening, it just means you don't want to look.

Name some "conservative policies" that are "dumbing down" education, since you appear to believe it's happening.

Like I said: number one is creationism and religion in general.

Number 2 is school vouchers and attempting to take money away from public schools.

Number 3 is de Vos as education secretary.

But this isn't about "policies" this is about mentality, and you can see it on here all the time. Education get called "indoctrination", when Michelle Obama wanted to limit kids to one ketchup sachet the right went fucking nuts. Only in America would people go crazy because someone wants healthier children and children to learn about food nutrition.

I've got skull pilot saying you don't need to teach food nutrition because "everyone knows that a snickers bar in unhealthy".

You can find it all over. If only you want to see it. But do you?

 

[hadit]

No one wants to "dumb down" education, except maybe those who put teacher union demands ahead of student needs, or prioritize social engineering ahead of teaching the basics, etc.

Actually there are plenty of people who want to dumb down education, the religious, those who want to own factories producing cheap shit with low paid workers that makes the rich person a lot of profit, like in China....

The only policies I see dumbing down education do not come from conservatives. In fact, I see conservatives wanting to stress actual learning over fluff so we don't have to spend the first year of college teaching students how to read and write.

Well, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening, it just means you don't want to look.

Name some "conservative policies" that are "dumbing down" education, since you appear to believe it's happening.

Like I said: number one is creationism and religion in general.

Unless a school district is refusing to teach science, it's not dumbing anything down, and trying to ignore the impact religious beliefs have on society is dumb.

Number 2 is school vouchers and attempting to take money away from public schools.

Vouchers don't dumb down education. In fact, they allow parents to send their kids to BETTER schools so they can get a BETTER education. You do see that, don't you? As for taking money away from government schools, we've seen countless times that throwing MORE money at them does little or nothing to improve scholastic performance. In this case, the kids are more important than the bureaucracy.

Number 3 is de Vos as education secretary.

And what has she done to dumb down education? Be specific. What policy(s) has she put forth that will do that?

But this isn't about "policies" this is about mentality, and you can see it on here all the time. Education get called "indoctrination", when Michelle Obama wanted to limit kids to one ketchup sachet the right went fucking nuts. Only in America would people go crazy because someone wants healthier children and children to learn about food nutrition.

I've got skull pilot saying you don't need to teach food nutrition because "everyone knows that a snickers bar in unhealthy".

You can find it all over. If only you want to see it. But do you?

And if you look at the mentality, you will realize that people are reacting to the prioritization of social engineering over teaching the basics. Little Johnny may be able tell you why he should feel guilty about something he had nothing to do with and he might be able to tell you about anal sex by age 10, but if he graduates without knowing how to read, write, and do simple math, there's a problem. No one on the right is going to complain if we turn out graduates who can read, write, do simple math and don't require a year of college just to catch up.

 

[JimBowie1958]

An example of how smart trade policy works can be found in China's 25% import tax on automobiles. Cadillacs are selling in China. Lincoln wants in on the action. The tariff didn't dissuade Lincoln from moving into the market as Neo-Liberals would have us believe. It persuaded Lincoln to build a plant in China. It is supposed to be operational by 2019. Win, win for China.

So let us respond in kind and win/win for the USA!

 

[JimBowie1958]

Name some "conservative policies" that are "dumbing down" education, since you appear to believe it's happening.

Like I said: number one is creationism and religion in general.

Number 2 is school vouchers and attempting to take money away from public schools.

Number 3 is de Vos as education secretary.

But this isn't about "policies" this is about mentality, and you can see it on here all the time. Education get called "indoctrination", when Michelle Obama wanted to limit kids to one ketchup sachet the right went fucking nuts. Only in America would people go crazy because someone wants healthier children and children to learn about food nutrition.

I've got skull pilot saying you don't need to teach food nutrition because "everyone knows that a snickers bar in unhealthy".

You can find it all over. If only you want to see it. But do you?

1. There is nothing wrong or anti-education about religion, genius. The man who developed the Big Bang Theory was a Catholic priest, for example. You mean religious education is anti-secular, which has zero to do with good education.

2. Competition among schools can only improve education. Why do you fear competition so much? You a Snowflake?

3. De Vos will be a great Education secretary if the Marxist Left will let her do her damned job.

 

[Onyx]

Number 2 is school vouchers and attempting to take money away from public schools.

To be fair, American public schools waste more money than they use efficiently.