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Atamolos — American Spending Problems
Published: 2014-01-12 20:21:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 1960; Favourites: 30; Downloads: 3
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And people wonder why a lower percentage of US students are going into science/engineering fields that almost anywhere else in the industrialized world.Related content
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Health and Human Services (basically medicare and medicaid).
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something is telling me that percentage is not very logical...
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Is there a war on? Is the US under risk of attack considering they spend so much on the military?
No wait, congress is still delusional in thinking it can vanquish terrorism with guns isn't it?
When the ratio of spending between defence and education is that massive, no wonder there are so many Americans who think all the world's issues can be treated with invasions and having military presence in every country in the UN.
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At this point the 'war' is about the rich mineral deposits in Afghanistan, and the abundant oil elsewhere in the Middle East.
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No wonder coalition forces are so determined ot stay there when it's been made pretty evident the locals don't want them in their borders.
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Likely to secure corporate interests and further exportation opportunities. The Persian Gulf has always been a contested area.
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If the military were educated, they might question what they were being told do.
If the people had a better education, they might question what their governments were doing.
If the people had a better education, they might question the political power of 'Big Bussiness'.
Education is being destroyed, because education and knowledge and free information is dangerous, it can help people make up their own minds.
Limitations on contracts (tenure), temporary, limited teaching hours, changing contracts, lack of funding for public schools is all detrimental to the education of the mainstream of the population. The only people who are receiving a 'decent and whole' education are the offspring of the Rich and Powerful who receive Private Education at the likes of Eton, then move on to Oxbridge, then surprise, surprise, they end up in government and/or as CEOs of major financial institutions who then cry like the spoilt brats they are when it all goes tits up.
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Essentially. The people in the place in which I live are far too stuck on the idea of "getting religion back into America", that they don't focus on real problems.
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Yeah, that seems to confirm what we hear over here about parts of the States. There's a beautiful line in a Bobby Womack song (paraphrased) " I heard somebody saw that God had told him to raise over $6 million dollars, 'God was Broke'. Right on the nail! The 'Church' over here (Church of Scotland, the 'Wee Free' would torch them) are 'changing the lives of drug addicts and criminals by embracing god', What the idiots don't realise, that these groups are the perfect place for 'deals' to be done without any hassle. Church numbers and congregations are falling every year. A lot of people are fed up with the same old platitudes and bullshit. I always find it strange when the Catholics 'Defrock'? a priest for messing with kids. In most cases, they've known about for years if not decades.
Scottish Joke going the rounds just now: "A priest, a paedophile and a rapist walk into a bar; and he asks for a pint of lager. religion has caused more brutality, pain, suffering and death than even politics has in our history. It's time to get religion OUT of our lives. If people want to believe that's their privilege, but don't force on me.
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Hopefully people are learning to think for themselves.
Good joke!
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Well, we increased the spending on education but it made no difference. The real problem is that so many teachers are neglecting their duty because of tenure and so many students are failing because of that.
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Teachers are neglecting their duties? Where did you come about that information? Was it Fox News or Conservapedia?
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Not just that but researchers who have even put together a documentary about how the educational system in America is failing.
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It's not difficult to examine and see.
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The Department of Health and Human Services
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...
How can the US spend that much on medical care and still have a shitty medicare system? 0.o
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Here's the extent of their budget page.
www.hhs.gov/ocio/capitalplanni…
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Nonetheless, Sweden provides it's people with free and excellent healthcare (thank you Socialism!), and spends barely a fraction of that amount.
Why is it so bad in the US?
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Well, a lot of the infrastructural problems here in America stem from the basis of modern internal politics. There's practically a civil war going on right now between the Republican dominated House of Representatives and the Democrat dominated senate plus the president. The skyrocketing debt to China, Taiwan, etc has plunged the country into chaos, and both parties think they have solutions.
The problem is, they spend more time bickering over small things like gay rights, abortion, school curriculum, etc than they do about improving health care, solving unemployment, ending the wars in the Middle East, and making any sort of social progress.
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People need a distraction from real problems, the US government doesn't want it's people to wake up and revolt.
It's a shame really, the American people have so much potential, but sadly it's limited by a horrible government latching onto a horrible system.
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Much like the late Roman Empire. They distracted their people from the state of constant war and fear by holding onto power through "bread and circuses".
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Nice reference, I forgot about that, haha.
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Nah, drone strikes in the Middle East are far more important.
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Don't talk stupid like that; you sound like a congressman.
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Well, don't do it too much; you'll catch their stupid. 
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But seriously why not take a small slither of that to reinforce nasa, and use the rest to secure the us Mexico border.
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Personally, I think that if we just regulate emigrants from Mexico, rather than trying to ban them, it will go a long way to solving the welfare 'problems'.
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That's part of phase one, limiting there entry points if they don't have passport and how many can come, but there is another part of phase one that I don't think you'll like, I'll tell you tomorrow, late for work.
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I kinda want to see an American colony on Mars soon.
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Maybe. Perhaps the moon first.
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China is going to beat us to hat because the president aborted the launch of the Aries one rocket.
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From 2012:
"We spend an average $10,995 in public dollars on each US elementary and secondary student, but other countries spend less to get better reading, math and science test scores. Japan spends $8,301 per student and South Korea spends less, at $6,723, but both outpace US academic performance. The US outlay per student is $2,826 more than the average in industrialized countries. Then again, the biggest spenders per student – Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland – have mixed results compared to the US"
See the charts, read the blahblah
Spending more money is obviously not the solution.
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Just my two cents but, I think culture has more to do with it.
For example, in western societies, being a lawyer is considered a good profession.
Where I come from (Iraq), only so-called "Fa'shleen" (translates to failures) become lawyers. People who are so-and-so become engineers and if you want to have any form of self worth and respect, you become a doctor.
That's the reason I have 4 doctors and 2 engineers in my family, haha.
There is of course more to it but, culture can go a loooong way in improving the results of students. Or at least, I think so. It explains why South Koreans and Japanese students (along with all other strict culture students) are over-performers, while mostly western countries are lagging behind. There are exceptions of course.
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I never claimed that spending more money was the solution. My intent was to illustrate the the US's defense bill is grossly inflated.
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"I never claimed that spending more money was the solution."
No, you didn't - and I didn't claim that you had.
But since you did state "And people wonder why a lower percentage of US students are going into science/engineering fields that almost anywhere else in the industrialized world." and point little arrows at the disparity between defense and education spending I felt my point relevant.
I should add to my original response that the military is America's largest purchaser of products from the "science/engineering fields" thus, one might assume that given our bloated spending on education and defense more students would be going into science/engineering rather than less - to chase those big military bucks.
So associating the country's bloated military spending with less students entering the science/engineering fields makes little sense.
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One might assume that, however that assumption would be incorrect. www.obhe.ac.uk/newsletters/bor…
My intention is not do directly associate the military budget with education. I'm not saying that, "by cutting our defense spending, education will automatically increase". What I'm saying is that the US government is spending too much on useless wars in the middle east and their educational methods obviously aren't working. The US is losing the global competition for science/engineering jobs to Europe, China, Japan, Brazil, etc, and it's possible that bloated military spending may have some part in that.
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"One might assume that, however that assumption would be incorrect"
My assumption was based on my perception that if American students were capable of chasing the big bucks our military is throwing away, they'd be doing so and that the reason they weren't capable of doing so was that our tendency to throw money at education without demanding results is working out as poorly for us as our tendency to throw money at our military without demanding results.
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Ah, apologies. I misinterpreted what you said.
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Np, I tend to assume people understand what I'm saying and get short with them, even when I garble it up.
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Cut defense in half, apply to education and science.
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Read above to DarkRider.
More money isn't the solution. Common Core isn't the solution.
Allowing schools to cull out bad teachers however will make all the difference in the world.
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Regardless, the defense budget is bloated- and actually, more money is the solution when it comes to science. Research isn't cheap, but the returns are great.
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You realize that under the broad brush of DEFENSE comes foreign aid, right?
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