Constitutional Limits of Representation

The most important issue never resolved was the issue of fairness. In particular, the discussion of fairness was cut short by the imposition of ideology - mostly on constitutional terms.

In these ideological debates, a great deal is made of the Preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the first 10 Amendments, but very little attention if paid to the intrinsic wisdom in other areas.

If you step back from the Constitution and look at it as a system of governance, not government, much of the ideological barricading is quickly lost. 

Small is better

Why would giving the government more money even anything out? 
If the "have nots" are not getting paid enough for some to consider it fair, giving more money to the government certainly does not help out the working middle class. Or does it?

Why would it not? For an economy to grow and prosper, the growth has to come from the lower levels of the population.

The philosophy of 'trickle down' economics has proven a failure backed by lies, damned lies, and statistics. Put more money in the hands of the wealthy and the GDP grows along with the deficit; the proportion of the economy controlled by the wealthy increases, and middle class disintegrates. If you only look at GDP, it's a success.
Before the GFC, the Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations accounted for about 2/3rd of the national debt.

Bush 43 nearly doubled the nominal amount again in his last days in office by signing away $650 billion in TARP funds, and committing the government to another $450 billion. Obama has not expended $450 billion of the TARP funds.

Testing, pedagogy, andragogy and beyond

(Like many of my posts here, this is taken from forums. This one comes from a LinkedIn forum called The Economy, under the thread 'There must be a fairly simple some way to regulate a fundamentally capitalist economy .." in response to Brian Miller, who started the thread.)


@Brian
I agree with everything in your post with the exception of these two sentences.

>> I propose teachers be compensated based on a track record of consistent excellence. The yardstick for excellence would be state-wide or nation-wide standardized test performance, adjusted for variations ini the overall performance in a given school district.<<

As one of those who excels at testing, I'm almost speaking against my peers here - and, I imagine most of the participants in this forum.
There is no doubt there is a place for testing. There is a core of knowledge necessary to continue education and to function in modern society. I would argue that this core knowledge should be taught and tested from a vocational perspective, where the teacher is required to assure the students learn the material. Largely, you're describing this vocational perspective.

Generalized testing is just that: generalized. The term describes about 40% of the population. Bringing only 40% of the population to a level of testable competence can not be considered a successful strategy.
Language skills required by all testing become problematic. The testing includes language skills, yet language skills are required to do the tests. That reasoning is circular and false prima facia.

Milton Freidman on Hong Kong

It's interesting that Milton Freidman is often cited by proponents of free markets. Friedman often conveniently overlooked facts, unfortunately. Here is an excerpt from the Aisan Correspondent about Hong Kong.

>So determined was Friedman to defend his rosy version of Hong Kong’s economy, which he attributed to its 1960s Financial Secretary John Cowperthwaite, that just weeks before his death he claimed to be seeing state intervention that it “would no longer be such a shining example of economic freedom”.


At one time 60 percent of the people lived in subsidized housing, mostly rented cheaply from the government, and some in Home Ownership Scheme flats, provided with cheap land and sold to lower-middle-income households. Even now that public housing has low priority and the home ownership scheme has ended, some 50 percent of the people still benefit from this massive intervention in the marketplace.

The intervention also partly accounts for the low apparent ratio of spending to gross domestic product. If the cost of the subsidized housing land were accounted for at market prices in the government budget, the ratio would be significantly higher.

Hong Kong people have also enjoyed almost free medical treatment at government clinics and hospitals. Friedman was against “free” medicine elsewhere but failed to notice it in Hong Kong. Likewise, education, at least up to the secondary level has long been almost entirely funded by the government.

In the days when Friedman was writing his praises for Hong Kong, the territory also had a relatively youthful workforce compared with western countries and thus less need for spending on pensions and help for the aged.

Nor did Hong Kong have to spend anything significant on external security, the responsibility of London and now Beijing.

Friedman could actually have helped Hong Kong if he had criticized rather than ignored the excesses of these interventions in the marketplace. They had originally been spurred by fears of social unrest as the then-colony attempted to absorb waves of migrants from the mainland with nowhere but squatter huts to live.

It was necessary intervention in the marketplace. The government’s lack of ideological commitment to laisser faire was summed up by Cowperthaite’s successor, Philip Haddon-Cave, as “positive non-interventionism.” This bit of semantic gobbledegook essentially meant that it preferred not to intervene but had a paternal duty to do so on occasion.

Hong Kong’s problem now is that policy change has not kept pace with changing economic and social circumstances. It is hooked on high land prices for the private sector as a revenue-raising measure, which leaves a large proportion of the public trapped in the subsidized housing sector.<

Paul

David Suzuki from the Weekend Australian

"Today, there are corporations that are bigger than many governments in the world. They may produce something we need, make something very useful, but they exist to make money, and all kinds of things happen in the name of money."

"Follow the money trail and it is crystal clear that corporations and rich neo-conservatives are funding a campaign that is what I call an inter-generational crime in the name of profit now. In the name of short-term profit they are knowingly leaving enormous problems for all future generations."
* avowed atheist and award-winning scientist David Suzuki

Paul

Humans

I've always been fascinated by the idea that human beings became the dominant species.

Based on Darwinian theory, we shouldn't be.

We are not the strongest or the fastest. We have no natural protection from the elements.
In any climate, we require some sort of covering for our hairless bodies. We are not naturally camouflaged. Our faces and skin shines in the night. Our eyesight and hearing are not superior to most other animals.
We cannot swim without a lot of effort. Nature has given us no special advantage in the water.

Ignorance and Cowardice

Ignorance and Cowardice are infinite. There is no limit to either.
Knowledge, or wisdom, and Courage are in short supply.

That's why the ignorant cowards usually win: There are just too many of them.