Education - Public vs PrivateFollow

Probably one of the more stable currencies right now.

But it's a valid response if we're comparing two different things on which we spend similar amounts of money nationally. We spend less money (yeah, I'm going to discount the surely inflated calculations in the article you linked and go with the actual dollars budgeted and spent each year) on the military than we do on education. Is there anyone on this forum who'd doubt that the US has the best military in the world? Not just the best, but far and away the best? Is there anyone who'd say we have the best education system in the world? Is there anyone who'd say we have even remotely close to the best?

While we can certainly debate whether or not our military could operate just as well while trimming the total cost a bit, we at least have a military that performs as we expect it to. We do *not* have an education system which does. So. Shouldn't we be more concerned with a system that costs us more than we think it should and doesn't perform as expected?

Even more bizarre is the idea that someone would attempt to excuse the problems with our education system by pointing to the military and declaring that it costs too much. Remember, that's how the whole military spending thing got injected into this conversation in the first place. I thought it was a ridiculous argument at the time, and I still think it's ridiculous.

The military buys in bulk.

and carpet.

Guess how many times the mother will give the kid $4 to buy milk?

Now guess how many times Lolgaxe's office will be carpeted.

See the point, now?

It'll have to be the rest of Alma's life, at least.

double

Edited, Feb 22nd 2012 7:11pm by Almalieque

Yes, I see clearly that you fail to admit that you are wrong. I never claimed that the government ever gave a kid $4 to buy milk. It was an example for you to understand the concept. Mismanaging money doesn't mean that the money wasn't needed. I'm sure that money spent on the carpet could have been well spent some where else. Unless that is, he's working in a financially perfect environment, where money isn't needed.

It was a horrible example, though. And by horrible I mean even horrible by your lousy track record. It isn't "Mom gives $4 for milk, kid steals $4 for magazine." It's "Mom gives $4 for milk, kid spends $3 on milk and pockets the $1, while telling Mom milk was $4."

Relative to other national spending.



No. My point is that you have no data or basis to even think that is possible. You are claiming that we should reduce spending without actually understanding the spending. All you are doing is looking at big numbers and saying "I know we can reduce that!". Of course we can reduce spending. There isn't a spending project that we can't reduce the spending somehow. However, if you do a cost/mission analysis, you may find out that it may only go from 1.1B to 1 B. Yet, you have this fantasy that it could/should be much more based on absolutely nothing but desires.

With that being said, you can apply that same concept to anything. "We should be able to have an effective public education without spending more than $1M for the entire nation!".

So, why are you pointing out the military? Part of that answer is because of the amount of money spent, which is why I explained to you that somethings will just be relatively expensive if you do it effectively. Just because you elect you a frugal politician, doesn't mean that the change in the price of war will be noticeable to the overall deficit.

You must be the worst marksman in the world if you can miss that sort of a point. I assume that's why your on desk duty.

Also, as a sidenote, what kind financially perfect environment doesn't use money? Do you think perfection in the economic markets came and went with the Sumerian barter exchanges?

This would be in keeping with your disturbing moral objection to anything resembling efficiency. I'm really curious as to the why.