BS: You and the stimulus plan

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 14 Feb 09 - 11:35 AM

Gregg said the Obama administration made a "tactical mistake" on the stimulus bill by allowing it to be written by "House appropriators, and if it were written by Senate appropriators, the same problem would have occurred.''

"It should have been drafted, or at least the philosophy that drove it should have been drafted, by people who were thinking about the larger picture of how you get the economy going." . . .

Appropriators, as Gregg called them, "by definition don't have focus and are only interested usually in the accounts they have jurisdiction over. They all have their small arena of responsibility.

"They don't come from a philosophical standpoint," he said. "They come from a standpoint of 'plussing up' whatever accounts they are responsible for."

Gregg said the result is "an unfocused product where we're spending a lot of money on initiatives which really aren't going to be all that much of a stimulus or are outside of the two-year window or are basically just social spending for the sake of constituency support." . . .

Gregg said he was not opposed to the bill simply because of its huge bottom line.

"The policy drives the number," he said, "and if you could put good policy in place, I would have no problem with the number."

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:53 PM

"Huge amounts of energy will be conserved"

The best joke since the Marx brothers.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: pdq
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:53 PM

When Reagan gave money to employers to hire new people, it was called "trickle-down economics" and the news media people called it bad.

When Harry Reid and friends give money to employers to hire people for his pet projects, they call it an "investment in your future".

When Reagan increased the National Debt $1.6 trillion in eight years, it was called "wreckless deficit spending".

When Reid, Pelosi and Obama demand we pass an instant deficit-raising package that increases the deficit by $0.82 trillion in Obama's first three weeks in office, it is called a "stimulus package".

Perhaps we need to define terms before a dabate.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:44 PM

Real money or money printed by the U.S. Treasury?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:42 PM

Perhaps the best thing about the stimulus plan is the deep conservatism of it. For the first time there is real money going towards energy efficiency and conservation all across America.      Huge amounts of energy will be conserved.

I have yet to hear one conservative praise this conservatism.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:34 PM

Several bus lines run non-stop buses for gamblers from LA and SF. They will have to lay off drivers.
Someone mentioned the bill had $3 billion for first nations. I would like to know the provisions.

I guess the content will trickle down to us in the weeks and months to come. One could buy a copy from the GPO, but at over 500 pages, it won't be cheap.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:30 PM

I want money for cancer research! Not a problem you got it.

I like solar energy! Me too yeah everybody does. Check.

Wind energy too! Absolutely. Check. What else?

I hate the minimum tax! Oh year fer sure. The masses hat it too. That's in.

How about making cars go farther on a gallon of gas and shit? Good. All right.

Way less taxes! Wait come on work with us here, we need social benefit.

. . . .

Shit that's $860,000,000,000

Knock it down to seven-something.

Yeah good. That's better.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: pdq
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:18 PM

Not to worry, my Nevada Senator "Dirty Harry" Reid has inserted an $8 billion provision to build a train from Los Angeles to Los Vegas. Bring them gamblers in.

The train may be a good idea, maybe not, but Reid should be honest enough to bring it up in a separate bill and have a sane debate. This is high-handed and shows why a poll earlier this showed the Senate's approval at 7%...and the same people are still there after the election.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:04 PM

Congressmen are complaining that they don't have time to read and comprehend either. But it's only money! Over 500 pp. the last I heard.

(Hope no one sees the line inserted by a printer friend of mine that gives me a million- a very tiny morsel of pork).

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: pdq
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 08:19 PM

Instead of all the hissing and spitting by the usual suspects, can someone explain way we are about to spend $800 billion dollars on pork barrel projects without eveng thinking things through? Call it what you want, it looks like irresponsible excess spending and little else.

This is said to be so urgent that the public may not even get to read it before it is passed and signed. We should, at the very least, get to look at the final text for the 48 hours that Harry Reid and friends promised. Can you say "railroaded"?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: beardedbruce
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:55 AM

And your complaints about anti-Bush messages in the NYT???

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Feb 09 - 09:53 AM

Right you are. "Humanevents.com" - a right-wing, BuShite, neocon blog. What's next, Hub? Quotes from The Protocols Of The Elders of Zion?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 08:18 PM

Here's transparency for ya......


and you guys said Bush was a brown shirt.



Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 04:58 PM

They took the E-Verify provision out, when completely screws the American worker.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 04:31 PM

pdq- source?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: pdq
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 03:00 PM

A few people call him "Dirty Harry" Reid. More should.

He and his wife, four sons and his daughter's husband have a law firm together. One bill that was presented to a "client" for whom Harry and family had paved the way politically simply read "$450,000 for services rendered".

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: GUEST,jts
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 02:53 PM

To those who may get their economic information from talking heads.... Not that there is anything wrong with that other than the possibility of mishearing.

Keynes
John Maynard Keynes
Keynesian

One of
A singe one
not One-off
as in take one off.


Sawzaw said
>>>Sounds to me like trickle down economics when you say any spending is stimulus.

If that is the case then you have no idea what "trickle down" economics is. It is the idea of putting money in the hands of the wealthy "elites" because they know how to most efficiently invest it. Obviously in the spending bill the government is deciding what the best investments are.

If you are unsure of the meaning of the phrases you plan to use, you could, once in a while, at least look them up.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 02:50 PM

$2 million for neon signs for Las Vegas?

Won't that burn more energy?

Who has more money than the casinos in Vegas to buy neon signs?

  Top Contributors to Harry Reid during the 2006 Election Cycle
  Rank        Donor                     Amount (US Dollars)
  1        MGM Mirage                    $ 98,200
  2        Harrah's Entertainment        $ 78,600
  3        Simmons Cooper LLC            $ 73,400
  4        Mandalay Resort Group         $ 62,350
  5        Station Casinos               $ 38,000
  

Remenber Harry Reid's bridge earmark?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 02:26 PM

Obama's tax cuts made it into the "stimulus!" As a result, you get a $13 a week tax credit. Next year it drops to $8.


Were rich now!!!

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 12 Feb 09 - 02:22 PM

Chuck Schumer "Why quibble over $200 million?"

Sounds to me like trickle down economics when you say any spending is stimulus.

All of the damnble pork of earlier years when Repubs were in control is now declared beneficial by the democrats because it stimulates the economy.


$1.5 million to get the whores off the streets of Dayton?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 09:09 PM

Yeah, Rap, I think you've got it!

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 06:18 PM

"Trickle Down Economics" always seemed to me to be what happens to a blind man trying to understand an elephant with diarrhea.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Greg F.
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 06:14 PM

Supply side or trickle down or whatever you want to call it didn't do near as much as you think to get the economy in the shape it's in today. That was done by your boy, Clinton...

Here's a perfect example of NeoCon brain death & wishful thinking. No facts need apply.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 06:11 PM

The problem is world-wide. Don't give the American banks and politicians sole credit for the breakdown. Now China, Japan, the EU countries France, UK, Germany, etc., are all doling out money in their own stimulus plans.

In some ways, Little Hawk is correct about a giant pyramid scheme. That is the way the capitalist system has grown, by creating money and credit, and is responsible for the increase in population and goods ever since the Venetians (or push it back as far as you want), the Industrial Revolution movers and shakers, and all who created businesses and hired people, got the ball rolling.
(I think the grammar is lousy in the above paragraph, but understandable).

Whichever politician is blamed for contributing to the current situation, each of them only caused a local blip. The failing is universal.

Reform of the system is needed, but that will take several years, and cooperation on a global basis. The bailouts are beginning to look like band-aid solutions to a massive global collapse.
Tighten your belts!

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 06:03 PM

If I send them $2,500 can I buy my way out of my share of the debt?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 05:39 PM

They don't give it to you, Rapaire, because you don't move in the right circles. You need to already be very, very, VERY wealthy. Then you would get the help you are seeking.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 05:07 PM

"And living in the "now" has nothing to do with growing up. If we don't understand the mistakes that were made prior, how you one expect things to improve?"


My point exactly!

But that's not what Pres. Obama is doing now is it?

At least that's not what he is saying.

He jumps back and forth at the very least. Saying things such as "We can't keep looking back to the past. We need to look forward to the future."


So how can he fix it when he's not doing the very thing that you say must be done?

At the very least.......naivety.

And at most.......just plain untruthfulness.


Sad in either case.


Hubby
Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 02:46 PM

How aboutcommunity type jobs in nursing homes, parks, schools, libraries...

How about rebuilding some of these hurricane places and New Orleans with sensible building materials and stringent guidelines, at least against the most likely natural disasters, fire, flood, hurricane. Lots and lots of cement or stone or ceramic or something...and it can be made to withstand earthquakes with proper design...mg

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 01:25 PM

As long as you promise not to spend the money on substances that are not taxed.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 01:19 PM

Why can't they just give me my (approx.) $2,500 and let me stimulate the economy in my own way?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 08:36 AM

I will admit, Hubby, that ACORN and the push to finance unworthy buyers played a large part in what is happening now, but I don't think any of this could have gotten as bad as it is if it hadn't been for the failed policies of Reagan.

                And living in the "now" has nothing to do with growing up. If we don't understand the mistakes that were made prior, how you one expect things to improve?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 08:25 AM

OK Riginslinger,


We understand that you believe Reagan to be the spawn of Satan. You've made yourself more than clear on the subject.

But why are you still living in the past?

Can't you grow up and start living in the now?

Much like Pres. Obama said he is going to do?

But since you're there, here's a tidbit for you. Supply side or trickle down or whatever you want to call it didn't do near as much as you think to get the economy in the shape it's in today. That was done by your boy, Clinton, in ordering Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae to loosen their standards in order to let "all" Americans have some home ownership. It all started there.

Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 07:52 AM

"...the Reagan economic policies is "trickle down" not "supply side" economics,..."

                Art Laffer and the people who set it up called it "supply side" economics, because the monitary policy was determined by what they calle "the M-1 money supply," (liquid capital on hand in banks).
                Reagan himself called it "trickle down," because he was too stupid the understand the theory behind it.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 02:14 AM

It's the banking system itself which has created this catastrophe, not the government. The government merely aided and abetted the banks by not more stringently regulating their irresponsible lending policies (and their creation of vast amounts of fictional money through the process of lending). It's been happening for several hundred years. It began long before the USA even existed as a political entity. It began as soon as banks started lending out more money than they had in real deposits...and the governments let them do it. Why? Well, because the governments themselves were usually deeply in debt to those same bankers, that's why.

You thought the government made the money we use? Ha! Sure, they make the physical bills and coins that are in circulation, yes...but that's only a very small amount of all the supposed money that is in play in the economy. Most of it exists only on a computer screen or a balance sheet, and it was never minted or printed by the government. It was created by a bank making a loan...it appeared out of thin air...and then went straight back into the banking system...and even drew interest charges, creating even more money from nowhere....all of which greatly enlarged the national money supply with money that was never real, made bankers rich, and it all came from nowhere.

The government didn't create that money. The banks created it out of thin air every time they made a new loan to somebody.

That's a gigantic pyramid scheme. Pyramid schemes always work for awhile, but in the end they collapse, because they are based on a fiction.

We are now seeing such a collapse, and it's occurring on a worldwide basis.

Yes, as Doug said, we are in deep shit.

Gold is real. Food is real. Oil is real. A printed bill is real (albeit merely symbolic of value). A minted coin is real. Most of the money that the banks supposedly have on deposit isn't real.

This would very quickly become evident if the general public all panicked at the same time and tried to withdraw their money from the banks and get hard cash. It ain't there. The entire system would then collapse, and you'd have something bordering on anarchy.

I'm sure the government is quite concerned about avoiding such a possibility. I'd be concerned if I were them.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: DougR
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 12:30 AM

Riginslinger: It's difficult to define a current economic problem based on one person's experience at any particular time.

The tax forgiveness legislation during John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and GWB's times brought us out of recessions. That's fact, not opinion.

I think the terminology you use to describe the Reagan economic policies is "trickle down" not "supply side" economics, though I admittedly may be wrong.

Anyway, I think we are in deep shit, and I don't think it's going to get better with the "so called" stimulus legislation.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 11 Feb 09 - 12:03 AM

Try Carter

The Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act forced banks to lend to uncreditworthy borrowers. Age-old standards of banking prudence got thrown out the window.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 04:17 PM

Sawz - I think by now pretty much everybody is aware that the financial disaster we find ourselves in now was started by Reagan--one of the many stupid things that he did--all George W. Bush did was to make the situation much, much worse.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 04:09 PM

For the past 20 years, banks have been piling up risk, making more and more loans based on less and less capital. Years of economic growth, shallow recessions and record-low default rates lulled bankers into thinking that the future would resemble the immediate past, at least as far as risk went. Turns out it didn't. All it was going to take was a worse-than-average recession — and it looks as though we've got one — and many banks, including a number of the biggest ones, were bound to fail. The shockingly poor lending standards — housekeepers being approved for million-dollar mortgages — have only hastened their demise. "This crisis needs to be understood as something that has developed over the past decade," says Joseph Mason, a finance professor at Louisiana State University's E.J. Ourso College of Business.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 03:26 PM

The popular Democratic refrain that "Bush-era deregulation" is to blame for our troubles is a little hard to square with the evidence. What is true is that most Bush-era financial regulators were less than enthusiastic about the very act of regulating, and that Bush's [Barney Franks & Clinton's] "ownership society" push, glossed over a lot of potential dangers. Bush didn't cause the financial regulatory breakdown, but he didn't jump in to fix it either.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Sawzaw
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 03:19 PM

Tired of the old singsong 8 years of failed policy that "got us into this mess"-Try 38 years

There is an article in the Jan 31 Time Magazine that explains how we "got into this mess" in easy to understand terms.

....Starting in the early 1970s, banks began funding less of their lending with old-fashioned deposits. Bank deposits backed 90% of all loans four decades ago; today they back 60%. Where does the rest of the loan money come from? From the bank's past earnings and the money given to it by its investors. Using the house's money has generated higher profits — with significantly higher risks.

Regulators have long had a lower capital requirement on loans that are not backed by deposits. But in 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) removed rules that capped leverage at 15 to 1 for investment-banking firms like Goldman Sachs. That allowed the firms to vastly expand their lending activities without raising a single new dollar of capital. One big backer of the rule change was reportedly former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who was then Goldman's CEO. By that time, the regulatory separation between investment banks and traditional banks had long since been removed, so traditional banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America shifted more and more of their lending operations to their investment-banking divisions, and leverage took off. By the end of 2007, many banks were lending $30 for every dollar they had in the vault. "Changing the net-capital rule was an unfortunate misjudgment by the SEC," says former SEC official Lee Pickard. "It's one of the leading contributors to the current financial crisis." (See who else is to blame.)

Another way banks sought to boost their profits — at least those available to shareholders — was through stock buybacks. Investors cheer buybacks, because they shrink the number of outstanding shares, boosting a company's profits per share and usually its stock price. But corporate stock purchases also decrease banks' capital, because their earnings are used to purchase shares rather than being retained as cash. Worse, sometimes banks borrow money in order to buy back shares, upping their leverage and lowering their capital at the same time. In the past four years alone, the nation's largest banks, as defined by Standard & Poor's, have spent $300 billion buying back stock.

TARP does nothing to patch the hole in the banking system. And it certainly doesn't do anything to encourage banks to make more loans. Yes, banks have gotten nearly $300 billion in money from the government, and that's a lot of dough. But it's not free dough. In return for federal cash, the government has taken preferred-stock shares as the firm's markers. Unlike common stock, which is the kind you or I would buy from a broker, preferreds have to eventually be paid back, so they are really loans, not additional capital. (See which country has the best bailout plans.)

Say a bank has $5 in capital and $100 in loans. Now the government gives the bank an additional $100 in preferred shares and says, "Go make more loans." Well, the bank might then have $200 in loans, but it still has only $5 in common shareholders' equity. The result: if just 2.5% of its loans go bad, the bank's shareholders are wiped out. Wisely, the largest banks in the nation lent less in the fourth quarter of 2008 than in the previous three months — a strategy that has drawn some complaints. But that hasn't removed the pressure on their shares. That's because the banks have had to continue to take loan losses. And banks don't have the option to pass those losses off on the new money they got from the government. They have to write down their common stockholders' equity first. And as that capital falls, so go the bank's shares. Some are alarmingly close to zero.

No bank's stock has fallen more in value during the past four months than Bank of America's. The combined value of its shares is now $37 billion. That's $123 billion less than they were worth at the end of September. In the third quarter, BofA was forced to write down $4.4 billion in loans, or about 1.8% of its loan portfolio. Compared with what some of its competitors wrote down, that wasn't a heck of a lot; Citigroup, for instance, had a $13.2 billion charge in the same quarter, primarily related to loan losses. But the relatively small loss took BofA's thin tangible equity, the type of capital that matters most to shareholders, down to a ratio of just 2.6% of loans, according to FBR. By that measure, Bofa was a weaker bank than any of its rivals, including Citigroup. But since the market was so focused on bad loans and the charge-offs banks had to take, no one seemed to notice BofA's faults.

That is, until the fourth quarter. In mid-September 2008, in a deal pushed by regulators, BofA agreed to buy Merrill Lynch. The acquisition actually boosted BofA's capital ratios, but it also added losses to an already fragile capital structure; Merrill Lynch lost $15 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Knowledge of the impending losses forced BofA CEO Ken Lewis to ask the government for an additional $20 billion in TARP funds — on top of the $25 billion it had already received — as well as about $100 billion in loan guarantees. Without the government assistance, BofA says, it couldn't have closed the merger.

The Merrill losses, which weren't publicly revealed until early January, have angered shareholders, some of whom have sued the company for not informing them sooner. And last week, the losses also led Lewis to ask Merrill's top executive, John Thain, to resign for failing to keep BofA officials apprised of his firm's bottom-line problems. Thain says Lewis knew all along. (See pictures of TIME's Wall Street covers.)
more Here

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 11:44 AM

The worst idea is the concept of "Faith Based Initiative," to begin with...

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 12:19 PM

Listen to his address at the National Prayer breakfast and his version of faith based inititive.

Keeping the best ideas and discarding the bad under his new credo that religion shall not be used to divide us, makes sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 12:12 PM

"Giving religious schools public money was a pet progect of Bush's faith based initiative."


                  So why is Obama continuing with it?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 11:55 AM

The stimulus plan as now compromised will lower the unemployment rate by 1/2 to 1% by the fourth quarter of this year.
(8% unemployment instead of 9% ~ 1.5 million new jobs)

The worst numbers could be seen in 2010
An obvious turnaround will not emerge until 2011

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 10:05 AM

bwl

States like Louisiana have been run by people who create a permanent underclass which does not fund schools like the rest of the nation. Specificlly The oil companies do not share any revenue with LA state citizens as does Wyoming, Alaska, Nevada etc.
Inequities are planned and deliberate.
Giving religious schools public money was a pet progect of Bush's faith based initiative.


also in answer to how a family of four could benefit from arts and humanity projects. Some family of four may have an electrician or a set builder or janitorial services etc. No one program will employ all families of four but enough different programs will reach more by doing somthing rather than nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 10:30 PM

Public schools operate under a set of rules established by law. Most private schools exist because they don't want to operate under one or more of those rules.

We don't let people who don't abide by the rules use our public parks and athletic fields. Why should we give public funds to schools that don't abide by the rules we've established for education?

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 08:39 PM

Q - America's schools have the same problems you describe for Canada. It seems like once they determined what the probem(s) was, they'd try to do something about it.

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Art Thieme
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:25 PM

I saw an ad recently for a stimulus package. It was made up of ten different kinds of vibrators!!!!!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 06:20 PM

Aside from the public school issue Hubby, which those above have explaned well, my only disagreement is that the package doesn't need trimming but I don't at all support any faith based supports, it's again to supporting priavet schooling.

Reagan economics = "trickle down". We got crumbs while the rich eat cake. Reagan sent us to the Guillotine. We bled for a long time & we are still bleeding due to his failures& many lost not only their heads.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: You and the stimulus plan
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 01:56 PM

B. H. Step child, I agree wholeheartedly. The growth of private primary schools has become divisive, segregationist and certainly anti-democratic. The system of public schools should be supported in every possible way, and separate private schools discouraged.

The private school movement is strong in my city (Calgary) in western Canada, as it is in much of the U. S.

Kids whose families are well-to do are segregated from the unwashed who can only afford public schools.
Kids whose parents are members of the far right bigoted and ignorant religious sects have their own schools; they have no contact with other beliefs. So we have segregation by belief as well as financial status.
Some schools are exclusively for girls. Home schooling is also permitted in this province.

The disintegration here has two main causes.
1. The inclusion of mentally handicapped into the main public school stream, essentially giving teachers the parallel job of caring for two groups, to the detriment of those who are able to learn and advance.
2. The influx of immigrants (20% plus in Calgary's population), many of whom know little English. ESL (English as second language) teaching is strong in the public system, as it should be. Many parents who were born here, however, are wary of "foreign ways," and have elected private schools as a way of avoiding contact.

Of course, the way towards privatization was paved by Canada's system of separate schools, Catholic and non-Catholic, both publicly funded. The beast had two heads from the time of Confederation.