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> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. What does this sentence mean?

redhed 1y ago
I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - jrjeksjd8d 1y ago
      The existence of an upper class necessitates the existence of a lower class. You can't just pull everyone up to be above average.
      - nradov 1y ago
        What's your point? I didn't make any claims about averages. We could do a lot more to improve opportunities and social mobility for people caught in the permanent underclass.
        Ferret7446 1y ago
        But we have. The underclass today has much better lives in many aspects than the highest class from many decades ago. The absolute level of wealth has increased, it's simply that the delta between the high and the low is widening. Would you rather live equally in poverty or live comfortably with others who are way more wealthy than you? Surprisingly people do seem to prefer the former, though I'd prefer the latter
        user____name 1y ago
        This is the sort of reductio ad absurdum inverse relationship that never survives a reality check.
        jimbokun 1y ago
        You do have to go back several decades for that to be true, though. In the US at least, progress in life expectancy and real wages has really stagnated in recent decades.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      > On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted I don't see your point. Those rules does not apply to the upper class and middle class workers have way more leeway regarding that than the lower class.
    - tbrownaw 1y ago
      This seems to be saying that a large fraction of poor people are poor only because of bad habits, which they have only because nobody taught them any better?
      - philipallstar 1y ago
        There will be some people like that (e.g. middle class kid has terrible work ethic; communicates it to his kid and now that kid has bad habits), but in the large it's more about culture than individual habits. If one person doesn't show up on time, that's a bad habit. If no one shows up on time then that's a cultural issue[0], and much more devastating. As an example, Zim dug itself a huge hole by kicking out the productive white farmers in 2000-2001. One of the key issues charitable foreign people trying to help Zimbabwe addressed was in re-educating the local population in why it matters that all the planting work is done by a certain time of year. The white farmers had all that knowledge, and cultural experience of hard work, and had made Zimbabwe the breadbasket of Africa. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_time
        varnaud 1y ago
        The productive decline of the farms is because of the fast-track land reform. Before 2000-2001, there were no effective national programs to prepare the people to run the farms. The opposition party was gaining ground, and so to stay in power, the ruling party rushed the land reform with no preparation. Not sure how this is a relevant example of a culture that don't value punctuality.
        philipallstar 1y ago
        Well, for the reason I said. You've reframed it in a way that removes responsibility from everyone involved, but that's just an example of how to reframe things. It's not actually useful.
        tbrownaw 1y ago
        > You've reframed it in a way that removes responsibility No, the comment you're replying to pretty clearly put the responsibility on the party that "rushed the land reform with no preparation". And also accurately noted that a nation seizing capital and redistributing it to people who don't know how to use it is rather different from what had been the thread topic of personal skills / useful habits being purportedly unattainable by the lower classes without explicit instruction.
    - jimbokun 1y ago
      That comes from growing up in a two parent family where both parents are responsible and hard working and willing to discipline their children. Government can’t really do much to help with that.
  - bonsai_spool 1y ago
    > I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. This is wrong. The increase in administrator pay began well after the crises cited in OP. You could cite spending on the sciences (and thus Silicon Valley), but the spending by the US did not accrue to administrators; and further, federal money primarily goes to grants and loans, but GP is citing a time over which there were relatively low increases in tuition. Edit: Not at home, but even a cursory serious search will turn up reports like this one that indicate the lack of clarity in the popular uprising against money "[going] to administrators" https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-university-administrative https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-u...
    - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
      For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12.
      - bonsai_spool 1y ago
        > For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. First, where is your data? Second, this discussion is clearly about post-secondary education ("the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.")
jitix 1y ago
Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Things that let workers focus on innovation. IT workers in cheaper countries have it much easier while we have to juggle rising cost of living and cyclical layoffs here. And ever since companies started hiring workers directly and paying 30-50% (compared to 10-15% during the GCC era) the quality is almost at par with US.
- palmotea 1y ago
  >>> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. >> What does this sentence mean? > Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Cheaper education? Public K-12 schools, the GI bill, generous state subsidies of higher education (such that you could pay for college with the money you made working a summer job). Free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support? Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare.
  - jitix 1y ago
    > Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. I work in edutech and our goal is to cut costs faster than revenue. Enrolments are down, students are over burdened with student loans, and new grads can't compete in the market. Also, do you think kids going to K-12 in the US can compete with kids who go to international schools in China and India? High end schools in those countries combine the Asian grind mindset with western education standards. > Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a common western idiom based on centuries of observations. Just because there was 20-30 years of unnatural economic growth doesn't make it the global or historical norm.

redhed 1y ago

I assume the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.

jimbokun 1y ago
So "social capital" == "education"? The US has pushed a shit ton of money into education. I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there.
- nradov 1y ago
  Education is part of it. But a lot of the social capital which makes societies prosperous is separate from what we usually consider to be education. On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted but they forget that there are a large number of fellow citizens in the economically disconnected underclass who never had a good opportunity to learn those basics. As a society we've never done a good job of lifting those people up.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jrjeksjd8d 1y ago
    The existence of an upper class necessitates the existence of a lower class. You can't just pull everyone up to be above average.
    - nradov 1y ago
      What's your point? I didn't make any claims about averages. We could do a lot more to improve opportunities and social mobility for people caught in the permanent underclass.
      - Ferret7446 1y ago
        But we have. The underclass today has much better lives in many aspects than the highest class from many decades ago. The absolute level of wealth has increased, it's simply that the delta between the high and the low is widening. Would you rather live equally in poverty or live comfortably with others who are way more wealthy than you? Surprisingly people do seem to prefer the former, though I'd prefer the latter
        user____name 1y ago
        This is the sort of reductio ad absurdum inverse relationship that never survives a reality check.
        jimbokun 1y ago
        You do have to go back several decades for that to be true, though. In the US at least, progress in life expectancy and real wages has really stagnated in recent decades.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    > On an individual behavior level that includes things like knowing how to show up for work on time, sober, and properly dressed, and follow management instructions without arguing or taking things personally. These are skills that people in the middle and upper classes take for granted I don't see your point. Those rules does not apply to the upper class and middle class workers have way more leeway regarding that than the lower class.
  - tbrownaw 1y ago
    This seems to be saying that a large fraction of poor people are poor only because of bad habits, which they have only because nobody taught them any better?
    - philipallstar 1y ago
      There will be some people like that (e.g. middle class kid has terrible work ethic; communicates it to his kid and now that kid has bad habits), but in the large it's more about culture than individual habits. If one person doesn't show up on time, that's a bad habit. If no one shows up on time then that's a cultural issue[0], and much more devastating. As an example, Zim dug itself a huge hole by kicking out the productive white farmers in 2000-2001. One of the key issues charitable foreign people trying to help Zimbabwe addressed was in re-educating the local population in why it matters that all the planting work is done by a certain time of year. The white farmers had all that knowledge, and cultural experience of hard work, and had made Zimbabwe the breadbasket of Africa. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_time
      - varnaud 1y ago
        The productive decline of the farms is because of the fast-track land reform. Before 2000-2001, there were no effective national programs to prepare the people to run the farms. The opposition party was gaining ground, and so to stay in power, the ruling party rushed the land reform with no preparation. Not sure how this is a relevant example of a culture that don't value punctuality.
        philipallstar 1y ago
        Well, for the reason I said. You've reframed it in a way that removes responsibility from everyone involved, but that's just an example of how to reframe things. It's not actually useful.
        tbrownaw 1y ago
        > You've reframed it in a way that removes responsibility No, the comment you're replying to pretty clearly put the responsibility on the party that "rushed the land reform with no preparation". And also accurately noted that a nation seizing capital and redistributing it to people who don't know how to use it is rather different from what had been the thread topic of personal skills / useful habits being purportedly unattainable by the lower classes without explicit instruction.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    That comes from growing up in a two parent family where both parents are responsible and hard working and willing to discipline their children. Government can’t really do much to help with that.
- bonsai_spool 1y ago
  > I mean an unreasonable amount of it went to administrators. But the goal and the intent was certainly there. This is wrong. The increase in administrator pay began well after the crises cited in OP. You could cite spending on the sciences (and thus Silicon Valley), but the spending by the US did not accrue to administrators; and further, federal money primarily goes to grants and loans, but GP is citing a time over which there were relatively low increases in tuition. Edit: Not at home, but even a cursory serious search will turn up reports like this one that indicate the lack of clarity in the popular uprising against money "[going] to administrators" https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-university-administrative https://www.investigativeeconomics.org/p/who-to-believe-on-u...
  - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
    For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12.
    - bonsai_spool 1y ago
      > For universities, yes. But not for primary education. Administrative bloat is the worst in K-12. First, where is your data? Second, this discussion is clearly about post-secondary education ("the idea is more money could've been invested into bringing the bottom rungs of American society up and created a more skilled and educated workforce in the process.")

jitix 1y ago

Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Things that let workers focus on innovation. IT workers in cheaper countries have it much easier while we have to juggle rising cost of living and cyclical layoffs here. And ever since companies started hiring workers directly and paying 30-50% (compared to 10-15% during the GCC era) the quality is almost at par with US.

palmotea 1y ago
>>> It's a shame that US didn't invest all that prosperity into social capital that could have helped create high value jobs. >> What does this sentence mean? > Cheaper education, free/subsidized healthcare, free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support, etc. Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Cheaper education? Public K-12 schools, the GI bill, generous state subsidies of higher education (such that you could pay for college with the money you made working a summer job). Free/subsidized childcare, cultural norms around family support? Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare.
- jitix 1y ago
  > Except for free/subsidized healthcare, didn't the US already have those things during the post-war boom? Yes, but education system is being dismantled piece by piece at all levels. I work in edutech and our goal is to cut costs faster than revenue. Enrolments are down, students are over burdened with student loans, and new grads can't compete in the market. Also, do you think kids going to K-12 in the US can compete with kids who go to international schools in China and India? High end schools in those countries combine the Asian grind mindset with western education standards. > Wages high enough to raise a family on a single income, allowing for stay-at-home moms to provide childcare. This was a special period of post war prosperity that I mentioned. It was unnatural and the world has reset back to the norm where a nuclear family needs societal/governmental support to raise kids, or need to have two 6 figure jobs. "It takes a village to raise a child" is a common western idiom based on centuries of observations. Just because there was 20-30 years of unnatural economic growth doesn't make it the global or historical norm.