The Real Mitt Romney

[Ibby]

We have a small business problem in this country.
The problem is that small business in this country doesn't work.

Maybe we could start with rigorous antitrust legislation and action to break up monopolizing or otherwise market-dominating multinationals that siphon money from the poor and working-class to offshore tax havens and to Chinese massive-scale industry.
Maybe we could tax the wal-marts and the apples and the fast-food conglomerates and the comcasts and the financial giants and use that money to subsidize and otherwise help local businesses fill some parts of those same economic niches across the country.
Maybe we could guarantee living wages to hourly or otherwise marginalized workers, giving them the option of shopping local instead of buying chinese crap from wal-mart.
Maybe we could fix the food deserts in our country by making sure EVERY American has access to affordable HEALTHY options, helping to close the health care gap between economic classes and slow the ridiculous rise in health care costs nationally.
Maybe we could put enough money into our cities to build the communities from the inside, with local, small, neighboorhood businesses, instead of outside businesses taking money back out of the community and to the affluent suburbs or gentrified neighborhoods.
Maybe we could work to end the highly racialized nature of our schooling system, and fund education in this country well enough to make sure every American has a REAL opportunity to learn not only job skills, and not only standardized test questions, but also civics, critical thinking, and other more broadly applicable skills that will leave them ready for the job market or for college.
Maybe while we're at it we could reform the for-profit predatory system of colleges that exist only to cash in on the guaranteed student loan program, and the banks that make the profit while the government assumes the risk, by regulating the rising costs of both private and public education, and subsidizing schools through GOVERNMENT loan programs, where the GOVERNMENT keeps the interest profits, instead of the banks.

I could keep going for an hour, if I didn't have to get dressed and ready to leave for class in fifteen minutes. Every one of those things would have broad stimulative effects on the economy, and have either a short-term or a long-term revenue-boosting effect as the tax base broadens. Keynesian economics, bitches. Shit works and always has.

[Ibby]

Originally Posted by Ibby

I could keep going for an hour ....

Not only could I spend a full hour listing bullet points - i could write for an hour each about each of them. Why can't that ever be something I do?

Here's something I posted on my tumblr as a slightly but only slightly tongue-in-cheek post at 3:30 in the morning, when i should be sleeping so I can do my homework in the morning but instead I'm drinking a tripel ale and tequila. and smoking up. My middle school ex I've been skypefucking with the last few weeks is texting flirtily with me again but very slowly while she writes her thoreau essay due tomorrow and, well, i'm not going to sleep until I know if she's gonna take a study break.

So, instead, I'm listening to the first four Ramones albums [Ramones, Leave Home, Rocket to Russia, Road to Ruin] in chronological order and indulging vices - i think im going to have a cigar in a minute - and #nightblogging on tumblr.

Originally Posted by Ibby

the vast majority of jobs worked by American workers are jobs that don’t “come home” with you.
When your shift or your day or your hours finish, you clock out and go home. Or, you get salary plus overtime, and you get paid extra in bonuses or manager’s raises or OT or whatever for time you spend outside of work doing work-related things, or your salary reflects your complicated and demanding schedule.

Why are the only major, inevitable exceptions to this…. Teaching and being a student?

Students do homework. Teachers spend time out of class grading and preparing and everything else. Arguably teachers SHOULD BE and in theory (but not practice) ARE paid a salary that takes out-of-class time into account.

Why are students, for 12-16-20+ years, educated in a way that assumes so much extra time outside of class - especially in high school/college/beyond - writing essays and doing homework, when that is NOT at ALL a skill applicable to working life in general, and not useful to the vast majority of the potential workforce, leaving especially those who can’t afford higher education in a situation where public education yet again fails to adequately prepare them for working life, reenforcing systemic patterns of disadvantage that add to the problem of vast numbers of people being unemployed and underemployed while major corporations sit on vast reserves of money?

TAGS:
#[ibby] really really does not like doing her homework #[ibby] would rather rant about our education/employment problem than actually do homework #this is nearly a standard 250-word page long thats a LOT for a 3:30am post #imagine if i cared even half as much about doing homework as about ranting on tumblr #nightblogging