Kind of an ecclectic mix of topics today, but they have been weighing on my mind.
Topic 1: The homeless. I was listening to NPR morning edition the other day and they were talking about a tent city on the banks of the American river in Sacramento, CA. A year ago there were approximatly four people living in this city, now there are hundreds. I used to think homeless people were there by their own lack of motivatino, but now I am not so sure. I have definitly never been a big fan of welfare, but when you see the banke
rs at AIG getting million dollar bonuses after $170 billion of taxpayer money went into the company. That means we could have given every unemployed person in the country almost $14,000 (and that is just from the AIG money). If you were to take all $700 billion of the bailout money that ammounts to a hefty salary of $56,000. So the question is: Is the economy better off with banks staying afloat to give a few massive bonuses to the people who screwed it all up in the first place OR should we invest in the people....I guess we will never know since we (or rather politicians who recieve massive donations from the banking industry and a treasury secratary intimatly involved with Wall St.) already picked option 1.
rs at AIG getting million dollar bonuses after $170 billion of taxpayer money went into the company. That means we could have given every unemployed person in the country almost $14,000 (and that is just from the AIG money). If you were to take all $700 billion of the bailout money that ammounts to a hefty salary of $56,000. So the question is: Is the economy better off with banks staying afloat to give a few massive bonuses to the people who screwed it all up in the first place OR should we invest in the people....I guess we will never know since we (or rather politicians who recieve massive donations from the banking industry and a treasury secratary intimatly involved with Wall St.) already picked option 1.On to topic two: Teachers. To start this section off I would like to say I have always wanted to be a teacher, unfortunatly I also wanted my wife to stay home with the kids, and I wanted food on the table. So instead of following the dream of teaching I became an engineer. Again on NPR this morning there was a piece on the Washington D.C. school district and what a mess it was. This brings to my mind a question: What is happening to our schools. I remember high school fondly. Now time may have dulled these memories but Shelley High School back in the day was a good place to be. I thought it was overall a little bit (I would say quite a bit) to easy but that is more of a personal thing. Overall SHS served me well enough to graduate from the U of I, Princeton, and be admitted to the University of Michigan Business School (ranked 1st when I was there). I would credit alot of that to good teachers and a wife/girlfriend who always thought I could reach higher. So what happened? These days students (the ones I know at least) in shelley hate school, can not seem to turn in assignments, and are failing misserably. And it is not an isolated thing. In Michigan I taught sunday school and only half of the kids could read. They also hated school, didn't turn stuff in, and basically didn't care. So what happened? Are teachers failing our students? Are parents completly disinterested? Or are kids just that much dumber then when we went to school? Not sure but worth some thought.
Finally this post is over. The last topic is Music. The South by Southwest music festival starts today, and it reminded me how much I love music. There is a website called Pandora.com. If you have never been there you should definitly check it out. I have some good stations set up and can send them to you if you want (just let me know).
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