Aren’t your teachers paid locally? You might just live in a really bad state/or county, but the people vote for the local officials that align with their spending priorities.
The Dept Of Education could trivially distribute $100 bln to supplement teacher comp...
No matter where you live in the US, your teachers are underpaid, no one has brag points
If you need more examples of how the Federal government could distribute $100 bln to elevate parts of the US above third world standards, use your imagination
I am just seeing a bunch of talking in this HN thread, which is honestly a waste of time. Anyone who actually wants to see some change, please call your local politicians to increase the budget on schools instead of posting useless comments here.
In what way are teachers underpaid? They make the average wage for someone with a college degree in the US. That aside, per the OECD the US already spends far more per student than the rest of the developed world — how is spending even more going to improve anything?
The department of education has minimal resources and control of public education in the states. Education is mostly paid for via property taxes, and to federalize education funding would entail sending those taxes to Washington DC to redistribute to schools. Conservatives would hardly be happy with that.
The Washington state Supreme Court in 2013 decided that education funding in the state should be more equitable, so now Seattle sends part of their property taxes to poorer districts in eastern Washington, who otherwise would have cheaped out on education because conservatives don’t believe in higher taxes to fund it (but have no problem receiving subsidies from richer liberal areas).
There are ~4MM teachers in the US. 117B / 4MM is around $30K. Will +$1,500 ($125) over 20 years help them make ends meet? How about $3,000 ($250/month) over a decade?
Maybe it will! But, maybe just maybe, you should be complaining to your local officials and fellow constituents who continue to shirk tax increases and levy approvals instead of HN.
What are you even saying? $30k per teacher per year would be life-changing for teachers who currently need food banks and buy supplies for their classrooms.
The Ukraine aid isn't “per year” (and its largely loans that have to be repaid) and it largely isn’t current expenditures but transfers of very much nonfungible equipment from US inventories, so splitting the total amount among current teachers doesn’t result in a per year figure for sure, and it doesn't really produce any meaningful figure.
I mean, if you really wanted to split what Ukraine is getting among US teachers instead, it would be each teacher getting something like a 1/100 share of a used HIMARS launcher and $30k of debt.
The previous calculation wasn't $30k/year, but $30k over 20 years, or $1.5k/year. That's a lot less significant.
The point they were trying to make is that these are structural issues that are not going to be solved with a bit of extra cash that's currently going to Ukraine and that a more significant and structural improvements need to be made. In short: I think you actually agree with the previous poster, at least in broad lines.
The average teacher salary is $60k according to a quick search, although I'm sure this varies by region. After taxes $1,500 is not insignificant, but also not that much. You are missing the point as well: it's about structural issues that are not going to be solved with some relatively small extra bonus.
that much cash would be lifechanging... as it would add to the rampant inflation already in flight.
It would change the lives of everyone by making things worse.
Thanks for the offer but how about instead of making the problem worse for everyone in your attempt to help those poor poor teachers... maybe we look at stuff like less "help" from the government that's making everything more expensive and worse at every level?
Worst words you'll hear: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
The truly sad part is that it is not one or the other. Inspite of all the talking points, govt can and does create money. The idea of a balanced budget is true for a business, not for the federal government. Obviously, there are side effects and you should not overdo it.
Majority of states do not want to pay people for work and that is why we are in this situation. WA recently hiked the pay for teachers and other states can also follow the same if they desire.
On the last note, most of that assistance went as equipment and armaments, not as cash.
MMT claims there are no limits. I do not claim so.. I believe there are side effects and a need for moderation. However, money is created out of thin air.
The central claim of MMT with regard to fiscal policy is that the only real constraints on government spending balance are those resulting from the monetary impacts of, e.g., the net creation/destruction of money.
That is very different from “there are no limits”.
The US Government contributes about 8% of public school funding, the rest comes from about half local and half state funding. Look to your state and local governments as to why teachers aren’t paid enough where you live.
What gp fails to understand is that those 117b do exactly that - turn stock piles back into money. A lot of the money for ukraine actually goes back to us manufacturers and are not wired into ukranian banks.
Furthermore by honouring treaties and standing up to bullies the us is gaining a lot of soft power. As a european i want to see more american products in europe and i most certainly will be a strong supporter of your country.
Do the taxpayers actually foot the bill? Or does the government print money, and recover taxes to prevent runaway inflation?
And what happens if we stockpile munitions and don't use them? They age, get destroyed and replenished. The military is continually burning money to keep its stockpiles up to date anyway, and if we're sending stuff to Ukraine before it expires, that accelerates the replenishment, but I'd argue that it's better than the alternative.
The rampant inflation from "government print money" seems to show that yes, even if we aren't paying for it directly (and our 30t+ in debt says we are paying for it.)... we are paying for the "print free money" at the gas pump, the grocery store, etc.
Alternate perspective: grocerers and oil producers form cartels and raise prices to line their pockets. The only people whose wages are beating inflation are at the executive level, and they really love it when you point pitchforks at the government and not them.
Oil producers and cartels raise prices because... money's being printed. Because Biden shuts down new pipelines, slows oil leases, is hostile to energy production. Demand craters because of lockdowns that don't work... then ramps up because the world tries to return to normal after a "pandemic".
Almost like an increasing demand with a dipshit anti-energy President is going to have disastrously bad results.
Seriously though... the problem isn't "evil companies" doing shit like making money (how dare they!). The problem is multifaceted.
Did you have an issue when companies closed at record levels because of bad decisions that caused the slowdowns? Or were you cheering because those companies got what was coming? do you think that the surviving companies don't deserve profits after years of losses?
It is a valid question. The way i see it is that the equipment sent to ukraine is either old and rusty or not in use. So while in theory you spent money by shooting an arrow, in practice you havent since it wasnt in use anyway. But since it does have accounting value you can claim you spent 1$ by shooting it in the forest. Once the war is over the us can get the 1$ back from ukraine in various ways, and therefore it made a profit out of nothing.
Edit: if the equipment is new then the 1$ spent is basically a subsidy for the local weapons industry and the workers building it.
If you give someone else a bow and arrow, in exchange for an IOU for $1 for the arrow and $100 for the bow, you get your money back by collecting on the note. (Now, its true that Lend-Lease allows hiring US contractors for reconstruction as an alternative to direct repayment, but, how the money gets back to the US isn’t a mystery.)
Yeah, the government has to pay for multiple types of things. We also spend trillions a year in welfare and other programs to help Americans, in addition to expenses related to foreign policy.
Yeah Ukrainian aid helps America being number 1 and keeps your dollars stay afloat. Don’t read other people’s one liners, it does sound good but it makes no sense to America in many ways to not help them. If they cower and not do enough, it will mess them up long term as the worlds number 1 power
Coincidentally, 1 US federal political party is opposed to both (even tax deductions for these teacher's expenses in favor of other tax deductions); while the other political party is in favor of both (even a child tax credit).
Why is it I see this comment so often? It makes absolutely no sense to me. The US is overspending on a lot of things, and teachers struggling is also due to a lot of things. Way, way down on that list, is actually money being spent to help out in Ukraine.
So, pardon my cynicism, but your type of comment seem to always trace down to foreign interest influence. Either be that Fox, Trump, or just straight up Russia.
Focus on wealth inequality, systematic racism, etc, instead of one of the few actually valid and commendable efforts by US foreign military involvement. Especially those that probably end up net benefitting domestic US interests.
I'd bet good money that you consume a lot of fox news. And, take this however your want. But, looking at the US from the outside, it truly is troubling because of the propaganda and lies that network spreads. It's doing what any opponent of the US could only dream of. And, I am sincere about this. I'm sure I might be suckered into it if roles were reversed.
> Why is it I see this comment so often? It makes absolutely no sense to me.
Russia is making an effort to try and disrupt arms supplies to Ukraine using its intelligence agencies and trolls online to try and sway public opinion is why.
Because they cannot effectively target them in Ukraine itself.
I’d be interested to see how this broke down by income decile. My impression is that spending usually expands to meet income. Americans have a lot of access to short-term credit and use that to cover unexpected expenses.
Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of Americans end up carrying debt month to month.
That's the elephant in the room. There's a lot of people who struggle to sustain a bourgeois lifestyle. However for every American like that, there's an immigrant living in an expensive city making minimum wage who somehow manages to send 50% of their income back to old country.
It might be true in isolation (and for more middle incomes), but real income and especially buying power has declined a lot in the lower half of the population.
It seems to be mostly people who had a chance to accumulate wealth during an economic boom that go on these "just cut the avocado toast" prescriptive rants.
Perhaps, but I think that the definition of bourgeois lifestyle has expanded to include those who simply have 2 children, rent a sfh and perhaps retire at some point.
It has only expanded to mean that in the couple of most expensive cities to live in in the world.
And, really, having a single family home in, say, the middle of new york city IS a marker of wealth. You're displacing however many people could live there if there were apartments.
A single family home can be an apartment. It's a _home_ not necessarily a house. Just like a 600 sqft studio in Manhattan can be a "mansion" because it is over a million dollars.
Many people living in New York rent, with no ability to afford a down payment to own. The maker of wealth is not them.
Generally speaking, at least with in realty, a single family home is a term used to mean a specific thing.
Specifically, a single-family home has no shared property but is built on its own parcel of land. Additionally it can have no common-walls.
So townhomes and apartments do not count.
This is also called a detached-home in some places.
And based on the context from the earlier post, I'm pretty sure what they meant, but if jfghi comes back and clarifies, I'll withdraw my statement. I don't think anyone thinks renting an apartment is bourgeoisie. However, renting a detached-home in the middle of Manhattan would definitely qualify.
Edit, including a source from realtor.com about their definition:
There is a lot of elasticity in American expenses, per both US BLS and Federal Reserve studies. The percentage of households that struggle with necessary expenses is ~12%. That is still a large number but a lot more plausible. I would take “struggling to make ends meet” with a large grain of salt.
The 38.5% threshold in the article is perhaps not coincidentally right around the percentile where Americans have excess income even after accounting for all ordinary lifestyle expenses (iPhones, nice cars, etc). The median US household has ~$12,000/year in income leftover after all of these expenses.
Why do you say especially housing in the US? The price-to-income ratio for the USA is actually better, often far better, than every OECD country. In other words, as bad as you think it is in the US, its worse pretty much everywhere else.
What do we expect? We demonize saving as "hoarding", talk about "stimulating the economy" by increasing spending, then in the next breath describe the exact same phenenon in negative terms when we talk about people living paycheck to paycheck.
We disincentivize saving systemically by debasing currency as a rule in order to disincentivize saving.
When the money is cheap the people and the culture become cheap.
69 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadNo matter where you live in the US, your teachers are underpaid, no one has brag points
If you need more examples of how the Federal government could distribute $100 bln to elevate parts of the US above third world standards, use your imagination
The executive branch can’t just unilaterally decide where to spend money, they spend money that Congress allocates.
[0] https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-education?f...
I am not arguing against increasing teacher compensation, I’m just explaining why it isn’t trivial to address it.
Also worth noting that an extra 100B of deficit is no big deal as long as it only buys unproductive weapons.
The Washington state Supreme Court in 2013 decided that education funding in the state should be more equitable, so now Seattle sends part of their property taxes to poorer districts in eastern Washington, who otherwise would have cheaped out on education because conservatives don’t believe in higher taxes to fund it (but have no problem receiving subsidies from richer liberal areas).
Maybe it will! But, maybe just maybe, you should be complaining to your local officials and fellow constituents who continue to shirk tax increases and levy approvals instead of HN.
The Ukraine aid isn't “per year” (and its largely loans that have to be repaid) and it largely isn’t current expenditures but transfers of very much nonfungible equipment from US inventories, so splitting the total amount among current teachers doesn’t result in a per year figure for sure, and it doesn't really produce any meaningful figure.
I mean, if you really wanted to split what Ukraine is getting among US teachers instead, it would be each teacher getting something like a 1/100 share of a used HIMARS launcher and $30k of debt.
That would be remarkably on brand.
The point they were trying to make is that these are structural issues that are not going to be solved with a bit of extra cash that's currently going to Ukraine and that a more significant and structural improvements need to be made. In short: I think you actually agree with the previous poster, at least in broad lines.
It would change the lives of everyone by making things worse.
Thanks for the offer but how about instead of making the problem worse for everyone in your attempt to help those poor poor teachers... maybe we look at stuff like less "help" from the government that's making everything more expensive and worse at every level?
Worst words you'll hear: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Majority of states do not want to pay people for work and that is why we are in this situation. WA recently hiked the pay for teachers and other states can also follow the same if they desire.
On the last note, most of that assistance went as equipment and armaments, not as cash.
If you're talking about MMT as a solution, check again, it's pretty much discredited.
No, it doesn’t.
The central claim of MMT with regard to fiscal policy is that the only real constraints on government spending balance are those resulting from the monetary impacts of, e.g., the net creation/destruction of money.
That is very different from “there are no limits”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_funding_in_the...
Furthermore by honouring treaties and standing up to bullies the us is gaining a lot of soft power. As a european i want to see more american products in europe and i most certainly will be a strong supporter of your country.
And what happens if we stockpile munitions and don't use them? They age, get destroyed and replenished. The military is continually burning money to keep its stockpiles up to date anyway, and if we're sending stuff to Ukraine before it expires, that accelerates the replenishment, but I'd argue that it's better than the alternative.
Taxpayers, aka citizens, foot the bill in both cases
Oil producers and cartels raise prices because... money's being printed. Because Biden shuts down new pipelines, slows oil leases, is hostile to energy production. Demand craters because of lockdowns that don't work... then ramps up because the world tries to return to normal after a "pandemic".
Almost like an increasing demand with a dipshit anti-energy President is going to have disastrously bad results.
Seriously though... the problem isn't "evil companies" doing shit like making money (how dare they!). The problem is multifaceted.
Did you have an issue when companies closed at record levels because of bad decisions that caused the slowdowns? Or were you cheering because those companies got what was coming? do you think that the surviving companies don't deserve profits after years of losses?
Edit: if the equipment is new then the 1$ spent is basically a subsidy for the local weapons industry and the workers building it.
If you give someone else a bow and arrow, in exchange for an IOU for $1 for the arrow and $100 for the bow, you get your money back by collecting on the note. (Now, its true that Lend-Lease allows hiring US contractors for reconstruction as an alternative to direct repayment, but, how the money gets back to the US isn’t a mystery.)
If the able do not help when they are able, the unable will see and know.
And there may be a day when the able become unable and the tides turn.
So, pardon my cynicism, but your type of comment seem to always trace down to foreign interest influence. Either be that Fox, Trump, or just straight up Russia.
Focus on wealth inequality, systematic racism, etc, instead of one of the few actually valid and commendable efforts by US foreign military involvement. Especially those that probably end up net benefitting domestic US interests.
I'd bet good money that you consume a lot of fox news. And, take this however your want. But, looking at the US from the outside, it truly is troubling because of the propaganda and lies that network spreads. It's doing what any opponent of the US could only dream of. And, I am sincere about this. I'm sure I might be suckered into it if roles were reversed.
Russia is making an effort to try and disrupt arms supplies to Ukraine using its intelligence agencies and trolls online to try and sway public opinion is why.
Because they cannot effectively target them in Ukraine itself.
Unfortunately, it looks like a bunch of Americans end up carrying debt month to month.
It seems to be mostly people who had a chance to accumulate wealth during an economic boom that go on these "just cut the avocado toast" prescriptive rants.
And, really, having a single family home in, say, the middle of new york city IS a marker of wealth. You're displacing however many people could live there if there were apartments.
Many people living in New York rent, with no ability to afford a down payment to own. The maker of wealth is not them.
Specifically, a single-family home has no shared property but is built on its own parcel of land. Additionally it can have no common-walls.
So townhomes and apartments do not count.
This is also called a detached-home in some places.
And based on the context from the earlier post, I'm pretty sure what they meant, but if jfghi comes back and clarifies, I'll withdraw my statement. I don't think anyone thinks renting an apartment is bourgeoisie. However, renting a detached-home in the middle of Manhattan would definitely qualify.
Edit, including a source from realtor.com about their definition:
https://www.realtor.com/advice/buy/what-is-a-single-family-h...
The 38.5% threshold in the article is perhaps not coincidentally right around the percentile where Americans have excess income even after accounting for all ordinary lifestyle expenses (iPhones, nice cars, etc). The median US household has ~$12,000/year in income leftover after all of these expenses.
https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/rankings_by_count...
According to the census data, only 20% of US households spend 40% or more of their income on housing. That goes down to 13% for home owners.
https://usafacts.org/data-projects/housing-costs
My stats (the property price index) are for property prices. It would be unsurprising if Nigerian home ownership rates are lower than US rates.
We disincentivize saving systemically by debasing currency as a rule in order to disincentivize saving.
When the money is cheap the people and the culture become cheap.