Not so much a duel, but I wish to question Rightwing about how his system works on key issues such as healthcare, education, international trade, labour relations, tax and certain social issues. I also want to do so without the interference of spammers and idiot that will run the discussion off on a tangent or kill it all together.

I thus extend two invitations, an invitation to Rightwing to express his ideas and answer questions I have regarding his policy outlines and an invitation to the mods to keep this thread free of third party posts under threat of warning.

Big fella, over to you.

What did you want answered exactly?

I believe the best place to start is with the idea of;
Outsourcing, minimum wage and education.

You stated that you wanted to encourage an increase in higher education uptake, I want to know how this will be done exactly.

What I'm hoping, and I'll admit I don't have the studies or the numbers to say this will happen, is that by elimating certain low paying jobs that it will force people to go and get higher paying ones. Which would require either a carear eduction certificate, Associates or Bachelor degrees for many of them. Now I'm think your asking how I exspect these people to pay for this extra school right? well there are a few options. First it would be hoped that high school students would work harder in school knowing that dropping out early or just coasting through wasn't a big on an option anymore. Sure their would be minimum wage jobs ala fast food, wal mart, and the likes there of. But certain jobs such as textile manufacturing would not be here. And competitions for these lower paying jobs would increase due to the fact that more people would be interested in them.

What I'm hoping, and I'll admit I don't have the studies or the numbers to say this will happen, is that by elimating certain low paying jobs that it will force people to go and get higher paying ones. Which would require either a carear eduction certificate, Associates or Bachelor degrees for many of them. Now I'm think your asking how I exspect these people to pay for this extra school right? well there are a few options. First it would be hoped that high school students would work harder in school knowing that dropping out early or just coasting through wasn't a big on an option anymore. Sure their would be minimum wage jobs ala fast food, wal mart, and the likes there of. But certain jobs such as textile manufacturing would not be here. And competitions for these lower paying jobs would increase due to the fact that more people would be interested in them.

We can argue the points from philosophical standpoints if needs be.


My problem here is that some people, through lack of education or lack of aptitude are not capable of doing these jobs. Whilst I could probably do a top job of journalism, analysis, PR or some other form of public liason work (I actually have good interpersonal skills, that they fail to transfer to the internet is another matter) but I would be useless in a technical trade.

Often just a piece of paper, though nigh on impossible for some to attain as it's just not the way their brain is geared to work.


One of my most pressing concerns, yes.

I coasted trough highschool. Assignments done the night before, two hours total study for all exams, repeated removed from class for misbehaviour, the works. Yet I still got high enough scores to get into a quality institution and then into a second, even higher quality institution the next year when I decided I wanted out of my initial course. Some can bludge, some can't. The fact remains, some kids just aren't geared for it and to get the most out of these kids would require a massive overhaul of the education system and a major influx of teachers.

Many of the people that dropped out of my highschool went into building trades and pursued further education by way of apprenticeships. Good career counselling is a key requirement for this to progress.


But as the competition increased, there would be downward pressure on wages. As you have a set floor to such an area, what results is a case of underutilisation of the labour force and certain other factors as a result. It also increases factor costs, leading to a rise in prices. This will spark of a major inflationary effect, at least in the short term, effectively devaluing the nominal wage increases in real wage terms.

Now where that problem leads is the creation of a working poor scenario. Whilst the "minimum wage" is now higher, it will be eaten up rapidly by inflation and the poor go back to barely surviving. I believe a good alternative, one proposed for maintaining full employment in Australia by a local economics think tank, was to freeze nominal award wages for a couple of years and offering recompence at the other end by providing tax credits.

I completly agree with you that career counsiling is crucial. This is somewhat off topic, but career counciling is a big part of what PNAP (for those of you who don't remember PNAP http://s7.invisionfree.com/I_P_F/index.php...iew=getnewpost) has proposed for the welfare system.



I know what you mean, I was a coaster myself just enough to pass and then ace my SATs.

The education system does need an overhall, we need more critical thinking and objective ideas and less sitting and vegitating. Our kids aren't challanged to think for themselves instead they are forec fed information ver badem from a textbook. And test taking is nothing more than a regurgation of what teacher says.

I also belive we should be pushing for more teachers, and they should incentives for quality.



My thinking was that the tax breaks given to businesses would help to offset the loss of profit and cost of production at least somewhat.

But I don't completly disagree with what your saying either. I've proposed tax credit increases for years now. The money could be taken from foreighn aid, military, and porkbarrel funds. Perhaps even an increase in the sin tax.

We don't have SAT's, most of our assessment was assignment based.

I fully agree but there are a number of difficulties involved in the restructuring of such a system. What is the best way to teach and test?

Simple answer, throw them coin. An increase in teaching salary to make it a somewhat more attractive role may bring more and better teachers into the role.



Or you can give the workers the tax breaks as I said. Tax breaks to business for increased wages does nothing to offset the inflationary pressure put on the economy by the raise in central award wages and it just means that business is better off, whilst the employees get nothing in real terms.

I'm hoping you'll start with the military and the pork first. Foreign aid is important and holds long term benefits for American business anyway.

As a happy sinner (Drinker, smoker, punter) I suggest you leave sin tax alone.

Perhaps evaluating students on a regualar basis to see what kind of learning benifits them best wether htey are visual or hands on learners or a combination of both. Serperating them into classes that specialize in that for of teaching. And allow more "free moving" by teachers in there curriculum.