61–70 of 297 posts
The real question is how can we reduce the cost of education (or training) while simultaneously better aligning training with the most valuable careers. Trade schools are much cheaper than college. In addition, we don’t have enough trained craftsmen.
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Upward mobility is a lie. There are tons of studies and books on this - Thomas Piketty might be one.
There are also tons of studies and books that say it's not, and Piketty is hotly contested by many scholars.
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What class did he take and what license did he get? I couldn’t figure it out from your comment. Does being a contractor in SF require passing a class / license?
Since this is a throwaway: CSLB-C8 (Concrete contractor)
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There are also tons of studies and books that say it's not, and Piketty is hotly contested by many scholars.
Upward mobility is possible, but is much easier in a society which provides adequate social safety nets and assures greater equality overall. The USA is not such a society. The inability of the lower classes to move upward, perpetuating the cycle of poverty, is a well-recognized problem (unless you're a Republican or libertard).
I'm not a libertarian (or a Republican), but referring to groups in these types of ways (repuglican, libtard, obummer, etc.) always seems to me to indicate somebody that isn't interested in rational discussion, and is dismissive of any ideas that don't jive exactly with their current, deeply-embedded political philosophy. I'd love for you to prove me wrong.
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> And where there isn't stigma against entering such a field? This isn’t true. Germany is the second most credentialist, title obsessed country in the world, with a class structure as obvious as in the UK, if different.
As an amusing factoid, Germany is the country where my spouse would be addressed as "Frau Doktor Doktor."
I sometimes think, with deep regret, that most people living at or below the poverty line at 30, their chances of rising above that are quite low. At 40+ it's next to zero. This may also be very generous. The amount of education, training, and opportunities would have to line up perfectly for someone to pull themselves up. Multigenerational, the odds appear much better.
Upward mobility is a lie. There are tons of studies and books on this - Thomas Piketty might be one.
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That’s a pretty absurd thing to say so matter of factly. 62% of US billionaires are self made [1]. Many of us tech workers have experienced incredible upward mobility. 1. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/269593
What percentage of self-made billionaires started out as millionaires? what percentage of poor people become self-made billionaires? What percentage of poor people who become self-made billionaires do so by going to trade school?
I mean, if you lived in a strict feudal society, the nobility as a class was CLOSED. Commoners not admitted. End of story.
At the same time, even if say 20% of people at the bottom quantile of the wealth/income bracket make up into the next 20% every generation -- is that enough social mobility? Not enough? Should we just not have any poor people at all?
If the goal is to have no people who are poor, doesn't the fact that we admit millions of (relatively) penniless legal and illegal immigrants make that goal much harder to achieve?
Dumping a whole bunch of people into a system already at close to optimum employment will not benefit workers.