death by a thousand butts
I love how liberal people think NPR is, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. The last couple of mornings I've listened to Marketplace Morning Report, which doesn't exactly have a monopoly on right-wing garbage on NPR, but it certainly carries a hefty portion of it. Yesterday they had Larry Summers on the show. They introduced him by saying, "one of the key themes of the [presidential] campaign up to this point has been income inequality." But let's dismiss that discussion as quickly as we introduce it! Summers, they continued, "says that's not the debate we should be having. Summers would rather focus on inequality of opportunity."
Of course that rich bastard would rather talk about inequality of opportunity. Why would any rich person advocate putting less money into the hands of the rich and more money into the hands of the poor? Instead, let's feign concern about the lack of opportunities for poor kids to get out of their ghettoes, reservations, and Midwestern ghost towns. Let's just toss a few programs at the poor so that they think they can get one rung higher on that ladder.
I like how rich bastards like Summers think you can disaggregate unequal opportunity from unequal income. Let's say you have two boys, both 16 and both of equal intelligence. And by "equal intelligence," I mean that neither one is the sharpest cheese in the deli. Both are half-wits. But Half-Wit A lives in the suburbs, and his parents whip out the checkbook and start Googling after-school tutoring services as soon they realize there's no chance he's going to get into a good college if he stays on his current trajectory. Thousands of dollars later, they've squeezed as much academic performance as they can possibly get out of his half-wit brain. He gets admitted to a good college and then goes on to get a nice position on the city planning commission for a medium-sized city.
Half-Wit B, on the other hand, had no after-school tutoring. Instead, he had an after-school job. His family needed the money. He couldn't afford college, so he went on to work for a landscaping company--until he got injured on the job. Now he tears ticket stubs in half and tells people, "Theater 9 on your left. Enjoy the show."
For a contrasting viewpoint (if you can call it that), Marketplace Morning Report had some tool from the Cato Institute on this morning. He basically said the same things Summers did. I'm so glad I got to hear from both sides on this issue: the conservative side and the more conservative side.
Of course that rich bastard would rather talk about inequality of opportunity. Why would any rich person advocate putting less money into the hands of the rich and more money into the hands of the poor? Instead, let's feign concern about the lack of opportunities for poor kids to get out of their ghettoes, reservations, and Midwestern ghost towns. Let's just toss a few programs at the poor so that they think they can get one rung higher on that ladder.
I like how rich bastards like Summers think you can disaggregate unequal opportunity from unequal income. Let's say you have two boys, both 16 and both of equal intelligence. And by "equal intelligence," I mean that neither one is the sharpest cheese in the deli. Both are half-wits. But Half-Wit A lives in the suburbs, and his parents whip out the checkbook and start Googling after-school tutoring services as soon they realize there's no chance he's going to get into a good college if he stays on his current trajectory. Thousands of dollars later, they've squeezed as much academic performance as they can possibly get out of his half-wit brain. He gets admitted to a good college and then goes on to get a nice position on the city planning commission for a medium-sized city.
Half-Wit B, on the other hand, had no after-school tutoring. Instead, he had an after-school job. His family needed the money. He couldn't afford college, so he went on to work for a landscaping company--until he got injured on the job. Now he tears ticket stubs in half and tells people, "Theater 9 on your left. Enjoy the show."
For a contrasting viewpoint (if you can call it that), Marketplace Morning Report had some tool from the Cato Institute on this morning. He basically said the same things Summers did. I'm so glad I got to hear from both sides on this issue: the conservative side and the more conservative side.