Re: How many jobs depend on the Detroit Three?

There or their?

There are many imbalances in society. None, however, will be solved by just throwing money at them and allowing the government to fix them.

Single parents working crappy job can still check a child's report card and demand good grades. They can at least take an occasional peek at he homework. They can encourage their children to do better.

Both parents and schools have to be allowed to discipline a child. We used to respect, maybe fear, some of the teachers, elders in the neighborhood, and our parents. Today, you cannot touch a kid or give them any sort of serious punishment. The kids just tell parents and teacher to "go f#$% yourself" and nothing is done about it. Teachers complain they have 15 kids in a class and cannot maintain control. My grammar school classes had 45 to

60 students and we behaved.

Standards for both students and teachers must be raised to a higher level. It has been allowed to backslide in the past 20 years or so. Too many teachers are too stupid to be teaching. My granddaughter had an English teacher that could not speak fluent English and could not spell. It has been years since my own kids were in school, but I remember getting a note from a teacher. I sent it back with corrections!

Get rid of many of the government mandates that schools have and let the good teachers teach. Don't hamper them with lawsuits because they spoke harshly to Johnny. One nun with a yardstick could handle 80 first graders or either graders. Today she'd be in jail for threatening.

Oh, and 65 is failing, IMO.

Generalizations are generally wrong, but yes, the line worker is often, but not always, more skilled. Some janitors are doing that job becuase it is the best they have the ability to do. Others are doing it waiting for an opening as an assembler or fork truck operator and will jump at the chance to advance.

No, it is not. That is why apartments and used cars have a market. What should everyone make? Doctors can make $200k a year so should we pay everyone that much?

Most people that think they are overpaid are either jealous and don't have the skills or motivation to do more, or are just plain cheap even though they are making more. I honestly don't know what the job is worth on the line but I'd guess at $20 to $25 with higher rate for higher skills or performance bonuses. Certainly not $10 or $40.

We all want to buy cheap TV (or fill in name of your favorite appliance), but we don't want to pay $25 an hour to assemble them in the US if it means we'd have to pay a lot more for them. We won't pay $399 for a dishwaster at the local dealer because Home Depot has them for $379. This is the reason for my Pogo reference in my last post. . If you are too young to know, Pogo was a comics character who said the famous line "we have met the enemy and it is us"

IMO, the minimum wage should be $10/hour and yes, some people should be earning that amount. Such as a high school kid stocking shelves at the grocery store.

Performance bonus in a Union auto factory? I'd like some of what you are smoking!!!

That is one reason I never wanted to work in a union shop. I want to be recognized and paid for my skills, ability, performance, and whatever else gets me a raise. I'm certainly not thrilled about carrying some drone doing the minimal amount of work.

If this was 1928, I'd be pro-union and probably be one of the organizers. Not in the world today.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Depends on the kind of test and the grading system. The first paper I got back at an Australian university got 8/10. The teacher told the whole class: "Just so you know what your grade really means, we think that anyone who gets 8 1/2 should be up here teaching the class." The overall grading system was from 1 up to 7, with a recommended approximate "curve" for "sufficiently large" classes. (4 was the lowest "regular" passing grade; 3 was "we'll call this a pass, but it doesn't qualify you to take a class for which this was a prerequisite.") It was expected that approx. 3% to 5% of the class would get the top grade of

7, and faculty would get "please explain" notes if they deviated from the recommendations too far or too often. Some faculty -- and even some whole departments -- simply did not give grades of 7, especially if they could argue that the class was *not* "sufficiently large" for the curve to apply. I don't know what changes might have been made there since my time there.

I talked recently with a retired prof. from a US private college. He said that when he graduated from that same college, there would be one Summa cum Laude and a handful of Magna cum Laude; now there is a whole slew of names on the Summa list.

Along with the grade inflation there is title inflation in US academia when compared with the UK/Australian system. In the US almost every faculty member is some kind of "Professor," whereas a UK or Australian university might have only one Professor per department, the ranks below that being Reader, Senior Lecturer, Lecturer, Senior Tutor and Tutor

Perce

Whenever I was looking for a job, if the HR guy told me they give all employees a turkey for Thanksgiving as well as a turkey and a bonus at Christmas, I walked away. Companies that were offering me turkeys and bonuses were obviously NOT going to pay me enough ALL year LOL

There is no question problems in our schools can be placed directly on parents that do not have control of the children.

The fact that the majority of students in any school provided with the same learning opportunities, are LEARNING in those very same schools, proves that fact.