Rick Santorum Megathread: A Frothy Mixture of Opinions

[Poorisolation]

And claims encouraging people to go to college is snobbery.

Despite having what... 3 degrees now?

Well you have to admit at least he is consistently hypocritical.

[Wikkiwallana]

Despite having what... 3 degrees now?

Well you have to admit at least he is consistently hypocritical.

You can say the same about the other 3 GOP candidates too…

[Farnhamia]

Well you have to admit at least he is consistently hypocritical.

You can say the same about the other 3 GOP candidates too…

The Paul supporters are constantly telling us how consistent he is.

[Hittanryan]

You can say the same about the other 3 GOP candidates too…

The Paul supporters are constantly telling us how consistent he is.

Yes, he has been pretty consistent for decades. Consistently bad.

[Gauthier]

The Paul supporters are constantly telling us how consistent he is.

Yes, he has been pretty consistent for decades. Consistently bad.

And consistently off the cliff.

[Tekania]

One would think that social conservatives would want to keep the whitehouse clean and free of santorum.

[Poorisolation]

One would think that social conservatives would want to keep the whitehouse clean and free of santorum.

There was almost a negligent discharge of hot custard over my keyboard when I read that.

[Coccygia]

No, just the ones who are here illegally. (BTW: terrible strawman there.) Actually, they should not be harassed, just deported or, in some cases, allowed to apply for citizenship. Call me an old softy but I can't see kicking out all 11 million illegals just because the US gummint refused to enforce its own laws so employers could have ultracheap labor.

How am I strawmanning? I'm referring to the semi-recent immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia that the GOP was so proud of.

Equating enforcement of immigration laws with harassing everyone with the last name "Hernandez" or brown skin sounds like strawmanning to me. It's the same old tired hysterical PC BS.

[Ashmoria]

And claims encouraging people to go to college is snobbery.

Despite having what... 3 degrees now?

and his father had 2 or 3 degrees, his mother had 2 or 3 degrees, his wife has 2 or 3 degrees, and he has sent all his children who are old enough to college.

[The Alma Mater]

Despite having what... 3 degrees now?

and his father had 2 or 3 degrees, his mother had 2 or 3 degrees, his wife has 2 or 3 degrees, and he has sent all his children who are old enough to college.

Did he ever call snobbery BAD though ?

[New England and The Maritimes]

and his father had 2 or 3 degrees, his mother had 2 or 3 degrees, his wife has 2 or 3 degrees, and he has sent all his children who are old enough to college.

Did he ever call snobbery BAD though ?

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

[Wikkiwallana]

How am I strawmanning? I'm referring to the semi-recent immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia that the GOP was so proud of.

Equating enforcement of immigration laws with harassing everyone with the last name "Hernandez" or brown skin sounds like strawmanning to me. It's the same old tired hysterical PC BS.

I'm sorry, did you miss the part where one state already started carding people for being brown?
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=116962

[Wikkiwallana]

Did he ever call snobbery BAD though ?

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

Not quite. He said he was for all those things, and that Obama was only talking about 4 year colleges.

Which is patently not true. (relevant part starts at 4:56)

He also called college a liberal indoctrination center.

Edit: typo

[New England and The Maritimes]

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

Not quite. He said he was for all those things, and that Obama was only talking about 4 year colleges.

Which is patently not true. (relevant part starts at 4:56)

He also called college a liberal indoctirnation center.

Which would mean he started off as what... Basil II "The Bulgar Slayer"?

[Alien Space Bats]

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

So here's my question: In 20 years time, is there going to be anything that gets manufactured without the use of robots and computers?

Unskilled labor is fast disappearing; I don't give it more than a generation before it's gone.

[Gauthier]

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

So here's my question: In 20 years time, is there going to be anything that gets manufactured without the use of robots and computers?

Unskilled labor is fast disappearing; I don't give it more than a generation before it's gone.

Frothy just praises the fact they don't have the education level to make as much money or more than him.

[New England and The Maritimes]

He didn't say it directly. What he did do was go on a tirade about how "blue collar men and women" are great people who never ever went to college or technical schools or got certificates of any kind, and that is a good thing.

So here's my question: In 20 years time, is there going to be anything that gets manufactured without the use of robots and computers?

Unskilled labor is fast disappearing; I don't give it more than a generation before it's gone.

I agree. The foundation of a modern economy is technological literacy, advanced education, and specialization. Obama is absolutely right to do everything in his power to encourage and enable every American to improve themselves through education and training of some kind.

[Calenhardon]

So here's my question: In 20 years time, is there going to be anything that gets manufactured without the use of robots and computers?

Unskilled labor is fast disappearing; I don't give it more than a generation before it's gone.

I agree. The foundation of a modern economy is technological literacy, advanced education, and specialization. Obama is absolutely right to do everything in his power to encourage and enable every American to improve themselves through education and training of some kind.

Mostly true, but remember that there will still be a lot of service and agriculture jobs that don't require any sort of degree. Don't need an MA to pick oranges or flip burgers. Now, we can attract a lot of immigrants to take those jobs and gradually pull their kids/grandkids up, but there's no escaping the need for large quantities of unskilled labor.

[New England and The Maritimes]

I agree. The foundation of a modern economy is technological literacy, advanced education, and specialization. Obama is absolutely right to do everything in his power to encourage and enable every American to improve themselves through education and training of some kind.

Mostly true, but remember that there will still be a lot of service and agriculture jobs that don't require any sort of degree. Don't need an MA to pick oranges or flip burgers. Now, we can attract a lot of immigrants to take those jobs and gradually pull their kids/grandkids up, but there's no escaping the need for large quantities of unskilled labor.

Having a certification or degree doesn't exclude you from the labor force. Unskilled jobs can still be done, but they will ideally be done by people who have other options when economic conditions improve.

[Alien Space Bats]

Mostly true, but remember that there will still be a lot of service and agriculture jobs that don't require any sort of degree. Don't need an MA to pick oranges or flip burgers. Now, we can attract a lot of immigrants to take those jobs and gradually pull their kids/grandkids up, but there's no escaping the need for large quantities of unskilled labor.

Large quantities? I suspect not.

Skill is a funny thing. Even "unskilled" jobs require a great deal of it, as Alabama farmers are finding out now that their migrant labor pool has dried up (the new hires are maybe 10% as productive as the workers they had).

What we really mean by "unskilled", then, is uneducated: Essentially work that can be learned exclusively on the job, without the need for a degree or vocational training. Over the next 20 years I would expect most such work opportunities will vanish, as the use of machines and computer systems becomes pervasive.

Consider two different areas of employment: Retail sales and agriculture.

Increasing, checkout cashiers are becoming superfluous. There's no reason why a retail outlet can't move completely over to an automated checkout system so long as a few supervisory personnel are left in place to troubleshoot checkout problems. As automation increases, those individuals left to ride shotgun over the checkout system will need to either be experts in the use of the system or experts in customer service, if not both.

Sales clerks also face increasing pressure. Given competition from internet retailers, brick-and-mortar sales staff will need to be experts in assisting customers in making decisions and/or tracking down just the right item. This will probably ultimately come to involve hand-held or worn browsing appliances linked to sophisticated decision support systems; thus, the sales associate who can help you find just the right shade of lipstick, just the right bottle of wine, or just the right pain reliever - and order it delivered to you if it's not in stock.

Indeed, customer service - specifically, expert human assistance in making a decision - is about the only thing left that brick-and-mortar retailers can provide aside from the ability to pick something up right now - and the latter could be handled with almost no labor at all by a retail catalog outlet with a consumer workstation, an automated pickup window, and an automated checkout system. Such an operation could have a backroom that is 99% automated, from delivery to customer pickup.

And once mobile robots come into play, stocking staff will be a thing of the past.

Which leaves only one function for the human retail employee: Making human customers happy by either helping them make choices or unruffling their feathers.

Once that's the case, who's to say that the most successful retailers won't be the ones who hire the retail equivalent of a BSW, earned at a community college or trade school?

As for agriculture, the use of human labor to harvest food is an extreme anachronism. The only reason we still employ people to pick fruit and vegetables or grab chickens is because nobody has built a machine that can do it faster, better, and cheaper - yet. But the work is grueling, painful, and exposes the worker to injury. To date, the only thing that has made it even remotely economical to use people in this way is the fact that illegal aliens are willing to do it at sub-minimum wage with no questions asked.

But how long will that continue?

Someday - and I suspect someday soon, especially if nativists have their way in reducing illegal immigration - we are going to see the old system break down as workers refuse to bleed and break their backs for next to nothing. And when that day comes, mechanization will not be far behind.

[New England and The Maritimes]

Mostly true, but remember that there will still be a lot of service and agriculture jobs that don't require any sort of degree. Don't need an MA to pick oranges or flip burgers. Now, we can attract a lot of immigrants to take those jobs and gradually pull their kids/grandkids up, but there's no escaping the need for large quantities of unskilled labor.

Large quantities? I suspect not.

Skill is a funny thing. Even "unskilled" jobs require a great deal of it, as Alabama farmers are finding out now that their migrant labor pool has dried up (the new hires are maybe 10% as productive as the workers they had).

What we really mean by "unskilled", then, is uneducated: Essentially work that can be learned exclusively on the job, without the need for a degree or vocational training. Over the next 20 years I would expect most such work opportunities will vanish, as the use of machines and computer systems becomes pervasive.

Consider two different areas of employment: Retail sales and agriculture.

Increasing, checkout cashiers are becoming superfluous. There's no reason why a retail outlet can't move completely over to an automated checkout system so long as a few supervisory personnel are left in place to troubleshoot checkout problems. As automation increases, those individuals left to ride shotgun over the checkout system will need to either be experts in the use of the system or experts in customer service, if not both.

Sales clerks also face increasing pressure. Given competition from internet retailers, brick-and-mortar sales staff will need to be experts in assisting customers in making decisions and/or tracking down just the right item. This will probably ultimately come to involve hand-held or worn browsing appliances linked to sophisticated decision support systems; thus, the sales associate who can help you find just the right shade of lipstick, just the right bottle of wine, or just the right pain reliever - and order it delivered to you if it's not in stock.

Indeed, customer service - specifically, expert human assistance in making a decision - is about the only thing left that brick-and-mortar retailers can provide aside from the ability to pick something up right now - and the latter could be handled with almost no labor at all by a retail catalog outlet with a consumer workstation, an automated pickup window, and an automated checkout system. Such an operation could have a backroom that is 99% automated, from delivery to customer pickup.

And once mobile robots come into play, stocking staff will be a thing of the past.

Which leaves only one function for the human retail employee: Making human customers happy by either helping them make choices or unruffling their feathers.

Once that's the case, who's to say that the most successful retailers won't be the ones who hire the retail equivalent of a BSW, earned at a community college or trade school?

As for agriculture, the use of human labor to harvest food is an extreme anachronism. The only reason we still employ people to pick fruit and vegetables or grab chickens is because nobody has built a machine that can do it faster, better, and cheaper - yet. But the work is grueling, painful, and exposes the worker to injury. To date, the only thing that has made it even remotely economical to use people in this way is the fact that illegal aliens are willing to do it at sub-minimum wage with no questions asked.

But how long will that continue?

Someday - and I suspect someday soon, especially if nativists have their way in reducing illegal immigration - we are going to see the old system break down as workers refuse to bleed and break their backs for next to nothing. And when that day comes, mechanization will not be far behind.

Yep. Eventually wages will rise, and food prices with them, to the point where it opens the market up to extreme mechanization. If we had a better-functioning social support network, I really wouldn't mind rising food prices, but as it is the poor don't have enough assistance to feed themselves in a healthy manner. Ideally, rising food prices will result in a popular mandate to fix this problem in America.

[The Steel Magnolia]

http://jonouchikatsuya.tumblr.com/post/ ... just-right



I feel the overwhelming urge to post this.

[Alien Space Bats]

I feel the overwhelming urge to post this.

O.K., I don't really need any more stories involving santorum.

[Neutraligon]

I feel the overwhelming urge to post this.

O.K., I don't really need any more stories involving santorum.

There needs to be a eeew smiley...



Found one

[Farnhamia]

O.K., I don't really need any more stories involving santorum.

There needs to be a eeew smiley...



Found one

Find a shrug one. We really need one of those.