Can Obama Lead Us Out of the Coming Depression?

The Democratic "solution" would still have the home ice delivery man employed at his profession while we all have refrigerators at home.

Businesses own the jobs and workers on the skills. If needs change the skills must change to fit. Workers have to go where the work is or generate something new if the needs leave there area. Business have to go where the workers are. The market ultimately finds the best match. Government interference always hurts.

 

==Technically, no we are not. However when there are hundreds of thousands of people being laid off, when states are having to stop hiring teachers, and when major industries are about to go under we are as close to it as we can get. Even a community college instructor like myself has been impacted by this. In an effort to save money they have cut the number of classes we are teaching. That means we are going to have larger classes and fewer instructors. The troubling question is this: Who will get the chop? I'm the new kid in the history department and nobody is about to retire. So if they chop someone I am likely to be the one they chop. They have already cut our budget by 3% and according to WRAL.com our governor just announced a 5% cut that will affect all public schools, public universities, and community colleges. A friend of mine who is a professor of history at UNC told me that even those schools are being affected. The economic problems in this country are deep and widespread. I suppose the only industries not affected are doctors and undertakers. That is a shame to. At one point I thought about going into funeral service instead of teaching. I suppose I made the wrong choice :laugh: .

 

YES, HE COULD - by bringing the troops home

If Obama brought home ALL the troops from EVERY base and cut the standing ARMY by 75% we would be in much better economic shape. Most of the national guard personnel already have jobs at home. The rest of the professional army could be posted in port cities and used to inspect and patrol the ports. Half the goofy Homeland Security personnel could be laid off to find honest jobs. The National Guards on the border states could be used to assist the Border Patrol. People cut from the standing army could be permitted to transfer to the national guards.

The Navy would revert to its constitutional job of guarding our coasts and keeping the sea lanes open. Chasing pirates would be an amusing training detail for the navy.

The international corporations would assume the financial risk of doing business in foreign nations. They get the profit from it.

 

Every year cuts get made, people lose their jobs.

 

==Not this deeply and not at this level. When the North Carolina Community College system takes a 5% budget cut, when community colleges start laying off adjunct and full-time faculty, and when some have put a hiring freeze in place things are really bad. There is nothing normal or typical about what is happening. Call it what you will, things are bad.

 

Government education is one of the things we need to cut! It's loaded with waste, it teaches post-modernism to our children, and it coddles poor students who have no desire to learn. They have exchanged the truths of God for a bunch of lies. Good teachers could find much better jobs with private schools under the full control of the consumers of education where and in an environment focused towards students who want to learn. I would eliminate entirely the federal government's role in public education.

 

==Overly broad statements.

Your statement does not apply to all, or even most, college instructors or professors. I know because I teach college and I have friends who are college instructors and professors. Many of them are Christians and none of them "coddle" students who don't wish to learn. I certainly don't "coddle" any student. There are more than a few of us who demand college level work from our students. Students who don't do their work fail. Period.

I don't teach post-modernism in my classroom. And, for that matter, I don't personally know anyone who does. I know there are those who do teach post-modernism (etc) but they are not the totality of college teachers.

I don't teach "lies" in my classroom either and I certainly don't teach students to "exchanged the truths of God for a bunch of lies". Again, I don't know anyone who does. Maybe I hang around too many college instructors/professors who are Christians, I don't know, but I don't like it when college teachers are labeled without any consideration of the fact that there are good and bad college teachers. Just like there are good and bad pastors, policemen, farmers, etc.

I certainly don't want a system where the college is owned by a private group. I have been at private schools before and its always the same thing. You can't fail little Jimmy because little Jimmy's parents pay good money to send him to that school and, btw, little Jimmy's parents are involved in supporting the day-to-day operations of the school. I like community colleges because I can and do drop students who disrupt class.

As for students who are lazy and don't wish to learn I (and many others) demand college level work from my students. Students who don't do their work fail. Period.

For the most part my students are interested in learning. Many of them are adults who are returning to school for whatever reason.

 

Sure it is. It is all normal and typical. Cuts are being made, layoffs are given, some people are being effected and some are not.

 

It's a broad statement for a broad problem! Government schools are a big problem in our nation. It doesn't mean all the people employed in the process are bad or even part of the problem. But the problem is still there in a very big way.

Whether the teachers are Christian or not, if it's a government run public school, they will be teaching lies - or not teaching the truth - else they'll be looking for another job because they aren't allowed to teach the truth and must remain silent concerning it.

Yes, there is corruption in all areas of life because mankind is corrupted. But, with government schools we now have little choice and we've lost control of these institutions. They are dominated by liberal policies, text books, and instruction and they produce students who've not be taught otherwise. They are out of control.

 

Just a short comment...

There is no "depression" right now and I don't believe one is coming.

 

==That's funny. I teach the truth about American History everyday and nobody has said anything to me about the amount of time I spend talking about the history of the church in American history. If you teach the documented truth there is nothing they can say or do. There is a thing called academic freedom you know. I just discussed the Great Awakening with my American History I class on Tuesday night. I watered nothing down nor did I leave anything out. I do the same in my Western Civilization I course where I teach about the historical Jesus, Paul, and the rise of Christianity. Students don't complain and my supervisor has no objection. Why not? Because history is history. I would not work at a school that tried to supress academic freedom.

The school likes the fact that I am a student of church history. Its easy to find a military historian or presidential historian but it is a bit harder to find a church historian who wants to teach American History or Western Civilization to students in a community college.

I have a MA in Religion from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and I am about to finish my MA from UNC. They hired me to teach history based on the fact that I hold a MA from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and have over, well over, 18 graduate hours in History.

Do I preach my beliefs/doctrines in class as I do in Sunday School? No. That is not my job. My job is to teach history and that is what I do. I am not alone in that btw.

==Liberal policies? Give me an example. Liberal textbooks? Like "Out of Many" or "Unto A Good Land"? Hardly liberal. You are taking isolated cases and generalizing them to all public schools (primary and college). That is always risky. For every instructor or professor who is trying to indoctrinate his/her students with liberalism I can show you one who is faithfully teaching the subject.

 

Haven't many colleges and universities priced themselves too high for the average student? Many graduate greatly in debt because of the unrealistic costs of a college education. When I started jr. college in 1986 the tuition was $175.00 per quarter. Now, it is way, way above that. Try almost $1500.00 per semester. I know it has been over twenty years but surely the astronomical rise in tuition cannot be reasonably justified. When I graduated from Auburn in 1992 the tuition was $425.00 per quarter or less than $900 per semester. I would hate to know what it is now. I just looked it up. It is $3226.00 per semester. This does not include books or anything else. Something isn't right here. A lot of things in our economy are way over priced and it would seem that a correction is in order and I'm afraid it's going to be painful.

 

I said it has already started. I didn't fix blame as you seem to find necessary.

 

You know I think you're right. The best thing for all of us to do is to buy as many guns as legally (or illegally) possible [attack snipped]

 

I'm glad you have good qualifications and are pleased with what you're doing. But I don't think it's as nice a picture over all as you're painting nor do I think the problems are isolated cases. I think the isolated cases are the exceptions such as you claim to be.

I see the public school system from a broader perspective - including colleges - as wasteful, focused on social re-engineering, and teaching the lies of liberalism. I see it as getting progressively worse as the years pass. Are there exceptions - yes, I'm sure there are and good for them. But I think overall public schools have gotten out of control, are too expensive, and don't do a very good job of teaching our children. The parents no longer have much control over elementary or high schools.

The federal government, meanwhile, has much more control albeit indirectly through funding for various programs with strings attached. They've got their big bulbous nose in everything and most of it deals with social re-engineering.

Here's a some little recent examples that come to mind just to illustrate my broad claim:

Many public school teachers have no choice but to use the abbreviated version of the Mayflower Pact that excludes the stated goals of those brave souls relative to making the journey for the glory of God and to spread Christianity.

Some teachers here have been claiming that America has already had six black - or part black - Presidents. There source of facts is a pamphlet written by a black activist of the 1960s. What a waste of time!

My grand children's teacher didn't discuss Memorial Day or Christmas at school but Cinco de Mayo and Kwanzaa were covered. Why?

The high school next to me has one principal, one associate principal, six assistant principals, eight counselors, one registrar, and more! This just provides careers for civil servants - it doesn't provide teachers for our children. The district offices are larger that many large international corporations! It's an empire ruled by highly paid politicians most of whom are ex-coaches.

I recently attended a community college just to take a special language course. It cost nearly $1,000 for the course. The teacher missed about four classes for reasons unexplained to us. The teacher made the lab a self-study effort so we - actually he - could all go home early. Only three of the ten or twelve students - I forget the exact number - were really interested in learning. The rest were there for an easy credit. They wanted easy tests and easy grades.

A trip to most of the local elementary and high schools is an experience in rudeness at the front office, indifference from the teachers, and chaos among the students. The children have no discipline.

Many of the new college graduates that I've worked with didn't learn much of relevance to what they're hired to do. Their curriculum is filled with unnecessary and irrelevant subjects to "make them more rounded" as career teachers like to say. It costs an excessive amount to fund this "education"! It's a racket that makes money for the schools and provides an empire - often centered around sports - for career administrators. These young new workers may have good grades, say all the right things, and look "pretty" but far too many don't know anything, can't do anything, and just want to be bosses within a year or less.

A full professor I know and do business with - he's also consultant and we're working on some business ventures together - tells me how shameful the tenure system is at his university. He says many of the professors prefer to "work their rose gardens" than to teach one they get tenure. He's now on the committee that reviews candidates for tenure.

Another full professor I know that once worked for me in private industry told me that colleges were ripe with politics and most of the teachers were there for the opportunities to do research work. He's back to being a professor by the way. He's a great buy but tends toward the liberal side!

There's more - lots more - but this is how I see it!

 

Where in the world do you get this from my post?

Obama's socialist plans have nothing to do with race.

Your self rightous indignation speaks volumes to your loathing of anyone who believes differently than yourself.

 

This is not a factual statement. In fact, we have not even entered into a recession (by definition) yet.

 

Absolutely, completely uncalled for.

Targus' post did not deserve such a mean, unChristlike response.

An apology and retraction would be proper.

 

==I can't see a college instructor / professor doing that. The Mayflower Compact is not long enough to edit. I have a copy of the original in my files and the thing is about two pages (including signatures).

==Never heard that one before. However the college I teach at fired a history instructor about two years ago because he was teaching that "type" of junk. That was before I arrived but the stories about that guy are the things legends are made of. When students complained about what he was teaching his contract was not renewed.

==Don't know, you would have to take that up with that school. The public schools in this area are closed for Vetern's Day, Memorial Day, Christmas, and Easter. This coming Tuesday the college I teach at is having a special Veteran's Day program. In fact the head of the history dept, ie...my boss, is giving a presentation during that program. O yea, there will be prayer in "Jesus name" as there usually is. My point is that these things vary from place to place, school to school, and college to college. Making the kind of broad statements you are making is simply going too far.

==Just because there are several principles and just because they are ex-coaches does not mean that they do not have real jobs. I can't comment further since I don't know the situation at the school.

==Wow, was that "in state" or "out of state" tution? At our college one 3-hr class (in state) is about $150.00. Now while that does vary from school to school it normally wuld not vary that much. A large community college about an hour away charges about the same. Maybe North Carolina is cheaper? I don't know. But again this is why your overly general statements are going too far.

==That would not fly around here. Like I said, some of our teachers are being asked to teach 30 hrs in the Spring due to budget cuts. That is about 10 classes. That might not sound like a lot, but it is. It is too much. Community college instructors often are the grunts of academia. We generally cary large loads and don't get paid much.

==Again, that varies from school to school (private and public).

 

Nice to see BB doing his part to improve race relations here in America. Such fine Christian character on display here on the BB, by BB.