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Mike, those are incredible credentials you and your son have, and you're right - it has nothing to do with political persuasion. In fact, my anecdotal evidence suggests that engineers tend to be more conservative or libertarian. (Most of my physicist friends are very liberal, in contrast) But you and your son are disappearing breeds - as I understand it fewer Americans are entering engineering because of the subjects you listed that are requirements. They can be ball-busters in terms of effort and time involved. I am not an engineer but I took 3 full years of chemistry - year of inorganic; year of organic; semester of quant and one of P-chem. Each course had three one-hour lectures/week and two two-hour labs/week. The time invested was staggering, not counting study and lab reports. Add physics and biology to the mix and an undergraduate life can be very hard indeed, as you well know. Americans don't want to do that anymore- I still spend a lot of time in Cambridge and I would guess that about half the students at MIT are Oriental. Maybe it just seems that way, but 50 years ago it was quite different.

You and your son are educated white conservatives. You are not average. You are far, far above average.

Urban people generally are more liberal but the urban white working class is conservative. And the white working class is suspicious of learning.

The American dream is still alive and well, it's just that it's a ball-buster as it always was and always will be.

I appreciate your post - especially your mention of differential equations. I took that course in pre-computer days (1950s) and recently bought the "Great Courses" set of DVD lectures "Mastering Differential Equations - The visual method" and was blown out of the water. It is a totally different world - even the terminology has changed because methodology is so different. Sadly, that world has now passed me by forever.

Grouse season in a few weeks and my back is out.

Stay young!

Let's cut through all the doublespeak that people like Gnomon put up while trying to pat himself on the back and make new allies while trying to show us that he is educated and successful ...........when indeed there are probably quite a few of us on this board that could buy him out lock stock and barrel several times over and still have a few million left over, not that this has any bearing on the topic......his huge ego needs feeding I guess.......

Back to the real world:

Lesson #1
*U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
*Fed Budget: $3,820,000,000,000
*New Debt: $1,650,000,000,000
*National Debt: $14,271,000,000,000
*Recent Budget Cuts: $38,500,000,000

Let's now remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

*Annual Family income: $21,700
*Money the family spent: $38,200
*New debt on the credit card: $16,500
*Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
*Total budget cuts so far: $38.50

O.K., NOW LESSON #2: HERE'S ANOTHER WAY TO LOOK AT THE DEBT CEILING :

LET'S SAY YOU COME HOME FROM WORK AND FIND THERE HAS BEEN A SEWER BACKUP IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD....AND YOUR HOME HAS SEWAGE ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CEILINGS......

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD DO....RAISE THE CEILINGS OR PUMP OUT THE SHIT....?

YOUR CHOICE IS COMING NOVEMBER 2012.......!

That is a great post Doug. I just got that one as an email two days ago. I sent it to my ultra liberal cousin in law in Moneysota. Some people with a college education mortgaged their common sense for a student loan.

Annual Family income: $21,700
*Money the family spent: $38,200
*New debt on the credit card: $16,500
*Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
*Total budget cuts so far: $38.50

But suppose the family has a net worth of $1,500,000 but that it is illiquid and that they have a kid in college and their $21K income is down from $50K because Mom got laid off during the crash. Also suppose that they can legally print money if push comes to shove and that the world will take it. And suppose they want to borrow money to send Mom to school for a teaching degree so that she can earn more money because her back was giving out before she lost her job in light manufacturing anyway. Also assume that their debt is going to be reduced each year at something like the inflation rate.

Long term they have to cut their spending and increase their income. But when Junior gets out of college and starts paying Mom and Dad back and when Mom goes to work as a teacher their income will be up and they can pay down on their debt.

As I understand Keynesian economics it is that the US government deficit spends in the bust and pays down on the debt in the boom. And that is more or less what we have been doing since Nixon.

The Fed's announced policy is to try through printing money and taking money out of circulation to trade off inflation for unemployment. If unemployment goes up too high then the Fed tries to flood the economy with money by lowering interest rates to bring it back down. If inflation goes up too high the Fed tries to bring it down by pulling the money out of the economy by raising interest rates. Most of the time it works.

It is not working now because the Fed can't lower the interest rates below zero to reduce unemployment. And nobody wants to borrow money on a personal basis as most are over-borrowed and are focused on reducing their debt. So everbody in the US is paying down their personal debt they incurred instead of spending. My spending is your income and vice - versa. Personal debt in the US has come down about 15% since the bust.

We don't have the problems that Spain, Italy, and Greece have because we can print dollars (The US government can sell bonds and the Fed can buy them with dollars) but the Greeks can't print Euros. And since they can't print Euros nobody wants their bonds, just like nobody wants bonds issued by Stockton, California.

The reason we haven't had the hyperinflation that everybody has been expecting is that there is a lack of demand. Our consumers aren't spending as much since they are paying down debt or they are unemployed. So since my spending is your income and vice versa we are stuck with high deficits and high unemployment until someone starts spending some money.

When we do have high inflation the Fed will take a big chunk of money out of they world and we will have a recession, shallow or deep.

So which is it. Don't you hammer away that good paying jobs have dried up and likely to never return. Reasonable story about educating your boy. Did you encourage him or complain constantly that getting a good education is a 'ball-buster'.

I can't help but remember the stories about the first families kids, and your boys', school back in chicago. Since you brought up sports, they have a 'no cut' policy. Any student that wants to participate in any sport can play without qualification. Is that the concept you have in mind, waves of engineers who're entitled to well paying jobs regardless of qualification.

When one of these engineers designs a ditch, who's gonna dig it and do they have a right to feel like they busted their balls. When we're all engineers, which one you going to assign to make lattes for the rest at the corner coffee shop. I'm glad you didn't impress your glass is half empty nonsense on your boy in his formative years.

I think everyone should bust their balls best they can, and then push a little farther in what ever occupation they choose. My recognizing that the entitlement mentality discourages effort, is your hate the poor prejudicial class warfare mantra. Trouble with honest engineers, they can run the numbers. Seems like you want gov. engineers, because the real ones have to protect your financial bottom line in a capitalist country.

Don't have to be stuck in a circle, trouble is 'my' spending isn't 'your' income, it's 'their' income. So many hundreds of billions have been spent here over the last three years on dead end pie in the sky 'green energy'. The current administration promised energy independence, but just added to the debt.

Yep, and the deficit spending that went to buy solar panels in China was worse than Solyndra. As is Federal funding for midnight basketball in the inner cities. Complete waste.

But perhaps sprucing up the Interstate Highway system, maybe the US government guarantees the bonds for a company to create a national natural gas auto fuel project so we can go to natural gas cars and send less money to our enemies in the Middle East and Venezuela. I do like the green cars in the sense that we send less money to the Middle East. Maybe have an American leave footprints on Mars. The technology boost we got from the space program was tremendous and still paying dividends. Maybe a mega doublewide railroad for carrying containers from the container port in California to one on the East Coast. We could run all of Europe's Chinese imports over it. Teddy had the US build the Panama canal for similar motives. I don't think anyone would argue that we haven't got our full value out of that project.

"Let's cut through all the doublespeak that people like Gnomon put up while trying to pat himself on the back and make new allies while trying to show us that he is educated and successful ...........when indeed there are probably quite a few of us on this board that could buy him out lock stock and barrel several times over and still have a few million left over, not that this has any bearing on the topic......his huge ego needs feeding I guess......."

Why is it that trash-talking is so common on this board? I would not be one whit surprised if a dozen of you could buy me out and have jillions left over but you're right - it has no bearing on the topic so why bring it up. It doesn't even address ego - it speaks to bad upbringing on the part of the individual(s) doing the trash-talk.

Something like 12% (at least) of the white males without a high school education are unemployed. I don't think they will ever get decent-paying jobs again in their lifetimes. Those jobs have dried up and will never return. I've said it again. It's happened before and will happen again, only some different group will be involved. It isn't class warfare - it's a social problem.

Why do you distort others' statements and put into words things they never said. What's this fantasy of yours about waves of engineers entitled to well-paying jobs? Where do you get this stuff unless you make it up.

You did make the point: "I'm glad you didn't impress your glass is half empty nonsense on your boy in his formative years. " and that is correct. However as I read the posts on this forum almost every right-winger is constantly complaining about social injustice, poor people or Magic Negroes. I still think this is a great country and I just wonder if you have some solution to the 12% who have no marketable skills. A lot of them are 50 or so yrs old. What do you propose?

I'm really glad we finally struck a liberal nerve......with the trash talking Gnomon...

Let's see now..... In one post you trash talked THE SOUTH, SOUTHERN PARENTS, FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL, AUTO RACING, RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN AREA'S OTHER THAN THE LIBERAL ANT HILL CALLED THE NORTH EAST........!..........Your bad up-bringing I guess, as you say.......?

You really have a condescending attitude that needs addressing......and address it I did......I am very glad Gnomon that it got your attention....grow up and quit putting people down..........you sit on NO THRONE OF SUPER MENTAL, EDUCATIONAL OR OPINION SUPERIORITY ...........

I guess you just speak from both sides of your mouth depending on what is convenient........?.......

BTW Gnomon: The Southern United States is the ONLY area of this country where it is common place for young children to address adults by "yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am and no ma'am"....the manners of young Southerners is above all others in this country.....all from great up-bringing and living in households where they are taught manners, courtesy, respect, religion and traditional American values..........compare that to your North East........