Great Expectations

By Jack

The path from my house to the supermarket takes me by our local high school and the filled to capacity student parking lot. It was safe to say that a majority of the student cars (and jacked up 4X4’s) cost far more than my car, which puts them in the $10,000 and up category. This is pretty extravagant compared to their grandparents day and what they drove.

It was noon, the bell had just rung and the first kids across the intersection, headed for McDonalds or Subway. I sat at the light and noted how many were talking on cellphones or texting. It was the rare exception when they weren’t.

So, are today’s kids working during the summer months to buy expensive things or are their parents footing the bill?

Child labor laws say we have a limited number of jobs available to 14 year olds and up and what is available pays mostly minimum wage.

The list of jobs where teens can’t work is far longer than those they can. So jobs like baby-sitting, usher at the theater, paper-boy or dog walker is about all that’s left. Guess parents are picking up the tab because there are so few chances for a teenager to earn enough to buy a nice car while in high school.

When I owned a limo service I was surprised at how many 8th grade graduations we booked. A 12 year old doesn’t need a limo, but the parents apparently do and they’re sending a bad message to their kids when they do. Next, Droids or iPhones for 5th graders? Give me a break! The next thing you know welfare cases will be asking the President for a free cell phone or some other ridiculous thing.

By the time their kids achieved a real milestone, like graduation from college what’s left for parents to do, hire them a marching band?

But, let’s say kids turn 18-19 and college is not in the cards and they’re forced to check out the labor market. Then reality hits hard. They suddenly realize how long they must work to earn what was previously freely given to them. They struggle to pay the rent or they run up charges on the credit card until they learn how credit limits work, that and bankruptcy court. It’s a devastating shock to the system, for which they were ill prepared by Mommy and Daddy. They haven’t even turned 21 and already the world looks like a menacing, incredibly expensive place to live. Perhaps this explains why we have a record number of young adults living with their parents?

It’s estimated that we have about 10M people, 25 and under, unemployed and the trend line is worsening. No doubt a significant portion of this number found life too challenging only because they were not prepared. This is what happens when parents give their kids too much, too soon. They lead them to have great expectations about living large when their only expertise is playing Nintendo or Gameboy.

PS The group that killed decent paying after-school jobs for teens and all that great work experience was not corporations relocating outside the U.S., it was the liberal democrats relocating into government.

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9 Responses to Great Expectations

  1. Dewey says:

    So we send all our good paying jobs overseas, people tell the unemployed to work at McDonald’s with their masters degrees and now we want Child labor? Sounds like we shold just change the countries name to China. Canada’s Harper just signed their TPP called FIPA where Canada can be sued now by China…. fascism I say

    You can not have it both ways Tea Party against closing loopholes for tax breaks to send jobs to a communist country and beyond but complain about jobs..Hypocrisy!

    I say whatever one reaps what they sow if you support the party that is destroying us then do not complain!

  2. Peggy says:

    The other day I got into a discussion with a young man, guessing he was about 20, who said he was a volunteer firefighter. When I asked if he was going to go through the academy at Butte he said no, because he had a friend who had failed it and knew of another firefighter who had become a firefighter without the academy.

    After listening to him for several minutes I went back to my college job experience when every semester I was assigned to assist about one thousand “at risk” transfer students who were on probation or had been disqualified. So, I asked him what his five year goal was and what he was willing to do to get there. He didn’t have a plan, other than trying to figure out how he could become a firefighter like the two exceptions he knew of.

    It was very evident he had no idea what it meant to work for what he wanted and had no idea what it was like to face the possibility of failure and trying again. Doing the minimal required and either blaming others or finding excuses for his behavior filled his every sentence.

    After asking him several questions and listening to every excuse he could think of I told him he was either going to have to knuckle down and do what was required to obtain his dream job or five years from now he was still going to be talking about wanting to be a firefighter.

    It was really very sad this guy thought the way he felt was the norm and that somehow he’d get what he wanted out of the blue. Adults obviously failed to provide the guidance, motivation and work for what you want ethics for him and he was dealing with the emotional development of a junior high schooler in an adult world he was ill equipped to deal with.

    Hopefully, he figures out that mom and dad aren’t there any more to pay for his life-style and he’s not a little boy any more.

    Just read this interesting article about Hispanics in Calif. and Texas.

    Why Hispanics Thrive in Texas, But Not in California:

    “The relative advantage that Hispanic Texans have in key cultural indicators is strongly related to the state’s dynamic economic growth and small government. But because Texas’ smaller government has allowed civil society to grow organically, there is a strong cultural background that must be considered.

    In fact, when factoring in both economic and cultural factors, one can say that California and Texas stand for two completely different faces of the Hispanic experience in America or, more to the point, the Mexican-American experience. The question is whether the two states will continue to lead two different Mexican-American subcultures in the future, or whether one approach will come to be the dominant one nationwide.

    Let’s first look at the statistics, starting with one of the most important ones: unemployment. In 2013, Texas’ Hispanic population boasted an unemployment rate of 6.9 percent. That was more than 2 percentage points lower than the national Hispanic average (9.1 percent). More important, it was better than the overall national average of 7.4 percent and only six-tenths of a percent higher than Texas’ overall rate (6.3 percent).

    Meanwhile, California’s Hispanics lagged across the aboard. Their unemployment rate of 10.2 percent underperformed all the national averages and was 1.3 percentage points higher than California’s overall unemployment rate of 8.9 percent.”

    http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/13/why-hispanics-thrive-in-texas-but-not-in-california/

  3. Post Scripts says:

    Well said Peggy! You make perfect sense and the CA Hispanic excerpt was right on, big gov. is hurting the very people they say they want to help.

  4. Tina says:

    Dewey you use words like “we” and “people” in derogatory sounding ways as if the conditions are all plotted by some evil wizard behind the curtain. This is a position that will keep you chasing your tail indefinitely but will not lead to understanding that might help things to change and improve in our country.

    Until our politicians realize that the regulations and taxes they impose have real world consequences, that harm business, and that require unpopular but necessary boardroom decisions these conditions will persist.

    It’s insane to think that a company would prefer to move its headquarters or operation to another country rather than continuing to operate right here in the good ol’ USA. There has to be compelling reasons to take the risk and invest the money to make that kind of change. The looming thought of bankruptcy, for instance, or the inability to adequately compete with global companies that are kicking your butt in sales are very compelling reasons.

    And nobody is suggesting child labor sweatshops for heavens sake. Jack is simply saying that a lot of teens are losing out on opportunities today that we had when we were kids because the government, rather than the people, are deciding the worth of jobs…and because government interference is blunting and depressing our economy.

    “You can not have it both ways Tea Party against closing loopholes for tax breaks…”

    The Tea Party IS NOT against closing loop holes. Where do you get this drivel?

    First of all “Loop Hole” is just a cute little term for a legal tax deduction…LEGAL being the operative word.

    Many of the loop holes (deductions) in our tax code that you lefties (socialists) decry were written into law by your Democrat (socialist) pals who ruled in Congress for most of the fifty years following WWII.

    Progressives (socialists) believe in big government programs, and BG programs require funding, and funding is gotten from taxes, and in order to raise taxes they made deals.

    Take a plan that was introduced and signed on to by your pal Bernie Sanders. The “Patriot Employer Tax Credit Act” would create a tax credit for companies that meet certain conditions. Bernie and his buddies called it a “tax incentive” instead of a “loop hole” and claimed their legislation would close “loop holes” but it amounts to a regulation in the tax code that companies can take advantage of if they jump through the right hoops…in other words a brand new loop hole.

    Conservative Republicans have been proposing a simplified tax code and alternative plans like the flat tax for over three decades. These would ELIMINATE MOST LOOP HOLES.

    But people who believe they need the government controlling everything refuse to go for it. A flat tax would eliminate the negotiating tools that allow politicians to grow our government. When the debate begins we soon find that nobody really wants to end subsidies and tax breaks because everyone in politics, and everyone in America, is benefiting from them in some way.

    Child credits are a tax loop hole. The Earned Income Tax Credit is a loop hole. Deductions for mortgage loans are a loop hole. You can argue that these are for people who don’t have a lot of money but the other argument is they also do not employ people, provide goods and services, or pay the greater share of taxes collected by our government.

    There’s a good article with a wonderful visual that shows how much the tax code has grown here. In 1913 the tax code was only 400 pages long…how did people ever get along?

    The only hope for the American people is freedom but before they will vote to give themselves that gift they will have to learn a whole lot more about how big government robs them of opportunity and wealth.

    “I say whatever one reaps what they sow”

    You have no way of knowing it of course but this is exactly the way the Koch brothers have run their business which began very humbly. They kept the company private and invested nearly all of the profits back into the company for growth. They employ thousands of people across the world now at good wages in various industries and they also made a lot of money for themselves along the way.

  5. Dewey says:

    Tina

    Here is your grassroots Tea Party beginning

    http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/12/koch-brothers-founded-the-tea-party-in-2002/

    Dewey you use words like “we” and “people” in derogatory sounding ways as if the conditions are all plotted by some evil wizard behind the curtain.

    Yes it is all in print my lady!

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama

    Quotes………………….

    Forty years ago today, on August 23, 1971, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr., an attorney from Richmond, Virginia, drafted a confidential memorandum for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that describes a strategy for the corporate takeover of the dominant public institutions of American society.

    Powell and his friend Eugene Sydnor, then-chairman of the Chamber’s education committee, believed the Chamber had to transform itself from a passive business group into a powerful political force capable of taking on what Powell described as a major ongoing “attack on the American free enterprise system.”

    An astute observer of the business community and broader social trends, Powell was a former president of the American Bar Association and a board member of tobacco giant Philip Morris and other companies. In his memo, he detailed a series of possible “avenues of action” that the Chamber and the broader business community should take in response to fierce criticism in the media, campus-based protests, and new consumer and environmental laws.

    ———

    In fact, Powell’s Memo is widely credited for having helped catalyze a new business activist movement, with numerous conservative family and corporate foundations (e.g. Coors, Olin, Bradley, Scaife, Koch and others) thereafter creating and sustaining powerful new voices to help push the corporate agenda, including the Business Roundtable (1972), the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC – 1973), Heritage Foundation (1973), the Cato Institute (1977), the Manhattan Institute (1978), Citizens for a Sound Economy (1984 – now Americans for Prosperity), Accuracy in Academe (1985), and others.

    Greenpeace Article: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/

    Greenpeace has posted a full copy of the Lewis Powell memo

    Citizens United was founded in 1988

    End Quotes…………

    Got lots of info. It’s all recorded Tina you just choose to ignore it

    The Koch Brothers are not humble gentlemen…. They are buying out democracy they have 44,000 Tv ads for the midterms and are spending millions…

    Sorry but Koch’s are the biggest polluters in this country. They are so humble the people getting cancer by their Georgia Pacific plant and the chemical river that flows through towns matter none.

    Koch’s are so humble they are spending 300 million in this election to buy law!

    Tina you have seen Their platform sorry but they want to end social security.

    Free markets? Like slowing down the internet for everyone but the big Media companies? Closing down all mom and pop stores for chinese goods retailers?

    I have every way of knowing these things the info is everywhere!

    Fox tabloid news is not honest

    You call me a liar but the info is there….

    At least the tea party admits they have a Koch Addiction

    I even remember you telling me what an admirable gentleman Bob McDonald is… well yep so honorable he ended up in court!

    next is bachman and walker, oh Perry…. all tea Party.

    You say big Gov then support laws that are big gov

    You support Citizens United which has created a cesspool of bribery and corruption beyond any level we have seen…

    Most Americans agree with me a minority called the Tea party is Bullying America

    Ted Cruz even did his little speech Loren Michael’s would get arrested if we repealed CU… You would think the Tea party would be embarrassed at his antics!

    I see no patriotism in these views to sell America to wall street

    We are ruled by an Oligarchic few

    wasteful spending? the next shutdown? All to Bully Americans for a bunch of policies that are not new they have been the problem.

    Well Sen Sanders may run just to change the conversation not to win and when it starts be ready to call the majority liars! But we have the facts!

    We have the history of the Kochs and Hotze Koch’s editorials in the Quanah chief times…sorry History debunks the nice Koch propaganda they put out!

    Soros looks like a good guy next to the Koch Boyz

    Politicians have to write law for global corporations not the welfare of America

    we will get the money out of elections all of them!

    hey it’s almost time for the wizard of oz…..the politician behind the curtain!

  6. Tina says:

    Dewey we’ve heard the song before. So the Koch brothers started something they called a Tea Party…a bunch of patriots did the same in Boston. There may be a similarity in motivation or purpose but that doesn’t make them the same group. Man you are slow to learn.

    “Greenpeace has posted a full copy of the Lewis Powell memo”

    Oh I see. Greenpeace has a right to exist but companies like Coors and The Heritage Foundation don’t…except for that one little thing:

    The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. See U.S. Const. amend. I. Freedom of expression consists of the rights to freedom of speech, press, assembly and to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and the implied rights of association and belief. The Supreme Court interprets the extent of the protection afforded to these rights. The First Amendment has been interpreted by the Court as applying to the entire federal government even though it is only expressly applicable to Congress. Furthermore, the Court has interpreted, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as protecting the rights in the First Amendment from interference by state governments. See U.S. Const. amend. XIV.

    Dewey you’ve been hornswaggled!

    Bbut you keep humming the tunes and payin your dues…those guys at Green Peace are only too happy to take you for a ride.

  7. Post Scripts says:

    Well once again Tina beat me to punch and said basically what I was going to say to Dewey.

    Dewey you make a lot of accusations, but the majority of them lack evidence, like somehow Georgia Pacific is allowed to spread cancer causing chemicals with impunity because the Koch brothers are owners/ Do you know how nuts that sounds? Look who is President and Attorney General, and look how rabid the EPA is! Then come back and tell me they are all paid off by the Koch brothers. Dewey you’re not logical, you are way, way out there and no amount of reason can reach you at this point.

  8. Tina says:

    I don’t know Jack, I think you put a very substantial slathering of frosting on the cake I baked! Good on ya!

  9. Tina says:

    This might be a good time to direct our readers to a paper by Heritage Foundation fellow Robert Rector, “The War on Poverty Has Been a Colossal Flop.”

    Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson’s War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that’s three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution.

    The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These programs provide cash, food, housing and medical care to low-income Americans. Federal and state spending on these programs last year was $943 billion. (These figures do not include Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment Insurance.)

    Largely due to technological breakthroughs our government’s military spending has declined in the same time period (see charts):

    For 20 years after World War II, defense spending ran at about 10 percent of GDP. Then it began a steady decline.

    Liberal Presidents have cut spending on military in their budgets. Carter cut to dangerous levels as Obama has. That results in a need for increased spending to return our military to a state of readiness, which Reagan did and which we will now need to do again. It makes more sense just to fund the military in a steady fashion. 10% of GDP is not too much to ask for something our government is compelled to provide in the Constitution. This level is more than adequate as the above information shows and keeps those nutty concerns about the military industrial complex at bay…at least for the sane.

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