Here's a statement of the obvious: The opinions expressed here are those of the participants, not those of the Mutual Fund Observer. We cannot vouch for the accuracy or appropriateness of any of it, though we do encourage civility and good humor.
College costs have soared through the roof and then some. The 529s have helped millions get their college education. Now 0bama wants to basically trash the whole program.
One comparison to note is the Catholic school system. They educate students at a fraction of what the government and taxpayers pay into the public school system. Their students also have a higher achievement level.
A note about the Catholic school system, at least relative to some areas of Michigan. The per student tuition is about $7,000/year for high school; per numbers from several friends, of which; one family has 3 children. Keep in mind that some of their local taxes also is used for funding of the public school system, that they do not use.
Sarcasm is difficult to detect in written communication which lacks the usual visual and verbal cues used to express and identify it. David has so much as made that point in the past.
My thinking - FWIW - is that this forum does foster a high degree of "comradery" among regular participants, most of whom are able to detect readily when remarks are meant in jest or with sarcastic overtones. The ability to infuse ideas with tongue-in-cheek humor often facilitates understanding and appreciation of others' viewpoints. It's a common feature of informal American dialogue.
Understandably, newcomers or infrequent visitors may not be quick to pick-up on such hidden intonations. Don't know what the answer is. But, I'd suggest keeping the gun firmly in the holster until absolutely certain the remark was intended in an offensive manner.
Sarcasm is difficult to detect in written communication which lacks the usual visual and verbal cues used to express and identify it. David has so much as made that point in the past.
I don't why or how this thread so quickly devolved into a political discussion, but the fact is that taxes have always been a method of wealth redistribution. Wealthy people make more money so they pay more to the government in order to have the government provide certain basic services. Poorer people use the roads, the police and fire department as much as anyone else. But because they make less, they pay less for those basic government services. To make the blanket statement that all wealth redistribution is bad or somehow equals economic socialism is IMHO ignoring the true issue. Charity is also a form of wealth redistribution and no one considers that a bad thing.
Without belaboring the point, TB is more sopt on than he is not. I came from a low-income environment in NJ; father was a custodian w/9 grade education, mother a housewife.
I worked full-time and went to college (at night and summer) for more than a decade and now have four degrees in three disciplines, a wife, two beautiful daughters and live a nice life (I am not wealthy, just upper middle-class). So it can be done if you are willing to work hard enough and not make excuses for things that do not go your way!!
Briefly to tigherman3's point, taxes were not meant as "wealth redistribution". That was not the purpose; as you stated it was to pay for bridges, roads, police, and many other basic services.
When you tax College 529 plan to use that money to provide "FREE" C/C, that is wealth redistribution and has never worked over the long-haul anywhere in the world throughout history, and yes that is socialism and maybe totalitarianism.
I am dismayed that so many who consider themselves savvy investors seem to draw the line at investing in the future of the nation by producing a workforce skilled enough to compete. I too worked and paid for school but not without a little help from my society - a job doing research on a federal grant; a scholarship from my professional society obtained through the efforts of my college faculty; cheap rooming houses for students that aren't available today and educational institutions with low costs but high reputation. In graduate school I was paid as a teaching assistant the first year and as a researcher on a NSF grant the rest of the time. In a way all was a form of state and federal welfare set aside in budgets to train the next generation. I am a welfare hog and mighty proud to have fed at the trough of the taxpayer. Getting me in the educated workforce was quite a high ROI. (Just ask me.)
I get by with a little help from my friends.... The good ole USA_ got a rather good return on the investment these friends made. There are even finer examples among my colleagues.
Mcm --- ' wealth redistribution ... has never worked over the long-haul anywhere in the world throughout history'
Jeez louise. Progressive taxation, and even unprogressive taxation, has been long considered redistributive, and widely accepted as such, as long as there has been taxation. And a huge and longlived success. Learn some history before asserting.
There have always been shortsighted libertarian-style arguments against it, but it has been so meant from the getgo.
Bully for all the tough and hardworking bootstrappers here. You go. If only you can keep from always concluding that anyone can do it. You did not build that alone.
Anna, I think you are missing the point. Grants, loans and even some help from an employer (which I did get) are not "wealth redistribution". I don't believe anyone is saying that there should not be "assistance" for higher education; that is NOT a free-ride at the taxpayer expense and it should be earned!
If it were not for loans (I PAID them all back!) and some help from my employer, I would not have been able to afford the tuition for my MBA. Nothing was given to me; I had to earn it, including my employer aid. I earned an increasing percentage of assistance per my grade; "A" got me a higher % than a "B", etc.
As, I hope, most of us try to teach our children, that the satification of EARNING something far outweighs the gratification you get when something is "given" to you. The old saying "it is better to give than to receive" is and always will be true!
We really do need irony detection improvement, don't we? Anna should indeed be proud of her achievement, and contribution back; sounds like she is to an extent; and we all should be proud of having helped. I sure am. That's what it's all about. The best RoI, help from society, then accomplishment.
It seems to me that one of the main problems with this type of discussion is that some participants seem to classify fellow citizens as either "100% self-made men" (whether true or not) and "everyone else", who by definition are therefore no-good lazy scumbags. Interestingly, these folks invariably classify themselves as the 100% self-made type. The dictionary defines "selfish" as: "lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure". I leave it to others as to whether that particular definition is appropriate to the type of individuals I've mentioned.
Perhaps my observations for the past 75 years are not typical, but it has been my experience that there many more than just two types of individuals; rather there is a very broad spectrum of people, with hugely varying degrees of human assets: inherited assets, mental ability, physical ability, and plain old luck. Sure there are no-good bums out there who have chosen not to contribute their fair share to their personal good, to say nothing of the common good. BUT I DO NOT FOR A MOMENT BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE THE MAJORITY of those who need some sort of assistance to allow them to survive.
To suggest that all it takes for anyone in America to succeed is a little hard work is totally fatuous. This concept of rugged individualism, wherein someone feels that they have absolutely no obligation to spend one tax dollar on anything that isn't a direct immediate personal benefit to them is, in my opinion, just plain sick. I say this as half of a married couple who have no children, but have cheerfully voted for over fifty-five years to support our public schools, common infrastructure, and where reasonable, public assistance to the less fortunate. Does that mean that there is no place for alternatives, such as charter schools? Not at all: depending on the effectiveness of the local school system, alternatives may be a very good thing.
Additionally, anyone who thinks that our younger people have the same advantages of relatively inexpensive higher education, employment and retirement stability that we older folks enjoyed is living on some other planet.
I'm under no illusion that this commentary will change one single mind, but at least some things have been said that needed saying.
Comments
One comparison to note is the Catholic school system. They educate students at a fraction of what the government and taxpayers pay into the public school system. Their students also have a higher achievement level.
---For informational purposes only:
A note about the Catholic school system, at least relative to some areas of Michigan.
The per student tuition is about $7,000/year for high school; per numbers from several friends, of which; one family has 3 children. Keep in mind that some of their local taxes also is used for funding of the public school system, that they do not use.
Take care,
Catch
My thinking - FWIW - is that this forum does foster a high degree of "comradery" among regular participants, most of whom are able to detect readily when remarks are meant in jest or with sarcastic overtones. The ability to infuse ideas with tongue-in-cheek humor often facilitates understanding and appreciation of others' viewpoints. It's a common feature of informal American dialogue.
Understandably, newcomers or infrequent visitors may not be quick to pick-up on such hidden intonations. Don't know what the answer is. But, I'd suggest keeping the gun firmly in the holster until absolutely certain the remark was intended in an offensive manner.
EQ, wtf. This is nutso-speak.
And so this thread turns into AM talk radio.
Re: "If you have to explain the joke ..."
Gosh - That's probably the smartest thing you've said in a long time.
I worked full-time and went to college (at night and summer) for more than a decade and now have four degrees in three disciplines, a wife, two beautiful daughters and live a nice life (I am not wealthy, just upper middle-class). So it can be done if you are willing to work hard enough and not make excuses for things that do not go your way!!
Briefly to tigherman3's point, taxes were not meant as "wealth redistribution". That was not the purpose; as you stated it was to pay for bridges, roads, police, and many other basic services.
When you tax College 529 plan to use that money to provide "FREE" C/C, that is wealth redistribution and has never worked over the long-haul anywhere in the world throughout history, and yes that is socialism and maybe totalitarianism.
I get by with a little help from my friends.... The good ole USA_ got a rather good return on the investment these friends made. There are even finer examples among my colleagues.
Jeez louise. Progressive taxation, and even unprogressive taxation, has been long considered redistributive, and widely accepted as such, as long as there has been taxation. And a huge and longlived success. Learn some history before asserting.
There have always been shortsighted libertarian-style arguments against it, but it has been so meant from the getgo.
Bully for all the tough and hardworking bootstrappers here. You go. If only you can keep from always concluding that anyone can do it. You did not build that alone.
+1 to Tiger.
If it were not for loans (I PAID them all back!) and some help from my employer, I would not have been able to afford the tuition for my MBA. Nothing was given to me; I had to earn it, including my employer aid. I earned an increasing percentage of assistance per my grade; "A" got me a higher % than a "B", etc.
As, I hope, most of us try to teach our children, that the satification of EARNING something far outweighs the gratification you get when something is "given" to you. The old saying "it is better to give than to receive" is and always will be true!
Perhaps my observations for the past 75 years are not typical, but it has been my experience that there many more than just two types of individuals; rather there is a very broad spectrum of people, with hugely varying degrees of human assets: inherited assets, mental ability, physical ability, and plain old luck. Sure there are no-good bums out there who have chosen not to contribute their fair share to their personal good, to say nothing of the common good. BUT I DO NOT FOR A MOMENT BELIEVE THAT THEY ARE THE MAJORITY of those who need some sort of assistance to allow them to survive.
To suggest that all it takes for anyone in America to succeed is a little hard work is totally fatuous. This concept of rugged individualism, wherein someone feels that they have absolutely no obligation to spend one tax dollar on anything that isn't a direct immediate personal benefit to them is, in my opinion, just plain sick. I say this as half of a married couple who have no children, but have cheerfully voted for over fifty-five years to support our public schools, common infrastructure, and where reasonable, public assistance to the less fortunate. Does that mean that there is no place for alternatives, such as charter schools? Not at all: depending on the effectiveness of the local school system, alternatives may be a very good thing.
Additionally, anyone who thinks that our younger people have the same advantages of relatively inexpensive higher education, employment and retirement stability that we older folks enjoyed is living on some other planet.
I'm under no illusion that this commentary will change one single mind, but at least some things have been said that needed saying.