Is this the price for not educating our people?

More than 25 years ago, I moved to US. I was shocked to see the number of uneducated people around. In my culture, you are middle class if you are educated. In US, education had nothing to do with your social standing. As a result, the richer you were, the less cultured you seemed. I mean look at Trump!!!
I left US after 8 years.. back to Europe and Cental Asia and Middle East. There is an old saying that to travel is to live. No one I knew in US ever really travelled. And if they did, they never saw anything but a hotel and a pool.
Anyway, I wonder sometimes if the lack of curiosity and hunger for learning has put the globe in this situation now. US’s policies are effecting everyone, especially Middle East. In the old days it was ok, because you still had a moral code to follow. Now the construction of a hotel determines who are allies and who are foes. Business in Saudi for Trump, gives us war with Iran. Business with Netanyahu, moves embassy to Jerusalem... business with Putin, gives us fanatic Christians running the county, protecting unborn zygots, while killing living ones at the boarder, in Yemen, in hospitals in Iran..

America. Please educate your children. Make education free like so many other countries. Teach them history and empathy, science and collaboration. With the amount of money you spend on weapons, you put the globe in danger with every uneducated child you send into the world.

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gol979 · 41-45, M

@northwest. Won't let me reply, I'm presuming because the lady who made the comment blocked me for mild but evidenced criticism of obama.

I'm sorry dude but Obama had a mandate for.big change in the financial sector.......regulations etc and he could have got pretty much any proposals through.......what did he do?? Fill the jobs where that change would be directed with bankers......the exact same people who got us into this mess.....and guess what happened?? The public had to bail out the banks in one of the biggest transfers of wealth from the poor to the mega rich and literally fuxk all was done to reign in the illegal and predatory finance sector. Obama was a faux liberal and now we have to live with his legacy that has tarnished true progressives

Northwest · M

@gol979 A few weeks ago, you brought up the same charge. That the banks got a handout. I posted links to the contrary. You said that you had no time to verify it, and you would read it later. You're back to leveling the same charge. That's simply bullshit.

The money that was given to the financial institutions, was paid back in full, and the government generated profits from the deal. The same with the auto industry. The government made money on those deals.

You seem to want to model what happened here, with what happened with the massively fucked up financial bailout of a single financial institution in the UK, where the government lost its shirt. Just because the language is English in both countries, and this is about a bank, it does not mean the outcome or the approach were the same.

Perhaps you did not notice, because you don't live here, but every single aspect of financial institutions, changed after the disaster of 2008-2010. We know it, because everything we do: personal loans, business loans, credit cards, mortgages, even the services our banks can or cannot offer, completely changed. Trump is trying to undo these changes, and unfortunately, the people who voted for him either have no clue, or don't care.

Writer · 100+, F

most people are not economists and therefore there should always be an information canpaign for long-term solutions. Short term solutions will be felt right away and the criticizm is usually short lived. I am still confused about the bail out but recession is a serious matter and I am sure the bail out was necessary to minimize the damage.

Northwest · M

@Writer The bailout, was not a giveaway. The situation was very complex. It's part financial basics: too much money was loaned out to too many people, who could not afford them, and protected by insurance companies, that could not cover the damages (I am oversimplifying for brevity's sake).

The bailout happened, following a sit down between the government analysts and the financial institutions. The objective was to figure out who was relatively healthy, and who cannot survive. The stipulation was to have the healthy absorb the dying, and then give them some money, in the form of both loans, to be paid with interest and part ownership.

The government got its money back, with profit.

Writer · 100+, F

Sounds great.. Now they just have to convince fox News to break it down for people and not spread lies. @Northwest

gol979 · 41-45, M

@Northwest no they didnt......and the government didn't get profit back on their return at all.....there's so many economists and journalists who put it away better than me. Check out inside job or just look it up, plenty of videos too.......it was a transfer of wealth from poor to rich and Obama oversaw it.
Are you saying Obama is a genuine progressive? The point I'm making is that he represented corporations over people and if we don't agree what happened in the aftermath of the crash there's plenty of other instances during his tenure that shows that too

Northwest · M

@gol979

no they didnt

You keep saying that. Why don't you post some links to support your claims.

and the government didn't get profit back on their return at all

Forbes disagrees with you:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/duncanrolph/2018/07/15/heres-where-we-are-10-years-after-busts-bailouts-and-broken-dreams/#1a8413b57124

And CNN business:

https://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-bailouts-end/index.html

There's plenty more where this came from, including the WSJ, US World and News Report. And, of course I posted other links, the last time you made your claim. Your answer seems to be pretty much unchanged: 'no, this is not true, I know better'. Sorry, but you don't.

there's so many economists and journalists who put it away better than me

By all means, provide some links/sources. Happy to get educated on the subject. At the time, I followed it closely.

Check out inside job or just look it up, plenty of videos too

Funny thing here, is that I lived through it, and looked it up. Plenty. The onus is on you to provide proof of an alternate reality.