Yet another good piece of journalism that demonstrates the far-reaching effects of big oil making their "modest profit" fellas...

Back to school: Shaky economy hits kids

"Hard times and higher fuel prices will follow kids back to school this fall.

Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks and wear last year's clothes. Field trips? Forget about it.

Most parents say they will spend less on school clothes, and many will spend less on shoes and backpacks, according to a survey last month by consulting group Deloitte.

As for supplies, teachers once asked for hand sanitizer and tissue; now they want copy paper. Lenelle Cruse, the state PTA president in Florida, said last year's budget was so tight, a Jacksonville school actually had a toilet paper drive.

Nearly half of the schools in the school administrators' survey said they are curtailing field trips.

In Jacksonville, school lunch prices will rise from $1.45 to $2 for secondary schools. "It's a huge jump," said LaTasha Green-Cobb, whose sons are in the seventh and eighth grade.

As fuel prices have rocketed higher, the cost of food has zoomed, especially for lunch-tray staples like milk. As a result, most schools will charge more for lunch, the School Nutrition Association said.

In Montgomery County and elsewhere, they are holding off on ordering new textbooks.

South Carolina expects to spend nearly $11 million meant for new buses on fuel instead — in a state where the average school bus is 12 years old and some are 22."

Now to be very fair and honest, this article does visit the situation where many kids don't ride existing busses and routes, but get a ride to/from school in a car. I agree totally that situations like this exist and must be revisited.

However, using old worn out textbooks is unacceptable.
Teachers not having copy paper to make handouts is unacceptable.
Kids going hungry because they can't afford lunch is unacceptable.
Kids riding on old, worn-out, unsafe busses is unacceptable.
Any kid not having toilet paper to use in a school bathroom is BEYOND unacceptable.
(Let me hear about my kid not having toilet paper to use, or worse yet, contracting a disease beacause of sanitary dysfunction at a public school... you'll all see me on the evening news my friends.)

I suppose that if I was the CEO of a big oil company and made $426-million last year, I wouldn't be concerned about my kid paying for lunch, riding on an old delapidated bus, or having something to wipe their butt with. The limo ride to the private school seems to isolate those problems I suppose. But my conscience would KILL me knowing that my windfall came at the expense of others' whose kids are now facing those hardships. But then again, I actually HAVE a conscience, so that's probably the difference.

Shame on America for this guys... a toilet-paper drive for a public school in Florida... in 2008... in "the greatest nation to ever exist"?!?!
What we are really teaching our kids is that they, and their future, are not as important as making a buck today.

 

And then we can talk about teachers. They are soooo underpaid.

Now, is there job easy? Yes, it is. You may argue otherwise, but it is. So is the college they take to get there. Some of the dumbest people I knew in college became teachers. Pot heads, drunks, etc. Why? Because it was easy, they get summers off, and they did genuinely love kids.

So, what do we so about this? We need to make the education standards higher and with that we need to make the pay higher, so that people are still encouraged to become teachers. This will produce better teachers, plain and simple.

But then you have to figure out where to get the money. If they really did raise the standards and produced better teachers, I know I would be ok with a little tax increase. I think most Americans would as well.

And since we are on the subject. Lets teach REAL history!!!! Not some watered down politically correct crap that shelters our children from the real world. How can they make the world a better place if they have no real understanding of where it has been and where it needs to be.....

 

While it may be easy to become a teacher, being one is not that easy. First of all, some teachers can just become disheartened at the abundance of kids with no direction, no parental discipline and guidance in life, lack of goals - all the kids want to do these days is text message, talk about who wasted his or her time doing what, and so on.

Another thing, you cannot enforce discipline like they should. Kids can not only take teachers to court, they can take parents to court. Recently, there was a case in Quebec where dad took Internet privilege away from his teen, underage daughter because she posted pictures of herself. She took him to court. The court sided with the girl, saying that the father's punishment was too harsh.

So, teachers are crippled in many ways. The school system of which they are a part is discouraging teachers of taking the necessary, drastic measure to bring up the kids properly - which school wants to fight lawsuits?

 

Agreed totally. That is related to that politically correct, soccermomism I was getting at.

There are a ton of grown men, not to mention kids that just need a good ole' fashion beating! The kind that is "good for you" not the kind that you take your dad to court for. Our society has become so soft. Makes you wonder what we would do if we had to fight a war like WWII. I bet the outcome might be different....

I am 24 and grew up in this day and age. I however got whoopings and had a cell phone when I was 16 only to call my mommy. My little sister (16 now) sends more text messages than I can believe and has had a cell phone for years. My parents are good parents, but you see, even they got soft. Plus, the things those little bastard teenage girls and boys do and say to each other these days makes me want to kill! But the worst part about it is, you can talk to their parents and it still wont matter because the parents dont care. They dont turn around and discipline their kid when they hear they terrible things they did to someone. Man, oh man....sorry about that last part.

 

Quite frankly, and I hope I don't sound like a horse's ***, if you have to tell your kids "sorry, no lunch this week" because you're paying $20/week more than you would during the "cheap gas" era for fuel, your problems go far beyond what you're paying at the pump. I did not buy my lunch every day at school -- more often than not, I brown-bagged it. Cheaper (and healthier!) that way.

Something tells me that if it wasn't high fuel prices in the crosshairs, there would be something else to blame. The quality of our public school systems has been eroding L-O-N-G before the "OMG $2/gallon for gas!" panic hit. You should have seen the condition of a lot of my textbooks when I was a HS senior - in 1996. And I didn't go to a "poor" school.

No doubt high energy prices are putting a strain on everyone, but this is simply going to be life as we know it for the foreseeable future -- with no quick and easy fix.

 

Yep. If high energy prices are hurting you, by all means, keep on complaining and trying to do something about it, but you should also start making adjustments to your lifestyle.

Me and a buddy at work have already figured out that if/when gas gets to $4.50 we will be building electric vehicles with a 25-30 mile range for about $5,000 out of a 1st gen Miata with a top speed of about 45-50mph to commute back and forth to work. It will have a pay back period of just a couple years with todays electricity prices. Current solar panels are not efficient enough to give me the juice to charge it, nor are they cost effective, but in a few years it may be possible to extend the range by allowing the car to charge at work via solar panels mounted on the roof, hood, and/or decklid. This would be increasingly important in the winter when the batteries loose capacity and you may want to run a heater!

But believe me, I am doing this for my wallet! Not for some make believe global warming or to stick it to big oil. Plus its kind of neat and intriguing.

 

24.

Son, I paid in Social Security taxes a full 8 years before you was an itch in your daddy's britches!

Want to talk about a whippin'...
Have you ever peed on yourself because you got the belt so hard?
Have you ever hung with your feet 12" off the floor while you got the strap?
Ever been sent to pick your own switch, and got 2 beatings because you picked a switch too small and it broke while doing the business?

I got mine from an Appalachian Mountain man turned Navy man, 6'-5" tall, weighed 240, and could move small cars. (no joke... he picked-up VW Bugs and spun them by himself).

I can tell you what a whippin' is... and so can my daughter.
I've not popped her fanny in 2-3 years now... not needed to.
She is polite, makes straight A's, perfect attendance, loves to write, good at art, great at soccer, loves to hunt and fish with me, and is my best little friend. You see, despite doling out the discipline when it is just and deserved, I also dole out love. She feels secure, and she trusts me. I think I have walked the fine line between being a dad, and also being a friend. When you can discipline your kid, but they still want to spend time with you and do things together - you're doing something right.

 

Oh my God, this thread is softening.

But we haven't even covered the Zionists yet!

 

Reference: Tax Foundation Feb 2 2007
ExxonMobil annual profit: $39.5 Billion
Taxes for same period: $100.7 Billion

The politicians and their media have the sheeple mad at the oil companies over these kinds of profit numbers, but not for outrageous taxes. Welcome to the fun house.. please don't look behind the curtain, we'll tell you what you need to think. Now move along...

A lot of that disgusting profit goes into index funds, mutual funds, pensions, and retirement accounts because, as it happens, ExxonMobil is publicly traded. Almost every state pension fund has oil in it - that's firefighters, cops, teachers.. I'm sure they'd thank you for removing that filth for them. I know I'd be overjoyed if it was popped out of my 401k, how about you?

Then there's the wacky idea of "too much profit." The scales of the ExxonMobil's of the world are just a tad different than what most of us are used to dealing with. It's not about the taxes though, somehow one company paying more taxes than it makes in profits isn't so bad. It's specifically about the profits. Those who know next to nothing about the industry fancy themselves knowledgeable enough to be able to define what "too much" is for these companies. These are the people who are so thoroughly sedated with what the politicians and media dole out that it actually makes sense to them that the gov't should forcibly take money from ExxonMobil's profits - beyond what's already paid to them in taxes. What exactly is an economy where companies are privately owned but controlled by the gov't? Why, that sounds alarmingly like fascism. Draw your own conclusions: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=fascism

Still sound like a good idea? Take it a step further - to the slippery slope. If ExxonMobil makes "too much" money... who and what's next? You don't seriously think it'll end there, do you? The gov't is intelligent and benevolent after all, right? Medicare. The war. The IRS. Politicians who want to run the most powerful country on earth but can't even keep their own campaigns out of the red. Do some critical thinking...

I have to agree with those who say education is the problem. Taking more money from the oil companies when the gov't is getting the lion's share already would only make sense to an uneducated (or is it indoctrinated?) idiot. It won't do diddly for what I have to pay at the pump every week anyway.

This is why there's no way in hell I'm turning my son over to the buffoons who run the public "school" system. More government is not the answer.

 

Well, you've got some of it right and that's a start.
You need to dig a little deeper into the relationship between the government and oil companies. In your world, it appears that you believe that the politicians actually are the controllers of oil, policy, and economy. What you seem to have missed back on the 2nd and 3rd pages of this hread is that politicians (ALL of them) are owned by industry. They are puppets, doing as they are told (or paid) to do.

Furthermore, The oil companies (and other industries) that own the politicians, are actually owned and controlled by financial institutions that are far more powerful than the oil companies themselves. Oil companies and even COUNTRIES do what these financial institutions tell them too. Then there's the top rung of the food-chain - the families that own the financial institutions... they are the pupeteers that orchestrate all the goings-on in the world.

Please consider this bit of information, research it if you like, and revisit your view of "politics" and economic policy.

Another thing... being a "publicly traded" company really means nothing to anyone who is not a multi-billionaire already.
Are you familiar with the difference between common shares and preffered shares?
"Preferred stock—a class of ownership with priority over common stock—once was issued mainly by large companies but now is common in small to midsize privately held companies, too. "

Perhaps you know who is controlling the major interest in large companies like ExxonMobil? (financial powerhouses would be a hint)
And who is voting the preffered shares? (ditto the hint)
Now go and see who "owns" these financial powerhouses...

Good post though.
I agree with you that politicians are "whacked" for the most part - often as stupid as the sheeple they are supposedly leading. Obviously they don't have as much brain-power as they do peeter-power, or they wouldn't keep falling from grace due to a (good... maybe) lay.
I also agree that education needs a shot in the arm - but I'd take a paltry $1-billion from these record oil profits in a heartbeat to help educate kids.

As for home-schooling your child(ren) - that's your call. You might do better on the academics, but you could be doing a discredit to their social skills. That's totally up to you and your family's skill set and committment. I truly do wish you the best of luck with your endeavours, and admire the committment in time and effort you are obligating your family to.
I personally think the exposure to the real world and learning to deal with it's fallacies and imperfections is as much a part of preparation for life as learning to add or read. Hence, we choose to leave our kid in the public "fool" system, but supplement their shortcomings with our own dedication of time and effort on our child's behalf. We have had nothing but straight A's, perfect attendance, great social skills, and lots of extra-curricular activity. IMO, none of this will hurt when looking at colleges or even future employment.

How 'bout let's both agree to be happy that we live in a country where we can make these kind of decisions about our family, and do our best to defend the right to make such choices?

 

You seem to be quite impressed with yourself there.
I'm sure this sounds good to say this, but I never did say or infer this. This is what I said I do not want. You're twisting things around and then going after what you've twisted it into.Again, you're making an assumptions about things.. Strawman time.

Sounds great. Do you still think that the oil companies should be paying more in taxes?

I'm good, thanks.

Oh, really? Dead serious now - do you really believe that?
That's frightening on two levels. One, you're talking about the gov't deciding who makes too much $ - in the United States of America.. Not a good road to go down in my opinion. Two, that you think more money has anything at all to do with the **** poor situation our school system is in.

It is, but I never said whether it'd be home-schooling or a private school. For the record, it'll be private. He starts next month.Agreed on the social aspect of schools, hence why we're going with the private.

I can work with that... Same to you and have a good one.

 

You mean, the evidence out there isn't damning enough? What more evidence do you need before you realize America (and by association, the rest of the western world, including my country) is basically run by an elite group? Have you looked up who funded the campaigns of presidential hopefuls (yes that also includes Hilary's) recently? Do you not realize who runs the US Reserve, and all the major banks in the US? What about the World Bank? Did you not understand the part about how that same elite group also controls the entire US media?

On the topic of education (if you still happen to be reading this)... in my final year at high school, my thesis was about "People and Power'. Yes I did poorly, but just managed to scrape in a PASS. Nothing could prepare my immature mind at the time of how rife and how prevalent corruption was in our society. Given the related novels we had to read were basically fictional text, you could just about forgive me for believing the context of the theme was just a figment of the author's imagination... and no more!

The point that I'm alluding to is this: No amount of study can teach you commonsense. I hope you pass that thought down to your kids because it's pointless believing the education system will teach it to your kids.

Maybe the next time you happen to read the poll on the New York Times website, which quiz's people on the topic of "Do you think we should bomb Iran?", you'll think about this thread in more detail.

Abrasive as always... my 2c.

 

Actually, I am a very humbe guy by most accounts. I do like humor though, and choose to iject some from time to time.

Actually, I am twisting nothing. You said "The gov't is intelligent and benevolent after all, right? Medicare. The war. The IRS. Politicians who want to run the most powerful country on earth but can't even keep their own campaigns out of the red. Do some critical thinking..." The way I read it, you seemed to be indicating that you think the government controls all those things. I am pointing out - with some evidence - that the government (and "poiticians" et-al) are not running all the things you listed on their own accord - they are being instructed to do so by other entities. You NEVER indicate an acknowledgement to any other group... so what am I to think?


If they are making a killing at the expense of the rest of the economy and it's security - D@MN-STRAIGHT I DO.
I am on the record for conditions and regulation of the windfall tax, and it's not like I would want to take it all - just a paltry few billion.
HERE"S A NEAT IDEA... drop the prices, take a bit less profit at the pumps - and they won't have to pay as much in taxes on their gains. How's THAT for a plan?


The government already decides who makes the money and pays taxes - that's how big business and wealthy groups have off-shore tax-havens and loopholes to jump through. It reallyhelps when the people making the rules are the same ones profitting by them.

As for the schools-
when 40% of the VERY rural school kids are Mexican (mostly illegal) in my kid's school...
when the teachers don't have copy paper to make handouts...
when kids are sitting in trailers while inmates sit in new air-conditioned jails...
when kids have to ride busses that are 20-years old and unsafe (compared to new ones)...
when kids have no textbooks or must use worn-out ones...
Ummm YES, I think there's something wrong with the school's financial system (let's call it "money") and administrations running them - and by that I mean our government (state and federal). The things listed above have nothing to do with a sh1++y teacher, poor attendance, or lack of discipline of the child. There are many problems in our schools... financing them properly is just one of those problems, but IMO it is one that should NEVER be allowed to exist.

Cool deal. My bad on the mis-read. We have several home-schooling where I live because it is very rural. Some smart kids, but I see them struggle in social settings. For example, we have 2 on my daughter's challenge soccer team that are home-schooled, and they just don't "hang-out" with the other 11 girls and cut-up and play... they are more reserved and go hang with their parents during practice breaks and between games while the other girls are together goofing. Purely my experience and opinion on the social skills thing - you may well never see it as your kid(s) will still be in a social setting.

SWEET! Me too.

 

Saw this yesterday and simply HAD to put it out here for discussion...

Large U.S. bank collapse ahead, says ex-IMF economist

"The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday. "

"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.

"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.

Interesting that he was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004, and now he's telling what is wrong and what we're going to see, huh? Is that Monday morning quarterbacking, or is that getting back at someone in the IMF for releasing him?

"A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses."
Let me reword this for you folks...
1) Pissants and peeons that have bought a few shares of common stock will have SQUAT.
2) Wealthy people who bought a ton of preffered shares will "suffer some loss".
3) And "even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt" (a.k.a. the elite financial investors) would suffer some loss.
Look at it - the man clearly spells it out for you in those terms and order.

This is Freddie-Mac we're talking about... publicly traded, commercialized, and for-profit - just like any other "business".
So how do you think a big company like ExxonMobil is laid out any differently? It's not.

"Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces."
Now allow me to rephrase this...
"Foreign investors actually OWN the homes and land financed by Freddie-Mac because they finacially-backed and "bought" the mortgages." The incredibly wealthy from Asia and the Middle East (obviously not to be confused with the Middle East we associate with OIL PRODUCING NATIONS ) have put their money into our economic debt machine.

Now, does anyone want to speculate (in advance) how Freddie-Mac came into existence? Who would have created such an entity? Some guy with a few bucks looking to get into secondary mortgages? Nah... Uncle Sam done it.
"From 1938 to 1968, the secondary mortgage market in the United States was monopolized by the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which was a government agency during that period. In 1968, to help balance the federal budget, part of Fannie Mae was converted to a private corporation. To provide competition in the secondary mortgage market, and to end Fannie Mae's monopoly, Congress chartered Freddie Mac as a private corporation." (thanks to Wiki)

COOL. Congress chartered a privately owned business to provide "competition" to a governmentally-run organization that had a monopoly...
Know who owns it now?
"% of Shares Held by Institutional & Mutual Fund Owners = 107% " Freddie Mac (FRE)
F'ing SWEET - I did not know you could own more than 100% of a company, but apparently you can!

Take a look at the companies that "own" Freddie-Mac... CITIGROUP INC., MORGAN STANLEY, Barclays Global Investors UK Holdings Ltd, Capital World Investors, Legg Mason Capital Management, Inc. So who REALLY runs Freddie-Mac now? Ypu... the financial institutions. Despite it being a "public" company.
And in case it hasn't sunk in yet, here's a neat fact from the same link...
"% of Shares Held by All Insider and 5% Owners = 0% "
So if you own any shares in Freddie-Mac, statistically you and ALL YOUR OTHER OWNERS, INCLUDING THE OFFICERS IN THE COMPANY, TOTAL 0%. Comforting, isn't it?

So where does the Federal Reserve come into play - you know... the privately owned "bank" that is the unofficial depository for money skimmed from oil sales to Middle eastern oil producers (yes, those middle east nations again)?
"On Sunday July 13, 2008, The Secretary of the Treasury announced that the US government would buy some of Freddie Mac's stock and extend to it the full lending power of the Federal Reserve bank of NY."... from here Frediie-Mac Guarantees and Subsidies

Guess who will be paying the bill to all the "owners" of Freddie-Mac when it goes under next year?
WE WILL.
How will we do it?
THROUGH THE PUMP AND TAXES.

Theory (maybe)...
Some wealthy people own most of the USA through mortgages. Payees are defaulting on these mortgages inducing foreclosures, but the wealthy don't actually want the land - they want the money. The same folks that have invested in the mortgages also are invested in the oil industry too. They push the prices up on oil coming out of Saudi Arabia, thereby pushing up the amount of money Saudi Arabia is obligated to put back into our Fereral Reserve (See contract explained in post 53.) The money put in the Federal Reserve is then directed towards the bailout of Freddie-Mac. The financial groups make money on the oil going up, and also stave-off their losses in the mortgage industry that has backfired on them by getting a bail-out.

No matter how you look at it, peeons are going to pay, and the rich are going to get richer.

 

Don't make assumptions. I am one of the most savvy 24 years olds you will ever meet. Masters in ME, been investing in the market for years, maxed out ROTH IRA's for me and my wife each year, 401k's, 4 bedroom house, 3 cars, bass boat, etc, etc.

I KNOW how the world works, but there is always more to learn

My father in law is very liberal and fanatical. Politics is his life or more like obsession. I always ask him, in the end, what can YOU really do about it?

You can vote and you can make the best out of the hand you are dealt. Don't sit around complaining, go work your butt off and figure out how to beat the system while your at it.

Big oil should be the least of your worries.