Minimum wage - time for a decrease?

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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Just because reform is needed in the public system does not mean we should abandon it IMO. I believe in free education for everyone. The private system simply will not provide this. It will only ever provide for those that can afford it.

If the cost of private education is prohibitive, what do you think will happen? People will see an opportunity to make a profit, more schools will open, and then those schools will compete for students. Over time, costs will be driven down. It's a basic law of economics.

The simply facts are that education is expensive so it is subsidised by the state. A private education that is cheap will most likely be poor anyway (as they'll cut corners) so your back in the previous situation of crap education for people that can't afford expensive private education and people not being able to do maths or read/write.

I think a lot of people that come out of the current system without being able to do maths or read/write simply have no interest in it and no education system an help someone who won't help themselves.

In the abstract, I'd agree with you. Given the pragmatic realities of the Third World, employment is better than many other alternatives for children. Passing laws against employing a child doesn't mean that that child will end up in school. She may well end up begging and stealing on the streets, or prostituting herself.

No but providing education and schools for them and making that compulsory will ensure they are in education. Education should be a right for a child.

Permabear

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fly_agaric

donegalfella wrote: »

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I never said everyone would be living at subsistance levels. The most revolting thing alot of the 3rd world is how opulence the equal of that found in the very richest parts of the 1st world exists with things which should be..."dickensian canards" in 2009.

It can (and does) happen that the cost of low paid unskilled labour approaches subsistance levels absent the controls on the market which you would like to get rid of. The minimum wage is only one such control so getting rid of it alone will not bring us back from the 1st world to Dickens.

donegalfella wrote: »

Good question, since all of these things can (and have) been provided by the private sector more efficiently, and at a lesser cost.

As you know, they interfere because the market can't be trusted to arrive the desired outcome and the cost of a disaster is very high. The private sector/market has also proved extremely poor at providing several of these when state controls on its operation have been pared back too far.

donegalfella wrote: »

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Nowhere. The markets in these two "commodities" (yeuch:)) are alot freer both in the past where the dickensian nightmares lurk and in 3rd world states where the nightmares live on today.

donegalfella wrote: »

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You are being a little facetious. The state provides these basics to people who can't afford them in the market. In the same way as it ensures education is available to all at a set standard even if they could not afford to buy it at what might prove to be the market rates.

donegalfella wrote: »

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It is rational. Under a system without any state controls & supports the best education for the kids of the wealthy will be super-expensive for the reason I gave, the poor will have to make do with the very cheapest eduction (which will be cheaper than any private education in Ireland today) but will be worse than what the state provides. I really doubt it'll include education to as far as university level. If you can't aford this education...

This "marketplace" will also be (esp. during the period where your "equilibrium" is being found) full of transient charlatans ripping off any uninfomed suckers they can get their clutches on just like any new & totally unregulated market anywhere. Except it'll be childrens' lives and future potential which will be wasted rather than the capital of a foolish investor.

donegalfella wrote: »

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So our system isn't all it could be -> a free-market private education system is the way to go? The best systems are run by the state, just not this particular state! We should be looking at what the best already do and replicating it, not trying out a whole new model with our children as guinea-pigs.

thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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It does, social welfare and child benefit.

No, the simple fact is that education is expensive because it is subsidised by the state.

I disagree.

Might I be forgiven for believing that the private sector can do a lot better than this?

No they'd just do the same thing. They want big profits and to do this you spend as little as possible.

Your two statements above seem to contradict one another. In the first, you suggest that many of the students in our schools simply have no interest in education, and that "no education system can help someone who won't help themselves." In the second, you suggest that the state should make education compulsory for every child. But if a large number of students are disaffected and uninterested in learning, why make them go to school? What is the point of forcing them to sit in classrooms doing algebra or learning Irish tenses if they clearly have no interest?

They don't know what is best for them, they are kids. They go to school and some of it will sink in even if they don't want it to which is better than the alternative which is completely illiterate kids that can't count.

Permabear

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thebman

donegalfella wrote: »

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We have an extremely poor record on anything like this.

Our regulation which is essentially what a rating system is (although you'll probably deny that, it just is a form of regulation and you need minimum standards which requires inspections etc..), our is completely inept at regulating.

Our finance regultors have failed spectactulary as has our broadband regulator.

bobbbb

The easiest way to see how private education compares to public in terms of cost and quality is for the state to stop all sponsorship of fee paying schools and put that money into public school system which is falling apart like a 1980's prefab.

Let the private schools fund their own teachers salaries.

The_Conductor

bobbbb wrote: »

The easiest way to see how private education compares to public in terms of cost and quality is for the state to stop all sponsorship of fee paying schools and put that money into public school system which is falling apart like a 1980's prefab.

Let the private schools fund their own teachers salaries.

All that will achieve is a massive influx out of the private system into the public system (which is already happening- with the slowdown parents are having problems paying the fees). There is an article on Catholic fee paying schools in yesterday's Sunday Business Post detailing this. This will then push up the pupil teacher ratio in the public sector even more......... Its not as black and white as you imagine........

bobbbb

smccarrick wrote: »

All that will achieve is a massive influx out of the private system into the public system (which is already happening- with the slowdown parents are having problems paying the fees). There is an article on Catholic fee paying schools in yesterday's Sunday Business Post detailing this. This will then push up the pupil teacher ratio in the public sector even more......... Its not as black and white as you imagine........

You can pay for more teachers (and prefabs) in the public system.

Speaking of prefabs. I heard an American at work on the phone to someone at home. The other person must have said something about schools and all i heard was "They dont have schools in Ireland, they have huts"