FT  WJ> Students are the product.  Taxpayers are the customers.
 FT
 FT Are you sure that education isn't the product -- students the raw
 FT material?  Sure, taxpayers are a factor as customers.
 
Correcting myself:  Educated students are the product.
                    Uneducated students are the raw material.
 
Education is more a refining process than a manufacturing
proposition.
 
When you can package up and send me 2 lbs of education then I
guess it will be a product.  Or better yet, give me exactly $5
worth.
 
 FT  WJ> While taxpayers may be asleep from time to time....they
 FT  WJ> will wake up.
 FT
 FT Sounds like you're a republican.
 
I gave the republican party the wind off my tail sometime back!
 
 FT I'm a firm believer in waking up the taxpayer on economics.
 FT
 FT Let's take the "Trickle Down" theory.  Republicans would have you
 FT believe that it's just fine to run workers at slave wages and
 FT when the rich feel like it they can build parks and libraries.
 
Workers need to know that when they are paid over the open
market value of their labor it inflates the price of the
product and lessens the value of the money received.  They gain
nothing in the long run.
 
I believe workers should be paid commensurate with what they
produce and in line with their contribution to that
product's value on the open market.  That has to be the
baseline...not some "honest wage" based on the median income
or other arbitrary number as you mention below.
 
 FT What's wrong with an honest wage -- what the rich would have made
 FT off with and donated according to whim is NOW taxable income --
 FT those taxes can now be used as society collectively sees the need
 
Define "honest wage."
 
I suspect you mean something like getting paid the same as
a neighbor even though you produce half what he does...that
by being alive you are somehow entitled to live as well as someone
who is very talented and energetically uses those talents even though
that other someone might struggle to bag groceries properly and is
only motivated enought to show up for work 3 days out of 5.  But
that's OK because while he's off work he's busy thinking up ways to
get the government to take your money and give it to him.
 
 FT ...and honest working families would be able to support not only
 FT themselves but their communities as well -- with dignity.
 
There's a lot more dignity in grabbing a shovel and building a park
than in having politicians extort money to pay some
contractor to do the work at an inflated price, while paying
inept workers more than they're worth by government edict.  If
you think about it many of our biggest corporations do a lot of
government contracting.
 
 FT ...for the Deming TQM fans out there that's called OWNERSHIP.
 FT ...recognise anything missing from *our* society?
 FT
 FT > Best,  wes
 FT
 FT -frank:)
 
Yeah, what's missing is the freedom to not be a part owner in
boondoggle government "projects."
 
It was tough deciding how to respond to your message.  You
use all the catch phrases and key words so well I thought
I might be responding to a robot programmed by the OTHER
major party.  In the end I decided it was worth a chance
to respond seriously.
 
BTW, because you seem interested in categorizing, in the
>tiny political test<  I fall in the upper right of the
libertarian quadrant. ;-)  I'm also an active union member.
 
I don't believe extorting more money from anyone for the
government to handle will do anything other than consolidate
power in the government.  Eventually they will be telling
you where and when a park or library might be built and where
and when you get that much needed heart bypass operation.
Your short term survival will not enter into the decision
nor will the real needs of the community.  That's after
they've handled the money and burned up some 60% to 90%
of it in the paper shuffling bureaucracy.  Your dream sounds
more like a nightmare to me.
 
Best,  wes
 
--- TriDog 6.1
---------------