<p>This is an interesting thread, that is what keeps this country and academia moving is free thought. A couple of my thoughts.</p>
<p>Poverty in America is not real poverty. If you have hot running water, cable TV, and a cell phone, you are not poor. The truth is alot of people in poorer areas are extremely lazy, but it is beneficial for them to do that. Why go out and work your ass off to make less, when the government gives you free rent, WIC, food stamps, and a $4500 check every year? Would you work? </p>
<p>The Europe thing is failing miserably. Ever try to leave a cafe in Europe, you have to practically hunt down the waiter to pay your bill. The socialism has made people lazy and they just don't care anymore. Asia will surpass Europe, which is going to be a sad state of affairs.</p>
<p>One comment that really irked me:
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She won't be able to go to college outside of Pennsylvania because she simply can't afford it.
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Is she entitled to go to college outside of Pennsylvania? I couldn't afford to go to college outside of Ohio, does that make me poor? Everyone is not entitled to an education at the university of their choice, you must make scarifices if you want to go to Harvard or UMich or UNC, you don't just get an education there because you want one, you have to pay that money back. The fact is the majority of people go to college near or close to home, because it is cheaper, and the system was set up that way to take care of students in that particular state first.</p>
<p>the whole "you must make sacrifices" sounds like some individualist attitude, but it is not really. if two students are very similar applicants but one is rich and one is not, then the latter may certainly not be "entitled" (afford) to go to an out-of-state school. i dont think this is that uncommon due to imperfect ways to determine aid. </p>
<p>in that case, entitlement is based somewhat on your parents. of course both students have little to no control over how much money their parents make, so this is not very individualist. one student has to work harder based on factors that he cannot control and that arent things which colleges look for? i think if we can establish predictability here, then that certainly is a good thing. similar students should be able to go to similar schools. we (colleges, but we too) should probably strive to define what we think is good and reward solely that. sometimes that means that we have to incur these costs ourselves to help those who cant afford the reward that their efforts should obtain for them. </p>
<p>now that i think about it need-based aid is really a form of merit aid. someone at this level should be able to go to this school. they earned admission, but admission is not the same thing to all people, it has to be adjusted to mean the same thing. i know the real definitions are much more useful and right, this is just an unimportant outlook thing.</p>
<p>joev, about your comment about europe and waiters being lazy and socialism having made people that way. You do realize that the vast majority of european countries weren't Socialist? In Europe people live a laid back lifestyle and enjoy life. They take vacations, and spend time with family, and usually do work they enjoy. Not like here were its work work work and not much else. Life there in general isn't about money, its about living life to its fulled.</p>
That's the stupidest most uninformed thing posted in the thread. Are you dumb enough to actually believe CEO's can give themselves raises? You must listen to a lot of Air America if you believe that.
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<p>You ought to stop the condescension and the flaming.</p>
<p>Although it's a slight against me from someone a bit dense to understand any thinking that crosses boundaries, it's no big deal. I GOT 99 PROBLEMS BENDRUMFRONT AIN'T ONE.</p>
<p>
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That's the stupidest most uninformed thing posted in the thread. Are you dumb enough to actually believe CEO's can give themselves raises? You must listen to a lot of Air America if you believe that.
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<p>wow. just wow. i will say nothing else.</p>
<p>Steve Jobs gives himself an annual salary of one dollar.</p>
<p>"As such, Jobs is well compensated for his efforts at Apple despite the nominal one-dollar salary. This effectively reduces his tax liability, because under current U.S. tax law, salary income is taxed at a top rate of 35%, whereas capital gains tax, which applies to stock grants, maxes out at 15% for profits derived from long-term capital gains. Obtaining remuneration through stock instead of income is a common tax minimization strategy for many upper-echelon U.S. executives."</p>
<p>Basically, get money in stocks, avoid 35% tax-_-</p>
<p>
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Oh yes lets not mention he has assets of a billion already. That one dollar thing is just to stand out of the crowd.
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<p>i apologize for any misinterpretation. do you think i really believed that all he got every year was a dollar bill? i was just pointing out that in contrast to other CEOs, who keep giving themselves more raises regardless of their performance, Jobs has done a relatively good job of handling Apple. Apple's stock had been decreasing up until 1997, when Jobs returned as defacto CEO. Apple's turnaround since can be directly attributed to his performance at the helm.</p>
<p>Compare to the CEOs of the bankrupted companies of WorldCom and Enron, who gave themselves raises despite their knowledge of their companies' declining performance.</p>
<p>the point is that sure, plenty of CEO work hard and deserve the money that they recieve, such as Steve Jobs. My complaint is that there are also many CEOs who either do a mediocre job or a terrible job continue to give themselves raises (by invoking the power of their sympathetic executive board) while cutting costs in other areas such as pension funding and R&D.</p>
<p>Take the example of Lee Raymond, who retired in early 2006 as CEO of ExxonMobil, taking a retirement package of 400 million dollars. Granted, his company did make record profits in 2005 off of the high price of gas. Does that mean he worked hard? no. Prices are set by global supply and demand, not the efforts of a CEO. It simply means he was lucky. He took the money and ran, while the funding deficit for the its worker pension fund continued to widen.</p>