From: irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Brent Irvine)
Subject: Re: DOES AMERICA SAY YES TO JAPAN?
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 23:06:50 GMT

In article <1992Dec18.195838.17639@pegasus.com> tleylan@pegasus.com (Tom Leylan) writes:
>irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Brent Irvine) writes:
>
>>Yes, but Bill Gates DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL.  You, my friend, are a victim
>>of media sensationalism and cute snappy sound bites.
>
>Ummm... I think you'll find that he DROPPED OUT OF COLLEGE and not because
>he was failing but by rational choice.  You, my friend, are trying to
>distort facts to prove your own far-fetched hypotheticals.

Actually all the hypotheticals and assumptions were made by YOU.  Let's
look at the phrase Bill Gates Dropped out of School.

Bill Gates:  subject, and billionaire, CEO of Microsoft
Dropped out:  Left, quit - note how no "why"s were in that bit.  Any
		whys thought of by the reader are the readers own.
		If someone doesn't like school, or feels like his
		talents are wasted there, they DROP OUT of school.
School:	No type of school was proposed.  In the heat of the moment you
		ASSUMED that I meant High School, trade school, or anything
		but Harvard U.

No facts were distorted, and the hypothesis is not far fetched [grades 
do make or break your ability to succeed - and guarantee nothin].

>>
>>Unfortunatley, you ASSUME that the market works perfectly.  When people
>>decide to pay teachers more, then better teachers will result.  I agree
>>that you get what you pay for, but the decision process is now "Do we
>>pay teachers more or not?"  
>
>Actually I assume the market works as good as any other system and much
>better than a committee arbitrarily deciding that a teacher is worth
>twice an auto mechanic or one-half of an electrical engineer.

Ah, but when salaries are determined, the GOVERNMENT set them arbitrarily,
which may "artificially" set their value.  No market is involved here at
all - so yes, I agree with your statement, and view it as supportive of
my remarks about teachers' salary.

>You can pay teachers whatever you want, there are no restrictions on
>what you pay your own employees.  Oh but you want to force me to pay my
>teachers more because you've determined that more money means better
>education.

Um. no. Thats not what I said at all (though I *do* feel teachers are
notoriously underpaid).  I said that if you make salaries higher, more
people will choose to become teachers [rather than Lawyers, Stockbrokers,
and so on] who are of, on average, higher calibur than we have now.  I
don't force people to change their beliefs, nor do I have the power to
make you pay anything [but thanks for your belief that I do! :)], but
plain and simple, more $$ would mean more people, which means more high
calibur people [especially if you cull out the less talented].

Maybe we should privitize schools and make them charge tuition in hopes of
getting a market price for salary since even getting people to pay for a
quality education is like pulling teeth!

><re: my comment on what Americans concern themselves with>
 [And you say *I* distort! :)]

>>
>>Boy, and that is ALL we think about.  Nothing else at all.
>>
>If I said "ALL" I stand corrected but I believe you've just slanted what
>I wrote again to sound smarter.  Americans feel obligated to be in
>everybody's bedroom, that's a fact which you can confirm by reading the
>newspaper or watching TV.

Ah, and now we are assuming what the Media puts in front of our face is
EXACTLY what all Americans want.  Bad assumption my friend.

-- 
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------+
| Brent L. Irvine         | For a mere $50 these personal  | I will be gone: |
| irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu | opinions can also be yours!    | 20 Dec - 4 Jan  |
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+-----------------+
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,talk.politics.guns