Education, a serious business

On Friday, May 1,2015, my classmate posted an article  Education as a Business on the blog Government: For Us or Against Us. In this article, the author argued that, "Children are the doors for our worlds improvement but teachers are the doorknobs. You can't open the door without turning the doorknob and that is exactly why teachers need to get appraisal that they deserve. " I agree with the author's opinion because that Education is what can really change the society. And what can really makes education better is to improve the system.

I found myself very surprised with the facts that, in the United States, teachers' average salaries are lower than a lot of other types of jobs. I think teachers should be treated like engineers. They are the engineers for human. That is why I also agree with the author's idea which is that teachers should be awarded when they spend more time on the students and have more students. Teaching is a hard job, and when their hard works been seen and appreciated. It would encourage the teachers to make even more efforts on teaching the students. And who benefits from this the most is the society. Better education means there would be more better quality students ready to serve the society. 

Education is the fundamental branch of a lot of other branches. A good society needs a good education system. So the country should make more efforts on making the education system better by treating the teachers of what they should deserve. 

Technology VS Income Inequality

As we all know, after having computers, technology has been growing very fast. Right now, we have 3D printers can print most things in a very short time. Self-driving cars will soon reduce the needs of public transportation after they become popular for most people. Robotics are been building to become more and more humanized to get ready to serve people. Self-pay has started been used in many stores. Just a simple scan can let you walk out the grocery store instead of waiting in a long line for checking out. Have you ever think about do some technology like these will reduce jobs in the future? Does this will increase the income inequality?

I think nowadays, the social benefits haven't become well enough for us to have all these technologies such as "blue-collar robots" and so on. Because it would reduce jobs and widen the income gap. There is a article People Don't Realize How Many Jobs Will Soon Be Replaced By Software Bots on Business Insider about what Bill Gates commented that，“Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses ...it's processing. ...Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. ...20 years from now, labor demand for lots of skill sets will be substantially lower. I don't think people have that in their mental model." It is happening that many technology based machines will replace human labors. I just think government would need to regulate the use of these technologies while the society is still not wealthy enough to have those. For instance, If every store starts to use self-pay, then there would be so many people who work in stores lose their jobs. Same as self-driving cars, there would be many taxi drivers lose their jobs if self-driving cars are been used everywhere. And when there are more and more blue-collar workers losing their jobs, there would be more and more people need government assistance. This would widen the income gap more and more.

Technology has been helping with the society in many ways. Its growing and replacing human labors can not be stopped. I think the government would need to have strict rules for the use of some technologies when the society is not ready. Otherwise it would probably brings chaos. 

What could happen after having free childcare?

On Tuesday, April 2,2015, Shantae Gordon posted an article Free Childcare For All on her blog talks about why should the country make the childcare free. She mentions that "If the government put more money into childcare this would help to eliminate other issues such as unemployment, poverty and the high need for TANF and SNAP assistance." I personally agree with her, because  a lot of parents especially mothers couldn't go to work because of having kids at home to take care of. This situation can cause a lot of problems.

Childcare place usually cost a lot, so a lot of mothers would give up their jobs to stay home taking care of their children. Then, some of them would think that since they already have no jobs and staying home, why not having more kids? So they would keep having new babies, and this lead to some people like that would just stay home watching TV while watching their children. Because of less of income and more kids, they would easily get assistance from the government. And also each child wouldn't get the best care and education and the families usually under a lot of stress. There are people out there complain about why do they have to work so hard to pay so much taxes to the government so that the government can help the low income people who have a lot of kids. I believe a lot of times, it is not because these people are lazy and don't want to work, it perhaps because of that the money they make from working is even less than the cost they have to pay for the childcare. On another hand, this issue also lead to gender issue, because female usually give up social activities and jobs in order to taking care of the children. At some point, this can cause a lot of family problems. Also, as the divorce rate getting higher and higher, there are more and more single parents.  Lingering between jobs and taking care of the kids has become a big issue for these single parents, contributing to the gap between the rich and the poor. 

So by free childcare, there would be more and more staying home mothers can go to work, there would be less and less families need assistance from the government. This would help with having a better quality of life and society. 

The Government Should Make a Better Healthcare System

Many immigrants come to America to live in their American dreams. But now, the dreams won't be fulfilled anymore because there are many problems in our system. One thing the government should do in this country is to reform health-care system to become better quality and better efficiency. Here is what I think what we should do to make this system better.

As we all know, some places especially the places where they accept medical assistance programs usually make people wait too many days before they get to see the doctors. This can miss the best time for the patients to get treatments. So the government should open more walk-in places for low income people to improve this.

This is what I think is absolutely insane in this country is the cost of heath-care even with insurance. If anyone ever walks into an emergency room. Then it will end up with this person will live in a life of paying the hospital bills in the next a few years. For a simple problem, you will walk out from the emergency room with a few thousands dollars bill if you don't have insurance. For surgeries, it will be even more. There are many people out there with bad credit records because they couldn't pay back their hospital bills. It really can be too much for may people. Many hospitals are run by the government, so why can't the government reduce the cost even after insurance?

Insurance buyers should decide whether they would buy insurance or not, not the companies they work for. Because many people live a very healthy life style and don't get sick often. It is unfair that they have to pay the high premium each month from their salary. 

I believe by improving the health-care system. It will benefits the average citizen's life even the American economy. There perhaps won't be so many homeless people lined up in the emergency room waiting to be treated. According to the article "How to build a better health-care system" on the opinion page of The Washington Post, " through thoughtful policy, health-care practitioners can be encouraged through rewards to focus far more on what is best for their patients and less on the number of tests and procedures they can order. The even better news is such a health-care vision can not only produce better care but also cost less." This indicates that a better health-care system will actually can reduce the cost. 

We are born differently but equally

The blog entry on Americablog.com titled Further thoughts on whether one must be 
radical to be gay on Jul 09, 2014 by Becca Mom, explores the interesting topic that being homosexual no longer being considered ‘radical’ is a good thing and should be embraced. I see the author’s target audience as anyone with an open mind, young or old, gay or straight.  And she is certainly credible. She is a professional writer and poet.  She also had a decade career in technical writing and consulting before she went to live in India. Speaking from experiencing a lesbian in India where homosexuality is illegal so she had to hide her relationship with her partner as ‘mother and daughter’. She also writes in this blog that not many years ago, the announcement of being a gay is the end of the old life, friends, career, or even families.  People back then would treat gay people as having mental illness which they would be taken to mental hospitals to have mental horrific treatment like ECT and insulin shock. At that kind of situation, being radical out there as a gay perhaps was the only way of living. But for those people, no body wants to be radical. They are just like us, wanting to have ordinary life and setting down with the love ones.

I agree with the author’s claim that the LBGT community cannot afford to romanticize the radical nature of being homosexual the way it was in the past. The fact that being gay is more normal today is an incredible progress and as such, it naturally comes with less excitement. The author cites an excellent example to support her claim. In a rural South Carolina town, the lesbian police chief was reinstated because the general populace supported her over the homophobic mayor. This example shows that if members of the LGBT community are leading normal, non-radical lives, they are more likely to be accepted and supported by their neighbors. The author reinforces her point with the analogy that romanticizing about the radical days of being gay "is like being in a war and saying, ‘I really miss the bomb-dropping part – that was exciting. I know we won and all, but I wish it hadn’t ended. This peaceful rebuilding part is boring.'"This analogy makes the excellent point that being gay is not as exciting as it used to be is a good thing because this means it is more peaceful for the LGBT community.

Based on the author’s evidence, logic, and credibility, I agree with her that a new ordinary nature of homosexuality needs to be promoted in order to continue gain acceptance of the general population.

What should the country do about immigration?

"A Judge's Assault on Immigration" on The Opinion Pages of The New York Times by The Editorial Board on Feb 17, 2015 states that how federal district judge Andrew Hanen tries to go against president Obama's actions to protect millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation. Judge Hanen opposes to this new immigration policy by first saying "it endangers America". Then he says this new policy will cost a lot of resources in providing things like drivers' licenses, and that the states already spend a lot of money on educating each illegal child.

The New York Times is an international influential daily newspaper which provides a large amount of very creditable news around the world. The author intends to write this article on it to all the people in America to claim the issue that "the Republicans seem to want only to savage the president's efforts to address a pressing nationwide crisis, just as they have on health care reform. They are good at unleashing rage against Mr. Obama's supposed lawlessness, but they have no meaningful solutions of their own." The author states this claim by showing the evidence from the health care reform where Democrats tend to want the health care available for all the people by passing Obamacare, but the Republicans oppose this act on the belief that these programs will drive up the prices and have a negative impact on the quality of health care. The author thinks that the Republicans only know how to oppose the president's actions instead of coming up with solutions to solve problems. The argument on this issue is logical because the author mentions in the article that the constitution already requires states to provide that education. Also the government cannot possibly apprehend and deport all of the illegal immigrants. It will help the economy to help these undocumented immigrants legally work in America. 

I agree with the author's argument, not because I am also an immigrant, but because America already spend a lot of resources on some unnecessary things. We should help the undocumented immigrants legally work here to provide the next generations of Americans better education and a better life.

What's Behind Obamacare ?

The article "You'll pay a lot more to see the doctor with Obamacare" on CNNMoney talks about the Obamacare enrollees, who have to pay a lot more to see a doctor and get medications than through their job-based insurance. The article talks about this fact by comparing deductibles, co-pays, drugs, annual maximums between employer insurance and Obamacare insurance. The data from the graphs shows that people actually pay a lot more with Obamacare. This is very shocking because as we all know, Obamacare was announced as the most affordable insurance for every US residency. This article is worth reading because that it states a different opinion which is very important to all the Obamacare enrollees. So what is really behind Obamacare and is Obamacare really helping with the American health care? I think the answers will be different based on different income groups. From this article, Obamacare might help with low income, uninsured people, but definitely not for everyone.