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Gingrich: Poor Kids Have No Work Habits

rocket88

rocket88

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You know how we've all kind of thought that Gingrich would last as flavor of the month until people started paying attention to the crazy-ass **** that comes out of his mouth sometimes? The decline begins:

Gingrich: Poor Kids Have No Work Habits - 'What's wrong with giving them a mop?' he wonders


You know what the problem is with poor kids? They have no work habits, says Newt Gingrich. Simple as that. "They have no habit of showing up on Monday and staying all day, or the concept of: ’I do this and you give me cash'—unless it’s illegal,”
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rocket88 said:
You know how we've all kind of thought that Gingrich would last as flavor of the month until people started paying attention to the crazy-ass **** that comes out of his mouth sometimes? The decline begins:

Gingrich: Poor Kids Have No Work Habits - 'What's wrong with giving them a mop?' he wonders
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What decline?

"He acknowledged there are still lots of details to work out in his plan, but the general idea is “exactly the right direction for America’s future," he said. Whatever he's saying must be working, because the latest poll puts him well ahead of the GOP pack. He has cracked open an impressive 21% lead over closest rival Mitt Romney—the largest lead of any candidate yet, reports the New York Daily News. The new Rasmussen poll of 1,000 likely voters released yesterday also shows him with a razor thin 45%-43% lead in a hypothetical race against President Obama."

But, tell me...do you think any of those poor kids would welcome a chance to put some cash in their pockets?
 
Mycroft said:
But, tell me...do you think any of those poor kids would welcome a chance to put some cash in their pockets?
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Child labor is just a way to keep the poor, poor.

Going to school, as is mandatory in this country, is basically a full-time job. You're in class for at least 6 hours 5 days a week, and then you go home and do anywhere from 1-3 hours of homework. That's pretty much a full work week. And it's an investment we make in children because the world we live in is too complex to make a living wage without a basic education.

Adding full days of work on top of that will inevitably take away from school time and probably result in a lot more kids dropping out of high school. This results in a large, poor, bottom-dollar work force, and generational inescapable poverty. The few remaining rich would love this and tell the lawmakers this, resulting in further relaxing of both child labor laws and education laws, putting the bar lower and lower.

We know this because this is how things were before we outlawed child labor and put tight restrictions on the parameters of teen employment.

It is frankly insane to pine to return to those days. If we did, I guarantee you 95% of the people on this forum, probably including you, wouldn't make enough to have a computer. Ever. You probably wouldn't even be able to read.

I made a dollar a week when I was in elementary school for doing a couple of chores around the house. I also had a mock check book. I learned fiscal responsibility just fine. Putting kids to work mopping floors for an entire work day is not necessary.
 
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I'm no fan of Newt Gingrich, but he's on to something. I grew up poor myself and a lot of things would have been a lot easier if I'd have had some type of productive activity to occupy my time instead of free time to hang out with my doped out friends talking about how we got **** on by fate.

That being said, I'm thinking more along the lines of habitats for humanity. Not child labor.
 
I took AP courses and worked anywhere from 20-35 hours a week, depending on the time of year. I completed all of my homework, maintained a GPA above 4.0 and graduated early with honors. I now make a decent living and manage my money well. Work in and of itself is not going to kill society's development. You don't have to choose one or the other in terms of work v. education. Life isn't so black and white.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Child labor is just a way to keep the poor, poor.

Going to school, as is mandatory in this country, is basically a full-time job. You're in class for at least 6 hours 5 days a week, and then you go home and do anywhere from 1-3 hours of homework. That's pretty much a full work week. And it's an investment we make in children because the world we live in is too complex to make a living wage without a basic education.

Adding full days of work on top of that will inevitably take away from school time and probably result in a lot more kids dropping out of high school. This results in a large, poor, bottom-dollar work force, and generational inescapable poverty. The few remaining rich would love this and tell the lawmakers this, resulting in further relaxing of both child labor laws and education laws, putting the bar lower and lower.

We know this because this is how things were before we outlawed child labor and put tight restrictions on the parameters of teen employment.

It is frankly insane to pine to return to those days. If we did, I guarantee you 95% of the people on this forum, probably including you, wouldn't make enough to have a computer. Ever. You probably wouldn't even be able to read.

I made a dollar a week when I was in elementary school for doing a couple of chores around the house. I also had a mock check book. I learned fiscal responsibility just fine. Putting kids to work mopping floors for an entire work day is not necessary.
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Unlike you, I haven't taken the most pessimistic view of this issue.

1. I suggest you read the first sentence of the paragraph I quoted. That pretty much takes care of all of your concerns.

2. How about you answer my second question to the OP?
 
Mycroft said:
Unlike you, I haven't taken the most pessimistic view of this issue.

1. I suggest you read the first sentence of the paragraph I quoted. That pretty much takes care of all of your concerns.

2. How about you answer my second question to the OP?
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You have no moral right to take any alternative opinion, because that's what history says will happen with those kind of economic power-structures in place. No one has any moral right to disagree with history.

Especially with education as feeble as it is -- working for short term profits will seem like a much more attractive option to kids who can think of plenty of applications for a a couple hundred dollars a month and no applications for geography.

Not that I find geography to be a very economical class.
 
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When did Gingrich ever take a cutting torch to a steel beam? or for that matter when did Gingrich ever carry a M16?


I have a feeling when you shake Gingrich's hand it is like shaking a bag full of marshmallows.
 
Mycroft said:
Unlike you, I haven't taken the most pessimistic view of this issue.

1. I suggest you read the first sentence of the paragraph I quoted. That pretty much takes care of all of your concerns.

2. How about you answer my second question to the OP?
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Gingrich is in favor of full work days for children. We're not talking a little here and there, and we're not talking about teenagers holding part-time jobs, which I did as well. I also took AP courses and did well while working. But I was 16-18. And I wasn't working all day on Monday - I was in class.

He is not proposing that they all spend half an hour a week or even a day serving food or cleaning up the school court yard. Hell, I did stuff like that for points in class when I was elementary school. But that's not what he's saying. He's proposing basically replacing the janitorial staff with children.

Combine that with recent proposals in a couple of states to lower the work age, increase the hours, and cut the pay in half for minors, and this is becoming a scary trend hearkening back to the days when most of the population was illiterate and wages were so low they couldn't afford to feed themselves even working full-time - which was much longer hours than it is today.
 
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rocket88 said:
You know how we've all kind of thought that Gingrich would last as flavor of the month until people started paying attention to the crazy-ass **** that comes out of his mouth sometimes? The decline begins:

Gingrich: Poor Kids Have No Work Habits - 'What's wrong with giving them a mop?' he wonders
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Well what about this that he said:

Gingrich begins Iowa push with call for civic duty | The Associated Press | News | San Francisco Examiner
"Whether you are a parent or grandparent or an aunt or an uncle you have responsibilities to your community, your neighborhood," Gingrich told about 500 employees of an insurance company at its Des Moines headquarters. "And we're all going to have to roll up our sleeves and be a little bit more responsible in the next 30 years."

"So every person who says they want a smaller bureaucracy and less power in Washington, you better sign up to do more things yourself," he told the AP.
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Why should teens be left out of this 'more responsibility for yourself' focus?
 
Aunt Spiker said:
Well what about this that he said:

Gingrich begins Iowa push with call for civic duty | The Associated Press | News | San Francisco Examiner


Why should teens be left out of this 'more responsibility for yourself' focus?
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I'm certainly favorable to that, and it is necessary for a number of reasons, but it also requires that Americans be provided with the economic and psychological capability to take care of themselves, which requires serious education and economic reform.

But stressing the importance of work over education in teen years isn't the right kind of reform.
 
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Talk about being out of touch...

Oh and by the way if Obama ever suggested something like this it'd be called socialism :lol:
 
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At some point kids have to come to the realization that the world doesn't owe them a living and I don't think early teens is a bad time to teach them this life lesson. Without it they turn into an entitlement-demanding parasites typified by the OWS crowd.
 
Here is my thing. Kids nowadays are spoiled rotten poor or not. I've seen it. Gingrich is right; children need to know the value of a dollar and need to earn it but it applies to all children. I hate seeing a 12 year old kid with a iPhone it makes me want to trip their parents.

When I was a kid I bailed hay, did chicken farm work, and cut tobacco. When I was 14 I got my first real tax paying job delivering papers and lied to get a dishwashing job at TGI Friday's when I was 15. What needs to be done is just don't give children extravagant **** unless they earn it. Trust me though, the whole being poor part makes you want to earn money more.
 
SmokeAndMirrors said:
Gingrich is in favor of full work days for children. We're not talking a little here and there, and we're not talking about teenagers holding part-time jobs, which I did as well. I also took AP courses and did well while working. But I was 16-18. And I wasn't working all day on Monday - I was in class.

He is not proposing that they all spend half an hour a week or even a day serving food or cleaning up the school court yard. Hell, I did stuff like that for points in class when I was elementary school. But that's not what he's saying. He's proposing basically replacing the janitorial staff with children.

Combine that with recent proposals in a couple of states to lower the work age, increase the hours, and cut the pay in half for minors, and this is becoming a scary trend hearkening back to the days when most of the population was illiterate and wages were so low they couldn't afford to feed themselves even working full-time - which was much longer hours than it is today.
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I think you didn't read the entire article and you are cherry picking. A bit down the article he says this...

Gingrich said. “What if you paid them in the afternoon to work? What if they became assistant janitors, and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?"
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Sure doesn't look like he expects them to work a full days work to me. It also doesn't look like he's trying to replace the janitor's either. Unless "assistant janitor" somehow means "janitor" or "head janitor".

Personally I think he's right. Kids now adays do not act like we did back in the day. (yes...yes I said it...don't feel too old now ;) ) Quite a few of them have thier noses stuck in thier cell phones, parties, computers, and whatever happens to be the fad of the day. We also had stricter parents than what most parents are even allowed to be now adays. (thank you sooooo much CPS!)
 
Newt just wants cheap labour for big business. After all you dont have to pay a child the same as an adult.. heck you can probably get away not paying them at all!
 
For a lot of them the concept of working and getting paid for doing so might be startling. It really isn't a bad idea to have them discover another way to make a living than the entitlements so many of their folks get. One might even say, educational.
 
If school and work are ever in conflict, then school should always come first as education of the #1 method we have in this country of fighting poverty. Also, it should never be to support the family, because education tends to suffer in that circumstance as well.

Otherwise, if a kid wants to work or their parents want them to work, then they should work.
 
Meathead said:
At some point kids have to come to the realization that the world doesn't owe them a living and I don't think early teens is a bad time to teach them this life lesson. Without it they turn into an entitlement-demanding parasites typified by the OWS crowd.
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if anything, teens is a bit late. that's why my kids will earn commissions rather than get allowance.

Gingrich is absolutely right on this. you don't help poor people by training them not to work when they are young. he's absolutely right as well when he talks about how they have few role models in their neighborhoods to look to that are being productive rather than living off the system.
 
PeteEU said:
Newt just wants cheap labour for big business. After all you dont have to pay a child the same as an adult.. heck you can probably get away not paying them at all!
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Apart from the fact that this makes no economic sense. Americans adults do a total of 300 billion hours per year with a value of 50 dollars per hour. (the value comes from the GDP)

If kids can provide a value of 10 dollars per hour, and he can get 10 million kids to work for 5 hours a week. They will increase the value of the US economy by 0.2%.

I know you hate the GOP, but you know the real reason he want poor kids to work. Many conservatives are concerned that kids in the US today have poor work ethics.
 
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cpwill said:
if anything, teens is a bit late. that's why my kids will earn commissions rather than get allowance.

Gingrich is absolutely right on this. you don't help poor people by training them not to work when they are young. he's absolutely right as well when he talks about how they have few role models in their neighborhoods to look to that are being productive rather than living off the system.
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A good education is training them to work, without an education you can't realistically get a job that pays a decent wage. It also trains them for going to work 5 days a week, how to set goals and accomplish things. Why do you think employers want someone with a college education, regardless of their degree? Because they know someone with that degree will work, will stick it out when the going gets tough. Education should be of the highest priority, not making kids work for menial wages that provide no benefit to their future.
 
Your Star said:
A good education is training them to work, without an education you can't realistically get a job that pays a decent wage. It also trains them for going to work 5 days a week, how to set goals and accomplish things. Why do you think employers want someone with a college education, regardless of their degree? Because they know someone with that degree will work, will stick it out when the going gets tough. Education should be of the highest priority, not making kids work for menial wages that provide no benefit to their future.
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Mommy + Daddy + Student Loans = WHat work? Unless you call partying work.
 
Caine said:
Mommy + Daddy + Student Loans = WHat work? Unless you call partying work.
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If you think college is all about partying then you are ignorant on the subject.
 
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