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Showing posts from March, 2012

Can Welfare Systems be Too Generous?

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“As far back as the 1800s, single mothers were receiving benefits. At that time, they would be paid up front and in cash, but were they better off than today? It's a perennial issue every government has to grapple with, whatever its political persuasion. Is the welfare system too generous? The Welfare Reform Bill, currently going through parliament, is this government's attempt to introduce what it says is "a simpler and fairer" system. But proposed cuts will hit the poor hardest, argue opponents.” - bbc “Can a welfare system be too generous”?  Yes.  If the amount that is given out means that the amount that is held back isn’t enough to produce enough to satisfy the people’s needs. welfare = ‘far more than is required for sustenance, and enough to ensure that others are deprived, and enough to enable one to subjugate and exploit the rest.' But when the question is asked within a capitalist scheme of things, and especially when it is taken as a divinely mandated

Why East Asian Students Aren't Superior

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"American parents looking to send their children to the world’s best schools might want to start looking East. And by that, we don’t mean the East Coast. East Asia is now home to the world’s best primary and secondary schools, producing students who are able to outperform their counterparts in the Western world, according to a recent report from the Grattan Institute, a think tank based in Australia. - Wall Street Journal " ed’s comment at WSJ: I come from singapore, and i can say that they are ‘superior’ in the sense of being able to learn formulae, memorise, and regurgitate. But as innovative, inventive, and out-of-the-box thinkers, from my experience, a mediocre student in the UK beats the ‘superior’ students of the east. It is the socio-cultural experience that enables one to make more of education as opposed to education serving as a ceiling. In that, the UK for example, beats the straight ‘As’ of the east. At the end of the day, it is the social curriculum that adds val