Ournationalfaithsofarhasbeen:"There'salwaysmore."
This thought process has guided America's economic choices from the beginning. There's always more: money, oil, freedom, opportunity...etc. But was it to occur when we are forced to realize that this way of thinking can only be temporary, and at some point time will catch up with innovation.
Butoncegreedhasbeenmadeanhonorablemotive,thenyouhaveaneconomywithoutlimits.Ithasnoplacefortemperanceorthriftortheecologicallawofreturn.Itwilldoanything.Itismonstrousbydefinition.
It is true that greed drives the economy, especially when it comes the the vast supply and immense demand for oil. However, as time goes on greed will push people to innovate new fuels that can replace oil. Isn't it contradictory for the author to make the claim that greed leads to no limits? For if that were the case, alternative solutions are inevitable.
Moreover, contrary to college standing as an open thoroughfare for Americans wanting to rise, it has become a gated toll road primarily available to those from middle-class and upper-class families.
Restated argument
That’s one salutary reminder we can take from Draut: it might be a long road, but good ideas that seem unrealistic at one moment can win their day. In academic scholarship, we typically focus on conceptual problems, commenting on one and moving onto the next, and in fact we are continually looking for what’s new or next. But in politics, change sometimes seems glacial, and one has to be dogged
Will it take a grassroots movement to fix the issue?
In addition, Sleeping Giant shows that the present working class no longer fits the iconic image of the construction worker in hard hat who had a union to speak for him. Instead, it is largely female, about half Latino and African-American, usually nonunionized, and struggling to make ends meet at or near minimum wage while laboring in home health care, fast food and retail, which have gained the bulk of new jobs.
Very persuasive paragraph. States what the workforce should look like, then describes what it actually looks like. Further showcases the issues at hand.
Since college is a key class marker, it’s easy to blame higher education itself as the problem. But for Draut the problem lies in the policies that have drained equal opportunity from it and segregated it, and in turn she advocates policies to enhance public higher education, notably reducing tuition fees and eliminating student debt.
Answer to the problem
high-level staffers, about half “attended private colleges for their undergraduate degree, including 10 percent who went to an Ivy League school.” They are typically the ones who get the internships inside the D.C. beltway, as well as can afford to carry the expenses of internships.
The only people that can make a change haven't ever experienced what its like to not be able to succeed educationally.
In Draut’s analysis, after the 2008 crash, about half of the news focused on the banks, a third on the federal response, a fifth on businesses and only a smattering on working-class people who might have lost jobs or their houses
The media isn't giving the needed attention to the private sector, only furthering the negative effects.
Hispanic students have seen the gap widen from 5 to 13 percent
Does race also have to do with educational success???
1990s and the first decade of the 2000s” those from higher classes have little substantive contact with those from the working class except when they ring up their groceries or take care of their elderly relatives.
Wealth gap furthering in the U.S.
steep increase in student debt and student work hours.
Students are working harder (EFFECT) and going into greater amounts of debt (EFFECT)
Only about 9 percent of those from the lowest quartile of wealth complete college degrees, whereas about three-quarters from the top quartile do.
Using statistics to defend argument that wealth determines educational success.
That’s one upshot of Tamara Draut’s new book, Sleeping Giant: How the New Working Class Will Transform America (Doubleday, 2016). She explains how the central divide between the working class and the middle class now is college. Not that things are entirely rosy for those with bachelor’s degrees, but those without degrees have experienced a more severe pinch, with proportionately shrinking wages, degraded conditions, few job protections and general insecurity.
This paragraph shows how those without higher education are worse off than those with that education. It tries to make the point that it isn't fair to those people for some to have the opportunity to succeed and some not.
calcified
Calcify: harden by deposition of or conversion into calcium carbonate or some other insoluble calcium compounds. ---College has become very "hard" or difficult
1950s through the 1970s
Baby-boomer generation
Contrary to college standing as an open thoroughfare for Americans wanting to improve their lives, it has become a gated toll road primarily available to those from middle-class and upper-class families, argues Jeffrey J. Williams.
Arguement: College has become more for students raised in middle and upper class families rather than normal Americans seeking better lives.