TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015
PA6E4
opinion
TEXT
FREE FOR ALL
Senior year is having a 10 a.m. class, waking up at 9, playing video games until 9:45 and still getting to class early.
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FFA OF THE DAY
Dude with the dog problem. I think your girlfriend is trying to tell you something.
Game of thrones trailer is BADASSSS! #winteriscoming
I HATE DST! I need that hour for sleep and studying for my 4 midterms/tests this week!
Givemebackmourh
There is nothing better than being in the Union lobby when an expert is playing the piano.
Accidentally made my coffee too weak this morning. Still going to drink it, though.
These advice columns are pretty legit, keep 'em coming! They're so relevant for my life, too!!
Thank you to the guy who smiled at me in Malott: I was having a rough day, and your action made a big improvement in a stranger's life.
It's so cool how you don't have to go to class in college.
Spring break is so close I can feel it!! This week needs to hurry on up.
I don't know how I feel about flying to London on Friday the 13th...
I listen to NPR all the time and I'm happily engaged.
When you decide on your paper topic a few hours before it's due. **procrastination life**
I got 99 problems but I'm gonna take a nap and avoid them all.
Now let's hope that the weather doesn't decide to screw us all and start snowing randomly.
Why are the Kardashians still relevant? Come on people, let's please move on.
Soccer best part of spring.
When someone says,
"I heard" = false.
If someone asks me if I want food that's a tell-tale sign they don't know who I am.
ihop and Tryyaki always sound like good decisions when you're drunk, but never when you're sober.
When 90% of the class never shows up and your teacher rewards those who do with extra credit. #yes #clutch #worthit
Rich irrelevant in fight against poverty
Opinion columnist John Olson believes that increasing taxes on the rich to help the poor is flawed logic. He said the focus needs to be more on the poor, and less on what can be done to the rich to benefit the poor.
Y You have probably heard the phrase "the rich are getting
richer and the poor are getting poorer." Indeed, according to the Federal Reserve, that is true. But here is the kicker: We should not care about the rich getting richer. In fact, we should not care about the rich at all. Believe me, they are doing just fine.
PIXABAY
Most concern over incomes of the wealthy comes from the notion that the rich must be taxed more to help the poor, an increasingly popular idea among Americans according to Gallup Polls taken in 2013. In my view, this is faulty reasoning. After all, the economy is not a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game means one person's gain is equal another person's loss. In our case, for every winner, there does not necessarily have to be a loser. In fact, when cases of winners and losers are actually evident in economics, the math proves that winners tend to win more than the losers lose. For example, when a country embraces free trade, some of its domestic manufacturers may suffer, but consumers benefit a far greater amount as prices plummet. The lack of a zero-sum game also applies for wealth in an economy.
In other words, wealth does not have to be redistributed.
All that is needed to expand the incomes of the poor is economic growth. The poor today live vastly better lives than the poor did a century ago. This is all thanks to an improving economy that provides new resources to care for the destitute and new assets for the poor to use to improve themselves, according to the World Economic Forum. That being said, the changing definition of poverty should not be used to entirely disregard the poor, as Fox News is apt to do. However, it should be recognized that economic growth improves the lives of the poor and
provides opportunities for the underprivileged to climb the ladder to a more prosperous class, according to economist Lonnie Stevens.
Even if increasing taxes on the rich to help the poor were a valid idea, the evidence shows that such a system is incredibly inefficient. The United States' welfare system collects enough taxes for everyone in poverty to receive roughly $40,000 a year, according to the Congressional Research Service. However, the average impoverished person receives services and payments equivalent to $9,000 a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Clearly, the federal
government is spending a great deal of money along the way. If the government manages to waste nearly 80 percent of the money taxed from more privileged Americans to give to the less fortunate, adding more government taxation and services is not the solution to poverty.
The solution, as previously mentioned, is a better economy. But how do we get there? For starters, we need a change of focus. The primary concern should be on the poor, not the rich. Our area of interest should be policies that promote economic growth, not taxes that line the pockets of bureaucrats on the way to the poor.
Our priorities are out of place if we worry about how much the wealthy make when there are more than a billion people in the world who earn less than $1.25 a day, according to a 2011 study by the World Bank. Instead of focusing on the incomes of the most wealthy, we should focus on issues that keep entire nations in the grip of poor economic policy, or laws and institutions that prevent entire classes of people from improving themselves. Only then will the poor get richer, not poorer.
John Olson is a sophomore from Wichita studying economics
Better etiquette needed in college classrooms
It's 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon. The last place any of us wants to be is sitting in a lecture hall, especially when there's gorgeous weather outside. Having to attend a class so close to the weekend can easily put a damper on anyone's day. Unfortunately,
that's how your schedule worked out and, especially by this point in the year, you should probably just accept it. If you don't want to go to class, then you might as well just skip. But coming to class to take a quiz, then walk out during the middle of the lecture is not only distracting to those students who came to learn, but also incredibly disrespectful to the lecturer.
On average, in-state students are paying $954 per dropped or failed class, while out of-state students pay $2,483, according to materials distributed by the University's Undergraduate Advising Center. It is one
thing to be seriously ill or to have experienced a family trauma, but, "because it's Friday" or "I don't feel like it" are not valid reasons to skip a class.
Another issue arises when people come to class only to discuss the party on Thursday night or some sort of roommate drama. If you want to talk about those things before or after class, please go ahead, but the dull roar of stories from the Hawk does not help those around you learn. If you're not that intent on learning for the day, don't ruin it for those who are.
The most pressing issue
with classroom etiquette is cellphone usage. Sometimes the Twittern sphere is way more intriguing than what the professor is saying. In large lecture halls with hundreds of other students in the hall, it's tempting to check your phone since your teacher can't pinpoint you. That's why not using your phone in class is a matter of personal integrity. It's important to practice now in the classroom because in settings like business meetings, your boss most definitely will not want you checking your phone while he or she is talking. Cellphones are such a
distraction and students should break the habit now while they can. It won't be easy to put your phone away in a professional atmosphere if you can't do it now.
Take a moment to consider how you're behaving in the classroom. Your professor deserves respect, as do your peers. It is also unfair for you to cheat yourself out of learning. Implementing polite habits now, in a less serious setting, will positively impact how you act in your future career.
Meg Huwe is a sophomore from Overland Park studying chemical engineering
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