extra money. don t spend it all in one place. go to infrastructure? use it because, to fill in the cutbacks from elsewhere? what are the political, i guess, decisions now with surpluses from these states? people are so unaccustomed to surpluses on the state and loaf level it is mind-bending and a sign the economy is improving, first. they have to have balanced budgets and have to have surpluses by law. unlike your federal government. correct. that s another conversation for another day. look, politicians, of course, love it. they can talk about comeback going into a re-election mode. the thing to keep in mind the deficit sub plus doesn t mean they don t have a lot of outstanding debt. better use if you have a surplus, probably invest in infrastructure. the federal government doesn t get off its butt, bank, states, can do some things. because of an aging population and the states have serious problems with debt. the idea all is rosy and clear skies from here on out isn t a
the middle class doesn t have an organized lobby. whatever specters people want to rise about 43% being almost majority of takers, quote/unquote, in the country and ending democracy that sass fear-field rift we ve heard in american politics. the current issue is differ. it is urgent. it is something we should pay attention to gand we re having a debate. the squeeze of the middle class. i like a lot of folks think the country s strength really is historically, not just america base and how strong the middle class is. we should be worried about the folks who are objectively middle class and seems to be on the losing side of the vote. when folks are playing the victim card saying people are whining, they re creating the thing they re complaining about and not helping to solve the problem. the state budgets cutting back for years, the state government, and now seeing a boost in revenue. governing are even using the word, i can t believe it, dare we say, surplus. can you believe it? overa
six-year high school. does it work? an amazing program. it s rolling out in new york and chicago. upstate new york, connecticut. the way it works, you take four-year high school program and tack on two years of community college. the schools partner with local community colleges but have a corporate partner. ibm is one of the main ones that came up with this program along sway porters and provide curriculum support, guaranteeing you ll teach these kids the kind of things they will need to get a job and at the very end, guarantee add job opportunity to be first in line to get a job at ibm or with another of the blue chip companies. we ve heard from companies. they re concerned about the quality of education coming out of k-12 and concerned about gap where kids can t get into the community klemps and concerned about the skills people have. if you have the schools and the community colleges and companies working together, they could fill that gap. absolutely. interesting it doesn t
unemployed need and those coming in to the jobs market is not retraining in their lane. it s retraining for something it s a different job. it s not like, oh, now you can do this. and we need more jobs. right. we need more jobs. talk about the livable wage. right? the jobs we do have and that we re growing prolifically are not jobs that you can feed a family of three or four on. walmart pays above average minimum wage but is getting slammed by unions and some of its workers who say it s just not enough. at our company you have the opportunity to enter at whatever level your capability would suggest and you have the opportunity to advance. but that student doesn t exist everywhere in the country. should we raise the minimum wage? is that the way to go forward, and shouldn t we ask thaw? let me retract that. is that a viable political option here? yes, yes. it s a totally viable when you look at long-term unemployment extension of benefits there and you look at
financial trouble. again, that doesn t mean they are going to go bankrupt. you are talking about my hometown or chicago. you are talking about a lot of cities by the way in california. cities like oakland, san bernardino, that are in severe trouble. the trouble with all of these sthgs the same. they have these incredible pension programs they can t pay for and that means they have to cut fire service, reply service, school. here s the big problem. let me say this. i actually think that bankruptcy is not a bad option here for cities like detroit. it is a way that for them to hit the restart button and maybe you know, start over again. i m optimistic about american cities if they can start over and get rid of the huge debts, you know, many people are moving back to cities like chicago and so on. if they can get those debts under control. what steve is saying same thing when the governments start bailing out companies. bankruptcy is a way to revive an