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No one needs $8 billion in subsidies. But that’s how we run the United States now. There’s no longer comprehensive legislation trying to solve a particular (per
by bradleyjg 3y ago
No one needs $8 billion in subsidies. But that’s how we run the United States now. There’s no longer comprehensive legislation trying to solve a particular (perceived) problem. Instead we just drop money from the sky on various people and companies.
There’s a pandemic? Quick, cut 80% of the country a check.
The childcare industry is structurally understaffed and unprofitable, let’s just cut them all checks!
Higher education keeps on growing to larger and larger percentages of GDP? That’s okay we’ll just cut checks blank tuition checks and then forgive all the loans.
China is signaling that it might invade Taiwan. That’s a tough one. Hmm. I got it, let’s cut a check to semiconductor manufacturers!
- vasco 3y agoMy question shouldn't imply I disagree, but what's the alternative to allocating capital to industries or problems where government wants to drive change?
- Drakim 3y agoThe government as the strongest central power identifying weak or struggling areas of the country that needs help makes sense. That's like primary advantage of central power in the first place. The issue is that things like lobbying ends up shifting that focus over to already strong parts of the country that wants even more.
- dgfitz 3y agoCap tuition costs, raise wages for daycare centers?
- bradleyjg 3y agoRegulation or deregulation. Take loan forgiveness—-the loans themselves are not the underlying root issue. They are a tertiary effect of a credentialism spiral and insane cost growth at institutions that don’t face true market pressures. Just dropping money on borrowers is not even attempting to fix the underlying problem. It’s so unambitious it invites cynicism.
- ethanbond 3y agoAnd how do you propose the government try to fix credentialism? For all the talk about how useless degrees are, companies still choose to require them, especially the companies helmed by “college is a scam” zealots.
- bradleyjg 3y agoCompanies have to still require them because they are a valuable signal and it’s free to them. Kids have to go because companies require them. This is what a peacock spiral looks like. Government is fundamentally for breaking these kind of incentive failures. Not supercharging them through blank check forgivable loans.
- ethanbond 3y agoNo, companies don’t have to require them. Agreed the loan behavior exacerbates the issue rather than mitigates it, but “the current solution is bad” doesn’t necessarily mean the same agent is able to produce a good solution. If you’re certain the government is capable of breaking it: how?
- bradleyjg 3y agoI have ideas but if I post them, I’m guessing you are going to pattern match me to some ideological category and try to debate from that point of view. That’s not my point at all. It’s that all our federal politicians and political parties have had their ambitions shrunk down to nothing. No one at all is saying—-hey this credentialism thing is a serious problem, vote for us and here’s how we’ll attack it. Even if someone was proposing an idea I totally hated, I would at least appreciate the effort to actually solve a real problem. If you think credentialism is impossible for the government to make a difference on, pick something else. Anywhere you look for the last 14 years we’ve had few to no ambitious proposals.
- ethanbond 3y ago
- vitiral 3y agoTraditionally I believe tariffs and trade agreements were the typical approach at shoring up domestic production. I have very little knowledge over their current effectiveness or use.
- overstay8930 3y ago“Raising children is expensive, let’s make sure we make it even worse for them by removing our strategic autonomy!” You’re free to believe what you want, but you should probably reevaluate your position when it’s parroting 1:1 what Chinese bots are spreading.
- gtirloni 3y agoAs opposed to doing what in those cases?
- lossolo 3y ago> There’s no longer comprehensive legislation trying to solve a particular (perceived) problem. Of course, there is, but some problems are different and difficult. Why are they difficult? Because it's hard to find an alternative solution that ticks all these boxes: one that is socially acceptable to all parties involved, does not incur additional problems or direct costs to any specific party or group of interest, and does not disrupt the market, among other considerations. You also need to take into account current laws, the social contract, and politics. Sometimes, the most efficient, easiest, least disruptive, and most acceptable solution is simply to allocate funds to address the problem.
- bradleyjg 3y ago> Of course, there is, Which law, passed after the ACA, would you say best reflects Congress identifying a serious national problem and attempting to comprehensively deal with it?
- constantcrying 3y agoSure, but what is the alternative? Government subsidies keep the whole thing afloat, there is no removing them. And obviously that is by design. There is a marginal utility to increasing funding, but that isn't the point, the point is that the subsidies guarantee that the receiver is dependent on the sender.