The most popular conspiracy theory in the US today is that American wealth is the result of a steady cabalistic transfer of extant wealth from the poor and middle class to "like 10 people" at the "tippy top." It's provably false but will define the next several election cycleshttps://twitter.com/AOC/status/1127270688925134849 …
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Take a look at what AOC is pointing out: for-profit prisons, student loans, "tricking the country into war," abusing food stamp programs. Notice a theme? Prisons are a product for governments. Rich people do not declare wars or issue food stamps. Student loans are backed by whom?
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The trap I *don't* want to fall into is claiming that all is well. Wages have stagnated while healthcare and higher ed pricing skyrocketed, and both systems are regulatory fortresses. Regulatory capture via licensure and accreditation is locking in profit for the current players
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Replying to @webdevMason
The problems are much deeper than these. Financial industry profits now rival those of all other productive industries combined. Yes, there are huge problems in healthcare and education — but focusing on those industries alone does not explain what’s happening.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green
If the financial industry's profits are cut in half next year, are you and I better off? If so, via what mechanism that produced both results?
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Replying to @webdevMason
Let me turn this around. Are we worse off? We’ve experienced periods where those profits were lower as a percentage of all corporate profits, and the country was relatively strong both in terms of job growth and overall economic growth.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green @webdevMason
It’s very hard for me to look at a society where Wall Street captures 3-5x the profits it did in the 1970s and yet the economy produces overall lower growth, and say “everything is well here.”
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Replying to @matthew_d_green
I can't really argue with you because what you've presented is a correlation, not a mechanism. There's nothing to consider.
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Replying to @webdevMason @matthew_d_green
(I actually haven't even seen evidence that it's a particularly good correlation, actually. Funny how difficult it is to notice this stuff when it's so deeply embedded in the narrative...)
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Replying to @webdevMason
You haven’t proposed a mechanism for how healthcare and education — traditionally regulated industries — have now become captured. If this is the intellectual standard, the burden on you seems particularly strong since you’re proposing both a diagnosis and a treatment.
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I'm proposing that unlike financial profits, the cost of education and healthcare have a direct impact on median citizen QOL. I'm proposing that those costs have risen considerable relative to both wages & other important consumables, which is verifiable.
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Replying to @webdevMason @matthew_d_green
And I'm admitting — or trying to admit, because I hate how confusing I find the whole mess — that both systems are so complex that it's hard to do much except identify a long list of contributing factors at the nexus of regulation & private interest. But we *have* to dig in, here
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Replying to @webdevMason
Ok. Fair enough. The problem is that we’re on the tail end of a period that has been characterized by politicians urging *less* regulation, not more. And in many cases implementing this. The result is the mess we’re in. How do we prevent that from happening again?
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End of conversation
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