1,037 karma · joined November 30, 2024
Note: some single item shocks can lead to broad inflation (eg: oil) but that effect takes awhile to play out.
10yrs ago they would have been 4 to 5 figures.
Now they are what? A couple hundred?
How in the world is a TI graphing calculator still $160? These 30yr old calculator chips apparently hold their value like gold…
Also, Singapore seems to have conclusively won the war on drugs. I would not mind those policies in San Francisco.
It is interesting that many of the comments critique it for being meandering, lacking in utility. I think the author is talented enough to write it that way intentionally. Its oblique direction and far flung references help make the point. The reactions against this style made the argument more compelling.
> that same positivism was leading less to liberation than to disenchantment, smashing the sacred icons and reducing the world to what can be instrumentalized, commodified, and calculated
We need more doctors now and it takes 12 years to make a doctor and by then the boomer cohorts aging and medical needs will peak.
Finally, even if we could do that, the top of the funnel candidate is substantially weaker with lower test scores and higher need for remedial classes. And for the good candidates, the ROI of medical school is not as good as it once was.
However, I do think we are in a situation where everybody knows that healthcare costs need to come down that doctors and medical professionals are spread too thin, forced to see evermore patients in the same number of hours, and yet for every attempt to improve efficiency there is a “no, not that way“ response.
Are you sure about this? I would kick the tires on that theory a bit.
There is a point where the postmortem needs to stop being blameless.
Getting things like this wrong is an existential risk to a important institution. We can’t be genuinely concerned about lost faith in institutions and also not hold them to the highest levels of accountability.
If the maintainer authors every PR they don’t have to waste time talking with other people about their PR.
If a government can’t budget accurately everything else they do is likely even less competent. Every number and statistic they report should be treated with suspicion. Without clear data who is to say they are doing anything helpful at all?
- The US median per capita income is quite high (top 2 or 3 globally IIRC). In light of that and the stat that the bottom 40% don’t pay federal income tax makes me think the tax brackets are already fairly progressive vs thinking the lower 40% is especially low earning.
- Additionally income inequality has been decreasing in recent years with lower percentile income earners increases outpacing even the relatively high inflation.
- I agree we should revert back to some policies.
- I don’t think there is much hoarding of capital, most high earners invest heavily.
However, I am skeptical that higher taxes or just taxing the rich or high earners more will solve the deficit or government efficiency issues.
Also I disagree with 90% of income should pay 90% of taxes. People who are better capital allocators than the government should be incentivized to allocate over paying taxes.
2. Do you think an ageist ad hominem improves your argument?
3. What even is your argument? That in this contrived hypothetical the person in question is making a “shitload” and that somehow invalidates that 20% of EVERY tax dollar collected is used to just pay interest on debt (not even principal, just interest)
You can find high-level summaries from various websites, but they might have a bias eg: taxfoundation
Governments that consistently make bad choices eventually die one way or the other.
Then every dollar you earn goes to the government until May 1.
In this scenario if you have to pay govt interest expense first then almost every dollar earned in January would go to paying the debt.
We are spending almost an entire month of everyone’s salary, not on providing anything of value but merely on paying for previous overspending.
Now the math doesn’t work with a federal fund rate of 4-5%. And now as our debt rolls over it gets refinanced at the higher rates. Debt servicing is roughly 20% of the government budget and will soon be 25-35% in ~10 years assuming we don’t further accelerate deficit spending (which seems unlikely).
US govt needs to cut dramatically to avoid this and the otherwise likely “solution” otherwise is inflation to make the debt effectively less expensive which also raises interest rates.
We can’t tax our way out of this. Only 60% of US households earn enough to pay federal income tax. The top 1% of earners already pay roughly half of all tax revenue, top 10% is roughly 75%. Furthermore, there is profligate waste in government, inefficiency, no matter where the taxes came from even if we could materialize them.
The government needs to shrink dramatically. This type of change is best done gradually but immediately to avoid later shocks (eg: Medicare suddenly disappears)
Since that party doesn’t exist I am politically homeless.