Your post is economically illiterate and no economist in their right mind would claim that school tuition spike is the result of privatization and deregulation. Car loans are privatized too. That didn't drive up the prices for cars because the "predators" control the industry.
In fact, economists show that government backed loans have driven up tuition prices[1]
"As column 4 demonstrates, the demand shocks- which consist mostly of changes in nancial aid-account for the lion's share of the higher tuition. Specifically, with demand shocks alone, equilibrium tuition rises by 102%, almost fully matching the 106% from the benchmark. By contrast, with all factors present except the demand shocks (column 7), net tuition only rises by 16%."
"In a hundred years from now people are going to look back at things like the war on drugs as one of the most barbaric, absurd and useless pieces of legislation ever to have been implemented."
How do you explain the rampant crack cocaine drug wars in New York and Miami in the 1980s that killed far more Americans than they do today? You're probably too young to realize how bad New York and Miami were before the war on drugs. How do you explain how Asia has even more "draconian" drug laws than the USA and yet crime is a fraction of ours?
Only nominally. Funding for the actual execution of the drug war didn't ramp up until the 1980's, and imprisonment for drug offenses was flat until the early 1980's.[1] Conversely, the surge in crime started in the late 1960's, and was already much higher than before by the time the drug war got rolling.
The crack epidemic had its origins in the 1970s and became widespread in the 1980s[1]. Crack was finally targeted in 1986 with laws that heavily punished crack dealers. This happened after crack became widespread throughout major American cities.[2]
"The murders and general lawlessness that you reference from the 80s are a direct result of the War on Drugs."
Where were the "murders and general lawlessness" in other countries that had even more expansive Wars on Drugs, like Singapore or Taiwan? America's War on Drugs is relatively mild compared to these countries that sentence drug traffickers to death.
Those countries didn't have their own government propping up the drug trade in order to generate illicit funding for illegal wars and to criminalize and imprison poor black people. USA did.
> these countries that sentence drug traffickers to death.
USA put small-time addicted drug users, in long jail terms. But only if they use crack, the "poor/black people" variant of cocaine, not the (expensive) white-powder variant of cocaine that rich/white people used.
> How do you explain how Asia has even more "draconian"
> drug laws than the USA and yet crime is a fraction of
> ours?
Comments like this are why people should travel.
In most of asia (by population or by state), low crime rates can be easily attributed to being able to settle the matter privately with the policeman for a small amount of money.
That's not true in Japan, where organized crime registers with the police, or Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan which are hugely wealthy microstates.
Edit: Spoiler: the inhabitable area is about the size of Puerto Rico, a country it has 8x the population of, and something someone who had been there would know...
Sure, Taiwan is funny that way. But I'm trying to figure out what it is that Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan have in common that causes you to label all 3 of them "microstates", but that causes you to exclude, say, Belgium or Denmark. I'll await your reply as I watch the sun set over Taipei.
Edit: HN won't let me reply to your reply below, which I'll take as a hint that I should stop arguing. As your first post was limited to Asian microstates, I agree that I shouldn't have thrown European countries into the mix. I still question the "micro-ness" of Taiwan, which is more populous than Hong Kong or Singapore by a factor of 3 or 4 (and not quite as wealthy), but sure, whatever.
> what it is that Singapore,
> Hong Kong, and Taiwan have
> in common ... exclude, say,
> Belgium or Denmark
To clarify, you're seriously asking why I left Belgium and Denmark out of a list of small and rich Asian countries?
Update: but ya know, even if it wasn't about continent(!) the main difference is that Belgium and Denmark sit in the middle of large areas with border-free travel, largely homogenous policing, largely homogenous drug laws and share the same Supreme Court with their neighbours. Seeing them as micro-states, rather than constituent states of the EU for this purpose surely misses the point.
The crack epidemic was a supply and demand issue. During the 1980s, the CIA enabled the flow of cocaine to help fund the Contras and other right-wing revolutionary groups in Central America. The new routes led to new manufacturing practices, and supply skyrocketed. This in turn dropped the price drastically, making cocaine suddenly available and affordable for a lot of people who couldn't get it before. Crack was another technical/marketing innovation, taking the old practice of freebasing and industrializing it. A quick, intense high got down into the $10-20 range, something even the desperately poor could afford. And since mainstream society doesn't usually care much about the troubles of the desperately poor, the cocaine industry had a relatively untroubled new market.
The end of this era wasn't so much due to draconian laws as to the end of the cheap supply.
Crack wasn't even targeted in the War on Drug policies until the 80s. The drug was relatively unknown to the general public compared to the other drugs that were targeted. Even Newsweek reported in 1977 that cocaine was safer than cigarettes and liquor "when used discriminately"[1].
Yes, and the New York and Miami drug wars of the 1980s were consequences of the escalation of the law enforcement War on Drugs in the 1980s, including the targeting of cocaine in that war in the 1980s.
You do make a great point. It does baffle me that Obama's daughters would theoretically get special privileges for YC's office hours over, say, an immigrant kid from China whose family earns below the poverty line.
Theoretically they would. However in practice I'm sure the people screening applications would be able to see that they're people who don't really need any special privileges, and prioritise someone else who does. Its not like applications are being selected by a random number generator.
Perhaps, but if the next session were for black and Latino founders, and Obama's daughters applied, would YC really pass up the chance to work with them ASAP?
It's interesting how intolerant some people are about even the most reasonable criticisms of racial preference policies. Instead of offering a reasonable response to these criticisms, they often resort to attempts to silence critics.
Calling it concern trolling is just another way to try to silence critics, and avoid considering the criticism when you have no response.
This discussion has gone on for a while, and included dozens of downvotes and a few rational distractions, but not one response to the original questions.
You can ban it from TV and radio if there's a compelling government interest but even the head medical chied of the ADA says there is no definitive proof that sugar causes diabetes. (See my link above)
I'm not sure what the 'first amendment test' is when it comes to corporate advertising but our government already limits how alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and marijuana can be advertised. We also limit what and how things can be advertised to children. So I'm not really sure your sentence is correct.
Well if you wanted a ban on advertising sugary cereal to kids, you would have to pass the "Central Hudson" test. You would have to prove a compelling government interest to ban the ads to children. The ADA chief medical scientist has already said there is no conclusive proof that sugary food causes diabetes. Also I don't know if you've seen any kids cereal commercials recently, but they're not making deceptive claims (like "eating this cereal will make you healthier").
We're all just commenting on your vague original comment. If you wanted to add context, that was the time to do it - not later as a defense of your original comment. You've specifically focused on "sugary cereal" in your comment to me - okay, that's fine. But your original comment was in reply to a much broader comment yet you decided to just make a blanket statement.
>The first amendment shouldn't really apply to corporations.
Should the feds be able to shut down Hackernews? It's a corporation. NY Times? It's a corporation.
The distinction you want to make is commercial speech should be able to be regulated. And it is. False advertising is illegal but lying about politics is a first amendment right.
Also, sugar isn't harmful in moderation.
Plus the science of diet is hilariously poorly understood. 15 years ago people would have been trying to ban fatty food. Now all the sudden fat is good?
And that goes triple for popular diet advice. It's all fads. We still can't figure out a diet that works for whole population long term.
That's not true. There is a scientific consensus on cigarettes and lung cancer. There is certainly no scientific consensus on sugar and diabetes/cancer.
If the first amendment should apply to corporations, should the New York Times be restricted on what articles it can print? What about the movie documentaries you see on Netflix?
I think that sort of hyperbole isn't helping any arguments against sugar. No need to ratchet up the rhetoric - this is already a hot topic. Sugar is bad, yes, but if it was thought to be "as harmful" as tobacco it would have warning labels and you'd have to be a certain age to use it.
I was a cereal addict as a kid. Killed a couple boxes of the stuff a week. And I was super skinny, probably because we played outside to the point of exhaustion every single day.
Yeah, was the same like like you as a kid. Was super skinny. Even as an adult, I'm not nearly as active but I do count my calories. IMO, banning things like cereal is not the answer when the more effective approach is to teach kids how to burn their calories and/or limit their calorie intake per day.
Kids' bodies work differently than adults'. Most of their caloric intake goes to the vastly more demanding process of growing than it does to fueling activity. It's like how a mother gains a huge appetite during pregnancy that would have made her fat otherwise.
The problem is that habits formed as kids die hard. You keep eating the same way as you did when you were 12, but have nowhere to put it all, except your belly / thighs / butt. Before you know it you're 27 and huge.
30% of Forbes 400 billionaires inherited their wealth, 70% did not. What exactly are you using to claim that the super rich derive their wealth from inheritances?
I think the US actually is still by far the best place to become a billionaire. Only to have any shot at that at all, you need to start out as still fairly affluent. You need to have the time, opportunity and education to work on that dream, to grab that rare opportunity.
If your mind is entirely occupied with where your next meal comes from, whether you'll make rent at the end of the month, and how you're possibly going to cope with the random accidents of life, your mind can't even afford to think about bigger plans or opportunities.
Lift people out of that misery at the bottom. Make sure everybody has access to a good education. Make sure nobody goes bankrupt due to medical emergencies. Do that, and people will have the chance to move up again.
The US is still one of the very few countries where a lower-class person can become a billionaire.
I can name about three to four dozen recently listed (Forbes 400) US billionaires that came from poverty. You can look them up, the lists are easy to Google. Further, according to Forbes about half of their real estate billionaires come from at or below middle class, and about 40% of tech billionaires do.
But Forbes doesn't include any state or state-affiliated families. Considering the influence that is packaged with a billion dollars, it shouldn't be surprising that in many places wealth and political power are more closely tied than they might be in the US or Europe.
How many billionaires in the Middle East aren't counted? High ranking government officials in many countries also are likely billionaires via corruption.
It's unclear what proportion would be inherited vs new wealth, but it's another dimension worth considering.
Forbes 400 lists only Americans. It has nothing to do with Middle East billionaires or foreign government billionaires, who are listed under a different category.
The rich are not just the billionaires. Try anyone who has enough that they'd never have to work if they didn't want to. Which is anyone with about $10 million and up.
Well, the numbers are similar for millionaires. This is for individuals deemed in the ultra high net worth category, which is $30 million and up....
"Sixty-five percent of the ultra-rich made their own money, while an additional 16 percent inherited a portion of the wealth that they grew to a larger fortune. The self-made rich have an average net worth of $142 million, versus $130 million for those who inherited their money."
In fact, economists show that government backed loans have driven up tuition prices[1]
[1] http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13711.pdf
"As column 4 demonstrates, the demand shocks- which consist mostly of changes in nancial aid-account for the lion's share of the higher tuition. Specifically, with demand shocks alone, equilibrium tuition rises by 102%, almost fully matching the 106% from the benchmark. By contrast, with all factors present except the demand shocks (column 7), net tuition only rises by 16%."