These are precisely the areas where government has a role to play but more often than not, this is precisely where FTC, FCC and rest of the alphabet soup seems to fail.
The demand for subsidization of college education is coming from very woke academics who want more taxpayer money for their "woke programs".
College education in USA is ridiculously cheap if you are not looking at top colleges. Plenty of universities in silicon valley which can give you a wide array of useful degrees for very affordable price. Affordable = You can pay your student loans within 2 years of gainful employment post degree.
There are some very good arguments as to why government should not be paying for college education:
- Loosely speaking K-12 can be seen as a public good because of which it may make sense for the society to pay for other people's education. College education is not a public good in the same way because at any rate only few folks will go to college and it is immoral for the other people being forced to pay for college education of those kids. If college educated kids earn even more then it is even more immoral for poor people to pay for rich.
- Unlike K-12, college education involves specialization. A gender studies degree is worthless compared to say a nurse. But because education is free a lot of students might enroll in more and more worthless degrees. This will have great negative impact on productivity of US society. A lot of folks who do not have any productive skills, a lot of folks staying out of labour market in their crucial years. I will work at a local farm for a year rather than pursue some of the college degrees any days.
- When government pays for education it distorts the market. You can see it as a subsidy. But then it also means more and more worthless colleges which have more and more worthless degree programs that focus on "good life" for kids.
> Data residency gives a government willing to bully companies a lot of power. It's simply a lot harder to access information stored abroad and you have a lot less leverage.
I have been a party to some discussion around the laws with mid level government officials and this was a bit like an episode of Yes Minister.
One of the government consultants spoke about "Data sovereignty". When someone asked what it meant he spoke for like 10 minutes without actually answering the question. "Data of Indians must belong to Indians", "Data is the gold of modern world" he then referred to various international reports without actually telling what those reports say.
"We must protect our citizens data" one official said as others nodded in agreement. What they imagined here (I think) was data sitting on a hard drive and protected by people with guns creating a parameter around it.
The files of these regulations moved across many tables and many offices. I am told the real estate companies in India had a big role and influence on these regulations.
Yes, ultimately it is a ridiculous law that does not help anyone. It does not protect anything.
American telecom industry has done much better after US government ended government granted monopoly to bell labs. Plenty of literature on that topic actually. Same for aviation.
Whatever bad things you see with ATT and Comcast are actually a direct result of city granted monopolies which will likely be ended by Musk's Starlink sooner or later.
> I think the should literally be nationalized and have their tax software platforms absorbed into the IRS.
This is an extremist view and basically advocating theft. I do not think IRS has competence to build and run a complex software system.
> Their company activities over the last few decades are so flagrantly, indisputably bad for the country
That is debatable.
> There's literally no upside, none at all. They have intentionally sabotaged tax filing and leeched off the people by corruptly inserting themselves as middlemen
They have not inserted themselves anywhere. You are free to use CPA or do all the paperwork yourself and save yourself $70 bucks.
I find this criticism somewhat weird. It is very common for companies or even individuals to promote and support policies that benefit themselves. Intuit is seeking self interest here. But why would IRS and our elected representatives cave in ? Are these people so clueless or unethical that they do not care about their constituents anymore ? And if that is the case I don't see how anyone can bell the intuit's cat.
I remember that John McAfee was a strong supporter of prostitution. In one of the Libertarian party debates he said he is the most qualified person to support this issue because he married a prostitute.
McAfee represented the old west styled "good outlaw" stereotype. Sadly, their times has passed away.
I have not worked as a janitor but I have done menial work far worse than mopping a floor for assured hourly rate.
Being poor sucks everywhere but it sucks less in USA.
My claim is not that being janitor is some kind of gold standard or aspiration in USA. My point is that even such a very low skilled job is good enough to help you survive. You will probably suffer a lot but yet it is way way better than being completely jobless on streets.
Janitor is also not a job for life, it is mostly a stepping stone for something bigger and a lot A LOT of americans do this every single year. Something you will rarely see outside of USA.
I made no such assumption. When I moved to USA from India I would have happily moved in as Janiter. Life in USA as a janiter is way way better than a middle class person in India.
> That wouldn't even make sense if freedom of speech weren't a general concept.
Free speech as a general concept is irrelevant in the eyes of law unless you have some specific law governing the specific scenarios. (Employees being punished for how they voted in general election.)
Free speech could be a virtue but it is a virtue like "not lying". It is perfectly legal to lie in many circumstances.
You have to see this with two lenses. Free speech is always about freedom from government control. Your employer can put whatever restriction on your speech that they so desire even outside of your workplace. In that sense famous people do have less freedom. For example basketball players promoting Nike can't wear any other shoes publicly.
Second case is of government putting those restrictions on you. Can public school put such restrictions on students ? I do not know and I am not familiar with this case.
I am from India and I have lived in UK and USA. Personally I think it is pretty stupid to compare USA and UK. I would rather be a janitor in USA than an engineer in UK. This is not a criticism of UK or its people in any way but USA is far far better country than UK.
It is not just that salaries are higher but overall quality of life is significantly better. In USA I can drive in any random direction for 400 miles and crash at a Motel 6 without having to worry about reservations. I can eat at Denny's at any time of the day and fill up gas in towns like Austin, NV with population 29. There are giant theme parks within 100 miles of driving distance in any city. USA is dotted with national parks and various state parks, fishing spots, hiking trails, hunting grounds. Every American school is basically a mini Olympic stadium with some space for classrooms. Most people including people below poverty line own cars, which means their quality of life is way better. You can explore different and remote places, spend more time with family and friends over the weekends and show your kids lot more stuff each weekend that what a London resident can not do for similar amount of money.
Also, I can totally see why people in UK may not want to make those extra bucks putting in more hours because often, it is not allowed because of tighter regulations. Tough labor laws discourage businesses from hiring new people so if you quit your job it is harder for you to find a new job. So people would rather stick to a dead end job working uninspired. that quit for better opportunities.
It is also incredibly common for Americans to simply quit their jobs and take a long break to explore whatever hell they want to explore. I arely saw that in UK.
I think article conflate a lot of complex variables to come to conclusion that it wishes to draw.
It is not just dumb hard work that was regarded as American virtue. In fact Americans are quick to embrace technology to reduce workload, Americans rarely suffer from the luddite attitudes which are pretty common elsewhere in the world. As an immigrant, I think American virtues is about working hard for what you want rather than expecting someone else to do it for you. That notion of hard work is what American society values a lot even today. It is not just dumb work.
I come from India where people think Farmers are hard workers because they work in hot sun where as Tech workers are lazy because they spend all their time in AC offices. I do not see such attitudes in USA at all.
> a recent study found that Americans work 25 percent more hours than Europeans
That also leads to significantly more per capita income for Americans and far better quality of life and not that this is voluntary. Unlike Europe where jobs are mostly "protected" by tighter labour laws, exiting a job is much harder and getting a new job is even harder. USA does not suffer from such problems. I know plenty of people who simply quit their jobs and spend their time doing nothing for few months before getting a new job. No study would put this as "vacation" but in reality has same effect as vacation.
> that U.S. workers tend to take fewer vacation days and retire later in life
This is voluntary too.
> simply working hard doesn’t actually lead to a better life.
This is purely arbitrary conclusion that does not follow automatically from studies that are at best anecdotally.
> I’d argue quite strongly that working more hours, taking less vacation, and retiring later is the definition of a worse life.
May be but this is very very subjective decision and we can not make such conclusions on behalf of other people.
The 3900 number is mostly spread by a single researcher at Harvard who is quoted and self-quoted and cited by his own students somehow making his shoddy research some kind of "fact". Anyone trying to question this basically gets shunned from any conference this gentleman will be involved in and labelled as "revisionist".
It is incredible that Wikipedia too just quotes this single individual on hundreds of pages somehow giving him and his claims credibility. His claims have been refuted by many using plethora of evidence but his citation cartel will simply dismiss it by attacking the authors instead of their research.
> Genetic claims play a role in that you can see in which direction certain genes flowed, and how old they are, and how they’re distributed.
I am not very familiar with Genetic theories to be honest and only work I have read on this topic is from Manu Joseph's not very scientific summary of research on this topic but it is barely conclusive in any direction.
> There’s plenty of non-white scientists
That is besides the point, they will let in those who tow their lines and keep out those who disagree claiming them to be either "they haven't published anything in journals reviewed by us". Afterall british controlled India not through white soldiers but brown soliders handpicked from Indians.
It basically is a citation cartel to begin with very little concern for actual research or truth. Also this is not specific to Indology either. In this day and age it matters very little though as better quality research by such as likes of Talegari or Elst or Danino et al. stands on its own even after decades.