Re:Ask HN: What would America look like if there was less go...
by eesmith on Monday October 07, 2019 @10:57PM
(#21188239)
Student debt is due in part to the government getting out of funding public schools. There is little student debt in those countries where the government pays for a college education.
Student debt is also affected by poor supervision of lenders. Among other things, student debt cannot be discharged (usually) during bankruptcy. This is a special law that does not affect most other types of debt. As a result, loan institution don't need to do as much diligence.
Student debt is also because of the rapidly rising costs of education. I think part of it is the belief that one must go to college to have a good career. Colleges look at the delta in earning potentials and say "I gotta have more of that." The argument is that if going to college is expected to net you $2 million in additional income, then it's worthwhile to spend an extra $100K on it.
"Uneducated people stuck in poverty" is a combination of factors. One is the dependency of most school system on local taxes. Poor neighborhoods don't have the tax base for their schools as rich ones do. Rich parents want their kids to go to well-funded schools, and will move to do so. Poor parents rarely have that option. This is also coupled with the long-lasting effects of racism, eg, red-lining and the white urban exodus to the suburbs during the 1900s, which segregated school systems among racial and economic lines. The modern charter school movements have also resulted in increased segregation.
"global warming/climate crisis" - widely accepted by the relevant scientists, including those at oil companies. Oil companies spent massive amounts of money on disinformation campaigns, and in buying the government. I don't see how "less government" would have improved the situation. More government - government which could reign in the imbalance of power by having $billions of oil money on hand - might have made a difference. Look now where other governments in the world are far ahead of the US on this topic.
"obesity crisis" - there are many reasons for the crisis. I don't see how less government would help. Certainly the government has many roles in the matter.
"diabetes crisis" - how would less government help?
"unmanageable healthcare costs" - most wealthy countries address this with national health care, either run by or overseen by the government. The US healthcare system is royally screwed up, but I think can be explained by the explanations including 1) most sick people can't shop around for the best care, 2) hospitals have little reason to publish their full costs, and 3) there's little competition because it's expensive to maintain duplicate medical support infrastructure for a given region. Further, since medical coverage is employer based, employers are the customer, not the employee, and since there are so many coverage options (in the name of 'customer choice'), it leads to a paradox of choice issue where people don't want to spend the time to figure out the right choice, much less as those plans change every year.
I don't see how less government would help the US system.
"police brutality/abuse of power" - Yes, US police are brutal and abusive. How does less government help change that? Allow non-police like private guards to take over more law enforcement? Won't that just shift the brutality and power abuse to those with even less oversight?
"mass shooting epidemics" - you'll again note that mass shooting epidemics don't really happen in countries with significantly more government. What is the mechanism by which less government would reduce the number of mass shootings in the US?
You write "UPS/FedEx are better than USPS". This is outright not true. USPS's mandate is to be able to deliver anywhere in the US. FedEx, for example, will use USPS for rural delivery. Quoting https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fed... from 2014:
> For FedEx alone, the post office delivers an average of 2.2 million packages a day, or about 30% of the express-mail company’s total U.S. ground segment.
So UPS/FedEx are sometimes better than USPS, and other times worse.
Student debt is also affected by poor supervision of lenders. Among other things, student debt cannot be discharged (usually) during bankruptcy. This is a special law that does not affect most other types of debt. As a result, loan institution don't need to do as much diligence.
Student debt is also because of the rapidly rising costs of education. I think part of it is the belief that one must go to college to have a good career. Colleges look at the delta in earning potentials and say "I gotta have more of that." The argument is that if going to college is expected to net you $2 million in additional income, then it's worthwhile to spend an extra $100K on it.
"Uneducated people stuck in poverty" is a combination of factors. One is the dependency of most school system on local taxes. Poor neighborhoods don't have the tax base for their schools as rich ones do. Rich parents want their kids to go to well-funded schools, and will move to do so. Poor parents rarely have that option. This is also coupled with the long-lasting effects of racism, eg, red-lining and the white urban exodus to the suburbs during the 1900s, which segregated school systems among racial and economic lines. The modern charter school movements have also resulted in increased segregation.
"global warming/climate crisis" - widely accepted by the relevant scientists, including those at oil companies. Oil companies spent massive amounts of money on disinformation campaigns, and in buying the government. I don't see how "less government" would have improved the situation. More government - government which could reign in the imbalance of power by having $billions of oil money on hand - might have made a difference. Look now where other governments in the world are far ahead of the US on this topic.
"obesity crisis" - there are many reasons for the crisis. I don't see how less government would help. Certainly the government has many roles in the matter.
"diabetes crisis" - how would less government help?
"unmanageable healthcare costs" - most wealthy countries address this with national health care, either run by or overseen by the government. The US healthcare system is royally screwed up, but I think can be explained by the explanations including 1) most sick people can't shop around for the best care, 2) hospitals have little reason to publish their full costs, and 3) there's little competition because it's expensive to maintain duplicate medical support infrastructure for a given region. Further, since medical coverage is employer based, employers are the customer, not the employee, and since there are so many coverage options (in the name of 'customer choice'), it leads to a paradox of choice issue where people don't want to spend the time to figure out the right choice, much less as those plans change every year.
I don't see how less government would help the US system.
"police brutality/abuse of power" - Yes, US police are brutal and abusive. How does less government help change that? Allow non-police like private guards to take over more law enforcement? Won't that just shift the brutality and power abuse to those with even less oversight?
"mass shooting epidemics" - you'll again note that mass shooting epidemics don't really happen in countries with significantly more government. What is the mechanism by which less government would reduce the number of mass shootings in the US?
You write "UPS/FedEx are better than USPS". This is outright not true. USPS's mandate is to be able to deliver anywhere in the US. FedEx, for example, will use USPS for rural delivery. Quoting https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-mail-does-the-trick-for-fed... from 2014:
> For FedEx alone, the post office delivers an average of 2.2 million packages a day, or about 30% of the express-mail company’s total U.S. ground segment.
So UPS/FedEx are sometimes better than USPS, and other times worse.