Smart and reasonable idea, but rarely resonate with anyone. Thus the curse of human ignorance.
Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
11–20 of 237 posts
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#12Im sure none of those well connected alumni will litigate to block this
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#13> To break up elite colleges therefore, all you need to do is break up the endowments. Siphoning resources from school endowments is actually quite easy. Wow straight up suggesting we steal money from private institutions to give to politicians to decide how to redistribute it. Totally insane. The government prints $40 billion like it’s nothing. We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. Maybe we…
> We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. It's so weird to see memes like this persist. No, no we didn't. Those spending bills were financed via deficit spending: they were loans. All spending bills are loans. The treasury department raises money by selling bonds. Every deficit dollar the government spends is a dollar it takes in from some investor somewhere who wanted to park money in US treas…
Obviously* it's not printing money literally. But it's increasing the money supply. When governments deficit spend, they deposit money in private sector banks, increasing their balance sheet. The net result of this is more dollars in and flowing through the economy.
Which is... printing money, pretty much. The idea that it's some kind of moral failing or inherently irresponsible is silly, but the description isn't some crazy conspiracy theory.
* I'm sure some people have the idea that Jerome Powell is walking up to a printing press, turning a crank, and literally printing money. But I'm also pretty sure that no one here is under that misconception.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#14The size and longevity of these enormous endowments is a problem, but it is quite naive to think that you could create a top tier university with an arbitrarily large amount of money. There is quite a lot more to the quality of an institution than the ability to build facilities, pay salaries, and buy equipment.
Creating a top tier school would be hard with a large pile of money, but would be a lot easier if you started with a large pile of money and Harvard.
This is an argument against the article. But the article's plan could be used as a threat. Use it or lose it, expand your enrollment substantially or we'll tax your endorsement away.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#15> To break up elite colleges therefore, all you need to do is break up the endowments. Siphoning resources from school endowments is actually quite easy. Wow straight up suggesting we steal money from private institutions to give to politicians to decide how to redistribute it. Totally insane. The government prints $40 billion like it’s nothing. We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. Maybe we…
> We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. It's so weird to see memes like this persist. No, no we didn't. Those spending bills were financed via deficit spending: they were loans. All spending bills are loans. The treasury department raises money by selling bonds. Every deficit dollar the government spends is a dollar it takes in from some investor somewhere who wanted to park money in US treas…
The COVID relief bills were actually a one-time exception to a 100 year old reality.
1) Congress directly modified the Federal Reserve's charter to give money directly to private persons.
2) There were also payments directly from the US Treasury.
3) There were also things that involved that traditional convoluted process of the Treasury selling more bonds to the international market and pretending not to know that the Federal Reserve is the biggest buyer showing up.
In this case, because of 1), we really did create several trillion out of thin air, from the Federal Reserve itself. Basically Congress always could, but didn't. Easiest way to accumulate dollars is to scare people into believing dollars won't be relevant.
Although the US otherwise doesn't simply dilute the money supply with direct issuances for nothing, opting to primarily create dollars in exchange for corporate bonds and treasuries, there is a market tolerance and demand enough for dollars to support a much greater level of it. Disclaimer: I'm not advocating for anything.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. It's so weird to see memes like this persist. No, no we didn't. Those spending bills were financed via deficit spending: they were loans. All spending bills are loans. The treasury department raises money by selling bonds. Every deficit dollar the government spends is a dollar it takes in from some investor somewhere who wanted to park money in US treas…
Obviously* it's not printing money literally. But it's increasing the money supply. When governments deficit spend, they deposit money in private sector banks, increasing their balance sheet. The net result of this is more dollars in and flowing through the economy. Which is... printing money, pretty much. The idea that it's some kind of moral failing or inherently irresponsible is silly, but the description isn't so…
> But I'm also pretty sure that no one here is under that misconception.
I'm a little less sure every time I read one of these threads.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We literally just handed out trillions minted out of thin air. It's so weird to see memes like this persist. No, no we didn't. Those spending bills were financed via deficit spending: they were loans. All spending bills are loans. The treasury department raises money by selling bonds. Every deficit dollar the government spends is a dollar it takes in from some investor somewhere who wanted to park money in US treas…
Because when the Federal Reserve buys those treasuries, you're creating money out of thin air (QE).
This comment highlights the most crucial insight on QE: it is a relatively novel monetary policy innovation that was implemented as an emergency response to the 2008 crisis on a very large scale and, as such, we had no experience using it. 14 years later, we’re finding out what it means for an economy to have the Federal Reserve buy a large amount of US debt.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because when the Federal Reserve buys those treasuries, you're creating money out of thin air (QE).
This comment highlights the most crucial insight on QE: it is a relatively novel monetary policy innovation that was implemented as an emergency response to the 2008 crisis on a very large scale and, as such, we had no experience using it. 14 years later, we’re finding out what it means for an economy to have the Federal Reserve buy a large amount of US debt.
QE isn't novel by any stretch, even in 2008. The Federal Reserve had a similar program back in 1930s around the Great Depression and the Bank of Japan has had a full-swing QE program since like 2001.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#19Its not like those schools are demonstrably better its that those schools are exclusive and provide social connections to elite social classes. The whole point of them existing is to be exclusive more than it is to educate.
Re: Break Up The Elite College Seats Cartel
#20Frekanomics did a four part series on this issue (“Freakonomics Radio Goes Back to School") and fairly presented the benefits and drawbacks of many of these issues. For me, personally, I think the solution in the US is to fully develop an open university system like they have in the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/freakonomics-radio-goes...