
Billionaire goes rogue, admits policy not schools destroyed middle class - hhs
https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/billionaire-goes-rogue-admits-public-policy-not-public-schools-destroyed-middle-class.html
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tyree731
"Billionaire gives opinion on causes of poverty"

I'm not sure what this person is admitting other than than their own opinion.
For example, it is _incredibly_ debatable that raising the minimum wage would
improve the livelihood of low income workers, as those workers could end up
trading underemployment for unemployment.

This just reads like a progressive opinion piece, which is fine, except it
postures itself as the truth revealed. I'd downvote it if I could.

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mi100hael
> Billionaire says something people disagree with

"That's just the ramblings of a greedy, out-of-touch asshole who should be
taxed down to 0 to atone for their sins."

> Billionaire says something people agree with

"Our idea is validated! Someone who is very rich and successful concurs!"

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PhasmaFelis
It's easier to trust someone who's speaking against their own interests.

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hervature
Except he already has his billions and has sold his company. Thus his only
'speaking against his own interest' is estate tax which is easily avoidable
with preparation.

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PhasmaFelis
Let me rephrase, then. It's harder to trust someone who's obviously speaking
exclusively _for_ his own interests.

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Animats
The US has too much education. About half of college graduates are doing jobs
that don't require a college education. Worse, many of them borrowed to go to
college.

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yumraj
This. Not every job or career needs a college education. A lot of college
tracks, such as a lot of liberal arts, while useful in the general sense have
few corresponding career paths with a resumable ROI for all the debt that
those paths lead to.

And, what is worse is that in general there is no, or very limited, concept of
on job training. Everyone wants experts who can become productive on day one.

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shados
The amount of time you hear "I dont use anything I learnt in college, its all
about experience on the job!" definitely screams "we need to encourage
apprenticeship-type learning over college".

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yumraj
Yes, exactly, that's what I had kinda meant that a lot of jobs require more
apprenticeship type training, than a formal college.

Apprenticeships _might_ also lead to career mobility. Try a job/training, if
you don't like it, try something else. In a 4-year college you end up making a
commitment where sunk-cost fallacy kinda prevents you from just moving on to
something else if things don't work out.

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shados
Yup. College is often an apprenticeship too (just super expensive) anyway,
with how common co-op programs are (which are basically just apprenticeships)

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anm89
Strawmen go rogue, admit billionaires aren't a secret club with homogeneous
viewpoints.

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Zimahl
Obviously, poor performing public schools don't do anyone any favors. They are
filled with apathy from the teachers to the students. Other than that,
regardless of what the parents are making, a strong education is a huge
contributing factor for upward mobility.

> People who see education as a cure-all have largely ignored the metric most
> predictive of a child's educational success: household income.

This is patently untrue and can be seen directly in several poor immigrant
populations that have come to the US in the last several decades. Cultures
that put an emphasis on education have had the highest social mobility. The
only reason household income is 'predictive' is because success typically
begets success. But in higher income areas parents are simply more involved -
maybe because they can afford to be or because they put an emphasis on
education or they know the benefits of an education. This can work just as
well for poor students, it's just more difficult.

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neonate
He has been doing this schtick for years:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hanauer&sort=byDate&dateRange=...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=hanauer&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

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orwin
The actual piece is imho more interesting and less opiniated:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/educati...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-
isnt-enough/590611/)

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taiwanboy
I think the venture capitalist conveniently forget that a way to maintain or
increase household income......

Is to not let millions of job leave the country in the first place. And
preferably not to countries that abuses human rights.

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mountainofdeath
Economists would argue the jobs go to where they are more efficiently done.
The trouble is, "efficient" means pushing negative externalities onto someone
else e.g. pollution, lax labor laws, forced labor. All of them condoned and
sometimes actively encourage by the ruling regime. Then again, being forced to
work in a sweatshop and having a minimum amount of food is better than not
working and starving.

You get my point...

