In situations like this, many people realize that we are in a mutual game of hot potato. The people involved are each trying to figure out what everyone else is using as a timer, so they aren't the ones left holding the bag.
Everyone knows about the student debt crisis. Everyone knows that public companies were borrowing to pay for stock buybacks. Everyone knows about the rampant de-regulation and rent seeking. And nobody thinks any of these issues will be addressed in the coming years.
I have a theory that in a democracy, a status quo that takes $10 from every citizen to give $100,000 to a much smaller fixed subset of citizens will never be changed.
Because the small subset have a lot of motivation to advocate for the status quo, and each individual outside the subset has only a small motivation to advocate against it.
I don't know if that has much to do with democracy. In many historical countries, it was seen as the God-given right of aristocrats to take $10 from every citizen so they can have $100,000.
Everyone knows about the student debt crisis. Everyone knows that public companies were borrowing to pay for stock buybacks. Everyone knows about the rampant de-regulation and rent seeking. And nobody thinks any of these issues will be addressed in the coming years.
It's going to be the 1980s all over again.