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> I always tell folks that it's a great opportunity to rebuild those institutions better

One of the big problems right now is that it's easier than ever to just burn down institutions for the sake of a little social or financial profit-- far easier than actually building them up. It's no wonder most people take the easy and profitable road instead of the challenging and unrewarding one.

It's not that this potential didn't exist before, but it is more frictionless than ever thanks to the democratization of information afforded by the internet. There's probably a Turchin-esque "elite overproduction" angle to it as well, where previously the institutions had enough slots to absorb all the talented people who might go this route and give them rewards consummate with their status of keeping the machine running; now there aren't and so people who get left out turn to burning it down instead.



And the lack of antitrust enforcement. It used to be that the power to increase prices was a bust-able monopoly then it somehow all became perverted under Reagan to where actual increased prices are all that matter but those increases are always years later. The bad guys won. Only now are the tides starting to turn.




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