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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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Does a Clinton or Biden really ensure it? As far as I know, wannabe journalists do not have it easy during Democratic administrations. And why would a rich person not just give their kids money directly rather than indirectly through trying to manipulate the levers of government? It takes more out of their pockets but on the other hand, is more sure of success. Some parents have the attitude of "make the kid learn by working for their own money", but making it so that the government supports them would be almost as bad for such a policy as giving them money directly would be.

And why would a rich person not just give their kids money directly rather than indirectly through trying to manipulate the levers of government? It takes more out of their pockets but on the other hand, is more sure of success. Some parents have the attitude of "make the kid learn by working for their own money"

The driver here isn't the rich parents, it's the adult children of rich parents in the lumpen-PMC. They simultaneously want to inherit the status and comfort of their parent's class like you can in the old world, and still be seen as having "earned" that status independently, like Americans.

That's what colleges are selling to people with useless degrees - it's a way to launder their parent's money into the child's "accomplishment".

Does a Clinton or Biden really ensure it?

Biden has certainly pulled every lever he could reach to send as much money as he can to universities. His initial student loan bailout had a cost of hundreds of billions before SCOTUS spiked it...

And here's the bailout for news organizations, framed as allowing them to collectively bargain to collude against tech companies.

So that's university jobs and news media jobs...

I think the parent is a little off base. It's not ensuring the kids have sufficient income to support their lifestyle. Mommy and daddy could probably support them in upper middle class bobo comfort indefinitely. What is about is ensuring the outside and respect of those people and their positions. To ensure that being a "journalist" accords the level of prestige and unearned influence that being a "reporter" does not. To ensure that being and adjunct or NGO executive confers status and access that being a researcher or business executive does not. That's why Trump's open disrespect for these people and their unearned positions upset them so greatly.