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Op-Ed from Sen Sasse (R, NE)
He's wrong about a lot of things in this, but as he's one of the few Republicans who can put a sentence together, I think this is worth reading (he's also right about several things in the piece too...)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-challenge-of-our-disruptive-era-1492800857
What’s happening now is wholly different. The rise of suburbia and exurbia, and the hollowing out of mediating institutions, is an echo of the changing nature of work. In the 1970s, it was common for a primary breadwinner to spend his career at one company, but now workers switch jobs and industries at a more rapid pace. We are entering an era in which we’re going to have to create a society of lifelong learners. We’re going to have to create a culture in which people in their 40s and 50s, who see their industry disintermediated and their jobs evaporate, get retrained and have the will and the chutzpah and the tools and the social network to get another job. Right now that doesn’t happen enough.
Think about qualitative survey data—polls that ask, “What are the top three or four things you’re worried about?” Ten years ago, nowhere on the top 10 of that list was anything about prescription drugs. Today opioids are a major concern. People are scared about drug abuse in largely middle-aged populations. That’s a symptom of the economic disruption.
I don’t mean to be exceedingly pessimistic. There are plenty of wonderful opportunities for American families and innovators in this new economy. For one thing, there are fewer middlemen complicating transactions instead of adding value. So we’re going to get a lot more visibility and transparency into product offerings, and consumers are going to get higher-quality and lower-cost stuff.
In other industries, we don’t know how to price for things that turn out to matter quite a lot. Think of the news media. We are going from a world in which we had too much central control by a few large organizations, to one in which everybody, everywhere can deluge us with information. What is likely to happen next is not a lot more higher-quality journalism. We’re going to have higher-volume journalism, and some of it will be good. A free, thriving, and independent press is critical to self-government, so this is a big challenge.
Think about qualitative survey data—polls that ask, “What are the top three or four things you’re worried about?” Ten years ago, nowhere on the top 10 of that list was anything about prescription drugs. Today opioids are a major concern. People are scared about drug abuse in largely middle-aged populations. That’s a symptom of the economic disruption.
I don’t mean to be exceedingly pessimistic. There are plenty of wonderful opportunities for American families and innovators in this new economy. For one thing, there are fewer middlemen complicating transactions instead of adding value. So we’re going to get a lot more visibility and transparency into product offerings, and consumers are going to get higher-quality and lower-cost stuff.
In other industries, we don’t know how to price for things that turn out to matter quite a lot. Think of the news media. We are going from a world in which we had too much central control by a few large organizations, to one in which everybody, everywhere can deluge us with information. What is likely to happen next is not a lot more higher-quality journalism. We’re going to have higher-volume journalism, and some of it will be good. A free, thriving, and independent press is critical to self-government, so this is a big challenge.
