These successes come from the middle-class, not the working classes. You could take it further and note that even just owning a home as a young person isn't really attainable for the middle-class anymore. Things were simply easier back then.
Seems like it'll stick around too. It aligns with the current administration's goal of financially starving the bureaucracies that surround research institutions.
The difference is that while indirect costs are critical to research in most cases, journals are the poster child when it comes to skimming research funding.
They provide little to no real value beyond a CV trophy and only carry out the bare minimum to coordinate peer review. Their largest impact is siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from labs, and millions from cash-strapped university libraries.
Even if the current administration wasn't attacking university funding, the publishing system is in desperate need of reform.
Or just use the endowment directly. Quick napkin math says that Harvard could make tuition free for all undergrads for 26 years with what they current have. Originally this money was meant to be spent on education but they just let it grow forever. Some of their hedge fund managers are approaching 8-figure annual compensation packages and I can't help but assume this is part of what has corrupted the university. Citadel LLC has $65 billion AUM, while Harvard has $53 billion while getting special tax-exemptions.
Bureaucratic organizations and special interests there are entrenched. The people managing some of these endowments are getting annual compensations competitive with the best hedge funds. If we had a rational discussion they'd just work to run out the clock and keep the status quo.
Maybe long-term gain, but it would take a long time. And businesses aren't going to invest if they think policy might completely reverse in 3 years with a new government.
My favorite brand drops a new pair of shoes in June. I order them shortly thereafter. They are imported from China who at the time has a 100% tariff. I see a $5 tariff charge. I now know that the $250 pair of shoes actually cost the retailer $5 and my boyfriend who keeps telling me they are cheap trash is suddenly vindicated.
>This has to be illegal. You can't slap on a $20 sales tax fee at the end when it's actually $12 and pocket the difference as profit.
Not sure where you are, but this is pretty much de rigueur in the US for a whole bunch of stuff, notably telecom (mobile and fixed line), ISP, cable TV, electric utilities, as well as other stuff. On your invoice, you'll see stuff like "regulatory recovery fee", "franchise fee", "FCC Admin fee" and the like. None of which are taxes or government imposed fees. Rather, they're just using standard cost-of-doing-business expenses to tack on to your bill while claiming the price is at least 10-15% less.
My favorite is the $23/month "broadcast TV surcharge," which the cable company claims is to cover fees paid to the networks they carry. Since they have to pay these folks to carry their content anyway, they should just include it in the normal price, right? But if they did, that alone would increase the "price" by at least 15-20%.
As such, at least in the US, what law makes this "illegal?" Please tell me as it would save me at least $100/month in such fees/surcharges, or at least the "price" would be the actual "total you owe" price on the bottom line.
This isn't sales tax, this is tariff. Not sure if they are any laws regarding that or not.
It might be like shipping and handling: $20. The shipping is probably $5, the handling is $15. The handling is just a fee they charge to sell it to you. They want you to think it's shipping that's why they put "shipping" first. Uber Eats calls it "taxes and other fees," which are mostly fees, but they want you to think it's taxes, that's why they put "taxes" first.
Many business are scummy like that, we've just gotten used to it.
The point being, they are signaling a price hike and they are trying to attribute it to tariffs, which maybe or may not be true down to the penny. If they were exact in what the tariff was, people can easily calculate their cost, which Amazon doesn't want. I'm sure they will sneak in some extra profit in there at some point using similar tactics as described above.
Even if they can get away with it I don't think this will work so well. So upon check out you're just getting a fee and sometimes it's egregiously high and sometimes it is nonexistent? If you're buying a $100 item (and let's say a $50 cost basis) that has three versions: US made, Japanese made and Chinese made you could get a $0 fee, a $5 or a $50 fee. And at the same time you know that retailers could be just completely making up the tariff fee because there is absolutely no regulation or accountability? Seems like a very fast way to completely lose the trust of your customers.
>So upon check out you're just getting a fee and sometimes it's egregiously high and sometimes it is nonexistent? If you're buying a $100 item (and let's say a $50 cost basis) that has three versions: US made, Japanese made and Chinese made you could get a $0 fee, a $5 or a $50 fee.
It would be more obfuscated than that. They're scummy, I didn't say they weren't clever. A company probably wouldn't make the exact same product in three different countries and Amazon probably wouldn't stock all three, they'd just pick the version they could make the most money on. Also, they probably wouldn't make the difference obvious, just a few cents or dollars here or there. They would say the tariff is $5, when it really was $4.50 and they'd just round up. At scale that really ads up.
>Seems like a very fast way to completely lose the trust of your customers.
Most of them lost trust a long time ago. I mean, what companies do you trust? I don't trust very many, if any.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we should all trust Amazon...
Edit: Amazon said displaying tariffs was never approved and won't happen. More junk news.
I currently trust that when I add items to my shopping cart at a known retailer (either online or brick&mortar) the prices listed are the ones I'll see at checkout, plus some small deterministic sales tax and/or shipping fee.
If it is like Starlink then it is not really a problem because the orbit is so low that it de-orbits quickly should they become inactive and vaporizes in the atmosphere. It's preferrable for them to put them in very low orbits because they are cheaper to get to and the reduced altitude improves latency.
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