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The 435's avatar

I just love your statement that we're all short duration, even though we don't act like it.

As a metaphor, it maps beautifully onto politics. Elected officials are “short duration” by design: most are up for re-election in 2 or 6 years, and their incentives are to deliver quick wins, like tax cuts, stimulus checks, or new subsidies. The political equivalents of corn chips—they feel good now but are gonna rot the fiscal teeth over time.

Meanwhile, long-duration policies—like fixing the debt, reforming Social Security or rebuilding infrastructure—have upfront costs and delayed rewards. They don’t poll well. They’re “low-yield, high-maturity”: necessary, but politically unattractive.

Thanks for a great metaphor.

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JDaveF's avatar

"the medical, engineering, and business schools could form a new entity and keep doing important government-supported research, and let the college, arts and humanities and social work school do their activism thing on their own"

Too late. Academic medicine, for one, is now wildly woke. One example: for decades now, "racialized people" have had priority for admissions, and have been admitted with lower grades/MCAT scores. There is now serious discussion in academic medicine about instituting lower graduation standards for them. I suspect business and engineering are just as woke.

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