Scott Galloway's latest TED talk

Scott Galloway is a professor at NYU and a prolific entrepreneur.  He has also hosted podcasts and given TED talks.  In his latest TED talk, he discusses how America is destroying young people's future.  He makes many good points.  The old - who are reliable voters - have gradually voted benefits for themselves that impose costs on future taxpayers.  The old are now the richest cohort in the United States while the young of today are less prosperous than their parents and grandparents were at their age.  How do we reverse this imbalance?  Galloway has some ideas:

Economic changes

1. Increase the minimum wage to $25/hour.
2. Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for high income and corporations
3. Re-fund the IRS
4. Reform Social Security
5. Negative income tax
6. Eliminate capital gains exemption

Right out the gate, he starts with a bad idea.  California has pursued the excessive minimum wage and, rather than getting well-paid jobs for menial skills, it has raised the lowest rung of the ladder to success.  Most unskilled youth aren't going to produce $25 of value with their hour of labor.  This is just a loss to the person paying.  Is it any wonder that McDonald's has switched from multiple counter stations to touch screen kiosks?  The AMT, funding the IRS, and eliminating capital gains exemption are just ways for the already wasteful government to squeeze more money out of the citizenry.  As for capital gains, one must remember the flipside of capital losses.  To take the risk of investing, there needs to be an upside.  If you tax investment, you will get less of it.  Investment drives the economy.  Good luck reforming Social Security with the most reliable voting block (the elderly) in favor of it.  Regarding the negative income tax, Galloway admits that is just a better way to sell Universal Basic Income (UBI).  I'm not opposed to the idea as even Milton Friedman discussed it favorably.

Technology

1. Remove 230 protection to algorithmically-elevated content
2. Identity verification
3. Break up Big Tech
4. Age-gating

Galloway notes that technology companies are providing more news than news companies today and yet, when there is talk of treating them as a media company, the tech giants squeal.  He flips the script with claims of being a platform into other industries.  Funny.  The Big Tech companies are beyond huge and they are crushing competition.  He proposes breaking them up just as happened to AT&T or Big Oil.  Now that social media has been around for more than a decade, the negative impacts have become clear; it is devastating to the young, driving up depression and self-harm.  No one under 16 should be on social media.  

Social Policy

1. Universal Pre-K
2. Reinstate expanded child tax credit
3. Term limits
4. Income based affirmative action
5. Expand college enrollment & vocational programs

Kids who were in Pre-K vs. those who weren't are indistinguishable by the 3rd grade.  There is no benefit to this program other than it employs more teachers and expands government.  As for the child tax credit, I'm for it.  Whenever government gives money back to the taxpayer, I'm pleased.  Term limits are the best idea on this list.  Government 'service' should not be a career.  You serve for a few years and then go back home and suffer the consequences of your government 'service.'  It might be best to get elected officials like we get jurors.  "You've been selected as Congressman for the next 2 years."  As an opponent of affirmative action, I am not keen on just a different way of deciding who is favored and who is disfavored.  However, income-based does seem like a better attribute than race.  Vocational programs are a great idea, but we already have too much college enrollment.  Galloway proposes ways of increasing enrollment while dramatically cutting costs.  Nice, but the benefits of a college education are no longer what they once were.  Now college students graduate with crippling debt and degrees that aren't valued.

Mental Health

1. Ban phones in school
2. Invest in 3rd places
3. Big Brothers/Big Sisters
4. National Service Requirement

Absolutely ban phones in school.  In fact, kids probably shouldn't have smart phones until after they graduate high school.  Maybe treat them like cigarettes or alcohol.  He proposes that the top students don't need help to be successful.  Attention should be paid to those lower on the merit ladder, the 3rd place students rather than the 1st and 2nd.  Big Brothers & Big Sisters are a fine idea in this era of broken families.  Galloway proposes that everyone should serve the country to be exposed to the greatness of it and of their fellow citizens.  Not really a fan of mandatory service.  Government already taxes me and required me to spend years in a government school, now it wants a couple more years of my life as a servant?  No.  

Galloway admits to being a progressive and many of his proposals show that.  He has some good ideas, but too many rely on government.  Tell me again what created this imbalance between young and old?  Yeah, the government, because old people vote and young people don't.