Op-ed: Marc Andreessen asks why we don't build things anymore – here are some possible answers.
Key Points
He notes that the U.S. couldn't even ramp up production of masks to protect our health-care workers, and he contrasts this unfavorably with an America of past eras that built skyscrapers and interstates and microchips. Andreessen and I are part of the same generation — Gen X, the dot-com generation, the generation that briefly hoped the internet would provide us an escape from the social and political structures that the larger and more politically powerful baby boomers had established in the 1970s and '80s.
But on a micro level, financial incentives shifted away from builders. Low personal tax rates and high business taxes encourage hoarding and discourage reinvesting or starting new businesses. For the last four decades, the biggest paydays have been in professions that involve the allocation and shifting of capital, rather than building things. .
Multiply this situation by a thousandfold at every level of government, in countless industries across the country.The end of the military draft in the 1970s was driven by a sense of justice. It was not fair that kids were forced to fight and die in wars that broad sections of the population thought were unjust, like Vietnam.
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