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Thomas Friedman (lol) has a chapter in the Wolrd Is Flat about how you can tell if a country is, basically, living or dying if it focuses more on dreams or memories. Old people deciding to destroy education to save a quick buck is basically the definition of that

Quote

Jordan Weissmann

@JHWeissmann

Aug 21

As I’ve been saying, nonzero chance retired boomers are going to launch a property tax revolt that ends up defunding public schools. x.com/mnolangray/sta…

5:57 PM · Aug 21, 2025

135.5K

Views

David Watson 🥑

If only Tiny Tim hadn't alienated Old Man Scrooge by taking divisive positions on issues of gender and race

the problem is not funding, the problem is poor education policy. See Mississippi n Louisiana making huge gains with low funding levels.

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This is clearly bogus even within its own worldview 1980s pastel colors etc were an idealization of the 1950s

Isn't this also the Cracker Barrel thing? That those who went there in 1980 think it must stay like that, for them, instead of seeing what the next generation wants in the future. Boomers want to maintain, not create. A flip from when they were young.

Boomers are the Saturn generation eating their children

Would be a better argument if public education hadn't already destroyed itself, via 30 years of steeply increasing funding and steeply declining results.

@wet____noodles

We mock Thomas Friedman for his op eds, but the world is flat is demonstrably one of the best books on economics

Jordan reads a cranky old libertarian complain about property taxes, he generalizes this into a current movement to eliminate them, and his followers begin frothing their Boomer hatred over something that has no basis in reality. Just another day on twitter.

What I find funny is how economists can see the need for Social Security, i.e. people fail to invest for retirement, then are surprised the same olds want to unreasonably stay in their oversized house. The mind reels!!!

We should absolutely be taking more money from old people and using it to support children, but property taxes are bad and not the way. Repeat taxation is never justified and it mainly increases barriers to homeownership by comparison to other forms of tax

The ability of the retired and elderly to afford housing is a real problem and is a key component of solving this problem so that people who can no longer afford their homes have a place to live.

@200salamanders

Reminds me of how nostalgia was considered an early sign of scurvy by sailors

I mean its just a numbers game old people decide because they show up to vote more often. That's it. Just get more from your side to vote. It's not a hard solution or problem

Not me. I know that we need educated population. And who is going to be my nurse, doctor, aide when I’m Old? We still need roads, bridges, hospitals, transportation so I’m a yes on property taxes, but should increase on long vacant properties.

They’re just going to speedrun the decline in revenue that’ll occur from a shrinking (especially on the young end) population and be shocked when everything completely crumbles. But I guess if they die before that happens they don’t care

Two points here. 1st, municipalities increase tax assessments, yet schools do not improve from the current dismal state. 2nd, increasing tax on retired people may push them out of their homes. Taxes for many are more than their mortgage payments were.

Ya it’s also the entire Republican Party rn.

Been a while since I've heard anyone else mention that book. I wonder what he was thinking when McDonald's got kicked out of Russia.

You'd have something resembling a point if expenditure per student tracked meaningfully with positive outcomes but

Jonathan Cast /s

Public school isn't a dream it's a nightmare

Theyforcedmetomakeone

@Theyforcedmeto2

Yet the youth in that country vote even less than most.

So is losing your shit over a faux old-timey restaurant chain

Prop 13 revisited?

Old people deciding to destroy education to save a quick buck basically sums up the formation of the department of education and its’ active history

fun guy from yoggoth

Turkiye speedrun

Destroy education implies it's working.

_hardestrager3_

Funding is irrelevant when the children are all brown and black. It is worth investing in schoolchildren and their futures but trying to turn blacks and browns into scholars is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone...it won't work no matter how much money is spent

Legatus Invictus

@LegatusInv1ctus

Chilango Gringo

@gringo_chilango

Education has been destroyed. Boomers are trying to resurrect it for the good of their children and grandchildren. What we now call “education” misinforms and creates mental health problems.