zlacker

The reason is because employers are insanely brutal in the job market due to an oversupply of qualified talent. We have more people than we have positions available to work for quality wages. This is why everything is so extreme. Students need to be in the top X percent in order to get a job that leads to a decent quality of life in the US. The problem is that every student knows this and is now competing against one another for these advantages.

It’s like stack ranking within companies that always fire the bottom 20%. Everyone will do whatever they can to be in the top 80% and it continues to get worse every year. Job conditions are not improving every year - they are continually getting worse and that’s due to the issue that we just don’t have enough jobs.

This country doesn’t build anything anymore and we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few. This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year.

>>bradly+(OP)
Your comment explains why students would like to receive these accommodations (it gives them a competitive edge), but does nothing to explain why this is logical or beneficial.

If as you say the number of available positions is constrained, this system does nothing to increase the supply of those positions. It also does nothing increase the likelihood that those positions are allocated to those with the greatest material need. This is Stanford; I am sure many of the disabled students at Stanford are in the 1%.

>>jaredk+g2
Even in the top 1% there’s a limited amount of positions. Everyone wants every advantage possible over everyone else. That is how the market is. Even for Stanford students there is a hierarchy.

>>bradly+V6
Yes, I agree with that, but that still doesn't explain why it would be a good idea to give some students more time on a test. It explains why students would be incentivized to game the system and get more time. But it doesn't explain why we have this strange system to begin with.

>>bradly+(OP)
> This country doesn’t build anything anymore and we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few. This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year.

Wouldn't say this is an accurate description of the US economy.

https://realtimeinequality.org/?id=wealth&wealthend=03012023...

>>astran+jr
When I graduated HS in 1982, the top 1% had 34.7% percent of the wealth. Today, the top 1% has 71.1%. So yeah, I'd say he's spot on. There have been a few dips and valleys, but the trend line is pretty strong.

>>astran+jr
That link supports the thesis if everything?

Top 0.01%, +9.1%

Top 0.1%, +13.9%

Top 1%, +15.2%

Top 10%, +6.1%

Middle 40%, -6%

Bottom 50%, -0.1%

This supports exactly GP's two statements:

> we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few.

Correct, their slice of the pie is growing, the bottom 90%'s is shrinking

> This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year.

Also correct, the biggest growth of share being in the top 1% segment.

>>greedo+kD
That is not what that chart shows. It shows top 1% was 25% in 1982 and 35-37% now. Mostly related to the Great Recession.

>>deaux+ID
> > we are concentrating all the wealth and power into the hands of a few.

> Correct, their slice of the pie is growing, the bottom 90%'s is shrinking

Not sure about "power" there. In my experience you get power by having a lot of free time and dedication to something else other people don't care about… which yes includes billionaires obviously, but most of the people meeting that description are just middle class retirees, so they're outnumbered.

> > This leaves the top 1% getting richer every year and the bottom 99% fighting over a smaller piece of the pie every year.

> Also correct, the biggest growth of share being in the top 1% segment.

It does not show it "every year", there are long periods of stagnation and some reversals. I would say it shows that recessions are bad and we should avoid having them.

nb another more innocuous explanation is: there's no reason to have a lot of wealth. To win at this game you need to hoard wealth, but most people are intentionally not even trying that. For instance, you could have a high income but spend it all on experiences or donate it all to charity.

>>jaredk+bg
Probably started out as an exception for truly difficult situations but like everything else became routinely exploited once widely known about and eventually became a defacto norm and just part of the protocol.

A lot of things start like this. You need someone with an aggressive backbone to enforce things - which these institutions won't have.

>>astran+LF
Who is in the white house regularly dictating policy? Is it old retirees with no money or connections?

>>bradly+ZO
Who's at your local city council meeting getting every single proposal to build an apartment cancelled? (It's the old people.)

>>deaux+ID
People move a lot between those "buckets" over their lives. It's not the same 1% decade after decade.