▪️This meme is an ignorant historical fantasy. It’s sort of funny that they say there was a bank crisis “almost every 10 years” (which could often mean 15+ years) and then use an 8 yr period, 2010-18, as some sort of victory. But this silly narrative ignores the real reason for bank crises.
▪️Ironically, the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s resulted from bank regulations, many of which dated back to FDR in the 1930s. For example, the govt limited the interest rates S&Ls were allowed to pay, which caused depositors to flee when they could get better returns elsewhere.
https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SavingsandLoanCrisis.html
▪️They were also limited on the mortgage rates they were allowed to charge, which types of loans they could make, banned from issuing adjustable rate mortgages, and highly localized because they were banned from operating across state lines.
▪️Even worse, the government’s deposit insurance (extended to S&Ls in 1934) charged every institution the same rates regardless of their risk. This set up a highly regulated industry with perverse incentives that was ripe for a crisis.
▪️What precipitated the S&L crisis was the inflation of the 1970s, which caused the Fed to rapidly raise interest rates. This left S&Ls with a bunch of mortgages that were at lower rates, while they had to pay higher interest on deposits. By 1982, the entire S&L industry had a negative net worth!
▪️In attempt to save the already doomed S&Ls, the govt tried a bunch of interventions, mostly dumb, instead of letting the zombie S&Ls fail. Some of these included “deregulating” the industry by letting banks make riskier loans and reducing capital standards.
▪️This exacerbated the crisis as banks gambled on risky strategies to become whole again. It ended up making the problem, and ensuing bailouts, much larger. But the fundamental cause was inflation, which caused rising interest rates in a highly regulated industry, precipitating a banking crisis.
▪️Which is what is happening now. We had a decade of 0% interest rates, where banks acquired lots of low yielding bonds, like US Treasuries, which were considered safe and encouraged by the govt.
▪️Now that rates have risen to fight inflation, these bonds are worth much less, while depositors are demanding higher rates. The fundamental problem was central banks holding rates so low for so on, not by “deregulation.”
▪️Notice, no one can point to a specific repealed regulation that would have prevented these bank failures. In reality, the banking sector is one of the most, if not the most, regulated industries. It’s just a mythical narrative, much like this meme’s supposed history of bank crises.
So many of these right wing accounts are just whiners now, this is a diatribe about automatic sinks and towels, the horror! As I explained in a prior post, most of the newer terminals have great bathrooms, some now have completely private stalls and plenty of them. The worst and most crowded airport bathrooms are invariably found in aging terminals that are decades old. It’s a reminder that airports were usually drab and uncomfortable.
I think the heyday of the air hand-dryers was like 15-20 years ago, where often you couldn’t find real towels. Now you can at least usually get real paper towels in airport bathrooms. Remember those old cloth roller towels that would go in a loop and somehow “clean” themselves? Yuck! Public bathrooms have always been gross, it seems some are deliberately having selective memories.
Airport food and drinks were always expensive, but now practically everyone brings those huge cooler flasks with them and fills them up. So not sure what he means that ...
I first critiqued this terrible take by looking at how food has actually improved substantially. Even though I said the same could be done in every category, people said “you’re only doing food.” So let’s do air travel and see why it’s not gotten better, not worse.
▪️Aircraft have greatly improved. Just 15-20 years ago, many domestic routes (~15%) were flown by turboprops like the Brasilia, Dash 8 or Saab. Now, almost everything is in jets, and most aircraft have WiFi. Some even have Starlink, where you probably have faster WiFi than your home. Most major airlines offer dozens or hundreds of movies and shows to watch.
▪️Newer designs like the 787 have lower cabin altitudes and improved humidity, which make a huge difference in passenger comfort on long haul flights. The first/business class international market has gotten very competitive globally, with many carriers offering excellent service and amenities. Pods, suites, showers, etc. Coach still sucks but is dramatically cheaper ...
This is the complete opposite of an empirical fact. The right has now joined the left in being pessimistic about the modern world and completely unappreciative of the amazing abundance we now have. I’ll just focus on food here, but you could do it for almost every category.
▪️Fresh produce used to be available only in season. In the winter it was canned or frozen. People used to send fruit for Christmas gifts, it was that much of a luxury good. Now, you can get giant, sweet berries year around in every grocery store. Corn on the cob in February. Not to mention once rare items like dragon fruit, heirloom tomatoes or baby bok choy.
▪️If you didn’t live on the coast, seafood was either not available, frozen, or extremely expensive. If you lived in the Midwest and traveled to coastal locales you would quite literally be able to eat food you had never seen. Salmon has become much more abundant and accessible. You can get fresh ahi at Walmart today. Sushi and oyster bars exist everywhere ...
