Readit NewsDo they realize it's the same info being tracked?
Credit card rewards are a regressive tax on the poor -- literally, only those like us here on HN with good credit can get 2% cashback on everything, the rest who pay with debit/cash effectively subsidise our 2% discount. I enjoy my 2% cashback, but really would rather see a world where, like the EU, interchange got slashed to 30bps and it all went away.
Take a look around the rest of the world -- Alipay in China is 55bps, TNG is Malaysia is 50, Pix in Brazil (I can't find concrete numbers, but seems to be around 22bps), etc. 2-300 bps is outrageous, we should demand better.
I don't know what's the solution here. I'm weary of government intervention in capping prices, but I'm not sure what's the alternative here -- force each card to be available over multiple networks and for them to bid the interchange per transaction? Durbin amendment style caps? I don't know. But I do know that the status quo cannot stand.
Edit: see the classic Boston Fed paper https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/public-policy-discuss... for a more through explanation of my point
It's also worth mentioning the real business is analyzing the consumer data you give them for pennies.
> If a student already knew the material before taking the class and got that A, "they didn't learn anything," said Greene. And "if the student came in and struggled to get a C-plus, they may have learned a lot."
Sorry, Jody Greene, you're out to lunch here. The grade is assigned by the lecturer of a course, as a confirmation that the student knows a thing or two about certain fixed topics. If the student learned about those topics somewhere else before taking the course, they earned that A just as much as someone who learned it in the course.
It is extremely important to intellectual freedom that the time and place where some knowledge or skills were attained is considered immaterial. The idea of someone not getting accreditation in a course because they already knew the material beforehand and so didn't learn anything is completely wrongheaded and abhorrent. I dare say, an attack on Western civilization's intellectual legacy.
> And so if we were to shift our focus on to learning and away from grades, we would be able to tell whether we were graduating people with the skills that we say we're graduating them with."
To "tell whether you are graduating people with skills", you need a test of those skills. That's a grade.
A skill test could actually be a lot harder than earning grades in some disciplines.
For instance, if we expect that computer science graduates ought to be skilled software developers and start testing that, it will be a shitshow.
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I'll take less opportunities for more stability. Many people would. That's what this article is all about. Better for most to have less that you can rely on than more one year and less the other and no sense of calm.
The most extreme example is in academia where they get a lot of stability in exchange for an excruciating job hunt and interview process. And if they don't like the job, they are stuck.
I would rather have a world where we can take a chance on someone, then not. If you have all your ducks in a polished row, and look and act the right way, maybe you prefer protection against that.
Toss the computers also, as we need to reestablish clerical positions to give the at-home spouse something to do once the last child's in school.
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