Meritocracy

 How do we get out of this?

1: Stop defining "merit" by credentials.  Acknowledge the reality that America's (in reality, the entire West's) "meritocratic elite" is a dumpster fire of failure, at least when it comes to improving society, rather than their own person situations.

2: Not all important jobs require a college degree.  Plumber is a lot more important than HR Clerk

3: Break the power of the gatekeepers.  Companies started requiring college degrees because "anti-discrimination" law pushed them for honestly rating their employees themselves.  So:

A: Dump all current anti-discrimination law

B: New rules:

i: You may not hire, fire, promote, or demote based upon skin color or national origin.  You may give plus factors to people who are American citizens, you may not give minus factors for that, or plus factors for non-US citizens 

ii: You MAY add extra recruiting to bring in "underrepresented" groups.

a: You must publicly state what your criteria are for figuring out if a group is "underrepresented"

b: Those criteria must be applied non-politically across your entire recruitment (IOW, if "Evangelical Christian Trump supporters" are underrepresented according to your criteria, you'd better be working to recruit them, too).

c: Any individual can sue any company that decides to do "extra recruiting", on the grounds that the company is violating the above rules, either by doing more than just making sure everyone knows about the opportunities, or by lying about what it is doing (not exactly follow what they said they'd do).  It's "loser pays", the person suing / their lawyer are corporately and personally liable if they lose, all lawyer fees paid, not as part of the settlement, if they win.

iii: No "disparate impact".  If you want to accuse a company of racial discrimination, you bear the burden of proof that their actions are done for racially discriminatory reasons.  All lawsuits under the "racial discrimination" rubric are also "loser pays".

iv: Absolutely no "affirmative action" beyond making an extra effort to make certain people aware that you're hiring, and what you're looking for.  Racism is evil and wrong, no matter who you hurt, or who you try to help.

C: Probably need some sort of 10 year: you can be sued for discrimination for requiring a college degree for a job.  Burden of proof is on the company to prove they aren't requiring a degree.  Loser pays,  Full realm of "disparate impact" allowed in suits.  IOW: yes we really mean it.  your college degree is a meaningless piece of paper.  You have to get hired based on your personal abilities and knowledge

4: Anti-globalization.  The biggest problem we face is that top ranked Americans get paid based on the wealth of the entire world, and bring that wealth here to out-compete their fellow Americans. This, IMHO, is the biggest driver of destructive inequality.  Some thoughts:

A: You create a company and hire a bunch of American employees in America.  You do business overseas with the products you create, bringing $1 billion / year, most of which goes to purchasing inputs here in the US and paying US wages.  You personally make $1 million a year off of this.  Good

B: You are a brilliant individual who consults all over the world.  You make $10 million a year from your brilliance.  Bad

C: The B person brings in $$ to the US, and spends it on goods and services that get their fellow Americans paid.  But they're paying to aggrandize themselves vs their fellow Americans, jacking up internal US prices.  Essentially everywhere they win, another American loses, it's a zero sum game within the US.

D: The A person brings $$ to the US, directly to other Americans.  Broad short pyramid vs narrow tall pyramid.  We want more broad short pyramids.

E: So tax law should be "counterproductively" focused.

i: It's better for US GDP if you earn money overseas, and spend it here.

ii: It's better for social equality if $$ personally earned overseas are spent overseas.  You want to buy up resort properties overseas?  Great!  Want to buy them here with your overseas $$?  You get taxed highly for the privilege.

iii: Yes, this means that people who work at US resorts may get paid less,  and those who own them definitely get paid less.

iv: But it means more Americans can afford to go to an American resort.  That's a net win.