Wow, fantastic article, no punches pulled, thanks for posting.
Also has some very interesting concepts I'd never heard of before, like Hanlon's razor, and the function of ads in US education.
That does explain a lot, it is something probably unique to US culture.
Your observations of the effect of things including those to create useless energy wasting industry are another view of the problem I've tried to characterise in my stories about Bullshit Industry.
All of it is driven by the depletion of energy underlying all things what I disingeneously call "Earth energy", for want of a better term, meaning the energy of life itself, which is uniquely supplied to all of life from the sun, hence the thing that should be monetised when we put it to use.
More than ever, it looks like all is put right when this is done, it seems to me.