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US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

nytimes.com

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Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#291

Post by zxcmx »

martin_bech wrote: post #287
swimfar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was that he went to a college he could afford. It's true that not everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. But no one has to pay $40k+/year in tuition to get a good education.

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

Yeah but I bet your sports facilities are nowhere near as good, and the admin departments are way understaffed /s

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#292

Post by WillPostForFood »

martin_bech wrote: post #287
swimfar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point was that he went to a college he could afford. It's true that not everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. But no one has to pay $40k+/year in tuition to get a good education.

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. But for sure, Denmark is a nice, well run country.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#293

Post by flukus »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #292
martin_bech wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. But for sure, Denmark is a nice, well run country.

> It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population.

It's also divided into 51 smaller, more localized governments.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#294

Post by martin_bech »

zelos wrote: post #290
martin_bech wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Denmark everyone can get scholarships to pay for their entire education. That and they get a stipend for living expenses. Everyone gets this, young or old, rich or poor.

How do taxes work out in Denmark? I tried to work out how it would compare to the UK, but it seems significantly more complex to work out. I _think_ an average programmer on £50-60k would end up paying about 35-40% of their income in tax? Or have I completely miscalculated? Compared to about 30% in the UK

Its somewhat complicated, but you pay 8% off the bat as "Arbejdsmarkedsbidrag", then you have a lot of deductions and pay about 40% on the rest. All in all I would wager that my effective tax rate comes to just under 40%, but your milleage will vary.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#295

Post by WillPostForFood »

lz400 wrote: post #139
manacit wrote: post #10

I don't know if it's a "bubble" (I am not qualified to say that), but I can't imagine that the current trend with student loans will continue. Looking at the numbers for someone entering college in 2017, it feels nearly predatory what a good portion of private and out of state colleges are charging. Even with financial aid, $30-40k a year for 4-5 years is insane. I was fortunate enough to have parents who made saving…

I truly don't understand the USA sometimes. Don't you guys know that in Europe higher education is free? Well where I'm from there was a very low nominal cost but my father was a public servant so cost was waived, I literally studied CS for 0 cost. And these countries are able to afford it all! Magic! I don't understand how people in USA are not aware of this and literally rioting in the streets. At the very least sw…

You didn't pay for it, but it wasn't free. Everyone else paid for you.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#296

Post by WillPostForFood »

Daishiman wrote: post #245
muninn_ wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is really mind-boggling is your comment. First, education is not, in any way, shape or form, free. You pay for it in taxes. Period. This isn't a pro/anti tax argument, but it's necessary to say. Second, you can also study CS for free in the United States or at a heavy scholarship. Large state schools subsidize a lot of engineers in their educational pursuit so long as you achieve good grades, or score well on en…

> Furthermore, by any measure that matters, the universities in the United States are the best in the world, bar none. So the competition to attend, places further pressure on those seeking degrees that do not immediately translate into a high paying job. We've made a mistake, as a society, by emphasizing "go to college" over "go to trade school". Maybe a very tiny minority of the top schools, but in my experience as…

~40% of the top 100 schools are in the US, as ranked by a non US entity.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin...

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#297

Post by nstj »

ryandamm wrote: post #82
yuhong wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to think more in terms of the trade deficit and budget deficit.

While important, those are driven by capital flows (into the US), not the other way around. Because the US has open capital markets and a floating exchange rate, exogenous flows really dictate everything. If the exogenous capital flow is held constant, then the budget deficit reflects the allocation of debt (driven by capital flows) to the government sector. But you could have a perfectly balanced budget, and the deb…

They're not even really that complex - people just try and make them difficult :)

If you import more 'stuff' than you export then you have to balance that difference with something (ie: stocks, bonds, hard currency, land).

And causality is seemingly a difficult one to track down!

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#298

Post by arethuza »

crdb wrote: post #182
ryandrake wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, maybe it's different now, but my generation (went to school in the mid 90s) was not told to "just go to the best college no matter what": We were also advised to consider the cost and carefully choose a major so as to produce a positive expected ROI. Obviously nobody has a crystal ball and you can never tell when huge, industry-wrecking changes are coming, but it was well understood that majoring in Und…

> not told to "just go to the best college no matter what" > majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving was not a great idea from a financial point of view I've met many people in places like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs (i.e. "elite" high paying jobs) with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge in Philosophy, English, Arch & Ant or Theology (in "decreasing usefulness"). Many more than, say, graduates in accounting or business adm…

"a law conversion course takes a mere few months in the UK"

For a start there isn't a single legal system in the UK - Scotland has a different process for qualifying than England does and NI and Wales might have different processes.

In Scotland to qualify as a lawyer if you already have a first degree in another subject requires 2 years to get an LLB and then another year to get a postgraduate diploma in legal practice (both full time) then 2 years training at a law firm.

From what I can see in England the equivalent of the 2 years LLB takes 1 year but you still have to get a postgraduate qualification and do the training.

The Law Society for England and Wales says 4 years to qualify as as solicitor if you have first degree.

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/law-careers/becoming-a-solicit...

Qualifying as a barrister (or advocate here in Scotland) ironically may take less time - but that's exceptional.

NB My wife did the "conversion course" route here in Scotland and it took 5 year and she went on to be called to the bar as an Advocate.

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#299

Post by WillPostForFood »

flukus wrote: post #293
WillPostForFood wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. But for sure, Denmark is a nice, well run country.

> It gets more complicated in a non homogenous country with 56 times the population. It's also divided into 51 smaller, more localized governments.

If it was all delegated to them, it might work. But what you have instead is 50 secondary layers of bureaucracy, while the Federal govt holds firm control of the student loan market, and imposes control and regulation on colleges, using both carrot (R&D money) and stick (loans).

Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High

#300

Post by crdb »

arethuza wrote: post #298
crdb wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not told to "just go to the best college no matter what" > majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving was not a great idea from a financial point of view I've met many people in places like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs (i.e. "elite" high paying jobs) with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge in Philosophy, English, Arch & Ant or Theology (in "decreasing usefulness"). Many more than, say, graduates in accounting or business adm…

"a law conversion course takes a mere few months in the UK" For a start there isn't a single legal system in the UK - Scotland has a different process for qualifying than England does and NI and Wales might have different processes. In Scotland to qualify as a lawyer if you already have a first degree in another subject requires 2 years to get an LLB and then another year to get a postgraduate diploma in legal practi…

Sure, I was just going in the spirit of the comment. I have a few friends from degrees ranging from philosophy and music to physics who did a few months somewhere in the City and then were working relatively well paid corporate jobs ("relatively" because London just eats everything until you make enormous amounts of money). I'm sure they were useful in some degree to the legal departments they entered after "graduating" from that course...
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