Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

community.finimize.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 294 posts

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#131

Post by godelski »

vminkov wrote: post #93
adreamingsoul wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millennial here, thanks for the daily reminder of the future I have to deal with. Failing government systems, check. Unaffordable educational system, check. Limited housing and land, check. Degrading climate, check. Some days I believe I just may find a way out of it. But, for every day I participate in the rat race is just another lost when I should be working on building a better future for my family.

Come to Eastern Europe, your student loan money is enough for a whole new life here. P.s. honestly, I don't understand how ppl who are so hoplessly indebted are not migrating here. Bulgaria offers very cheap life with the opportunity of doing business with the EU and the US. Why work 24/7 when you can enjoy a good life in a place where the local people and economy need a foreigner to lead them in the business and glo…

Because 80% of people (at least Americans) live tldr: There's more to the equation than finance.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#132

Post by nikkwong »

throwaway30yo wrote: post #110
adreamingsoul wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millennial here, thanks for the daily reminder of the future I have to deal with. Failing government systems, check. Unaffordable educational system, check. Limited housing and land, check. Degrading climate, check. Some days I believe I just may find a way out of it. But, for every day I participate in the rat race is just another lost when I should be working on building a better future for my family.

Millenial here. I think things are better then you think. Failing government systems? Have always existed. Unaffordable education? Never went, no idea. Online education still free. Limited Housing and Land? Flyover country, tons of cheap housing and land. Degrading Climate? Yes. But even the most pessimistic projections are unlikely to effect my life. Its a great time to be alive. Country not at war, unemployment is…

Kind of a red herring IMO. Anecdotes only get you so far—when we look at the vast majority of millenials, most of their prospects are not so great. And this is especially true in comparison to the prospects of earlier generations.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#133

Post by icedchai »

the_gastropod wrote: post #121
45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dont worry. put your funds into 'good money' like sensible cryptocurrencies and watch your savings multiply. that is how we will fight the crooked boomer system.

This is really dangerous advice, especially for the poor. Crypto "investments" only multiply by convincing the next person down the line to buy your at a higher price than you did. Add to this that there are no consumer protections around it, and it's an absolute honeypot for scammers. 99% of the key to wealth is to live beneath your means. It's unglamorous advice, but it's absolutely effective.

I'm pretty sure the parent was being sarcastic.

"The Millionaire Next Door" should be required reading in high school. It has all you need to know about living below your means, building wealth slowly and consistently.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#134

Post by pdelbarba »

throwaway30yo wrote: post #110
adreamingsoul wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millennial here, thanks for the daily reminder of the future I have to deal with. Failing government systems, check. Unaffordable educational system, check. Limited housing and land, check. Degrading climate, check. Some days I believe I just may find a way out of it. But, for every day I participate in the rat race is just another lost when I should be working on building a better future for my family.

Millenial here. I think things are better then you think. Failing government systems? Have always existed. Unaffordable education? Never went, no idea. Online education still free. Limited Housing and Land? Flyover country, tons of cheap housing and land. Degrading Climate? Yes. But even the most pessimistic projections are unlikely to effect my life. Its a great time to be alive. Country not at war, unemployment is…

Come to Colorado. Formerly the apex of flyover real estate. Now the location of million dollar 2000sqft houses. I see maps from as late as a decade ago with nothing on them where whole cities now exist.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#135

Post by Karrot_Kream »

michaelchisari wrote: post #114
SheepSlapper wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Millennials are the most educated generation in history. Yet there are record numbers of them working off student debts as waiters and bartenders, and supplementing their income on the side with ‘gigs’ (like being an Uber driver) We're the most educated in history, but many people decided to use that education to learn topics that aren't lucrative/in demand. Personal responsibility plays in a ton here, and some peo…

Law degrees used to be in demand. Then everyone went to law school. Now it's not in demand, because there are too many people with law degrees. Now you have people with massive law school debt making peanuts and all fighting for very limited amount of positions. If everyone studied computer science, every single one of our salaries (save for maybe the top 5% of us, in terms of skills and experience) would drop signif…

Many of my childhood friends did that with Biotech. When I was growing up, Biotech was The Hot Thing (TM), and it was going to change the world. Now the ones that didn't like it enough to pursue a Masters/PhD in it are struggling to make ends meet with a cocktail of multiple jobs. The happiest ones mostly ended up leaving to lower cost-of-living parts of the US where it's easier to find lower-middle-class employment.

P.S. Most of my friends grew up in families around the poverty line, so that'll affect my story.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#136

Post by Justsignedup »

gesman wrote: post #11

Recent reports from the Treasury Department show that the US government owns nearly $1.5 trillion in student loans. That’s pretty sad when you think about it: the US government’s #1 financial asset is debt owed by tens of millions of its young people for university education that didn’t even necessarily qualify them for a real career. Millennials are the most educated generation in history. Yet there are record numbe…

Welcome to Soviet Russia where you will meet engineers, doctors, and generally college level educated populous, as your waiters and cabbies.

How we learned from history.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#138

Post by ThrustVectoring »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #45

Thanks to baby boomers for depleting resources of this nation and now younger generations are stuck in this financial mess. Had they been more visionary with better overlook then today there would have been better opportunities for younger generation to earn and pay back those loans. https://www.vox.com/2017/12/20/16772670/baby-boomers-millenn...

Baby boomers were kind of stuck with a pretty rough demographic problem. Workers-per-retiree is an incredibly important number, and it's been dropping steadily due to declining birth rates and extended longevity in the West.

And roughly speaking, there are two ways society can turn current productivity into future support for retirees. The first is to forgo consumption of current production in exchange for a promise of future consumption of others production - this can either be implicit through a tax-and-distribute scheme, or directly implemented through debt. Retirement saving in general is the latter, and increased savings rate leads to savings gluts which cause cheap debt which forces the price of debt-financed goods up to make the market clear. This, in short, is why college is so expensive: every creditor needs to find a debtor, and Grandma bought up fixed-income products.

The second way to use current production is to leave easy-to-collect natural resources like oil in the ground, use current productivity to fund current consumption instead, and collect those resources later. Everything else is impractical on a society-wide scale.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#139

Post by prepend »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #94
aantix wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"limited housing and land"? I don't agree. The Midwest is very affordable. Plenty of land. Remote work is a definite possibility.

You don't have to agree, but that fact is still true. I also have hesitations with buying land in the Midwest, mostly due to climate change factors.

That’s an interesting perspective. What climate change factors worry you? The Midwest is one of the few regions in the US that stand to benefit from climate change. Easy/West will be worst hit.

Re: Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans

#140

Post by godelski »

the_gastropod wrote: post #121
45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dont worry. put your funds into 'good money' like sensible cryptocurrencies and watch your savings multiply. that is how we will fight the crooked boomer system.

This is really dangerous advice, especially for the poor. Crypto "investments" only multiply by convincing the next person down the line to buy your at a higher price than you did. Add to this that there are no consumer protections around it, and it's an absolute honeypot for scammers. 99% of the key to wealth is to live beneath your means. It's unglamorous advice, but it's absolutely effective.

I may be wrong, but I read their advice as sarcasm.
Post reply on HN