Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by Clanan » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:48 PM UTC

tunesmith wrote: post #168

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…

Buyer beware... "pension system that likely won't be there" is a right wing frame. In reality, social security very likely WILL be there. But fostering cynicism about it is a prerequisite towards imagining it won't be, which makes it (theoretically) easier to dismantle. "Well it's in poor shape anyway, we should just blow it up..." There are good informative comments below that are being downvoted, that are about how…

There are already unfunded pension plans and systems waiting to blow up in the next decade. This article [0] details the South Carolina government pension plan, covering 550,000 residents, which is currently $24 billion in the red.

Your response is engaging in "political crap" by providing no evidence besides name-calling. For some actual proof of the Social Security situation, here's the SSA report [1] explaining how its Trust Fund will run out in 2035. So yes, Social Security will still exist, but it will rely on short-term funding rather than a big account. That's fine in theory, provided the budget is there. (It likely will be; I imagine the politicians will cut military funding before they hurt SS!)

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/collapsing-pensions-will-f...

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

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

#212

Post by qrbLPHiKpiux » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:49 PM UTC

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…

Time spent being educated is not necessarily related to being educated.

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

#213

Post by snarfy » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 11:51 PM UTC

nickysielicki wrote: post #116

This is such a huge problem and it's so easy to see the collapse over the horizon. There are just a few small differences between education today and education 30 years ago. Off the top of my head, you can go online today and see lectures for upper level MIT courses for free... Literally, the best university in the world has lectures available for free. And instead of learning the dewey decmial system and taking 10 b…

Position Requirements

* Bachelor's degree in CS

As someone without a degree, there are quite a few positions unavailable to me. Some positions state a degree is required even though they would take an exceptional developer, but many others are very strict and require the degree. The pedigree of the employees can be important when the company is in the market to be bought or sold.

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

#214

Post by MollyR » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:03 AM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #205

MollyR wrote: post #37

US government backed student loans were a huge mistake. We needed something like rent control enforced on public universities, for government backed loans. But we didn't. So it created a situation that caused an enormous amount of millennials to be taken advantage of by universities and colleges. Those universities and colleges pumped full of government loan cash became increasingly predatory. They increased their ad…

>worthless degrees like gender studies Worthless eh? I bet if companies Uber hired some of these gender studies majors they might not have fucked up?

I can't tell if you are joking, so I'm taking it seriously.

Uber's human resources and or lawyers should have caught many of its missteps. Common undergrad degrees for HR being in management, business administration, and related business degrees. Lawyers are well lawyers.

Gender Studies doesn't prepare you for business as well as an actual business related degree, it prepares you for a mostly academic career which has limited spots.

That being said, even STEM and business degrees are worth less and less as competition increases. You now need a degree and often years of experience for jobs.

The only thing that really angers me is charging 60,000 dollars for a gender studies degree, and having a student take loans for it. 1/100 might get lucky and work at a big tech company as a tech evangelist, but it's not sustainable.

We need universities to be far more accountable about what degrees actually lead to jobs.

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

#215

Post by mobilefriendly » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:07 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #200

georgeecollins wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" The Board of Trustees of Social Security tells us that the program is going to completely run out of money within the next 15 years. " Is very misleading. Social Security is not a bank account, it is an insurance (you can get it at any time, and you get it simply because you paid in) where people are constantly paying in and out. In 17 years* the Social Security system will probably have to cut benefits by 23% unle…

I don't understand why there is a max income threshold for social security tax. Can anyone explain this to me?

It was conceptualized as a universal safety net pension program, not a welfare program or progressive redistribution program.

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

#216

Post by _old_dude_ » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:08 AM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #175

vminkov wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What happens if Mr. Putin (or one of his successors) suddenly decides that he wants Bulgaria back under Russian control?

Russian troops need to cross Ukraine and Romania first ?

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

#217

Post by mobilefriendly » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:11 AM UTC

Zelphyr wrote: post #157

rayiner wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Board of Trustees of Social Security tells us that the program is going to completely run out of money within the next 15 years. Millennials’ retirement horizon is far beyond that. That’s not how Social Security works. For practical purposes, it’s pay-as-you-go system: http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/misleading-th... . As boomers retire, taxes will need to go up to account for the higher ratio of…

As a Gen-X'er I was told in my twenties that Social Security was going to run out by the time I was forty. Here I am, in my forties, and it hasn't run out yet. That's not to say that it can't or won't. But in those twenty years, if I've learned anything, it's to not trust the headlines.

Since 2014 Social Security has run out of money, and the shortfall is being financed by general federal borrowing. It just isn't in the headlines these days.

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

#218

Post by tunesmith » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:20 AM UTC

mobilefriendly wrote: post #217

Zelphyr wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Gen-X'er I was told in my twenties that Social Security was going to run out by the time I was forty. Here I am, in my forties, and it hasn't run out yet. That's not to say that it can't or won't. But in those twenty years, if I've learned anything, it's to not trust the headlines.

Since 2014 Social Security has run out of money, and the shortfall is being financed by general federal borrowing. It just isn't in the headlines these days.

Another right wing frame... Social Security was in surplus for several years, and it will be several more years before the surplus is exhausted, if ever.

The right wing frame is that the surplus "doesn't exist" or is full of "IOUs" or something. It's hogwash.

Here's how it really works. When Social Security is in surplus, more money comes in from payroll taxes than is paid out in benefits. Payroll taxes come from people who get W-2 income and pay FICA.

That surplus is then used as part of the general fund to pay for various things including thing like tax cuts for lower capital gains. In reality, the general deficit is larger, because the surplus money isn't allocated for those purposes - the surplus continues to exist to pay for social security when it goes into deficit.

If we then pretend that that surplus "isn't actually there", then it means that we've effectively used payroll taxes to fund tax cuts for people that are richer than the people who have paid their payroll taxes. It's a two-step con. It's also false.

Social Security has also transition from surplus to deficit and back to surplus in the past as well.

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

#219

Post by adamson » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:21 AM UTC

eemax wrote: post #171

aggronn wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay you piqued my interest... "bad monetary policy" usually means we should be on the gold standard, but I've never heard that before as a solution for student loans. What are you proposing is the monetary fix?

A gold standard is terrible monetary policy, even worse than the status quo. Good monetary policy would be the fed doing NGDP level targeting a la Scott Sumner: https://www.mercatus.org/system/files/NGDP_Sumner_v-10%20cop... Monetary policy only goes so far though, if you actually want to distribute resources in an equitable way, you probably also need good tax policy. Good tax policy would be taxes which decrease we…

I don't think the Mercatus Center is the best place to look for good or sincere ideas on how to distribute resources in an equitable way

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

#220

Post by outworlder » Sat, Jan 13, 2018, 12:27 AM UTC

mjevans wrote: post #130

rayiner wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Board of Trustees of Social Security tells us that the program is going to completely run out of money within the next 15 years. Millennials’ retirement horizon is far beyond that. That’s not how Social Security works. For practical purposes, it’s pay-as-you-go system: http://www.heritage.org/social-security/report/misleading-th... . As boomers retire, taxes will need to go up to account for the higher ratio of…

The best investment we could make in retirement would /honestly/ be in public owned automation and production of all basic things that don't inherently /require/ human labor. The sooner we can have a society more like Star Trek's utopian future the better for anyone that wants to retire without being a burden on the current generation. (Even then, I don't think I'd ever want to /fully/ retire, I'd just like to focus…

Best investment for whom, though? Not companies. Not governments, not because it wouldn't be beneficial, but because there's no incentive – the benefits are down the road, probably beyond the time it takes for the current generation of politicians to retire.