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

241–250 of 294 posts

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

#241

Post by fjsolwmv »

snarfy wrote: post #213
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.

The bachelors isn't important for its inherent value, only as an arbitrary way of ranking people in a rat race.

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

#242

Post by dontreact »

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…

"But even the most pessimistic projections are unlikely to effect my life." I applaud the optimism, but let's not minimize the gravity of climate change: the most pessimistic projections involve a runaway release of methane gas which makes life inhospitable on all of earth.

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

#243

Post by mangix »

adreamingsoul wrote: post #65
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…

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.

leave the US

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

#244

Post by dmm »

Clanan wrote: post #211
tunesmith wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ho…

Once the trust fund is exhausted, unless the law is changed, SS payouts are made equal to SS payroll taxes. This is projected to settle out to payments being ~70% of what has been promised.

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

#245

Post by MR4D »

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…

Normally I don’t unload like this, but framing this as a “right-wing” thing is both stupid and dangerous.

Pensions in this country have made unrealistic assumptions for years.

Just google it. Here’s one for you from the Brits, so no right/left anything: https://www.ft.com/content/456172b4-6b11-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a...

And here’s another: http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/dallas-county/retired-dallas-...

And another: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert...

And another: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/fort-worth...

And another: https://www.ai-cio.com/news/decennial-commission-seeks-aid-n...

Do I need to continue? I will if you continue on your asinine positions that pensions are just fine in this country. So the idea that Social Security has issues is quite well founded.

And if social security doesn’t pay out, politicians on both sides will be to blame for kicking the can down the road.

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

#246

Post by thaumasiotes »

dragonwriter wrote: post #182
Turing_Machine wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more pedantic: The United States has been at war with North Korea since June 27, 1950. The war has been in a ceasefire state for a long time, but there has never been a formal peace treaty. Although a still more pedantic person might point out that there was no formal declaration of war in Korea, so technically it's not a "war" (it was called a "police action").

An even more pedantic person might point out that while various norms (international or internal) might obligate a country to declare war before prosecuting it, the fsct of armed international hostilities is war in international law (though it may not trigger all the effects triggered by a declared war in a states internal law) even if there is no declaration.

That would be a good argument that we were at war in 1950, but it's not a good argument that we've been at war continuously since 1950. If the fact of armed hostilities is war, the fact of no hostilities is peace.

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

#247

Post by MR4D »

rayiner wrote: post #87
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…

> 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…

Two things to note:

1- taxes aren’t going up, even though Boomers have already begun to retire;

2- if Boomers live for a long time in retirement, everyone after them is hosed.

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

#248

Post by catawbasam »

MR4D wrote: post #247
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…

Two things to note: 1- taxes aren’t going up, even though Boomers have already begun to retire; 2- if Boomers live for a long time in retirement, everyone after them is hosed.

Maybe able-bodied Boomer should work longer.

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

#249

Post by MR4D »

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.

Uh, no.

In FY2016, it ran a surplus of $23 billion. For FY2017 the surplus was $35 billion.

Stats here: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html

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

#250

Post by MR4D »

tunesmith wrote: post #218
mobilefriendly wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peo…

Trust fund is targeted to run out in 2034.

Source: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/trust-funds-summary.html

Post reply on HN