When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo • Hacker News Board

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#141

Post by kaesar14 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #132

kaesar14 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, not legally, but relative to the life experience required to even somewhat competently navigate the complexities of the modern world, 18 year olds are functionally children. Your entire life to that point is school, for many people, sheltered from the harsher realities of life and finances. That entrance and exit loan counseling is a privilege for sure. I just graduated from a top 25 ranked private school and w…

> That entrance and exit loan counseling is a privilege for sure. I just graduated from a top 25 ranked private school and was never given loan counseling, and none of my peers were either. Entrance/exit counseling is required for any federal student loan. Perhaps your loans weren’t federal? > Meanwhile, the costs have gone up...I don’t know, at least 100% since you went to school? Shit, tuition went up 4 grand while…

Nope, I had federal loans. No counseling. Not sure what to tell you. A quick search of my student email account reveals a "required" exit counseling session, which I was not aware of until searching for it in my email at this very moment. No other attempt to contact me to get the counseling, and I very much successfully graduated without going. So seems the school at least doesn't really care too much.

As for your last point, I'm not sure how that matters? By my count, 14 of the top 25 universities globally are American private institutions. Not all of us were lucky enough to be raised in states with the caliber of public universities of California, and for us, the chance at a better life was one of those top private universities. That was a dream sold to me by the educational system my entire primary and secondary school life, and while it did work out for me, it's not working for thousands of young people and needs to be changed.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#142

Post by colorado4444 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

rangeofmotion wrote: post #41

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people…

Try building your own house or your own car and then you might have some respect for the amount of work and expertise that goes into it. A house is not dirt with four walls and a roof... that's a tent. I've built one solo, banging nails and cutting wood. Buying one or renting one lets you skip a lot of work.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#143

Post by gfs78 » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #133

gfs78 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then, are some of these things really needed? I don't have a car, I have a basic smartphone, and old basic laptop, not much in terms of clothes, and I don't travel abroad for holidays (all this because I cannot afford something better without getting into debt) and I get by fine (and I'm 40). Most millenials have at least a car (even a cheap one) or nice phones with nice data plans, or clothes, or travel to nice…

Most Americans do not live in areas where you could reasonably live without a car, and transit-rich, walkable areas have much higher rents.

Would you mind putting in concrete examples the sentence "most Americans do not live in areas where you could reasonably live without a car". It's not a critique, I'm not american so I don't understand how could this be, given the level of development of the country and the proliferation of cities that you are supposed to have.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#144

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:17 PM UTC

yellowapple wrote: post #68

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The current culture telling everyone to go to expensive private colleges "Everyone" doesn't go to expensive private colleges. Of those who continue on from high-school at all, 75% attend a publicly owned institution, usually community college.

Are state colleges not also publicly owned? Those ain't nearly as affordable as community colleges. When I was in high school, being railroaded into prioritizing CSU or UC admission requirements over graduation requirements was the norm even for students (like me) who had effectively zero chance of getting into one of those schools immediately after high school (let alone getting a scholarship or meaningful financial…

>Are state colleges not also publicly owned? Those ain't nearly as affordable as community colleges.

They are publicly owned, and can be made affordable by legislatures without interfering in private organizations.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#145

Post by bobthepanda » Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

gfs78 wrote: post #143

bobthepanda wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Americans do not live in areas where you could reasonably live without a car, and transit-rich, walkable areas have much higher rents.

Would you mind putting in concrete examples the sentence "most Americans do not live in areas where you could reasonably live without a car". It's not a critique, I'm not american so I don't understand how could this be, given the level of development of the country and the proliferation of cities that you are supposed to have.

Most Americans live in metropolitan areas, but the vast majority of these metropolitan areas are extremely low-density, single-use suburbs.

* The roads are long, winding, and poorly connected (so walking distances are excessive). This leads to ridiculous scenarios like https://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/28/sprawl-madness-two-ho...

* The stores are generally large big-box stores that is often kilometers from ones' house; there are no small corner shops and restaurants, because they are illegal.

* If you're still determined to walk, you probably need to cross large, high-speed roads with short crossing times, and your origin and destination are probably separated from the road by a large parking lot. And you may not even have sidewalks or crossing facilities. Example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Panera+Bread,+143+Alexander+...

* Public transit in American suburbs is a joke. Because it's so hard to walk around, ridership is very low, making frequency hard to justify, causing even lower ridership. And this is before you consider that

Americans are anti-tax

American suburbs have an associated history with white flight post-segregation, so people often object to transit because it'll let "criminals" in

So you wind up with situations like this Detroit man who walked 21 miles every day because he didn't have a car. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2015...

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#146

Post by PhasmaFelis » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 12:25 AM UTC

antepodius wrote: post #116

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. Equating panhandlers to Stalin is just as weird, though.

It's more like deKulakisation.

Either way, it's pretty damn weird to try to connect begging for money with mass slaughter.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#147

Post by kbos87 » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #120

kbos87 wrote: post #117

There’s a less palatable side of this. It’s now very common to see people openly offering to exchange money for sex, at least in the LGBT community. On Grindr, it’s an everyday occurrence to see people seeking Venmo “donations” with the implication or overt offer of a meeting in exchange. I doubt if you asked many of the people who do it they would equate it with prostitution in the same way I’m guessing the legal sy…

Why is that less palatable? It's people deciding to sell something which they own.

I actually agree and don’t have a problem with it, just speaking from the perspective of what is probably popular opinion.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#148

Post by jjeaff » Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 6:40 PM UTC

chrshawkes wrote: post #122

rangeofmotion wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have spent a lot of time with a lot of families from wildly varied economic backgrounds. I'm not talking about people with brand new cars and 3,500 square foot houses (that would be a McMansion, I believe). I'm talking about Hondas and weather-worn Dodge pickups parked at a condo or a very modest house in a working class neighborhood. Sure, the keeping up with the Jones thing is happening with a lot of people. But…

I feel my 3300 sq ft house for me, 2 kids and a dog is reasonable. Even townhouses these days are huge. I consider McMansions to be excess of 4000 sq ft.

3300 is above average. For what it's worth, wikipedia says more than 3,000 sq ft and has a citation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMansion

But there are other criteria as well.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#149

Post by kjsbfkjbf » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #104

shados wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Thats why I think all 3 of my points above need to happen at the same time. Working toward forgiving debts while still handing them out is counter productive. Only semi related, but I also take issue about how we got there in the first place. "Lets make college free!" "No, this is AMERICAH!~ People should pay for things!" "Ok, then lets give out loans! Gov will insure them, so its win win! People get to go to co…

I don't disagree with any of these points, just had a tangentially-related thought: wouldn't making college "free" be a forcing function to tighten admission criteria, further stratifying social classes? Schools can be a bit loose today since basically anyone with a pulse can get student loans. Just thinking out loud; I suspect looking at other countries who do this would be informative...

And looking at other countries it doesn't tighten social classes more than having a 50k barrier... per year.

Re: When bills pile up, young people turn to strangers on Venmo

#150

Post by kjsbfkjbf » Fri, Jul 12, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #120

kbos87 wrote: post #117

There’s a less palatable side of this. It’s now very common to see people openly offering to exchange money for sex, at least in the LGBT community. On Grindr, it’s an everyday occurrence to see people seeking Venmo “donations” with the implication or overt offer of a meeting in exchange. I doubt if you asked many of the people who do it they would equate it with prostitution in the same way I’m guessing the legal sy…

Why is that less palatable? It's people deciding to sell something which they own.

Being _forced_ to sell sex for survival is less palatable. Not the same as flipping an unnecessary TV or lamp.