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This is Real, That's Not

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Re: This is Real, That's Not

#141

Post by jjeaff »

voodootrucker wrote: post #43
jakeva wrote: post #7

What a great read. This resonates with me. At one point in my life I was desperately close to homelessness. At the time I was lucky to still be enrolled at a university and could therefore easily take out as many loans as I needed. It was a horribly risky gamble I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but without going into more details of my life story I barely managed to graduate and find a successful career. I was able to pay…

> Especially not in the most wealthy nation in the history of the world. Everyone keeps repeating this, but it's not true. Switzerland beats America by mean net worth. And look at median... whoa 22. By government deficit (and likely household, corporate, etc), I bet we're #1 in all categories. The truth is, America is great at spending money. That doesn't make it wealthy, quite the opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/…

Wealthiest nation could easily be true depending on your chosen measure. The US is number one in total wealth. Almost double the next wealthiest.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_w...

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#142

Post by AmericanChopper »

ggm wrote: post #105

Under the medically justified urgency of covid, Victoria took a significant number of homeless rough sleeping people (as they are called here in australia) into some kind of housing. Queensland did the same using surplus student purpose built dense housing. I'm not going to pretend this "solved the problems" but I am told a number of the less intractable cases got put into a better situation,simply having secure shel…

> But for nine months we reduced homelessness and structural health problems to single digit or less and it almost certainly saved money.

> That's the truly amazing thing: the net budget effect on federal and state funded interventions was probably better, and they STILL unwound the programmes.

According to the treasurer of Victoria, they allocated $150 million budget to provide this accommodation for 2000 people. That comes out to $75,000 per person. According to the University of Queensland, taking a homeless person off the street saves about $13,000 in additional medical and policing costs. So the covid measures certainly didn't save money. Normal state provided housing comes a lot closer to the $13,000 mark if you take a look at how much those programs costs, but they tend to be at 100% capacity all of the time. It's also worth noting that while Victoria reports providing 2000 homeless people with housing during the pandemic, the state is reported to have somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 homeless.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#143

Post by rurban »

timeeater wrote: post #95
vecinu wrote: post #78

I hope my comment doesn't sound tone-deaf or ignorant but this is something I have thought about for a while. As I was watching @lisper's movie "grace of god"[1] and heard the phrase "convince myself that it could never happen to me" (becoming homeless), I started thinking, is this a more American-centric problem? What I mean by that is, can the lack of a social safety net in the US cause a much higher rate of homele…

Here in Germany we have homeless people, and Romania wouldn't come to mind as a place where they don't. More likely I would expect people from Romania to be homeless in Germany. I think some homeless here are (possibly illegal) immigrants who don't have access to the same social security measures. But there are also homeless Germans, despite of safety nets existing in theory. I think it is often associated with menta…

I've worked for an organization helping homeless. We eg organized a worldwide soccer tournament https://homelessworldcup.org/ and are selling a news paper distributed by homeless people.

Most homeless in western european countries come either from losing their job and having drug problems, or losing their wifes and thereby homes. The many eastern homeless cross the borders because they can live much better by begging on the streets here than in the east. But there are plenty of homeless, squatters there also. Eg nost of the abandoned village houses in the east were subsequently squatted by gypsies. The city center in Bucuresti is also full of homeless. When writing a book about homeless over the world in the US and Russia, the problems were the same, just that in the USA there's a homeless shipping industry to get them out of the city, but they still prefer the warm south where it's easy to survive. Who wouldn't. Even the rich old folks prefer Florida over NY. Just politicians and police are more inhuman there.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#144

Post by twblalock »

imgabe wrote: post #135
twblalock wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that whole "I'll get a loan to get a degree" is a tool for servitude. US really needs to get out of that. You might be surprised to learn that the average student loan balance on graduation in the US is about $30k. That is actually a bit less than the average price of a new car sold last year, which is about $37k. That is not a life-crushing amount of debt. It represents 4 years of college education for the pri…

You can declare bankruptcy on the car loan. You can't on the student loan. Because of this, before you take out a car loan, the bank actually checks on how likely you are to pay it back. They don't loan you a $30k to buy a new Camry if you're 17 years old making minimum wage. They will happily loan you that much and more to go college even if you are, because they know you'll just be in debt forever no matter what. W…

> They will happily loan you that much and more to go college even if you are, because they know you'll just be in debt forever no matter what.

They also give you income-based repayment programs and forbearance if you lose your job. I have never seen similar programs for car loans, or credit cards, or rent, or mortgages.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#145

Post by twblalock »

Iv wrote: post #131
twblalock wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that whole "I'll get a loan to get a degree" is a tool for servitude. US really needs to get out of that. You might be surprised to learn that the average student loan balance on graduation in the US is about $30k. That is actually a bit less than the average price of a new car sold last year, which is about $37k. That is not a life-crushing amount of debt. It represents 4 years of college education for the pri…

You are taking a loan assuming: - You will graduate - Your diploma will get you a high paying job If either of these assumptions fail, you are back to square one, poorer than someone who own nothing.

Then graduate, and major in something that will help you get a job.

I needed loans, and I made good decisions with my education, and I graduated -- should that opportunity have been taken away from me because other people did not handle it well?

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#146

Post by tomhoward »

rsync wrote: post #20
frutiger wrote: post #6

As I read the post, especially the references to Metafilter in combination with a lesson about homelessness, I thought to myself, “This sounds like DoreenMichele.” I press the back button and, see it is submitted by them. I press the forward button and scroll to the top and it was written by them. It’s a small world.

"As I read the post, especially the references to Metafilter in combination with a lesson about homelessness, I thought to myself, “This sounds like DoreenMichele.”" I have been impressed recently by the posts by DoreenMichele and have expressed appreciation for those posts here. I am a little confused by this description of metafilter, however - I am not an active member of that community but I have been reading it…

As I grew into my mid-late 20s I was confronted with what was then a shocking realisation that the people in my life who were the most vocal and activated on matters of "compassion" and "empathy" towards minorities and the less well off, were very often the ones who could be the most cruel towards/about others in our social group, including people who were ideologically aligned with them. (I guess part of what was shocking was I realised it applied to me, as well as others I was close to).

So these days when I come across someone who makes a lot of noise about those kinds of topics, I pay close attention to how they treat people or why they say about people they know. It's often very revealing.

Related to this, I often find it interesting to note what certain people on HN say about particular causes, and then observe how they behave towards DoreenMichele.

To be clear, I don't in any way believe that everyone who cares for the needy is actually likely to be an asshole deep down; plenty of people sincerely care about these issues, demonstrate this sincerity through their actions, and are great in their treatment of other people.

But it's often those who are the most vocal and self-aggrandising whose private actions are very different to what they seek to signal with their words.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#147

Post by imgabe »

twblalock wrote: post #144
imgabe wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can declare bankruptcy on the car loan. You can't on the student loan. Because of this, before you take out a car loan, the bank actually checks on how likely you are to pay it back. They don't loan you a $30k to buy a new Camry if you're 17 years old making minimum wage. They will happily loan you that much and more to go college even if you are, because they know you'll just be in debt forever no matter what. W…

> They will happily loan you that much and more to go college even if you are, because they know you'll just be in debt forever no matter what. They also give you income-based repayment programs and forbearance if you lose your job. I have never seen similar programs for car loans, or credit cards, or rent, or mortgages.

Of course they do, they want you to keep racking up fees and interest so you end up paying even more. You'll pay until you're dead.

They don't have programs like this for other loans because they don't need them. If they look at your finances when you apply for a mortgage and think you'll need an income-based program, they don't loan you the money.

If something happens and you can't pay, they can repossess your car or foreclose on your house to get some of their money back that way. For unsecured debt, even if they don't have special programs, you can usually negotiate a settlement if you can't pay the whole thing. They'd rather get something than nothing. And again, you can discharge it in bankruptcy, so that gives them some incentive to work with you. For rent, there are income-based rent assistance programs in every city I'm familiar with, not sure how it is where you are.

We wouldn't need these programs for student debt if you could declare bankruptcy and have the loan discharged that way. It wouldn't be something you would do lightly, but the threat of the possibility would incentivize the banks to make sure that paying the loan is less of a burden than declaring bankruptcy.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#148

Post by riffraff »

iddan wrote: post #118
legulere wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask for how long you took that loan? I’m from Germany and a lot of people live here from around $15 000 per year. 150 thousand seems like such a big amount, but I guess life is also more expensive in the US. I just want to understand, because I come from a different perspective.

Unlike in Europe, in the US going to university or college requires huge amounts of money and usually require students to take loans. And unlike other types of loans it is nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy for student loans. There is a great summarising it: https://youtu.be/pVKEsiNMPNc

while not the norm, there are places in Europe where student loans are relatively common, e.g. Norway[0] and Sweden[1].

Just mentioning because I was very surprised when I discovered it, and it offers an interesting alternative on how student loans could work.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_loans_in_Norway

[1] https://www.collegefinancinggroup.com/student-loan-repayment...

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#149

Post by twblalock »

imgabe wrote: post #147
twblalock wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will happily loan you that much and more to go college even if you are, because they know you'll just be in debt forever no matter what. They also give you income-based repayment programs and forbearance if you lose your job. I have never seen similar programs for car loans, or credit cards, or rent, or mortgages.

Of course they do, they want you to keep racking up fees and interest so you end up paying even more. You'll pay until you're dead. They don't have programs like this for other loans because they don't need them. If they look at your finances when you apply for a mortgage and think you'll need an income-based program, they don't loan you the money. If something happens and you can't pay, they can repossess your car o…

> We wouldn't need these programs for student debt if you could declare bankruptcy and have the loan discharged that way.

Ok, then only rich people get to go to college.

Student loans cannot be discharged because they are not risk based. If they were risk-based, the only people who could qualify for them wouldn't need them anyway. 18-year-olds don't have credit history, and most of them don't have income either.

You seem pretty hurt about voluntary loans that have really, really good repayment programs -- better than any other kinds of loans that exist. Why shouldn't people be able to borrow to go to college under those terms? Keep in in mind that they have no other options, and they cannot escape into an ideal world where college is free, and they cannot legally force their parents to give them money. For a lot of people, this is a fantastic deal and it's the only way they will ever go to college.

Re: This is Real, That's Not

#150

Post by scottlocklin »

codeulike wrote: post #137

I haven't seen Metafilter get described as 'toxic' before. Although I guess toxic things can happen anywhere if moderation systems fail or don't engage in time.

There's probably a relationship between worrying that much about utterly unimportant online beefs, apparently not worrying about living in your sweatpants in a park (in fact, humble-bragging about it), and, you know, living in your sweatpants in a park.
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