The People's Bailout • Hacker News Board

Re: The People's Bailout

#261

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:03 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #197

smsm42 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many jobs require a degree, but not every degree leads to a job. Unfortunately, easy access to huge loans and widespread confusion about the relationship between the degree and the paying jobs has lead to ever increasing number of people in huge debts with no way to repay it ever. It reminds me some recent history when people got into huge debt in order to get something that is sure to provide them huge value and mak…

The problem is that not getting a university degree still makes you far more likely to end up poor. So people are still making the "rational" investment, which is to take a 40% chance of a good job over a 10% chance (numbers pulled from my ass, but you get the point).

Correlation != casuation. Degree in feminist basket weaving is not going to make you rich (unless you land a sinecure job in some Diversity Office, but these are severely limited in number) or even richer. It is almost guaranteed to make you significantly poorer unless you get some deal to get it for free. That's the part of the confusion - the fact that average college graduate now in his 40ies makes more than average non-graduate in his 40ies, does not mean getting into 100K debt would actually work out for you as a current college student.

It's like saying "stock market returns 8% annually long term, so I'll put all my life saving into Shady Gadgets Inc. that was touted to me by some guy I don't know on the phone". That's not how rational investment is made.

Re: The People's Bailout

#262

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:04 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #76

sliverstorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.

Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.

Sure, I'm with you on this, but not everyone agrees, so you can argue with some people about this stuff until you are blue in the face, and never get anywhere, because you are operating on different assumptions. That's my point here.

Re: The People's Bailout

#263

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:06 PM UTC

lukifer wrote: post #172

sliverstorm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is something, when supported by a corporation, immoral when the same thing, supported by "the people", is righteous? Because corporations are intrinsically evil, and people are by inherent nature righteous, obviously. I'm being sarcastic, but I honestly believe some of 'em essentially feel that way.

There is a case to be made that a corporation is not inherently evil, but is inherently amoral. If it can maximize profits by being socially responsible, great. But if it fails to pursue a socially harmful action that would maximize profits, the leadership can be sued by the shareholders. (Obviously, this is not relevant to privately held corps.) Division of labor is a beautiful thing, but the division of moral culpa…

Sure, but amoral is different from proactively evil. An amoral entity can act morally with the right incentives.

Re: The People's Bailout

#264

Post by tsotha » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:08 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #257

tsotha wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Saying that jobs of type X require a degree IS NOT saying that getting a degree guarantees that you will get a job of type X. No, but he was talking about the majority of jobs. I understand people get unlucky. That's life. But there's a huge disconnect between what the population of college students is paying for degrees and what the job market is paying for labor. This isn't a question of some small percentage of p…

No, but he was talking about the majority of jobs. You're making the exact same logic error, but this time talking about majorities, so in addition to failing at logic you're failing at statistics. Let me point you again at the law student example. All jobs as a lawyer require law school. About 70% of people who get law degrees will successfully pass the bar, and get a high paying job they otherwise couldn't and be a…

>You're making the exact same logic error, but this time talking about majorities, so in addition to failing at logic you're failing at statistics.

One of us is being stupid, but I don't think it's me.

The assertion is college is necessary for a middle class lifestyle. What I'm saying is 1) it's not and 2) when you add up lost opportunity costs, direct costs, and interest on student debt many people (maybe even most) are losing money by going to college. Now, that's their choice, but I don't want to be on the hook for someone else's personal enrichment.

>Did that 30% make a bad decision to go to law school?

Yes. Anyone who goes to law school right now is an idiot, unless that law school is Harvard or Yale. The 70% in your example are either lucky or have been shunted into jobs that don't require a law degree or they're working as lawyers and making less than they would have made teaching Social Studies to the local second graders. The number of newly minted lawyers far, far exceeds the number of jobs for newly minted lawyers.

The exception, of course, being people who got in to the very, very top schools.

Re: The People's Bailout

#265

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:12 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #229

philwelch wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you lose badly enough at credit that you end up declaring bankruptcy, maybe homeownership or car loans aren't for you. Just a thought.

Perhaps not home ownership - but in many (most?) parts of this country a reliable vehicle is an absolute requirement for holding down a job. A bankrupt person, if anything, is in greatest need of a trustworthy car, and is also the most likely to require a loan to do so. There's also the notion of rent - people who've always had good credit don't really know how different renting is like for people who have bad credit…

I came into US with no credit too, and had absolutely no problem to rent. Actually, I had much more problem finding lenders willing to accept my pets than my credit (for some reason, most of the local apartments hate pets, no matter how small and harmless). Yes, they asked for security deposits (not exorbitant - 1-2 months, and many require it even with good credit), and yes, car loan I got was outrageously expensive compared to what I could've gotten with good credit - but I still could buy anything I needed.

I guess maybe in the Silicon Valley everybody is used to immigrants so nobody is surprised when the person with no credit shows up, especially if they have the actual money. If you have no money that's different, but then the primary problem is not credit.

Re: The People's Bailout

#266

Post by tsotha » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

zanny wrote: post #208

tsotha wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean by "half a decades debt". At some point people have to be treated as adults. If your parents aren't up to advising you on financial matters you have to get outside help. Or you figure it out yourself. I refuse to accept the notion we should alter agreements freely entered into by adults in an effort to protect them from themselves.

I don't think so either, I just don't think its an excuse to say colleges and universities (especially since they are all federally funded) can practice extremely predatory financing expecting a kids parents to know better for them. I agree you should not alter open agreements, but those agreements are already biased by federal dollars in the form of guaranteed stafford loans. We need to get rid of federal loan and g…

I would get rid of GSLs. I would go further, too, and make the current financing process illegal.

Imagine if you went to the local car dealer and he told you "Every car on the lot is $200k. But give me a detailed listing of your assets and income and I'll adjust the price such that you can barely afford to buy one if you take out as much financing as possible."

That kind of price discrimination is illegal for your local car dealer, but it's exactly what happens when your kid goes off to college. Not only that, colleges collude so that you can't play one college off against another.

Of course what they say is they're just making sure they have a "diverse" student body by cutting the less well off students a deal. But the net effect is the college takes in the maximum amount of money in tuition.

It's the biggest driver of ever-rising tuition, and were I in Congress I'd go on the freakin' warpath against this industry.

Re: The People's Bailout

#267

Post by tsotha » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #261

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that not getting a university degree still makes you far more likely to end up poor. So people are still making the "rational" investment, which is to take a 40% chance of a good job over a 10% chance (numbers pulled from my ass, but you get the point).

Correlation != casuation. Degree in feminist basket weaving is not going to make you rich (unless you land a sinecure job in some Diversity Office, but these are severely limited in number) or even richer. It is almost guaranteed to make you significantly poorer unless you get some deal to get it for free. That's the part of the confusion - the fact that average college graduate now in his 40ies makes more than avera…

>Correlation != casuation.

This. It's not at all clear people make more money as a result of college or if people who are generally more likely to make more money are also more likely to go to college. There are certainly some very famously high earning college dropouts.

Re: The People's Bailout

#268

Post by ImprovedSilence » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:30 PM UTC

marknutter wrote: post #76

sliverstorm wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.

Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.

This is a vast oversimplification of a very complicated problem.

The common public loves to simplify problems, as it makes things easier to comprehend. I think this leads us to this huge partisan gaps in beliefs in this country. Both sides are guilty of boiling down complex problems to a level where people think they "understand" the problem. Unfortunately, there are many more actors, causes, and effect behind the scenes that must be accounted for. It's not a simple cause and effect, Doctors must get paid, argument.

Re: The People's Bailout

#269

Post by elemenohpee » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:46 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #253

mkr-hn wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You linked that in response to elemenohpee arguing that debt is not always, or even often, a result of irresponsibility. What exactly are you arguing? What was your goal in linking to that?

Elemenohpee was trying to argue that someone who drives without insurance and hits someone wasn't responsible for their actions. If that's an argument you want to back, have at it.

That's what you want my argument to be, because it would be much easier to dismiss. In reality what I'm saying is that I don't think it's right to have a society that puts crazy amounts of pressure on people and simultaneously refuses to acknowledge the negative influence that those pressures have on behavior.

Re: The People's Bailout

#270

Post by mkr-hn » Fri, Nov 09, 2012, 7:47 PM UTC

I see a few people coming at this discussion from a disturbing place.

They seem to exist in a world of absolute rights and absolute wrongs, where no leniency can be granted based on the circumstances of the wrong, and no sympathy, empathy, or support is granted to account for the life that led to the wrong.

It sounds like a sad and hostile world.