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U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

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Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#271

Post by iguy »

toasterlovin wrote: post #236
pbiggar wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, from a non-European perspective, Europe doesn’t seem to be doing well? It seems the EU is slowly disintegrating, and the monetary union isn’t working. Also the political landscape seems to be in turmoil as well. The purpose of the EU is to prevent war. The EU hasn't had a war in 75 years. That is the longest that Europe hasn't been at war in its recorded history.

Is your take that the EU, and not nuclear weapons, is the driving force behind the European peace since 1945?

I'd wager that even without nuclear weapons, dividing Germany in half and keeping half a million or so foreign soldiers there for 50 years would have been pretty effective at keeping the peace.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#272

Post by iguy »

candiodari wrote: post #249
zizee wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we chose to focus on a simple measure of tax burden: national-level income taxes plus mandatory social-insurance contributions as a percentage of gross income I am not an American, nor that knowledgeable about their tax system, but my impression is that their system has a lot of layers (like state/county/local), which might make it unfair just to compare national level taxes.

Don't forget VAT is double. Property tax is higher. Employment tax (paid by employer, not part of gross pay) is a lot higher. I always feel like tax should be measured in "if my employer pays 100 extra, how much more can I give another company for a good/service". I don't know about US but for Germany the answer is between 25 and 40 depending on how low your income is and what your family situation is.

Right, this is a good measure. The national-level one is just proportion of GDP spent by the government, however they collect it, and IIRC the figures are about 25% in the US, vs. about 45-50% in Germany.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#273

Post by repolfx »

toasterlovin wrote: post #236
pbiggar wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, from a non-European perspective, Europe doesn’t seem to be doing well? It seems the EU is slowly disintegrating, and the monetary union isn’t working. Also the political landscape seems to be in turmoil as well. The purpose of the EU is to prevent war. The EU hasn't had a war in 75 years. That is the longest that Europe hasn't been at war in its recorded history.

Is your take that the EU, and not nuclear weapons, is the driving force behind the European peace since 1945?

The EU didn't even formally exist until the early 1990s, before then it was just an overgrown trade federation.

The EU is if anything a force against peace, as it takes a totalitarian "you obey us on everything or we work with you on nothing" approach which may appear to create temporary peace, but only by suppressing dissent. The USSR was also by this approach very "peaceful".

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#274

Post by masonic »

YaxelPerez wrote: post #224
rubyn00bie wrote: post #138

Let it burn down. No one should pay back their student loan debt. Seriously, just stop. This is a scheme in which they've fucked over a large portion of the population with the skyrocketing prices of education. Further, this education is the regularly accepted means of increasing your production. Society says you have to do this, and then continuously increases the price, without reason. The gist of this is; some shi…

A little hyperinflation would go a long way.

It's doing wonders in Venezuela.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#275

Post by nickthemagicman »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #186
nickthemagicman wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we'd have to do something crazy like say fund it....like we do K-12...

That's an option, but not one that most Americans would support today, and probably not tomorrow either. At least not after you tell them what it would mean for taxes. All the pithy internet retorts to the contrary won't change this fact.

"Not one Americans would support"

"Taxes would increase"

100% bonafide baseless claims.

Have some vision friend. There are alternatives even though you can't think of them.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#276

Post by nickthemagicman »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #197
nickthemagicman wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we'd have to do something crazy like say fund it....like we do K-12...

The US spends considerably more on K-12 than the rest of the developed world. It isn't obvious to me that this allows you to avoid the problem of unreasonable cost.

The U.S. also has one of the lowest tax rates on the rich and the biggest military budget in the world.

With the proper reshuffling all most Americans would see are new opportunities to better themselves, their families, and the economy

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#277

Post by alkibiades »

tracer4201 wrote: post #26
alkibiades wrote: post #2

i predict we’re going to have to bail these people out. once a critical mass of americans do something idiotic, it becomes politically expedient to bail them out and blame the companies for greed. this is a direct response of the government providing unlimited loans to anyone

If the system provides easy access to cash backed by the US government without disambiguating loan candidates from those who are high risk vs lower risk, how is greed not a factor?

capitalism is built on greed. it’s like a simple AI with an optimization function for money. the problem is when the govt steps in and aligns incentives such that the greedy/profitable thing to do is to saddle people with debt because its zero risk for the lender

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#278

Post by alkibiades »

goodells wrote: post #168
rosterface wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I don't have a degree. That's sort of my point. It's very possible to just enter the labor market and make money if you work hard and smart. I'm a developer but I know plenty of people I grew up with who went on to be: military people, plumbers, cops... > there's a good number of folks with student loan debt they can't easily manage who made all the right decisions but got a bad break somewhere. I don't thi…

What makes the student debt such a crappy situation is the fact that we're dealing with young people and families who may not necessarily have all the information to do an educated cost/benefit analysis. Students are pressured from very early on to plan to go to college. Teachers, guidance counselors, administrators, and often parents all fall into the narrative of "yes, college is a good decision and will pay for it…

right but if someone like that came to you and asked for 200k in loans you’d laugh in their face. But now instead the govt decided to back student loans and these people got them like candy

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#279

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #275
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an option, but not one that most Americans would support today, and probably not tomorrow either. At least not after you tell them what it would mean for taxes. All the pithy internet retorts to the contrary won't change this fact.

"Not one Americans would support" "Taxes would increase" 100% bonafide baseless claims. Have some vision friend. There are alternatives even though you can't think of them.

I worry that you don't understand how hard it is to raise taxes in the States. It hasn't been done in a substantial way for close to half a century. The trend has been rather the opposite.

Re: U.S. Student Debt in ‘Serious Delinquency’ Tops $166B

#280

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

viraptor wrote: post #211
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the end of poor people going to college in this country, at least under the current legislative regime. The only reason anyone loans money to poor people to go to college right now is because they know the recipients can't get out from under the loans. A no-collateral loan to someone with few assets or prospects just wouldn't happen if that provision in the law didn't exist. Or the interest rate would b…

> That would be the end of poor people going to college in this country, at least under the current legislative regime. Or alternatively, end of the current university system. One thing that always confused me when looking at US and UK unis (both had prices rise a lot) and my home uni is how much extra stuff is added. I went there for technical education, and that's pretty much all my first University provided, and i…

Sports teams are a money-maker for D1 (top-tier sports-wise) American universities. Both in an absolute sense, and also in terms of encouraging donations from alumni. The other things you mentioned are probably not a significant fraction of the costs of university. Rather, I'd guess that the main costs are salaries and building. Universities, especially private ones, are notorious for turning over relatively young buildings to build newer and shinier ones. I don't donate to my alma mater [1] precisely because I suspect that the vast majority of any donation will be spent on constructing new buildings that are not needed to satisfy the core educational mission that universities ought to embrace. I'd honestly rather donate it to the nearest state school.

[1]: https://campusnext.wustl.edu/items/landscape-architectural-p...

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