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America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

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Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#281

Post by downrightmike »

aresant wrote: post #51

From first principles public pension funds are broken. The "Safe Withdrawal Rate" assumed by many private individuals planning for their own retirement assumes a withdrawal rate in the 3 - 4% range based on the "trinity study" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study Meanwhile, American public pensions are structurally engineered around a 7%+ SWR - this was recently confirmed again by the median goal by the Nati…

Don't need to even raise taxes, just make the loopholes go away for corps. You want access to the market and the people, you need to pay your share.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#282

Post by bombcar »

WalterBright wrote: post #177
drakythe wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it should be a one time event in conjunction with reworking the whole system. Why can I, as an 18 year old, sign for a loan that _cannot_ be forgiven, graduate into a crashed economy, and still be held accountable for choices that impact me when I only had a small part in them? The system needs reformed, and we need to do something for the people still on the hook of the old system (and I say this as someo…

Why should other people be on the hook for your decisions?

If there are decisions that are so bad people shouldn't be on the hook for them, we should prohibit those decisions.

Banning credit for a large portion of the population would be a net good but we can't have that conversation.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#283

Post by downrightmike »

vondur wrote: post #258
ineptech wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, they recently switched to investing in private equity funds and now they are getting much better returns TFA says otherwise, in detail and with a lot of supporting data. If you're going to contradict it you ought to cite a source.

Here's a link to their private equity fund status: https://www.calpers.ca.gov/investments/about-investment-offi... And here's a link to the CalPers celebrating their new ROI: https://news.calpers.ca.gov/celebrating-10th-anniversary-cal...

Until PE fleeces them

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#284

Post by cj »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #279
cj wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine a world where lenders charged different interest rates depending on the risk profile of each school. Lower interest rates for schools where graduates repay their debt, higher interest for schools where many people default. Assuming it wouldn’t disproportionately affect disadvantaged populations, that could be an interesting way to incentivize schools to get their shit together and prepare students for startin…

I've suggested a very different approach: Don't have a dollar amount that you repay. Rather, your student loan payment is x% of (your income minus the average rate for those with a high school diploma) for y years. Forgiveness programs for certain fields go away--instead, the tab gets picked up perhaps with a multiplier. Disability, death? Irrelevant--a dead person generally makes nothing, the amount owed is $0. (Gen…

Devils advocate: I don’t think this would work due to the cash flow uncertainty the models causes.

If universities don’t know how much they’re going to bring in over the next few years, they won’t be able to budget effectively.

And then there’s the question of whether it’s acceptable for the lender to collect more than what was borrowed. E.g. if I graduate college, start a company, and sell it for $100 million.. am I then paying my alma mater (or lender) millions? If so, would universities make more money from the commons or are they banking on a very small percent landing extremely lucrative gigs post-graduation? I don’t think we want the model to resemble startup financing, where nearly all fail and a small handful pay for the rest (that works for startups, doesn’t work for people’s careers)

I like the concept though. In 2010’s when I was entering college, I actually made a website trying to solicit someone to pay for my education in exchange for a percentage of my future earnings. I found no takers at the time.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#285

Post by dbspin »

gruez wrote: post #217
dbspin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great example of narrow rationality. Huge amount of Americas current problems can be traced back to a poorly educated population. Universal access to third level education, combined with a school system designed to educate - in direct opposition to current goal of producing labour units for corporate; would massively improve pretty much ever aspect of American life. The market lens is myopic, the market cannot be exp…

>combined with a school system designed to educate - in direct opposition to current goal of producing labour units for corporate; would massively improve pretty much ever aspect of American life. "producing labour units for corporate" at least pays the bills. What's the alternative? Education is for "finding yourself" or whatever? That's a nice platitude, but "finding yourself" with a film studies course doesn't pay…

A liberal education serves a social function. It makes human beings.

There's a student loan crisis because US education is dominated by for profit colleges (in start contrast to most other countries) and because student loans lack ordinary consumer productions (in stark contrast to all other countries).

In the US students act as guarantors for debt obligations between the government and commercial institutions. The reverse of the usual arrangement.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#286

Post by dbspin »

WalterBright wrote: post #196
dbspin wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great example of narrow rationality. Huge amount of Americas current problems can be traced back to a poorly educated population. Universal access to third level education, combined with a school system designed to educate - in direct opposition to current goal of producing labour units for corporate; would massively improve pretty much ever aspect of American life. The market lens is myopic, the market cannot be exp…

> in direct opposition to current goal of producing labour units for corporate I never understood this characterization. How do the schools implement a goal for producing labor units? > education itself of course should be free People don't value what they get for free. If you sign up for a course in welding, are you going to be more or less diligent in learning it if you have to pay the tuition?

> People don't value what they get for free

No education is free, it's paid in time and effort. I value my degree because it was difficult, not because it had a cost attached. One that could be purchased without effort would have no value.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#287

Post by Spivak »

gs17 wrote: post #261
Spivak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is basically that current university costs are intrinsic and can't possibly be reduced but we know that isn't true. We have not two generations ago people paying for their college tuition with money from their part time jobs. My grandpa paid his way to a PhD as a line cook. Got no financial support from family who were only slightly above dirt poor. Like I don't want to be completely reductive but a goo…

>This doesn't have to be ruinously expensive. Having been the "single dude", the issue is not that they are paying lecturers too much for this service, doubly so for adjuncts.

I think this is the strongest disagreement I have gotten from someone who understands my point completely and agrees with it.

This is exactly why I'm saying that university can be made orders of magnitude less expensive is because the primary educational value you get which comes from professors lecturers, and TA's is not expensive at all. Everything else is negotiable and an opportunity to make cuts.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#288

Post by LorenPechtel »

aresant wrote: post #51

From first principles public pension funds are broken. The "Safe Withdrawal Rate" assumed by many private individuals planning for their own retirement assumes a withdrawal rate in the 3 - 4% range based on the "trinity study" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_study Meanwhile, American public pensions are structurally engineered around a 7%+ SWR - this was recently confirmed again by the median goal by the Nati…

Yup, this is the real problem. What he's talking about isn't the real problem. The real problem is we have gone to a "model" of fund less, pretend we can make it up by increasing risk. And rather than face a big problem it gets swept under the rug until it can't be any more.

We also have the problem that paying pensions becomes somebody else's problem. Thus in contract negotiations pushing benefits into pensions rather than current wages becomes attractive. You can agree to more without breaking the current budget.

The old rules worked better because limiting what pension funds could be in also limited the shenanigans that were possible.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#289

Post by Spivak »

lokar wrote: post #241
Spivak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is basically that current university costs are intrinsic and can't possibly be reduced but we know that isn't true. We have not two generations ago people paying for their college tuition with money from their part time jobs. My grandpa paid his way to a PhD as a line cook. Got no financial support from family who were only slightly above dirt poor. Like I don't want to be completely reductive but a goo…

My PhD program, in CS (top 20 school), for an American, was basically free back in the early 2000s. At times it seemed like there were more fellowships than students. I'm not sure if that has changed.

I feel like I maybe should've been more explicit about him having gone all the way from undergrad to a PhD was all paid for by being a line cook. Yeah, he didn't actually pay for his PhD program because he got a fellowship but that's also not really the point. He was still able to pay for the expensive part on what was barely over minimum wage for the time.

Re: America's pensions can't beat Vanguard but they can close a hospital

#290

Post by Spivak »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #274
Spivak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is basically that current university costs are intrinsic and can't possibly be reduced but we know that isn't true. We have not two generations ago people paying for their college tuition with money from their part time jobs. My grandpa paid his way to a PhD as a line cook. Got no financial support from family who were only slightly above dirt poor. Like I don't want to be completely reductive but a goo…

>My grandpa paid his way to a PhD as a line cook. Got no financial support from family who were only slightly above dirt poor. That can still be easily done. In California, most families earning under $100k get their tuition costs to UCs covered. CSUs are probably even easier. Then, PhDs largely get paid for by undergrad tuition and research grants, it's pretty unusual for PhDs to pay their own way.

Right, so broadly the solution you're proposing is subsidies. University will be cheaper from the perspective of the student but we don't actually undergo any meaningful cost cutting it's just the money comes from somewhere else. I don't know about you but I don't think this actually solves the problem of the cost of university ballooning out of control and becoming unaffordable to almost every American if they had to pay for it with what was in their bank account.

I mean it can work so long as the government can bully the university into keeping a lid on the per student costs but large public universities have massive amounts of political capital to sell the cost increases to the government.

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