Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remain dubious of that updated claim. The UK alone has several Ivy-level institutions.
Sure. There are good universities all over the planet. The US is by far the best.
US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
411–420 of 436 posts
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the standard rate for the "federal non subsidized stafford loan"
For a specific bracket (time attended, and level of education). Most undergrads are facings rates half of that. Can you refinance? https://www.edvisors.com/college-loans/federal/stafford/inte...
I've been looking into it. Wanted to wait until I held my current job for a year so that I could get a better interest rate.
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, maybe it's different now, but my generation (went to school in the mid 90s) was not told to "just go to the best college no matter what": We were also advised to consider the cost and carefully choose a major so as to produce a positive expected ROI. Obviously nobody has a crystal ball and you can never tell when huge, industry-wrecking changes are coming, but it was well understood that majoring in Und…
>went to school in the mid 90s >but it was well understood that majoring in Underwater Basket Weaving The way you make such a condescending argument and blame the victim takes away any credibility in your comment. The issue is that tuition has ballooned since the 90s. Tuition is outpacing income/inflation and most else, so regardless of what school or major, the ROI is going down for most. Also, even if you went to a…
He didn't claim that people are picking useless majors. He stated that the earlier post's claim that students are encouraged to pick useless majors is incorrect (at least for his generation).
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Pettis. Anyone on HN commenting on economics must read Pettis. In very brief his simplified thesis: One country's public policy decision to subsidize export-led growth requires another country's public policy decision to also subsidize that growth through import consumption and debt. The accounts must balance.
"In very brief his simplified thesis: One country's public policy decision to subsidize export-led growth requires another country's public policy decision to also subsidize that growth through import consumption and debt. The accounts must balance." Isn't that only necessary in nominal currency ? That is, theoretically a country could introduce some factor that caused their currency, held by their trading partner, t…
The claim was that debt must go up 1-to-1 with capital inflows and that you can't regard the inflows as good without also praising the necessarily-corresponding debt.
It seems all these excellent answers actually agree that it's not true unless the money is deposited and re-lent.
That's certainly likely in practice, but far from the implied "Oh silly layman, foreigners can't invest in your business without your country's debt going up, it's physically impossible."
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there may be some hidden variables there. For example the kids of a VP at a large company may very well go to Oxford and study philosophy and then get a job at McKinsey, but how much of that was based on the family connections rather than anything to do with the philosophy curriculum at Oxford. And some of those kids get into the ivy schools because their parents went there or made large donations, so again i…
> And some of those kids get into the ivy schools because their parents went there or made large donations, Or they were born with the right skin color
> Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#416I think it's going to hit housing hard (again), but probably not anytime soon. A lot of my friends have student loan debt that will never be paid off. They either can't get a job that pays enough to pay it off in a timely fashion or they choose not to grind for 5-8 years to pay it off. Instead, the plan is to do as little as possible for the next 25 years until it's forgiven, and try to keep as much cash off the book…
This is only possible in certain situations for certain borrowers who borrowed a certain kind of loan. Too many people think there's forgiveness light at the end of the tunnel. I feel really bad when they realize there isn't. Except death, maybe. I bet we'll see some of that, too. https://studentloanhero.com/featured/federal-student-loan-fo...
It's possible in most situations. Most people have federal student loans—which are the ones that aren't easily discharged—and as long as you are on an income-based repayment program, the loans are forgiven after 25 years.
You are basically given two choices as an average person after you hit over $150k debt: 1) Spend 5-10 years throwing your life away to a job to try and grind away your debt; or 2) Work a low-income job for 25 years and spend your time more meaningfully.
Low income doesn't mean no income, it just means you don't get to participate in consumer capitalism the way those without debt do. You can fault people for their lack of foresight, but honestly if I was in that situation I'd probably opt for option #2 as well.
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#417How to graduate with little to no debt and no scholarship:
- Go to community college and live at home for the first two years
- Work part-time even if it takes you longer to finish
- Don't get a fracking auto loan. A well maintained 90s Japanese car will go a long way. If you can program, basic car mechanics is easy.
- Don't pay out of state tuition
- If your going for an MS, get a basic full time job at a university first (A lot of schools have tuition waivers for employees)
- Don't YOLO on someone else's dime, if you're frugal and modest you can do it later on your own.
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
"In very brief his simplified thesis: One country's public policy decision to subsidize export-led growth requires another country's public policy decision to also subsidize that growth through import consumption and debt. The accounts must balance." Isn't that only necessary in nominal currency ? That is, theoretically a country could introduce some factor that caused their currency, held by their trading partner, t…
The claim was that debt must go up 1-to-1 with capital inflows and that you can't regard the inflows as good without also praising the necessarily-corresponding debt. It seems all these excellent answers actually agree that it's not true unless the money is deposited and re-lent. That's certainly likely in practice, but far from the implied "Oh silly layman, foreigners can't invest in your business without your count…
It's true in practice, because of the practical ways in which large-scale capital flows are manifested.
The stronger point, that it's true in all cases, is made by Pettis somewhere deep in his blog... and it boils down to the idea that other edge cases diffuse the allocation of debt, investment, capital -- but the identity must still hold true at the level of abstraction of the nation / currency area. Those edge cases tend to look starker (and harder to explain) in toy models, though.
I can't really do his argument justice, though. Sorry! I'm simply nowhere near sophisticated enough.
But... the case where it's not re-lent, there is still exchange-rate pressure, but the 'missing' capital (say it's not stuck under a mattress, but is instead burned in a furnace) effectively deflates the remaining capital in the economy. The identities still balance. Again, the exact allocation of debt etc doesn't matter to the identity, and it's easy to construct a situation where the capital somehow disappears, or the underlying mechanism (or lack of mechanism) obscures the overall identity.
This all works because currency is effectively meaningless, it's a derivative of actual 'value' in an economy, as measured by the total output of goods and services. I'm going to stop here before I butcher it any worse; but if you find this at all interesting, Pettis is a much better source than I.
Re: US Household Debt Surpasses 2008 High
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would this be any different than a right to, say, health care? Why even pay for k-12?
You do have a right to public K-12, and it's free (your taxes pay for it). You can pay for private K-12, or "pay up" and move to a more expensive school district (read: taxes) which would theoretically give you a better education. School districts have problems with people claiming grandparent's home addresses to attend a better school, and it happens across the country.
Sure, but if the k-12 is necessary for employment, it follows that 12+ should be "free" as well. It seems like a college education these days is a basic education similar to 9th-12th grade.