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A college degree is a lousy investment

WokeandBroke said:
I really do. It's just a bad policy all around. Of course it will temporarily help some people (and hurt/anger others), but ultimately it's not going to fix the structural problems. It will make them worse.
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it may or may not be bad policy, but I also think that's a different question than if it is good or bad politics
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
What an idiot. Where does he think the PPP money went? If Bernie really wants to prove a point, he should stipulate that anyone whose paycheck was protected by the PPP loans is ineligible to receive student loan forgiveness. Get rid of the double-dippers.
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The problem is there are plenty of people whose paychecks weren’t at risk, and the money that went towards them ended up as just being a complete gift to the owners. This was a large majority of the total funds.
 
PhDeac said:
LOL. I’m fine with low taxes for people earning under $125K. #teamlowtaxes wants the millionth dollar going to Wall Street instead of the government to benefit all of us.

There’s a major difference between what regular people do with an additional $10,000 vs. what wealth people do with $10,000.
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What wealthy people do with it is what allows regular people to get their Prime deliveries, walk around with a computer in their pocket, drive a reliable vehicle, have access to pretty much any consumer good within a few miles of their residence. So yes there is a major difference, but one isn't necessarily better than the other.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
A large majority of the total funds?
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Yes. Probably 80-90%. The PPP didn’t prevent many terminations. (There were a lot of terminations despite it)

For example, For the two companies I managed, each with 50 employees. It saved 5 jobs at one company and 0 jobs at the other. The jobs it saved were the most junior people (senior management wasn’t getting fired regardless)
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
it may or may not be bad policy, but I also think that's a different question than if it is good or bad politics
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I think it's a loser. The people that wanted more will be disappointed, the people who are happy were voting blue anyway, and the people that paid their college loans/worked/saved/served/didn't go will hate it.
 
WokeandBroke said:
I think it's a loser. The people that wanted more will be disappointed, the people who are happy were voting blue anyway, and the people that paid their college loans/worked/saved/served/didn't go will hate it.
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completely possible, but I don't think it's a sure thing

attention span is short anyways -- people thought afghanistan would be a total killer for biden and it doesn't really seem to read that way now
 
BiffTannen said:
Now pretend someone is going to pay you $10,000 that they owe you and they don't.
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Maybe that person who loaned you 10k shouldn't have been charging you 8.5% interest or higher on that loan. I know for my loans I paid back more than 30k in interest. So we can stop acting like the government is going to take a huge financial hit from this. The government sets the interest rates on loans, they could have lowered that substantially and made things easier, but instead a took a global pandemic. There is no reason for the interest rate on school loans to be as high as they are, so 10k is a drop in the bucket. The US govt isn't a bank for a reason.
 
dartsndeacs said:
Yes. Probably 80-90%. The PPP didn’t prevent many terminations. (There were a lot of terminations despite it)

For example, For the two companies I managed, each with 50 employees. It saved 5 jobs at one company and 0 jobs at the other. The jobs it saved were the most junior people (senior management wasn’t getting fired regardless)
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I would disagree completely. The ones I was involved with, the companies would have gone under without it, with probably close to 100% terminations. Especially in the property management world given the eviction moratorium despite non-payment of rent.
 
Such a bullshit line.

 
Student debt forgiveness polls super well, especially means tested forgiveness (I hate means testing, but the general public seems to like it a bunch). I'd be pretty surprised if this were a big political loser.
 
tiltdeac said:
Student debt forgiveness polls super well, especially means tested forgiveness (I hate means testing, but the general public seems to like it a bunch). I'd be pretty surprised if this were a big political loser.
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why do you hate means testing?

also I read your housing article and don't want to respond in the chat thread but maybe i'll find a tunnels thread
 
TimmyClutch said:
Maybe that person who loaned you 10k shouldn't have been charging you 8.5% interest or higher on that loan. I know for my loans I paid back more than 30k in interest. So we can stop acting like the government is going to take a huge financial hit from this. The government sets the interest rates on loans, they could have lowered that substantially and made things easier, but instead a took a global pandemic. There is no reason for the interest rate on school loans to be as high as they are, so 10k is a drop in the bucket. The US govt isn't a bank for a reason.
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there are very good reasons for interest rates on an unsecured student loan, giving money to a 20-year-old, would be higher than the interest rate on a loan for a tangible piece of property like a home or a car.

what are we doing to reduce future loans such as this?
 
BiffTannen said:
Was that part of the program when the loan was signed ? I don't think it was. Maybe Fannie and Freddie would like to start forgiving some of the loans they back to.
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That's simply what a loan is. If you lend someone money and decide you're better off if they don't pay you back then you can forgive the loan. You act like this is the first time you've ever heard of loan forgiveness.
 
TimmyClutch said:
Maybe that person who loaned you 10k shouldn't have been charging you 8.5% interest or higher on that loan. I know for my loans I paid back more than 30k in interest. So we can stop acting like the government is going to take a huge financial hit from this. The government sets the interest rates on loans, they could have lowered that substantially and made things easier, but instead a took a global pandemic. There is no reason for the interest rate on school loans to be as high as they are, so 10k is a drop in the bucket. The US govt isn't a bank for a reason.
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What was your collateral for that student loan ? High school diploma ? A promise to work for the lender or in public/military service ?
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
why do you hate means testing?

also I read your housing article and don't want to respond in the chat thread but maybe i'll find a tunnels thread
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Hate is strong. But means testing generally creates big administrative burdens/complexity that result in lower take up of benefits, and there are almost always big benefit cliffs that create really high marginal tax rates on lower income folks. But politically, they are big winners.

I'd much rather universal programs (UBI, child allowance, etc) and then make it up on back end with taxes. But I think now that's politically a non starter, unfortunately.
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
why do you hate means testing?

also I read your housing article and don't want to respond in the chat thread but maybe i'll find a tunnels thread
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On means testing…

The underlying reasoning for loan forgiveness is that college is too expensive and under that reasoning it was too expensive for everybody that needed to take out loans to pay for it.

Should person A who majored in poetry and is a receptionist get more of a benefit than person B who majored in business or STEM and is now disqualified for being too successful?

I would argue that under the veil of ignorance each person on Day 1 of undergrad should have the same access to loan forgiveness.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
I would disagree completely. The ones I was involved with, the companies would have gone under without it, with probably close to 100% terminations. Especially in the property management world given the eviction moratorium despite non-payment of rent.
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I mean sure, there are a handful of industries that needed it. I imagine a small business owner than owns a gym got fucked too. At the end of the day though, 90% of these employees would have been better off getting unemployment (people were getting over $1,000/week in unemployment), and those employees making appreciably more than that were unlikely to be let go from the pandemic. How many law firms took PPP funds while their employees were able to WFH?

I worked for a property management company for 5 years as well. It's basically the definition of a business that doesn't help the economy at all. Someone is going to manage that property and it doesn't matter to the tenants or the overall economy whether that property sold for $10 million or $20 million. For those companies that went under, someone else would have ended up managing the properties and they would be hiring. It sucks that the landlords got fucked, but in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't be a bad thing for real estate prices to crash due to a swan event like the pandemic. Businesses that survive today are better off with the cheaper rents. But for specific industries like property management, targeted industry specific relief would generally be more fair, like they've done with live venues, etc.
 
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