No thoughts and prayers today?

[Irvrobinson]

That's my point, our government has a 21 + trillion deficit owed, plus private debt in this country comes to something like 70+ trillion alone with our government. Now who is going to stop our country from defaulting? Who? China? Japan? Umm...my point is how many nuclear weapons we have just in this country alone. Plus in other countries overseas. Currency is what it is, my debt is about 7,000g's totally right now. I live on social security its judgment-proof except for back taxes back child support student loans and certain victims crimes. If I choose to default there's not a damn thing they can do about it. Yeah they can take me to a civil court they'll lose but than I'm blackballed from ever making any other loans. That's how I see if our government decides to go that route. No other country will ever loan our country any currency ever again. Till they need our military. That's why the World depend so much on United States to protect them from Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and certain countries in northern Africa. Some would say even Afghanistan, South America alone with the Colombian drug trade. Take away the USA, and the whole World is in a Would of sh$t. Mexico needs us we don't need them China needs us we don't need them. If corporate America would just bring jobs back to the United States and pay everybody a fair living wage regardless of what they think is profitable stop the greed we as a Nation would be far better off.

Other countries don't "loan us currency". In fact, no one loans the US Treasury currency. The Treasury issues bonds and people or companies or countries decide on their own to buy them, or sell them, at will. Bonds are issued with a fixed interest rate set by the Treasury and sold in an auction, and if there are more buyers than sellers of US bonds the prices of the bonds go up, so the effective interest rate the bond yields goes down. If there are more sellers than buyers the prices of bonds goes down, so the Treasury's revenue from the bond sale goes down, so the effective interest rate goes up. After the bonds are issued and sold there is an active market for US Treasury bonds, and you can make (or lose) money betting on whether interest rates will go up or down. Right now they're going down.

As for your last few sentences, are you proposing that US companies don't need to be competitive or profitable? That profits are simply greed? This is a naive position. Any company that isn't competitive or isn't profitable over the long run goes out of business. Unless you're really talking about nationalizing corporations. Who do you think builds the weapons you're convinced make us indispensable in the world? Non-profits?

 

[Irvrobinson]

IMNSHO, student loans should be funded, and held by, the colleges themselves. That way, they have some skin in the game. If they persist in charging exorbitant prices for a bullshit feel good degree where there's little to no chance of the student ever recouping the cost of the degree, then they should be the one on the hook. Nobody else.

Since the majority of college students are at state schools and private colleges without large endowments, where are you thinking the loan funds should come from?

Actually, the current crop of lenders are at fault for making risky loans, and they did so because they know that most tuition loans can't be discharged in bankruptcies. They are just as much as fault as the lenders who created the mortgage crisis 15 years ago by making loans they shouldn't have. Are a lot of these students as dumb as rocks? Yes. But that's makes an even stronger case that the lenders are predatory and deserve their fate. As for the schools, I've already weighed in on this, and I think the university system in the US needs a reboot and to become far more efficient. And they should be held accountable for becoming more efficient, but right now dummies like Warren just want to give away a trillion dollars to get elected.

 

[RichB]

Since the majority of college students are at state schools and private colleges without large endowments, where are you thinking the loan funds should come from?

Actually, the current crop of lenders are at fault for making risky loans, and they did so because they know that most tuition loans can't be discharged in bankruptcies. They are just as much as fault as the lenders who created the mortgage crisis 15 years ago by making loans they shouldn't have. Are a lot of these students as dumb as rocks? Yes. But that's makes an even stronger case that the lenders are predatory and deserve their fate. As for the schools, I've already weighed in on this, and I think the university system in the US needs a reboot and to become far more efficient. And they should be held accountable for becoming more efficient, but right now dummies like Warren just want to give away a trillion dollars to get elected.

I thought the government took over student loans and that they are serviced by Navient (formerly Salle Mae) but there are 3'rd party lenders.
The effect was to remove any parental approval and to keep higher education awash with funds.

IMO, government should be removed from the students loans to permit competition and adult supervision.
I was a Coop (work while getting my degree). That program was dropped because lack of interest. You lost financial aid when you earned coop money. The usual perverse incentive.

Government never makes anything cheaper. If it control costs, it creates scarcity and removes the driving factor for innovation.

- Rich

 

[panteragstk]

I thought the government took over student loans and that they are serviced by Navient (formerly Salle Mae) but there are 3'rd party lenders.
The effect was to remove any parental approval and to keep higher education awash with funds.

IMO, government should be removed from the students loans to permit competition and adult supervision.
I was a Coop (work while getting my degree). That program was dropped because lack of interest. You lost financial aid when you earned coop money. The usual perverse incentive.

Government never makes anything cheaper. If it control costs, it creates scarcity and removes the driving factor for innovation.

- Rich

The Student Loan Marketing Association was originally created in 1972 as a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) and began privatizing its operations in 1997, a process it completed at the end of 2004 when Congress terminated its federal charter, ending its ties to the government. The company remains the country's largest originator of federally insured student loans. Through its specialized subsidiaries and divisions, Sallie Mae also provides debt management services as well as business and technical products to a range of business clients, including colleges, universities and loan guarantors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallie_Mae

 

[Irvrobinson]

I thought the government took over student loans and that they are serviced by Navient (formerly Salle Mae) but there are 3'rd party lenders.
The effect was to remove any parental approval and to keep higher education awash with funds.

IMO, government should be removed from the students loans to permit competition and adult supervision.
I was a Coop (work while getting my degree). That program was dropped because lack of interest. You lost financial aid when you earned coop money. The usual perverse incentive.

Government never makes anything cheaper. If it control costs, it creates scarcity and removes the driving factor for innovation.

- Rich

Yes, government agencies are involved, and by being involved creating secondary markets for these loans they're doing damage similar to what was done in the mortgage loan crisis. I agree with you that government seldom (never is a strong word) makes anything cheaper.

 

[Phase 2]

Other countries don't "loan us currency". In fact, no one loans the US Treasury currency. The Treasury issues bonds and people or companies or countries decide on their own to buy them, or sell them, at will. Bonds are issued with a fixed interest rate set by the Treasury and sold in an auction, and if there are more buyers than sellers of US bonds the prices of the bonds go up, so the effective interest rate the bond yields goes down. If there are more sellers than buyers the prices of bonds goes down, so the Treasury's revenue from the bond sale goes down, so the effective interest rate goes up. After the bonds are issued and sold there is an active market for US Treasury bonds, and you can make (or lose) money betting on whether interest rates will go up or down. Right now they're going down.

As for your last few sentences, are you proposing that US companies don't need to be competitive or profitable? That profits are simply greed? This is a naive position. Any company that isn't competitive or isn't profitable over the long run goes out of business. Unless you're really talking about nationalizing corporations. Who do you think builds the weapons you're convinced make us indispensable in the world? Non-profits?

As for clearing up my thoughts on how our government get money thanks just learn something. Corporations keep most of if not all the money. Workers are under paid
Walmart pays better than McDonald's and Burger King. Your point of view is a good one. Paying labor for a living wage so they can support themselves and their families just isn't cutting it. Inflation is out of control. 15 buck an hour on a 40 hour work week after taxs, health insurance doesn't leave much to live on. Most companies won't even give employees 40 hours a week just so they can skeet by on vacation pay benefits. Let's get into overtime pay most will make their employees take a day off just so they don't have to pay overtime pay. So yeah greedy bastards I tell you..lol

 

[Irvrobinson]

Paying labor for a living wage so they can support themselves and their families just isn't cutting it. Inflation is out of control. 15 buck an hour on a 40 hour work week after taxs, health insurance doesn't leave much to live on. Most companies won't even give employees 40 hours a week just so they can skeet by on vacation pay benefits. Let's get into overtime pay most will make their employees take a day off just so they don't have to pay overtime pay. So yeah greedy bastards I tell you..lol

Inflation is out of control? In some cities rents and home prices are going up, but that's not employers' fault. Housing shortages are almost always the result of NIMBY restrictive zoning policies. The Bay Area is a classic example of that. Other than housing in a few big cities, some drug prices, and a college education, inflation is low by government statistics.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Minimum wage was never intended for raising families on. Raising it prices teens out of jobs, so in the places where the minimum wage is high now jobs for teens are nearly non-existent. Having a job as a teenager taught me a lot about work and money management. You talk about corporate greed, but, seriously, living on Social Security, what do you know about it? Do you think Amazon is greedy? At every level of the company, including in their distribution centers, Amazon pays some of the highest wages in the industry. Which companies do you think are being greedy? Airlines? Automakers? Utilities? Supermarkets? Oil companies? High tech companies? I'm just curious.

 

[Verdinut]

Inflation is out of control? In some cities rents and home prices are going up, but that's not employers' fault. Housing shortages are almost always the result of NIMBY restrictive zoning policies. The Bay Area is a classic example of that. Other than housing in a few big cities, some drugs prices, and a college education, inflation is low by government statistics.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Minimum wage was never intended for raising families on. Raising it prices teens out of jobs, so in the places where the minimum wage is high now jobs for teens are nearly non-existent. Having a job as a teenager taught me a lot about work and money management. You talk about corporate greed, but, seriously, living on Social Security, what do you know about it? Do you think Amazon is greedy? At every level of the company, including in their distribution centers, Amazon pays some of the highest wages in the industry. Which companies do you think are being greedy? Airlines? Automakers? Utilities? Supermarkets? Oil companies? High tech companies? I'm just curious.

Banks are also greedy!

 

[Irvrobinson]

Banks are also greedy!

How are they greedy?

 

[panteragstk]

Inflation is out of control? In some cities rents and home prices are going up, but that's not employers' fault. Housing shortages are almost always the result of NIMBY restrictive zoning policies. The Bay Area is a classic example of that. Other than housing in a few big cities, some drugs prices, and a college education, inflation is low by government statistics.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Minimum wage was never intended for raising families on. Raising it prices teens out of jobs, so in the places where the minimum wage is high now jobs for teens are nearly non-existent. Having a job as a teenager taught me a lot about work and money management. You talk about corporate greed, but, seriously, living on Social Security, what do you know about it? Do you think Amazon is greedy? At every level of the company, including in their distribution centers, Amazon pays some of the highest wages in the industry. Which companies do you think are being greedy? Airlines? Automakers? Utilities? Supermarkets? Oil companies? High tech companies? I'm just curious.

This is something I just don't think people understand. Minimum wage is intended for entry level, mostly totally inexperienced workers. If you are 40 years old and still make minimum wage, then you have made some bad decisions along the way, or are in such a crap situation that moving somewhere new and living in your car when you were younger would have been better for you than working for such little money for so long. This obviously is different for everyone, but, as said, minimum wage isn't for people to live off of their entire life.

If we take the minimum wage and double it, what will that do for people already making $15/hr? Do they get double their pay too? No? How is that fair? People that worked their way up get punished and people that were satisfied with the bare minimum get rewarded. It is still very much possible to work your way up in companies. I did it. I know plenty of people that have done it. If you work in a job for 20 years and are still in an entry level position then it's probably not the company, and if it is, you should have quit ages ago.

 

[Verdinut]

How are they greedy?

In Canada, they don't pay most employees high wages, and they pay very low interest rates on savings accounts. I may be wrong but I assume it's the same situation in the US.

 

[RichB]

How about Educational greed where institutions have no regard for the debt incurred by their students. It takes a special kind of arrogance.

Elizabeth Warren earned $350,000 to teach one coarse and also received an interest free loan to buy her home.
Of course, all that occurred begore it was clear that she falsely claimed to be an American Indian. In all likelihood, her family participated in the trail of tears (on the wrong side) Then there is the plagiarized recipes in her book "Pow wow chow".

- Rich

 

[panteragstk]

How about Educational greed where institutions have no regard for the debt incurred by their students. It takes a special kind of arrogance.

Elizabeth Warren earned $350,000 to teach one coarse and also received an interest free loan to buy her home.
Of course, all that occurred begore it was clear that she falsely claimed to be an American Indian. In all likelihood, her family participated in the trail of tears (on the wrong side) Then there is the plagiarized recipes in her book "Pow wow chow".

- Rich

Hell, the title of the book is racist enough...

Education for profit shouldn't really be a thing, but I think there is a place for it when it comes to private universities. Public universities should be an extension of public school, but I know not many will agree with me on that one. I went to a public university, didn't do well in high school (didn't care, really terrible school system in my town), but got all of my tuition payed for just in grant money alone for the first year. The next year, TX de-regulated tuition and it immediately doubled in cost. It has done so on the regular and now is mostly too expensive for any student to just pay for without loans. That's BS and shouldn't be a problem. Books and parking fees are another thing that is out of control.

The logic of "go into debt so you can get a degree that will "help" you get a job so you can get out of that debt" makes no sense at all.

 

[Irvrobinson]

In Canada, they don't pay most employees high wages, and they pay very low interest rates on savings accounts. I may be wrong but I assume it's the same situation in the US.

In the US tellers are not highly paid, but that's not a career position. Bank officers (people who can approve transactions and manage the branches and the company) are not highly paid, but according to Glassdoor branch managers can make up to $153K per year. That's not awful.

 

[Phase 2]

Inflation is out of control? In some cities rents and home prices are going up, but that's not employers' fault. Housing shortages are almost always the result of NIMBY restrictive zoning policies. The Bay Area is a classic example of that. Other than housing in a few big cities, some drugs prices, and a college education, inflation is low by government statistics.

https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

Minimum wage was never intended for raising families on. Raising it prices teens out of jobs, so in the places where the minimum wage is high now jobs for teens are nearly non-existent. Having a job as a teenager taught me a lot about work and money management. You talk about corporate greed, but, seriously, living on Social Security, what do you know about it? Do you think Amazon is greedy? At every level of the company, including in their distribution centers, Amazon pays some of the highest wages in the industry. Which companies do you think are being greedy? Airlines? Automakers? Utilities? Supermarkets? Oil companies? High tech companies? I'm just curious.

All of them are greedy!!. The rich been screwing over the poor always have always will. Don't believe me? Get yourself that movie "Platoon" it's a oscar-winning movie. "Whoever said you mattered? all you got to do is make it out here alive, for the rest of your life it's gravy you hear gravy!!. Irv, you gotta be rich to talk like that in the first place. . Carry on Irv, i do enjoy reading you post and threads they are informational and informative.

 

[RichB]

Hell, the title of the book is racist enough...

Education for profit shouldn't really be a thing, but I think there is a place for it when it comes to private universities.

Not-for-profit has no correlation with being grossly over paid. Patrick Kennedy (you know the family ),paid himself $600,000 a year for his service to his government funded non-profit Citizens Energy. That does not include other perks, trips, cars etc.

Attempts can be made to regulate, limit administrators and such but I am not in favor of any of it because it does not work. Only the free market works which means reducing government involvement. Once you do that, innovation will occur as well.

Our government has fed the beast and it is a bloated greedy pig. I read a stat that for every $1 the government funds education the price increased by 60 cents. In the Mass higher education system the number of >$200K administrators, deans, provosts is greater than the number of educators.

- Rich

 

[Phase 2]

Banks are also greedy!

Yeah, they just use other people's money to get rich, and when they clean out the bank vault taxpayers gotta bail them out..

 

[Phase 2]

This is something I just don't think people understand. Minimum wage is intended for entry level, mostly totally inexperienced workers. If you are 40 years old and still make minimum wage, then you have made some bad decisions along the way, or are in such a crap situation that moving somewhere new and living in your car when you were younger would have been better for you than working for such little money for so long. This obviously is different for everyone, but, as said, minimum wage isn't for people to live off of their entire life.

If we take the minimum wage and double it, what will that do for people already making $15/hr? Do they get double their pay too? No? How is that fair? People that worked their way up get punished and people that were satisfied with the bare minimum get rewarded. It is still very much possible to work your way up in companies. I did it. I know plenty of people that have done it. If you work in a job for 20 years and are still in an entry level position then it's probably not the company, and if it is, you should have quit ages ago.

Back in my oilfield days, on Federal alone taxes where 1000 every two weeks. Plus State taxs, plus social security and Medicare. Now if I remember, cause I slept hourly pay was 19.50 an hour. After 40 time and a half. Work week was 96+ hours, some times 106+ a week. So yeah the more hours I put in the more I got taken from in tax's. Now I cash my check, go buy groceries more taxes, go buy gas for my vehicle more taxes, I pay my cable bill cell phone bill electricity bill more taxes. Yeah system is definitely set up for the Rich and famous.

 

[bigkrazy155]

How people get "screwed" in a free market system where literally every exchange of goods or services is voluntary and must be mutually beneficial is beyond me. People get screwed only when 1) the government gets involved and turns things into cronyism or 2) when a monopoly is formed in the market of an essential good/service.

 

[Phase 2]

How people get "screwed" in a free market system where literally every exchange of goods or services is voluntary and must be mutually beneficial is beyond me. People get screwed only when 1) the government gets involved and turns things into cronyism or 2) when a monopoly is formed in the market of an essential good/service.

Nice!