I dunno if that really addresses much at all aside from the reference of one person - presently hawking a book mind - saying "we have no plan B" because we already lowered interest rates in the 08 recession. I'm nothing but a layman observer of economic trends, but I'm skeptical of there being "no other options"
- granted they will have to come from political will rather than the will of central bankers.
Then there are a whole series of droning, bleating, paragraphs by Chris Hedges, documented plagiarist who hilariously calls everyone but himself a liar/fraud, doing his B-rate Noam Chomsky "both sides are the same and manipulating the sheeple, don't bother being active with, or trying to reform, institutions because the apocalypse is right around the corner" shtick that he has been regurgitating for at least a decade if not two (again not surprising from somebody who lifted entire passages from a couple of reporters' works for one of his own books).
Granted that is not to say the debt bubbles aren't real, or that a fair amount of people's living standards haven't stagnated or declined. But I'm pretty sure the situation is a little more nuanced than "the end is neigh, oh and also please buy my book for $19.99!"
CptKemzik on
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Then there are a whole series of droning, bleating, paragraphs by Chris Hedges, documented plagiarist who hilariously calls everyone but himself a liar/fraud, doing his B-rate Noam Chomsky "both sides are the same and manipulating the sheeple, don't bother being active with, or trying to reform, institutions because the apocalypse is right around the corner" shtick that he has been regurgitating for at least a decade if not two (again not surprising from somebody who lifted entire passages from a couple of reporters' works for one of his own books).
I've not heard of this. Do you have sources for this? Would the article be viewed differently if it was written by Chomsky? Or Krugman?
Granted that is not to say the debt bubbles aren't real, or that a fair amount of people's living standards haven't stagnated or declined. But I'm pretty sure the situation is a little more nuanced than "the end is neigh, oh and also please buy my book for $19.99!"
I see nowhere where he's advertising to buy his books. It's obviously an op-ed, but I thought it was pretty consistent what has been mentioned in other articles I've read and in earlier posts in this thread.
Here is an article for your consideration.
I think it spells out much of everything that's been brought up in this thread. Mainly, we're building debt bubbles that, when burst, will fuck us all. We have done nothing since the last recession to protect ourselves, and should any of the bubbles; student, credit card, car or housing; burst, then we'll basically watch the US freefall.
Historically speaking, unusually low taxes on the rich, high wealth disparities, and various debt bubbles caused the banking collapses in 1929. This in turn sparked massive tax increases on the rich to pay for the plans that FDR put in place to keep this country alive. I have to wonder if we're headed towards the same cycle again.
Then there are a whole series of droning, bleating, paragraphs by Chris Hedges, documented plagiarist who hilariously calls everyone but himself a liar/fraud, doing his B-rate Noam Chomsky "both sides are the same and manipulating the sheeple, don't bother being active with, or trying to reform, institutions because the apocalypse is right around the corner" shtick that he has been regurgitating for at least a decade if not two (again not surprising from somebody who lifted entire passages from a couple of reporters' works for one of his own books).
I've not heard of this. Do you have sources for this? Would the article be viewed differently if it was written by Chomsky? Or Krugman?
Granted that is not to say the debt bubbles aren't real, or that a fair amount of people's living standards haven't stagnated or declined. But I'm pretty sure the situation is a little more nuanced than "the end is neigh, oh and also please buy my book for $19.99!"
I see nowhere where he's advertising to buy his books. It's obviously an op-ed, but I thought it was pretty consistent what has been mentioned in other articles I've read and in earlier posts in this thread.
The difference is that he presents the problems as intractable, unsolvable, and equally the responsibility of Democrats and Republicans. He markets them as partners in some grand conspiracy of corporate power from which fiscal Armageddon is the only escape. There is an argument to be made that the Democrats are actually the RIGHT wing party in a functioning economy and democracy, but the argument that they and the republicans are partners in crime and that Democrats don't care about the people is foolish and untrue. If we had elected solid democratic majorities in 2010, 12, 14 and 16 we would not be in this mess as a society. If we elect a lot of democrats starting next year and recapture the presidency, then the trend of our economy can change without ever embracing the Sanders revolution.
Nancy Pelosi is not a corporate stooge who doesn't care about you. Hilary Clinton would have been an excellent president for the economy, and had many great ideas about wealth inequality. The two sides are NOT the same. Vote Democrat.
Then there are a whole series of droning, bleating, paragraphs by Chris Hedges, documented plagiarist who hilariously calls everyone but himself a liar/fraud, doing his B-rate Noam Chomsky "both sides are the samel and manipulating the sheeple, don't bother being active with, or trying to reform, institutions because the apocalypse is right around the corner" shtick that he has been regurgitating for at least a decade if not two (again not surprising from somebody who lifted entire passages from a couple of reporters' works for one of his own books).
I've not heard of this. Do you have sources for this? Would the article be viewed differently if it was written by Chomsky? Or Krugman?
Granted that is not to say the debt bubbles aren't real, or that a fair amount of people's living standards haven't stagnated or declined. But I'm pretty sure the situation is a little more nuanced than "the end is neigh, oh and also please buy my book for $19.99!"
I see nowhere where he's advertising to buy his books. It's obviously an op-ed, but I thought it was pretty consistent what has been mentioned in other articles I've read and in earlier posts in this thread.
Here is the long-form report on Hedges' plagiarism as well as the rebuttal made by Hedges (followed by a rebuttal to the rebuttal by the author).
Here is the salient part of the (again repetitive and tired, also frankly lazy) op-ed where his one citation relevant to discussing the economy leads to him promoting somebody's book (also a writer for the website!):
The steady increase in public debt, corporate debt, credit card debt and student loan debt will ultimately lead, as Nomi Prins writes, to “a tipping point—when money coming in to furnish that debt, or available to borrow, simply won’t cover the interest payments. Then debt bubbles will pop, beginning with higher yielding bonds.”
An economy reliant on debt for its growth causes our interest rate to jump to 28 percent when we are late on a credit card payment. It is why our wages are stagnant or have declined in real terms—if we earned a sustainable income we would not have to borrow money to survive. It is why a university education, houses, medical bills and utilities cost so much. The system is designed so we can never free ourselves from debt.
However, the next financial crash, as Prins points out in her book “Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World,” won’t be like the last one. This is because, as she says, “there is no Plan B.” Interest rates can’t go any lower. There has been no growth in the real economy. The next time, there will be no way out. Once the economy crashes and the rage across the country explodes into a firestorm, the political freaks will appear, ones that will make Trump look sagacious and benign.
No I wouldn't view it differently if it were written by Chomsky or Krugman because the op Ed itself is vacuous self-aggrandizing masquerading as telling truth to power with, again, only one (debateable) section related to economic policy the means of which is meant to promote some person's book. Yes Hedges isn't directly advertising any of his books in the piece, but him giving his alarmist pulpit speech - with the intention of getting people to buy previous publications of his - is a well established M.O. of his. The last really great picece of writing he made was War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Since then he's been a broken record, and apparently a broken record that needed to steal other people's work.
Oh and the icing on the cake? Dismissing LGBTQ rights, gun control, and abortion as "marginal" issues that the Democratic party concerns itself with.
He went hard, and for some reason advocates for local currency. Because, you know, company stores and scrip worked out real well.
We must invest our energy in building parallel, popular institutions to protect ourselves and to pit power against power. These parallel institutions, including unions, community development organizations, local currencies, alternative political parties and food cooperatives, will have to be constructed town by town.
Steam - Synthetic Violence | XBOX Live - Cannonfuse | PSN - CastleBravo | Twitch - SoggybiscuitPA
this op ed by her was linked in that article, and i thought it was quite good, and very correct.
In a more rational world, lawmakers would abandon the crude C.B.O. scoring model and recognize that the risk of overspending is inflation, not bankruptcy. They would avoid fruitless battles over the debt ceiling, and they would acknowledge that the deficit itself could be deployed as a potent weapon in the fights against inequality, poverty and economic stagnation.
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thatassemblyguyJanitor of Technical Debt.Registered Userregular
(as usual trump threatens horrible thing, but doesn't actually do it)
I'm picking nits here, so feel free to ignore.
I'm not sure if I'd call it good news; more like, "OK we've at least stopped the bleeding but we still may lose the limb" kind of news.
Nor would I say that Trump only threatened to do this horrible thing. There were real tariffs (solar panels, aluminum, and steel) that were put in place, but maybe not the full compliment (technology, etc). China put real tariffs on goods (~$3 bil) that were coming out of the USA in response to the Aluminum and Steel tariffs (they targeted Trump supporting states as much as possible though which was brilliant).
The big problem is even when Trump merely threatens to do a thing; he cedes more and more real negotiating power away from our country's hands. There's very little economic up-side to what he's doing to our country right now.
Also are any of those tarrifs actually ending or are they going to become a weird legacy the US keeps going along with?
@electricitylikesme - I haven't seen anything that indicates they are lifting/stopping the tarriffs, but I also haven't been looking terribly hard over the last 5 or so days, and that's a millennium in Trump years.
this op ed by her was linked in that article, and i thought it was quite good, and very correct.
In a more rational world, lawmakers would abandon the crude C.B.O. scoring model and recognize that the risk of overspending is inflation, not bankruptcy. They would avoid fruitless battles over the debt ceiling, and they would acknowledge that the deficit itself could be deployed as a potent weapon in the fights against inequality, poverty and economic stagnation.
The battle over the debt ceiling had nothing to do with economics.
Here is an article for your consideration.
I think it spells out much of everything that's been brought up in this thread. Mainly, we're building debt bubbles that, when burst, will fuck us all. We have done nothing since the last recession to protect ourselves, and should any of the bubbles; student, credit card, car or housing; burst, then we'll basically watch the US freefall.
Historically speaking, unusually low taxes on the rich, high wealth disparities, and various debt bubbles caused the banking collapses in 1929. This in turn sparked massive tax increases on the rich to pay for the plans that FDR put in place to keep this country alive. I have to wonder if we're headed towards the same cycle again.
In 1929 the tax rates weren't "unusually low" unless you define usual as what came afterwards. And I don't think you can really blame it on "debt bubbles" either. Margin calls contributed but that's not really debt per se. In 1929, production was already dropping, the Dust Bowl was causing agricultural problems and unemployment was already spiking before the stock market crashed. Low regulation meant people rightfully feared for their savings in banks and there were runs. Unemployment increased the slowdowns caused by too fast growth and income inequality in a feedback loop. Runs led to bank failures which led to more runs. If anything, the start of the Great Depression lead to lending being cut off which led to even less economic activity which made the problem worse, especially in Germany.
Plus the article is just ideology
All this will soon be compounded by financial collapse. Wall Street banks have been handed $16 trillion in bailouts and other subsidies by the Federal Reserve and Congress at nearly zero percent interest since the 2008 financial collapse.
is just not understanding how it works and the figure is grossly exaggerated, intentionally, by "misreading" the accounting used. One common occurrence was daily or weekly loans for that were paid back (with interest) and renewed repeatedly. So if there was a $30 million dollar loan for 1 day, paid back and repeated for 100 days, then it would be presented as 3 billion USD$ in bailouts using this figure.
The total was 1 trillion USD$. Still a huge amount but all paid back with interest in very short order. He then conflates this money
They have used this money, as well as the money saved through the huge tax cuts imposed last year, to buy back their own stock, raising the compensation and bonuses of their managers and thrusting the society deeper into untenable debt peonage.
But the money has been paid back. He glosses over this to try to "both sides" it, conflate TARP and similar bailouts with the Trump tax cuts and deceive his readers. This culminates in a thesis which he tries to link capitalism in general to debt so weakly that someone teaching freshman writing would circle it in red with "doesn't follow" (especially with the edgelord Marx and Lenin quotes). He then makes unsupported claims that debt is the boogeyman and calls for "parallel institutions" because the elites are not going to be ready for the zombie apocalypse.
Oh and the icing on the cake? Dismissing LGBTQ rights, gun control, and abortion as "marginal" issues that the Democratic party concerns itself with.
When you emphasize one aspect of politics (economics) over everything else, everything else gets marginalized. I don't think Paul Ryan gives much of a shit about evangelical issues or abortion or white supremacy but he'll compromise if it gets his economic agenda more power. That faction of the left has been very marginalized for a few decades until the last few years and now its kind of shocking because its so unexpected.
L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
How about this one:
Goldman Sachs, the company that brought you the Recession of '08, who crashed the economy making out like bandits and got rewarded with more money for it, is now saying the economy is gonna collapse, again. This time, they say, from not as much of their doing.
How about this one:
Goldman Sachs, the company that brought you the Recession of '08, who crashed the economy making out like bandits and got rewarded with more money for it, is now saying the economy is gonna collapse, again. This time, they say, from not as much of their doing.
I keep hearing student loan debt referred to as a bubble, when I really think it's more of a crisis. Personally speaking as someone with a large amount, when I was out of school post undergrad degree I could barely scrape buy with my loan payments, now that I'm in grad school it's much much easier for the moment, but that won't last forever and I know dozens of people in similar situations. Besides paying off or forgiving student debt, what else could the government do to help alleviate this?
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
I keep hearing student loan debt referred to as a bubble, when I really think it's more of a crisis. Personally speaking as someone with a large amount, when I was out of school post undergrad degree I could barely scrape buy with my loan payments, now that I'm in grad school it's much much easier for the moment, but that won't last forever and I know dozens of people in similar situations. Besides paying off or forgiving student debt, what else could the government do to help alleviate this?
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
Repeal the stupid law saying it's not discharged in bankruptcy.
I keep hearing student loan debt referred to as a bubble, when I really think it's more of a crisis. Personally speaking as someone with a large amount, when I was out of school post undergrad degree I could barely scrape buy with my loan payments, now that I'm in grad school it's much much easier for the moment, but that won't last forever and I know dozens of people in similar situations. Besides paying off or forgiving student debt, what else could the government do to help alleviate this?
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
Allowing the debt to be discharged during bankruptcy would be a very helpful change that would help stop some of the predatory lending that goes on.
I keep hearing student loan debt referred to as a bubble, when I really think it's more of a crisis. Personally speaking as someone with a large amount, when I was out of school post undergrad degree I could barely scrape buy with my loan payments, now that I'm in grad school it's much much easier for the moment, but that won't last forever and I know dozens of people in similar situations. Besides paying off or forgiving student debt, what else could the government do to help alleviate this?
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
Allow student debt to be discharged in bankruptcy at the very least. It would likely crush a bunch of loan servicing companies, but those companies deserve to be crushed because the only reason they exist is due to non dischargeable debt. Put some risk into giving the loans out to everyone. Like at the moment everyone buys up student debt because it's debt you can hound people for no matter what, even past death. They need to make it so that student debt is more risky because it's an investment of money that is regularly not returned on. However currently all of that risk of that investment is on the lendee and the lender has about 0 risk of not getting their money back because they are allowed to garnish wages and and shit to get the money. Like the only threat I could toss back at my loan servicers when my choice was between food and paying my loans was to say I'd just become homeless, and they could have fun trying to get blood from a stone.
Sleep on
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I keep hearing student loan debt referred to as a bubble, when I really think it's more of a crisis. Personally speaking as someone with a large amount, when I was out of school post undergrad degree I could barely scrape buy with my loan payments, now that I'm in grad school it's much much easier for the moment, but that won't last forever and I know dozens of people in similar situations. Besides paying off or forgiving student debt, what else could the government do to help alleviate this?
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
Repeal the stupid law saying it's not discharged in bankruptcy.
Either that or mandate the interest rate be stupid low. Maybe the prime rate *minus* a small amount.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
The student loans are in part responsible for the increase in tuition costs.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
If you mandated allowing discharge of loans in bankruptcy, people would be able to borrow less. Which would actually be a GOOD thing. Because then the schools would have to charge less to fill their spots, as they wouldn't be able to parasatize the infinite well of bad money to raise prices.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
Because they could or because they were in fact bankrupted by ridiculous tuition fees? Can anyone provide an actual citation?
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
Oh, I thought the solution was to let the free market adjust for it. That seems like something you just let the actuaries figure out when setting up loans.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It's not crazy at all. The ability to default on your debt is one of the biggest factors in securing a loan, at what rate and at what size. It's why your average person can't borrow $500 million at 1% interest rate for 10 years. Because the bank or the like is gonna look at you and go "He can't pay this back". Making debt non-dischargeable provide a backstop for the lenders and thus lowers interest rates and raises loan sizes for them.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
It's about as true as poor women having more kids to get more welfare
Like... that's a thing that happened somewhere, because it's a big country, but it's not useful as a thing to base public policy around
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
Yeah I've never been quite clear on the veracity of that reasoning.
Like I think that was the reasoning used, but that there wasn't any data to back up the reasoning.
Honestly there's never been a good reason for it.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
It's about as true as poor women having more kids to get more welfare
Like... that's a thing that happened somewhere, because it's a big country, but it's not useful as a thing to base public policy around
There is an article that I just cannot find right now that went over why it happened. A few PhD or MD students did this in the 1950s and people didn't like it. So since then, it's been impossible to get your student loans discharged.
I did find a study that said that 40% of the people who applied for bankruptcy with student loans got them discharged due to the fact that they could prove they had undo hardships. Gotta pay for it tho. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445
Also lower the price of college tuition. Because even allowing student loans to be discharged won't be enough. Maybe if we didn't need student loans just to have a shot at having a reasonable amount of income and life, then theoretically the industry would collapse on its own.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
I feel like that has to come first.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
It's about as true as poor women having more kids to get more welfare
Like... that's a thing that happened somewhere, because it's a big country, but it's not useful as a thing to base public policy around
There is an article that I just cannot find right now that went over why it happened. A few PhD or MD students did this in the 1950s and people didn't like it. So since then, it's been impossible to get your student loans discharged.
I did find a study that said that 40% of the people who applied for bankruptcy with student loans got them discharged due to the fact that they could prove they had undo hardships. Gotta pay for it tho. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445
I mean it happened for the reason most "reform" happens. There was a ton of money to be made in the government telling your debtors there was no escape from their debt.
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- granted they will have to come from political will rather than the will of central bankers.
Then there are a whole series of droning, bleating, paragraphs by Chris Hedges, documented plagiarist who hilariously calls everyone but himself a liar/fraud, doing his B-rate Noam Chomsky "both sides are the same and manipulating the sheeple, don't bother being active with, or trying to reform, institutions because the apocalypse is right around the corner" shtick that he has been regurgitating for at least a decade if not two (again not surprising from somebody who lifted entire passages from a couple of reporters' works for one of his own books).
Granted that is not to say the debt bubbles aren't real, or that a fair amount of people's living standards haven't stagnated or declined. But I'm pretty sure the situation is a little more nuanced than "the end is neigh, oh and also please buy my book for $19.99!"
I've not heard of this. Do you have sources for this? Would the article be viewed differently if it was written by Chomsky? Or Krugman?
I see nowhere where he's advertising to buy his books. It's obviously an op-ed, but I thought it was pretty consistent what has been mentioned in other articles I've read and in earlier posts in this thread.
Historically speaking, unusually low taxes on the rich, high wealth disparities, and various debt bubbles caused the banking collapses in 1929. This in turn sparked massive tax increases on the rich to pay for the plans that FDR put in place to keep this country alive. I have to wonder if we're headed towards the same cycle again.
The difference is that he presents the problems as intractable, unsolvable, and equally the responsibility of Democrats and Republicans. He markets them as partners in some grand conspiracy of corporate power from which fiscal Armageddon is the only escape. There is an argument to be made that the Democrats are actually the RIGHT wing party in a functioning economy and democracy, but the argument that they and the republicans are partners in crime and that Democrats don't care about the people is foolish and untrue. If we had elected solid democratic majorities in 2010, 12, 14 and 16 we would not be in this mess as a society. If we elect a lot of democrats starting next year and recapture the presidency, then the trend of our economy can change without ever embracing the Sanders revolution.
Nancy Pelosi is not a corporate stooge who doesn't care about you. Hilary Clinton would have been an excellent president for the economy, and had many great ideas about wealth inequality. The two sides are NOT the same. Vote Democrat.
Here is the long-form report on Hedges' plagiarism as well as the rebuttal made by Hedges (followed by a rebuttal to the rebuttal by the author).
Here is the salient part of the (again repetitive and tired, also frankly lazy) op-ed where his one citation relevant to discussing the economy leads to him promoting somebody's book (also a writer for the website!):
No I wouldn't view it differently if it were written by Chomsky or Krugman because the op Ed itself is vacuous self-aggrandizing masquerading as telling truth to power with, again, only one (debateable) section related to economic policy the means of which is meant to promote some person's book. Yes Hedges isn't directly advertising any of his books in the piece, but him giving his alarmist pulpit speech - with the intention of getting people to buy previous publications of his - is a well established M.O. of his. The last really great picece of writing he made was War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. Since then he's been a broken record, and apparently a broken record that needed to steal other people's work.
Oh and the icing on the cake? Dismissing LGBTQ rights, gun control, and abortion as "marginal" issues that the Democratic party concerns itself with.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/deficit-tax-cuts-trump.html
this op ed by her was linked in that article, and i thought it was quite good, and very correct.
@electricitylikesme - I haven't seen anything that indicates they are lifting/stopping the tarriffs, but I also haven't been looking terribly hard over the last 5 or so days, and that's a millennium in Trump years.
The battle over the debt ceiling had nothing to do with economics.
Plus the article is just ideology is just not understanding how it works and the figure is grossly exaggerated, intentionally, by "misreading" the accounting used. One common occurrence was daily or weekly loans for that were paid back (with interest) and renewed repeatedly. So if there was a $30 million dollar loan for 1 day, paid back and repeated for 100 days, then it would be presented as 3 billion USD$ in bailouts using this figure.
The total was 1 trillion USD$. Still a huge amount but all paid back with interest in very short order. He then conflates this money But the money has been paid back. He glosses over this to try to "both sides" it, conflate TARP and similar bailouts with the Trump tax cuts and deceive his readers. This culminates in a thesis which he tries to link capitalism in general to debt so weakly that someone teaching freshman writing would circle it in red with "doesn't follow" (especially with the edgelord Marx and Lenin quotes). He then makes unsupported claims that debt is the boogeyman and calls for "parallel institutions" because the elites are not going to be ready for the zombie apocalypse.
Its a garbage article.
When you emphasize one aspect of politics (economics) over everything else, everything else gets marginalized. I don't think Paul Ryan gives much of a shit about evangelical issues or abortion or white supremacy but he'll compromise if it gets his economic agenda more power. That faction of the left has been very marginalized for a few decades until the last few years and now its kind of shocking because its so unexpected.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
Goldman Sachs, the company that brought you the Recession of '08, who crashed the economy making out like bandits and got rewarded with more money for it, is now saying the economy is gonna collapse, again. This time, they say, from not as much of their doing.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/21/goldman-sachs-the-fiscal-outlook-for-the-us-is-not-good.html
There must be some mistake here because I've always been told cutting taxes generates revenue.
All I can think of is lowering interest rates and making it so private lenders have to provide an income based payment plan
Repeal the stupid law saying it's not discharged in bankruptcy.
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Allowing the debt to be discharged during bankruptcy would be a very helpful change that would help stop some of the predatory lending that goes on.
Allow student debt to be discharged in bankruptcy at the very least. It would likely crush a bunch of loan servicing companies, but those companies deserve to be crushed because the only reason they exist is due to non dischargeable debt. Put some risk into giving the loans out to everyone. Like at the moment everyone buys up student debt because it's debt you can hound people for no matter what, even past death. They need to make it so that student debt is more risky because it's an investment of money that is regularly not returned on. However currently all of that risk of that investment is on the lendee and the lender has about 0 risk of not getting their money back because they are allowed to garnish wages and and shit to get the money. Like the only threat I could toss back at my loan servicers when my choice was between food and paying my loans was to say I'd just become homeless, and they could have fun trying to get blood from a stone.
Not happening with this administration, unfortunately.
Either that or mandate the interest rate be stupid low. Maybe the prime rate *minus* a small amount.
The student loans are in part responsible for the increase in tuition costs.
If you mandated allowing discharge of loans in bankruptcy, people would be able to borrow less. Which would actually be a GOOD thing. Because then the schools would have to charge less to fill their spots, as they wouldn't be able to parasatize the infinite well of bad money to raise prices.
If the student debt can be discharged, I'm 25, and I have little to my name beyond a graduate degree, I'm declaring bankruptcy and just putting off buying a house for 10 years.
Why the hell not?
That's got to have a serious chilling effect on issuing the loans, which, absent the bolded, means college becomes inaccessible to a lot of people.
The GOP is doing that right now, though.
It seems pretty crazy to suggest that any significant amount of people will strategically declare bankruptcy as soon as they finish college even when they don't have to.
It is literally why they made it non dischargeable in the late 90s. Because too many masters and PHD type students would immediately declare bankruptcy after finishing their schooling.
At least as far as I've always understood it.
Because they could or because they were in fact bankrupted by ridiculous tuition fees? Can anyone provide an actual citation?
Oh, I thought the solution was to let the free market adjust for it. That seems like something you just let the actuaries figure out when setting up loans.
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It's not crazy at all. The ability to default on your debt is one of the biggest factors in securing a loan, at what rate and at what size. It's why your average person can't borrow $500 million at 1% interest rate for 10 years. Because the bank or the like is gonna look at you and go "He can't pay this back". Making debt non-dischargeable provide a backstop for the lenders and thus lowers interest rates and raises loan sizes for them.
My understanding is that's more convenient myth than fact.
isn't there an effective ceiling on the rates because of this? i don't quite remember all the stuff surrounding student loans right now
It's about as true as poor women having more kids to get more welfare
Like... that's a thing that happened somewhere, because it's a big country, but it's not useful as a thing to base public policy around
Yeah I've never been quite clear on the veracity of that reasoning.
Like I think that was the reasoning used, but that there wasn't any data to back up the reasoning.
Honestly there's never been a good reason for it.
There is an article that I just cannot find right now that went over why it happened. A few PhD or MD students did this in the 1950s and people didn't like it. So since then, it's been impossible to get your student loans discharged.
I did find a study that said that 40% of the people who applied for bankruptcy with student loans got them discharged due to the fact that they could prove they had undo hardships. Gotta pay for it tho.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445
I mean it happened for the reason most "reform" happens. There was a ton of money to be made in the government telling your debtors there was no escape from their debt.