My own feelings are all over the place on this one.

Many students are borrowing so much in student loans that they are saddled with a debt that they'll always be paying, but never pay off. And frankly, they whine about it - perhaps reasonably, perhaps not?

Is this happening because

• Colleges and universities charge too much
• Students are making bad decisions about where to go and how much to borrow
• Students, parents, and employers over-value degrees and institutions?

Students (more accurately, graduates) are screaming for debt relief - should they get it?

Well, right off the bat, I wonder how it was even possible that they were able to redefine student debt as some unique kind of debt that can't be discharged by bankruptcy.
I don't think there is any other kind of debt in that category.

Actually, you can include student debt in bankruptcy (don't know if that's the right way to
phrase it) - at least according to Google. But that would only apply to some.

I'm not sure I see bankruptcy a a solution rather than a bitter end.

I believe bankruptcy, as 'fixed' by the Republicans, disallows 2 kinds of debt subject to bankruptcy - 1)owed to banks and 2)owed to government.

Some folks just get wrecked. The current disaster point, I think, is healthcare. The secret may be to never borrow from a bank to pay off your debt!

https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student-loans/student-loans-bankruptcy/

Just making a point; not sure it's an important one.

Some people do just get wrecked, and healthcare is a good example of that. But we're talking about college loans, which are voluntary, unlike a sudden health crisis.

Please pardon me while I re-learn the tags.

To a degree, I think it is akin to pharmaceuticals, the health industry & others.
We take our drugs, do our lab work, have our physicals -IF WE ARE ABLE - to stay healthy & move our lives on to better things. There is little or no excuse to the price we as a country pay for it. It is simple, blatant greed.

Colleges & the college financing industry - loan businesses as a whole, really - are profit centers. No such thing as non-profit, and no reasons for the associated skyrocketing costs. Colleges are, or should be, there primarily to help people better themselves to then better the community around them, the larger nation community around that, and the world community in the end. There’s that idealism.

They also do very legitimate & beneficial research, many in their own specialized subjects. Its cost is “provided” with grants, higher tuition, donors, corporate sponsorship & the like. Does it help educate the students borrowing to pay their tuition? To a degree, as they are allowed to help & learn through the process. Does it help the government providing some grants? In that it might help the nation - likely specific segments or industries - yes. Does it help corporations? Definitely.

All legitimate, but as with a lot of other entities & processes, a whole lot, or few actually, get wealthy in the process and that does not trickle down to the student population...or tuition would actually be getting cheaper or stay stable. My thoughts...

When I worked at a public university I observed a few things. If the state was pressured to pressure its colleges to limit tuition rises (or lose some funding) the schools complied and moved its cost increases to other facets - housing, books, fees for everything.

To the question ‘are we overvaluing degrees & institutions’, i think yes & no. Schools do make students - who have a plan/goal - pay for and take courses they probably to not need to satisfy that plan. Speaking on my own behalf, while I enjoyed most of it, my four year degree meant far less from a professional context than the community college degree in IT I pursued several years later. I think the first degree, meandering through possible degree/life possibilities rounded me out better, it (through a lot of my own fault) gave me few career paths - International & Public PoliSci/Econ/Business combo.

Oh...and should they get relief? Mostly, yes. And the opportunity for a targeted education funded by those who are profiting from the universities.

"Ability to benefit".
Unlike many I don't think "free college" is a cure.
If it is free to all then one might question if it's worth anything to most.
But there are MILLIONS of bright kids who have everything, the gifts, the grades, the ability and the ambition, and all they lack is the money.

A means test and testing for ability to benefit can give us a clear picture of who needs free tuition the most. Standards don't have to be 100% rigid but 90% is probably perfect. If it is clear that they can make it in college as they made it in high school, give them the tuition if they can't afford it.

We're not "giving away free stuff", we're investing in our own future.
We have to, or the future is guaranteed to be dystopian.

Unlike free high school?

Like air? And housing?

Ability to benefit would be harder to assign/define than financial need is now!

Hmmm, I never thought of that, but I sure did take my share of Ability to Benefit tests once upon a time.

Don't know where "and housing"came from. I have to admit I've never (knowingly) taken an "ability to benefit" test.

If there is one single thing that America needs going into the future it is a well educated workforce. If there is one thing that Corporate America needs going into the future it is a well educated workforce.

Education lights a fire in the soul of the student. There is no limit to what he or she can accomplish. Debt extinguishes that fire. Put an end to it. Let them spread their wings and soar.

Okay, let e take a shot at this.

As of the effective date, payment on student loans is set at a percentage of income, paid monthly, reviewed annually. Percentage rate is based on the portion of debt incurred at for-profit/private institutions (higher) and public (lower rate) institutions. Payment is made until the loan is paid or the borrower dies. If you ended up with that killer law firm, you pay a percent of your killer salary. If you end up sweeping floors in your favorite art gallery, you'll probably pay less.

Private and for-profit higher ed. institutions set their own tuition rates. Public institutions do not charge for tuition, books, low-end but adequate computers, special-Ned's assistance.and tools for trade education (automotive tools, design tools, culinary knives, etc) although restrictions may be in place for those items which tend to "walk off")

Students are on the hook for food and housing. Colleges will form an alliance with local area landlords to locate reasonable housing for reasonable student.

I'm sure I've missed something important.

I love this formulation. I think there is a benefit to the student and to society that they "have skin in the game" in the form of some costs in the future. Most of the loans I obtained were National Direct Student Loans, or National Guaranteed Student Loans - I don't think those even exist anymore. The benefit, then, was that the loan came directly from the government, which gave the government the opportunity to mitigate expenses under special circumstances. It is that aspect of the process that is most missed now. I am a big believer in "means testing" benefits - as now occurs with Social Security being taxable income. That process, and applying it to student loans, allows conservation of resources instead of giving them to everyone - even those who don't "need" them - and providing greater benefits to those most in need.

Put it this way: If the government has $x million to loan/grant, it should be distributed to do the most good: those in the top 10% get nothing, as they can afford college on their own. Those in the bottom probably get 100% of their tuition covered. Those in the middle get a portion based upon need. That would help ameliorate the wealth disparity in our society.

That's one payment option. Or you could pay a normal payment. In my case, the interest is four times principal now as my loan is 9% and it's been that way since the mid-90s because I have chosen to pay based upon the income option for the entire length of the loan.

Even though my loan (25 years, 5 mos) has always been a Federal loan formerly owned by Sally Mae, Navient got ahold of it about 10 years ago, and a recent perusal of the promissory note shows that somehow Deutche Bank now owns the loan but managed by Navient.

My game-plan out of my situation is that after I close escrow on a home in the near future, is to trigger the "25 year rule" and have the loan forgiven.

I will then have to pay tax on the amount forgiven - which is fine by me. I rudimentarily figure the tax liability will be closely equal to the original principal amount - which I haven no problem paying. It's 25 years of 9% interest is what I have a problem with.

Plus, I figure the IRS interest on the loan when I make monthly payments will be less than 9% and I'll be good to go.

I just won't be able to deduct the interest on my income tax any longer.

Rick, I'm glad it's working well for you. Then again, you do show more common sense and ability to plan than many of those I've read about

That's said in an admiring tone, by the way.

It hasn't been too bad. As you can see, I've never made a dent in the principal in 25 years. I do get to deduct 100% of the payments on taxes, though.


I know.

It's good to see you return to RR.

College debt is the stuff of headlines. Depending on the school, many four year educations are subsidized by school benefactors, making educational choice a matter for some deeper investigation. For those who may be interested, I would refer you to my school details in the website Niche.

Current quoted costs per year are in the vicinity of 65K.... If you go to this link, scroll down to the subsidized costs, provided by a substantial Alumni Fund. Average yearly subsidy $41K

Niche - Bowdoin College.

This has been the case since I was in Bowdoin. Somewhat more as I received 100% tuition/room/board for 4 years. Coming from a relatively poor family, it was a godsend.

All of the Ivy League Schools, have substantial subsidies available. For those who are accepted, in many cases, scholarships, are not based on need, but perceived potential.

Amazing, and a good many kids would give anything to get out of their old stomping grounds for a chance at a transformed life.

The last number I saw for median annual income was $49,000. Costs at your very fine school, after financial aid, are about $25,000. (There are links to student loan programs on the same page.)

Which brings me back to the beginning: does a student with heart (but not wallet) set on
Bowdoin
A) forget about it and go to a more affordable school
B) Borrow the money and hope the Bowdoin name will pay loffogf

When I left college, my loan amount was $29K. I've made income-based payments for 25 years and 5 months. Today the loan amount is $111K.

The amount has increased $275% in that time due to interest of 9% which Congress has never changed in the 25 years and 5 months that I have had the loan.

This is why I will have no problem invoking the 25 year rule.

Reminds me of the scene in Rounders when Matt Damon tells Ed Norton that "the juice is still running" on a debt that Ed owes to the local loan shark.

So. From what I see here it isn't the actual student debt that's the problem. It's the interest. A lifetime of payments for a degree that qualifies you to be a lunchroom lady seems maybe a little harsh?

And then for a government loan agency to sell that debt to a private party who in turn sold it to a foriegn bank seems more than a little dicey to me. Similar to the way sub-prime mortgages were chopped up and sold? Probably a simpler answer than that but student loans, which should be viewed as an investment in the future are being used as a source of revenue. This is where our future generals will learn the history of warfare and the political struggles that make it necessary. This is where our future lawyers will learn the basis of our rule of law. Our future architects to build, our future everything is wrapped up in educating EVERYONE. It's far more important than our ability to wage war. In this day and age the very idea of war is preposterous.
But education is a necessity.

I actually consider myself more or less a capitalist. And if you took that Merriam-Webster definition of socialism as Gospel then I most certainly am a capitalist. But this. This right here. Is a f*cking travesty. This is betrayal. Of American youth, of American families, of America's future. It's a lifetime tax on education. Not a tax FOR education but a tax ON it. And like most taxes it weighs most heavily on the working class. Government should be throwing money into education, not trying to glean a Scrooge-like profit from it.

Menu planning and nutrient analysis.

Lunch ladies execute the plan.

This is going to sound snotty... but it's not meant to be.
For the student AND the parent... the college decision should be the number 1 priority, and accordingly, the preparation may well be the most important part of the next four years... monetarily as well as for future well being.

Unfortunately the selection process does not always reach to that level. Too often it is influenced by preconceived notions ... "We can only afford community college", "The guidance counselor suggested 'XYZ' or, "Your cousin Joey went there".

I'd like to cite as example that I know of (My Daughter in Law's work with her three children to work with and select the optimal school, and cost.) For each of the two sons and one daughter, she spent many.. many hours... researching, writing, visiting and seeking out the best combination of aid and future potential. This involved much work on the part of the kids, too.. as now, many schools not only look at grades, SAT scores or records of achievement outside of school... but also require the writing of essays.

In each case, submission of admission requests to as many as seven or eight colleges. I thought "crazy" at the time, but here's what happened. (I should add that all three kids are somewhat above average, so that helped.)

#1. Four year renewable scholarship for the first four years, and now in the second year of post graduate for which he also received a large subsidy.

#2. Received a Stamps scholarship
Stamps for four years... 100% Tuition, room and board, books, and $10,000 for an international trip during the last years of school. (he now has offers for postgraduate scholarships for his doctorate.

#3. Full tuition scholarship @ U of F in Tampa, and now a paid Associate in the Advanced Psychology Program pursuing PG degree.

Along the way dozens of rejections or failure to receive scholarship offers. Never talked about it this way, but I would guess many hundreds of hours in research and prep.

At this point, in today's dollars, I would guess between $700K and $1M... and maybe more.

More discipline than I could muster, but a wonderful payoff, allowing my Son and DIL to retire @ 60, with no debt.

Doesn't sound snotty in the least.
If a kid has the grades and the ambition, it is wonderful that some universities and colleges see fit to take a chance on them.

I don't think anyone here is questioning the (non-monetary) value of education. The question is, how much debt is reasonable? How and when should it be forgiven?

Should a student take on massive debt in order to attend an Ivy League school? Or should that student realize the family income is only $70K and instead take a good look at a state school?

As a tax payer, with no additional information, I'm less inclined to forgive a debt incurred for buying the luxury education rather than the more practical choice. (Not that I have any say in it.)

Also - public service options to work off that debt?

Likewise inclined. And a PS option, a real one, works for me too.

I think we need to go back to the idea that Ivy League schools are for rich kids. Most of this debt is because Middle Class kids are attending Ivies and other expensive private schools. You don't really get a much better education at those schools. Advocates claim that students who attend them have connections into the upper class and the upper class job market, but the sad fact is that there is not that much mixing between the 1% and the Middle Class kids going into whopping debt to attend. For example, poor kids can't afford fraternity or sorority dues.

State Colleges and Universities offer the full range of degrees, normally at a very competitive price. Here in California, you can even attend a community college for your general ed (and an AA degree if you want) and then those with a high GPA can transfer with full credit into the state system to get a BS or BA. This cuts the state tuition expense almost in half. (If you can't get a 3.5 GPA at the community college level, you have no business going to a state college or university.)

With due respect, unless one looks at the possibilities for help, looking at a lower cost school should come after checking out what might be better choices... with substantial scholarships... not always based on need, but inclusive.

I would strongly recommend using Niche, to check out the alternate scholarships/loans and to look to independent scholarship grantors, available by searching, and replying. ie... Stamp Foundation.
There are many dozens of scholarship programs, offered by organizations and businesses...many of which go begging for lack of effort to learn what might be available.

While most scholarships do require a reasonably good record, there are many businesses that will support students interested in their discipline and "Smart" scholarships may be offered for those interested in the military. Smart Scholarships.

It started, no offense, but researching financial aid is pretty much a given. This is not a new problem. My mother had scholarship for full tuition at what I think was a public college. That was great, but her family still didn't have money for books and/or room and board, so she didn't go there.

The point being, wise students will check the programs and quality of schools, then the financial costs and aid, and then decide what they need or can manage as debt. Private schools as a whole are more expensive than public; they may be worth it or may not. Less wise students may not be so careful.

I love the liberal arts, but taking on $60,000 of debt to study art history at an elite college may not be wise.

I'm trying to find some related article bug my wifi is terrible. Here's one:

Good reasons to borrow

I may be underestimating students who take out large loans. I'll keep looking.

Why students take on loans they can't pay

Man, there are loan companies out there THROWING money at students.

No debt is good debt. Some debt is necessary. I believe strongly in universal healthcare. I don't think it should pay for elective cosmetic surgery. Prestigious universities are a fine thing. But they are for the rich and the gifted.

I had a dentist who had a Harvard degree hanging on the wall.

He was one of the rich ones. That paper don't mean diddlysquat if you can't back it up in the workplace.

Pot and coffee, my thoughts are kind of jagged, but the little socialist on my left shoulder is saying something about that Ivy League degree being a firm division between the bougies and the proles.

But yeah, uh..college debt should be pretty much interest free. We should declare a debt jubilee to any and all student loans who have paid the principle+1% or some such. There. Problem solved, now let's get it done.

Great idea Greger, I'm sure the Republicans and #MoscowMitch will get right on that.

Here's an interesting article telling students what mistakes to avoid with student loans.
Advice to students

My local NPR is playing an episode of "Planet Money" talking about this issue. Should be available on podcast or on their website. If I can find it I'll come back and add a link.

The current episode is not online yet but they have several items on paying for college, Paying for college

I think there is a place for Liberal Arts, but mostly that's not a good investment for working families who have to be self-sufficient upon graduation. It's perfectly fine if you have a trust fund paying for everything. Everybody needs some sort of career. Even people with old family money. Most young people have been told all their lives they can be anything they put their mind to. Taking on hundreds of thousands in debt to attend an expensive college seems reasonable to them. I think they need an economics class in high school as a reality check, before they make that momentous a decision. Innumeracy runs rampant in the American population.

if you plan to teach art history at an elite college it's the best way to get where you're going...

Or maybe not. You do realize, I'm sure, how seldom those positions come open?

Just because I see all of this with my kids... I'd like to note one thing. In almost all of the posts here, the discussion centers on what the potential college student should look for when deciding on the right school, and the best financial decision. While I understand this, and in fact did investigation work myself, today, the debt levels call for much more work.

If you were in position to invest $500K in the stock market, would you let your kid make the decision? Point being, that the parent has a vested interest in what will happen to their children after college. ie. debt level as well as the kind of work they will choose.

I'd refer you back here, to what daughter in law Annie did. How much time she spent, and the results of that effort. It was a matter of working together with a 16 or 17 year old to dig in to a myriad of choices, fraught with confusion, and not always at the top of what lending institutions offer.

So... while we're looking at students, the fact that Annie and Steve were able to safely retire @ age 60, is, I believe, because of how she handled the financing of the childrens' education cost. in addition, in four more years, they will have added four "doctors" to the economy.

How it happened.

Absolutely, It. Unfortunately there are a lot of parents out there who are dumber than a first calf heifer, don’t know how to do any of the research because their children are first-generation college kids, have never lived without debt themselves, or have informally emancipated their kid (“if you need the money, then borrow it, but you’re the one who has to pay it back.”)

Or the college choice has been wisely made bug the only way to complete the financing is to borrow.

I consider college debt problem to be two tiered.
The first problem tier is where students borrowed money to get educated by a for profit outfit that offers, not doesn't actually educate.
The second, is the borrowing itself. We are talking about kids who, obviously, are a clue and don't understand debt or responsibility.

The first is currently supported by the Trump administration. There used to be congressional report listing the bad actors but that has gone up in smoke. These people are well and truly screwed as they signed the contract. The second has to do with borrowing the money. My kids are growed up I don't have to deal with this one but I have grandkids who have borrowed but not much and its was easily dealt with. When they graduated from college they had already completed their first 2 years at the local college (free, whilst attending high school. This is offered in our schools). However, there are also kids that goto college, are not rich, and major in English or History, borrow 100,000.00 to get through and are saddled with a debt they will have to live with for the rest of their lives due, basically, to our current laws dealing with this stuff.

I had a heart specialist who was married to another heart specialist from Canada. She had debt, he didn't because he did public service, in Canada, to take care of the cost. Anyway, this couple decided to go after her debt and saved 100,000.00 as the first payment. She had been in practice for a couple of years. That 100,000.00 didn't even deal with the interest! A couple of years afterwards they both moved to Canada, are both practicing, and she now ignores the debt.

College debt, overall, is a scourge on an entire generation. I have mixed feelings about the second group but not the first who should be able to get their money back. Obama thought so as well but not the Trump administration. The second is a bit different. I wonder, for instance, just how much these kids were schooled about the debt, etc. before they signed or they just figured it was free money and they were going to get rich quick and pay it all back. I think this boils down to a genuine lack of oversight by anybody either lender or parents. I wonder, when these kids left high school did anybody talk to them and explain it to them? Up here the high school no longer bothers with home ec (how to boil and egg), civics, etc. I suspect the subject of borrowing money never even came up.

I incidentally, would support a system that supported higher education in subjects deemed important for society. Grades must be maintained and payback would be by some kind of government service (to be decided) after graduation. I am told that this actually exists for some stuff but I have been told its a kindofa mystery.

Anyway...............

The real nightmare and usury is the student has to take out a new loan every semester, they are told they do not have to pay anything back until they graduate. May not be informed the interest will accumulate and compound until they start paying the loan back. So the student upon graduation is saddled with 8 or more separate loans each with a separate interest rate.

JGW used the phrase “subjects deemed important to society,” that’s a thought that’s been troubling me throughout this thread, including in my own posts. Our society is so monetized - I would hate to see education funded only for the lucrative subjects.

Because we need foresters, and orchestra conductors, Faulkner experts, political science teachers, archeologists, and high school biology teachers.

Shout out to Bernie; the only way I can see out of it is for government schools - from grade to highest degree- to be tuition-free.

In short - deemed important by whom?

I actually agree - we need them all. But borrowing 100,000.00 to be a historian doesn't seem to be a real good idea. I am not really sure what happened. I went to college on the GI Bill and it covered most of my expenses. I also worked and had summer jobs to fill it all in. I don't think that is possible anymore.

Anyway, what happened needs to be fixed not unlike a whole bunch of other stuff - infrastructure, healthcare, (list is long). I have no idea how to get that done.

See...the deal is that a student who wants to become a historian...

SHOULDN'T HAVE TO BORROW $100,000!!!!!!!

I agree with Julia: Government schools - from Kindergarten to highest degree need to be tuition-free. And they need support for poor students like free text books on line, and free dorms with a meal plan. A student with no assets should be able to become a productive member of society, at whatever level of education they can reach. That is the American Dream, more than anything else. That doesn't mean they need to have 20 year PhD programs for the feeble-minded.

Ivies should be for rich kids. State schools should be merit-based. Eventually, a state school diploma could actually be more impressive than an Ivy, because the student had to actually work hard for it. I think Trump has done more to damage the prestige of Wharton than anything else!

Ouch!

There is an ongoing fact - when money is tight gov tends to start cutting expenses with social stuff. That have blamed, for instance, in 1948 there was a movie called "the Snakepit". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Snake_Pit The results were, initially, a reformation of our mental health system. Within 10 years that reformation began with a closing of insane asylums in favor of community mental health. The problem is that few communities took it on and even fewer funded them. Schools too feel the pinch in tight times. Much of this has to do with 'privatization' where everybody gets to pay and them that can't ......... We, basically, take care of roads better than social stuff. Now, however, we now also have 18 year long wars for 3/4 billion a month to pay for and an army upon which we spend more than the next 5 richest countries in the world. Have mental problems? - work it out. Have serious mental problems? - time to goto prison. Have failing schools? Get rich or pray a lot. Want to be a doctor? Cuba for your education. Want to be a pharmacist? Russia has a nice program you can afford. Can't afford to get a phd? China can do it cheaper. There are solutions - they are just not here.

In other worlds it seems that we have moved our attention to stuff that has little to do with the taxpayers and much to do with the very rich and the will of a self serving elected class that has, obviously, forgotten them that brought them to the party. The truly peculiar thing is that them that brought them to the party seems to be happy with this situation - right up to the point when they start blowing up each other in an effort to "change" stuff. I suspect that history has probably documented this a few times before? The current solutions seem to be to talk everything to death and do absolutely nothing about it because, again obviously, its just too much trouble.......

* Our society has increased the extent to which we depend upon credentialing as a stand-in for demonstrated experience and capability.

* Our education system is taught by people with - somewhat useless - Master's Degrees. The pathway every one of them know to "success" is advanced education. That, therefore, is the pathway they try to chart for their students.

Both of these increase demand for college education, and the expectation that each student should strive for it.

* Federally ensured loans exacerbate this, encouraging an increase in demand for college (which increases price) at the same time that it makes purchasers (students) unresponsive to price (because the costs will be borne in the far-off future which, every 18 year old is certain, is, like, really far away, and, stuff).

Ergo, there isn't much price pressure on Colleges, but there is a lot of competition to capture an oversized student body and the federal funds that come with them. That means that colleges have emphasized the kinds of things that appeal to 18 year olds - fantastic sports teams, fun events and structures, greek life, cool campuses - who are price insensitive. Those things are all expensive, driving the (eventual) price higher and higher in a self-feeding cycle.


*Some* young people are screaming for debt relief. These are disproportionately people with advanced degrees, however, meaning that a public-debt-relief effort would represent a transfer of wealth from (generally) the broader populace to those who are more representative of the educated upper classes.

Not entirely, however. Younger generations are not wrong to point out that older generations grossly misled them when those elders encouraged them to take out massive student loans for degrees with increasingly lower payoffs. They are not wrong to say that state and federal policy as well as societal expectations steered them wrong, and that they are the ones left holding the burden. BUT, if student loans are so bad, well, why do we keep giving them out? Why would we WANT to burden another rising generation of students, if they are so terrible?

I think the following compromise addresses (though incompletely) both right and left wing concerns on the issue:

1. Allow anyone to re-finance current student loans at federal rates that match the rates we lend to banks (Left Wing Idea)
2. Immediately cease issuing new federal student loans (Right Wing Idea)
3. Make all student loans bankruptable after 10 years (so it dovetails with point 4, below) (no one has really pitched this, AFAIK).
4. Forgive the student loans put under the federal rates after 10 years of payments, not having missed payments (ie: Deferment time doesn't count) (Left Wing Idea with Right Wing Modification)

I've used the Post-9/11 GI Bill: It covered my tuition, and provided a living stipend. Those benefits may even be expanded further, depending on an interesting court case.

It generally isn't possible to pay for college only by working in the summers anymore, unless you are attending a community college, or have put together an impressive array of scholarships.

In my hometown, I teach a financial class to high schoolers, built around a few basic principles, the main project of which is "pay for college without debt". It can be done.

Actually, I think your ideas on college debt are excellent. The only thing is, I would love to see a vigorously expanded program that offers seriously affordable tuition at all state O&O universities and community colleges, means tested, of course.

The job market is demanding advanced education for almost everything except trades and jobs that have nametags and hair nets.

We are IMPORTING highly trained and skilled STEM graduates, robotics grads and AI specialists because we have a very serious shortage over here.
We absolutely need to raise up a generation of kids who can master those specialties.

I'd like to see that incentivized for any poor kid who demonstrates the ability, desire and ambition.

Aside from that I like your ideas

My tuition at UCLA in 1982 was couch change.
I only needed one year to fill out my credits. The rest were transferred over from Brown Institute in Mpls, which at the time was owned by CBS. Also couch change.

My rent in Minneapolis was $110 a month for a tiny bachelor pad efficiency, a single room maybe about 18 feet by 14 feet, with a two burner kitchenette built into one wall and a tiny shower bathroom tucked into a corner at the other end.

I was able to afford that on dishwasher pay.
Why CAN'T we make that possible again?
It worked damn well and we are hurting due to the LACK thereof.
If education is thought to be expensive, wait till we get a load of what generational ignorance costs.

I would like to suggest a lot more federal loan forgiveness for people who work in a public service position using their degree. For example, teachers with Education degrees, nurses working in public hospitals, engineers working for the government, etc.

I agree. I worked in school nutrition for 10 years analyzing, planning, purchasing and preparing nutritious meals for children of all socioeconomic levels.

Forgive my student loan please.

I understand and agree with the intent of this - to maintain the option for all in society. I think that:

A) This is *mostly* already met; lower income kids can go to college (as you point out, community college is a far more affordable option) in a variety of ways. Much of our current income disparity, I would suggest, is because we have gotten much better at marrying potential talent with skill sets and education over the past half century.

B) To the extent that we need to reduce the price of our larger, more standard, Brick And Mortar University types, the competition that would come from having actual price pressure will bring the others down, even as instruction becomes more geared towards actually providing an ROI for students.


Employers are using college degrees as screening mechanisms for jobs that don't require them, though, so, I don't know the exact extent to which this is a result of changes to the job market v changes in hiring procedures that result from our creating an artificial glut in college students.

As for the trades - a majority of people aren't going to graduate college. If anything, I think, our K-12 education system should be set up primarily with them in mind, instead of the better-off minority who will end up with Bachelors or Advanced degrees. Sending a kid straight out of High School into a plumbers' apprenticeship is better than letting him rack up 2 years of student debt before he drops out of college and then winds up working at Waffle House.


Those are hard, though, and so we don't want to do them #HumanitiesBaby


I think there are lots more options for those tracks that will become viable once we turn off the mass, indiscriminate, firing of cheap debt at 18 year olds.

As an example - someone above mentioned the G.I. Bill. Well, the Defense Department needs lots of people who are smart at cyber, and has already shown it's willing to radically bend their own rules to get them. A program where you get your college paid for in return for 2 years of labor for every year paid for would fit well with those needs, and give systems-minded graduates instant jobs (and clearances) upon graduation. Just one idea, but I expect we would see lots of items like that arise, as employers try to fill needs and would-be-employees need to be trained.

This right here ^^^ is what our UNIONS should be helping out with.
Unions used to offer a very healthy apprenticeship program in almost every trade. Now a lot of them throw up barriers in the form of outrageously high initiation fees.

My own former union, IATSE Locals 600 and 700, wanted three thousand bucks CASH back in 1988 when I joined 700 (then called Local 776) and I ponied up the money. I had to, in order to get one of those $2,495 a week jobs.

I have whined about college debt for a long time. I remember when Obama proudly stated that gov was going to take it all over and it would be much better. Then interest was mentioned. Seems that gov charges something like twice as much as a regular bank loan. I have a heart specialist who had a debt. She and her husband saved up to make their first payment, of 100,000.00 dollars! It didn't even cover the interest charges. Her husband was also a heart specialist and a Canadian. He got his degree and license up there, did his public service and got his debt erased. I understand there are some programs, like this, down here but not easily found and, apparently, not readily available. My doctor owed so much that she couldn't even pay the interest. She gave up. They both moved to Canada and she is a lot happier and screw the debt. Canada has programs to encourage those getting degrees in stuff that they need people for and one of those was heart surgeons.

I know several who have created a college debt, then quit, but the debt continues to exist. Since the Republican re-write of the bankruptcy law you cannot banko out of bank or government debt - EVER! It follows you for a lifetime. Always also found that to be of passing interest.

Some of those I know of that now have college debt were absolutely clueless about incurring debt. All they really knew is that somebody was offering them money for which there was little they had to do (other than pay it back which was not stressed all that much when borrowing). Basically 'they' made it sound like charity with no down side.

If I have duplicated anything - apologies..........

I believe the rewrite of the student debt cancellation laws were a bipartisan effort between liberals and conservatives spanning decades.
The current democratic party front runner was a champion of the draconian rewrites.

How Biden Helped Strip Bankruptcy Protection From Millions Just Before a Recession

Not that context matters anymore. Opinions are now as relevant as historical record.

I’m sure your candidate of choice is going to help......

NOT!!

Bernie's No 2 in the polls.

I certainly wouldn't be against it - the more pathways, the merrier!

That comment makes me think that you may enjoy The Once and Future Worker, by Oren Cass, who spends a good chunk of it making the conservative case for revitalizing labor organizations such as unions (and who lays out a pathway for precisely what you suggest).

...because Unions were such a great conservative idea to begin with.

If a conservative ever get a good original idea, it will die from loneliness.

They weren't. That keeps Conservatives from being able to find public benefit in or suggest wise modifications to them not a whit.


...I'm guessing you haven't spent much time getting to know people who don't already agree with you on everything? One top of some of your Great Classic Hits (The U.S. Constitution springs to mind), conservative think tanks and policy wonk's are choc-a-block with original ideas, and conservatives have a long history of proposing them and getting some into policy.

Liberals are sometimes Smart, Conservatives are sometimes Smart. Liberals are sometimes Foolish, Conservatives are sometimes Foolish. The only people who are always Foolish are those who assume that the other team is entirely evil and dumb because they are the other team.

The 1956 Republican Union platform...this is a documented genuine poster.



We should all be union brothers together...both sides.

Absolutely! I care a lot more about policies than Party. For example, I love RomneyCare and the Heritage Foundation's ideas about a personal responsibility mandate for people who opt out.

Exactly my point - ergo, the second sentence.






The Founding Fathers were Liberals who embraced the Age of Enlightenment. If they had been maintain the status quo conservatives, we'd be British.

In my entire adult life I have never met a conservative that didn’t have the two characteristics of contempt for their fellow man and coded bigotry.
The other conservative economic and political positions might vary some but those two characteristics were always there.
We see the political and economic results of ‘conservatism’s’ practical application in today’s Republican Party.

The Republican party is making a play for unions again as they see the neoliberals having turned their backs on them for campaign dollars from bosses. No surprise there.

I can't remember if I posted this here. If not, I should have: Forgiving student debt would boost the economy (npr)

Regarding conservative versus progressive ideas (and not wanting to play into labels), here's my generalization:

Conservatives tend to think in terms of stabilization. It is a philosophical bent which essentially defines what I call "true conservatism" (as opposed to the regressive movement that has coopted that label). The instinct to preserve the status quo. In fact, the Heritage Foundation's healthcare plan was produced in reaction to Hillary Clinton's comprehensive overhaul. The ACA was the "rebound" plan.

Progressives tend to look at goals to achieve and then work at plans to get there. They're less interested in where we've been, than where we're going. That can often get them resistance, because a substantial portion of the population is not comfortable with change.

I believe it is important to do both. Preserve what works with what we have, but always keep your eyes downfield to what we need and can achieve. That is why I favor what a friend has advocated: An "expense reimbursement" plan for education. I'm still developing my view on this, but focusing on the expense rather than the debt is the critical element.

Education is expensive, but necessary for the future of our nation. Too many of our deserving youth are denied that opportunity - not based on merit, but circumstances. Addressing that issue is both a conservative and progressive idea. Student loan debt is a double-pronged anchor. It is a drag both on meritocracy and the economy. If we want to unleash the potential, we need to address the problem.

Then you should be aware that your second point has little to no connection to your first. Not having been the source of one idea (which has had sharply mixed results) in no way suggests that a movement is devoid of original ideas. The political left in this country isn't devoid of new ideas simply because they've been pushing for tired old variations on socialism for decades, or because they weren't the ones that came up with (to pluck a few more examples) Health Savings Accounts, Public Choice Theory, and a bevy of welfare, tax, and domestic policy reforms as well as foreign policy initiatives.

Loudly Proclaiming that members of the Other are dumb and/or evil may get you amen's from intellectually unimpressive members of your own tribe, but it's not particularly impressive to anyone who knows better.


Quite the Contrary, Classic Liberalism is generally what Conservatives are Conserving, and here in America, that meant conserving our political institutions and liberties. Take a look at Burke and his opinions on the American Revolution, if you like

What we call "Liberalism" today has little connection to the "Liberalism" of the 18th century, which emphasized distrust of government, wide realms of individual liberty, and free market economics. Progressives sort of discredited the name under the Wilson Administration, and so (Dewey was one of the first to urge this shift) took on "Liberalism" as a title instead, so as to reduce association with the former.

That's unfortunate. You must either not have met many, or tend to project those characteristics onto those you meet.


Today's Republican Party is a decidedly mixed bag when it comes to Conservatism. In many areas (such as trade, public expenditures, and a forward leaning Realist foreign posture) it is not Conservative at all.

While I'm not entirely against the idea that we could potentially realize positive long term net results from a program of debt forgiveness, the first half of the article you cite makes the same critical error that most demand-side stimulus programs do: They do not ask where the wealth that they are spending is coming from, or what it would otherwise be doing.

If, for example, I take money from a middle class couple who both work but who lack college degrees in order to give that money to an upper middle class couple who both have advanced degrees... it's not exactly a fair scoring to pretend like the money only sprang into existence when I gave it to the second couple. When measuring economic benefit, we have to measure what the second couple will do with the money (and what the exogenous effects will be of increasing moral hazard and decreasing the effectiveness of price signalling in education decisions) against what the first couple would have done, and what the follow-on effects would have been.

Again, I'm not against it entirely (and earlier put forward what I thought might be a fair bipartisan compromise for achieving student debt relief), but this means of economic scoring is one that, I think, has done us immense economic harm. Even the second half of this piece, which gives a nod to the drag on the economy that would result, doesn't seem to recognize that investment is a productive activity, and that the wealthy are those most likely to shift their activity in response to tax rate changes.

I did not refer to the student debt cancellation but the bankruptcy law itself. Again - if you owe a bank or government you cannot banko out of that debt!

My other point was not explained properly, I think. From what I have learned and seen I believe that a LOT of the loans should never have been given as those applying had absolutely no idea of what they were doing.

We are talking about, basically, economic 18 year old idiots. I read that somebody here actually teaches basic economics to high school kids. I suspect this is outside the actual high school regimen. There are several subject I suspect are not being taught. A couple are civics (how gov works), economics, and how to boil an egg. At my high school there also used to be union sponsored classes for carpenters, auto repair, etc. That all seems to have gone away too.

Yeah. A lot of things have changed since then. But I think their goal of social democracy, of government for of and by the people, has failed.

CP, I have no issues with conservatives, I'm a social democrat so I tend not to agree with them on many things. However, I totally despise the Republican Party. It's a deep seated hatred, something like a rape victim might feel for their attacker.

There should be a college debt jubilee and a move to make all education "free". Trade, sciences, arts, skills. All of it.

Conservatives would rush to say that Human Nature has not


I don't think I would say that their goal was social democracy. The Founders said quite a lot of things about Democracy - none of it good. The kind of mass franchise you envision would have, to them, been quite dangerous to good governance (and, perhaps they were right).


Well that's unfortunate. For your own sake, I hope you are able to get past that, as it's only going to harm you.


I think I would have to disagree. There is no such thing as "free" (as you yourself imply with the quotation marks), and so what you are describing, in fact, is more likely to become "Elites who require more training and education should be able to do so off the backs of the non-elites, who don't." Furthermore, when we get rid of price, we spike demand. If anything, I would say, we send far too many people to college today.

I would be much more open to what you suggest in your last sentence, in expanding high school pathways to set more people up to enter the Trades. How do you envision that working?

A majority of students don't graduate from Undergrad - why is High School set up to benefit the minority who do so, when they are also going to be the ones who will be most able to succeed on their own?

That is correct. I teach a night class, and it's not not really Economics so much as it is Finance and Career oriented. We cover how to pay for college, how to figure out a career path, how to do write resumes and conduct interviews, how to save for retirement, how to avoid debt, etc.

Outstanding! We need that to be a class required for high school graduation in every district in the US. So many new grads are absolutely clueless about signing up for a lifetime of debt to pursue some economically non-viable college path. I love what an author on Slate told her daughter:

paraphrased: "With the debt you would incur to go to a fancy art school, you could not afford to be a fine artist for decades because you would have to work at a mundane job to service the debt."

Instead she sent her daughter to a perfectly fine state university with a good art program, and paid her bills without loans.

I think we also need to massively expand trade training paths in the junior colleges. Unions used to have apprentice programs, but unions are decimated now.

"I don't think I would say that their goal was social democracy. The Founders said quite a lot of things about Democracy - none of it good. The kind of mass franchise you envision would have, to them, been quite dangerous to good governance (and, perhaps they were right)."

Well there's the contempt, on time...

Sorry friend, but the harm has been done and there is no recovering from it. As you pointed out, we disagree. I expect that to be a recurring theme and I'm okay with that. After all....it's what we're here for.

Of the rich, for the rich and by the rich was their actual plan but that sounded a bit too high and mighty so even then they lied to the people they were trying to convince. They lied them into fighting a war and creating a new country dedicated to making the rich richer at the expense of the poor. In that they have been incredibly successful.

The experiment is winding down and it has failed.

That was a time when only white men who owned property were expected to vote. The founders expected them to elect staid gentlemen of letters with highly developed senses of ethics to Congress. Direct Democracy really was anathema to almost all of them. They were horrified by the idea of dock workers or shepherds voting. We have evolved to a much more democratic society simply by letting most people vote.

Yes, as I said, many things have changed since the 18th century.
Society has evolved into a more democratic entity but government has clung to it's original goal of enriching the already wealthy on the backs of everyone else.

If you're filthy rich but still want to look like you believe in democracy, you spend a few bucks to get people to vote the way you want them to.

If you can trick people into believing that life is a zero-sum game, they will vote for the "winners" at their own expense, because a couple of hundred years of destructive conditioning have taught them to worship the winners.

You sure?

Asking for a toddler in a gulag.

That toddler was trying to gain improper (and illegal) access to our freedoms. Liberty isn't for everyone and it isn't something we share freely. Classic liberalism limits liberty strictly to those who they think deserve it. Modern liberalism believes that all deserve it.

I disagree with this historical revisionism, but I think that is for a different thread. (Much of the rest of your post I agreed with, but this stuck out with me.)

There's a lot to unpack there and I'm not in a position to do much of it now. I just wanted to take the opportunity to say 1) good discussion, and 2) for me, solving the college debt conundrum is an opportunity to address the underlying social problem of class/wealth inequality of opportunity that exists in our country. There are a LOT of academic studies that have identified the problem, and it is one of the most un-American conditions that exists in our society, which is aspirationally based on meritocracy.

Hear, hear!!

If we think these are good ideas, we need only petition the Secretary of Education, who most assuredly would agree with us. These changes in curriculum and debt structure should be easy to make in a simple bi-partisan manner.

Who is the current Secretary of Education anyway? Is he working to make this a reality...?

The current Secretary of Education is Betsy DeVoss. One of her accomplishments is owning at least two 110+ foot yachts. Her goal, so far, as far as I can tell, is to do away with public education. I have also noticed that school districts she has messed with have all, pretty much, failed. The woman loves charter schools that don't seem to be regulated by the state with some pretty bad results.

This one I find interesting in that all of this is rarely reported. Well, as a matter of fact very little is being reported about what Trump appointees are 'accomplishing'. Instead we have been gifted with regular Trump offenses, failures and lies, etc. Its, basically, an unending offense against what I tend to support, ie. environment, public schools, highways, etc. Its kinda like a failed TV series that nobody really watches but advertisers continue to support anyway. I consider getting rid of that to be the main reason not to vote for Trump as I am just tired of it all. Just blather, more blather, and little else but, obviously loved by those in charge of TV.

The college debt thing remains interesting. China, for instance, figured it out and has started to REALLY produce PHD's Those getting educated in stuff the state wants gets educated for free. Its also of possible interest that China has now become a place to get educated for the right price. All this is accompanied with China doing their own research, and, in some fields jumping ahead of the crowd (small nuclear reactors amongst other things). Basically, they found that that its easier to do it themselves rather than steal it from others. I should mention that Canada too offers free education for those who want to learn stuff that Canada needs. The United States kinda does that but not much. We are, in other words, because of apparent greed, starting to fall behind in a number of areas.

I mention this because of thoughts on college debt and free higher education. Those for "free" higher education don't seem to have any stuff dealing with qualifications, keeping up grades, what the nation needs, etc. Only that gov will pay for EVERYBODY! I continue to wonder where all that money is going to come from. OH, there was also a kindofa study about why our higher education is so expensive. Seems that administration of that field has become a LOT better paid than in the past.

I would point out, yet again, that payments on our existing nation debt will, in the next couple of years, suck up so much money that all the free stuff will become impossible along with a lot of other services currently being underwritten by gov. There is no secret about this but nobody seems to give a damn.

On reflection "Don't give a damn" should be a national bumper sticker.

Of course, any of these ideas are impossible until we dump Trump's anti-agency agency heads. It's not just Education: It's pretty much every single person he has appointed. His skepticism of expertise means he picks contributors or just general crack-pots to run our government. I think he worries about anybody who might be saner or smarter than himself.

Maybe in some cases, but many of his appointments purchased their bestowments, which is probably more his style of being transactional.

One can only wonder where the payments went?

They were possible under Obama.
They were possible during the Bush administration.
Bill Clinton could have done it.

Any of these ideas are impossible until we elect a progressive government.

Thinking about it, the last agency head I can remember who was hired because he knew the job was C Everett Coop back in the Reagan years.

True, but the agency heads are usually not trying to sabotage their agency. Bush 2 did that a bit, but nothing like Trump. Just look at Barr: Implying the FBI is filled with scoundrels.

Regulatory capture is truly a Republican phenomenon, and with Trump, it is now done openly and with impunity.

Regulatory Capture does not care which party is in the White House - it happens with both. Mostly what changes is the pace at which the space available to capture expands.

This is incorrect - the States were in charge of determining who exercised the franchise within their borders, and they used different systems. It wasn't until after the Civil War that we began to nationalize the question.


That was the HOPE, but not the Expectation - which is why they balanced the power of the branches and the levels of government (congress against executive, federal against state).


I would agree we have definitely evolved to a much more democratic society, and that the founding fathers probably would have thought that dangerous. Looking at the state of our modern politics, I'm not positive they would be wrong.

Well, that's unfortunate, and I'm sorry for you.


.....no. Say whatever else you will about them, the Founders were pretty clear on their motivations, and pretty bitter in their later divisions.

If that trick worked, Hillary Clinton would be President.


Or, more likely, against those whom they perceive to be hostile to them. I don't think the Left realizes how much incidents like Memories' Pizza shored up support for Trump.

I was thinking more of the Koch brothers, but okay.

Truth in advertising: I am hostile to that sort of person.

That's what being on the wrong side of history looks like. That's where Republicans sit today. Trump is the tarbaby they've all got stuck to.

Yes, just making voting mandatory might well be disastrous. You would get a huge number of votes from completely uninformed and uninterested folks, so dumb they have to use velcro instead of shoelaces. They would be very easy to manipulate just by spending a lot of money on advertising, holding pep rallies, and giving away red hats.

Trump is the President you got because people on the left decided to convince a large section of the populace that he was the only thing standing between them and and being similarly targeted. Happy with the results of that decision? Because if you keep doing what got you Trump, you'll keep getting more Trump :shrug:

Cool. Then understand that they will vote for anything and anyone who promises to fight you, and the more of a vicious bully and strongman that person is, the more attractive he or she will be.


My Church in North Carolina had a grand total of about two actual Trump Fans in the entire congregation. Everyone else was disgusted by his behavior and thought he'd be a terrible president. And - and I don't mean to be a dick about this, but, you did offer truth here - people like you convinced them to vote for him anyway. I think I and my wife were the only ones who didn't.

It likely worked similarly with Trump's more avid racist fans, who probably pushed not a few minority groups who otherwise would have strongly disliked Hillary to come out for her, perceiving that they were doing so in self-defense.


Targeting your fellow citizens by politicizing every walk of life, by pursuing totalitarian politics, is how you produce Purges, it's how you produce backlashes, it's how you produce mobs, and it's how you produce counter mobs.



But hey. It's fun to look down on and punish the Other for their dirty, dirty, Otherness. It means you're better than them, and, who doesn't enjoy a little superiority? Have fun.

Good point. As I look at the size and scope of the modern Federal Government, it is DEFINITELY a libertarian paradise these days.

Money helps, but it won't win the election for you.

So maybe we have to do something more than vote at some point.

I don't see that there's much left to lose.



If they want an excuse, they'll find one. Nobody made them vote for an [censored]. They are human beings with agency, and if they can't tell right from wrong, that's on them.


Probably. I didn't much like Hillary Clinton's aristocratic attitude, but I voted for her because she isn't outright evil and Trump is. I voted for Bush 41 back in the day, then Clinton (first term), then Dole, then Kerry, then Obama twice, then Clinton.



Totalitarian politics, you say?



Sometimes it's a moral imperative.

I would be more sympathetic if LGBT folks weren't targeted forever and STILL being targeted.

And does that make them more likely to be willing to vote for a deeply flawed candidate who will at least protect them from that, or less likely to be willing to vote for such a person?

Then I invite you to do as I have done - and visit actual war-torn countries. You may be surprised how much of a nice life you still have left to lose.


If you don't like that your abuse or support of abuse of others makes them willing to accept someone who will defend them from you, that's on you.



People of good intent on both sides came to similar conclusions. The positions of I loathe Trump, but Hillary is so awful that I have to vote for him and I loathe Hillary, but Trump is so awful that I have to vote for her were both reasonable ones. It was those who were out-and-out fans of either individual that were (imo) out to lunch.


Yeah.


Then don't be surprised when they decide it's a moral imperative to return the favor, or, at least, find the biggest sonufabitch who will stop you. Hope you like Trump, because, with that approach, you're gonna get a lot more of him. (shrug)

It isn't going to matter. The MAGA freaks will vote for Trump, the dems will vote for Biden, and the berners will sit on FB and lecture us about our lack of moral purity.

Short answer, we're doomed.

I keep waiting for Democrats to realize that the beauty of our Constitution is that they can counter the President with other centers of power such as the House and the Governorships. You don't have to be doomed if you are willing to accept federalism . You want single-payer? Have it at the state level. Free college? Offer it at all state universities. Universal Basic Income? Have the state do that too, see if it works! Watch as Trump and the Republicans sputter and find themselves utterly unable to stop you.


Maybe you are right, and Trump will win again in 2020 (I have my doubts) - hopefully then, in final desperation, having exhausted all other options, Democrats will decide to give that Constitution thing a whirl :p.

Somewhat true, that we can do a lot at the state level. BUT Trump would do as much as possible to suck money out of your enlightened state and give it to governors who support him. That's exactly what he did with PPE, ventilators , and n95 masks recently. Told governors they had to compete on the free market for those products, then had HHS confiscate their shipments. HHS sent Florida every thing they asked for, since the governor kisses his ass every day.

California is trying to do exactly that and Trump keeps on interfering at every opportunity. We already send a lot more money to Washington DC than we get back. And there is such a thing as the Supremacy Clause.

So? His ability to do that is incredibly limited, mostly to things like trying to get Congress to change things like tax exemption for state or local taxes.


There is also such a thing as the 10th Amendment. If California wanted to roll out a UBI or Single-Payer Healthcare, there isn't anything (politically) stopping them from doing so at the state level.


Well, other than the fact that both of those are financially disastrous programs, but, that's a conservative position - feel free to prove me wrong!

California already has a state tax penalty for not having health insurance. Pretty smart: They have restored the ACA mandate, but California gets the money instead of the feds.

Universal healthcare is no more expensive than what we do now. If it cuts the insurance companies take by 15%, it's actually 15% cheaper. Universal health care only looks expensive if you don't consider Medicaid, Medicare, VA spending, state hospital subsidies, employer contributions, and a whole bunch of externalization. The fact is that almost everybody gets health care, even if it just VERY expensive ER visits. Almost nobody gets told to die in the hospital parking lot. That sort of thing is so rare it makes headlines and a big scandal whenever it occurs.

UBI expensive? Not if it gets rid of a whole bunch of other programs, with armies of paid staff. You raise the state tax a bit so the state takes the UBI payment amount back from people who don't need it. UBI's administrative costs are almost zero, because they just give the full payment to everybody in the state legally.

Think about all the times an administration threatens to withhold federal monies when states don't comply with something federal, like highway money.

Trump is doing this trick only it's not over compliance, it's over his butt not being kissed enough, and he's withholding lifesaving medical gear and supplies.

So it's already withheld now, penalties already applied, yes?
So I say "screw it, time for these states, CA included, to say that Washington will not be getting a dime from CA until the death match stops."

And by the way, next time Trump tells the Feds to intercept a shipment, have some sheriffs standing by. Maybe a little bit of a show of force might force things to a standoff, one covered by the media to highlight what he's doing.

Well, the current healthcare system is financially disastrous in real time, and that’s factual, not speculation like your conservative positions. Feel yourself proven wrong by dint of a comparison of factual information. I have some, and you don’t.

Our current healthcare system is indeed disastrous in real time. Specifically, the single payer parts are currently scheduled to collapse, and the other portion of the market that the federal government heavily funds and regulates is seeing spiraling costs (which is, of course, what you expect to see when a portion of the market is heavily government funded; Education - the topic of this thread - works similarly).

But hey! Maybe This Time Socialism Will Work Great! Do it at the State Level and show cpwill how wrong he was!

I didn't know you was a tap-dancer!

I keep waiting for our left to demonstrate the courage of its convictions by really exercising federalism and proving that their Big Ideas such as UBI, Single Payer, etc., work.

Thus far.... they seem to not, actually, have that faith (shrug)

No you don’t. You’re still keeping all your bets on that silly ideology that free markets are capable of dealing with human failings in a positive way. Cooperation is the true evil, right?

You seem to be confusing "coercion" with "cooperation". Coercion is a means of achieving cooperation, but hardly the only one, or, in the vast majority of questions, the best one.

Trade, however, produces cooperation by taking advantage of each actor's unique skills, knowledge, and self-regard. Instead of Coercive's top-down attempt to override human failings, Free Trade turns many of mankind's failings (self-regard, pride, etc.) to the task of benefiting others, in order to benefit therein. Coercion does not do this, it merely turns one of mankind's natural states (desire not to be punished) towards that task (maybe).

Free Trade rewards you based on how well you serve others, and produces cooperation on a scale never before seen in human history (Recommended Essay: I, Pencil), as each benefits from serving the other, leading us all to seek new ways to serve each other better. Free Trade causes those involved to seek the most, best, ways to cooperate.

Coercion rewards you based on how well you serve the entity with the most guns, and you only cooperate to the minimum necessary to avoid punishment.

I'll take the former




BUT HEY! You can still prove me wrong! Organize at the state level to bring in Socialism, and watch as all those Conservatives fume and complain and cry about how they can't stop you Because Federalism. Show us how awesome it is when the government controls more and more of our lives by your example!

I’m not confusing anything.

You are. The proof is your rather long effort to gaslight and lie about the subject - beginning with pulling a bunch of stuff about what I think and mean out of your asss. That’s known as temiousness, a peculiar affliction of “conservatives”.

Still chuckling over that sophomoric gambit to magically transform "cooperative" to "coercive".

Quick poll:

Do you consider cooperation to be:

A) a good thing;

B) a bad thing.

Top-Down "cooperation" that is ordered, and which comes with a series of punishments if not followed, is coercive :shrug:

I'm not chuckling, but I did notice, how quick you were to get off the idea of left-leaning states actually implementing their policy ideas. Lack the courage of your convictions?



I consider it to be value neutral until you know what the cooperation is being applied to. Cooperation in aligning resources against economic needs can be a good. Cooperation with the rest of your town or village in burning down the Jewish section because you think they are the reason for the Black Death is bad.

Internet Debate isn't important enough to lie over. Let me know if you actually have anything to say.

I've said plenty, but all I seem to get is noise in response. Certainly nothing even remotely similar to debate... or discussion. Do you prefer 'debate' to 'discussion'?

It's interesting that you are inclined to take a negative view of the word 'cooperation". From that I deduce that I will get no cooperation out of you in discussing ideas.

I am not interested in 'debating' your ideological theories with you.

Whichever term you prefer, it's not important enough to lie over. (shrug)


I don't. I explicitly pointed out to you that Free Trade created massive cooperation on a global level - cooperation at a pace and breadth that we have never under any circumstance achieved in Human history. However, "cooperation" (like "efficiency" or "change", etc.) is itself value-neutral, as it depends on what is being cooperated on. Cooperating with your fellow New Yorkers to suppress the spread of COVID 19 enough to buy hospital's and their staff time is good. Cooperating with your fellow People's Liberation Army soldiers to exterminate the Uighurs is bad.

I tend to take a negative view of coercion, holding that only in a relatively small sphere of human interaction is it necessary, and therefore appropriate (example: coercing someone to give someone else their shoes is bad. coercing someone by not allowing them to steal shoes is good).

Jeepers, dude. All I want is to discuss interesting things in a casual and open-minded way. No judgments, no arguing... just talk.

Say... have you ever looked at the definition of 'cooperative'?

I think a certain amount of coercion to follow valid and scientifically vetted medical advice in a pandemic is a necessary evil as it applies to following public health advice, guidelines, warnings and prohibitions.

I think the vast majority of folks (myself included) could agree with that.

But I'm not sure it extends (to take it all the way back to the thread) to coercing people to pay other's debts, just because we don't like that they have those debts.

At the moment it looks like a fairly significant portion of the economy is falling down the abyss of public debt.

Like it or not, and I am not saying I am liking it, it is not going to just go away. And if we hate all this debt so much, then it is imperative that we immediately unf**k our CV19 response to the greatest extent possible, as soon as possible.

Solid concur. Unfortunately, we seem bent instead on hiring only loosely-connected-to-reality septuagenarians for the purpose of overseeing that effort.

I don't know if I would say hate - but I intensely dislike personal debt. Public debt isn't so much a hate, as a fear - I don't want to see the U.S. suffer the somewhat-inevitable results of taking on this much .

Government is an agreement.
Money is an agreement.
Cooperation is an agreement.
Debt is an agreement.

Seems like the solution will come from some new agreements.

That ship sailed a long long time ago, so the best approach is to innovate and also otherwise figure out ways to make the debt serve as a tool which might reap some return on investment.
If we are so desperate for testing supplies, it's a good idea to launch rapid training and set up a couple hundred regional manufacturing hubs to MAKE the damn tests right here.
The manufacturing process is not brain surgery, we just need skilled operators and the funds, and those funds that initially went out as bonus checks to CEO's and the elites should be redirected to this effort. Liken it to making ship propellers and munitions during WW2.
I am sure that there are tons of willing and able Rosie and Ross Riveters aching to go to work for twelve to fifteen bucks an hour making these supplies.
I am not going to listen to anyone who says we are incapable of making the equivalent of pregnancy tests, face masks and cotton testing swabs in the United States.

We're graduating nurses from schools a little bit early so now we need the equipment and supplies to give them to use.
This IS a "war effort" so let's treat it like one and do like our grandparents did a few decades ago.

If "college debt" were owed to the colleges for services rendered then I would be all in favor of them being paid.

This, however, isn't the case. There are banks involved, and lifelong interest payments which add up to many times more than the original loan. College debt simply serves to fatten bankers and billionaires.

Those same bankers and billionaires can borrow untold fortunes for all manner of nefarious deeds with little or no interest involved.

It's a payday loan scheme. It's indentured servitude. But most of all it's stupid and needs to be fixed. The bankers and billionaires would be no less wealthy if all student loans were simply cancelled. The money would then flow into the economy and ultimately wind up back in the hands of the bankers and billionaires anyway.

Interesting. So it's not the interest rate, but rather who holds the paper? What if instead somebody formed a coalition of retired folks who pooled their savings and lent it out as college loans. So the graduates would be paying a bunch of elderly widows the money to supplement their social security checks, instead of well-endowed colleges getting the payments. The problem is that money (and debt) are fungible: The money doesn't care who owns it.

Or is it actually the interest rates? We do have low interest government loans at 4.53% right now. That's pretty damned low, unless you pay the minimum over 30 years. But that's like stupid people maxing out their credit cards and then paying the minimum forever.

And when every student graduates they hand him a maxed out credit card and let him pay the minimum forever.

Most student loans are owned by the US Department of Education. They are essentially a lifelong tax on education. Loans should be at 0%.

So.... you wish we had institutions that coordinated between people who had money they wished to lend, and people who needed money who wished to borrow....?

We've got those and they have proven to be predatory.

Because they.... lend money to people who ask to borrow money?

I hate debt as much as the next guy - at some point, if you work or live around me, I'm gonna try to convince you to get out of it, but....

Lending money to people who ask to borrow money from you isn't predatory. Even Student Loans (though amazingly stupid and destructive) aren't predatory. Theft is predatory. Fraud is predatory. Assault and Battery is predatory. Mortgages are not predatory.

Even Payday loans are not predatory. Sub prime loans were not predatory, nothing in fact, is predatory as long as you are the one holding the cash and others need it. No interest is too high, no payment options to draconian, busted kneecaps, bombed businesses...

It's the Golden Rule! When you got the gold....you rule.

So you're basically saying that if you can't afford to throw down for four year's tuition cash on the barrelhead, don't enroll in college.

Recipe for another generation of ignorance.

Oh, solid concur - if you are out committing assault and battery, that action is certainly predatory. I would say if you force people to take on loans against their will, that is predatory.

But so long as it is the free exchange between consenting adults..... ?

They can be terrible. They can be stupid. They can be destructive. But that's not the same as Predatory, my man.

(roll eyes) Hyperbolic strawmen aren't impressive and they score you no points, man. Nowhere have I said, suggested, argued, or taught this.

You don't have to. Everyone knows that the loan market uses predatory rates. Show me a stu-loan package that doesn't.
We're not talking grants and scholarships, LOANS, student loans.
If you need one, the rate is absurdly high, and there's not much in the way of alternatives for most people, otherwise student loans would be a barren market with few takers.

So...in essence, higher ed only for those who can afford it.
For everyone else, a lifetime of crippling debt...because of course they "made poor choices"...like not being born wealthy.

Every student package in which the interest rate is clearly marked out is non-predatory. If they did give the borrower a false interest rate, that is called fraud and, on top of being illegal, it is indeed predatory.

I think you are confusing something that is dumb and bad for the person doing it with something that is predatory.

Again - don't get me wrong: I hate student debt. I've watched it place a crippling drag on friends and family. I've spent at this point in time probably hundreds of man-hours walking through how to avoid debt with future students; built a course for my church youth group that walks them through it (and some other stuff), helped people research detailed plans on how they in particular are going to attend X Particular College without it.

But that doesn't make student debt any more inherently predatory than car debt, credit card debt, mortgage debt, boat debt, dog debt, or any other thing that people go into debt for.


Sadly this is untrue - college loans are widely taken because they are A) assumed as part of the culture and B) easy. You don't need debt to go to college, but we've built up a lot of lies saying that you do, and it let's people pretend like they aren't - actually - going to pay for their decisions.


My father was an assistant Methodist pastor in rural Alabama - we used to save up for the month to go to Shoney's. My folks were able to pay for about one half of one year of my college. Instead I cobbled together scholarships, grants, and work-benefits. I have a bachelors degree and two masters degrees, and borrowed precisely $0 for any of it.

This notion that you have to go into crippling debt to go to college unless you're rich is almost as harmful as the notion that "college debt is 'good' debt".

Jeezus, it's like you've never read a thing I've ever said on the subject. You were not born in the 1990's or the 2000's.
Neither was I. 1957 model here, and I've written ad nauseum about how easy and cheap it was to save for school.
Like you, I did not pauper myself to get an education.

Why are you recalling ancient history as an example of what's possible today? That doesn't make any sense. That's like me explaining the importance of adjusting ignition points to a guy in a 2018 Dodge, which doesn't even use a distributor.

Stop selling Blinker Fluid. Today's college debt is a phenomenon not because kids are lazy or made poor choices but because the options aren't near what they used to be.
And WE NEED a generation of highly skilled techies if we expect to play in the marketplace.

I was born in the 1980s - I'm a millennial. I completed my last degree program in 2015. When we talk about people crushed with student debt, we are talking about my friends, my workmates, my classmates, people in my small groups, the parents of my kids' friends.


2015 isn't ancient history. Neither is August of 2019, which is when a couple of the High School seniors I worked with on this subject began their fully-funded college experiences without debt. A couple more are supposed to begin this upcoming fall, assuming the Covids' don't shut everything down.


Stop making bad assumptions

And yet your friends, associates, and familiars are loaded down with college debt. Not everyone has a counselor to lead them along this glorious socialist path, CP, many must rely on Democrats to steer them in the right direction.

My oldest daughter was determined to be rich and successful. She received a full scholarship and supplemented it with various grants and other assorted freebies. She got her BS at Palm Beach Atlantic College, right across the waterway from Trump's Florida residence.
She stated a small business washing and polishing the yachts and fishing boats of the rich and famous. She got her Masters down in Lauderdale.
Then she married a rich guy, moved to Hawaii and hasn't spoken to me for years.

My youngest wasn't a good student. Though she wanted to go to college there were not many programs willing to help her. She chose not to go to college because she didn't want to be saddled with the debt. She's a barrista at Starbuck's and will never amount to much of anything unless she too marries a rich guy. Unfortunately she's a lesbian and her fiance is as poor as her but is saddled with health issues and is currently unable to work. She's a talented artist with a recent degree from Full Sail. Looks like her career has taken a nosedive before it even got started...

A Tale of Two Daughters. The best of times, the worst of times.

I'm worried about the little one but there's nothing I can do to help her. And so I advocate for a system which is fair to those in the service industry and pays them a living wage. I advocate for a world where artists can earn a meager wage yet still receive the medical care they need. A world where a UBI is there if you need it. A world where health care is taken for granted. We have the resources and the technology to make it happen. We do not and may never have the will.

My assumptions are based on you providing anecdotes about a couple of kids versus the reality encountered by most people.

My wife and I have helped well over a dozen disabled vets get connected to the bennies and healthcare that they deserve, but you will not see me running around saying that it is very easy for a vet to get connected to all this stuff, because regardless of the tiny handful we have helped, it remains a challenge often requiring the help of a qualified attorney that specializes in that, much the way getting your SSDI may involve similar kinds of legal help.

You assumed I was talking about degrees programs that cost something akin to what you paid, or at least from 3 or 4 decades ago - or, as you described it, "Ancient History", and that my assessments flowed from that dated understanding.

You assumed incorrectly - I am talking about today's college environment, with which I have direct experience.


Good for ya'll, man


Well I'm glad you are available to help, though I'm sadly not surprised at all that you found a giant program like the VA or Social Security to be an administrative nightmare that poorly serves those it is nominally set up to support.

That, however, does not change anything I pointed out.

Oh heavens no. Democrats are the one's helping to put them in the crap positions to begin with.

But you are right that many do not get good advice, and that many of my peers are loaded down with crushing student debt.


:-/ I'm sorry you (and they) have had those issues pop up - especially the first. It is true that if you don't have a plan or pursue anything in particular, you will typically kind of just wander unless by luck or happenstance you fall into just the right thing at just the right time.


Is she willing to take any advice or follow-on help?


I do not think we have the resources to make a UBI of the kind you seem to be describing happen - though, we do (and, I'm an advocate for this) have the resources to repurpose our current transfer-payment spending into a Negative Income Tax that brings take-home-pay up for those earning below 200% of the poverty line.

I'm not sure, however, that economic "fairness" is really what you're advocating for, there. "Fairness" is getting precisely what you earn, and nothing more or less. I, think, perhaps, what you are advocating for is Economic Mercy.

Not sure what "fairness" has to do with it.

What makes the economy function best? Because the current model is crap.

And you may say what you will about the current system "mercy" is not a part of it. Our federal government has determined that an hour of a man's time is worth $7.25. Merciless to say the least.

Fairness on the other hand is a living wage. Else we might as well call them slaves and be done with it. Then anything short of flogging the skin from their backs is perfectly fair and mercy is up to the Boss Man.

Of course not. But she's smart and a hard worker so she'll be okay. I worked for sh*t wages all my life and managed to survive so she will too.

According to what I've observed in the Capitalist Creed, if you don't die with a wad in the bank, you lost the game of life.

I figgered the only way to win was to die owing them money.

Then bankruptcy made sure I'd never owe another man a penny.

I lost.

But I'm okay with that. I'm happy with the way things worked out for me. I live by the Rede and the Threefold Law and there is more to life than money. I'm blessed in more ways than I can count.

The federal government has determined that an hour of a man's time is worth $7.25. There are men (and women) who earn $10, $20, $40, $100 an hour and more. Had the government determined that an hour of their time was worth $7.25 and mandated that, none of that would exist.

Instead what has happened is that the government has declared that if someone's labor does not provide more than $7.25 an hour plus the cost of taxes plus administration costs, you are not legally allowed to hire that person, and must therefore leave them in unemployment.

As for "Mercy" however, for that man or women who does make $7.25 an hour, the federal government provides healthcare, food assistance, a wage boost, etc. so on and so forth. The structure of many of these programs is often destructive - not least because it punishes wise decisions - but they are absolutely in place motivated by mercy.

And that's fine. I think we should have mercy. But it's not "fairness". Fairness would be you get what you earn, and nothing else. Strict Justice is Without Mercy.


No. You are confusing "something I would like" with "something that is fair", and a "living wage" is something that will vary wildly from place to place and individual to individual. What a 16 year old needs to survive while living with his parents but wanting to pick up gasoline money during summer vacation in rural Ohio is very different than what a 30 year old with a wife and two babies needs to get by in the same place, and wildly different from the latter's counterpart in San Diego.


I've worked for less than $7.25 an hour. Don't recall getting whipped

It was the value he raised. Personally, I think we can afford Mercy, and probably should, to the extent that we can do so without doing Harm.


As near as we can tell, what makes the economy function best is a predictable and consistent but light regulatory environment, strong institutions that militate against extractive politically connected interest groups, low debt burdens, low tax burdens, an educated populace, good infrastructure, the ability to access a wide variety of markets, etc. so on and so forth. The current model has many problems, but is still producing the best living standards ever reached in the history of the human species.

Damn. I have a strong-willed daughter, and was hoping the Daddy-Connection stuck around after the teen years were over :-/


I sincerely hope she does well.

I can put nitrous oxide in my engine, and I will go fast. For a while.

This doesn't mean that it's the best way to run my engine.

Likewise, 200 years of boom and bust is not the best way to run an economy.

Hm. Alright. If the last 200 years of freeish enterprise and Liberal (classically understood) Government have been so dangerous and terrible, what 200 year period in human history do you believe we were better off in?

With a little luck, the next 200 years.

You can even put napthalene in there.
Of course, in about fifty miles your mufflers will have holes in them, and in another 150-200 miles so will your pistons.

Hopefully. I suspect, however, that will require that we not chuck everything we've (painfully) learned about good limited human governance over the past 3,000 years.