...so when does the student loan crisis hit?
- Thread starter BurlyShirley
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Sir, you pose a danger to our consumption oriented society. Perhaps a faux criminal charge could help you tap some debt so you become like everyone else in this country.
Nah, no need for a faux charge, too much paperwork; instead we'll just use good old asset seizure. 
Take all his shit and force the smug bastard back to the millstone.
Take all his shit and force the smug bastard back to the millstone.
Anyone else notice the trend from being rewarded to save money (savings accounts with meaningful rates) to being incentivized to “save money” by spending it (rewards clubs, cash back on every purchase, zero interest for 36 months, no interest until you graduate, etc.)?
It’s pretty interesting that there’s a group of people in debt and a bunch of companies with more cash than they can spend. They can’t be related. Can they?
The system has bred predators that are so effective, they will cause their own starvation by consuming all the prey too quickly.
"hey, let's run down this hill and fuck some of those cows"
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Play the game. Take advantage of that model. Need to buy a car and they have no interest for 4 years? Buy the car and put your already saved funds into a savings account making a few %. If you need to pay it off immediately you can, but you've made some money. Credit cards have huge paybacks? Use them and pay them back in full. Never pay interest unless it makes sense (where you RoR for investing can/is higher than the insurance cost). I'd gladly pay .5% for a car if I can invest the cash in a savings acct at 1.5%. If you can use other people's money to make money, use it. Lever stupid to your advantage.
I get the concept. I just don’t need anything more. My car has 66k miles on it and is a Scion, so that should go another 100k. I’m not buying a house, particularly given the changing tax rules for deductions (waiting to see what that does to prices). I do pay for as much as I can with my card, for cash back, and pay it off monthly. But I don’t spend more than I need to thinking “oh, I’ll get miles or cash back.”
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I can tell you from the manufacturing industry it is possible to make $70K a year as a technician, but for a "salary" that is close to the ceiling and reserved for the highest skill positions typically requiring a few decades of experience. One can make $70K in a starting position but that probably requires working most weekends.
Needs a third slide: Gets a smart degree from public school, gets a good job, pays off student debt in 2 years.
That was sorta my route. Did 6 months at a UC, realized I was going into a subject I didn’t really want to make a lifetime out of. Dropped out, moved home, got a manual labor seasonal job for $10.25 an hour, and started up at community college for $13 a unit. Two years later, I transferred to a strong local school, got a degree in a subject with a decent career path, and paid off my student loans ASAP. Been debt free, except for my first car loan, ever since.
there is something that I have come to admire from Da Man in the States.
It has, thoroughly, convinced the average american that taxes are inherently bad/inmoral and about the small government concept.
its "efficient" small gvmt has been streamlined to the bone by the removal of any social safety net (health, affordable higher education, maternal leave, mass transit infraestructure, etc); leaving in place a strong judicial system, a police state and a formidable army (mostly used for the benefit of Da Man... I mean, how often Joe Six pack goes to court for civil matters? what benefit for joe six pack does the army bring, besides a small salary for risking life and limb?)
Europeans would riot for a decade for less than that.. yet the average american actually defends such system.
Or, get a degree from a nice university in Yurp, pay off student debt in 2 or slightly moar?
Or, get born in Yurp, attend a public school and get a STEM master degree. Then move to the US, get into the 85+th percentile instantly yet debt free.
Bonus: chicks will dig your accent. 
Starting to read The Global Minotaur by Yanis Varoufakis. I’m only a few pages in, but it seems like an interesting look at the 2008 crash and the conditions leading to it. Anyone familiar?
@Pesqueeb - Skip the other book I sent you a pic of, because it’s pretty weak. This one is probably worth a read.
@Pesqueeb - Skip the other book I sent you a pic of, because it’s pretty weak. This one is probably worth a read.
Salida, here we come!
Find me something in the hills outside of poncha springs
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From experience; A quick perusal of past w2's indicates it took me about 10 years to hit/go north of 70k a year. That said, I've always worked very little OT, and when I do, it's usually because I'm eyeballing an expensive, yet unnecessary purchase. There are guys here making more than 100k a year, but their kids also think they are strangers when they are home. I still work weekends after 16+ years, but it's dayshift. I could have weekends off if I wanted to work nights, but I would have put a gun in my mouth years ago if I was still on nights. I will be unemployed before I work nights again. Much like @mandown, I discovered pretty early into my college education that I was wasting my time/money pursuing something I wasn't even sure of. The A&P program at my local community college was something I could do until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life. I paid $13 bucks a credit, covered mostly by Cal Grants and a part time job that actually helped me pay my bills. The only debt I had when I graduated was a loan my folks gave me to buy my tools. I know that tuition rates in california schools have gone WAY up, so that's probably not true for kids coming out of that program today, and I also know that we hire people from time to time from some of the more questionable "for-profit" schools who start on the floor at 16-ish dollars an hour with armloads of debt.
I won't speak for other trades, but yes, it's possible. For me at least, I remain uncertain, to put it mildly, that it was wise in anyway. Financially,we float along pretty comfortably, but the "lifestyle" of shift work is incredibly caustic. Shift workers have a scientifically documented great increase of health problems, both physical and mental and divorce rates go way up. That's a hell of a trade off IMO.
When it all comes tumbling down, I'll let you know.
Even for non-nighttime shifts?
I don't know how that plays out. But, at least in my industry, nobody makes it to a non-nighttime shift without having done years of graveyard shifts. I'm not a doctor, but I can't imagine that by the time you make it to days, that there hasn't been damage done.
Yes. I've studied this extensively in my MS, which concentrated on ergonomics, industrial hygiene, industrial safety, etc. Any kind of repetitive work, work involving tools (repetitive and non-repetitive), work involving machinery, and so on.
In the year and a half I was there we had two supervisors suffer some pretty bad injuries after falling asleep driving in to work.
The whole shift thing was rather confusing. It never seemed to bother the folks that worked it and the company seemed to genuinely be concerned about employee safety. I always chocked it up to a situation where some people could thrive, and others would wither and walk away.
Rotating shifts are some grade A bullshit. It wouldn't take me very long to become a workplace violence statistic working that kind of schedule I'm pretty sure.
Fewer folks getting those $1,000 bonus checks?
that's a good portion of how capitalism works
Which one is on your list?
How to Put a Meathook Through Your Dick and Hang From It
Global Minotaur. Read some excerpts and some other stuff I found on teh interwebz but never actually got the book.
Tough article to read. Either I’m hungover or that author gets paid by the word. Probably both.
Can’t help but think a bunch of blue collar folks aren’t gonna stand for any government related relaxation on student debt issues. If I decided as a young man to pass on school because I couldn’t afford it, and I took up a job instead, and then I found out years later that the student debt was being forgiven for all those who borrowed to attend, I’d feel cheated. We are gonna need a generation of folks willing to not be bitter about that scenario. And we need to figure out what to do with the forgiveness of that much debt. Though, if nobody is servicing the debt anyway, it’s as good as gone and should be adjusted or written off as uncollectible.
I feel the predator lending club got a lot of people to agree to something they could not understand, I guess that is the same old story.
Hilarity from the idea the 2 year school kids get to bail thethe 4 year art students out.
Hilarity from the idea the 2 year school kids get to bail thethe 4 year art students out.
As the token blue collar guy, I've long been of the opinion the "A rising tide lifts all boats" and that what's good for civilized society is what's good for me. Though I share your skepticism that the majority of my illiterate brethren would see it that way. "oh noez! socilismz! Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is coming to eat white babies!"
I would also confess to maybe, a small amount of butthurt, given that my financial situation at the time was definitely a contributing factor to dropping out of college. Not the biggest one, but still a factor. But again, the positives would probably outweigh the negatives.
I’m curious how the tide would rise if debt was forgiven. More spending money in the hands of the working class could drive up prices. If a group of people aren’t servicing (fully or partially) their debt, what else would they spend their money on, and how will the supply and demand curves react? Cars & houses (also common debt sources). Groceries & clothing. Would that stuff all get bumped up in price? Or maybe the cash redirects to credit card debt service. It’d be interesting to watch.