I am reminded again of how we need to organized. A few people here or there defaulting on loans or refusing to pay won’t make a difference. A lot of people not paying, but not talking to each other, is kind of a wild card. But if you and fifty thousand of your closest friends went to DC together to tell your reps this is unacceptable, and if they want to sleep at night it will change, maybe we’d see change.
But organizing is really hard and I don’t know how to go about it effectively.
Quick numbers for those reading:
- Overall debt grew by $93 billion in the last three months of 2024 – and about half of that increase was new credit card debt.
- Americans’ total credit card balances now stand at a record-high $1.21 trillion.
- Americans hold nearly $1.7 trillion in auto loan debt.
- Americans’ total household debt is $18.04 trillion – including credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and student loans
STUDENT DEBT:
- Americans hold $1.62 trillion in student debt.
- Missed federal student loan payments were not reported to credit bureaus between 2020Q2 and 2024Q3.
- Consequently, less than % of aggregate student debt was reported 90+ days delinquent or in default in 2024Q4.
- Missed federal student loan payments will likely begin appearing on reports beginning in 2025Q1.
Here’s the report: House Hold Debt and Credit: Q4 2024 (published 2025 by Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Don’t pay. Debt strike.
An rendition of Trump’s Greater Depression:
My only hope is that America slingshots back to Roosevelt era policies. Wild that this exact shit happened and what saved us? Oh social programs and high tax rates on the wealthy.
Just don’t pay. Debt-strikes are far more damaging than a work-stoppage.
This works great up until the point where a collection agency comes for your property and/or credit rating. I’m not saying don’t strike, but do it with full knowledge there may be repercussions.
Why was this blocked by an instance filter?
Because .world is biased and has their own agenda.
It’s most likely that people won’t have a choice. Many people, anyway, from what I understand of USian wages and cost of living.
American wages vary as greatly with degrees as cost of living does with location.
Lower cost of living areas pay lower wages though, so unless you remote work a high paying job or commute, the numbers are lower but the ratios are the same.
No, that’s not necessarily true at all. Nor is the concept unique to America. Plenty of smaller cities that aren’t NY, LA, etc. I live in one.
I’m not talking about rent, I’m talking about the massive credit card and loan debt that has propped up millions of folks trying to live a lifestyle they can’t really afford. In the US, it’s incredibly common for folks to just take on debt for stupid shit, like a jacked up truck they only ever use to drive to the grocery store.
Groceries.
The debt is for groceries.
Super wealthy people portray it like you just did, but what you said isn’t accurate.
People are putting basic necessities on credit cards now.
deleted by creator
this is the 6th time in the past 2 days i see this argument. blaming the people for using the system that has been forced on us over the past 20 years to bolster GDP.
i smell an attempted narrative change.
Nobody is forcing you to get a credit card. It’s the stupid american culture that is making you do that. The amount of people who solely use all their income on nothing but food and rent are nowhere near as many as the people who use it to live beyond their means and pay for their overconsumption.
Lol, okay buddy.
the most debt held by americans is from medical expenses
I haven’t mentioned rent, I’ve mentioned cost of living …which includes rent, as well as shopping bills, gas and electric, car payments, clothes, holidays.
My point was the people not be able to pay credit card debt.
These days you have to take out thousands in credit card debt to buy breakfast.
For that dept you could just move to a non fucked up country and get citizenship there.
Ah shit it’s so simple to relocate. Just sell everything you own, cut ties with everyone you know, and move to a country that just offers citizenship to anyone that asks.
I don’t know why everyone hasn’t done that already.
Just stop eating so much avocado toast!
$5000? …A month? A sudden rate increase 10 times the agreed amount? This smells like rage bait. We are not in post-World War I, Germany, yet.
You are post world war germany. Namely 1933. Wake up.
My partner was eligible for ~$750 per month repayments under a Biden era plan that Trump scrapped. They now have to pay ~$4300 per month. The headline isn’t far off.
The fact that it’s bad doesn’t make it impossible.
I mean… There’s a full article explaining the cause for the increases, it’s not like there’s no reasoning provided.
The article says the loan costs have increased and gives lots of examples.
It doesn’t explain why the increases have happened.
Try again. It’s the 4th paragraph.
Last month, a federal judge blocked the Biden administration-era SAVE plan, an income-driven student loan replacement program with 8 million borrowers, claiming it lacked the authority to forgive millions of dollars in debt. In response, the Trump administration paused all applications for income-driven repayment plans and online loan consolidation, leaving some borrowers in limbo struggling to make ends meet.
Maybe cause of the 5trilion the US market has lost?
I don’t see the connection between the stock market falling and student loans being more expensive.
It says “Trump’s changes to income-driven repayment plans.”
I don’t get it - aren’t student loans fixed amounts, with monthly payments calculated to pay off the loan after a certain amount of time? How can they just raise the payments?
Not much detail in the article but it does mention Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan being blocked and Trump pausing applications for some income-dependent payment thing. Are we seeing people whose payments would have been reduced by either of those suddenly not having them available anymore?
Most people are relying on income-driven repayment due to high interest rates and inflated tuition costs. IDR reduces your monthly payment to a fixed percentage of your income, but it does not scale the interest generated on the principle. The new SAVE plan was intended to scale the interest along with the monthly payment so your debt wouldn’t keep piling up due to being on IDR.
Trump is removing all forms of IDR and blocking applications to renew existing plans, which means everyone will be forced to pay their full monthly amount (which is based on a 10 yr payoff plan). A lot of newer student loans are close to ~$100K or more, so imagine trying to pay that off in 10 yrs in the current job market.
Prepare for mass defaults on loans. This is absolutely going to crash the economy, and will very likely be worse than the housing market crash in ~2009.
This is absolutely going to crash the economy
That’s going to be offset by the coming war in Central America, ostensibly against the cartels that he is claiming are running the region.
My mom qualified for, and received, federal student loan forgiveness. Yes, she had to make payments and work in a qualifying job for 10 years but due to her low income the payment amount was adjusted down.
Unless you’re in a position that qualifies for loan forgiveness, and you trust that forgiveness will be there when you qualify, income based payment rates are not a good idea. The total amount owed by my mom actually grew over the years because the amount she was paying was less than the amount of interest charged. For a bit when she was 8 years in she had a scare that she wouldn’t qualify and was shocked to find this out, despite saying “I’ve paid thousands!!!”.
Your average American isn’t very financially literat, or lives in the land of denial, which makes them easy to take advantage of.
They’ve basically removed all forgiveness options. Were you on year 9 of 10 working towards PSLF? Did you plan your life around it? Whelp. Enjoy the rug pull.
This right here.
My partner graduated with a Master’s degree and about 40k in loans. After paying on an income driven plan for 10 years, they now only owe 45k!
Good time to point out that only about 30% of PSLF applications are accepted (so working for public sector for shit pay for 10 years has about a 30% chance of working) and (last I checked) only 37 (not %, but total) IDR plans have been forgiven.
You have been sold a lie about college. A degree will not get you a job. It will not get you 60k starting and double it in 4 years. Your field will not be hiring, and if it is, they’ll want a doctorate and 10 years experience for barely a livable wage. Cancel student debt. Raise minimum wage, cap maximum compensation, implement a progressive tax rate, and establish social services so people can retire and turn over their jobs and roles to the next generation.
Largely agree. The “right” degree in the “right” field you can land a decent paying job. There’s no guarantee that this degree/field lines up with your personal interests, which will make it harder to do well in the field. There’s also no guarantee that the the degree/field will remain relevant over time. If you’re in the corporate job a fun/rewarding/engaging job is not common. Much more common is a boring, soul crushing, or grind fest type position. If the only life advice you get when you’re young is “go to college” the odds of choosing the “right” degree/field is not very high.
You can absolutely make more going into a trade. Be a plumber, an electrician, a lineman, etc. Beyond trades, America is forgetting how to make stuff and that was a major source of higher paying jobs. There are also a number of interesting shocks on the horizon - the decreasing birthrate, changes in worker aptitude, a culture that leans into instant gratification (action!) over long term results, etc.
The US has income based repayment plans for all federally guaranteed loans. By removing or changing the limits in the formula, which is likely what Trump did, people that were paying $50/mo might have to pay market rates for their repayment which is unaffordable to pretty much everyone.
With ibr your interest tends to not increase despite having a much longer repayment time, allowing you to, you know, live and pay your student loans instead of having to choose in most cases.
With no DOE employees to process defaults?
Nobody should be paying a red cent.
If your choice is draining your entire bank account to the point you can’t afford to live or suffering a credit score penalty, then the credit score should be sacrificed.
“but they can…”
Stop. Nothing they can do is worse than starving. Don’t pay them. Use your money for your own needs.
Try getting an apartment or renewing a lease with a truly shit credit score.
Oops, you don’t qualify anymore, anywhere, your options are now homelessness, much more expensive hopping between motels every 3 weeks, or live in your car, hope you’re still making those payments.
Fairly difficult to cost-effectively cook and store food when you’re in any of those situations.
I used to have apparently atrocious credit due to delaying payments on my student loans for years. But with proof of income it didn’t stop me from getting apartments in NYC. In the last place I asked the broker what my credit score was and while he wasn’t at liberty to tell me he did say “Not good. But it’s all student debt related which we don’t consider relevant”. Still seems weird to me today but I guess landlords often don’t consider student debt to be a reflection of a tenant’s ability to pay rent. Probably because most people prioritize paying for shelter over paying for the classes in their past.
If this happens to too many people the economy will suffer. Eventually they’ll have to start ignoring credit scores. We’re rapidly reaching a point where the system can no longer compensate for the incompetencies and inequality and stuff will start breaking mechanically in ways that can’t be easily fixed or routed around
Everything you are describing has been happening and increasing in severity for years.
Usually what happens in an economic contraction is that credit lending standards raise, not lessen.
The free market doesn’t give a shit about bad investments, which is what you are if your credit record sucks.
… And the government is basically now run by a bunch of AnCaps and Fascists.
We’re looking more likely to become an indentured servitude, debt slave, company town style society, you know, just like the 1890s, that Trump is trying to take us back to, back before the income tax and much of the government actually was funded via tariffs.
I’d love to be as optimistic as you are, but uh hey, when was the last time you fed a homeless person, personally?
America hates the homeless, shanty towns aren’t even possible anymore, those are all now ‘homeless encampments’ that are literally bulldozed away, and all the homeless in them are ‘referred’ to shelters that are already full.
The easiest propoganda line to have all the media blare at everyone is just that all the people driven into homelessness by losing a job, being unable to pay a debt, serious injury or illness… well they’re all violent drug addicts, and really they should all just die, or not be near me, ew.
Trump already called for creating concentration camps of massive tent cities built on the outskirts of cities for the homeless.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-wants-make-homelessness-illegal-1795202
This is the plan, unless an actual revolution of some kind occurs.
Even then the massive inequality we have requires a lot of force to keep together, if it gets too crazy there won’t be enough police officers in National Guardsman to keep Humpty together and then the rich won’t have anything either. We basically have to rebuild the entire Society from scratch using the infrastructure that hasn’t decayed yet and are ingenuity
So your outlook has switched from ‘companies will be easier on people’ to ‘society will basically completely collapse to something roughly resembling the fallout universe in 2240 just hopefully without the radiation’.
… Sure, ok then, that’s quite a 180.
A revolution is exactly what we need.
Oh hey it’s the same corporate troll line again cool
Oh, excuse me for being crippled from a mugging and then having all my bank and id cards and phone stolen and then spending a year homeless and another year bouncing from motel to motel while trying to replace my id and unfuck my credit score with 3 bureaus without a permanent address and with a broken arm and wrist and leg, whilst also being unable to afford any medical treatment.
Yep, total corporate shill over here, totally not barely alive, only thanks to barely being able to keep my details current with social security so I could at least get disability payments.
Go fuck yourself buddy, I hope what happened to me happens to you.
Dude that sucks, but student loans didn’t cause that.
… Do you think that not paying your student loans will… not result in your credit score declining, massively so if it goes into collections?
https://lendedu.com/blog/student-loans-in-collections/
90 days, 3 missed payments for private student loans, 270 days, 9 missed payments for DoE Federal student loans.
That missed payment count starts ticking whenever payment deferral period ceases, and you can’t make the minimum payment, and make a smaller payment than that, or none at all.
That counts as being delinquent, unless you’ve specifically negotiated, before hand, some other kind of repayment plan… which is extremely difficult to do, if not functionally impossible in most cases.
Student loans, quite specifically, are very difficult, nearly impossible to be discharged in a bankruptcy in the US.
Personal bankruptcy nukes your credit scores and records anyway, but may make overall sense as less bad in some situations… but you’d wanna consult a lawyer on that, and… it still doesn’t get you out of everything, your wages will be garnished, and if your debt is student loans, you’re still on the hook for all of it.
You are telling people to condemn themselves to ruin.
Unless you could somehow organize and coordinate … basically over a majority, ideally a super majority of student loan payers to boycott their payments, and pair that all with some actual concrete strategy for acheiving specific demands on the government… and keep doing so for years… you are advocating insanity.
It’s basically on the same level as telling people to just stop paying income taxes, stop renewing their drivers liscenses.
The few that go through with your idea would just eventually be arrested for not showing up for a court summons eventually issued by a debt collector.
Given the total, utter inability of any meaningful resistance movement to organize thus far, I am extremely doubtful your strategy is sound.
…
Maybe, maybe if student loan payers get super lucky and the DoE somehow accidentally deletes all their student loan records, (or if someone somehow Tyler Durdens every single computer system and all paperwork that keeps track of such records) then your course of action would work…
…but what is much more likely to happen is that the DoE will move all of its loan servicing operations over to private loan/debt servicers as basically the last thing it does before dissolving itself entirely.
Those private entities will skim a bit more off the top, and also make sure the Fed Gov gets its owed money.
So… yeah, unless your plan involves starting armed militias to resist police arresting people for being failing to show when the debt collectors eventually sue them, your plan is bogus.
Good luck collecting that dept when nobody is paying it while most government thugs are busy rounding up everyone brown and sending them to death camps.
Holy shut the fuck up batman
Yeah sure, wouldn’t want facts around how student debt and collections actually work get in the way of your egotistical babybrained perfomative e-activism.
Please go back to reddit.
I wish more people understood no one can stop you if there is no one to stop you.
The problem is they’re always has been. But that might not be true in 6 months time so stay alert
I wish Trump didn’t understand that.
Fair point but if a dumbfuck like Trump understands it then it’s much sadder that others don’t.
he seems not to.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters”
– Trump, 2016
In retrospect he understood all too well, and figured it out way earlier than most.
I’ve been neglecting my payments for a long time since I literally just can’t afford it. I’ve been meaning to get around to doing an income-based plan or whatever but the more I see the less it seems worth my time to bother since not only will nothing happen good but they might not even be governed employees too make the bad things happen either. I’ve basically given up on having anything in my name financially but if the United States federal government disappears then I’m home free to start fresh and whatever new system comes after, hopefully we choose something good like anarchist communism
Doesn’t that sort of depend on your loan, though? Like if you have one that’s serviced by a loan provider, doesn’t that provider deal with it if you default?
Or is it that the provider requires the DOE to process the default?Only one way to find out.
lol. I like the cut of your jib.
Could you explain to non-Americans what is the appeal of student loans if they can do this? Why shouldn’t people go to cheaper schools to get their degrees instead? I mean no disrespect, if you are rich go to Yale or whatever, by all means.
There are no such thing as cheaper schools. They got rid of that because they were angry college students protested the Vietnam War. So now getting an education means doing business with the worst loan shark you’ve ever heard of, legally protected from bankruptcy. The thing you have to understand about America is that everything is a scam. Like healthcare or housing or a child care and a bunch of other things I’m not even thinking about
Three things going on:
- Schools are expensive because the amount of public funding to universities has been slowly shrinking over the past 60 years. College in the US back in th 1960s was very cheap.
- Student loan amounts due did not change, but income based repayment options did which means people’s minimum payments went up
- Students in the US were told college is the only career path for the past 40-50 years. This obviously isn’t true and is why we have trades shortages. In many cases, that’s also all the advice people received. There was no coaching for what kind of degree to pursue or what field to angle for, so a number of people got expensive degrees that didn’t have good career prospects. To be completely honest, I lucked into choosing engineering because of my interests and the interests of my friends
The appeal is that you get to go to college. “Why not go to a cheaper school?” “Why don’t you just get a job?” “Just buy a starter home.” "Why don’t they eat cake instead?’
There are no cheaper schools. There are expensive ones and more expensive ones. There is literally no option for the non-rich except to go into debt or learn to be a plumber.
Lots of trade schools are charging 10-20k/year and expecting 2 years of you…trades are great but we’re using student loans for them too depending on where you are*
*large cities tend to have better cheaper options like community college and there at least was some small federal schools that didn’t require loans. But not all areas have equal coverage here and you often get price gouged if you aren’t from that very specific city/town the community college is in. Tl;dr hopefully you live in an area with good resources which is not even remotely guaranteed.
cheaper to get education in europe. It’s not like us schools are any better than eu ones that take like 2.5k a year and offer loans from the government that are reasonable.
Community College is awesome, literally the only problem is that they don’t offer bachelor’s degrees. You can learn certain skills for work from one which is nice and you can complete an associates degree which can sometimes be useful for work but you really need the Bachelors to get anywhere and my heart take is that Community College is shut off for a limited range of Bachelors degrees, not as many as state U but maybe a half dozen or so.
learning a trade should be more encouraged, you can make a shit ton of money (relatively) without the debt
Yes, but only because of shortage of people in that field, and good luck working in it as a disabled person! Most likely you’ll work under someone else, and that’s not like helping your father do gardening work, so there will be hard quotas and deadlines.
True, but that isn’t an option for everyone and we still need scientists and doctors and such.
oh i know but college shouldn’t be the default. i work in elementary and they have college posters up in the halls.
College stuff up in elementary schools is pretty crazy.
True, but that might take you 10 years to get to a point where you’re no longer the new person and have skills to back it up.
that goes for any skilled labor. doesn’t make what i said any less true.
also, there are paid apprenticeships with unions if you look.
Same as in the UK I imagine. No university is affordable. Unless you are rich, you can’t go without a loan.
I didn’t go. Would have been the first year paying the 3x rates. Everyone was telling us how it won’t cost much. I couldn’t help but think what if the terms change and in 25 years that threshold won’t be worth very much.
I went to a really cheap school. My master’s was 40k.
40k? In USD or in Warhammer? Cause that’s a shite ton of money for college.
What did you study btw?
Also, I am great full to live in a shit hole country right now given that bill
40kUSD is nothing compared to some STEM degrees - especially at the masters level. PhDs can often be funded and not cost the student though (only in lost time…and mental health…)
Social work. And it’s laughable considering that social workers and mental health professionals generally don’t make a lot of money. I have no regrets getting it, just wish it was cheaper.
Underappreciated work, but thank you so much for doing it and for involving yourself in further education, more so knowing the costs.
I love what I do, and it’s definitely needed. I am sure more people would go into the field if education was cheaper. I am lucky to afford full loan payments because I have a partner with a decent income. Honestly don’t know what I’d do without him.
For 40k you could’ve lived like a king AND pay for the masters degree in an eu university.
The minimum wage should be multiplied for every additional level of Education you need. Like say if you need an Associates it’s 1.5 for a bachelor’s degree it’s 2.5 for a graduate degree it’s 3 times the base value which would apply to high school or less work only.
Wouldn’t that make a lot of them unemployable?
Not really, you need about triple the minimum wage to be comfortable in a lowish cost of living area.
It would force employers to remove education requirements from jobs if they’re not worth paying for. The requirement wouldn’t be to hire the work or it would be to require the degree. You would enforce it by requiring employers to sign a document upon hiring that says upon penalty of perjury that they did not request a transcript or ask the employee about their education, and there would be sting operations to enforce it along with steep fines and jail sentences for corporate employees who lie on the form. Also perhaps universities from providing transcripts or degree verifications if they cannot verify the job is doing the paperwork right
Ahh so you are thinking minimum wage by job education requirements rather than what someone actually has? Makes a bit more sense
My bachelor was around 12k and if I did it faster it could have been cheaper. Wgu does it based on term not credit hour. The more courses you pass in a term the cheaper it is overall.
There was literally no way for my master’s to cost less, so I am not sure what your point is. It’s a minimum 2-year program. It’s how it’s designed. Not all degrees are like that, but in my case I paid the least amount possible already.
Letting you know there are cheaper schools depending on your degree
Literally picked the cheapest school I could find for my degree. Again, not sure what I could have done differently here.
Don’t let people turn systemic problems into individual failings.
Children are told that they MUST go to college to get a stable and high paying job. This is so prevalent that college degrees are just seen as “the next step after high school” and nobody questions it. These colleges have figured out they can charge almost anything because they are seen as the gate keepers to high paying and stable jobs. So banking on future earnings, bearly emancipated teenagers, with the absolute minimum of a financial education, make life decisions that will put them in debt for the next 20-30 years.
The problem with the whole system is there doesn’t appear to be enough high paying and stable jobs.
As far as going to a cheaper college, I think you identified the issue in your very own comment. Schools have different prestige levels. Yale, for example, is a high prestige school and not only are you paying for an education, you are also paying to connect to rich people. These connections can be worth a lot of money if they are used correctly. So going to a cheaper college also means less valuable connections.
The problem is that employers are allowed to demand a college degree without having to shoulder any of the costs associated, so they are the real consumers of the degrees and the students are just the middle men who bear the cost. They get entitled especially during the sessions too demand degrees for jobs that don’t require them really and then that shifts education priorities for the whole country. If we regulated educational and certification requirements for jobs we can make this problem go away
Even beyond connections, just the sticker on a resumé that says “<prestige school name>” means you’re less likely to get shunted into the shitter with 95% of other applicants, if you don’t already have an “in” that cuts past the resumé stage.
Is this an intuition, or is it a known fact? Why would people do this? Do universities teach people to discriminate this way? Where do employers get these ideas? Is it something that permeates the whole society, or is it focused to applicant selection? Sorry for the many questions, I appreciate your response.
As a Millennial (and now an adult), I will preface that I’m out of touch with the youths, so I don’t know their perspective on colleges now. But it is common societal idea in the US. No company will openly put out notice that they are discriminating but the prestige US schools are more rigorous in their application screening and get more money, and so are expected to have more rigorous curricula/standards and better teaching. It has shifted so that non-Ivy League schools were becoming recognized in their fields for various subjects. But that just adds them to the “Prestige” category for those in the know.
When people look at a resume, it’s sorted into “Prestige” and every other university. And prestige will take your further.
Hilariously, as America progresses further into the dark ages, these “prestige” schools are increasingly becoming known for being degree mills who will sell a degree to any idiot with fat enough pockets to ask for one. Take the Trumps’ history at Wharton for instance.
Indeed it’s become an Open Secret that the only hard part about Ivy lease is getting in and that they give gentleman’s c’s to everyone .
It probably always was. It’s just that before rich people used to think being intelligent was a thing worth pursuing. The idea that you needed to be well-read and experienced to lead people.
UBI is a much better policy that “subsidizing loans just for college”. It helps all young people more than old, letting them choose a future that is best for them, while stiill making college an affordable choice. It makes college pricing more competitive, instead of trapping people too young and foolish into a path they can’t know enough to be a trap.
The future of UBI is what happened to the minimum wage.
UBI is mainly the signficiant power redistribution to people and workers. Minimum wage laws can be removed, and instead of a system where it is illegal to offer you a certain wage, while somehow unpaid internships are permitted, you gain the dignity of refusing work while waiting for better.
It is only gross power imbalance that makes you fear your employer would pay you less if they could legally, and a psychological trap that clings to the bandaid on your slavery that is minimum wage laws.
So, basically, as a regular (not rich) young person, you are aiming for a higher chance to connect with rich people in order to get a job/business that will probably get you enough money to cash on the “investment” made by getting an otherwise potentially for-life debt? Huh, rings a bell here. Thank you.
That’s one of only good things about Florida. The colleges on average are significantly cheaper than anywhere else, and Florida is still ranked number 1 on US News for college education when looking at every single college combined.
So basically get a good affordable education and then move the fuck out of Florida.
Although the governor is doing everything in his power to make sure that is not the case.
there are no cheap schools in the US.
See my response to another comment about wgu
Oh, see - due to the lack of investment in education, the normalization of ever-increasing tuition rates, and the social/economic stratification of U.S. society there isn’t really a thing such as a ‘cheaper’ school.
My local commuter college wanted $25k a year for their masters program over a decade ago - and that’s after obtaining a 4 year degree. (Which I obtained through a combination of community college and undergrad classes at the same university, but not without incurring about $20k worth of debt for the previous 4 years.)
Add to that, the U.S. doesn’t have the economy or social supports. You either earn a living wage, find something workable through familial support, or go hungry. The U.S., mandates that companies pay less than half of what is needed to support one’s self.
This isn’t like, poor planning, or governmental stupidity. This is actually on purpose by conservatives in the U.S. government. (Sorry, that site is kinda weird, but it has the quote I was looking for.)
Nevermind that an educated populous is a matter of national defense/national security and having the brainpower to propel the country forward is one of the ways that the U.S. dominated on the world stage in the latter half of the last century. (In addition to timely and fortuitous control of a lot of resources, and a shitload of foreign meddling - lets be real here.) But whatevz, who needs that when the voters disagree with you? The people who set this in motion will be dead by the time the people that are going to be utterly fucked by that figure it out. (perhaps slowed in that realization by their faulty education. Hah.).Yesterday, I lost a reply to you because my instance was failing. It’s heartbreaking how the Cold War keeps affecting you in America. It’s like your government can’t even realize they won. I find it an atrocity that you only can study if you are rich or if you sell your soul to them.
I have too many thoughts to really articulate well, but, basically, yeah.
From “In god we trust” to citizens united, the nuance required to kill a popular ideology without becoming anathema has been lacking.
SLABs will tank, someone’s collateral gonna get busted
SLAB?
Of course America has turned an education policy into a financial derivative.
Student Loan Asset-Backed Securities
Basically, people can buy the rights to your loan payments. Maybe they get packaged together with many others’ debts.
SLABSs are quite profitable, obviously. During COVID years there was a freeze on debt payments and holders of SLABS started to feel the squeeze. SLABSs are such a guaranteed return that people/banks/hedge funds can use them as collateral for loans and stuff. So during COVID, SLABSs became a liability. Or so it’s been speculated
If people start defaulting on their debts, SLABSs could be centrally involved in a financial collapse, the first domino to start chain reaction of margin calls
The economy is a house of cards stacked on top of another house of cards that somehow even less stable. Eventually something big enough is going to come and blow it all down and it’s going to be the end of the system as we know it, if things start rolling downhill too fast nothing will be able to stop it
I’m still buying and holding GME shares. Waiting for UBS to blow up. They hold all the toxic Archegos shorts from January 2021, that later forced Credit Suisse to go under. These shorts will go onto their books on March 21. For his fraud and mismanagement related to January 2021, Archegos founder Bill Hwang was sentenced to prison last year.
What comes next?
Swiss National Bank basically forced UBS to take the bags from Credit Suisse. They refused and so SNB sweetened the deal by giving them hundreds of billions in cash-- twice! Now UBS auditors have seen what’s in the bags and they are panicking behind the scenes
Can’t recall an education
I worked hard so I didn’t have to take loans. I never had much pity for people who did take them. They were obviously predatory and the math never checked out. Any amount of cursory research on it would have shown that. They took those loans, didn’t have a plan to pay them back and have begged politicians to spend my tax money on bailing them out.
Middle class America doesn’t need to be bailing out someone who graduated from a four year degree. They’re not any more deserving of the money just because they’re gullible or ignorant at best.
OK boomer
In glad you don’t have loans. Some people are not able to get higher education without loans due to a variety of factors. I don’t know why you’re comfortable calling what are likely teenagers gullible or ignorant when the loans are predatory by nature, and are likely handling their very first “adult” purchase.
Education should not only be accessible to the wealthy. Middle class America has bailed out the banks, companies “too big” to fail, even other countries. Middle class America paid for PPP loans and forgiveness. We have bailed out billionaires over and over, but college is crossing the line?
I want my taxes to pay for education. And not just education that “makes sense.” I want to pay for one kid’s gender studies with a minor in dead languages, as well as the kid going for oncology. I don’t want anyone to question getting an education because of the price. An educated society is an investment for everyone. The American people are deserving of the taxes that they pay into.
I think we should go much further: Being educated should be a JOB. We pay the students, so that they focus on learning. Provided this grade-based income is less than a “real” job, they will naturally migrate into the workforce.
This will undoubtedly require a major rethinking on what an economy is, how it works, and why it should exist in the first place. But I think we are close to American Capitalism being milked dead, so we should start thinking of new approaches for whatever is to come after the fall.
That’s an awesome idea! It would make it so much easier for people.
There’s also the fact that students fully know they’re getting screwed but you don’t have a choice in this country
An educated society is an investment for everyone.
And the insane thing is, that is proven in case after case and should be one of the core tenants of any society. It’s just that - if you make them dumb, squeeze them only a little at a time, and tell them it’s not your fault - you can get more profit for yourself. And we, as Americans, haven’t been squeezed enough to break free.
Paying off their loans for fix the cost of education crisis. It kicks it down the road for our children to fix. With added costs since we’ve set a precedent that it will be forgiven. Advocating for student debt forgiveness is advocating for throwing fuel on the fire.
Any payoff without a meaningful plan to fix the root cause is robbery of the middle and lower class by upper middle class and upper class children with a predisposition to high income.
How does forgiving debt help rich people? They aren’t the ones burdened by it.
The idea is it would be forgiven and then education would be free or highly subsidized. It’s middle class and lower class that are hardest hit by these loans as it is. Upper class children either don’t need the loans or take our less. Yes, it’s frustrating to be customer 99 instead of 100, but, I mean, grow up. Education is planting seeds in a garden we’ll likely not live to see, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t till the soil just so the next generation has it as difficult as we did. Taxes are going up as it is, I would rather it at least be going towards something meaningful for a change. Free education. Free health care. I’m already paying for it. You’re already paying for it. I want what we paid for.
God bless you and your ability to give such a gracious answer.
PPP loan forgiveness already happened, so why should they be the only ones?
Show me the redacted screenshots of your bills being paid in cash and I’ll believe this bullshit. 🙄
btw account is 4 days old, might be a troll
4 days old.
Bye, foul water!
Ok boomer. Now get back in your recliner. Wheel of Fortune will be on in just a minute…
Man, why do losers always have anime pfps? Is that supposed to be some shitty OC or something?
waterfoul? more like what-a-fool
Congratulations you were the smartest 17 year old on earth here’s a fucking cookie go masturbate or whatever
How long ago was this? Which state? Which degree?
such lazy bait.
Such lazy students.
middle class america
You mean above the poverty line?
