You know what I would be in favor of? Student loans that the government makes being capped at a very low interest rate. When I got my Masters in '05 my interest was something like 2% on my government loan and 6% on my private one. My brother got his MBA a few years later and paid a much higher rate, which I think is unfair.

I get that private banks are in it to make money, and wouldn't favor capping their loans, but for government ones, I would.

Amy's right about a lot of stuff.

That came out backhanded, but it wasn't intended to.

Ever notice how SJW's never talk about creating wealth, but only about redirecting it?… And that the wealth to be redirected is never their own?

From the tweet: "I am $180k in debt. I have a PHD and am a tenured professor ..."

There are many, many more aspirants to tenured positions than there are tenured positions. Dr. Gautney should check her privilege.

Crid: I wonder if the garden variety SJW doesn't think of wealth as something that simply exists, like dirt or water, without effort to create it.

LOL the working class has no wealth - it's all been redirected to the captains of industry. The middle class is dying and not due to taxes, but to stagnant wages and skyrocketing cost of living. The billionaire class wouldn't be billionaires if SJWs and the workers they advocate for weren't creating wealth. Vast parts of America are in steep decline into third world status, and Flint is far from the only example.

As for yelling at students and telling them to pay their own way, hey that'll end well when they all go bankrupt and we find ourselves in the middle of another economic collapse. You know what they say, the least important part of the body is the asshole... until it closes up. I guess the students are the asshole now!

I love how tuition going through the roof is never the fault of colleges only bankers. Any other industry it would be force them to charge less, but not colleges. There it’s write them a blank check. True indoctrination.

Joe, I've mentioned this on this forum before... I used to teach French at a University in PA. Basically, I was a housewife who taught French as a hobby, that's what my wages were.

Anyhow, when I went to new Faculty orientation, I thought it would be all about the library system, where to park etc. Nope! It was all about the fancy buildings and facilities they were spending millions on.

Now, I agree Universities need buildings, don't get me wrong, but the faculties they were building were very luxurious, and they were bragging about it to the people they were barely paying.

So yeah, Colleges need to start thinking about where they spend their money.

When I got my Masters in '05 my interest was something like 2% on my government loan and 6% on my private one. My brother got his MBA a few years later and paid a much higher rate, which I think is unfair. ~ NicoleK at June 24, 2019 11:51 PM

That 2% loan, Nicole, was most likely a government-subsidized interest rate. That is, the bank making the loan got 6%, but the borrower only paid 2%. The other 4% was paid by the American taxpayers.

The US government eliminated the subsidized loan program and went entirely to direct lending in 2010, IIRC.

And how much they “save”, endowments are crazy big in many places.

> I wonder if the garden variety
> SJW doesn't think of wealth as
> something that simply exists,
> like dirt or water, without
> effort to create it.

Well, the most important thing about such attitudes is that these people thinks the amount of wealth is fixed, such that rich people will hoard it and the poor will have to do without:

> the working class has no wealth -
> it's all been redirected to the
> captains of industry. The middle
> class is dying and not due to
> taxes, but to stagnant wages
> and skyrocketing cost of living.

This is despicably, pathetically mistaken.

The amount of wealth in the world increases when we do things for each other, and when we create things for each other.

The amount of wealth available to us is limitless… So long as we're not small-minded and/or authoritarian.

"Lol," she says.

I am $180k in debt. I have a PHD and am a tenured professor — my students are in the same boat, sinking in debt. I pay $1100/month in student loan debt, half of my rent. We MUST #CancelStudentDebt. Wall St got bailed out, what about us?!

So, she pays $2,200 in rent? Has she ever thought of, I don't know, moving to a cheaper place or getting a roommate, at least until she pays off the money that she borrowed?

"Well, the most important thing about such attitudes is that these people thinks the amount of wealth is fixed, such that rich people will hoard it and the poor will have to do without:"

That's been my experience with leftism too. They view wealth as a zero-sum game: Creating wealth is impossible; the only way to gain wealth is to take it away from someone else. I think this explains why leftist governments, and the people who run them, are so massively corrupt; they are playing the game per their understanding of the rules. Of course, this quickly breaks down to a "might makes right" ethos.

I'm going to cut the cord on cable, which I enjoy. I just have to. I should have done it sooner.

I might support wiping out all current federal student debt if at the same time the federal government ended all student loan programs. But forgiving debt without ending the program that loaned out the money that will never be repaid is not an option.

Of course at that point the colleges would be screaming bloody murder.

"I'm going to cut the cord on cable"

I found cable was like potato chips. Habituating but once you are off of it a few months you don't even miss it.

I'm going to cut the cord on cable, which I enjoy. I just have to. I should have done it sooner. ~ Amy Alkon at June 25, 2019 6:29 AM

I was going to do that, but I think the Golden Age of cord cutting is over. The content providers are onto the subscription revenue model. At $8 to $14 a month, they'll nickel and dime you to death. I kept minimal cable and a DVR for news and sports - and the occasional episodic TV watching.

I did that because found out that I would have to use subscription services to get fresh content. If you want PBS shows, you have to subscribe to either PBS, Britbox, or Acorn. If you want HBO's newer shows, you have to subscribe to HBO's subscription service. Likewise with content from the smaller cable channels. If you want network shows, some of them require a paid subscription service, others require only a sign-up.

I tried to watch an old episode of "Cheers" the other night and was informed by Amazon Prime that I'd have to subscribe to the paid subscription service that owned the rights to it. I passed.

Sometimes, you can rent an individual episode, but that seems a waste of money.

Netflix and Amazon aggregation services are no longer getting other content provides' material on the cheap. They do have their own content which, of course, you cannot get on the other aggregators' services, so you have to get both.

It takes a little searching, but you can still find some watchable content on Amazon Prime that does not require an additional subscription. That list, however, is getting shorter and will soon be limited to Amazon's own content or crap no one wanted to copyright.

==================================================

I might support wiping out all current federal student debt if at the same time the federal government ended all student loan programs. But forgiving debt without ending the program that loaned out the money that will never be repaid is not an option. ~ Ben at June 25, 2019 6:43 AM

That's not what's being proposed, however. What's usually proposed is to wipe out the student loan program in favor of a free college for all program - neither of which addresses the real issue.

==================================================

I wonder if the garden variety SJW doesn't think of wealth as something that simply exists, like dirt or water, without effort to create it. ~ Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at June 25, 2019 4:20 AM

He does. To an SJW or socialist, wealth is a zero-sum game. One cannot gain more of it without someone losing some of his; each gain of wealth must be balanced out by a concurrent loss of wealth.

Which is why socialism fails; its focus is on dividing a set amount of wealth instead of encouraging the creation of more wealth.

So, she pays $2,200 in rent?

Yes, I saw that. I guesstimate she's making about $4,500/month pre-tax.

I bet she also has a sweet 403(b) retirement plan that her employer is matching dollar for dollar. And she likely has an even sweeter HMO health care provider that the employer is paying the bulk.

But hey, let other people subsidize your debts, right? I wonder, would she be brave enough to go door to door asking her neighbors to give her $100/month until she's paid off her debt?

Her twitter bio:

Senior Policy Advisor @berniesanders (tweets my own) - Author, Crashing the Party (Verso) - Assoc Prof Sociology, Fordham Univ

Ah, so she lives in the upper west side?

Agreed on what is being proposed Conan. If you have one amnesty you will just have another. And hence I have zero interest in it.

On the cord cutting, like I said it is like potato chips. If you aren't up to date on the latest HBO stuff you really don't miss it when the next stuff comes out. I prefer my news in print. Just much faster that way. And I personally don't care to watch sports. Which is really the only thing I see that makes cable worthwhile.

I agree with you on the 'golden age' being over. Netflix isn't worth much anymore. Same with Amazon Prime. Buying DVDs of entire series is starting to make sense again. At least from a cost and availability metric.

Netflix isn't worth much anymore. Same with Amazon Prime. ~ Ben at June 25, 2019 8:43 AM

Amazon Prime at least comes with other non-entertainment benefits.

I generally save enough on shipping to fund the annual membership.

Not to mention saving on gas by not having to drive to the boonies to get to the local parts store when the no-longer-stocked refrigerator water filter goes out.

This all sounds fishy.

First of all, she is a Sander's hack more than a professor. "Dr. Gautney is on leave working as a senior policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, the ranking member of the US Senate Budget Committee. ... From 2012-2013, she was the ASA/AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow in Senator Sanders's Senate office in Washington, DC." (I am sure a sociologist is an expert in engineering and science).

Second, she went to a relatively cheap school (CUNY) for her PhD which means it would be difficult to rack up that much debt.

Third, what kind of idiot get $180,000 in debt for a sociology degree? Or is that self explanatory?

and Flint is far from the only example

Ah, they have something in common. Control by Democrat mayors and city councils. Who are busy redistributing wealth, and getting a hefty cut of the vig.

There's a reason why Hugo Chavez's daughter is one of the wealthiest women in Venezuela.

Buying DVDs of entire series is starting to make sense again. At least from a cost and availability metric.

It's always made sense. $GIANT_TECH_COMPANY can't suddenly decide that you don't have a license to stream $MOVIE. And you can always rip your DVD and put it on a convenient home theater computer, and then stream it $DEVICE of your choice without having to bow and scrape.

You're allowed a back up copy. That can be in the form of the DVD sitting on your shelf.

For Amy and others interested in cord cutting:

Check out Pluto TV. More than 100 channels, streams for free to your TV if you have a streaming gizmo. Completely free and legal.

Perhaps the outraged "tenured professor" might be interested as well.

Look IRA, way back when if you rented a VHS from Blockbuster you always could copy it and keep that copy forever. Same with Netflix et al. They are essentially a rental service. Heck Netflix still does the DVDs by mail. While it is physically possible to make personal copies I'm not willing to accept that it is moral or should be legally possible.

On the cost side, there are lots of things I only want to watch once. Or even once partially. There is a lot of entertainment out there and much of it isn't to my taste. So renting at a fraction of the cost is a good deal. If I think I will watch it three or four times then it makes sense to buy the DVDs.

If you want to talk about Apple Music or Amazon's online books like that I am with you. (Steam games too.) Those are services where the product claims to be for sale. But Prime and Netflix's movies are clearly a rental service with no guarantee that the product will continue to be available. These are different things.

If you want to talk about Apple Music or Amazon's online books like that I am with you. (Steam games too.) Those are services where the product claims to be for sale. But Prime and Netflix's movies are clearly a rental service with no guarantee that the product will continue to be available. These are different things. ~ Ben at June 25, 2019 10:24 AM

I "purchased" a television program from iTunes a few years ago. It was an old one that I had enjoyed as a kid, nothing too important. Besides, I'd only purchased it to watch on a long flight. Then, one day, I opened iTunes and it was gone.

I checked and Apple no longer sells it. So, you don't actually buy from streaming services, you rent long-term. And they take the product away when their contract is up.

That's why I only do the 48-hour rentals or watch the free ones. I'm not "purchasing" anything from a streaming service again.

And, Ben, downloaded books can be "updated." when no longer politically acceptable. I've had several Amazon Kindle books "updated" when new editions were published.

So, if you want to keep an unchanged copy, buy it in book form.

Agreed Conan. That is why I said IRA's beef was right with them. Apple pretends to sell you the product but they don't actually do that. Which is different from Netflix. Netflix makes no promises about what will and will not be there. It is a rental service. I don't care for the products they are currently offering. But from a moral standpoint I have no issue with them.

Apple's music, Amazon's books, Steam's games, I'm not willing to buy anything I actually care about losing. They claim to sell you a product but they are lying.

This complaint is wrongful enrichment by the universities for a substandard product. Their endowments should be seized and liquidated to pay off the debts.

I would like you all to pay off my mortgage, please.

If you are in a Ph.D. program where you have to pay rather than you getting paid, then there are no jobs in that field. 40 yrs ago when I got mine I finished with only $4000 debt and that only because my major prof died before I finished (and his funding vanished at that moment of course). The fancy schools are not better than a decent state school and certainly not worth the money.

I know lots of people who run their own business: plumbing, HVAC, artists, consultants, robotics, software. They certainly did create wealth out of nothing. Sadly, the gov response to the 08 crash was to tighten the rules for banks such that they are much more reluctant to lend to small businesses. Of course it was not small business that created the crash.

The idea that the middle class is dying is absurd. On another blog Mark Perry has shown a dozen times how the "middle class" has shrunk by moving up to upper class. In inflation adjusted dollars. Of course if you insist on staying in somewhere like Flint where the jobs have left, you will have a hard time. Oil field workers are making over $150,000 in Texas--try moving.

What makes me immensely sad about this situation is the reality that

1) College administrators have dramatically increased tuition costs. Administrator populations have grown twice as fast as student populations.

2) Tuition debt is not dischargeable as ordinary unsecured debt in bankruptcy court.

Yes, contracted debt should be sacred. But we have bankruptcy law for a reason. And it seems to me that the argument that places the former at a premium over the latter misses how much the labor market has changed in late years, particularly how even comparatively unskilled jobs have subtly started to require college degrees as a bare minimum. And many of the people affected there are getting shafted by the inequitable inflation of tuition.

> I would like you all to pay
> off my mortgage, please.

We can't. You don't live in our country.

I think McMillan's broken link was for a page like this.

> And how much they “save”,
> endowments are crazy big
> in many places.

> Joe j at June 25, 2019 5:21 AM

✓ Exactly.

TAX THEM.

It can be a warmup for the churches.

Sure you can crid! You can wire the money directly to me. I also have a BofA account.. yes Amy I know but I just keep a small amount in it for petty cash for America stuff.

"I tried to watch an old episode of "Cheers" the other night and was informed by Amazon Prime that I'd have to subscribe to the paid subscription service that owned the rights to it."

A few weeks ago, I was putting together a Youtube playlist of 1960s television shows for an evening's watching. I wanted to include an episode of Get Smart. In order to watch it, I would have had to sub to Amazon Prime Video (over and above our existing Prime subscription) at $12.99 per month. This for a show that, if we still had reasonable copyright laws, would be in the public domain by now.

For Get Smart I was willing to buy the DVDs.

And agreed on the copyright issue. Even if Get Smart was public domain I would still buy the DVDs.

"my students are in the same boat, sinking in debt."

Well, then why did you get into THAT boat?

I PAID for my boat, it floats, and there is NOT any room for you or any other deadbeats.

"Has she ever thought of, I don't know, moving to a cheaper place or getting a roommate, at least until she pays off the money that she borrowed?"

What. you want her to make SACRIFICES for the benefit she received? You want her to live within her means?

That's SOOO 20th century.

"The amount of wealth available to us is limitless… So long as we're not small-minded and/or authoritarian."

Well said (of course)- and we must focus on earning and keeping wealth, not spending.

The biggest difference between the layman and the wealthy is that most people only want to SPEND money, not control it!

You might be easily led into wealth envy. Don't be. Recognize that the world only cares what it gets FROM you. That's how you GET PAID.