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Sanders supporters, what do you make of this?

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I'll give it to him, the guy has his principals and sticks by them, but geeze he just seems clueless about financial realities. On the last debate you could tell he was weakest when being asked how he would pay for his big ideas. I get that people feel angry about the ever increasing divide between the haves and have nots, but I just can't understand the support he's getting.
 
That's a pretty clueless statement but in all fairness, he probably doesn't write his own twitter feed or even necessary have final approval for what gets posted.
 
That's a pretty clueless statement but in all fairness, he probably doesn't write his own twitter feed or even necessary have final approval for what gets posted.

I think you're right about that.

Sanders has his finger on a very big problem we have today.

But I don't think he has his finger on a practical solution for it that can be successfully pursued.

That being said, I also know that he'll pick good people to fill slots in his administration.

When I attended UC through '72, tuition was less than $200 per quarter. I've got two earned masters degrees now, but if I wanted to go back to school at the same campus, I couldn't afford it.

American history has always been a struggle over property rights and equity. Here I mean property rights in a general sense, to include tax policy and other features. We'd always used tax policy and public spending to make income disparity acceptable, and I don't mean "giving away free stuff."

With the Bush tax-cuts and war spending, we have run out of time. Or we're running out of time. We never expropriated wealth except through tax policy. You tell me: if USA has a Gini index of income/wealth disparity second only to Mexico, how do you fix that? Where does this lead?

Because the chuckleheads on the GOP side of the equation don't even recognize it as a problem, unless it's an excuse to tear up 60 or 70 years of "The Mixed Economy."
 
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I'll give it to him, the guy has his principals and sticks by them, but geeze he just seems clueless about financial realities. On the last debate you could tell he was weakest when being asked how he would pay for his big ideas. I get that people feel angry about the ever increasing divide between the haves and have nots, but I just can't understand the support he's getting.

I'm not sure where he's coming from, but there is some logic to that.

Student loans are guaranteed by the Federal Gov't. It would stand to reason that they would have very low interest rates because, at least as far as the investment goes, the only risk is you'll get your money tied up for a year or two without a return.

So unless I'm missing something, no it doesn't make sense to be charged more than prime lending rate for a student loan as the gov't effectively co-signed the loan.

Edit: I am not a Sanders supporter, at least not yet.
 
I'm not sure where he's coming from, but there is some logic to that.

Student loans are guaranteed by the Federal Gov't. It would stand to reason that they would have very low interest rates because, at least as far as the investment goes, the only risk is you'll get your money tied up for a year or two without a return.

So unless I'm missing something, no it doesn't make sense to be charged more than prime lending rate for a student loan as the gov't effectively co-signed the loan.

Edit: I am not a Sanders supporter, at least not yet.

I think I've been watching him for some time, and I've been on his mailing list for some time -- years before this campaign. I like him. He's been civil. When has he said anything as absurd as the others -- like Trump?

I just don't know if he'll weather two terms. I'm six years younger, and a shattered wreck.
 
Sanders is a fucking idiot.

1. Student loan debt is unsecured with no underwriting, no certainty around repayment, no FICO scores, no careers, no jobs, homes are not. They give SLs out like candy, you sign almost nothing, you have to be an astounding credit to get most mortgages. Furthermore, I'd say the FHA housing debt stands at about at least 80% LTV, probably much lower given amortization. That means that unless you see another 20% reduction in homes, you get 100% of your money back in foreclosure.

2. If houses were paying like students, then 30% of homes would be paying 25% of their intended repayment. Another 20% would be in Forbearance or Deferment. Another 10% would be delinquent. Overall default rates would be 20%+.

Out of its ~1TR in current student loans, the government will likely lose $300BN in principal from forgiveness.

Sure, student loans can't be discharged. However, they can be put into forbearance for practically forever. Now with PAYE/IBR/ICR/REPAYE, they will be forgiven.

They are a 100% *NON* underwritten semi-secured consumer loan with *NO* guaranty of timely payment.

And you want to charge them similar interest rates to a 100% underwritten, low LTV, income verified, conforming prime mortgage that if you default I can take your home in months and get a 100% repayment, or close to it.

As the poster above mentioned, the loans aren't the problem, per se, the problem is that the cost of the education is more than the job can bear. Making the loans cheaper doesn't solve the problem, reducing cost does.

The rest of this is sheer pandering.

Sanders knows this, as does Clinton and Warren. They just don't give a fuck and you guys jump on it like bitches in heat.
 
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Sanders is a fucking idiot.

1. Student loan debt is unsecured with no underwriting, no certainty around repayment, no FICO scores, no careers, no jobs, homes are not. They give SLs out like candy, you sign almost nothing, you have to be an astounding credit to get most mortgages. Furthermore, I'd say the FHA housing debt stands at about at least 80% LTV, probably much lower given amortization. That means that unless you see another 20% reduction in homes, you get 100% of your money back in foreclosure.

2. If houses were paying like students, then 30% of homes would be paying 25% of their intended repayment. Another 20% would be in Forbearance or Deferment. Another 10% would be delinquent. Overall default rates would be 20%+.

Out of its ~1TR in current student loans, the government will likely lose $300BN in principal from forgiveness.

Sure, student loans can't be discharged. However, they can be put into forbearance for practically forever. Now with PAYE/IBR/ICR/REPAYE, they will be forgiven.

They are a 100% *NON* underwritten semi-secured consumer loan with *NO* guaranty of timely payment.

And you want to charge them similar interest rates to a 100% underwritten, low LTV, income verified, conforming prime mortgage that if you default I can take your home in months and get a 100% repayment, or close to it.

As the poster above mentioned, the loans aren't the problem, per se, the problem is that the cost of the education is more than the job can bear. Making the loans cheaper doesn't solve the problem, reducing cost does.

The rest of this is sheer pandering.

Sanders knows this, as does Clinton and Warren. They just don't give a fuck and you guys jump on it like bitches in heat.

Wait, so you are saying supporting lower interest rates for students is stupid because it doesn't address the underlying issue? So much for your "I'm for helping average Americans" routine you constantly espouse! Oh and guess what? Your boy trump thinks government shouldn't be charging any interest on student loans! I must have missed your rant about trump on that one you fucking hypocrite!

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/2...eral-government-making-money-on-student-loans

You are right though, lowered or no interest rate loans won't fix the underlying problem but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be helping the average American, a point you seem to have missed in your attempt to shit on a fucking tweet!
 
Wait, so you are saying supporting lower interest rates for students is stupid because it doesn't address the underlying issue? So much for your "I'm for helping average Americans" routine you constantly espouse! Oh and guess what? Your boy trump thinks government shouldn't be charging any interest on student loans! I must have missed your rant about trump on that one you fucking hypocrite!

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/2...eral-government-making-money-on-student-loans

You are right though, lowered or no interest rate loans won't fix the underlying problem but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be helping the average American, a point you seem to have missed in your attempt to shit on a fucking tweet!

Of course I espouse helping average Americans, but lowering the interest rate doesn't do that. Anybody with half a brain knows that. Anybody with half a brain knows that you cannot keep charging 2-3x rate of inflation for tuition forever. Anybody with half a brain realizes that taking out $100k in loans for a $30k job, even at a 0% interest rate gets you nowhere.

What Trump doesn't know is that the Government is not making money on student loans. Ohh, sure, there's a nice little accounting gimmick they pull. Even for IBR/ICR/PAYE/REPAYE they budgeted an amount, but that amount is ridiculously low compared to enrollment and the future forgiveness. Why? Because they will only kick the can.

Don't be a little bitch about it. You know, deep down, that their "solution" is a fucking farce.

You know how you fix this?

1. Immediately halt all grants and loans to for-profit universities.

2. Charge back all defaults a few standard devisions from the national average to the school, making them the first-loss bearer for anything above that amount.

3. Offer 2 years of free education to a community college for every student who can test into it. The cost of this will be far less than a student who incurs much more cost/debt going to a private or public university and failing out after realizing they can't make it. A huge portion of defaults are from students who drop out, especially for Private non-profit and Private for-profit universities.

4. Underwrite maximum loan amounts to reasonable repayment plans for degrees obtained. Maximum amounts for a Lib Arts in sociology should be far less than pre-med.

5. Offer reduced interest rates for every year of completion, retroactive. 1st year should be 8-10%, 2nd 6-8%, 3rd, 4-6%, completion should be 4%.

There are a few more things that can be done. However, reducing rate does not *FIX* the problem. Looking for half-assed measures spouted off by cynical politicians who think they can fool Americans is what keeps us in this situation.

Hold Sanders, and everybody else, accountable for the problem. Don't accept bullshit answers.

What's funny is that you think I am some uber-conservative (Guess that is incongruent with my belief in a single payer system). Your partisanship blinds you to the truth and your inability to even hold your "team" accountable is telling.
 
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Of course I espouse helping average Americans, but lowering the interest rate doesn't do that. Anybody with half a brain knows that. Anybody with half a brain knows that you cannot keep charging 2-3x rate of inflation for tuition forever. Anybody with half a brain realizes that taking out $100k in loans for a $30k job, even at a 0% interest rate gets you nowhere.

What Trump doesn't know is that the Government is not making money on student loans. Ohh, sure, there's a nice little accounting gimmick they pull. Even for IBR/ICR/PAYE/REPAYE they budgeted an amount, but that amount is ridiculously low compared to enrollment and the future forgiveness. Why? Because they will only kick the can.

Don't be a little bitch about it. You know, deep down, that their "solution" is a fucking farce.

You know how you fix this?

1. Immediately halt all grants and loans to for-profit universities.

2. Charge back all defaults a few standard devisions from the national average to the school, making them the first-loss bearer for anything above that amount.

3. Offer 2 years of free education to a community college for every student who can test into it. The cost of this will be far less than a student who incurs much more cost/debt going to a private or public university and failing out after realizing they can't make it. A huge portion of defaults are from students who drop out, especially for Private non-profit and Private for-profit universities.

4. Underwrite maximum loan amounts to reasonable repayment plans for degrees obtained. Maximum amounts for a Lib Arts in sociology should be far less than pre-med.

5. Offer reduced interest rates for every year of completion, retroactive. 1st year should be 8-10%, 2nd 6-8%, 3rd, 4-6%, completion should be 4%.

There are a few more things that can be done. However, reducing rate does not *FIX* the problem. Looking for half-assed measures spouted off by cynical politicians who think they can fool Americans is what keeps us in this situation.

Hold Sanders, and everybody else, accountable for the problem. Don't accept bullshit answers.

What's funny is that you think I am some uber-conservative (Guess that is incongruent with my belief in a single payer system). Your partisanship blinds you to the truth and your inability to even hold your "team" accountable is telling.

No what's funny is your support of trump despite your positions! Even funnier is your inability to see your own partisanship and your inability to see that I agreed with you. And I still agree with your underlying positions, I just disagree that helping students by giving them low or no interest loans doesn't help. It does help, it helps students. If the broken system isn't gong to get properly fixed then I at least want students to not be burdened as much, something you seem to disagree with for no reason (if you read your posts you will see that you didn't give a valid reason for not having low or no interest loans).
 
No what's funny is your support of trump despite your positions! Even funnier is your inability to see your own partisanship and your inability to see that I agreed with you. And I still agree with your underlying positions, I just disagree that helping students by giving them low or no interest loans doesn't help. It does help, it helps students. If the broken system isn't gong to get properly fixed then I at least want students to not be burdened as much, something you seem to disagree with for no reason (if you read your posts you will see that you didn't give a valid reason for not having low or no interest loans).
The reason? Because the us taxpayer is losing a shit ton of money on a program that is a fucking sham. So now you want them to lose even more money?


Double down on the stupid.
 
Ah yes, why acknowledge that neither side is paid to fix the problem.

Hypothesis: A man walks into his local Bar/Pub/Tavern and buys a beer and starts yelling profanities at everyone in sight, and then continues to rant on for 5 minutes.

Conclusion: Most people there are not going to give much of a shit what he says. Might even throw beer bottles at him.
 
Hypothesis: A man walks into his local Bar/Pub/Tavern and buys a beer and starts yelling profanities at everyone in sight, and then continues to rant on for 5 minutes.

Conclusion: Most people there are not going to give much of a shit what he says. Might even throw beer bottles at him.

Or the man gets everybody's attention with a strong statement and then backs it up with facts.

But that's too simplistic for you guys.
 
The reason? Because the us taxpayer is losing a shit ton of money on a program that is a fucking sham. So now you want them to lose even more money?


Double down on the stupid.

Lol, you mean the same tax payers who also are or who did go to college and used the very same loans? Just how much money do you think "tax payers" would be losing with such a policy, after you factor in the potential gains in the market from the extra money people will have in their pocket?

Your "reason" is bullshit and you know it. I do love your new, "but the poor government is losing money" tripe, as if money saved from less government spending ever went back to the people. Are you really this stupid?
 
Of course I espouse helping average Americans, but lowering the interest rate doesn't do that. Anybody with half a brain knows that. Anybody with half a brain knows that you cannot keep charging 2-3x rate of inflation for tuition forever. Anybody with half a brain realizes that taking out $100k in loans for a $30k job, even at a 0% interest rate gets you nowhere.

What Trump doesn't know is that the Government is not making money on student loans. Ohh, sure, there's a nice little accounting gimmick they pull. Even for IBR/ICR/PAYE/REPAYE they budgeted an amount, but that amount is ridiculously low compared to enrollment and the future forgiveness. Why? Because they will only kick the can.

Don't be a little bitch about it. You know, deep down, that their "solution" is a fucking farce.

You know how you fix this?

1. Immediately halt all grants and loans to for-profit universities.

2. Charge back all defaults a few standard devisions from the national average to the school, making them the first-loss bearer for anything above that amount.

3. Offer 2 years of free education to a community college for every student who can test into it. The cost of this will be far less than a student who incurs much more cost/debt going to a private or public university and failing out after realizing they can't make it. A huge portion of defaults are from students who drop out, especially for Private non-profit and Private for-profit universities.

4. Underwrite maximum loan amounts to reasonable repayment plans for degrees obtained. Maximum amounts for a Lib Arts in sociology should be far less than pre-med.

5. Offer reduced interest rates for every year of completion, retroactive. 1st year should be 8-10%, 2nd 6-8%, 3rd, 4-6%, completion should be 4%.

There are a few more things that can be done. However, reducing rate does not *FIX* the problem. Looking for half-assed measures spouted off by cynical politicians who think they can fool Americans is what keeps us in this situation.

Hold Sanders, and everybody else, accountable for the problem. Don't accept bullshit answers.

What's funny is that you think I am some uber-conservative (Guess that is incongruent with my belief in a single payer system). Your partisanship blinds you to the truth and your inability to even hold your "team" accountable is telling.
Well said, sir. Unfortunately a politician who actually advocated these ideas would have zero chance of winning a Presidential nomination and probably couldn't even hold any but a very few Congrssional Representative seats. Sanders et al propose those useless "solutions" because they wish to retain and grow their power and we demand it.
 
I think it means people with high interest student loans should be able to refinance to lower rates when available and they're eligible for them. I'm not sure what's so confusing about that.
 
Actually, I have to admit that LegendKiller has something there.

If we're talking about college education, we're also affected by a demography and industrial organization with a much-diminished labor movement since the '50s and '60s.

How do you reconcile an imperative to reduce labor costs through various means -- automation, outsourcing -- with an education system that doesn't entirely meet the needs of its consumers?

The paradox about the growth of for-profit education mostly addresses myth-based desires of education consumers without facing the realities that markets don't support the myths anymore.

And I think he's correct about the simple financial common-sense of it. Expectations are out of sync with job-market returns to educational investment.

I've also seen firsthand that administrative costs -- the salaries -- have risen enormously in both public and private institutions. It's become a cash cow for that part of the equation. Meanwhile, your run-of-the-mill assistant professor wage is no less stagnant than wages in any other sector. Look at the growth of "adjunct" staff -- people running around from school to school during a week's time, trying to make a living and struggling with it.

So his junior-college idea has merit. But students need to realize that the sheepskin is no longer a magic ticket. Universal college education for everyone means excess supply in an economy with shrinking demand. People come out of these schools, and they're still competing like the slaves with dibble-sticks working hard-scrabble ground in "Zardoz."

I wouldn't want to be a young millennial today. You can see how Trump's blue-collar angry Caucasian base derives its frustrations. I just think they're misdirected.

Education is just one tool in an economic situation that has other, deeper causes.
 
Lol, you mean the same tax payers who also are or who did go to college and used the very same loans? Just how much money do you think "tax payers" would be losing with such a policy, after you factor in the potential gains in the market from the extra money people will have in their pocket?

Your "reason" is bullshit and you know it. I do love your new, "but the poor government is losing money" tripe, as if money saved from less government spending ever went back to the people. Are you really this stupid?
Look up DoE historical Cohort Default Rates by vintages of when the loans entered repayment. The problem has gotten much worse in the last 10-15 years for students that exited school just before and after the crisis. The only reason why it is going down now is because a huge % of students are on alternative payment plans.

If you look at household formation, percentage of 20-30 year olds living at home, new car sales to the same demographic, if you talk to other lenders such as auto lenders, if you look at small business formation of that cohort, you find that there are sweeping changes to how the generation that graduated just after the .bombs forward can get loans and progress in life.

Why? Because college education coats have skyrocketed. When I went to school it cost 10-12k all in, tuition, books, meals, housing, and that was in the late 90s. Same school now costs 24k 15 years later. For somebody getting a psych degree, 20k in loans (assuming a job in school and family help or scholarships like I had) isn't horrible, you can support that. However, now that same student needs double that amount, or more.

And now, if they fail out in soph or junior year, their defaulted amount is far higher since they don't have a degree.

And going to grad school makes it far worse since there are very high, or no, borrowing caps. Want a master's in psychology? Sure, borrow another 50k, and get no benefit. Still become a social worker.

And we feed kids this lie of everybody has to go to school. Blue collar jobs suck. Trades suck. So many go and fail. Or worse, go and graduate but find no good jobs on the back end. All we get from our "leaders" is that Blue Collar workers feel "uncomfortable" and need to get used to the "new economy" where jobs are shipped overseas, H1B and H2Bs take over jobs, and the college degree you are stuck paying $50k in loans on will get you no more than some shitty service job while you're stuck paying your amount on IBR/PAYE/REPAYE for 25 years till the government forgives you, in the meantime you won't buy a house, or start a family, because you can't live on whatever is left. You'll be dismissed by the "leaders" and derided as "know nothings".

Keep in mind, 50% of the population has below average intelligence. They need jobs and as long as we are importing millions of illegals, H1Bs, H2Bs, and offshoring whatever we can, they will not be able to succeed to the extent they used to. Our "leaders" have fucked them.
 
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I think it means people with high interest student loans should be able to refinance to lower rates when available and they're eligible for them. I'm not sure what's so confusing about that.

They are refinancing them. Look at CommonBond, SoFI, DarienRowayton Bank, among others. But even those guys realize that only the best should be refi'd. They know that the rest of the government's portfolio sucks.
 
Well said, sir. Unfortunately a politician who actually advocated these ideas would have zero chance of winning a Presidential nomination and probably couldn't even hold any but a very few Congrssional Representative seats. Sanders et al propose those useless "solutions" because they wish to retain and grow their power and we demand it.

Of course, look at ivwshane. He just refuses to acknowledge that this whole thing is a sham. Why? Because he has no clue what is going on and doesn't even research it in the slightest. Instead of taking my word for it and looking at the data, as presented, where I try to lead him to water, he resorts to "BUT BUT BUT, YOU LIKE TRUMP!" bullshit.

Demand change and you'll get change. I try to lead the horse to water but there are too many people who won't drink.
 
I'm not sure where he's coming from, but there is some logic to that.

Student loans are guaranteed by the Federal Gov't. It would stand to reason that they would have very low interest rates because, at least as far as the investment goes, the only risk is you'll get your money tied up for a year or two without a return.

So unless I'm missing something, no it doesn't make sense to be charged more than prime lending rate for a student loan as the gov't effectively co-signed the loan.

Edit: I am not a Sanders supporter, at least not yet.

I have to retract that.

My experience with student loans was under the Federal Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program in the early to mid 1990s.

I had assumed these were still in place - they are not. That program ended in 2010.

In that program, if a student defaulted the Federal Gov't would pay off the principal and then the debt would become a debt to the Federal Government, which cannot be expunged even in bankruptcy, just like taxes.

So now student loans are just loans. Frankly this is less onerous than the (now extinct) GSL program to those who wind up being unable to pay, because a normal loan can be expunged whereas the GSL could not.

And yes, Bernie is dreaming again. Banks would simply stop lending if forced to lend to un-creditworthy students with no assets at low rates.
 
I have to retract that.

My experience with student loans was under the Federal Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL) program in the early to mid 1990s.

I had assumed these were still in place - they are not. That program ended in 2010.

In that program, if a student defaulted the Federal Gov't would pay off the principal and then the debt would become a debt to the Federal Government, which cannot be expunged even in bankruptcy, just like taxes.

So now student loans are just loans. Frankly this is less onerous than the (now extinct) GSL program to those who wind up being unable to pay, because a normal loan can be expunged whereas the GSL could not.

And yes, Bernie is dreaming again. Banks would simply stop lending if forced to lend to un-creditworthy students with no assets at low rates.
You are referring to FFELP loans, which were originated by private lenders, funded in the debt market, and guaranteed by guarantor agencies throughout the country and 97%+ re-guaranteed by the Department of Education. If the borrower defaulted the student loan company got paid by the guarantor at 100%, the guarantor got paid 97% by the government. And the guarantor would then rehab the loan or try to collect on it.

All student loan debt, regardless of who owns it, is generally not dischargeable. FFELP, Direct Loans (both since late 70s or early 80s), and private (since 2005).
 
Actually, I have to admit that LegendKiller has something there.

If we're talking about college education, we're also affected by a demography and industrial organization with a much-diminished labor movement since the '50s and '60s.

How do you reconcile an imperative to reduce labor costs through various means -- automation, outsourcing -- with an education system that doesn't entirely meet the needs of its consumers?

The paradox about the growth of for-profit education mostly addresses myth-based desires of education consumers without facing the realities that markets don't support the myths anymore.

And I think he's correct about the simple financial common-sense of it. Expectations are out of sync with job-market returns to educational investment.

I've also seen firsthand that administrative costs -- the salaries -- have risen enormously in both public and private institutions. It's become a cash cow for that part of the equation. Meanwhile, your run-of-the-mill assistant professor wage is no less stagnant than wages in any other sector. Look at the growth of "adjunct" staff -- people running around from school to school during a week's time, trying to make a living and struggling with it.

So his junior-college idea has merit. But students need to realize that the sheepskin is no longer a magic ticket. Universal college education for everyone means excess supply in an economy with shrinking demand. People come out of these schools, and they're still competing like the slaves with dibble-sticks working hard-scrabble ground in "Zardoz."

I wouldn't want to be a young millennial today. You can see how Trump's blue-collar angry Caucasian base derives its frustrations. I just think they're misdirected.

Education is just one tool in an economic situation that has other, deeper causes.
Good points. Education costs have become decoupled from economic benefits but also education has become decoupled from the actual job market. This won't be fixed by students though because so many are there for the university experience. It's the one time kids get to be functionally adults while someone else foots the bill. It's also become illusionary, as the students' portions are merely postponed and often fairly often crippling.

Perhaps one intermediate step is to cap tuition. Set one flat level that is the maximum, including activity fees and other dodges, equal to state universities. Any for-profit university taking students on government loans must limit their total fees to that level. If they wish to charge more - and many are worth more - then let them arrange and underwrite their own loan programs.
 
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