I graduated college in 1980, modern high water mark for US inflation was 1981 so have seen good and bad times. Zig Ziglar quote: “discouragement is a luxury you can’t afford”. If you are spending more than 30 seconds a day bemoaning this current economic situation you are wasting time. Get to work. If something doesn’t work reevaluate or move on. Prepare. Educate yourself. Spend time with the people you love, eat and sleep. That should leave you the 30 seconds I mentioned.
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I’ve gotta build one that doesn’t blow up first hahaha
That is a phenomenal tip. Not many people talk about leveraging debt and then leveraging inflation with your debt. You’ve gotta be pretty confident and probably much smarter than me to do that properly though.
Don’t worry, work!
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that is an emotional response, there is no difference. The only thing that changes is one’s perspective. When I learned this I had to do some introspection, I realized it that I was conditioned to believe to pay all debts. This stemmed from Europeans, mainly the English, who had sent many debtor prisoners to the U.S.
There is also no such thing as pure altruism.
Maybe true, but integrity definitely exists…
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Maybe I’m not following this correctly, but not paying debts is akin to theft at the least, and low moral character at the most. There is a current thread here somewhere about trying to collect from a customer. Forgiving college loans is going to cost every single US citizen $5300, man, woman and child. Pay your debts.
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I can debate the pros and cons of many subjects without having a belief one way or the other. It is something ingrained in me through many logic and philosophy classes over the years. With regard to the college loan forgiveness, I paid my student loans off but I can see an argument for forgiveness. Harvard got 9 million in coronavirus money from the gov, they were built with private and public monies over the years, and they have about a $40 billion endowment. Some will say loan forgiveness is a way to buy votes, but most government programs are intended to buy votes or gather funding for certain politicians. It is a messy discussion.
Meanwhile, our country has a 31 Trillion dollar deficit, but they found 40 million to leave in cash on a pallet in Afghanistan the other week. I rather they forgive debt for American students then give $3 billion to Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Ethiopia like they did this last year.
I don’t think you know how this works. The govt doesn’t give their money to colleges, they give my money. The debt is not given. It has to be paid back by the taxpayers, not the students who agreed to pay the loan back. The money on the pallet was theirs to begin with. It was seized during sanctions and then given back. I wish we weren’t given billions to others countries but what has that to do with student loans or the price of hubba bubba gum?
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I’m bored, too cold to do anything outside, and I fixed my tractor yesterday while waiting for the new snow storm to come through, so…
in·teg·ri·ty
/inˈteɡrədē/
noun
the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.
Ahhh, morals, that is definitely something that isn’t logical.
Morals - a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.
It is a belief system. I’m not telling you that you are wrong, I am just saying that it is something that you believe in. There is the social contract that we live under, and those laws determine what is right or wrong, not beliefs.
Whether you believe it or not, there are a lot of business people that believe in walking away from debts. Reincorporate and begin again. It is crazy when you think of it. How do they get loans or financing? Banks still lend them money. I only use trump as an example because he is well known, but he walked away from lots of debts, stiffed tons of contractors over the years, and people thought he walked on water. Hell, they voted him in as president.
We can get all political…but this attitude is what’s wrong with America, and the world. Morals are not debatable or relative to the individual or society. It was once societally acceptable to marry an 8 year old, was it moral then? I’m not talking about if society views you as moral, or if you can sleep at night with whatever it is. Absolute morality does (and has always) existed. Relativism claims everything is “a construct”, when relativism itself is the thing that has been constructed to make men feel OK with their sins. I could discuss theology all day long, but I won’t subject this board to it, lol.
I took a philosophy class once, maybe that is the problem, it was all garbage (or maybe I feel that way because I got a “D” in it) 
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I doubt anyone would argue Trump was of strong moral character. I personally thought he was an $%#@%#$^&$, but would vote for him from the options presented for the leadership and management qualities. I don’t look to political leaders for moral leadership, nor do I think changing the laws is how we make things better morally…
I know how it works, I had student debt. I signed for loans. I had loan books. The GI BILL and my reservist money didn’t go so far. I also saw how predatory the loan system is. As soon as I had graduated the federal loan was sold to three banks. So instead of one lender, I now had three. I think they have stopped some of that. My kid is at the university now, we were deemed too wealthy to get any financial aid and it also ruled us out of some scholarships. I can’t fathom how someone with less means can even think of going to a university now.
The federal and state governments, and local governments too, give your tax dollars to colleges and universities every year. This can be in the form of cash/grants/aid etc, some states ceed land to them. These universities then charge taxpayers or taxpayer’s offspring money to attend their institution.
Why did taxpayer offspring attend a university? Unfortunately, many positions in America now require a degree to get in the door. More are now requiring advanced degrees to get in. My last position required a bachelor’s as minimum entry requirements. My wife’s position required her to be a nurse practitioner and are now requiring her to get a doctorate or doctoral or out the door you will go.
An institution’s degree is only worthwhile if it meets the U.S. Department of Educations accreditation criteria. This is politics pure and simple. The head of the dept is a political appointee. Most of these people don’t have educational backgrounds. here is a list if your are ever intrigued. Political Appointees in the Biden-Harris Administration
The last question is what does this have to do with anything (foreign aid). I will answer with one word: Choice. Someone made a choice to give taxpayers money to foreign governments over that of American students, the poor, the (insert favorite group here). My argument is they have squandered 31 trillion on various things. They can give money where it is needed, and investing in our future isn’t a bad thing.
I could go on ad nauseum and cite sources about the stratification of society based on education, but that is boring. I rather sand my pellet stove and repaint it. I did it once but it didn’t look right, so I have to resand and repaint. That satin sheen shows every defect in the prep on metal.
Thanks for the replies, this has been fun.
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What you lack in understanding you make up for with verbosity I reckon
Dude, I took understanding the bible as a philosophy class once. We spent 4 months debating a certain issue I won’t discuss here as it would tend to enflame the populace. Needless to say it was probably the hardest class I ever took in college in either my bachelors or master’s programs.
Logic class was pure joy. I loved my law classes. Heck I even enjoyed latin compared to that philosophy class. I took other philosophy classes but that was like pure torture. Final exam, multiple choice A through I, for every single question. It took 2+ hours to take that test.
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The reality statistically is, far too many people go to college these days. Asa society we’ve made it almost mandatory, but if you look at the numbers roughly 1/3 cannot find a degree level job. That stat jives with the one I saw elsewhere that roughly 1/3 of jobs listed req’d a degree, while 1/2 of job seekers had one (again 1/3 too many). What we need to do is let them fail, and let economics resolve the problem. If people stop paying the crazy tuition rates, they will go down, and some universities will fail. Eventually supply & demand will level things out. For these reasons, loan forgiveness isn’t a bailout of the student in debt, it’s a defacto bailout of the universities, by propping up an industry that is way out of balance, and not allowing it to correct itself.
Agreed we should focus on the US way before we are sending it overseas…this was probably Trump’s biggest strength, (and where his willingness to be an %&^*%&^$ shined IMO) lol.
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A multiple choice philosophy test…that should have been entertaining…
I’ll sum it up so you don’t have to read all that. The government is knee deep in creating this education system expense by propping up universities with taxpayer money. They then let everyone deal with it until it was (and still is) a nightmare. IN the meantime they choose to give everyone and their brother money, U.S. corporation, foreign countries, etc, but kids trying to get a degree to work are somehow the devil. Paying this debt off won’t amount to much with 31 trillion in debt. It’s just one more bill america won’t pay.
This is just one viewpoint. I can argue your point too if you like, but I am going to take a break from typing and maybe start sanding if the pellet stove is cool enough.
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Agree and disagree, you know how this goes.
Go to college for an IT degree, medical, engineering, etc, all the things (STEM degrees) employers are crying about that they can’t find. Then they go and beg congress to up the number of visas for people in certain skillsets so they don’t have to pay a living wage to U.S. graduates.
On the other hand, johnny goes to a prestigious private university for underwater basket weaving, then goes for a masters at another out of state private university for interpretive dance. Comes out saddled with 300k or more in student loans. Why should anyone have to pay for his fun ride? Anyone who has been to school has seen these stories, and have witnessed the people who change their majors 3 times and graduate after 6 years, all on the taxpayer. Those are the “loan forgiveness” programs no one ever hears about.
Enjoyed the debate. Keeps the mind working.
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Typing a lot doesn’t change the fact that you are opposed to paying debts. Wordiness is like vulgarity. It is often used to bolster a frayed logic. But, you do you and the rest of us will pay your debts thru higher taxes I guess.
You meant, “why should anyone have to pay for his bad decision” 
My degrees were thought through as to whether they would pay enough to make sense, whether they would be in demand in multiple states of the economy, etc. I actually had someone on LI respond to that by saying, “so kids should choose their degree based on what will pay better?” They were shocked by this concept (of course it turned out they had a PhD in philosophy…I think I got their goat a little with my devaluation of their prestigious degrees lol). I’m shocked that those things, and supply/demand, have to be explained to people over there…shouldn’t everyone have that basic knowledge after getting a degree? But everyone has at least 2-3 basket weaving courses they were required to take…
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