SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the I-owe,-I-owe,-it's-off-to-work-I-go dept.
Another day, another record broken.
The debt held by US households has surpassed its pre-2008 record, several financial outlets note. A peculiar spotlight in the associated numbers falls on student loans, where delinquencies are multiple times higher than for other debt types: 10 percent is the norm.
That's some pretty troubling news for the economy [and wider society], notes Rana Foroohar at sister outlet the Financial Times. First off, there's the association between the rise in student debt, and a decrease in home ownership for young people. This connection is exacerbated by them millennials increasingly turning towards income-based repayment programmes, which spread out the debt over more years.
Secondly, the level of student debt delinquencies ain't changing: the 10 percent figure is a near-constant over the past 4-5 years. People who've ever had a delinquency -- even if they recover -- have a much lower rate of home ownership at age 30 as compared to their non-defaulted compatriots. Not having a home means not filling it with stuff, and filling with stuff is kinda what the economy is based on.
Then, thirdly, it's not only students that are hit by student debt: increasingly, their parents are taking on debt too, to help out. Fuel for that debt sandwich is something peculiar: the rate of inflation in college admission costs is three times higher than the consumer price index. Must be that college professors wages have increased a lot, then.
Given that boomers and their millennial offspring are the two largest voting blocks in the US, a snappy future president-elect might consider raising the issue a bit.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by idiot_king on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:12PM (3 children)
The very fact that some humans believe this qualifies as "humor" is not only horrifying but I would argue is precisely the reason we're in the predicament we're in now.
Sincerity has gone out the window and, in its stead, has been replaced by Trumpian Hyperbole, by which I essentially mean every word uttered by everyone nowadays is essentially a loaded statement or is at least interpretable as a loaded statement.
Such are the people, such are the times.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday May 18 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)
Hyperbole? Nonsense.
I guarantee you, if my plan above is enacted, the world will thank us for it later, even if you don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @12:33AM
Can we purge annoying twits like you? For sure that would make the world a better place.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @01:05AM
Most of the list really would help. Some of it is horrifying, but life is cruel. Going down the list...
The more conservative Jews are not harmful. Problem is, they all left for Israel. We're left with liberal ones like George Soros. Those people are harmful. There is also something to be said about punishment for people who sexually mutilate week-old babies. That is an extra-special kind of evil.
The illegal aliens are costing us billions upon billions. Just the services alone are more than enough to pay for a new wall every year. One of the reasons for a bad economy in Africa is linguistic diversity; we should not allow it here.
Medical costs increase greatly over age 70, and productivity in the workplace greatly declines. Still, we might reduce incentives if we arbitrarily euthanize anybody older than 70. This one could backfire. We'd have to limit it to sickly people in families that have not been beneficial to our economy.
The same goes for the "euthanize all defective offspring" idea.
The idea that we should "Halt immigration and kill all work-visa programs except those that require $300,000/yr talent" is nearly perfect. It needs to be expressed in terms that won't be impacted by inflation. We should instead set a requirement that income must be at minimum 5x the median, 10x the 10th percentile, and 3x the 90th percentile.
It is effective to "Shoot anybody who tries to illegally cross the border on sight". This works. Let volunteers participate. Also, we can do landmines.
There are issues with the idea that we should "Nuke the Middle East, including Israel". I suspect it is a bad idea. The pros and cons are clear, but their relative seriousness is not. Fully autonomous drones with rifles would be far more environmentally friendly, so that is almost certainly a good idea.
We could "Halt all foreign aid, including UN/NATO contributions", but then we lose some influence. We like our influence. We keep countries addicted to our foreign aid and we set conditions on it, such as buying American goods shipped via American ships. This one is another "maybe".
The "Cap all salaries at 300K" idea is going to be ineffective (workarounds) and there will be inflation issues, so no, this one is a disaster. We should address corporate executive compensation in some other way, probably causing delayed payouts that relate to long-term performance even after the person leaves the job. We might also increase taxes for high-earners, perhaps to 50% of income over $million/year.
We can and should "execute bankers who are complicit in market crashes". China does this.
It would be great to "execute George Soros and all other foreign meddlers", but there are difficulties defining this precisely and difficulties ensuring that the law is evenly applied. I don't think this can work.
Well yeah, "Donald Trump, baby!" is obvious when the alternatives all lacked the most basic qualification for the job: willing to put the USA first, without hesitation or shame.
It's mighty hard to "purge the American congress of the crooked pedo human-traffickers". Sorry, they don't do this out in the open.