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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @01:54AM (5 children)
Clearly, the answer is to give the state more power and we can have the paradise of Venezuela
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday May 19 2017, @03:49AM (1 child)
Yeah, Venezuelian communism and cronyism is the shit! :-)
Lot's of oil resources and all to crap anyway. Nobel prize in inability? :p
On a more clear thinking note it must be up to individuals to set the conditions for which they are willing to trade their carrots, tools or time for something else. And not dictated by others through the means of a barrel of a gun or thugs.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @05:05AM
Before they could have Communism, they'd first need to have Socialism.
That would be a whole bunch of worker-owned cooperative businesses.
They don't have that.
What they have is a BADLY-RUN Liberal Democracy that depends on ONE commodity.
What that country needs is a proper ECONOMIC system.
Clearly, State Capitalism isn't working out for them.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @04:46AM (2 children)
Capitalism is NOT a governmental system.
If you thought about it for half a second[1], you would then realize that THE OPPOSITE OF CAPITALISM IS NOT A GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM EITHER.
[1] I realize it's asking a lot of you to think. Don't blow a lobe, dude.
The way to disempower Capitalists is to EMPOWER THE WORKERS.
The way you do this is to make workers into worker-owners via the ECONOMIC system called Socialism.
Government is -already- picking winners and losers and is subsidizing the rich.
What's wrong with STOPPING THAT?
Since 1985, Italy has been using national unemployment insurance payouts to turn workers who were idled by boom-and-bust Capitalists into worker-owners, presiding over their own businesses startups.
In the process, they've created thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of worker-owned cooperatives which make up a sizable portion of the Italian economy.
The Marcora Law [google.com]
...and do try to cough up some of that Cold War bullshit you've swallowed before it kills you.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday May 19 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)
I think what you're talking about is more syndicalism than socialism. Pure syndicalism, just like pure capitalism, is a form of anarchy.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @08:41PM
Not in the slightest.
I never mentioned labor unions in that comment.
I'm talking about business startups that are One worker == One vote, with all votes being equal.
In northern Italy, as mentioned, they have them by the thousands and, as mentioned, they make up a sizable portion of the economy.
I've also mentioned the Mondragon worker-owned cooperative here hundreds of times.
In the 1980s, Sweden proposed a system similar to what you mentioned.
"Socialist" plan in Sweden would gradually take over private industry [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [csmonitor.com]
It was still top-down.
The voters rejected it.
In recent months, we discussed an IT co-op.
Swedish Worker Cooperative Software Development Company Has No Boss [soylentnews.org]
THAT is the model to which I am referring.
...and I would be happy to see Baby Boomer business owners, as they retire, turning over their existing businesses to a worker cooperative formed by their employees.
capitalism, is a form of anarchy
Get a clue.
Capitalism is top-down exploitation of workers.
Syndicalism is top-down as well--especially when you consider the performance of USAian union officials over the last 4 decades.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]