The New Bubble

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Remus West
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:50 am Ytf would it cost 40k to learn about ancient basket weaving is another part of the equation that needs to be addressed.
Thats part of my point. there is zero oversight into how the money is spent. to a teenager without proper guidance - hell, to a lot of adults without proper guidance - the loans are simply free money. Right until they find out how much they have to repay. I was never once asked how the money was actually spent when I was in school. They just wanted to know what program I was in and what school. What I spent the money on was never questioned. They didn't set my loan amount based off my tuition from what I can tell because I could have borrowed about double what I actually did.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LordMortis »

RunningMn9 wrote: Tue Jun 05, 2018 9:58 pm I’m with you Blackhawk! :)

I’ve seen how hard it is to get a mid-to-late teenager to think long-term and to really evaluate consequences. It ain’t easy.

Because they’re idiots.
One of my nephews did what many in my family do. Join the military because the cost/value of college is hard to justify. (I would have done the same but they wouldn't even let me take the ASVAB. Anyoo...) His whole enlisted group are basically tucking all of their earnings away into Crypto and bragging about how rich they are getting. I'm like "You're making money! Awesome. But all your money in is nothing but gambling. If that makes you happy. Gamble but be smart about it, pull some chips back in while you are ahead. Put 'em in your pocket. Or at the very least let your money ride and don't keep putting more on the table. Nope. They're a group euphoria about getting rich on bitcoin. And he's got our gaming/gambling gene.

You can guide them but they have to learn for themselves. So did we all. Now, if you guide them well enough at a young enough age you can mitigate against idiocy but mitigation is all you get.

Remus West wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:45 am Every single other loan system requires the lender to take on risk of repayment except the student loan system. Why? From what I can see it is because that way we can continue to shove the narrative of "college for everyone" down their throats and turn around and make a lot of free interest off their labor.
I'd really like get the full cause and effect of this. The whole structure/function understanding, if you will. Something seems very much out whack with non collateral based five to six figure loans to 17/18 year olds. The justification and consequence has to be expressed somewhere. By my old ass bones, it's a relatively recent occurrence that correlated well with the cost increases of higher education.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by noxiousdog »

Remus West wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:45 am Wrong. As noted you can walk away from a bad home purchase. It takes a hit to your credit but you can walk away.

As to your average borrower stats, it isn't the average person I'm talking about. With 40 million + borrowers there are millions well above that level. I'm also not talking about lawyers and doctors.
Who are you talking about? Above average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.

Also, I'm fine with addressing bankruptcy law. I don't see why it should be treated any differently than anything else.
I'm more concerned about the people who borrowed to go places like Trump University that are being held to the fire to repay (Trump U being only one example of a load of bad educational "opportunities" out there). The Federal government requires you to tell them where you're going to spend the loan and on what (at least I had to when I did Grad school in teaching) yet they do nothing with that information to protect the borrower. Then we act amazed when the BS in basket-weaving techniques of ancient alien civilizations doesn't allow the borrower to repay 40K in loans while feeding and sheltering themselves.
Agreed on scam universities/training, etc. I'm less sympathetic to people who major in Cthulu basket weaving.
Every single other loan system requires the lender to take on risk of repayment except the student loan system. Why? From what I can see it is because that way we can continue to shove the narrative of "college for everyone" down their throats and turn around and make a lot of free interest off their labor.
There's no such thing as free interest, but yes, they should fear default more than they do. Of course, that will mean interest on student loans will rise significantly.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by RunningMn9 »

noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:39 amAbove average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.
How much of their debt is from grad school and how much is from undergrad?
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by noxiousdog »

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:54 am
noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:39 amAbove average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.
How much of their debt is from grad school and how much is from undergrad?
We've established I don't particularly care. I was curious about Remus since it sounds like he's only concerned about the undergrads with excessive debt loads and no prospects. How big is that problem?
Black Lives Matter

"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Remus West
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:39 am
Remus West wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 9:45 am Wrong. As noted you can walk away from a bad home purchase. It takes a hit to your credit but you can walk away.

As to your average borrower stats, it isn't the average person I'm talking about. With 40 million + borrowers there are millions well above that level. I'm also not talking about lawyers and doctors.
Who are you talking about? Above average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.

Also, I'm fine with addressing bankruptcy law. I don't see why it should be treated any differently than anything else.
I'm more concerned about the people who borrowed to go places like Trump University that are being held to the fire to repay (Trump U being only one example of a load of bad educational "opportunities" out there). The Federal government requires you to tell them where you're going to spend the loan and on what (at least I had to when I did Grad school in teaching) yet they do nothing with that information to protect the borrower. Then we act amazed when the BS in basket-weaving techniques of ancient alien civilizations doesn't allow the borrower to repay 40K in loans while feeding and sheltering themselves.
Agreed on scam universities/training, etc. I'm less sympathetic to people who major in Cthulu basket weaving.
Every single other loan system requires the lender to take on risk of repayment except the student loan system. Why? From what I can see it is because that way we can continue to shove the narrative of "college for everyone" down their throats and turn around and make a lot of free interest off their labor.
There's no such thing as free interest, but yes, they should fear default more than they do. Of course, that will mean interest on student loans will rise significantly.
The free interest that I'm talking about is the government essentially forcing payments (through garnishing wages, etc) when those payments do not cover enough to reduce the principal so the loan itself keeps growing while the borrowers are actively paying. That is the government collecting "free interest" since they are not actually investing more but only holding the borrowers feet to the flames to collect. They do not fear default because they do not allow default. You literally can not default a student loan without going off the books for your pay (which opens you up to tax evasion charges and things of that nature). They will keep coming for your payment. Being in default on a student loan simply means you're not currently making payments. Never fear though. You will. They will make certain of that.

As for interest rates going up, I'm not sure that has to happen if you reduce the risk in the loans. Require borrowers to establish a repayment plan based off of their educational goals and expected outcomes to determine the amount they are eligible to borrow rather than "hey how much do you want" that goes on now.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LordMortis »

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:54 am
noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:39 amAbove average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.
How much of their debt is from grad school and how much is from undergrad?
My informal reading says that most debt is accumulated from post grad studies but again, I look at the numbers presented and they never add up. This may or may not be related to your question as ND says most (large) debt is held by people who are still students. I find that hard to believe but I have nothing to point my disbelief to. It's strange to me to think that not only is 60% of 1.4 trillion dollars in debt held by active students but also by the subset of grad students. That further divorces me from understanding how our systems is working. I would assume that people out of school paying debts off (or not) from 0 to 10+ years out of school would be greater than people who are in the process of incurring more debt for 0-10 years with 10 years being an extreme outlier. Again, ignorance or dumbness here. None of it makes any sense to me at all.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by RunningMn9 »

noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:00 amWe've established I don't particularly care. I was curious about Remus since it sounds like he's only concerned about the undergrads with excessive debt loads and no prospects. How big is that problem?
I wasn't aware that you didn't care, since you've pointed it out multiple times.

While it may be true that 60% of the student loan debt is currently held by grad students, there are elements to the problem that might be getting hidden by the way the stats are presented by the link you offered.

Being a grad student may or may not have an appreciable impact on either your job prospects or earning potential since the data doesn't include what they are in grad school for. I get that there are probably better odds, but there are a number of factors that make me question that.

The 2008 collapse led to a lot of undergrad students deciding to go to grad school that didn't need to and may not be helped by it (because staying in school meant they didn't have to fail at getting a job as the economy went into free fall).

We also don't know if the average student loan debt is really average student loan debt still outstanding. If we've got a lot of people from 2008 and 2009 that are one to two years from paying off their loans, and they are dragging the average down, that can also statistically hide any issues that accelerated after they graduated.

You are looking at that $27k figure and saying "See? No big deal." I think that you are either completely misrepresenting that number, or not understanding what it actually is.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:00 am
RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:54 am
noxiousdog wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 10:39 amAbove average borrowers who aren't grad students is a very small group of people since 60% of debt is held by grad students.
How much of their debt is from grad school and how much is from undergrad?
We've established I don't particularly care. I was curious about Remus since it sounds like he's only concerned about the undergrads with excessive debt loads and no prospects. How big is that problem?
I'm not concerned if they are undergrad or grad. I'm concerned that they were given a story to believe in and sold a false line. These people are Jack only the beans their mother throws out the window do not grow into a climb top riches but rather rot and fester into a sinkhole taking them down with it.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Re: The New Bubble

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LordMortis wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:05 amI find that hard to believe but I have nothing to point my disbelief to.
A senior in an undergrad program that just graduated has the full principle still on the books. Someone that graduated 9 years earlier likely has only a handful of payments left (assuming a 10-year repayment schedule, which I only chose because that's what my wife had).

The reason that I am asking questions about that data is because the relevant point to this conversation (to me) is what is the average amount of student load debt *at graduation*. And maybe that's what the number is that ND linked to. It's not clear to me though that the average isn't an average of debt outstanding, in which case the average has a large number of people in the final year of repayment with microscopic principles that are bringing the average down.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

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As an example, according to this, for the class of 2017, the average student will graduate with $39,400 in student loan debt. Even that number - does that include students that graduated debt free in the average? I doubt it, but I don't know for sure.

At 4%, that's a $400 a month payment for someone that doesn't have a job yet. For the same class, the average starting salary for college grads is $49,785.

Nearly 10% of their gross salary is getting clipped right off the top. Assuming they get that job. And that's the average nationally. A good deal of those students are losing a lot more.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

It's fun watching old people question an entire generation's financial decisions, which were, apparently, made in a vacuum with no cultural pressures or education from the very same old people happily mocking them.

It's not that the decisions are smart. It's that there is a reason why so many are making the same bad decisions.

Hint: It's not because the younger generation is less intelligent than generations that came before it. Em2's opinions to the contrary.
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Re: The New Bubble

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You want to believe that there are adults that can understand interest - but the reality is so much more complicated than that. Understand the context and consequences of that loan payment are much broader. You can do the math using averages, but what happens when you do the math for your geographic location and realize that the starting salaries are much lower? Or for the industry you chose to go into, which collapsed your senior year? At 17 years old, how you do properly determine the social, emotional and financial impact that your loan or field will require you to move 1000 miles away from all of your friends and family?

The decisions that these 17-year olds are being asked to make have such a vast impact on the rest of their lives, and it's not just about simple interest calculations. And they aren't always capable of making those proper valuations until it's too late.

I've had all of these conversations dozens of times, and its why they've never centered on college itself. What is it you want to do in life? What kind of life do you want? How important is family? What ties do you have to this area and how important are they to you? Those are the questions that you have to answer. And you have to evaluate your decisions against that rubric. Not just a simple interest calculation.

And that's what I can't believe we put on 17-year olds. The loans themselves are just a consequence of a series of decisions that were made by people not equipped to make them properly.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by RunningMn9 »

GreenGoo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:25 amIt's fun watching old people question an entire generation's financial decisions, which were, apparently, made in a vacuum with no cultural pressures or education from the very same old people happily mocking them.
I don't feel like I'm questioning them per se. I'm questioning the cultural pressure we've applied and the lack of financial/life education we've given them.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:28 am
GreenGoo wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:25 amIt's fun watching old people question an entire generation's financial decisions, which were, apparently, made in a vacuum with no cultural pressures or education from the very same old people happily mocking them.
I don't feel like I'm questioning them per se. I'm questioning the cultural pressure we've applied and the lack of financial/life education we've given them.
I'm with RM9 here but I'll add that I'm concerned with our lack of interest in helping them recover from decisions we pressured them into making.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Re: The New Bubble

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Remus West wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:05 pmI'm with RM9 here but I'll add that I'm concerned with our lack of interest in helping them recover from decisions we pressured them into making.
I'm torn on this one part. I have sympathy for them in some ways, but the ones with the most grievous student loan debt, that whine about it, they did that to themselves.

For the average kid coming out, hopefully only paying 10% of the gross salary they hope to get, that's a rough way to start out. And of course, we criticize this group when they do something sensible like stay at home longer because they can't really afford to move out.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Fitzy »

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 12:27 pm
For the average kid coming out, hopefully only paying 10% of the gross salary they hope to get, that's a rough way to start out.
This probably changes little, but it doesn't have to be 10% of gross salary. Consolidating and using an income based repayment plan it's 10-15% of discretionary income, which can be as little as $0.00. After 20-25 years of payments the loan is forgiven. The ranges are due to treating people before 2014 differently from those after. Assuming Congress/Idiot in White House leave the programs alone.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LawBeefaroni »

So just like love and free will.
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Re: The New Bubble

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RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 11:26 am And that's what I can't believe we put on 17-year olds. The loans themselves are just a consequence of a series of decisions that were made by people not equipped to make them properly.
There are very few similarly impactful decisions in life where someone must show they are equipped to make them properly.

Having kids. Buying a house. Taking out any other type of loan. Quitting a job. Taking a job. Consuming alcohol. Taking prescriptions.

College loans may be predatory which is fine but putting it down to the assumption that a 17-18 year old is not responsible for their decisions or actions is quite frankly a cop-out.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Blackhawk »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:45 pm College loans may be predatory which is fine but putting it down to the assumption that a 17-18 year old is not responsible for their decisions or actions is quite frankly a cop-out.
There is a difference between what is being described and claiming that they're not responsible for their decisions.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by noxiousdog »

Good speech. His solution was education. He didn't complain about loans at all.
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"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by RunningMn9 »

LawBeefaroni wrote:There are very few similarly impactful decisions in life where someone must show they are equipped to make them properly.
It’s not whether they can show they are equipped to make them properly. It’s that it’s the one impactful decision where we *know* they aren’t generally able to make it. Their brains just aren’t wired to process it yet.
And in banks across the world
Christians, Moslems, Hindus, Jews
And every other race, creed, colour, tint or hue
Get down on their knees and pray
The raccoon and the groundhog neatly
Make up bags of change
But the monkey in the corner
Well he's slowly drifting out of range
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by malchior »

Don't worry about the millenials. There is a solution. They just need to work longer and harder than their parents and grandparents.
My research suggests that those concerns are real, and millennials really are building wealth more slowly than the other working generations. But they are not insurmountable—as long as millennials are willing and able to work longer than their parents and grandparents did.

A comparison of millennials (adults currently ages 25 to 35) with earlier cohorts (Gen-Xers and late baby boomers) when they were the same age shows that even though a higher percentage of both millennial men and women have college degrees, they are behind in almost every economic dimension.
...both men and women have had more difficulty finding quality jobs—career-track positions with good compensation. As a result, they are not only behind Gen Xers and late Baby Boomers on their earnings trajectory, they’re also less likely than previ­ous cohorts to receive important employer-sponsored benefits such as retirement savings plans and health insurance.

In terms of preparing for retirement, millennials have three strikes against them. First, because of limited access to retirement plans at work, millennials will struggle to build retirement savings, since experience shows that people have a great deal of trouble saving on their own. Second, they are less likely to have bought a home, and home equity is a valuable retirement asset. And third, they are more likely to be burdened by student loans, and young workers with student loans have less to stash in retirement plans and are more likely to end up at risk in retirement.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LordMortis »

malchior wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 8:58 am In terms of preparing for retirement, millennials have three strikes against them. First, because of limited access to retirement plans at work, millennials will struggle to build retirement savings, since experience shows that people have a great deal of trouble saving on their own. Second, they are less likely to have bought a home, and home equity is a valuable retirement asset. And third, they are more likely to be burdened by student loans, and young workers with student loans have less to stash in retirement plans and are more likely to end up at risk in retirement.

I won't knock that we are leaving mellenials and those after a shit sandwich but....

Their retirements are no different than Xer's unless they are seeking contracts work. It's those who came before the Xer's who got pensions and such. All we get is SafeHarbor 401ks, which costs companies almost nothing unless they have match plans, which are available to all. Xers and the people in between X and Mellenial suffered higher interest rates and the mortage collapse allowing mellenials to get in super cheap to first time buying. The now those that come after? They're fucked. Student loans? Well, that's what this thread is all about.

I have no skin in the game but the ones on trajectory for being truly fucked? Post mellenials.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

I'm sure none of this has to do with the increase in wealth gap in the US. Someone posted how the gap has increased in the US by multiples of the increases in other 1st world nations, although I don't remember where it was posted.

Seems to me that the wealth gap has to be part of this wealth accumulation discrepancy between generations that has little to do with old people have all the money (added for ND). Old people have all the money in every 1st world country. Old people have more of all the money in the US on the order of 2 or 3 times other countries. Apparently.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LordMortis »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:19 am I'm sure none of this has to do with the increase in wealth gap in the US. Someone posted how the gap has increased in the US by multiples of the increases in other 1st world nations, although I don't remember where it was posted.

Seems to me that the wealth gap has to be part of this wealth accumulation discrepancy between generations that has little to do with old people have all the money (added for ND). Old people have all the money in every 1st world country. Old people have more of all the money in the US on the order of 2 or 3 times other countries. Apparently.
Given productivity continues to increase "exponentially" in this "disruptive" economy, I think it's hard to argue against the idea that the wealth gap isn't changing the game.

/runs to google... wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_in ... ted_States
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-sta ... per-capita
http://www.economywatch.com/news/Averag ... 09-30.html (From 2014)
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by noxiousdog »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:19 am I'm sure none of this has to do with the increase in wealth gap in the US. Someone posted how the gap has increased in the US by multiples of the increases in other 1st world nations, although I don't remember where it was posted.

Seems to me that the wealth gap has to be part of this wealth accumulation discrepancy between generations that has little to do with old people have all the money (added for ND). Old people have all the money in every 1st world country. Old people have more of all the money in the US on the order of 2 or 3 times other countries. Apparently.
That's a really good point. However, what we really need is the data with the top .1% shaved off. Those guys completely distort the top quinile
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

I'm not sure that we do. I'm not comparing the wealth of the top wealthiest to the wealth of everyone else, I'm saying that the wealthiest used to own 10% of all wealth in the country, leaving 90% for everyone else. Now they own 20%. That's a reduction of 11%, meaning everyone who isn't the wealthiest now have 11% less wealth to divvy up than they did previously (whenever that was. 10 years ago? 20?).

So while I agree that the wealthiest of the wealthy skew wealth comparisons, in this case they are removing an additional 10% of all wealth available to the rest of us ("us" being Americans). The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
But it will trickle down. Thanks Trump!

and in typing that I just noticed the tie in between his economic ideas and his Russian hotel ideas.......
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

Remus West wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:37 am
GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
But it will trickle down. Thanks Trump!

and in typing that I just noticed the tie in between his economic ideas and his Russian hotel ideas.......
While he is absolutely enriching himself and his buddies, this wealth gap has been decades in the making, not to mention that a few million here and there doesn't even show up on the wealth gap data (i.e. it's billions). This is one thing that can't be pinned on drumpf. Though he's certainly not doing anything to reverse the trend, that's for sure.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Remus West »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:41 am
Remus West wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:37 am
GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
But it will trickle down. Thanks Trump!

and in typing that I just noticed the tie in between his economic ideas and his Russian hotel ideas.......
While he is absolutely enriching himself and his buddies, this wealth gap has been decades in the making, not to mention that a few million here and there doesn't even show up on the wealth gap data (i.e. it's billions). This is one thing that can't be pinned on drumpf. Though he's certainly not doing anything to reverse the trend, that's for sure.
Yes, the trend was there before him. His policy is going to make it magnitudes worse. I was mostly playing on the "Thanks Obama" thing though.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by malchior »

LordMortis wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:17 am Their retirements are no different than Xer's unless they are seeking contracts work. It's those who came before the Xer's who got pensions and such. All we get is SafeHarbor 401ks, which costs companies almost nothing unless they have match plans, which are available to all. Xers and the people in between X and Mellenial suffered higher interest rates and the mortage collapse allowing mellenials to get in super cheap to first time buying. The now those that come after? They're fucked. Student loans? Well, that's what this thread is all about.
Tell that to my wife. Her choices of retirement plans are a complete joke compared to mine. I also make 3 times more than her. The difference is I'm 10 years older and got in before the economy went to shit for her entire generation from a wealth creation point of view. It is messed up that the only reason her retirement (at a reasonable age) is possible is she married an old guy.
I have no skin in the game but the ones on trajectory for being truly fucked? Post mellenials.
Yup - I did have an interesting conversation recently with one of the newly graduated people in my company. She was saying that many people her age saw that master's degrees didn't help the slightly older folks. She is seeing that here peers aren't pursuing advanced degrees at the same rate or are waiting until they have more experience and can afford them. So there is a shift possibly happening (this is an anecdote after all) but it does makes sense.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by malchior »

Remus West wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:48 am Yes, the trend was there before him. His policy is going to make it magnitudes worse. I was mostly playing on the "Thanks Obama" thing though.
That was the most perverse aspect to the tax policy changes. It doubled down on plutocracy when inequality was staggering to begin with. At some point the guillotines will come out or they'll be living in private enclaves with their armies. Either way the future is looking like the cyberpunk dystopia that was imagined by Gibson et. al.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by RunningMn9 »

LordMortis wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 9:17 amTheir retirements are no different than Xer's unless they are seeking contracts work. It's those who came before the Xer's who got pensions and such. All we get is SafeHarbor 401ks, which costs companies almost nothing unless they have match plans, which are available to all.
There was a two-pronged point you may have missed. One - the sorts of jobs that millennials are getting may be with companies that are more prone to not offer benefits like 401k's or don't match. Two - the scale of student loan repayment reduces their capacity to contribute to a 401k as much (or at all) for some amount of time. Which, of course, are the most valuable retirement dollars of any they will have in their lives.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by noxiousdog »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am I'm not sure that we do. I'm not comparing the wealth of the top wealthiest to the wealth of everyone else, I'm saying that the wealthiest used to own 10% of all wealth in the country, leaving 90% for everyone else. Now they own 20%. That's a reduction of 11%, meaning everyone who isn't the wealthiest now have 11% less wealth to divvy up than they did previously (whenever that was. 10 years ago? 20?).

So while I agree that the wealthiest of the wealthy skew wealth comparisons, in this case they are removing an additional 10% of all wealth available to the rest of us ("us" being Americans). The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
Sure, but that's a feature of the current system; not a bug. The solution is to enact a wealth tax. That's the only way you could compete with compound investment return.

Unless there is a wealth tax, you're always going to have the issue you're talking about. I think the US skews because it has 13 of the 20 wealthiest people in the world. I'd be curious what that looks like with the top 1000.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

Well...yeah. Most 1st world countries have some sort of wealth redistribution system so it doesn't *all* just pile up at the top. As you point out, that's the natural outcome.

Actually, I think you mean tax on wealth and not wealth generation. If that's the case...how would that work? Why wouldn't the various forms of income tax (be it straight income, capital gains, dividends, what have you) be enough? Is your concern privately owned (or at least majority owned by individuals) businesses? I'm struggling to think of wealth accumulation that is not covered by current tax law. Presumably they get around those laws somehow?

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Re: The New Bubble

Post by GreenGoo »

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:01 pm I think the US skews because it has 13 of the 20 wealthiest people in the world. I'd be curious what that looks like with the top 1000.
Unless you think it's purely random that the the 13 are American, it appears to simply show that America is a good place to build wealth with your wealth. I'd be very much surprised to see the pattern change significantly with the top 1000, but I'd like to see that data too, if it is available.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LawBeefaroni »

GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:41 am
Remus West wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:37 am
GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
But it will trickle down. Thanks Trump!

and in typing that I just noticed the tie in between his economic ideas and his Russian hotel ideas.......
While he is absolutely enriching himself and his buddies, this wealth gap has been decades in the making, not to mention that a few million here and there doesn't even show up on the wealth gap data (i.e. it's billions). This is one thing that can't be pinned on drumpf. Though he's certainly not doing anything to reverse the trend, that's for sure.
The few million he pockets equates to billions pocketed by others with policy and regulation shifts. It's how the game has always been played. Politicians get a few hundred k to make a change that will net a corporation several hundered million or an industry a few hundred billion.

You get dollars on the penny when you control a politician. Trump is a once in a lifetime get because he'll do just about anything and sell out anyone.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by Pyperkub »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 12:47 pm
GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:41 am
Remus West wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:37 am
GreenGoo wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:32 am The "pool" of wealth available to fight over and spread around is smaller.
But it will trickle down. Thanks Trump!

and in typing that I just noticed the tie in between his economic ideas and his Russian hotel ideas.......
While he is absolutely enriching himself and his buddies, this wealth gap has been decades in the making, not to mention that a few million here and there doesn't even show up on the wealth gap data (i.e. it's billions). This is one thing that can't be pinned on drumpf. Though he's certainly not doing anything to reverse the trend, that's for sure.
The few million he pockets equates to billions pocketed by others with policy and regulation shifts. It's how the game has always been played. Politicians get a few hundred k to make a change that will net a corporation several hundered million or an industry a few hundred billion.

You get dollars on the penny when you control a politician. Trump is a once in a lifetime get because he'll do just about anything and sell out anyone.
The problem there isn't Trump for the most part, it's Ryan (currently), with a long line of (mostly) GOP'ers clamoring for upper-end tax breaks and loopholes. The Trump Tax cut is about 90% Ryan, 9.9% Lobbyists and .1% Trump.
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Re: The New Bubble

Post by LordMortis »

malchior wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:48 am Tell that to my wife. Her choices of retirement plans are a complete joke compared to mine. I also make 3 times more than her. The difference is I'm 10 years older and got in before the economy went to shit for her entire generation from a wealth creation point of view. It is messed up that the only reason her retirement (at a reasonable age) is possible is she married an old guy.
I need more than that to sway my observations. I'm seeing jobs everywhere with "retirement plans" similar to what they have always been 401k SafeHarbor 3% salary match.

Also people are job hopping like crazy, as they have been since well before the crash. Upward mobility since before 2000 has been considered primarily achieved through switching jobs, meaning everyone in the workforce is being subjected to this new lack of "retirement plans." In the late ninety's it was projected the average person will switch career employers six times.

first thing I could find about today

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/how-o ... bs-2060467
Many workers spend five years or less in every job, so they devote more time and energy transitioning from one job to another. In January 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the average employee tenure was 4.2 years, down from 4.6 years in January 2014.
You know how much vesting you get from my company in 4.2 years? 20%. So that 3% match would be really be %.6. And again we're pretty standard.
RunningMn9 wrote: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:55 am There was a two-pronged point you may have missed. One - the sorts of jobs that millennials are getting may be with companies that are more prone to not offer benefits like 401k's or don't match. Two - the scale of student loan repayment reduces their capacity to contribute to a 401k as much (or at all) for some amount of time. Which, of course, are the most valuable retirement dollars of any they will have in their lives.
I can't see across industries but the auto/manufacturing sector is clamoring to make themselves Millennial friendly and extend all of the same opportunities they've been extending all along. They want to replace xers and jonses and boomers and even the in between xers and millennial with millennial. The belief is that they are more technological adaptive, agile and they aren't getting paid any less than their older counterparts, barring the lure of experience to increase a wage.

Prong two, is a problem which goes back to our culture (and IMO collective cultural stupidity), not with the opportunity afforded to them and precisely what we've talking about and it is also not what is being considered. That's actually it's own third factor.
limited access to retirement plans at work, millennials will struggle to build retirement savings
Their limitations according to prong two is not work access, but rather individual financial access based on terms set before they took a job.


I'll give you, millenials don't have access to pensions from working machining line at a company listed on the stock exchange like my father's generation, but how Gen Xers do? Those pensions went away in the 70s and were dead and buried by the 80s. Retirement plans in the private sector haven't changed much in the last 30 years. Honestly, I'm surprised to find out they exist as much as they do in the public sector.


Now looking around I will accept that increased job hopping is lowering retirement savings. The question then is why the increased job hopping?

Suggested on link above, with no percentages or citation

Reasons for Changing Jobs
The most common reasons that workers changed jobs include:

Higher Pay
Relocation to a Different Geographic Area
Career Advancement
Choosing a Less Stressful Job
Escaping an Incompetent or Negative Boss
Changing Career Focus
Work-Life Balance
Reorganization at their Company
Layoff Due to Duplication of Their Job Resulting from a Merger or Acquisition
More Interesting Work
Skills and Abilities Didn't Fit the Job
Lack of Recognition for Accomplishments
Outsourcing of Job Function
Company Moved to a New Location
Better Alignment Between Personal Values and Organizational Priorities
I won't say ally'all are wrong but "My research suggests that those concerns are real," is not convincing to me. The biggest reason I feel for the Mellenials with regard to job entry isn't that they are playing by some different rule standard than the rest of us. It's because we've allowed the market space (and even the public sector) to abuse internships and part time employment on career trajectory jobs.

The working class are all in a bad way when it comes to productivity increases changing the game with regard to career decisions. The working class are all in a bad way when it comes wealth floating to the top. But, if anything millennials have an advantage in the current job market. They are the collectively the most"agile" or at the very least perceived as such. The have never lived in a world where technology wasn't a tool and even more importantly the post millennials will have never lived in a world where adaptive technology wasn't a tool. That's what the millenials will need to fear with regard to generation gap. Right now private industry wants to convert to mellenials. They want a mindset of workers not tied to workspace. They've torn down the cube walls. They didn't do that for boomers. They didn't do that Xers.

This is why Ford bought "The Train Depot", smack dab in the middle mellenial urban sheik hipster central or Detroit Gentrification or whatever we're calling it today.

https://www.freep.com/story/money/busin ... 441740002/

This is on the part of how Marry Barra took GM from the worst regarded industry to work with to "Above Average" in such a short time.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3064064/mar ... any-itself
She is keenly aware that GM’s 223,000 employees will have to behave differently if its plans for the future are to succeed; that she needs to replace a culture of blame and bureaucracy with one driven by accountability, speed, and collaboration. “In this area of rapid transformation, you have to have a culture that’s agile,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
With that in mind who do you think she is hiring with the 2.25 billion they just recieved for "Zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... cc2bae5abc


Again, my knowledge outside of Auto is pretty limited. But I see no doors of opportunity shut to outh simply for being young in the current market and also again for the millenials, housing a red herring. They got the best opportunity and to get in to housing that I've seen in my lifetime. Student debt may have completely fucked that opportunity over but the opportunity was (and to a lesser extent still is) there.
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