More Subprime Borrowers Are Missing Loan Payments (wsj.com) 272
Consumers with low credit scores are falling behind on payments for car loans, personal loans and credit cards, a sign that the healthiest consumer lending environment on record in the U.S. is coming to an end. From a report: The share of subprime credit cards and personal loans that are at least 60 days late is rising faster than normal, according to credit-reporting firm Equifax. In March, those delinquencies rose month over month for the eighth time in a row, nearing their prepandemic levels. Rising delinquencies were inevitable following their decline during the pandemic, many lenders and analysts said. Even so, the increase is getting attention from investors partly because the Federal Reserve, facing the highest inflation since the early 1980s, is embarking on what is expected to be the sharpest series of interest-rate rises in years. Higher loan delinquency figures can indicate stress on the part of consumers whose spending is a significant driver of economic activity.
Fears that rising rates will throw the economy into recession have fueled the worst start of the year for stocks in decades. A poor earnings season for major U.S. retail chains has intensified those concerns this week, prompting large declines in major retail shares and sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its steepest drop of the year Wednesday. Delinquencies on subprime car loans and leases hit an all-time high in February, based on Equifax's tracking that goes back to 2007. Many people, including those with less-than-perfect credit, paid off debts and built up savings during the pandemic, a surprising outcome considering that lenders at first thought borrowers would default en masse when Covid-19 hit. The government's response, including stimulus payments and child tax credits, boosted many families' financial health.
Fears that rising rates will throw the economy into recession have fueled the worst start of the year for stocks in decades. A poor earnings season for major U.S. retail chains has intensified those concerns this week, prompting large declines in major retail shares and sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average to its steepest drop of the year Wednesday. Delinquencies on subprime car loans and leases hit an all-time high in February, based on Equifax's tracking that goes back to 2007. Many people, including those with less-than-perfect credit, paid off debts and built up savings during the pandemic, a surprising outcome considering that lenders at first thought borrowers would default en masse when Covid-19 hit. The government's response, including stimulus payments and child tax credits, boosted many families' financial health.
Wait ... What? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumers with low credit scores are falling behind on payments for car loans, personal loans and credit cards,
People who have low credit scores -- Because They Don't Pay Their Bills -- are not making payments on their bills.
Holy Shit. I never saw that coming.
Jacked up rent (Score:2, Insightful)
Landlords are demanding hundreds more per month which leaves less money for low income people to pay off other things.
Re:Jacked up rent (Score:5, Informative)
landlords are seeing their maintenance costs sky rocket due to inflation, with no clear upper bound. They have just watched the government radically increase their risk profile by introducing the potential for eviction moratoriums that can extend a year or longer, when tenants don't pay.. Meanwhile if they have financed the property themselves with any kind of adjustable rate product the interest they are paying has gone up rather dramatically over a fairly short span of time.
I for one don't blame them.
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landlords are seeing their maintenance costs sky rocket due to inflation, with no clear upper bound. They have just watched the government radically increase their risk profile by introducing the potential for eviction moratoriums that can extend a year or longer, when tenants don't pay.
Good. That just means owning a property has reached parity with other investments, where you can sometimes lose your entire investment.
Houses are for people to live in. I'd like nothing more than to see every landlord forced to generate their income the same way the majority of Americans do: by getting a job and being productive with their own two hands, rather than with their money.
Re:Jacked up rent (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like nothing more than to see every landlord forced to generate their income the same way the majority of Americans do: by getting a job and being productive with their own two hands, rather than with their money.
Never been a landlord before, eh? So, on the one hand you recognize that a landlord owning a property is an investment. On the other hand, you don't want landlords to make money from that particular type of investment. Dissonance, much?
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After the 2008 housing crash, lots of rental properties were bought up by corporations as investments. So I would love to see these companies crash since they are keeping rents high.
Now we have issues as described here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/02/single-family-landlords-wall-street/582394/
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If it's an apartment complex, someone must own that complex. With no owners, there would be no rentals.
Normally when you rent something, it's because you only have a temporary need for it or because you're leveraging someone's greater buying power. You might rent a set of vehicle-specific tools from the auto parts store for a vehicle repair that you'll never have to perform again on that same vehicle. You might rent space in a shopping mall, because constructing your own mall and bringing in all that foot traffic would be prohibitively expensive.
Housing is a bit of a different beast. Rents can easily cost
Re:Jacked up rent (Score:5, Interesting)
landlords are seeing their maintenance costs sky rocket due to inflation, with no clear upper bound. They have just watched the government radically increase their risk profile by introducing the potential for eviction moratoriums that can extend a year or longer, when tenants don't pay.
Good. That just means owning a property has reached parity with other investments, where you can sometimes lose your entire investment.
Houses are for people to live in. I'd like nothing more than to see every landlord forced to generate their income the same way the majority of Americans do: by getting a job and being productive with their own two hands, rather than with their money.
The vast majority of landlords are individuals renting out between 1 and 4 units. https://www.pewresearch.org/fa... [pewresearch.org]
Only about half of those landlords report net income... as in, only half even make money on their rentals. My parents have one, my grandparents old house. It's small, and they usually rent it out by word of mouth (it's in the middle of nowhere anyway, advertising is a waste of time). They could sell it, but it's on a large parcel of ag land and it's nice having a building site for storage. At this point capital gains would kill take most of the profit of the sale anyway. From what I can tell this isn't an uncommon situation. A relative dies and you rent the house out until you figure out what to do with it. Or you move, and for tax/convenience reasons it may make more sense to rent your old home out for a period.
The fantasy of the fat-cat landlord with 100 apartments in the slums who just eats caviar all day is nonsense. Most landlords are small, and make a few grand a year at best. And the only ones that make money are the ones that actively work to make money, as in they do their own maintenance and homecare, as hiring that out kills any profit really fast. And when you factor in vacant time between renters and the very real risk of a renter that simply refuses to pay and is shielded by the legal system, it's a wonder anyone takes the risk of doing it at all. There can be money in it when you finally sell the home if you treat it as a speculative asset, but that's far from guaranteed. Remember that all those tax deductions you get by depreciating the asset you have to pay back when you sell it.
I once thought I might own a rental as an alternate investment (I'm relatively handy, and a local rental might even be a fun side project), but after what happened with the moratoriums during the pandemic absolutely not. So now, an old house that I might have had the money to buy and fix well enough to rent at a reasonable rate to a lower income family is going to get bought by a company, renovated to justify a high rent, and no longer be available to a low income family. Because one of the easiest ways to "filter out" renters that might be higher risk is to bump the rental out of the low income cost bracket.
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You might find the land it's sitting on is worth more than the house, that includes underground and above rights you have. For example one of my neighbors has a cell tower on their site. Another an oil well.
Re:Jacked up rent (Score:5, Interesting)
The vast majority of landlords are individuals renting out between 1 and 4 units. https://www.pewresearch.org/fa... [pewresearch.org]
Only about half of those landlords report net income... as in, only half even make money on their rentals...
No no no...first off the majority of "landlords" might be individuals, but the majority of *rental units* are owned by businesses. (Look at # of 25+ unit buildings) It's not a fat-cat exactly, but it absolutely is businesses that own the majority of apartments.
Second - landlords of all sizes write off depreciation and everything else under the sun to avoid paying taxes. They don't report net income but neither does amazon.
Furthermore, inherited property clears any depreciation and is typically tax free. The only capital gains you'd pay is on appreciation from time of death/inheritance --> time of sale and even THAT assumes you don't use one of several ways to avoid it those taxes.
Don't get me wrong, the market in many states/cities is incredibly hostile towards landlords and it's awful. It's a major reason why people keep turning apartments into AirBnB's. The difficulty with low-income tenants and low-cost rentals is when things go sideways (and statistically speaking it's far more likely) the LL rarely has any useful recourse. It's overall far lower risk to rent a $2500/mo apartment to someone with 60x income and 750+ credit than 5x $500/mo apartments even if they have 60x income (good luck finding 700+ credit).
Such is our fucked up world today.
I talked to the maintenance guys in my apartments (Score:2)
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And that's not an issue. Maybe it's an issue for small time landlords but the guy who is trying to retire off of one or two properties but for the big guys it's not affecting them into slightest. The lumber prices have come back down and labor prices never really got that high in construction. It's still an overabundance of construction workers because we're still not building all that much.
I don't know where there's an overabundance of construction workers; everywhere I'm familiar with, there's a huge shortage. But if that's really true, then those construction workers should consider relocating to places where there are labor shortages.
Western TN, western KY, and southern Indiana have a huge shortage of construction workers because of two rather large tornadoes that went through downtown Mayfield, KY and Dresden, TN, leveling everything in their path, resulting in an absolutely insane amoun
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I don't know where there's an overabundance of construction workers; everywhere I'm familiar with, there's a huge shortage. But if that's really true, then those construction workers should consider relocating to places where there are labor shortages.
Well there's the great migration [youtu.be] so that's already happening.
Good landlord have good property (Score:2)
I kept my tenants at the same rate for the next two years as they paid the last two years. And I put in a brand new A/C unit which I paid off in 6 months.
If maintenance costs are too high, find another job and stop running slums.
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landlords are seeing their maintenance costs sky rocket due to inflation, with no clear upper bound.
Great excuse, but the real reason for rocketing rents is that renters are competing with AirBNB tourists for the rental space. In a town like mine, an AirBNB weekend renter can top a working renter's bid for a whole month in the same property. The spare rooms that were once rented to service workers are now operating as unregulated hotels. And local restaurants are closing because they can't get waiters and busboys and cashiers.
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Holy Shit. I never saw that coming.
That's because they've given it a confusing name, "subprime". No-one outside of a few economists have ever heard of subprime mortgages and loans, so it came as a complete surprise that they could be toxic.
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Huh? I'm not an economist, yet I don't find the term confusing in ant way.
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Because They Don't Pay Their Bills
The unfairness of credit scores is that they treat all reasons for not paying bills equally.
Spent your car payment at the liquor store? Bad credit.
Lost your rent money on an ICO? Bad credit.
Got sick and slammed with doctor bills? Also bad credit.
Laid off and couldn't find something that paid as well? Bad credit for you!
It's also a completely bullshit indicator of your ability to pay. My credit has finally improved to the point where I'm getting home mortgage offers. Upon opening the offers (which are
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Well, in general it does treat all reasons the same.
It means you don't know how to live within your means and save for a rainy day.
Of course there are outlier catastrophic instances...but that isn't the norm.
If most people lived well within their means, and had savings to live off of when you hit bumps in the road that life throws at you, in general, you will not miss your bills (largely because you are smart eno
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It would help significantly if there was a basic-credit-101 class in public high schools, not the macroeconomics or microeconomics I took that means very little for day-to-day living.
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I've driven past and through the "projects" and neighborhoods of the like...
And I have seen through open doors/windows..big TVs and they're all talking on their cell phones and yes, I've seen the iPhones there too.
I live in that sort of neighborhood. Yes, people here have their giant Black Friday special TVs, and iPhones that they probably got subsidized and/or 0% APR financed through their wireless carrier (so it's roughly $20/mo on top of the bill).
Thing is, these are the sort of luxuries you can still afford even if your income level sucks. Skipping the TV or the phone upgrade isn't going to get you out of the trailer park and into a $270k house, because the math just doesn't work out. Furthermore, you want low
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$300 is a lot of money to spend on something unnecessary for someone who does not earn much. It also adds up. $300 here, $50 there, if you drink one $3 coffee every working day, you'll spend $60/month.
Google says that minimum wage in the USA is $7.25/hour, so, someone working 40 hours a week will earn $1160/month. The $3 coffee per day is about 5% of your earnings. Then there are various other expenses. You can also make one cup of coffee if you want to.
The goal is to spend less than you earn. If you earn a
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A history of past defaults, being presently in arrears on existing liabilities, present income and employment status, as well as the size of existing liabilities, and size of assets are all actually pretty reasonable inputs to making a judgement about your ability/likelihood to pay if additional credit is extended.
FICO scores are NOT as simple just a tabulation of payments history for that very reason. But yes to some extend the "why" behind whatever events resulted in a poor credit score do get lost. Howev
Re: Wait ... What? (Score:2)
No choice in that. (Score:3)
You can't listen to the excuses of every individual when you're dealing with millions. You just can't. And so if the idea of the "credit score" has any validity at all, you have to treat it dispassionately and statistically. No matter what the reason for missing payments, if you let people try to explain it away, they'll do so.
And make no mistake, something like a credit score is absolutely needed. Even if it's just a sanity check.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - Bobs RV on the Simpsons
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"those with less-than-perfect credit, paid off debts and built up savings during the pandemic"
can we therefore deduce that the average subprime borrower simply spends money foolishly and the lockdown stopped them going to the malls to buy junk?
c'mon (Score:5, Insightful)
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And, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, no one learned their lesson after 2008.
Not only were they not punished, but Greed N. Corruption found a whole new low by actually convincing Daddy Government they were Too Big To Fail. They walked away with participation trophies and executive bonuses.
Perhaps we should be thankful Greed is back to merely peddling in homes. After all, a deadly pandemic that killed millions, made Greed quite richer. I wonder what lesson we'll learn from that...
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A big part of what happened back then was the Bush Administration's push for minority home ownership. Congress went along and there was a government push to lower lending standards in order for more poor people to own homes. A noble endeavor, but not one rooted in reality.
This time around, there's been a push for "credit equity and inclusion" all in the name of "anti-racism". It's the exact same issue -- government deciding that people that can't financially afford something should have their financials
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Apparently it was considered a good idea to tell lenders that judging one's lack of income as a reason to not give credit was "racist".
Well, if not lending them something they couldn't afford is "racist", then taking back what they're not paying for is practically an act of "terrorism".
Hell of a race to the bottom of that logic hole. The ass action lawsuit, will be epic.
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The ass action lawsuit, will be epic.
Wait...What? How can I get in on this lawsuit? Might be fun!
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A big part of what happened back then was the Bush Administration's push for minority home ownership. Congress went along and there was a government push to lower lending standards in order for more poor people to own homes. A noble endeavor, but not one rooted in reality.
This time around, there's been a push for "credit equity and inclusion" all in the name of "anti-racism". It's the exact same issue -- government deciding that people that can't financially afford something should have their financials ignored and be given loans. Apparently it was considered a good idea to tell lenders that judging one's lack of income as a reason to not give credit was "racist".
And yet, all the losers in our area are not your favorite racial villains.
But we understand you.
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The push for minority home ownership was a minor contributor. The main contributor was that Wall Street, with some help from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, found they could securitize loans and sell them to organizations and rich people with big bucks to "invest". The sainted American people got in on the gig by buying second and third homes on very little collateral because the banks played hot potato with the loans; they could always sell them to some entity that would securitze them before passing the potat
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After all, a deadly pandemic that killed millions, made Greed quite richer. I wonder what lesson we'll learn from that...
Invest in funeral homes.
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And, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, no one learned their lesson after 2008.
The lesson was what? Be 'bama's buddy - bailouts?
Did you know President O'Blama didn't do a damn thing about the Iran hostage situation? Stood by, watched it and like all leeburls, ignored it completely
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chapter 11 & 7 car, personal loans, cards go w (Score:2)
chapter 11 & 7 car, personal loans, credit cards go way but not you STUDENT LOAN
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I think you meant Chapter 13, unless you think there's a lot business reorganization occurring.
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Actually, they way the rewrote the laws years back, you really don't get off Scott free on anything anymore.
And as for student loans....it was all there on the contracts, you should have read them.
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And as for student loans....it was all there on the contracts, you should have read them.
The last cry of the shitlord, before the torches, pitchforks, and guillotines arrive.
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No, I have to go with PP on this one. I remember the gentleman stressing that whether or not I found work at the end of my education, I was responsible for repayment of the (low interest, guaranteed) loan. I still signed the loan contract - I didn't care because I was sure that all I needed was a diploma and I'd be off to the races. Reagonomics drove me to go Chapter 7, and back then "Bankrupt" still meant "Bankrupt", so the system worked as intended.
Now, it's been bollixed up by people who don't unders
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The question isn't whether the terms were known ahead of time. The question is whether they were fair. And if not, why not? There's no justification for a government-backed loan to be unfair. It seems like the government loves to loan out money, and if you're a corporation you can get away with not paying them back, but if you're an actual person they just fuck you. None of that is just.
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It was perfectly just back in 1997 (when I filed BK97-[REDACTED]). Now that the economic safety valve of bankruptcy has been sealed off, it's a government-backed scheme to economically enslave an entire generation. As a beneficiary of this, I should approve; but I don't.
Back when it was possible to file bankruptcy without paying someone to do it for you, and back when it was possible to discharge all debts (with a very few very clearly defined exceptions), it was quite fair and equitable. Now, taking ou
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And as for student loans....it was all there on the contracts, you should have read them.
The last cry of the shitlord, before the torches, pitchforks, and guillotines arrive.
That happens from time to time. I'm not certain that after the millenials kill me and everyone else they are blaming for their problems du jour, that the results are going to be any better. Seems after giving them their free education, their next plan is... what?
And really, this isn't quite a problem of debt. It's a problem of employability. Our local fast food places have a lot of degreed people. But their skillset isn't one that qualifies them for much. Weird, a philosphy major might be working with so
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I pulled it off back in 1988. It was still legal then (and I beat the deadline for that by less than a year, IIRC). I couldn't afford a lawyer to file it for me, but a $15.00 book gave me what I needed. Cost me $150.00 to file in pro per and everyone I interacted with during the process kept advising me to retain counsel.
It went off without a hitch. I acquired a couple years more debt which I have long since paid, managed to start making things happen when the economy started picking up under the Clint
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The government's response (Score:2)
The government's response, including stimulus payments and child tax credits, boosted many families' financial health (of the present, potentially screwing over those in the future).
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If you don't tend to people in the present then that screws over others in the future, too, not to mention those people.
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" But does anyone really need to have even 100 million dollars?"
Virtually nobody has "100 million dollars". Not in liquid cash. That money is "working" as investments keeping the economy going for the most part.
"the problem is hoarders."
Investing is not hoarding.
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Virtually nobody has "100 million dollars". Not in liquid cash. That money is "working" as investments keeping the economy going for the most part.
You don't know who has millions in cash because multiple US states permit you to create perpetuities now, and you don't even have to reveal your identity to the public in the process in at least two of them.
Investing is not hoarding.
That is completely irrelevant to the point being made, which is that cash hoards are at all time highs [bloomberg.com], and record amounts of money is being hoarded, not invested [investors.com]. Do try to keep up with the conversation, and reality too.
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Investing is hoarding, for the most part. There are types of investments that mean the money is working, but those are typically loans (for example municipal bonds): I pony up the money, the city uses it for infrastructure work, they promise to pay me back with interests from taxes they will inevitably receive. That's the minority of investments today, however.
Stocks, post-IPO, simply go from buyer to buyer. The company raised the money at IPO, and used that money for something (i
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Someone else having 100 million worth on paper does not make my life any worse. Why should I care?
If the government decides to take that from them, it means liquidation of assets. A large liquidation drives the value of those assets down. It doesn't just hurt the person the government wants to take from, but all other investors in that asset as well. Pension funds, 401Ks, small mom and pop investors, rank and file employees with stock options, etc.
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Yep, I do.
I could then retire tomorrow. I could buy my parents' houses for them and pay off whole family's debts and retire.
Ah, that would be sweet!!
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There is already plenty of money out there, the problem is hoarders. Taxing may or may not be the solution.
If you want to get the money away from the hoarders you have basically two options. Either tax them, or jack up the interest rate. I leave it up to you to decide which is smarter.
They don't have mortgages this time (Score:5, Interesting)
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if the creditors' default rate increases their profit decreases, and if their profit decreases everybody else is in trouble bc it turns out they own the friggin show, as the last "crisis" made perfectly clear. how apocalyptic do you want it to be?
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The US mortgage market is ~18T. The used car loan market is about 1.2T. New cars are selling above MSRP. So even if a bunch of used cars get repossessed we
Lemming Brothers again? (Score:2)
And the whole world will soon to be re-learn the famous names of the perfect couple: Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac
Btw. the Lemming Brothers Bank ;)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
ok, I will now start funneling off money from my bank accounts.
We've seen it before (Score:2)
We've seen this too many times:
Cheap money
Debt
Expensive money
Ouch!
My credit score is actually mediocre. Not because I don't pay my bills on time - I do - but because I've never had any big loans (car, mortgage, etc.).
...laura
Talking bollocks (Score:2)
"the healthiest consumer lending environment on record in the U.S."
Healthy lending environments don't end in a crash. What you mean is "most blindly optimistic lending environment".
And why not? They know that taxpayers will have to fork over the shortfall again.
If default is awesome to the former president... (Score:2)
...seems like it should be embraced as awesome for everybody. Far right conservatives who are aligned with the man should be trumpeting bankruptcy as the tool of choice.
Woohoo! (Score:2)
Party like it's 2008!
Big picture time (Score:5, Insightful)
On top of making it cost more money to work than to not work, you off shored the blue-collar jobs, and then you sold an entire generation of kids a middle class dream but delivered debt slavery. You stole away the dream of homeownership, and now you demand ever more profit while paying those actually producing anything less and less for their trouble while at the same time blaming them for the positions your wealth extraction schemes have put them in.
You just spent 2 years writing business blank checks and you think you can blame workers for inflation. You're trying to gaslight the most educated generation in history, good luck with that. We all saw how you rolled in 2000, 2008, and 2020. We're watching you gobble up our birthrights to rent them back to us. We see you sneer and laugh in the face of climate change. We watch the out-in-the-open political corruption.
Now you expect us to pay for the fraudulent degree you told us we needed, keep a consumer based economy going, work till we die, AND carry your water while you retire in luxury.
Keep turning those screws, eaters. You deserve everything you've got coming.
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Hey, nerds have money too, y'know! And this is important, so "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters".
All real economies are essentially Ponzi perfected - as long as the base layer keeps growing, it all works perfectly; and the base consists of everyone being born into citizenship somewhere.
But it isn't perfect - recessions, depressions, wars and weird shit like natural disasters and pandemics keep screwing with the system. I'm mostly into blue chips and I'm still taking a bath right now. Believe me, this
The US economy, and other debt-based (Score:2)
> All real economies are essentially Ponzi perfected - as long as the base layer keeps growing, it all works perfectly;
It seems to me you're accurately describing debt based economies such as the US. The US is based on spend now so I can get mine, make my kids pay for it down the road. So we gotta keep having more kids. Not all societies are like that.
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What a society earns is what they produce. Nobody is "paying them", they are paying each other / themselves. The programmer pays AC tech to fix his AC. There isn't a God in a house that's white who is "paying" them, who decides how many AC units are fixed, how much good is created. They get exactly the goods and services they produce.
Intergenerationally, one can do one of two things. One can produce goods and leave them behind for your kids. That would typically be either capital goods like factories, or eq
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I refuse to pay (directly or indirectly) for 20 year years of slack-jawed SJWs taking Gender Studies or Racial Studies. That's how we're in the stew we are now, and I will not pay a fucking penny to help them deal with the hole they dug willingly, on their own, to use your own metaphor.
I think that bunch should put down the phones, the placards, the bullhorns, the Molotovs and the rest of the outrage shit, find respectable jobs, pay down their debt like the rest of us did.
Majoring in Outrage Creation and P
Re:I stopped paying my debt (Score:4, Insightful)
Does your refusal to pay also apply to my liberal arts degree? I am a disabled veteran, Army Infantry. I am gainfully employed and am only using my GI Bill because I earned it and I enjoy going to school. Personally, I think your naivete is cute. How exactly do you think you get to decide how your tax dollars, to the penny, are spent?
I also am tired of hearing the same old nonsense that studying certain subjects provides no benefit to society. Gender Studies, Racial Studies, even Medieval Music are worthy of the pursuit of knowledge. If no one studies these subjects in depth then we as a society become dumber. Half of the US is actually proud that they are stupid. It is sad.
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Does your refusal to pay also apply to my liberal arts degree? I am a disabled veteran, Army Infantry. I am gainfully employed and am only using my GI Bill because I earned it and I enjoy going to school. Personally, I think your naivete is cute. How exactly do you think you get to decide how your tax dollars, to the penny, are spent? I also am tired of hearing the same old nonsense that studying certain subjects provides no benefit to society. Gender Studies, Racial Studies, even Medieval Music are worthy of the pursuit of knowledge. If no one studies these subjects in depth then we as a society become dumber. Half of the US is actually proud that they are stupid. It is sad.
Well, I am glad you are gainfully employed. So many of these folks are not - that's why they are having trouble paying for their loan. I'm not certain that your G.I. Bill and their loans are equal though.
The concept of paying a voluntary debt is not a promotion of stupidity - I'm not certain why exactly you have decided that it is. All fields of study are valid. But that there are more people going in to some of those fields is not debatable. We don't need 10,000 gender studies majors or be stupid a
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It means investment is being directed away from things that would be of greater use.
Except that "greater use" is a moving target, nationally and locally. I'm old enough to remember the sage advice was "become a doctor or lawyer". Now it's "become a programmer". What next, become a CEO? Seems to have worked for Elon Musk.
Re:I stopped paying my debt (Score:5, Funny)
Majoring in Outrage Creation and People Manipulation is not a valid or profitable career choice
It's quite a profitable career choice for Republican politicians.
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So just to be clear, you're happy to pay for others' gambling debts, but you won't pay for them to become less irritating people? Nice priorities there, sport.
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Maybe you should look up the actual stats of what the majority of graduates are actually studying, because its not gender or racial studies. You need to step back from the kool aid. By far the largest share of majors goes to business and management. So maybe you should be angry at business majors for graduating and not starting businesses, or maybe, for the majority of them, it was just the default degree they could get while still boozing it up every other night instead of something like a science or engin
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What you should study depends on the market where you live. You should consider the possibilities of getting a job that depends on the degree. For example, in my country, when I was studying at a university (probably is still true now), the top three degrees by popularity were law, economics and management. Looks good so far, right, I mean lawyers make lots of money. That's what the students though as well - "lawyers and judges make lots of money, CEOs of large companies also make lots of money so that's gr
Go look up the statistics on degree awards (Score:2)
That left around 2% as SJW basket weavers. But the way you hear Fox News tell it 98% of college graduates majored in transports. It's a lie to turn you against education in general. They want a privatize
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You know, people would probably take your point a lot more seriously without all the culture war shitbaggery. No one cares about your problems with liberal arts majors.
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Majoring in Outrage Creation and People Manipulation is not a valid or profitable career choice and is setting up this country for either a political upheaval the likes of which we've not seen since 1980, or worse -- a war of the sort we hadn't seen since 1865.
Put the fucking shovel down when you're in a hole, people! What that bunch is doing is already turning people against them. Not just right-wing radicals -- the screechy child-like loons getting all the headlines are alienating the center, too.
Soon they won't have any friends, other than themselves.
They don't like themselves.
And they can't see anything further an an inch from their nose.
There is always a question of what exactly happens to higher education in the USA after millenials get free education. I get confused looks when I mention it. But it's a big problem that would end up restructuring university as we know it.
The concept of millenials going to college tuition and living expense cost free. So how does on explain to future students that they have to pay?
They will want that ride as
Sokath, his eyes open! (Score:5, Insightful)
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There's a difference between forgiving people at a personal level and giving them a second chance and simply telling them that they have no personal responsibility for commitments they agreed to. Forgiveness is in the heart.
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If anyone was being tossed into debtors prisons or actually starving in America because of student loan debts; you have a point. Meanwhile back in reality our society treats these people extremely well, downright Christian.
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So, no forgiveness, no mercy? They made a mistake, now let 'em pay for it, is that it? A strange sentiment, coming from a place that can't even keep the electric power on when it gets cold outside.
That's why the rest of us don't do it Texas-style. We remember the Alamo. Incidentally, do you happen to recall why the Alamo is even a thing?
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Majoring in Outrage Creation and People Manipulation is not a valid or profitable career choice.
Well, let's fix this Texas-style: If a school sells you a degree that turns out to be unprofitable, you can sue them. Then, after all the schools are bankrupt, they can ask the government for a bailout.
That sounds like a Republican enough solution.
Before the schools go bankrupt, they will eliminate those well known unprofitable degrees. Which isn't good. What you do is limit enrollment and ensure that it is a path for few.
Example, I have a lady friend who is a History major. She's made a career out of it. But she is also damn good at what she does. To excel in those fields, you can't be average.
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Those of use lucky to have never been in debt are thinking we should be getting something out this instead of the bill.
At least you know it's luck. You are getting something, a more stable society with less crime.
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Those of use lucky to have never been in debt are thinking we should be getting something out this instead of the bill.
At least you know it's luck. You are getting something, a more stable society with less crime.
What's your post free edumaction plan?
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I figure if college graduates do not have to pay for their debt why should I? I call It reparations.
Did you ever wonder what the post free college education world is going to look like? I mean, it'll be nice for the millennials, but then they'll need free housing, food, and not a cent of debt.
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You're ascribing 'surprise' where there is none.
Malfeasance, sure. Corruption, sure. Incompetence, sure. Surprise? Not so much :D
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You're ascribing 'surprise' where there is none.
Malfeasance, sure. Corruption, sure. Incompetence, sure. Surprise? Not so much :D
You're misattributing agency. It's the WSJ feigning surprise.
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Gotta love it; the technocrats are surprised that after keeping the prime rate underpinning everyone's variable rate liabilities, passing out free money for a year and half, doling out advances on tax credits, suspending debt payments on student loans, and letting people elect to not pay rent without consequences; people are now unable to pay.
This should have been 100% expected. It should never have been allowed to come to this point.
At no point could people "elect to not pay rent without consequences". They just could not be evicted for a short period of time. It was still a debt, which means that the landlords had the option of reporting the unpaid debt, which would likely disqualify them from getting any credit at all for the next decade. And of course, as soon as the eviction freeze ended, if they failed to pay off that entire debt, they would be homeless. So I would hardly call that "without consequences". All that the evictio
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Left out is "buy now, pay later" [slashdot.org] and "payday loans" [slashdot.org]. With so many sharks in the water it's a wonder any fish are left.
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No. You have to have logic on your side and not rely on 3rd degree shitty correlations. These aren't mathematical proofs. Example, the Fat Acceptance/Healthy At Every Size people like to claim that "correlation does not equal causation!" when it comes to obesity and poor health outcomes. They claim the real cause is fat stigma (lol).
No. Just no. If you make an extraordinary claim that flies in the face of all reason then you need the extraordinary proof, not the one saying "weighing 600 lbs will drive you t