Forgiving Student Debt/Stupidity

 I could make this a 200-page book, but I'll try to limit this discussion to 50 lines.

Up until the 1980s....if you went to college....it was typically 'cheap-enough' (a catch phrase)...that you could pay via the parent's marginal contribution, do some work on the side, and not borrow from anyone.  

Something clicked in the 1980s, and escalation of college tuition/room and board....went up.  Dad's contribution and work on the side didn't cut it at half of the colleges in the US.  Add onto it....kids got stupid and didn't realize that being 'out-of-state'....meant that you paid 20-percent on top of what the in-state kid was paying.

So kids started to borrow via commercial and government groups.  In the beginning....over a four-year period, you could be talking about $20k.  Most could pay this back over a five to eight year period.

Year by year....colleges escalated the cost.  You can ask financial experts, state political folks, and journalists to explain this part of the story.  Usually, they can't really lay this down in any simple fashion.

As the 1990s came....degrees and study areas went into some type of tailspin.  People were designing a four-year program where the degree you exited with....wasn't going to ever pay you more than $25k a year (1990s scale).  

In the past ten years, it's now possible for you to attend the William and Mary University in Virginia....and pay near $23k on tuition alone.  Add in books, expenses and room/board....it's up over $140k for four years.

If you graduate with a marginalized degree, and your starting pay level is $35k?  You won't finish paying off the loan until age 60.

So enter the Biden crew.  They want to create some path where part of the debt is forgiven.  No one say how much, if it might be yearly, or the total cost package for the tax-payer.

Massive anger brewing in the non-college idiot group....that they'd pay for this debt deal?  Yes, and it'll be openly discussed next spring as people fuss how you could be this stupid to borrow $100k and your salary will never be enough to resolve your mess.

What I suspect will happen?  I think the Senators will rig up a deal that for each thousand you put down....another thousand will be forgiven (maybe up to $4k a year).  Someone might add wording to say it's a ten-year deal....meaning $40k might be free.

A lawsuit to brew out of this?  No doubt....it'll be taken to the court as a unfair situation for non-college folks.

Just free money?  It'll take an hour for people to figure out....why not go over to the government idiots, and borrow $60k to pretend you are going to college.  Then just invest it, and do the payment deal....paying back the money over ten years....getting $40k free of charge from the government.  

Illegal?  It'll take five years for them to figure out this game.  

So my advice...once the smoke clears and they establish the 'free money' routine...analyze your path and see if it'd make sense to go ask for $40k in student loans (for investment purposes, purchase of a RV/boat, etc).  If they are going to rig this for $4k a year in free credit (maybe even via your taxes)....the 'fake' loan would easily pay you back over a ten-year period.

We could all take some 'free money' and give thanks to the stupid college kids for creating this new avenue of 'free cash'.  

President Biden: Saviour or Demon for Cal/NY?

 First, the facts.  NY City needs roughly $93 billion (just for everything leading up to the end of 2020).  You can figure that another $15 million will lay on top of that by the end of February.  The state of California has $280 to $300 billion in debt.  L A (by itself....needs $7-to-8 billion)?

The generally discussed topic is that President Biden will walk in and structure some type of credit payment for 2021/2022.  No one says the amount.  It might be structured as a zero-interest loan and maybe a couple billion in 'gift-money'.  

In the case of NY City....that won't cut it.  They probably need the US federal government to walk in and lay down $20-odd billion as 'gift-money'.  

So the working piece of this deal....is the Senate.  If the Republicans retain control (winning both Georgia seats)....then this 'gift-idea' won't go far.  To be honest, just getting $20-billion in interest-free loans....won't cut it either.

The way for the Senate to 'gift' the money without it being noticed?  Well....you'd go and say 'bad-boy', then laundry $10-billion over to three California cities (each) for road/bridge projects, on top of what they'd flip thirty-billion over to the banks to pay debt....to use the fed-money for the projects. 

In the past, you could have done this, without anyone grasping how you funneled the money over.  Today?  People tend to ask questions. 

So if Biden doesn't deliver?  By the end of 2021....something probably needs to happen, or you start to notice banks getting worried because neither NY City or California can sustain the new debt payments.  Both likely to add another 50-percent of debt on top of the present situation?  That's what I would fear the most.  But to be honest....where would you start to cut, and can you sustain mega-cities/states in this condition?  

Biden and Harris being 'deal-makers' while they were in the Senate?  No, not exactly.  That's another part of the story.  If you were looking around for expertise within the Democratic Party and the Senate today....looking for people who were experts at rigging unpleasant deals to have a decent outcome....no one really stands out.  

The Better-Off-Worse-Off Chat

 This week, the idiots over at Fox News put up some poll to say that Trump's job accomplishment is not worth bragging about.  55-percent of the crowd said the US is worse off now than four years ago.  Roughly one out of three said it was better than four years....with the remainder saying things were about the same.

I paused over this.  Frankly, most anything that comes out of Fox is to be speculated upon and probably questionable in terms of factual data.  Polls? Utterly worthless.

But then I started to think....there are literally thousands of people in West Virginia who would readily tell you that life was better in 1966....than it is today.   Between corruption, drug use, and personal debt....they'd tell you the life of the 1960s and things were just simply better.

Then I come to this human condition that we rarely discuss....a lot of us aren't sitting around and trying to measure some kind of crap like this.  We get up at 5:30 AM.....working our way through breakfast, the plan for the day, and prioritizing things. 

We might have a donut and coffee around 10, and a salad at noon.  We bust our butt and listen to crap from marginally educated people who seem to supervise us, but only in the fake sense.  

We go home.....cut the grass, repair the garage door, buy groceries, listen to the spouse whine about their job, repair the kid's bike for the 40th time, and catch the 6 PM local news where they talk about wild dogs attacking people or some funky smell from the river.

We aren't exactly measuring things to say this year was better or worse than last year.  

When the dimwit calls us up at 7 PM....claiming to be such-and-such journalist or poll-guru...we aren't that impressed.  When the better or worse scenario is put in front of us....we aren't exactly using maximum brain cells, and that whisky-sour cocktail is kicking in.  To be honest, I might even admit I doubled-up on the whiskey today.  

Maybe if the guy had asked more questions....he would have found out that our dog died this year....that the transmission of the 2-year old car failed this year....that I've made 30-percent less pay this year due to Covid-work restrictions....or that since moving to Georgia four years ago....I've killed six snakes within the house.  There might be some actual reason why things are bad, but you just don't care about people, issues, or the past four years.

So frankly, the poll is meaningless to me. In fact, I kinda wonder why Fox hasn't asked me how I feel about them.  It wouldn't be a pleasant review that I'd give them. 

Will Hunter Biden Get Prosecuted?

 First, you'd have to define what crime was violated.  The only potential issues I see are money-laundering or tax troubles.  The cocaine use?  Not an issue.  You can't suggest any crime syndicate issues, or theft of any type.  Siphoning off cash from some bank or industry?  Nope.  

If he was connected to the money-laundering.....did he do it himself, or did he have low-level people do it?  If the money-laundering had nothing to do with cash flowing into the US, or out of the US.....there's not much to charge.

If he did stupid tax filings?   Normally....IRS would bring you in....give you a chance to correct the matter....file the right forms...pay some hefty fine, and 99-percent of the time avoid jail.  

In fact, the worst of this is that he has five million in secret money....that he didn't admit to the recent baby-situation that he had, and agreed to pay monthly payments for the kid.  That would drag him back into court, and ease the payments up a notch.

So the wildest fantasy here is that he did major money-laundering....way over $500 million, and a trail leads back to 'dad'.  In this case, he'd do a couple years of prison, and 'dad' would have to resign (if connected).  

Can anyone be this stupid, and lay a path easily detected?  Normally....not.  But if you were on cocaine binges....you could do a lot of stupid crap.  Maybe this is mostly what the story is about....a guy doped-up on cocaine so much....that he hasn't really grasped what he's doing or where this is going.  It's possible that if you asked him about events in 2013.....he doesn't remember a single thing.  

24 December: National Holiday?

 Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order that the 24th is a day off for fed workers.  

Having been in the military and GS world in my life....generally, the 24th is this oddball day.  More or less....nothing is happening.  

In 1978, at my first base....we kinda sat around the shop...drank coffee....eating cookies, and then around 11 AM, the boss said to go to chow, and don't return.

This process mostly repeated at every single base.  

At some point in the late 1980s, a new 'deal' came....half the shop would have the week prior to Christmas 'off' (meaning you couldn't travel beyond the local area but you could shop or just sit around the house).  The other half of the shop got the week after Christmas.  

As a governmental employee at the Pentagon?  Most folks took the day off (official leave).

I brought this topic up with a retired guy a few years ago....who worked for years around the hardware business.  He noted that the 24th was the most useless day of work in his profession....with absolutely no one showing up to buy anything on the 24th.  

Trump's deal?  It's just for 2020.  

Odds of repeating?  Maybe.  But it begs questions....shouldn't the 31st of December be treated the same way?  

Apartheid Grocery Stores?

 This week, some news group started up a chat over over a 'food apartheid system' existing in the United States.

The basic description?  You live in x-neighborhood where there's only gas stations, liquor shops, quickie-marts.  A real grocery?  Miles away.  

If you don't have a car, or the grocery doesn't offer much on 'discounts'....you are controlled in some fashion (like South African apartheid).

Somehow, they entwined this discussion over the fact that there aren't enough grocery stores in America....more or less.

I sat and pondered over this.  

There are four central faults with this suggestion:

1.  Who exactly is going to make the law to FORCE grocery stores to exist every two miles?

2.  Isn't this a urbanization problem?

3.  If you created this mass network of grocery stores....is there anything to indicate that it'd survive (profit-wise)? 

4.  Most folks around California will tell you that such grocery stores today are highly targeted by the homeless population.....who step in and shoplift $40 of food, with zero chance of doing jail-time.  The loss to the store?  It gets figured into the escalation for prices (this is why a can of Coke can be $2.20 when it ought to be no more than 80-cents).

A lot of this discussion seemed to give you the idea of Venezuela where they have grocery shelves that are mostly empty because the pricing system mandated by the state....makes it a highly unprofitable situation.   

I am reminded of a trip to NY City in the past five years....where I stepped into some local grocery shop near the hotel, to buy a six-pack of water.  For the no-name pack, with tax included....it was near $15.  If I wanted the name-brand, it was closer to $18.  I felt silly because in Germany, it wouldn't have been more than 6 Euro ($7) for the no-name six-pack.