U.S. household debt tops $14 TRILLION and reaches new record

I agree much of it should come from home absolutely. The problem is it doesnt and with the education system also doing nothing and being largely a democrat profession they push liberal ideology more often. The liberal ideology lately is free stuff left and right. The more knowledge the better in my opinion. (As long as its is rooted in good faith)

 

No high school studen or their parents can know whether their kid will graduate.

There IS a risk in taking out these loans. In fact, 40% of those in 4 year STEM programs don't graduate even in 6 years. These programs are not easy. And, life issues do intrude.

When placing a bet of that size, those who come from family wealth are more able to sign the bottom line than are those who do not.

This is a signifcant way in which we disadvantage those who were unlucky to have low income parents - thus driving the wealth gap even wider.

 

No, I most definitely have NOT complained about people dropping out.

I don't have time to futher explain our system.

 

That makes a lot of sense. I believe we need to find way to make college cheaper. High school is cheap and doesnt cost tax payers much. Colleges receive state funding and federal funding along with absorbent cost of tuition and other fees. If they are receiving government subsidies then the governement should get something in return. The return would be cheaper cost for those that want to attend. If they want the governement put of there pockets dont accept money from them.

 

It won't be Obama's fault! Frankly, he, OBAMA, never did anything but what he was TOLD to do by the overlords in the Federal Reserve System central bank. Obama didn't know any more about "economies" than the hare-brained, wanna-be Socialists running for the Democrat nomination today.... (Free 'this', free 'that', free college, welfare for illegal aliens, etc., etc., etc.)

Trump would be more to blame, because of his big tax cut AND increased government spending WITHOUT parallel cuts in useless, ruinous government 'programs' of a hundred different kinds -- mostly 'pork', waste, and handout-welfare. But, even then the tax cuts could have had an overall beneficial effect except, as usual, nothing was done to fundamentally rewrite the U. S. Tax Code itself! It is a thoroughly unfair system of taxation because it is stuffed with tax loopholes, tax shelters, exemptions, deductions, exclusions, 'carried-interest' provisions, and on and on and on.... And nobody -- Democrat or Republican -- will ever do anything to really FIX it....

Trump's constant bitching and carping about his ardent desire for crushed interest rates (again) is also a BIG part of the debt problem! It encourages personal financial irresponsibility on a blithering-idiot scale and completely disrupts the VALUE of money because when demand for credit is at an all-time high, interests MUST rise in a free-market economy!

What Trump wants discourages common sense, thrift, and the intelligent practice of SAVING money for a 'rainy day'. Now the 'storm clouds' are gathering again, worse than before....

Hint: you don't want this idiot running YOUR financial life.... -- "Yeah, but you're stuck with him!"

 

We're lacking character, not information. We LIVE in the information age.

If people choose to disable their children, they have done so willingly and freely. There's nothing anyone can do about it .. that's simply the nature of freedom (ie, some will always choose failure). All we can do, is be determined not to do it to our own children.

 

No, we shouldn't. If anything, it should be more expensive! To qualify, I believe that all courses leading directly to full time jobs in high demand, future friendly fields should be FREE, and the price of recreational courses increased to cover the cost. By recreational I mean Arts & Humanities, etc. Anything which doesn't lead directly to full time work in a high demand field.

High school is essential, and college leading directly to full time work in a high demand field is essential - so both should be free. Knowing about 17thC French Poetry is not essential.

 

Yes, you are. You keep mentioning it as a problem. Clearly, you have an issue with it.

 

For those with means that's reasonalby true.

For those kids with low income parents, this is not the case AT ALL.

What we CAN do is work to ensure those who dont have means, but do have desire and capability are able to get education beyond high school.

There isn't anything stopping us from doing that.

 

ABSOLUTELY I have an issue with pricing kids out of education.

And, that IS what we in the USA are doing.

 

1) Nonsense. We can know to a very reasonable level of certainty that they will graduate, assuming we've raised them right. And we know whether we've done that, because they exhibit all the signs of being a 'stayer' long before college starts.

2) There is only a risk if your child borrows money on a useless degree, and you (the parents) are not rich enough to cover the loan for them. No point continuing to harp about 'drop outs', either. See above. And we know you have some kind of personal issue with that freely made choice, so let's just focus on the majority - who don't drop out.

3) When placing a bet of that size, the ONLY thing that matters is that the course you bet on equips you to repay it. It has nothing to do with your parents unless they're so rich that they can afford to cover your losses.

4) WE aren't disadvantaging them. They are disadvantaging themselves by placing bets on crappy horses (aka, useless degrees).

 

Giving billions to corrupt bankers takes the cake as far as I'm concerned...these bankers then went and paid themselves massive bonuses from this money.... what a rort.

no wonder American inequality is so high... the Globalist Cominterns have been busy in North America



Wheeeee!... that's me sliding down your inequality trend... if I look up I can see Soros, Obama, Biden, Hillary and Bloomberg

 

YOU/WE are not doing a thing, we have no control over the decisions of others. THEY choose to drop out. Why can't you make peace with that? Why do you refuse to accept that they made their choice, according to their own lights?

 

Nope, can't blame Trump, just posted the inequality chart which ends in 2015... the damage started years ago

 

As someone whose career has been in high tech, I can tell you we need people who have reasonably rounded educations. Simply passing their engineering courses, or whatever, is NOT good enough. Colleges and universities require classes in various disciplines because they know better than to think one is educated after taking courses in only one field of study.

We need people who have skills in all sorts of disciplines.

Without that, we don't get the creativity, the satisfying human interfaces, an understanding of the real problems we want to solve, etc.

We're not going to solve your business problems if we don't understand your business.

 

I don't agree with your premise. Dropping out isn't like that. And, what you keep dodging is that the decision to borrow large sums of money comes BEFORE they are faced with the challenges of higher education - challenges that a high school kid dose not necessarily have the capability to address.

 

I do agree with you -- actually, we can track the trend using those data all the way back to the final year of Jimmuh Cawduh. I remember it all.

But Trump is making things vastly worse by flushing people out of secure savings accounts because they can't even make a fair return on their deposits. Trump wants them all to rush into already grotesquely-overvalued stock markets, presumably to make the economy look artificially *wonderful* just in time for the election.

I know I have "an axe to grind" about interest rates, and therefore, I "have a dog in this fight" -- but interest rates should be based on ONE thing and ONE thing only -- true, actual demand for credit! That's it -- that's ALL. And the demand for credit in this country is staggering, but interest rates are being crushed back down toward zero. That is pure manipulation and "distortion", just as UBS Chairman, Axel Weber says it is.... It won't end well.

 

My first physics class in university was in an auditorium with a few hundred others.

The professor told us to look a the student on our left, then the student on our right. He stated that only one of us would be in physcis at the end of the year.

Every one of those students in that class was there because that is the challenge they were looking for. Suggesting that many students were lazy or something is just ridiculous.

Way back then they didn't teach calculus in high school. Yet first year physics for physics majors required calculus. It was just understood that we would learn calculus as one on the things we did on our own time. Did every student have the math chops to do that on their own? Nope!

Suggesting that a degree in a STEM subject is something every kid accepted by a university is capable of accomplishing is just plain FALSE.

And, that means there IS significant risk in taking out a student loan for tens of thousands of dollars - risk that deters some who are capable, especially when they have no financial backup.

 

yeah the interest rates is a whole other discussion, everyone's wealth is stuck in equities or property while leveraged to the max. The problem being when the Fed is controlled by bankers whose only "interest" is to make more money... which means more debt. It make Trump's job very difficult... he is already at odds with the Fed

 

1) Education is a means to an end unless you're filthy rich. Since 90% of us aren't filthy rich, and life is become harder for all but the rich, we need our kids to learn VIABLE TRADES, not philosophy. Future employers are not going to stop and consider whether tech applicants took a semester of philosophy - heck, they're not doing it now. They'll take the Indian (direct from India - where they don't waste any STEM time on poetry) with Honours in Engineering over the local grad who knows a little philosophy.

2) Yes, we need a range of skills. But those that do not secure work - Arts/History/Humanities etc - can still be learned by those who can afford it. Clearly, if you don't need to secure work you're not poor.

3) See above. Those people will still exist, and still take their Arts/Humanities courses. It just won't be working and middle class kids - at least not straight out of high school. If they're determined to 'do art' or whatevs, they can earn their financial security first via a trade, then indulge themselves.

4) WE don't have a business problem. At least I don't. Do you?

 

1) Exactly. The parents should know very well whether the kid is going to handle it, based on prior performance in the same or similar disciplines. Once again, if the kid (and his/her parents) choose to ignore all the above .. why are you concerned? It's not your journey, not your life, not your business. FTR, I never said such disciplines will be accomplished by everyone .. I said anyone CAN accomplish them, if prepared for it well in advance. But as we know, many families choose not to prepare well in advance for the stuff that demands it .. and so choose college failure, instead of putting their kid into a trade apprenticeship.

2) The risk is self limiting! How can you not see that? If you place a bet on yourself (which is what they're doing), why would you then deliberately refuse to do that which realises your return? It's an absurd premise. It's like betting $100k on the likelihood of you walking to your mailbox on a tuesday afternoon .. then deciding you'll do whatever you can to avoid walking to your mailbox on a tuesday afternoon. You're talking about seriously stupid people, or seriously lazy people - and I include both students AND parents in that condemnation. Nothing we can do about that level of idiocy. They will reap what they have sown.

 

Property owners in the United States are forced to support public 'education' up through high school with taxes, and at least half of all of that is a complete WASTE of money and time. What little that is taught by the domestic 'education industry' that is useful or worthwhile could easily be taught in half the time.... The only public school system I know of that is worth a damn in the entire world is the one in Germany, and even their system isn't as beneficial as it used to be as little as thirty years ago.

Beyond 'high school', a person's educational choices, along with the responsibility for PAYING for it should be left entirely up to the individual, his/her 'rich uncle', or whatever....

Bottom line -- a hell of a lot of us had to work and EARN our way through an university-level education of our choice! Why the hell can't today's oh-so-enlightened-and-smart-and-'woke' generation do the same damned thing?!

Suggestion: have casual conversations with some of these 'woke' geniuses about what they do, and, do not know, and often you'll be left in amazement that many of them even know how to wipe their own asses....

 

I agree about where my tax dollars are going. I dont want them to go to underwater basket weaving.

It would be nice to see kids learning about realtor world things in high school because not everyone goes to college. Not everyone had a great up bringing.

I would like to see student loans not to be given to those obtaining useless degrees and we wouldnt of been in this position. Quicker we cut it the better.

 

100% agree. Enabling kids to indebt themselves for useless degrees is reprehensible. Parents should be made to repay those loans, as punishment for failing to prevent it in the first place - when the kid was still young enough to be answerable.

 

I agree. heads should have rolled.

But, if all you can see is Soros, Obama, Biden, Hillary, and Bloomberg, you aren't looking very hard...