This is off-topic, but we have a large military not to defend ourselves from Russia or China, but to defend our allies from a variety of different threats (in some cases we are protecting them from themselves). If attack from Russia or China were our only concern, we could have a military the size of Canada and be perfectly safe.
@mom2aphysicsgeek the average tuition for community college students is around 3400. That means for approximately 20 billion dollars we could have free community colleges, That is 2.5 per ecent of the defense budget!! Let me put it in a different context. The average 1 per center after taxes takes home 1.5 million dollars. If they take home 1.44 million dollars then all public higher education can be free. That seems more than reasonable.
Why are we spending 800 billion to defend our allies as zinhead says? Let them defend themselves. Lets use that money on ourselves
We tried that in 1914 and 1940. The results were not encouraging.
@tiger1307 Just so I understand your reasoning, would you have suggested we not get involved in the European Theater of WWII?
I take it that you are not familiar with NATO and other treaty obligations. Also, the entire defense budget is not spent on defending our allies.
Are you suggesting cutting out the promised veteran’s and widow’s benefits for those that served our country? Exactly which part of the military budget are you suggesting be cut?
As mentioned early, there are already several ‘loan forgiveness’ type programs for those students that are willing to work to support the ‘greater good’ in return for their education.
The middle class, and especially not millionaires, shouldn’t need “numerous forms of government assistance”. Something doesn’t make sense.
I didn’t understand that either.
I wonder if Keely initiated all of this - or if someone else got her involved. I can’t understand why someone who didn’t attend public colleges, and who voluntarily took out $150,000 in loans for a private school could possibly think they were a great spokeperson for this issue. And why she didn’t do any homework on her plan.
$400,000 and up is the top 1% in this country. Her family had to be making close to that at one time to afford a $1,000,000 house. And if her plan of 90% tax rate for the top 1% was implemented, then someone making $400,000 would pay $360,000 a year in taxes. If she had done even basic research she should have know that that made absolutely no sense.
In order to qualify for a $1,000,000 home with a typical debt coverage ratio, someone would have to make $250,000.
She was hopefully talking about marginal tax rates, not total tax rates, although based on the interview she would not know the difference.
The Atlantic article is helpful in defining the 1% - they actually break it down by age:
@tiger, taxes are only dischargeable in bankruptcy if they meet certain conditions, that’s why I said usually not. Taxes have to be more than 3 years old, not reduced to liens as lines survive, the tax payer has to have filed the most recent 4 tax returns due, there cannot be fraud…
Most people aren’t waiting 3 years to file bankruptcy if they owe substantial back taxes, and there are usually lines if they do wait that long.
I’m in the group that feels banks will get out of the student lending business if the debt is allowed to be discharged. Most banks dont do student loans. It’s just not that profitable and with the limits on unsecured debt that banks are under now, they’d rather just do high interest rate credit card loans insteador signature lon to really rich people. If you look at the rates of unsecured lending, srudent loans are some of the lowest and least profitable for banks. Why would they do it if their losses increase due to discharge?
@Belknappoint No, I’m not confused. My husband and brother both work in the shipbuilding industry.
Well then, perhaps you could provide a reference to some information about these “nuclear contaminated” ships that are still in service with the U.S. Navy (which was a former employer of mine). So as not to derail the conversation here, please feel free to PM me.
I think that this thread wins the CC Award for Most Veered Off thread of the week.
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Why are we spending 800 billion to defend our allies as zinhead says?
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Because I’m glad that I grew up speaking English and not German.
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Are you suggesting cutting out the promised veteran’s and widow’s benefits for those that served our country? Exactly which part of the military budget are you suggesting be cut?
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this is one problem that those who scream, “slash the military budget in half,” don’t understand. A good chunk of the military budget is already “spoken for.” I don’t know how Russia and China take care of their vets, widows, children, but I suspect that they’re not as generous or provide what we do.
The point is… the primary reason we have a military isn’t so we don’t have terrorist attacks. As horrible it was to lose 3000+ people on 9/11 and the numerous people we’ve lost at other times, our country does not fall under those circumstances. We certainly want to prevent these evil events from happening, but failing from time to time doesn’t mean that our military isn’t doing its job, isn’t needed, is “too big,” is too expensive, etc. (What next? Are we going to say we need to slash our police forces in half since we still have serious crimes?)
And, while a portion is spent defending our allies, we have a vested interest in that. We aren’t doing it to be benevolent souls.
So, it’s silly to say that we should slash our military budget in half because we haven’t stopped terrorist attacks on our soil.
That’s not necessarily applicable across the board if you mean in the financial sense…especially one examines some societies where college tuition was free or nearly so.
For instance, my father and everyone in his college graduating class at his ROC(Taiwan) university who received full free-ride…including books, room & board, and even a tiny bit of pocket money graduated with flying colors. From examining some statistics of Mainland Chinese college students who attended college before tuition was instituted at the end of the 90’s/early '00s, dropout rates are nowhere near what exists in many US directional universities and high schools with high dropout rates.
Certainly not at the levels of my old neighborhood’s zoned high school when it closed down in 2012 with a graduation rate of ~34%…and that was actually an improvement from the '90s.
Granted, there are some major differences.
For one, getting onto the academic college-track was not an assumed default for all ROC/Mainland Chinese middle school students, but one which required competitive examinations which only took around the top portion of all middle school graduates.
And from that portion, only a tiny minority would achieve high enough scores to gain one of the exceedingly scarce coveted university seats* in the incoming freshman class.
Considering the highly competitive process at each stage of education, the vast majority of students had to have had a high degree of motivation and academic skills/acumen** to even get to the starting line. There was also a strong social stigma against “wasting such a golden opportunity”, especially considering being a university student or moreso a college graduate conveyed greater social status within that society and having such status made a substantial difference in one’s career and social prospects.
Another major cultural/societal difference is unlike here in the US where there’s a widespread assumption that private universities/colleges are better than their public counterparts, the widespread assumption in many East Asian societies is the complete opposite.
The assumption there is that with the few elite exceptions, private schools were for students who didn’t make the cut for the academically stronger and more prestigious public universities. Some East Asian friends have likened that mentality as similar to how many Americans perceive for-profit colleges. Heard the mentality is similar among some South-American countries like Brazil where Brazilians largely perceive the public colleges as being academically better and more prestigious than their private counterparts on average.
- At the time, there were only 3 universities in the ROC...each of which only had enough places for a few hundred incoming students per year at best. There were also the military academies, but as they had lowered academic entrance requirements, a long minimum service obligation of 10+ years upon graduation versus only having to complete 2 years if one entered at 18 or as a university graduate, and an aversion to making the military a long-term career for various reasons***, most academic college track students regarded them as alternatives only if they were rejected from all the universities.
** The concept of remedial education at the university level would be alien in those societies. Students whose academic preparation wasn’t up to standard for academic-track high schools would either fail the academic HS entrance exams and/or be placed by middle school admins/teachers on various vocational tracks or encouraged to find an apprenticeship/job by the end of 8th or the very latest…9th grade. The well-off could resort to sending their kids to private “remedial high schools” like the one my mother attended. However, there was a heavy social stigma attached to those institutions and students who attended them.
*** This was during the period of martial law.
Kids are always looking for a cause celebre to put on their resumes and “find themselves” and “make a difference” and “change the world” and blah blah blah. WE ALL DID IT at that age. Thank God I found a job and paid taxes and quickly discerned that my parents werent wrong afterall.
Like this BlackLivesMatter crap on campuses…its just noise makers. Though in their case, there are people in WH helping advise them to advance their cause. Civil disobedience is now a common cause and reminds me of the Vietnam War years…when we remember students spitting on ROTC candidates and military vets returning from jungle duty and being asked “did you kill anyone over in Vietnam?” Its just punks, silly sophomoric kids and ne’er do well spoiled brats making noise. Its what they do.
What I dont understand is why college administrators put up with it. I would expel them immediately. GET OUT AND DONT COME BACK. They are creating crisis so they can allege there is a crisis. Yawn.
Btw, a 15.00 minimum wage HURTS young people the most because employers wont pay it and just will eliminate jobs and not hire them. Many small business will shutter and close the doors. You want a better wage? Get an education and work for it. Or pick a career with a better wage. You know who is UNDERPAID THE MOST? COPS.
But who among the snotty nosed brats parading around with silly sophomoric signs is willing to put on a uniform and risk their lives in their communities? Will they do community organizing with a BADGE ON? What REALLY matters?
Kids have a right to voice their opinions as they are growing up and trying to find meaning in life and a direction. Fine. I get that and support that. I draw the line at the outrageous conduct at Dartmouth and Princeton and Missouri and other schools. College debt? Well…nobody forced them to pick a private college. Go to a community college, and then transfer to a state school and get your degree. What did I do? I worked THREE JOBS, ate ramen and took loans and busted my behind, found a job on my own without some family member or college dean calling in favors or having a trumpet blowing or red carpet rolled out…I struggled. And made my path in life. I worked like a dog. Today this generation is beyond spoiled. They all expect to be making big money on wallstreet or some bank in a financial center or making six figures in some law firm or some other profession and feel ENTITLED. Guess what? Its not happening for most people and your toughest competition is from technology which intends to ELIMINATE your job faster than you can speed around in your BMW.
The millenials are addicted to gadgets and technology. They dont understand that technology and gadget is SUICIDE for our nation and makes a very few people rich beyond comprehension but everyone else UNEMPLOYED. Every single tech company makes something that eliminates jobs, not creating jobs. Amazon is the worst. Google. Snapchat. Square. ALL designed to destroy the world. Find a way to make money that survives technology. Good luck with that.
Something to consider about college debt is that the supply/demand situation is in their favor of colleges, and their “customers” have easier access to loans than in other situations. What is the incentive for colleges to control their costs? If a car dealer has so many customers that he turns half of them away, and the ones who come in looking for Beamers are able to borrow whatever money is needed, why would the auto industry try to keep the prices under check?
Some strategy like making private college loans easier to discharge will make them less easily available leading to private colleges having a vested interest in reigning in costs. And if we really want to beat up the 1%ers to fund it, why not the 1%er colleges too? HYPS made to open up their purse strings to a fund to cover expenses of the kid attending local U.