Can you manage your own finances successfully? Guess who can't.

I agree with your point nothing is free.

However, the notion that pensions are "bad" is false. Pensions should be treated as a liability, I agree, but they are a benefit for work and value added to the economy. 401k's are nice, but they are undefined and can be wiped out by the 1% playing with the economy. Why should we force our workers to be at the whims of a few? How is that fair? It's not. So while I agree that we should treat pensions as liabilities, we should also fund them properly when we make the promise as well. And those children and grandchildren who help pay for them are doing so because they benefited from a public worker, so it's not completely unfair for them to pay for some of that.

 

When you are discussing the price of rice and some jerk asks how many grains of rice a chickadee can eat before they have to crap..... My, yes, the discussion should change to that subject immediately.
I see your point, and the relevance of your - uh- logic?

 

And you STILL are unable to address the points I have raised. Thanks for playing.

 

But, I am not saying pensions are bad. I'm saying that creating the obligation without creating a way to fund them is bad. I'm saying failing to consider that obligation is planning and financial reports is bad.
Credit used wisely is beneficial, used stupidly is disastrous. My credit cards bills are always over 10K a month, and I haven't paid a dime in interest in 15 years- so they serve my objectives with short-term credit and ease of purchasing and records keeping. But when you charge things you have no idea how to pay for. it is the polar opposite- it destroys your objectives. When the time frame is so long it will be collected from your grandchildren, in my opinion- you become kind of like pond scum.

IF you don't want to leave your kids anything and make them start from scratch, fine. But burden them with debt they had no control over and tell them you did them a favor?
Not in my family. I want the world to be a better place because I was here, I want my kids to have at least as much opportunity as I did, and I want to give them a hand up if I can- not a kick in the head so I can live better today.

If pensions were set up and money went into interest-earning investments with each paycheck, by the time of retirement- they would be funded. Just like social security- what you get then will depend on what is contributed now to fund it. It can be done, should be done- but we are pretending that some miracle will come along and rain money later to cover it. Wrong.

That is the point.

 

Hardly the norm Guy! The majority by far stay productive their entire lives and even those that have had a catastrophic event in their younger lives push thru and return to a productive life, I'm living proof of that This is most likely something you need to believe and clearly not something that's plaguing the U.S.

 

I'm fine agreeing on funding pensions. And I wasn't really concerned as much with the debt part of anything as I don't disagree.

Funding pensions for public servants such as teachers, police, fire fighters and others is a fine debt to understand and pass down. Those same teachers who taught me are ensuring my children benefit as well. And their children. There is an echo effect to future generations of strong public infrastructure and services. That's the best kind of debt to pass down if any. It's unreasonable to think that public debt will never go from one generation to the next.

 

Excellent. It is easy for the politician to hold up his arms and hands to shield the view of the ten ton elephant in the kitchen just itching to bust free through the walls and say, "Elephant? What elephant? No elephant here.... as long as you vote for me!"

 

OK this guy "thinks" he has points. Does he?? or is he just too contentious to understand what he has read, and feels compelled to argue?

1- You seem to be mistaking "costs money" with "irresponsible." Irresponsible is taking $100 billion and setting it on fire. Whether a given *investment* is "irresponsible" depends on the cost-benefit analysis.

Burning money??? Sheer stupidity, of course. Irresponsible is a step above sheer stupidity. A poorly calculated investment is irresponsible too. Desire (I want, I deserve) IS NOT a calculated risk- it is childish emotions driving financial decisions. I have seen kids buy cars because the car had some individual feature like a turbo which they just had to have- and fail to consider all the other problems. THAT is irresponsible. Marrying a woman who is hot in bed and failing to consider if the person has the capacacity and desire to be a solid partner- kind of a combination of stupid and irresponsible. Both have nasty results, because we failed to look beyond what we wanted right now.... and failed to be prepared for the possible consequences of our decisions.



2- Forgiving current student loans doesn't actually cost the government anything, since the loans have already been made. It cancels an income stream (the future value of those loans being repaid), but it doesn't involve paying out any additional funds.

Go to the bank that holds your car loan and make that argument, see what they think. If they don't collect, it will indeed impair their ability to pay out future funds, because YOU failed to return yours.

If someone owes you $10,000 dollars which you have already given them and expect back to balance the books- AND THEY FAIL TO PAY YOU- are you worse off. Yes, by $10,000 plus interest.
That's not advanced economics, it's grade school math. YOU can't figure that out??? Under your logic if you loaned out every dime you had and nobody paid you back- you would still be as well off as if you had never loaned anything..... There are names for such logic, which I won't bother stating.

3- Further, staggering levels of student debt are a real issue, thanks largely to the cost of college rising far faster than wages, partly due to a massive drop in state support for public colleges. Trying to address that is not "irresponsible". You can argue whether this approach is the best one, but you can't just dismiss it out of hand.

For instance, you have to take that $640 billion write-off and factor in things like:

-- The government's interest in having a well-educated work force in today's global knowledge economy;
-- The economic boost from graduates suddenly having a lot more disposable income and a lot more economic options -- such as the ability to start a new company, rather than take some wage-slave job in order to pay off their debt.

So, if you borrow money and changing conditions make it inconvenient to pay it back- you are entitled to dismiss the debt. So, just tell the people who have the mortgage on your home that you didn't get as far ahead as you expected by now, so it is not practical to make mortgage payments anymore. Do you really think for a moment that you then own the house and owe nothing???
Regardless of why you borrow, both you and the lender take risks that things will change in our economy- they always do. ONLY AN IDIOT THINKS OTHERWISE.
You want to blame either the lender or society for things not going as you expected them to- so they should pay for your bad judgement? Of course you do. You think that's "fair". I think that reverts back to stupid- and the people who put up the money and stand to lose will agree. The people wanting to forget their obligations.... will agree with you. "Free" always seems to be able to cause a suspension of ethics in people, obviously including you.

4- Not sure how you consider this "irresponsible." Economically speaking, it's a bit of a wash: we're not talking about $1 trillion in new spending as a country; we're talking about taking money we now pay out in the form of health insurance and co-pays and paying it in taxes instead. The idea is it would provide the following benefits:

-- Remove costs from the system by removing profit motive;
-- Make access to health care unrelated to your employment status, allowing people a lot more economic freedom (no more working a job you hate simply because you need the health insurance). This would encourage people to be more entrepreneurial, more likely to work for small companies and start-ups, etc.
-- Promote a healthy populace, by no longer making poor people choose between groceries/rent and seeing a doctor.
-- Keep medical inflation down thanks to the negotiating power of a single payer.

This particular give away has nothing to do with any other debt, any more than your mortgage and mine-
READ THE ANSWER ABOVE AGAIN.

And here you're taking an aspirational proposal and treating it as if everything in it would be done and paid for tomorrow.

There is broad agreement that we need to invest a huge amount in rebuilding/repairing our infrastructure. As far as "every building in America", that's the sort of thing we do all the time: set a requirement for new construction, and gradually improve the existing stock as it is remodeled/replaced. If we want to make it happen even faster, we provide tax credits/deductions for such things, incentivizing building owners to do the work. This is neither radical nor complicated.

This one I have a lot of questions about, in large part because it *would* be a very large new cost, and if implemented poorly could create some perverse incentives.

That said, we *already* have a basic guaranteed income -- that's what cash welfare is. Many other countries have the same thing. Most European countries have welfare benefits that are far more generous than ours. This isn't really a radical idea, either. It's just a question of cost and effects

Costs--- to WHO? You speak of benefit to some- at the expense of others. You wish to make the poor rich by making the rich poor?
IF you were the only person in the nation- you would simply take care of yourself, and that would be fair.
If there were only 10 people in the nation, and each one took care of one person- all would be cared for, and that would be fair- no one would carry the burden of others.
If there were only 1000 people in the nation, and each one took care of one person- all would be cared for, and that would be fair- no one would carry the burden of others.

But since there are now 300 million, everything is different- half of those people now owe you and should carry your burden for you, and YOU consider that fair.....

Now- that "addresses" your "points".
Let's see if you can understand it when it's written plainly enough for grade school kids to grasp easily.

 

Both Medicare and Social Security have a ton on unfunded liabilities, unless you count federal IOUs.

 

It's one thing to pass it down for reason- it's another to leave it off the books and fail to prepare for it. That is the major flaw here; it creates an illusion that causes us to assume a problem isn't really there.

 

Keep reading. I have addressed your "points".. I would have thought you would have preferred not to make things worse- but it's your choice.

An old saying goes- Better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

 

Finally, you decide to respond. Thanks.

So you write an argumentative paragraph, but to the extent you actually address what I wrote, you agree with me.

Again, you're all argumentative, but the point you make is the same as one I made -- that forgiving current student loans costs the government an income stream.

My other point was merely that it doesn't involve any additional cash out of pocket. Which it doesn't. Walking away from sunk costs is a different economic scenario than trying to come up with new funds for a new activity.

Who said anything about "entitled"?

No, and never said otherwise. But nice strawman.

Nonetheless, lenders and borrowers restructure or cancel debt all the time. Just ask Trump, who has made a career out of declaring bankruptcy and restructuring debt. Just ask all the people who got their mortgages restructured after the housing crash.

The government is not a private business, nor should it be. So you're making a fundamental category error before you even get going.

In a democracy, the government is us. It is the tool that we, collectively, use to do things that are difficult or inefficient if left to individuals or private business. In the end, the government uses the resources we give it to help create the conditions for a successful, competitive, humane society.

The government -- us -- has an interest in making sure we have an educated populace. Education is also the great meritocratic equalizer in a fair society. If education is unaffordable to many people, that is a problem.

There are multiple ways to address the high cost of higher education. Government grants and subsidized loans are one such way. You don't seem to have a problem with those. If the government later decides to forgive those loans rather than seek repayment, that is another way. It is the government CHOOSING to convert loans to grants. This is not automatically irresponsible.

Your response here makes no sense. The fact of the matter is, if we spend $1 trillion on health care, it doesn't matter whether that $1 trillion is being spent through insurance premiums or through taxes. It's still $1 trillion. You can argue about which way is preferable, but the bottom line is the same.

And again you aren't making sense. I'm talking about society. You seem to want to pretend that society doesn't exist.

Now you sound like one of the more demented libertarians. In a nation of 300 million, taxation and government is how you handle common problems. You can't run a nation of 300 million the same way you run a village of 50.

All I can say is "Dunning-Krueger".

 

I knew you wouoldn't be able to figure it out, but as expected- you have now "Removed all doubt".

 

And again, your failure to meaningfully address anything I wrote is noted -- and obvious to everyone reading this thread. Implicit concession once again noted.

 

Your problem is that anything other than agreement with what you want to believe is meaningless.
Therefore, there will never be any expertise in your life except yourself, no accountability for you mistakes other than to blame others. no learning experience from consequences, no understanding of others-

And life will continue to be hell.

 

You were actually sounding very knowledgeable until you had to I guess due to some unexplained emotional issues veer off into your anti Democrat rant. The fact is that both parties are responsible for the debt mess we are in. It actually is insane that the government allows anyone, companies and states and municipalities to underfund pension plans and then guarantees the plans against default.

 

I went into the military to avoid college loans. My brother paid his loans back and has since earned his Masters. He is putting his kid through Texas A&M right now. My mom worked her way through college and finished debt free. Are we all supposed to pay for your school now? Suck it up.

 

No IT IS NOT FREE MEDICARE it is medicare possibly with a 1% increase in the present rate paid by all working and all those collecting Soc.Sec. each month.That should be the majority of adult Americans contributing, and far less than those getting sick in any one given year.

 

Regardless of how we pay for hralthcare in our country, unless the costs come down very significantly no one will be able to afford it

 

You know, “Life was hard for me, so it should be just as hard for you” isn’t really a great basis for social policy.

 

Its apparently what the right believes too. The only time we have been in wars , WITHOUT raising the revenue sources with which pay for its costs, was when George Bush was president. Now you may think it rational to run a couple of wars simultaneously,without a tax hike so that those wars don't end up on our credit card, but I think it is incredibly unpatriotic. If the taxpayer won't pony up and sacrifice even that, we probably should not be sending our youth to sacrifice their lives and limbs.

 

Of course you can. Stay at home with your parents until it's paid off, don't spend any money on luxuries/fun until it's paid off. And live on a tiny fraction of what you earn until it's paid off. Easy.

 

Why can't she pay for her own school? Do I owe her?

 

I'm not in favor of ANY political party practicing loose fiscal policy. While both are guilty of past transgressions, the new crop of democrats seems to have totally rejected the idea of having to pay for what you get. There is NOBODY but us to pay the bills- and postponing them to be dumped on your grandchildren is a pathetic and low-life trick that honorable men reject.... except the new democrats. That's what's wrong.

 

Well I agreed with the basic tenor of your post until that last partisan phrase. Its been a pathetic lowlife trick that a hell of a lot of politicians from both parties have been failing to reject since the 70's. Stop singling 'new Dems' when republicans have been as pathetic and lowlife since Reaganomics . Until you endorse a broad income tax hike and cuts in defense spending, and I endorse dramatic cuts in domestic spending and entitlement programs, we are really no better than Bush, Obama,Trump or the 'new' Dems.