"Don't go to college, go to a trade school"

[LV426]

Whereas there is no such thing as free, I was calling for a small fee on every one of the billions of Wall St. overnight transactions that take place every day...long before Bernie thought of it.

I think a lot of people had that thought, I'm not sure you can claim that.

But regardless, yes, public schools should be funded by taxes on the rich and corporations.

If your goal is to cut back the costs of college, then offering free tuition for public schools will force the private schools to lower theirs in order to compete for students.

 

[Althea]

Exactly, which is why forgiving the debt is the only option that makes any sense because paying student loans does nothing for the economy.

No job will ever be created by someone paying $500 a month in student loans, but plenty of jobs will be created by someone paying $500 a month for products, goods, and/or services.

If I opt to agree with every single one of your premises in this debate, then the logical conclusion (especially since you cite future earnings)is that paying student debt for your law degree will eventually generate more revenue when you are a top earner.

More taxes, and more revenue for spending in the economy. If we accept that short term suffering yields long term financial gains with a degree, then that's the program. Get your degree, and eventually contribute more to the economy.

The only other option is higher taxes to pay for 'free' college, as they have in a number of nations.

 

[LV426]

not at all. I'm mad about the exact thing everyone should be mad at.

People should be mad that their bosses aren't raising the wages of those who didn't have loans to forgive.

That's what you should be mad at.

But instead of holding your boss' feet to the fire, you're licking his boot.

When the ACA passed, you morons were thrilled about making everyone pay for the uninsured.

That's not what the ACA did. Amazing that after 12 years, you still don't know a single fucking thing about it.

I don't go around expecting others to pay for my debt, whether it's health care or debt i've incurred.

OK, but you also don't go around expecting to be fairly compensated for your work because you don't have a high opinion of it...so you're fucking things up for the rest of us by being complacent.

And you absolutely DID expect others to pay your debts, which is why you joined the military.

 

[Into the Night]

This is completely short sighted. You are a plumber and have ambition. You become a plumbing contractor and open a business. It grows and you have dozens of plumbers and even more apprentices working for you. You become a millionaire. That's the ladder you move up on.

Quite right. Works for electricians too. I will work for any business. Butcher, baker, candlestick maker, plumber, electrician, welder, mechanic, etc.

Unlike say a lawyer right out of law school, a journeyman plumber is guaranteed a job with a high starting salary.

That he is. People will pay a lot for someone to come and unstop their toilet!

The plumber also has no massive student debt to pay off. With more experience, and maybe some picked college business courses, the plumber becomes a contractor and grows his company to make millions.

I have seen this happen over and over.

Meanwhile, the lawyer, being a nobody from a nothing special law school ends up a public defender or maybe a small-time lawyer doing stuff like injury and small claims cases and the like making an okay living.

Ever wonder why many lawyers, particularly defense lawyers, look so shabby?

There's plenty of room to move up in the skilled trades if you have ambition and are reasonably intelligent.

That's the real key right there. Initiative. If you have the initiative and drive, you can succeed. If you don't, you won't. A college degree doesn't matter.

 

[Althea]

OK, but how likely is it that a plumber will be a millionaire? Highly unlikely.

Study after study keeps telling us the same thing: college is good if you want a career, want a chance at higher lifetime earnings, want to be able to move up the ladder, basically if you have ambition.

If you don't have ambition, then college probably isn't for you.

But let's make one thing perfectly clear, you will make more money as a college graduate than if you weren't.

Unless you have a degree that ultimately forces you to become a plumber

 

[LV426]

Those were my choices and when I incurred debt, I RESPONSIBLY paid for it. Nobody else paid for it. With this loan forgiveness, you're only encouraging MORE debt incursion and bad choices.

So again, a highly emotional argument that ignores the economics.

You're trying to argue that it's bad economics for you to feel unfair.

Well, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the economy does not give a shit what you think is fair and not fair.

So instead of whining about unfairness, use these opportunities to improve your own station.

What is stopping you from going into your boss' office and asking for a raise since you didn't have any debt to forgive?

 

[LV426]

more idiot assumptions on your part.............

Oh, so then why are you avoiding asking your boss for a raise?

 

[Althea]

I don't think Bill Gates or Steve Jobs finished college.

Obviously, that is not something your average person can aspire to or have a realistic chance of achieving.

I don't think very many physicists, historians, mathmeticians, astronomers, sociologists choose their majors with plans of becoming billionaires. I think the choice 99.9 percent of us face is to find something we like doing and will pay us a comfortable salary.

Exactly. Quality of life, as it were. Very few are lucky enough to love their job. Quite the opposite. In the end, quite a few wealthy people made a deal with the devil.

 

[LV426]

Again, even though you disagree, there are plenty of worthless college degrees. That doesn't mean that all college is a waste of time.

And if mommy and daddy will pay for you to study one of the degrees in the list below, more power to you.

https://www.edsmart.org/most-useless-degrees/

I think you're participating in class warfare here; I think you're pitting the working class against itself because of a subjective opinion and inherent bias you have.

 

[Into the Night]

But taxes pay to run society.

Taxes do not pay to run society. Society runs itself. Not even a government is required.

And in this nation, pay for defense. Taxes are a necessary evil.

This nation no longer exists. It was overthrown by Democrats during a coup.
They are currently using taxes for communism, by giving the money to someone else that didn't earn it (taking a hefty percentage off the top before they do), pay for a ton of useless bureaucrats, whose sole purpose seems to be to make the lives of people miserable, fund religions like the Church of Green, the Church of Global Warming, and the Church of Covid, and maybe actually pay for a road or two.

You can't get into Mar A Lago unless you cough up $200k/year.

Think of America as the best country club in the world.

 

[LV426]

taxes pay to feed special interest groups. it's why we run a debt every year. go look at the debt clock, do you see it going down?

So then just fucking give up and kill yourself.

If this government and world is making you THIS MISERABLE and THIS ANGRY, then just fucking kill yourself.

I'm sick of reading this whiny, trashy garbage.

If you feel so maligned and derided by society, put on your big boy pants, take your gun, put it in your fucking big mouth, and pull the goddamned trigger.

Spare us this screeching whine. PLEASE.

 

[Into the Night]

Taxes do not pay to run society. Society runs itself. Not even a government is required.

This nation no longer exists. It was overthrown by Democrats during a coup.
They are currently using taxes for communism, by giving the money to someone else that didn't earn it (taking a hefty percentage off the top before they do), pay for a ton of useless bureaucrats, whose sole purpose seems to be to make the lives of people miserable, fund religions like the Church of Green, the Church of Global Warming, and the Church of Covid, and maybe actually pay for a road or two.

You can't get into Mar A Lago unless you cough up $200k/year.

or unless you're a thug for the FBI.

 

[cawacko]

This is completely short sighted. You are a plumber and have ambition. You become a plumbing contractor and open a business. It grows and you have dozens of plumbers and even more apprentices working for you. You become a millionaire. That's the ladder you move up on.

Unlike say a lawyer right out of law school, a journeyman plumber is guaranteed a job with a high starting salary. The plumber also has no massive student debt to pay off. With more experience, and maybe some picked college business courses, the plumber becomes a contractor and grows his company to make millions.
Meanwhile, the lawyer, being a nobody from a nothing special law school ends up a public defender or maybe a small-time lawyer doing stuff like injury and small claims cases and the like making an okay living.

There's plenty of room to move up in the skilled trades if you have ambition and are reasonably intelligent.

I don't know much about plumbing but I would imagine along the lines of what you said that one could own a plumbing business and make good money. This same plumber could also have a side hustle of buying real estate and maybe building up a small portfolio of properties and after a period of time have quite the net worth.

And your example of attorneys is spot on as well. Not all attorneys are rich. Not all attorneys become Partners at high profile big city law firms. There are attorneys take out huge loans for law school then get low paying jobs and spend years upon years trying to repay it.

 

[BidenPresident]

So then just fucking give up and kill yourself.

If this government and world is making you THIS MISERABLE and THIS ANGRY, then just fucking kill yourself.

I'm sick of reading this whiny, trashy garbage.

If you feel so maligned and derided by society, put on your big boy pants, take your gun, put it in your fucking big mouth, and pull the goddamned trigger.

Spare us this screeching whine. PLEASE.

Most of us wish the same thing for Smarterthanyou.

 

[LV426]

If I opt to agree with every single one of your premises in this debate, then the logical conclusion (especially since you cite future earnings)is that paying student debt for your law degree will eventually generate more revenue when you are a top earner.

How will it do that vs. just forgiving the debt entirely?

The money has already been spent on the education, so at this point, it's just recouping a loan that can be discharged.

So if given the option to discharge the loan, moving it off everyone's books, why would you choose to insist someone pay the loan when they could use that money instead to buy a house?

No one has been able to articulate what the economic benefit is to having people pay $500/month in student loans. It's all emotional, or about someone's personal bias or subjective judgment.

As far as I'm concerned, almost everyone is too emotional to approach this subject in an intelligent way.

BIG PICTURE: Student debt forgiveness is an economic stimulus at just the right time.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Nope.

It is undeniable that a college degree means you have higher earning potential than someone who doesn't have one.

As Althea said, for a plumber to be a millionaire, they would need incredible strokes of luck...whereas a lawyer's career trajectory can and does lead to great fortune, and while luck will always play a part, it isn't outsized in relation to the trajectory as it is for non-degree fields.




Right...you know that in almost every case, that requires a loan from a bank to get started?

A loan that often doesn't even get paid back because half of all businesses fail by year 5, and bankruptcy court typically discharges those loans.

But I don't see you getting upset about that....no, you're upset at strangers because they got debt forgiven and you got nothing out of that.

Except that you should be trying to get something out of that by using debt forgiveness as a reason for why you deserve a raise.

That is, if you think you're worth it...which I'm not sure you do. I'm not sure you have a very high opinion of your skills or work. If you did, you'd be clamoring for a raise from your boss. But you're not doing that.

You are mostly wrong here. Law school is not guarantee of a job and even not a guarantee you will end up in law.

Nearly one-fourth of Texas law grads are unemployed or underemployed

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...as-law-grads-are-unemployed-or-underemployed/

2020 law school grads having harder time finding jobs, data shows

https://www.abajournal.com/news/art...term-full-time-jobs-for-2020-law-school-grads

Sure, not every plumber that goes into business for himself will succeed. The difference is he can always go back to being a journeymen plumber for somebody else.

Unlike lawyers where there is a glut of them competing for jobs, there is a serious shortage of plumbers.

https://www.getonedesk.com/blog/plu...g 2021,increase by 5% over the next few years.

Shortage of Qualified Plumbers Plaguing The Plumbing Industry

https://waterworkplumbing.com/qualified-plumber-job-shortage/

Shortage of Plumbers

http://www.firstfairtradetownusa.org/2022/04/25/shortage-of-plumbers/

Right now, the average for lawyers on salary is about $80,000. The average for plumbers is about $57,000. On the other hand, a plumbing contractor makes about $73,000 on average so he's competitive with a lawyer for pay.
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/posting/plumbing-contractor-salary

As for business failures, that goes just as much for lawyers as it does for contractors, so that's a wash.

 

[Into the Night]

\
Nope.

Yup.

\
It is undeniable that a college degree means you have higher earning potential than someone who doesn't have one.

Argument of the Stone. Argument by repetition. You are chanting. Examples have already been provided to you why this is false.

\
As Althea said, for a plumber to be a millionaire, they would need incredible strokes of luck...

Nope. Just initiative and drive.

\
whereas a lawyer's career trajectory can and does lead to great fortune, and while luck will always play a part, it isn't outsized in relation to the trajectory as it is for non-degree fields.

Nope. Just initiative and drive.

\
Right...you know that in almost every case, that requires a loan from a bank to get started?

Nope. I paid for my daughter's college education out of my own pocket. Why should I pay for anyone else's education?????!?

\
A loan that often doesn't even get paid back because half of all businesses fail by year 5, and bankruptcy court typically discharges those loans.

College loan forgiveness is not bankruptcy, dude. False equivalence fallacy. You obviously have no clue about bankruptcy law.

\
But I don't see you getting upset about that....no, you're upset at strangers because they got debt forgiven and you got nothing out of that.

False equivalence fallacy.

\
Except that you should be trying to get something out of that by using debt forgiveness as a reason for why you deserve a raise.

I don't have a wage. I don't need a raise. I am the owner.

\
That is, if you think you're worth it...which I'm not sure you do. I'm not sure you have a very high opinion of your skills or work. If you did, you'd be clamoring for a raise from your boss. But you're not doing that.

Omniscience fallacy.

 

[LV426]

More taxes, and more revenue for spending in the economy. If we accept that short term suffering yields long term financial gains with a degree, then that's the program. Get your degree, and eventually contribute more to the economy.

Yeah, but we're talking about payments for those loans, and the fact that the average student loan payment is about $390/month, which is $4,600/year.

Now multiply that by 50M people, and you can see how much money is being steered away from the consumer economy by these student loans every year (about $234B or about a half point of GDP)

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Yeah, but we're talking about payments for those loans, and the fact that the average student loan payment is about $390/month, which is $4,600/year.

Now multiply that by 50M people, and you can see how much money is being steered away from the consumer economy by these student loans.

Seems to me since most universities have raised their tuition faster than inflation--way faster--and are awash in cash endowments and such, that we should end most student loan programs. That would force universities to cut their tuition to keep the number of students close to where they are so they can still make money.

 

[Into the Night]

Again, even though you disagree, there are plenty of worthless college degrees. That doesn't mean that all college is a waste of time.

No one said all college is a waste of time.

And if mommy and daddy will pay for you to study one of the degrees in the list below, more power to you.
https://www.edsmart.org/most-useless-degrees/

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Obviously have no idea how to work in communications (such as radio or TV), where you can make a lot of money, or how to make an advertisement, which can make a lot of money, or...

College degrees are not a guarantee of anything. The key to making lots of money is to provide a product or service that is something people are willing to pay for. In other words, initiative and drive. It doesn't matter whether you are a plumber, electrician, doctor, lawyer, musician, TV personality, actor, computer programmer, construction worker, quarry operator, or truck driver.