Privacy violation (requiring identification as well), unreasonable search (and detention) violation, property rights - confiscating stuff without any trial or judge or jury, stealing money.
It's just normal business in USA government and looks like the population is all fine with it, because the government in question is still in power.
Do you actually know anyone who pays a 50% tax rate in the US? By that I mean: They make X dollars, pay Y dollars in taxes, and Y/X > 0.50 . Can you name a location where local taxes make that possible?
- yes.
Connecticut. The guy lives in the marginal tax bracket, pays himself salary from his business, gets taxed at 35% for 99% of income. Connecticut 6.5% tax on top of that, SS tax on the tiny amount of 110K or so, 3% Medicare tax on top of that on the entire amount. Then the property, sales taxes and such, puts him over the 50%.
The trouble with capitalism is that eventually, the rich take all the economy's money.
- this is so fucking stupid, it shows the level of ignorance on basic economic principles.
The rich create the money that exist in the economy, they don't take it, they actually produce it. Money is over-production that under-consumption, whatever is the difference between what a person produces and consumes is the money that is really existing in the economy in form of savings and investment. It's what the people who you describe as 'the rich' do - create actual savings and investments by creating profits that are a function of products and services that are created.
You are saying: rich are taking money away, or whatever, but it's them who is creating money actually. Every new iPhone or whatever piece of equipment or any loaf of bread you buy or anything at all that is created IS money.
Of-course those who have access to stolen money - Fed and the fake credit and counterfeit currency, those extract it from the system, they don't anything to it.
40,000 new laws became laws in the beginning of 2012, who do you think write them? Government and big businesses are merged together tightly, they are creating all sorts of legislation together, because that's how they 'compete', by destroying any competition before it happens.
While Glass Steagall was ONE law, that was repealed, about 15000 NEW banking and finance laws were introduced in USA during Bush era. All of those are aimed at making sure that competition is impossible, that the existing monopolies are stronger and can get deeper into your pockets.
What is EXTREMELY HILARIOUS (very funny, just mind-numbingly funny) to me is that people think government is something that they control and that works for them and that's why they think it's a good thing and they want more of it.
This is just too amazing for me even to try and understand how much ignorance there is among the general public about this.
It was the repeal of New Deal-era banking regulations that got us into our current financial straits to begin with.
- that is not actually the case. The current financial straits are the natural consequence of decades of money counterfeiting by the Federal reserve, combined with growing government (and growing government implies higher taxes, more regulations, monopoly promotion, destruction of competition) that's all it is.
This really started in 1913 with the Fed being introduced and it accelerated violently since 1971, with Nixon defaulting on the dollar.
The banks are part of the problem only to the extent that they have special privileges with the Fed, but that is also done for political reasons. First of all, the politicians get good return from the bankers, while bankers are provided all this moral hazard via FDIC. But you are talking about Glass Steagall, which used to be the counterbalance to the moral hazard of FDIC. But removing Glass Steagall was just a natural consequence of the bankers existing in an economy with diminishing returns.
The returns were diminishing as the real return on investment became negative - courtesy of government and Fed's policy.
The easy credit of the fake money by the Fed was responsible for years of decline. This includes the depression of 1921, the Great Depression, the 1970s stagflation, the 90s with Internet bubble and the housing bubble and the inflating bond/dollar bubble that will burst.
The Glass Steagall is a tiny part of the puzzle, not important by itself, because the bubble was inflated with free fake money and guaranteed by free fake government insurance.
Dispute what? Those questions don't mean anything, they are irrelevant. The rules of the owners of the ship will apply and those rules will have to be more tolerable than the rules ashore, I don't run that ship, anything I say will be speculation.
What I know is that if the rules on board makes less sense than the rules ashore, people will not have reasons to board that ship, but those are NOT important questions.
Lastly - 'convincing anybody'? You think I am trying to convince you? Are you on drugs?
Infrastructure and all that is part of the market and it doesn't cost even 25% of your income taxes in a free economy, certainly it was evolving without most of the gov't intervention between 1870 and 1913 without any income taxes at all.
And the banks are wholly separate from "the system" and have absolutely no influence in the writing of the rules?
- that's what you get when you allow gov't to regulate the businesses. Businesses fight back and eventually there is a merger. It's the short-sightedness of the public that allows the gov't to overstep its boundaries of what it can do because the public is looking for a quick fix of 'bread and circuses' economy. But then businesses do fight back and the free market is destroyed to the detriment of everybody.
As to corporations being people - people incorporate to run business with limited liability provided by the gov't (again, something that shouldn't be done), so corporations are people. Who do you think stands behind every corporation? Corporation is a fiction and there is a person standing behind it.
- you really shouldn't bring up serfdom. A serf paid his master only 25% of his earnings.
Today, a huge number of people would have to see their taxes slashed IN HALF to be elevated to the levels of serfs, which is a sad state of affairs in USA, since it fought the King over just 3% taxes.
If that is the issue, then the solution is to not fund those particular subjects, rather than not fund all subjects. Withholding education funding for subjects that add real value to the economy is not wise. Increased education for science and maths would generate significant economic growth:
- there will be no economic growth if government is involved in any loans or subsidies to anybody for any purpose.
How do you know what is a good education vs what is bad one in your economy? Well, if somebody is willing to loan you money that they believe will be useful for you to get education that will allow you to return the investment with an interest rate that makes sense (not a negative return, as is happening right now, real return on investment), then they would give you that loan.
Do the banks that loan money to the students check how the students are doing over the years of their education? How are they studying, are they really getting education that is their money worth?
Has anybody ever heard a bank ask them this question: how did you do last semester compared to the rest of the class, for example?
Why shouldn't the creditors be concerned with your performance and ability to return the money and pay interest? How is getting education different from any other sort of investment?
For all the people that are moaning that education is INVESTMENT, it's awfully rare (if ever) that they admit that the quality of education doesn't even come into consideration when the loans are given out. Why is that? Isn't it because the loans are "guaranteed" by the gov't?
Shouldn't all of you, those who care about 'investing into the future' be very very concerned, that the future may just give you the same blow with this education bubble as the housing bubble gave you that just blew up, or the Internet bubble 10 years ago?
You should be concerned. It's NOT an investment, it's a waste of money, if the normal investment calculations and considerations are not applied, do you not see that?
Government cannot tell the market what will happen, what the future will be like, what professions are more likely to succeed and give a good return on investment, etc., and if it's not an investment and only a jobs and a spending program - bail out and stimulus, then don't pretend that you care about the actual future and not just using this for expedient political reasons right now.
the loan forgiveness only applies to federal student loans.
- and this story only applies to the Senate and federally backed loans.
Second, the bank-supplied loans in particular are notorious for being cruel to those who took out the money.
- that's a nonsense statement, it has nothing to do with how banks operate. They operate within the limits created by the system, and the system allows them to give out loans with free money the banks get from the Fed and the system 'insures' these loans. There should be no surprise that banks use this to the maximum logical conclusion, it's not free market that operates here.
Interest rates are free to change at a moment's notice and some people have seen double-digit interest rate increases in single years.
- ah, but the US government and the Federal reserve cannot at this point allow the interest rates to go up, it will be politically difficult as the US economy would implode. So the artificial interest rates will be kept low in US dollars by the Fed printing all the money to buy all of the debt (and that is what is happening right now, the Fed is buying all new Treasury debt).
The REAL interest rates are already very high, that is exactly why nobody can actually get access to real investment capital through banks, the real interest rates that come out of real savings are extremely high, high double digits, maybe higher than triple digits, that's because there are no real savings and investments available with all this fake stuff going on.
Yes, I would. And I would wager that in reality, you would as well
- that's because you don't understand economics.
Providing loans to US students is exactly the same as providing loans to US housing market or buying US bonds or buying stocks in most US companies or buying State bonds or buying US municipal bonds, etc.
Why is that you ask? It's because all US debt now is the same, everything is on the US Treasury and Federal reserve, there is NO difference in buying US Treasury debt or US housing debt or US education debt, it all is the same stuff.
Who in their right mind wants to buy long term US debt? You think you can buy US bonds and save for your retirement decades from now? You think with the real negative rates of return and the Fed creating all this inflation you will be making money holding long term US debt?
See, dumb_register, that's why we are different - I can add.
Well, if you can get a loan of any size that is capped either in absolute years of payment or only as a percentage of your earnings or both (as is the case here), then it makes absolute sense to get the biggest loan possible and to use it for all sorts of purposes that have nothing to do with education.
Why not buy yourself a house? You are already graduating with a mortgage anyway. Why not buy yourself a business? Then you can make the monthly payments without any problems at all.
Basically any sort of price control or wage control or interest rate control (which is price control on money) or any other artificial limitation only sets a level, above or below which weird things can then happen that were not anticipated (or were, but people didn't care).
Minimum wage, as an example, creates a bottom, below which people can't find work and below which it isn't possible to create jobs. At the same time it sets a bottom to the prices of goods and services that rely on the jobs at those levels.
With maximum interest rates, it absolutely makes sense to get loans that are huge and that can be used to make a spread, as the banks are doing right now - 'borrowing' from the Fed at 0% and 'lending' to the Treasury at 2-4%, so this makes a nice spread - easy money, but below the surface these banks are insolvent the moment real interest rates go above 2-4% and the Treasury is bankrupt as well, and the Fed obviously too (which can't in practice be bankrupt, but they can cause inflation and hyperinflation in worst case scenario).
Basically all wage and price controls create artificial consequences where there will be abuse, naturally, which is only to be expected, but somehow "nobody could see it coming", which is political nonsense of-course.
This will not make any difference to those, who are getting the student loans, not at all.
In fact with the latest developments that the student loans are forgiven in 15 to 20 years and that the monthly payments cannot exceed 10% of so called 'discretionary spending', which starts at the yearly amount exceeding 2 minimum 'poverty levels' ($16,000 per person or abou 35K for a family of 4), it means that a person making 50K a year will have to pay maximum of 10% of (50K-32K) per year, or $150/month for 15 to 20 years. If the person makes 100K/year, this goes up to maximum of $567/month.
If the person gets a loan of 100K, just to pay the principal for a person earning 50K/year, it would take 666 month or 55 YEARS, and that's only principal, at that point the interest rates absolutely does not matter, because he'll stop paying after 15-20 years, so he'd pay less than half of just principle out in that time, the interest rate does not matter.
This is political nonsense, not reality, what is happening in gov't, the reality would include realisation that gov't shouldn't be in business providing any loans to anybody in the first place, so that with the decreased fake demand, the number of students would drop off and prices would go down dramatically.
Why is it a good thing for the number of students to drop off? Because how many students take these loans, adding to the national debt, while not working, adding to the national deficit, requiring this money to be printed or borrowed (and the real interest rates WILL go up eventually, and there is already over $1T of unpaid student debt out there). The huge numbers of students are only going to the colleges to get worthless sociology and literature degrees, or go into law, etc.
They shouldn't be paid to do that in the first place, who in their right mind would give a loan to a USA student going to major in sociology? WOULD YOU?
If you wouldn't personally, why would you want the entire system to do that?
Besides, rather than creating this false demand and forcing debt on the people, creating all this debt and worsening deficit, it would better for those very students to enter the workforce much sooner and without debt they'd be better off anyway.
Of-course the political elite on the left want to create this 'popular issue', which really only makes the situation for the students worse, and simultaneously this artificially decreases the work participation rate and thus artificially decreases the unemployment rate, so these student loans are handed out for political propaganda. OTOH the colleges and universities etc., are getting a sweet deal - huge numbers of gov't backed students, who don't actually CARE about the cost of education, as long as they get whatever loans is given to them, and those who can do basic math realise that it's in their best interest to go to the most expensive school.
In fact schools need to start including things in their curriculum that are as expensive as possible - how about trips all over the world as part of 'classes'? How about buying every student a house and an expensive car and all the furniture, electronics and clothing they want? Why not? If the system is on the hook for it and the students are capped at how much they will have to pay back anyway, it only makes sense, right?
You have all the facts wrong it looks like. Zimmerman didn't attack Martin, he was backing off, returning to his car when Martin attacked him. Zimmerman fell, Martin jumped over him beating Zimmerman's head against the ground, Zimmerman then shot him.
The cops who didn't throw Zimmerman into a holding cell right away obviously thought that it happened this way, that Zimmerman was protected with that 'Stand your ground' law, that it was self defence.
The media is being used though to create a narrative among the public that there is this splurge of white on black crime, when actually that is not the case in USA, and nobody makes a federal case out of crimes like this for example.
since I was very specifically talking about federal income taxes, your argument about other forms of taxes is moot.
As to 'thinking about what government does in terms of what it spends' - it is the only rational way to think about the government. It doesn't produce anything, it takes taxes and hopefully just spends that rather than also counterfeiting money and borrowing more to spend, so it should spend only what it gets.
Gov't is what it spends on, its spending is completely tied to what it does, 100% of it, so yes, gov't is what it spends on.
If you want to end those long waits, lobby your congresscritter for Canadian or European style health care
- well that's stupid. USA used to have a system that was much better than what its current system is but also it was much better than the systems found around the world, which are going to fail, by the way, because they are part of the reason the economies of the socialist nations are being destroyed. They are not the entire reason, of-course, the entire reason is everything that governments do, from social security to health care and education and all monopolies that they protect, including the banking industry.
I am pretty sure you are a government shill, an astroturfer, given that you've replied to so nearly all of my comments here, I hope they are paying you something above the minimum wage, maybe it's GSA money.
You know, the real disadvantages of having the oppressive, income taxing government are much greater than the perceived advantage of having an 'educated' population. The so called education system is in a huge bubble in USA, people are getting gov't guaranteed loans - basically free money, because whatever they don't pay out in 15 years is forgiven, and the maximum amount anybody is going to have to pay monthly is only on top of 2 minimum poverty levels, and then it's only a 10% of that so called 'discretionary spending' , so the poverty level counts at 16,000USD/individual or 33,500 for a family of 4, 2 of these is is 32000 for individual, so if you make 50000, then you have to pay a maximum of 10% from the 18000 a year, or 1800 a year, or 150 a month, and this goes on for maximum of 15 or 20 years, so anything you owe beyond that is forgiven, it's a massive bailout/stimulus/incentive to spend huge globs of 'free' money.
So everybody should go back to college, and they should go to a college that provides the students with everything. Why not buy everybody an expensive car as part of 'education' process? Why not a house and all the furniture, a bunch of expensive clothing, whatever?
A college has all the incentives to waste money, the student has all the incentives to waste money, the colleges and students need to collude under this system and just buy globs of stuff and put it on the gov't backed education loans system. Of-course there is already a huge bubble in education loans, over a trillion USD of debt too.
All this so that anybody can go to college to major in Arts - sociology, why not? A language or literature or whatever passes for 'economics'.
So AFAIC costs of this system far outweigh the benefits, in fact there can be no benefits once gov't gets involved in anything beyond its direct mandate - border protection being one of those, but not healthcare, not education, not housing, not banking, not money, not debt, not insurance, not regulating businesses, not taxing income, not telling people how to live their lives, what to smoke and who to fuck.
Right, because it's impossible to arm an expensive cruise liner? If they are going to spend tens to hundreds of millions on a ship, they can afford to put in weapons systems.
It's not a mistake. Voting for a government that can modify the tax code while not paying taxes yourself is something not to be desires, it's something to be avoided and it does not impose a judgement on the person who is or is not voting, it only means that a person is voting who is directly responsible for the spending the government is involved in.
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Well, I'll be a monkle's unkie. Parse that out, bitch!
Privacy violation (requiring identification as well), unreasonable search (and detention) violation, property rights - confiscating stuff without any trial or judge or jury, stealing money.
It's just normal business in USA government and looks like the population is all fine with it, because the government in question is still in power.
By the way, what happened to the PROPERTY RIGHTS in USA?
How is it possible that a fucking TSA monkey, that is representative of your chimp government can just steal your fucking private property?
How the fuck do you all still look at yourselves in the mirror knowing that you didn't throw the fucking turds out of power yet with an armed revolt?
Do you actually know anyone who pays a 50% tax rate in the US? By that I mean: They make X dollars, pay Y dollars in taxes, and Y/X > 0.50 . Can you name a location where local taxes make that possible?
- yes.
Connecticut. The guy lives in the marginal tax bracket, pays himself salary from his business, gets taxed at 35% for 99% of income. Connecticut 6.5% tax on top of that, SS tax on the tiny amount of 110K or so, 3% Medicare tax on top of that on the entire amount. Then the property, sales taxes and such, puts him over the 50%.
The trouble with capitalism is that eventually, the rich take all the economy's money.
- this is so fucking stupid, it shows the level of ignorance on basic economic principles.
The rich create the money that exist in the economy, they don't take it, they actually produce it. Money is over-production that under-consumption, whatever is the difference between what a person produces and consumes is the money that is really existing in the economy in form of savings and investment. It's what the people who you describe as 'the rich' do - create actual savings and investments by creating profits that are a function of products and services that are created.
You are saying: rich are taking money away, or whatever, but it's them who is creating money actually. Every new iPhone or whatever piece of equipment or any loaf of bread you buy or anything at all that is created IS money.
Of-course those who have access to stolen money - Fed and the fake credit and counterfeit currency, those extract it from the system, they don't anything to it.
Oh, also what's funny is what you said here:
if big business was actually buying regulation
- now that's hilarious.
40,000 new laws became laws in the beginning of 2012, who do you think write them? Government and big businesses are merged together tightly, they are creating all sorts of legislation together, because that's how they 'compete', by destroying any competition before it happens.
While Glass Steagall was ONE law, that was repealed, about 15000 NEW banking and finance laws were introduced in USA during Bush era. All of those are aimed at making sure that competition is impossible, that the existing monopolies are stronger and can get deeper into your pockets.
What is EXTREMELY HILARIOUS (very funny, just mind-numbingly funny) to me is that people think government is something that they control and that works for them and that's why they think it's a good thing and they want more of it.
This is just too amazing for me even to try and understand how much ignorance there is among the general public about this.
It was the repeal of New Deal-era banking regulations that got us into our current financial straits to begin with.
- that is not actually the case. The current financial straits are the natural consequence of decades of money counterfeiting by the Federal reserve, combined with growing government (and growing government implies higher taxes, more regulations, monopoly promotion, destruction of competition) that's all it is.
This really started in 1913 with the Fed being introduced and it accelerated violently since 1971, with Nixon defaulting on the dollar.
The banks are part of the problem only to the extent that they have special privileges with the Fed, but that is also done for political reasons. First of all, the politicians get good return from the bankers, while bankers are provided all this moral hazard via FDIC. But you are talking about Glass Steagall, which used to be the counterbalance to the moral hazard of FDIC. But removing Glass Steagall was just a natural consequence of the bankers existing in an economy with diminishing returns.
The returns were diminishing as the real return on investment became negative - courtesy of government and Fed's policy.
The easy credit of the fake money by the Fed was responsible for years of decline. This includes the depression of 1921, the Great Depression, the 1970s stagflation, the 90s with Internet bubble and the housing bubble and the inflating bond/dollar bubble that will burst.
The Glass Steagall is a tiny part of the puzzle, not important by itself, because the bubble was inflated with free fake money and guaranteed by free fake government insurance.
Dispute what? Those questions don't mean anything, they are irrelevant. The rules of the owners of the ship will apply and those rules will have to be more tolerable than the rules ashore, I don't run that ship, anything I say will be speculation.
What I know is that if the rules on board makes less sense than the rules ashore, people will not have reasons to board that ship, but those are NOT important questions.
Lastly - 'convincing anybody'? You think I am trying to convince you? Are you on drugs?
Infrastructure and all that is part of the market and it doesn't cost even 25% of your income taxes in a free economy, certainly it was evolving without most of the gov't intervention between 1870 and 1913 without any income taxes at all.
And the banks are wholly separate from "the system" and have absolutely no influence in the writing of the rules?
- that's what you get when you allow gov't to regulate the businesses. Businesses fight back and eventually there is a merger. It's the short-sightedness of the public that allows the gov't to overstep its boundaries of what it can do because the public is looking for a quick fix of 'bread and circuses' economy. But then businesses do fight back and the free market is destroyed to the detriment of everybody.
As to corporations being people - people incorporate to run business with limited liability provided by the gov't (again, something that shouldn't be done), so corporations are people. Who do you think stands behind every corporation? Corporation is a fiction and there is a person standing behind it.
It is very easy, and there are many cases like this.
Here is an interview with this particular girl, the questions and answers are good. Part 1, part 2
AT&T was a government monopoly, and gov't destroyed around 3000 telephone providers to hand over the entire industry to AT&T
If you really want to go back to serfdom,
- you really shouldn't bring up serfdom. A serf paid his master only 25% of his earnings.
Today, a huge number of people would have to see their taxes slashed IN HALF to be elevated to the levels of serfs, which is a sad state of affairs in USA, since it fought the King over just 3% taxes.
If that is the issue, then the solution is to not fund those particular subjects, rather than not fund all subjects. Withholding education funding for subjects that add real value to the economy is not wise. Increased education for science and maths would generate significant economic growth:
- there will be no economic growth if government is involved in any loans or subsidies to anybody for any purpose.
How do you know what is a good education vs what is bad one in your economy? Well, if somebody is willing to loan you money that they believe will be useful for you to get education that will allow you to return the investment with an interest rate that makes sense (not a negative return, as is happening right now, real return on investment), then they would give you that loan.
Do the banks that loan money to the students check how the students are doing over the years of their education? How are they studying, are they really getting education that is their money worth?
Has anybody ever heard a bank ask them this question: how did you do last semester compared to the rest of the class, for example?
Why shouldn't the creditors be concerned with your performance and ability to return the money and pay interest? How is getting education different from any other sort of investment?
For all the people that are moaning that education is INVESTMENT, it's awfully rare (if ever) that they admit that the quality of education doesn't even come into consideration when the loans are given out. Why is that? Isn't it because the loans are "guaranteed" by the gov't?
Shouldn't all of you, those who care about 'investing into the future' be very very concerned, that the future may just give you the same blow with this education bubble as the housing bubble gave you that just blew up, or the Internet bubble 10 years ago?
You should be concerned. It's NOT an investment, it's a waste of money, if the normal investment calculations and considerations are not applied, do you not see that?
Government cannot tell the market what will happen, what the future will be like, what professions are more likely to succeed and give a good return on investment, etc., and if it's not an investment and only a jobs and a spending program - bail out and stimulus, then don't pretend that you care about the actual future and not just using this for expedient political reasons right now.
the loan forgiveness only applies to federal student loans.
- and this story only applies to the Senate and federally backed loans.
Second, the bank-supplied loans in particular are notorious for being cruel to those who took out the money.
- that's a nonsense statement, it has nothing to do with how banks operate. They operate within the limits created by the system, and the system allows them to give out loans with free money the banks get from the Fed and the system 'insures' these loans. There should be no surprise that banks use this to the maximum logical conclusion, it's not free market that operates here.
Interest rates are free to change at a moment's notice and some people have seen double-digit interest rate increases in single years.
- ah, but the US government and the Federal reserve cannot at this point allow the interest rates to go up, it will be politically difficult as the US economy would implode. So the artificial interest rates will be kept low in US dollars by the Fed printing all the money to buy all of the debt (and that is what is happening right now, the Fed is buying all new Treasury debt).
The REAL interest rates are already very high, that is exactly why nobody can actually get access to real investment capital through banks, the real interest rates that come out of real savings are extremely high, high double digits, maybe higher than triple digits, that's because there are no real savings and investments available with all this fake stuff going on.
Yes, I would. And I would wager that in reality, you would as well
- that's because you don't understand economics.
Providing loans to US students is exactly the same as providing loans to US housing market or buying US bonds or buying stocks in most US companies or buying State bonds or buying US municipal bonds, etc.
Why is that you ask? It's because all US debt now is the same, everything is on the US Treasury and Federal reserve, there is NO difference in buying US Treasury debt or US housing debt or US education debt, it all is the same stuff.
Who in their right mind wants to buy long term US debt? You think you can buy US bonds and save for your retirement decades from now? You think with the real negative rates of return and the Fed creating all this inflation you will be making money holding long term US debt?
See, dumb_register, that's why we are different - I can add.
Well, if you can get a loan of any size that is capped either in absolute years of payment or only as a percentage of your earnings or both (as is the case here), then it makes absolute sense to get the biggest loan possible and to use it for all sorts of purposes that have nothing to do with education.
Why not buy yourself a house? You are already graduating with a mortgage anyway. Why not buy yourself a business? Then you can make the monthly payments without any problems at all.
Basically any sort of price control or wage control or interest rate control (which is price control on money) or any other artificial limitation only sets a level, above or below which weird things can then happen that were not anticipated (or were, but people didn't care).
Minimum wage, as an example, creates a bottom, below which people can't find work and below which it isn't possible to create jobs. At the same time it sets a bottom to the prices of goods and services that rely on the jobs at those levels.
With maximum interest rates, it absolutely makes sense to get loans that are huge and that can be used to make a spread, as the banks are doing right now - 'borrowing' from the Fed at 0% and 'lending' to the Treasury at 2-4%, so this makes a nice spread - easy money, but below the surface these banks are insolvent the moment real interest rates go above 2-4% and the Treasury is bankrupt as well, and the Fed obviously too (which can't in practice be bankrupt, but they can cause inflation and hyperinflation in worst case scenario).
Basically all wage and price controls create artificial consequences where there will be abuse, naturally, which is only to be expected, but somehow "nobody could see it coming", which is political nonsense of-course.
This will not make any difference to those, who are getting the student loans, not at all.
In fact with the latest developments that the student loans are forgiven in 15 to 20 years and that the monthly payments cannot exceed 10% of so called 'discretionary spending', which starts at the yearly amount exceeding 2 minimum 'poverty levels' ($16,000 per person or abou 35K for a family of 4), it means that a person making 50K a year will have to pay maximum of 10% of (50K-32K) per year, or $150/month for 15 to 20 years. If the person makes 100K/year, this goes up to maximum of $567/month.
If the person gets a loan of 100K, just to pay the principal for a person earning 50K /year, it would take 666 month or 55 YEARS, and that's only principal, at that point the interest rates absolutely does not matter, because he'll stop paying after 15-20 years, so he'd pay less than half of just principle out in that time, the interest rate does not matter.
This is political nonsense, not reality, what is happening in gov't, the reality would include realisation that gov't shouldn't be in business providing any loans to anybody in the first place, so that with the decreased fake demand, the number of students would drop off and prices would go down dramatically.
Why is it a good thing for the number of students to drop off? Because how many students take these loans, adding to the national debt, while not working, adding to the national deficit, requiring this money to be printed or borrowed (and the real interest rates WILL go up eventually, and there is already over $1T of unpaid student debt out there). The huge numbers of students are only going to the colleges to get worthless sociology and literature degrees, or go into law, etc.
They shouldn't be paid to do that in the first place, who in their right mind would give a loan to a USA student going to major in sociology? WOULD YOU?
If you wouldn't personally, why would you want the entire system to do that?
Besides, rather than creating this false demand and forcing debt on the people, creating all this debt and worsening deficit, it would better for those very students to enter the workforce much sooner and without debt they'd be better off anyway.
Of-course the political elite on the left want to create this 'popular issue', which really only makes the situation for the students worse, and simultaneously this artificially decreases the work participation rate and thus artificially decreases the unemployment rate, so these student loans are handed out for political propaganda. OTOH the colleges and universities etc., are getting a sweet deal - huge numbers of gov't backed students, who don't actually CARE about the cost of education, as long as they get whatever loans is given to them, and those who can do basic math realise that it's in their best interest to go to the most expensive school.
In fact schools need to start including things in their curriculum that are as expensive as possible - how about trips all over the world as part of 'classes'? How about buying every student a house and an expensive car and all the furniture, electronics and clothing they want? Why not? If the system is on the hook for it and the students are capped at how much they will have to pay back anyway, it only makes sense, right?
Nobody sees this for what it is.
You have all the facts wrong it looks like. Zimmerman didn't attack Martin, he was backing off, returning to his car when Martin attacked him. Zimmerman fell, Martin jumped over him beating Zimmerman's head against the ground, Zimmerman then shot him.
The cops who didn't throw Zimmerman into a holding cell right away obviously thought that it happened this way, that Zimmerman was protected with that 'Stand your ground' law, that it was self defence.
The media is being used though to create a narrative among the public that there is this splurge of white on black crime, when actually that is not the case in USA, and nobody makes a federal case out of crimes like this for example.
since I was very specifically talking about federal income taxes, your argument about other forms of taxes is moot.
As to 'thinking about what government does in terms of what it spends' - it is the only rational way to think about the government. It doesn't produce anything, it takes taxes and hopefully just spends that rather than also counterfeiting money and borrowing more to spend, so it should spend only what it gets.
Gov't is what it spends on, its spending is completely tied to what it does, 100% of it, so yes, gov't is what it spends on.
If you want to end those long waits, lobby your congresscritter for Canadian or European style health care
- well that's stupid. USA used to have a system that was much better than what its current system is but also it was much better than the systems found around the world, which are going to fail, by the way, because they are part of the reason the economies of the socialist nations are being destroyed. They are not the entire reason, of-course, the entire reason is everything that governments do, from social security to health care and education and all monopolies that they protect, including the banking industry.
USA used to have cheap and affordable health care and insurance based on actual free market, that was before the gov't decided to collude with the insurance, drug manufacturing and health care industries, which combined with the Federal reserve allowed to create more fake money, part of which could be sent to the politicians.
I can see a comedy at home and its ... okay. I see the same thing with 20 other people (much less 300 other people) in a theatre and it's hysterical.
- that is weird.
I am pretty sure you are a government shill, an astroturfer, given that you've replied to so nearly all of my comments here, I hope they are paying you something above the minimum wage, maybe it's GSA money.
You know, the real disadvantages of having the oppressive, income taxing government are much greater than the perceived advantage of having an 'educated' population. The so called education system is in a huge bubble in USA, people are getting gov't guaranteed loans - basically free money, because whatever they don't pay out in 15 years is forgiven, and the maximum amount anybody is going to have to pay monthly is only on top of 2 minimum poverty levels, and then it's only a 10% of that so called 'discretionary spending' , so the poverty level counts at 16,000USD/individual or 33,500 for a family of 4, 2 of these is is 32000 for individual, so if you make 50000, then you have to pay a maximum of 10% from the 18000 a year, or 1800 a year, or 150 a month, and this goes on for maximum of 15 or 20 years, so anything you owe beyond that is forgiven, it's a massive bailout/stimulus/incentive to spend huge globs of 'free' money.
So everybody should go back to college, and they should go to a college that provides the students with everything. Why not buy everybody an expensive car as part of 'education' process? Why not a house and all the furniture, a bunch of expensive clothing, whatever?
A college has all the incentives to waste money, the student has all the incentives to waste money, the colleges and students need to collude under this system and just buy globs of stuff and put it on the gov't backed education loans system. Of-course there is already a huge bubble in education loans, over a trillion USD of debt too.
All this so that anybody can go to college to major in Arts - sociology, why not? A language or literature or whatever passes for 'economics'.
So AFAIC costs of this system far outweigh the benefits, in fact there can be no benefits once gov't gets involved in anything beyond its direct mandate - border protection being one of those, but not healthcare, not education, not housing, not banking, not money, not debt, not insurance, not regulating businesses, not taxing income, not telling people how to live their lives, what to smoke and who to fuck.
Right, because it's impossible to arm an expensive cruise liner? If they are going to spend tens to hundreds of millions on a ship, they can afford to put in weapons systems.
It's not a mistake. Voting for a government that can modify the tax code while not paying taxes yourself is something not to be desires, it's something to be avoided and it does not impose a judgement on the person who is or is not voting, it only means that a person is voting who is directly responsible for the spending the government is involved in.