Listen very carefully. These are pieces of evidence, but they are not INDEPENDENT pieces of evidence, nor are the OBJECTIVE. For instance, the Church fathers got a lot of what they knew from reading Paul's letters, for instance. And they excommunicated people who disagreed with their choices of what to believe, and those heretics didn't found succesful churches to compete with the Catholic church, or even leave manuscripts behind describing their beliefs in detail (largely because the Church fathers suppressed them.)
These NT manuscripts are most definitely related to one another. Just because I have two Bibles on my bookshelf at home does not make it twice as likely that they are true, especially if they came from the same print run at the publisher. They were copied from one another or from earlier common sources. When I use a Xerox machine to copy things, it doesn't affect whether it is true or not. And it is not surprising that they are identical afterward.
Josephus reported seeing the developing Christian community. The most you can take away from Josephus's account is that there were a number of people excited about a person named Jesus, and *these excited people* talked about the resurrection, and the coming of the kingdom, etc. He did not witness the Crucifixion, Paul didn't either. At best, the writers of the gospels met people who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus's ministry. Also, the apostles were hardly disinterested bystanders.
Do you think the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas are reliable or not? That's essentially a choice that was made by folks in the second to third centuries. How can you prove the Church fathers were acting correctly?
I contend it is not an intellectual issue that can be proven using scientific and logical techniques, that depends on whether I am "dense" or not.
It is a matter of religious faith, that depends on whether I hold that faith or a different faith, or no faith at all. There are a lot of quite dense people of all religious persuasions, so it isn't as simple as you make it out to be.
I am willing to accept and even respect that people believe things for religious reasons, and expect a similar respect for my religious beliefs. However, I cannot accept that these people talk as though a particular religious faith is open to proof by rational means. That is medieval thinking. Humanity has learned that some things are susceptible to scientific proof. Some things never will be.
Oh, and the answer to the apostles could be that they are all part of an inner circle "conspiracy" that faked the crucifixion, and the only difference between them and NASA is that they pulled it off!
Just kidding. But seriously, Paul's conversion does not prove objectively that Christ was Messiah. It proves PAUL believed Christ was the Messiah, and he was effective in spreading his beliefs throughout the Greco-Roman world. Two passages in a book agreeing with one another could just mean that the person writing the later passage wrote something that agreed with what he had read in the earlier passage.
People risk their lives for all sorts of beliefs. Dozens of self-proclaimed Muslims these days appear to be willing to blow themselves up, risking their lives because they believe in something. That doesn't mean that I should believe in it too, or that their beliefs are actually divinely inspired. It could just mean they are nuts.
Hmm. Paul was "just like me". Why doesn't God then give me an epileptic seizure on the road to the Quickie Mart and have Jesus appear to me so that I can believe? Why do I have to read about it in Paul's letters?
someone sitting on a mountain of money somewhere benefits directly from what you believe
I don't get it. Is it like Tinkerbell, and if we don't "believe" in the moon landing that aerospace contractor's bank accounts will be emptied as all those 1960's-era checks retroactively disappear?
If government wants to pay industry, it is much simpler to come up with "black" programs that have billions of dollars of funding with all oversight classified. Making a huge publicity apparatus to make noise "hey, look at me, I'm over here launching big space shuttles with big audiences at the launch site, and scheduling interviews with the media, and publishing stuff on the web" to distract us from something that would be quiet in the first place. Someone in the U.S. Treasury could just press the return key and wire millions of dollars to whoever they want, without so much as a press release.
All the "Messiah" prophecies basically boil down to "New Testament evidence shows Jesus of Nazareth had similar characteristics to those attributed to the Messiah in Old Testament prophecy."
HOWEVER, the New Testament evidence was written by folks generally well-acquainted with Old Testament prophecies, and therefore, were quite able to write texts that agree with them. There is basically no reason to believe that the New Testament evidence is reliable, unless you take such a position as a matter of religious faith. It's not like Isaiah, etc., put his stuff in a sealed envelope only to be opened after the Resurrection, and "Wow, they agree!"
Also, Jesus was hardly the kind of "King of Jerusalem" figure that Old Testament prophets seem to be alluding to; the New Testament apologists have to talk about a heavenly kingdom, especially with that sacking of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. That's why lots of folks (you may have heard of these people called Jews) believe the Messiah is yet to come.
It's not completely clear from the keynote (and the server didn't stream 100% smoothly either), but it seems to boil down to:
1) Some kind of auto-sensing of the backup volume being plugged in, and performing *scheduled* backups. (I.e., probably NOT VMS/ITS/etc. versioning, where *every* write creates a new checkpoint.) I.e., users are more likely to have this turned on, and just have to remember to plug in their portable backup drive every-so-often. Or have a server.
2) Nifty interface, possibly depending on use of Core Data or similar Cocoa framework that 2a) shows backup files in the same document interface, not just as "last modified 10 Jan 2005, 1.80 MB" 2b) allows for easy click-to-select restoration into the current document/application
Not sure how robust the API actually will be, because you can imagine restoring bad versions making huge cuts in your current document, but maybe it is as intelligent as the iPhoto example made it look.
These things are real UI improvements over the typical drag-and-drop semi-scheduled backup, and rooting around old directories trying to identify exactly which version is the one that has what you want. It is not some glorious return of versioned file systems.
Actually, the Dell equivalent is the 2007WFP which goes for US$460. Not $300.
On the other hand, the Dell has analog VGA, S-video, and composite inputs, while the Apple has only the DVI. And $460 is still much less than $699. Somehow, I find it hard to justify $250 for Firewire ports, nicer enclosure, and just possibly some barely perceptible difference in the contrast or backlighting.
Hemingway just finished the sole copy of a novel and I steal it depriving him of selling it. Me making a COPY of his novel is not wrong, because it does not deprive him of his novel.
So if you go into business, take Hemingway's novel, make many thousands of copies on a printing press, bind them, and sell them to booksellers, you are not in any way depriving him of his novel? Or of his being able to sell it?
Henry David Thoreau was concerned about humans in chains, enslaved to other humans who felt they could own men as property. He was not against trade and commerce, but against the trade and commerce of human beings. He was concerned about the Mexican war, where a minority of Americans caused a war he saw as extending slavery into Mexican territory. He was concerned that his tax money was being used to support the army acting unjustly on behalf of slaveholders, refused to pay, and was willing to go to jail, and to stay there. He did not want to have to pay money for the established church in Massachusetts, of which he did not desire to be a member. He did not wish to pay a poll tax for the privelege of voting. He was willing to pay the highway tax, and to support schools, because he felt those were ways in which he could help his neighbor.
He didn't feel any need to get videos without paying the people who produced them.
Two U.S. AID officials killed on hijacked Kuwait Airlines flight (1984) U.S. Navy enlisted man killed on hijacked TWA flight 847 (1985) Leon Klinghoffer killed on Achille Lauro (1985) Pan Am flight bound for NYC downed in Lockerbie, Scotland (1988) Pan Am flight hijacked en route to Frankfurt from Karachi, two Americans among 22 killed by hijackers (1986) TWA flight en route to Athens, bomb on board killed four Americans. (1986) Abu Nidal assault on El Al in Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome: five Americans among 13 killed. (1985)
I've omitted a bunch of American expatriates and embassy officials.
To be fair, most tourist victims are targeted for being Western, not particularly American. For example, bombing tourist buses or restaurants frequented by Westerners. Many of those targeted are in Israel, and I didn't count the numerous listings of "American-Israeli" because that's not necessarily an ordinary tourist, as opposed to a long-term resident. Being carefully selected out of a group because of one's American passport is not as common as one might think.
iTunes has an eject icon, right next to the name of the CD that you might want to eject. Click on it. The keyboard that came with an iMac has an eject key right at F12. Push it. Mac OS 9 had an Eject menu item in the Finder. Click on it.
Asset does not mean "guaranteed to go up in value", it does not mean "produces positive cash flow", it does not mean "highly liquid."
There is only one reasonable definition of "asset" and "liability", the accounting one. You sound like you are babbling Kiyosaki's nonsense: http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html.
Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset "Under US GAAP, the fundamental definition of an asset is as follows: "Assets are probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events." (Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 6, paragraph 25)"
The future benefit for a fixed asset like a house is
1) I will be allowed to live in it, and prevent other people from living in it 2) I can sell it when and if I choose to do so.
A liability is a present obligation of the enterprise arising from past events, the settlement of which is expected to result in an outflow from the enterprise of resources embodying economic benefits. [F.49(b)]
I am under an obligation to pay my mortgage. That's because the *money I borrowed* is a liability. I am not under an obligation to live in my house, or give it to another party, nor even to spend money on maintenance. I have a tax liability, and must pay insurance to keep the bank from worrying about its collateral going up in smoke, but the house itself is not that liability. Those outflows are *not* pieces of the house that are being shipped off to other people. The asset being depleted is my *cash*.
One warning. "Savings" accounts, in order to qualify for the name under U.S. banking regulations, have restrictions on the number of withdrawals you can make in a month.
Limits on Withdrawals/Transfers from Your OSA: Pursuant to Federal law, you're only allowed to take money out of your OSA 6 times per monthly statement cycle ("Cycle"). If you repeatedly make more than 6 withdrawals during a Cycle, we may close your account. Under Federal law, we must reserve the right to require you to give us at least 7 days written notice before you take money out of your OSA. (This hardly ever happens but legally we have to say it!)
One other consideration is if you will need credit available for other purchases.
Mortgage lenders, for example, will look at the total debt burden you are carrying to measure how much of your predictable income is going to be dedicated to servicing debt. They might weight that more strongly than the matching asset in your savings account, although in an accounting sense, you might be making a net interest income.
The difference is that if you run into trouble, you can deplete the savings without any legal constraints, but the debt will stick around, and then the lender will have to compete with these other lenders in getting your possibly reduced income.
If I buy a house using a mortgage, I generally can make the decision whether to sell the house or keep it, assuming I satisfy the loan terms. If the house doubles in value, I can keep the profit.
Sure sounds like an asset to me.
The *mortgage* shows up as an asset on the bank's books, and a liability on the borrowers. The title is kept in the bank's hands only as a guarantee that this big chunk of money the banker is handing over won't vanish without a trace.
Most student loans are guaranteed or subsidized by government agencies. This is desirable as a public policy because students are usually poor, and generally bad credit risks, so lenders would have to charge high rates, or would not give loans to the most needy students, preferring to lend to trust-fund kids.
Lenders agree to charge lower rates in exchange for the government lowering their risk. The government, in order to reduce *its* risk, and the overall cost of subsidies and guarantees, generally requires that students actually borrow only the money they need for real educational expenses, and not just blowing it on beer.
Likewise, beneficial tax treatment for student loan interest (such as http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch04.html), is generally based on the interest being used for qualified educational expenses.
If the original asker had something actually called a "student loan" he almost certainly signed some document certifying that he was borrowing for actual educational expenses. Using it for long-term investment makes such a claim almost certainly fraudulent.
Bank profitability does not depend on customers making out well. In fact, the more money banks give to their customers/depositors, the *worse* their financial results are. Likewise, the less they charge their borrowers the *worse* the bank's financial results are.
If a bank has some unique talent to spot good lending opportunities, then it could conceivably make more profit while still paying depositors equally to competitors. Or, they could pay *better* interest rates and be just as profitable as their competitors. Choosing to fatten their bottom line or their executives' paychecks at the expense of interest paid to depositors is not a desirable choice for a depositor.
The easiest way for a bank to make profit is to fleece its customers with hidden kickbacks from mutual fund companies that are, in the end, paid for from the customers' money.
Banking isn't like farming, where the sun and earth make money come out of the ground, and they are trying to get customers to take their money harvest off their hands. The money comes out of depositor pockets, bankers do what they like, including lending it out to attractive borrowers, keep some for themselves, and give the depositor back whatever is left over at the end.
Renting is better if you happen to be in one of those markets where real estate prices have increased so much that the interest on the loan, plus property taxes and maintenance is *higher* than the market rent. Believe it or not, these places exist. And, those are just the places set for a "correction" in the market, as people who bought properties hoping to flip them after a short while renting them out in the meantime are discovering there aren't any suckers looking to follow in their footsteps.
Most banks will offer you some fund with a huge sales load or marketing fees, because that's what pays the bills for the bank. They generally don't get the management fees (the managers of the fund do).
I.e., the banks will get you to pay them (indirectly) a commission, so you start out a few percent poorer than when you walked in the door, and they don't really care if the fund performs well or not, so who knows if you'll ever make that back or when. Or they'll sell you some stupid annuity with a multi-year lock-in. Either way, you'll almost certainly pay them some nice percentage for lousy advice.
This guy will need to pay back his loans (which, most probably, were only authorized for qualified educational expenses, in order to qualify for various governmental guarantees needed to get the interest rate for student loans, even in the absence of a good credit rating, but that's a whole other line of criticism) within six months or so after graduation, or at least will start racking up interest unless he keeps in school or makes some other sacrifice that persuades the goverment to keep paying the interest for him. At which point, any volatile investment has a good chance to be down when the loan payments start.
This guy should not have maxed out his student loan debt if he didn't need to. Using them to invest on margin, even if the interest for now is zero percent, is idiotic, except in something liquid and low-risk.
Slashdot Mirror
Listen very carefully. These are pieces of evidence, but they are not INDEPENDENT pieces of evidence, nor are the OBJECTIVE. For instance, the Church fathers got a lot of what they knew from reading Paul's letters, for instance. And they excommunicated people who disagreed with their choices of what to believe, and those heretics didn't found succesful churches to compete with the Catholic church, or even leave manuscripts behind describing their beliefs in detail (largely because the Church fathers suppressed them.)
These NT manuscripts are most definitely related to one another. Just because I have two Bibles on my bookshelf at home does not make it twice as likely that they are true, especially if they came from the same print run at the publisher. They were copied from one another or from earlier common sources. When I use a Xerox machine to copy things, it doesn't affect whether it is true or not. And it is not surprising that they are identical afterward.
Josephus reported seeing the developing Christian community. The most you can take away from Josephus's account is that there were a number of people excited about a person named Jesus, and *these excited people* talked about the resurrection, and the coming of the kingdom, etc. He did not witness the Crucifixion, Paul didn't either. At best, the writers of the gospels met people who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus's ministry. Also, the apostles were hardly disinterested bystanders.
Do you think the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas are reliable or not? That's essentially a choice that was made by folks in the second to third centuries. How can you prove the Church fathers were acting correctly?
I contend it is not an intellectual issue that can be proven using scientific and logical techniques, that depends on whether I am "dense" or not.
It is a matter of religious faith, that depends on whether I hold that faith or a different faith, or no faith at all. There are a lot of quite dense people of all religious persuasions, so it isn't as simple as you make it out to be.
I am willing to accept and even respect that people believe things for religious reasons, and expect a similar respect for my religious beliefs. However, I cannot accept that these people talk as though a particular religious faith is open to proof by rational means. That is medieval thinking. Humanity has learned that some things are susceptible to scientific proof. Some things never will be.
Oh, and the answer to the apostles could be that they are all part of an inner circle "conspiracy" that faked the crucifixion, and the only difference between them and NASA is that they pulled it off!
Just kidding. But seriously, Paul's conversion does not prove objectively that Christ was Messiah. It proves PAUL believed Christ was the Messiah, and he was effective in spreading his beliefs throughout the Greco-Roman world. Two passages in a book agreeing with one another could just mean that the person writing the later passage wrote something that agreed with what he had read in the earlier passage.
People risk their lives for all sorts of beliefs. Dozens of self-proclaimed Muslims these days appear to be willing to blow themselves up, risking their lives because they believe in something. That doesn't mean that I should believe in it too, or that their beliefs are actually divinely inspired. It could just mean they are nuts.
Hmm. Paul was "just like me". Why doesn't God then give me an epileptic seizure on the road to the Quickie Mart and have Jesus appear to me so that I can believe? Why do I have to read about it in Paul's letters?
someone sitting on a mountain of money somewhere benefits directly from what you believe
I don't get it. Is it like Tinkerbell, and if we don't "believe" in the moon landing that aerospace contractor's bank accounts will be emptied as all those 1960's-era checks retroactively disappear?
If government wants to pay industry, it is much simpler to come up with "black" programs that have billions of dollars of funding with all oversight classified. Making a huge publicity apparatus to make noise "hey, look at me, I'm over here launching big space shuttles with big audiences at the launch site, and scheduling interviews with the media, and publishing stuff on the web" to distract us from something that would be quiet in the first place. Someone in the U.S. Treasury could just press the return key and wire millions of dollars to whoever they want, without so much as a press release.
All the "Messiah" prophecies basically boil down to "New Testament evidence shows Jesus of Nazareth had similar characteristics to those attributed to the Messiah in Old Testament prophecy."
HOWEVER, the New Testament evidence was written by folks generally well-acquainted with Old Testament prophecies, and therefore, were quite able to write texts that agree with them. There is basically no reason to believe that the New Testament evidence is reliable, unless you take such a position as a matter of religious faith. It's not like Isaiah, etc., put his stuff in a sealed envelope only to be opened after the Resurrection, and "Wow, they agree!"
Also, Jesus was hardly the kind of "King of Jerusalem" figure that Old Testament prophets seem to be alluding to; the New Testament apologists have to talk about a heavenly kingdom, especially with that sacking of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. That's why lots of folks (you may have heard of these people called Jews) believe the Messiah is yet to come.
Um, Darwin is the part Apple wrote.
It's not completely clear from the keynote (and the server didn't stream 100% smoothly either), but it seems to boil down to:
1) Some kind of auto-sensing of the backup volume being plugged in, and performing *scheduled* backups. (I.e., probably NOT VMS/ITS/etc. versioning, where *every* write creates a new checkpoint.) I.e., users are more likely to have this turned on, and just have to remember to plug in their portable backup drive every-so-often. Or have a server.
2) Nifty interface, possibly depending on use of Core Data or similar Cocoa framework that
2a) shows backup files in the same document interface, not just as "last modified 10 Jan 2005, 1.80 MB"
2b) allows for easy click-to-select restoration into the current document/application
Not sure how robust the API actually will be, because you can imagine restoring bad versions making huge cuts in your current document, but maybe it is as intelligent as the iPhoto example made it look.
These things are real UI improvements over the typical drag-and-drop semi-scheduled backup, and rooting around old directories trying to identify exactly which version is the one that has what you want. It is not some glorious return of versioned file systems.
Analog TV? Just in time for that to vanish in 2009?
Actually, the Dell equivalent is the 2007WFP which goes for US$460. Not $300.
On the other hand, the Dell has analog VGA, S-video, and composite inputs, while the Apple has only the DVI. And $460 is still much less than $699. Somehow, I find it hard to justify $250 for Firewire ports, nicer enclosure, and just possibly some barely perceptible difference in the contrast or backlighting.
The US$300 models typically have analog VGA only.
FWIW, HP will still sell you an AlphaStation that runs OpenVMS:
s /ds15/
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/alphaserver/workstation
It looks like it will fit under or on top of your desk just fine. They might not come in under US$3000, but I didn't ask for a quote, either.
Hemingway just finished the sole copy of a novel and I steal it depriving him of selling it. Me making a COPY of his novel is not wrong, because it does not deprive him of his novel.
So if you go into business, take Hemingway's novel, make many thousands of copies on a printing press, bind them, and sell them to booksellers, you are not in any way depriving him of his novel? Or of his being able to sell it?
Henry David Thoreau was concerned about humans in chains, enslaved to other humans who felt they could own men as property. He was not against trade and commerce, but against the trade and commerce of human beings. He was concerned about the Mexican war, where a minority of Americans caused a war he saw as extending slavery into Mexican territory. He was concerned that his tax money was being used to support the army acting unjustly on behalf of slaveholders, refused to pay, and was willing to go to jail, and to stay there. He did not want to have to pay money for the established church in Massachusetts, of which he did not desire to be a member. He did not wish to pay a poll tax for the privelege of voting. He was willing to pay the highway tax, and to support schools, because he felt those were ways in which he could help his neighbor.
He didn't feel any need to get videos without paying the people who produced them.
Let's try to keep things in perspective.
A few listed on
http://avpv.tripod.com/AmericanVictims.html
Two U.S. AID officials killed on hijacked Kuwait Airlines flight (1984)
U.S. Navy enlisted man killed on hijacked TWA flight 847 (1985)
Leon Klinghoffer killed on Achille Lauro (1985)
Pan Am flight bound for NYC downed in Lockerbie, Scotland (1988)
Pan Am flight hijacked en route to Frankfurt from Karachi, two Americans among 22 killed by hijackers (1986)
TWA flight en route to Athens, bomb on board killed four Americans. (1986)
Abu Nidal assault on El Al in Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome: five Americans among 13 killed. (1985)
I've omitted a bunch of American expatriates and embassy officials.
To be fair, most tourist victims are targeted for being Western, not particularly American. For example, bombing tourist buses or restaurants frequented by Westerners. Many of those targeted are in Israel, and I didn't count the numerous listings of "American-Israeli" because that's not necessarily an ordinary tourist, as opposed to a long-term resident. Being carefully selected out of a group because of one's American passport is not as common as one might think.
This tool, by the way, was written in Common Lisp, using Edi's own library
CL-PPCRE - portable Perl-compatible regular expressions for Common Lisp
A library which typically outperforms Perl's own regex engine.
iTunes has an eject icon, right next to the name of the CD that you might want to eject. Click on it.
The keyboard that came with an iMac has an eject key right at F12. Push it.
Mac OS 9 had an Eject menu item in the Finder. Click on it.
Asset does not mean "guaranteed to go up in value", it does not mean "produces positive cash flow", it does not mean "highly liquid."
There is only one reasonable definition of "asset" and "liability", the accounting one. You sound like you are babbling Kiyosaki's nonsense: http://www.johntreed.com/Kiyosaki.html.
Quoting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset "Under US GAAP, the fundamental definition of an asset is as follows: "Assets are probable future economic benefits obtained or controlled by a particular entity as a result of past transactions or events." (Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 6, paragraph 25)"
The future benefit for a fixed asset like a house is
1) I will be allowed to live in it, and prevent other people from living in it
2) I can sell it when and if I choose to do so.
Liability, to quote Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liability
A liability is a present obligation of the enterprise arising from past events, the settlement of which is expected to result in an outflow from the enterprise of resources embodying economic benefits. [F.49(b)]
I am under an obligation to pay my mortgage. That's because the *money I borrowed* is a liability. I am not under an obligation to live in my house, or give it to another party, nor even to spend money on maintenance. I have a tax liability, and must pay insurance to keep the bank from worrying about its collateral going up in smoke, but the house itself is not that liability. Those outflows are *not* pieces of the house that are being shipped off to other people. The asset being depleted is my *cash*.
One warning. "Savings" accounts, in order to qualify for the name under U.S. banking regulations, have restrictions on the number of withdrawals you can make in a month.
y .asp?s=legal (click on Personal Deposit Account Terms and Conditions)
to quote http://home.ingdirect.com/privacy/privacy_securit
Limits on Withdrawals/Transfers from Your OSA: Pursuant to Federal law, you're only allowed to take money out of your OSA 6 times per monthly statement cycle ("Cycle"). If you repeatedly make more than 6 withdrawals during a Cycle, we may close your account. Under Federal law, we must reserve the right to require you to give us at least 7 days written notice before you take money out of your OSA. (This hardly ever happens but legally we have to say it!)
One other consideration is if you will need credit available for other purchases.
Mortgage lenders, for example, will look at the total debt burden you are carrying to measure how much of your predictable income is going to be dedicated to servicing debt. They might weight that more strongly than the matching asset in your savings account, although in an accounting sense, you might be making a net interest income.
The difference is that if you run into trouble, you can deplete the savings without any legal constraints, but the debt will stick around, and then the lender will have to compete with these other lenders in getting your possibly reduced income.
If I buy a house using a mortgage, I generally can make the decision whether to sell the house or keep it, assuming I satisfy the loan terms. If the house doubles in value, I can keep the profit.
Sure sounds like an asset to me.
The *mortgage* shows up as an asset on the bank's books, and a liability on the borrowers. The title is kept in the bank's hands only as a guarantee that this big chunk of money the banker is handing over won't vanish without a trace.
Most student loans are guaranteed or subsidized by government agencies. This is desirable as a public policy because students are usually poor, and generally bad credit risks, so lenders would have to charge high rates, or would not give loans to the most needy students, preferring to lend to trust-fund kids.
a sp?Source=ifaidcl001&ProspectID=C877D440CC734B8F9F 1B3EEBBB369AFD), will use the actual education cost as part of the loan process; this may be a way of measuring their own risk---someone dropping out and blowing the money on beer is presumably a higher credit risk after graduation than someone who is actually paying tuition, etc.
Lenders agree to charge lower rates in exchange for the government lowering their risk. The government, in order to reduce *its* risk, and the overall cost of subsidies and guarantees, generally requires that students actually borrow only the money they need for real educational expenses, and not just blowing it on beer.
Likewise, beneficial tax treatment for student loan interest (such as http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch04.html), is generally based on the interest being used for qualified educational expenses.
Even private lenders (such as http://studentloan.citibank.com/slcsite/fr_ccund.
If the original asker had something actually called a "student loan" he almost certainly signed some document certifying that he was borrowing for actual educational expenses. Using it for long-term investment makes such a claim almost certainly fraudulent.
You miss the point.
Bank profitability does not depend on customers making out well. In fact, the more money banks give to their customers/depositors, the *worse* their financial results are. Likewise, the less they charge their borrowers the *worse* the bank's financial results are.
If a bank has some unique talent to spot good lending opportunities, then it could conceivably make more profit while still paying depositors equally to competitors. Or, they could pay *better* interest rates and be just as profitable as their competitors. Choosing to fatten their bottom line or their executives' paychecks at the expense of interest paid to depositors is not a desirable choice for a depositor.
The easiest way for a bank to make profit is to fleece its customers with hidden kickbacks from mutual fund companies that are, in the end, paid for from the customers' money.
Banking isn't like farming, where the sun and earth make money come out of the ground, and they are trying to get customers to take their money harvest off their hands. The money comes out of depositor pockets, bankers do what they like, including lending it out to attractive borrowers, keep some for themselves, and give the depositor back whatever is left over at the end.
Most college towns have high real estate prices.
Renting is better if you happen to be in one of those markets where real estate prices have increased so much that the interest on the loan, plus property taxes and maintenance is *higher* than the market rent. Believe it or not, these places exist. And, those are just the places set for a "correction" in the market, as people who bought properties hoping to flip them after a short while renting them out in the meantime are discovering there aren't any suckers looking to follow in their footsteps.
Investing on margin is "better" for you if your investment goes up, but worse for you if your investment goes down or stays flat.
This guy does not need the extra risk. He's already on margin by using loan money to invest.
Most banks will offer you some fund with a huge sales load or marketing fees, because that's what pays the bills for the bank. They generally don't get the management fees (the managers of the fund do).
I.e., the banks will get you to pay them (indirectly) a commission, so you start out a few percent poorer than when you walked in the door, and they don't really care if the fund performs well or not, so who knows if you'll ever make that back or when. Or they'll sell you some stupid annuity with a multi-year lock-in. Either way, you'll almost certainly pay them some nice percentage for lousy advice.
This guy will need to pay back his loans (which, most probably, were only authorized for qualified educational expenses, in order to qualify for various governmental guarantees needed to get the interest rate for student loans, even in the absence of a good credit rating, but that's a whole other line of criticism) within six months or so after graduation, or at least will start racking up interest unless he keeps in school or makes some other sacrifice that persuades the goverment to keep paying the interest for him. At which point, any volatile investment has a good chance to be down when the loan payments start.
This guy should not have maxed out his student loan debt if he didn't need to. Using them to invest on margin, even if the interest for now is zero percent, is idiotic, except in something liquid and low-risk.