President Joe Biden remembers former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and describes her as someone who changed the tide of history https://t.co/dPK3zMxRuH pic.twitter.com/Hgx2WXJl4e
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 27, 2022
Former President Bill Clinton honored former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright at her funeral by recalling their last conversation as one he will never forget. pic.twitter.com/4mzOXxXKQz
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 27, 2022
President Biden has congratulated the 2022 national teacher of the year during a ceremony at the White House. He says: “I wonder how I got here. I got here because of my parents and my teachers." https://t.co/zsboO3t5Hf
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 28, 2022
Biden says Americans should stop targeting teachers, banning books https://t.co/I9R4WVNF0n pic.twitter.com/aTp550VU5n
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 28, 2022
Exclusive: Biden's latest judicial nominees dominated by public defenders https://t.co/b2Rd4H2to3 pic.twitter.com/ulJojwhtir
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 27, 2022
I’m agnostic about forgiving student debt — not my circus, not my monkeys — but trolling Mitt Romney is always worthwhile:
inspired by his strong faith Mitt recreates the Jubilee, you love to see it.
— James Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) April 27, 2022
Ditto JD Vance:
"Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor … because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed." (Deut. 15:1-2) https://t.co/CzO5Mxi6yr
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) April 27, 2022
Employer Sponsored Insurance — Defined Benefit or Defined Contribution?
WereBear
When the Jesuits send the burn, it’s got hellfire-hot peppers in it.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ?? ?
germy
‘If I’m Going Down, I’m Going Down Swinging’ The righteous anger of Mallory McMorrow
germy
debbie
@WereBear:
Vance has begun to pimp himself as a Christian, so extra burn.
Ejoiner
Re: The Jubilee
Look, I think it’s pretty non-debatable that when the Bible calls for remission of all debt and treating immigrants equally to natives it’s only speaking in symbolic terms and is based on archaic practices we’ve long outgrown. When it’s speaking out against homosexuals, abortion, and gun control then it should obviously be taken as the literal Word of God and must be enshrined in American law. Duh.
germy
Matt McIrvin
Mitt is back on his “they think they have the right to FOOD!!” kick.
germy
Ohio Mom
@germy: I remember looking in that mirror. It was behind bars. IIRC, in the primate house, between barred cages of apes and monkeys.
(In the days before antibiotics, keeping cages clean was paramount so cement floors and tiled walls that could easily be hosed down. This miserable exhibition setup remained in use way too long though.)
Sure Lurkalot
Likely the jubilee will be good and bad news for Democrats. Unfortunately, I know some Ds who scream “IT’S NOT FAY-ER!” loud and proud.
I think it will turn out to be a great boon for the country, opening opportunities for people to redirect capital to new businesses, housing, family. A decent multiplier effect, I hope.
ETA As for Mittens, back in the 80’s, car loan and credit card interest was deductible on your taxes if you itemized. So the government subsidized lots of personal purchases. Good times!
guachi
Terrible GDP numbers. Q2 better show some growth or the Fall will be awful for Ds.
Mustang Bobby
Shameless self-promotion alert: My play, The Sugar Ridge Rag, opens tonight at LAB Theater Project in Tampa, Florida, for live performances through May 15, and will be available on-demand from May 12-26.
Synopsis: Dave and Pete Granger, age 17, are twin brothers in rural Ohio in 1970. Dave enlists in the Army as a combat medic and is sent to Vietnam. Pete, a piano prodigy and gay, goes to Canada to pursue his education in music and avoids the draft. Their parents; Hal, a veteran of the Korean War, and Deb, a nurse, are left to deal with the consequences of their sons’ actions and their future as a family. Over the next five years, their lives are changed forever by the war and the choices each of them has made.
See you there.
Soprano2
I just got an e-mail that I think is spam, but it’s concerning. It thanks me for my order of “Lifelock Total Security”, and says the charge of $380.15 will be debited against the card I provided for renewal (all of which is total bullshit), and that if I didn’t want that I should call the number that is highlighted on the attached invoice. The whole thing looks incredibly suspicious, but I can see how people would call that number – I almost did! Also, when I searched 411.com for the number, it came up with “no match”. Sheesh…
Geminid
@debbie: I wonder if the salesman from Mar-A-Loco closed the deal on Vance at last Saturday’s rally. I happened to catch the first few minutes of Mark Levin’s radio show last night and Levin was yelling about Vance’s skimpy conservative credentials. Levin is a Mandel fan.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: I get stuff like that all the time. Just delete it.
debbie
@Geminid:
Judging by the ads from Club for Growth, it was a very, very bad decision. Teehee.
Mustang Bobby
@Soprano2: I get at least five a day. Delete.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: Oh I will, but it’s the first time a spam like that has actually had a name on it and an “invoice” attached. I can see how they fool people.
germy
They’re everything that’s wrong with this country.
Sure Lurkalot
@Soprano2: Got the same Norton Lifelock email the other day except my charge was $299.
A couple of years ago, my spouse fell for one of these and called the number. That gave the spammer his cell #, another data point. I got pretty mad at him!
JUNK THESE AS SOON AS YOU GET THEM!
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: I forward them to our univ. security and they always say to just delete them.
Cameron
@Mustang Bobby: Saw an ad for it in Patch the other day! Can’t get to Tampa (no car), but am going to ask my friend if she’ll stream it so we can both watch. Thanks for the reminder.
Soprano2
@Sure Lurkalot: Well, I was going to call from my work phone, so there’s that, but once I looked at it I knew better than to respond. I figure I’ll get a whole bunch more of them now. I only mentioned it because it’s new to me and it’s not quite as obvious that it’s spam.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mustang Bobby: Sounds good. I’ll see you, but you won’t see me. ;-)
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: It’s a scam.
Mustang Bobby
@Soprano2: They are getting really good at masking their true nature.
Soprano2
@Mustang Bobby: I agree, that’s the best one I’ve seen. When I get them at work I always forward them to our IS department with the message “Either I caught your ‘phish’ or this is a hacking attempt” because sometimes they send out spam-looking e-mails to see what employees will do.
Jeffro
@germy:
like, that is literally Satan’s Wish List
These Randians, I swear…
Eunicecycle
@Sure Lurkalot: that’s a good point, about the deductibility of interest on loans. I had a 13% car loan back then, I remember!
Geminid
@germy: Club for Growth President David Mackintosh keeps in touch with Trump and has some influence. It seems that Peter Thiel beat Mackintosh on the Ohio Senate nomination. I think Thiel may have bought Trump Jr., who has been campaigning a lot with Vance. That’s a disgusting duo. EEEW!
Macintosh used to be a Congressman from Indiana. He’s been backing a lot of conservative Republicans. Last cycle the Republican challenger to Abigail Spanberger in the Virginia 7th CD got a ton of money from the Club for Growth.
Spanberger was one of twenty Democrats endorsed by the National Chamber of Commerce. Another was Sharice Davids (KS-3), who may have just gotten some help from a Kansas court decision throwing out the gerrymandering of her Kansas City area district.
jonas
How is forgiving debt a “windfall” for the very rich? If your family was rich, you just paid out of pocket for college. Now, there are some people who took out loans to go to Harvard Law School or something and have a lot of debt and are now successful lawyers who don’t have a problem paying back their loans, but that’s got to be an incredibly small subgroup of a much larger population of working and middle-class students who had to go to school on a lot of borrowed money.
Also, Biden’s action here would cancel *federal* student loans. A lot of the people who are caught in a spiral of ever-accumulating, high-interest debt took out private loans. The president can’t do anything about those.
germy
Regardless of the incomes they make after graduation, Black households carry more student debt, which pushes down their creditworthiness. Unsurprisingly, then, Black people with a college degree have lower homeownership rates than white high school dropouts.
germy
germy
TaMara
@Mustang Bobby: This sounds amazing. Excited for you (love a good opening night!). Congrats
Soprano2
@guachi: The stock market doesn’t seem to be too upset about these numbers because they understand what caused them. I think the average person cares a lot more about prices in the store and at the gas pump than they do about the GDP number.
Elizabelle
@Mustang Bobby: OK, have heard of saying “break a leg” to actors on opening night.
What does one say to playwrights?
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Did you see Rolling Stone’s story on what swung the endorsement to Vance? It’s gross but plausible. An excerpt:
I bet that’s exactly what happened
ETA: McIntosh issued a curt denial.
Geminid
@jonas: We won’t know for a while what Biden’s program regarding student loans will be. I think across-the-board cancellation is unlikely, but it’s certainly possible. More likely would be a partial cancellation through some combination of enhancement of Department of Education debt relief programs, and suggested legislation. The latter won’t pass but that would justify another extension of the moratorium.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
My 2c about Student Debt forgiveness is comes across as treating the system and not the disease.
My uncle, who teaches high school in the Mojave has a college degree from state college and was horrified to find out that one of the new teachers got their degree from UC Berkeley. That teacher is never going to be able pay their student loan off. So why do these kids think they need a top school for jobs that don’t require it and who is silly enough to make these loans?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Once again, EEEW!
germy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Residents of New York pay an annual total price of $27,500 to attend SUNY at Albany on a full time basis. This fee is comprised of $7,070 for tuition, $14,620 room and board, $1,000 for books and supplies and $3,090 for other fees.
Mustang Bobby
@Elizabelle: Well, I got my undergrad directing in acting, so I’ll take it.
The origins of the blessing are lost in the mists of time, but the most plausible explanation I’ve heard is that it means “bend the knee” as in take a bow, which in the olden days included something akin to a curtsy. I think it applies to all theatre-crafters.
Thank you!
Kay
@jonas:
I don’t think any of the student loan forgiveness proposals include graduate school debt, so while the theoretical Harvard Law School graduate could maybe apply to forgive undergrad debt, they’d still have law school debt.
debbie
@germy:
?
Timill
@Elizabelle: “Break a nib”?
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Tucker Carlson has been a Mandel guy for sometime. I cannot believe he’d support Vance because he’d never tolerate Vance’s anti-TFG statements.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: I seem have to not been clear on my point – why did this kid think they needed to go one of the most expensive schools in the country, just to teach in Jerk Water, California?
The answer is obvious, they were dumb kid and didn’t know better and some who should, pushed them that way.
This whole thing smacks of gullible kids as part of some Debt Bubble scam like the Mortgage Bond scandal. Ya’ the damage is done with that kid, and it’s in society’s interest to correct that. But Student Loan Forgiveness alone doesn’t stop the cause.
Mustang Bobby
@Timill: For set builders, it’s “break a nail.” :)
Kay
A lot of the student loan debt that would be forgiven would go to people who incurred debt but did not graduate, hence why paying the loans is such a burden.
No one should assume the debtor has a degree. Many, many won’t.
germy
I don’t understand that either. Is it a prestige thing? Did they have aspirations beyond teaching in Jerk Water? A solid education is available in a state college so I don’t know why the expensive school was the choice. Maybe one of the parents graduated there and the kid felt pressured to “continue the tradition” ?
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: Break a finger.
Kay
Free speech warriors update:
Libs of Tik Tok, supported and promoted by anti-cancel culture Right wing online influencers Glenn Greenwald and Joe Rogan, is opposing free library cards.
germy
@Kay:
I’ve mentioned this before, but here is a google review someone posted about my local library:
Horrible people.
gvg
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Oh for pete’s sake, kids don’t know what job opportunities they will have or want when they start college. They don’t really know what they are going to be good at, what they want to major in or even what various jobs are really like. Most of the time they don’t even know the names of possible jobs years in the future. In general, going to a good school gives you better prospects than a moderate school.
They also don’t know what the economy will be doing 4 or 5 years down the line. Try graduating into a recession for instance. the point is that kid probably didn’t intend to be accepting a low paying job.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: From my uncle got out of the new teacher, prestige
Keep in mind teaching in Jerk Water, California is good deal for a teacher, smaller class sizes, less over stimulated students and very low cost of living so a teacher can afford a house. That Student Loan solved that problem. That’s why I am calling someone scammed this kid.
Omnes Omnibus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: 1. Last time I checked, UC Berkeley was a state school. 2. Why shouldn’t someone from a “top school” choose to be a teacher?
Betty Cracker
@debbie: I don’t watch his show, but Carlson has been promoting Vance for some time now according to WaPo and the NYT. Carlson also has Vance on as a guest a lot. Don’t know about Mandel.
Ohio Mom
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The rule of thumb I’ve heard is only take out in loans the amount you can expect to make on your first year out of college. So someone studying engineering can borrow more than someone e studying elementary ed.
And yes, you don’t need to go to a top tier school for a career like teaching but maybe the recent graduate your uncle met didn’t start out as an ed major? Maybe after a couple of years of art history or some such, she realized she had to get a “useful” degree?
College students do dumb things. Ask me how I know.
Quiltingfool
@germy: I have an undergrad and graduate degree from a state university (Central Missouri State University, now known as University of Central Missouri). UCM got its start in 1871 as “Second Normal School District,” and was a teacher training college.
Not to diss University of Missouri, they have an excellent teaching program, but my university was excellent, too, and for a lower price.
I’m a big fan of state colleges. They may not get much notice, but you can get a solid education.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
California has an acute teaching shortage because the pay sucks ass. One thing is a sure a beat for a teaching job, the pay will suck.
Soprano2
@Kay: My experience in college was that a lot of kids drop out by the second year. Most who make it past the second year go on to graduate unless something happens in their life that prevents it. That might have changed, though, I went in the early 80’s. I went to a private college; quite a few kids transferred to the state university in my city after their first year, because they couldn’t afford to stay at my college. Others dropped out to get married, or decided college just wasn’t for them.
Soprano2
@gvg: Which school could this student teach at where their starting salary would be high enough to justify the cost of their education? If this person always wanted to teach, and had to borrow a buttload of money to go to Berkeley, then yeah that was a dumb decision. Teaching will never be a highly-paid profession unless you become an administrator.
Miss Bianca
@germy: Just for the record, UC Berkeley is, technically, a “state college”…if you happen to live in the state of CA, that is.
@Omnes Omnibus: shoulda known you would get there before me!
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: A person goes to a prestige school and decides to go into public service and all people here decide to do is criticize their decision-making?
opiejeanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Cal Berkeley is a University of California school, and those are NOT the most expensive in the country, not by a long shot. My middle child graduated from another UC, the one in Irvine, and the costs are pretty much the same across the board. She got into Cal but declined because their program for her major was not good, was offered a scholarship at Tisch UNY, and another at Mills, but those only leveled the playing field with the UC schools. My niece got a (nearly) free ride to Yale, her sister went to a Cal State for a year, then transferred to a private school, La Verne, for her degree and had a pretty big student loan that she finally paid off recently.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s not about someone from a ‘top school’ choosing to be a teacher. It’s about someone who borrows tens of thousands or even a hundred thousand dollars to go to a ‘top school’ and then chooses to be a teacher, which won’t ever pay enough to pay off that loan.
stinger
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you.
Soprano2
@Omnes Omnibus: No, it’s about stupid borrowing, not about going into public service. I have mixed feelings about forgiveness of student loans, and especially the $50,000 that so many are promoting. Will that motivate a lot of people to borrow that much for school, knowing it will take them decades to repay it and thus hoping it will get forgiven? I think the student loan program needs some changes, and how they’re handled in bankruptcy definitely needs to be changed, but we also don’t need to be encouraging kids and their parents to take out loans they can never pay back, especially if there are just as good and more affordable options for them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: It’s the maximalist sloganeering that aggravates me. It only encourages the kind of anything-less-than-everything-is-nothing thinking among the politically naive that only hurts Democrats. Especially since most people seem to think that the kind of executive action Warren and Left Twitter have convinced themselves is infallible would wind up in court, where opponents would push to get it before unfriendly judges precisely because it hurts Biden.
JML
It’s not a tragedy for someone to graduate with $30k in student debt (generally). The tragedy is piling up up $10K, $20K, $30K and NOT having a degree to show for it.
I’m ok with doing some things to cancel/eliminate/ease student loan debt. I don’t necessarily think it will be quite the economic boon for the country that some do, but I’m always in for throwing the life preserver to people who are drowning. But we should also look at systemic reforms that will support public higher education.
What would stink is to cancel a generation of student loan debt and then do nothing about the system that allowed it. But i don’t want these ^^$#@&*&&^#@* to get to to funnel big hunks of federal money to for-profit “schools” (many of whom rip of students on the daily), private schools that started the whole “high tuition, high aid” model that collapses quickly as people kick the “aid” portion out from under the students, etc.
And I’d rather states that have chronically underfunded public higher education to not get totally bailed out by any “free college” proposals, or for it to only apply to community or technical colleges, while regional publics get hung out to rot.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Right. But I think it’s important to note that any forgiveness would include 40 per cent who have college loans but no degree
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: If you make the decision to go to a particular college at 17 as a senior in high school, it is quite likely that you may change a lot on the way to graduation and degree. I think a person who chooses to go into education at the moment deserves our respect not brickbats. YMMV.
Geminid
@Kay: One proposal put forward by Democratic Representatives is for a $10,000 credit that could be applied by any American to existing student loan debt or towards post-secondary education. The number might not be high enough even in conjunction with existing federal loan forgiveness programs. But I like the principle for reasons both of equity and politics.
Feathers
@Soprano2: One of the reasons I put anything recurring on PayPal, if at all possible. There is a ledger for recurring payments within your account info and you can cancel your authorization to be charged again from within PayPal. Makes it all less stress inducing.
Ruckus ??
@Soprano2:
I actually google the phone number, rather than go through a website, because I get better results.
Soprano2
@Kay: True. That’s why I think any student loan forgiveness should be targeted in some way, not just “everyone who borrowed money from the federal government to go to college gets $50,000 forgiven regardless of ability to pay”. When they borrowed the money they agreed to pay it back, so there has to be at least some consideration of that fact. I like the way the Biden administration has been handling it so far, by examining different “batches” of these loans based on circumstances and then forgiving them when they believe it’s merited, for example when a for-profit college just outright lied to people about their program in order to get that sweet, sweet government loan money. I also like that they’ve been fixing the other forgiveness programs that have been FUBAR’ed for years. All that needed to happen before the consideration of any type of sweeping forgiveness.
Feathers
@Soprano2: As someone who’s worked in higher ed, reform is badly needed. I’m sure the hope is to balance loan forgiveness with reform, but it looks like we don’t have enough Dems in the Senate for that.
Because of this, some sort of loan forgiveness will be necessary up front. It will be both popular and infuriating, because as Kay said above, the current plan will undoubtedly be for federal undergrad loans (which you had to be fairly lower income to qualify for). A lot of the very online people I see talking about this have private loans for graduate degrees. I was just reading today about a woman who learned after her mother died with an $80,000 balance on the $15,000 loan she had taken out to pay for her daughter’s education. This is the true horror of student loans, and whatever this first round of forgiveness is, it won’t be dealing with this. BTW, the loan company forgave the mother’s loan, but only after making the last half of her life far less comfortable.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, all of this exactly. I’m sure that’s one reason they’ve taken the more cautious approach of targeted forgiveness and fixing programs already in place to forgive loans in exchange for working in certain professions.
Soprano2
@Feathers: HOLY SHIT, that’s quite a horror story! I also believe there needs to be reform of the student loan program, and reform of higher ed in general.
geg6
@Soprano2:
What no one here seems to take into account is that the maximum an undergrad can borrow from the federal government is $31,000. I have not heard a number like $50K in forgiveness being thrown around. What I have heard is $10K in forgiveness. Which seems a reasonable amount to decrease monthly payments and time to payoff. Any other loan debt is from private lenders or federal parent loans, neither of which are or will be part of the plan.
As an actual university financial aid officer at a state school, I approve. Average debt at my university at graduation is about $34K (includes out-of-state students, whose tuition is much higher). A 10K decrease opens up many opportunities to those young adults.
Soprano2
@Ruckus ??: That’s interesting, because I tried it and got the same result. I have a subscription to Whitepages because I use it at work, that’s what I used to search for it.
Soprano2
@geg6: Seriously? The $50,000 figure is being thrown around by no less than Chuck Schumer!
Ruckus ??
@germy:
The Club for Growth is only interested in the growth of their bank accounts and their racist account. They oppose anything and everything that doesn’t fill those two desires. Which of course is freaking obvious when you observe them in the least.
Feathers
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: One of the real problems we are facing is the current assinine assumption that young people should choose a career in their early to mid teens and then invest in an expensive education to prepare them for it. The truth is that almost every field has a temperament best suited to it, in a way that is far more important than subject matter knowledge. So we are ending up with a population in jobs that they are radically unsuited to, with more (expensive) education as the only way to get themselves into another one (which again, might not suit them at all).
Also, is California’s teachers cannot afford to pay back the student loans they got for their education at a state school, the teacher isn’t the problem. I remember reading an article (on paper, so a while ago) which showed that the declining amount that states were spending on higher education was almost perfectly matched to the increased spending on prisons.
Ruckus ??
@Soprano2:
Likely some/most times the result will be the same but there are times that I’ve gotten more info from google than any of the number searchers. Plus I’m half believing that the companies that do the searches are in on some of the scams and all you are doing is giving them more ammo. (not that google might also be in this for reasons less than “honorable.”) I’m not all that suspect of scams, they usually are rather obvious but it’s the shear volume. At least in the old days they had to have a wagon and a horse and travel town to town to sell their bullshit, or walk door to door and knock. Now they can scam a million or more in no time without spending much, if any, of the precious scam money they’ve already made.
Geminid
@Soprano2: Elizabeth Warren also uses the $50,000 number for student loan forgiveness, and she uses it often. Some cynics point out that Warren keeps pressing President Biden to deliver on her campaign promise.
Omnes Omnibus
QFT
StringOnAStick
I’d love it if the forgiveness amount is directly required to be applied to the principle, not just to the balance. That would make a huge difference and also address one of the huge issues about all this debt people are carrying: as these loans drag on and on and on, the borrower ends up paying so much more than what they originally borrowed and thus has less money to get their adult life started. I worked with a somewhat recent PT graduate last year, a degree that is now a doctorate; he told me he and his also full time employed wife decided against having kids and don’t know if they’ll ever be able to afford a house because of their college debt.
The increase in costs of higher education at all levels has reached obscene levels. When I got my first degree in 1983, I was paying $200/semester in tuition for a full credit load at a small 4 year school and living with my parents; books for that load were just a bit less than that. When I attended a community college in the late 1990’s, that was the cost PER CREDIT HOUR! Same state. So when I see a fellow retired or near retired person say that “kids should just work their way through school like I did”, I want to scream.
James E Powell
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Fees & Tuition at UC Berkeley are not astronomical. I’m guessing in the long run the degree from the top of the UCs will be worth it.
James E Powell
@Soprano2:
Every time Democrats have a good idea for a program to help people, they want to burden it with targeting or means testing or some other complication that only turns it into a confusing mess that pisses off the people it’s meant to help and delivers far less than it promised.
There is value to clarity here.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think there’s some misunderstanding about who student loan debtors are. The huge numbers don’t come from undergrad debt- they come from graduate school debt and THAT is skewed by the expensive degrees, law, medical and dental school or anything that requires a Phd.
The “expected” student loan debt for a working or middle class student right now is about 30k. Lop off 10k of that and you’ve given them a real boost.
Only undergrad debt – no one is going to forgive a graduate degree. Add community college- the huge working class college system that all analysts ignore. Add the fact that 40% of them have debt but no degree. Still seem like a huge windfall? Starts to sound reasonable, right?
Kay
@Soprano2:
For example:
The argument that is used that borrowers are “privileged” because most people don’t go to college doesn’t hold up either. More than half of them are first generation college students. They’re doing exactly what we told them we wanted them to do- trying to do better than the generation prior.
Kay
@Soprano2:
A lot of the arguments are weirdly circular. We can’t help first generation college students because they are college students, so therefore now in a more elite class than high school graduates.
What? Won’t that just leave us stuck at 25% college? It will be fair to the high school graduates, that’s true but does it get us where we want to go?
“Fair” is really important but it isn’t the only thing. It could be “fair” and still suck.
Kay
An irony of the Right and center Right who pushed the cancel culture and CRT panic for two years to great acclaim and personal financial benefit is how none of them ever address the actual supression of speech issues in any of the laws they inspired.
People who wrote 5000 words a week on rude law students at Yale can’t muster more than a few words for 20 state laws banning speech. Shouldn’t there be at least 500 NYTimes articles on this, as there were on “cancel culture”?
They started a panic, profited off it, and then all ran away when it burned out of control. Now we’re all stuck with the raging fire and they’re just passive observers.
Feathers
@Kay: These middle aged men pretending that they are still young truth tellers opposing the powerful need to be severely mocked.
This came to me when I was listening to the You Must Remember This podcast. The new season is about erotic thrillers from the 80s and this was the episode about Bo Derek and the movie 10. She talked about how it didn’t all age well, but overall it really dealt with toxic masculinity and didn’t pretend that Dudley Moore was magically entitled to hot young women. Young hotties had a say in the matter, too. It just struck me that the Sullivans, Yglesiaii, and Chiats are in the same category. Trying to keep doing the same schtick that they did when young and expecting the same effect. You really do need to level up to have the skill set required of the next stage in life. Many people don’t, but unfortunately our fame and money based recognition systems keep many of them around instead of replacing them with people who gained wisdom in their early career years.
Soprano2
@James E Powell: I agree that there needs to be clarity. For example, if they do $10,000, does that come off the principle or the interest or some of both? Or do we do something like what is suggested elsewhere on this thread, $10,000 toward a loan balance or tuition. I think $50,000 for everyone is too much and not actually workable. Honestly, if they want to put in income requirements in order to get it done even that would be OK, because it would help the people who need the help the most.
Soprano2
@Kay: Well, I don’t use the argument that they are more privileged, because I’m aware that the biggest problem is with those who don’t graduate, especially if they went to a for-profit scam college. I do think there should be some consideration of the fact that when they borrowed the money they agreed to pay it back, though.
mrmoshpotato
Yes! You fucking business-wrecking bitchass!
Kay
@Feathers:
There’s something crochety about it to me. Like they just disapprove of 20 year old social workers in general and this is a way to express annoyance at their tattoos or something. Can’t they just be annoying young people like everyone else was permitted to be?
Hey, it’s hard for me too. I had my youngest child when I was middle aged when I first took him to daycare I could not believe how young the other parents were. I know that’s like a cliche but I’m not that attentive or reflective, so when I looked up after crossing the street to the pick up area I was “God, they’re babies“. Stopped in my tracks. “Ill just stand over here with the busdrivers. I have nothing in common with you people”.