So it’s back up in the news again and I’m having one of those days where I really don’t care if I piss someone off.
Debt forgiveness of college loans.
Now, let me preface this with a caveat; I agree that loan rates are predatory, so I’m ok with the government going after predatory companies and alleviating debt that way. That’s a bunch of evil shits that exist purely to talk people into things they can’t afford. I’m even OK with knocking a little off people’s debt.
You want to make it 10K? Fine… but you need to go back to every person you’ve taken money from in the last twenty years and give THEM all back 10K too. After all, THEY are the ones that deserve the reward. They paid their debts AND the interest on it for twenty years.
Don’t just pander to idiots that CAN’T get jobs! That’s literally the worst investment advice anyone could ever make! (PS, you DO know this only to get votes in the election, right? Tell me you’re aware of that much at least.)
But that’s not the only problem. The problem is – there are actually people so intellectually stupid that they just sign a piece of paper and say “Sure, give me 150K and I’ll pay you back later. I don’t care what the interest is. I’ll earn it at my fancy new job that I haven’t decided on yet because I have no idea what I want to do with my life.”
The problem is only HALF with the lending companies. The other half is with these halfwits that take the loans.
Somewhere out there is an idiot that’s going to take 100K in loans to go be a school teacher. That has got to be the absolute most idiotic financial decision a human being in America can make right now. Go take out loans and spend the first two years at some high-dollar four year university taking general education when you can get the exact same general education courses at a community college (literally the same curriculum) for about $5,000 instead of $40,000.
THEN, after two years, if you’ve managed to “adult” well enough to find a place to live, pay your rent/mortgage, get out of your parent’s guest room, have a decent job to get you through, THEN and ONLY then do you sign up for the remainder of the ed you need from the four year university.
I mean hell, these kids drive, right? They’ve learned the same lesson already I’d assume. I’d love to have a 2022 Cadillac. That’s $80,000. I can’t afford $1200 a month in car payments so I guess I get a 2002 Camry from a buy-here-pay-here lot and drive it until I can actually afford what I want. Isn’t that how they’re getting around the world now? Usually in a beat up used car I assume? It’s the SAME FUCKING LESSON!
Don’t buy shit you can’t afford.
Let me rephrase.
Don’t take a loan out for $200,000 that you have absolutely ZERO idea how to pay back without a ROCK-SOLID plan to get through the next 12 or 15 years of your life. (Not the next four). If you can’t do that, you’re not mature enough for college because you’re not mature enough to handle basic banking apparently.
It’s the lending companies fault?
Meh, I call bullshit. If you’re an idiot for signing something you shouldn’t have signed, be a grown up and admit that you’re the idiot. THEN we can maybe work on something, but don’t expect me to believe that delusional bullshit about how you couldn’t possibly know what you were signing. Maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE you signed it? You want to go yell at someone? Yell at your Mom and Dad for not teaching you math, or the very most rudimentary bit of economics before tossing you out of the nest! (Don’t have a mom or dad? That sucks, but then I’m not talking to you.)
It’s NOT just college loans
Right now there are companies lining up to offer me a home mortgage at the GREAT rate of 6%. Fuck no!
Only an idiot takes out a mortgage right now that has ANY other alternative. These dumbasses out here buying up houses that are priced twice their value at interest rates you wouldn’t have TOUCHED two years ago? And they’re still doing it.
Are we going to bailout homeowners in three or four years too because they too were too stupid to make good decisions?
My interest rate is 3% from when I refinanced in 2013. Why in the hell would I sign a contract with someone for double that? I won’t.. I’ll wait… like an intelligent grown up. I’ll rent. I’ll buy a crappy single-wide until this bubble bursts. I’ll get an apartment. But no way in HELL I’m paying 150% for a home or financing something at double the rate it was a year ago when we KNOW for a fact that the interest rates are ONLY this high because the government is actively trying to stop people from runaway spending.
Vehicle markets? Same!
I drive a 2018 Toyota Tundra – the first new vehicle I’ve ever owned. This truck cost me $51k fully loaded. In 2022, Toyota is BEGGING me to sell it back to them and they’ll offer me 3-5 thousand MORE than I paid for it! Are you f-ing kidding me?
Hell no. If you’re willing to give me THAT much money for a used truck, then what can you possibly sell me to replace it with? Nothing… that’s why you’re trying to buy mine in the first place – so you can mark it up to $64,000 and resell it to some other idiot! No way!
Every single one of these markets has the same solution.
Stop. Doing. It.
You want to fix the predatory lending and ludicrous practices of universities here in the USA? It’s simple. Don’t go to them and don’t take their money.
Gasp! Whaaaat? How will I live?
Well, probably better off, bud, to be honest!
- Go find a job.
- Possibly enroll at a community college while you’re at it and burn off your gen-ed requirements.
- Learn the market. See what your friends are paid. See what they pay in rent. Watch what the market is doing. Ask some adults around you. I mean for God’s sake, if you’re about to have to go live in this world on your own, maybe you should experience that BEFORE you commit a quarter of a million dollars or so into a career you’ve never even truly had any experience in yet.
Go to college at 20, or 22, or 24 if you must. Maybe don’t go at all. Go to a trade school. Hell, electricians and factory workers are making 75K a year, have a 401K, full benefits, and you’re going to have NONE of that for at least four to eight years with your current plan. Maybe it’s your plan that sucks…
The point is – if people would STOP saying YES to this crap, it would dry up rather quickly.
Some four-year university systems would shutter and die off within the year.
They should!. Most university systems are a scam to make them money, not make you smarter. They literally get NOTHING from you except your money for four or eight years. You are the commodity they trade in. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you’ll be ready to face the adult world. Can they teach you how to do XYZ for 50,000? Yes, but then they can’t have a cool football team, or a new stadium.
Does it legitimately cost $250K for you to become a teacher? No. The education itself is worth…. maybe 40K in total. But if you’re going to spend 40K on a career that makes you 38K a year, at least that’s not a HORRIBLE choice. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a degree or certificate that allows you to earn minimum wage makes YOU an idiot. I’m sorry to be the one to say it, but it does.
If you want to be a valuable asset to society, you have to be able to take care of yourself first. That’s the only way you have the time to benefit this world.
The mere fact that these children exist that believe it’s totally ok to forgive their college debt means one of two things.
- They’re greedy evil little shits that have no place in a decent society.
- Their parents didn’t give a crap about being sure they understood the world around them and somewhere along the line someone told them the world was supposed to be “fair” and that they “could be anything they wanted to be” in life.
That’s the only two reasons I can possibly see.
Either they legitimately don’t understand that debt isn’t “forgiven”… it’s just paid by somebody else, OR they just don’t care. If it’s the former, they need to be educated and wake up. If it’s the latter, they deserve what they get.
Example: How’s that stimulus money holding up you got last year? That free money? Remember that? It was “free” too… until you found out you had to pay taxes on it. And how’s all that money looking now when gas is $4.00 a gallon and your groceries are 40% higher than last year this time? Exact same principle except YOU get to see how it feels to pay someone else’s debt for a change… sucks doesn’t it? You’ve paid out at least twice what you got just trying to survive the year thus far.
And as the person that actually PAYS taxes, no, I don’t want to pay any more for your bad decisions. It’s literally child support, except I’d be paying for adults instead AND I can’t make you wash the dishes.
I’m assuming that most of this crowd is the following:
- I can’t find a job.
- No one will rent to me/I can’t find a place I can afford.
- My life is hard.
- Everything should be free to those that “need” it.
Well, sorry buttercup, that’s not how the real world works. Let me tell you the other perspective from those of us you’d be saddling with your debt.
- I pay interest to a bank for my house.
- I pay taxes on the house, when I really don’t even own it yet. The bank does. Why aren’t THEY paying the taxes on it?
- I pay taxes on the property I own.
- I pay taxes when I buy equipment and tools
- I pay MORE ANNUAL taxes when I tell the government about those tools, yeah, the ones I already paid for once. (Business Personal Property Tax Form)
- I pay taxes on the stuff I own that’s NOT necessarily for work, that I ALSO paid taxes on when I bought it. (Personal Property Tax Form).
- Hell, I pay a tax for my DOG! ($1 a month per dog)
- After all that I still pay income taxes on ALL the money that I made that had to pay those OTHER taxes and wouldn’t ya know it, none of those things are tax deductible so I’m REALLY taking it in the ass on that one.
So those of us that actually PAY taxes, who I presume are the evil Gen X/Boomers everyone is railing against… yeah we already pay enough! If you’ve got no career, a useless degree you can’t use, are working somewhere hopefully, and you’re whining about your school debt that you can’t pay for, then I assume you don’t own a home (because you can’t afford one apparently), you don’t have a newer car (same reason), you can’t possibly own a business that pays any tax revenue (same reason as above)… so basically the rest of us are already providing the tax revenue that makes the country’s wheels go round as it is. We’re already paying ALL the taxes because you only maybe pay ONE of those listed above. We’re already shouldering the burden of the rest of the nation’s stupid decision-making capabilities.
Think about that for a minute MAYBE you’ll understand why we have no patience for the idea of us picking up the bill for your apparent poor life choices. We have to pay for our OWN choices, AND most of yours already.
I have no problem with helping to “fight the system” that’s corrupt! Sure! Absolutely! But let’s start by actually working out how to do that instead of you putting your hand out asking ME to pay your bills. You’re an adult, like it or not. Act like one.
One more step
While we’re at it, let’s fix the problem by removing the ability of people who are apparently admitting they’re too stupid to understand what they’re doing to elect to study college degree programs that don’t directly (and I mean DIRECTLY) turn into a dedicated workforce need or profitable career. (and then let’s go after predatory lending rates).
Let’s totally remove the following curriculum as degree programs:
- Culinary Arts (Wait, you wanted to be a chef? Well listen up numbskull, on average professionally trained chefs tend to make 2%-10% more than their uneducated counterparts that have been in the business actually DOING the job for the last for years. You think you can pay off those debts with a 2% increase over Stefan over there? Good luck!
- Fashion Design – look at the world. Nobody needs that.
- Art History – Really? You think there’s a sudden drought in the curatorial market? There’s not.
- Music – Fuck off.
- Communications – It’s a useless degree that doesn’t actually give you any real world experience in ANY of the fields you think it does.
- Liberal Arts – these people just need to die.
- Studio Arts/Fine Arts/Performing Arts – really? Most of those are discovered on Reality TV these days. Sorry to burst your bubble.
- Ethnic Studies – please find me a career that needs this that requires an entire DEGREE in it!
- Philosophy – well that’s what got you guys into this mess anyway. Half your parents had liberal arts and philosophy degrees I assume. Do the math.
- Computer Science – First off, that’s not a degree in the real world. It’s a piece of paper that says you understand a little bit of a lot of things, but have no experience in ANYTHING useful, so you can be my receptionist or maybe work up to my WordPress Editor if you’re snappy with my Mocha-Cappa-Fruita-Latte thing.
Alternatively, you could achieve the same thing by just denying loans to people dumb enough to sign up for those majors. You’re here for liberal arts? I’m sorry… you can take that but you’re going to have to get a scholarship or pay your own way, because the adults know you’d just be wasting your time and their money…
In conclusion
Sure I’m pissed. I WOULD be pissed alongside you if you were trying to find some way to actually SOLVE your problem. If that’s you, then great, let’s fix this broken world together!
If you’re just trying to make it go away at my expense, then no I don’t have any patience for you or feel sorry for you because those people can’t learn. They’re damaged enough to truly BELIEVE that they deserve something for free and I’ve got no use for people like that anywhere in my life.