Ukraine / Russia

This thread should honestly just redirect to the junk food or grilled cheese. Those put ya more into the holiday spirit mood
 
Why don’t you go start a junk food combo thread. Discuss cheeses, junk food, and your favorite kind of chocolate, it’ll be a real banger.

mmm, bangers and mash. solid answer. tho not sure if it qualifies as junk food.
 
mmm, bangers and mash. solid answer. tho not sure if it qualifies as junk food.
Is bangers slang for bang bang shrimp? Those are damn good and probably high enough calorie to be considered junk food
 
Why don’t you go start a junk food combo thread. Discuss cheeses, junk food, and your favorite kind of chocolate, it’ll be a real banger.

I tend to agree with your general fiscal conservatism but I think you might be being a bit penny wise pound foolish.

Whether you like it or not you have to add up the potential costs of letting Ukraine fall, which includes Taiwan, NATO in general, our trade relationships, etc. Now does it add up, I'm not sure but this isn't happening in a vacuum.

On the student loan front the inconvenient truth for republican demagogues;

1. There is a massive amount of bad debt that is just never going to be repaid and needs to be written off, forgive it, allow bankruptcy, but we need to write it off, because we are spending more administering it than we will every get back
2. Red southern/midwest states have the most of these delinquent loans, it's not WAGS degrees it's unfinished degrees at Junior Colleges in Georgia, South Caroline, Ohio, Florida, etc.

... the inconvenient truth for dems here is that Biden created this mess when he helped craft legislation that did away with bankruptcy protection for student loan borrowers.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well yeah, sure is curi Forgiving student loans is held up because a few states and individuals want to stick it to the libs.
To be clear, regardless of one's political leanings, there are these funny concepts called the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers that have to be considered before a president writes a $400 billion dollar check out of whole cloth. For the last 20 years both party's presidents have seemed to overlook this and the courts have had to remind all of them from time to time. This is one of those times.

Also, I think the "libs", by your label, should look themselves in the mirror and ask what is so equitable about giving $400 billion to college-educated white collar workers to be in significant part paid by the taxes collected on non-college educated blue-collar workers and college-educated white collar workers who did the work and paid off their loans? This is one of the least progressive wealth-shifting moves since the mortgage loan deduction.
 
part paid by the taxes collected on non-college educated blue-collar workers and college-educated white collar workers who did the work and paid off their loans?
That is Rhetoric is popular but is demonstrably inaccurate to a degree, you could basically solve the issue you highlight with a means test of a household AGI of $80,000...

This is the reality. Most pell grants holders, top left, are in the south and that group is 100% blue collar... that's how you get a pell grant low income, and why that group is the target for $20k not 10k.

Top right shows which states citizen benefit the most... and last, bad debt. The white collar loan holders your talking about, and there are a lot live in MA, they don't qualify because they make too much and they aren't delinquent in the first place. Likely a large portion of that group is waiting to see what happens with all of this/ have interest rates click back on and then will just refinance privately... or they are going for PSLF.

Is this a permanent fix... no
Is it the best solution... no
Does it win votes + slap a band aid on it... yes... which is why it happened.

If millennials like to bitch about loans we don't have crap compared to Gen Z.

1671658800265.png
1671658822686.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:
To be clear, regardless of one's political leanings, there are these funny concepts called the rule of law and the constitutional separation of powers that have to be considered before a president writes a $400 billion dollar check out of whole cloth. For the last 20 years both party's presidents have seemed to overlook this and the courts have had to remind all of them from time to time. This is one of those times.

Also, I think the "libs", by your label, should look themselves in the mirror and ask what is so equitable about giving $400 billion to college-educated white collar workers to be in significant part paid by the taxes collected on non-college educated blue-collar workers and college-educated white collar workers who did the work and paid off their loans? This is one of the least progressive wealth-shifting moves since the mortgage loan deduction.
You quoted part of my post out of context to validate an opinion without credible facts. Things I learned in college.

The Judicial branch did not impede two Executives now in freezing Federal student loan repayments. Nor did the Judicial branch stop Legislators from passing and acting upon the benefits within the Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act.
 
That is Rhetoric is popular but is demonstrably inaccurate to a degree, you could basically solve the issue you highlight and I quote with a means test of a household AGI of $80,000...

This is the reality. Most pell grants holders, top left, are in the south and that group is 100% blue collar... that's how you get a pell grant low income, and why that group is the target for $20k not 10k.

Top right shows which states citizen benefit the most... and last, bad debt. The white collar loan holders your talking about, and there are a lot live in MA, they don't qualify because they make too much and they aren't delinquent in the first place. Likely a large portion of that group is waiting to see what happens with all of this and then will just refinance privately.

Is this a permanent fix... no
Is it the best solution... no
Does it win votes + slap a band aid on it... yes... which is why it happened.

If millennials like to bitch about loans we don't have crap compared to Gen Z.

View attachment 256849
View attachment 256852
Put a means test at poverty level and I would support.

But you hit it on the head. This is bad policy that’s sole utility is rewarding favored voters.
 
You quoted part of my post out of context to validate an opinion without credible facts. Things I learned in college.

The Judicial branch did not impede two Executives now in freezing Federal student loan repayments. Nor did the Judicial branch stop Legislators from passing and acting upon the benefits within the Paycheck Protection Small Business Forgiveness Act.
Neither of your facts are relevant to Biden’s program. Of course Congress could do it. But they haven’t.
 
Swedish Fish are good. I like to take them on hikes.

I have a German friend, Klaus, that hikes with me sometimes. I took him quite a while to realize that I wasnt continually offering him actual fish to munch on. I kept thinking, 'What kind of animal turns down a Swedish Fish?', until one day he figured out and proclaimed, 'OH! Theyre gummies'.
 
This is bad policy that’s sole utility is rewarding favored voters.
Dems only go after poor people? or Rich people, but rich people don't get forgiveness. So poor people... so Republicans are the party of the Rich ;)

^ This is the stupid logic of politics I hate.

Yes any one who get forgiveness is probably more likely to think dems are doing good.

But what I think the main problem here, which is similar to Ukraine, is that rhetoric has gotten so insane that we've totally forgotten about trying to find solutions to problems.

We've made everything scoring points.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
114,027
Messages
2,041,749
Members
36,436
Latest member
kandee
Back
Top