Ah sorry dude, I posted that and then didn't log back on. We just made a quick trip in after watching Hewitt at Rod Laver, but ended up leaving to hit a few of the bars around the city instead.

Gl for your events though! Ship the ME this time

Anyone going to the SB?

I could be a bit bias but college could very well be the next "bubble". It is wayy over hyped/over valued. Its amazing how banks are approving 18 year olds with loads of cash to get a communications degree. The prices of books/tuition never seems to go down despite the competition. All this money is being pumped into "education" without any secure back up collateral. I have alot of friends who graduated with worthless degrees still working at restaurants etc

College is good, but wayy to overvalued, unless your going into something specific like computer science/engineering etc, where theres actually a market for a job. I guess theres some value in seeing hardwork/dedication, to actually getting a college degree. Its a great way to weed out slackers/untalented people (i would be considered a slacker).

sorry for the short college education rant. I could go on forever considering i dont have a college degree haha

It's only a bubble for the students, not for the banks. And pretty much everyone agrees.

Student loans are FANTASTIC for banks. This is because:

1) the interest rates are insanely high at 6.8%. Given current interest rates, this is printing money
2) unlike virtually all other forms of debt, student loans are not erased by bankruptcy. So it's as close as you can get to a guaranteed return on your money for a bank -- the only way you don't get paid is if the debtor dies or lives his entire life in destitution

@BearJew there is a big difference between degrees offcourse. You can't expect to have an awesome job instantly with just some marketing degree. If you got a nice master in business management / economics you'll get invites for internships when you are still studying.

Also it's just a piece of paper that opens the door and there lies the problem. If you can't open that door you can't convince them of your qualities so you need that degree to get somewhere.

~cash flow/liquidity is worth something to banks. a bad loan is never good for business, but i cant imagine loaning an 18 year old with zero/little credit a good idea. Ive had a friend who did fairly well in school, really nice girl, but everyone knew never to loan her any amount of money. She had a serious spending problem/worst money management ever. she would tip 50% on a bill for a meal that was worth half her net worth most of the time. Somehow she managed to get a student loan for Seattle University (overpriced private school). Shes dumb as a rock fwiw, id rather lend my money to degenerate gamblers

~Im pretty sure student loans can be discharged via bankruptcy

edit: your kinda right, you have to be super poor forever to not pay back loans

~I thought student loan interest rates were lower...You can get auto loans for 2-3x less than that interest rate lol



-I do agree that there are degrees with value, but most dont. I also believe that alot of being successful is knowing the right people. Just having an "in" to something, i guess a mix of talent/skills and the right oportunity coming together.

pretty interesting youtube video, although alot of its facts are out of context

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZtX32sKVE

The reason that cash flow/liquidity is worth something to banks is that they need money available to make good loans. Passing up good loans to keep liquidity is just spinning the hamster wheels.

And as you discovered, yeah, getting out of paying back student loans is nearly impossible.

Bear jew. I think you over value not having a degree if you think degrees are that over valued. Not being "educated" is VERY detrimental.

Also, do student loans even represent a non-negligible amount of a banks lending?

I don't know about the US, but in Canada you can't get rid of student loans through bankruptcy.

Sucks to be you guys. Knowing it costs so much to get a master there :/ I mean you must be filthy rich to not have a student loan?

We had a few guest speakers come speak to our class the other day. All of these guest speakers are students in grad school (master's school for you euros). Basically he said the cost of his grad school is gonna be ~80k in student loans, which made me barf in my seat. And no he isn't going to be a doctor.

I don't know how it is in the US, but in Canada grad school can be pretty cheap if you include Research Assistant, teaching assistant positions, scholarships, etc.

sick unlucky fritz.

from pokernews:

"Jeff Rossiter, who finished third in the Main Event last year, was eliminated in heart-breaking fashion with just 20 minutes left in the evening. It happened when the board read 8 8210, and Rossiter bet 6,700 from middle position. His opponent in the hijack then raised to 17,000, Rossiter then moved all in for about 30,000 total, and the hijack made a reluctant call.

Showdown
Rossiter K Q
Hijack AJ

Rossiter had turned the king-high flush and needed to dodge a heart on the river to survive. Unfortunately for him, the 4 spiked to put an end to his run."

yeah and I said it before. If people really want to go to grad school they better stay in Europe for 2 years and get their masters degree.

1. Looks good on your CV for studying abroad
2. 10000000x cheaper (grad school in Belgium is 1100 dollar a year)

Ofcourse it's a huge leap and it's difficult to start somewhere new, but I wouldn't doubt for a second if I had to pay f 80k dollar lol for a master. My god I don't even understand why someone would like to pay that. Take 80k dollar go abroad and be a baller!

welcome to america. lol.

also, for those of you interested in american politics and/or those from america, I read this article today and it seemed pretty interesting. I think they nail this one on the head.


"An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation."

Sounds like one of the spam emails my dad forwards me.

Yeah, it's one of those illogical, stupid, and misleading, misconstructions. The argument that everyone wants socialism, or basically anyone barring the one socialist in government (Bernie Sanders), is false. Right now some in the government are arguing for certain things that they deem to be human rights which should be available to all barring your monetary situation, that being healthcare, etc. There are problems with these ideas, in that when the government injects money into a business, that business raises their fees to exorbitant levels, so in not reforming the pharmaceutical industry first bills like the healthcare bill will lead to higher fees in certain areas (though what an individual pays should be lower).

The class warfare idea that all that junk is based on is also stupid, as it's not class warfare till those without fight back. Which America was better, the America with higher income inequality or the America with lower income inequality? The second America is what we had up to around the 60's, then the rich started legislating the tax code in order to change the tax code and pay less. Were they socialists?

That's the big problem here, people throw around words and argue against those words as if that was descriptive of the situation. In reality it's just a tactic to obfuscate what's really going on and confuse people into believing obvious lies. The tax code is incredibly constructed to give the greatest benefits to those with the most money, because they're the people who have been able to afford to have their voices heard in congress. That doesn't mean the way Americas tax code worked before all of that was socialist, nor does it mean that any change in that tax code is class warfare.

huge plus one, well put

Wow. Just wow.

Like how can anyone with a brain consider this example to even remotely represent reality. It's the worst attempt at a straw man that I have ever seen

Just be an engineer, they pay you to go to grad school

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/socialism.asp

PS I think saymond and malefiicus are my two favourite reg thread posters

Malefiicus his english makes me hard.

NHWP

Nuh uh.
Socialism, Marxism, Communism and Fascism are all interchangeable words that mean pretty much the same thing. Don't you watch TV?

Speaking of job stuff a physician's assistant seems like a pretty great career right now, wish I would have thought of that when I was just starting college. For some of you who want a good job without tons and tons of schooling it might be worth looking into.