Just for clarity my post about nondischargeable student loan debt was meant to obviously be a rhetorical question, hence the "I wonder" part of the first sentence.

So yes, I agree with most of these posts and think they are good.

On the college discussion, I think the question you need to answer is what is a fair price for what the University is offering? What is the fair value of 4 years of higher education, housing, and food for an 18-22 year old? Add on some amount for the intangibles that come along with the college experience. Are you feeling like this was a bad use of money if your cost is 60k over these 4 years? At what amount does this become a bad value?

This is obviously something variable, but I think the college discussion has actually started to undervalue what people are getting out of their 4 years in college. I have personally never regretted the money I spent on my 4 years in college and I don't even directly use my degree.

I'd be fine with it as one of the consequences would be students rarely being approved to take on debt and at much lower levels if they do get approved. 18 year olds getting scammed into taking on enormous debt is definitely a problem.

I use my undergrad degree, but have been told directly by my boss that me having a Masters neither impacted their decision to hire me or made them consider paying me more at any point. Thus my Masters is 100% worthless financially. However, I don't regret spending $60k on a year of ****ing around with new and old friends and putting off work for another year until the economy got better. It was well worth "buying" one of the best years of my life by taking out loans and I wouldn't hesitate in doing it again even knowing it wouldn't change my financial situation for the better.

Good point CDL. For anyone with trouble getting employment, blowing 60k + interest and dicking around for a year with their friends seems like a good move since it worked for you.

If you read that it says the opposite. It didn't work for me. It provided me no financial benefit. I spent $60k for the non-financial benefits of having a blast for a year of my life in my early 20s instead of starting to grind away.

Maybe I could've spent that money better travelling the world, but whatever.

I also knew going into my Masters that it was unlikely to provide me a good financial return (because it was a first year program borne in large part due to the trouble people had getting jobs at the time and I had absolutely no intention of doing anything but going along for the ride and waiting another year for the recovery to start). The point is that for some people the financial return isn't the only value. To me it was worth taking on debt to pursue pleasure no different from people who buy cars or take vacations outside of their means.

doj settled massive russian fraud case involving lawyer that met with trump jr

wat

Does the forfeiture number here include states? If not that chart should look even worse than it does.

wat

You think our country is so innocent?

i guess they think don jr. is lying when he admits to meeting some russians?

Trump could say he hasn't played golf since taking office and 45% of Trump voters would believe him

Edit - scrolled that thread and it's hilarious(ly sad)

https://twitter.com/RuthMarcus/statu...73640597196802

World class *******, truly world class. What I want isn't happening so I'm going to let it fail. "It" being health care. That thing that tends to keep people healthy, or at least ALIVE on surprisingly numerous occasions. Our country's health care situation baffles me daily.

It would depend on who he shot.

I would strongly approve if he shot himself.

Yes, wasn't fully aware of the naming/cause of the magnitsky act until planet money did a piece a few days ago http://www.npr.org/sections/money/20...g-the-russians

Yes, exactly. Afaik it's only federal.

Huh? "Looking for a job" isn't a requirement for getting a discharge in a Chapter 7.

Longer explanation: bad faith chapter 7 filings get dismissed rather than debts discharged. An eve-of-bankruptcy-purchase-of-education-at-huge-tuition-cost, as well as room and board and living expenses, with the obvious plan to declare bankruptcy upon graduation, would result in a bad faith dismissal virtually every single time. It's like a picture perfect abusive BK filing that any trustee would challenge. Can you imagine the debtor interview?

My point about the looking for a job thing is not that it's a BK requirement, but instead that a brand new college grad who never even bothered who snap-filed for BK would be providing obvious evidence of abuse, because he or she would be immediately proving they made no effort to pursue the one purpose of the extravagant cost they are now seeking to discharge.

I was in line to bet at the Belmont Stakes when they announced Reagan had died and the guy behind me said "**** that ***hole for jacking up my student loan interest rates. ****ing ***hole, **** you forever!"

Obviously too good to check. Reagan did it.

Interest rates peaked out at around 18% prime I think in their effort to kill the double digit Nixon/Carter inflation mess. I think the 30 year bond got up to 13-14%. People were cashing those 13-14% coupons until 2013 or so.

My parents bought a house in the early 80's and the interest rate on the mortgage was 18%.

I'm not suggesting adjustable rate student loans.

Heh, heh, heh--I really like this one:

I honestly don't understand that one.

I thought the GOP healthcare effort was dead. They're still trying to do something?

as if they're ever gonna stop trying to take from the poor and give to the rich

Lots of winning and closing, just like the Pai Gow dealers who abused kidcolin all weekend.