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2021 - Is inflation finally back in the conversation?


Reagan1k

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On 7/11/2023 at 8:08 AM, 52-80 said:

are you trying to say there's a labor market where parties can agree on the compensation for their labor; and owners of enterprises can vote on how they choose to pay their managers?

what if i dont LIKE how these people vote and what they do with their businesses?

You get outvoted by institutional shareholders.

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Start naming real degrees that are worthless instead of this “basket weaving” boogey-man. I worked in financial services for close to a decade and saw all sorts of humanities backgrounds that were making meaningful impact. According to some of you, basket weaving and gender studies makes up 70% of college grads.

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4 hours ago, BabaYaga said:

Yeah, it's a racket, but they have everyone by the short hairs.  At the end of the day it's a piece of paper that doesn't signal much other than you were willing and able to put in the time to get sed piece of paper.  

I'm not so sure.  I think there is a general correlation to a degree.  I mean, my son was a very immature pollyanna through HS, but by hook and crook he's at UT for his sophomore year.  His reasoning is vastly improved, his thought processes are more honed, and I'm not sure that he would be where he is w/o some college education.  Maybe he's just a late bloomer, but somehow I doubt it.  I think the demand -- and getting through it -- matters.  I don't think he'd be as far along w/o college.

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9 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

Start naming real degrees that are worthless instead of this “basket weaving” boogey-man. I worked in financial services for close to a decade and saw all sorts of humanities backgrounds that were making meaningful impact. According to some of you, basket weaving and gender studies makes up 70% of college grads.

According to you, some people claim that those with humanities backgrounds make no meaningful impact.

That's not the claim.  The claim is that it's well known that earnings correlate to field of study, and students should know this obvious fact.

If you major in the humanities and end up a corporate hotshot, kudos to you.  If you fall into your group average, thats Bayesian innit?

 

https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/UT-System.pdf

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image.jpeg.336cb3829ed3382a61cf6e512d8b831c.jpeg

image.jpeg.52acb7829cc552de1f436a07d25cf3aa.jpeg

 

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13 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

Start naming real degrees that are worthless instead of this “basket weaving” boogey-man. I worked in financial services for close to a decade and saw all sorts of humanities backgrounds that were making meaningful impact. According to some of you, basket weaving and gender studies makes up 70% of college grads.

Whatever degree all these people begging to have debt forgiveness have. Obviously the payback wasn't there for them. Or they are just made shitty choices and want everyone to pay for their shitty choices.

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1 hour ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Whatever degree all these people begging to have debt forgiveness have. Obviously the payback wasn't there for them. Or they are just made shitty choices and want everyone to pay for their shitty choices.

What year did you graduate?

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5 hours ago, 52-80 said:

According to you, some people claim that those with humanities backgrounds make no meaningful impact.

That's not the claim.  The claim is that it's well known that earnings correlate to field of study, and students should know this obvious fact.

If you major in the humanities and end up a corporate hotshot, kudos to you.  If you fall into your group average, thats Bayesian innit?

 

https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/UT-System.pdf

image.thumb.png.ba9d9726fd8e2c1307c7d4d519611e2f.png

image.jpeg.336cb3829ed3382a61cf6e512d8b831c.jpeg

image.jpeg.52acb7829cc552de1f436a07d25cf3aa.jpeg

 

That’s 100% the claim. 

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16 hours ago, Cheeseweasel said:

"Considering all of the evidence, we conclude that the conventional wisdom about college is not as true as it used to be."

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2019/february/is-college-still-worth-it-complicated

 

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My kids are extremely lucky to attend college without taking on debt as I am paying for their education out of free cash flow+savings.  In return I have two requirements:
1) They must attend a school/degree combination with a positive ROI and
2) They must be excited to go to that school

A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma these days. It's basically competitive ante, and sometimes not even that.

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13 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm not so sure.  I think there is a general correlation to a degree.  I mean, my son was a very immature pollyanna through HS, but by hook and crook he's at UT for his sophomore year.  His reasoning is vastly improved, his thought processes are more honed, and I'm not sure that he would be where he is w/o some college education.  Maybe he's just a late bloomer, but somehow I doubt it.  I think the demand -- and getting through it -- matters.  I don't think he'd be as far along w/o college.

That's the point - it's a pipeline like any other that facilitates growth on the participants.  It signals to employers a measure of responsibility and accountability in lieu of measurable skill that is harder to gauge at such a young age.  It gives structure to those at a young age that desperately need it.  

We all changed in college.  We essentially "grew up" faster inside the pipeline that most would outside of it.  But here's the rub - would I take a mid 20's E4 who worked in logistics over a recent grad who has a degree in it?  All day....but how else is a grad supposed to have any experience without the degree?  

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16 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

A bachelor's degree is the new high school diploma these days. It's basically competitive ante, and sometimes not even that.

100%. I've hired enough people to understand that a 100k per year degree is essentially the same as a 10k per year degree. ROI is the key and you nailed it.

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Incidentally that lack of value is the reason I support some debt forgiveness - the structure of guaranteed student lending - by guaranteeing a profit for lenders and guaranteeing a source of funding for colleges- created massive incentive for schools to increase the cost of education and put the burden students and families to take on debt, even while the value drained out of the programs.  It also created a new class of bullshit degree programs to serve students that really shouldn't pay for them.  
Remember the guy who ran his car into the crowd during SXSW a few years back? He was a 21 year old soundcloud rapper with six kids and a criminal record, studying music production from an online school called "Full Sail University" that costs about $30k/yr after aid. Because there was no downside for the issuers, he was table to get student loans to cover the cost and supposedly was on the hook for around $50K when he was sent to prison. And who pays for that? We do. 

The point is - it's a racket. I'm choosing the least sympathetic student loan recipient to make a point here. He's a terrible person who ran his car into a crowd.  But he was a bad risk before that, too, and his prosspects didn't improve with the degree, so who's scamming who? In a system like this, the borrowers are mainly collateral damage and I have no objection to giving some of them a break. They got hoodwinked and we set them up, and ourselves

5 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

That's not nice to those kids who are too dumb to understand that they can't pay back their loans. Shame.

this but unironically

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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15 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

Start naming real degrees that are worthless instead of this “basket weaving” boogey-man. I worked in financial services for close to a decade and saw all sorts of humanities backgrounds that were making meaningful impact. According to some of you, basket weaving and gender studies makes up 70% of college grads.

That's kind of the point.  They are working in finance, a field where the ROI can be justified.  Spending 6-figures to be a social worker or a preschool teacher is fine, but the ROI of the degree & occupation is something that all parents/student should be having.  If you really want to take a make a difference, are you materially better at your job having spent $100K at SMU vs a fraction of that are a smaller state school?  Maybe?  At least run the numbers before you dive in and see how long you are going to be saddled with debt and how that will impact the trajectory of your life.   

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7 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

If you really want to take a make a difference, are you materially better at your job having spent $100K at SMU vs a fraction of that are a smaller state school? 

Exactly - I mentioned school/degree combo and this is a live conversation in my house right now. Some majors just aren't worth paying for in this price environment, but most depend on the school.
My older daughter is a PPE at University of Edinburgh, essentially a triple major of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. Had she just majored in either of the Ps, she would have gone to a public school in state. The "E," combined with the global prestige of the school and the networking value of the people who go there bought her 4 years in Scotland. 
My younger daughter really wants to major in Psych or Communications. Great! Public school it is.

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3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

My younger daughter really wants to major in Psych or Communications. Great! Public school it is.

Yep, both of mine are in psych at UT -- daughter (BA track) and son (BS track).  Ironically, he's not as intrinsically intelligent as she is, but he's the one already talking about med school.  Damn, son, when did you grow up?  She'll be fine, regardless, and wants a PhD.  She can handle that load with her eyes closed.

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9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yep, both of mine are in psych at UT -- daughter (BA track) and son (BS track).  Ironically, he's not as intrinsically intelligent as she is, but he's the one already talking about med school.  Damn, son, when did you grow up?  She'll be fine, regardless, and wants a PhD.  She can handle that load with her eyes closed.

Phrasing 

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17 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Yep, both of mine are in psych at UT -- daughter (BA track) and son (BS track).  Ironically, he's not as intrinsically intelligent as she is, but he's the one already talking about med school.  Damn, son, when did you grow up?  She'll be fine, regardless, and wants a PhD.  She can handle that load with her eyes closed.

image.png.f853e92cb5f5ddb0da7afc2076e5a892.png

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On 8/31/2023 at 10:11 AM, Cheeseweasel said:

This. If there was one thing I could instill in the yutes, it would be 'live within your means' while you are young. They'll be time for nice things later, but stay out of debt for as long as you can. Once you are behind the debt curve, life is infinitely harder.

I dunno. I kinda feel like they should be in the burn it all down mode. They've been screwed over so much that you're basically asking them to bend over and bite the pillow. Just be responsible like we were! That still leads to crushing debt and no hope for a lot of them.

I'm not some kind of captainant sock or anything. I believe that capitalism is the least worst system we have when it comes to monetary policy. But what we have is not capitalism. We are screwing over our younger generations, our future, so that the olds can live in comfort. so why shouldn't they spend it all and burn it all down? Yeah, it'll be painfull, but the alternative isn't much better. At least they may have a voice if the system is in ashes.

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21 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Exactly - I mentioned school/degree combo and this is a live conversation in my house right now. Some majors just aren't worth paying for in this price environment, but most depend on the school.
My older daughter is a PPE at University of Edinburgh, essentially a triple major of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. Had she just majored in either of the Ps, she would have gone to a public school in state. The "E," combined with the global prestige of the school and the networking value of the people who go there bought her 4 years in Scotland. 
My younger daughter really wants to major in Psych or Communications. Great! Public school it is.

This is correct. I agree that a degree is now considered competitive ante, but the name of degree doesn’t matter to most employers unless it says Harvard or Stanford. I love my Texas degree but if you can’t afford Texas, a cheaper school is fine. Many employers don’t give a shit if someone went to Angelo State, Louisiana Lafayette, or Texas. Skill, Work History, Who You Know, is way more important than the name of the school. 

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On 9/2/2023 at 2:06 PM, Neonmoon said:

This is correct. I agree that a degree is now considered competitive ante, but the name of degree doesn’t matter to most employers unless it says Harvard or Stanford.

Lol. You dont think theres a difference of what companies come to recruit at UT vs UTSA? 
 

And that difference compounds into differences in work history and “who you know” 

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12 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I have hired dozens of engineers out of various schools.  I can assure anyone who cares that I value a degree from Stanford or Michigan or Illinois much higher than a degree from Texas Tech.  Make of that what you will.

 

 

I’ll make the point that outside of the first interview and job out of school it’s irrelevant.  I hire a lot of engineers.   Seriously, unless it’s u of Phoenix or WGU or some shit like that it’s not going to matter. It does matter if you want to go to grad school, or if you’re in a field that your undergrad is super well known for, otherwise it just doesn’t.

 

And yeah I’m saying this while sending a kid to an expensive private school, so I know I’m a Dumas.

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When I graduated law school I had something like 25,000 in loans.   At the time that was the cost of a used Camry.  Not a bad deal. I was lucky in that I had a scholarship from my law school that made the first year free.  I also had a wife who was a therapist who made a salary that allowed us to pay down some as I went the last two years.
I just had a conversation last week with a young associate who explained to me that she was having problems paying her 150 K student loan, as her husband’s business was not doing so hot - and all of her free money went to her student loan.
At least she has a law degree. Too many dumb fucks with Elizabethan fashion design degrees from private schools costing 200 K seem confused that they can’t pay it off.
My oldest son fucked up his first year of college and lost his free state tuition.   I told him I loved him and wished him the best but I would not pour good money down a hole until such time as he could convince me it was a good investment.  Fast forward 10 years and he helps run a very nice restaurant in New Orleans, owns his own house, and I think he makes high 50s low 60s, with health insurance and a match 401(k). The separate generous holiday and carnival bonus checks add to that.  He tells me that he is way better off than a large number of his high school friends who bounced around college collecting debt and now can’t find a job that pays anything.    “Look at my college degree” - while I check you out at the Hertz rental car counter, for example.  
There are lots of paths to happiness. The ones where you are not in debt up to your eyeballs are the better paths.

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52 minutes ago, Nathan Jessep said:

https://x.com/axios/status/1698747295582359704?s=46&t=uKnL2agxvSx0rJZI2y3iWw

 

The federal deficit is expected to nearly double this year, from about $1 trillion last year to $2 trillion for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

 

Just now, Cheeseweasel said:

This Is Fine GIF

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-did-tcja-affect-federal-budget-outlook#:~:text=Conventional estimates,Office's (CBO's) conventional score.

turns out if you cut corporate taxes and create more carveouts for the ultra wealthy, revenues fall! Whodathunkit???

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