Kevin. Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 5 minutes ago, Burn-E said: Bernie's not wrong about the need to reform the influence of money in politics. Where he goes south though is when he starts talking about everyone needs to pay more in taxes in order to raise people out of poverty. I'll simply say I don't trust the government to do much more than give people incentives to sit on their asses and receive benefits. Generally if a person doesn't have to work for something they lack appreciation for what it can provide them and therefore don't apply themselves to take true advantage of the benefits. how about the people that are stuck in poverty? Or ones that cannot afford college? I joined the military because I couldn't afford college, not everyone can do that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burn-E Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 You're never stuck in poverty Kevin. I've helped extremely stuck individuals get out (convicted felon who was a former gang banger and couldn't access a decent paying job due to his record). And I've also dealt with people who work the system and are essentially institutionalized and will never break the cycle. There are very insidious implications to how telling people you'll give them things for free impacts how they lead their lives. I know a woman who is entirely capable of going back to work but she has figured out how to live on her disability payments and then supplement that with support from family whenever she really gets into trouble due to an illness. She talks about getting a job but she's not serious about it - even though I have expended hours, days, weeks even in working with her to help develop a strategy to a better life. So I'm her support in times of crisis - moved her out of a slumlord apartment, saved her from getting evicted by her new landlord, etc. and we talk about the motions and she has made progress but she'll stay on disability for the rest of her life. The real challenge is the gap between making just so much that you retain the benefits of the government programs and getting to a point where you can be self sufficient. There's a point between ~$25k and ~$45k (at least in the areas near where I live) where you're simply not making enough because the benefits like SNAP and welfare support are taken away when you're making ~130% of the poverty line (~$24k) and wind up having less income and benefits even though you're working full time. That is the transitional point where people generally need help to overcome. I do think closing loopholes for taxes is a good thing. I do think measuring true performance of the efforts that are in place to help poor people need to be examined. A friend of mine, his father started the program in SLC that gives an apartment to the chronically homeless. They discovered that doing so allowed for much better outcomes - and was actually cheaper for the State of Utah - and actually many pulled themselves back into the capability of contributing to society and their own welfare. But it only works because they have developed a structured system that engages these individuals and focuses on outcomes. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theForgottenone Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 1 hour ago, Kevin. said: how about the people that are stuck in poverty? Or ones that cannot afford college? I joined the military because I couldn't afford college, not everyone can do that When there is a will, there is a way. Most people blame on others or lack of opportunity for success. For crying out loud, you live in first world country not some 3rd world where wage per hour is $1 such as countries in South America or some in Asia, and Africa. My family came here (legally) with zero dollars in our pocket and all of my sibling are not in poverty and able to support their families without any issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudge_Brownie Posted February 18, 2016 Report Share Posted February 18, 2016 1 hour ago, Kevin. said: how about the people that are stuck in poverty? Or ones that cannot afford college? I joined the military because I couldn't afford college, not everyone can do that There's this myth that everyone needs to go to college. They don't, and many shouldn't. It is not an instant route out of poverty, or instant ticket to a career. Nor is it required for many fields. I feel like so many people incorrectly perceive it as a barrier. "I must do this, and doors will open. Until then, doors remain closed". As a result, people spend all this time trying to conquer X, while they could be walking path Y. So then they graduate 4 years later; now what? Maybe you get a job and everything's great. If you don't? Now what? It's back to flippin burgers. Turns out an English degree doesn't have high prospects, and those employment statistics the school touted forgot to mention half those were due to family connections. Or you get a job, but it's still entry level and doesn't pay great. Why pay high, when there's so many other students graduating with the same degree and no job opportunities? Granted, it's 'easy for me to say' given that I went to school. Can't afford it? I didn't have much in the bank my first day. Loans, and more loans. To be fair, one of them is in my mom's name, I believe she's cosigner on some, etc. It certainly wasn't 'all me'; she was immensely helpful. But I also banked the money I made with summer jobs when I could have spent it to fill that gap. And I lived at school - It would have been much cheaper if I commuted. And because my parents had decent tax returns, I paid full price. Didn't seem to matter who was going to pay for it. I don't think anyone else I knew in school did. They all had some sort of subsidization. I'm trying to challenge the idea that you need a lot of money to attend college (and that the $15-20k minimum it'll cost might not pay for itself later on). Alain might find it interesting that those who seemed to come from the most difficult family situations, and had the greatest level of assistance from the school, didn't take it very seriously. And quite few weren't around four years later. I think for many of them, it was the wrong path to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S8ET6 Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 7 hours ago, Burn-E said: Not in SC he's not. Clinton has that vote locked up. How many of your friends and family are going to vote for Bernie, Darnell? The minority vote is his Achilles heel among Democrats. Percentage wise? I'd estimate 2/3 of the people I spoke with about this indicated they would vote for Bernie. Spent time in both SC and NC during the Christmas holidays. Specifically, I was in Raleigh, Charleston and Columbia. I was genuinely surprised at the amount of people I found who supported Bernie (especially in the low country) - mostly young (under 30) and old (over 65). The Hillary supporters were in 40-60 age group. General themes that I noticed during my conversations: Seems like the mature women (35+) in particular have a trust issue with Hillary - and all of the people who participate in the 08 primary have long memories regarding the way the Clinton's treated BO surrounding that time. The seniors are giving Bernie their vote just because of his civil rights record. I feel/felt the same as you Alain - I only mentioned it because the polls seem to be trending in a direction that supports what I heard. I guess we'll see come Sat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burn-E Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 3 hours ago, Fudge_Brownie said: There's this myth that everyone needs to go to college. They don't, and many shouldn't. It is not an instant route out of poverty, or instant ticket to a career. Nor is it required for many fields. Welding. Ongoing need for experienced welders. Even with the oil downturn there will be jobs here where you can make on average $20/hr and top earners make $30-40/hr and where there's overtime it can easily jump to top workers making $80-$100k per year. Plumbers, electricians, HVAC installers. All good jobs. None of which require a college education. My cousin's husband is a firefighter in Los Angeles. Makes really good money and is on the captain track. Earned an associates in Fire Science and studied to become an EMT. Very practical school work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theForgottenone Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 Elevator repairman make $100k per year. Just saying. mailman make minimum $20 per hour and you just have to past a test to make sure you can decipher mail address. Air traffic controller make above 6 digits and FTA will train you as they are shortage of them. As long you meet the require age range (not too old like over 40yrs old). I had a link a while back where they only require you to live in Oklahoma for couple months. Pretty good deal for a good paying job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fudge_Brownie Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 It's a funny situation where I think for many people, college has the risk of being almost a negative return. If your parents paid $100k for a degree, it can take a while to earn that back. But you can't just compare it to that original $100k. You should pretend it earned 4% interest over the years, as if it was sitting in some low risk fund. If you think it'll take you ten years to earn $100k more than you could have done in other fields, that originally 100k would be worth $148k. And then you have to factor in that you spend four years of your life not earning a dime. That's four years lost income. Even at minimum wage, that's like another $70k. That's where it really starts to get hard to justify. Ten years later, you've got to beat $148k+70k=218k. So, you'd need to have earned, on average, 21.8k/year more than you could have earned without a 100k degree. This is oversimplifying, but still interesting to think about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theForgottenone Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 7 minutes ago, Fudge_Brownie said: It's a funny situation where I think for many people, college has the risk of being almost a negative return. If your parents paid $100k for a degree, it can take a while to earn that back. But you can't just compare it to that original $100k. You should pretend it earned 4% interest over the years, as if it was sitting in some low risk fund. If you think it'll take you ten years to earn $100k more than you could have done in other fields, that originally 100k would be worth $148k. And then you have to factor in that you spend four years of your life not earning a dime. That's four years lost income. Even at minimum wage, that's like another $70k. That's where it really starts to get hard to justify. Ten years later, you've got to beat $148k+70k=218k. So, you'd need to have earned, on average, 21.8k/year more than you could have earned without a 100k degree. This is oversimplifying, but still interesting to think about. That is if you go to public university/college. $100k is cheap for a bachelor degree these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattsk8 Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 Just now, S8ET6 said: ...I'd rather cosign for a mortgage for each of them, than a student loan for each of them - at least there is a tangible end result (and it gets them out of my house that much faster). With that being said, I'm highly pissed that I am being forced to disclose financial information during my daughter's FASFA application. If I have no intentions to subsidize her experience, then my income shouldn't matter - especially if she is emancipated. And did anyone ever think that maybe I don't WANT my young adult kids to know my income and assets? This actually makes sense, paying for a mortgage over their college tuition. I was paying for college when I went and didn't care a whole lot. I never finished my degree because I started doing well in construction, and I've been focused and driven ever since. Looking back, I still think that piece of paper would be nice, but that's the extent of any regret I have. I was going for criminal justice, really glad I didn't stick with that at this point. Just now, flyfishing3 said: the Screw everybody attitude i find very disheartening, seriously. i know somebody, who know's somebody you did something, so screw everybody? very short sided imo god forbid one of these freeloaders every cures cancer, starts a business and employees some neighbors. man. Curious exactly what you mean here... "the screw everybody attitude"? Who is it that has this attitude? And I can use the same "we could've had a cure for cancer... but..." argument on the other end just as easily, if not easier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattsk8 Posted February 19, 2016 Report Share Posted February 19, 2016 Just now, S8ET6 said: With that being said, I'm highly pissed that I am being forced to disclose financial information during my daughter's FASFA application. If I have no intentions to subsidize her experience, then my income shouldn't matter - especially if she is emancipated. And did anyone ever think that maybe I don't WANT my young adult kids to know my income and assets? Adding more of these programs is only going to make situations like these worse. Out of curiosity... how did my earlier response end up above all the later responses? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattsk8 Posted February 20, 2016 Report Share Posted February 20, 2016 (edited) 20 hours ago, Kevin. said: how about the people that are stuck in poverty? Or ones that cannot afford college? I joined the military because I couldn't afford college, not everyone can do that I honestly didn't want to get involved in this, but I can't let this go anymore; kids these days are so f'ing dumb. Where is all this money going to come from to pay for all these poor souls that can't afford college? Are you going to pay for it Kevin? Look at the national debt... how long do you think we can keep this up as a nation? We're already playing in a facade that'll blow up any day now. Reality... life isn't fair. Get off your fat ass and work for it. I didn't finish college and mommy and daddy didn't pay for shit for me, and I still managed to pay my bills while my wife stayed home with our 4 kids. Now I have a phenomenal job making fantastic money, and it's not because I looked to government to solve my f'ing problems for me. All you're going to do with your idiotic gov programs is make more excuses for lazy, stupid people to sit around and get fatter while they piss and moan cuz their check was late. Edited February 20, 2016 by mattsk8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S8ET6 Posted February 20, 2016 Report Share Posted February 20, 2016 I've made it clear to my wife and kids that I wasn't financing my kids college experience (as opposed to education). I know how much of a unfocused, entitled prick that I was when I was in college, and I refused to waste my money on offspring who are genetically predisposed to possessing the same mindset. I'd rather cosign for a mortgage for each of them, than a student loan for each of them - at least there is a tangible end result (and it gets them out of my house that much faster). With that being said, I'm highly pissed that I am being forced to disclose financial information during my daughter's FASFA application. If I have no intentions to subsidize her experience, then my income shouldn't matter - especially if she is emancipated. And did anyone ever think that maybe I don't WANT my young adult kids to know my income and assets? And did you guys see where a man was arrested because of outstanding student loan debt? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Burn-E Posted February 20, 2016 Report Share Posted February 20, 2016 College loans are all a pain in the ass for parents. The kid has no credit history so the government and associated banks completely depend on the parents' situation as a basis for determining how to approach it. I hated filling out all those forms when I applied for loans during grad school. I saw that story about the poor guy. Although the full story sounded like he deliberately antagonized the US Marshals. Seriously, pay your debt and be done with them. But it was a pretty hard overreaction to what is essentially a civil disagreement. Probably would have gone better if he hadn't declared to the law enforcement knocking at his door that "I have a gun!" That stupidity is going to get you shot. And perhaps that speaks more to Mr Akers' intelligence or lack thereof than it does of how he was treated in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyfishing3 Posted February 20, 2016 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2016 well, my wife and i have agreed to completely subsides our kids college bills. at least 4 yrs worth lol. My parents paid for all 3 of us to go to college. Wife got a scholarship and her P's paid for Bro and sis, but still..... Having three kids its going to tap us hard. We want to do this, nobody is making us. Also, for me to throw a few extra bucks for other kids to get free schooling, chump change compared to possibly carrying their ass later?!? because LOCAL schooling might be paid for doesn't mean everybody is going to go. the Screw everybody attitude i find very disheartening, seriously. i know somebody, who know's somebody you did something, so screw everybody? very short sided imo god forbid one of these freeloaders every cures cancer, starts a business and employees some neighbors. man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts