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Screw U: The Next Bubble May Be Higher Education
Maybe we could at least send the some of the Wall Street executives receiving bailouts to boot camp. With any luck they'll have a drill sergeant who was screwed out of a lot of money by the corrupt nonsense which went on in the financial industry. They can even wear their Gucci loafers for the long hikes if they like.— August 6, 2012 4:18 p.m.
Screw U: The Next Bubble May Be Higher Education
Burwell, I can appreciate the sentiment - loan defaults have gotten to be a problem in society. But I think there needs to be some balance between a stringent tough stand vs. deadbeats vs. complete loan forgiveness. Moreover, given the precedent set for loan defaults related to the mortgage meltdown I think it would be extremely unfair to single out students. If we're going to require military service and surrendering passports for those who default on student loans, then shouldn't the same standard apply to executives of Wall St firms, short sales and foreclosures of houses, owners of bankrupt/failing businesses, etc.? Ultimately in the long run I think we need to change the role of government. The government needs to quit providing loans and pushing loans - period. Most if not all government loan programs should be phased out IMO. The loan programs fuel bubbles and only help bankers in the long run. And while I hate regulation, I think we need some reasonable regulation of financial institutions - esp. to break up TBTF corporations and to prevent conflicts of interest. Ironically, some regulation in the finance sector is needed for the free market mechanisms to work. Once the proper regulations regarding corporations are in place, esp. eliminating TBTF, then the free-market self-regulations (good companies prosper and bad companies fail) can take place.— August 5, 2012 7:56 a.m.
Screw U: The Next Bubble May Be Higher Education
Here's my prediction. As a result of student loans, big bailouts on both the financial institution and the personal student borrower level are coming. Probably not quite as bad as the mortgage meltdown but still pretty big. I make this prediction regardless of what existing laws or rules are. There will be extensive personal bankruptcies and defaults and numerous large financial firms needing (and receiving) bailouts. The precedent has been set.— August 3, 2012 11:51 a.m.
Screw U: The Next Bubble May Be Higher Education
Wow - great article Don. A lot to cover here but a few of my takes. - Student loan bubble is almost certain to pop and cause a financial crisis along with all of the "we had no idea there was a problem" stories from gov't, banks, and educational institutions - similar to what we heard during the housing crisis. - Price of education bubble: Will be some changes in the higher education system but I think that's a little hard to predict. Could there be a major crash with hundreds of colleges closing and tuition rates getting slashed? Maybe but I would suspect once the government finally turns off the student loan money pipe the tuition rates will merely stabilize not crash. - Loans: In my opinion low cost loans are a terrible way for the government to give aid to people. In the short run they make things more affordable. In the long run they make things much less affordable and only help the banks and blatant scammers (e.g. bridgepoint). - The "value of a college education" claims made by colleges clearly ignore the distinction between cause and correlation. If you remove the fact that those who attend college tend to have higher intelligence and socioeconomic background than those who don't it's not so clear there is a substantial lifetime benefit. - College sports: D1 hoops and football are obviously semi-professional sports leagues - the hypocrisy is so blatant it's comical. But I don't think it's changing any time soon. Look how long it took to get a 4-team playoff system in football.— August 1, 2012 9:49 p.m.
Did President Nixon help finance part of San Diego?
Obama's campaign has basically been attacking Romney for being rich. Willl this resonate with voters? I don't know - it sure doesn't resonate with me. What would have resonated with me - and a lot of other voters as well I think - is IF Obama had been tougher on the banking industry. The U.S. gov't gave over $1T in bailouts. There should have been extensive reforms pushed through as conditions for those bailouts - break up TBTF corporations - GS, BofA, investigate all these companies in great detail for the extensive fraud which had to have occurred, restore all of Glass-Steagal. There should also have been major reforms and reduction in the scope of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the charter of these agencies should be to provide stability, not stimulation for the RE agency. Right now Obama COULD have been campaigning, "I brought the HAMMER down on fraud and conflicts of interest in banking and Wall Street which were a major cause of the present recession". But he knows very few corrupt bankers are in prison and he knows Dodd-Frank is pretty weak. Instead, he is campaigning "Romney is rich and is therefore a bad guy".— July 28, 2012 9:04 a.m.
Did President Nixon help finance part of San Diego?
Re: Romney's tax records. Frankly, I'm fairly conservative and will probably vote for Romney. But I think the tax records are a valid question. Voters have a right to know. If you don't want your life under the microscope then don't run for president.— July 28, 2012 8:52 a.m.
The NFL's Dirty Secret
My guess would be that point-shaving by players isn't that common in NFL or NBA because of the high salaries. I bet at the college level it still goes on a fair amount - recent ASU and USD hoops scandals being examples. Moreover, the USD scandal seemed to be set up by a group of clowns who really didn't know what they were doing. So I would suspect a sophisticated organized crime ring could run a point-shaving ring in college football or basketball fairly easily. Once the organized crime group has a star player in debt to them with drug or gambling debts it would be pretty easy to manupulate that player I think.— July 6, 2012 4:30 p.m.
The NFL's Dirty Secret
So I think the big question is: Are NFL games fixed? My gut reaction would be: No, it's too hard to pay off everyone necessary without getting caught. Then again, I would have said the same thing about the NBA before the Tim Doaghy (sp?) referee got caught a few years ago. So my guess would be there have been some NFL referees and maybe even players bought off or blackmailed to influence games.— July 5, 2012 8:19 p.m.
Could Imperial Valley Become Owens Valley?
I think here's the questions - 1. Are the water deals fair? From what I understand many of the water agreements regarding CO River water go way back. So I think the answer to that depends on how long ancient deals and agreements hold true. Do we have to abide by deals and negotiations that are roughly 100 years old? I don't know, I guess they should but at some point can you overthrow old deals because conditions have changed so much? 2. Is providing cheap water to acgriculture economically advantaeous for CA? I think the answer to that question is clearly no. Whatever economic benefits CA gets from agriculture are far outweighted by the economic costs of the agriculture industry's vast of water and vast use of illegal immigrant labor. 3. Is maintaining agriculture in CA needed for reasons other than economic? That's a little bit harder to answer than #2. Having a strong domestic agriculture industry may be important for safety reasons (easier to maintain health standards) and for national defense reasons (own source of food could be important in a war).— June 25, 2012 5:42 p.m.
UCSD prof a behavior manipulation guru
Good points. BTW "taxes" have already been rebranded as "revenue". Gov't spending has been rebranded as "investment".— June 18, 2012 8:14 p.m.