I paid out $100,000 to pay off my wife & my own student loan debt early. Student loan debt can not be discharged by bankruptcy; it's always waiting for you.
This implies several things immediately:
- You have to take a job which can make payments on the debt.
- You have to choose stable jobs which will not suddenly fold under you.
There's also a somewhat hard to define aspect to the problem where you have to ensure that your local system is fiscally stable.
Anyway, non-1% Americans graduated from college not taking risks in their first 10 years out? Totally predictable, just from the debt perspective.
Then, at 32, 34, a lot of people are married and/or have a kid on the way. Welp, there's your high levels of downside again.
Add in to all this the fact that housing prices are effectively tethered to the availability of cash provided to the "highly paid" market (inequality increases)....
... so if your startup fails, you'll lose your place to live, and remote jobs are very rare, so you're in trouble in the big city with now-unaffordable costs of living.
the solution, in part, has a simple policy component: declare jubilee on all federally-originated student debt; free college for all students who maintain adequate gpas, no more federal loans. impose cost controls on universities that take federal money.
that effectively derisks an entire generation and opens up new options.
housing costs are less directly tractable and more politically problematic: the effective solution is to federally strip single family zoning from all land, and mandating density minimums and other supply-increasing zoning. (I assure you, the housing market is an interstate commerce system. :) ). But that only staunches the wound, it doesn't bring down housing prices into line with the median American's income.
Wait, this is about startups? Ha! No. That's a third order consequence caused by increasing early-career & mid-career risk, which in turn is increased by the planning & zoning codes and governmental defunding of education.
Just make student loans dischargeable. The market will sort it out at that point. Loans for degrees that are valuable will be granted, and loans that are for selfish degrees that produce no skills anyone else wants or cares about won't be granted. And colleges would have to start cutting costs to make their degrees more affordable. And given the mind boggling increase in tuition over the last 40 years, there's an epic amount of fat to be trimmed.
I totally agree this is the root of the problem. You wouldn't be giving out 50k loans for degrees that are looking at making 30k a year.
I think the big problem with this approach is that it disproportionately effects poor people. If person A studies underwater basket weaving but their parents cosign and have great credit and income, that's much less of a risk than person B who is studying engineering but has no assistance. 18 year olds have very little credit history or net worth so you are mostly looking at their parents situation. If there is a way to overcome that aspect, I would totally support the ability to discharge loans.
To obtain some market-based grounding in reality, I'd rather the universities be required to collect their fee as a fixed percentage of the students' incomes for a fixed number of years after graduation. Poor students wouldn't be handicapped by not having the money to pay for college, because the college wouldn't be paid until the student got paid.
The "epic amount of fat to be trimmed" from the universities won't happen until the universities get off the guaranteed gov't money gravy train and have to adapt to a system where their success depends on their clients' success.
What would keep someone from getting an economically valuable degree, declaring bankruptcy on graduating, and then just waiting until that had expired from their credit record?
You can't just declare bankruptcy and then be all good, you have to go through a court and a judge is going to lambast you for attempting such a thing when it is obvious you didn't even try to pay your loan. Otherwise this same thing would be a problem for other forms of loans too. Someone gets a loan, stashes it in some form that can't be retrieved by debt collectors, declares bankruptcy. The judge is going to tell you go fuck yourself because you don't even have anything to liquidate and deny your bankruptcy declaration. If you do have something to liquidate, well now you aren't any better off because you just lost all your possessions.
Plus there are criminal charges for fraud since it would be pretty obvious you took out the loan with this plan in mind.
It is my understanding that doing this is next to impossible. The way bankruptcy laws are structured student loans are almost never discharged as part of bankruptcy proceedings, and require a special hearing to justify their discharge. These hearings are only rarely successful, mainly due to physical or mental incapacitation, not financial stress.
The market might not be fit to decide what education is worthwhile, but it will certainly figure out what degrees are lucrative.
It would be nice if we could all go to college to chase our childhood dreams, but the reality is that most of us need to prepare to support ourselves and, someday, a family. That's why I'm a software engineer and not a novelist, and that's why I got a CS degree and not a BFA in English.
Are the humanities "worthwhile?" Certainly. But should the average person drop $100,000 on a humanities degree? Absolutely not. And the fact that we're willing to bury children under that kind of debt so that they can get a Master's in French Opera or whatever is a crime.
"The market might not be fit to decide what education is worthwhile, but it will certainly figure out what degrees are lucrative."
And those are completely separate things, and should not be conflated. Basically, you're saying that only the rich should be able to study non-STEM stuff.
> Basically, you're saying that only the rich should be able to study non-STEM stuff.
I'm saying that only rich people are able to study non-STEM stuff. I mean sure, a disadvantaged person can study literature or interpretive dance or whatever, but that choice will make them a debt slave with no significantly increased earning potential.
You don't need to go to college to improve yourself as a human being. You can be well-read and appreciative of the arts without paying $100,000. And for the vast majority of people, that is the only sensible course of action.
Grants, partial and full-ride scholarships, community colleges, etc. will all still exist, but while it will definitely limit the number of people taking out expensive loans to get advanced degrees for low-paying jobs, it probably would not exclude those who either had existing money, or who could keep the loan amounts to within repayable limits, by getting a cheaper undergrad, or what have you.
The important thing here is that with regards to US student loans, the market is already deciding everything, but it's backed up by the government having made it impossible to escape student loans by declaring bankruptcy.
That system could potentially be a lot less unfair and a lot lower cost if the government didn't put its thumb on the scales in favour of lenders. This would be true even if the system was still unfair.
There's probably a deeper conversation to be had once the system is closer to neutral, but the point is that it isn't anything like neutral: it's blatantly biased against students.
And once (or while) the student loan debt clears up you then get a mortgage and start a family - both of which now make you crave a stable paycheck while you get a hang of this house ownership thing and to take care of your loved ones. It's hard to take that gamble when you feel like the world is riding on your shoulders.
If feeling like the world is riding on your shoulders changes your risk-adversity quotient maybe founding a startup isn't such a great idea. Instead of 1 mortgage (yours), you're now responsible for 20 (your employees').
Entering into a business relationship with an employee bears its own responsibilities; however, all parties know that it's a business relationship. Everyone understands the limits of the responsibilities associated with that relationship & employees always have another employer they can go to if need be.
Totally. If you already feel like you're in a space where everything is riding on you, it's not exactly appealing to expand that responsibility. If you felt freer, you may be willing to take on that burden initially.
I have had a hypothesis for awhile that the economy is going to see a lot more post-retirement startups. You've got a ton of Boomers who are going to be bored who are or are about to retire in the next 5 years. I was talking with my mom, she's wondering what she's going to do and I floated the idea of trying to start a business with one of her hobbies. I think she's going to do it when she retires in a few years.
You've got extended lifespans incrementing up with each census, meaning people need to make money to pay for the extension to maintain a quality of life; however, most retirees have their housing locked down and the necessities paid for.
I know several retirees that have done something similar, most go into a consulting role/function helping newer companies since their knowledge and experience is their #1 asset.
On a side note, I've had no small amount of schadenfreude watching them run head-long into the regulations they've spent the last 3 decades cramming into every nook and cranny of the economy. They thought it was funny irony when kids got visits from authorities for selling lemonade at the end of the driveway... now they've got a metaphorical truck-full of lemons, a squeezer, and a hefty reality check.
I would agree! I vaguely plan to shift to consulting out my experience and competence at age 60 or so, then do that on a part time basis until I topple over. No sense in vegging at home, and I expect have the time and network at that time to select roles I personally enjoy.
> I have had a hypothesis for awhile that the economy is going to see a lot more post-retirement startups.
I think you are overestimating the economic state of most retirees. Also, startups are risky. Old people do not like risk and venture capital isn't going to throw money at older people nearing the end of their life.
> I floated the idea of trying to start a business with one of her hobbies.
So self-employment rather than a traditional "startup".
> I know several retirees that have done something similar, most go into a consulting role/function helping newer companies since their knowledge and experience is their #1 asset.
So taking jobs from younger people? Don't see how good this is for society in general. You shouldn't be allowed to collect a pension/social security/etc and work. Just my opinion.
I don't believe this article is using the same definition of "startup" that PG promotes. The article is really talking about small businesses. In this context, the OP's hypothesis makes more sense.
But consulting using your work experience of 10, 20 or 30 years is something that can happen and everyone in the economic rung could rise up 1 spot.
Also, your work experience in 1960s/70s isn't so relevant to most anything today. Especially in a technologically driven environment.
Besides most of these "consulting" work are government, union or private company jobs where nepotism or corruption plays a big role.
I know HN userbase skews very old, but old people "consulting" is just in everyone's way. Like I said, if you want to consult, then don't retire and keeping working. So exploit the system by collecting social security/pensions/etc and screwing over a tons of younger people.
Also getting rid of tons of bureaucracy/administrators in universities will help drive the cost down. Maybe better spread school endowments/donations around or have some sort of donation system that doesn't focus on 1) Schools with huge endowments, 2) alloted only for business schools, and 3) go primarily to sports
>the solution, in part, has a simple policy component: declare jubilee on all federally-originated student debt
Unfortunately this is a pretty terrible idea. First of all it would cost about $1.4 trillion and second it benefits the already better off in society. [1] Not only do the children of wealthy parents have disproportionally more student debt, they're also far better equipped to actually pay it off. A trillion dollar welfare plan which gives money to Sandra A. who went to Wellesley but not to Sandra B. who only has her GED doesn't sound that great. It'd be better just to spread it out evenly.
The kids of the better off have more debt because they can afford to take it on in the first place. Those from worse families financially are likely more avoidant of debt.
I don't think thats the case, within the families. My experience is that parents who don't have college degrees are much less likely to financially support and/or push for college for their children. The idea that the only way to make it in life is to graduate from college is a societal view.
Now you'd think that someone who didn't graduate college would see its value, but they're probably less likely to be able to help their kids financially (especially in the middle-area where the parents make too much for the kid to qualify to student aid, but not enough to comfortably afford it). Also cultural differences - conservatives are pretty unlikely to want their kids to go to a "liberalizing" college institution.
"First generation" college students also go to 2-year colleges at a far higher rate, and are far less likely to go to a private college than students who's parents completed college, and were also far more likely to drop out because of economic reasons. 33% drop out within 3 years vs 14% of those with parents who went to college.
What happens to the student loan system going forward? You can't declare a jubilee and then keep on giving out loans -- everyone will expect another jubilee and there will be so little confidence in the system you might as well get rid of it.
Unless you have a replacement system to help people pay for college, and it is already operational, destroying the student loan system would guarantee that only rich kids get to go to college.
I said to make college free: tuition, room, and board, so long as you keep adequate grades. Stop the loan system entirely. Sorry, I must have been unclear.
I'm not sure of how universities are funded in other countries. If for example the government says they will provide a fixed amount per student (yearly adjusted for inflation, etc) that might be a good example of price control. Another thing is many university administrative staff are used to paying themselves outrageous salaries and pensions and they just feeds into the rising costs.
The universities are not really independent from the government: the state runs the university, its faculty and employees are civil servants, etc.
Edit: I was thinking about private universities in the US, it’s true that public universities are already controlled by the same govermnents who pays most of their costs.
The degree to which this has weighed on entrepreneurship has got to be huge. I've put off efforts because of insurance, or because money had to go into healthcare. I know other people who've done it. I know someone who ran a great autoshop out of his house in off-hours for years... but needed a state full-time job because one of his kids had a condition that only a socialized risk pool had the depth to handle. Wonder what he could have done if the shop was his full-time job.
It seems obvious -- set up a socialized insurance system where if you happen to be one of society's big winners, you'll have to share more of that upside, and if/when you lose big, you get covered. That's what insurance is, socializing it just takes it to its logical conclusion, and even a guy like Hayek thought that maybe this was a place where it might be better socialized rather than private markets. In doing so you help with one of the most common risk factors and costs freeing up attention and small capital across the population.
Wait, entrepreneurs have healthcare costs? News to this entrepreneur. Healthcare is completely unaffordable if you start a new business and find yourself on the individual market making even a modest profit (to disqualify you for subsidies).
There are a variety of factors that conspire against small businesses. The lack of health care is definitely one of the risks you need to be comfortable with if you're going to go out and start a business. The hope is that you can grow quickly enough (in employee count and profit) to set up a group plan before shit goes wrong health-wise.
Unless you're saying that the only people who should be involved in startups are the completely healthy and those without any family or the desire to start one soon, yes.
What I'm saying is that among entrepreneurs (of which I'm one) that I know, most forego health insurance in the early days because it's too expensive to buy on the individual market. And yes, damn right - if you're not healthy and risk-prone at the same time, you're probably better off not walking down that road and staying under the umbrella of an employer-sponsored health plan. It's sad that health costs can be prohibitive to starting businesses, but it's a reality.
Self-employed consultant here (in New York). Not entrepreneur but in a similar hellscape. A 'top' ish plan on the individual market costs around 1K, which is tax deductible, and yes, usually offers lousy service thanks to a slim network and high deductible. And yes, health care costs are a barrier to entrepreneurship in this country. Agree 1000%.
But how can you take such extensive personal risk for 12K a year? Accidents happen, and genes might hit the hereditary crap lottery. If you're throwing money around in hopes of making it big, there's not 12K available? A terrible thing can happen and the costs can be much much higher.
I'm surprised/shocked to hear that, especially since you imply it's common. Is this California?
Oh yes, that! This is much worse if you actually have to address health issues! I was considering the best case median-paid person and their calculations!
If you have real health issues in your family, your best bet IMO is to work your tail off and be a salaryperson at a longer-lived Fortune 500, as those tend to have good health insurance. The family gets to see a doctor without ya'll going bankrupt - also, it often pays well.
Interesting that in America, in order to get life saving healthcare you have to sell your life to corporate America. Work for big business or death and financial ruin await. That's not an exaggeration.
If this is true, why don't countries with universal healthcare have a proportionally larger/more active startup scene than the US? They don't, so that means, logically, healthcare isn't that important to a country's startup success.
Of course healthcare isn't the only factor, but it's a huge boon for anyone considering starting a business.
The reality is that health extortion - let's not call it health insurance - in the US has a massively depressive effect on small business opportunity.
Generally opportunity increases as cost of entry decreases. It's easy to start a spare-time online micro-business in the US, but it's incredibly hard, dangerous, and expensive to start a full-time company now - unless you're already independently wealthy, or can do the investor dance with sufficient credibility.
The combination of high costs and investor demand for the next unicorn means there are far fewer unspectacular but profitable small businesses in the US than there might be.
It's mistaken to conclude that universal healthcare isn't important. If you look at the nations with a better social safety net, many also often have more regulations that might hold up new business formation. But if you look at nations which have fixed both healthcare and have smarter regulations, there are a lot more small businesses.
Most of the startups I know were pushing people into the state exchanges for their healthcare needs to try and limit their overhead for providing health insurance.
Snort! The individual market in my state is comprised of three types of people - those so disabled they _can't_ work, who consume extraordinary sums of cash, the subsidized, and (less each year) the small business owners/independent contractors. The last category is expected to pay more than the price of their mortgage to support the first two categories, which is completely unsustainable. After two years of trying to be a good little mousekateer, I shut it off and feel like a rube for waiting that long. I spend less on healthcare each year than my cat's vet costs, but am expected to pay the cost of another mortgage, with high deductible to boot? GTFO. I self-insure, and am happy the tax penalty bit the dust.
So the rest of us get to pay your expensive emergency room rates if you get "unlucky". I note that most of us will be unlucky in that way at some point in our lives.
It may work out accounting wise in the short term, individual sense, but that we can't work out a much less expensive, socially carried method like other developed nations is a crying shame.
You can proselytize all you want about policy theory and ideals, but the reality of starting a business (not just a side-hustle) comes with more risk to the owner than you probably realize. Trust me, I'd love to have insurance, but it's unobtainium where I live if you don't qualify for subsidies. Considering the benefits from profitable new businesses, including the employment numbers we drive, the taxes we generate, the office leases we pay, the administrative services we buy, etc., etc., I think the "rest of you" will probably get the better end of the deal relative to the risk a business owner directly bears, crap emergency treatment for the uninsured aside (if even needed during the start up years, which I'm gambling won't be). I'm just telling you the reality of being a small business owner.
Why wouldn't they be on Medicare, unless you're in a state that declined to expand it.
"I self-insure, and am happy the tax penalty bit the dust."
Good for you, but realize you're not always going to be healthy. Once you're not, you're going to hope and pray that there is still a way to distribute costs like we have today.
The insurance companies report to our state board about what drives y/y premium increases in our market. This (the quote) is one of them (the 20% driving 80% of costs, if I may loosely invoke Pareto). Maybe I'm flying loose characterizing them as such, but if you're sucking up $1m-2m annually(!!) in subsidized health care services, I'm assuming you have some serious concerns preventing you from living up to your full employment potential (and God bless 'em, by the way).
On the individual market, you're in a very high-risk pool, and the only people substantially contributing (e.g. zero subsidies) are in the minority and, IME, increasingly disenfranchised, either leaving the system or going back to working for the man. BTW, my state did expand medicaid and that system has plenty of its own issues. How they intersect, I neither know nor care at this point.
>>"realize you're not always going to be healthy"
Do you honestly think people don't realize that? I mean really? Do you honestly think I wouldn't prefer to have an out-of-pocket maximum that comes with insurance? I mean, stop assuming people are idiots and look at the problem: the premiums on the individual market are often too expensive for new business owners if they're in this doldrum-zone of being too profitable for subsidies but not large enough to build a new lower-cost risk pool out of their own employees or wealthy enough to afford a premium that costs as much as a house with no asset to show for it (when, btw, their consumption of services is less than $1k/year). This is just the reality, and a major contributing factor to why many who think about trying to start a business simply don't. It's _literally_ prohibitively expensive.
Being a veteran of going two years unsubsidized on the individual market in one of the highest-cost states probably means I've done more to help distribute costs than most (i.e. "you"). That the system is unsustainable (and predictably so, btw) is not my guilt to bear. That some aren't familiar with the nature of the burden and simply think people make bad decisions doesn't bode well for a fix anytime soon. The day there's an affordable plan, I'll sign up again, rest assured. In the meantime, enjoy your employer-sponsored plan, my friend. You have less to worry about than I do while I fly solo.
ACA helps. It needs an overhaul, along with a medicaid expansion everywhere to manage the risk pools.
If we had done ACA 1.1 with appropriate adjustments, it might not be a concern.
but the actual inflight plans are to reverse the ACA and, depending on the plan and who's been adjusting it most recently, it might even make us worse off than before the ACA.
When the ACA was working well, it was helpful, but not amazingly so. With Trump and GOP policy changes, all of those costs are going to increase, and coverage guarantees (like for pre-existing conditions) are getting rolled back. So if one might be forced to shop the private small business health market which has always been more expensive in my area.
Notably, if tuition slowed down (forcibly, incentivized, or through other methods) this would also alleviate the problem.
Since the late 70's / early 80's, its been rising at 3-3.5% above inflation every year. Median income has basically just tracked inflation. So the relative cost has effectively more than tripled for normal folks.
Even if we allow people to discharge loans, we can't keep giving them the loans in the first place. Paying back school costs that in inflation adjusted terms almost quadruple what your parents paid is not feasible unless real, after inflation incomes are quadruple. Which is almost, by definition, impossible. IE, education costs really need to be flat with inflation for this system to remain stable. Right now we have behavior that looks more like speculation.
Admittedly, its kind of self correcting. You have more debt. Take longer to pay it back. Work longer before a family is an option. Can afford to have less kids. Can afford to help them with college less. Or ... someone comes along with a needle and it all deflates - likely rapidly.
Unfortunately, in the middle there we have an Idiocracy situation, with a whole generation of indentured servants trapped through debt bondage.
This is kind of nitpicking a small point in your argument, but I've been in a lot of free-college discussions lately so I'm curious. Why do you think that an adequate GPA is the correct baseline for maintaining free tuition? GPA is dependent on so many extraneous factors such as a student's major or a department's grading scale that I feel like you would need a more fair metric. Is the cutoff simply a passing GPA (2.0), or something higher?
My arbitrarily guesstimated number would be 2.0 on a 4.0 scale.
Students who scored under that at my alma mater (U of Idaho, go go State School!) really had issues of one kind or another, whether it be health, disinterest, family, etc. Over that, yes, issues occurred, but it didn't make me sideeye and wonder if they should withdraw and save themselves their time and effort.
I expect other people would adjust that number. I'd probably also cut the funding for a full-time undergrad after 6 years. That number is also debatable, and I acknowledge that one could come to different numbers with solid justifications.
I also would fully fund grad student tuition, room, and board, with somewhat adjusted numbers depending on the program.
Note that this isn't merit-based, but a eh, you're giving it the ole college try, we're not going to defund you, along with a low-pass filter to remove pure leech behavior.
IMO, one of the big issues with massive extraneous issues hitting a student is that if you withdraw without a degree, you still have the debt, but no degree to help you pay it off. The incentive is to stick around and squeeze out the degree somehow, anyhow. Which is a perverse incentive, since profs, employers, fellow students tend to prefer people who want to be there and do well. So when you drop out early, you end off in a worse financial state than if you'd not gone to college at all (modulo whatever learning you picked up).
n.b., my perspective is that education is a socially provided benefit to improve society. It should not be a market good like a house or car. We all benefit from a more educated populace (and one with less debt, too!). I recognize there are other perspectives, but I think they lead to worse systemic ends.
What other measure would you use to determine if education was being thoroughly and adequately transferred and learned? Space is limited in classes - a class with half of the students failing to grasp the material is of less benefit to society than a class where most of the students are grasping the material.
I believe student loans can be written off after 25 years. Not sure the exact details. I know med school loans can be paid off based on income and if your income is low enough (almost never happens) you don't have to pay anything.
I'd nitpick a few things, but I think overall your points are valid. However, I would say a bigger cause is the replacement of small firms with larger ones. As the US has shifted more to a service economy larger firms have better economies of scale so it's harder to compete as a small firm. Plus, the pace of technological innovation is slowing so there are fewer opportunities to hitch your cart to some emerging technology.
Also, I believe their definition of startup is not what most people on HN think of when it comes to startups. It just means newly formed businesses, the vast majority of which are small, non-VC funded businesses.
> I believe student loans can be written off after 25 years.
The forgiveness of student loans is considered taxable income. The WSJ ran an article a couple weeks ago, a dentist had over $1M in student loans and projected to have $2M when the forgiveness kicks in, at which point he would then owe $700K in taxes.
Short answer: dental school is expensive (average $91K/year), he's an orthodontist (which requires 3 years of specialized training on top of 4 years of dental school on top of 4 years of college), tuition went up significantly when he was at school, and compounding interest is brutal when you owe a lot over long periods of time. He's also on IBR, which means the sum will keep compounding and the principal will just be wiped clean once he's made payments for 25 years.
I can see that being realistic. A quick search shows a University near me estimates it will cost someone just over $70 000 per year of undergrad at that school. Then you have four years of dental school. Another school near me lists tuition alone at about $270 000 for the four years if you're out of state. Then add 3 years of a specialty like orthodontics. Another search shows UPenn estimates that'll cost over $115 000 per year.
70k * 4 = 280k for undergrad
270k for tuition alone for dental school
$115k * 3 = 345k for a specialty
This gets us to just under $900k. That doesn't include any costs except tuition for the 4 years of dental school so we can assume the total will probably be higher. You can reduce some costs like the undergrad and if you're accepted to an in state school that might make dental school a bit cheaper but it is still an expensive undertaking.
> I believe student loans can be written off after 25 years. Not sure the exact details. I know med school loans can be paid off based on income and if your income is low enough (almost never happens) you don't have to pay anything.
I would frankly rather not have had 25 years of a ticking debt hanging over my head. I'd be almost 50. Maybe some people can see that far into the future and are comfortable with it, but I judged it an unacceptable risk.
Re the economies of scale, I don't think you're wrong per se, but third order effects have a lot of contributing causes.
> Also, I believe their definition of startup is not what most people on HN think of when it comes to startups. It just means newly formed businesses, the vast majority of which are small, non-VC funded businesses.
Ah, the ones where you submit a business plan and get a bank loan that you have to pay back. ;-) IMO, that's riskier than VC work; you walk away with a fat pile of debt if the biz fails before a fully formed corporate veil is established. Recall that sole owners don't have veils, as they personally sign for the debt; after a certain point of size that doesn't happen.
The ability of the median person to survive if their venture explodes is, to me, the critical point in founding a venture.
There's probably a very useful economic history of small biz/startup failure for the past 200 years. I wonder if it's been written yet!
Small firms have always gone out of business or grown, or been bought up, its their creation rate that has dropped off causing the ration of small/large to change.
If I remember correctly, you could make public universities in the US free by simply auditing and reigning in wasteful expenditures by the US military.
I've heard that too. And reading stories by the enlisted about the waste and inefficiency in the military make me groan as a citizen and a taxpayer. They don't like the waste, the bipartisan consensus in congress doesn't like the waste, this should be fixable.
I doubt it. The military-industrial complex is so deeply engrained in the country that I think it's literally impossible to budge. There's so many pockets of defense industry around the country that Congressmen have secured with pork barrel spending over the past ~70 years that downsizing any one part is electoral suicide. And we all know government agencies aren't famous for wanting to ever downsize their budgets, lest they don't fight for their "fuck you, got mine" part of the annual budget.
It's fucked, it really is. I don't see it ever changing.
Even something like "let's just set next year's budget at, say, 98% of this year's budget" is met with pushback and scorn.
As a kid, I remember hearing some political debates and people were talking about 'cuts' to programs (military, whatever). Our govt teacher dove in, and showed us what they were actually talking about was cuts to proposed increases. Proposing an increase of 30%, and someone else saying "just make it 27% increase" could be accused of "cutting program X by 10%!" And (enough) people often believe it, and we get nothing done.
It would be fantastic if we could, for example, say next years military budget is 99.5% of this years, and the year after, the same thing. 2 years from now we'd still be at ~99% of current spending. I doubt even something this sane could happen.
What's all the more crappy about this is some of the same people voting for continued increases in military spending have also been the ones who've condescendingly talked down to people about "family budgeting"-style spending, and "we just can't afford that extra $37m for food programs for the needy!"
After they actively pushed people in to houses with little and even no income and the sharks that targeted minorities with little understanding of contractual law.
And only the taxpayers and the global market felt the consequence.
>free college for all students who maintain adequate gpas, no more federal loans. impose cost controls on universities that take federal money.
You could probably do all this, but then you would have to clamp down on all the freeloaders, "irregular immigrants" and other people draining the public coffers.
Cutting into defense spending WILL NEVER HAPPEN so don't even suggest it. Yes it is a perfectly viable place to get all the money you could ever want, but regime change isn't free, and the US pays Israel 38 Bln a year in outright cash or arms. The money the US gifts Israel alone would likely make all your student loan debt disappear (for Citizen students with good GPA's).
This implies several things immediately:
- You have to take a job which can make payments on the debt.
- You have to choose stable jobs which will not suddenly fold under you.
There's also a somewhat hard to define aspect to the problem where you have to ensure that your local system is fiscally stable.
Anyway, non-1% Americans graduated from college not taking risks in their first 10 years out? Totally predictable, just from the debt perspective.
Then, at 32, 34, a lot of people are married and/or have a kid on the way. Welp, there's your high levels of downside again.
Add in to all this the fact that housing prices are effectively tethered to the availability of cash provided to the "highly paid" market (inequality increases)....
... so if your startup fails, you'll lose your place to live, and remote jobs are very rare, so you're in trouble in the big city with now-unaffordable costs of living.
the solution, in part, has a simple policy component: declare jubilee on all federally-originated student debt; free college for all students who maintain adequate gpas, no more federal loans. impose cost controls on universities that take federal money.
that effectively derisks an entire generation and opens up new options.
housing costs are less directly tractable and more politically problematic: the effective solution is to federally strip single family zoning from all land, and mandating density minimums and other supply-increasing zoning. (I assure you, the housing market is an interstate commerce system. :) ). But that only staunches the wound, it doesn't bring down housing prices into line with the median American's income.
Wait, this is about startups? Ha! No. That's a third order consequence caused by increasing early-career & mid-career risk, which in turn is increased by the planning & zoning codes and governmental defunding of education.