The Biden Administration and All Things Politics

gandalfe said:

I actually put a lot of the blame on Bill Clinton. He worked to change the focus from AVAILABILITY to AFFORDABILITY, and really pushed the idea of student loans. The problem is, because now 19 year olds had all this cash which was really only dependent on the cost of the school, there was nothing to stop the schools from raising their tuition, and fees, and and and...

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In fact, it was almost required to get the students in. Funds have been going to better dorms, better athletic facilities, re-designed food service, etc., in order to attract students (you know, good old capitalism).

gandalfe said:

You don't have to tell me. The town I live in has about 60,000 people, and the college here brings in about 30,000 students. Rents are through the roof, and much of it is single bedroom renters - so landlords set up a kichen and living room and charge $1000 a month per bedroom. I am not even being hyperbolic with those rates, either. I live just down the road from a complex of those.

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Great post. And I totally believe you. I’ve seen Orem and Provo landowners lose their minds in ripping off students. And there’s nothing to stop them from perpetually charging more and more which results in more student loan debt.

The Thriller said:

It’s not just tuition though. The largest expense is often housing. If landlords in college towns want to gouge students, what are the students going to do? When I went to school in Orem/Provo, rent could be had for $300 dollars a month. Now? That same dump will go for $900.

There really needs to be structural changes to our entire system:

• Housing
• Tuition (many states are giving tax cuts while placing the burden of financing the schools onto students)
• Overly focused on college and not trades
• Unregulated textbook practices (we all know publishers gouge students)
• Predatory lending practices
• The arms race for universities to have the coolest resorts er schools and sportsball stadiums
• Students clueless about what to study but are going to school because they think it’s what they have to do to be successful

Are all just a few examples.

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Great post.

Bucknutz said:

This is a very ignorant comment. You sound like you have never ran a business in your life. Did you own a business that got shut down for 3,6, or more months because it wasn’t “Essential”?

Did you keep your employees on staff and paid their salaries so they too wouldn’t be hurt financially? Did you go through the hell to get your funds approved?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006991117

An average business had about 2 months or less of cash on hand to weather a crisis. Then you had to pay to get your business to be Covid compliant to reopen. Businesses are still affected by the shutdowns. Hiring, back orders and other Covid issues.

Do you know what you could spend the PPP money on?

This is why I started posting on this site again because of these ignorant posts from smug assholes on Covid, shut downs and business. These “educators” or government workers didn’t care. They kept their jobs, income and then got paid out Covid relief money as a bonus.

What a terrible comment and a disgusting person .

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You had me up until the educators part. I’m an educator and did care. I went out of my way in fact to order take out from businesses multiple times per week to keep them afloat. And Covid relief money as a bonus? Lmfao. What the holy **** are you talking about?

Now I’m really interested in student loan forgiveness! Lesbian Dance theory? Can I enroll in this major and observe?


View: https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1563663293663051776?s=21&t=kD6GkPw9th9uDxOuHCaxnA

The Thriller said:

Now I’m really interested in student loan forgiveness! Lesbian Dance theory? Can I enroll in this major and observe?


View: https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1563663293663051776?s=21&t=kD6GkPw9th9uDxOuHCaxnA

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Its funny how republicans are trying to spin this student loan forgiveness into being a benefit that only helps liberals and democrats. Many many republicans are getting their student loans wiped away too.


Sent from my iPad using JazzFanz mobile app

Not sure if it’s been shared yet but this was extremely wholesome.


View: https://vimeo.com/470534331

Elizah Huge said:

Not sure if it’s been shared yet but this was extremely wholesome.


View: https://vimeo.com/470534331

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Imagine that kid trying to hug Trump. Over under on how long until he did this?

Bucknutz said:

This is a very ignorant comment. You sound like you have never ran a business in your life. Did you own a business that got shut down for 3,6, or more months because it wasn’t “Essential”?

Did you keep your employees on staff and paid their salaries so they too wouldn’t be hurt financially? Did you go through the hell to get your funds approved?

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2006991117

An average business had about 2 months or less of cash on hand to weather a crisis. Then you had to pay to get your business to be Covid compliant to reopen. Businesses are still affected by the shutdowns. Hiring, back orders and other Covid issues.

Do you know what you could spend the PPP money on?

This is why I started posting on this site again because of these ignorant posts from smug assholes on Covid, shut downs and business. These “educators” or government workers didn’t care. They kept their jobs, income and then got paid out Covid relief money as a bonus.

What a terrible comment and a disgusting person .

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I was referring specifically to the rich pampered politicians who used the loans as well. The ones who didn't need it. And their attempts to gloss over these in trying to further their attacks on anything they can vaguely call "socialism" and only pointing at the liberals or left wing while 3 fingers point right back at them.

I've always advocated for the little guy. My father ran his own business for his entire life and I helped him with it a lot. We weren't rich. Sad that is your first assumption and sad that you cannot recognize the hypocrisy of those criticizing programs like this and student loan forgiveness that legitimately helped a lot of people, but were still exploited by those railing against it.

And I'm glad this spurred a larger conversation. Our education system at all levels needs a major overhaul. We are so far behind the rest of the developed world it's ludicrous. In Germany they have a tiered system of general ed, trade training, and university that is highly effective, caters to everyone, and is basically free. It is ridiculous that our options are so heavily driven by big business and not what's best for the individual or society as a whole. The push for everyone to go to college is because for most people that is a pretty hard line for furthering themselves economically. Right wrong or indifferent the way most people get ahead is get an education. And in America that means college because trades are so woefully underrepresented, and not getting a degree automatically puts you on uneven footing with everyone who does. Yes you can get ahead without it. Many do. But realistically it's a very small percentage of the population capable of that.

So if my comment was ignorant, yours was equally so for not being able to recognize the nuance in the comment and the hypocrisy of those I was talking about, and launching straight into a personal attack on your baseless assumption.

I have no idea why Repubs are way behind in senate races… I mean, this guy just seems like such a great prospect.


View: https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1564018257937539079?s=21&t=9bycZOUYHlnwF7wqKdN5nA

LogGrad98 said:

I was referring specifically to the rich pampered politicians who used the loans as well. The ones who didn't need it. And their attempts to gloss over these in trying to further their attacks on anything they can vaguely call "socialism" and only pointing at the liberals or left wing while 3 fingers point right back at them.

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Do you understand what the loans were used for?

• Employee and compensation levels are maintained,
• The loan proceeds are spent on payroll costs and other eligible expenses, and
• At least 75% or 60% (depending on the round) of the proceeds are spent on payroll costs.

What are the other eligible expenses?

• Business mortgage interest payments: Copy of lender amortization schedule and receipts verifying payments, or lender account statements
• Business rent or lease payments: Copy of current lease agreement and receipts or cancelled checks verifying eligible payments
• Business utility payments: Copies of invoices and receipts, cancelled checks or account statements

The PPP was designed to keep people on payroll and not let them go. Why do you say that rich pamper politicians didn't need them? What happens when your revenue goes to 0%? How do you pay for payroll and overhead? Not every small business has billions or millions in the bank to float payroll for 3-6 months and every other expense that the business requires. The business can't over pay employees with this Loan, it is prorated to $100k. So employees who make over that are now paid less.


Why didn't you attack Pelosi, Lee, Powell, Cartwright, Lamb, Cox or any other democrat? Oh because you associate the PPP and Student Loans to be similar. There were rules to the PPP to have the loan forgiven. What are the rules to forgive student debt? Make less than $125,000? Why can't there be any rules to have these loan forgiven? (Examples below, I just wrote ideas down, I didn't look into any of these ideas)

• Completed at least an AA degree
• Certain Fields of Study
• Community Service / Volunteer Hours / Charity
• Finished school fox X amount of years.
• No dropouts

Student Debt and PPP are not similar.

LogGrad98 said:

I've always advocated for the little guy. My father ran his own business for his entire life and I helped him with it a lot. We weren't rich.

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This is what the PPP was designed for. Keeping your father in business and paying employees. It helped fix a short term problem.

LogGrad98 said:

Sad that is your first assumption and sad that you cannot recognize the hypocrisy of those criticizing programs like this and student loan forgiveness that legitimately helped a lot of people, but were still exploited by those railing against it.

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You can criticize the student loan and still approve of the PPP. What does the Student Loan actually accomplish? Wiping out student debt, but not fixing any of the problems. Please tell me how this helps in 5 years from now, with all the new graduates/drop outs with their large new student loans. They are going to cry and scream and demand their loans should now be forgiven. This fixes nothing, it helps a people now, but does nothing long term.

LogGrad98 said:

And I'm glad this spurred a larger conversation. Our education system at all levels needs a major overhaul. We are so far behind the rest of the developed world it's ludicrous. In Germany they have a tiered system of general ed, trade training, and university that is highly effective, caters to everyone, and is basically free. It is ridiculous that our options are so heavily driven by big business and not what's best for the individual or society as a whole.

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This is my biggest issue.

LogGrad98 said:

The push for everyone to go to college is because for most people that is a pretty hard line for furthering themselves economically. Right wrong or indifferent the way most people get ahead is get an education. And in America that means college because trades are so woefully underrepresented, and not getting a degree automatically puts you on uneven footing with everyone who does. Yes you can get ahead without it. Many do. But realistically it's a very small percentage of the population capable of that.

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Agreed.

LogGrad98 said:

So if my comment was ignorant, yours was equally so for not being able to recognize the nuance in the comment and the hypocrisy of those I was talking about, and launching straight into a personal attack on your baseless assumption.

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I don't see it as hypocrisy. I see it as responsible business owners trying to help out their company and payroll. I understood the comment and that is why I responded to it.

My guess is D's will gain a seat or two in the Senate while they'll lose the House.

>2+ months is a lifetime in election cycles, but I think picking both Oz and Walker will haunt R's as these seats would have been GOP holds and gains respectively if voters would have had some more sensibility in the primary.

Keefe said:

You had me up until the educators part. I’m an educator and did care. I went out of my way in fact to order take out from businesses multiple times per week to keep them afloat.

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Not every business was a restaurant. Did you go stay at hotels on the weekends or were they closed? Did you take a Lyft to that hotel? Did you go to that closed barber shop down the street? How about a handy man to help mount a TV in your house?

Keefe said:

And Covid relief money as a bonus? Lmfao. What the holy **** are you talking about?

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As an Educator or Government worker, did you loose your job? Did you go on unemployment? If not why would you take the covid relief money? Did you spend it to stimulate the economy? Because most people didn't...

A family of 4 got making upto $150k got 3 rounds of payments

• $3400 first round
• $2400 second round
• $5600 third round

Grand total of $11,400. Even if you never lost your job or financially got hurt by the government lockdowns.

It should of went to stimulate the economy:

• First Stimulus Check: Spend (74%), Save (14%), Pay Debt (11%)
• Second Stimulus Check: Spend (22%), Save (26%), Pay Debt (51%)
• Third Stimulus Check: Spend (19%), Save (32%), Pay Debt (49%)

It looks like most people saved or paid off debt with $8000 of the $11,400.

So when I talk about the covid relief money being a bonus, I mean its a bonus to any of the government workers, educators or anyone else who did not get financially hurt by the government lockdowns. It didn't go to the people who needed it most.

Interesting that complaints are what stimulus money ACTUALLY went to and not what PPP actually went to...

Bucknutz said:

Why didn't you attack Pelosi, Lee, Powell, Cartwright, Lamb, Cox or any other democrat? Oh because you associate the PPP and Student Loans to be similar. There were rules to the PPP to have the loan forgiven. What are the rules to forgive student debt? Make less than $125,000? Why can't there be any rules to have these loan forgiven? (Examples below, I just wrote ideas down, I didn't look into any of these ideas)

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Again your own biases showing through. Show me the names I mentioned specifically and how they are all only republican. It is amazing how hard republicans try to twist things around when they get all bristly from truths being pointed out (frankly both sides do this to a point, but recently republicans are just getting ridiculous about it). I was going after those that criticized these efforts to help people who also made use of the same mechanisms to get further ahead themselves, adding to their riches while complaining that others did the same or that someone made it available at all, even while they used it when they didn't need to. You can try to assign whatever blame you want, but I was making a blanket sarcastic statement. We have all kinds of rich people taking advantage of things like this, it is the nature of it. Not all of them then turn around and criticize other efforts to help people in similar ways. (yes yes we all get that you agree with PPP and disagree with student loan forgiveness, it does not make them polar opposites just because you disagree).

You need to drop your partisan blinders, otherwise you are just not worth the time to talk to as you will only see it through your red-colored lenses.

Darkwing Duck said:

Interesting that complaints are what stimulus money ACTUALLY went to and not what PPP actually went to...

Just a third of the money from the government's massive Payroll Protection Program actually helped keep workers employed, study says

The program was "highly regressive," researchers said. Of the $510 billion in initial PPP loans, $366 billion went to the US's top earners.

www.businessinsider.com

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Exactly my point. And a lot of these were the same ones complaining about this and other similar programs, simply because of partisan politics.

Darkwing Duck said:

Interesting that complaints are what stimulus money ACTUALLY went to and not what PPP actually went to...

Just a third of the money from the government's massive Payroll Protection Program actually helped keep workers employed, study says

The program was "highly regressive," researchers said. Of the $510 billion in initial PPP loans, $366 billion went to the US's top earners.

www.businessinsider.com

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You understand that gig workers, 1099 and business owners have a salary as well; 36% of the US work force is gig work. That's 59 million Americans.

Gig workers don't have employees. So yes all of the PPP money went to the gig workers salary.

Once again to have your loan forgiven you have to prove that you paid 60% of the loan to payroll. The rest went to approved expenses. Ill defend the PPP even though it was not perfect.

Bucknutz said:

You can criticize the student loan and still approve of the PPP. What does the Student Loan actually accomplish? Wiping out student debt, but not fixing any of the problems. Please tell me how this helps in 5 years from now, with all the new graduates/drop outs with their large new student loans. They are going to cry and scream and demand their loans should now be forgiven. This fixes nothing, it helps a people now, but does nothing long term.

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You make a lot of straw men. I never claimed the student loan forgiveness would fix anything, that is you arguing against the ether. I believe it helped individuals. I know it helps my daughter and son-in-law who both ad some debt wiped away and allowed them to sock some money into savings and investments instead of paying student loans. I then outlined that we need a complete overhaul. Nowhere did I argue that the student loan forgiveness fixed anything nor did I advocate for it. I only said that I did not appreciate the people who took full advantage of it then turning around and bitching about it, especially those of more than ample means. See here is the exact quote you are supposedly replying to:

you cannot recognize the hypocrisy of those criticizing programs like this and student loan forgiveness that legitimately helped a lot of people, but were still exploited by those railing against it.

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Feed the rich, but the poor can starve for all they care. That is a bad look on our country and our politics. That was my point. How you got to assuming this is supposed to be the fix of all things from that is beyond me. Just more partisan blinders not arguing the actual discussion but what they want to argue against regardless of what is actually being said.

LogGrad98 said:

Exactly my point. And a lot of these were the same ones complaining about this and other similar programs, simply because of partisan politics.

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PPP was not partisan.

Bucknutz said:

You understand that gig workers, 1099 and business owners have a salary as well; 36% of the US work force is gig work. That's 59 million Americans.

Gig workers don't have employees. So yes all of the PPP money went to the gig workers salary.

Once again to have your loan forgiven you have to prove that you paid 60% of the loan to payroll. The rest went to approved expenses. Ill defend the PPP even though it was not perfect.

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"Conversely, between $335 billion to $395 billion ended up with business owners and corporate stakeholders like suppliers and lenders."