PowerSwitch

Ken's letter must have got through and they're going to start insulating the housing stock.

Jesus f***ing wept

Insanity

Why don't they just take over the small and medium business loans directly? Or am I missing something.

It is insanity, though it's rapidly becoming scarey

All this 'money' but still hardly any inflation... gold is ~flat on the year, down on the 10 month ago high.

clv101 wrote:All this 'money' but still hardly any inflation... gold is ~flat on the year, down on the 10 month ago high.

I suspect that it's because the money is going to cover the losses in the banks. It's sitting there keeping them going, not getting out into the world and pushing prices up,


Peter.

Indeed - which presumably means it not all that damaging and isn't about to cause the hyper-inflation a lot of folks are talking about.

clv101 wrote:Indeed - which presumably means it not all that damaging and isn't about to cause the hyper-inflation a lot of folks are talking about.

But it would if it got out. So, if "they" succeed, they're likely to immediately fail, because prices will shoot up.

I can't see them succeeding, though, so it will be death by a thousand cuts. The Paul Mason quote is on the button:

'For the graduate without a future is a human expression of an economic problem: the west’s model is broken. It cannot deliver enough high-value work for its highly educated workforce.'

"highly educated" could be replaced by "high cost" of course, which in turn could be replaced by "high net energy needing",


Peter.

Blue Peter wrote:

clv101 wrote:Indeed - which presumably means it not all that damaging and isn't about to cause the hyper-inflation a lot of folks are talking about.

But it would if it got out. So, if "they" succeed, they're likely to immediately fail, because prices will shoot up.

I can't see them succeeding, though, so it will be death by a thousand cuts. The Paul Mason quote is on the button:

'For the graduate without a future is a human expression of an economic problem: the west’s model is broken. It cannot deliver enough high-value work for its highly educated workforce.'

"highly educated" could be replaced by "high cost" of course, which in turn could be replaced by "high net energy needing",


Peter.

i tell you what, the lot of young people coming out of higher education reminds me of the arrangment we had several centuries back

Back then if your average peasant wanted to work and to be able to afford to somewhere to live and to raise a family, he had to submit to an up-front debt to his overlords. The excuse being that until he had learned his trade, he would represent a net loss to his lord.

Of course, it was never mentioned that training a peasant up in a trade was no more or less an operating cost of his employer than was buying a new plough or building a new grain store and, as such, should have been born just the same by that employer. Particularly so, given that he was depriving the peasant of access to the primary means of production (land, water and other raw resources) that he could otherwise use to sustain himself and his family without having to go through his employer.

In other words, the peasant had absolutely no choice in the matter. If he wanted to live, he had to submit to this debt. Basically, only one step up from slavery This debt would, surprise, surprise, take most of the working life of the peasant to pay off.

Fast forward to today and what do we have?

We have young people who must submit to several years of "education" which, in turn, forces them to take on a huge burden of debt.

Why do they have to do this?

In order to simply have the "privilege" of earning a living to sustain themselves and their family. All in order that their employers do not have to shoulder the burden of the operating cost of training them up. Just like days of old, the poor are subsidizing the economic activities of the rich who own and control all of the primary means of production. Thus, the young person, just like the peasant of old, has no choice but to submit to this debt.

And, of course, it will take most of their working lives to pay this debt off.

Somebody want to explain the difference?

Cos I'm f***ed it I can see one

stevecook172001 wrote:We have young people who must submit to several years of "education" which, in turn, forces them to take on a huge burden of debt.

...

And, of course, it will take most of their working lives to pay this debt off.

Student loans are quite unlike normal personal debt. They are far more like an additional income tax. Earn nothing, or at least not more than a fairly high threshold and you don't have to pay it back, get to the end of your working life without paying it back and it's written off. It's projected that something like a 1/4 of loans will be written of in this way. Which make this a very progressive tax - the poor quarter end up getting their education for free.

clv101 wrote: the poor quarter end up getting their education for free.

Simon and Garfunkel said:

"Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go - looking for the places only they would know ..."

And as for those high paid jobs for the educated? I have squandered my resistance for a pocketful of mumbles, such are promises. All lies and jest; still a man hears what he wants to hear, And disregards the rest ...

clv101 wrote: It's projected that something like a 1/4 of loans will be written of in this way. Which make this a very progressive tax - the poor quarter end up getting their education for free.

Could turn out to be more that a 1/4.

clv101 wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:We have young people who must submit to several years of "education" which, in turn, forces them to take on a huge burden of debt.

...

And, of course, it will take most of their working lives to pay this debt off.

Student loans are quite unlike normal personal debt

at the moment. When inflation eats away at that threshold, and some bright spark points out that Student Loans, Inc. aren't going to be profitable if 1/4 of the loot vanishes as write-offs, a student loan will morph, as if by magic (using "salami tactics"), into a bog-standard debt.

RenewableCandy wrote:

clv101 wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:We have young people who must submit to several years of "education" which, in turn, forces them to take on a huge burden of debt.

...

And, of course, it will take most of their working lives to pay this debt off.

Student loans are quite unlike normal personal debt

at the moment. When inflation eats away at that threshold, and some bright spark points out that Student Loans, Inc. aren't going to be profitable if 1/4 of the loot vanishes as write-offs, a student loan will morph, as if by magic (using "salami tactics"), into a bog-standard debt.

Exactly

You can bet on it.

stevecook172001 wrote:i tell you what, the lot of young people coming out of higher education reminds me of the arrangment we had several centuries back

Back then if your average peasant wanted to work and to be able to afford to somewhere to live and to raise a family, he had to submit to an up-front debt to his overlords. The excuse being that until he had learned his trade, he would represent a net loss to his lord.

That is like no version of history that I know of. Which century are you alluding to?

Certainly my own family were farm labours and carters and the like for centuries. You didn't get apprenticed in to it. You were sent to a farmer who employed you as an agricultural servant while you learnt your trade. He fed you. He housed you. He trained you and often you married his daughter.

Future tradesmen were endentured as apprentices but only for a fixed term for the duration of their training. Then they became journeymen and finally masters after they themselves had trained an apprentice.

Rent for tied labourers was minimal as were their wages but it was a quid pro quo for farmer and labourer especially as the farmer often started out as a labourer himself and may have acquired\rented the farm through financing against future crops.

There are lots of first hand accounts of how it all worked in the libraries.