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It's mind-boggling how a nation is able to develop a system that forces its young to spend a large part of their life paying for the salaries of bank employees

It's mind-boggling how a nation is able to develop a system that forces its young to spend a large part of their life paying for the salaries of bank employees and managers, simply because they want an education. It's even more mind-boggling that these students can then get rid of this dept easiest by joining the system themselves, simply shuffling around money to make more money to pay off their dept. And then Jamie Dimon calls Bitoin a ponzi scheme... Our entire economy is a ponzi scheme. All of our money is created as dept, as such banks collect money on all of the money ever created. They create nothing of value for this. Why do we accept this?

Swizec 9y ago
> Why do we accept this? Because buying a new car/house/collegedegree with money you don’t have is easier than with money you do have. Hell, you’re on HN. Chances are your salary comes from somebody convincing somebody that they should be given money because in just a few short years they’re gonna have like so much more money. I know mine does
- teekert 9y ago
  These items are only so expensive that we have to get a loan because we can get a loan. And banks benefit from every loan, which is basically a claim on your future productivity. And I'm guessing your salary comes from a rich person, not from a bank that created the money as dept from thin air and now asks someone to pay them rent for said service.
NiklasMort 9y ago
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck
- gadders 9y ago
  People repeatedly post this [1] as they think it shows how stupid Americans are. I read this and I think it shows how exceptional and amazing America is (and I'm not American). In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20root%20in%20America%20because&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20roo...
  - santaragolabs 9y ago
    It's not about how stupid Americans are but the insane vilification of anything that reeks like socialism. You (*see edit below) live in the richest country on the planet which is incapable of providing clean drinking water to all of its citizens. That's unfathomable to me. Some context; I know the USA better than most Europeans, having lived and paid taxes there for three years, whilst working and traveling all over the USA. I would never call Americans stupid. I've met some stupid ones though obviously. But Americans as a whole are as interesting and diverse and awesome and loathsome and everything in between as any other countries' citizens. The collective results of the media, political developments of the past few decades, the countries' legal makeup (local, state and federal law) and what not more together result in stupid situations. One of them being that the USA is incapable of providing clean and affordable drinking water to all of its citizens. And if you have to resort to compare yourself to Venezuela you're losing anyway. It's a bit like the: "hey, at least we're not THAT bad". But you STILL cannot provide clean drinking water to your citizens. What's that saying again? Never be the smartest guy in the room? Maybe compare yourself with countries doing better than the USA and then try to improve things? And no, not everything is that bad and there are tons of things I like way better in the USA than in Europe. Things are hardly ever that black and white. But comparing yourself to Venezuela is one of the weaker arguments here. EDIT: just realized that parent comment stated he's not American; doesn't take away from any of my points regarding the Steinbeck quote and the Venezuela comparison.
  - orf 9y ago
    The deep rooted fear of 'socialism' in the US, as a response to the 'red scare', doesn't show how amazing America is, merely how the population was manipulated to shore up support against a perceived enemy.
    - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
      ...Which is the calculated and deliberate result of a long-standing social engineering project. Or "propaganda" as it's more usually known.
  - pavlov 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tomohawk 9y ago
Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree? Why is it possible to get a loan for a degree that will be highly unlikely to lead to a career that will pay off the loan? The schools seem to have way too much power here. If this was any other industry, there would be more oversight and regulation. The easy money from lending immunizes the schools from being cost conscious because it shifts the burden to the students, who are told they'll go to heaven if they only get a college degree.
- mcherm 9y ago
  > Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree? Because that degree is valued, not for the education the student received, but as a formal gating mechanism: those who do not obtain it (and it better be from a "good" school) are (with a few exceptions) excluded from all possibility of ever having "good" jobs. In other words, our hiring practices are the root of the problem. Even in tech (where I know from experience that skill and education are only mildly correlated), education on the resume is still a gatekeeper and my company's recruiting of novices comes primarily from the better college campuses.
  - a1b9c14e125bd58 9y ago
    I don't have a degree and never had an issue finding good work in the tech industry. I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your portfolio counts for more than your qualifications (much like with a photographer).
    - philh 9y ago
      > I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your portfolio counts for more than your qualifications I'd expect qualifications to matter less if there are few people trying to get into IT, since employers can less afford to miss a good candidate. If they get a hundred applicants for each position, they'll be more inclined to use a weak filter to throw out half of them on a first pass.
ue_ 9y ago
>Why do we accept this? Because not enough people are fed up with it, or at least not fed up with it directly, in order to organise and change the system; there are many easier things to blace one's blame on, things which seem easier to change but are just as temporary and broken - like small changes in the tax level or as another commenter said school fees. Reducing school fees is merely tangential to your point, but people are convinced it's the right thing to do - because other solutions seem so helplessly out of reach that they are invisible to many such that they are not identified as problems at all. We accept democracy in our politics, but the economy has just as much if not more influence over our lives, yet it is free from control. Adam Smith called the free market as "free" for this exact reason.
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  There is no formal concept of "economic democracy" - and of course there should be, because without managed wealth redistribution you have plutocracy, not democracy. In fact the US and UK do have managed wealth redistribution - from working people of all classes to banks, investors, and property owners.
Shivetya 9y ago
it is mind boggling how much we allow State colleges to charge for an education. From the amount of money spent paying salaries of administration level employees, professors who turn over many classes to assistants, to high end sports programs, and finally overly indulgent facilities. Young people are being used not to prop up the bank employee and managers but instead overly expensive faculty and facilities of college campuses, many of them are state run facilities! Better yet we don't stop there, we then roll them on the costs of supplies; namely books but it can include specific software; to just obtain their education. In many cases fees and such are added at the end to obtain certification needed to gain a license, something that should have been proven by their completion of the course load. finally, not everyone needs a college education and not ever degree is worthy of financial aid.
ionised 9y ago
Most people will not complain or even consider change as long as their basic animal needs are met. Water, food, shelter and enough entertainment, alcohol or prescription painkillers to keep them docile enough to never question the actions of the genuinely obscenely wealthy and powerful that actually direct the course of human society for their own benefits. If you want a change to this system you're going to need a total collapse first, which won't happen for a few decades at least (if it ever does) as the system is so geared towards maintaining itself (the status quo and every career politician produced by it) and resisting change. A good start mibght be including three subjects in the education curriculum from childhood; Personal Financial Education, Ethics and Civics. I can guess why these things are longer part of the mandatory education systems in the west though. That's why you end up with FPTP political systems where neither of your potential leadership candidates are even worth considering, and why financial services corporations continue to behave the same way they did prior to each and every economic crash they caused in the last century. Of course, the burden of repairing the damage caused by the outrageously greedy and irresponsible always falls to the lowest working and middle classes. Political philosopher Sheldon Wolin described the current system in the US as an Inverse Totalitarianism; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism You could extend that to the UK too probably.

Swizec 9y ago

> Why do we accept this? Because buying a new car/house/collegedegree with money you don’t have is easier than with money you do have. Hell, you’re on HN. Chances are your salary comes from somebody convincing somebody that they should be given money because in just a few short years they’re gonna have like so much more money. I know mine does

teekert 9y ago
These items are only so expensive that we have to get a loan because we can get a loan. And banks benefit from every loan, which is basically a claim on your future productivity. And I'm guessing your salary comes from a rich person, not from a bank that created the money as dept from thin air and now asks someone to pay them rent for said service.

NiklasMort 9y ago

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." John Steinbeck

gadders 9y ago
People repeatedly post this [1] as they think it shows how stupid Americans are. I read this and I think it shows how exceptional and amazing America is (and I'm not American). In Venezuela they are currently telling people to eat rabbits as Socialism is working out so well for them. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20root%20in%20America%20because&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Socialism%20never%20took%20roo...
- santaragolabs 9y ago
  It's not about how stupid Americans are but the insane vilification of anything that reeks like socialism. You (*see edit below) live in the richest country on the planet which is incapable of providing clean drinking water to all of its citizens. That's unfathomable to me. Some context; I know the USA better than most Europeans, having lived and paid taxes there for three years, whilst working and traveling all over the USA. I would never call Americans stupid. I've met some stupid ones though obviously. But Americans as a whole are as interesting and diverse and awesome and loathsome and everything in between as any other countries' citizens. The collective results of the media, political developments of the past few decades, the countries' legal makeup (local, state and federal law) and what not more together result in stupid situations. One of them being that the USA is incapable of providing clean and affordable drinking water to all of its citizens. And if you have to resort to compare yourself to Venezuela you're losing anyway. It's a bit like the: "hey, at least we're not THAT bad". But you STILL cannot provide clean drinking water to your citizens. What's that saying again? Never be the smartest guy in the room? Maybe compare yourself with countries doing better than the USA and then try to improve things? And no, not everything is that bad and there are tons of things I like way better in the USA than in Europe. Things are hardly ever that black and white. But comparing yourself to Venezuela is one of the weaker arguments here. EDIT: just realized that parent comment stated he's not American; doesn't take away from any of my points regarding the Steinbeck quote and the Venezuela comparison.
- orf 9y ago
  The deep rooted fear of 'socialism' in the US, as a response to the 'red scare', doesn't show how amazing America is, merely how the population was manipulated to shore up support against a perceived enemy.
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    ...Which is the calculated and deliberate result of a long-standing social engineering project. Or "propaganda" as it's more usually known.
- pavlov 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tomohawk 9y ago

Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree? Why is it possible to get a loan for a degree that will be highly unlikely to lead to a career that will pay off the loan? The schools seem to have way too much power here. If this was any other industry, there would be more oversight and regulation. The easy money from lending immunizes the schools from being cost conscious because it shifts the burden to the students, who are told they'll go to heaven if they only get a college degree.

mcherm 9y ago
> Why do we accept the out of control increase in cost to get a degree? Because that degree is valued, not for the education the student received, but as a formal gating mechanism: those who do not obtain it (and it better be from a "good" school) are (with a few exceptions) excluded from all possibility of ever having "good" jobs. In other words, our hiring practices are the root of the problem. Even in tech (where I know from experience that skill and education are only mildly correlated), education on the resume is still a gatekeeper and my company's recruiting of novices comes primarily from the better college campuses.
- a1b9c14e125bd58 9y ago
  I don't have a degree and never had an issue finding good work in the tech industry. I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your portfolio counts for more than your qualifications (much like with a photographer).
  - philh 9y ago
    > I've found there are so many people trying to get into IT that your portfolio counts for more than your qualifications I'd expect qualifications to matter less if there are few people trying to get into IT, since employers can less afford to miss a good candidate. If they get a hundred applicants for each position, they'll be more inclined to use a weak filter to throw out half of them on a first pass.

ue_ 9y ago

>Why do we accept this? Because not enough people are fed up with it, or at least not fed up with it directly, in order to organise and change the system; there are many easier things to blace one's blame on, things which seem easier to change but are just as temporary and broken - like small changes in the tax level or as another commenter said school fees. Reducing school fees is merely tangential to your point, but people are convinced it's the right thing to do - because other solutions seem so helplessly out of reach that they are invisible to many such that they are not identified as problems at all. We accept democracy in our politics, but the economy has just as much if not more influence over our lives, yet it is free from control. Adam Smith called the free market as "free" for this exact reason.

TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
There is no formal concept of "economic democracy" - and of course there should be, because without managed wealth redistribution you have plutocracy, not democracy. In fact the US and UK do have managed wealth redistribution - from working people of all classes to banks, investors, and property owners.

Shivetya 9y ago

it is mind boggling how much we allow State colleges to charge for an education. From the amount of money spent paying salaries of administration level employees, professors who turn over many classes to assistants, to high end sports programs, and finally overly indulgent facilities. Young people are being used not to prop up the bank employee and managers but instead overly expensive faculty and facilities of college campuses, many of them are state run facilities! Better yet we don't stop there, we then roll them on the costs of supplies; namely books but it can include specific software; to just obtain their education. In many cases fees and such are added at the end to obtain certification needed to gain a license, something that should have been proven by their completion of the course load. finally, not everyone needs a college education and not ever degree is worthy of financial aid.

ionised 9y ago

Most people will not complain or even consider change as long as their basic animal needs are met. Water, food, shelter and enough entertainment, alcohol or prescription painkillers to keep them docile enough to never question the actions of the genuinely obscenely wealthy and powerful that actually direct the course of human society for their own benefits. If you want a change to this system you're going to need a total collapse first, which won't happen for a few decades at least (if it ever does) as the system is so geared towards maintaining itself (the status quo and every career politician produced by it) and resisting change. A good start mibght be including three subjects in the education curriculum from childhood; Personal Financial Education, Ethics and Civics. I can guess why these things are longer part of the mandatory education systems in the west though. That's why you end up with FPTP political systems where neither of your potential leadership candidates are even worth considering, and why financial services corporations continue to behave the same way they did prior to each and every economic crash they caused in the last century. Of course, the burden of repairing the damage caused by the outrageously greedy and irresponsible always falls to the lowest working and middle classes. Political philosopher Sheldon Wolin described the current system in the US as an Inverse Totalitarianism; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism You could extend that to the UK too probably.