06 SEPTEMBER 2023
DEBT FORGIVENESS / CLOTHES IN CRISIS / TROUBLE IN THE PACIFIC / UKRAINE CORRUPTION / TRUMP ODDS OF VICTORY
THE PODCAST:
THE TRANSCRIPT:
THE POSTSCRIPT:
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— Bryan
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You know, strategically speaking, these Pacific island nations are of great importance. That’s obvious. What is less obvious is why we don’t just pay off all their national debt? It would only be a fraction of the cost of our payments to the Ukraine and of more strategic value. The only real conclusion one can draw from the actions of the Biden administration is that it actually has nothing to do with strategy.
Student loans have been long too easy to obtain and a debt trap for students. Why in the world the Biden administration thinks this loan debt should be transferred to the US debt is beyond my comprehension. It’s hard for me to understand why students who are smart enough to attend college or university don’t understand the implications that these loans have on their future, but I think they are sold as part of a benign student aid package. How many of those students actually sit down and figure out the future earning potential of their degree and what kind of drag loan repayments are going to impose on their future lifestyle? Not many I fear, but those that do dutifully pay them off. Who really benefits from these loans? I think institutions of higher learning with their fat endowments and tenured professors have long seen these loans as a steady income stream to allow tuitions to continue to grow out of control and fund their grand growth ambitions with no liability for the quality of the student they graduate, or worse yet the student that accumulates loans and then flunks out. I think if the colleges and universities that benefit from these loans had to share in the loan repayment when a student/graduate defaults, you would see a lot more effort to prequalify student loan recipients and to make sure they were properly prepared for the workplace, as well as limits on loans for degrees with limited earning potential.