Student loan payments are starting up again soon

Xavier

Orochi's Acolyte
20 Year Member
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Posts
5,103
Companies do not charge high prices simply to do so, this makes no sense. Leftist moaning about price gouging this year as if companies just got greedy. If any company could make a profit at a lower price someone would step in tomorrow to take the business. But regulation and strict control on market entry done through government (sometimes with the support of major players in the field yes) cripple competition.
You are either a disgusting person or truly have no idea how markets work. I believe its the later.

Companies/Corporations only exist for one reason and one reason only, to make money. As much of it as they can for as long as they can.
Hell for awhile now everyone's only concern is quarterly earnings so long term doesn't even matter anymore.
If you can price gouge and don't you're a horrible business person, plain and simple.
They you'll try to discretely colluded and price fix to get others to play along and not ruin a good thing.
That may not last for long so you call in favors for all the lobbying and bribes you've given to the people in power so they can help regulate the competition away.
By the time free and fair market self corrects or a new disruption/player comes along you've already made your money done the damage.

Like lumber last year.
There was no reason for it to spike like it did.
There wasn't a shortage of trees or permits to cut them.
There were some minor issues with operations and logistics but the industry was still able to operate at or above normal full production and these problems didn't come to a head until after the prices had already gone up.

Anyways they don't exist to make your life easier or raise everyone's standards of living. It's nice if it happens though.
Look at Exxon here, basically the price of guzzoline doubles and so do the profits.
Why do they do that? Because they can and it's their job.
 

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lithy

Most Prominent Member of Chat
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That may not last for long so you call in favors for all the lobbying and bribes you've given to the people in power so they can help regulate the competition away.

So you agree with me, great, moving on.

I gotta admit Xavier, I've stopped responding to most of your posts, it has gotten tiresome, circular, and boring. Your posting style and formatting is like you want to come off as a screeching Marxist, but somehow you often end up making fairly conservative points. You lead by suggesting I may be a disgusting person then agree with nearly everything I said. You have this weird thing where you can make a single cogent point in the middle of a largely nonsensical, rambling post. You use words like 'guzzoline' or at least intend to, instead you said 'guzzoliee'.

In truly free markets there is no such thing as price gouging. No one can be forced to pay anything.
 

Xavier

Orochi's Acolyte
20 Year Member
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OK maybe I slightly misunderstood you.

The "left" are bringing up price gouging because it's happening at a critical time and is a basic response to the right saying oh look inflation, It's all Joe Biden's fault, lets go Brandon. Nobody wants to work. Merica first Durpa Durpa, build the wall.

In a truly free market there would be no government regulation to stop monopolies from forming or cartels price fixing which would result in a whole lot of price gouging.

The markets pretty free here but in the end everything just consolidates anyways.
You only really have one choice for many things even with restrictions.
 

skate323k137

Professional College Dropout
10 Year Member
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Jan 7, 2013
Posts
4,186
Did government force people into college like they forced businesses to close?
We are raised to believe we are massive failures and will scrub toilets forever if we don't go to college. Thankfully a teacher I had in 8th grade pulled me aside and said college isn't for everyone.
 

100proof

Insert Something Clever Here
10 Year Member
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Jan 16, 2014
Posts
3,579
Ah the great deficit cut clown show hand waving. The great cut to the deficit where we are still projected to run something like $1.5T in the red. The great cut to the deficit where the US government will post it's a top five (probably top 3) worst deficit. The great cut to the deficit that was only possible because of the absolutely ridiculous 2021 deficit that put us in the inflation position we are in now.

And tough to trust Moody's soothsaying as far as I can throw them.

"Experts are wrong because they disagree with my myopic worldview and I have no alternative based in reality". Automated Conservative Response #1 activated.


You're not telling me anything I don't agree with on military spending, but it feels like you think your spending is moral and justified. The government does not invest any money. It spends your money. If you wanted the thing, why wouldn't you have already paid for it? How much of your annual salary before this year did you give to people to help pay for their student loans? I'll just say the right feels just as morally superior about the military spending. Both are wrong and put us in a tailspin where both sides accelerate their taking to get theirs. Personally, I think it's way to late to solve. It will only end it financial ruin, austerity, probably some horrible thing I won't speculate on, but what I am sure of is that most people won't thing that it was their straw that broke the camel's back, it was definitely the other guy's.

Money spent taking care of other people is moral and justified. Feeding them. Housing them. Healing them when they're sick. Yes, moral and justified. Full stop. People who don't die or don't become drug addicts or spend their life in prison can contribute to society and contribute to the coffers instead of being a burden on them. It's not just moral and justified. It's also sound business sense.

And yes, making sure people aren't financially crippled to educate themselves is re-investing tax dollars so that we can get more in the long run.

If your argument is "taking care of people with our tax dollars is as morally repugnant as spending 10x as much on murdering people in other countries to enrich a class of elites solely because we might not be able to save everyone from themselves", we're just not going to agree and I'm going to think less of you as a person.


Almost like it was designed to be difficult to do things on a whim...

Odd.


Thank you for repeating back to me what I already had said.

Feel free to have the final response. I'm good here.
 

fake

King of Spammers
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Posts
10,976
Did government force people into college like they forced businesses to close?
Ah, yes...the great forced automotive industry shutdown of 2008. I remember it vividly!

And when the government forced airlines to land all their planes! Poor Tonk couldn't even get a refund.

Now the banking and financial industry shutdown, now that was something.
 

NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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Posts
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Here's the current narrative:
I don't care how it's helping others... what is it doing for me?


I've seen this in many boardgame kickstarter projects where they have a base game and a deluxe game option. Eventually they realize production doesn't make sense for the base game, and all those backers get upgraded for free. Nice free update for the people that backed the base game. It doesnt impact the people that backed the deluxe version, so they shouldn't care right? Oh... but they do. They kick and scream and cry all over the internet. Every...single...time....
 

Xavier

Orochi's Acolyte
20 Year Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
Posts
5,103
Seems like every-time I buy a game it comes out on PS+ for free the next month.
Whenever I buy a console it goes on sale the next month or they announce a new model or system.
boebert.jpg
 
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norton9478

So Many Posts
No Time
For Games.
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My Cousin used to say that there is no point in paying for HBO/Cinemax/Showtime since the only time they put anything good on is when they have the free preview weekend.
 

Heinz

Parteizeit
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Wouldn't America be better off by a gigantic margin if college education was heavily subsidized like it is in so many other leading democracies? I don't get it, surely it would pay off for the 1%ers. Maybe not in the short term but most definitely in the long term. Just fill all the shit jobs with increased immigration of those looking for a better life because we know plenty of people are just clawing their way in anyway.
 

NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
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Wouldn't America be better off by a gigantic margin if college education was heavily subsidized like it is in so many other leading democracies? I don't get it, surely it would pay off for the 1%ers. Maybe not in the short term but most definitely in the long term. Just fill all the shit jobs with increased immigration of those looking for a better life because we know plenty of people are just clawing their way in anyway.

This dosnt fix the problem. The price of tuition exploded. The cost of education didn't suddenly balloon 1000%.
Students are being price gouged by a cartel of Universities.
 

Lagduf

2>X
20 Year Member
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Posts
46,682
This dosnt fix the problem. The price of tuition exploded. The cost of education didn't suddenly balloon 1000%.
Students are being price gouged by a cartel of Universities.

With a helping hand from for-profit professional "education" companies supplying them with books, software, and other "services" that are exorbitantly priced. But outsourcing your books and professional tests and certifications to a third party, for profit corporation is simply the American way. It saves money...to everyone but the consumer, I mean...student.

It's all a scam.
 

NeoSneth

Ned's Ninja Academy Dropout
20 Year Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2000
Posts
11,084
With a helping hand from for-profit professional "education" companies supplying them with books, software, and other "services" that are exorbitantly priced. But outsourcing your books and professional tests and certifications to a third party, for profit corporation is simply the American way. It saves money...to everyone but the consumer, I mean...student.

It's all a scam.

At this point, If I had kids, I would send them abroad.. Cheaper, and they might actually get some culture.
 

norton9478

So Many Posts
No Time
For Games.
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Posts
34,074
This dosnt fix the problem. The price of tuition exploded. The cost of education didn't suddenly balloon 1000%.
Students are being price gouged by a cartel of Universities.

wrong
 
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