Since I had to come to the office on a Sunday morning in -20 C weather I will rant too.
The loan was prob approved due to student loans policies; Yeshiva is an accredited college, quite highly ranked too. As long as all the forms are in order along with all the proper signatures, I dont see how the govt can deny the loan, lest they get dragged into a discrimination lawsuit. Is the social welfare system at fault here? Maybe, maybe not.
Being a private college, most of that 200k is probably going towards tuition, so Eichengreen is likely not living large on the American Taxpayer's dime.
I feel it is in our nature to be spendy and not plan long term. Perhaps it's an evolutionary trait? In a about a hundred years our life expectancy has increased by 150% (30 to 80) and maybe as a specie we are still not fully adjusted to this fact, maybe this also explains why so many of our "plans" fail lol. I will never forget that when I visited Dubai in April 2010, "the city of superlatives", the only public place with a full parking lot was the airport. With so many cranes and construction projects just "abandoned" on site in the middle of the city the whole experience was quite neat.
People swarmed the city on a modern day gold rush, lived a fairy tale lifestyle, when everything came crashing down they just packed up what they could and ran for their lives back to their home town instead of fixing their mistakes. The best part? It's happening all over again.
If these society "elites" aren't willing to change their ways from this experience, do we really expect the general public to man up and take responsibilities? In their mind (or even a MMM practitioner's darkest corner), there will always be a way out: parents, families, friends, govt welfare, you name it. After all, we are "stronger together" right?
"Let's build our future, together."
"No man is an island."
"Strength through Unity!"
"United we stand!"
These slogans are awesome, if I ever run for office I might borrow them lol. Jokes aside, I have no clue how to fix the system, maybe things dont need fixing at all. Dont we also say "the best cure for high price is high price, and the best cure for low price is low price"?
Here's a story to end my rant. So last long weekend I went to a house party with a whole bunch of friends at a friend's parents place. I've known most of these guys for about 15 years (we used to play video games together quite often) but have been drifting apart since 2007 ish to the point that we only chat online sometimes, ya, not even texts. Perhaps due to our different viewpoints of life. They are more "be happy and live life to the fullest" type, whereas I am more of a schemer, always "planning and scheming" lol.
It's been a few years since I had been to his place, but it was easy to find. In fact it stood out as soon as I turned the corner. 1, 2, 3, 4 BMW 300s parked on the streets and driveway. 1 BIG Ford truck (now i want one), 1 fully loaded Acura TSX, 1 Audi A8, and our host's car: a beautiful Mercedes Benz C300.
We were the last ones to arrive. They kept asking me if I plan to get a new car after they saw my 07 Chev. I just shrugged and said it's a different lifestyle (actually if I had 10x the money I have today I'd prob drive a big truck AND a Caddy). One friend even joked "dude are you spending all your money on h**kers?" My girl laughed, I love her.
We had fun that night; it was good to see them. Now I am judging them as I sit alone in this empty office. Knowing that their after tax household income (friend+so) is probably somewhere between 1/4 to 1/3 of ours.... they sure know how to be happy and live life to the fullest. I am jealous.