Latest Techno Fog post…publishing things that the Mainstream Corrupt Media refuses to touch…and which therefore, do not exist(?)…—
“New Durham filing –
“He has hundreds of e-mails between Fusion GPS and reporters.
“These include efforts to frame Sergei Millian and Carter Page.
“And – confirmation of the Fusion GPS employee who will testify at Sussmann’s trial” https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog
H/T Lee Smith
That last point should provide a fascinating “peek”..into what people really should already be aware of…but “better late than never”(TM)
(Though as Robert Mueller III famously emoted “Fusion GPS?”….)
Oops, should be “Vasarely”…
Gee, I wonder what–all of a sudden–caused all of this inflation?
How about this interesting little piece of information?
According to the Fed, we’ve gone from $4.0192 trillion dollars in circulation in the beginning of 2020 to $20,354 trillion dollars in circulation as of November 2021.
Relying on Fed data, this article points out that since January 2020–in the last two years–the Fed has pumped out 80% of all the dollars in circulation.
Re: the various opinions amongst “conservatives ” about the Ukraine mess .
Here is an excerpt from a book review; the book dealt with the relationship betwixt William F Buckley (the noted conservative ), a murderer, and how Buckley was hoodwinked by the murderer. It’s a true story.
Weinman is the book’s author.
Here is the quote from the reviewer:
“Weinman’s theory is that “Humans are hardwired to believe what other humans tell them.
My own reaction is slightly different. It is easy to succumb to wishful thinking—to suspend one’s disbelief—by ignoring the reality of human nature. Pretending that evil doesn’t exist is a form of utopian thinking.
Even sound conservatives and morally-grounded believers can acknowledge the abstract concept of evil without recognizing its presence in their midst—sometimes failing to apprehend what is staring them directly in the face. Yet evil always manifests itself through human agency. Not everyone tells the truth. Not everyone is innocent. Professions of innocence are inherently self-interested. We may lower our guard of disbelief due to fashion, vanity, affinity, or flattery, or in response to attention or peer pressure, but we must resist the temptation to disregard common sense altogether. The consequences, as Buckley learned, can be catastrophic.”
YET EVIL ALWAYS MANIFESTS ITSELF THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY.
It seems that Biden is bound and determined to “forgive” student loan debt. A real slap in the face to those that paid their way, parents that paid and to those that didn’t go because they couldn’t get student loans that they would have hopefully paid back.
Many years ago in the 60’s (not 1860’s) my Wife and I had modest student loans. We paid them back. I will admit that my Wife’s loans were 50% forgiven if she taught school, which she did. Oh, and I had GI Bill for Grad Sch.
Just another “Biden” betrayal.
Just another popular “feature” of Bribe Back Better. (It’s the administration’s M.O.)
BTW, consider it a privilege: not only did those who paid back their loans work extremely hard to do so; but now they’ll be able to help pay back (via taxes) these “forgiven” loans, as well….
Looked at another way: Why should Blacks be the only ones to get “reparations”?
Shirehome, yes I just saw that also.
Questions I have: What is the legal authority a president could have to cancel such federally secured debt? How do the Ds think people will react to having the upper income people who hold most of that college debt from schools like Yale getting this freebie? Why would they think the public will be OK to take on all these people’s debt that those people signed into a contracted to pay back? How will this not contribute even more to inflation if the feds just print more money to cover this?
I swear, it’s like all the leftist nut jobs I knew in the faculty at the college have taken over the country. So blinded by their ideology and so convinced they are so much smarter than anyone else, they just forge ahead regardless.
Forgiving student loan debt:
I have not followed it as well as I should have, but I believe that they want to limit the amount forgiven to something like $10K to $50K. So the big debts from Yale grads would not be fully forgiven. One chart says that $10K forgiveness cancels debt for 36% of debt holders whereas $50K cancels for 80% of holders.
What gives Biden the right? Yes, yes, yes. But …
The Treasury owns the obligation outright (for much of it anyway). It wasn’t supposed to be that way, and it wasn’t until Obama.
It used to be some complex arrangement where private lenders did all the lending qualification and they held the debt. Except, the Feds guaranteed something like 50% of the debt (not all of it) and also paid a portion of the interest rate that the private operator collected.
Along comes Obama and one day he proclaims that he is going to save the Fed. gov. a ton of money by eliminating the private lender middleman. All those federally subsidized interest payments get zeroed out. What a great idea!
I always thought that Obama was the Manchurian president so I watched almost all of his televised speeches, at least in the early days. (OK, maybe I got carried away.) The day he gave that speech about federalizing all new student debt I said, “They’re going to forgive that debt.” Isn’t that obvious? Why wouldn’t they? It’s not the politician’s money or the cash of someone running a business.
It’s probably true that the Treasury cannot do whatever they wish with their balance sheet in terms of legal technicalities. But they are just technicalities at this point. They will do whatever they can get away with.
Hello. Today would have been U. S. Grant’s two-hundredth birthday. Thus, I fly the Ohio flag today.
The bold quote from the link is, ‘The student loan system mirrors many of the inequalities that plague American society’
It’s all about racism, donchya know?
I think, without some law change, that the forgiven debts will be taxable income. That will upset some people who thought they’d get off scot free.
That’s interesting Kate. Makes sense, but I suspect that many pols (Bernie Sanders) don’t care about that.
Declare the debt forgiveness as declare able income, tax it at 100%, and let the IRS collect the money.
SCOTT,
Kate’s excellent point (if I understand it correctly) is that such a debt forgiveness “gift” is fully taxable under current law. So lower income folks might only pay zero or a little in taxes whereas the high income Yale grad might take a big tax hit.
I’m sure Bernie Sanders would like to pass a law to zero out all possible taxes on said “gift” or command Biden to do it via executive order.
I get your point about 100% taxation, but Dream On man.
“EVIL ALWAYS MANIFESTS ITSELF THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY.”
How could it be otherwise? To be evil requires free will.
Was it sheer chance that evil and live are spelled in the reverse? Evil by definition is incapable of love. Can someone incapable of love, truly be said to be living? Evil cares only for itself. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends”
TommyJay, Kate, et al.: I recognize that student loan debts incurred by fraud are a small minority, but just last week I came across an account on Longreads written by a young woman saddled with almost $400,000 of student loan debt incurred by her mother, a gambling addict who stole her daughter’s identity in order to take out loans to feed her habit. “Thirty-five now, I recall the day I first learned of my debt in foggy, tender detail. I was 21 years old and graduating from college in two weeks. I was just applying for my first credit card, and then an hour later, I was learning that I was a victim of ongoing identity theft by my mother. . . . When I called my mother to tell her and ask for her advice, she begged me not to call the police. ‘I’m so sorry, honey. But it was me. All of it was me.’ ”
The essay goes into considerable detail about the differences between federal student loans and those offered by private lenders; part of the writer’s current financial problems resulted from these differences. In her opinion, “Through an executive order, President Biden could cancel all federal student debt. At any moment of any day. This declaration won’t impact my private debt, but it could change the lives of millions of others.” (I am sure that at least some of Neo’s readers will disagree with her).
The writer also describes the changes in her relationship with her mother (who did serve time in jail for embezzling from her former employer to support her gambling habit), and her analysis of the impact of identity fraud within a family is perceptive– the essay is worth reading simply as an account of the destructive outcome of a behavioral addiction on an entire family.
Theft of a child’s identity is sadly not unusual. There are articles online offering advice to young adults who find out that their parents opened credit card accounts in their name (e.g., https://www.credit.com/blog/help-my-mom-dad-maxed-out-credit-cards-in-my-name-129680/). But the Longreads story is a window onto the student loan industry that I couldn’t stop reading.
PA Cat, can’t that woman be freed from the debt because it was fraudulently incurred, not by herself? She needs a good lawyer, I’d say.
Since many of the higher amounts of student debt are owed by people from comfortable backgrounds, possibly now earning more than poverty level, a debt relief gift of $50,000, treated as ordinary income, would put many of them in a higher tax bracket for the year. They’d lose a $50k debt and gain a $20k tax liability.
PA Cat,
I have a friend who’s father did something similar to feed his gambling habit.
It’s very sad and I have great empathy for the woman whose story you highlight, but, as Kate wrote, it’s not a student loan issue. It’s a theft issue. She needs to prosecute her mother to have the debt discharged from her own name.
“Through an executive order, President Biden could cancel all federal student debt. At any moment of any day. This declaration won’t impact my private debt, but it could change the lives of millions of others.”
Based on the quote you excerpted I’m not even sure why they woman is writing about her personal tragedy in relation to whether the Federal government discharges student loan debt. She herself states it’s unrelated to her personal story.
Now that PA Cat mentions it, I do recall at least one of those loan differences. I think a federally backed (partial or total) student loan cannot be off-loaded via personal bankruptcy.
Through an executive order, President Biden could cancel all federal student debt. At any moment of any day.
That pique’s my interest a little, but not enough to wade through mind numbing documents. It really should not be possible via an EO. But “should” means nothing. And even if it were legally impossible, would the Dems do it anyway? This never ever should have been 100% relegated to the US Treasury, for just this reason. It’s an open invitation to massive wholesale theft from the US taxpayer.
This is a bit off topic, but I’ve read that way back in the late 18th century, the US House of Rep. was actually involved in signing off on each and every individual US government bond issuance. The House held the public purse tightly.
I had a lawyer friend in the LA area who worked for several years as a bankruptcy attorney. He said that from what he had seen, nothing, not even drugs, will take down a person as fast as a bad gambling habit.
I think a federally backed (partial or total) student loan cannot be off-loaded via personal bankruptcy.
TommyJay:
That’s my inexpert understanding.
I skimmed through the longreads piece a little. The CARES Act response to covid provided a little ($5K) student debt forgiveness and proclaims it to be tax free. Well, it is a signed act of congress. They can do almost anything via legislation.
I probably should delete this little rant, but I’ll leave it:
Do you know why we pay property taxes? Because when the economy was good in the early 19th century various states took on large amounts of debt mostly from British investors (for things like building canals). When the economy then went south, the state governments decided that they were just going to stiff the Brits. The Brits did not take it lying down and the issue festered for years. The solution was the state or local property tax and the Brits were partially or wholly repaid. It’s the wealth tax to which we are all inured.
______
Gambling debt. Yes, I think I’ll start shooting heroin today. Just to see what it is like. Then again, there is the stock market.
Taking Escher and Vasarelli to the next level?
Latest Techno Fog post…publishing things that the Mainstream Corrupt Media refuses to touch…and which therefore, do not exist(?)…—
“New Durham filing –
“He has hundreds of e-mails between Fusion GPS and reporters.
“These include efforts to frame Sergei Millian and Carter Page.
“And – confirmation of the Fusion GPS employee who will testify at Sussmann’s trial”
https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog
H/T Lee Smith
That last point should provide a fascinating “peek”..into what people really should already be aware of…but “better late than never”(TM)
(Though as Robert Mueller III famously emoted “Fusion GPS?”….)
Oops, should be “Vasarely”…
Gee, I wonder what–all of a sudden–caused all of this inflation?
How about this interesting little piece of information?
According to the Fed, we’ve gone from $4.0192 trillion dollars in circulation in the beginning of 2020 to $20,354 trillion dollars in circulation as of November 2021.
Relying on Fed data, this article points out that since January 2020–in the last two years–the Fed has pumped out 80% of all the dollars in circulation.
See https://thefreethoughtproject.com/80-of-all-us-dollars-in-existence-have-been-printed-in-just-the-last-two-years/
Not to worry, it’s “transitory” (albeit—woopsie—to ever higher levels…).
To be sure, Yellen (like Garland, like Buttigieg, like Blinken, like Austin, like Mayorkas, like Kerry, etc.) is merely another tool of (i.e., cog in) the “Biden” “Project”:
https://issuesinsights.com/2022/04/27/see-if-you-can-follow-yellens-bouncing-inflation-ball/
H/T Powerline blog….
Re: the various opinions amongst “conservatives ” about the Ukraine mess .
Here is an excerpt from a book review; the book dealt with the relationship betwixt William F Buckley (the noted conservative ), a murderer, and how Buckley was hoodwinked by the murderer. It’s a true story.
Weinman is the book’s author.
Here is the quote from the reviewer:
“Weinman’s theory is that “Humans are hardwired to believe what other humans tell them.
My own reaction is slightly different. It is easy to succumb to wishful thinking—to suspend one’s disbelief—by ignoring the reality of human nature. Pretending that evil doesn’t exist is a form of utopian thinking.
Even sound conservatives and morally-grounded believers can acknowledge the abstract concept of evil without recognizing its presence in their midst—sometimes failing to apprehend what is staring them directly in the face. Yet evil always manifests itself through human agency. Not everyone tells the truth. Not everyone is innocent. Professions of innocence are inherently self-interested. We may lower our guard of disbelief due to fashion, vanity, affinity, or flattery, or in response to attention or peer pressure, but we must resist the temptation to disregard common sense altogether. The consequences, as Buckley learned, can be catastrophic.”
YET EVIL ALWAYS MANIFESTS ITSELF THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY.
It seems that Biden is bound and determined to “forgive” student loan debt. A real slap in the face to those that paid their way, parents that paid and to those that didn’t go because they couldn’t get student loans that they would have hopefully paid back.
Many years ago in the 60’s (not 1860’s) my Wife and I had modest student loans. We paid them back. I will admit that my Wife’s loans were 50% forgiven if she taught school, which she did. Oh, and I had GI Bill for Grad Sch.
Just another “Biden” betrayal.
Just another popular “feature” of Bribe Back Better. (It’s the administration’s M.O.)
BTW, consider it a privilege: not only did those who paid back their loans work extremely hard to do so; but now they’ll be able to help pay back (via taxes) these “forgiven” loans, as well….
Looked at another way: Why should Blacks be the only ones to get “reparations”?
Shirehome, yes I just saw that also.
Questions I have: What is the legal authority a president could have to cancel such federally secured debt? How do the Ds think people will react to having the upper income people who hold most of that college debt from schools like Yale getting this freebie? Why would they think the public will be OK to take on all these people’s debt that those people signed into a contracted to pay back? How will this not contribute even more to inflation if the feds just print more money to cover this?
I swear, it’s like all the leftist nut jobs I knew in the faculty at the college have taken over the country. So blinded by their ideology and so convinced they are so much smarter than anyone else, they just forge ahead regardless.
Forgiving student loan debt:
I have not followed it as well as I should have, but I believe that they want to limit the amount forgiven to something like $10K to $50K. So the big debts from Yale grads would not be fully forgiven. One chart says that $10K forgiveness cancels debt for 36% of debt holders whereas $50K cancels for 80% of holders.
What gives Biden the right? Yes, yes, yes. But …
The Treasury owns the obligation outright (for much of it anyway). It wasn’t supposed to be that way, and it wasn’t until Obama.
It used to be some complex arrangement where private lenders did all the lending qualification and they held the debt. Except, the Feds guaranteed something like 50% of the debt (not all of it) and also paid a portion of the interest rate that the private operator collected.
Along comes Obama and one day he proclaims that he is going to save the Fed. gov. a ton of money by eliminating the private lender middleman. All those federally subsidized interest payments get zeroed out. What a great idea!
I always thought that Obama was the Manchurian president so I watched almost all of his televised speeches, at least in the early days. (OK, maybe I got carried away.) The day he gave that speech about federalizing all new student debt I said, “They’re going to forgive that debt.” Isn’t that obvious? Why wouldn’t they? It’s not the politician’s money or the cash of someone running a business.
It’s probably true that the Treasury cannot do whatever they wish with their balance sheet in terms of legal technicalities. But they are just technicalities at this point. They will do whatever they can get away with.
Hello. Today would have been U. S. Grant’s two-hundredth birthday. Thus, I fly the Ohio flag today.
Here is that chart.
The bold quote from the link is,
‘The student loan system mirrors many of the inequalities that plague American society’
It’s all about racism, donchya know?
I think, without some law change, that the forgiven debts will be taxable income. That will upset some people who thought they’d get off scot free.
That’s interesting Kate. Makes sense, but I suspect that many pols (Bernie Sanders) don’t care about that.
Declare the debt forgiveness as declare able income, tax it at 100%, and let the IRS collect the money.
SCOTT,
Kate’s excellent point (if I understand it correctly) is that such a debt forgiveness “gift” is fully taxable under current law. So lower income folks might only pay zero or a little in taxes whereas the high income Yale grad might take a big tax hit.
I’m sure Bernie Sanders would like to pass a law to zero out all possible taxes on said “gift” or command Biden to do it via executive order.
I get your point about 100% taxation, but Dream On man.
“EVIL ALWAYS MANIFESTS ITSELF THROUGH HUMAN AGENCY.”
How could it be otherwise? To be evil requires free will.
Was it sheer chance that evil and live are spelled in the reverse? Evil by definition is incapable of love. Can someone incapable of love, truly be said to be living? Evil cares only for itself. “Greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends”
TommyJay, Kate, et al.: I recognize that student loan debts incurred by fraud are a small minority, but just last week I came across an account on Longreads written by a young woman saddled with almost $400,000 of student loan debt incurred by her mother, a gambling addict who stole her daughter’s identity in order to take out loans to feed her habit. “Thirty-five now, I recall the day I first learned of my debt in foggy, tender detail. I was 21 years old and graduating from college in two weeks. I was just applying for my first credit card, and then an hour later, I was learning that I was a victim of ongoing identity theft by my mother. . . . When I called my mother to tell her and ask for her advice, she begged me not to call the police. ‘I’m so sorry, honey. But it was me. All of it was me.’ ”
The essay goes into considerable detail about the differences between federal student loans and those offered by private lenders; part of the writer’s current financial problems resulted from these differences. In her opinion, “Through an executive order, President Biden could cancel all federal student debt. At any moment of any day. This declaration won’t impact my private debt, but it could change the lives of millions of others.” (I am sure that at least some of Neo’s readers will disagree with her).
The writer also describes the changes in her relationship with her mother (who did serve time in jail for embezzling from her former employer to support her gambling habit), and her analysis of the impact of identity fraud within a family is perceptive– the essay is worth reading simply as an account of the destructive outcome of a behavioral addiction on an entire family.
Theft of a child’s identity is sadly not unusual. There are articles online offering advice to young adults who find out that their parents opened credit card accounts in their name (e.g., https://www.credit.com/blog/help-my-mom-dad-maxed-out-credit-cards-in-my-name-129680/). But the Longreads story is a window onto the student loan industry that I couldn’t stop reading.
https://longreads.com/2021/12/01/debt-demands-a-body/
PA Cat, can’t that woman be freed from the debt because it was fraudulently incurred, not by herself? She needs a good lawyer, I’d say.
Since many of the higher amounts of student debt are owed by people from comfortable backgrounds, possibly now earning more than poverty level, a debt relief gift of $50,000, treated as ordinary income, would put many of them in a higher tax bracket for the year. They’d lose a $50k debt and gain a $20k tax liability.
PA Cat,
I have a friend who’s father did something similar to feed his gambling habit.
It’s very sad and I have great empathy for the woman whose story you highlight, but, as Kate wrote, it’s not a student loan issue. It’s a theft issue. She needs to prosecute her mother to have the debt discharged from her own name.
Based on the quote you excerpted I’m not even sure why they woman is writing about her personal tragedy in relation to whether the Federal government discharges student loan debt. She herself states it’s unrelated to her personal story.
Now that PA Cat mentions it, I do recall at least one of those loan differences. I think a federally backed (partial or total) student loan cannot be off-loaded via personal bankruptcy.
Through an executive order, President Biden could cancel all federal student debt. At any moment of any day.
That pique’s my interest a little, but not enough to wade through mind numbing documents. It really should not be possible via an EO. But “should” means nothing. And even if it were legally impossible, would the Dems do it anyway? This never ever should have been 100% relegated to the US Treasury, for just this reason. It’s an open invitation to massive wholesale theft from the US taxpayer.
This is a bit off topic, but I’ve read that way back in the late 18th century, the US House of Rep. was actually involved in signing off on each and every individual US government bond issuance. The House held the public purse tightly.
I had a lawyer friend in the LA area who worked for several years as a bankruptcy attorney. He said that from what he had seen, nothing, not even drugs, will take down a person as fast as a bad gambling habit.
I think a federally backed (partial or total) student loan cannot be off-loaded via personal bankruptcy.
TommyJay:
That’s my inexpert understanding.
I skimmed through the longreads piece a little. The CARES Act response to covid provided a little ($5K) student debt forgiveness and proclaims it to be tax free. Well, it is a signed act of congress. They can do almost anything via legislation.
I probably should delete this little rant, but I’ll leave it:
Do you know why we pay property taxes? Because when the economy was good in the early 19th century various states took on large amounts of debt mostly from British investors (for things like building canals). When the economy then went south, the state governments decided that they were just going to stiff the Brits. The Brits did not take it lying down and the issue festered for years. The solution was the state or local property tax and the Brits were partially or wholly repaid. It’s the wealth tax to which we are all inured.
______
Gambling debt. Yes, I think I’ll start shooting heroin today. Just to see what it is like. Then again, there is the stock market.
Re tax implications of student loan forgiveness, Biden took care of that in a covid relief bill: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/11/student-loan-forgiveness-is-now-tax-free-is-cancellation-coming-.html . Taxpayers completely on the hook.
Thanks, CATHERINE. Totally outrageous.