Tag Archives: responsibilities

Student Loan Delinquency

Posted on by
Reply

…rates are declining.  Or so a headline number implies.

The share of new delinquencies on student loans has fallen to the lowest level in more than decade—and it’s not just due to the healthy labor market.

In the first quarter, slightly over 9% of student debt outstanding was newly delinquent….

Aside from employment rates, which encourage jobs as trade-off for college, the decline is laid off to a couple of causes.

[F]forbearance[] allows borrowers to go months without making a payment while remaining in good standing on their debt.

And

[I]ncome-driven repayment[] sets borrowers’ monthly payments as a share of their income….

These are legalist sophistries only; the debts still aren’t being repaid along the timelines nominally agreed.  The lenders—us taxpayers—still are being hurt by these legal shenanigans, and there’s no real expectation that these loans actually will be repaid, even in the long (much longer) run.  Nor is there any serious hope that the opportunity cost of the forgone monies, tied up as they are in those practically, if not legally, nonperforming loans, will be repaid at all.

More Mindsets

Posted on by
Reply

Iran says that not only are Germany, France, and Great Britain not doing enough to satisfy the demands it’s made as a quid pro quo for staying in the nuclear weapons deal.  All of the EU must pay some vig.  Here’s Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif:

With the exit of the United States from the nuclear deal, the expectations of the Iranian public towards the European Union have increased….

That’s one mindset; unfortunately, it’s not unique to Iran: we exist, therefore, you owe.

Here’s another Iranian mindset:

The cascade of decisions by EU companies to end their activities in Iran makes things much more complicated[.]

The EU must take concrete supplementary steps to increase its investments in Iran. The commitments of the EU to apply the nuclear deal are not compatible with the announcement of probable withdrawal by major European companies[.]

Iranian businesses are completely under the control of the Iranian government.  Therefore, the companies of other nations must be controlled by those nations’ governments.  Those nations’ companies, therefore, must be required by their respective government masters to do business with Iran (through companies in Iran).

And this mindset from Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas:

Giving it up means entering a completely uncertain future as far as the question of nuclear weapons in Iran is concerned.

It’s not really about Iran; it’s about our own original security interests, German as well as European.

Because not paying the vig would make Iran angry.  The EU wouldn’t like Iran when it’s angry.

Oh yeah, there’s one more mindset in play here.  Iran knows the mindset of the European signatories to the Iran nuclear weapons deal and how desperate those nations are to keep on Iran’s good side.  Iran is playing on that desperation to extort more goodies in return for Iranian pretty words of compliance.

Mindset

Posted on by
Reply

Here’s the new US offer regarding the Iran nuclear weapons deal; we’ll soon see pretty clearly the mindsets of Germany, France, and the UK.  And of Iran.

Iran must

  • end nuclear weapons development in perpetuity
  • stop all uranium enrichment
  • never preprocess plutonium
  • allow nuclear unqualified access to all sites throughout the country
  • withdraw all forces from Syria
  • end support for militant groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, youths militia and Taliban in Afghanistan, and the IRGC Quds Forces
  • stop sending arms to the Houthi militia in Yemen
  • release all US citizens
  • cease threats to destroy Israel
  • stop missile launches
  • stop development of nuclear-capable missiles
  • respecting Iraqi government sovereignty

In return, the US would

  • be willing to lift all economic sanctions
  • restore full diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran
  • allow it to access advanced technology
  • support modernization of Iranian economy
  • help it reintegrate into the global financial system

Big gains for Iran in recompense for serious Iranian behavior.

So: do the European parties to the existing nuclear weapons deal want stability and prosperity in the Middle East, or do they prefer appeasing Iran?  Do they care about Israel’s prosperity and safety in a nuclear weapons free Middle East, or do they prefer appeasing Iran?

Do they accept the terms on offer or have concrete, viable counteroffers (vis., include a demand for release of all British citizens), or…?

Journalistic Integrity

Posted on by
1

I got an online newspaper survey (requested by a highly respected paper), and one of the questions opened a text box into which I was asked to enter my thoughts on subjects to be addressed by the paper’s contributors.  This is my list of topics.

  1. ID of “anonymous” sources
  2. Explanation of why [the paper] has walked away from journalistic standard of corroborating “anonymous” sources with at least two on the record sources [Note: this paper is not unique; the standard has been ignored by all news media]
  3. Explanation of why we readers should believe “anonymous” sources actually exist
  4. On the premise that at least some of the “anonymous” sources actually exist, explanation of why we should believe what the source is claiming, given his fundamental dishonesty as demonstrated by his leak, which came at least in violation of his terms of employment if not his oath of office
  5. On claims that the leaker is actually a whistle-blower, explanation of why proof was withheld from readers that he exhausted all of his whistle-blower channels before he leaked
  6. Regarding 5 above, provision of that proof
  7. Identification of the whistle blower, since he needs no anonymity; whistle-blower laws protect him

Get Rid of Calculus in High School?

Posted on by
Reply

James Makarian, SnapLogic CTO, thinks high school calculus is overrated; he’d rather see statistics and computer science get the emphasis.

I agree: don’t teach calculus in senior high school.  Push it down into freshman/late junior high classes.  Then do computer science and statistics in close sequence behind the calc course.  It’s not possible to do more than (badly) cookbook statistics without the underlying arithmetic.  And cookbooking something as serious as statistics means the related research will be badly done more often than not or badly understood by those reading the research.

Lack of underlying arithmetic also will limit computer “science” to work that doesn’t involve arithmetic: first tier tech support where all the junior rep can do is run through a checklist whose steps may or may not address the confused problem description coming to him over the phone.  Actual computer or related development won’t be possible.

And this: the thinking style and rigor associated with learning calculus has its own value wholly independent of whether the high/jr high schooler would ever do arithmetic as he pursues his non-STEM college studies and career.