1/ Likely we test new US political movements
that echo 2008 housing bailout
but for STUDENT LOAN forgiveness
Also played on past stages of
Germany vs Greece
North vs Southern Europe (Italy)
SAVERS vs SPENDTHRIFTS
2/ Obviously it is MORE complicated than profligate spending with other spotlights on inflationary cost of higher ed, driven ever higher by government provision of crazy debt loads, bloated administrative ranks, broken promise that a costly degree was high paying job guarantee...
35% of loan balances owed by people in top 20% of income
56% of student debt owed by those with masters or professional degrees
5/ The IDEA....
would be that forgiving the student loan debt would free up that debt service by people paying it and the interest for consumption, investment, household formation
BUT...
6/ The PROBLEM...
is the outrage from
making education FREE for SOME people who can't qualify to pay their debt (i mean it would be socialist provision of education, effectively like post facto vouchers––but OK)
while punishing OTHERS who did pay but maybe struggled to
7/ My mom worked 2-3 jobs for me to go to the state school at Cornell; i worked through college; i took on debt and i was lucky
People far worse whose parents have devoted their entire lives to help pay their kids EDUCATION debts were financially imprisoned while others let free
8/ The way this COULD go would actually NOT give it to the poorest, hardest hit, neediest but would exacerbate inequality giving 65% of the benefits to households in the top 2 income quintiles and only 14% to the bottom 2 income quintiles
9/ Indeed the US gov would lose
~$435 billion from student loans
in the housing crisis in 2008 it lost
~$535 billion from subprime mortgages
But COLLEGES/UNIVERSITIES are the ones that've grossly exploited the provision of gov debt to keep raising prices...at rate of 3x CPI!
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1/ Here is my full Council on Foreign Relations @CFR_org talk
will post excerpts later—covering:
*future of R&D + innovation
*history of private funding
*China
*Space Race
*Lux theme of “Tech of Science”
*Miami + how to (and how not to) create tech hubs cfr.org/event/changes-…
2/ On the unintended consequence of shutting China out of markets for geopolitical competitive reasons
which will make them MORE competitive
as distrust does away with comparative advantage
and stimulates redundant competing space, science, tech races
3/ On
-SERENDIPITY in SCIENCE and the futility of government “directing” discoveries...
-scientists reclassifying or renaming whatever they are working on to get government money given to what politicians deem popular...
1/
If you CANNOT say when something is OVERVALUED
you CANNOT say you know how to VALUE it
If you buy $1.00 for cost of $0.50—it’s “riskless profit”
(undervalued arb, sure to gain)
If you buy $1.00 for cost of $2.00—it’s “riskless loss”
(overvalued foolishness, sure to lose)
2/
If you cannot VALUE something you do not know if it is UNDERVALUED or OVERVALUED
and thus cannot know if you are taking riskless profit, riskless loss—or profitless risk
The key current test: at what $ price within a 50% +/- range
would #Bitcoin be OVERVALUED?
3/ “Today a young man on acid realized:
everything should be free
Property rights are zerosum oppression by patriarchy Everything’s relative to something which’s relative to nothing
there’s no absolute value
info wants to be free
money is made-up
...Here’s Bob with the weather”
A world where
they can *feel* offended but have no right to be protected from feeling offended or feeling uncomfortable if they are insulted for any reason or someone says or does something wrong, ignorant, misinformed, rude or uncivil
2/ A world where
-they can make mistakes and commit errors and be given a chance to correct them and not cancelled
-they can be surrounded + welcoming of diverse people with diverse life experiences + diverse POVs who may also make mistakes + commit errors and BE corrected
3/A world where
-they must COMPETE intellectually, physically, psychologically when there are zero-sum outcomes + lose if they deserve to lose
-they must learn to COOPERATE with people different than themselves with different POVs who they might have to play non zero-sum games w
Revealing— @Matterport's going public, partnerinf with Gores
Lux now joined by outstanding high quality world-class investors: Tiger Global, Senator, Dragoneer, Fidelity, BlackRock + Miller Value🚀 with up to $640M cash in $2.9B deal matterport.com/news/matterpor…
2/ Lux is @Matterport largest shareholder––since leading their seed investment in 2013.
Lux cofounder @peterjhebert has served on the Board since helping guide to INCREDIBLE growth + technological breakthroughs in a giant market...
3/ The @matterport platform turns any physical space into immersive 3D digital twin—
and now has the largest spatial data library (over 150 countries)—in HISTORY.
Over 10 billion sq ft of space + GROWING
homes, office spaces, museums, schools, factories, hospitals, and retail
1/ Having now read thousands of pages across hundreds of articles about the debate of PROGRESS or GREAT STAGNATION
And seeing learned people flip their minds--in both directions--(like Othello chips⚫️⚪️) given persuasive new evidence...
2/ I believe...
there are the contributing elements of "lag" and "mismeasurement" possibly behind the Solow Paradox (paraphrased as tech is everywhere 'cept in productivity)
3/ I believe...
there are salient anecdotes + examples NEAR and FAR (subject respectively to recency bias...and nostalgia for clearly-compounded effects of old technologies)