PS: Just sayin'

https://yandex.com/search/?text="Jerome+Adams%2C+Livin'+the+American+dream..."

☮

PS: Good evening,

"but who can search anything here..."
Mr. Hail's Pro Tip: Yandex.com Yandex seems(?) to read and cache the comments. For example...

https://yandex.com/search/?text="In+a+sensible+world+the+surgeon+general+would+be+a+general+surgeon"

☮

PS: Oh, yeah, almost forgot. As Mr. Hail and Mr. Smith discussed, I also remember the change from paper stamps that everyone recognized as the mark of someone on the, THEIR, dole, to those cards that are easily mistaken for debit or credit cards. That's the idea, indeed, to prevent the embarrassment factor, as that can lead to a change toward responsibility. The government doesn't need that, and they don't want that.

I suppose I should look more carefully at what people swipe. I am not sure, Mr. Hail, who takes and doesn't take those cards near us. The fairly high-end grocery store near us did, during the period when we made use of those 3. However, they sure wouldn't be advertising the fact in big letters on the plate glass. When you see that, no, you are no longer in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood.

PS: Re: The EBT. Actually before that, I had a typo. S/B: ".... is when I got purposely behind ON [not "and"] the utility bills for a few months in summer of '20. I wasn't becoming a total deadbeat, but there was talk about "relief" for utility bills, and, as I said, I hate being the sucker (or one of them). This actually is something I wanted to write a bit more about, the paying ahead of bills that I had been doing, but not at the time of that PanicFest summer. That's another subject though.

Anyway, Mr. Hail, the school district just sent them. I'm trying to remember the freaking excuse --- some parents are out of work, and this school district, not OUR school which has the yuppies and a serous share of MILFS - one wearing short shorts right as early in the Spring as possible if frostbite is to be avoided, as she had lost weight from fairly hefty, but not obese to downright slim, and very proud. That was nice ... but where was I? Yeah, but the rest of the school district has the usual Black! schools in which everyone mooches everything they can get. They'd have 10 meals per kid to go pick on Mondays for the week during the nearly a year Kung Flu Panic remote schooling time, cause kids are home, so they can't get a good meal... wait... or something ...

They sent one to everyone. It was just like the 2nd registered or certified letter (don't know the difference, but I know they are sure more than the price of a stamp!) that we'd gotten a long time ago in regard to our boy's truancy when he missed 3 days in a row before Christmas one year and we didn't make the effort to email anyone.* I went back to the school pissed off because I thought we'd settled this already in the meeting they had us go to - like a freaking deposition, I tell you. After the 2nd letter, "Hey, is there something I still gotta do? We went to the meeting already." "Nah, you're good. We just sent a letter to everyone. That was easier..." Yes, it sure it easy to spend property owners' money, ain't it?

Basically to get down to fundamentals, it's like those 3 (I think) EBT cards represented the loss of our money in the bank due to inflation due to the printing of money for stuff like this and thousands of other programs in thousands of other places. We got the reduced value back in EBT cards, to some extent...

* I thought that was a post already, but who can search anything here... but me, when I'm logged into the dBase.

PS: Dieter, yes, very good treatise on the Welfare State*. "Well - - -it induces a symbiosis between the motherly (the giving) social state - - - and its clients." Yes, especially when there is no Dad around, the State becomes the provider. That's as in "Healthcare provider" - might be private, but which of them are actually private today? I HATE "provider" and "responder". How about freaking doctors, nurses, cops, firemen (oops...), and ambulance drivers? OK, I'll accept EMTs ..

Where was I? I didn't know all that about the case of Nahel Merzouk. I had no idea especially about the absentee Black!-Dad, White? or Arab? Mom part. Isn't that the way it seems to go, EVERYWHERE in the West, in which there's a Welfare State, which is EVERYWHERE. Yeah, the usual people come to collect off the dead boy. They want a martyr but more importantly the cash. Reparations! Grief! He was only doing 100 - maybe he thought that his speedometer was in kilos/hour.

Anyway, as to the 700 Euros difference in inner city v suburb, what none of them get is, IT HAS TO COME FROM PEOPLE! Which people? Maybe they live in the inner cities. Maybe most who pay live in the country. I don't know, but this whole "no free lunch" thing must have been forgotten. Well, I'm just repeating what Adam Smith (OK, both of them) has been telling us...




* I call it a part of Socialism, but I think readers/commenters believe I am mistaken in using "Socialism" as just a synonym with "The Welfare State". There's more to Socialism, I know, and, yes Sweden... Sweden of the 1980s? and earlier they mean, as in "Socialism works fine in with the right people." I don't agree fully on that. Mr. Smith's story has some insight into this - involving the people in a VERY WHITE area of north Georgia.

PS: Good afternoon, everyone,

Thanks for the movie price update, Mr. Alarmist. That price is not as bad as I thought it would be. (Sorry you didn't have a more pleasurable movie experience.) I have a friend who has a 15 year old daughter. He said it costs like $70 to take her and a friend to the movies.(!?) Maybe the popcorn and drinks in Dawsonville are very expensive? or something? (Maybe he was exaggerating or including the round trip gas money?)

Mr. Moderator, "I wonder if it's because car repos are safer and easier now than in the past" - I'm pretty sure all new cars are track-able in that they are tied to the cell phone network. I hear even most used cars from the little side lots are now sold with a tracking device so as not to evade the repo man.(?)

"loan durations of up to 7 years now!"
https://www.carsdirect.com/auto-loans/things-to-know-about-10-year-car-loans
https://www.capitalone.com/cars/learn/getting-a-good-deal/longterm-loans-what-to-know-about-a-96month-car-loan/1594

Mr. Hail makes an astute observation...

"The quicker, or more prominently, or more often that you see "EBT accepted here!" and like signs on storefronts or other places associated with stores in an area, the worse the neighborhood is."

https://i.ibb.co/xsnrK5g/EBT-Pizza.jpg

When I worked at the grocery store (oh so many years ago), all the food stamps and WIC coupons were old school analog vouchers. I'm sure the EBT debit card style format is less stigmatizing for those who may still have enough self esteem to feel their pride wounded for taking a handout, but somehow I doubt many people feel this way.

Most of the people I know who are on EBT (admittedly not many) and other "handouts" have lived this way for a long time. (Dare I say their whole lives?) These people (the handful I know) are not grateful for the the largess of MommyGov and the tax cattle, but I do often hear them complain about how their benefits should be larger. My heating assistance is not enough, or my ssi check is too small.

One lady I know just can't seem to get enough of the "government" teet. Her whole family lives this way. (She is a lower class white with a large extended family.) Her son was in state care for many years as a common drug addict/criminal who was diagnosed as schizophrenic at a young age. The state probably spent 7 figures housing/incarcerating/rehousing and sending him to different treatment facilities for rehab through the years. He died of a fentanyl overdose not too long ago.

Her granddaughter gave birth prematurely a few years back. This kid spent months in the neonatal intensive care unit at Northside hospital. MommyGov and the tax cattle shelled out like a quarter million dollars caring for this child in his first few months of life. Yet this lady is never grateful for the care she and her family have received at the hands of the state.

I guess my point is that it is a way of life for some people to not be self sufficient. Pride never really enters the equation for them. I think they don't know where free "government" money comes from.

Dieter, thanks again for the excellent info. I'm a little behind on replying to you, as your posts have been so thoughtful and I want to answer in kind. And I'm a little behind in the garden. Well, not so much behind, but a deer snuck in under my deer fence last night and devoured about 11 of my tomato plants. (They got 8 of my purple cherokees! I'm afraid 2 might not recover.) So I've got to go hang some new fence before I head off to work this evening. I don't want them getting in again.

But you're right Dieter, about the video with the severed hand. I should be more skeptical about what I see on the internet. (Maybe I'll stick to retweeting cute animal videos for a few days. Everyone loves cute animal videos!)

I also have a few more books to post that I found because of your suggestions, but it will have to wait for a little while.

I hope you all have a great evening!

☮

PS

- On EBT cards and their social significance, cont. -

"EBT cards" also fit well into that regular subject of commentary around here, digitization of life:

In the old days, it really was physical stamps you had to collect and use. The "EBT cards" were phased in between a ca.2000 pilot program and the triumphant completion of that program by about mid-2004. The cards look and act like debit cards.

I wonder what people thought in 2004 upon the transition to what-were-in-effect cash-handout debit-cards to use to chosen beneficiaries (or, in some cases, re-sold in scams; often involving low-social-trust diasporic refugees and migrants). The new system allowed more anonymity and less stigma of having to give a cashier actual food-stamps, which would wound the pride of almost anyone with self-respect and tell both the cashier and yourself you are really in desperate need, and help you look forward to the day of paying in paper-money (so to speak) again. With cards, and now often with cashierless checkout machines, all stigma would seem to be basically gone.

It's a good microcosm of how the Internet-world works, in general. And as James Howard Kunstler says much of our world by the 2010s had become "Anything goes and nothing matters."

A googling tells me that President George W. Bush hailed the transition to EBT-cards, by the way, a transition that he announced with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in June 2004. The EBT-cards were a triumph for justice and efficiency. (This was at the same time as he was continuing to oversee the big housing-ownership expansion program that contributed to the 2008 economic crash).

PS

Moderator says: "we got either 2 or 3 EBT cards, yes, EBT cards - Food Stamps..."

This was never mentioned on Peak Stupidity before now?

As for "EBT" cards --- Others with longer memories may remember it differently, but I don't think there were signs in stores saying "Food-Stamps Welcome Here!" very often in older years, despite food-stamps paying for large cash-value in food all throughout. By some time in the 2010s, I noticed them a lot more often. Not necessarily because I was in different places, I mean, but because the same (sort of) places would now prominently 'advertise' for EBT users to come in and buy things, in a way that was uncommon before.

I developed a little instinct for judging new places in the USA by the mid- or late-2010s, which went like this:

The quicker, or more prominently, or more often that you see "EBT accepted here!" and like signs on storefronts or other places associated with stores in an area, the worse the neighborhood is.

Even in the 2020s, EBT-"signaling" has never penetrated the Wokeness-Bubble. The places with thickest and most-loyal dedication to Wokeness will fly the LGBTQIAX+ flag, the "We Believe" list of political-doctrines, the Black Lives Matter Flag, the Stop Anti-Asian Hate signs, and whatever else comes along, but will not put up "EBT Welcome Here!" if the place is higher-socioeconomic-status.

PS

Mr. Kief writes:

"Hunter Biden is much more destructive for society as a whole than Nahel Merzouk."

Nahel was a car-thief and possible drug-runner, but at least he didn't leave one of the bags of cocaine in his care at the Whitee House like Hunter did this week.

PS

Dieter Kief says: that the Student Loan politics and programs of the early 2020s "induces a symbiosis between the motherly (the giving) social state - - - and its clients. "

Right!

The $10,000 giveaway part of it was introduced right before the 2022 Congressional elections, a "vote grab."

There is more to it than just coarse old-time vote-grabbing. For one, it may be a good example of the new class-consciousness under Wokeness celebrating college-degree-holders as a class. For another, Wokeness wants to keep the Higher Education Bubble inflated (cf. Peak Stupidity, 2017) while also hoping it can make reforms to get the bubble lower to more-manageable size. They need a soft-landing.

I am surprised to learn that there is low-awareness of the payment- and interest-pause (March 2020 to ca. Oct 2023), during which time there has been around a 20% effective inflation discount. The new policy is something like: "We are on your side; pay what you can, when you can. We will help you reduce the mandatory rate and eventually we will cancel the debt for good-behavior after a period of x years."

The Biden people are committed to this, and it doesn't take a genius to guess it could become a presidential-election 2024 issue.

PS: "All student-loan interest has been frozen and there have been no mandatory monthly payments since March 2020. In other words, borrowers have paid $0.00 in three years with no penalty of any kind. As x-percent "inflation" has occurred since then, any borrower holding this particular debt has a portion effectively canceled."

I had no idea of this, Mr. Hail! Yes, indeed, you'd feel like a fool having worked hard to pay it all off just before this (yet another) PanicFest excuse of a CARING program. (I do get that, if the government directly prevents you from working, it's hard to pay off a loan.)

That is a "forebearance" then, with an eye toward complete forgiveness, as it sounds.

What you remind me of - I think I mentioned it at the time - is when I got purposely behind and the utility bills for a few months in summer of '20. I thought there'd be some big forgiveness program on those too. I just don't like being the sucker. Had they done something of the sort, they'd have only "helped" people who were behind. Anyone who'd kept up would be the sucker.

As it was, we got either 2 or 3 EBT cards, yes, EBT cards - Food Stamps, for you old-timers - due to something with our boy in the Elementary School. Whaddya' do, send it back or tear it up? Nah.

Moral hazards up the wazoo, is what we got here.

Will write back later today, Dieter. Gotta go for a while...

PS

@Mr Smith, I paid a visit for the first time since 2006 to a movie theater in the US last year to see Top Gun: Maverick, thinking I would enjoy the flight scenes on a big screen. Waste of money: My $3 theater is now $8 for starters, the image was blurry, the sound was way too loud, and I had a herd behind me loudly grazing on popcorn and cola and talking way too often.

Never again. You're not missing anything.

PS
Mr. Hail, since you asked, - whether the fact that it is rational now .n.o.t. to pay back the student loan - whether that induces a "moral hazard"?

Well - - -it induces a symbiosis between the motherly (the giving) social state - - - and its clients. 

(Seen from social-psychologist Erich Fromm's perspective, motherly symbiosis is a highly neurotic/malignant state of mind. I think this state of mind lies at the core of lots of the present derailments of the social order.

And one factor, which supports htis is the one-parent family - : - the Nahel-case in France is a prominent micro-example for what is going wrong here.

The Hunter Biden case does fit in here too - if in a bit more complex ways - but he is clearly not grown up. One difference is: Hunter Biden is much more destructive for society as a whole than Nahel Merzouk.

The Nahel Merzouk case is also a pitch-perfect example for the destructive influence the narcissism, that is prevailing today, has on the role of parents. In the case of the mother - as in the case of the - totally absent father. It annihilated the parent's responsibility - and their right understanding of their guiding function they have.

This narcissism is also highly regressive: Our kid - our angel! - A prominent black French soccer-player immediately called Nahel The Angel after he got shot - and that was, what then dominated the public discourse: an angel / a kid had been killed by the police - - .

Btw: Narcissism also does practically 100% away with shame in helping the narcissist to turn his deficits outward and help him to attack the others = society. - Needless to say that cocaine is written all over this story too - - - and how perfectly well fitting, that Nahel made his splendid living with cocaine (amongst other substances - but cocaine is the main  - - - driver here). - - - Oh and Nahel drove ohhh so smooth 'n' fast in his perfect AMG-Mercedes-machine - - - through Paris - on bus-lanes and sidewalks - with 100 mp/h.
- But, if you follow the tale of the public: Nahel had too! The police was after him - see!! - And they clearly wanted to kill him! - He .h.a.d. to race through Paris. His noble death is thus up there with Lady Di's!! - Two .i.c.o.n.i.c. Parisian deaths.

One remark about the father who never did anything for Nahel: He too all of a sudden appeared on the media-scene, trying to cash-in in on the death of his son. His decade-long absence was a point he felt he had to explain away, and he did: He said that .h.i.s. .d.e.s.t.i.n.y. was the reason he left his partner, with whom he had Nahel. This explanation has some deep - - - Roots. 
Let me put it that way. It is a kind of genetic destiny even, that makes such young black father & white mother couples soon - oh so soon  - - drift apart...(now think of Charles Murray's Facing Reality with its focus on destructive effect of one parent families - and the fact, that Charles Murray's book is the softball-version of the scientific devils in disguise in this field: Philipp J. Rushton and Arthur Jensen - - -
      
Here are two examples for the combination of the a) social-state and b) the mother-perspective on the Nahel case from the french politivcla scene. They illustrate, what I wrote above about the mutual blinding of rationality of single mothers here and - social state proponents there.
Both speakers fully protect Nahel - and attack the police = the manly = orderly side of modern societies.

Feminization of the public discourse as a form of irrationality: Here is senator Laurence Rossignol from the departement Oise -just like the politician I link below, she is eco-soialist = the perfect incarnation of the current BoBo-Anywehre left

https://twitter.com/AmelieLabrande/status/1676647647074033664?s=20

Nadège Abomangoli - Eco-Socialist - from the "problem-département" Seine-Saint-Denise in the north-west of Paris - - - (btw. - - - Departement Sein-Saint-Denis is severely suffering from racial tensions. This department is analyzed by Christophe Guilly in his great book: No society***** (original titte in english - - -book in french - see below for more info about this great book)

https://twitter.com/AmelieLabrande/status/1676654845799833605?s=20

see also:
Nadège Abomangoli — Wikipédia (wikipedia.org)

Both women see the nahel case as proof, that the social state has turend into somehting deadly - - - a case of uttermoral corruption in their eyes. One hard argument, Mme.Rossignol makes is, that the suburbs would on average see subsidiesof 6100 euros / per capita/year, whreas the inner city districts would get 6800 Euros per capita/ per year. her idea is: This is discrimination and so - no wonder these poor kids in the suburbs would suffer terrible discrimination. - Logical consequence: More transfer-money from the social state to the problem districts = more social state = finally. Better results. - for her: Easy! Police bad, social state good!

****this si a good online-article by Tichy's Einblick about culture-geographer Christophe Guilly's book No Society which has something interesting to say about assimilation in France: It doesn't properly work any longer, Chrsitophe Guilluy says, not least - - : - - because the elites despise the lower classes, which in everydaylife were the very people who did interact with the immigrants and made surethey did integrate. but now, these lower classes are the basket of deplorables and not only that: Their insistence on the values of their culture is nowtendentially ridiculed and even criminalized by the elite Anywheres as - - - homophobe & racist - - - - so: They shall not integrate the immigrants any longer - which means: social erosion is taking place (Theodore Dalrymple has a very clear understanding of this dynamic too, because he knows very much not least about the lowest social classes - from decades long work in English prisons etc.).  

The French Publisher's site of No Society (No Society is a Thatcher quote, that Guillluy makes sophisticated use of - - -).

No Society de Christophe Guilluy - Editions Flammarion

google:
No society: Das neue Buch von Christophe Guilluy (tichyseinblick.de)

(btw. - - the author of the TE-article, Ronald G. Asch and I follow one another on twitter)

PS

RE: On loan rates for Student Loan

In the specific situation of the early 2020s, the "rate" has actually been long suspended, an unusual situation perhaps without precedent and a form of stealth debt forgiveness.

All student-loan interest has been frozen and there have been no mandatory monthly payments since March 2020. In other words, borrowers have paid $0.00 in three years with no penalty of any kind. As x-percent "inflation" has occurred since then, any borrower holding this particular debt has a portion effectively canceled.

The new guidelines by Biden also plan to kid-glove any borrower who claims hardship into various forms of extending something like the three-year freeze.

With inflation and the other things going on, there is incentive to NOT re-pay quickly. In fact, since March 2020 and up through about October 2023, it would have been a foolish move for a student-debt holder to make any payments at all. Moral Hazard?

PS: Greetings, Mr. Moderator,

I haven't been in years but I hear movies are expensive these days.

I recently heard a story about a gentleman who wanted to buy a new car and pay cash. The dealer said it would cost ~$5,000 more if he paid cash than if he took out a loan. So, he took the loan and promptly paid off the balance.

🤡 🌎 never ceases to amaze.

☮

PS: Adam, I wonder if it's because car repos are safer and easier now than in the past, and everyone and everything (like the car) are kept track of much more easily, that the dealers feel more confident in loaning money. Sure, for the cash buyer, they KNOW the car is paid off, but like CC companies, they want people that are struggling enough to pay the least amount possible on a monthly basis, for loan durations of up to 7 years now! Anyone who pays too consistently promptly on CCs, gathering no interest, is considered a deadbeat of a sort.

As I wrote in a recent post, I'm glad to see the fees being levied on small purchases via CC. Let them support Visa/MC/Amex instead of all of us.

At the movies, I had to spot the guy 45 cents because otherwise we'd have to go to this other line to pay cash, with a lot of people in it, with the movie starting in minutes. (At least it went to St. Jude hospital, so I was glad to do that.) Yes, first time to the movies in years - got a review coming or maybe 2, one of the movie and another of the theater. Pricing was weird, if nothing else... like HIGH!

PS: It depends on what rate(s) you have on your loans of course, Mr. Hail, I've talked to people over the last couple of decades, and their loan interest rates have been in the 3-5% range. If inflation gets above their interest rate - many students took out multiple smaller loans, so let's say on average - then they are better off paying the minimum amount.

Then, if you get in some money trouble, and the loan looks to be in jeopardy, you'll likely get a forbearance for a spell (different from a deferral in which interest still accumulates).

Yes, the past couple of years have seen a high inflation rate. You, as a reader here, know that I don't readily believe the BLS numbers. I know of those CPI calculators, but I'd just say 60-65% is how much a '23 dollar is worth compared to a '13 one.

PS: I wondered about that flag too, Alarmist It's some kind of all-inclusive one, I would hope. Can't leave out the Trans-Americans, or the Firebirds or Camaros for that matter.

PS: Good evening, everyone,

Mr. Hail,

“The math might be hard for most and so it's rarely brought up by the media.”

Math is hard...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbl2GzRZVFc

- The Inflation discount -

They have been subsidizing/coddling borrowers at the expense of savers for quite some time. This inflation discount applies to mortgages too. Remember when it cost less to buy a new car if you paid in cash? (etc.)

Cheers!

☮

PS

- The Inflation discount -

One under-commented-on part of the Student Loan business is inflation, which has been a big net boon for the student-loan debtors that alone wiped-away real-value of the loans by 25%+ for many, which in some cases is far above the measly $10,000 offered by Biden as a midterm-2022 vote grab.

If you took out $50,000 in total student loans in the late 2000s, or early 2010s, or mid 2010s, the deal is that you are required to repay the nominal-sum -- $50,000 -- plus certain interest payments. But now that we are in 2023, the past few years' inflation has changed the real-value of that nominal $50,000 sum. The dollars are worth less, your dollar is worth more, and in effect it's a big discount.

The math might be hard for most and so it's rarely brought up by the media. The $10,000 across-the-board amnesty is a lot easier to understand, but ironically may be less significant than inflation has been, depending on the exact time-horizon we use.

According to the BLS-Inflation-Calculator, $1.00 in "Oct. 2023 dollars" will probably equal as-low-as $0.75 in Oct. 2013 dollars. If your loan is from ten years earlier, then when repayments resume late this year you will be paying back something effectively discounted by 25%.

This is a net-win for borrowers even beyond the real-income loss the median worker has experienced (inflation beating-out income-rises, said to have been true for 23 straight months as of latest data).

PS

I’m not up to date on the left’s symbology... In that top pic, did they use the Trans Flag or the Pedo Flag as their backing?

In any case, they’re screwed without even getting kissed.