- Quickdraw McLaw
- 93 Comments
- 122 Views
- As some of you already started discussing in yesterday’s comments, President Biden is cancelling some student loan debt. [Politco]
- State cites conflict of interest in Nye County deputy investigation. [RJ]
- Here’s a little more on the pilot program regarding unbundling legal services for some family law cases. [NVbar]
- Nevada Athletic Commission blames Metro for failing to investigate boxer’s death. [KTNV]
$10,000 is cute
This is not the extreme radical leftist agenda I was promised š
Based. The workers must seize the means of production. Which in our case is I guess a keyboard.
Forget the student loans. Forgive EIDL and PPP. That's real money.
Why doesn't everyone just live for free? Wouldn't that solve all of our societal problems?
āA democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.ā
ā Alexander Fraser Tytler
11:48 here, I would also put this quote forward regarding PPP loans, wall street bailouts, etc.
I just viewed the PPP loans we took as a tax refund. Bully for me!
Oh jeez, this quote again? We can't give any money to poor people because it'll be the end of democracy, but tax cuts for the rich, corporate subsidies, etc. are just "good policy"?
Indeed. I am (but shouldn't be) amazed at how riled up some folks are about $10K-$20K in student-loan forgiveness. Similar to @11:48, take a quick look at how $7 BILLION in PPP loans were handed out in Nevada. $5M for an orthopedic practice, $4M for Findlay car dealerships, $4M for a Nevada branch of a national charter school, millions more for scammers who quickly set up sole proprietorships.
Something like 25 PPP loans, totaling almost $4M, went to businesses at Trump and Kushner-owned properties. The parents of McEnany, one of Trump's press secretaries, received up to $2M. Companies of Nevada Rep Susie Lee's husband got something like $5M. Those "loans" weren't paid back. While one suspect cash grab doesn't justify another, I think student-loan forgiveness for federal loans that enabled the ridiculous rise in tuition are much more justifiable. So let's chill out on $10K for wage earners making less than $125K, sheesh.
Its all grift and its all relative to the quote from OP.
@1230 The quote is accurate and "largesse from the public treasury" encompasses everything you mention, except tax cuts.
None of it is good policy.
I'm happy for the people who had their loans forgiven, and I hope this $10,000 helps them.
That said, I am very worried about where this leads. Tuition has skyrocketed over the last 20 years, and I think it has done so on the availability of "free" loan money. I worry that unscrupulous schools will use this as Exhibit A to convince students to take on even more loans to pay even higher tuition.
Relatedly, I worry that loan forgiveness will be seen as the status quo, and that next years' debtors will expect their loans to be forgiven too.
I think a better response would be to put a cap on tuition, limit the availability of school loans, and to get US News to alter its rankings to reward affordability. I think serious actions need to be taken to stop incentivizing schools to raise tuition and raise young peoples' indebtedness. People were up in arms about mortgage bankers a decade ago; I see what colleges do as at least as bad.
Any comparison of student loan debt relief to the covid relief PPP loans to small business is BS. It's not even the same. Small businesses employ people. They're the lifeblood of this country. Skinny jean wearing, soy latte drinking, purple haired people who got gender studies degrees from Berkley and now can't pay their loans back, is not our problem. Pay your own debts deadbeats.
Worshiping businesses as if they can do no wrong while slamming Berkley graduates as if somehow they are always wrong is why you fail in life.
@112
@109 makes more money than you.
@115 I definitely make more money than @112. @112 still lives in parent's basement and has purple hair.
12:53 has some good ideas. The spending at colleges is out of control and it's being paid for with high interest loans that are saddling another generation with loans they will never be able to pay back.
Some of the comments are concerning. This is a law blog so presumably most of the readers/commenters are attorneys who be definition have graduate level degrees that are supposed to train us to think critically. 1:09's comment about skinny jeans, soy lattes, and purple haired gender studies students versus business owners is uninformed (intentionally?) and narrow minded. Who are you to say those purple haired berkley grads AREN'T business owners? Over half the criminal defense bar is tatted up one arm and down the other – they are still business owners who pay taxes and hire employees. What about a business major with purple hair who opens a hair salon? A tattoo parlor? A real estate office? Having purple hair/tattoos/skinny jeans/soy lattes does not preclude one from being a business owner and/or productive member of society.
There's also the economic impact of saddling people with high interest loans. It does not make long term sense. You can pound your chest and yell that they signed on the dotted line and therefore MUST pay, come hell or high water. In reality what has happened is that fewer and fewer college grads are having children, buying cars, buying homes, getting married, etc. The main reason is that no one can afford to. All their money goes to paying off their mortgage sized student loan debt with insanely high interest rates. The economic impact is that house prices aren't stable, durable goods sales are down, the birth rate is dropping, and the only small businesses making any money are the soy latte purveyors.
A rising tide lifts all boats. If we can bail out businesses, we can bail out people who start/own/frequent those businesses.
1:09 – isnāt consumer spending the life blood of the economy? Without consumer spending, we have no economy. If you forgive loans, doesnāt that increase consumer spending?
On another note, if we are a country based on capitalism, then why should we have given companies PPP money. Let them fail. Survival of the fittest. My office got a PPP loan and I think it is crazy as our income was not effected much.
I think loan forgiveness and PPP loan forgiveness is absurd. I agree with the poster that capping tuition is better. Tuition is out of control. At a minimum, interest rates on non-dischargeable loans should be limited and not a profit center. With education comes higher income statistically, which means more consumer spending and taxes.
@142 is the guy standing in front of a burning city saying "it's a mostly peaceful protest"
1:42 here. @1:47 thank you for your well reasoned response. It contributes significantly to the conversation and demonstrates my point exactly.
There are actual, real-life advantages to fixing the student loan issue. There is no silver bullet, but letting the situation continue on is untenable. This is going to be a bubble bigger than the housing bust of 2008. It's not going to be good for ANYONE. Go ahead and mock ideas on how to deal with it while you stroke your AR and beat your wife, but eventually "eat the rich" is going to be more than a snarky comment.
Forgive it all I say. But, in exchange, here is the Best fix:
Govt. gets out of the loan guarantee business. Period.
Student loans awarded going forward are dischargeable, like all other consumer debt.
Make no mistake, this isn't a government problem. Its a banking problem.
When EVERYONE gets a loan, the rate of default rises exponentially.
Student loans should be repaid fully but with a low interest rate. My issue with the student loan forgiveness is it's a stepping stone. Just as the ACA was an intended step towards medicare for all, per Obama himself, the $10,000 forgiveness program is a step towards total forgiveness and free college tuition. Dems are long-term thinkers. They play the Right like a fiddle. What's going to now happen is those with student loans exceeding $10,000 are to moan about how unfair it is they still have loans. Then, the race baiting will start, i.e., whites have, on average, less student loan debt than minorities, and then eventually anyone who disagrees with forgiveness and free tuition is racist. Open your eyes. It's the same playbook over and over.
The main argument for debt forgiveness is that college expenses have outstripped the rate of inflation for decades, even as the value of a college degree has plummeted. The main argument against is that people paid what they owed. So why not calculate how much a college education should have cost if it had merely kept pace with inflation, adjust that amount for the decreased earning potential of a college education over time, take into account any changes in the amount of scholarship money offered by an institution, and forgive the difference? These adjustments could be done at the level of individual institutions, with colleges who raised their tuition higher than the average being forced to contribute towards the amount of forgiveness, while colleges who stayed under the average receive some type of tax credit. For those upset because they paid back their debts, perhaps they receive a tax credit depending on the amount paid back when set against the amount of forgiveness which others received.
Student loans have changed significantly since I attended college. First, my understanding is schools given student aid much more freely and generously now to those students whose families are of limited income. Second, I thought all federal student loans were forgiven after 20 years (or 15?) if you repay on the income-driven repayment plan. So, why is it necessary to even discuss student loan forgiveness at all? Those two factors should take care of those who need financial assistance in the first place, and those who "can't afford" their student loan payments. Besides, as this is where any why things get personal for me against student loan forgiveness: the average student loan debt is about $40k. So, not that much. My guess is the majority of those who "can't pay" their student loans drive cars worth that much. All student loan forgiveness is, is a redistribution of wealth.
Wow, I stand corrected. The average student loan debt, per the White House today, is $25k, not $40k. Making the forgiveness an even larger travesty than I initially thought. Even a gender study grad should be able to pay off $25,000 working as a Starbucks manager, even McDonald's.
1:45, your point is entirely misplaced. Those who "can't afford" their student loans are still spending tons of money, on cars, expensive clothes, food delivery, etc. Heck, most of their student loans were likely repaid into the economy for those same things.
3:20 and 3:27 sound like old boomers…completely out of touch. You cannot pay $25k in debt on a starbucks manager's salary. If you think that, you have no idea what things actually cost. People who "can't afford" their student loans are NOT still spending money on stuff. Yes – they have clothes, a phone, etc. They do not have cars, houses, or children. And to be clear, avocado toast is not going to make the difference here, no matter how much you and Murdoch want that to be the case, it's just not.
@340 Sorry. I am calling bullshit.
Handing out loans like candy on Halloween is exactly the problem. And I have seen first hand hundreds of examples where frivolous purchases and vacations were made on student loan money. I have personally consulted dozens of potential BK clients who were flabbergasted that they could not discharge loans they took out far beyond their needs in college.
But, calling "boomer" automatically means that you are right and the rest of us are wrong.
–Signed a GENXr who at 50 could still kick you ass but is still afraid of his 70 yr old boomer father.
Too small a sample size to call bullshit, so I am calling bullshit on YOU!
Sincerely, 50 year old Gen X'er who didn't let his boomer father's hangups become his own.
Let's not forget how we got into this mess… in order to "reduce" the cost of the Affordable Care Act and make it palatable for the American public, the gov't assumed control of nearly all student loans. The "profit" from the interest payments on these loans were supposed to offset the costs associated with the ACA… Yet, here we are now, over a decade later, losing money on the federalization of student loans and exacerbating the cost of Obamacare.
You can't give someone something without taking it away from someone else.
I have a BS, JD and LLM. For the latter, two I was married, had 3 kids and 2 dogs and a mortgage. Never had a student loan. Paid my own way. Why is it fair for me to now pay your tuition?
Why is it fair yhat you paid taxes for Amazon and Nike?
4:53,
Not even close to being correct. It wasn't additional "profit" that the CBO accounted for, it was the reduction in cost from the elimination of the Federal Family Education Loan program. Turns out that having the federal government directly originate the loans was $61B cheaper than having Scuzzy National Bank originate a loan, and then having the federal government guarantee the loan and pay the lender through the FFEL.
5:31 purchasers always pay tax hikes for companies, Nike and Amazon ALWAYS pass it on to consumers, ECON 101, business MUST pass along tax hikes to make a profit, anyone that says different is demagoguing
Then did they lower prices since neither paid taxes last year, and both in fact raked in ungodly millions in refunds? Did they hike employee wages? Or get fat stock options? Econ?
@1033
Tell me you know nothing about business and economics without telling me that you nothing about business and economics. Once prices/taxes hike or freedoms are removed they NEVER are returned to those paying the "price".
Did anyone's billable hourly rate drop during the most recent growth period?
Everyone whines about fair when someone gets something they donāt. That is life. Some people pay more taxes and some people pay less. Why is it fair business got PPP loans? Why is it fair my 6 year old nephew was killed by a drunk driver. Life is not fair. Sometimes that fairness benefits you and other times it doesnāt.
I have often thought that if people voted more like corporations act, we would have a more rational electorate. A corporation cannot vote but larger corporations and their trade groups purchase politicians with ease to implement their chosen agendas. Corporations view morals transactionally as mere business goodwill, with a value that either supports or harms their bottom line. The threats from leaders of medical trade groups that Congressional democrats would "pay a price" in the midterms for their votes in favor of enabling negotiation of a handful of taxpayer-funded medicare prescription drug costs and $35 monthly insulin caps (which, unbelievably, did not pass) is a good example.
Recent polls indicated that over 90 percent of young democratic voters would support a different presidential candidate than Biden in 2024. Faced with likely mass defections of younger democratic voters, Biden bought their votes with a few thousand dollars each. Why the moral outcry over purchasing votes in this manner? Like Big Pharma, these voters absolutely have a rational economic reason for favoring their own interests at other taxpayers' expense, and they should absolutely reward the democrats with votes in the midterms for keeping their promise to forgive some debt. These voters should also demand more forgiveness from future administrations as a condition of their continued support. After all, if congressional votes for a more free-market approach towards taxpayer-funded drug costs triggers warnings from Big Pharma trade groups that democrats will "pay a price" at the polls, student loan debtors have every right to demand the same.
šš¼
Forgiven PPP were not loans. They were tax refunds.
Thanks!
The word fair is for children.
It is not loan forgiveness, the money was paid out. It is a transfer from deadbeat students to the general tax roles.
You didn't get the high paying job you thought you would? Poor baby. Maybe we taxpayers should also make your BMW payment for you too.
Our clown economy is based on credit money, so debt forgiveness is literally deflationary. Jubilee time!
There is no such thing as money.
Biden's statement is calculated politics. It is a unvarnished attempt to buy votes before the midterms. Pandering, shilling, political prostitution.
I suspect that only congressional action can make the debt transfer to everyone else law.
1059, if aggressive lobbying by pharmaceutical companies leads to tax breaks and an increase in taxpayer funded drug costs, which lead in turn to higher corporate profits, one would expect corporate executives in those companies to be rewarded for adding shareholder value regardless of the origin of the increase. So do you feel the same way about a wealth transfer to Big Pharma which subsidizes the expense of the luxury cars those executives drive as you do about a wealth transfer to so called deadbeat student debtors? Those executives likely drive nicer and pricier cars than BMWs.
And to be fair, Covid Checks were issued right before the 2020 Election. So both sides are guilty of this same thing. Lets be objective and intellectually honest at least.
–Signed A True MAGA Dude.
Covid started in 2020, checks were given in what, May 2020? Then in Jan 2021. So, as much as I disagree checks should have been given, I don't think they were timed as calculated as Biden's $10k voter bribe.
Which was bigger. $10k or PPP?
I disagree with the SL forgiveness and PPP loan forgiveness. But, the govt prevented businesses from operating. The student loans purchased a product the grad to be utilized the rest of the student's life. Not comparable.
12:33 I am shocked-SHOCKED-I tell you, that a politician is political. This is unheard of, and being political is something only a dastardly Democrat would do.
The Athletic Commission is being ridiculous. They had no oversight for the fight, so there was nothing for Metro to investigate once they determined there was no crime for the fight itself. Moving forward, different story, but blaming Metro for not investigating whether the fight met the AC's regulations, when the fight was not governed by the AC, is ridiculous. Total PR cheap-shot.
Hey! Look at me! I AM RELEVANT!!!
Athletic Commission is spot on.
Anyone down for a Marxist revolution? Lmk thnx.
Yes! No money, no work, no jobs, Harvard tuition is a right. When and where do we meet?
You'll own nothing and be happy.
But the bread š tastes good.
Especially after waiting in line for so long!
What,no š on your š?
How can we stop people asking stupid questions on listserves? Stop waisting our time with memes and lawyer jokes too please. I am over these repeat offenders.
2:29 – listserves went out in the mid-1990s, also just for you, "What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the sea?" "A good start."
I object!
Such a waist. Where's my burger?
Yup. Yup. Yup.
#WasteNotWaist
#FreeCollege
#Thwack
Things I miss most about law school.
My 20's.
Whataburger
99cent Whoppers for breakfast.
#freestudentloans
#freebonniebulla
#freeirsagents
Vanessa Bryant just awarded $16 million for gruesome photos.
Good.
Fucking ghouls taking photos of a child like that
Kym Cushing reinstated but it shows the problem with the suspension process.9 month suspension entered January 2020.Reinstated today. 9 month suspension cost him 31 months.
That isn't a defect, that is by design. Ever since they made disbarment permanent they can only suspend you unless they are willing to cut you off forever. So almost everyone that gets suspended ends up getting that suspension extended. It is very much on purpose.
Our wonderful Nevada Supreme Court
The process didn't cause Cushing to be out so long. He didn't petition for reinstatement after the initial nine months. He waited until this year to do so.
My partner received a legal opinion by a judge that shocks conscience,meaning it is unethical. Asked around to a few other firms that agree. The appellate court is an absolute shit show. Anyone have general advice? I cannot believe the opinions that judges are making in this state. This judge is a sociopath.
Post the opinion. Everyone says Judges make bad rulings, but never give details. Maybe your partner was just wrong and is whining.
If it is in federal court,do not appeal. That place is a real shit show like you said. I believe anything in this profession. Read a bullshit opinion where the arbitrator shamed and screwed a victim of a crime. Report the judges.
Why wouldn't they appeal? So they're just supposed to eat the terrible ruling? Of course you appeal. As far as advice to the OP, just make sure you're preserving arguments and papering the record.
I think we live in a world where we think we are right and then when we ask people they agree because we present the facts in a slanted way. The Judge may have screwed your client or made a bad ruling. It is also possible you are not looking at it objectively or blinded by your bias. There is a reason we have trials – people donāt agree with just one side.
What all these comments are pointing out is that it is best to avoid the following approach: a judge is horrible, brain-dead and completely unethical because I lost a motion before such judge that I felt I should have won.
Hard to sell that without any real details being provided.
!2:29, agreed. Plus, as 9:23 points out, if all these other people supposedly agree with the outraged attorney, it can be safely assumed that the attorney really cherry-picked what such attorney wanted to present–grossly distorting and exaggerating any points favorable to their side, while ignoring crucial facts harmful to their narrative.
And if it was as horrible and unethical as the lawyer insists, the credibility of that claim is obliterated if the attorney insists the appellate division is a total shit show, and thus it is pointless to appeal.
Trust me, there is a lot we can complain about concerning our appellate courts. But if this opinion is not merely clearly wrong, but is as irrational and insane as the attorney insists it is, this aggrieved attorney lacks credibility if the attorney trusts no judges, at any level, to remedy a completely insane, irrational decision that also shocks the conscience.
Seems like there is much hyperbole with this drama-loving attorney. Why not simply say the judge got it wrong, rather than insisting that this is the most vile blemish and stain on the pages of western jurisprudence history.
Be assured that in my 35 years in this profession I have been on both sides of decisions that were probably clearly a lot more outrageous than what this lawyer complains of. But we will never really know as no details are provided. We are merely invited to jump aboard with the lawyer's moral outrage.
The federal courts in this state are a shit show. Nevada Supreme Court often ignored the law,which causes me to pause before I file an appeal for a client. A majority of the judges suck in this town.
1:03-What if Kozinski was still on 9th Circuit? What did you think of him?
And I mean your opinion of him as a jurist, not an opinion of his behavior toward law clerks, etc.
How can a ruling be "unethical"? Or, did you intend to use a different word?
714,I wish you luck. That sounds like a brokered,u ethical opinion. Look at your judges and affiliates and plan accordingly. This legal town makes Chicago look good.
Unethical
Kozinski was before my time. As for appeals,I get the apprehension. Our firm is mulling over it now. We had a ninth circuit appeal from a Dorsey ruling we took up. It was a good appeal for our corporate client. Dorsey's opinion although drafted well was part fiction and wrong on the law, they affirmed. Our client was pissed. So,consider the parties involved in the appeal
Again, this is a useless comment w/o any details regarding what the judge got "wrong."
No