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[scourge728]

"Purdue Pharma believes a settlement that benefits the American public now is a far better path than years of wasteful litigation and appeals," the statement said. "Those negotiations continue and we remain dedicated to a resolution that genuinely advances the public interest."

I'd rather we go that route, personally. I'm sick of this shit where the wealthy get to pay their way out of trouble and go back to doing business as usual. I'd rather have costly and time consuming litigation. A lot harder to do business as usual when that's going on.

Agreed

+1

[RedKing]

So, Bolton's out.

It was kind of an odd mix anyway given that Bolton is such a hawk where Trump isn't. You'd think Trump would have picked someone with views more in line with his own.

Bolton was picked because Trump wanted someone that would loudly support nixing the Iran nuclear deal, when most sane advisors were not supporting doing this thing.

I still think Trump's only reason for scrapping the deal is because it was Obama's deal. He's got a pathological dislike for Big O.

[hector13]

So, Bolton's out.

It was kind of an odd mix anyway given that Bolton is such a hawk where Trump isn't. You'd think Trump would have picked someone with views more in line with his own.

Bolton was picked because Trump wanted someone that would loudly support nixing the Iran nuclear deal, when most sane advisors were not supporting doing this thing.

I still think Trump's only reason for scrapping the deal is because it was Obama's deal. He's got a pathological dislike for Big O.

You think far too highly of El Prez.

He didn’t like it because it didn’t have his name on it.

[bloop_bleep]

"Purdue Pharma believes a settlement that benefits the American public now is a far better path than years of wasteful litigation and appeals," the statement said. "Those negotiations continue and we remain dedicated to a resolution that genuinely advances the public interest."

I'd rather we go that route, personally. I'm sick of this shit where the wealthy get to pay their way out of trouble and go back to doing business as usual. I'd rather have costly and time consuming litigation. A lot harder to do business as usual when that's going on.

Well, ideally, we’d strip these bastards of every red cent they own, but that’s not gonna happen, so I guess we’ll have to compromise and let them get away with some fraction of the murders.

[Kagus]

They did have a kind of good cop/bad cop system going though.

Or, really, more of a Bad Cop/Dummkopf system.

[Max™]

I had a dream this morning, I was reading the comic version of V for Vendetta last night before I fell asleep.

So in the story there is a part that they kinda skipped in the movie.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where the prime minister guy sees someone he knows in a crowd and opens the door to give her a handshake for a photo op and she shoots him in the face.

Well, I dreamed that happened this morning to Trump and woke up thinking it was the best birthday present ever until it wasn't.

[McTraveller]

AOC just publicly made a big deal about a $1200 payment on her student loan and then apparently said "It was easier for me to get elected than pay off my loan".

WTF if you can pay $1200 in one go on your loan?  Also you're a member of congress - you make at least $174,000 a year.

Now, I'm all for fixing the massive financial treadmill that is our system of high secondary school costs funded by guaranteed loans that can't be discharged in bankruptcy, but please can we have some realistic spokespeople for the cause?

[Il Palazzo]

AOC just publicly made a big deal about a $1200 payment on her student loan and then apparently said "It was easier for me to get elected than pay off my loan".

WTF if you can pay $1200 in one go on your loan?  Also you're a member of congress - you make at least $174,000 a year.

'I have student loans, too," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters. "I think it's so funny, a year ago, I was waiting tables in a restaurant and it was literally easier for me to become the youngest woman in American history elected to Congress than it is to pay off my student loan debt.'

She can pay off the loan now, that she's in congress. Read the whole thing.

[McTraveller]

I guess my reaction was because it reads like "The only way to pay off your loans is to win the job lotto and get a $175k a year job".  Or maybe that's the point - the claims that really the only way to get out of debt is to win a lotto or be super-well connected so you can get elected to Congress?

My opinion is probably clouded because when I graduated college in 2000 I had a debt to income ratio of about 50% - that is, my student loans the day I graduated was about 50% of my annual salary, and at 6.5% interest rate.  Also, I got scholarships so only had to pay for 1 year (out of 4) of college.  So my brain rationalizes that prices today are lower, if the average is only paying twice as much for four times (or more, since average students take more than 4 years now) as many years of school.

So when I hear complaints, about debt burden - I guess I just can't relate, because I worked to not need a lot of debt, and then I worked to pay off the debt I had.  I'm also in that weird demographic age right at the end of Gen X; I remember growing up even noting that the worldviews and lifestyles of the kids as few as 2 years younger than me were very different than mine and my peer groups'.  That still holds - my worldview in general is more optimistic and "if you work hard you will probably get ahead" (opposed to today's sentiment that even if you work hard, you probably won't get ahead).

So I'm sad all around - I feel on one hand that there's something wrong that people can't figure out how to plan and make things work.  I'm sad that conditions have changed such that it is in fact more difficult (in sheer numbers, if not on a percentage basis) for students to get consistent employment to support their debt.  I'm sad that society has done something to education in general, such that it feels like for the first time in a long time, we have a generation where people say "education today is not better than it was when I was a student" (opposed to the past 2 centuries, where most people confidently said things were getting better).  I'm sad that the current young-adult generation is so disenfranchised and flat out fearful.

[Frumple]

Yeaaah... the work harder == (probably) get ahead thing has been pretty bullshit in the US for a... long time. Upward mobility hasn't been particularly great for a while now and backsliding is too goddamn easy. Been like that for generations, more or less.

Most of what's happening lately-ish is that folks are getting more cognizant of it/wiling to say it out loud, with a side of it actually getting worse by some metrics, too. Underemployment being fucking rampant really emphasizes the job lotto thing on top of all that. It's overall quite a mess that the younger generations are getting increasingly fed up with, especially when the older ones go out of their way to shit on everything that might mitigate it.

I've managed to dodge a fair amount of that stuff myself, but my position's fairly precarious anyway and I seriously, seriously fucking empathize with folks that didn't manage their evasion check.

[Reelya]

Yeaaah... the work harder == (probably) get ahead thing has been pretty bullshit in the US for a... long time. Upward mobility hasn't been particularly great for a while now and backsliding is too goddamn easy. Been like that for generations, more or less.

I will exploit you in the exact proportion that you are willing to work hard.

[MrRoboto75]

working hard means more work at likely the same pay/position.

Modern labor market requires you to make your own promotion, by finding a new job at the better position and/or more pay you deserve.

[Zangi]

I reckon school in general does not prepare anyone to the realities of Best Murrica.

[MrRoboto75]

I reckon school in general does not prepare anyone to the realities of Best Murrica.

I reckon that's intended design.

Either or, what the posts above say isn't if school prepares you for anything, its that the labor market doesn't see college education as anything valuable, because it became too common.  But the inflated costs of said college education comes with a price tag that assumes the labor market still gives a shit about it.

[Lord Shonus]

I guess my reaction was because it reads like "The only way to pay off your loans is to win the job lotto and get a $175k a year job".  Or maybe that's the point - the claims that really the only way to get out of debt is to win a lotto or be super-well connected so you can get elected to Congress?

I don't think that's what she was going for. I think her point was exactly what she said it was - as a young waitress, she was completely unable to make any headway on her loans. However, she was able to not only be one of the 435/350000000 people who were elected to the House of Representatives that year, but do so in a way that was inherently more difficult due to her previous position.


By any reasonable standard, these should be reversed. Getting into Congress with no preexisting political career or other high-visibility activity should be nearly impossible, but paying down tuition loans should be a routine and easily accomplished task.