Opinion Domestic Politics BF style

[Chewy316]

Gee we gotta fix this inflation problem, the best way to do it is make more people broke and homeless and under no circumstances do anything that could impact the rich.

So what would you suggest the RBA do to combat interest rates on their end?

 

[sobrave]

So what would you suggest the RBA do to combat interest rates on their end?

stop increasing them? they can literally either do nothing, lower rates or increase them. that's it.

there's a lag between rate rises actually having much effect, especially with plenty of people still on fixed rates. we've literally gone up 4% in a year.

 

[edgie]

If the government does anything about it, they will be a one term wonder.

We've just come off a decade of Liberal/Conservative rule at home and in places abroad, right now I'm choosing to believe Albo is biding his time and consolidating his position before going harder next term, rather than a centre right wet lettuce.

Stage 3 tax cuts won't do any favours to loweing the cash rate, but.

 

[sobrave]

oh yeah, and its ridiculous that lowe hasn't been sacked. not so much based on the rate rises which are obviously voted on by the board, but by his ridiculous claim about interest rates. he got it very, very wrong and has had zero consequences.

 

[Jimmy95]

There's too much big business collusion and not enough competition to lower prices. Too many essential services/goods in too few hands hence there seems little desire to compete.

 

[Chewy316]

Would like to see the 3% stress test for mortgage financing reduced in the immediate for current home owners looking to refinance. Lots of home owners stuck in mortgages they have no hope of getting out of unless they sell the asset.

 

[Mikey13G]

 

[Mikey13G]

If the government does anything about it, they will be a one term wonder.

We've just come off a decade of Liberal/Conservative rule at home and in places abroad, right now I'm choosing to believe Albo is biding his time and consolidating his position before going harder next term, rather than a centre right wet lettuce.

Stage 3 tax cuts won't do any favours to loweing the cash rate, but.

Yeah the government could do something but it wouldn't be politically favourable. What sucks about the interest rates is that it's hitting middle Australia hardest. There's families that have to contemplate every dollar in their budgets just to pay the mortgage, whilst others are deciding if they'll fly business class to Europe.

 

[sobrave]

Look, we cant blame the boomers for everything.. but.. it's literally the boomers.

The over 55 bracket went absolutely nuts on spending lol.

They must be stopped

 

[philthy05]

Yes - indexed to inflation, not the addition of interest.

The entire purpose of indexing HECS to inflation is so it ensures the government is getting back the exact value dollar for dollar that they are loaning you when you are undertaking some form of tertiary education. Inflation has been barely 3% the last decade year on year which has meant people's HECS debts have gone up bugger all in that time. It is only now that inflation has skyrocketed that HECS debt has suddenly become another area for people to gripe upon.

The indexation is not going to make it any more difficult for anyone in terms of keeping up with their cost of living. The repayments on HECS debt are not tied to a set repayment but is rather a percentage of income once you hit the threshold (a little over 48k this FY increasing to over 51k for 23/24 FY) so the indexation isn't going to affect anyone's cost of living issues right now. There's no time limit on which the debt has to be repaid - only the requirement that you're paying the bare minimum based on your taxable income - and if you die before the debt is paid, it is cancelled and doesn't become someone else's problem. I can't think of another debt in the world that has such favourable repayment conditions and stipulations surrounding its cancellation upon death.

HECS is an extremely valuable tool for anyone to properly leverage their strengths into a tertiary education that will significantly increase their income going forward. The two biggest issues I would suggest surrounding HECS and tertiary education is 1) the indexation shouldn't be back dated if voluntary repayments have been made whilst not fully paying the debt off. And 2) being that there are a whole bunch of essentially pointless and wasteful university degrees out there which offer little to no employment pathways and are simply a great way for people to accrue debt with nothing to show for it all the while lining the universities' coffers. But I also would think that the responsibility lies with the individual to ensure what they are enrolling and subsequently studying is going to help them down the line as opposed to going in with blind faith and hoping it gets them future opportunities.

The price of teritiary education is a ****ing rort. there’s no way it should cost that much money to sit in an old building while people read some crap from old books so you can get a piece of paper that lets you go out into the world and then have to learn what you actually need to know anyway.

it’s ****ed that we now need to get into 40k+ debt just to get into employment at the bottom level and even more ****ed that indexation means you’re going to pay much more than that.

If you think it’s easy you’re naive. Of course it affects people’s ability to keep up with the cost of living. The money is deducted from their bank accounts as soon as they’re earning a pittance.

My rent is nearly as much as the total take home pay at which you have to pay back hecs.

Not explicitly, no.
So how would you improve or change the HECS system?

People have been very clear. Tying it to rampant inflation so people trying to start their lives are tied to increasing heavy debt is a very bad idea.

Don’t do that.

For starters that’s a very easy thing to improve it.

These ones always sound nice, but numbers make it a meaningless gesture if it was done. It worked back then for free as Uni was not attended at such a high rate. If they capped Uni numbers to smaller amount, it was back then, it could be free, but few would go for that. The situation is far from perfect, but if spending on Uni, then what other big cost expense, like NDIS, Medicare or other education does it come from?

It doesn’t need to be free, but why the heck are we asking people to get into these absurd debts at a time they are starting out?


Also, why is it always the medicare that we have to cut and not giving billions to mining companies or defense or overseas trips for ministers?

trillion dollar submarines?

get rid of tax rorts for the wealthy? scrap negative gearing? make corporations pay tax? charge fossil fuel companies for extracting instead of handing them cash?

i dunno, there's just no options other than cutting healthcare?

Lol yeah.

Cap indexation to what? Capping it to inflation has worked because inflation the last decade has essentially been 2% or less. If you scrap indexation completely you're then left with a scenario in which there is no incentive for anyone to pay their HECS debt off. The longer it takes to pay off in that scenario the less that actual debt is worth. Great for the individual, sure. Not so much the lender.

What would you raise the income level to which repayments start? Next financial year the minimum is around 51k and the actual repayment rate at that level is 1%. I personally don't see that as being unreasonable.

They had incentives for early repayments previously. Got abolished at the start of this calendar year IIRC.

With regards to your last point, for my clarification, are you implying that someone shouldn't be allowed to accrue further HECS debt unless their current HECS debt is under a particular threshold? If so, that seems a fairly reasonable implementation. Some pitfalls there however would be a scenario in which someone is wanting to change careers - in which case you're adding a further burden to achieve that. I do think there is merit to this and there would be a happy medium that could be found.

What do you mean incentive to pay it off? No one is paying it off on a ‘today I think I would like to make a payment’ basis.

It’s not voluntary.

It’s deducted from your pay before you get it.

Also, i question why the Australian government is a lender in this situation and not an investor? They need an educated workforce as much as we do, arguably more.

Why get so aggressive about it.

I was in the first group of HECS paying students and it took roughly until I was 30 to pay it off. I had 2 years of being unemployed in the early 90s due to the recession.

Mrs B went through 11 years after I did, and it took her a little longer to pay it off, the bulk of it by 37ish, with a 6 year period of not working due to having 3 kids.

Two of our three kids are planning on attending Uni and we will be glad that the HECS system is in place because neither of us come from money or earning big bucks.

For the record, to give you a sense of mine and Mrs B's family background, we were the first, and in my case only, ones in our family to go onto tertiary education. This would not have been possible without HECS & AUSTUDY.

When you talk about 'free tertiary education' it was technically free, but only those who had the means to live through a 4-5 year degree course could access the small number of enrolments available. My dad for example, wanted to continue in school and go to uni but due to the family being unable to support him through that time, he had to leave school after year 10 and get a job. That's how it was.

We now have a system where Kindergarten, Primary, and Secondary education up to yr 12 are all provided free* with good support for tertiary education and trade apprenticeships for those that want to access it.

Don't conflate the shitful system in the US with what we have here. No one is going to the wall over a HECS debt in Australia.



*technically there's fees for govt schools however they're reasonably small and manageable for most families, and there are options for those that can't manage.

You don’t think that if your missus paid the majority of her debt off around 37ish, I’m guessing in an era house prices were much less than they are today and staples weren’t through the roof can you imagine how much harder it would be today?

Also, do you think people leaving uni today have a chance to pay off their degrees by the age of 30?

Back when boomers received free university, places were limited and entry standards were high.

At least today anyone can get a university education if they're willing to pay for it.

It’s easy to say that, but from what I know you also didn’t need a degree just to get into the bottom rung anywhere back then. Those without a degree weren’t locked out. Those with would have stood out, rather than being one of 400 with the same degree applying for an entry level position.


If be mentioned it before on this forum, but when my missus came out of uni she spent 2 years applying for “graduate positions” that asked for at least 2 years of experience.

Make that make sense.

 

[bomberclifford]

an era house prices were much less than they are today

Not sure how old you think I am, but this ‘era’ was only 7 years ago.

 

[philthy05]

Not sure how old you think I am, but this ‘era’ was only 7 years ago.

You said first of the hecs era and I took that as a lot longer than 7 years ago? Especially since my missus was at uni 7 years ago and I’m sure hecs was around long before that? You mean you got into the housing market 7 years ago? Houses have gone up a heck of a lot since then. Cost of living has gone up a heck of a lot since then

Reckon you like your odds coming out of uni today of paying it off by 30?

 

[bomberclifford]

do you think people leaving uni today have a chance to pay off their degrees by the age of 30?

No I don’t. I know the fees are higher and the repayment percentage rate is higher.

It’s still a workable system though.

 

[bomberclifford]

You said first of the hecs era and I took that as a lot longer than 7 years ago? Especially since my missus was at uni 7 years ago and I’m sure hecs was around long before that? You mean you got into the housing market 7 years ago? Houses have gone up a heck of a lot since then. Cost of living has gone up a heck of a lot since then

Reckon you like your odds coming out of uni today of paying it off by 30?

You referenced my wife’s payment. She’s younger than me.

We also don’t own property so maybe stop making assumptions about the people you’re trying to debate with.

 

[philthy05]

You referenced my wife’s payment. She’s younger than me.

We also don’t own property so maybe stop making assumptions about the people you’re trying to debate with.

None of what I’ve said was predicated on any assumption about your age or house ownership.

Whether you owned a house or not you can see reason that paying a hecs debt off by 30 is not something easily done anymore, or that your partners mission to pay off most of her debt by 37 is even harder to attain now?

 

[Chewy316]

Reckon you like your odds coming out of uni today of paying it off by 30?

Why have you listed the arbitrary number of 30? Looking at the rough figures I'm not expecting to pay my wife and I's HECS off until we are about 45 (15ish years from now). But I'm also cognisant of the fact that despite our degrees costing well in excess of 6 figures between us via HECS, the economic opportunities we get in our respective career pathways more than offsets the high cost of obtaining them in the first place.

As stated above in an earlier post, if you follow the path my wife initially did and got into a dead end career pathway where you could make a better living stacking shelves at Coles or Woolies, then you bet HECS is a ****ing rort. But there are also plenty of career pathways the system as it stands provides people whom at the conclusion of their degree(s), have much better economic opportunities available to them (with the caveat of having the HECS debt) than they would if they went down the avenue of no HECS debt but also no tertiary qualification.

 

[bomberclifford]

None of what I’ve said was predicated on any assumption about your age or house ownership.

It was because you used the reference to the ‘era’ and ‘entering the property market’. Your implication as that we had it easier and therefore my experience is null and void.

Whether you owned a house or not you can see reason that paying a hecs debt off by 30 is not something easily done anymore, or that your partners mission to pay off most of her debt by 37 is even harder to attain now?

So what? I wasn’t claiming it was. I even responded as such but you seem to have missed that reply in your eagerness to rant.

My original post outlined our personal experiences, at different times, and then went on to say that our kids are going to access the same system to gain their tertiary education.

The point was to show that since it’s been implemented the system has allowed people who wouldn’t have been able to get access to tertiary education, to get one.

 

[philthy05]

Why have you listed the arbitrary number of 30? Looking at the rough figures I'm not expecting to pay my wife and I's HECS off until we are about 45 (15ish years from now). But I'm also cognisant of the fact that despite our degrees costing well in excess of 6 figures between us via HECS, the economic opportunities we get in our respective career pathways more than offsets the high cost of obtaining them in the first place.

As stated above in an earlier post, if you follow the path my wife initially did and got into a dead end career pathway where you could make a better living stacking shelves at Coles or Woolies, then you bet HECS is a ******* rort. But there are also plenty of career pathways the system as it stands provides people whom at the conclusion of their degree(s), have much better economic opportunities available to them (with the caveat of having the HECS debt) than they would if they went down the avenue of no HECS debt but also no tertiary qualification.

A) That was quoted from and addressed to bomber, who said he paid his off by 30 and agreed he couldn’t do that today.

B) I didn’t say hecs was a rort, I said the cost of tertiary education was a rort, and it is. Try to figure out what the hell you and your missus paid 6 figures for. It’s exorbitantly overpriced and bloated.

C) your example of having received an education and being better off for having it isn’t proof that indexing hecs so people can be in debt forever is a good model.

Imagine you could have all those benefits, but without the massive debt? It’s not some wild fantasy, it’s the days of not so long ago before they changed the rules so the government can have some money to plug the holes where they’re wildly overspending.

 

[philthy05]

It was because you used the reference to the ‘era’ and ‘entering the property market’. Your implication as that we had it easier and therefore my experience is null and void.



So what? I wasn’t claiming it was. I even responded as such but you seem to have missed that reply in your eagerness to rant.

My original post outlined our personal experiences, at different times, and then went on to say that our kids are going to access the same system to gain their tertiary education.

The point was to show that since it’s been implemented the system has allowed people who wouldn’t have been able to get access to tertiary education, to get one.

So nothing I’ve said is wrong you just dispute being grouped into an era where you acknowledge it was easier? Which is fine. Again. None of what i said what predicated on you having bought a house or not. You know costs of living have gone up. Housing has gone up. Indexation means people are in debt for longer compared to when you and your partner got your degrees.

You know what you had to do to get where you are during that time. You know now that it has been made all that harder.

I was already writing the reply before you posted that second reply by the way, not ignoring it.

I’ve never ever said that hecs itself is the problem. Read my posts. I’ve talked about the bloated costs of tertiary education and the reality of indexation making it harder for people in a time there’s issues of rising costs and insane housing prices.

 

[Festerz]

 

[Jimmy95]

Not long after I finished my degree some 15 years ago, I moved to a rural town to live and work. The housing is relatively cheap, the cost of living is less and the wages are comparable to the city.

The cities are full. Rents and property prices just too high now.

 

[sobrave]

Not long after I finished my degree some 15 years ago, I moved to a rural town to live and work. The housing is relatively cheap, the cost of living is less and the wages are comparable to the city.

The cities are full. Rents and property prices just too high now.

According to Papa G, that makes you a coward like me!

 

[Papa G]

Lol. Moving to the country doesn't make you a coward. Being a whiney, scared, hypocritical, society shunning Economic illiterate constantly ranting on the interwebz about the injustice of it all Weiner is very selective.

 

[Pt Augusta Power]

View attachment 1706429

Haha of course they are

Bless ‘‘em

 

[Grave Danger]

View attachment 1706429

Which bank? The Boomers' Bank!

The survey in this AFR story was of Commonwealth Bank customers, who are literally dining out on their fully franked CBA:ASX dividends. Bless 'em.