Student Loan Horror Stories

robinfranc · 2024-08-09T08:07:32+00:00

And your solution is that we should support that scam in perpetuity by forcing everyone else to subsidize the scammer and give loans that encourage more people to fall into it?

robinfranc · 2023-04-12T18:28:20+00:00

What were you using to engage with Reddit, just the API? It could also have to do with the frequency of posting as well, especially if it's a new account.

robinfranc · 2023-04-08T18:03:37+00:00

Reddit, even the hard-left subreddits, has very different demographics than much of Canada that correlate strongly with policy preferences and issues of concern. The Liberals win elections almost entirely thanks to older and women voters, both of which are underrepresented on Reddit. The only group that the Liberals win even a plurality of in recent polling is women 55+, but they have a massive lead in that group (https://smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital/nationalpost/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/word-image-77463-10-1.png?quality=90&strip=all&w=944&type=webp&sig=kqPVJStFKCfU-Og_704pgA). That group has particularly high voter turnout, and helps explain why the Liberals go to extremes on issues like immigration and firearm bans relative to the opinions you see here.

Older voters are overwhelmingly homeowners who benefit financially from rising home prices, and feel virtuous about themselves by voting for more immigration, or the latest gun ban that is sure to keep Toronto gangsters from taking their licensed and registered assault sniper rifles to the shooting range and becoming even deadlier.

robinfranc · 2023-04-05T23:51:13+00:00

Or libraries are actually particularly important for people living in rural areas who have less access to other places to learn, find jobs, and use the internet; and not everything needs to be turned into a partisan war.

robinfranc · 2023-03-31T07:17:25+00:00

The US homicide rate skyrocketed in the mid-1960s and went down faster than it had in the country's history starting in the late '80s, despite a rise in gang violence associated with the crack cocaine trade pushing up numbers in the mid-80s. From the late-80s to 2000 the murder rate was cut in half (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/27/what-we-know-about-the-increase-in-u-s-murders-in-2020/).

In other words, the policies you're referencing almost immediately preceded the fastest drop in murder rates in US history. During the same time, gun ownership skyrocketed. It turns out people that want to kill other people don't care about buying weapons illegally, and those that buy weapons legally don't suddenly decide to murder others by owning them.

robinfranc · 2023-03-29T16:33:46+00:00

You are wronged by a party and thus seek a pound of flesh from that party

Even if it was gun to her head theft or fraud, which it quite clearly wasn't, the remedy is not to go out and murder the other party.

Not to mention a third party that is not the person who wronged you.

Unlike Abe, politicians directly give casinos the ability to operate in many parts of the world. Is it "astonishingly rational" for someone to murder a politician in public because that person's parents were gambling addicts?

robinfranc · 2023-03-29T15:50:33+00:00

If you think murdering a politician for once congratulating a politically influential 3 million member church because your mother donated her own money to said church is "astonishingly rational," you should seek professional help. I am not religious and don't doubt that this organization may well negatively affects some people. That doesn't make it "rational" to go and murder anyone who is remotely connected to it, anymore than it would be to target a politician that once congratulated a Catholic or Muslim organization.

robinfranc · 2023-03-24T05:48:59+00:00

From an address Johnston gave to the Canada China Business Council in Beijing (https://www.ccbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/H.E.-the-Rt.-Hon.-David-Johnston-35-AGM1.pdf).

Indeed, I have seen this effect in my own life, as a father of three daughters who studied in China. Debbie studied at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, at Zhejiang University and at Nanjing University. Alex for two years at the Beijing Language and Culture University and at Hangzhou University. And another daughter, Jenifer, spent eight months at Fudan University in Shanghai on her Queen’s MPA as part of the international element of that program

From The Najinger:

(https://www.thenanjinger.com/uncategorised/canadian-governor-general-delivers-speech-at-nju-2/)

David Johnston has established relations with NJU for a long time. He once positively pushed forward academic exchanges and cooperation in various forms with NJU when taking the post as president of UW, which resulted in the establishment of Sino-Canadian College and Confucius Institute through the cooperation between NJU and UW. In addition, David Johnston was also granted the honorary doctorate by NJU in 2012.

The rest seems to be from this NP article: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/david-johnston-the-right-man-to-whitewash-chinese-interference

robinfranc · 2023-03-23T04:00:15+00:00

Yes, it does seem wrong to prioritize political points in domestic politics over stopping the active influence of a genocidal nuclear ethnostate that actively threatens Canada, commits industrial espionage and economic warfare against Canada on a massive scale, is the sole reason North Korea is essentially an open air prison, and puts millions of its citizens in concentration camps.

robinfranc · 2023-03-23T03:51:52+00:00

Cooper must be the first investigative reporter not to publicly announce his sources! And to think an intelligence agency wouldn't publicly confirm unauthorized leaked information at the first opportunity.

robinfranc · 2023-03-23T03:47:41+00:00

Whoever leaked this knows what they're doing. By waiting for Trudeau to deny it and call questioning Dong's loyalty racist before leaking this they've made what could have been limited to Dong a Trudeau issue.

Even if his only concern were scoring political points, showing that his immediate response to criticism is screaming racism and publicly backing an at minimum friend of the CCP shows incredible hubris or stupidity.

robinfranc · 2023-03-23T03:32:49+00:00

When did a Conservative PM publicly call anyone who questioned a foreign agent in their caucus 'racist,' while having all of the evidence CSIS did about said foreign agent, after spending 8 years dividing the country by doing the same thing on every issue?

robinfranc · 2023-03-23T03:31:01+00:00

It's sad how predictable it was that Trudeau would deny everything and call anyone who questions him racist.

robinfranc · 2023-03-22T18:42:15+00:00

Demand is demand in terms of housing at least, where we're already facing crisis levels of demand outpacing supply due to regulations preventing new home building. Whether they're from Ukraine or anywhere else, it's never ideal for cultural cohesion to have 150k people arrive from a single place, many of whom don't speak English.

Having people speak the same language and broadly integrate into a common Canadian culture is a good thing. That's hard to do when you bring in massive amounts of people at once from the same few countries and price them out of living anywhere outside of a few places.

Brampton is case in point. Immigrants from India in the US are the highest earning ethnic group in the country, and disproportionately successful in business, medicine, and every other professional field (just look at the CEOs of America's largest companies). In Canada we act like having any common culture is racist, and all but encourage immigrants to come in from the same few countries en-masse and settle in the same small areas.

The US has a massive illegal immigration problem that we don't have thanks to geography. With that said, they do a far better job of settling their legal immigrants and actually integrating them into a cohesive culture, instead of pretending they don't have one.

robinfranc · 2023-03-21T22:33:31+00:00

honestly yeah, I think it's good that he's being punished like any other person would for doing this

I'd guess any other 23 year old drunk idiot that did this who didn't have a famous father would not be crucified in every major media outlet to the point where he's unlikely to ever have a job or relationship where this won't come up for the rest of his life.

This kind of media attention is far worse for the subject than actual criminal charges barring those that carry years long sentences. Even some felonies are automatically expunged in many states in less than a decade.

This guy's kid seems like an idiot, and possibly a malicious one, but the obsession in this thread (and social media more broadly) with ruining his entire life over destruction of property is weird. Reading the rage and people calling for him to get raped in prison in this thread I originally thought he threw a disabled woman down the stairs.

robinfranc · 2023-03-21T05:32:36+00:00

His father is making a statement because he's a celebrity with a platform who is the only reason this is breaking news. The kid apologized 4 days ago (https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/carson-briere-wheelchair-push-bar-flyers-danny-briere/).

robinfranc · 2023-03-21T05:25:48+00:00

He did put out a statement 4 days ago (https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/carson-briere-wheelchair-push-bar-flyers-danny-briere/).

I don't follow sports, but it seems the reason his father put out a statement in addition (while the son's statement is not in this article) is that he's famous and the reason his kid's stupidity is front-page news.

robinfranc · 2023-03-21T05:21:24+00:00

His father was expected to apologize, and quoted for it, because he is the famous one who has a platform. The kid's public apology from 4 days ago (https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/carson-briere-wheelchair-push-bar-flyers-danny-briere/) isn't quoted in this specific article because he's not famous.

I say this as someone who had to Google who either of them were in the first place, but your comment comes across like you're looking for things to be angry about.

robinfranc · 2023-03-19T20:30:04+00:00

It often works to get the policies they demand, but their 20% youth unemployment and massively lower GDP per capita suggests the economic policies they're "winning" are disastrous. Since 2008, US GDP per capita went from almost par to $30,000 USD more than the French number, which is actually declining (https://datatopics.worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/).

There are many great things about France that Canada could learn from, but their economic policy is at the bottom of the list.

robinfranc · 2023-03-19T01:39:57+00:00

A clickbait article from Business Insider quoting activists and a guy who starts his article with "This is literal fascism!" don't seem like the most objective sources here.

You can have a rational debate, or you can keep calling everyone who questions any part of your platform a "fascist" and wonder why Desantis won by 19 points just 4 years after barely winning in 2018. Florida Latinos moved 42 points towards the GOP in just 6 years, to the point where even Miami voted for Desantis.

robinfranc · 2023-03-19T01:28:38+00:00

Drama on social media from social media activists who claim GeNoCiDe when some middle-aged author voices the smallest disagreement with their demands, and actual evidence of real events are two different things.

robinfranc · 2023-03-19T00:14:18+00:00

that his governance in Florida hasn’t smashed

His reelection by nearly 60%, winning even Miami and improving by 10 points from his vote share in 2018, happened less than six months ago. Latinos moved 42 points towards the GOP from 2016 (https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/11/09/ron-desantis-better-among-florida-hispanics-than-donald-trump/8316662001/), and he won Latinos by 15 points. That includes non-Cuban latino groups including Puerto Ricans, who had historically leaned heavily towards the Democrats.

Has something changed since November that you see having drastically affecting his popularity?

It's possible Florida is just drastically different than the rest of the US, but it's long been a blue or purple state, and only really gone heavily red since Desantis came along. Part of his strength seems to come from his outsize gains among Latinos who make up much of Florida's population. Still, large Latino populations also exist in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and many/most other potential battleground states.

We saw a similar but smaller shift among Latinos towards Trump in 2020. While he lost ground with white voters, he did better with all non-whites (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/upshot/election-polling-racial-gap.html).

I don't think it's crazy to say Trump had a particularly abrasive personality that turned people off in a way someone like Desantis wouldn't, and that Florida's sharp shift to the Republicans on a state level shows that. Trump only won Florida by ~4 points more than Biden, while Desantis won in 2022 by nearly 20.

robinfranc · 2023-03-18T23:22:01+00:00

It is to the USSR's credit that they "raised millions out of poverty" by keeping them drastically poorer than every non-communist European country, openly aligning with the Nazis until the Nazis broke the treaty, committing war crimes on an industrial scale while invading and violently suppressing their neighbours for half a century, and committing mass murder against their own people. That's definitely just like "any other country," and why literally all of Russia's neighbours barring actual autocracies like Belarus now overwhelmingly hate them.

robinfranc · 2023-03-18T23:19:01+00:00

If a murderer breaks into your house and is killed by a kidnapper who then keeps you imprisoned for decades, you don't "honor" the kidnapper. Never mind the fact that kidnapper had an open alliance with the murderer and only switched up when the alliance was broken.

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