US student loans grotesquely high

[southernhybrid]

There's no reason whatsoever to imagine that most of the beneficiaries of this initiative are "making six figures".

I did not say or even imply that most of the beneficiaries are making six figures. Although it would be interesting to see what the income distribution is. Not the majority, but probably more than you think as college graduates are making far more on average than non-graduates.

The big problem with Biden's giveaway is that it helps those that are already better off than most.

I am not a fan of having a hard cut-off for eligibility, but given that one exists, $125k doesn't appear to be particularly unreasonable.

I think it is too high. $250k (the cutoff for married couples) is 93rd percentile of household incomes in the US according to this. Even the $125k for singles is third quartile (75th percentile) of household incomes.

I've read in a couple of news sources, that over 90% of those who will receive help from the Biden order, make less than 75K. What Biden is doing ins't perfect and it could even be challenged in the courts. Hopefully, it will still help those who need help the most, like middle aged and older adults who were taken in by scam schools or those who due to circumstances, often beyond their control, never finished obtaining their degree and are struggling with dept. I would have liked to see the interest rate on these loans lowered to less than 1%, but something is better than nothing. I don't understand getting upset over this bailout, as it's obviously going to help those who need help the most.

The real problem is the insane rise in tuition. Tuition in both public and private schools have risen far more than inflation. What's up with that? Georgia, has a huge surplus right now. Why isn't our stupid governor using some of that money to lower tuition at state schools and make 2 year schools either free or very affordable without the need for loans. We need the technical skills of mechanics, plumbers, electricians, as well as all kinds of medical workers, who can be educated in a two year program, or even a one year certificate.

I'm not knocking the English majors although as one who pursued that degree prior to becoming an RN, I know that it's hard to find a decent job with an English degree. We don't need people with liberal arts or business degrees nearly as much as we need plumbers. etc Now that I think of it, a former neighbor of mine who had a four year degree in business, gave up his job, studied to become a plumber and then started his own business. I assume that his business degree helped him have a better understanding of business compared to most people.

 

[bigfield]

I still wonder if the major issue is being ignored. Why is higher education so expensive? If it wasn't, then kids wouldn't need to borrow six figures just to get a degree, and they wouldn't clamor for loan relief.

we have a similar argument in Australia.
So has anyone ever investigated why uni costs are so high?

Baumol's cost disease.

 

[atrib]

Yet when it comes to student loans they can receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans just with the stoke of a pen?

Because those loans are guaranteed by the government. Also the reason why the loans have a reasonable interest rate despite a lack of income, credit or collateral.

But you are right. There probably should be more restrictions on obtaining such loans, especially at the higher end of the loan amount range.

You missed the point I was trying to make. That 18 year olds are NOT competent to make decisions regarding financial instruments that negatively affect a significant portion of their lives. And that a slumlord can recognize that.
Higher education should be free, or close to free. It is ridiculous to force people to pay $160K or more just to get an undergraduate education which not only benefits the person receiving the education, but also the community in which they live. Having an educated population is good for the nation.

 

[Toni]

Education has become a fast food industry.

Or a sham caused by do-gooder government. To the suprise of no one, the more loan money a student can borrow increases the amount the university will charge for tuition. Duh.

https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr733.pdf

Do gooder government? What function does government have but to serve its people?

I strongly suspect that neither you nor steve_bank has been a student at any US institution of higher learning in the last several decades.

 

[Toni]

Really? What kind of loans can an 18 year old sign for, except student loans? Not mortgages, not car loans.

If the 18 year old has a job, I think he or she could get a car loan. 18 year olds certainly can get credit cards and I have not seen anybody propose credit card debt should be cancelled because 18 year olds don't know what they are signing up for.

That said, I don't completely disagree with you regarding private colleges. Harvard has sufficient endowment to offer a whole lot of free rides.

Knowing Harvard, they'd offer them in a racially discriminatory fashion though. Just like their admissions.

It is difficult to secure a credit card under age 21 since the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009 and you still have to demonstrate that you have a steady source of income. Which is difficult to do at age 18, while going to university. The point of going to a university is to gain an education, not a mountain of debt you cannot hope to pay off. And which is difficult to do while working full time hours. Please spare me how you or other people did/do it. I know, I know. That doesn't make it a good idea.


The entire point of attending a university is to get an education that will hopefully allow you to lead a better life. Sure, many/most students go with an eye to future careers but very few 18 year olds know at 18 what they want to do for the next 5 years, much less the rest of their life.

 

[Toni]

It’s always interesting what some people consider to be ‘easy’ degrees

I did not think it was at all controversial that some degrees are harder than others.

You are correct that there are no job postings that say ‘English Major wanted, starting salary $100K/year.’ But there is a great need for people who are able to compose a coherent paragraph or mage a cogent point, as I am reminded every time I read anything posted on the internet.

And you do not think a program in hard sciences or engineering teaches that? Lab classes have formal lab reports that involve "compos[ing] a coherent paragraph or [making] a cogent point". Other classes in science and engineering programs involve writing, giving oral presentations etc.

You hardly need to be an English major to learn how to write, esp. technical/scientific writing.

And when it comes to advanced degrees, I do not think English, History etc. PhDs prepare you for much more than teaching those subjects. Which brings me back to that old thread about adjunct professors working for peanuts because of oversupply of English etc. PhDs.

Some degrees are harder for some people than others. I know some very, very bright people who are excellent at their jobs but are terrible at writing, even when it is writing a simple training document. Showing? Yes! Explaining what can or has gone wrong? Yes! Solving problems? Writing down the steps to perform a task or to trouble shoot when something goes wrong? Not so much. Which is one reason I did a lot of technical writing at my last job.

Similarly, I know some very, very bright people who are terrible at mathematics. Or physics. I am musically illiterate!

One thing we know is that the economy and job prospects change continually. There are many jobs today that did not exist 10 years ago, much less 40 or 50 years ago. For many jobs, what is needed is someone who has demonstrated that they are willing and able to learn, to think clearly and to show commitment to doing a good job. A lot of those skills can be gained in any degree program. FFS, medical schools admit English majors! You may think it is a puff degree but understanding literature helps you understand people, something that is extremely important if you become a physician. Yes, of course, you need to understand science, in general, and biology in particular with a decent understanding of chemistry and physics. But if you cannot relate to patients, you're pretty useless as a physician just as you are if you don't understand human biology.

 

[Jarhyn]

It’s always interesting what some people consider to be ‘easy’ degrees

I did not think it was at all controversial that some degrees are harder than others.

You are correct that there are no job postings that say ‘English Major wanted, starting salary $100K/year.’ But there is a great need for people who are able to compose a coherent paragraph or mage a cogent point, as I am reminded every time I read anything posted on the internet.

And you do not think a program in hard sciences or engineering teaches that? Lab classes have formal lab reports that involve "compos[ing] a coherent paragraph or [making] a cogent point". Other classes in science and engineering programs involve writing, giving oral presentations etc.

You hardly need to be an English major to learn how to write, esp. technical/scientific writing.

And when it comes to advanced degrees, I do not think English, History etc. PhDs prepare you for much more than teaching those subjects. Which brings me back to that old thread about adjunct professors working for peanuts because of oversupply of English etc. PhDs.

Some degrees are harder for some people than others. I know some very, very bright people who are excellent at their jobs but are terrible at writing, even when it is writing a simple training document. Showing? Yes! Explaining what can or has gone wrong? Yes! Solving problems? Writing down the steps to perform a task or to trouble shoot when something goes wrong? Not so much. Which is one reason I did a lot of technical writing at my last job.

Similarly, I know some very, very bright people who are terrible at mathematics. Or physics. I am musically illiterate!

One thing we know is that the economy and job prospects change continually. There are many jobs today that did not exist 10 years ago, much less 40 or 50 years ago. For many jobs, what is needed is someone who has demonstrated that they are willing and able to learn, to think clearly and to show commitment to doing a good job. A lot of those skills can be gained in any degree program. FFS, medical schools admit English majors! You may think it is a puff degree but understanding literature helps you understand people, something that is extremely important if you become a physician. Yes, of course, you need to understand science, in general, and biology in particular with a decent understanding of chemistry and physics. But if you cannot relate to patients, you're pretty useless as a physician just as you are if you don't understand human biology.

Over in Other PD I made a post discussing the role of chaos in the learning process as regards learning in Deterministic systems. Having a different perspective available, having novel chaos in ones mind that is not normally present in the minds of those classically thrown at a problem, can give access to new, and often bizarrely correct points on the error surface of the problem.

 

[Elixir]

I know some very, very bright people who are excellent at their jobs but are terrible at writing, even when it is writing a simple training document.

I wonder if Derec has ever done any technical writing. This recalls his uninformed opinion of a semi-automatic human killing machine he has never handled, but about which believes he has fully informed, nuanced opinions.
I don't think he is equipped to deal with the ambiguities of American English to a degree that would enable him to write a coherent technical paragraph that would not be subject to misinterpretation. It's not as easy as it looks.

 

[laughing dog]

I did not think it was at all controversial that some degrees are harder than others.

Degrees in fields are harder for some people and easier for others. I think

And you do not think a program in hard sciences or engineering teaches that? Lab classes have formal lab reports that involve "compos[ing] a coherent paragraph or [making] a cogent point". Other classes in science and engineering programs involve writing, giving oral presentations etc.

There are many scientists who are only coherent in their field.

.

And when it comes to advanced degrees, I do not think English, History etc. PhDs prepare you for much more than teaching those subjects.

That's because you think wrong. History teaches one about the value of context, how to organize disparate views and sources into a single narrative - something that is useful in many lines of work.

 

[Swammerdami]

Those who have studied my posting history know that I will take whichever "side" of a factual issue that I believe to be correct, regardless of who my argument might seem to favor politically.

I have provided detailed synopses on money creation in several threads, often enduring ignorant rebuttals and with no evidence that any Infidel has ever learned from me. Nevertheless I persist.

In the unlikely event anyone is curious about money creation, I recommend they crawl before walking by understanding the gold standards in use 100 years ago. With some (important) caveats, today's money creation is not so very different from 100 years ago!

Setting aside coinage, postage stamps, etc. the U.S. government has three ways to pay for its spending. Please memorize this list: I refer to A, B and C below. And there WILL be a quiz!
(A) collecting taxes, and
(B) selling debt paper to private entities, foreign and domestic, and
(C) indirectly selling debt paper to the Federal Reserve Banks.

The Treasury does NOT sell debt to the FR Banks: The FRB buys debt paper on the secondary market. Things like the SocSec Trust Fund can be viewed as a hybrid: The funds are collected as tax and then invested in Treasury debt paper until needed.

Until the great Credit Crisis of 2008, debt paper held by the FRB system was insignificant — Only (A) and (B) above applied. The FRB would often buy a few hundreds of millions in bonds to lubricate financial markets, but would then often sell it back soon after.

I've attached a graph that may set this in perspective:

Violet is the FRB holding of Treasury debt paper as a percentage of U.S. GDP.
Green is the FRB holding of MBS debt paper, again as a percentage of U.S. GDP. This "created money" does not finance government spending, but rather private home ownership.
Cyan is total bank vault cash (or electronic equivalent) as a percentage of GDP. This is money that could be used to buy the risky long-term debt the FRB buys, but commercial banks are happy to let the FRB pay them risk-free interest instead. (It would tend to cause inflation if they DID loan out these funds.)
Blue is the U.S. unemployment rate (percentage).
Red is the U.S. inflation rate (percentage).
(Only the violet line is relevant to our discussion but it seemed good to show other lines to avoid wasting screen space. )

The "money printing" rampage began during the "Great Recession" and now totals several trillion dollars.

ALL economists agree that money the government spends needs to be sucked back up (via (A) or (B)) to prevent inflation. Please note, however that the cyan line in the graph shows another form of money sucking, albeit potentially unreliable. Conventional economists view (C) — "Quantitative Easing" — as a stopgap, as paper the FRB will sell if/when normalcy returns. Economists of the MMT school believe (C) can be made permanent, although some caution must be exercised to avoid immoderate inflation. I am not prepared to adjudicate this difference of opinion.

As clearly seen in the violet line, FRB assets held steady at about 4 or 5% until about 2011: there was no "ex-nihilo" money creation. The U.S. government spent money it acquired by taxes or by borrowing from foreign or private investors.

There is no taxpayer money.

The money spent by the US federal government is created ex-nihilo at the time it is spent.

Reluctantly I must judge Mr. bilby's viewpoint to be at best misleading.

 

[steve_bank]

It is a question of overhead.

What percentage of tuition goes directly to teaching students and direct support staff, and what percentage goes to other things.

What percentage of the budget is consumed by research and programs not related to teaching?

I did not think it was at all controversial that some degrees are harder than others.

Degrees in fields are harder for some people and easier for others. I think

And you do not think a program in hard sciences or engineering teaches that? Lab classes have formal lab reports that involve "compos[ing] a coherent paragraph or [making] a cogent point". Other classes in science and engineering programs involve writing, giving oral presentations etc.

There are many scientists who are only coherent in their field.

.

And when it comes to advanced degrees, I do not think English, History etc. PhDs prepare you for much more than teaching those subjects.

That's because you think wrong. History teaches one about the value of context, how to organize disparate views and sources into a single narrative - something that is useful in many lines of work.

My high school education was good. Heavy on reading comprehension.

Philosophy and political science classes were where I leaned to research, organize and support a position.

 

[laughing dog]

It is a question of overhead.

What percentage of tuition goes directly to teaching students and direct support staff, and what percentage goes to other things.

What percentage of the budget is consumed by research and programs not related to teaching?

Your questions appear to be based on a misconception of the purpose of an university. Universities engage in research, teaching and service, Different universities have different missions, so the relative effort in each category will be different.

 

[atrib]

You hardly need to be an English major to learn how to write, esp. technical/scientific writing.

You would be amazed at how many engineering grads with PEs and 10 years of experience don't know how to write. Simply amazed. This is one of my pet rants, and I have actually started a program within the company where two or three younger engineers are paired with a mentor who teaches them how to write technical reports and memos. It is that bad.

And when it comes to advanced degrees, I do not think English, History etc. PhDs prepare you for much more than teaching those subjects. Which brings me back to that old thread about adjunct professors working for peanuts because of oversupply of English etc. PhDs.

Our Chief Counsel has an undergrad degree in English. She is a Senior Vice President making about $500k/year. Our Chief Human Resources Officer, also a SVP, is an English grad with an MS, as are most of the regional client management leaders, all making significantly more than $200k/year. While I have a PhD in engineering and a PE license, I haven't done any technical work in almost 20 years, yet I make over $350k/year. A college education is a starting point - the rest is up to the individual. You can't be a licensed engineer without a technical degree, but if you don't have other skills you will be stuck doing technical work for the rest of your life working for peanuts.

 

[atrib]

So compare somebody worked part time to limit the amount of loans they take out vs. somebody who just took the max.
Would not the former person feel like an idiot if the latter one's loans are forgiven?

I didn't take any loans for my college education. I chose an inexpensive school in Alabama where out-of-state tuition was less than in-state in my home state, Connecticut. I got help from my parents for the first two years, I worked part time, and I picked up fellowships that paid tuition and books for the junior and senior years. Grad school was free - I had a job as a TA/RA and fellowships, and actually had money in my pocket to burn, even though I wasn't rich. I had zero loans coming out of school, and I absolutely would not feel like an idiot if the government were to pay off the loans of other people who were not as fortunate as I have been. In fact, I actually advocate for such a thing, because I am not a selfish little prick who cannot see the world beyond the tip of their own nose.

 

[steve_bank]

It is a question of overhead.

What percentage of tuition goes directly to teaching students and direct support staff, and what percentage goes to other things.

What percentage of the budget is consumed by research and programs not related to teaching?

Your questions appear to be based on a misconception of the purpose of an university. Universities engage in research, teaching and service, Different universities have different missions, so the relative effort in each category will be different.

The why is not the issue. I just exchanged an email with a climate scientist at the UW on a climate model question I had.

Th question is the cost to support academia expressed in tuition prices.

Back in the 70s when taking classes at a small state college a professor told me you can get the same quality education at small schools. Same books.

In science and engineering going to MIT gets you connections. Same with a school like Harvard.

 

[laughing dog]

It is a question of overhead.

What percentage of tuition goes directly to teaching students and direct support staff, and what percentage goes to other things.

What percentage of the budget is consumed by research and programs not related to teaching?

Your questions appear to be based on a misconception of the purpose of an university. Universities engage in research, teaching and service, Different universities have different missions, so the relative effort in each category will be different.

The why is not the issue. I just exchanged an email with a climate scientist at the UW on a climate model question I had.

Th question is the cost to support academia expressed in tuition prices.

Since you acknowledge the "why" is not an issue, then your question are literally irrelevant. Supporting academia means supporting its mission of research, teaching and service. For public universities, tuition has not covered the entire cost of decades but as state funding is reduced, up goes tuition and effort to get more research dollars in order replace those lost dollars. When those lost dollars cannot be replaced, programs are reduced in size which means either replacing full time faculty with contingent faculty or not replacing them at all.

 

[Toni]

Granted, a car loan is different from a student loan, but...

They are. For one, there is no collateral. You can repossess a BMW. You cannot repossess a college degree.
That's why student loans are guaranteed and subsidized by the federal government.

Another difference is with the car loan, you start paying right away. With student loans, you only start paying when of student loan people take out is "subsidized" meaning interest does not accrue while in school. If you take out more than the subsidized limit, the interest accrues.

But your point about rising college cost applies. They have been rising faster than inflation for a while.
Inspired by you, I looked up my alma mater, a flagship state school. Instate tuition and mandatory fees are ~$12k/a, meaning that an undergrad education is ~$48k before books, housing, meal plans and such.
More expensive than in my day, but not by that much. The point is, you can still get a bachelor's at a very good university without six figure loans. Note also that if your family qualifies, there are also Pell grants that do not have to be paid off which can pay for part of the cost. There are also scholarships. In Georgia, lottery funded HOPE scholarships still pays most tuition as long as you maintain a ≥3.0 GPA. Used to be all tuition, mandatory fees plus a small book stipend (good for maybe 1 or 2 classes worth of books) but I guess lottery fiends are not spending commensurate with tuition increases over the years.

But many kids want to go to fancy private schools and eschew public ones. I do not see why taxpayers should pay for that.

I do have very mixed feelings about loan forgiveness for students who chose well endowed Ivy League schools. For the most part, I think that such schools should spend some of their enormous endowments to provide scholarships for students who do not come from wealthy families. Economic diversity is something that the Ivies and their brethren could really benefit from. Or: simply lower tuition across the board, and more heavily subsidize students from families with modest incomes.

But I really do NOT believe that such highly esteemed institutions of higher education should be only for the wealthy. Talent and intellect and personal drive and ambition are distributed across the socioeconomic groups. Rich kids can learn a great deal from kids who come from much more modest means.

 

[atrib]

In science and engineering going to MIT gets you connections. Same with a school like Harvard.

That is nonsense. It might make a difference if you go to Harvard Law or Med to get that first job, but it makes absolutely no difference in science and engineering. And what you are doing 10 and 20 years down the line has virtually nothing to do with where you went to school. Our Chief Technical Officer went to community college in Alabama and today he oversees the work of over 8,000 technical people, some of whom went to Ivy League schools.

You make connections by having the right attitude and personality, by serving the professional community taking on non-paid roles in technical organizations, by writing papers and doing presentations at conferences, and down South, by sharing your love of SEC football with your colleagues.

 

[Toni]

Fun fact: At one point in time, interest on credit card debt was tax deductible.

I did not know that. When did this end?

Interest on credit card debt was no longer tax deductible as a result of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

I do not have any contempt. Where do you get such nonsense? Certainly not from anything I have written.
The issue is not contempt. The issue is one the being cognizant of the earning potential of a degree and planning your education trajectory accordingly. Not go to a small, private, expensive lib arts college when you want to be a social worker.
Another issue is how many degrees are awarded in each field vs. demand.

I wasn't specifically referring to you, but to others. It is very typical for people to cite engineering degrees as the most valuable or most desirable or hardest to obtain, with the bar being assumed to be much lower for humanities.

Engineers should be grateful more people don't pursue engineering because if everyone did, an engineering degree would not be worth very much.

I think universities should limit the number of degrees they award to avoid oversaturation. Some years ago we had a thread about adjunct professors in humanities. Basically the issue is too many PhDs in fields like English relative to demand for PhD positions available, especially in academia.

I think that universities have no business attempting to guess where the market for various degrees will exist 5, 10, 20 years down the road. However, universities can and do set standards for admission to various schools and degree programs within the university, predicating admission into say, the school of engineering or the school of nursing or whatever based on the student having taken and passed prerequisites with a certain GPA as a basic requirement. Such admissions policies ensure that students for those programs are sufficiently motivated and capable of handling the material but also that they do not admit more students than the program can handle. If there is only room for 100 incoming undergrads in the engineering program due to number of faculty and limitations of facilities, it is stupid to admit 300 incoming undergrads even if they are well qualified. My experience in a competitive undergrad program is that there are usually some courses that are purposely set as make/break/elimination courses for prospective students into some majors and sometimes to professional schools. Back in my day, organic chemistry was one such course which was designed specifically to weed out weaker chemistry students who wanted to become chemistry majors or, more importantly, to apply to medical schools. This weeding out was valued over teaching students principles and contents, which I think was an extreme disservice to all.

Teaching in particular should be reformed to make it easier for people with BS in a relevant field to teach. I would rather my kids' physics or math teacher have a physics, math or engineering BS than a BA in education and superficial understanding of matters they supposedly teach. But hell, in US math and such teacher are not seldom football coaches as their primary job in a school.

I used to think the same thing. The truth is that one can be a brilliant...physicist or chemist or engineer but totally suck at teaching. Teaching effectively is built upon not just knowledge of the subject but also knowledge of how to teach, how to reach students, help them learn independently (much learning is outside of class, particularly in upper grade levels), in addition to knowledge of group dynamics, developmental psychology, psychology, sociology, classroom management and a high degree of tolerance for paperwork and administrators and parents (well meaning and not so well meaning). How did I figure this out? Well, I spent a bunch of years volunteering in elementary schools, and have a number of friends who are teachers at various levels K-12, and frankly, while volunteering, I sometimes got to see all of the crap excess paperwork and documentation teachers had to do for every single subject they taught each day. For first graders and kindergarteners, not high schoolers. It was hours and hours of extra work, in addition to classroom prep, which included making many of the educational materials needed for lessons. Honestly, I think that teaching is one of the most difficult jobs in the world, and that's assuming that every student shows up after a good night's sleep, a good breakfast, a healthy home life, supportive parents who read to them and take them places and...talk to them and give them love and affection: you know, ready to learn.

The more I have learned about everything I've ever learned about, the more I realize I still have a LOT to learn.

If they cannot find a well-paying job they may not have to pay much or anything because of income-based repayment. If they find a well-paying job, why should they not pay back their debts even if they dropped out?

The way that I think students should 'pay' for their education is by paying taxes on a means tested basis and by using their degrees/whatever they learned as best they can. In this way, those who used their degrees to earn more money will end up paying more than those who pursued less well compensated careers such as social work or teaching, which society is in desperate need of people who are qualified and talented enough to do. We ALL benefit from a well educated society. We should all pay for everything needed in a stable, healthy society, each according to their ability to pay.

 

[bilby]

In the unlikely event anyone is curious about money creation, I recommend they crawl before walking by understanding the gold standards in use 100 years ago. With some (important) caveats, today's money creation is not so very different from 100 years ago!

This is simply nonsense.

Commodity money supply is entirely constrained by the amount of the relevant commodity that has been mined.

It's OK-ish for medieval and pre-industrial economies that don't exhibit much growth, but even in their case it suffers from the complete decoupling between money supply and economic activity. If a new, large, and cheap supply of the commodity is found, whether that be untouched reserves in California or Australia; Refined gold stolen during the genocide of South and Central American peoples; Or Spanish galleons being plundered for their stolen American gold, the economy goes to shit.

Fiat money can be created and destroyed as required to match the demand for money in the economy. Of course, that's not always done very sensibly or effectively, but it has the advantage of being under the control of sovereign currency issuing states, rather than being arbitrarily imposed by the global availability of some shiny metal.

That's not so much an "important caveat", as it is "the total refutation of your wildly incorrect belief".

Today's money creation is completely and radically different from 100 years ago. The whole subject is highly complex (as befits a major control mechanism for a highly complex economic system), but suffers from interference by every Tom, Dick and Swammerdami who thinks that because they use money every day, it must be simple and easy to understand.

The level of Dunning-Kruger in macroeconomics is off the scale; But (rather like biological evolution) because so many utterly ignorant people are totally convinced that their absurd oversimplification of it must be a complete understanding, the volume of bullshit is vastly greater than the amount of knowledge.

It's as easy to find support for "today's money creation is not so very different from 100 years ago!" as it is to find support for "the Earth was created in six days, about 6,000 years ago"; And it's just as stupid to accept that 'evidence' at face value in both cases.