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Comment by anotha1 | Hacker News Reader

I'll take "inflation" if it means trillion dollar spending packages are more likely to reach human citizens instead of corporations.

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This.

We were already experiencing inflation (cost of living went up because housing went up because we bailed out a bunch of banks that should have failed.) This time it's just more obvious because the price of things people buy directly went up immediately.

I will never buy a home again if costs don't drop dramatically... because unlike what most people think, a house is generally not an investment, unless you rent it

Still waiting on mine!

Literally never got a stimulus. Students, especially poor students on scholarships, are so thoroughly fucked by the US tax system. It's gotten to the point that schools like Princeton and Stanford encourage low-income full-ride students to avoid declaring their tax liability at all, arguing that they're better off dealing with that monster when they actually have income (in software, finance, etc where the tax liability is negligible in comparison to a full-ride to an elite college).

Wow I feel so sorry for those elites, what more can we do to avoid such a tragedy for them?

Students with full-ride scholarships (not just at Princeton and Stanford) typically come from households making <65k a year, with around a third (might have changed since mid 2010s) being near the four-person household poverty line.

I would hardly call that elite. For many of these students, these schools are the primary mechanism for class mobility -- taxing their scholarships is a hindrance that many can't afford. At this point, college is so expensive and so much of that is taxable that work study is an accounting trick to offset the tax liability -- this forces poor students, literally not the elite, to operate with unnecessary time and financial pressures.

If they are at Stanford and Princeton, they are definitionally members of the cognitive elite already. Period, and this goes for people that are admitted at all. Considering the median income in the country for a single-earner is about $65k they don't really get much sympathy (nor should they).

They shouldn't be treated better than the people at CSULA by virtue of their "genetic superiority".

A freshman from Compton, CA or rural Alabama who goes to Stanford on a full-ride need-based scholarship is not part of the 'cognitive elite.' Second, these sorts of tax laws can apply to any school, including a UC or CSU (there will just be less taxes due to lower COA).

>Considering the median income in the country for a single-earner is about $65k

Median != 'elite'.

>"genetic superiority".

???

Someone from Compton or rural Alabama deserves the same treatment as any other elite that gets into HYPSM - they have access unlimited external social validation by society as smart and accomplished (because they are). I don’t understand why people don’t understand that you need to be a cognitive elite, a truly exceptional individual to get into these schools - normal people don’t get in. To emphasize, no matter your prior background you are an elite, likely on all dimensions, compared to someone that goes to University of Arizona.

If the tax implications are indeed the same for people at CSUs, it’s offensive that you used the Stanford example. It implies that normal people like me - the true 99.9% of society that hold it together - don’t matter at the expense of the people that already have literally everything going for them. I have nothing compared to them.

And yes, the people that get into Stanford are probably genetically superior to the ones at SJSU according to people like Thiel and anyone that buys into IQ having a significant hereditary component.

Scholarship money is tax free, since it goes to tuition, books, etc.

Unless you are referring to money for housing? That is probably far more affordable of a tax bill relative to tuition.

What's happened over the last 15 years is that schools keep bumping room and board rates (at nearly 10% year-over-year, which is insane). Since anything outside tuition is taxable, that liability has been increasing. The 'income' of a full-ride scholarship student with parents making less than 25k could be 55-60k+ on paper, which then gets taxed. This leads to income that should be used for food and quality of life, like work study, being used to offset a growing tax liability instead.

So you have students who are poor and working way more than their wealthier counterparts not for savings, emergency funds, money for their family, or food, but simply to offset a tax liability they incur... because they are poor and smart. Absolutely bonkers.

I just don't understand why there isn't an income-based tax exemption on need-based full-rides. Like, ideally a need-based full-ride should have parity with the wealthy students with parents footing the entire bill. It could certainly help with the slightly higher attrition rate for poor students.

I suppose you might live in the dorm your freshman year, but there is no reason why you need to take the most expensive housing. I paid $600 a month for my place my last 2 years of undergrad, and I would just take a few loans and/or a job.

Moving out is a popular and valid option, especially with how expensive on-campus meals are. Even if you move out, the school will still calculate a 1098-T based on the total cost of attendance (it might be possible to go out of your way to decline part of your scholarship, but I have no idea how this works). But yes, moving out is a way to save money (but some of that money just funnels back into paying a tax liability, lol).

Inflation increases prices cumulatively, forever. Spending packages are one-shot boosts.

If you schedule recurring spending packages to compensate, you'll accelerate inflation by the same amount.

Fully agree. The inflation story is completely overplayed, mostly as a partisan cudgel.

We should deal with the effects of inflation when we see the effects of inflation.

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