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I think $250,000 is much too high a cutoff for "middle class." Like the economist on the show said, only a small percent of Americans actually make more than $250,000 a year. My family makes around $100,000 a year with both my parents working (I'm a college student), and I'd consider us in the upper-middle class. We still worry about mortgage payments and debt, but day-to-day we don't have to worry about whether we will be able to afford getting needed medication or if our health needs will be covered.

posted 5 years, 1 month ago
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That's not quite correct. Terrorism is generally defined as a political action that threatens harm to achieve some particular objective. It does not have to involve loss of life, fear is what is most damaging. I do agree, though, that the action of burning a couple of houses really can't be viewed as terrorism, because it's not likely to impact a large number of people and change their behavior through fear of consequences.

posted 5 years, 2 months ago
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I'm a student, and as such don't have any direct experience with these loans. But I am worried whenever a phrase such as "people don't understand what they're getting into" is used. It might be true in some instances that people who take out these loans do not fully understand all aspects of the arrangement due to lack of transparency or misguidance by predatory lenders. But saying that generally is a contentious statement, because it implies that people are stupid when it comes to finance, which is going to be met by some scorn by free market conservatives/libertarians. Using that sort of argument is going to make this issue more divisive, in my opinion.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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I'm a California native going to college in Oregon. I voted in the California primary, but I still think that the primary system as it stands now is undemocratic, because in practice it ends up giving some people's votes more weight than others, as early contests translate into financial and manpower benefits for winners and force losers out of the race. My personal opinion is that it would be much more democratic to have one open national primary, so that there isn't all this pandering to early states.

posted 5 years, 3 months ago
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