billsfan89

Solid opening drive, always good to get some points on the board even if it is just a field goal. Defense gets a quick stop and this team is off to a good start on both sides of the ball.

Josh was a project QB out of college whom many pundits said would be best served sitting 1-2 years before starting. The Bills mismanaged their QB situation in 2018 and rushed Josh in. 2019 is his second year and he still has a long way to go despite some massive improvement. I am not shocked that a project QB with tantalizing physical ability is not a polished product half way through year 2 and about 20 starts in. Josh will be the team's QB in 2020 and will still come with some growing pains. But as long as he steadily improves I have no issues.

It's kind of an irrelevant question Tyrod or Josh. I liked Tyrod I thought he was a game manager who bought some dynamics with his legs and would make a big play now and again but was far to risk averse and unable to consistently work within the pocket. Tyrod was what he was after 2017 and the Bills decided to move on and got solid compensation for him. Tyrod is the type of QB who is as good as the team around him. Put a team with a good defense, solid special teams, and some good weapons and offensive talent he can win you 10+ games, put a bad team around him and he will win you 6 games. However unless he has a Godly team around him he is never going to get you into contention let alone consistent contention. Josh on the other hand is good with his legs, works well within the pocket, and has had sloppy turnovers but has cut down on that. He has trouble with a consistent long ball but work well within the 0-15 range and OK in the 15-25 range. But Josh regardless of wither or not at this very moment is an upgrade or downgrade over Tyrod is completely irrelevant. Josh is not a finished product. He has the ability to be a top 10 QB in the game if he finds that long ball ability again, continues to improve his decision making and gets a slightly better feel for the game. The Bills are developing a QB not working with a player who is for the most part capped out as to what he can improve to.

Even with Garrett justifiably out this season (and I would say at least 8 games or a significant portion of next season) the Browns at 4-6 could easily still finish 8-8 or 9-7 this season. They have two layups against the Bengals and a game against the Fins, they play the Steelers and Cardinals as well. If they just take care of those Bengals games and the Fins game they already get to 7 wins and I would imagine they at least split the Steelers and Cards games. Their only tough game remaining on their schedule is the Ravens a team they have beat. 8 wins would be a disappointment for them considering their expectations but still a decent season considering where they started out.

I think we are just going to have to leave the conversation at agree to disagree as you stated (This isn't going anywhere as we can talk in circles.) And I really respect your opinion and your acknowledgement that the student loan issue is a problem and that there are many avenues that can be done to help the problem. And I just want to reiterate that if we are negotiating on this issue hypotheically the funding mechanisms, means testing, repatriation of recent payments, and defaulting vs. forgiveness are all things that I wouldn't oppose if a compromise had to be made. I do think that large scale forgiveness or default allowance has to be favored over interest reduction and restructuring because there are some who are far too foregone for those types of solutions to be viable and many who might eventually make a repatriation in 7-10 years whose issue is more massive principle than interest or monthly payment amount (If your principle is 75 k that's 625 dollars a month for 10 years to pay back if your interest is 0, if your principle is 50k that's 520 dollars a month for 8 years if your interest is 0.) I guess my main issue with your idea (or at least how I interpreted what you said) that if you have anything you can cut back on you are then being frivolous is devoid of how human beings operate or any nuance that there are various degrees of being modest. I think telling someone who is visiting their family once a year on a modest vacation (basically paying for a flight and some eating out while there as they don't have to pay for lodging) or someone who takes one modest domestic vacation a year that their fiscal issues stem from those vacations and their lack of Metro PCS as opposed to the large inflated amount for their loans is sort of penny wise dollar stupid. Yes if someone lives a joyless life cutting down on anything fun or not an absolute necessity for many years they might be able to service more of their debt but that doesn't mean that if you do some moderate indulgences like visiting your family and going on a date now and again that you tow the line into being fiscally irresponsible. I think a lot of conservatives often times blame the struggles of the working and middle class on their frivolous habits they narrowly define as anything not a necessity as opposed to the major costs they are insuring in various avenues simply because it's easier to say hey cut down on X and you will be alright than actually trying to possibly address a larger issue such as loan debt or medical costs. Finally that's not to say that some people aren't frivolous or their own undoing fiscally. That would be dishonest to say that every poor person is vitreous. I do know people who made bad decisions fiscally and although they aren't struggling with student loans (mommy and daddy paid for their college) they continue to have limited prospects fiscally because they spend money way too loosely. However the sacrifices they would have to make to have a healthy savings and investment range aren't cutting everything and anything to the bone but just sensible live within your means type things like don't go on 3-4 vacations a year and go out to eat twice every weekend.

These are people who are paying off their loans to the tune of hundreds of dollars a month. They aren't delinquent and they do their best to pay extra on their loans if they can. They aren't welching or people I am crying for. I bring them up to illustrate that these are individuals who are having their consumption and economic power limited by onerous student loans to get them into professions that are economically viable. Thus if you did do a debt forgiveness program you would see more money being pumped into the consumer economy and cause a positive impact on demand (an area of the economy where you need more growth.) Just because they aren't living to the standard you think they should live by enjoying life in a very modest way (***** people for visiting their family once a year) doesn't mean they are delinquents. Is the 1,000 to 1500 dollar vacation the difference between them paying off a 50-75k student loan? This idea that if you have anything you can cut down on you are thus irresponsible and a delinquent is just silly and not in line with a reasonable world view. Once again if you want to "punish" those who are unable to pay back allow them to default on their loans (thus dinging their credit), allow those who are able to pay back but have onerous loans a reduction on their loans or a restructure. Pay back people who have paid off loans the past 3 years. Those are all viable alternatives that depending on how they would be implemented I would support. But to say that well you have a cell phone while you owe loans for the education you got to get your job you should just cut that down and your loans will be manageable is just silly and not a serious take in my opinion. It isn't a scheme that results in riches all around but rather form of a tax cut aimed at younger consumers to help foster growth in consumer demand. My personal opinion is that we have oriented our economy for nearly 40 years around the idea of improving the stock market and capital markets. Yet we have record stock market numbers, record levels of corporate reserves, capital markets are flushed. And yet there exists a relative lack of investment due to a lack of growth in demand. The general economy is one that has yet to see a massive improvement for your average worker. Most companies are pumping up their stocks by buying back shares and issuing dividend increases. I think perhaps we should aim our resources at increasing demand and taking the burden off of the middle and working class while investing in infrastructure and longer lasting investments other than tax cuts that will often get funneled into international hands via dividends and buybacks.

I actually have a good feeling about this Sunday. Lord knows they need to take care of the Fins and Broncos to fatten up before that rough patch in their schedule.

I think you are vastly overestimating their level of frivolity and the idea that because you can cut back on somethings that you thus are frivolous is silly. I don't know how much everyone pays for cell phones but cell phones are as close to a necessity in the modern era (And I know for a fact my close friend pays for Ting a very cheap service as he won't shut up about it.) All but one own a car (none of which are luxury cars) or purchased a modest used car (and the one that leases, leases a Ford for 300ish a month.) Also my friends are not teachers in a system that has a pension. and they have to work summers to make well above 50k while the rest are mostly nurses making 55 to 70k but they aren't couples making 120k in total as most aren't married. Just to clarify. They don't go on 2-3k vacations each year, most of their vacations are domestic or Canada or to visit family that lives overseas (thus having a place to stay and lowering costs a lot.) I think at some point you have to allow people modest indulgences now and again without deeming any sort of enjoyment of life a complete frivolity that disqualifies you from being deemed a responsible person. Paying for Netflix and a night out once or twice a month is not the difference between your student debt being paid off or not. My point in bringing them up isn't to say that they are poor victims (Although the inflated cost of the tuition was driven by systemic failures far larger and out of their control, I seriously think they probably owe tens of thousands more as a result of the factors that inflated costs) but rather that if you freed up the 400-800 dollars a month they spend on servicing their student loans that helps them spend more into the consumer economy and stop delaying their life. That money helps ease the burden off of people who aren't irresponsible morons who got degrees that they knew wouldn't get them employment. Just to be clear, it is completely anecdotal so I don't use it as larger examples to justify the policy. But rather Bring it up to show that this is my perspective. I think the larger studies as to who has and continues to service student debt show that many are employed and still have student debt limiting their ability to contribute economically. Some are underemployed and got useless degrees but I don't see how garnishing their social security checks when they retire to make those final loan payments is any good. I think you have to at least allow people to default on that debt and find a way to make that money up in the federal budget. I generally speaking prefer to have universal solutions as I think that means testing tends to screw over middle class people who still need economic veneration but if me and you are negotiating this then I would certainly take a means tested solution and a different type of tax to fund a debt program. But I think the solution of nothing ***** you pay it back proposed by many here is just stupid and bad economic policy.

It is a fine line between fearless and reckless. Aggressive and stupid is often just the difference in results and outcomes. Hopefully Josh is ready to be a bit more aggressive.

If the Bills can't win against the Fins and home against the Broncos then they don't deserve to make the playoffs. The Bills desperately need to get to 8-3.

Josh's issue with short and intermediate accuracy was that he put too much on his throws and he was overthrowing. He seems to have solved the issue and become much more accurate in the 0-25 range. But that recalibration has led to him not having the right touch on his long ball anymore. I think he is also in recent weeks been told to be more conservative with turnovers. So in order to minimize turnovers he is over throwing the ball deep. Given the improvement Josh has made in his short accuracy and avoiding turnovers I think he can find his long ball again. Hopefully in the last 7 games he makes some stride. I do think that Foster coming back will result in some big plays.

I think out of the 4 games Cowboys, Ravens, Steelers, and Pats there is one win in there somewhere. The question for the Bills will be can they win the next two games? If they can take care of the Fins and Broncos I think they can take a game against one of those 4 opponents and then take care of the Jets at home.

I agree that everything comes at a cost. A Wall Street Spec tax or a tax on college endowments/wealth would come with some positive and negative consequences. However in a economy strapped for consumer demand (liquidity, asset prices and corporate capital being at all time highs showcases that there is plenty of investment capital out there) a program that frees up cash/capital to 45 million consumers would have a positive impact on the overall economy by increasing consumer demand, that would far outweigh the negatives that come with the taxes levied on Wall Street or colleges. If you have no increase in consumer demand then capital just sits around and gets put into assets. No one is going to invest capital if they think there is zero demand for a product or limited consumer cash flow to invest in. It is very onerous and hard to get any restructure of student loan debt let alone default on it. Of the 45 million that owe student loan debt you are talking about well below 10% that actually qualify for reduction let alone defaulting on debt.

Debt forgiveness is freeing up the money people earn in a free market to spend on consumer goods instead of servicing debt on loans they should not have had access to and couldn't default on.

Any universal program is going to have issues with individual examples. You have to look at the macro issue and not hypothetically one scenario. I don't really even like to bring up the people I know as evidence because that is anecdotal (I being them up to lend context to my perspective.) As far as your questions about the people I know with student debt all but one aren't married (my friends wife got her masters in nursing while she was married) and none of them have kids. A couple do live at home but they have to help support their parents with rent. Of the few that live out of their parents home some of them do not have the option to live at home while one or two do but don't for good reasons (toxic environment.) They work in good fields (teaching and nursing mostly) and they live in a high income area but in the burbs where rent and cost of living is more affordable. Sadly they can't switch fields to something that would pay them more without taking on more debt and most like what they do. As far as other frivolous spending I don't think anything they do is that frivolous. None take more than one vacation a year and many drive cars they paid off or bought used cars when they needed a new one (one leases a car every 3 years the only one I could say does that.) I am sure they have expenses that they could cut down on but nothing that isn't over the top or frivolous to the point where I could say their loans would be paid off of they just did X. These people mostly make between 50 and 70k a year with solid benefits. They have 50 to 100k in debt trying to basically to get a practical job. I understand that the people I know is anecdotal evidence so it has zero to do with the policy but I feel many here feel like the only possible way you could be struggling with student debt is to have a degree in feminist dance theory. Would I be opposed to a means tested approach? Once again no, but I would prefer a universal one.

I don't view most people with massive student debt issues as ne'er-do-wells and financial simpletons, some yes, but most are mainly people who are caught on a pile of debt and having difficulties paying off inflated debt. I know many teachers and nurses who carry 50-100k in debt and they try and make more than the minimum payments but simply can't do much more than that due to having to support themselves on middle class salaries. These are people whose debt was brought on by trying to educate themselves into a better situation job wise. Are there irresponsible people who made bad decisions yes, but with any large scale program you are going to have people who aren't the best example. But when deciding if the money is worth spending you have to take a macro look at the problem and go beyond anecdotal hypotheticals. Just to be clear my preference to use a Wall Street Speculation tax isn't to punish Wall Street but rather a pragmatic one. I am not against a hypothetical scenario where you go after endowments and other college funds. However is there enough money in those funds to finance such a program? I don't know, I haven't seen a study or know of any information that would prove that. If hypothetically you could in part tax the "wealth" of a University to pay for it in some way I would do it. But I don't think even a 10% or 20% tax on endowments and alumni funds is going to result in the nearly trillion dollars needed to fund a full scale forgiveness system. A Speculation tax by most studies would. So to clarify my point, I would be heavily in favor of taxing the colleges if that were enough to fund a forgiveness program. However I would have to research it to see if it would be enough. I wouldn't be opposed to reimbursing people who paid off their loans in addition to forgiving those with outstanding loans. However how far back do you go? How would people on the bubble of that line feel? I just don't think it works pragmatically. Whereas alleviating those currently in debt is a solid concrete line. As far as the economic argument the idea is that the current issue with the economy by most measures and opinions is lack of demand. Corporations are sitting on record numbers of cash reserves, capital markets are throwing money at anything, and liquidity is not an issue. Interest rates and access to credit is super easy. But consumer demand is crippled. A lot of companies are just financing buybacks and dividends to grow stock prices. If tens of millions of people suddenly had 200-1000 dollars in their pocket each month they would infuse that money back into the economy or save that money or pay down other debts. Most of that money would go back into consumer goods and experiences which would generate increased investment to service that demand. Most studies done on the topic state that it would be massive finical stimulus to consumer demand. Finally would I be in favor of means testing the program? Yes, but I would prefer a program be universal. I would take a means tested program over nothing. However I think a universal program would be best as when you have a means tested program it more often than not ends up dividing people over the poor getting handouts. I think universal solutions even if they provide a moral hazard to some are in general better for this type of issue where most of the people impacted are not irresponsible actors. But once again a means tested program is better than nothing. At worst means test it and let those who acted irresponsibly (by some measure) be able to default on their loans.

McD isn't a tired retread who failed with the Bears.

My main argument is what are you going to do about student debt that is weighing down tens of millions of people economically due to a complete failure of the systems that were around them at a young age? Do you continue to have people being economically limited because of decisions made at a young age they weren't properly informed on? Do you allow them to default on debt but ***** up their credit thus limiting their economic prospects for a long time and still costing the tax payers a lot of money? Or do you do a universal bailout funded by a Wall Street Speculation tax that wouldn't impact most Americans and solves issues with trading? The status quo is not sustainable in my opinion and dragging down the economy. You have two issues when it comes to higher education. One is what to do with the past loan recipients and how do you avoid a bubble in the future? You can make many arguments about how to finance college and educate students properly about that decision. However I don't see a solution better than universal debt forgiveness in regards to how to deal with the issues of those currently saddled with loans. I didn't make any conflicting statements nor backtracking. I intended a statement to apply to one context and you are choosing to apply that universally and to its most extreme measure. Thus taking what I said out of its intended context.

The context of the conversation was about student loans not every single applicable scenario. So yes you can take someone's words verbatim and take those words out of context. When people take quotes out of context they don't make up words they apply verbatim phrases literally when they weren't intended to be have a universal or certain type of context or were phrases said in jest or with something else implied. I interpreted your argument as in a paraphrased manner "Well I knew how to act so therefore everyone in that scenario should have known what they were doing was irresponsible." Your standard for judging wither or not people's action were irresponsible in my interpritation came down to your own sense of judgement at that age. My comment was to illustrate that perhaps that isn't a great metric to judge wither or not debt forgiveness in this instance constituted a moral hazard.

There were many teams this year who have had abysmal injuries at QB that could have used Kaepernick as either a spot starter or a backup (The Jets.) The Bills are not one of those teams unless they suffer multiple injuries at the QB position.

As though there is no context?

If your teachers, guidance consolers and parents tell you college is the path to a better life then you think you are acting responsibly to get an education that is constantly being told to you as the path to a better life. I think you have a system that shouldn't be giving 5-6 figure loans with zero collateral to 18 and 17 year olds. You can't even default or go bankrupt on these loans. This is a failure of the system that was supposed to prepare kids for this decision on many levels not a bunch of irresponsible people doing something frivolous in most cases.

I say this as someone who paid off their debt (35k worth of debt myself 10k paid for by my parents) I think it would be nearly impossible to reimburse people who paid off past loans and there always has to be a cut off. No matter what type of loan forgiveness you do there are always going to be winners and losers. You have to consider the grander economic benefit and the future benefit of publicly funded state universities (your kids no longer have to worry about saving for college.) I also think you underestimate the pressure that was put on students to attend college from high schools. My guidance counselor told me that I basically only would be successful if I attended college (I graduated high school in 2007) and I was a fairly mid-level student. High Schools public and private were often graded on "college acceptance rate" they were funneling students to go to college because they were graded on it for funding and rankings. That's not to say that students don't have agency in their lives but rather that there were many factors that influenced kids to take on those loans that weren't the result of rampant irresponsibility but institutional failure at many levels. How far back do you go in reimbursing people for paying off their loans? Do you go 4 years back then the people 5 years back will complain? There is always going to be a borderline where people fall off. Once again there is the grander economic benefit of debt forgiveness. Also if you accompany debt forgiveness with publicly financed universities you have a benefit that future generations universally benefit from. As far as irresponsible people using that loan money on bad investments? Well in any universal solution you are going to have people that benefit from irresponsible behavior. But considering the circumstances a universal solution is the only one that makes sense. You have a program that you know would have widespread positive economic impacts and would largely benefit middle/working and upper middle class people many of whom were not acting irresponsibly then I don't see why a small minority of people would keep you from supporting such a program that would also benefit future "responsible" generations. As far as getting the money from endowments and the colleges themselves? I don't know if that is necessarily possible. I am not sure if you tax endowments and college funds 10% or more that it would produce the money needed in order to fund a program. Whereas a Wall Street Speculation tax with the first 25k exempt is a tax that solves the high frequency trading problem while funding the bailout money and future college education funding needed. 80% of Americans don't own stocks, of that 20% that do most don't make more than 25k worth of trades. A speculation tax would be a very small tax burden placed on an industry who constantly gets bailout, subsidized and favorable tax treatment and has a problem with high frequency trading that needs to be curbed. For one that's an extreme example that is very hyperbolic. The main argument is that the system that encouraged and granted loans was far more irresponsible than the young students who were often ill-informed and ill-prepared for the massive amount of capital loans they should have never had access to and can't default on. The students were not Irresponsible the system was.

They can't go bankrupt on those loans like any other loan. If a bank makes a risky loan they suffer the consequences of such risky activity. But we saddle students with loans that they can't default on. Loans they were encouraged to take by educators that they trusted in many cases. That is punishing them by having onerous conditions to massive amounts of money they shouldn't have had access to.

If a 17 year old went to a bank and asked for a 50k small business loan with no collateral and cosigner they would be rightfully rejected. Yet not only did three generations of students have access to 5 and 6 figures worth of loans they were encouraged by trusted educators to take out these loans, loans to which they could not go bankrupt on. This was as much if not more an institutional failure as it was an individual failure. If that isn't a system to which you can understand someone falling prey to then I think you are failing to step out from the idea that not everyone thinks like you and people shouldn't be punished for the rest of their lives because they weren't as responsible at age 18 as you were. At age 16, 17, and 18 people are susceptible to those types of circumstances and bad guidance without being wildly irresponsible. This isn't a moral hazard situation. Would some people be bailed out on stupid decisions? Yes but we can't base entire policies on the idea that if 10% of people benefit were stupid then ***** the rest. And that's forgetting the grander economic argument that if you actually were to do a consumer level bailout (unlike previous bailouts which bailed out the companies) you would see a massive positive economic gain far greater than the tax cut bill for relatively far cheaper. Student loans eat up hundreds to thousands of dollars of tens of millions of families and individuals monthly income. If you give a 25 year old 400 dollars extra a month they are probably going to circulate that at a consumer level. They are going to spend it on things they were putting off or into enjoying them selves at local business or buying consumer products. Most of that money actually stays in the economy unlike corporate tax cuts which go to dividends and buybacks that end up in a lot of international hands effectively transferring money out of the economy. That is an actual sustained stimulus on the economy. I would get being against a bailout of credit card debt for consumers because well you can't just bail people out of poor decisions. That's a true moral hazard. You also have the ability to go bankrupt on most other forms of debt, which while damaging to your credit is not something that can't be overcame. This is a unique situation where a consumer bailout is something that falls well into the line of reason both in terms of economic stimulus and moral necessity.