Open Thread June 17, 2023 Students Loans
Maybe you have been unaware of it, the repayment of student loans is to begin again come September 2023. President Biden had stopped all payments and interest accruing early on during the Covid Pandemic. Offering up reductions of ten to twenty thousand in reductions for outstanding loan was apart of the president’s plan. For many this would be adequate.
However, there is a sizeable number of borrowers who owe far more than this amount. In many cases again, the principal has grown greater and doubled or tripled due to interest, interest on interest, penalties, consolidation fees, etc. Many have just given up. What next?
Open Thread June 12, 2023 SCOTUS on Wetlands, Angry Bear, angry Bear Blog
Putin Asserts Russia won’t use nukes in Ukraine
NY Times – June 17
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wrapped up what was for him an extraordinary and sometimes rambling week of upbeat commentary on the Ukraine war by asserting on Friday that Russia was so assured of prevailing against the Ukrainian counteroffensive that he had ruled out using nuclear weapons.
Dropping what had been a strict avoidance of discussing the war in any detail, Mr. Putin told an audience of Russia’s business elite, gathered for the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, that Ukraine had “no chance” against Russian forces and indicated that its Western backers would tire of the conflict and stop supplying weapons, ending Kyiv’s war effort.
Yet, Mr. Putin’s assertions of success in the face of repeated setbacks seemed to rankle a small but ever louder chorus of critics. They point to the counteroffensive, drone attacks on Moscow, incursions by pro-Ukraine militias into southern Russia and cross-border shelling of Russian towns as evidence that things could be spiraling out of control.
That could explain why Mr. Putin took care this week to present himself as a hands-on, knowledgeable commander in chief, even asserting at one point Friday that “right now” the Ukrainians were attacking with two tanks here and five tanks there. But his strategy of proclaiming success while brushing off problems with key military elements like smart weapons or border protection is a contradiction, his critics say, that cannot endure endlessly. …
… While charging the Ukrainians with trying to bait him into escalating the conflict, Mr. Putin stated that Russia had no need to resort to its considerable nuclear arsenal because the war could not threaten his country’s very existence.
“The use of nuclear weapons, of course, is possible, for Russia, it is possible if there is a threat to our territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, the existence of the Russian state,” he said before adding, “We don’t have this need.”
Mr. Putin also confirmed that the first batch of Russian tactical nuclear warheads had been deployed in neighboring Belarus to serve as a deterrent against attacks on Russia, and that more would arrive before the end of the year. …
Mr. Putin has maintained since the invasion started that the West forced his hand by using Ukraine as a stalking horse to threaten Russia. Critics have scoffed at that, saying he decided to invade because his repeated attempts to assert political control over Kyiv had failed and that he could not tolerate having a thriving democratic alternative to Russia’s autocracy right next door.
Through the bluster and unsubstantiated claims of success, Mr. Putin made it clear this week that, whatever may happen in the short term, his greatest weapon is time.
“His own hope is that the West will get out of Ukraine,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, the head of the political analysis firm R.Politik. “He does not want to talk with the West; it is too late and it went too far, and he does not seem to be willing.”
If Mr. Putin tried to present a certain calm with regard to the counteroffensive, on Friday he did threaten that the F-16 fighter jets promised to Ukraine would “burn” just like some of the modern Western tanks Ukraine is employing in its counteroffensive. He added that Russia might have to take more aggressive measures if the warplanes were based at airfields outside Ukraine.
He also repeated that Russia might be forced to carve out a buffer zone in eastern Ukraine to put Ukrainian artillery out of reach, a remark that prompted mocking commentary, given the problems that have plagued the Russian military. …
‘Nothing like this has ever happened before’: The world’s oceans are at record-high temps
Boston Globe – June 14
Ocean surface temperatures vaulted to unprecedented levels this spring, alarming scientists and prompting predictions of increased extreme weather this year, including from hurricanes.
While ocean temperatures have been rising for at least 70 years, the new measurements taken from a network of satellites, ships, and buoys around the globe show an unexpected spike that began in March and appears to still be climbing.
“It’s just totally shocking, because it is so far out of the realm of what has been observed in the records,” said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane and climate expert at the University of Miami. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”
The surge in temperatures is being observed at the surface of the world’s oceans — the part that fuels hurricanes and contributes to die-offs of marine life, melting sea ice and rising sea levels. Starting in early March, sea surface temperatures hit record heights, far beyond the decades of earlier recorded temperatures. April and May brought record-breaking temperatures, but starting in June, the temperature began increasing at an even faster pace.
As of Tuesday, the mean temperature across the world’s oceans was 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the historic mean from 1982 to 2011 and 0.4 degrees warmer than last year. The warming was even more acute in the North Atlantic, near northern Africa and Europe, which was two degrees higher than the historic average, according to data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and compiled by the University of Maine.
Many scientists believe the surge is at least in part caused by the regular transition from La Niña, a naturally occurring phenomenon that tends to cool ocean surfaces, to a newly emerging El Niño pattern, which tends to bring warmer water to the surface. The big question, scientists say, is how much of the spike is due to natural phenomena and how much should be attributed to global warming.
The current El Niño system is projected to be especially strong, which could create much larger swings in surface temperature than normal, though some scientists note there have been strong El Niños in years past that have not produced anything like the extremes seen this year.
Scientists are also considering the possible impact of unique events, including a dearth of dust blown from the Sahara Desert, which typically provides a cooling effect on the ocean’s surface temperatures off Western Africa. …
The most alarming possibility is that a body of severely warmed water that had been forced deeper into the ocean by La Niña during the last three years is now rising to the surface. If true, it could be a sign oceans have been warming faster than previously thought.
“This is heating we had committed to, but it was sequestered under the surface,” said Raffaele Ferrari, an oceanographer at MIT. “Now it’s coming to the surface.”
One way or another, the warmer water is expected to exacerbate conditions already being documented across the globe, accelerating the melting of sea ice and contributing to sea level rise. The repercussions could also include altering the jet stream or super-charging hurricanes.
Another reason scientists are watching ocean temperatures so carefully is the critical long-term role oceans play in moderating the rate of planetary warming.
“Part of what the ocean is doing in the climate system now is, because it was very cold leftover from before global warming, it tends to cool the atmosphere down a bit,” said Edward Boyle, a marine geochemist at MIT. “If it quits doing that, then the atmosphere will warm up even more than it was on its own.” …
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/national/time-series
April 17, 2022
Climate at a Glance, 1895-2022
Temperature and Precipitation
Global
National
Regional
Statewide
Divisional
County
City
China has been preparing for several years for just such as year as this seems likely to be. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent on water conservancy and agriculture protection.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha00410c.html
December, 2008
Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?
By James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, David Beerling, Robert Berner, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Pagani, Maureen Raymo, Dana L. Royer and James C. Zachos
Abstract
Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~ 3°C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, * is ~ 6°C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, the planet being nearly ice-free until CO2 fell to 450 ± 100 ppm; barring prompt policy changes, that critical level will be passed, in the opposite direction, within decades. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm ** to at most 350 ppm, but likely less than that. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. *** An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects. ****
* Surface reflectivity of sun’s radiation
** Currently ~ 420 ppm: https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
*** Net change in radiant emittance or irradiance
**** https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Hansen_ha00410c.pdf
Dobbs
my, aren’t you the bringer of glad tidings today.
The payment pause began many months prior to Biden’s term. While I doubt that this group needs to look that up – being quite familiar with the topic – it is so easily researched that it is pretty inexcusable to point to the Biden administration in this case.
I’d recommend legislation to allow as large a “balloon” payment as a borrower would like to make as repayments start, say anytime in first 6 months With the payment working the way balloons do for normal mortgage. I understand that most student loan terms do not account for balloon payments in a manner that helps the borrower that much. The pause was so long and universal, that I expect many “banked” a lot of those paused payments. Convert what had been paused principle + interest (+ fees?) into one big whack at principle and provided they get a mortgage-like treatment, lots of folks see some light at the end of a much shorter tunnel.
Fine and important recommendation, as long as there is no penalty for extra payment and indeed a lowering of charge reflecting the early payment.
That’s what I meant by the balloon getting “mortgage” like treatment. I am less expert, but things I have read (probably here) make it seem that accelerated payments are sort of punished, which is nuts when you likely have millions who would at least entertain a balloon if it was recognized as an immediate repayment of principle. Heck, there should have been an option during this lengthy pause to keep paying on a pure principle basis…..if balances did no accrue interest during the pause, payments should have been all principle.
Eric:
There was “always” the option of paying the down. For man the loan payments were extreme and a burden. So the pause allowed them to catch up on other issues.
Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings
NY Times – June 24
Over the past two decades, dozens of behavioral scientists have risen to prominence pointing out the power of small interventions to improve well-being.
The scientists said they had found that automatically enrolling people in organ donor programs would lead to higher rates of donation, and that moving healthy foods like fruit closer to the front of a buffet line would result in healthier eating.
Many of these findings have attracted skepticism as other scholars showed that their effects were smaller than initially claimed, or that they had little impact at all. But in recent days, the field may have sustained its most serious blow yet: accusations that a prominent behavioral scientist fabricated results in multiple studies, including at least one purporting to show how to elicit honest behavior.
The scholar, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, has been a co-author of dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals on such topics as how rituals like silently counting to 10 before deciding what to eat can increase the likelihood of choosing healthier food, and how networking can make professionals feel dirty.
Maurice Schweitzer, a behavioral scientist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said the accusations were having large “reverberations in the academic community” because Dr. Gino is someone who has “so many collaborators, so many articles, who is really a leading scholar in the field.” …
Putin Vows ‘Decisive Actions’ as Wagner Chief Claims Part of Key Military Complex
NY Times – June 24
President Vladimir V. Putin vowed “decisive actions” early Saturday to quell what he called an armed rebellion by the outspoken mercenary tycoon Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, whose forces had claimed control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and were threatening to march to Moscow.
In a five-minute address to the nation, Mr. Putin called the rebellion by Mr. Prigozhin treasonous and “a stab in the back of our country and our people.” Mr. Putin said that Rostov’s military and civilian functions had “essentially been blocked,” appearing to acknowledge some success by Mr. Prigozhin, who on Saturday morning said they had taken over the southern military headquarters of the Russian Armed Forces in the city. …
Security forces were scrambled across western Russia as regional governors urged residents to stay off the roads, and a “counterterrorist operation regime” was declared in Moscow, giving the authorities expanded legal powers. The confrontation sparked by Mr. Prigozhin — a longtime ally of Mr. Putin who has helped lead Russia’s assault on eastern Ukraine, but has fiercely criticized Moscow’s military leadership — has set up the biggest challenge to the Russian president since he invaded Ukraine 16 months ago. …