What's the next big bubble to burst? (bankruptcy, student loan, percentage)

[tjarado]

We've had afew boom-busts in the last dozen or so years..from tech to RE to credit.

What's gonna blow next?

I vote for "The Student Loan Bubble".

[HappyTexan]

Government already nationalized student loans so there's no one to bail out.
I think they knew this would happen and did it when they did.

I think the stock market is the next bubble.
The P/E ratios are crazy mad and the Fed is pumping $80 billion of funny money into the system each month.

[gwynedd1]

Problem is where will the money flee? Sell out and hold fiat currencies? Going to cash is not what it used to be.

[k9coach]

The Student Loan Bubble is a good guess. How about the Government Debt Bubble? Governments around the world are becoming more and more dysfunctional. It's becoming quite clear that the debts will never be paid back yet Western countries like the U.S. are able to sell bonds at near 0% interest. You have all the makings of a bubble including lack of fundamentals and irrational exuberance. There's no question gov't debt is in a bubble, and that bubble will burst. Whether it's the very next one to pop remains to be seen.

[tjarado]

k9coach..I guess since the Govt insures most student loans, and also because these loans are not dischargeable in bankruptcy, they are a sort of subset of the Government Debt Bubble.
I think you are right.
But that will be one heluva bust, n'ect-ce pas?

[NJ Brazen_3133]

How would one have jumped in on the Student Loan Bubble.

I am thinking there is a "TV show designed to promote real estate" bubble. Like Sex in the City, and Friends, and Will and Grace promoted NYC, shows like Chicago Fire, Hot in Cleveland, CSI Miami, etc, are all trying to paint those places in a bright, vibrant, exciting way. There is in fact a new reality TV show on MTV called Washington Heights, about a particularly lower income neighborhood in Manhattan. I cannot see any other reason for basing a reality show there.

[KaraG]

The student loan story is very similar to the housing bubble story. You have a good percentage of people abusing the system and taking the easy student loan money who will never pay it back. There are the people who got behind on their payments who now owe $100,000+ and have middle or low income jobs. You have unemployed and under-employed people who go back to school just to get the student loans to have money to live on, but who have no intention of paying back the loans.

Then you have the ones who believe the government will eventually bail out or forgive many of these loans, so they are making minimum payments just to keep their credit intact. Total student loan debt is now over $950 billion.

There probably will be some sort of bailout or forgiveness, because this next generation will not be able to qualify for mortgages with this much student loan debt. And just like in the housing debacle, there will be many who make out by getting their free money while many others lose even though they have been paying their loans as agreed.

[Retroit]

Gold.

[tablemtn]

Government already nationalized student loans so there's no one to bail out.

There are two main "flavors" of student loans - the government-backed loans (which used to be serviced in many cases by private banks, but are now serviced directly by the government), and private loans, which usually come from banks or companies such as Access Group.

Purely private loans didn't used to represent a big chunk of the market, but after the 2005 bankruptcy reform act made it almost impossible to discharge them in bankruptcy (unlike other forms of consumer loans), the bubble on the private side also inflated, and the private loan total in America is probably somewhere around $175-$200 billion by this point.

[NJBest]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

There are two main "flavors" of student loans - the government-backed loans (which used to be serviced in many cases by private banks, but are now serviced directly by the government), and private loans, which usually come from banks or companies such as Access Group.

Purely private loans didn't used to represent a big chunk of the market, but after the 2005 bankruptcy reform act made it almost impossible to discharge them in bankruptcy (unlike other forms of consumer loans), the bubble on the private side also inflated, and the private loan total in America is probably somewhere around $175-$200 billion by this point.

This is a simple thing to solve. The government just needs to give banks (or students) a way to restructure the loans. It will minimize the impact on the economy.