The Housing Bubble

Can’t they get unemployment insurance and have their students debts forgiven after a few years?

Student loans are NEVER and CANNOT be forgiven.

Suzie Ormond (sp?) had a statistic about that last week. It was something absurd like 29 people got full or partial student loan forgiveness out of all bankruptcies over the past decade? Something like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if that means you have to be fairly close to a permanent vegetative state to get student loan forgiveness.

“…close to a permanent vegetative state to get student loan forgiveness.”

I believe that death of the borrower is sufficient, though perhaps subject to some additional qualification requirements.

I wonder how many people with foreign passports will say sayonara to the USA and their student loan debt (while clutching their diplomas) as they head back to the old country?

As much as you hate my idea of a repossession of the degree for the loans, it really does make sense if you include not being able to get another Federal government funded or guaranteed loan till you pay off the 1st.

Employers could demand a valid degree/transcript before hiring.

But that doesn’t preclude private colleges from loaning you money or giving scholarships since they will have to keep and administer the loans. So its unlikely that a debt forgiven student will ever get any money.

Those are some good penalties, and then the Medieval Art History phd candidate can eliminate the debt and make a clean start on his/her new 25 year career with Starbucks…

“Student loans are NEVER and CANNOT be forgiven.”

I suspect you may live to see your words proven false. As has been shown over the last few years, the government can do and change ANYTHING at any time it pleases except the laws of physics and I think some of them think they can override those.

“…people with foreign passports will say sayonara to the USA and their student loan debt”

one & done, … now about wanting to come back fer a vi$it, see that window says HomeLand $ecurity I$$ue # 786, they’re wanting to speak with you about your pa$t.

“I wonder how many people with foreign passports will say sayonara to the USA and their student loan debt (while clutching their diplomas) as they head back to the old country?”

Foreign students cannot get govt student loans.

As much as you hate my idea of a repossession of the degree for the loans, it really does make sense if you include not being able to get another Federal government funded or guaranteed loan till you pay off the 1st.

Employers could demand a valid degree/transcript before hiring.

Employers wouldn’t care if the degree was valid.

I graduate, get my degree, get a copy of my transcripts and my diploma. I then default on my loan. The degree becomes “invalid” (do they stamp the diploma with a red “INVALID”?).

So what? An employer will still know I graduated, what my grades were, where I went, etc. It’s not like the govt can take away my experience in college, right?

The idea of not having access to more govt loans is a good one. Although I’m sure there’d be 100 loopholes to that as well, ie an FHA mortgage wouldn’t be a “loan” anymore it would be a “Temporary Allocation of Funds”.

And besides there is no way this would ever pass as a bill. I can see the ads now….Did you know Senator Johnson voted to deny young college graduates the right to own a home by denying them access to home mortgages? For shame Senator, for shame. You’d have a better chance outlawing mom and apple pie than a bill like this

dj,

Maybe it’s not occurred to you (ironically), but it’s pretty difficult to repossess knowledge.

“Foreign students cannot get govt student loans.”

And they probably can’t get private ones either, but dual nationals can. My friend’s daughter is eligible for three passports (US, GB and Canada), and I’m pretty sure they have made sure she is recognized as a citizen of all three. She might even have an actual passport for all three since it is so much easier to travel in Europe on an EU passport. Still far too young for student loans for now, but the house could be the end of her parents financial security, so the scenario isn’t impossible.

I believe that death of the borrower is sufficient, though perhaps subject to some additional qualification requirements.

Go long fake death facilitators! A growth industry…

“And they probably can’t get private ones either, but dual nationals can. My friend’s daughter is eligible for three passports (US, GB and Canada), and I’m pretty sure they have made sure she is recognized as a citizen of all three. She might even have an actual passport for all three since it is so much easier to travel in Europe on an EU passport. Still far too young for student loans for now, but the house could be the end of her parents financial security, so the scenario isn’t impossible.”

So you’re saying this daughter will get a bunch of loans and then skip off to Canada or GB in order to avoid paying the loans back? I suppose this could happen, but the amount of people who fall into this category (mulch-citizen), go to college, get loans and skip off to another country to avoid having to pay back the loans is pretty insignificant.

“Foreign students cannot get govt student loans.”

And they probably can’t get private ones either, but dual nationals can.

You don’t even have to be a US citizen, just a permanent resident, to qualify for Federal Aid (including grants).

There are a lot of Americans, especially of the first generation variety, who can get foreign passports (through their parents). Just about any Mexican-American kid can get a Mexican Passport. My American born kids have German passports, and none of them even speak German.

So you’re saying this daughter will get a bunch of loans and then skip off to Canada or GB in order to avoid paying the loans back?

It would depend on how big the loan is. If a good job is waiting overseas (while the best prospect at home is a menial Lucky Ducky job), and a 100K loan is dangling over their heads, I could see it happening. Heck, some are leaving even without the student loan burden.

but the amount of people who fall into this category (mulch-citizen), go to college, get loans and skip off to another country to avoid having to pay back the loans is pretty insignificant.

It depends. From what you mentioned some time ago, you live in a very homogenous place without foreigners. In the entire US Southwest a significant number of people still have ties to the “old country”. Under the right conditions I could see them packing up and leaving. Heck, even the Mexodus to the US has come to a grinding halt.

“From what you mentioned some time ago, you live in a very homogenous place without foreigners”

I said with few illegals, not the same as without foreigners. There are actually a fair amount of foreign born people here, Asians and Europeans. I’ve only lived here for a few years. I grew up in Texas and for about 3-4 years - in 3-6 month intervals - worked overseas. So I think I know a little something about foreigners/immigrants.

“In the entire US Southwest a significant number of people still have ties to the “old country. Heck, even the Mexodus to the US has come to a grinding halt.”.

Sure for older people but not kids who came across the border went to high school and college in the US, only to all of a sudden leave the US for Mexico to avoid a student loan. I just can’t see that happening on a large scale. A 40 year old who came here when he was 35 bailing out to avoid a $100K loan, sure. A 22 year old fresh college grad who came here when he was 12? I can’t see that happening.

Just wait until they hear that their cousin in Guadalajara got a professional job with a US multinational, while they make Lattes at Starbucks with their college diploma hanging on the wall and the student loan millstone hanging around their neck. They might be born here, but they can still get that Mexican Passport and get that white collar job with IBM in the old country. Also, being bilingual is a big plus down there.

Not saying there’s gonna be a mass exodus, but I could see some taking the diploma and running. Heck, I know a few who have done just that.

A 22 year old fresh college grad who came here when he was 12? I can’t see that happening

I’ve actually seen it first hand, and a 100K student loan wasn’t even involved.

Heck, one of my kids is considering leaving the country upon graduation.

It’s still a misguided point. My parents mortage was 30 years in 1982 and their house was $40k, and they made slightly more than that. How much should houses cost if we want 10 year mortgages? $10k?

The mortgage term only effects those at the margins for houses.

Also, can you imagine what renting would be like if mortage terms were so short, pushing the number of people who own their rentals outright up? I bet it would be like commerical real estate, with rent to build custom home deals for the wealthier renters and normal houses would sit empty for many months until the best renter came along. Why wouldn’t they wait for the best if the only expense was $2500 a year in taxes and insurance? No need to hurry and let any old jerk in.

In short (long) no need to toy with the terms at which people can borrow money, just do like Ben says and remove the silly government supports and bailouts, and house prices will fall.

its all about the payment now just like buying a car.

“Of course, wasn’t there a recent study that some very large percentage of the population couldn’t come up with $2000 in a month?”

That’s the 72 million. Almost half of the workforce.

Overdog,

But I bet they could have afforded it on a much shorter loan. Choosing a long loan is different than needing one. My parents bought with a 30 year loan, it was fully 3 times income and they couldn’t afford it. 3 times income, my grandparents gave them the downpayment and they couldn’t afford a second car even though the neighborhood was not remotely walkable to anything other than more houses and an elementary school. The only way they made it work was because my grandparents lived nearby and my grandmother drove my mother to do all her errands and we ate at their house close to 3 times a week. Now, the decision worked out because inflation kicked in and the loan was way less than 3 times dad’s income 6 years later, but that doesn’t change the fact that they couldn’t have done it on less than a 30 year loan and they could not afford the house.

Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction and you will see a lot fewer people picking 30 year mortgages.

At that time, sure but my dad’s business was very cyclical and with a few kids, maybe not.

My parents got more aggressive paying down their mortgage when my sister finally graduated college. Before that, they didn’t really care. Car payments were more, electric bill was more, groceries were more, etc.

It’s still a misguided point.

No it is precisely the point. You can pander for inflated prices all day long but nobody here will listen.

And another in convenient truth for you is mortgage terms pre and the 10 years post WW2 maxed out at 7 years.

And another in convenient truth for you is mortgage terms pre and the 10 years post WW2 maxed out at 7 years.
——————
Here’s the actual truth on that ‘truth’:

“Until the 1930s, residential mortgages in the United States were available only for a short term (typically 5–10 years) and featured “bullet” payments of principal at term. Unless borrowers could find means to refinance
these loans when they came due, they would have to pay off the outstanding loan balance. In addition, most loans carried a variable rate of interest.”

–oh what? people just refied after 7-10 years and didn’t actually pay off their mortgage in that time? What???

In the 30s’ ” the The HOLC changed the terms of the mortgages drastically, converting variable-rate, short-term, nonamortizing mortgages into fixed-rate, long-term (20-year) fully amortizing mortgages.”

“In 1948, the maximum term of a mortgage rose
to 30 years (from an initial maximum of 20 years).”

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mortgage%20length%20in%20us%201940s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CGwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Frepository.upenn.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1000%26context%3Dpenniur_papers&ei=rKzkT8LpNenC2wWwupDaCQ&usg=AFQjCNG_ojIlAasiB1rN0MBSCaTrXxM_dA

All quotes from The American Mortgage in Historical and International Context by Richard K. Green

“Get rid of the mortgage interest deduction and you will see a lot fewer people picking 30 year mortgages.”

Yup..

I’d add “Get rid of artificially low rates AND the MID”

I’m in a situation where I could pay down much of my debt by pulling money from savings/investments. I don’t even consider it. The more money some moron will lend me at 3.5% for 30 years…

Anyway, artificially low interest rates, and subsidies for being a debtor (MID) are leading to a very distorted market. If the MID went away and rates went up to 6-7%, I’d probably pay off my house in the next 5 years. As it currently stands, I’ll take my sweet time paying it back, because, IMHO, my effective interest rate is below the rate of inflation. That’s a CRAZY situation, and is resulting in all kinds of unwise behavior in most people. I’m afraid to pay off my debts because I think that inflation is going to touch off in a big way over the next decade; better to be a debtor than a lender (savings) in that kind of environment.

So that 7 year mortgage my father and all his friends got in 1946 is their imagination? And how about my grandfathers 5 year mortgage in 1919? Imaginary? No it’s the truth.

The truth is you’re pandering for banksters.

The truth is if you have to borrow for decades, it’s overpriced.

The truth is if you have borrow for decades, you can’t afford it.

The simple Truth is…. You don’t like Truth.

Nice response gramps. You can’t respond with anything other than anecdotes to the actual truth. My gramps bought his home outright without a mortgage in 1912 and so did his brother in 1919. Does my anecdote trump yours you old fool? Your pops was too poor to afford a home if he needed a mortgage at all.

Failed again Overdog.

The truth is mortgages didn’t exceed 7 years for decades…. that’s right decades. And your refutation is insults and more lies.

But they think it makes a difference and make decisions as if it made a difference. I blame H&R Block for this level of ignorance about taxes, but there it is. People who have no chance in heck of itemizing make decisions to buy based on the deduction. And people who have no chance at all of ever having enough assets to be impacted by the estate tax get all riled up about “death taxes.”

I have a friend who told me that the cops refused to pursue a person earning income on his SS number due to an identity theft because “until he [other guy] files for a refund, it doesn’t hurt you.” That is complete garbage. A person earning money and having the tax deducted as if it is his only income will never have enough deducted to cover your marginal taxes when the amount earned is added to your income. Never. And for these friends the situation is particularly dire since they are very low income and get EITC. I told him to go to the IRS service center and get a letter from them to bring back to the cops stating that it would be a huge financial loss for them, but I have little hope that it will work. And these are COPS - law enforcement. No clue how the system works at all.

Wonder how they would like it if some one added $20K to their income (at a marginal rate of about 25%) and said the withholding at a top marginal rate of 10% and a lot of it at zero should cover it. Morons.

But they think it makes a difference and make decisions as if it made a difference. I blame H&R Block for this level of ignorance about taxes

Blame the REIC, as it is the realtors who push this garbage onto the ill-informed. Any accountant or retirement-planning advisor worth his salt should be able to set this fallacy straight.

“But they think it makes a difference and make decisions as if it made a difference. I blame H&R Block for this level of ignorance about taxes, but there it is. People who have no chance in heck of itemizing make decisions to buy based on the deduction. And people who have no chance at all of ever having enough assets to be impacted by the estate tax get all riled up about “death taxes.”

I agree about the first point.

I disagree on the death tax. You don’t have to be personally affected by a tax policy to be for or against it. I think it’s $5M or something like that over which the death tax kicks in? I doubt I will have enough assets when I die that my heirs will have to worry about a death tax. I know it won’t impact my family one way or another. I still oppose it. Just like I doubt I will ever make $1M+ a year, but I still oppose an eeeeeevil millionaire tax.

I have a friend who told me that the cops refused to pursue a person earning income on his SS number due to an identity theft because “until he [other guy] files for a refund, it doesn’t hurt you.”

Cops only exist to write speeding tickets.

I think that the “death tax” was in quotes because it is not a death tax, it is an estate tax irrespective of how many focus groups Frank Luntz runs. If one opposes an inheritance or estate tax, so be it, but please “don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”

“think that the “death tax” was in quotes because it is not a death tax, it is an estate tax irrespective of how many focus groups Frank Luntz runs. If one opposes an inheritance or estate tax, so be it, but please “don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.”

Please provide an instance of when the inheritance tax kicks in without a death occurring first.

Please provide an instance when death kicks in without a multi-million dollar inheritance. Oh wait, that’s most of them.

A death tax would be applied to all deceased people, which does not occur currently. An estate tax would be applied only to those people dying with a lot of money which does occur. Thus, the term “estate tax” or “inheritance tax” is more correct. Or should I say double-plus good?

When income is earned, income tax is paid. We don’t call it a paycheck tax or a deposit money into a bank account tax or a it’s friday, so I get paid today tax. The tax is paid on the action of earning income, so it’s called an INCOME tax.

Only 65% give or take of the adult population works. Doesn’t mean we stop calling it an income tax because 35% of the people don’t have an income.

When someone dies, their heirs pay a tax upon the death of the person if they receive an inheritance. Therefore it is called a DEATH tax. Do 100% of people who die have heirs who pay this tax? No. But just like we don’t stop calling income tax, income tax, because less than 100% of the people have an income, we don’t stop calling the death tax, death tax, because less than 100% of the people are subject to it.

S-T-R-E-T-C-H

“Only 65% give or take of the adult population works. Doesn’t mean we stop calling it an income tax because 35% of the people don’t have an income.”

They don’t pay an income tax because they don’t have one.

“When someone dies, their heirs pay a tax upon the death of the person if they receive an inheritance. Therefore it is called a DEATH tax.”

No. If they receive an inheritance, they are taxed and it is called an INHERITANCE tax. Otherwise, just some poor guy/gal died. No tax needed. Chuck ‘em in a pauper’s grave.

Go back and take another look at your argument. It is not very good.

“Option 1 is almost impossible. You effectively have to pay rent AND put enough for a mortgage payment in the bank, every month. There may be a few people with a high enough income and a low enough rent (Polly and Bill the Nomad, maybe), but that is hardly the norm. And don’t forget that rent goes up every year, if only 3-4%.”

But if it wasn’t the eeeeevil banks and lending in general, houses would only cost $12K and everyone would have $200K+ incomes. So you could save up for a house in like 3 weeks.

“Option 1 is almost impossible.”

Tens of millions of others managed to pull it off for decades.

hmmmm…. What do think happened?

“Why do I keep thinking of 1939?”

Were you able to watch Red Dawn the other night? Not sure it’ll be the same antagonists, but it might serve as a good training video.

Were you able to watch Red Dawn the other night?

Indeed. I have Red Dawn saved on the DVR, along with Platoon, FMJ, a few other classics. Have you seen Act of Valor yet? The extra’s on it are great, especially the piece on the “live-fire” boat scene they filmed. When the Special Boat teams are filmed firing the Vulcans and M240’s to cover the SEAL extraction, those are real tracers and real bullets flying

These days, actual training consists of shooting orange clays at 300 yards with my .308 and controlled double-taps with the AR against paper at 25-50 yards. Luckily, none of this involves combat rolls, as I tore a groin muscle playing soccer with my kids The price of getting older…

McCabe: What? No roll, Hondo?
Hondo: How do you know I didn’t?
McCabe: You didn’t, did you?
Hondo: They only roll in John Woo movies, not in real life.

This is for X-GSFixer:

“The F-4 is proof that if you put enough thrust on a brick, it will fly…”

Can’t take credit as someone else posted this, but it did strike my funny bone.

Twitter’s tech is pretty solid actually.

Twitter Engineering

They also make heavy use of big, open-source data: basically Hadoop, Pig, HBase, and their own open-source distributed DB for graphing, FlockDB (built on top of MySQL, most likely Cluster). Supposedly, they are looking at Cassandra as well.

They generate 12 Terabytes of data per day…

Nope. It was the employees’ job. And it was her job to criticize how they set the toilet rolls.

For your information, if you should ever happen to be so unfortunate to have to deal with Producer at her place of employment, where she is the CEO, all toilet paper sheets must fall from the front side, which is the side closest to the user of said paper.

Any other toilet paper display configuration shall be subject to a major showing of ill temper.

She’s never had any kids, it’s obvious.

She’s never had any kids, it’s obvious.

Well, since I’m in such an evil mode today, I’ll spill even more beans. Turns out that Producer was married. To a guy with two kids. And the kids drove her bonkers. So, d-i-v-o-r-c-e.

Go find a copy of “the Bell Curve”, a book published in the 1980s and you will have your answer.
You may not like it, but they truth is a benefit to everyone.

Go find a copy of “the Bell Curve”, a book published in the 1980s and you will have your answer.

Interesting. Got a quick synopsis from Wikipedia. The data doesn’t surprise me in the least. It’s Idiocracy backed up by statistics…

I’m reading The Bell Curve right now. Trust me, if you need a reason not to have children, this is the perfect book for you. The advantage imputed by high IQ is unbelievable; it’s like being born into a royal family if your IQ is high enough. As there’s no way to really select for IQ yet (reliably) IMHO, it’s far too random a throw of the dice to bring a child into this world in the IQ lottery.

And yes, IQ is broken down by ethnic groups, and, yes, those with the lowest IQs are in fact those who commit the most crime. That’s the real controversy around this book.

Unfortunately, we continue to select for low IQ in our society; the lower your intelligence, the more likely you are to have lots and lots of children. And, as intelligence in a heritable trait, they are likely to have lower than average IQ as well.

The conclusion that I think this book leads to (although not part of the book itself) is that perhaps this is why we’re seeing more and more gap develop between the classes. Intelligence is more important today than it was in the past, and will be more important tomorrow than it is today. Intelligent parents have intelligent children, and, as such, a caste system is developing based on IQ that may be irreversible.

The other shocking conclusion from the book. If you want to pick the “best” employee out of a group, all you really need to do (not read a resume, look at degrees, look at achievements, none of that) is pick the one with the highest IQ. This is pretty much accepted and is the reason that it’s illegal to test applicants for IQ. So, we proxy IQ by achievement (college educated means your IQ is about 10-15 points higher than the average). But what we really should test for is IQ; a really scary thought when you think about how “out of control of our destiny” that makes all of us.

You do have to wonder what the Irish would have done had the welfare system in place today existed 100 years ago. They worked hard because the alternative was starvation. Had EBT cards existed, they might have gone down a different path and we’d be talking about 7th generation welfare queens named O’Shanty and McGuiness today. Same goes for Italians, Poles, etc that came here with nothing and within a generation were middle class or higher.

Trust me, if you need a reason not to have children, this is the perfect book for you.

I see this as exactly the reason to have children. What other reason are we here for (from an existential perspective) than to pass on our genes and change our environment? Especially if the larger society as a whole has devolved into a subpar selection process…

Unfortunately, we continue to select for low IQ in our society; the lower your intelligence, the more likely you are to have lots and lots of children.

Maybe to a point, but I’m not buying it as a rule. Being dumb does not make you attractive, it just makes you less likely to use birth control. It is possible to be dumb enough (if you’re male and less than average looking) that nobody will reproduce with you. So my guess is there’s some kind left leftward leaning bell curve there, too.

The other shocking conclusion from the book. If you want to pick the “best” employee out of a group, all you really need to do (not read a resume, look at degrees, look at achievements, none of that) is pick the one with the highest IQ.

Not buying that at all. More IQ is great if all else is equal, but that’s as far as I’d go with that.

And yes, IQ is broken down by ethnic groups, and, yes, those with the lowest IQs are in fact those who commit the most crime. That’s the real controversy around this book.

True enough but here is a Very Important Point:

There are highly dysfunctional individuals in every race and ethnic group. Yes, these dysfunctions do appear with different frequencies in different races. But they appear in all races and ethnic groups.

This is why it’s important to judge people individually. There might be more dysfunction on average in blacks, but there are still lots of blacks who are much smarter or more successful than the majority of whites.

I look at Anders Breivik or the Connecticutt Petit murders for examples of grotesque horror committed by members of more successful cultures or ethnicities or races. Yes, the frequencies of these kinds of things are different in different cultures/ethnicities/races, but not their existence.

Important point to remember.

The other shocking conclusion from the book. If you want to pick the “best” employee out of a group, all you really need to do (not read a resume, look at degrees, look at achievements, none of that) is pick the one with the highest IQ.

Not buying that at all. More IQ is great if all else is equal, but that’s as far as I’d go with that.

I agree with this second point too. The most successful people I see are certainly intelligent, but factors like unflappability, ability to work hard, emotional intelligence, playing well with others all come into play.

IQ is probably a very broad brush determinant, basically determining whether this person going to wind up with as a felon or an IV drug user or a low level criminal or not.

IQ is funny. It’s funny because you might have
a mensa quality mind yet not be able to build a house. Over the years I’ve seen incredibly
smart and intelligent people who are masters
in one or two categories, and yet be dumber
than a brick in others. And I’ve also seen
the quirky side of high intelligence. Before I
left aerospace back in the sixties, I worked in
a special group of 8 engineers/scientists on a
new concept in recording data, five of them
were mensa and three of them had family
in the state hospital. By the way, I was in that group by mistake.

It’s not my conclusion, it’s the authors. Read the book, it’s pretty interesting; things that we do to select people (for jobs, and other things) are, in many cases, just imperfect IQ tests. An IQ test would, in the authors opinion, be a more direct way to get the information that you really want from a potential employee.

“Maybe to a point, but I’m not buying it as a rule. Being dumb does not make you attractive, it just makes you less likely to use birth control. ”

Yup, that’s the thesis presented in the book. And, also makes you less likely to be working a high pressure job, giving you more time… Well, you know. Attractiveness doesn’t correlate with the number of children, IQ however, does. Seems that being less bright is a better way to have more “encounters” than being attractive.

“I see this as exactly the reason to have children. What other reason are we here for (from an existential perspective) than to pass on our genes and change our environment? Especially if the larger society as a whole has devolved into a subpar selection process…”

Well, if I could guarantee the outcome, yes, I would agree with you. But IQ is not perfectly inherited, 2 very bright people sometimes have a very dim child. That’s the chance that I’d rather eliminate, if I could be assured of intelligence, I’d feel a lot better about it.

Also.. I’m not really “happy” with my level of intelligence either. Yes, I’m above average. But I’m not anywhere near the level that I’d want to be to pass on “superior” genes. If I was truly 1 in 1000, I’d feel more obligated to add to the gene pool. To speak plainly, I don’t feel my genes are worth passing on.

Does the book limit its focus to jobs that involve a lot of thinking in the first place? Only about 20% of jobs in the US require a college degree. Does IQ matter to a bar owner who needs to hire a bartender?

Also, regarding IQ and crime, does the book consider the possibility that people with hith IQ scores might be better at getting away with their crimes?

IQ is funny. It’s funny because you might have
a mensa quality mind yet not be able to build a house. Over the years I’ve seen incredibly
smart and intelligent people who are masters
in one or two categories, and yet be dumber
than a brick in others

That’s been the nature of the economy for quite a few decades now. The best way for an aerospace engineer to advance his career is generally to focus on his narrow area of expertise. Any time spent learning more practical skills would be a waste of time.

“Does the book limit its focus to jobs that involve a lot of thinking in the first place? Only about 20% of jobs in the US require a college degree. Does IQ matter to a bar owner who needs to hire a bartender?”

No.. They directly examine that idea in the book, trying to correct for jobs that obviously require lots of mental HP. They actually use the example of a server (waiter) in the book, IQ confers, even in that relatively “low level” (please don’t take offense wait staff, I spent years serving and loved every minute of it) position, IQ inferred a significant advantage.

I suggest reading the book if you’re at all interested in the topic. I find it unreal that such a small number (g, your general intelligence) can have such a broad impact everything that you are and ever will be.

“Also, regarding IQ and crime, does the book consider the possibility that people with hith IQ scores might be better at getting away with their crimes?”

Yes. They examine that and conclude that it’s a reasonable assumption that high IQ folks are getting away with some crime that lower IQs are being caught for. But the difference is so huge that, unless you think high IQs are getting away with it at some unreal rate, there’s simply no way to correct for it. IIRC, they even went so far as to assign EVERY unsolved crime to the high IQ group and it still didn’t make a significant difference.

The data Murray and Herrnstein used in “The Bell Curve” was funded by the notorious Pioneer Fund, which was set up in the 1930’s to advocate for sending black people “back to Africa”. “The Bell Curve” relies on the same kind of junk science as “creationism” (and received the same academic criticism for both its methodology and its conclusions).
To wit:
-claims that are not supported by the data given
-errors in calculation that invariably support the hypothesis
-no mention of data that contradicts the hypothesis
-no mention of theories and data that conflict with core assumptions
-bold policy recommendations that are consistent with those advocated by racists.

Murray’s latest book “Coming Apart, the State of White America” (which I’ve also read) recycles the same genetic determinism under slightly better disguised rhetoric.

data sets.

Employment based on IQ is all fine and dandy, but would never come to pass. Why? 90% of the managers (decision makers) in private industry are basically low IQ for decision making. They were good at what they were doing earlier in their carriers, but were rewarded for the hard work and time in the company by promotion. These 90% are ill-suited to lead (make decisions, manage and lead). The Peter Principle phenomenon!

To your point, if IQ were used across the board - i.e selecting right persons for a given job, we would not have the industrial manufacturing mess we have in the US now. Some mess perhaps, but that would sort itself out.

Currently, low IQ not good real-life qualifications are important to all managers. They do not want an employee who is threat to their position.