Young and Old

By Hank Silverberg

I am very lucky to have two wonderful grandchildren who live nearby and are often playing around my house as I write this blog. They are both bright boys, and I expect their quality of life to be better than mine. But at times, I worry it won’t happen.

Getting a college education has always been encouraged in my family, and it has worked out well for those of us in the Baby Boomer generation, for the most part (see story angle below).  Our children also did pretty well, though like many of their classmates,  they are now strapped with huge student loans that are getting harder and harder to pay off.

So, it was with great alarm that I noted this story that floated

around the edges of the news cycle this past week. Just the headline should make many people a bit nervous.  

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/10/trump-proposes-end-to-student-loan-forgiveness-program.html

The President’s proposed budget for 2021 includes cuts of $170 billion from student loan programs. The scary part is that proposal 
does away with those popular government SUBSIDIZED loans where the interest is covered by the government while the student is still in school, or if they have an economic hardship when they get out. It would also limit repayment options and would get rid of the popular public service loan forgiveness program.  That includes the one that forgives the debt in exchange for badly needed public service. 

This certainly will keep thousands of middle-class and low-income  kids from being able to afford college, especially since many of their parents are still paying off their own loans. A recent Pew Charitable Trust poll found 80% of all Americans agree the government should make it easier for those with student debt to pay it off, and 60% say they would support a plan to cancel all existing student loan debt.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2019/10/14/americans-support-federal-action-to-make-student-loan-repayment-easier

That idea is popular among the Democratic candidates for president, and you can be sure they will jump on that issue during the general election campaign. If they don’t, frankly, they are missing a great opportunity to bring some voters to their side. 

Many graduates with good jobs can't buy new homes ,new cars , or even new furniture because of their loan debt and that has at times dragged down the national economy. 

In the meantime, grandparents will try to put some money aside for their grandchildren’s education if their health care bills don’t eat up their income.  Maybe if you start the day a child is born, you will save enough in 18 years to cover at least one semester of college.   

There are, of course, many other negative things about the proposed 2021 federal budget. I will probably pick one or two out over the next few weeks to highlight what a disaster it could be.  

As I mentioned earlier, life has been good for Baby Boomers, at least until they get old. A friend of mine, Ed Stannard, who writes for the New Haven Register produced a very interesting story this past week involving doctors and medical staff at Yale New Haven Hospital. 

https://www.ctinsider.com/news/nhregister/article/18-Yale-New-Haven-medical-staff-retire-after-14996524.php

The hospital asked medical staff over 70 to take a cognitive test to make sure they all still know what they are doing—in other words, to make sure they haven’t lost their ability to treat patients. Once the test was completed, 18 of those people decided on their own to retire. So, I guess you could say no one was fired from the tests alone, but the writing was on the wall, and the pressure to quit was pretty obvious. That did not please the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has now sued the hospital. The EEOC is charging that such tests are a violation of Federal anti-discrimination law.

This kind of irks me in two ways. Such a blanket test appears to be age discrimination. After all, we all deteriorate, so to speak, on different timetables. The doctors and nurses should be evaluated on an individual basis, not as a group. Many senior citizens have faced similar attempts to get them to leave their jobs more often than not, because they have the highest salaries, or because of perceived performance deficiencies.

The other angle, of course, is: we all want to be treated by competent doctors who keep up-to-date and have not lost their abilities.

This is a tough call, both for facilities like Yale New Haven Hospital and for Baby Boomers themselves. 

When is it time to hang it up and retire? Many of us have to work past 70 just to pay off  student debt. 

News Briefs:

Ladies and gentleman, start your engines and let the campaign nonsense begin!

President Trump used the  Daytona 500 as a photo-op on Sunday. He had "Air Force One" do a special flyover of the track and then his motorcade, complete with all the bullet-proof glass and security cars, did a quarter lap or so on the racetrack right after he gave the traditional race start. Of course, NASCAR has a big following and I surely don't think they are all Dukes of Hazard and Daisy Mae's. But Mr. Trump might have gotten a better lesson on Florida politics, in a key state, if he had gone to the Early Bird Special at I-Hop. Reporters out there who are supposed to care about such stunts should be asking who paid for that Air force One flyover and the detour to the track. It should be paid for by the Trump re-election committee.  But I bet it was the taxpayer money, and that folks, says everything about Donald J. Trump.  Yes, reporters, this is a challenge. Who paid for it?? I am sure it added up enough to cover a couple of hundred student loans. 

And then there is this:

America’s past-time is back. Pitchers and catchers reported to spring training this week and the boys of summer are on the field again. That always makes me smile.

But this year, there’s a scandal dulling the excitement. The Houston Astros have, so far, paid the price for the so- called  “electronic sign stealing” scandal that occurred THREE SEASONS ago. The Red Sox also lost their premier manager, Alex Cora, because he was involved in the so-called scandal when he was with the Astros. And that has raised suspicion on the Red Sox World Series win TWO YEARS AGO, without much direct evidence other than Cora’s job change.  Major League Baseball continues to investigate.

Some indignant fans in New York and Los Angeles have 

even suggested that the Astros 2017 World Series win, and the Red Sox 2018 Championship, be scratched from the record books because of this. (The Dodgers lost both of those World Series; the Yankees were eliminated in the playoffs by the Astros.)

What irritates me the most about all this is that “sign stealing”  pales compared to the PED infection that plagued all of baseball for more than a decade before MLB decided to do something. When that finally blew open, nobody suggested taking away World Series titles from teams that had multiple players on steroids.  

Baseball needs to get past this. Sign stealing itself has never been illegal in the sport. And the rules on use of electronic devices, revised slightly over the last few years, need to be clarified. They also need to conclude the investigation NOW, early in spring training, to take  the “allegations” away. 

In the meantime, let the fan's rage be at the people in charge, who knew what was going on, and didn’t do anything, not players on 2020 teams who did nothing wrong.

Play ball!

        (Your comments and suggestions are welcome)

                                            

     (Copies of my book “The Campaign” are available at Amazon.com, BN.com or by emailing me at HankSilerberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get one at a reduced price and with a signature)