Speaker 1: What's going on.
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And again, thank you so much for your support. It
is Tuesday, It's twelve noon, and that means we chat
with our pal Andrew Dunn. He is the publisher of
long Leaf Politics longleafpol dot com and a contributing columnist
to The Charlotte Observer.
Speaker 1: Andrew, how are you doing, sir?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm doing all right. Thanks for having me on
the show.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, we'd love to chat about the Twitter addie
dust up over doctors. I saw this percolating over I
guess it was over the weekend. I first started seeing
this stuff in the feeds, and you wrote about this
a couple of days ago, and I got to be honest, like,
I went through the I watched the video that the
lawmaker put out that you reference in the piece and
his explanation seemed reasonable, and then I went and read
the bill and it seemed like it's not doing the
thing that everybody is accusing the bill of doing.
Speaker 1: So give people an idea.
Speaker 2: First off, what is this doctor bill that has now
prompted outrage online?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll try to give you the short rundown. I mean, basically,
six eight weeks ago, the General Assembly passed a law unanimously,
you know, not a single vote against it aimed at
trying to get more doctors to North Carolina, particularly in
rural areas. And one of the ways is through interstate compacts. Basically,
of your licensed doctor in another state, it's easier now
to refer you to practice inrth Carolina. Now, the other one,
you know that that's fairly innocuous, and nobody's really talked
about that.
Speaker 2: No, And it seems like that should have been done
a long time ago, Like that's just like that would
have been a fix that should have been done decades ago.
Speaker 3: But anyway, yeah, yeah, you would, you would think so.
But you know, either way, it's done now. Good second
way is to create a slightly easier pathway for doctors
who went to medical school and have practiced in other
countries to come to the United States and specifically North
Carolina to practice. I mean, there's always been some ways
for you know, doctors to immigrate to the United States
and begin to practice. Eventually, this shortened the timeframe a
little bit in certain circumstances, and the reaction to this
has just been over the top in my view. Some
of the folks online will have you believe that, you know,
North Carolina is just going to go overseas and you know,
scoop up random people who got a paper degree from
a diploma mill and sit them right in hospitals. But
you know, how I read the bill, how the law
actually reads, does not create that at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some of the stipulations here that the
International Pathway. In order to qualify, a doctor has to
have a full time job offer in a North Carolina
hospital or clinic with an on site North Carolina licensed
supervising physician. They have to be in good standing with
a foreign medical license. They have to have one hundred
and thirty weeks of recognized medical education from a designated school,
have either two years of accredited post grad training or
ten years of active practice, prove clinical competency through recognized
exams and pass background checks, be proficient in English, and
have legal work authorization like that seems like that seems
pretty solid to me. Like, yeah, if we want to
get some doctor from Britain or France or somewhere, like yeah,
like we should be able to get somebody as long
as they meet this criteria. And this is a like
this is a short term fix, because you mentioned this
in the in your piece at the Observer that like, yes,
we can do things to increase the ranks of the
doctors for the long term, but that doesn't solve the
problem of a short staffed clinic right now.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. And you know doctor Grant Campbell, who's
in the General Assembly and has been one of the
leading voices on this bill. You know, he's also working
on things like getting more slots in medical schools, getting
more residency slots and all. That's great, And honestly, I
wish we had been working on this years ago, but
I'm glad we're doing it now. But anyway, even if
all that were to go into effect immediately, it doesn't
solve the short term problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it takes a while for a doctor to
become a doctor.
Speaker 1: Rightly, you can.
Speaker 2: Increase the slots in the medical schools, but they still
have to go through the medical school, do the residency.
They got to go through all of that year's long
process before they can ever get a job at a clinic.
So this seems like a reasonable way to get people
who are doctors in other countries and meet all of
the other criteria and get screened that they then would
be able to practice in the short term.
Speaker 1: It just makes sense.
Speaker 2: And you actually talked with Grant Campbell, who's from Caberis County,
and I thought this was pretty sad, he says. I
wish I had never even touched it at this point
because of all of the abuse that he has been
subjected to.
Speaker 1: And I've seen that.
Speaker 2: I wasn't aware until I read your piece that this
thing was approved unanimously. So what is every single member
of the legislature rhino or something or I guess they're
accusing Campbell of whying to everybody about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's what they're saying. And I don't
want to overstate how I don't think the opposition has
been as broad as it might seem online. I'm sure
you know you're aware of this. You know, when the
bots get involved, it can quickly start to feel overwhelming,
when really it's only you know, one to two or
three people who are really driving all the activity. But
you know, to me, the bigger issue isn't isn't about
this one particular bill, And I don't want to be,
you know, the public face of this bill. I'm not
a doctor like I'm sure there are probably ways to
improve it. I'm not smart enough to say what those are,
but I'm sure the General Assembly will work on that.
To me, the bigger issue is around the immigration issue
in general. You know, I think over the past year,
America has done the right thing in really focusing on
curbing illegal immigration. But I worry that as a country
we're starting to take things a little bit too far
and not recognizing that. You know, there used to be
a consensus that immigration in general is a good thing
and that we want the United States to be a
magnet for the best and brightest from around the world,
and I worry that we're losing that and this could
be a symptom of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's possible. I've been saying that too, and I
hear from you know, listeners and emailers and you know.
Speaker 1: People online too.
Speaker 2: There definitely has been that kind of a backlash to say,
you know, set it to zero, no more, We're not
taking anybody else in.
Speaker 1: And my view has always been.
Speaker 2: With you just articulated, which is that I want the
best and the brightest on the planet to come here
because they they love the idea of being able to
do what they want under our ordered liberty, and.
Speaker 1: They can take advantage of that.
Speaker 2: And then we get we get to yield the fruits
of their labor as well, we get the path, we
get the R and D, we get those productive members
of society. So, yeah, I do wonder, Yeah, I do
share that concern of yours. But also I understand why
people are like, don't take anybody else in, because you know,
housing is unaffordable. You know, AI is going to put
everybody out of work, and so there are these other
pressures that are also part of this conversation. And this
gets to another piece that you write about. This is
the graph that went viral which shows that the share
of thirty year olds in the US who are both
married and homeowners has declined. A majority of young people
fell into that category. Half a century ago, but today
it's only like ten percent being thirty and married and
having a home, and that is that is not a
good trend.
Speaker 1: That is not sustainable, right.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right. Yeah, I mean fifty years in the
nineteen seventies, you know, having checked all those boxes was
by far the most common scenario for a thirty year old,
and now it's one of the least common. And you know,
there's so many reasons why this is happening, you know,
both cultural and economic, you know, and it's only going
to get worse as we go For as we go forward,
I mean we're already seeing entry level white collar hiring
go way down, you know, as AI gets more prevalent
in society. So I honestly think that this chart's only
going to get worse, hopefully before it gets better. But
I think it'll take a really sustained effort at the
state level to try to push back on this.
Speaker 2: Well, and this is the thing too, if you you know,
if you are married, it's more likely that you're going
to be able to afford a home than if you're single.
I don't know where this idea came from that Hey,
you know what, I could just stay single, and I'll
be able to go out and buy my own home
home and it'll be the home that I'm kind of
accustomed to living in, eighteen to eighteen hundred square feet,
you know, three bed, two and a half bath to
car garage, and it's like, I don't know if that's realistic.
And honestly, it'll be easier. I'm not saying it's easy,
but it's easier if you have a partner who's also
bringing in some revenue to the equation, it seems like.
But so I don't know how you It seems like
you got to break that the being single later in
life trend before you can get to the homeowning trend.
Speaker 3: Maybe yeah, I mean it's kind of a chicken or
the egg problem, right, and that I think is more
on the cultural side. Is you're absolutely right. I mean,
people don't necessarily start thinking about buying a house until
they are married. But then on the flip side, you know,
people feel like they can't get married until they're financially
stable and able to afford a home. So for whatever reason,
that's the deal that our society has decided we're going
to sign up for, and it just leads to the situation.
Speaker 2: Where in now, well, yeah, and then you layer in
the burdensome debt from college that you know, kids are
graduating with, you know, one hundred hundred and fifty two
hundred thousand dollars in debt, and you know, they've got
a degree in a career track that is probably going
to at best yield them a salary of sixty or
seventy thousand dollars a year after fifteen to twenty years
of experience. And it's just not it's not a good
business model for them. But that's also yeah, I mean
that was also part.
Speaker 1: Of the.
Speaker 2: Lie that was sold to these generations that go to college,
get your degree, and you'll be able to get a
really good job, and that is not the case any
longer because of the cost of college education. I think
that I think if we got it that you know,
like and my idea on this is to simply make
the colleges or make the loans rather chargeable in bankruptcy
and let the let these kids declare bankruptcy and then
the colleges don't get their loans, they don't get their
money back, you know. And if I think if you
make the colleges have to do the loans and you
make them dischargeable, then I think they make better loans
and I think they drive down the cost of their tuition.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a great point, and that could certainly
be part of it. But the other side, on the
flip side, if you just make uh, you know, have
these loans not have the federal guarantees and you know
where banks or lenders actually do have to underwrite as
almost like a business plan, like all right, we'll give
you this money for this degree, but how are you
going to pay it back? That just doesn't factor into
the equation at all.
Speaker 1: No, it's a great point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would not be writing loans for college degrees
that had no viable economic future. Uh you know, basket
weaving one oh one, Like, no, you're not going to
have a job that you're going to be able to
pay us back on this. So yeah, I think that's
a I think that's a big part of it too. Hey, Andrew,
it's always a pleasure to chat with you. Thanks for
your time. As always, you can read Andrew's work at
his substack newsletter Longleaf.
Speaker 1: Is it substack? Actually? Is it a substack?
Speaker 2: Okay, substack, It's long Leave Politics, and you can also
read them at Charlotte Observer as well. We'll talk with
you next week, Andrew, Thank you, sir, all right, thank you,
take care.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this show, you know I try
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Speaker 1: Let me jump over and chat with George.
Speaker 4: Hello, George, Hey, Pete, Hey, Hey, listen. I wanted to
weigh in on this college debt stuff. I make my
living as a college admissions and financial aid coach private
and the private market, that is, people hire me to
work with their high school kids. I've got these comments
to make. First of all, the colleges used to be
responsible for the loans back in the days of the
Stafford loans. They are horrible at debt collecting. They're horrible.
That's why the government took an O. And the federal
government does keep a default rate score for every university
in college that participates in the federal student loan program,
and that does affect their eligibility to borrow to access
the government money. But the downside is the colleges get
all their money up front, no matter what happens to
the student. And that's what's you know, each semester, that's
where problem goes.
Speaker 1: Oh I bet yeah. A quick question.
Speaker 2: You say they keep track of the default rates, but
how do they default if you can't discharge in bankruptcy.
Speaker 4: Well, the default rate is when they so the college
is I'm sorry, these it gets a little, it gets
a little convoluted. Big surprise.
Speaker 1: Well it's it's government, so of course it does.
Speaker 4: Yes. So here's what happens. You apply for federal student loans.
They give you the loans. When you separate from the program,
either because you leave college or you graduate six months later,
repayment begins obligated. You can get deferments, you know, it's
like oh, I don't have a job, or I got sick,
or I got laid off, or I had a baby,
and they'll give you deferments. But at a certain point they,
the lending the servers, the lending service companies, will declare
you to be in default. So, in other words, you
have this kind of like when you go to the hospital,
you can't pay the medical bill. Then the hospital eventually
sent gives it out to a debt collector. Right, So
that's what happens with these college loans, and those default
rates are reported annually by every college and university to
the Federal Student Office, and there I don't know the
exact number or percentage they are allowed a certain percentage
of default and remain in good standing. But if they
get above that percentage, they're put on warning and then
on probation, and then they can actually be disqualified from
further participation in the federal student aid program, which means
those colleges are out of business.
Speaker 2: Because are you aware of any colleges that have actually
hit that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're you know, I can't call them off hand,
but yeah, there are a few, and sadly, the few
that I'm aware of or are historically black colleges and university. Yeah,
and that is that is one of the tragedies of
this student loan business that the government gotten in has
gotten into. But here's one other point that people don't realize.
An eighteen year old high school graduate on his or
her own signature can participate in the direct student loan program,
whereas the money is dispersed to the college in the
name of that student and the student's signature unsecured loan,
but it taps out at twenty seven thousand dollars. Beyond that,
they have to have a co signer or they have
to go into the commercial loan market and find some
shady lender, some exorbitant interest rate, who will give them
an unsecured personal loan for twenty or thirty thousand dollars?
Speaker 3: And one other.
Speaker 4: Comment, Pete, you know you mentioned one two hundred thousand
dollars in debt. There are those outliers. But if you
go to the National Center for Education Statistics, you will
find that the average undergraduate loan is I think it's
like thirty indebtedness. It's like thirty six thirty seven thousand
dollars total. That's the average total.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, that's total for the four year degree.
Speaker 4: If they got their four year degree.
Speaker 1: Rights just the total on the loan.
Speaker 4: And so one of the things that you know, I
tell I teach when I have the opportunity to speak
to groups, I say, look a a college partial college
education with debt is much worse than no college education
at all, with no If you're not going to complete
your bachelor's degree, just go into the job market with
a high school diploma.
Speaker 2: Now, some good advice, George, I do have to run.
I do appreciate the information.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Sare you buddy?
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From the text line, Harry says, college grads so many
degree fields are way overfilled and don't result in a
significant job salary. I don't think a university receives their
share of student loan default responsibility. I think the universities
are well compensated. We are the ones left holding the bag. Yeah,
this is sort of speaks to this concept over production
of the elites, or as I.
Speaker 1: Call them, the tholites.
Speaker 2: They're not actually elites, They just you know, had family
members that did something a couple generations ago and they
live off of the residual income and trust funds and stuff.
But there there is something to that, this overproduction in
certain fields and like what do you do with this degree?
Speaker 1: And it's not just.
Speaker 2: In these you know, the weird social sciences types of
degree tracts. You know, I say basket weaving or you know,
theoretical dance or something like that, Like what do you
actually do with that degree?
Speaker 1: But there are.
Speaker 2: Also some you know, math classes for example, there you
know what do you do with the math degree. Usually
you end up teaching right you go into the university,
and that's.
Speaker 1: Not a knock.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that that's bad, but there are only
so many of those slots right to get into and
it becomes very competitive, and so if you over produce
people from those colleges with these degrees, they will not
be able to work in the field that they've studied.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: This is from anonymous. Do parents not pay for their
kids college education anymore? I am fifty six and grew
up in a middle class family. My parents paid me
and my brother to attend public university. All my friends'
parents did the same, as far as I knew. I
consider myself middle class, and I did the same for
my two kids. Both my kids tell me this is
now the exception.
Speaker 1: I actually.
Speaker 2: We did something on this a couple months ago, I
don't know, seven, eight months ago, something like that, and
the advice from some financial guy. I forget the details
of the story. I apologize for that, but he said basically,
as a parent, if you're looking to help your kid,
you would probably be better off giving them money towards
their first home purchase versus the degrees.
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 2: I was one of four and my parents could not
afford all four kids to go to college. It was
basically stay.
Speaker 1: At home mom.
Speaker 2: She did a little part time work here and there.
But you know, Dad made a decent salary, but you know,
he didn't qualify back in those days for any of
the student loans. So my brother went to the Citadel
and that was expensive for an out of state student.
And then a couple of years later, I go to
college and I'm at Winthrop and it was at that
time the cheapest South Carolina State school. By the time
I left, it was the most expensive. They just kept
jacking up the tuition and I had to take out loans,
as did both of my younger sisters, So we all
three out of the four of us had loans to repay.
So that was not the norm for us, and that
was back in the in the mid nineties. I think
they should This is from Mark. I think they should
make it affordable for one person to own a house.
Let the married couple choose if they want to stay
at home to take care of the children, because we
need to do a better job with our children. I
think that will make a better world in the future.
It's all about the kids. And that's a very good
point as well. I remember, and this was years ago,
so I don't know if the economics still work. But
if you have a dual income household, which now is
basically required, I guess, but you know, twenty years ago,
like eighty percent of the second income earner, so not
the breadwinner, not the one who makes the most, but
the one who makes the second most, like eighty percent
of their income goes to daycare childcare. So like if
you just cut your spending by twenty percent, then you
would be able to have a parent.
Speaker 1: Stay at home. That was the idea being advanced at
that time.
Speaker 2: Again, I don't know if the economics still work on that,
but yeah, the answer, in my view, the answer to
more housing, more affordable housing, is first off, get rid
of all the people in the country that aren't supposed
to be that are living in the houses. You're going
to free up a lot of inventory, number one. But
also number two, you got to allow more building of
starter homes, you know, and that's difficult to do in
urban centers. It's difficult to do when you've got land
costs that are high because there's not enough buildable land left.
So yeah, the starter homes are usually located farther away
from the urban core. And that's where you start talking
about mass transit options and trains and such to move
people from lower land cost areas into the well paid,
salaried areas. Right, that's the idea. That's what the proponents
of mass transit argue for.
Speaker 1: That if you because.
Speaker 2: Otherwise you're trading large chunks of your life in a
commute that can sometimes run like two to three hours
a day. And what is your life worth to you?
Because that's what we're talking about. That's what time is.
You're sitting in a car for two hours, three hours
going back and forth to work every single day. You
don't get that time back. So's the that's the pitch
for you know, high speed rail lines connecting the city
centers where you have a lot of the higher paid
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five three three seventy six thirty seven Extension two oh
seven for the details. From the text line, a lot
of people commenting here this is from stand why don't
we get the government out of the business of college
and training for careers and make a combined effort between
companies and education institutions. Businesses fund those institutions in exchange
for the workers at for them. That way, taxpayers are
never on the hook.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Look, I interviewed a guy runs an electric company. He's
an electrician, and they have their own program to train
up electricians because the local community college is still training
students to get commercial electrical licensing for a plant that
was in town but closed down decades ago. So it
like there are models out there, Daisy says Pete. It's
a sacrifice for a mom to stay home with her children,
but it's a choice many couples refuse to make because
it might require a smaller home or an older car.
It's worth it to the children to have a full
time mom. I realized sometimes it's impossible for this to happen,
but I believe many could. But the kids drive the
mom too crazy, and work is a reprieve. And this
is Yes, it's the hardest job to do. Being a
mom is the hardest job, and so I understand why
people might not want to do it. You know, it's
very difficult and you're always working. There's no reprieve. I
understand that and don't mistake anything I'm saying. I'm not
telling you this is what everybody needs to do. I'm
a lowercase libertarian. People, i don't tell you how to
live your life. I'm not telling you that. I'm just
giving you information about data that's out there. And I
don't think we do a service to people by telling
them that there is a quote right way or wrong way,
or a good way and a bad way to do
this stuff. Everybody's different, and if we just say that
these are just different choices, one is not worse than
the other, maybe we break some of this peer pressure
that forces people into thinking that this is what I
have to do, you know, Mary, Welcome to the show.
Hey Mary, Hi Pete.
Speaker 5: I'm always had a lot to say, and i always
get nervous, so I'm gonna try and get through it.
Speaker 1: Okay, don't be nervous.
Speaker 5: So my one point is my son and daughter in
law when they got married, she still had college loans,
and my son said when they would try to pay
them off, it was practically impossible. It went to interest only,
like they were horrible, horrible loans. And I feel like
that could be a because they're no debt people, and
I feel like that could be something if we could
just somehow regulate these loans that make them easier for
somebody to pay off. You know, that could be one thing.
But the other thing is is I'm a boomer, and
I know where we can be obnoxious and if going
hates us, but I'm going full boomer right now. When
I was young, I had two roommates. You know, when
I was like eighteen, I had two roommates. We lived
in a one bedroom apartment in a terrible part of town.
My friends and we're all still friends. They shared the bedroom.
I slept on a cot in the dining room nice
and we were just tickled to death. Now the hard
thing now is it's hard to find a landlord that
will let you do that, right But and so that
is one thing. But I think the expectations now are
just outrageous. I mean, I know somebody who wants to
stay home with her child and always complains about the
cost of daycare. In the meantime, she always drives a
brand new car, she always has the latest iPhone, Her
nails are done, her hair is always professionally done. And
those are things that we would have never.
Speaker 4: Dreamed of doing.
Speaker 5: We would not have had our nails done or you know,
browse threaded or anything like that. And so I think
there's a bit of an unrealistic expectation of what life
should look like.
Speaker 2: I think you are you know, I think I know
you are exactly right. Mary actually did that very story.
The size of the homes that people expect to have
completely out of whack with what they earn.
Speaker 1: I gotta run, though I appreciate the call. Good to
hear from you. Mary. All right, that'll do it for
this episode. Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I could not do the show without your support and
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,
so if you'd like, please support them too and tell
them you heard it here. You can also become a
patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.