The Google Employee Who Opted For a Truck Over Bay Area Rents (dice.com) 492
Nerval's Lobster writes: A little over a year ago, Google employees on a Quora thread announced they'd discovered an interesting way to live in the ultra-expensive Bay Area: Rather than pay for conventional housing, they resided in trucks and RVs parked near (or on) the company's campus, and took advantage of corporate perks—including free food, gym facilities, and dry cleaning—to get by on a day-by-day basis. Now one Googler, Brandon S., has taken to his blog to describe how he engaged in a little off-grid living within sight of Google's high-tech headquarters. First he spent $10,000 of his Google signing bonus on a 2006 Ford truck with 128 square feet of room in the back, which he filled with a bed, dresser, and coat rack. Google pays for his phone, and he uses the company's gym and cafeterias to eat and shower. For those Bay Area tech pros who think Brandon's lifestyle sounds appealing, his list of drawbacks includes "social suicide," the inconvenience of not having a bathroom or fridge in close proximity, stress, insect infestations, and the upfront costs of purchasing a large-enough vehicle. On the other hand, he's also using the cash savings to rapidly pay down his student loans.
alternately: (Score:5, Insightful)
Time to unionize, boys!
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Google pays what's considered well more than a living wage in most parts of the country. However San Francisco real estate costs some 18 times what you'll find in most parts of the country. This isn't because somebody decided that one day, rather collectively a lot of people decided that they just wanted to live there, but San Franciscans are about twice as smug as New Yorkers, so they don't let anybody build up, making the housing availability permanently low, making housing costs more than what NY costs.
The median price for a home there is $1.35 million, and the houses you get at that price are crap compared to what you'll get elsewhere for about $200,000.
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My wife's cousin got a house in Palo Alto near Stanford. 3 bedrooms, 900 sq ft. Over $1,000,000.
He joked, "I always wanted to live in a million dollar home. I just thought it would be better than this."
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Damn, makes a double-wide seem palatial.
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Google pays what's considered well more than a living wage in most parts of the country. However San Francisco real estate costs some 18 times what you'll find in most parts of the country. This isn't because somebody decided that one day, rather collectively a lot of people decided that they just wanted to live there, but San Franciscans are about twice as smug as New Yorkers, so they don't let anybody build up, making the housing availability permanently low, making housing costs more than what NY costs.
The median price for a home there is $1.35 million, and the houses you get at that price are crap compared to what you'll get elsewhere for about $200,000.
18 times? The example you quoted is only 6.75X. The difference in rents is a bit higher [zumper.com], but even that is closer to 7X ($3460 for a one bedroom in SF versus $480 in Wichita).
It's hard to make a direct comparison between NYC and SF because of the large difference in scale -- SF is just a bit bigger than Manhattan, but when most people think of NYC, they include the 5 boroughs that cover a much larger area, you'd need to include SF suburbs to make a more meaningful comparison. If you look at rents in the most
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I was in the Sunnyside neighborhood, just south of Twin Peaks, so a nice neighborhood inside the city, but not near downtown. The house was worth over $1m, and the rent was about $2200. The same house in Portland at a similar distance from downtown and in a neighborhood with the same types of cars in driveways would rent for about $1500. Pay would likely be 50% lower.
OTOH, a 1 bedroom apartment in a rundown building in the Tenderloin was renting for the same price. People want to be downtown. Russian Hill d
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Maybe Google could add Google Condos/Flats/Apartments to their campus? Hmm, well that would require Government approval too.
They tried. The city council shot them down. Facebook also tried to do this, and were also shot down.
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Because barracks were not considered "housing"?
Because it would detract from the income of small apartment complexes who wanted to rent to Google and Facebook employees, and charge them huge rents.
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Doesn't all of this inflated cost mean it's time to MOVE?
Shouldn't there be some market-correcting free capitalism thing going on? Companies moving elsewhere, where costs of living are not blown out of proportion? I'm sure there are plenty of other neat spots in Caly. Yeah, there's this great vibe and synergy going on there, but I thought cutting corners and being efficient with resources was one of the mantras of this whole startup craze.
Seriously, is the place built on a cursed, native American graveyard
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I was working at Google when the borrowing owls showed up around 2008, it messed up the plans they had for the the big vacant lot next to Charleston Park. That place has a ton of gophers that are probably the staple of said owls. If I remember correctly they planed on making that space corporate housing, and yes the owls made it impossible.
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Really? Japan has worse earthquakes (higher magnitude, more frequent) and MASSIVE skyscrapers. It's all about engineering.
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Not only. As I understood it's different from a structural standpoint when you've an earthquake that goes up/down (Japan) or one that goes right/left (California). It's a different kind of stress.
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It's less smugness and more earthquake protection.
Not true at all. Modern skyscrapers can ride out even the biggest quakes. San Francisco has tall buildings [wikipedia.org], it just doesn't have many of them. Last year, more than 95% of building permits in SF were rejected. One and two story buildings were rejected right along with the tall buildings. This is not about safety. It is about incumbent property owners protecting their interests.
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Living wage includes "living within reasonable travel distance of the employer." And living expenses such as utilities, food, etc, within reasonable travel distance.
Reasonable travel distance depends on the location and what people are willing to put up with, of course. My guess is the suburbs out there sprawl quite a bit.
You can't say "well this is a living wage in the midwest, so we should pay that here in the city." If Google wants to pay the living wage for Dumbfuckistan, USA; then they need to move th
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I think it's time for companies (and tech companies especially) to start to encourage more remote workers. The only reason this is a problem is because it's a requirement for the employees to live in the Bay area, where housing prices are out of control. If they could live in Kansas, North Dakota, or Detroit, than they wouldn't have any problems with getting a nice place for a reasonable amount of money.
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Cleveland, Pittsburg, Detroit, and Upstate NY are all good locations with easy access to urban centers such as Chicago, Boston, and NYC; and a host of good tech schools to recruit from such as MIT, Rochester, Rensselaer, and CMU. I've investigated moving east and have found some cities who are tech friendly, no longer are smokestack cities, have amenities and social life, no droughts, no earthquakes, no wildfires, and a cost of housing 50% less than where I currently live. And salaries are basically the same as I am currently making. I am really considering it. I would have no qualms moving if a decent job offer came along.
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Cleveland, Pittsburg, Detroit, and Upstate NY are all good locations
Bangalore, Mumbai, and Manila are also nice locations. Once you go remote, why stop at the border?
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Because I can't walk down a clean sidewalk to the corner store and pick up my standard groceries without being accosted or worse?
If you believe that Bangalore and Manila are more dirty and dangerous than Detroit, then you need to get a passport and go see the world.
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I live about 25 minutes from Binghamton.
Positives:
$510/mo for 2-bedroom riverfront apartment in an extremely low-crime area in a beautiful town (Owego)
Binghamton actually has a pretty good social scene - my only problem is that I'm living a little too far away. I'm planning on moving closer, costs of living won't go up that much to live much closer to downtown than I do now.
I like the outdoors, and there are lots of amazing state parks and even town parks with great hiking trails readily available.
Negative
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A little over a year ago, Google employees on a Quora thread announced they'd discovered an interesting way to live in the ultra-dangerous Detroit Metro: Rather than pay for conventional housing, they resided in Detroit. Now one Googler, David X., has taken to his blog to describe how he engaged in a little off-grid living within sight of Google's high-tech headquarters. First h
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This. I migrated from Wichita to the Bay Area in 2008 and lived there until last summer when I moved back. I had already been an independent contractor for 3 years before the move, so finding work was only slightly more difficult after the move. The advantages are clear:
1. For less than half the monthly price of my rent controlled 1-bedroom apartment in SF, I now own a 3-bedroom house with a yard and everything.
2. There aren't really any jobs in Wichita for me, so all my work is remote. I hate commuting. While in SF, I could sometimes find gigs which allowed some remote work, but most expected you to commute to the office if you were in the area.
3. The lower cost of living means I can be more selective about what work I take on. I have more free time to spend with my girlfriend and on hobbies, not to mention the space. I've taken up woodworking since I moved back, and it's easily one of the most pleasurable activities I've ever taken up.
I miss SF sometimes, but the trade-offs are quite clear. And now that I'm not throwing away so much of my earnings on living expenses, I can afford to visit SF if I want, not to mention other possible destinations.
One last thing: a good friend of mine back in SF, also in the tech industry, recently purchased a school bus which he will be living in, rather than finding a new apartment. In part I think it's kind of cool in a radical, fuck the norm sort of way. But on the other hand, it really shows the heights of ever escalating absurdity the Bay Area has reached in terms of housing.
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Except that you have to essentially be a contractor. You have to be a sales person, selling yourself constantly to get new work, and not everyone can do that. If you need equipment that is doubly hard as you'll have to travel a lot to get into the labs. Working as a team is difficult that way, there's no one in the next cubicle to talk about an issue with, and talking on the phone is clumsy and ineffective.
Companies with stacked ranking don't do "remote". (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's time for companies (and tech companies especially) to start to encourage more remote workers.
Companies with stacked ranking don't do "remote".
This is because stacked ranking is basically a high school popularity contest which pits employees against each other to stay above the bottom part of the bell curve so that they don't end up on a PIP ("Performance Improvement Program") or just plain fired/asked to lead/offered severance.
When Marissa Mayer came into Yahoo from Google, she instituted stacked ranking. It's the main reason she disallowed remote workers, since they were going to be the lowest ranked anyway, and if you are going to be ranked low, you might as well pack your bags before it's an issue.
So... between a remote worker, who you hardly ever have any personal interactions with, and a local worker who you eat lunch with daily, and consider a good work friend/buddy... who are you going to shove under the bus?
Exactly.
So remote workers are strongly discouraged at most companies that originated in the Amazon/Google/Facebook cultures, or hired HR or management out of those cultures, which is to say "Company X is successful; let's act just like company X, and we will be successful, too".
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Just got laid off from a place like that. For the last several years, the mantra had been "We want to be just like Zynga!" nevermind how THAT company was rotting from the inside out. And then management decided to adopt Google's OKR process. A key problem is that management talked big about doing these things but rarely ever actually does them, so you end up with some teams and groups doing OKRs and others who have none, for years. So when the annual reviews come around, you cannot say you have met a
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I think he's quite clever. Trading a little up front discomfort for paying off $22k of student loans in 10 months? Sounds pretty smart to me. Hes sacrificing less than a year of his life.
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That is how *traditional* economies work.
If you made the simple change of promoting a distributed work force and have everyone collaborate via 3d environment then you wouldn't have to concentrate people in arbitrary locations.
Just incorporate in the most friendly tax state and let your workers be anywhere they want to be.
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That is how *traditional* economies work. If you made the simple change of promoting a distributed work force ...
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Google and other high tech companies around there pay quite good wages, which is why housing prices in that area are so high. Raising the wage further would only push housing prices higher. That's how economies work.
Well said. Google (and the rest of the big 5) pay just under $100k for kids right out of college - about double the US median wage for a first job!
Housing will always seek a price that's a multiple of the average family income in the region. There are plenty on 2-tech-earner families in Silly Valley, with a family income north of $200k, so a $880k price on an unimpressive house is what you'd expect.
I just rented an apartment with a commute I could tolerate. It was only $1800 for a large 2-bedroom, includ
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It's not that simple. Sure tech has an impact but there is also the contingent of people with money who live there for lifestyle and prestige e.g. "We spend our holidays in our little place by the Bay".
Economics 101 only explains a few simple things.
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Something is worth what someone is willing to pay.
That's absurd. It's like this all over the world. (Score:4, Insightful)
Housing prices are higher than "the cost to build" in major metropolitan areas all over the world (London, Paris, Rome, Moscow, etc., etc.).
Your definition of 'normal' is abnormal.
Re: That's absurd. It's like this all over the wor (Score:3)
You articulated it clearer, but you are still wrong. The price of the house includes more than just the simple construction cost. You are also paying for location, which is a huge factor. That is the reason the exact same house can cost different amounts in different locations.
You are close to repeating Adam Smith's "natural price" theory.
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... just because the greedy owner thinks he can charge a million. In a more normal country, this is called extortion.
First, that isn't what extortion means:
ex-tor-tion
noun
the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.
No one is using force or threats here. If you don't want to pay that much, fine—someone else will; that's why the price is so high.
Second, that "greedy" owner is only doing what any owner of any kind of property has every right to do: choose to sell, or not, on his or her own terms. If the owner doesn't want to sell, the owner doesn't have to sell. Taking the property without the owner's permission, or threatening the owner with fines or other loss of property or liberty for refusing to sell (or equivalently, for asking for "too high" a price) would be extortion.
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How would a union help Google workers in the Bay area? If they tried a collective bargaining approach with Google, you can bet the company would just start to staff up facilities in "right to work" states where the cost of living is lower and they can pay less. Then all the guys living in pickup trucks would simply drive their little hovels to where ever and clear even more cash per month.
Ok, Perhaps not, but the subject of the article behind this makes it clear that he was able to save 90% of his pay, pa
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Google pays their technical staff extremely well. The problem is that Bay Area housing prices are astronomical, and it's pretty hard to get ahead when you're paying out several thousand dollars of after-tax money every month just to rent a room in a shared house.
I suspect that this guy will only be able to live this way for a year or so - either Google will step in and ask him to move his truck (especially if others get similar ideas) or he'll grow tired of his spartan living arrangements once he's paid off
welcome to the future (Score:3)
... where everyone is a "consultant" (temp) and company provides a trailer park and hookups for employees' winnebagos. when your project wraps, you drive it to your next "job."
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So what they pay them is the local equivalent of minimum wage. Factor in cost of housing and commuting, as well as CA taxes, and they would probably be better off in the mid-west.
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or, you know, google could pay a living wage.
If I were Google (or any other tech company), I would be more inclined to relocate to a city where my employees didn't have to live to live in their cars because the Smugville hippies and greedy homeowners have decided it would be a good idea to basically prohibit all new housing construction.
Seriously, do you really NEED to be in SF that badly? Is it really that ESSENTIAL? If you need to kiss-ass in Silicon Valley that badly just to keep up your tech cred, just locate an Office of Bunghole-Tonguing branch office there and locate your main campus somewhere with available affordable housing.
Living arrangements (Score:5, Funny)
Hopefully not in that order.
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Is there a particular order which is correct?
In any case, you could just think of the order as cyclical with no beginning and no end. Then it is whatever order you want to see it in.
This reminds me of an Adam Corolla bit from the "Man Show" a long time ago... Why do they call it "Stop and go traffic? Shouldn't it be called go and stop traffic?"
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Is there a particular order which is correct?
Yes. Since eating in a cafeteria (or any restaurant) is done in the midst of other people, and showering is done in a locker room which has it's own, shall we say, ambiance, the correct order is "shower then eat". That way you wash off the "ambiance" of living in a truck before sitting down next to other people to eat.
You can call it "cyclical", but the time in between "shower" and "eat" does make a difference.
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Boy, it's going to be awesome for him if the company gym makes a new rule limiting the way he's using it.
Forget company store, this dude is placing himself at the mercy of the company _toilet_. And yet some people will consider him the way of the future, and he might spawn a new kind of race to the bottom. After all, the other Google employees can't buy a house after three years, so logically they need to all be doing this, right?
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Gosh, I thought it was POOR people who were the homeless problem in the Bay Area. Live and learn, I guess?
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Why not a motorhome? (Score:2)
It would at least be respectably configured for living in (bathroom, sink, heat/ac, fridge, etc). Solar on the roof would keep the batteries up with minimal need for generator run time.
If you wanted to go minimalist, you could probably get a pickup camper.
Re:Why not a motorhome? (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the towns in the South Bay have ordinances with prohibitions against motorhomes. You can't live in them, you can't park them on their streets or in driveways. And they certainly don't allow businesses to allow motorhomes to live in their parking lots. So it all has to be on the downlow, it has to look like a regular van and no one has to notice you.
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It would at least be respectably configured for living in (bathroom, sink, heat/ac, fridge, etc). Solar on the roof would keep the batteries up with minimal need for generator run time.
If you wanted to go minimalist, you could probably get a pickup camper.
Yeah for a "fun project" I suspect he could plan ahead a little better. Not only could he have purchased a decent used MH for about $20k but you could actually get financing for a new one with all the perks. Also consider that rather than buying a truck outright, he could have just leased it for 36 months.
Cautionary tale (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cautionary tale (Score:5, Insightful)
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Gilded Age 2.0 (Score:2)
This can also be ascribed to Uber drivers, Amazon packers, the entirety of the fast (and even slow) food industry...
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I literally have no notion what sort of housing 10k could buy for years and years in a major Indian city, but everything you said is equal to or better than this guy's home.
This truck has no indoor plumbing, no electricity (he has battery packs he charges at work), and no heat at all, not even animal dung.
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Should bought a motorhome (Score:2)
for $10K, he could have bought a 20 year old motorhome and had a bathroom + kitchen... and windows. Sure, his operating expenses may have been higher due to maintenance, but it seems that it'd still be worth it for the comfort and convenience.
At the very least, he ought to glue up some rigid foam insulation to make the truck more comfortable - the truck must feel like an oven after a warm sunny day, even if he doesn't go to bed until after dark.
I'd be worried about emergency egress from the truck, if a fuel
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Insect infestations? (Score:2)
I think OP may be used to renting, where these things are taken care of for you. Buf just FYI, that's hardly unique. Having ants sounds a lot like like my house.
Math (Score:5, Insightful)
>> 90% of my after-tax income, and throwing that in student loans...$22,434 worth of student loans, and has paid it down to $16,449...four months
That's only $1,500 paid down on student loans per month. If that's 90% of his after-tax income (even in California), he's making maybe $22K/year, and spending just $150 month on other stuff.
An RV I can see..... (Score:2)
...A box truck is it's own special kind of sad. You can get a serviceable RV for under the $10,000 he spent.
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I suspect he wanted to avoid the "I'm living in the parking lot!" message an RV would broadcast after it's been there for a week.
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...A box truck is it's own special kind of sad. You can get a serviceable RV for under the $10,000 he spent.
I agree that a box truck was an interesting choice, but if all he's doing is sleeping in it and has acceptable facilities nearby, it's not exactly a "van down by the river" situation. I browse the sale listings for RVs from time to time, and any RV in the 10k range usually looks like somebody died in it and may or may not still be an occupant. A corporate parking lot isn't exactly an idea location for an RV either, with no (legal?) water or power hookups, sewage disposal, or source for gasoline. Just more c
Not the first time. (Score:2)
If a truck is o.k., why not a trailer? (Score:2)
So, if you can use a "Maxi-van," how about parking a trailer on the spot instead? A 24x8' trailer would give >160sqft of living space and could be double-decked. That's enough room for a composting toilet, and a solar powered mini-fridge.
Why get a truck? (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't sleeping under your desk while your code is compiling allowed or even encouraged at Google?
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Isn't sleeping under your desk while your code is compiling allowed or even encouraged at Google?
Sure it's allowed, though the sleep pods would be a better place, and if you did it very much your co-workers would wonder why you're not getting enough sleep at home. If it's because you're not going home at a reasonable hour, your manager will probably talk to you about the importance of work/life balance (not because you're sleeping at work, but because you're not going home; time away from work is important).
There have been some issues with employees trying to live on campus, though, especially with i
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Then he should go work for Amazon, and his manager can talk to him about how his work/life balance could use some more hours at work.
Not because he's leaving, but because there are times he's asleep under his desk while his computer is NOT compiling...
Does Google campus have a river? (Score:2)
The place where I work has a river running thru it. And there is a parking lot near the river. How sweet it would be to live in a van down by the river. I wonder if Google has a river on their campus?
Google migrant labor (Score:2)
If Google employees can't afford rent, how can teachers, nurses, and janitors?
Aparment Buildings (Score:2)
Why not invest and build apartment buildings. That is most likely cheaper than a flipping truck.
And with little help from Google that house might be close to the workplace. For Google it might be clever to build such house themselves and rent and sell it to their employees. At least it would require less space than everyone having a truck consuming the parking space.
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How about a hammock underneath every desk?
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I'm sure they would, but SF won't let them. SF has brought this on themselves by refusing to allow sufficient development.
SF dwellers wanted to keep the quaint neighborhoods and everything, but there's a reason that those neighborhoods were bulldozed in other urban areas. They keep the maximum population density very low. That keeps prices extremely high.
I have sympathy for not wanting to live in a crowded, overbuilt urban area, but without development, even things like rent control would just force ever
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I'm sure they would, but SF won't let them. SF has brought this on themselves by refusing to allow sufficient development.
SF dwellers wanted to keep the quaint neighborhoods and everything, but there's a reason that those neighborhoods were bulldozed in other urban areas. They keep the maximum population density very low. That keeps prices extremely high.
I have sympathy for not wanting to live in a crowded, overbuilt urban area, but without development, even things like rent control would just force everyone to move out to the suburbs, where those house prices would skyrocket instead, and everyone would have to commute somehow.
You do realize that Google's main campus is a solid 30 miles south of San Francisco, right?
Not even a little (Score:2)
"For those Bay Area tech pros who think Brandon's lifestyle sounds appealing"
Not even a little.
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When I was younger, I could have probably handled it for maybe a year. It would be important, though, to ensure that there was a set time limit on how long I did something like that so that I wouldn't completely trash my life. Social suicide doesn't even begin to cover it. The chance of landing a girlfriend in that situation would be close to nil and the stress would be off the charts.
At least at Google, you'll have enough work so that you don't have to use your "residence" as much as other people do.
Prior art - The Who, 1971 (Score:2)
The Who described this method in 1971, in the song "Goin' mobile", although this patent filing may have a fancier description of getting the police and tax man to miss you.
Get a used rental RV (Score:2)
Sounds some like the rental RVs.
The rental companies (for example cruiseamerica ) sell them off after a couple of years (and and few 100.000 miles).
They cost more (around 25.000$), but come complete with furniture and bathroom and are probably still a lot cheaper than an appartment in the long run
row to work (Score:2)
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That's nuts... (Score:2)
For 10K he could have bought a RV (Score:3)
http://vancouver.craigslist.ca... [craigslist.ca]
http://seattle.craigslist.org/... [craigslist.org]
Re:For 10K he could have bought a RV (Score:5, Interesting)
Buddy did this in an RV. he bought one that was fiberglass sides and spent a weekend peeling off the graphics and roller painting on white paint. he then slapped "AT&T" logo stickers around it.
it looks like an AT&T fiber maintenance vehicle. he put mirror tint on all the windows and spent 5 years in works parking lot without problems. put out a couple of orange cones and nobody even questions it.
Get an RV (Score:3)
I've consider the RV as my work has the same amenities as well as a large shopping center across the street. But my old lady said "no". It's also impracticable if you happen to play the Hammond Organ for fun.
I'm a pretty nerdy computer guy ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... and I'll never understand the lure of Silicon Valley. I live a couple of miles outside Nashville in the country, in a very nice house I managed to pay off in 10 years. I make a decent living doing high-end computer work (academic HPC) which is pretty fun. Ambitious but realistic 40-hour week schedules, with co-workers as smart as any I've met at the Supercomputing conferences. I can eat out, go to the gym, go on a date, or just go home and watch a movie with my cat in my lap any time I want. I'll probably be able to retire in my 50's should I choose to do so.
Why, other than the hope of becoming an overnight millionaire, do people choose to work in Silicon Valley, with the insane hours, cost-of-living, commutes from hell, and a lack of any social life? Because if money is all they wanted, they can buy Powerball tickets in most states.
I did this (Score:3)
I am not from Google and not in the US but I did something similar : living in a used RV for 5 years. It's impressive how fast you are saving money this way.
In the end I managed to buy a nice apartment downtown. Most of it paid upfront.
Smart yet dumb. (Score:3)
Smart that it's urban camouflage, nobody questions a big white truck parked for a long time.
Dumb that the same money would have bought him a very nice RV that would be a lot more comfortable and would have been useable for a very long term compared to living in a box truck where someone can slap a padlock on the outside and trap you in it.
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He mentions this and points out that it was his Mom who brought up this issue. That must have been a fun conversation ;-)
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"until you are married"???? bwhahaha, that's what women are looking for, "I live in the back of my pickup truck", could that possibly be worse than "mom's basement"?
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Recent grads tend to not have any scope on where they should be socially.
The idea of having their basic needs met, seems appealing, that they are making it. Then after some time, when they see their friends, getting nicer homes, or getting married and having a family, they realize that they are missing important aspects in life.
replace old with US worker and grad with h1b (Score:2)
replace old with US worker and grad with h1b.
The idea of company housing in days tech landscape is a bad idea. They can have there company stone 2.0 where they can hold both the company stone debt and the if you fired / let go you need to go home right away over there heads so they put in long hours / don't complain.
Facebook also has vending machines for computer accessories so they can even change workers for the tools needed to do there jobs as well.
Re: (Score:2)
student loans kill home ownership
No, living in San Francisco and being stupid kills home ownership.
First, he's living in one of the highest cost of living places in the world. At least in the US.
Second, he's actually paying off his student loans instead of waiting long enough for enough people to be in default that the government just grants amnesty to everyone and the taxpayer foots the full bill. You know it is going to happen sometime, you just have to wait it out.