341–350 of 374 posts
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Why not just cut out 1) all together. Let people get chosen randomly.
How do you get rid of them? Term limits? Then we go back to the problem of having people who can get things done...
Think evolution algorithm on a government scale.
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Do you get angry at people who have to file for bankruptcy?
The person who takes out a loan has already paid for their chance of bankruptcy, in the form of interest (because the risk of bankruptcy is priced in based on your creditworthiness.) However most student loans would never have been offered if the deal was the same as for regular loans. What's being proposed is that the deal be changed retroactively, and for innocent bystanders to foot the bill. Think of it like this:…
There is no fraud when someone can't pay back their student loans. Bankruptcy isn't fraud. Bankruptcy isn't paid for with interest. Bankruptcy is a right that debtors have when their debt gets out of control due to whatever reasons, and sadly us students do not have that option. Bankruptcy is mostly unavailable to us, and when it is available, it's made unavailable by terms that make absolutely zero sense at all.
If I can't find a job, I have absolutely zero way to attempt to pay back student loans in order to show I made an attempt, which would be one measure needed to qualify me for bankruptcy. If I'm barely making enough to support my basic expenses when I do have a job, I can't be expected to prioritize my student loan over my ability to eat or provide shelter for myself. If the bar for showing an attempt at repayment is as low as sending $5 / month, then what's the point in having that restriction on student loans to begin with.
Why was the ability to file for bankruptcy on student loans ever rescinded in the first place? It absolutely was not because there were more and more people trying to defraud the system, unless you somehow twist logic forcefully enough to fit that demented narrative. It was a means to shore up the predictable deficit that would be caused by the Bush tax cuts. Yes, the bush tax cuts. It was not that long ago that the ability to file for bankruptcy on student loans was stolen from us.
If you live in a red state or purple state, then good fucking luck getting any sympathy from the judges with zero qualifications merely elected to their positions when seeking bankruptcy.
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What's to stop people defaulting on other unsecured loans, like credit cards? Some people do, but most people don't. Why? Because defaulting on a loan means a bad credit score and suddenly modern society becomes hard - no mortgage, no car loan, no more credit cards etc.
The main difference is a bank can repossess your house/car/possessions for normal loans thus making back some of the money they leant you (and you losing all of the stuff you bought with that debt). They cannot repossess any bit of the money spent on your education. This is why the federal government steps in because they legally can repossess some of your education by extracting it out of your future earnings.
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The person who takes out a loan has already paid for their chance of bankruptcy, in the form of interest (because the risk of bankruptcy is priced in based on your creditworthiness.) However most student loans would never have been offered if the deal was the same as for regular loans. What's being proposed is that the deal be changed retroactively, and for innocent bystanders to foot the bill. Think of it like this:…
I'm honestly siting here flabbergasted -- almost in shock -- at the shear delusion on display that I just had to read. Like, this comment obviously goes against the terms of hacker news, but I can't come up with a response that addresses the nonsense you've just laid forth. There is no fraud when someone can't pay back their student loans. Bankruptcy isn't fraud. Bankruptcy isn't paid for with interest. Bankruptcy is…
The fraud happened when they signed a bunch of kids up on 200k degree plans, under the false pretenses that it would be worth it. It was clear from the start that many of these degrees could not possibly make back their cost, but in the end a bunch of young people fell prey to the information assymetry. That's the premise of the discussion - because if the student loans had been made in full understanding of the consequences, there would be nothing wrong with what was happening! But it seems reasonable to me that the value of these educations was misrepresented.
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Sure, we all want to be well-educated and conversant in all the sciences, arts, and humanities. Even more than that, we want to be able to feed ourselves and start a family. From an individual perspective, it makes sense to take care of the latter first. IOW, get a degree that'll put some coin in your pocket, and if you really want to get yourself into the patches-on-your-suitcoat-elbows set, you can do so after you'…
Or, collectively, we figure out how to ensure college doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands in tuition for a BA. When I attended UVA, back in the late 90s, my family was able to pay with no loans. Same for my sister a few years later. Looking at current tuition, that might not be true today. That’s with an engineer father and mom was a teacher (ie, we were comfortably upper-middle class, far from rich, but def. never ha…
John Adams once wrote to his wife: "The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain."
As a society, we still have the obligations of Adams' generation: to establish equitable government and administration. As individuals, many of us have moved on to the obligations of his rhetorical children. The political and professional classes ("megarich" earlier), who have the money to send their kids to get liberal arts degrees with no direct vocational applications, have moved on to enjoy the rights of his rhetorical grandchildren.
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The main difference is a bank can repossess your house/car/possessions for normal loans thus making back some of the money they leant you (and you losing all of the stuff you bought with that debt). They cannot repossess any bit of the money spent on your education. This is why the federal government steps in because they legally can repossess some of your education by extracting it out of your future earnings.
You're describing the difference between unsecured and secured loans. The parent explicitly stated that they were talking about unsecured loans (where there's no tangible thing to repossess).
[0]: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/credit-card-bil...
I've wondered if an good way to fund universities would be offer them x% of a students tax return for X years after graduation. That way universities would likely focus their courses on areas that get people employed, while cross subsidising some areas they feel add value to the educational environment. Or require popular courses that dont deliver returns as for some upfront payment. Even use data if it's that granul…
> That way universities would likely focus their courses on areas that get people employed, while cross subsidising some areas they feel add value to the educational environment. As if that would happen! The "unproductive" courses (aka everything but STEM) will all be eliminated as there isn't money for them. Society will lose as a result. Fund everything by taxpayers instead like Europe does.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/2/...
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=37
Your assertion that society will lose if gender studies majors for instance decrease in output is debatable. In fact, a decent argument can be made that certain majors have a role in indoctrination that make society worse off because of increased fractionation, division, and tribalism.
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Yes. Athens picked their Senators by lot, and we probably should consider it.
I consider it foolhardy. Can you imagine our most important foreign and domestic policy being set by people who center their lives both moral and emotional around 'Keeping up with the Kardashians'? Or getting a bunch of antivaxxers in there? There are plenty of decent Americans but we also have too many that are juvenile, superficial, ignorant and aggressively incurious.
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The attitude of 'I suffered so others should have to' is really damaging. I get why that's the instinctive response, but it's also going to lead to a worse society. By all means argue for a solution that also helps people who made sacrifice in the past, but people who didn't or couldn't being left to suffer is not a solution. To be clear - I get you are not saying you don't want to solve this because of that, but unf…
It's not about spite. It's about whether rules matter. If people think the rules will be enforced, then we can all make plans based on the rules. If they don't, then all courses of action are on the table. Whatever gets the job done. That's back to rule of the strong. See: how we treat big banks. (Not to say we shouldn't have a debt jubilee, but that's what we risk)
See the current trend towards nullifying possession charges for Marijuana. Yes, it sucks for people who got punished under the old rules, and yes, it's not good to say "laws might change and you might 'get away with it'", but sometimes that is better than letting a lot of people suffer.
