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Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

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Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#11

Post by happytoexplain »

supernova87a wrote: post #5

When everyone was praising the billionaire who paid for the student loans of that graduating class a few years ago (who by the way is under investigation for tax evasion), I raised the point that this might not be seen as fair by everyone and I was immediately criticized by some friends. I cautioned that it's fine for a private individual to do whatever he wants, but watch out if you apply this some day to the govern…

>Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically)

I think you might be surprised by how many people in that situation would be happy for those who benefited, even at the same time that they are upset that they landed on the other side of the timegate of the policy. Requiring "missed out" scenarios to not occur for any policy like this is too burdensome to society, and too conciliatory to the selfish who would rather the policy not happen at all if they weren't able to benefit from it.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#12

Post by 535188B17C93743 »

drewg123 wrote: post #9

I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. When I went to a NY State SUNY school in the late 80s / early 90s, it was heavily supported by the taxpayers of NY. My tuition was $675 a semester, or $1350/year and the fees were minimal. The NY minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. That meant that by working a minimum wage job for the summer, I could…

>I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again.

We need to do this the other way around. But yeah, college (and trade schools) are an investment in the people of our country. I sure as hell would rather pay higher taxes and live with well-educated citizens who can create things and start their own businesses than be absurdly rich.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#13

Post by thomastjeffery »

I would expect nothing less from Murdoch press.

> Think about it this way: If you only have $1.5 trillion to spend, what policy would help the most people actually struggling right now? I don’t think canceling student loans would rank in the top 20.

Do these people even have a top 20? What does it include apart from lowering the corporate tax rate in hopes that money will "trickle down" to the poor?

Meanwhile outside the right-wing echo chamber, cancelling student loan debt is very appealing to millions of average people who got into unrecoverable debt by simply trying to better themselves because they believed in the promise of better wages for better education. These people are in debt, making them literally not "the elite".

So what elite are we talking about? Universities? OK, well what other options do we have? Leave students and alumni in unrecoverable debt so that those damn "elites" lose money? Is there a way to eliminate that debt without paying Universities what they are owed? I'm all ears.

And what is our long term solution? Are we going to stop telling children they will make millions more on average by simply having a bachelors degree? Are we going to make it clear to every prospective student today that going into student loan debt is an unwise risk and not a strong investment?

Right-wing conservatives are happy to tell people they deserve the debt they got into, but are too chicken to confront their original motivations. People are desperate to get higher wages, but on the whole, wages have been stagnant since the 70's. The source of this problem is clear when you look at the big picture: billionaires are getting the overwhelming majority of new wealth while the rest of us are left to fight over anything that "trickles down".

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#14

Post by zug_zug »

drewg123 wrote: post #10
supernova87a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your logic being that any time we give money or subsidize some group, it must be good?

I honestly think that we need to stop thinking about "subsidize some group". The more effort we spend making sure that somebody doesn't get something they don't deserve, the worse off we are. Let's just have a UBI rather than lots of bureaucracy keeping score.

I'm strong pro-UBI, strongly against student-loan forgiveness.

It's one thing to acknowledge automation is going to decrease the job pool. It's another to retroactively break financial contracts for a generation that's already not responsible enough with money, giving a huge amount to a small-interest group and ignore those who need it most (i.e. those who didn't go to college).;

It also strongly incentivizes colleges, which need to die, and disincentivizes colleges reducing prices to what they were a generation ago.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#15

Post by thomastjeffery »

535188B17C93743 wrote: post #12
drewg123 wrote: post #9

I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. When I went to a NY State SUNY school in the late 80s / early 90s, it was heavily supported by the taxpayers of NY. My tuition was $675 a semester, or $1350/year and the fees were minimal. The NY minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. That meant that by working a minimum wage job for the summer, I could…

>I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. We need to do this the other way around. But yeah, college (and trade schools) are an investment in the people of our country. I sure as hell would rather pay higher taxes and live with well-educated citizens who can create things and start their own businesses than be absurdly rich.

> We need to do this the other way around.

Why does it matter what order these are done?

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#16

Post by supernova87a »

happytoexplain wrote: post #11
supernova87a wrote: post #5

When everyone was praising the billionaire who paid for the student loans of that graduating class a few years ago (who by the way is under investigation for tax evasion), I raised the point that this might not be seen as fair by everyone and I was immediately criticized by some friends. I cautioned that it's fine for a private individual to do whatever he wants, but watch out if you apply this some day to the govern…

>Imagine how you would feel if you were from a family that had scrimped and saved to send you to college, you worked night jobs, etc. Only to find that at the end everyone else who had taken out loans had them forgiven (basically) I think you might be surprised by how many people in that situation would be happy for those who benefited, even at the same time that they are upset that they landed on the other side of t…

I think you might be surprised, as a practical matter, that many people in the world are not happy when their prudent choices are invalidated by a change in the government policy in favor of others who took the opposite choice as you. And that they be called "selfish" for thinking so.

People working and making material sacrifices over their lifetimes only to see those burdens lifted for others are not a small edge case to be brushed away.

How about if I put it in a HN-relevant case (and to paint it in more obviously judgemental terms to make the point).

You and a colleague are given a 2-week deadline to deliver some code. It's a tough deadline. You are diligent and work day and night, overtime, missing your kids birthday and having your spouse mad at you, to meet the deadline and deliver your part. Your colleague has been a low performer consistently, asks your help to finish the work, doesn't actually finish it by the due date. Your boss, at the delivery meeting, says, actually, this was just a motivational exercise to get us to practice coding and teamwork, and didn't really count after all. She won't even bother looking at your work because it was just for your personal development. We're a team.

How do you feel? How about we run that again the next 2 weeks. What are you going to do? Feeling good for your colleague who was about to get in some trouble, but luckily it all turned out ok? Your wife and kid will be glad for that I'm sure.

And aside from all that, my points about the unintended incentives of such a policy remain.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#17

Post by drewg123 »

orangecat wrote: post #6
drewg123 wrote: post #3

Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it" and so they block the new benefit, and we fall farther and farther behind countries like the Nordics, where this is somehow not a problem.

This isn't a magic button you can press to costlessly improve some people's lives. It's pure wealth redistribution with recipients disproportionately in the upper middle class.

Do you have a citation to back this up?

I admit my knowledge is anecdotal, but I know somebody in their 20s, who went to college, and is in debt that would be cancelled. This person was the first in their family to go to college, and was unable to find a job in their field. Most of this persons peers are in a similar situation with respect to debt and being unable to find jobs in their field. The jobs these people have are entry-level tech support, bar-tending / waiting tables, starbucks, etc. None of them are upper middle class.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#19

Post by 535188B17C93743 »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #15
535188B17C93743 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. We need to do this the other way around. But yeah, college (and trade schools) are an investment in the people of our country. I sure as hell would rather pay higher taxes and live with well-educated citizens who can create things and start their own businesses than be absurdly rich.

> We need to do this the other way around. Why does it matter what order these are done?

Paying it off now doesn't fix the problem––it's a bandaid.

Re: Cancel student-loan debt? That’s making the working class subsidize the elite

#20

Post by treeman79 »

drewg123 wrote: post #9

I think the most reasonable thing to do would be to cancel student debts and to then make college affordable again. When I went to a NY State SUNY school in the late 80s / early 90s, it was heavily supported by the taxpayers of NY. My tuition was $675 a semester, or $1350/year and the fees were minimal. The NY minimum wage at the time was $3.35/hr. That meant that by working a minimum wage job for the summer, I could…

Change bankruptcy law so student debt is discharge. Don’t let government back loans.

Lenders will only lend to people have a decent chance of paying it back.

So no more nonsense degrees unless your rich.

Colleges have grown fat on easy money. This will slim them up again

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