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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

#91

Post by bwb »

_wt8k wrote: post #48

Cancelling student debt is an example of a moral hazard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard It sets a bad precedent and merely encourages other people to borrow money in the future, but does not solve the underlying issue of college costs. It also subsidizes unemployable degrees. Promises to wholesale cancel student debt is populism. More specifically, it is left-wing economic populism that panders to the you…

The problem is our political system has stopped trying to solve issues or evolve.

I agree with you, but at this point we are just applying as many band aid fixes as we can until it really burns down or a political evolution happens.

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

#92

Post by thomastjeffery »

supernova87a wrote: post #72
thomastjeffery wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you feel? How does that take higher precedence than the literal financial situation of millions of people? > Your colleague has been a low performer consistently You are painting a very different picture here. People by and large don't get into unrecoverable student loan debt because they are low performers. Many of them achieve excellent grades. Their work is simply not compensated. So here in your metaphor…

How do we feel and how does it matter more than someone's bank account? It starts to, if it determines what we're going to do next, when provided certain incentives and systems in which to behave. Yes, loan forgiveness isn't a perpetual system (as in my example), for the student receiving it. Obviously. It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future. And yes, I said openly in my preface that the pictur…

> It's perpetual if you do that for every class into the future.

In other words, it's perpetual so long as we perpetuate the underlying problem.

So let's solve the underlying problem, too. By instituting Student Loan Forgiveness, we are suddenly motivated to overhaul our higher education system so that it does not demand student debt.

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

#93

Post by diplomatpuppy »

bwb wrote: post #57
zaphod4prez wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making a realllyyy strong claim here, and also an unclear one. Redistribution hasn't worked... worked to achieve what end goal? I would be interested to hear what you think wealth redistribution has failed to do, and also to hear one or even two examples of societies that do not redistribute wealth in any meaningful way (I have trouble imagining how that could ever be the case, to be honest). I think that redi…

Redistributing wealth is literally what powers civilization :) And, if you do it right over the long time you create more wealth, more specialization, more complexity... Now if you overdo it that is really bad... but I look at inequality right now and wonder if I should start up a guillotine shop.

If your premise is true, then the most redistributive governments would be the most civilized.

20th century communism would not provide a lot of evidence in favor of that theory.

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

#94

Post by jayd16 »

benjohnson wrote: post #88
RhysU wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold my beer while I go get in financial trouble.

Bingo... If student loans are forgiven, I’m signing up for aviation school just for the thrill of it.

I don't think you guys realize the loans would dry up for frivolous schooling. The bank would understand you could file for bankruptcy and evaluate the loan accordingly.

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

#95

Post by supernova87a »

ryandrake wrote: post #86
supernova87a wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here, let's make this more concrete so we're not debating over intangibles. How much of your salary are you willing to give for this student loan forgiveness program? $10,000? every year? Not that much? Why are you being so selfish?

$1.5 trillion is less than what was spent on the Iraq war, and just two years of US military spending. We can make it work without simplistically raising everyone's taxes by $1.5T/everyone. The hardest step is to change people's political priorities so that they actually include making more people better off. Oh, and to answer your actual question, yes, I'd much rather have $300 of my tax bill every paycheck go towar…

And what if we don't decrease the military spending? Are you happy to pay the extra?

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

#96

Post by dragonwriter »

diplomatpuppy wrote: post #93
bwb wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Redistributing wealth is literally what powers civilization :) And, if you do it right over the long time you create more wealth, more specialization, more complexity... Now if you overdo it that is really bad... but I look at inequality right now and wonder if I should start up a guillotine shop.

If your premise is true, then the most redistributive governments would be the most civilized. 20th century communism would not provide a lot of evidence in favor of that theory.

> the most redistributive governments would be the most civilized.

They (the mixed economies of the West and, even within that set, those with the most redistribution and strongest social safety nets) are.

> 20th century communism would not provide a lot of evidence in favor of that theory.

20th Century Communist regimes (Leninism and it's descendants) wasn't redistributive on an ongoing basis, it was simply a one-time transfer of effective power over the entire economy from one narrow elite to another, hence why non-Leninist Marxists often referred to it as “state capitalism”.

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

#97

Post by defertoreptar »

voisin wrote: post #87
defertoreptar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What inflation are you referring to.

Inflation in the total cost of a post-secondary degree.

Wouldn't student loan forgiveness only put more fire on that inflation?

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

#98

Post by ryandrake »

supernova87a wrote: post #95
ryandrake wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1.5 trillion is less than what was spent on the Iraq war, and just two years of US military spending. We can make it work without simplistically raising everyone's taxes by $1.5T/everyone. The hardest step is to change people's political priorities so that they actually include making more people better off. Oh, and to answer your actual question, yes, I'd much rather have $300 of my tax bill every paycheck go towar…

And what if we don't decrease the military spending? Are you happy to pay the extra?

Sure, if we're setting aside reality, and pretending that the only possible way to fund this is with a nation-wide, flat, non-progressive federal income tax increase for the full amount, I'd still be fine with it. Not sure what that adds to the discussion, since that's not even remotely how something like this would actually be paid for.

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

#99

Post by supernova87a »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #89
supernova87a wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well now we can't pass up the opportunity to hear about this. How would that one work? The landlords bit?

Well, you see, landlords are a classic edge case of property rights and unregulated Capitalism. Capitalism is praised as a motivator for people to contribute to society with the promise of fiscal returns. Landlords make zero contribution, while attaining huge returns. Abolishing landlords would accomplish one of Marx's most significant goals without completely throwing out property rights and capitalism. > How would…

Sorry if I haven't heard enough of this crazy talk yet to understand it.

You're saying that residential property gets a special restriction on how people who own something are able to use it or enter into agreements on how they can charge others for the use of it?

Who occupies a house then? Only the owner?

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

#100

Post by eesmith »

breitling wrote: post #26
eesmith wrote: post #18

Free public libraries? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Free public roads? Paid for by tax dollars? That's making the working class subsidize the elite. Etc.

This is not analogous at all. Everyone uses roads. Everyone has access to public libraries.

I meant my comment to point out how people would argue against public roads and against public libraries if we didn't have them.

But let's assume I was making a direct argument.

There are different levels of road use.

There are people who can't afford a car. They might use the road to bicycle or walk. (Though those roads may be cyclist and pedestrian un-friendly and even antagonistic.) They certainly don't need the same level of built-up road that an SUV or truck owner needs. But they pay the same taxes for it as rich people do, and are far more likely to be arrested for the discriminatory crime of "jaywalking".

Even setting that aside, poor neighborhoods subsidize the roads and other city services rich people use. - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/10/poor-neighborh...

How's that not making the working class subsidize the roads of the elite? And if that's a problem, what should change?

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