Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nypost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 147 posts

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

#131

Post by AstralStorm »

foogazi wrote: post #113
happytoexplain wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a pretty unrealistic position. Society also doesn't "force" you to get a job that doesn't make you happy. But speaking realistically, society forces people to do many things without using direct physicality or threats. Your position is common among "personal responsibility" absolutists, which, like most absolutism, doesn't really work.

> Society also doesn't "force" you to get a job that doesn't make you happy. 1. Absolutely 2. What’s this about a job making you happy? > But speaking realistically, society forces people to do many things without using direct physicality or threats. I don’t get this line of thinking. I can come up with compulsory taxation, but you can always move to another society. What has society forced you to do?

Before this gets too out of hand.

1. Nature forces you to eat and have shelter. There's no discussing it.

2. Society does not give you free food or shelter or land to farm and tools to do it, nor means of transportation. (When it does, it's either conditional, or insufficient numbers, or both.)

3. By this you're forced to enter job market to keep alive, which forces you to enter into specific education path.

4. Even where education is free, point 2 holds. Where it's not, you are being subject to an additional whip of capitalism, debt.

5. Migrant jobs have evaporated in many places. As has cheap enough housing. You cannot also save enough to move in most cases, so you cannot even move in practice. If you do so, you're becoming a refugee, which is not a good thing at all. Even more so if you're bound further by different language or culture, or move to especially xenophobic place lured by possibilities.

6. If you have a family, you also need to consider them when moving. If you own property, perhaps inherited, you have to consider what to do with it as well, and you're taking a financial and existential risk. The support network you have (family, friends, connections) will likely not reach to the new area.

7. Enjoying a forced job is like praising your slave master for not beating you too often. Though some jobs have enjoyable elements, these are typically available to elite or lucky few.

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

#132

Post by AstralStorm »

ikerdanzel wrote: post #130
thomastjeffery wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great. Maybe they can abolish landlords while they are at it. Oh, are we meant to be afraid of these solutions?

Sounds like communism. It has failed in China and USSR when they abolished the landlords. And now they revive landlords and fully embraced capitalism. I guess they did it wrong. We can do it better this time. Make Karl Great Again.

It didn't fail at solving this particular problems, just the authoritarian solution used caused corruption. In fact many of the buildings from that era still stand. It was not the abolition of rent that built them and parceled them out to people.

These two failed though at producing other goods, like food, due to various kinds of mismanagement. Not at housing people or providing employment. Or at basic to middle school education. (Only at higher it did ultimately fail due to anti-intellectualist streak.)

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

#133

Post by ceceron »

hprotagonist wrote: post #49
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). An old, old complaint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Workers_in_the_... ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who…

This is not a proper analogy. The government money comes from taxes, they are not doing charity out of their funds.

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

#134

Post by RhysU »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #120
benjohnson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How is it any different than getting into credit card debt or taking out a loan for a Ferrari? Banks are _supposed_ to evaluate the risk of a loan, not just give it out without consideration.

Federal student loans have a fixed interest rate and therefore cannot be adjusted based on the risk of the borrower to the extent that a credit card or Ferrari loan can.

Private student loans can adjust rates for risk. Should private student loans become increasingly expensive as voters' appetites for federally mandated loan forgiveness increase?

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

#135

Post by RobertRoberts »

RhysU wrote: post #134
RobertRoberts wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it any different than getting into credit card debt or taking out a loan for a Ferrari? Banks are _supposed_ to evaluate the risk of a loan, not just give it out without consideration.

Federal student loans have a fixed interest rate and therefore cannot be adjusted based on the risk of the borrower to the extent that a credit card or Ferrari loan can. Private student loans can adjust rates for risk. Should private student loans become increasingly expensive as voters' appetites for federally mandated loan forgiveness increase?

Plenty of loans have a fixed interest rate.

But you have a point that the loan is supposed to have federal backing/protections would make it harder to justify releasing these loans.

But I would argue that predatory pricing against students would negate that.

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

#136

Post by bluGill »

bwb wrote: post #51
bluGill wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about those who worked hard and took a few more years to not take out a loan in the first place?

Good for you :)! I paid off my loans through a combination of hard work and luck. I'd love to say it was all me, but it wasn't, I had great role models, I am lucky enough to be born into a country with amazing infrastructure, and many other reasons that have very little to do with me... My question for you is do you want a stronger country? Or, just a stronger you? As a country are we just a bunch of people out for t…

After a few days, I'm even against it for the reason you used as a pro. If people learn personal responsibility isn't rewarded then they will aggressively spend all their money now counting on rainy day funds. Which is fine until nobody has saved and there isn't enough and everyone loses.

If Biden wants to solve the problem (and he should), then he needs to address why college tuition has been going up at much faster than inflation for years. Professors are not making any more (perhaps less, if non tenure track professors are more of them?). Government is spending less, but not that much less. So where is the money going that causes tuition to go so high. I don't have answers, that is a hard problem, but it needs to ben confronted. There is no reason why a class of 20 working fast food wages cannot with careful living pay a professor their wages as a part time student. The math works out, so why is tuition so high?

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

#137

Post by RhysU »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #135
RhysU wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal student loans have a fixed interest rate and therefore cannot be adjusted based on the risk of the borrower to the extent that a credit card or Ferrari loan can. Private student loans can adjust rates for risk. Should private student loans become increasingly expensive as voters' appetites for federally mandated loan forgiveness increase?

Plenty of loans have a fixed interest rate. But you have a point that the loan is supposed to have federal backing/protections would make it harder to justify releasing these loans. But I would argue that predatory pricing against students would negate that.

I didn't mean fixed vs variable rate loans. Sorry for being unclear. I meant that Congress sets the allowed Federal student loan rates.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertfarrington/2020/05/12/202...

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

#138

Post by bwb »

bluGill wrote: post #136
bwb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good for you :)! I paid off my loans through a combination of hard work and luck. I'd love to say it was all me, but it wasn't, I had great role models, I am lucky enough to be born into a country with amazing infrastructure, and many other reasons that have very little to do with me... My question for you is do you want a stronger country? Or, just a stronger you? As a country are we just a bunch of people out for t…

After a few days, I'm even against it for the reason you used as a pro. If people learn personal responsibility isn't rewarded then they will aggressively spend all their money now counting on rainy day funds. Which is fine until nobody has saved and there isn't enough and everyone loses. If Biden wants to solve the problem (and he should), then he needs to address why college tuition has been going up at much faster…

I would put forward the following...

Teaching personal responsibility is like parenting, it is about the thousands of actions and needing to get it right ~70% of the time. And, that mostly relies on parents, role models, and culture.

The government forgiving debt one time isn't going to cause to hurt personal responsibility. It is a small gift to try to fix a system that is super broken. And, it might be the only thing politically possible at this time (which sucks).

When I graduated I had ~$40k in debt, if $10k of that would have been forgiven I would have cried because it would have helped me so much. It also wouldn't have changed the incredible lengths I went to paying that off as fast as possible. It also wouldn't have caused me to make more financial mistakes during school that got me to that point. I did as well as I could have with my 17 to 23 year old lizard brain.

IMO I think it is a stupid move, because like you said it is unlikely to fix a broken system. I'd rather we spend the money to boost unemployment or give everyone making under $25k a year a lump sum. Both those would have a better effect on the short term economy to coast us through the current situation...

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

#139

Post by supernova87a »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #119
supernova87a wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, no one could move to say, a different city, until they found a house they could buy? I really think you need to think about unintended consequences. Not even unintended -- like, kindergarten 0th order effects.

No one can move to a different city until they can find a house or apartment they can rent. The only significant difference between buying property and renting it is that renters get to exploit tenants. > I really think you need to think about unintended consequences. Not even unintended -- like, kindergarten 0th order effects. Like I said, this is a serious idea that has existed for decades, not some trivial thing I…

If I appear to talk down to you, it's because by and large people who seriously believe that such an idea is theoretically (not to say even in practice) good (or beneficial) are thinking at a child's level and not responsible for running a society. Fundamentally upending a system that has brought prosperity to generations of people because it has become marginally harder for some today -- that's mature and responsible? Everyone should just share?

Let me guess, on some of the other discussions on HN you would be of the position that people should have the right to repair their mobile phones themselves, control what software runs on their computers, etc. etc? And yet, you would propose interfering with people's most fundamental desire to control and do what they want with the house they own?

Someday, I'm sure you'll realize that it's more productive to work within and guide basic human nature, than to try to put rules down that everyone wants to break.

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

#140

Post by bluGill »

bwb wrote: post #138
bluGill wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a few days, I'm even against it for the reason you used as a pro. If people learn personal responsibility isn't rewarded then they will aggressively spend all their money now counting on rainy day funds. Which is fine until nobody has saved and there isn't enough and everyone loses. If Biden wants to solve the problem (and he should), then he needs to address why college tuition has been going up at much faster…

I would put forward the following... Teaching personal responsibility is like parenting, it is about the thousands of actions and needing to get it right ~70% of the time. And, that mostly relies on parents, role models, and culture. The government forgiving debt one time isn't going to cause to hurt personal responsibility. It is a small gift to try to fix a system that is super broken. And, it might be the only thi…

If you had given me 10k when I graduated it would have helped me a lot too. Are you going to give every college graduate 10k?
Post reply on HN