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Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

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Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#121

Post by braingenious »

rcoveson wrote: post #109
braingenious wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hypothetical, you’re arguing that society should have more sympathy for your wife’s family than GP’s partner’s family? How exactly are we supposed to litigate a “wife’s family vs other wife/husband’s family” debate in these terms? Did the people working low-wage jobs spend time on food stamps? Section 8? Subsidized phone service? If the answer is no, do you think that people working low-income jobs do not, on av…

> As a hypothetical, you’re arguing that society should have more sympathy for your wife’s family than GP’s partner’s family? No, I'm arguing that taking away from the general public to provide for a subset of people requires that the subset boundaries be well justified. Good examples are "people who are poor", and "people who are sick". A bad example would be "people who owe money on their house in 2022". Do those p…

How do people that got fooled into useless degrees that end up working low-wage jobs anyway factor into this? For example the people that fell victim to the likes of Devry that are only now (after decades of payments!) looking at maybe getting their debt erased due to a lengthy and complicated class action lawsuit.

There is a huge industry based around selling people on the value of a college degree. It is very competitive and aggressive and wholly uncoupled from the actual value of a degree. There are quite a lot of poor people working at McDonald’s and Walmart with student debt.

But fuck those people because some engineers might have a slightly reduced monthly payment is your line of reasoning?

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#122

Post by rcoveson »

semicolon_storm wrote: post #120
rcoveson wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that logic, any program to redistribute any money from any group to any other group is fine. Somebody is being helped; it's okay if not everybody is being helped in the same moment, right?

False dichotomy

Right… that’s what I’m saying. Let’s stick to the assessment of this particular program, not the notion of wealth redistribution in general.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#123

Post by rcoveson »

braingenious wrote: post #121
rcoveson wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a hypothetical, you’re arguing that society should have more sympathy for your wife’s family than GP’s partner’s family? No, I'm arguing that taking away from the general public to provide for a subset of people requires that the subset boundaries be well justified. Good examples are "people who are poor", and "people who are sick". A bad example would be "people who owe money on their house in 2022". Do those p…

How do people that got fooled into useless degrees that end up working low-wage jobs anyway factor into this? For example the people that fell victim to the likes of Devry that are only now (after decades of payments!) looking at maybe getting their debt erased due to a lengthy and complicated class action lawsuit. There is a huge industry based around selling people on the value of a college degree. It is very compe…

I don’t think you’re even trying to understand what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s wrong to give genuinely struggling people, including students, money. I think it’s wrong to draw the particular box that this policy drew: people with outstanding student debt and income below 125k/250k. That is a bad boundary. There are people excluded who should clearly be included, and people included who should clearly be excluded.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#124

Post by braingenious »

rcoveson wrote: post #123
braingenious wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do people that got fooled into useless degrees that end up working low-wage jobs anyway factor into this? For example the people that fell victim to the likes of Devry that are only now (after decades of payments!) looking at maybe getting their debt erased due to a lengthy and complicated class action lawsuit. There is a huge industry based around selling people on the value of a college degree. It is very compe…

I don’t think you’re even trying to understand what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s wrong to give genuinely struggling people, including students, money. I think it’s wrong to draw the particular box that this policy drew: people with outstanding student debt and income below 125k/250k. That is a bad boundary. There are people excluded who should clearly be included, and people included who should clearly be excluded.

Which of the following scenarios is preferable to you?

A. People that make under $125k get $10,000 of student debt forgiven

B. Nothing happens. Everyone’s debt stays the same.

Are you aware that in reality, complaining about this happening for people that make $124k is exactly the same as complaining about this happening for people that make $15k? Are you aware that by pointing out that this helps people making 90th percentile money you’re also admitting that 90% of people do not make that much?

There phrase “throwing the baby out with the bath water” comes to mind.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#125

Post by rcoveson »

braingenious wrote: post #124
rcoveson wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think you’re even trying to understand what I’m saying. I don’t think it’s wrong to give genuinely struggling people, including students, money. I think it’s wrong to draw the particular box that this policy drew: people with outstanding student debt and income below 125k/250k. That is a bad boundary. There are people excluded who should clearly be included, and people included who should clearly be excluded.

Which of the following scenarios is preferable to you? A. People that make under $125k get $10,000 of student debt forgiven B. Nothing happens. Everyone’s debt stays the same. Are you aware that in reality, complaining about this happening for people that make $124k is exactly the same as complaining about this happening for people that make $15k? Are you aware that by pointing out that this helps people making 90th…

I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current political environment", which is sort of a truism. Could these exact politicians, in this portion of their election cycles, and with this opposition, etc, etc, have passed something better? Almost by definition no, because those are all the parameters of the system. A different result would imply a different upstream.

You're also misrepresenting "B. Nothing happens. Everyone's debt stays the same." That's not an accurate description. Every expensive program that gets rejected alleviates a little pressure on all the other programs that might be put in place, and the ones that get accepted put pressure on everything else to get rejected. It's not easy to say what those 400 billion would have been spent on if it weren't this, so answering the question of whether I'd pick A or B isn't easy. I personally don't think that a modified version getting passed instead that gives out less money but to a broader set of people (broader in some ways, narrower in others; the income threshold should definitely be lower) is all that unlikely. Frankly I think the version we got is surprising. So I suppose that I would pick B, fully expecting the federal government to spend 400 billion on something else that I probably won't be 100% happy with either, but which I think is more likely than not to be an improvement over what we got.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#126

Post by braingenious »

rcoveson wrote: post #125
braingenious wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which of the following scenarios is preferable to you? A. People that make under $125k get $10,000 of student debt forgiven B. Nothing happens. Everyone’s debt stays the same. Are you aware that in reality, complaining about this happening for people that make $124k is exactly the same as complaining about this happening for people that make $15k? Are you aware that by pointing out that this helps people making 90th…

I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current political environment", which is sort of a truism. Could these exact politicians, in this portion of their election cycles, and with this opposition, etc, etc, have passed something better? Almost by definition no, because those are all the parameters of the…

This is a binary situation. A year ago, nobody’s debt was getting forgiven. Today, some people’s debt is being forgiven. You are making the argument that the situation a year ago is preferable because of your desire for stricter means testing.

I am glad that you were honest about picking B. To my earlier point of “fuck Walmart and McDonald’s employees with student debt because some engineers might have a slightly reduced monthly payment” is in fact your stance. By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help.

I cannot fathom pretending that I care about poor people while also saying they should have crippling debt to suit my feelings.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#127

Post by rcoveson »

braingenious wrote: post #126
rcoveson wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the things you're saying is that "whatever legislation ends up passed was the best legislation that anybody was capable of passing in the current political environment", which is sort of a truism. Could these exact politicians, in this portion of their election cycles, and with this opposition, etc, etc, have passed something better? Almost by definition no, because those are all the parameters of the…

This is a binary situation. A year ago, nobody’s debt was getting forgiven. Today, some people’s debt is being forgiven. You are making the argument that the situation a year ago is preferable because of your desire for stricter means testing. I am glad that you were honest about picking B. To my earlier point of “fuck Walmart and McDonald’s employees with student debt because some engineers might have a slightly red…

I feel like I could literally copy and paste my reply to your earlier comment and it would work as a response to this one, but I guess I'll just try explaining it in a different way.

The way you're talking about this policy could be used to justify literally any wealth redistrubtion to the needy, no matter the amount or criteria. How would you feel if instead a policy were enacted that spent 400 billion to pay of 10k from everybody's mortage, so long as their income was less than 125k/250k (single/household)? I think that would also be a bad policy, because while it would absolutely help people, the selection criteria excludes very similar people who we have reason to believe are more in need (same demographic and same income but rent instead of own). It also includes people who are clearly not in need (high end of that income range is very low on the heirarchy of needy in this country).

Even if you're in favor of that policy as well, I'm sure we could come up with one that you'd oppose, even if it did help a lot of people in need. Maybe the mortgage policy doesn't include a restriction to "primary residence", so a bunch of landlords get to benefit from it as well as long as they're not making >125k. So, by opposing that policy's enactment, are you saying "fuck you" to the people it would have benefited that were actually in need? Or are you just holding your leaders accountable for doing their job better?

> By your own admission you actually do not care about the burden that student debt has on poor people, your position is solely about the “wrong” type of person getting help.

My position--and I think I've been extremely clear about this--is that help should be distributed according to well-justified critiria. Both exclusion and inclusion criteria need to be carefully considered to minimize the degree to which we help people with less need more than we help people with more need. I think everybody probably agrees with that, so it feels silly to state it. I think you're just confused by the way I'm modeling the hypothetical world where this policy is not enacted. By all means, let there be 400 billion dollars allocated to social welfare. I just think this particular policy is bad spending.

Also let me just say that if you're going to frame a reply using the assumption that I am just some evil scrooge who is conspiring to undermine all welfare programs to deprive the needy, and that I'm lying through my teeth when I say I'm fine with the money being spent I just want it to be spent better, then please just don't reply at all. I'm here for discussions, not flame wars.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#128

Post by beej71 »

leeroyjenkins11 wrote: post #99
arthurcolle wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am probably going to get 10K forgiven. Unshackling people from debt is awesome. Hopefully they figure out how to do this regularly. Sucks if you don't like it! Hopefully I can redirect the money to more fruitful enterprises... like anything else. The massive increase in college tuition is totally out of proportion based on wage growth and honestly it's not healthy for the middle class to be forced into an infinite…

I worked my way through and commuted, didn't go to a nice school, 2 years of CC and graduated debt free. Now I'm expected to pay for your debt because you were dumb and got an expensive degree that wasn't worth it? Piss off, I could have had a semester abroad or two, but instead I spent my summers working at Walmart and working construction.

I also worked and got through school with a BS and MS basically debt free. (I had a $2000 loan, but paid it off immediately.)

And I say resubsidize schools and forgive all the debt. This national economic ball and chain isn't doing me any favors.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#129

Post by theklr »

true_religion wrote: post #116
xsd_float wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use a vpn

I do that for private programs, but a government program should serve the people not require people jump though hoops. Most other government sites work this way. I can pay taxes, buy bonds, access Medicare information, etc. from outside the US. So what’s the justification to make a special case this time?

Being that’s beta, I’m going good faith and it’s just ensuring the stability of the site.

Re: Apply for student loan debt forgiveness

#130

Post by throwawaywu »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #106
throwawaywu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got 87k in PPP loans. It was forgiven, but it all went to my employees. That's a good thing.

> It was forgiven, but it all went to my employees. Isn't getting their labour for free (well, paid for by the taxpayer) pretty much the same as company owners just being handed that 87k? It's money the company didn't have to spend on wages. Were your employees not able to work? (Not intended as criticism - more of an observation. I don't know the real situation etc).

If the economy and the ability for my employees to work we're the same, then indeed it would have been bonus money for me.

However because of covid cash flow issues, I would have had to fire half of my employees without the loan and the payback. That would have sucked for all of us.

Frankly, as I see it, the PPP program was better than the alternatives as my employees didn't wind up on unemploymet.

In one way the PPP is a bad idea as it doesn't let the market correct itself as well as it might - perhaps my company is too fragile. However, we then to not like to see people starving and losing their homes. Clutters up the sidewalks.

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