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Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

nytimes.com

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Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#121

Post by AnimalMuppet »

hpoe wrote: post #42
keanebean86 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it though? The government paid for my college then wrote down I own them. They want me to give them that money back eventually. Are they using my promise to borrow money somewhere else? Or is it just an expense for a budget year that gets added as income years later? Also how much interest have we paid collectively on that 1.5 trillion? If we've paid that much already then what? Can't we just consider it an inv…

Well it would result in deflation because $1,500,000,000 disappears from the economy overnight. This means that the money supply shrinks and that kicks of a deflationary cycle.

I think you may have that backwards.

There are two scenarios. In the first, the government simply prints the $1.5T. That's newly created money. $1.5T has been added to the economy overnight. It's been created, not destroyed.

The second scenario is where the government takes the money from somewhere else (maybe taxes). The money is removed from somewhere (someone's assets), but the exact same amount of debt is also removed. The net is zero - neither creation or destruction, just rearrangement.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#122

Post by dragonwriter »

thebean11 wrote: post #112
dragonwriter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What exactly is the goal here? To mitigate the social harms resulting from the current debt load that have accumulated over decades as part of a process that includes development of policies to prevent getting back to the same state. (Some of which actually may already have been adopted, as all of the debt areas at issue have seen policy reforms over the last decades that could be part of that, though most cancella…

> as part of a process that includes development of policies to prevent getting back to the same state. Can you give an example? I may just be out of the loop.

> Can you give an example?

Considering just the educational side:

For policies that have already been put in place, the 2016 revision (partially undone by the 2019 revision) of the Borrower Defense rules are an example.

For not-yet-implemented rules that have been proposed, rules imposing total cost limits on programs accepting federal loans, or imposing other cost and quality requirements on such programs, are common. As are simpler reforms like making income contingent plans the default repayment plan, and other rules governing direct loan servicing (an issue with the student debt crisis haa been servicers active directing borrowers into deferment rather than income contingent plans.)

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#123

Post by jvanderbot »

gruez wrote: post #100
jvanderbot wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proponents might say that its not about helping those who have helped themselves, but about helping those who still need help. If you could manage without loans, you aren't in a situation where gov intervention is required. I'm not of that mindset. I'm content with my loans.

>If you could manage without loans, you aren't in a situation where gov intervention is required. This assumes everyone is equally prudent, but I doubt this is the case. For instance, suppose I was frugal, eating only rice and beans so I could pay off my student loans ASAP, while my friend got takeout multiple times a week. In this case, does my friend deserve more intervention than me? If my acts of frugality and sa…

The course to the problem can't be fixed, but the problem might be able to be fixed.

You can scold a smoker as much as you want, but we all still pay for their chemo in the forms of health insurance premiums.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#124

Post by D13Fd »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
D13Fd wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. I'm in the same bucket. My wife and I worked hard, scrimped and saved, lived way below our means, and paid off our student debt ~15 years early. But now people want us to have to pay everyone else's debt too, through our taxes? The only way this could possibly be fair is if they offer some kind of credit for loans already paid.

That's still not fair. Let's say I worked two jobs to put myself through college. I only could attend half time, so it took me eight years. I'm going to pay taxes to subsidize those who took out loans? How is that fair? Or, I never went to college. I just started working right after high school. I make less than those who went to college. I'm going to pay taxes for this? How is that fair?

Great points, I agree. I worked through undergrad and lived at home myself, so really I should have thought of that.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#125

Post by wombatpm »

D13Fd wrote: post #91
fooqux wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm out of my depth here; if I'm wrong I would love to be educated. My assumption is that the debt holders would be the ones losing. I don't know about you, but I don't hold any person's medical or education debt. In my estimation, these are ultimately all held by the rich and powerful fat cats- owners of banks, etc.

No. We all end up paying, because the student loan debt they are talking about cancelling is ultimately held by the federal government. We'd be taking things from the bucket of "the people who borrowed have to pay it back" and putting it into the bucket of "we all have to pay it back through increased taxes."

What if the deal for debt cancellation was a 5% tax increase for those whose debt was cancelled for the remainder of their lives? Whenever you calculate tax, forgiven debtors pay 5% more.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#126

Post by Alekhine »

JamesBarney wrote: post #92
Alekhine wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People have suffered, therefore we must continue to make people suffer so the previous suffering wasn't for nothing." You can say I'm straw-maning, but it's hard to see your argument as anything else.

Here is another way to phrase it. Should we tax the poor(people who didn't get a college degree) to pay off the debts of the middle class and upper middle class? Or if we're going to hand out large sums of money why should the front of the line be college educated individuals who went to private colleges?

Ok, fair points.

My main concern is really just to lower college tuition. I don't know how people keep putting up with it, but we are essentially enslaving an entire generation with debt as soon as they actually gain some agency.

Maybe instead of paying the debts with tax dollars, we force universities to eat the cost, or at least some of it? If you could declare bankruptcy on your college debt, it might make universities think twice about charging such high tuition. Or it would just make them selective, I don't know.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#127

Post by dang »

floor2 wrote: post #13

The terminology of "cancelling" the debt is the most dishonest, twisted abuse of the English language. There is no "cancelling" debt. There's only forcing other people to pay. The incentives here are entirely backwards. All the people who made good decisions around cost-benefit of their education, all the people who made frugal choices, all the people who worked hard for the delayed gratification of their long-term p…

Can you please not fulminate on HN? The site guidelines ask you not to, and your comments unfortunately have a lot of this.

HN is supposed to be for curious conversation. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit more to heart, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#128

Post by Turing_Machine »

leereeves wrote: post #117
Turing_Machine wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bob, 35 years old, is an excellent cook (but not a great businessman). He takes out an SBA loan to start a restaurant (failure rate for restaurants: very, very high). The restaurant goes belly up. Bob is allowed to file bankruptcy and walk away from the debt. Jim, 50 years old, watches "house-flipping" shows on cable TV and decides that he wants to be a real estate baron. He starts flipping houses using VA/FHA loans.…

The lender takes Bob's business and Jim's house. How is the lender going to take Dave's degree? Dave is the only one of the three who could keep the asset after declaring bankruptcy, if that were allowed.

In this scenario, Dave's degree is likely worth little or nothing, so I'm skeptical that allowing him to keep it represents any kind of real advantage.

Re: Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cancel It All.

#130

Post by bassman9000 »

harimau777 wrote: post #110
hedberg10 wrote: post #15

Okay, NYT, you start. Make your work free. (It's an NYT opinion piece, so straight into the garbage it goes, but it's written by Astra Taylor, who I value for her contributions to unschooling way back when, but since it's not free, I can't be bothered)

The argument is generally not that people should not be paid. Instead the argument is that the terms of the debt are not just or that people did not enter into the debt fully voluntarily (e.g. medical debt isn't much of a choice when the alternative is death/disability, student loan debt isn't much of a choice when low skilled positions don't pay a living wage). The proposed solution generally takes the form of cance…

debt fully voluntarily

If you can vote, you can read contracts.

IMHO, we should raise voting age, precisely because of things like this. And because many entering these agreements today would be considered underage, more scrutiny would be expected.

But, until then, voting is a golden standard.

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