8 ms·

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. I

What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. But also a few other things. My god, I know so many people who are struggling that it seems like everyone is struggling. I know people making six figures who are worried about losing their homes. In fact, I've known so many people who have either lost their home, almost lost their home, or are worried about losing their home that it makes up probably a majority of the people I know. Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it? Should it really be that precarious of a thing? How many people do you think go to bed every night worrying about becoming a homeless person? We've turned into a culture that literally has a market that gambles on whether or not people will be able to keep their homes! For christ sake! What kind of sick shit is that? And the whole thing is predicated on people accepting the idea that they have to pay all their unreasonable bills and stressing themselves out willingly over the process of paying them. At what point do people throw their hands up and say "fuck it, this is unreasonable"?

Smithalicious 7y ago
Also known as, you know, theft.
zaphirplane 7y ago
First of all you are encouraging stealing, accept a loan and refuse to pay it back Second you don’t want to pay it to spend the money one what life essentials Third no one made you borrow no one made you enroll, you had a lot of other options accepting responsibility for your choice is a good thing Lastly whom would you like to pay for your pick of university and your pick of courses
- rangeofmotion 7y ago
  I don't think you can say concretely that this would be stealing. That would be an extremely simplistic view. Remember, I'm talking about "bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable". For example, we can firmly say that the price of higher education has been inflated beyond reason and certainly beyond its actual value. Many have said it. Papers, articles, documentaries, and so on have been produced about it. The current popular theory is that the government guaranteeing the loans incentivized the colleges to hike up the fees drastically, screwing an entire generation by gouging them unreasonably. And if you want to say that students didn't have to make the choice to go to college, well, then you're ignoring the fact that people have been drilling it into young people for quite some time that they won't be able to make it in future America if they don't get a higher education degree. I know parents today who are extremely cash-strapped who nonetheless feel they need their kids to go to college so they won't become serfs in the future economy. I even know parents who have gotten divorced purely so that their kid could receive some form of financial aid (only one parent income shown) so they would be able to afford college. So a ton of students and parents felt like they had no choice but to accept these loans if they wanted to make it in America's future economy. And this idea continues today, though it's slowly starting to receive some pushback. On the whole, these people didn't go to college purely because it would be a fun way to study creative writing. Essentially, the colleges rode the wave of fear and hiked up the price, bolstered by the government guaranteeing they would get paid no matter what. One can ultimately argue that the colleges stole from the students who have historically felt like they had to go if they wanted to make it and be able to secure a middle class position in society. Unreasonable price inflation combined with a sense of necessity or even physical necessity (health care) exists elsewhere in our economy as well. You can argue that our current political situation is due largely to people who are mad as hell over their life being impacted negatively by these things. As for what life essentials they'll spend the money on, well, we can ask the burgeoning van dwellers movement (people who live in their cars) as well as those people who are running GoFundMe campaigns so they can afford medicine or a medical procedure. You can ask people who are moving out of the country because they can afford a better life in places like India (I just read about this the other day). You can ask the people who just marched to Canada to buy insulin at a reasonable price.
NeutronStar 7y ago
Government will simply garnish your wages to pay for your student loan, there's simply no escaping it.
shados 7y ago
> In particular, student loans Only if we're also collectively telling people not to take them in the first place. The current culture telling everyone to go to expensive private colleges, then bitching that they're burdened with loans and not pay them, is pretty toxic. Its should be a multi step thing. - Tell people how bad student loans are and how they shouldn't take them if they don't have a plan to pay them back. - Educate people on alternative, like trade schools, apprenticeships, etc. Stop glorifying bachelor degrees beyond what they are (that should and often happens even in countries where education is paid by the gov!) - Then, yeah, start doing something to reduce debt burden on those who were affected before the previous two steps were in place. Otherwise, if we keep pushing for school loans but then tell people not to pay them, or forgive them, it's basically free education (a good thing) without actually collectively agreeing on making education free (which is kind of sketchy)
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rangeofmotion 7y ago
  I get what you're saying. I agree that college and university should be looked at differently going forward for a lot of people. It's just that there is a problem that exists right this minute, with an entire generation of people who already took the loans, not realizing the outcome they would face. I'm just looking at all the wreckage and sense of instability people have all around me right now, and it seems to make sense that some collective action should take place. Unless we just want to punish people until they are middle aged or older for not being financially savvy when they were 18 years old. But my point wasn't really to pick out just student loans. Not just due to people being burdened with student loans but a wide variety of other issues... We're more and more seeing people who hope to be able to save their own lives with GoFundMe campaigns because they can't afford to stay alive. We're seeing the idea of owning a home fade for giant swaths of the population. One third of the country is currently "subprime" in the eyes of financial institutions. And my understanding is that percentage is expected go up. The Dollar Store's massive growth is predicated on the forecast of "a permanent underclass in America". I'm seeing, hearing, and reading about so many people having a hard time every single day. And I'm reading about the country readjusting to accommodate the situation as a permanent reality. If the institutions cannot help, then I do think it's probably reasonable for the people to force the issue, given how prevalent we are seeing these problems become.
DiseasedBadger 7y ago
Immediately before other people stop giving them money they don't pay back. I think what you don't understand is how math works.
DiffEq 7y ago
Perhaps it could start with, yeah I don't need that unreasonable brand new car with a 72 month payment plan, or I can take these college courses for 1/10 the cost at a community college rather than a more unreasonable expensive school, or I don't need that unreasonable 5500 square foot McMansion in that fancy neighborhood, or I don't need that unreasonable 10th pair of jeans, that unreasonable new iphone, etc. People bury themselves with debt - and not because they can't do math, but because they DON'T. Instead they make impulsive, emotional decisions. Hardly anything good ever comes from them. Unreasonable bills usually come from unreasonable decisions (Medical bills being an obvious exception).
- empath75 7y ago
  The people loaning them money bear some responsibility, also. If it’s obvious to you that it’s a bad loan it should be even more obvious to the bank, but they shield themselves from their poor decision making by wrapping the debt into instruments that they unload onto some other poor sucker.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    certainly the banks fail to do their due diligence on a lot of these loans, but in some cases they are actually required by the government to issue them, even if it goes against their better judgment.
- rangeofmotion 7y ago
  I can understand this sentiment. And it certainly applies to some people. But honestly I don't think the majority of people struggling are driving fancy cars or living in McMansions. Most of the people I personally know (which is a lot of people) drive an average car, live in an average home or condo, and don't live lavish lives. Most are just saddled with some combination of common factors like high cost of housing, student loans, unexpected medical bills, etc. The majority of people are just trying to live average lives but are constantly having to walk a tightrope for just that.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Taylor_OD 7y ago
Student loans are not unreasonable. Rising education costs are unreasonable. But anyone who took on student loans did so willingly.
- kaesar14 7y ago
  There are many who would argue that the willingness of a 18 year old to shoulder enormous financial responsibility to gain benefits largely denied to them by the way modern American society is constructed is not a real defense of the reasonableness of student loans.
  - AcerbicZero 7y ago
    Sure, but that opens up a lot of other difficult topics, all of which are very nuanced. If we're not going to consider 18 year old's adults, we need to re-visit the age limits on voting, military service, and other large financial contracts. In the end, it always comes down to (some degree of) personal responsibility. Just because the government (or your job, or your family, or some guy you met on the street) offers you a new and novel way of ruining your life, it doesn't mean you have to take it. If the choice is pay your student loans and keep your credit score, or pay your rent and avoid being homeless, well, that's a terrible choice to have to make, but the answer is obvious, and the manner by which someone ended up in that situation is also pretty obvious.
    - kaesar14 7y ago
      I disagree massively with your last point, on the manner by which someone ended up there being obvious. Our current children are being raised by parents who grew up in a very different time, and the world has never been more complex. The tradeoff isn’t as simple as an educated adult making a bad financial decision, it’s actual children taking on huge burdens with little to no guidance in complete accordance with what society is telling them to do to get ahead, cause thats what worked 30 years ago.
      - Domenic_S 7y ago
benj111 7y ago
"In fact, I've known so many people who have either lost their home, almost lost their home, or are worried about losing their home that it makes up probably a majority of the people I know." Doesn't seem to match up with "Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it" I guess these people aren't struggling to afford a hut on a patch of dirt. I also guess you aren't condemning the majority of people you know as spendthrifts. So how are you reconciling the 2?
omegbule 7y ago
I respect the Irish in this regard when they refused to pay for a water bill that was introduced. They collectively managed to have it reversed as far as I can remember.
c0nsilienc3 7y ago
I would add medical bills to that as well. Some emergency room bills have asinine charges, and many aren't itemized very well. For example, you could have a bill that says: Emergency room: $5,000 ECG: $300 Radiology: $600 Laboratory: $750 And maybe you just went in with chest pain from asthma where they took some quick labs and an x-ray, sent you home after breathing treatment and no prescriptions for anything, and now you have a $7,000+ bill after spending 13 hours in the ER. Most of that time was spent sitting around staring at a wall.
biql 7y ago
> Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it? The cost of home is largely the right to live in a certain location and have timely access to certain places. That's what everyone wants. No only walls but clean water, air, safety, culture, groceries, jobs, parks, entertainments, infrastructure, government protection, good schools, and so on. There are probably thousand little things that make the cost of a home, all of which are highly desirable everyone.
daodedickinson 7y ago
>What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. Or taxes, when they are being used to recklessly loan so much money.
egypturnash 7y ago
The debt-owners have spent a lot of money lobbying politicians to pass laws that make it harder to declare bankruptcy. The debt-owners can hire much more expensive lawyers than you can. The debt-owners have gotten you to sign a contract that says any disputes will be handled by an arbitration bureau, in person, in a state where the laws are most in their favor. The debt-owners have the cops on their side. What are you doing about this? Who do you vote for, who do you give money to? Both in terms of political or charitable donations and in terms of who your landlord's giving money to, what the entertainment corporations you patronize are giving money to, etc. (Not just you: everyone who agrees with this. Including me. I know I'm sure not dropping everything to fight the creeping economic injustice that's burning the Earth alive and concentrating more and more money in the hands of fewer and fewer people.)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
krageon 7y ago
> refuse, collectively, to pay bills What will happen is that some very unpleasant men will come by and take things from you until you have paid it off or are so miserable you will start paying again. These guys are essentially paid to take things from you, so it's not like they'll stop either.
colorado4444 7y ago
Try building your own house or your own car and then you might have some respect for the amount of work and expertise that goes into it. A house is not dirt with four walls and a roof... that's a tent. I've built one solo, banging nails and cutting wood. Buying one or renting one lets you skip a lot of work.

Smithalicious 7y ago

Also known as, you know, theft.

zaphirplane 7y ago

First of all you are encouraging stealing, accept a loan and refuse to pay it back Second you don’t want to pay it to spend the money one what life essentials Third no one made you borrow no one made you enroll, you had a lot of other options accepting responsibility for your choice is a good thing Lastly whom would you like to pay for your pick of university and your pick of courses

rangeofmotion 7y ago
I don't think you can say concretely that this would be stealing. That would be an extremely simplistic view. Remember, I'm talking about "bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable". For example, we can firmly say that the price of higher education has been inflated beyond reason and certainly beyond its actual value. Many have said it. Papers, articles, documentaries, and so on have been produced about it. The current popular theory is that the government guaranteeing the loans incentivized the colleges to hike up the fees drastically, screwing an entire generation by gouging them unreasonably. And if you want to say that students didn't have to make the choice to go to college, well, then you're ignoring the fact that people have been drilling it into young people for quite some time that they won't be able to make it in future America if they don't get a higher education degree. I know parents today who are extremely cash-strapped who nonetheless feel they need their kids to go to college so they won't become serfs in the future economy. I even know parents who have gotten divorced purely so that their kid could receive some form of financial aid (only one parent income shown) so they would be able to afford college. So a ton of students and parents felt like they had no choice but to accept these loans if they wanted to make it in America's future economy. And this idea continues today, though it's slowly starting to receive some pushback. On the whole, these people didn't go to college purely because it would be a fun way to study creative writing. Essentially, the colleges rode the wave of fear and hiked up the price, bolstered by the government guaranteeing they would get paid no matter what. One can ultimately argue that the colleges stole from the students who have historically felt like they had to go if they wanted to make it and be able to secure a middle class position in society. Unreasonable price inflation combined with a sense of necessity or even physical necessity (health care) exists elsewhere in our economy as well. You can argue that our current political situation is due largely to people who are mad as hell over their life being impacted negatively by these things. As for what life essentials they'll spend the money on, well, we can ask the burgeoning van dwellers movement (people who live in their cars) as well as those people who are running GoFundMe campaigns so they can afford medicine or a medical procedure. You can ask people who are moving out of the country because they can afford a better life in places like India (I just read about this the other day). You can ask the people who just marched to Canada to buy insulin at a reasonable price.

NeutronStar 7y ago

Government will simply garnish your wages to pay for your student loan, there's simply no escaping it.

shados 7y ago

> In particular, student loans Only if we're also collectively telling people not to take them in the first place. The current culture telling everyone to go to expensive private colleges, then bitching that they're burdened with loans and not pay them, is pretty toxic. Its should be a multi step thing. - Tell people how bad student loans are and how they shouldn't take them if they don't have a plan to pay them back. - Educate people on alternative, like trade schools, apprenticeships, etc. Stop glorifying bachelor degrees beyond what they are (that should and often happens even in countries where education is paid by the gov!) - Then, yeah, start doing something to reduce debt burden on those who were affected before the previous two steps were in place. Otherwise, if we keep pushing for school loans but then tell people not to pay them, or forgive them, it's basically free education (a good thing) without actually collectively agreeing on making education free (which is kind of sketchy)

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rangeofmotion 7y ago
I get what you're saying. I agree that college and university should be looked at differently going forward for a lot of people. It's just that there is a problem that exists right this minute, with an entire generation of people who already took the loans, not realizing the outcome they would face. I'm just looking at all the wreckage and sense of instability people have all around me right now, and it seems to make sense that some collective action should take place. Unless we just want to punish people until they are middle aged or older for not being financially savvy when they were 18 years old. But my point wasn't really to pick out just student loans. Not just due to people being burdened with student loans but a wide variety of other issues... We're more and more seeing people who hope to be able to save their own lives with GoFundMe campaigns because they can't afford to stay alive. We're seeing the idea of owning a home fade for giant swaths of the population. One third of the country is currently "subprime" in the eyes of financial institutions. And my understanding is that percentage is expected go up. The Dollar Store's massive growth is predicated on the forecast of "a permanent underclass in America". I'm seeing, hearing, and reading about so many people having a hard time every single day. And I'm reading about the country readjusting to accommodate the situation as a permanent reality. If the institutions cannot help, then I do think it's probably reasonable for the people to force the issue, given how prevalent we are seeing these problems become.

DiseasedBadger 7y ago

Immediately before other people stop giving them money they don't pay back. I think what you don't understand is how math works.

DiffEq 7y ago

Perhaps it could start with, yeah I don't need that unreasonable brand new car with a 72 month payment plan, or I can take these college courses for 1/10 the cost at a community college rather than a more unreasonable expensive school, or I don't need that unreasonable 5500 square foot McMansion in that fancy neighborhood, or I don't need that unreasonable 10th pair of jeans, that unreasonable new iphone, etc. People bury themselves with debt - and not because they can't do math, but because they DON'T. Instead they make impulsive, emotional decisions. Hardly anything good ever comes from them. Unreasonable bills usually come from unreasonable decisions (Medical bills being an obvious exception).

empath75 7y ago
The people loaning them money bear some responsibility, also. If it’s obvious to you that it’s a bad loan it should be even more obvious to the bank, but they shield themselves from their poor decision making by wrapping the debt into instruments that they unload onto some other poor sucker.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  certainly the banks fail to do their due diligence on a lot of these loans, but in some cases they are actually required by the government to issue them, even if it goes against their better judgment.
rangeofmotion 7y ago
I can understand this sentiment. And it certainly applies to some people. But honestly I don't think the majority of people struggling are driving fancy cars or living in McMansions. Most of the people I personally know (which is a lot of people) drive an average car, live in an average home or condo, and don't live lavish lives. Most are just saddled with some combination of common factors like high cost of housing, student loans, unexpected medical bills, etc. The majority of people are just trying to live average lives but are constantly having to walk a tightrope for just that.
- jjeaff 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Taylor_OD 7y ago

Student loans are not unreasonable. Rising education costs are unreasonable. But anyone who took on student loans did so willingly.

kaesar14 7y ago
There are many who would argue that the willingness of a 18 year old to shoulder enormous financial responsibility to gain benefits largely denied to them by the way modern American society is constructed is not a real defense of the reasonableness of student loans.
- AcerbicZero 7y ago
  Sure, but that opens up a lot of other difficult topics, all of which are very nuanced. If we're not going to consider 18 year old's adults, we need to re-visit the age limits on voting, military service, and other large financial contracts. In the end, it always comes down to (some degree of) personal responsibility. Just because the government (or your job, or your family, or some guy you met on the street) offers you a new and novel way of ruining your life, it doesn't mean you have to take it. If the choice is pay your student loans and keep your credit score, or pay your rent and avoid being homeless, well, that's a terrible choice to have to make, but the answer is obvious, and the manner by which someone ended up in that situation is also pretty obvious.
  - kaesar14 7y ago
    I disagree massively with your last point, on the manner by which someone ended up there being obvious. Our current children are being raised by parents who grew up in a very different time, and the world has never been more complex. The tradeoff isn’t as simple as an educated adult making a bad financial decision, it’s actual children taking on huge burdens with little to no guidance in complete accordance with what society is telling them to do to get ahead, cause thats what worked 30 years ago.
    - Domenic_S 7y ago

benj111 7y ago

"In fact, I've known so many people who have either lost their home, almost lost their home, or are worried about losing their home that it makes up probably a majority of the people I know." Doesn't seem to match up with "Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it" I guess these people aren't struggling to afford a hut on a patch of dirt. I also guess you aren't condemning the majority of people you know as spendthrifts. So how are you reconciling the 2?

omegbule 7y ago

I respect the Irish in this regard when they refused to pay for a water bill that was introduced. They collectively managed to have it reversed as far as I can remember.

c0nsilienc3 7y ago

I would add medical bills to that as well. Some emergency room bills have asinine charges, and many aren't itemized very well. For example, you could have a bill that says: Emergency room: $5,000 ECG: $300 Radiology: $600 Laboratory: $750 And maybe you just went in with chest pain from asthma where they took some quick labs and an x-ray, sent you home after breathing treatment and no prescriptions for anything, and now you have a $7,000+ bill after spending 13 hours in the ER. Most of that time was spent sitting around staring at a wall.

biql 7y ago

> Did we forget somewhere along the line that a home is just a patch of dirt with four walls and roof thrown on it? The cost of home is largely the right to live in a certain location and have timely access to certain places. That's what everyone wants. No only walls but clean water, air, safety, culture, groceries, jobs, parks, entertainments, infrastructure, government protection, good schools, and so on. There are probably thousand little things that make the cost of a home, all of which are highly desirable everyone.

daodedickinson 7y ago

>What I don't understand is why people don't band together and simply refuse, collectively, to pay bills that are well known in the culture to be unreasonable. In particular, student loans. Or taxes, when they are being used to recklessly loan so much money.

egypturnash 7y ago

The debt-owners have spent a lot of money lobbying politicians to pass laws that make it harder to declare bankruptcy. The debt-owners can hire much more expensive lawyers than you can. The debt-owners have gotten you to sign a contract that says any disputes will be handled by an arbitration bureau, in person, in a state where the laws are most in their favor. The debt-owners have the cops on their side. What are you doing about this? Who do you vote for, who do you give money to? Both in terms of political or charitable donations and in terms of who your landlord's giving money to, what the entertainment corporations you patronize are giving money to, etc. (Not just you: everyone who agrees with this. Including me. I know I'm sure not dropping everything to fight the creeping economic injustice that's burning the Earth alive and concentrating more and more money in the hands of fewer and fewer people.)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

krageon 7y ago

> refuse, collectively, to pay bills What will happen is that some very unpleasant men will come by and take things from you until you have paid it off or are so miserable you will start paying again. These guys are essentially paid to take things from you, so it's not like they'll stop either.

colorado4444 7y ago

Try building your own house or your own car and then you might have some respect for the amount of work and expertise that goes into it. A house is not dirt with four walls and a roof... that's a tent. I've built one solo, banging nails and cutting wood. Buying one or renting one lets you skip a lot of work.