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Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they ge

Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it" and so they block the new benefit, and we fall farther and farther behind countries like the Nordics, where this is somehow not a problem.

orangecat 6y ago
This isn't a magic button you can press to costlessly improve some people's lives. It's pure wealth redistribution with recipients disproportionately in the upper middle class.
- drewg123 6y ago
  Do you have a citation to back this up? I admit my knowledge is anecdotal, but I know somebody in their 20s, who went to college, and is in debt that would be cancelled. This person was the first in their family to go to college, and was unable to find a job in their field. Most of this persons peers are in a similar situation with respect to debt and being unable to find jobs in their field. The jobs these people have are entry-level tech support, bar-tending / waiting tables, starbucks, etc. None of them are upper middle class.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    Anecdotally, all of my friends who went to college are clearing 90k a year with many over 200k once you include stock options. One friend is a published expert in their field. Out of all my friends who attended college only one didn't get into a profitable field but their degree was in civil planning and their parents are going to buy them a vineyard to run. But again, just anecdotal.
    - GoodJokes 6y ago
      Do these friends have debt?
  - jessedhillon 6y ago
    This analysis breaks out share of debt by family income and student earning quintiles: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-the-most-student-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-... Their sources are also linked from that post. Going by student earnings, the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. Going by family incomes has about the same distribution. None of the lower three quintiles are breaking ~15% of borrowing. This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.
    - thomastjeffery 6y ago
      > > the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. > This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy. I think you need to look up the definition of "absolute". You left out 60% of your whole.
      - jessedhillon 6y ago
        hyperbole notwithstanding, the greatest share of the debt is owed by the minority who has the greatest ability to pay. That's the salient point. The lower earning majority has lower debt on a per-capita and aggregated basis. This is certainly a benefit disproportionately for high earners from wealthy backgrounds.
        thomastjeffery 6y ago
        God forbid the rich get richer. Meanwhile, the 60% of people you didn't mention - the ones with only 40% of debt owed - are in a crisis. You are saying that we must deny those people assistance, because we would also end up helping others who aren't in crisis, and doing so is unpalatable. So where is the solution for the people in crisis?
        jessedhillon 6y ago
        God forbid that the rich be asked to pay anything at all for this incredible and unnecessary gift the people give them? What would make more sense would be targeted debt relief indexed on familial wealth, student earnings, and the institution's median outcome for the given degree program. Is there any room for accountability, or is the indiscriminate dumping of money out of a helicopter the only solution we're allowed to consider?
  - cscurmudgeon 6y ago
    > Do you have a citation to back this up? Honestly, the side proposing a large action should also be ready with relevant research.
supernova87a 6y ago
Your logic being that any time we give money or subsidize some group, it must be good?
- aliceryhl 6y ago
  The logic is that when you give money or subsidize some group, then that is not _necessarily_ bad. Maybe it really is bad, but the fact that it involves giving money to a specific group is not enough to conclude that.
  - underseacables 6y ago
    But the true logic of American government and finance is that if something is good you tax and regulate into the ground, until you’re then forced to subsidize it. The often-attributed quote to Reagan sounds globe but it makes a lot of sense. We should be throwing more responsibility at the system, not money.
    - thomastjeffery 6y ago
      > But the true logic of American government...Reagan. Reaganomics isn't "the true logic of American government". Reagan's administration ended in 1990. > We should be throwing more responsibility at the system, not money. That's a false dichotomy. We can do both.
- drewg123 6y ago
  I honestly think that we need to stop thinking about "subsidize some group". The more effort we spend making sure that somebody doesn't get something they don't deserve, the worse off we are. Let's just have a UBI rather than lots of bureaucracy keeping score.
  - zug_zug 6y ago
    I'm strong pro-UBI, strongly against student-loan forgiveness. It's one thing to acknowledge automation is going to decrease the job pool. It's another to retroactively break financial contracts for a generation that's already not responsible enough with money, giving a huge amount to a small-interest group and ignore those who need it most (i.e. those who didn't go to college).; It also strongly incentivizes colleges, which need to die, and disincentivizes colleges reducing prices to what they were a generation ago.
underseacables 6y ago
Because collection and redistribution of wealth and assets has never worked anywhere in the world, ever. Any plan to dress it up as “debt forgiveness” is easily shredded for its narrow view that it’s a one and done, when this could be like tolls: Once in place they never go away.
- zaphod4prez 6y ago
  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 redistributing wealth is essential to having a functional society (where I define functioning as being moderately stable and in some meaningful way reducing the suffering of those who live within it).
  - bwb 6y ago
    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.
    - benjohnson 6y ago
      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.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > 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”.
bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
The government’s money all comes from taxes. If the government pays out money to people that aren’t you, it’s as if you had paid them directly and skipped paying taxes. If you wouldn’t want to give someone free money then you similarly shouldn’t want your government to give them that money.
- fr11 6y ago
  This is true, but misses the main point for how to determine whether the government providing money is better than not: positive externalities. As an example, we all benefit hugely from the existence of an EMS (911, ambulances, emergency rooms) system, even if most of us don't use it much. That's a positive externality that's worth the government making sure happens, as it wouldn't necessarily happen without government involvement. Similarly, public schooling (or publicly paid school) provides externalities: a literate society, a basic level of civic and cultural knowledge that people can assume as a baseline, opportunities for social mobility. None of those exist with a voluntary system. This proposal doesn't seem to pass that test: at least, nobody has proposed positive externalities that come out of this.
- linspace 6y ago
  Not really true. The government adds coordinated action and scale in situations where individual action is ineffective. Also, there are a lot of issues about which I simply don't have enough knowledge to have an opinion.
  - defertoreptar 6y ago
    Maybe, but in this case we're literally talking about moving tax money directly into people's student loan accounts. I'd say, "yes, really true."
rsync 6y ago
"Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it"" That is the price of diversity. Diversity, which is neither bad nor good, has benefits and costs. My very diverse country invented jazz music and snowboarding and the Internet. We also lack the social trust and cohesion of much less diverse countries like Japan or the Scandinavian countries at whose social welfare programs we marvel. Personally, I'll take the jazz music and snowboarding even if it means fighting over what should be basic components of the welfare state.
- thomastjeffery 6y ago
  So eliminating poverty would eliminate diversity? Nonsense.
  - rsync 6y ago
    I'm not sure who you are responding to here - I said nothing like that.
    - thomastjeffery 6y ago
      > That is the price of diversity. > We also lack the social trust and cohesion of much less diverse countries like Japan or the Scandinavian countries at whose social welfare programs we marvel. > Personally, I'll take the jazz music and snowboarding even if it means fighting over what should be basic components of the welfare state. So what I took you to be saying is that "jazz music and snowboarding" come from a diversity present because of the lack of social programs like welfare. What "diversity" is that if not that which includes poverty? What I'm trying to say is that it's ridiculous to assert that "jazz music and snowboarding" come from the lack of a welfare state. Nowhere do you illustrate how we can't have both.

orangecat 6y ago

This isn't a magic button you can press to costlessly improve some people's lives. It's pure wealth redistribution with recipients disproportionately in the upper middle class.

drewg123 6y ago
Do you have a citation to back this up? I admit my knowledge is anecdotal, but I know somebody in their 20s, who went to college, and is in debt that would be cancelled. This person was the first in their family to go to college, and was unable to find a job in their field. Most of this persons peers are in a similar situation with respect to debt and being unable to find jobs in their field. The jobs these people have are entry-level tech support, bar-tending / waiting tables, starbucks, etc. None of them are upper middle class.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Anecdotally, all of my friends who went to college are clearing 90k a year with many over 200k once you include stock options. One friend is a published expert in their field. Out of all my friends who attended college only one didn't get into a profitable field but their degree was in civil planning and their parents are going to buy them a vineyard to run. But again, just anecdotal.
  - GoodJokes 6y ago
    Do these friends have debt?
- jessedhillon 6y ago
  This analysis breaks out share of debt by family income and student earning quintiles: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-the-most-student-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/06/28/who-owes-... Their sources are also linked from that post. Going by student earnings, the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. Going by family incomes has about the same distribution. None of the lower three quintiles are breaking ~15% of borrowing. This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > > the top 40% of earners owe almost 60% of the debt. > This is absolutely a gift to the wealthy. I think you need to look up the definition of "absolute". You left out 60% of your whole.
    - jessedhillon 6y ago
      hyperbole notwithstanding, the greatest share of the debt is owed by the minority who has the greatest ability to pay. That's the salient point. The lower earning majority has lower debt on a per-capita and aggregated basis. This is certainly a benefit disproportionately for high earners from wealthy backgrounds.
      - thomastjeffery 6y ago
        God forbid the rich get richer. Meanwhile, the 60% of people you didn't mention - the ones with only 40% of debt owed - are in a crisis. You are saying that we must deny those people assistance, because we would also end up helping others who aren't in crisis, and doing so is unpalatable. So where is the solution for the people in crisis?
        jessedhillon 6y ago
        God forbid that the rich be asked to pay anything at all for this incredible and unnecessary gift the people give them? What would make more sense would be targeted debt relief indexed on familial wealth, student earnings, and the institution's median outcome for the given degree program. Is there any room for accountability, or is the indiscriminate dumping of money out of a helicopter the only solution we're allowed to consider?
- cscurmudgeon 6y ago
  > Do you have a citation to back this up? Honestly, the side proposing a large action should also be ready with relevant research.

supernova87a 6y ago

Your logic being that any time we give money or subsidize some group, it must be good?

aliceryhl 6y ago
The logic is that when you give money or subsidize some group, then that is not _necessarily_ bad. Maybe it really is bad, but the fact that it involves giving money to a specific group is not enough to conclude that.
- underseacables 6y ago
  But the true logic of American government and finance is that if something is good you tax and regulate into the ground, until you’re then forced to subsidize it. The often-attributed quote to Reagan sounds globe but it makes a lot of sense. We should be throwing more responsibility at the system, not money.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > But the true logic of American government...Reagan. Reaganomics isn't "the true logic of American government". Reagan's administration ended in 1990. > We should be throwing more responsibility at the system, not money. That's a false dichotomy. We can do both.
drewg123 6y ago
I honestly think that we need to stop thinking about "subsidize some group". The more effort we spend making sure that somebody doesn't get something they don't deserve, the worse off we are. Let's just have a UBI rather than lots of bureaucracy keeping score.
- zug_zug 6y ago
  I'm strong pro-UBI, strongly against student-loan forgiveness. It's one thing to acknowledge automation is going to decrease the job pool. It's another to retroactively break financial contracts for a generation that's already not responsible enough with money, giving a huge amount to a small-interest group and ignore those who need it most (i.e. those who didn't go to college).; It also strongly incentivizes colleges, which need to die, and disincentivizes colleges reducing prices to what they were a generation ago.

underseacables 6y ago

Because collection and redistribution of wealth and assets has never worked anywhere in the world, ever. Any plan to dress it up as “debt forgiveness” is easily shredded for its narrow view that it’s a one and done, when this could be like tolls: Once in place they never go away.

zaphod4prez 6y ago
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 redistributing wealth is essential to having a functional society (where I define functioning as being moderately stable and in some meaningful way reducing the suffering of those who live within it).
- bwb 6y ago
  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.
  - benjohnson 6y ago
    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.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > 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”.

bobbylarrybobby 6y ago

The government’s money all comes from taxes. If the government pays out money to people that aren’t you, it’s as if you had paid them directly and skipped paying taxes. If you wouldn’t want to give someone free money then you similarly shouldn’t want your government to give them that money.

fr11 6y ago
This is true, but misses the main point for how to determine whether the government providing money is better than not: positive externalities. As an example, we all benefit hugely from the existence of an EMS (911, ambulances, emergency rooms) system, even if most of us don't use it much. That's a positive externality that's worth the government making sure happens, as it wouldn't necessarily happen without government involvement. Similarly, public schooling (or publicly paid school) provides externalities: a literate society, a basic level of civic and cultural knowledge that people can assume as a baseline, opportunities for social mobility. None of those exist with a voluntary system. This proposal doesn't seem to pass that test: at least, nobody has proposed positive externalities that come out of this.
linspace 6y ago
Not really true. The government adds coordinated action and scale in situations where individual action is ineffective. Also, there are a lot of issues about which I simply don't have enough knowledge to have an opinion.
- defertoreptar 6y ago
  Maybe, but in this case we're literally talking about moving tax money directly into people's student loan accounts. I'd say, "yes, really true."

rsync 6y ago

"Opinions like this are why we can't have nice things in the USA. People look at some subgroup getting a benefit and are encouraged to think "Why should they get this thing when I get nothing? These people don't deserve it"" That is the price of diversity. Diversity, which is neither bad nor good, has benefits and costs. My very diverse country invented jazz music and snowboarding and the Internet. We also lack the social trust and cohesion of much less diverse countries like Japan or the Scandinavian countries at whose social welfare programs we marvel. Personally, I'll take the jazz music and snowboarding even if it means fighting over what should be basic components of the welfare state.

thomastjeffery 6y ago
So eliminating poverty would eliminate diversity? Nonsense.
- rsync 6y ago
  I'm not sure who you are responding to here - I said nothing like that.
  - thomastjeffery 6y ago
    > That is the price of diversity. > We also lack the social trust and cohesion of much less diverse countries like Japan or the Scandinavian countries at whose social welfare programs we marvel. > Personally, I'll take the jazz music and snowboarding even if it means fighting over what should be basic components of the welfare state. So what I took you to be saying is that "jazz music and snowboarding" come from a diversity present because of the lack of social programs like welfare. What "diversity" is that if not that which includes poverty? What I'm trying to say is that it's ridiculous to assert that "jazz music and snowboarding" come from the lack of a welfare state. Nowhere do you illustrate how we can't have both.