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So because it was hard for you, it should be hard for everyone else. They should all have to suffer just like you did to pay off their debt?

• afc 6y ago
  That's not at all what he's saying. He's saying that this creates the incentive of not working hard at all, let's just wait until the government bails us out. Yeah, lets create a society where nobody has to work and we just all magically have it easy!
  • washadjeffmad 6y ago
    Exactly, no one is too big to fail, and the largest recipients of federal bailout and stimulus money, industries like banking and finance, shouldn't just get windfalls whenever they fail to plan ahead.
• roenxi 6y ago
  It isn't a question of suffering; if they can pay the loan back without suffering then everyone is a winner. Horrible policy is when the government sees people who work hard, save responsibly and honour their commitments ... and then that government puts a thumb on the scale to make sure the responsible got worse outcomes than free-spending fools. Presumably we all want those free-spending fools to live without suffering (I certainly do). They should have food, shelter and freedom to improve themselves. If they can't pay the money back then it is stupid to pretend they will (and politically destabilising). But all this doesn't outshine the fact that people who paid off their student debts the hard way made better choices and probably worked harder to boot. Sometimes the rules need to change midway through the game of life, but the government shouldn't be monkeying around with the score at the same time. The people who borrowed money and couldn't pay it back made terrible choices. People who made good choices should be rewarded more than people who make bad choices and given first pick of resources and opportunity. Otherwise people who make bad choices will end up owning stuff they'll muck up and in positions of authority where they will muck stuff up that they don't own. Now that is mean to the people who took out loans. Bad luck. If they want a nicer tone they can cover their own costs. It isn't reasonable to take someone else's money, government rolls in and hand-waves paying it back (probably has the tax payer cover the costs in some complicated bailout, who knows) and then expect everyone to be treated like they are behaving responsibly and respectably. There has to be some level of recognition the magnitude of the mess-up here. People are making life-shatteringly bad decisions and dragging other people with them. That needs more consideration than wiping the slate clean and shrugging hard. But obviously the usual bankruptcy process (they've got nothing and basically start from scratch) would be fine. If they're broke they're broke.