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Agreed. The markets plunged so the Fed airdropped a ton of assistance to the 1%. I mean my portfolio went up, but I was also sitting on a lot of cash in anticip

Agreed. The markets plunged so the Fed airdropped a ton of assistance to the 1%. I mean my portfolio went up, but I was also sitting on a lot of cash in anticipation of a prolonged market downturn. Clearly there's no reward for being financially responsible. Instead people hate on poor college grads getting $10k off their overpriced educations.

s1artibartfast 4y ago
I think it's fair to hate on both. The government should not be incentivizing irresponsible decisions in either case.
- triceratops 4y ago
  I'm having a hard time hating that much on 18-year olds who were encouraged to borrow recklessly by their parents, college counselors, and other advisors to pursue an education. The amount of digital ink spilled on criticizing them seems to vastly outweigh how much hate the propping up of the market in March 2020 gets.
  - PKop 4y ago
    Obviously, but the only solution to this is someone has to suffer. Who is punished for all the bad ideas and bad advice you describe in your statement? Now they get bailed out, so what changes exactly? In this case, the colleges running the scam (charging astronomical prices for worthless paper credentials, and the administrators feeding at this trough) are the biggest winners. Even the counselors and advisors are part of this pipeline of moral hazard if you think about it. What is their purpose, and are they fulfilling it? Does bailing out their bad advice change anything?
    - triceratops 4y ago
      You're right, but this is exactly what I mean about pointless hate. Where's the anger about the other bailout - of the financial markets? Where are the lawsuits against that? Why isn't there any legislation in the works to cap the cost of college or reduce predatory lending to teenagers? Why not allow student debt to be dischargeable in bankruptcy so that it's priced correctly by the market?
      - PKop 4y ago
        Well in the base case of no debt forgiveness, the borrower suffers (though I think if it goes on long enough the exorbitant fees colleges are raking in would go down too, solving the other side of the problem). In the case of bailout/forgiveness, there is the perception that every taxpayer...those who paid their debts for college or those that didn't even go to college, are paying for other's mistakes. So on one hand, the disinterest is on account of the issue not being seen as affecting some people while the bailout brings them into it. i.e. the anger is "now you're making it my problem, to fix your problem." In any case, to your point about punishing the colleges, I think is absolutely necessary. It's just that bailing out the debtors does not do that whatsoever, in fact in ingrains the moral hazard and keeps the colleges money train flowing (maybe, unless the government has some common sense to know they have to address the other end of the pipeline).
        triceratops 4y ago
        Maybe I'm more conspiracy theory minded. But it seems like there's a definite propaganda push to demonize student debt relief to distract everyone from the much bigger thievery that's happened to everyone. Even your response to my comment focused only on student debt relief, though I also asked about stock market relief. Every taxpayer - those who were still paying college loans, those who paid off their college loans, and those who never went to college - paid for that in higher inflation and asset prices. And unlike student debt relief, every non-taxpayer also paid for it!
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        paulmd 4y ago
        > those who paid their debts for college or those that didn't even go to college, are paying for other's mistakes that's how society works though. I didn't have kids and my taxes still go to help support childhood nutrition and education programs, etc. I don't get a choice about funding the military, etc. Societally these are things that we have determined are important and deserve funding. Everyone benefits from having a highly educated populace, not least because of the prolific lack of critical thinking the public displays in the political sphere. Want less "jewish space lasers" nonsense? Build a society with a good tertiary education pipeline that doesn't leave people horribly in debt, and increase the amount of the populace that has access. In many ways we are suffering the pain of that 80s/90s/00s neoliberal consensus on reduced education funding and privatization right now, this is what you get with 30 years of public secondary education being terrible and tertiary education being too expensive for a large portion of the population to access. But people really just think about me, me, me. MY taxes. And this is the society you get with that.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Perhaps we should raise the age where we consider someone an adult. IMO the real problem is that we just created a new entitlement program out of thin air. And unlike the other programs that have more broad appeal, this one is just for a small portion of the citizenry. And nobody is having a serious conversation about how we're going to fund it going forward.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      > small portion of the citizenry 22m applicants doesn't sound like a "small portion" to me. It'll benefit them and their families - those who are supporting them, as well as those they support. > IMO the real problem is that we just created a new entitlement program out of thin air. Would it sound better if you called it a "tax break" or "tax credit"? What's the difference?
      - rootusrootus 4y ago
        If you're one of the other 310M people then 22M does sound small.
        triceratops 4y ago
        Like I said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438628, we can eliminate 40% of those 310M on the basis that they don't pay federal taxes. So they aren't paying for student debt relief. Of the rest, a good proportion are related to the 22M who are getting the relief. We're talking about parents who are financially supporting their adult children. Or kids whose parents are paying off student debt. It's way more than just 22M. And it's certainly way more than the number that benefited from propping up the stock market in 2020.
  - 6502nerdface 4y ago
    Picture two white collar professionals sitting at a bar, clinking their glasses to celebrate college debt relief, inches away from the blue collar bartender whose taxes will pay for that relief. I agree I don't think it's fair to "hate" on the college-indebted, but I can also see an element of unfairness to debt relief and can understand why someone like that bartender would not be so happy about it.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      > blue collar bartender And yet all the propaganda directs hate towards "blue-haired baristas/bartenders with worthless degrees in women's studies". I don't think it's as simple as "blue collar" vs "white collar". People who took loans to go to trade schools should also be eligible. And all 3 of those people's tax dollars are going to pay for their bosses' stock portfolios.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Both were picking the pockets of the majority of the public to enrich a few, and yes, for most people $10k is being enriched.
- triceratops 4y ago
  40% of households (out of 123m) don't pay federal taxes, so it's not their pockets being picked. 22m people have signed up for relief. Maybe you could say "a majority of taxpayers" but even that's not certain, since we don't know the distribution of those people. A lot of those taxpayers are parents of indebted students who may be supporting or housing them due to their children's financial struggles. In any case, 22m people benefiting is far more people than the top 1% who benefited in March 2020. But compare the relative outrage.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    Having the government debt finance a giveaway to people who do not need assistance if pretty much theft from everyone. As debt service surpasses 9% of the federal budget it will begin to crowd out other spending. Furthermore, piling onto inflationary policies definitely hurt people who don't make enough money to pay federal taxes.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438985 Where's all the hate for government assistance for the stock market? That's pretty much the definition of "people who do not need assistance".
      - ch4s3 4y ago
        I agree. The government shouldn't be pumping stocks with negative interest rates.
300bps 4y ago
Clearly there's no reward for being financially responsible. It's called Moral Hazard. A lot of us learned this in 2007/2008. For me I had a friend in 2005/2006 that would go to Toll Brothers developments with 2 friends because they only "allowed" you to buy 3 houses per person. So together they'd buy 9 houses, sit on them for 6 months and flip them making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I thought he was insane and that it was inevitable to blow up spectacularly. Which it did. Which the government almost completely bailed him out of and there were almost no consequences, financial or otherwise.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I think it's fair to hate on both. The government should not be incentivizing irresponsible decisions in either case.

triceratops 4y ago
I'm having a hard time hating that much on 18-year olds who were encouraged to borrow recklessly by their parents, college counselors, and other advisors to pursue an education. The amount of digital ink spilled on criticizing them seems to vastly outweigh how much hate the propping up of the market in March 2020 gets.
- PKop 4y ago
  Obviously, but the only solution to this is someone has to suffer. Who is punished for all the bad ideas and bad advice you describe in your statement? Now they get bailed out, so what changes exactly? In this case, the colleges running the scam (charging astronomical prices for worthless paper credentials, and the administrators feeding at this trough) are the biggest winners. Even the counselors and advisors are part of this pipeline of moral hazard if you think about it. What is their purpose, and are they fulfilling it? Does bailing out their bad advice change anything?
  - triceratops 4y ago
    You're right, but this is exactly what I mean about pointless hate. Where's the anger about the other bailout - of the financial markets? Where are the lawsuits against that? Why isn't there any legislation in the works to cap the cost of college or reduce predatory lending to teenagers? Why not allow student debt to be dischargeable in bankruptcy so that it's priced correctly by the market?
    - PKop 4y ago
      Well in the base case of no debt forgiveness, the borrower suffers (though I think if it goes on long enough the exorbitant fees colleges are raking in would go down too, solving the other side of the problem). In the case of bailout/forgiveness, there is the perception that every taxpayer...those who paid their debts for college or those that didn't even go to college, are paying for other's mistakes. So on one hand, the disinterest is on account of the issue not being seen as affecting some people while the bailout brings them into it. i.e. the anger is "now you're making it my problem, to fix your problem." In any case, to your point about punishing the colleges, I think is absolutely necessary. It's just that bailing out the debtors does not do that whatsoever, in fact in ingrains the moral hazard and keeps the colleges money train flowing (maybe, unless the government has some common sense to know they have to address the other end of the pipeline).
      - triceratops 4y ago
        Maybe I'm more conspiracy theory minded. But it seems like there's a definite propaganda push to demonize student debt relief to distract everyone from the much bigger thievery that's happened to everyone. Even your response to my comment focused only on student debt relief, though I also asked about stock market relief. Every taxpayer - those who were still paying college loans, those who paid off their college loans, and those who never went to college - paid for that in higher inflation and asset prices. And unlike student debt relief, every non-taxpayer also paid for it!
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - paulmd 4y ago
        > those who paid their debts for college or those that didn't even go to college, are paying for other's mistakes that's how society works though. I didn't have kids and my taxes still go to help support childhood nutrition and education programs, etc. I don't get a choice about funding the military, etc. Societally these are things that we have determined are important and deserve funding. Everyone benefits from having a highly educated populace, not least because of the prolific lack of critical thinking the public displays in the political sphere. Want less "jewish space lasers" nonsense? Build a society with a good tertiary education pipeline that doesn't leave people horribly in debt, and increase the amount of the populace that has access. In many ways we are suffering the pain of that 80s/90s/00s neoliberal consensus on reduced education funding and privatization right now, this is what you get with 30 years of public secondary education being terrible and tertiary education being too expensive for a large portion of the population to access. But people really just think about me, me, me. MY taxes. And this is the society you get with that.
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Perhaps we should raise the age where we consider someone an adult. IMO the real problem is that we just created a new entitlement program out of thin air. And unlike the other programs that have more broad appeal, this one is just for a small portion of the citizenry. And nobody is having a serious conversation about how we're going to fund it going forward.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    > small portion of the citizenry 22m applicants doesn't sound like a "small portion" to me. It'll benefit them and their families - those who are supporting them, as well as those they support. > IMO the real problem is that we just created a new entitlement program out of thin air. Would it sound better if you called it a "tax break" or "tax credit"? What's the difference?
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      If you're one of the other 310M people then 22M does sound small.
      - triceratops 4y ago
        Like I said here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438628, we can eliminate 40% of those 310M on the basis that they don't pay federal taxes. So they aren't paying for student debt relief. Of the rest, a good proportion are related to the 22M who are getting the relief. We're talking about parents who are financially supporting their adult children. Or kids whose parents are paying off student debt. It's way more than just 22M. And it's certainly way more than the number that benefited from propping up the stock market in 2020.
- 6502nerdface 4y ago
  Picture two white collar professionals sitting at a bar, clinking their glasses to celebrate college debt relief, inches away from the blue collar bartender whose taxes will pay for that relief. I agree I don't think it's fair to "hate" on the college-indebted, but I can also see an element of unfairness to debt relief and can understand why someone like that bartender would not be so happy about it.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    > blue collar bartender And yet all the propaganda directs hate towards "blue-haired baristas/bartenders with worthless degrees in women's studies". I don't think it's as simple as "blue collar" vs "white collar". People who took loans to go to trade schools should also be eligible. And all 3 of those people's tax dollars are going to pay for their bosses' stock portfolios.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Both were picking the pockets of the majority of the public to enrich a few, and yes, for most people $10k is being enriched.

triceratops 4y ago
40% of households (out of 123m) don't pay federal taxes, so it's not their pockets being picked. 22m people have signed up for relief. Maybe you could say "a majority of taxpayers" but even that's not certain, since we don't know the distribution of those people. A lot of those taxpayers are parents of indebted students who may be supporting or housing them due to their children's financial struggles. In any case, 22m people benefiting is far more people than the top 1% who benefited in March 2020. But compare the relative outrage.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Having the government debt finance a giveaway to people who do not need assistance if pretty much theft from everyone. As debt service surpasses 9% of the federal budget it will begin to crowd out other spending. Furthermore, piling onto inflationary policies definitely hurt people who don't make enough money to pay federal taxes.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    See my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438985 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33438985 Where's all the hate for government assistance for the stock market? That's pretty much the definition of "people who do not need assistance".
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      I agree. The government shouldn't be pumping stocks with negative interest rates.

300bps 4y ago

Clearly there's no reward for being financially responsible. It's called Moral Hazard. A lot of us learned this in 2007/2008. For me I had a friend in 2005/2006 that would go to Toll Brothers developments with 2 friends because they only "allowed" you to buy 3 houses per person. So together they'd buy 9 houses, sit on them for 6 months and flip them making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I thought he was insane and that it was inevitable to blow up spectacularly. Which it did. Which the government almost completely bailed him out of and there were almost no consequences, financial or otherwise.