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Ignoring the “what about <x wrong thing>” as an argument, I actually agree with you on the overarching principle that we should prioritize educating our populac

by atonse 4y ago

Ignoring the “what about <x wrong thing>” as an argument, I actually agree with you on the overarching principle that we should prioritize educating our populace. However, we aren’t arguing about making college free or incentivizing colleges to reduce their fees. I can see all your arguments in service of that point. We are talking about loan forgiveness: Releasing one group of people from fulfilling their part of a financial deal they consciously made to benefit themselves, by using the money of other people. The deal they made was, they borrow funds to pay for a purchase they made, but when it comes time to pay the funds back, they are backing out and want someone else to handle it. And that idea of making others clean up your mess fundamentally bothers me to the core, just as much as when it happens to corporations. I can even get behind student loan INTEREST forgiveness, let’s ease that. But paying off the principal seems to go too far and teaches the wrong life lesson about not having to keep your end of a deal, to millions of young adults. I’m not making a political argument. Just one based on the principle of being a responsible adult.

lapcat 4y ago
> and want someone else to handle it To be clear, nobody else has to handle it. The debt is owed to the federal government, and if forgiven is simply erased. It would mean that less money will be paid in the future to the federal government from student loan debtors. But the federal budget changes every year due to many different factors. There's no inherent requirement that the federal government has to spend $X rather than $X + Y or $X - Y. And of course general tax income various from year to year due to economic conditions, changing tax rates, etc. Moreover, a lot of student loan debt never gets paid back anyway, due to default, forbearance, or death of the debtor.
- mech765 4y ago
  In today's inflationary environment, forgiving the loans will have an effect of increasing the money supply (roughly-quantity of dollars in circulation). Even if nobody ever pays increased taxes because of the loan forgiveness, everybody has to take on the burden of somewhat higher inflation to make up for it.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Heh, this is kind of a funny way of saying that student loan debtors will have more money to spend for themselves, which is the whole point. Let me put it this way: if you truly believe that this student loan forgiveness will have a significant effect on the overall inflation rate of the United States, that just proves how incredibly burdensome this student loan debt is on the debtors. On the other hand, the debt was never going to be all repaid immediately anyway. We're just talking about resuming regular payments, as it was before the pandemic started. If the debt is not forgiven, it would still take many years, even decades, for it to be paid back, and thus wouldn't be a massive contributor to current inflation. Current debtors have only saved a couple years worth of payments. In a sense, the "inflationary damage" has already been done by the pandemic suspension of payments (begun by the previous administration). Anyway, it's strange to think of something like higher food prices as caused by people having too much money, because food is a necessity, and nobody should go hungry for lack of money. It is true that the US has an obesity problem, but it's not caused by people having too much money either, otherwise the richest would be the most obese, and the poorest would be the least obese, but that's not the case. Moreover, if "luxury", non-necessary foods were driving inflated food prices, then that would be a kind of self-limiting phenomenon, might even be considered good and healthy. That doesn't seem to be the case either though.
Ancalagon 4y ago
Ok, let’s just say for a moment that the principle alone is worth putting millions of people in cumulative trillions of debt. The principle alone, that these kids - that’s what they were when they took out the loans btw, uneducated kids at the time those loans were received - deserve to be reprimanded because they listened to their parents and counselors and believed that by taking out these student loans they would have good-paying careers ahead of them, and they failed to account for the probability of those degrees being worthless in a rapidly changing economy. I don’t, but let’s say I did. Why couldn’t the loans be significantly reduced then? Don’t most Americans struggle to come up with even a few hundred dollars in an emergency? Why not make their debt repayment a tenth of what it was to “teach the right life lesson”, or demolish entirely any interest they must pay and apply previous interest payments to the principle? Why not restructure plans based on income that would allow those loans to be forgiven assuming an (admittedly shorter) repayment period, whereby if the students made consistent repayments for 3-5 consecutive years the loans could be forgiven. Wouldn’t any of those plans work to “teach them the right life lesson” and also reduce the ridiculous drag on our economy that are these loans? There are plenty of ways to teach people to be responsible and make these burdens go away for the betterment of society as a whole.
- atonse 4y ago
  I 100% agree with the alternatives that you've mentioned. For example, X years of meaningful public service (like we do with the military). But those are all concepts around an idea of "ok you can't pay with cash, maybe pay some other way, with your time, with your talent/commitment". I am actually completely ok with those alternatives, you are entering into a transaction with taxpayers that you will serve them for a few years and in exchange, they will pay off your student loans. But this kind of loan forgiveness is simply "let's just not obligate you to pay any of it, and in exchange you have to do... nothing" – when did this become an option, let alone official policy? "the principle alone is worth putting millions of people in cumulative trillions of debt" – the principle didn't do it, the people that made a conscious choice to pick certain schools and degrees did it. Let's not rob them of agency and responsibility, nor should we be patronizing towards many of the borrowers. They knew they would have to pay it off with interest after graduating. Growing up, it was very clear that my parents were never going to be able to pay for our college. It was just understood given our income levels. So the expectation was that we would make decisions that match our situation. So we went to a community college (cheap and free in some situations) with the understanding that we would switch to a state school and it wouldn't have mattered, since the degree would just reflect the better known state school's name. So it was a win-win. And our family was generally clueless about the American system, yet we absolutely knew we would have to get college degrees. I stayed at home to save money instead of staying on campus, and came out with 28k in debt (but that was because I did 6 years of college since I worked all 6 years). It could've ben less. 28k in college loans at 3%. Those were all conscious choices we made. It took me 15 years to pay off my student loans but that's because I had the minimum interest, minimum payment. I probably wasted a lot in interest but the $200/mo barely ever made a dent in my paycheck. I _know_ this is likely a straw man but have to mention it. I have spoken to a neighbor who literally studied student loan repayment as a policy issue in 2019, and he said nearly half the people asking to have their debts forgiven are grad students. Forgiving grad student loans is simply absurd. Now we are truly subsidizing a privileged few. I do concur that everyone is told in high school that you need a college degree to survive, and that it is messed up that we mislead children that way. But as far as I have seen, the advice would've been to go to college, and less about going to expensive colleges. Or to get degrees in fields that will never give them the earning power to pay off their student loans. You can go to a state school (in-state tuition), be a commuter, attend community college to further save. All those options are there to cut costs. Many students simply didn't want to do that, and are now asking everyone else to pay off their bad financial decision. What's to stop them from doing the same for other financial decisions like car loans, mortgages, etc? You could make the same arguments about being told about the virtues of home ownership.

by atonse 4y ago

lapcat 4y ago

> and want someone else to handle it To be clear, nobody else has to handle it. The debt is owed to the federal government, and if forgiven is simply erased. It would mean that less money will be paid in the future to the federal government from student loan debtors. But the federal budget changes every year due to many different factors. There's no inherent requirement that the federal government has to spend $X rather than $X + Y or $X - Y. And of course general tax income various from year to year due to economic conditions, changing tax rates, etc. Moreover, a lot of student loan debt never gets paid back anyway, due to default, forbearance, or death of the debtor.

mech765 4y ago
In today's inflationary environment, forgiving the loans will have an effect of increasing the money supply (roughly-quantity of dollars in circulation). Even if nobody ever pays increased taxes because of the loan forgiveness, everybody has to take on the burden of somewhat higher inflation to make up for it.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Heh, this is kind of a funny way of saying that student loan debtors will have more money to spend for themselves, which is the whole point. Let me put it this way: if you truly believe that this student loan forgiveness will have a significant effect on the overall inflation rate of the United States, that just proves how incredibly burdensome this student loan debt is on the debtors. On the other hand, the debt was never going to be all repaid immediately anyway. We're just talking about resuming regular payments, as it was before the pandemic started. If the debt is not forgiven, it would still take many years, even decades, for it to be paid back, and thus wouldn't be a massive contributor to current inflation. Current debtors have only saved a couple years worth of payments. In a sense, the "inflationary damage" has already been done by the pandemic suspension of payments (begun by the previous administration). Anyway, it's strange to think of something like higher food prices as caused by people having too much money, because food is a necessity, and nobody should go hungry for lack of money. It is true that the US has an obesity problem, but it's not caused by people having too much money either, otherwise the richest would be the most obese, and the poorest would be the least obese, but that's not the case. Moreover, if "luxury", non-necessary foods were driving inflated food prices, then that would be a kind of self-limiting phenomenon, might even be considered good and healthy. That doesn't seem to be the case either though.

Ancalagon 4y ago

Ok, let’s just say for a moment that the principle alone is worth putting millions of people in cumulative trillions of debt. The principle alone, that these kids - that’s what they were when they took out the loans btw, uneducated kids at the time those loans were received - deserve to be reprimanded because they listened to their parents and counselors and believed that by taking out these student loans they would have good-paying careers ahead of them, and they failed to account for the probability of those degrees being worthless in a rapidly changing economy. I don’t, but let’s say I did. Why couldn’t the loans be significantly reduced then? Don’t most Americans struggle to come up with even a few hundred dollars in an emergency? Why not make their debt repayment a tenth of what it was to “teach the right life lesson”, or demolish entirely any interest they must pay and apply previous interest payments to the principle? Why not restructure plans based on income that would allow those loans to be forgiven assuming an (admittedly shorter) repayment period, whereby if the students made consistent repayments for 3-5 consecutive years the loans could be forgiven. Wouldn’t any of those plans work to “teach them the right life lesson” and also reduce the ridiculous drag on our economy that are these loans? There are plenty of ways to teach people to be responsible and make these burdens go away for the betterment of society as a whole.

atonse 4y ago
I 100% agree with the alternatives that you've mentioned. For example, X years of meaningful public service (like we do with the military). But those are all concepts around an idea of "ok you can't pay with cash, maybe pay some other way, with your time, with your talent/commitment". I am actually completely ok with those alternatives, you are entering into a transaction with taxpayers that you will serve them for a few years and in exchange, they will pay off your student loans. But this kind of loan forgiveness is simply "let's just not obligate you to pay any of it, and in exchange you have to do... nothing" – when did this become an option, let alone official policy? "the principle alone is worth putting millions of people in cumulative trillions of debt" – the principle didn't do it, the people that made a conscious choice to pick certain schools and degrees did it. Let's not rob them of agency and responsibility, nor should we be patronizing towards many of the borrowers. They knew they would have to pay it off with interest after graduating. Growing up, it was very clear that my parents were never going to be able to pay for our college. It was just understood given our income levels. So the expectation was that we would make decisions that match our situation. So we went to a community college (cheap and free in some situations) with the understanding that we would switch to a state school and it wouldn't have mattered, since the degree would just reflect the better known state school's name. So it was a win-win. And our family was generally clueless about the American system, yet we absolutely knew we would have to get college degrees. I stayed at home to save money instead of staying on campus, and came out with 28k in debt (but that was because I did 6 years of college since I worked all 6 years). It could've ben less. 28k in college loans at 3%. Those were all conscious choices we made. It took me 15 years to pay off my student loans but that's because I had the minimum interest, minimum payment. I probably wasted a lot in interest but the $200/mo barely ever made a dent in my paycheck. I _know_ this is likely a straw man but have to mention it. I have spoken to a neighbor who literally studied student loan repayment as a policy issue in 2019, and he said nearly half the people asking to have their debts forgiven are grad students. Forgiving grad student loans is simply absurd. Now we are truly subsidizing a privileged few. I do concur that everyone is told in high school that you need a college degree to survive, and that it is messed up that we mislead children that way. But as far as I have seen, the advice would've been to go to college, and less about going to expensive colleges. Or to get degrees in fields that will never give them the earning power to pay off their student loans. You can go to a state school (in-state tuition), be a commuter, attend community college to further save. All those options are there to cut costs. Many students simply didn't want to do that, and are now asking everyone else to pay off their bad financial decision. What's to stop them from doing the same for other financial decisions like car loans, mortgages, etc? You could make the same arguments about being told about the virtues of home ownership.