5 ms·

> The only differences are sleight of hand, where politicians "haven't raised taxes" and yet have more of your money at their disposal; and whether it's applied

by koolba 3y ago

> The only differences are sleight of hand, where politicians "haven't raised taxes" and yet have more of your money at their disposal; and whether it's applied progressively, so the rich pay a bigger share. There's also the difference of exactly which people are paying. It's not uniform across everybody, not even across everybody with internet access. A more extreme example of this same picking of winners and losers is student loan bailouts. The winners are clearly the minority of people who get their loans repaid / forgiven and the losers are all the tax payers getting the tab added to the national debt.

throwway120385 3y ago
Why not allow forgiveness for the only debt in the entire US that legally cannot be discharged through bankruptcy? As a homeowner I can discharge all of my debt in bankruptcy with the consent of a court, but if I spend $20,000 on a degree at the start of my life I must forever be in service of that debt. If you're anti-loan-forgiveness then you need to allow people to discharge these things in bankruptcy.
- opinion-is-bad 3y ago
  Student loans used to be eligible for loan forgiveness as well, but we ran into a situation where every new doctor in America was immediately declaring bankruptcy. Unlike a house, the gains from education cannot be repossessed.
- koolba 3y ago
  > Why not allow forgiveness for the only debt in the entire US that legally cannot be discharged through bankruptcy? Well for starters they signed on the line that is dotted. Their peers who went to trade school or got a job at McDonald's didn't co-sign their loans. Plus, the interest rates on debt with no collateral that could be discharged in bankruptcy would be significantly higher. There's nothing special about tuition payments not being dischargeable in bankruptcy, it's student loans specifically. If you pay your tuition or buy books on a credit card then you could declare bankruptcy and it'd be treated like all your other obligations. > If you're anti-loan-forgiveness then you need to allow people to discharge these things in bankruptcy. No you don't. Bailing out people for bad decisions like attending overly expensive schools or acquiring useless degrees is a bad idea. It just incentivizes more bad behavior. King for a day, I'd remove the government out of the student loan business entirely. That'd have a massive drop in college pricing. Let all loans be private and let them be dischargeable in bankruptcy. But changing the rules in an existing system on already made agreements is a bad idea.
  - tzs 3y ago
    > King for a day, I'd remove the government out of the student loan business entirely. That'd have a massive drop in college pricing. Why do you think it would do that? I once tried to take a look at college pricing over the last century but wasn't able to find much data. For the few schools where I did find data I found a general trend of college prices going up at something like 2ish times the inflation rate. That trend didn't show any obvious change when the government got into the student loan business. Prices continued to go up at about the same rate I'd expect based on how they had gone up before. That suggests government loans aren't a major factor in price increases, and so it seems doubtful that taking them away would make much pricing difference.
- _heimdall 3y ago
  When I worked at Microsoft around a decade ago they decided to increase paid parental leave dramatically. That's obviously great for employees, though it did come with pushback from those not planning to have kids. The solution was pretty comical, they increased a few other benefits that helped everyone and ignored that this did nothing to solve the concern of new benefits only helping those having kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they increased leave and would always support that move. It highlights the problem of picking winners with financial programs. You can't help everyone and any change will have ripple effects. In the case of student loans, wiping those loans out puts more spending money in those peoples' pockets. Student debt is a problem and tuition costs are crazy IMO, but there's also no avoiding the fact that increasing spending money in lower income brackets will increase prices and competition. Its hard to predict how much the loan forgiveness will help in the long run versus pushing up prices for everyone.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Permanent solutions don't buy votes.
reaperman 3y ago
If I was 'michaelt I would love if someone pointed this out for me so that I didn't have to: 'michaelt said (and you quoted): > The only differences are [one thing] ... and whether it's applied progressively, so the rich pay a bigger share. Your reply seems to be repeating and slightly expanding on that, but because you started it with this: > There's also the difference of... It sets up an expectation that you intended to refute something about the parent comment submitted by 'michaelt. But I can't find anything in the content of your message which disagrees with the parent comment.

by koolba 3y ago

throwway120385 3y ago

Why not allow forgiveness for the only debt in the entire US that legally cannot be discharged through bankruptcy? As a homeowner I can discharge all of my debt in bankruptcy with the consent of a court, but if I spend $20,000 on a degree at the start of my life I must forever be in service of that debt. If you're anti-loan-forgiveness then you need to allow people to discharge these things in bankruptcy.

opinion-is-bad 3y ago
Student loans used to be eligible for loan forgiveness as well, but we ran into a situation where every new doctor in America was immediately declaring bankruptcy. Unlike a house, the gains from education cannot be repossessed.
koolba 3y ago
> Why not allow forgiveness for the only debt in the entire US that legally cannot be discharged through bankruptcy? Well for starters they signed on the line that is dotted. Their peers who went to trade school or got a job at McDonald's didn't co-sign their loans. Plus, the interest rates on debt with no collateral that could be discharged in bankruptcy would be significantly higher. There's nothing special about tuition payments not being dischargeable in bankruptcy, it's student loans specifically. If you pay your tuition or buy books on a credit card then you could declare bankruptcy and it'd be treated like all your other obligations. > If you're anti-loan-forgiveness then you need to allow people to discharge these things in bankruptcy. No you don't. Bailing out people for bad decisions like attending overly expensive schools or acquiring useless degrees is a bad idea. It just incentivizes more bad behavior. King for a day, I'd remove the government out of the student loan business entirely. That'd have a massive drop in college pricing. Let all loans be private and let them be dischargeable in bankruptcy. But changing the rules in an existing system on already made agreements is a bad idea.
- tzs 3y ago
  > King for a day, I'd remove the government out of the student loan business entirely. That'd have a massive drop in college pricing. Why do you think it would do that? I once tried to take a look at college pricing over the last century but wasn't able to find much data. For the few schools where I did find data I found a general trend of college prices going up at something like 2ish times the inflation rate. That trend didn't show any obvious change when the government got into the student loan business. Prices continued to go up at about the same rate I'd expect based on how they had gone up before. That suggests government loans aren't a major factor in price increases, and so it seems doubtful that taking them away would make much pricing difference.
_heimdall 3y ago
When I worked at Microsoft around a decade ago they decided to increase paid parental leave dramatically. That's obviously great for employees, though it did come with pushback from those not planning to have kids. The solution was pretty comical, they increased a few other benefits that helped everyone and ignored that this did nothing to solve the concern of new benefits only helping those having kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they increased leave and would always support that move. It highlights the problem of picking winners with financial programs. You can't help everyone and any change will have ripple effects. In the case of student loans, wiping those loans out puts more spending money in those peoples' pockets. Student debt is a problem and tuition costs are crazy IMO, but there's also no avoiding the fact that increasing spending money in lower income brackets will increase prices and competition. Its hard to predict how much the loan forgiveness will help in the long run versus pushing up prices for everyone.
dotnet00 3y ago
Permanent solutions don't buy votes.

reaperman 3y ago

If I was 'michaelt I would love if someone pointed this out for me so that I didn't have to: 'michaelt said (and you quoted): > The only differences are [one thing] ... and whether it's applied progressively, so the rich pay a bigger share. Your reply seems to be repeating and slightly expanding on that, but because you started it with this: > There's also the difference of... It sets up an expectation that you intended to refute something about the parent comment submitted by 'michaelt. But I can't find anything in the content of your message which disagrees with the parent comment.