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Debt is the new slavery (and often connected to poverty). It's the old company town / company store model applied to the entire developed world.

• gizmo686 14y ago
  Yes, but the reason debt is the new slavery is that it forces you to stay within the system that the debt is in. In the company store model, your debt was only to the company store, so you could not leave the company, in this model, your debt is to the global banking system, so you are only forced to stay within that bound.
• _delirium 14y ago
  The model where you work to pay off a degree you only got into debt for because you needed it to do the very same work does seem to be getting uncomfortably close to at least a mild version of indentured servitude. In indentured servitude, you worked to pay off the transit expenses needed to get to the work (and then the housing expenses at the destination, which you couldn't pay yet because you first had to pay for the transit). That's one reason I'd rather have a state-funded university option provided, instead of funding it retroactively via debt. Basically, the current generation should fund the next generation's education, rather than loading it onto them at the beginning of their careers as debt. Or, if student debt is necessary, its repayment should be tied to income, so payment doesn't amount to more than, say, 25% of someone's income per year. Though in a way, that's still much better than being on the really low end, because many college-degree holders do get okay jobs. If you've never driven through some of the poorest parts of the American south, it's a quite surprising experience, especially going off the highways into smaller towns. In parts, doesn't feel very first-world at all, with whole stretches of people living in what seem to be barely-standing-upright shacks.
  • natrius 14y ago
    What's wrong with people paying back the cost of their training to make money? Why should other people be forced to pay to improve the lives of others? There should be policies that protect students from making bad debt decisions to pay for education that won't pay for the debt. Other than that, I don't see student loans as a significant contributor to poverty.
    • _delirium 14y ago
      I generally believe that society should educate kids up to the level that society expects of them to get a decent job. We don't ask kids to pay back the cost of their K-12 education, for example, even though the cost is substantial. And it's not clear to me that there's anything magical about the age 18 as a cutoff (I mean, you can't even buy alcohol at that age! so clearly we don't consider you an adult). Either college should be purely a luxury, not needed for most jobs, or it should be covered. I don't like the idea of people "starting out" with a big pile of debt before they can even get to the workforce; that doesn't produce any sort of level playing field. If anything, I'd support Thomas Paine's idea that people should start out with a modest positive net worth, granted upon reaching adulthood, in recognition of the fact that everyone has equal right of inheritance to at least a small portion of the existing wealth produced by the country's previous generations. To me, it's the responsibility of the current workforce to fund the next generation's ability to reach it. I don't see anything wrong with funding education from general taxes, in any case. It's one of the classic, almost universally agreed upon things that a state should do, which even classical liberal writers (e.g. Jefferson) were strongly in favor of publicly funding.
      • natrius 14y ago
        "We don't ask kids to pay back the cost of their K-12 education, for example, even though the cost is substantial." If it were possible for such a large amount of debt to be granted to a person with no track record and structure it in a way that it could be reasonably paid off, I'd be for individuals paying for their own education beyond what's necessary to be an informed voter. I doubt that's possible, so everyone paying it off over a lifetime via taxation isn't such a bad compromise. After a certain point, however, the ability of a person to pay off their own debt can be reasonably estimated, and we should let individuals pay for their self-improvement rather than forcing everyone else to pay. In general, we should strive to assign costs to those that benefit from them. Most of the benefits for an education accrue to the student. Some accrue to society. Why not pay for education using a similar breakdown? "I don't like the idea of people "starting out" with a big pile of debt before they can even get to the workforce; that doesn't produce any sort of level playing field." Using taxes to pay for education guarantees that you'll be paying for education until the day you die. "To me, it's the responsibility of the current workforce to fund the next generation's ability to reach it." I agree, but I'd say it a little differently. Successful people have a responsibility to ensure that every person has a chance to be successful as well. That said, I don't think such responsibilities should be mandated by law. Putting someone in prison because they don't help other people become successful sounds wrong.
  • api 14y ago
    It's a grant of noble title that must be purchased to gain entry into the middle class. (And increasingly, not even that...)