4 ms·

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 s

by 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.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    What are the advantages to your proposal? It seems like it would simply start out everyone with a large burden, for what benefit? Lower taxes for the better off? That seems like a poor tradeoff. It could almost be equivalent to my proposal if you limited the amount of debt repayment to a percentage of income; then it'd be more like a tax you opt into (if you go to the university, you opt into an extra 10% tax). Sweden does something like that for a small portion of university fees. The main difference between that and a normal tax is that the tax would have a cap, which basically benefits the people who hit IPO jackpots and such. Again, I don't see a benefit to that. Mostly I don't see any benefit to all this accounting, unless it's a roundabout way of making sure that people who hit outlier incomes don't have to pay past a cap. Or is there some idea of libertarian "efficiency" that this is all going to produce? I'm more of a social democrat, and think all this extra accounting is what produces the inefficiency; just tax people and provide public services, the way Denmark (where I currently live) does.
    - natrius 14y ago
      "Or is there some idea of libertarian "efficiency" that this is all going to produce?" There's efficiency to be had in aligning costs with benefits. As a society we probably pay for more Classics degrees than we should. Beyond that, minimizing the amount of money that is forcibly taken from people is inherently good. I agree with the ends that most social democrats seek. I just think they should be funded voluntarily, perhaps with some help from the government to inform people where additional funds would lead to the greatest benefit. I don't know if such a system would be practical, but it seems like the ideal we should strive for instead of using force as a first resort.
      - angersock 14y ago
        Beyond that, minimizing the amount of money that is forcibly taken from people is inherently good. You'll have to elaborate on this a little better, because it seems misinformed. For example, it would suggest that saving Warren Buffet a billion dollars while taking fifty grand from a hundred poor families is preferred. And that's horseshit.

by natrius 14y ago

_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.
- _delirium 14y ago
  What are the advantages to your proposal? It seems like it would simply start out everyone with a large burden, for what benefit? Lower taxes for the better off? That seems like a poor tradeoff. It could almost be equivalent to my proposal if you limited the amount of debt repayment to a percentage of income; then it'd be more like a tax you opt into (if you go to the university, you opt into an extra 10% tax). Sweden does something like that for a small portion of university fees. The main difference between that and a normal tax is that the tax would have a cap, which basically benefits the people who hit IPO jackpots and such. Again, I don't see a benefit to that. Mostly I don't see any benefit to all this accounting, unless it's a roundabout way of making sure that people who hit outlier incomes don't have to pay past a cap. Or is there some idea of libertarian "efficiency" that this is all going to produce? I'm more of a social democrat, and think all this extra accounting is what produces the inefficiency; just tax people and provide public services, the way Denmark (where I currently live) does.
  - natrius 14y ago
    "Or is there some idea of libertarian "efficiency" that this is all going to produce?" There's efficiency to be had in aligning costs with benefits. As a society we probably pay for more Classics degrees than we should. Beyond that, minimizing the amount of money that is forcibly taken from people is inherently good. I agree with the ends that most social democrats seek. I just think they should be funded voluntarily, perhaps with some help from the government to inform people where additional funds would lead to the greatest benefit. I don't know if such a system would be practical, but it seems like the ideal we should strive for instead of using force as a first resort.
    - angersock 14y ago
      Beyond that, minimizing the amount of money that is forcibly taken from people is inherently good. You'll have to elaborate on this a little better, because it seems misinformed. For example, it would suggest that saving Warren Buffet a billion dollars while taking fifty grand from a hundred poor families is preferred. And that's horseshit.