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"Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street." Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit

"Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street." Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. I'm not saying that this is true for all of the OWS debts: probably not even the majority. I'm just saying that it's not as easy as "it's your fault you're in debt".

tsotha 14y ago
>Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. That's why we have bankruptcy laws. From what I heard at the time, the big hobby horse for the OWS people was student debt, which can't be forgiven in bankruptcy. And that kind of debt is entirely optional.
- sc68cal 14y ago
  That's why we have bankruptcy laws. Yes - bankruptcy laws that were passed in 2005 which made it significantly harder to get debt forgiven in bankruptcy, and also removed some forms of debt from being able to be discharged in bankruptcy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_an... It was widely claimed by advocates of BAPCPA that its passage would reduce losses to creditors such as credit card companies, and that those creditors would then pass on the savings to other borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. These claims turned out to be false. After BAPCPA passed, although credit card company losses decreased, prices charged to customers increased, and credit card company profits soared. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 And that kind of debt is entirely optional. Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    >Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree. That's a self-refuting argument. If your degree was really the ticket to a "vibrant middle class" job you'd be able to pay off your student debt. The reality is not all degrees are created equal, and people should think a little bit before they go $200k into debt for a degree that's going lead to a $40k job. Granted, 18 year olds aren't very good at this kind of reasoning, but that's what parents are for. On top of that, for a lot of fields a degree from a public university is just as good as one from an Ivy. Nobody is entitled to a pricy private college education. Either you go on family money or you think very carefully about how those loans are going to get repaid.
    - sc68cal 14y ago
      I believe that the vast majority of student debt is not people going to an Ivy institution. The major concentration of serious debt issues has been in the private-education-as-big-business sector from companies like University of Phoneix and DeVry, whose business models depend on government backed student loans, or loans from private companies that are subsidized/guaranteed by the government (before President Obama signed a law that allowed the government to manage student loans without requiring a private company to act as an intermediary). http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-profit-colleges http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-prof... "Last winter, the Department of Veterans Affairs tasked its newly hired blogger, a cantankerous Iraq vet named Alex Horton, with investigating the website GIBill.com, one of many official-looking links that come up when you Google terms like "GI Bill schools." With names like ArmedForcesEDU.com and UseYourGIBill.us, these sites purport to inform military veterans how to best use their education benefits. In reality, Horton found, they're run by marketing firms hired by for-profit colleges to extol the virtues of high-priced online or evening courses. He concluded that GIBill.com "serves little purpose other than to funnel student veterans and convince them their options for education are limited to their advertisers." http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-profit-higher-education-numbers http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-pr... "The for-profit higher education industry was the target of a bruising report issued last week. Based on a two-year effort, the report detailed high rates of loan default, aggressive recruiting, higher than average tuition, low retention rates, and little job placement assistance. It was spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a longtime critic of the industry. (ProPublica has written a number of pieces looking more closely at the explosive growth sector, including questionable recruiting and marketing.)" And finally - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoenix-allegations-enrollment-abuses-persist http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoen... "After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school's parent company paid out nearly $10 million to resolve the allegations. Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters' pay to enrollment numbers, U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up unqualified students. In the years since, Phoenix cemented its stature as the nation's largest for-profit school and the single biggest recipient of federal student aid. But some of the school's recruiters have continued to use high-pressure, deceptive tactics, according to a dozen current and former students and two former recruiters who spoke to ProPublica and Marketplace as part of a joint investigation."
- bobwaycott 14y ago
  While I'm not entirely disagreeing with your point, there is an element of dubious optionality wrt student debt when one systemically cannot find gainful employment without a college degree. College degrees are increasingly becoming the new high school diplomas—wherein they are, for all intents and purposes, of equal compulsory nature, without the defense of laws requiring all 18-21-year-olds to be there. Thus, for vast majorities of the population who wish to lead productive economic lives, the "option" isn't quite optional anymore.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    I disagree. There are all kinds of things you can do that don't require a college degree, including any kind of owner-operated business, a military career, or a skilled trade. Even today only 40% of the population gets a college degree. That other 60% is doing something to make ends meet.
    - bobwaycott 14y ago
      I think you miss the point. Systemically, exiting high school and entering college is the narrative. It is the path students are being presented as the way forward, not an option forward. Culturally, there is a very strong set of expectations placed on people wrt university education, and this narrative determines people's recognized option paths. There are strong social determinants in place, both positive and negative, to which people react and from which they draw their conclusions--even unknowingly. Student debt has risen in tandem with the codification of the narrative. An entire industry of loan operations has exploited the inexperienced eighteen-year-olds of the last few decades, saddling them with lifelong debt in the pursuit of the supposed "dream" the American narrative has been selling them their whole lives. Suffice to say, when one talks about options available to people, one should talk deeply of the real viability and potentiality of those options on a person and his/her life, and refrain from rattling off platitudes of the things someone could do other than follow the narrative. Those things typically aren't qualitatively better, and usually wind up being part of the greater narrative as how we ease our consciences and wash our hands of people we allow to systemically fail.
marknutter 14y ago
This may sound harsh, but medical attention isn't free, and crossing that street without medical insurance and getting hit by a car and accepting expensive treatment you can't pay for is still incurring debt which you are obligated to pay back. This is why insurance of all forms exists; to protect us from expensive, catastrophic events. So as far as fault goes, you are very much to blame if you take risks and choose not to pay for insurance, regardless how expensive it is.
- mcantor 14y ago
  It's not a choice if you can't afford it or are turned down.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.
  - marknutter 14y ago
    Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      The cost of medical care in the US is structured to account for bankruptcies - the hospitals get paid in aggregate. The real suckers here are people who actually pay for the care, because they've now paid several multiples of the real cost of the care to account for the people who couldn't afford this ridiculous number and went bankrupt. The morality behind medical finance in the US is not nearly as clear cut as you think it is. > "Well, it's beside the point." It really isn't. It comes down to the core of the issue. What we have is an industry that collectively charges many times the actual cost of delivering their service and have a monopoly on performing a critical service (licensing, certification). Whether or not this is acceptable hinges hugely on whether or not you believe access to this service is a fundamental right. There is no way, for example, that we would accept a similar situation if the product in question was fresh water or air.
philwelch 14y ago
If you get hit by a car, by law, the driver of that car should have liability insurance which will end up paying all your medical bills.
- azakai 14y ago
  Should, but not necessarily. People buy insurance for exactly that case, where the other motorist is uninsured or underinsured.
- frio 14y ago
  So what if the shoe's on the other foot? A driver hits someone. The driver doesn't have insurance. He's now liable for the other person's medical bills, but can't afford them. He's now massively in debt over some random accident. No matter the moral judgment ("he shouldn't be driving without insurance"), the underlying point was that random debt does happen :).
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Not only should he not be driving without insurance, but he's almost certainly at fault for hitting the pedestrian. We put some debtors into prison for lesser forms of irresponsibility.
    - frio 14y ago
      The point is: unexpected debt happens. Arguing semantics over a hypothetical case is not a meaningful tangent :).
      - greedo 14y ago
        You set up a strawman, and then change the point. Defending irresponsible behavior won't do much to improve things.
    - elemenohpee 14y ago
      That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understand that there are people who do not have the luxury of a risk-free life?
craig552uk 14y ago
Sometimes I forget how fortunate I am to have the NHS. Thank you for reminding me.
Shivetya 14y ago
I sure hope they are going to apply some sort of means test. Having known quite a few people who have discharged their debts in court or are currently mocking the system I certainly don't think all of them deserve the help. If this group would focus on debt incurred from medical cases then I would be all for it. I want something where I feel good contributing, there are far too many dead beats out there who have hands out but never have a helping hand out for others.

tsotha 14y ago

>Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. That's why we have bankruptcy laws. From what I heard at the time, the big hobby horse for the OWS people was student debt, which can't be forgiven in bankruptcy. And that kind of debt is entirely optional.

sc68cal 14y ago
That's why we have bankruptcy laws. Yes - bankruptcy laws that were passed in 2005 which made it significantly harder to get debt forgiven in bankruptcy, and also removed some forms of debt from being able to be discharged in bankruptcy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_an... It was widely claimed by advocates of BAPCPA that its passage would reduce losses to creditors such as credit card companies, and that those creditors would then pass on the savings to other borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. These claims turned out to be false. After BAPCPA passed, although credit card company losses decreased, prices charged to customers increased, and credit card company profits soared. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 And that kind of debt is entirely optional. Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree.
- tsotha 14y ago
  >Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree. That's a self-refuting argument. If your degree was really the ticket to a "vibrant middle class" job you'd be able to pay off your student debt. The reality is not all degrees are created equal, and people should think a little bit before they go $200k into debt for a degree that's going lead to a $40k job. Granted, 18 year olds aren't very good at this kind of reasoning, but that's what parents are for. On top of that, for a lot of fields a degree from a public university is just as good as one from an Ivy. Nobody is entitled to a pricy private college education. Either you go on family money or you think very carefully about how those loans are going to get repaid.
  - sc68cal 14y ago
    I believe that the vast majority of student debt is not people going to an Ivy institution. The major concentration of serious debt issues has been in the private-education-as-big-business sector from companies like University of Phoneix and DeVry, whose business models depend on government backed student loans, or loans from private companies that are subsidized/guaranteed by the government (before President Obama signed a law that allowed the government to manage student loans without requiring a private company to act as an intermediary). http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-profit-colleges http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-prof... "Last winter, the Department of Veterans Affairs tasked its newly hired blogger, a cantankerous Iraq vet named Alex Horton, with investigating the website GIBill.com, one of many official-looking links that come up when you Google terms like "GI Bill schools." With names like ArmedForcesEDU.com and UseYourGIBill.us, these sites purport to inform military veterans how to best use their education benefits. In reality, Horton found, they're run by marketing firms hired by for-profit colleges to extol the virtues of high-priced online or evening courses. He concluded that GIBill.com "serves little purpose other than to funnel student veterans and convince them their options for education are limited to their advertisers." http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-profit-higher-education-numbers http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-pr... "The for-profit higher education industry was the target of a bruising report issued last week. Based on a two-year effort, the report detailed high rates of loan default, aggressive recruiting, higher than average tuition, low retention rates, and little job placement assistance. It was spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a longtime critic of the industry. (ProPublica has written a number of pieces looking more closely at the explosive growth sector, including questionable recruiting and marketing.)" And finally - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoenix-allegations-enrollment-abuses-persist http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoen... "After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school's parent company paid out nearly $10 million to resolve the allegations. Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters' pay to enrollment numbers, U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up unqualified students. In the years since, Phoenix cemented its stature as the nation's largest for-profit school and the single biggest recipient of federal student aid. But some of the school's recruiters have continued to use high-pressure, deceptive tactics, according to a dozen current and former students and two former recruiters who spoke to ProPublica and Marketplace as part of a joint investigation."
bobwaycott 14y ago
While I'm not entirely disagreeing with your point, there is an element of dubious optionality wrt student debt when one systemically cannot find gainful employment without a college degree. College degrees are increasingly becoming the new high school diplomas—wherein they are, for all intents and purposes, of equal compulsory nature, without the defense of laws requiring all 18-21-year-olds to be there. Thus, for vast majorities of the population who wish to lead productive economic lives, the "option" isn't quite optional anymore.
- tsotha 14y ago
  I disagree. There are all kinds of things you can do that don't require a college degree, including any kind of owner-operated business, a military career, or a skilled trade. Even today only 40% of the population gets a college degree. That other 60% is doing something to make ends meet.
  - bobwaycott 14y ago
    I think you miss the point. Systemically, exiting high school and entering college is the narrative. It is the path students are being presented as the way forward, not an option forward. Culturally, there is a very strong set of expectations placed on people wrt university education, and this narrative determines people's recognized option paths. There are strong social determinants in place, both positive and negative, to which people react and from which they draw their conclusions--even unknowingly. Student debt has risen in tandem with the codification of the narrative. An entire industry of loan operations has exploited the inexperienced eighteen-year-olds of the last few decades, saddling them with lifelong debt in the pursuit of the supposed "dream" the American narrative has been selling them their whole lives. Suffice to say, when one talks about options available to people, one should talk deeply of the real viability and potentiality of those options on a person and his/her life, and refrain from rattling off platitudes of the things someone could do other than follow the narrative. Those things typically aren't qualitatively better, and usually wind up being part of the greater narrative as how we ease our consciences and wash our hands of people we allow to systemically fail.

marknutter 14y ago

This may sound harsh, but medical attention isn't free, and crossing that street without medical insurance and getting hit by a car and accepting expensive treatment you can't pay for is still incurring debt which you are obligated to pay back. This is why insurance of all forms exists; to protect us from expensive, catastrophic events. So as far as fault goes, you are very much to blame if you take risks and choose not to pay for insurance, regardless how expensive it is.

mcantor 14y ago
It's not a choice if you can't afford it or are turned down.
sliverstorm 14y ago
The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.
- marknutter 14y ago
  Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    The cost of medical care in the US is structured to account for bankruptcies - the hospitals get paid in aggregate. The real suckers here are people who actually pay for the care, because they've now paid several multiples of the real cost of the care to account for the people who couldn't afford this ridiculous number and went bankrupt. The morality behind medical finance in the US is not nearly as clear cut as you think it is. > "Well, it's beside the point." It really isn't. It comes down to the core of the issue. What we have is an industry that collectively charges many times the actual cost of delivering their service and have a monopoly on performing a critical service (licensing, certification). Whether or not this is acceptable hinges hugely on whether or not you believe access to this service is a fundamental right. There is no way, for example, that we would accept a similar situation if the product in question was fresh water or air.

philwelch 14y ago

If you get hit by a car, by law, the driver of that car should have liability insurance which will end up paying all your medical bills.

azakai 14y ago
Should, but not necessarily. People buy insurance for exactly that case, where the other motorist is uninsured or underinsured.
frio 14y ago
So what if the shoe's on the other foot? A driver hits someone. The driver doesn't have insurance. He's now liable for the other person's medical bills, but can't afford them. He's now massively in debt over some random accident. No matter the moral judgment ("he shouldn't be driving without insurance"), the underlying point was that random debt does happen :).
- philwelch 14y ago
  Not only should he not be driving without insurance, but he's almost certainly at fault for hitting the pedestrian. We put some debtors into prison for lesser forms of irresponsibility.
  - frio 14y ago
    The point is: unexpected debt happens. Arguing semantics over a hypothetical case is not a meaningful tangent :).
    - greedo 14y ago
      You set up a strawman, and then change the point. Defending irresponsible behavior won't do much to improve things.
  - elemenohpee 14y ago
    That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understand that there are people who do not have the luxury of a risk-free life?

craig552uk 14y ago

Sometimes I forget how fortunate I am to have the NHS. Thank you for reminding me.

Shivetya 14y ago

I sure hope they are going to apply some sort of means test. Having known quite a few people who have discharged their debts in court or are currently mocking the system I certainly don't think all of them deserve the help. If this group would focus on debt incurred from medical cases then I would be all for it. I want something where I feel good contributing, there are far too many dead beats out there who have hands out but never have a helping hand out for others.