Cancel student loan debt?

[TurkeysGhost]

Well with respect that's equally as valid as your "You're a greedy robber baron capitalist because you want to keep your money and not it to people with zero strings attached and expect nothing back" stereotyping.

Socialists always get pissy when their philosophy is framed as "Give me free stuff and ask for nothing in return" but it's not helped when they are never happy when that's not what is happening.

(G)You have been giving a (potentially large) sum of money to educate yourself and when you can't pay it back playing the victim card because your path out of the situation isn't frictionless is rather unreasonable.

TragicMonkey is right. Are you the kind of person who says "Thank you" when someone does you a favor or do you go "Took you long enough?"

I don't owe any student debt. I can't be ungrateful because I don't stand to gain anything even in this hypothetical situation.

Perhaps you can reflect on why this discussion of government action to deal with economic problems has lead you down a road of moralizing and personal attacks.

"Sticking it to ungrateful kids" probably isn't the way to run a country ya know.

Again, I'm asking why personal acts of gratitude signaling has any place in a conversation on whether the government forgiving out of control debt might benefit the economy. It's a matter of balance sheets and consumer spending, not personal morality.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Who do you thank when you consume government services? I trust you're writing letters to your congressional rep to thank them for roads or unemployment insurance on a regular schedule.

Those things aren't special extraordinary favors granted only to a select few, as a forgiveness of student loan debt would be. And if I were the recipient of such a lovely gift I would render my thanks not to the politicians but to the public which is the actual giver of that gift. By doing some sort of, I don't know, token gesture of appreciation of doing something nice for everybody. Like --and I'm just reaching randomly here-- maybe picking up litter sometimes. What a weird, mad thing that would be! Clearly somebody's tricking me into slavery in that scenario, the cunning geniuses!

 

[JoeMorgue]

Perhaps you can reflect on why this discussion of government action to deal with economic problems has lead you down a road of moralizing and personal attacks.

You accused multiple people of supporting indentured servitude pages ago. Spare me.

That's the problem with Socialism. You can't own the moral high ground, it belongs to everyone equally.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Those things aren't special extraordinary favors granted only to a select few, as a forgiveness of student loan debt would be. And if I were the recipient of such a lovely gift I would render my thanks not to the politicians but to the public which is the actual giver of that gift. By doing some sort of, I don't know, token gesture of appreciation of doing something nice for everybody. Like --and I'm just reaching randomly here-- maybe picking up litter sometimes. What a weird, mad thing that would be! Clearly somebody's tricking me into slavery in that scenario, the cunning geniuses!

Charity is great. What you're describing here is not the same as making loan forgiveness contingent on public work.

Honestly, if you think some conscription into a civil works department is a good policy idea for dealing with student debt, I'm all ears. But don't elide that this is what you're talking about under the pretense of "charity" or "gratitude". Funneling huge swaths of prime working age people into government public works smacks a bit too much of centralized economy for my tastes, but I'm always open to ideas to my left.

You're attaching massive strings to this money. Which is fine, but I hope you're reasoning for such strings is more than "these greedy kids are so ungrateful". It's perfectly normal to experience resentment for those getting a benefit that you do not, but it's probably best to maintain some perspective.

 

[theprestige]

How do you measure the benefits of the ability to understand foreign policy by comparing it to a historical context? Or to comprehend statistical data? Or evaluate the credibility of information?

Now, your last two questions are quite salient (as I mentioned, the method of achieving those benefits is very much worth disputing) -- but I perceived that the goal itself was absent from the discussion.

You perceived wrong. The goal has already been stipulated. We don't actually have to repeat it in every post.

 

[theprestige]

You accused multiple people of supporting indentured servitude pages ago. Spare me.

That's the problem with Socialism. You can't own the moral high ground, it belongs to everyone equally.

I thought that the problem with Socialism is that we're all equally deprived of the moral high ground.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You accused multiple people of supporting indentured servitude pages ago. Spare me.

That's the problem with Socialism. You can't own the moral high ground, it belongs to everyone equally.

I think there's a problem with the website. For some reason, Fox News comments sections are showing up here in the forum.

Come on JM, you can do better than this, screeching about commies is beneath you.

 

[theprestige]

Honestly, if you think some conscription into a civil works department is a good policy idea for dealing with student debt, I'm all ears. But don't elide that this is what you're talking about under the pretense of "charity" or "gratitude".

Not conscription, option. Nobody's making you go into public works to retire the debt. It's being proposed as an option. It's no more conscription than any other option you have for working hard, earning money, and paying your debt.

Do you call it conscription when the bank expects a piece of your paycheck every month to pay off that auto loan? No. Do you call it conscription when the bank expects some of your paycheck for that mortgage? No.

You don't call it conscription when you borrow money for a law degree, get a job with a law firm, and send a chunk of your lawyer's fees to the bank to pay off the debt.

Why would you call it conscription when you can't get a job with a law firm, but you still have to pay off the debt, and the government gives you the option of public service?

And it's a generous option, too. The way I understand it, the public service option we're discussing isn't even a dollar-for-dollar value. You're not even expected to work the hours at the usual wage necessary to actually pay off the debt. You're just given the option to do something useful to the community. $5k worth of community service to pay off a $50k debt seems like a pretty good deal.

Terms like "gratitude" and "charity" come up in response to reactions like yours, and SGM's. You're being offered a generous option for debt retirement, that actually gives something back to the community whose money you took by the fistful. And you react not as if it's a generous opportunity to pay what you owe, but as a draconian imposition on you.

---

This is all the rhetorical you, of course. Please don't get hung up on the red herring of the literal you-as-Suburban-Turkey, and miss the entire point of the argument.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Not conscription, option. Nobody's making you go into public works to retire the debt. It's being proposed as an option. It's no more conscription than any other option you have for working hard, earning money, and paying your debt.

Do you call it conscription when the bank expects a piece of your paycheck every month to pay off that auto loan? No. Do you call it conscription when the bank expects some of your paycheck for that mortgage? No.

You don't call it conscription when you borrow money for a law degree, get a job with a law firm, and send a chunk of your lawyer's fees to the bank to pay off the debt.

Why would you call it conscription when you can't get a job with a law firm, but you still have to pay off the debt, and the government gives you the option of public service?

And it's a generous option, too. The way I understand it, the public service option we're discussing isn't even a dollar-for-dollar value. You're not even expected to work the hours at the usual wage necessary to actually pay off the debt. You're just given the option to do something useful to the community. $5k worth of community service to pay off a $50k debt seems like a pretty good deal.

Terms like "gratitude" and "charity" come up in response to reactions like yours, and SGM's. You're being offered a generous option for debt retirement, that actually gives something back to the community whose money you took by the fistful. And you react not as if it's a generous opportunity to pay what you owe, but as a draconian imposition on you.

---

This is all the rhetorical you, of course. Please don't get hung up on the red herring of the literal you-as-Suburban-Turkey, and miss the entire point of the argument.

Of course, not conscription. But like you say, such a promise of debt relief would have a similar effect of conscription, because large numbers of people would suddenly become employed by the government. If the deal was good enough, there would be a wave of volunteers signing up for this program.

How much work are we talking about here? Are huge swaths of underwater student borrowers going to become de-facto part or full time government employees? For how long? We're talking lots of people, so even small commitments would add up to serious labor power.

Working a few weekends a year until it's payed off, almost like a national guard but for civic works? Or maybe just a lump payment of labor all at once, say 6 months full time for Uncle Sam? You don't want to undercut the military recruiting through the GI bill, so maybe just make them sign up for the standard 4 year stint of public work to get that sweet relief package. No matter how you slice it, it's a lot of manpower we're talking about.

Unless something is done to stem the trends that is leading to student debt, more and more people would be graduating and looking to these government forgiveness programs for relief. More and more people voluntarily entering government programs to discharge the debt. A huge recruitment funnel for government work.

I mean, there's precedent. I'm surprised that people so opposed to socialism are suggesting a FDR style government employment scheme as a means for debt relief. For some reason, I don't think a 2nd PWA program is what you have in mind. I'm open to ideas of mass employment by the government to upgrade our infrastructure, but I don't really understand why this needs be tied to student debt in any way. Hopefully they would do something more useful than pick up litter with all this labor, but who knows.

 

[Thermal]

Not conscription, option. Nobody's making you go into public works to retire the debt. It's being proposed as an option. It's no more conscription than any other option you have for working hard, earning money, and paying your debt.

Do you call it conscription when the bank expects a piece of your paycheck every month to pay off that auto loan? No. Do you call it conscription when the bank expects some of your paycheck for that mortgage? No.

You don't call it conscription when you borrow money for a law degree, get a job with a law firm, and send a chunk of your lawyer's fees to the bank to pay off the debt.

Why would you call it conscription when you can't get a job with a law firm, but you still have to pay off the debt, and the government gives you the option of public service?

And it's a generous option, too. The way I understand it, the public service option we're discussing isn't even a dollar-for-dollar value. You're not even expected to work the hours at the usual wage necessary to actually pay off the debt. You're just given the option to do something useful to the community. $5k worth of community service to pay off a $50k debt seems like a pretty good deal.

Terms like "gratitude" and "charity" come up in response to reactions like yours, and SGM's. You're being offered a generous option for debt retirement, that actually gives something back to the community whose money you took by the fistful. And you react not as if it's a generous opportunity to pay what you owe, but as a draconian imposition on you.

---

This is all the rhetorical you, of course. Please don't get hung up on the red herring of the literal you-as-Suburban-Turkey, and miss the entire point of the argument.

I'm behind on the thread so it may have been said, but the civil service option has a downside of putting overqualified people into jobs they don't want now, or to even have a future in. The quality of their work may be reflected here, which could be argued is a disservice to the public.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm behind on the thread so it may have been said, but the civil service option has a downside of putting overqualified people into jobs they don't want now, or to even have a future in. The quality of their work may be reflected here, which could be argued is a disservice to the public.

It's a raw deal no matter what. If you put people to work doing skilled or valuable labor, you're undercutting the private market. I imagine there would be complaints if vast hordes of student debtors started repaving roads or building rest stops and putting regular construction firms that normally get these contracts out of business.

Or you get strange scenarios like California not having enough firefighters because the inmate labor supply dried up during covid. There's just not any way utilize these people for labor without it having an impact on the larger labor market, and if it's government bailing out large amounts of student debtors, we're talking about a significant impact.

Unless you're really willing to expand the government as an employer, you're gonna have to give these people make-work that nobody would otherwise pay to have done.

 

[Thermal]

It's a raw deal no matter what. If you put people to work doing skilled or valuable labor, you're undercutting the private market. I imagine there would be complaints if vast hordes of student debtors started repaving roads or building rest stops and putting regular construction firms that normally get these contracts out of business.

Or you get strange scenarios like California not having enough firefighters because the inmate labor supply dried up during covid. There's just not any way utilize these people for labor without it having an impact on the larger labor market, and if it's government bailing out large amounts of student debtors, we're talking about a significant impact.

Unless you're really willing to expand the government as an employer, you're gonna have to give these people make-work that nobody would otherwise pay to have done.

Again, prob discussed already, but in lieu of govt employing, wouldn't a credit applied to student loan debt for doing particular jobs do the trick?

My wife has postgrad degrees in psychology, and works on a public school's child study team for like half what the private sector commands. Since it is public service work, perhaps an offset loan credit applied annually?

 

[theprestige]

Of course, not conscription.

<totally different argument, aimed at totally different goalposts, snipped>

Yes, thank you. It's not conscription. Of course. We can debate whether it's economically sensible, but at least we agree that it's not conscription, and not morally offensive to offer as an option.

 

[theprestige]

I'm behind on the thread so it may have been said, but the civil service option has a downside of putting overqualified people into jobs they don't want now, or to even have a future in. The quality of their work may be reflected here, which could be argued is a disservice to the public.

But that's the situation already. Look at SGM's scenario: An expensive degree, a debt incurred to get it, and an overqualified person in a job they don't want and don't have a future in. The disservice to the public is already in full swing. It's offset only by the fact that some of the proceeds from that job are going to pay off the debt. The "community service" option is being offered as an option for offsetting that disservice without taking more hard-earned money out of the debtor's pocket.

And instead of being seen as "hey yeah, why not keep more of my paycheck and give something back to the community that paid for my education", this option is being treated as a moral offense on par with indentured servitude.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Again, prob discussed already, but in lieu of govt employing, wouldn't a credit applied to student loan debt for doing particular jobs do the trick?

My wife has postgrad degrees in psychology, and works on a public school's child study team for like half what the private sector commands. Since it is public service work, perhaps an offset loan credit applied annually?

There's already the PSLF program that forgives student loans for people employed in public service. Many government jobs rely on these pretty heavily as they require extensive education that is pretty expensive, but don't really pay all that much. Without the forgiveness program, these careers don't make any financial sense. Your average social worker probably has at least a Master's degree and isn't making any real money. My in-laws are a family of librarians and pretty much everyone there relies on the PSLF program to pay off their MLS loans while working modest salary jobs at public libraries or schools.

There's only so many government jobs though. Unless you mean forgiving student loans for people working certain jobs in the private sector, or you mean massively expanding employment available through the government.

 

[Thermal]

There's already the PSLF program that forgives student loans for people employed in public service. Many government jobs rely on these pretty heavily as they require extensive education that is pretty expensive, but don't really pay all that much. Without the forgiveness program, these careers don't make any financial sense. Your average social worker probably has at least a Master's degree and isn't making any real money. My in-laws are a family of librarians and pretty much everyone there relies on the PSLF program to pay off their MLS loans while working modest salary jobs at public libraries or schools.

That may vary by State. Social Workers (beyond entry level) pull more coin than my beloved, and not by a small amount. Her Admin/boss only has a SW degree. PSLF seems to offset for certain gigs. My wife doesn't qualify.

There's only so many government jobs though. Unless you mean forgiving student loans for people working certain jobs in the private sector, or you mean massively expanding employment available through the government.

Yes, I mean private jobs that have significant social benefit, normally with lower pay.

But I feel like this was likely already discussed, so let me catch up on the reading before commenting further.

 

[Thermal]

But that's the situation already. Look at SGM's scenario: An expensive degree, a debt incurred to get it, and an overqualified person in a job they don't want and don't have a future in. The disservice to the public is already in full swing. It's offset only by the fact that some of the proceeds from that job are going to pay off the debt. The "community service" option is being offered as an option for offsetting that disservice without taking more hard-earned money out of the debtor's pocket.

And instead of being seen as "hey yeah, why not keep more of my paycheck and give something back to the community that paid for my education", this option is being treated as a moral offense on par with indentured servitude.

That would seem to be great if we were at a zero unemployment rate with a surplus of work for overqualified people to nibble on. Let me catch up on the discussion before proceeding.

 

[rdwight]

When assigned by a criminal court for a crime, it's a punishment: a deliberately mild one, designed to make the convict's life better than it would be with some other punishment, but still a punishment: something that they wouldn't have done if it were voluntary but they're compelled to do by a court because they were convicted of a crime.

But the situation we have here is not a criminal court and the people who have these loans are not convicts. They're more like victims of fraud. And the way the idea of making them came up was not to make their lives better than the suggested alternative, but to make it worse than the suggested alternative.

X: "Here's a way we can easily right a wrong that the system has inflicted on a lot of people and improve their lives"
Y: "That's too good for them. We need a way to make it worse than that."

That's how this idea came up. There's only one motivation Y can possibly have when that's the sequence of events, one goal which Y's proposal can truly be meant to work toward.

Anything that you need to threaten people into with movie-villain put-down lines designed to rub it in the victim face just who's in really in control around here is not intended as a benefit.

Victims of fraud? Righting the wrong the system inflicted on them? Before I can take any of these woe-is-me comments seriously, someone is going to have to actually show some documentation that college is actually not worth it. Because every study I have seen has uniformly confirmed that when taking everyone into account, lifetime earnings, job security, job opportunity, etc etc down the line are all a net positive. Worth the cost of admission.

Since no one seems to be able to even display any level of evidence for the average graduate making a bad investment by going to college, it is hard to find this line of argument convincing in the slightest.

 

[Thermal]

Victims of fraud? Righting the wrong the system inflicted on them? Before I can take any of these woe-is-me comments seriously, someone is going to have to actually show some documentation that college is actually not worth it. Because every study I have seen has uniformly confirmed that when taking everyone into account, lifetime earnings, job security, job opportunity, etc etc down the line are all a net positive. Worth the cost of admission.

Since no one seems to be able to even display any level of evidence for the average graduate making a bad investment by going to college, it is hard to find this line of argument convincing in the slightest.

What would constitute evidence? Unemployment rates among college grads? Theres a lot of factors there. Relative value to the individual (as in higher education being it's own reward)? In terms of investment, do you mean income over time as compared to blue collar work? A lot of college kids simply couldn't do blue collar work effectively, so any income they made would be better than nothing, so a good investment.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I'm not suggesting bailing out these students because it's cruel to them or because it would be nice, but because doing so would benefit the economy generally.

By this logic, wouldn't it be beneficial to the economy generally to bail out ALL debt? Cancel all mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, etc. Why wouldn't this be an even better idea?