We are the government’s sugar daddy.
I used all my stimulus money to pay down the loan on my Jag. Thank you sugar daddy. These stimulus handouts are such a joke. They do nothing for the people who need Covid related help. And people like me just use the money as slush. I don’t trust anything that politicians administer. The demon-cat’s bill is just as slushy as the trumpican’s bills with little real Covid related aide. Of course, politicians will spin it many different ways. BTW, what does the minimum wage have to do with Covid?
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Really? thats what you used it for? not for a charitable donation? not for big tips at local restaurants to help them weather this black swan?
Relax, he owns a Jaguar. He has enough problems.
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Another thought I have is structuring the next stimulus such that if you can prove you are using the money for student loan repayment, going to college, paying off a medical debt, putting down a down payment for a mortgage, putting up solar panels, things the government wants to people to do, etc. Then you get a larger sum. If you aren’t going to spend it on these things, here some money to stimulate the economy.
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It’s been problem free (for the most part). I was without it for 2 months early on, but they gave me a loaner and cut me a check for the payments I made.
I agree with you, but people would lie. Think about all the stories about people who defrauded the Paycheck Protection program. I have a co-worker that knows someone who would file the paperwork for anyone to get a PPE loan for a fee.
A+ on that quip.
Certainly. Could they structure the deal in a way that the individuals don’t touch the money? You take the student loan option, and the money goes directly to the loan holder. There would still be fraud, but I think that would cut a lot of it out.
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That would work.
It doesn’t benefit me either as I paid off my student loans. And yet something doesn’t need to benefit me to be good policy. “It wasn’t that way in my day” is rarely a good argument.
Should all laws impact people the exact same way? Maybe they should but the vast majority of them don’t.
Yes. The process for these programs needs to be looked at. Some people in these scenarios need to be locked away. So much of our economy is based on purely swindling people. I’m sure the people who paid for Trump university or other “faux” certification programs are well meaning.
All that said I’d have to think about how I feel about all of this first but I see these type of arguments a lot.
I think it is common to think about these things as a zero sum game, but often they are not. It is good for a country to have it’s people be successful. It’s great for the economy. Having a lot of poverty costs not just the poor. Some programs end up helping everyone even though perhaps some pay more of their fair share, and some seem to benefit more. They often benefit more than they think.
I think @theinneroh isn’t super convinced either way based on what I’ve read.
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Maybe it isn’t 'the best way to do so" but that shouldn’t be the reason why it isn’t done. My loans are paid off and I suffered to do so. Others shouldn’t have to go through that bullshit.
This is the point I was trying to make. While I’d need to see more details or think more about the topic the simple “no one did that for me” mindset annoys me in policy discussions. My dad didn’t have air conditioning in his high school but he’s happy the kids have it now.
I understand the student loan burn. My ex owed well over 50K when I first met her. Her repayment took a good chunk of her income. The problem needs to be looked into at the source. Student loan debt is a known issue and has been as long as I can remember.
I like one of the comments Biden made. He said he isn’t for the 50K forgiveness for various reasons. But he would be open to looking at ways to target relief for certain people. Which still isn’t fair. I also like the zero interest or a very low interest idea. That interest burns people with high loans. It’s like you never make a dent in the principal.
But you are correct. I’m not convinced any direction. But again, nothing in this country is fair. I need to learn to accept that there will be corruption always. Wealthy businesses and connected people get money and benefits dumped into their laps. It’s time to take care of the little people. If they call it economic stimulation instead of Covid relief, then I’m all for that one solution you mentioned earlier.
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By that logic, shouldn’t all debt be forgiven?
All debt being forgiven isn’t an argument I’m making. I’m merely saying “but I paid my student loan debt therefore forgiveness is unfair or bad” is a poor argument.
We would never progress if we simply said we haven’t done that before why now?
I feel that “My dad didn’t have air conditioning in his high school but he’s happy the kids have it now” is not equivalent to “but I paid my student debt loan therefore forgiveness is unfair or bad”.
I doubt your dad had a choice in the matter on whether his high school had air conditioning, much like how my dad didn’t have much of a choice on how far his elementary school is from his home.
But you choose to which college you go to, and you ostensibly understand the tuition cost and how much debt you’ll have afterwards.
Why do you feel “but I paid my student loan debt therefore forgiveness is unfair or bad” a poor argument?
I think it may be a simplistic argument, but it does get to one of the issues- those who chose to spend resources (be it actual money, time, etc) in order to pay off their debt see no benefit while those who either kept their debt around or did nothing with it will see enormous benefit.
Those who spent resources are ultimately seeing nothing for their investment.
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I think this is true in some cases but not all. People are often doing things without truly understanding the potential risks. Look at Texas right now. You have people with upwards of 10,000 dollar electricity costs. I think it’s clear those people didn’t understand the potential for this even if they voluntary chose to do so.
It’s perhaps a different discussion on how much of anything we should do about situations like that or student loans, but thinking that everyone is fully understanding what they are getting themselves into is a mistake.
Much of our economy is based on separating people from their money based on things they don’t understand.
Foreword- I find this a fascinating topic and one that’s been on my mind ever since I learned how much tuition increased when an incoming freshmen, someone I knew back in high school, told me about his tuition during my senior year- hence the long essay.
I think there’s several things going on with this.
It’s a known fact that many schools were for all intents and purposes scams, with how they deliberately hid or obscured post-graduation employment rates and salary.
It’s also known that many people didn’t really understand the ramifications of the debt they’re taking on. Like you said, they didn’t understand the risks. Crucially, they didn’t understand because they were either mislead or not in a state where they can calculate the risk properly. This often seems to be for people who are either immigrants or first generation college students.
But I very much doubt that the vast majority of people who currently have a lot of money owed in student loan failed to understand how much money they’re borrowing. At the least they would know it’s big numbers.
So I suppose I am going the oppose of what you say- I believe most knew what they were walking into but didn’t care to research reality well enough to know whether they can actually pay it off, while some were deliberately mislead or lied to.
I don’t think this is similar to the ridiculously high electricity bill issues in Texas. If I understand correctly, those people were using electricity as they always would and weren’t told years before what would happen to their electricity bill if they were some of the lucky few who had electricity during an incredibly severe winter storm.
There’s a couple things I find dumb about student loan repayment-
There doesn’t seem to be anything that dictates who qualify. It’s a blanket repayment. Ergo, the person who spent 150k at a crappy law school would get the 50k off too. I honestly do not feel that the person who went to a crappy law school without doing their research should be on the same boat as the first-generation minority individual who got suckered into going to a scam college. I’d rather that minority individual, who probably has a worthless degree too, gets 100k.
It does nothing to help those who spent significant resources paying off their loan. I don’t mean people who could afford it to begin with and took the loan as part of a long-term payment plan. I mean those who literally worked day and night, saving every penny and sacrificing large portions of their life so that they can pay it off. Having knowing a couple people like this, I honestly do feel that it’s unfair that these people don’t get to benefit from a probable student loan repayment plan. These people aren’t well off either.
Most importantly- it does NOTHING to actually address the issues that created this student loan crisis to begin with. Which are, from what I understand-
A decades long push to get people to go to college on the claim that college grads get paid more and have better careers than non-college grads. I feel that most people on this board would recognize that this is, at best, an incomplete claim and, at worst, a misleading one.
The growth of scam schools that exist solely to deceive people.
The ridiculous increase in college tuition over the last two decades. Here’s an example from my alma mater, a decent UC-
The average tuition my first year was- 8,925.48
When I graduated 4 years later- 13,079.91
Went up to as stupid high as- $ 15,257.46 a year later.
Fortunately they came back to their senses and dropped it and seemingly capped it at ~14k… But now I see that they’re playing fucking tricks. Health insurance used to be a part of the total cost, but in the latest numbers it’s actually separate! They list that right underneath! So it’s basically now ~16k.
But… What caused total cost to grow almost 44% in just four years? Well, tuition cost basically doubled, but that doesn’t tell me what it goes towards. It just says “tuition”. My guess is that it went towards administrative costs, if the articles and other research I did over the years are accurate. In other words, not terribly useful for the purposes of educating people.
This is what happened to an UC, once famous for being very affordable and good quality education. I’m pretty sure private colleges got fucked even more.
I recall reading articles about the insanity of this over the past years. It’s utterly insane.
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Personally, I think the democrats should focus on an UBI.
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