Student Loan Forgiveness

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Originally Posted by Mustonen

Yeah, I guess. I don’t think it’s been a particularly political discussion thus far, Montucky’s post aside. It’s stupid that we can’t discuss social programs and policy without it becoming a partisan hack fest, and I don’t think we should back ourselves into that corner.

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It’s not really a discussion, it’s an airing of beliefs. Few facts are gonna change positions. That’s the broken politics of today.

yeah, he voted for outlawing blowjobs. He’s why we can’t have nice things.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

ohh look it’s the Fox News moron assuming that everyone blue collar is white. At least he’ll vote to criminalize blowjobs

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Don't forget how he completely ignores current data (cite: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...ividing-lines/)
White non-college is +32 R. It's not the base. Let's get back to real discussions now.

I"m just checking in to say I went to college for a little bit to study acting and get my bfa it was fun and rewarding until it wasn't first day of class they said only three of the twenty of us would actually graduate you could smell blood from that day on I just upped my recreational drug use after that day and enjoyed myself had much more real world experience than most of my fellow students at that point in life so I wasn't too worried but yeah came home from "school" after putting a full twelve hour day in and realized I'm done with listening to some teacher tell me how it is and moved to summit county

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Originally Posted by dunfree

It’s not really a discussion, it’s an airing of beliefs. Few facts are gonna change positions. That’s the broken politics of today.

yeah, he voted for outlawing blowjobs. He’s why we can’t have nice things.

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I don’t think that’s really true for most individuals, even if it’s true for groups. Speaking for myself and for makerstelemark, I’m here to see different points of view and I’m honestly more interested in the philosophical discussion, as it’s supported by the facts and numbers, rather than strictly facts and numbers.

I like how everyone calls for more trade schooling but assumes that's free, too? Lots of people coming out of trade school have shit tons of debt, and while journey positions can pay well enough to pay off loans, it's hard fucking work that often destroys bodies, minds and families.

I've spent close to 30 years in the construction trades and I sure as hell do not want to see my son or daughter doing it.

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Originally Posted by Mustonen

So to the relative merits of forgiveness… Does it have social/economic benefit beyond just buying votes? Somebody said the juice isn’t worth the squeeze upthread, and that was interesting because the opposite seems a little true. While it isn’t perfectly targeted, perhaps, it’s a pretty easy squeeze. Notions of fairness notwithstanding, if our goal is to do some leveling and reduce the financial impact to those who could otherwise contribute positively to the economy, is that helpful? The rich don’t really benefit. $10K in forgiveness doesn’t do much for some doctor who has $300K in student loan debt and income potential of upwards of $300K/year. $10K in forgiveness does a lot for somebody who made it halfway through school before having to stop and work and is fighting to keep up with payments. The rich paid it off long ago.

To turn that around, there seems to be a lot more juice in addressing a tax structure that allows the ultra wealthy to pay an effective 15% tax rate than in blocking a measure that will have an immediate benefit for a few million people.

There are plenty of other structural issues to address, but tying it all together runs a real risk of letting great be the enemy of good. Unless it’s not actually good. I get arguments in re: inflation, but our best way to combat inflation can’t be to suppress benefits to those on the bottom.

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It’s pretty unfair to ask the rich to pay taxes though don’t you think?

If anyone should be footing the bill for these loans (aside from the borrowers themselves) its these places:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_by_endowment

Meanwhile they have some of you people arguing for the government to fleece the taxpayer to pad their numbers ever higher.

Trade schools should leave the person with an immediately marketable skill. Handled well that should mean the ability to pay those loans off quickly and avoid the long term debt track should be higher. While paying that down you should be picking up some of the skills necessary to make the next step like management or ownership so that you're out of the physically abusive side sooner.

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Originally Posted by fastfred

I"m just checking in to say I went to college for a little bit to study acting and get my bfa it was fun and rewarding until it wasn't first day of class they said only three of the twenty of us would actually graduate you could smell blood from that day on I just upped my recreational drug use after that day and enjoyed myself had much more real world experience than most of my fellow students at that point in life so I wasn't too worried but yeah came home from "school" after putting a full twelve hour day in and realized I'm done with listening to some teacher tell me how it is and moved to summit county

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Heh, even I had more patience than that. I lasted 5 years in college :) 3 of them were sight distance from good skiing which was why I was there. I stayed "in college" until the family support ran out :o I skied 80+ days a year, went on a few GD tours, traveled all over the place on breaks, worked at restaurants for food and ski shops for gear and got to live in some great places. Unfortunately all that life experience hasn't translated to the comfy retirement many of my "more responsible" peers that stuck it out will have.

LOL ownership or management is less abusive..

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Originally Posted by I Skied Bandini Mountain

I've spent close to 30 years in the construction trades and I sure as hell do not want to see my son or daughter doing it.

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I find this mindset prevalent in almost any parent. I don't think it is a huge leap to want something better than you had for your child.

For example, a portion of the Millionaire Next Door that I thought was really interesting was that the majority of millionaires are self made, and typically did so through owning a small business like an electrical or HVAC company. Yet despite this, the vast majority of them (like 80+ percent if memory serves) wished for their children to not go that route and instead become lawyers, doctors, etc, often with the parents funding their education and life until they made it. This was despite the statistical proof (let alone their individual life experience) stated elsewhere in the book that handouts like college tuition and supporting rent payments actually had a negative effect in the likelihood of that child's success.

I'm sure this says something about nature vs nuture but I find it really interesting.

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Originally Posted by MyNameIsAugustWest

Different kind of happy...

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There's a new one... "different kind of happy"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I know you're going to argue that a better public transportation system would fix that but consider the geographical differences between Yurp (generally densely populated and relatively small) to the US. Outside of the densely populated areas on the 2 coasts, public transportation can't work here.

/threaddrift

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One of the wealthiest countries that ever existed... "We can't do that. That won't work here."

JHFC - it can work, but not with that attitude.

No, for vast swaths of the country it really can't. On every metric public transportation is vastly easier to implement there as opposed to here.

The population density of Europe is almost 4x that of the US. Europe has a land mass less than 50% of the US. The list goes on.

Doctors and Lawyers, especially successful ones, are often influential small business people. Thinking they aren’t is class war bullshit.

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Originally Posted by dunfree

Doctors and Lawyers, especially successful ones, are influential small business people. Thinking they aren’t is class war bullshit.

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What? The days of the private practice physician are over. Most physicians in most places work for corporations and large multi practice groups


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Originally Posted by AdironRider

No, for vast swaths of the country it really can't. On every metric public transportation is vastly easier to implement there as opposed to here.

The population density of Europe is almost 4x that of the US. Europe has a land mass less than 50% of the US. The list goes on.

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No doubt it's *easier* there because of those things. But "can't"? I don't believe you.

Doctors have largely been turned into employees by the ACA making running a small practice too burdensome (regulatory overhead). It's the same that little practices are all getting bought by health corporations and hospitals are being bought by hospital corporations. ACA helped a lot of people, but it also was the most expensive lobbying fight in human history. The winners of that fight were most certainly NOT small businesses and entrepreneurs (that includes any independent contractor from a doctor to a drywaller). They were the losers, whether they were in healthcare or not.

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Originally Posted by MagnificentUnicorn

What? The days of the private practice physician are over. Most physicians in most places work for corporations and large multi practice groups


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are they employees or independent contractors? Shit changes


and btw: the book Adirondack was talking about came out in 1996.

Time to start arguing that everyone should be ER doctors!

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Originally Posted by I Skied Bandini Mountain

Time to start arguing that everyone should be ER doctors!

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Fuck. That. What a miserable practice.
I would be a radiologist. Or a haberdasher instead.

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Originally Posted by skaredshtles

No doubt it's *easier* there because of those things. But "can't"? I don't believe you.

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If you want to argue super sematically sure, it's not impossible, but the reality is the costs to connect even a small state like NH's populace via public transport are so astronomical it is impossible.

The US also has a vastly different set of rules, notably around property rights, that while at one point may have been able to be worked around in the past (ala railroads and westward expansion), at this point in the nation's history to make it regulatorily impossible as well.

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Originally Posted by AdironRider

I find this mindset prevalent in almost any parent. I don't think it is a huge leap to want something better than you had for your child.

For example, a portion of the Millionaire Next Door that I thought was really interesting was that the majority of millionaires are self made, and typically did so through owning a small business like an electrical or HVAC company. Yet despite this, the vast majority of them (like 80+ percent if memory serves) wished for their children to not go that route and instead become lawyers, doctors, etc, often with the parents funding their education and life until they made it. This was despite the statistical proof (let alone their individual life experience) stated elsewhere in the book that handouts like college tuition and supporting rent payments actually had a negative effect in the likelihood of that child's success.

I'm sure this says something about nature vs nuture but I find it really interesting.

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Def a salient point in this thread

(sort of ironic too, as you note)

We humans are weird people, esp the american version

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Originally Posted by Summit

Doctors have largely been turned into employees by the ACA

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Horse shit

Corporatism (& the insurance industry) has changed how doctoring works as a business.

This change started long before the ACA. The ACA might have sharpened pencils, but the move to divide and specialize and micro-divide tasks both in admin and in med roles has been the money driver in medicine for many years.

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Originally Posted by AdironRider

I find this mindset prevalent in almost any parent. I don't think it is a huge leap to want something better than you had for your child.

For example, a portion of the Millionaire Next Door that I thought was really interesting was that the majority of millionaires are self made, and typically did so through owning a small business like an electrical or HVAC company. Yet despite this, the vast majority of them (like 80+ percent if memory serves) wished for their children to not go that route and instead become lawyers, doctors, etc, often with the parents funding their education and life until they made it. This was despite the statistical proof (let alone their individual life experience) stated elsewhere in the book that handouts like college tuition and supporting rent payments actually had a negative effect in the likelihood of that child's success.

I'm sure this says something about nature vs nuture but I find it really interesting.

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I have worked in construction.

No way I want my kids doing that unless it’s what they really want. I’m not talking about the management folks, I’m talking trades.

On the flip side, I’ve seen the doctor route to, seems unpleasant to me.

Fear not, looks like the millennials and those after them are statistically likely to do worse than their parents anyways.

So the goal of attending college is to sit in a cube doing mindless work that will be replaced by a smarter computer? All while getting fat complaining about bosses, co workers and company policies.
Well, and avoid the trades.

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Originally Posted by Vt-Freeheel

So the goal of attending college is to sit in a cube doing mindless work that will be replaced by a smarter computer? All while getting fat complaining about bosses, co workers and company policies.
Well, and avoid the trades.

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Yes, obviously you wouldn’t understand. *looks down nose snidely*