Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 258: Imminent Song

(+) Yeah! (+)

LordoftheMorons posted...

I dont see why society should be fully bailing out somebody who knowingly took on 200k in debt to get a degree in philosophy or whatever (or physics, for that matter).

Late to the party, but this is probably the worst thing a left-leaning person has posted in this topic in a while, and I say that as someone with no personal stake in the student loan situation

---

He's not really left leaning.

---

Dancedreamer posted...

Maybe because we should encourage people to be educated, instead of uneducated buffoons who only know how to do their jobs and nothing else?

I agree that education for its own sake is worthwhile. However, there's a wide gap between something worthwhile and something that should be completely covered by the US government.

---

DoomTheGyarados posted...

He's not really left leaning.

Do socialists get a commission every time they say this or what?

---

How many billions of dollars do we spend on planes that can't fly? Maybe if we had educated people, we wouldn't be spending money on planes that can't fly! Because you know what planes are supposed to do, more than anything else? Fly! Otherwise they're just really expensive funny looking cars.

---

banananor posted...

Wrong- Why don't you want to give money to actual poor people?

Why only college educated people?

I 100% believe state schooling should be free in the future for a set number of years to promote education, but if we're just trying to boost the economy via an injection of cash to people who could use it, there's no reason to give it only to college students

You want school to be free, but you dont want the people who already went to school to get it free?

This is the thing arguments like this and LotM dont get. By your logic, every time you improve something, you are punishing the people who got by with the old system.

You are literally arguing against progress.

This is not a progressive ideology.

---

Dancedreamer posted...

Maybe because we should encourage people to be educated, instead of uneducated buffoons who only know how to do their jobs and nothing else?

You can't encourage people to do something after the fact, that's not how incentives work

---

KamikazePotato posted...

Late to the party, but this is probably the worst thing a left-leaning person has posted in this topic in a while, and I say that as someone with no personal stake in the student loan situation

Why? Resources aren't unlimited. Why should we spend government money on free college and not, say, improving K-12 for communities where a lot of people won't go to college?

DoomTheGyarados posted...

He's not really left leaning.

Only if your entire definition of the left/right spectrum is economic. I'm a lot further left on something like immigration than the European countries I've been assured are to the left of America's entire political spectrum.

---

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

You want school to be free, but you dont want the people who already went to school to get it free?

This is the thing arguments like this and LotM dont get. By your logic, every time you improve something, you are punishing the people who got by with the old system.

You are literally arguing against progress.

This is not a progressive ideology.

Wrong. How can people keep ignoring the words I use?

I think we should wipe away all state scool debt, *and* give everybody else 40k

Please, find a way to be against this and also be for wiping away student loan debt

---

foolm0r0n posted...

Do socialists get a commission every time they say this or what?

Yes, we do.

banananor posted...

You can't encourage people to do something after the fact, that's not how incentives work

That's not the only plan out there.

---

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

You are literally arguing against progress.

This is not a progressive ideology.

It's a common socialist idea nowadays, especially in regards to automation. It's also the platform that got Trump elected.

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

Why? Resources aren't unlimited. Why should we spend government money on free college and not, say, improving K-12 for communities where a lot of people won't go to college?

Only if your entire definition of the left/right spectrum is economic. I'm a lot further left on something like immigration than the European countries I've been assured are to the left of America's entire political spectrum.

In the context it was discussing an economic policy.

---

DoomTheGyarados posted...

That's not the only plan out there

Okay, I can't have a discussion with the seventy headed hydra that says 'just kidding, ask another head' every time I have them pinned down as incorrect

Of course there is more than one plan out there. Which plan do you think makes sense?

---

banananor posted...

Okay, I can't have a discussion with the seventy headed hydra that says 'just kidding, ask another head' every time I have them pinned down as incorrect

Of course there is more than one plan out there. Which plan do you think makes sense?

Sorry, let me help here:

1. I am talking about Bernie's OTHER plans which drastically help the poor and working class of this country. His strong belief in raising wages, eliminating ALL health care cost to every American making less than 29,000 a year. That is Bernie's pledge to the poor. But after ensuring health and that their parents have a fair wage, he wants kids to be able to learn and grow without ever fearing for money again.

---

That sounds fine. I like Bernie. I missed the part about canceling student loan debt though!

Which was the topic of conversation

---

banananor posted...

Wrong. How can people keep ignoring the words I use?

I think we should wipe away all state scool debt, *and* give everybody else 40k

Please, find a way to be against this and also be for wiping away student loan debt

Is the 40k liquid cash? Do they lose access to free college? What programs does this replace?

---

banananor posted...

Please, find a way to be against this and also be for wiping away student loan debt

Easy, I want to get rid of the $1.5 tril probably-never-gonna-get-paid powder keg of debt looming over the country, but not by covering it up with a new $12 tril powder keg

---

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Is the 40k liquid cash? Do they lose access to free college? What programs does this replace?

Now you're getting into the details! I love this.

Now, is college free for an infinite number of years, or does each person only get 4? That onus is on whoever proposes free college

My point is to get at the actual purpose of student loan forgiveness. NOT talking about making state school free in the future. That is obviously to encourage education.

The purpose of student loan forgiveness is to get those former students participating in the economy. If we're doing a one time injection of cash to former college students, why not give it to everybody in that age category? It'll boost the economy and improve their lives just as much.

Can the people who has their debt forgiven go to free college again? I dunno. But if they can, so could the people who got the check, right?

---

If we can spend $750M on a program to teach Saudi Arabia how to 'properly' carry out airstrikes, I'm not sure I can accept "Our Resources Are Limited!" as an excuse.

---

Dancedreamer posted...

If we can spend $750M on a program to teach Saudi Arabia how to 'properly' carry out airstrikes, I'm not sure I can accept "Our Resources Are Limited!" as an excuse.

I don't think that's was a good use of money, but we're talking about several orders of magnitudes more money here (and then even more orders of magnitude when we're talking about M4A).

---

foolm0r0n posted...

Easy, I want to get rid of the $1.5 tril probably-never-gonna-get-paid powder keg of debt looming over the country, but not by covering it up with a new $12 tril powder keg

What exactly do you think is going to happen if all student loan debt is not forgiven? You describe it as a powder keg

Should we wipe out all credit card debt as well?

I worry you might not understand how debt works- using your terminology, we would be wiping out a 1.5 trillion dollar debt by creating another 1.5 trillion dollar debt

---

Dancedreamer posted...

If we can spend $750M on a program to teach Saudi Arabia how to 'properly' carry out airstrikes, I'm not sure I can accept "Our Resources Are Limited!" as an excuse.

200% chance foolmo is (rightfully) against that, as well

---

Dancedreamer posted...

If we can spend $750M on a program to teach Saudi Arabia how to 'properly' carry out airstrikes, I'm not sure I can accept "Our Resources Are Limited!" as an excuse.

Unfortunately, our previously vast resources are not so vast after having spent 750M to train Saudi Arabia on missile strikes and 750k training mountain lions to use treadmills.

---

A healthier populace will ensure that health care costs go down as this process continues over decades.

Going to be a war for awhile though.

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

I don't think that's was a good use of money, but we're talking about several orders of magnitudes more money here (and then even more orders of magnitude when we're talking about M4A).

Oh, so it's okay to use our limited resources for something wastefully as long as it's a lot less than it'd take to spend on a program that would actually benefit people.

---

https://twitter.com/cillizzacnn/status/1217307531065905152?s=21

Who wants to see a really bad take on the debate?

Winners: Pete, Warren, Klobuchar

Losers: Biden, Sanders, Steyer

Yeah, ok

---

banananor posted...

What exactly do you think is going to happen if all student loan debt is not forgiven? You describe it as a powder keg

Same thing as all the other debt crises except at the trillion scale. I think the housing crisis was around $1 tril so maybe something like that.

banananor posted...

My point is to get at the actual purpose of student loan forgiveness. NOT talking about making state school free in the future. That is obviously to encourage education.

Completely wrong. It's to avoid another massive recession, plain and simple. If that meant everyone goes back to working on the farm then they would do that.

But fortunately, for NOW, a higher education feeds into the US' continually growing service and tech economy. The instant the economy tips away from that, or more likely, foreigners take a larger part of that economy (again, another part of Trump's winning platform), then it's over.

---

I dunno. Ultimately, I have relatives who went to shittier colleges because of price, and their life trajectory suffered for it.

I have friends whose parents are not going to be able to reasonably retire because they paid for their children's tuition.

I think it's garbage to leave those people out in the cold, and I think any student loan forgiveness plan would be better formed as a college cost forgiveness and opportunity cost forgiveness plan

---

Dancedreamer posted...

Oh, so it's okay to use our limited resources for something wastefully as long as it's a lot less than it'd take to spend on a program that would actually benefit people.

No, I'm not saying it's okay. But I often hear things like "we can just eliminate half of the military budget to pay for M4A!" that totally ignore the different scales of cost at play.

---

banananor posted...

I worry you might not understand how debt works- using your terminology, we would be wiping out a 1.5 trillion dollar debt by creating another 1.5 trillion dollar debt

Well yeah. To be clear I don't really support it because I realize the money is coming from somewhere. But there a lots of different ways you can "cash out" the current bubble and reset things. I would obviously support a reallocation of war money to student debt though, for example.

My point is that adding a new $12 tril cost active hurts your goal of paying off the $1.5 tril so your plan sucks.

---

Hey, I say it covers 15% of the bill! 4% tax on everyone is pretty useful there, too.

---

foolm0r0n posted...

Well yeah. To be clear I don't really support it because I realize the money is coming from somewhere. But there a lots of different ways you can "cash out" the current bubble and reset things. I would obviously support a reallocation of war money to student debt though, for example.

My point is that adding a new $12 tril cost active hurts your goal of paying off the $1.5 tril so your plan sucks.

Not really. The goal of wiping away student loan debt is to move the debt burden away from the specific individuals, and move it to the us government

If doing so is actually a net benefit to the economy, then doing it for other people- and not just college students- will also be good.

If it actually isn't a net positive, why do it in the the first place?

But yeah, I'm being nit picky. Obviously handing out less money costs less than handing out more money

---

Right, it's only a net positive if the benefit % is greater than the cost of the overhead and other issues that come with the policy, which is a really high % for federal welfare. There are some more market-based ways to move that debt around which are more efficient though. Your $40k will always be super inefficient federal welfare though. Unless the source of funding is something that's straight up worse for each dollar spent (e.g. war).

The benefits and costs are also not simple and linear either. It could very well be most efficient to kill $1 tril of student debt but leave the rest there. Currently the (distorted) market has settled on a ~$1.5 tril, so maybe that's it. It's very easy to see how your $12 tril would be way beyond any efficient limit though (even Yang's $2 tril is probably way beyond).

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

No, I'm not saying it's okay. But I often hear things like "we can just eliminate half of the military budget to pay for M4A!" that totally ignore the different scales of cost at play.

Well of course you can't just cut the military budget to pay for M4A. (It would definitely be a start, though). But we spend so much unnecessary stuff on the military it makes it hard for me to care when people say "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BUDGET!" to things like education and healthcare. Not to mention school lunches, which we still for some inexplicable reason require students to pay for. We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. You wouldn't know it, though, by the looks of our society.

---

Dancedreamer posted...

We live in one of the wealthiest nations in the world. You wouldn't know it, though, by the looks of our society.

You know those business men who wear suits and drive BMWs then go home and sit in the dark eating instant noodles because they are trying to dig out of $600k in debt? They're not wealthy, no matter how many times people say it.

---

Everyone should read this short story from 2003 regarding the impact of automation called Manna:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

It's only 8 chapters and should take less than an hour.

Yes, it's fiction. Yes it's dramatized. But I can't help but feel resolve when reading it knowing that the crux of the story is relevant. We have the opportunity to strive towards a society that is engineered to allow everyone to benefit from the fruits of technological advancement or we have the potential to stay the course in our system that will, be design, benefit fewer and fewer people as resources continue to consolidate.

---

Love getting downvoted on reddit for pointing out that people are victim-blaming Warren for having the "audacity" to not cover for Sanders' lie

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

Love getting downvoted on reddit for pointing out that people are victim-blaming Warren for having the "audacity" to not cover for Sanders' lie

Well, if you go on to reddit talking about victim blaming, it sounds like you're asking for downvotes.

---

Warren is not a victim. She is the aggressor!

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

Love getting downvoted on reddit for pointing out that people are victim-blaming Warren for having the "audacity" to not cover for Sanders' lie

It doesn't seem like something Bernie would say given all of his stances on the issue for 30 years. You are downvoted on reddit because you're a bullshit artist.


---

In fact Bernie is clearly a victim here so you are in fact victim blaming.

---

HeroDelTiempo17 posted...

Well, if you go on to reddit talking about victim blaming, it sounds like you're asking for downvotes.

I knew it was a strong possibility! (It's now my most controversial comment, so apparently there were some upvotes too).

red sox 777 posted...

Warren is not a victim. She is the aggressor!

"victim blaming" is maybe a little strong of a phrase given the typical connotation, but it's the same type of logic of "you bitch, you damaged his career by reporting that he harassed you"

(On Sanders' himself, I think that the actual conversation could easily have not been sexist, but regardless of what exactly he said he shouldn't have lied about it, and blaming Warren for confirming that he said it is absurd).

---

I mean seriously, let's break this down.

Let's assume nothing about people who said this between themselves.

Person A and B have a conversation. Person A says something that person B does not agree with. They leave it at that. Nothing more is said.

14 months later. It is "leaked" that this conversation was said by people who were not in the room but who claim to have knowledge. Person B staff, maybe?

Person B then says "I can confirm this happened."

Person A says "Uh... I didn't say that. Here's a strong 30 year history of me in fact saying the opposite. Heck, Person B, I wanted you to run in 2015!"

And you have the audacity to call him a liar? Get the fuck out.

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

I knew it was a strong possibility! (It's now my most controversial comment, so apparently there were some upvotes too).

"victim blaming" is maybe a little strong of a phrase given the typical connotation, but it's the same type of logic of "you bitch, you damaged his career by reporting that he harassed you"

(On Sanders' himself, I think that the actual conversation could easily have not been sexist, but regardless of what exactly he said he shouldn't have lied about it, and blaming Warren for confirming that he said it is absurd).

No, it's actually completely different from that. It's a political hit job plain and simple (by Warren). Basically what Trump was planning to do to Biden.

---

Anyway I'll take a step back down, I know it isn't worth my time and I am just cranky due to illness.

I'll donate another 27 dollars, best thing to do in times like this.

---

DoomTheGyarados posted...

It doesn't seem like something Bernie would say given all of his stances on the issue for 30 years. You are downvoted on reddit because you're a bullshit artist.

You don't think he could have even made the rather innocuous judgment that the sexism of the electorate was an electoral disadvantage? Really?

My personal suspicion is that Sanders' thought he "deserved" to be the progressive-lane candidate because of his 2016 run, and had to back-justify that with things like "a woman can't win" (which would be bad, though I don't think sexism is the motivation in that case). I could be wrong though and it's just the first possibility! But in any case, I don't see any reason to believe that Warren is lying.

---

jesus christ

Have you guys never had a conversation that was interpreted differently by both parties? You all post in this topic series so I find it ridiculously hard to believe it's never happened.

I mean look no further than their other dumb fight tonight - Warren said she's the only person on the stage to beat an incumbent Republican in 30 years, and Bernie took offense because he beat one exactly 30 years ago! They were both technically correct!

---

DoomTheGyarados posted...

Anyway I'll take a step back down, I know it isn't worth my time and I am just cranky due to illness.

I'll donate another 27 dollars, best thing to do in times like this.

Alright, I'll back off too. I hope you get better.

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

You don't think he could have even made the rather innocuous judgment that the sexism of the electorate was an electoral disadvantage? Really?

My personal suspicion is that Sanders' thought he "deserved" to be the progressive-lane candidate because of his 2016 run, and had to back-justify that with things like "a woman can't win" (which would be bad, though I don't think sexism is the motivation in that case). I could be wrong though and it's just the first possibility! But in any case, I don't see any reason to believe that Warren is lying.

I think a lot of things can be said between two people, and if you told me that Bernie was discussing a complex issue and Warren misunderstood and then Bernie is like "That's not what I said!" then... neither is lying. There doesn't have to be a lie here.

However.

The waiting 14 months for when Bernie is beating her badly in the polls to release this is 100% politically motivated, which hey fair game I suppose. Bernie is the person who routinely took his name off of bills just so they passed, he has never wanted this to be his moment. It's not his fault no one else stepped up.

---

LordoftheMorons posted...

You don't think he could have even made the rather innocuous judgment that the sexism of the electorate was an electoral disadvantage? Really?

My personal suspicion is that Sanders' thought he "deserved" to be the progressive-lane candidate because of his 2016 run, and had to back-justify that with things like "a woman can't win" (which would be bad, though I don't think sexism is the motivation in that case). I could be wrong though and it's just the first possibility! But in any case, I don't see any reason to believe that Warren is lying.

You are talking about the factual content of specific words and sentences from over a year ago, in a conversation no one recorded. There is no way you are going to have any kind of accuracy of memory with regard to specific words - what people will remember is what they understood the conversation to mean.

And it's obvious that the way Warren has presented this has been as an attack. She doesn't want it to look like she's the one making the attack, but nonetheless she has made it. She knew perfectly well what it all meant. It's no different from Trump preferring to have an accusation against Biden come from the Ukrainian government rather than directly from the Trump campaign.

---