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Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...

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8 hours ago, GeorgiaDon said:

Here is an article from Forbe's that discusses the cost of training military pilots.  A basic qualified F-16 pilot costs $5.6 million, an F-35A pilot costs $10.15 million, and an F-22 pilot costs $10.6 million.  There are universities that specialize in aeronautical training.  Why not let would-be fighter pilots pay for their training themselves?  Why should the taxpayer have to pay for that?

For the cost of a single fighter pilot I could train 20-30 PhDs in biotechnology, immunology, or infectious disease research.  What would be the better deal for the economy?  I can assure you the Covid vaccine was not developed by Donald J Trump tinkering in the White House bunker, it was developed by highly trained scientists.

There's your reality.

You're comparing apples and giraffes (making a blank comparison for purposes of rhetoric). While we're at it, astronaut training not be cheap, plus the Russians charge $80 Mil per seat on a Soyuz booster. Plus see other thread: US $ 23T spent on welfare / entitlements at the federal level since LBJ's Great Society in the 1960s and we have zip to show for it.

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3 hours ago, markharju said:

I hope in reading this, you'll perhaps come to think that although I can be a troll, I'm not the knee-jerk reactionary you may have been led to believe that I am.

What you've written in that post is driven purely by ideology and emotion rather than any fact or reason. Amidst a flurry of other posts where you're knee-jerk reacting to Biden's win by being a hyper offensive uber troll I fail to see how you think it will convince anyone of anything.

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Mark, you're currently choosing to live in a country that's far more socialist than the US. Socialism is a matter of degrees, not absolutes -- just like any other ism, including capitalism. Reducing anything even marginally complex to absolutes makes it useless for any society of more than village size. We have socialist Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits. We have capitalist businesses, including an increasing class of (effectively) robber barons, except they're in the financial sector now rather than the manufacturing sector, so they don't even contribute lots of blue-collar jobs to the general good.

And yes, we have more poor people than we did in 1965. But we have fewer who are living in the kind of abject going-to-bed-malnourished than we did then; we have fewer who are confined to vastly inferior schools because of the color of their skin (now it's the neighborhoods, and that's correlated with the color of their skin, but it's not legally tied to it). And we have an overall larger population, so it's not surprising there should be more poor people in it. While wealth is not a zero-sum game, there is at any moment a set amount of national wealth, and a larger percentage of it is concentrated in a smaller amount of the population -- which means that there are more people to spread the rest around to.

Lower middle class is much closer to what used to be poor, but we have the infrastructure to make life more comfortable.

Forced redistribution of wealth is not the way -- but neither is simply waiting for it to trickle down. Some rich people leave, regardless of conditions -- I'm happy with making it the assholes who are unwilling to contribute to the society as a whole, and making the country a good enough place in general for the majority to want to stay. It worked in the 1950's in the US.

Wendy P.

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7 hours ago, markharju said:

You're comparing apples and giraffes (making a blank comparison for purposes of rhetoric).

You are missing the point.  If it worth it to society to invest that kind of money in fighter pilots or astronauts, why is it not worth it to invest in a skilled workforce who can do things that are useful to industry and to society in general (such as engineers, doctors, research scientists, teachers, etc).  Especially considering the return the government would see on their investment, in terms of higher lifetime taxes paid and enhanced economic activity.  You can't have an advanced IT industry, or pharmaceuticals, or (insert industry of choice here) without a skilled work force.  In many industries employers have to rely on immigrants because the US is not producing enough trained US citizens, and yet we allow the price of entry to a career (i.e. the high cost of education) to exclude a large fraction of the potential work force.  Other countries remove the economic barrier, and in exchange expect rigorous programs so that the people who get through and ultimately graduate are the ones who are the most determined, and so (presumably) are the most likely to make a real contribution to the economy. 

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2 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

I guess it's kind of 'funny' that the only major industrialized country on the planet that doesn't offer some sort of subsidized health care to the population is also the only one that doesn't offer some sort of subsidized higher education.

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10 hours ago, markharju said:

You're comparing apples and giraffes (making a blank comparison for purposes of rhetoric). While we're at it, astronaut training not be cheap, plus the Russians charge $80 Mil per seat on a Soyuz booster. Plus see other thread: US $ 23T spent on welfare / entitlements at the federal level since LBJ's Great Society in the 1960s and we have zip to show for it.

I'd suggest that millions of US families and veterans not suffering from/dying from malnutrition, exposure and homelessness is not "zip."

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To be honest, a lot of those mental hospitals weren't much of an improvement over homelessness. We don't really know how to do this area well yet, but our do-for-yourself capitalist system is very ill-suited to both issues of public mental illness and homelessness. Closing the hospitals shouldn't have been seen as a savings, just a redeployment of funds. But they're tax-paid, and we all know that the only taxes some people are willing to pay are those that directly benefit them. So even roads in Idaho don't matter to the dude in Texas.

Wendy P.

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The whole reason to give more money to rich people through tax-cuts is so they supposedly spend more money and it all trickles down. Yet for some reason giving money to students would not lead to them spending more money.

As usual, Republicans stand for nothing.

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18 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Nope. The reason we have so much homelessness today is because Reagan and the 80s Republicans relaxed the mental health laws and closed down a lot of hospitals.

 

It was a left-right conspiracy. Together they (CA Repubs like Reagan and lefties like the ACLU) cooperated to close the hospitals and put people in the streets. Personally I think that they should just be rounded up and put in camps, given all the drugs they want and when they die, are turned into mulch.

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13 hours ago, SkyDekker said:

The whole reason to give more money to rich people through tax-cuts is so they supposedly spend more money and it all trickles down. Yet for some reason giving money to students would not lead to them spending more money.

As usual, Republicans stand for nothing.

Because it wouldn't be based on academic merit - it would be based instead upon the intersectional heirarchy. There are already race quotas in some Ivy League universities. It's easy for you to be holier-than-thou because your country isn't strapped with a massive, intractable underclass the way mine is.

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6 hours ago, markharju said:

Because it wouldn't be based on academic merit - it would be based instead upon the intersectional heirarchy. There are already race quotas in some Ivy League universities. It's easy for you to be holier-than-thou because your country isn't strapped with a massive, intractable underclass the way mine is.

And as long as you see them that way, and as deserving of where they are, absolutely nothing will change. A "let them die" approach is not what the US is about. We did away with poorhouses over a hundred years ago (well, other than jails and bails used as revenue generators). We did away with child labor as well, and we're working on the segregation of "those people." Because segregating people to be with "their own kind" doesn't fix anything.

Wendy P.

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10 hours ago, markharju said:

Because it wouldn't be based on academic merit - it would be based instead upon the intersectional heirarchy. There are already race quotas in some Ivy League universities. It's easy for you to be holier-than-thou because your country isn't strapped with a massive, intractable underclass the way mine is.

Did you just describe certain races as a "massive, intractable underclass?"  There are plenty of organizations throughout history who have claimed to have effective methods to deal with that underclass and restore merit to the populace.  We generally consider those organizations to be evil.

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9 hours ago, markharju said:

Because it wouldn't be based on academic merit - it would be based instead upon the intersectional heirarchy. There are already race quotas in some Ivy League universities. It's easy for you to be holier-than-thou because your country isn't strapped with a massive, intractable underclass the way mine is.

Hmm. So your country has long pursued a more purely capitalist system with a smaller and less effective safety net of social programs than most western nations you describe as socialist, and the result is that you have generated a massive intractable underclass?

Do you not think that, maybe, you want to change your ideas about how to deal with that?

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6 hours ago, jakee said:

Hmm. So your country has long pursued a more purely capitalist system with a smaller and less effective safety net of social programs than most western nations you describe as socialist, and the result is that you have generated a massive intractable underclass?

Do you not think that, maybe, you want to change your ideas about how to deal with that?

No see, the problem is that there was any safety net. Things would be better if there was absolutely no safety net.

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These pieces of shit are referring to "Econ 101" now >:(

https://blavity.com/why-we-elizabeth-warren-and-chuck-schumer-believe-the-biden-harris-administration-should-cancel-up-to-50k-in-student-debt-on-day-one?category1=opinion&category2=news

I have several objections to this:

1) It's grossly unfair to those who played by the rules

2) It sends the wrong message about personal debt

3) It doesn't fix the underlying problem - bureaucratic bloat in academia

4) It doesn't "forgive" anything - it just transfers the debt burden to others who never consented to it. I will remind everyone that that national debt is now greater than GDP (~17T). These miserable fucks are buying votes on the backs of our posterity

I think a better approach would be to:

1) Reform the student loan system with controls to disincentivize academic inflation

2) Stop hawking higher academics as the sole route to prosperity (labor advocate Mike Rowe recently cited an example of Caterpillar Inc offering equipment mechanics $120k PER YEAR)

3) In that manner, open a path for people to choose a vocation that doesn't involve universities

These fucking pieces of shit are the same ones who want to lower the voting age to 16. A nation run by children. Just fucking great.

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4 hours ago, markharju said:

I think a better approach would be to:

1) Reform the student loan system with controls to disincentivize academic inflation

2) Stop hawking higher academics as the sole route to prosperity (labor advocate Mike Rowe recently cited an example of Caterpillar Inc offering equipment mechanics $120k PER YEAR)

3) In that manner, open a path for people to choose a vocation that doesn't involve universities

These fucking pieces of shit are the same ones who want to lower the voting age to 16. A nation run by children. Just fucking great.

I agree with your approach, as long as you add "restore aid to universities to 1970's levels" and "build a massive public works and industrial infrastructure, while being willing to pay more for American-made goods for awhile."

However, starting just with removing all the predatory lending practices will help. I paid my college debt -- all $3000 of it, for a private university, at 3% during the 1970's and 1980's (when rates were generally in the double digits for everything else). That's a pretty fucking sweet deal. Yes, I worked hard, but it was there. It just isn't there any more.

I honestly think that the current youth deserve just as sweet a deal.

Wendy P.

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(edited)
27 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

I agree with your approach, as long as you add "restore aid to universities to 1970's levels" and "build a massive public works and industrial infrastructure, while being willing to pay more for American-made goods for awhile."

However, starting just with removing all the predatory lending practices will help. I paid my college debt -- all $3000 of it, for a private university, at 3% during the 1970's and 1980's (when rates were generally in the double digits for everything else). That's a pretty fucking sweet deal. Yes, I worked hard, but it was there. It just isn't there any more.

I honestly think that the current youth deserve just as sweet a deal.

Wendy P.

Agree. I just don't think those goals will be achieved by saddling others with the debt in the meantime. Anecdote:  I served in the military during the Carter/Reagan years and thus had no GI Bill (we mid-to-late late Cold War vets like to say we got two benefits: jack and sh**, but that's okay; fair is fair); I had a colleague while I was in Italy a few years ago who was on post-9/11 GI Bill and got a full college ride and a BsCs, and was working on a Master's when I left. However, he did three tours in Afghan in the Airborne (plus had service-related partial disability). I don't begrudge him for having earned it the hard way. However, it often seems to me as though everyone wants a handout, and the Dems are happy to give them, with other people's money. For the record I also object to corporate bailouts unless they are temporary and are immediately repaid. Obama said the same thing about the bailouts when he was running back in 2008

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2 hours ago, markharju said:

... I served in the military during the Carter/Reagan years and thus had no GI Bill (we mid-to-late late Cold War vets like to say we got two benefits: jack and sh**, but that's okay; fair is fair);... 

What the fuck are you talking about?

The GI Bill goes back to World War 2.

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56 minutes ago, wolfriverjoe said:

What the fuck are you talking about?

The GI Bill goes back to World War 2.

When I served, THERE WAS NO G.I. BILL - I don't see how I can make it any clearer.

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9 hours ago, markharju said:

3) It doesn't fix the underlying problem - bureaucratic bloat in academia

4) It doesn't "forgive" anything - it just transfers the debt burden to others who never consented to it....

I tend to agree with you on these points. Forgiving these loans outright is simply subsidizing inflated tuition, and sticking tax payers with the bill. It is regressive since the majority of tax payers don't even have college degrees or the higher earning potential that a degree generally allows one to achieve.

It doesn't solve the problem of inflated tuition, underselling the trades to our youth, etc.

Something income based that set payments as a percentage of your disposable income would be a little bit better. There should be no immediate loan forgiveness, peg the payments to income and have them continue until retirement age.

It still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, being a responsible borrower who paid off my loans in full over the last 13 years, and it should leave a sour taste in the mouth of non college graduates, but at least it isn't a instant freebie.

 

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1 hour ago, DougH said:

I tend to agree with you on these points. Forgiving these loans outright is simply subsidizing inflated tuition, and sticking tax payers with the bill. It is regressive since the majority of tax payers don't even have college degrees or the higher earning potential that a degree generally allows one to achieve.

It doesn't solve the problem of inflated tuition, underselling the trades to our youth, etc.

Something income based that set payments as a percentage of your disposable income would be a little bit better. There should be no immediate loan forgiveness, peg the payments to income and have them continue until retirement age.

It still leaves a sour taste in my mouth, being a responsible borrower who paid off my loans in full over the last 13 years, and it should leave a sour taste in the mouth of non college graduates, but at least it isn't a instant freebie.

 

 

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