So, America. Let`s Talk SOCIALISM. like adults?

If it's free university you want then fine, I'll go along with that with qualifiers but to let those who borrowed like there was no tomorrow off the hook sends a message to both those who struggled to pay their way and to the borrowers. It rewards bad behavior with tens of thousands of dollars and leaves those who didn't borrow feeling like suckers.

 

point well taken and there's plenty of history spanning decades that we can learn from those who paid their own way and how they did so. i think i made a statement without giving full consideration for how it could be interpreted, however, in the context of banks and "investors" (commercial paper types), earning double digit interest rates on student loan debt while at the same time having their share of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars at or near interest free available to them stands out as a big red thumb to me.

maybe the so-called "heroes act" might address that for first responders and health care workers or something. idk, it sounds too open ended to discuss in a paragraph but the whole point being there is little to no transparency where those many trillions are going except in general categories. i didnt mean to digress off point.

 

I agree, college students are adults, taking on debt took their signature on the bottom line. College loans are an absolute train-wreck of a money making scheme by the college/university system but ultimately the responsibility rests on the person who signed on the line saying they would pay the loan back.

I would rather see all government backed loans go away. If you can't qualify for a regular loan based on your income and credit then you have no business borrowing money to pay for college. Once off the government teat colleges would have to lower prices to compete for business rather then keep hiking the prices knowing the government will cover the difference between what the student can afford and what their price is.

At the very most the only thing I would be ok with would be dropping current college loan interest rates to 0% and then barring any additional ones. Forgiving them entirely would be a really bad move imo.

 

It does suck refraining from debt while everyone else lives beyond their means in debt.

But, rewarding bad behavior would be to continue to let this predatory system siphon years of peoples lives. The banks KNOW full well that there aren't enough jobs for all of the student loans to be repaid, but it is still worth it to them when they can operate on fractional reserves.

I understand the hard nose attitude, I mean I harbor some of that, but when we realize that the entire system has everybody backed into a corner, it is hard to blame people for taking a risk to get out of it.

If you don't go to college, the statistics show you are likely going to earn something like 1million less over your lifetime. Well the banks have already devalued the currency, so these people are jumping through all the hoops to avoid poverty.

Also, people buyung things with debt artificially inflates the cost of every good and service, because it is a market indicator that people have more money than they do.

For instance, say I want to buy a house and i say i have $5,000 dollars, and someone with $3,000 dollars comes along and uses $3,000 plus $5000 in debt to buy that house, the market perceives the house as being worth $8,000. So debt spending screws us both, so wiping out debt would help return the market to real costs and benefit everybody.

 

Then forgive credit card debts, car loans, and mortgages. There's no difference. Only suckers would pay their bills.

 

There are two kinds of debt I mentioned before, I think the one should be eliminated from our system, it is simply wrong.

I would disagree that there is no difference.

If you lend me $1,000 dollars, you can only lend me money/value that you created, those debts SHOULD be repaid, otherwise that is value stolen from you.

But fractional reserve debt is not from created value, it is money from thin air I.e. monetizing future productivity. IIRC banks can lend out 10x what they have on reserve, so if you have $100k in the bank, they can lend out $1million dollara and rake in the interest off of that. They didn't lend out money that represented real created value but promised future value.

I think the whole system of credit/debt is immoral for the reason i mentioned above, it robs the purchasing power of those of us who choose not to partake in that system of selling our future labor.

 

On other words, if we forgive debt, we should not allow the debt monetization of future labor anymore.

 

can you explain that concept "debt monetization of future labor". you mean credit based on ability to repay?

 

Yeah, well like I said if you want to borrow from an entity that has already created the value and they deem you worth the risk, that is fine, if you die or cannot repay it, the lender lost his money. But the credit by artificially nflating the money supply, who takes that burden if you don't repay? Everybody in the market, which is wrong if they didn't agree to the risk.

 

ah! i see. perhaps what is overlooked is the "risk" to the bank imposed at the time of granting the loan. a bank, any bank or any lender never, ever, does ANYthing without evaluating and assigning risk. "risk" is usually paid up front as is with car loans and personal loans, i.e. "risk" (interest) is paid up front with each monthly payment (non-amortized loan) and the banks exposure is reduced proportionally as each month passes. it's usually only "risk exposure" to the bank when large percentages of borrowers default in masse.

as for "the market" being exposed to default risk, well, the market exists entirely because of risk. i.e. 'no risk, no reward'.

 

I see debt as innate to the form of capitalism which is practiced in the US. Personal debt is the new “Indentured servitude” with the guise of freedom for the laborer who must continue to produce wealth for the top in some fashion because of the debt. At the same time, I also believe inflation is not merely a byproduct of the debt scheme, but part of the purpose. It keeps those indebted from actually realizing the value of the debt taken, as what has been borrowed is immediately devalued while at the same time the amount owed continually increases, creating a hamster wheel with the end result of increased productivity.

On the student loan side of things - I view student loans as the most grotesque form of predatory lending. We are raising children to believe from an early age that college is their primary purpose. Our culture then encourages these children who have no real world experience, and whose prior acquisition of knowledge to that point has very little practical application to take on lifetime of indentured servitude’s amount of debt at an age we have determined them to be too young to make responsible decisions when it comes to things such as alcohol. We then admonish them for doing exactly what culture has been telling them to do since age 5.

The nobility never stopped building their wealth on the backs of the peasants.

 

those are very cogent thoughts! brilliant! i'd further add that the cycle of debt continues for each generation because even at the HS level our students are taught nothing about credit, interest, or any kind of personal finance. nothing.

i try to offer the following advice to people who rail against "the system". you dont have to like it or fully participate in "the system" but you darn sure better know the rules of the game, otherwise, "the system" will consume you.

 

One of us is not understanding the other.

I am not sure how this addresses my point, maybe you could clarify how it does or maybe i need to clarify my point?

It seems to me that what you are saying is that there is inherent risk, and my point was that risk can be taken on value already created but not speculation of future value.

Good discussion!

 

I agree with every bit of that.

To your first sentence, yes, that is why I really want people to consider a new banking/monetary system and especially breaking the government protected monopoly known as the Federal Reserve.

I am glad you recognize it as the sinister system it is.

 

granted i may not be completely understanding. there are certainly different kinds of risk and not to get off track but more specific to your point of future value, "future value" is the embodiment of risk as defined for anything considered to be of value.

perhaps i should go back and read again your original thought. agreed good discussion.

 

What I was trying to differentiate was the debt via creation of money out of thin air vs debt from borrowed money.

 

now i gotcha!

 

Thank you for the kind words, and precisely this.

 

Would you agree with my assessment?