US Politics: It’s Not A Crime If Your Feelings Got Hurt

[Centrist Simon Steele]

This may be the decider for me!

Elizabeth Warren wants to wipe out college debt.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

This may be the decider for me!

Elizabeth Warren wants to wipe out college debt.

Ah man, and I just paid of my debt a few months ago…

[S John]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ah man, and I just paid of my debt a few months ago…

I had 2 loans, a big one and a little one.  I paid off the big one a while back and I busted my ass to do it.  I’ve been letting the small loan ride, it’s not much money per month and I think I only owe 3k-ish on it.  Anyway, I am for reigning in the cost of college and all that, but on some level it would suck balls that I jumped through hoops to buy my freedom from debt way ahead of schedule only to have that effort nullified, and in fact kind of made to look like a foolish and rash decision, via a general amnesty.  Should I be eligible for a 40k check?  Student loans set me back too, I just made it a priority to get out from under them.  Should people like me also be compensated for having had to start out underwater?

[DMC]

So Seth Masket has been doing this recurring thing for 538 where he asks activists which candidates they're considering supporting -- and which candidates the activists definitely do not want to become the nominee.  Obviously, the sample is inherently very small and not statistically random, but interesting Harris and Booker continue to perform the best on both metrics (i.e. most activists considering supporting them and least activists that definitely don't want them as the nominee).

[lokisnow]

1 hour ago, S John said:

I had 2 loans, a big one and a little one.  I paid off the big one a while back and I busted my ass to do it.  I’ve been letting the small loan ride, it’s not much money per month and I think I only owe 3k-ish on it.  Anyway, I am for reigning in the cost of college and all that, but on some level it would suck balls that I jumped through hoops to buy my freedom from debt way ahead of schedule only to have that effort nullified, and in fact kind of made to look like a foolish and rash decision, via a general amnesty.  Should I be eligible for a 40k check?  Student loans set me back too, I just made it a priority to get out from under them.  Should people like me also be compensated for having had to start out underwater?

I did the same, and paid off my loans in 6 years, sometimes paying more on my loans than on rent!

But I'm still all for this, because the problem is so vast and the debt overhang is so massive, that we can't let a 'sucks to be me' philosophy become an excuse for failing to address a mammoth social issue. 

It's sort of like a program to subsidize home solar and someone with Solar Panels saying, "I'm all for doing _something_ about climate change, but the government getting more people solar panels is unfair to me, so we shouldn't do this at all." 

Additionally, such a massive program of debt forgiveness could be a really powerful stimulus in the event of our coming recession.  Last recession we gave trillions with no strings to big finance, and regular people got nothing or got fucked hard (to the amusement of everyone in DC.) In the next recession, we could give Warren's 1.25 trillion in direct debt relief to regular people and have a pretty similar stimulative effect. if the recession is bad enough, tack on another 1.25 trillion for other debt relief. Whether or not there's a moral peril there, at least it is better than giving it to big finance, who deserve heads on spikes.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, S John said:

I had 2 loans, a big one and a little one.  I paid off the big one a while back and I busted my ass to do it.  I’ve been letting the small loan ride, it’s not much money per month and I think I only owe 3k-ish on it.  Anyway, I am for reigning in the cost of college and all that, but on some level it would suck balls that I jumped through hoops to buy my freedom from debt way ahead of schedule only to have that effort nullified, and in fact kind of made to look like a foolish and rash decision, via a general amnesty.  Should I be eligible for a 40k check?  Student loans set me back too, I just made it a priority to get out from under them.  Should people like me also be compensated for having had to start out underwater?

I think the college debt crisis should be approached as a triage. Just wiping out all debt manages to be expensive and unfair at the same time. There are many people totally on top of their debts, there are some that have already paid them off or will in the future. And there are some completely drowning. One obvious problem with clearing all student debt is the biggest winners would be both well-off student debtors, like practicing lawyers, and student debtors from low-income communities roped into the for-profit college scam, which tend to charge high tuition.

The most rational thing would likely to be something like making payments 10% of income, without needing to sign up. And some sort of limited years of payment, like 10,15, or 20 years. The income-based plans already in place work fairly well in my experience, but with a lot of unneeded red-tape and dealing with shady debt-collection companies, who often provide debtors with misleading information.

And paying back people that already paid off their debts definitely should not be a big priority. That is like saying we should get rid of chapter 7 bankruptcy protections, since some people have paid off their debts the "fair" way. Chapter 7 is an important protection for Americans, nearly as important as the right not to have your body seized and placed in prison without a warrant. 

I personally used chapter 13 bankruptcy to help me survive the college debt crisis, and also an important protection that many are less familiar with.

I'm glad Warren is making the issue a big deal though. 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, S John said:

I had 2 loans, a big one and a little one.  I paid off the big one a while back and I busted my ass to do it.  I’ve been letting the small loan ride, it’s not much money per month and I think I only owe 3k-ish on it.  Anyway, I am for reigning in the cost of college and all that, but on some level it would suck balls that I jumped through hoops to buy my freedom from debt way ahead of schedule only to have that effort nullified, and in fact kind of made to look like a foolish and rash decision, via a general amnesty.  Should I be eligible for a 40k check?  Student loans set me back too, I just made it a priority to get out from under them.  Should people like me also be compensated for having had to start out underwater?

Yeah, ending slavery was a slap in the face for the people who had to get emancipated the hard way

[Martell Spy]

The Supreme Court’s New LGBTQ Cases Could Demolish Sex Discrimination Law As We Know It

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/john-roberts-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-lgbtq-cases-sexual-harassment.html

Quote

Today’s near-universal acceptance that Title VII bars workplace sexual harassment would probably be shocking to Rep. Howard Smith—just as shocking as the developing consensus that the law bars LGBTQ discrimination. And therein lies the profound danger of the coming Supreme Court cases. If the conservative majority interprets Title VII by speculating how the law was originally understood, it will clear away decades of precedent protecting not just LGBTQ people, but also women, and anyone who does not conform to an employer’s expectations of gender norms. Price Waterhouse will be gone. So will Meritor Savings Bank. So too will thousands of lower courts decisions rooted in the doctrines that courts have developed to interpret the law’s sweeping yet hazy command.

 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

4 hours ago, S John said:

I had 2 loans, a big one and a little one.  I paid off the big one a while back and I busted my ass to do it.  I’ve been letting the small loan ride, it’s not much money per month and I think I only owe 3k-ish on it.  Anyway, I am for reigning in the cost of college and all that, but on some level it would suck balls that I jumped through hoops to buy my freedom from debt way ahead of schedule only to have that effort nullified, and in fact kind of made to look like a foolish and rash decision, via a general amnesty.  Should I be eligible for a 40k check?  Student loans set me back too, I just made it a priority to get out from under them.  Should people like me also be compensated for having had to start out underwater?

Yeah, this is an issue that should have been dealt with a long time ago. I don't know how this could work retroactively, but I think one way to parse it is that you were able to pay them back. After my education, my current career as a teacher and a single dad, I have no method to pay them back. I have nothing saved for even a minor emergency let alone the massive debt I collected back when I thought I was making my future better. I wasn't. But now I'm in it. I am on a loan repayment program, but the only chance I have at payoff if Warren doesn't come through, is to wait out the ten years of repayment (I'll be close to 50 when that's done), then get hit with a heavy tax burden. As long as these loans are on my record, I'll likely never be able to buy a home, but that's fine, I've let that notion go.

And then I think, there are people in worse situations than this. I say let it help who it can. The financial instability many of us feel I would not wish on anyone. I was diagnosed with a chronic auto immune disease recently. My quality of life will continue to degrade over the years. If I don't get married, what will happen to me if I can't work--or have to retire? I won't have anywhere to go. The best I can hope for is getting to a nursing home long before I'm due any Medicare. I'll be honest, as I go through this, I have to say, things are grim.

[lokisnow]

10 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

As long as these loans are on my record, I'll likely never be able to buy a home, but that's fine, I've let that notion go.

And then I think, there are people in worse situations than this. I say let it help who it can. The financial instability many of us feel I would not wish on anyone. I was diagnosed with a chronic auto immune disease recently. My quality of life will continue to degrade over the years. If I don't get married, what will happen to me if I can't work--or have to retire? I won't have anywhere to go. The best I can hope for is getting to a nursing home long before I'm due any Medicare. I'll be honest, as I go through this, I have to say, things are grim.

This sucks all around. Especially that you're not married, because (of course, right?) there's a massive loophole for home buying if you're married. 

If you file married filing separately and your spouse's income is sufficient to qualify for a mortgage, your student loans debts won't be accounted for in the loan application and therefore your student loan debts won't be allowed to disqualify the pair of you. Of course the home has to be bought as your spouse's separate property. and you have to pay a bit more in taxes as married filing separately. 

but there is that loophole song and dance available for married people to buy a house even with student debt.

[lokisnow]

3 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

I think the college debt crisis should be approached as a triage. Just wiping out all debt manages to be expensive and unfair at the same time. There are many people totally on top of their debts, there are some that have already paid them off or will in the future. And there are some completely drowning. One obvious problem with clearing all student debt is the biggest winners would be both well-off student debtors, like practicing lawyers, and student debtors from low-income communities roped into the for-profit college scam, which tend to charge high tuition.

The most rational thing would likely to be something like making payments 10% of income, without needing to sign up. And some sort of limited years of payment, like 10,15, or 20 years. The income-based plans already in place work fairly well in my experience, but with a lot of unneeded red-tape and dealing with shady debt-collection companies, who often provide debtors with misleading information.

And paying back people that already paid off their debts definitely should not be a big priority. That is like saying we should get rid of chapter 7 bankruptcy protections, since some people have paid off their debts the "fair" way. Chapter 7 is an important protection for Americans, nearly as important as the right not to have your body seized and placed in prison without a warrant. 

I personally used chapter 13 bankruptcy to help me survive the college debt crisis, and also an important protection that many are less familiar with.

I'm glad Warren is making the issue a big deal though. 

and I think triage is utterly the wrong approach because triage is time consuming on this scale with high administrative costs and it also creates clear winners and losers. 

Basically, the only way to make Warren's massive, biblical, debt jubilee work is to have it be as universal as possible, which means really widespread with massive amounts going to the middle class, hopefully most of it going to people who don't really need it. 

Sure, going widespread and universal is not the most efficient and perfect use of the money, but we could easily spend 500 billion on triage (100 billion reserved for the administrative costs associated with implementing your debt relief triage, gotta love value capture and rent seeking behavior! so really only 400 billion) pissing down the hole of scammy for profit colleges, college dropouts, and debts with zillions in interest and penalties that bounty hunters have already bought for pennies on the dollar but will inevitably be redeemed at full value by the government. And such triage would only help a specific and not terribly sympathetic fraction of those hurt by the student loan crisis (who are also the least likely cohort to vote), and be an easy trojan horse to create a massive right wing led populist backlash against this jubilee.

So if you go universal, as Warren proposes, you might aid a lot of the middle class who don't need it (but want it and also believe with insane intensity that they do need it and have a lot of hate for a system that systematically always excludes them from relief), while also not saving all of the worst off.

But that tradeoff results in a fair, minimum overhead system of relief, that generates a ton of buy in from the voting castes while also stimulating the economy.

 

as Warren says, it could solve 75% of the problem, which is probably one hell of a lot better of an outcome than solving 100% of the worst 15% of the problem that a triage approach will result in (while also having the downside of making everyone hate you which closes the door on any additional intervention or relief).

 

[lokisnow]

A must read article on vox, particularly the closer which slays:

Quote

Instead of debating how many carbon policies can fit on the head of a pin, they should be thinking about how to activate their diverse majority the same way the right activates its shrinking, homogenous minority.

Intensity is what matters in politics. Democrats and climate hawks need to figure out how to generate some.

Sooner or later they will have to grapple with the fact that they are not in a good-faith fight that turns on evidence and persuasion. All that matters for the moment is power.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/22/18510518/green-new-deal-fox-news-poll

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

So Seth Masket has been doing this recurring thing for 538 where he asks activists which candidates they're considering supporting -- and which candidates the activists definitely do not want to become the nominee.  Obviously, the sample is inherently very small and not statistically random, but interesting Harris and Booker continue to perform the best on both metrics (i.e. most activists considering supporting them and least activists that definitely don't want them as the nominee).

I get people not being opposed to Booker because he basically doesn’t exist in any form. It would be like opposing room temperature. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I think we often overlook the psychological damage of student loans. We stress how student debt affects people's financial futures, but we don't pay enough attention to how debt, and the fear of debt, causes people emotional damage for long stretches of their lives. Solving the student crisis will also go a long way towards improving the mental well being for so many Americans.

[DMC]

16 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

It would be like opposing room temperature. 

Agreed.  Old white people usually oppose anything resembling both Booker and room temperature.

[Kalbear]

Also

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1120374024134168576

[lokisnow]

If March Madness brings down Stephen Moore's Fed nomination, I will be so happy. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Also

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1120374024134168576

I had some nice laughs earlier reading the same or similar thread bagging Philip Klein.  "Antibiotics are an insult to everyone who died of gangrene"

[Martell Spy]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Also

https://twitter.com/petridishes/status/1120374024134168576

There was this "tradition" at my high school when I was a freshman. They put the freshmen on one side of the gym at the first assembly of the year, and the other 3 classes on the other side of the gym. Then all the older students chanted, "Freshmen suck!" over and over. Now, keep in mind, the administration of the school was running these assemblies, which means actual adults planned this fucked-up bit of supervised bullying. 

The policy was changed the very year I entered 10th grade. I guess I should have filed a complaint that I was never allowed to be on the bullying side of the ledger due to the policy change.

[Altherion]

4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

Basically, the only way to make Warren's massive, biblical, debt jubilee work is to have it be as universal as possible, which means really widespread with massive amounts going to the middle class, hopefully most of it going to people who don't really need it. 

I don't see how this would make it work -- if anything, it would increase the resistance to the plan. A substantial number of the people who are worst off today never went to college and will not see a dime of this money. Neither will the people who worked hard to pay off their loans and delayed important things like having children until the debts are paid. Other than the fact that the people who will be receiving money under this scheme have a high chance of voting for Warren to begin with, there is no reason why money should be handed out to this set of people rather than some other set. We could, for example, simply give money to the poorest without consideration for college. Alternatively, with the same $1.2T, we could fund literally a dozen moonshot programs to solve global warming to the tune of $10B per year per program. There's a whole bunch of other ways to spend the same money; I'm sure everyone can think of one that they like.