James Poulos proposes that student loan debt relief is bad policy because it will damage the psyche and self-worth of those being relieved.
I still wouldn’t own my future. Instead of living into an identity of doomed passivity and helplessness, I would live into a future where I’d be delivered from the doom but not the passivity and helplessness. Of course my mood would change, and my prospects theoretically brighten, if federal debt relief swept in and rescued me. But my identity wouldn’t be transformed. Debt relief could clean up the mess on my balance sheet, but it couldn’t clean up the mess in my head. How effective could I be if a bailout was the only reason I escaped my predicament?
If I decided to put my Marxist hat on, mining this could be a lot of fun. I’ll keep it simple, instead: maybe that’s just you, you know? And it’s not as if paying off the debt is a choice. Maybe getting your loans bailed out won’t make you feel “effective,” but then neither does simply being unable to pay them. The whole argument is like people who shout “get a job” to Occupy protesters. The whole point is that you can’t.
Poulos says that the government would “own his future” if his student loan debt were relieved, suggesting that it doesn’t own his present. But it does; after all, it bailed out those who could pay his student loans off in a week of work, and that reality, the reality of a government captured by corporate interests, determines our economy. Perhaps James opposed the bank bailouts, I don’t know. It seems that the alternative was everybody wearing barrels and selling pencils down by the freeway– the only alternative, that is, given that we had already driven ourselves up to that precipice through deregulation, total political capture by the moneyed, and an absolute refusal to deal with the fact that our society has become a machine for transferring resources to the rich. That’s the problem for a conservative intellectual like James; you can’t scold people on the bottom for their lack of personal virtue when the people on the top laugh at the very term. Trying to engender fiscal responsibility by starting with people on the bottom is self-defeating in a purely practical sense; that it’s also cruel goes without saying.
The question James wants to ask is whether we should create a sense of moral obligation and shame towards debt, in the current climate. But “should” implies “can.” And could we possibly do such a thing even if we wanted to?
I can only make reference to my own life and conjecture about other people. So for going on six years, I’ve been paying down credit card debt. (As opposed to student loan debt, which I intend to defer until I die by becoming the most educated human in history.) I made some stupid choices that were compounded by some tough circumstances and I wracked up a lot. High four figures. Anyway, eventually I got some things together and set up an automatic payment plan with the bank. They withdraw some money from my account every month. I’ve paid a lot of it down that way, maybe 75% or so. It has not prevented me from living a fulfilled life. It has made things consistently financially harder, in a way that should satisfy the responsibility mavens. Irresponsibility before paid back with harder material circumstances now. Simple story.
This past February I had a minor surgical procedure. My health insurance company has unexpectedly challenged me about paying for it. I’m working on it and trying to get them to pay. This is actually a fortunate position to be in compared to many Americans, who don’t have a health insurance company to be fighting with. Should I lose out on my attempts to get them to pay for it, I’m looking at owing more money for the hospital bills than I ever owed for the credit card. Way more; more than half again as much. More than I make in a year. So if I can’t get it resolved, I’ll consider personal bankruptcy. We’ll see. I’m hoping to get married in the next couple years and bankruptcy would seriously complicate that decision, but it may be the best choice. Either way: I’ll be fine. Lots of other debt-ridden Americans aren’t and won’t be fine.
Here’s the point: this new debt, more arbitrary and random than the original debt, helps to erode whatever moral conviction I feel about paying down debt. The fact that I paid back debt that I owed over the course of several years doesn’t make me feel good, but it does make me feel like I took care of something I was obligated to take care of. Now that there’s this new debt, I kind of wish I had declared bankruptcy five years ago in the first place. As I understand it, it would have come off of my credit in another two or five years from now anyway, and while bankruptcy involves hardships, as someone who has never made more than $20K in a single year anyway, there’s a certain floor effect. The fact that our system amplifies the power of random chance for average people (by not providing universal health coverage, for one example) while providing a massive safety net for the rich and powerful cannot help but undercut the ethic of responsibility James desires.
Now think about student loan debt. James is sure that people who took on student loan debt– people like him– made “terrible decisions for bad reasons.” This despite the fact that he recognizes the cultural prominence of college and our complete lack of another path to the good life. So take the cold rational logic of giving up a moral obligation to pay back debt. Multiply it by millions of people struggling under the huge burden of student loan debt– for some of them, exceeding $100K. Add a terrible unemployment situation, a monetary apparatus unwilling to do all it can to change, a Congress unwilling even to keep interest rates low…. Worst of all: unlike credit card debt or medical bills, this student loan debt can never be discharged in bankruptcy. People have no recourse whatsoever.
Now: does this all sound like a recipe to make people feel more of a moral obligation to pay their debts? On the contrary, I think it is a perfect storm to convince people not to feel any moral obligation to pay back debt whatsoever. When the macroeconomic situation is so arbitrary, bullshit, and fucked up, and when our policy elites are so captured by a crazed reactionary ideology, giving up on that obligation is the most sensible thing imaginable.
I don’t know if I think that debt should be a moral issue. Look at my credit card debt: the bank took a calculated risk in extending it to me, I took a calculated risk in accepting it, they and I suffered some negative consequences for it, and we arrived at a mutually beneficial solution. I will admit to feeling a little bit of the shame Poulos describes for being deeply indebted. But if Poulos or others want to make shame about debt a norm, they can hardly have picked a worse time. People are debt ridden, know that they will still be debt ridden in five years and almost certainly in ten and probably in fifteen. And everyone else they know is in the same exact boat. How could you pretend such a status is shameful, when it’s so normal? They’re suffering already, thanks. They don’t need shame.
cathyx
Does he work for the banks?
Southern Beale
Bootstraps!
Funny how this shit is always a one-way street, isn’t it? Rich bankers and Wall Street guys and corporate CEOs never, ever seem to have to worry about the damage to their psyche and self-worth that bailiouts and goldden parachutes provide.
It’s always do as I say, not as I do with this crowd. Or: IOKIARA (It’s Okay If You’re A Rich Asshole)…
Culture of Truth
“Can I try a little of that peril?”
“No, it’s too perilous”
the Conster
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.”
Poulos is just another POS example of Galbraith’s dictum and can be fucked sideways with hot sharp rusty dental implements.
gaz
“it will damage the psyche and self-worth of those being relieved”
standard “moral hazard” bobo-esque bullshit. * yawn *
You know they’ve got nothin’ when they trot that out.
Scott
I feel real terrible about my home mortgage deduction and pre tax health care benefits. Really! He writes this with a straight face? Idiot.
slag
I was privileged enough to acquire two college degrees without any debt. If any of my friends who are still dealing with their debt suddenly had it relieved, I would be unquestionably thrilled for them. And most likely they would then appreciate their privilege and wish the same for others. Which, of course, would be Republicans’ greatest nightmare. After all, if we all just ran around appreciating our privileges willy nilly, how would we know who to look down on so that we could feel better about ourselves?
cmorenc
We can trace the root of the psychologically injurious problems Paulos says arise from government-aided student loans back to all those veterans of World War II who had their heads thoroughly screwed up by going to college on the G.I. Bill, and this led to all that socialism that infected this country in the decades thereafter. They’d have instead been clean-conscienced yeomen becoming honest laborers and factory workers instead of becoming lawyers, doctors, and engineers and such. And college would have been for the properly deserving elite instead of a commonly degraded thing anyone can pursue with a federally-subsidized student loan.
Villago Delenda Est
Poulos is just more tumbrel fodder.
Fuck him.
Corner Stone
So Poulos is forced to look in the mirror and accept he isn’t as smart as he had convinced himself he was, and his reaction is to punish everyone else?
Sounds pretty standard.
Lit3Bolt
By the same logic, college scholarships are unseemly because they encourage passivity and helplessness.
So, James Paulos is really calling for all HOPE scholarships to be abolished for being “unseemly.”
Jay in Oregon
I’m curious why so many conservatives feel that making one or more bad decisions in a person’s life should consign them to a life of misery. Sometimes none of the options being offered are very good. Sometimes you aren’t given a choice at all.
“Damage their self-worth?” James Poulos has probably never felt the pressure of debt in his life. Or how damaging to your self-worth it can be to know that you are going to be paying back student loans or medical bills FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
Fuck him.
Cromagnon
There is no reason whatsoever to be racking up 100K or more in student loan debt, or even remotely close to that. One can spend 2-years at a community college getting all your 101 courses, then transfer to a local 4 year college for your 4 year degree and spend way less than 100K. But it seems many going to college look at as party time and lets join the frat house, instead of as a means to an education…. So I have very little sympathy for those who have racked up such massive debt. Fuck them
My nephew has over 100K in debt. He spent 4 years at Va Tech and ended up flunking out because he was staying up all night playing video games rather than studying. So he had to transfer to another college (ODU) for another couple years just to get his degree. Now he’s whining about his debt and trying to get my parents to bail him out. Too fucking bad. You made your bed, sleep in it
Lit3Bolt
@Culture of Truth:
“I bet you’re gay.”
“No I’m not.”
The Moar You Know
Wow, what a dick.
Corner Stone
Because that’s where all this shame BS is coming from. He has self-justified his failings at law school and the only way he can live (reconcile) with his former image of himself is to climb on top of the outcome. His debt is penance, and when completed he will be righteous again. And “smarter” for having gone through it.
Bah.
Lit3Bolt
@Cromagnon:
Off to debtor’s prison with him!
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
This ridiculous need to puff one’s self up as uber-self-sufficient is a weird pathology, especially when it goes to such absurd extremes. Then again, that whole myth of the rugged individualist still persists despite how much bullshit it really is.
Brachiator
Debt relief is in the Bible. Look up Jubilee Year. Clearly, religious authorities did not think that having your debts released automatically damaged you or made you a bad person.
More practically, the possibility of easy bailouts with no consequence or monitoring ain’t good, either for businesses or people. The article goes overboard, but sometimes ya gotta know when to fold ’em.
Corner Stone
I never felt shame when I was in debt. Taking loans didn’t have any moral equivalent for me.
I don’t understand this kind of nonsense.
Lizzy L
@Cromagnon: You seem very certain about other people’s lives and choices. A friend of mine, a woman in her forties with a full-time job and a mortgage, is in the process of declaring bankruptcy, and will have to sell her house, because she has close to $100,000 in student loan debt which, as has been pointed out, cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Was her decision to get a B.A. and then an M.A. a good one? She couldn’t know that the economy would tank and her savings would go with it, nor could she anticipate the major health issues that she has been dealing with for many years suddenly going into crisis mode. In short, shit happens to people, and decisions which looked quite reasonable when they were made have unexpected and unintended consequences.
Your nephew’s story is not everyone’s story.
HRA
Really?! The student loans that were given to the WWII vets?
Quite a dish of guano from this idiot just days past when we buried a family member who excelled after given the chance to get an education from the GI bill, who was able to give his children the same education and they have done the same for their children.
This is the real “trickle down” a**holes.
Cronin
@Cromagnon: While that makes perfect sense and is, yes, true, expecting every eighteen year old kid to be that circumspect is not realistic. The parents should be, sure, but parents’ stupidity isn’t the kids fault.
Also, that is, in most cases, a recipe for a five-year plan. Not all of those credits will transfer, in most cases, even if you plan it (I know multiple people who’ve tried to do just that and ended up with an extra semester. Still cheaper, though, obviously)
PurpleGirl
Ah, Poulos it appears lives off of wingnut welfare. He can take his ridiculous moral hazard and shove it where the sun don’t shine. I’ve been in debt — and not a lot of debt, in retrospect — a few times in my life. And I’ve paid it all back. But it was damn hard and it didn’t make life very good. Nor did it make me feel virtuous. It just made me tired and unhappy.
shortstop
Are we arguing that all debt is identical now?
Being indebted is not itself a moral issue. Piling up debt one has every reason to think one will never be able to pay back, or that one openly admits to not intending to pay back at all, does have a negative moral component.
Corner Stone
@Cromagnon: The CC angle is a good point to make.
But overall IMO your comment doesn’t seem to reflect the larger reality of what’s going on here.
And a lot of traditional 4 year schools make it very difficult to finish your degree on time. The last several required courses you may need may not be scheduled at an appropriate time, not offered that semester, or may not make. So you find yourself having to enroll again for another semester, and pay all those same added on fees for services you’ll never use, just to get those last 3 or 6 or 9 hours.
Steve
When I was younger, I had a nasty chunk of credit card debt, most of which I racked up through reckless gambling. My great-aunt passed away – she was the only one in the family with any money – and left me a little something, which I used to pay off those credit card bills. I was not thereby sapped of agency and control over my future. It was actually kind of cool. I learned a lesson and went on with my life.
Fezzik
@cmorenc: If this forum supported gifs, here’s where I’d insert the slow clap from Citizen Kane.
danielx
That’s the problem for a conservative intellectual like James; you can’t scold people on the bottom for their lack of personal virtue when the people on the top laugh at the very term.
I might add lack of personal responsibility. Compare and contrast:
1. Law enforcement and judicial process in consequence of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s.
2. Law enforcement and judicial process in consequence of the mortgage banking crisis of the 2000s.
Here’s a hint – the two answers are “extensive” and “virtually none”.
pseudonymous in nc
A little anecdote: I was at a retirement reception for a colleague of my spouse. The generational gap is pretty obvious: this is a (non-academic) field where you need postgraduate qualifications, but it’s fucking hard to recruit people with doctoral degrees and $100k+ of tuition debt for tough jobs that pay $50k. Those jobs still need to be done, but the capacity to do them properly is withering away, and the knock-on effect is going to cost a lot more.
Gosh, maybe it’s effective because it initially motivates people to do tough jobs where they make a difference, whether it’s working with PTSD sufferers at the VA or treating kids in upstate New York. Oh, and it removes a fucking anvil from people’s necks.
Poulos is a wanker, and he is just wanking in public here. Is his intention to fill the Wanker Gap while McArdle finishes How To Succeed By Failing In Everything You Do?
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve:
God will get you for that. And for demonstrating anecdotally that Poulos is a fucktard.
MattF
Believe it or not, debt is a two-way street– the creditor has responsibilities as well as the debtor.
True story: I took out a small loan from the University I attended as a graduate student with an ‘innovative’ repayment schedule that was tied to my post-graduation income and to interest rates. But, in the ’80’s interest rates went to unprecedented heights and my income wasn’t so great, leaving me with a debt that was, quite literally, unpayable. After some consideration, the University agreed that the plan just hadn’t worked, and the debt was forgiven. It’s a contract, folks, not a suicide pact.
Haydnseek
Did this douchebag pay cash for his house? No. Does he feel morally or psychologically diminished by this? Of course not. But student loan debt, oh fuck me with my 50k diploma! That’s COMPLETELY different! Typical hypocrisy at apogee from these assholes.
cathyx
I’m sure that all those bankers that got 0 percent loans from the fed when they got bailed out feel really really guilty about it. I mean, how effective do they feel with a bailout being the only reason they escaped their predicament? They must need sleeping pills to sleep at night.
Svensker
@Cromagnon: Yes, because everyone who racked up student debt was shiftless, like your nephew.
Brilliant.
Cantrip
Hey Freddie,
I’m delurking after a year of reading this blog to say that
your analysis is one of the most insightful things I’ve ever read here. Our culture is truly fucked in the head, and Paulos and his ilk really don’t understand that all their privilege aren’t going to survive this turbulent and catastrophic century.
Thanks for this!
Frankensteinbeck
‘Tough love’ is a major conservative theme, maybe THE major conservative theme until things started going batshit. Austerity, the War on Drugs, neocon policy – they believe in ‘tough love’, so much so that when it doesn’t motivate them, it’s their excuse to cover their real motivations.
‘Tough love’ is the standard mindset of child abusers.
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck:
The “tough love” that “conservatives” need is firing squads.
With bills for the rounds expended sent to their families.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Agreed. Measuring “self worth ” in the way Poulos does is totally bizarre.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: They believe in the “tough” part and never really get around to that whole “love” concept. Or, “Tough love? More like Tough Shit.”
jncc
You really don’t need to read any more than that to know that you are dealing with a total tool.
Fezzik
@Cromagnon: Out of touch + lack of basic facts on costs and job markets + anecdotal invective = teh stoopid.
It’s hard to know where to start with this, but a few salient points in addition to what others have suggested above:
1. If you are going to college seeking a specific career rather than stumbling through whatever BA/BS you can get, you have to select a highly specific university and/or combination of coursework. Virginia Tech, for instance, has courses, research, faculty, facilities and a reputation that other universities simply do not have. Getting accepted to go there if you have something particular in mind will ultimately be worth taking on that kind of debt load.
2. Parents and students both have come to understand that graduate degrees are basically a golden ticket, particularly people who want to become lawyers, say. It turns out that this is no longer true–and in fact, entering law school now is essentially volunteering to take on in excess of $100k debt while not appreciably improving one’s employment chances anywhere. The sad thing is that law schools (and Ph.D. programs, and Masters’ programs) do not cop to this horrifying reality.
3. Tuition and fees for most universities now exceed the median wage. So-called “public” state schools are not appreciably cheaper for in-state students. Even allowing for your plan of community college transfer credits and the miracle of getting the right credits/courses at the right times to graduate in two years or less, that will easily be five-figure debt.
There’s a separate debate to have about whether student loans should be capped, or the government should impose restrictions on tuition costs for state universities, or what have you. But the sad reality for the vast majority today is that in order to find anything better paying or higher status than menial labor, one must be prepared to take on tens of thousands of non-dischargeable debt.
beltane
If someone out there would like to forgive my husband’s student loan debt we would happily deal with the shame and loss of agency and use the money to pay other bills.
Rich people feel no shame at accepting cash windfalls or government largess so neither should anyone else.
ralphdibny
Really, if the lower orders don’t set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? — Oscar Wilde
gaz
Switch the subject of his article from Students to Too-Big-To-Be-Held-Accountable-For-Failure banks, and his whole screed falls apart.
It’s that simple.
This tool is going to have to do a whole lot better.
When people argue “Moral Hazard”, it’s because they’re afraid to discuss something on the merits. For more, please see every column Bobo has ever penned.
jncc
Well, I was wrong. This guy is not a total tool. He is way, way beyond that:
http://pomoco.typepad.com/about.html
Privatize the Profits! Socialize the Costs!
I hope that everyone here at BJ knows about the US Fed’s secret sixteen trillion (yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T’) dollar bailout of the banking system, uncovered by Bloomberg last year?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/traceygreenstein/2011/09/20/the-feds-16-trillion-bailouts-under-reported/
As the Forbes article mentions, it rarely gets reported in the press… Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” is the most prominent of the few MSM that ever mentions it.
All these rightwing politicians have been crying for years about how the govt is supposedly bankrupt and there’s not enough money for anything but defense spending and tax cuts.
But it turns out there is a mysterious money machine behind the curtains, and it can print up trillions of dollars to bail out the banksters’ failed global casino.
And as long as nobody thinks this is remarkable or worth complaining about, the present policy will continue… “Austerity for the Poor! Bailouts for the Rich!”
gaz
@jncc: “http://www.postmodernconservative.com”
ROFL, seriously?
beltane
@ralphdibny: For people who supposedly despise altruism, the Ayn Rand crowd sure seems to expect a lot of it from the lowly moochers. James Poulos is practically crying out for a pat on the head here when what he desperately needs is a swift kick in the arse.
Haydnseek
My comment is still in moderation? Why, pray tell….
Egg Berry
@jncc: You should put a warning on images like that.
Corner Stone
@jncc: Good sweet FSM.
The guy who went to Duke and then agreed to pay over $50K a year at USC Law is telling others to feel shameful about their student loans?
danielx
@pseudonymous in nc:
If that’s his intention, he’s doing a fantastic job of it. I foresee a brilliant career for him at the American Enterprise Institute or the Heritage Foundation, with a side gig writing a periodic column at the NY Times or the Kaplan Daily, giving the views of a “reasonable conservative”.
Elizabelle
McClatchy has what seems to be an appalling headline about the student loan debt legislation:
House passes GOP bill to keep student loan rates low, but Democrats will kill it
but it’s an attempt to get people to read the article for context, amply provided.
McClatchy is usually quite good.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/04/27/147027/house-passes-gop-bill-to-keep.html#storylink=cpy
danielx
@jncc:
The caption for that picture should be Douchebag with Intellectual Pretensions.
Spaghetti Lee
I remember McArdle trying this one out too. You can’t help people because it hurts their self-esteem! Excuse me, assholes, did we ask you to pass judgment? Who the fuck do they think they are?
andy
Yes indeed- debt peonage builds character, which you will need because while you’re paying off college you WON’T be able to afford to contribute to your pension fund or likewise afford the deductibles of your market based medical care, assuming you can afford even the crap policy “buying across state lines” will get you issued out of Cousinfuck, Alabama.
MattF
OT, but this is the best thing I’ve seen on the Secret Service/Cartagena business:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-the-secret-service-could-learn-from-drunken-sailors/2012/04/26/gIQAz0kzjT_story.html
adamchaz
Federal student loans are government secured debt. So the cost of lending for student loans should be tied in some way to the actual cost of lending money to the U.S. Government
When I went to school from 1999-2005 it was tied to the 91 day Treasury bill pus 1.7%. This week the 91-day Treasury Bill rate was 0.08% so the total rate charged to students should be about 2.5%.
For some unexplained reason in 2006 Congress decided to make all Stafford Loans to be fixed rate loans at 6.8% Which is 2.72% times the cost of actually lending the money.
gumbo
@jncc
Why am I not surprised that this douchenozzle went to Duke?
Egg Berry
As soon as I see a 24-year-old with poor parents who’s got $50,000 in debt writing this column, I’ll listen.
Elizabelle
@MattF:
Agree with you!
The curse of the unpaid hooker.
The Dangerman
@Villago Delenda Est:
Someone should start a website listing the priority for the tumbrel rides; this would have him rising up the charts, with a bullet, as is typically said.
I assume these assholes don’t know their history; a feudal society with a large class of serfs ended with people losing their heads. Do they really not recall and have to have this kind of thing posted to Youtube to remind them?
RSA
Here’s a continuation of the article:
What strikes me is the arrogance of a thirty-something (I’m guessing) law school drop-out who’s still in grad school holding forth about the identities of hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people with college debt. Dude, you have little idea about anyone’s battered identity except your own.
suzanne
This is the most unbelievably stupid shit I think I’ve ever read. Previously, that award went to some interview with Michelle Duggar, in which she said that there’s no such thing as overpopulation because all of humanity could fit in Jacksonville, Florida.
To set this douchebag’s mind at ease, please let him know that I’d still feel a sense of pride and self-worth if I didn’t have to pay off a hundred and fifty grand in student debt.
The Dangerman
@andy:
Growing up there could explain the Elvis photo at PostModern Conservative…omg…
donquijoterocket
@Lit3Bolt:
Scholarships are only acceptable if they’re athletic scholarships where you get to be an unpaid indentured servant in the minor leagues of professional sports, most of your scholarly work is taken care of for you, and if you’re good enough you may in the sweepstakes of some draft or other become an instant 1%er. But you get lots of exercise to keep you from feeling ineffective. I suspect this douchenozzle had neither an academic nor athletic scholarship. The latter term an oxymoron on the same level as military intelligence.
Suffern ACE
@RSA: Whose bad decisions are we talking about here? I mean if we’re going to be shouldering our bad decisions off on the young, in thing more of a 80 20 split where may 80 percent goes onto the older generations. I mean I know they’ve worked hard all their lives but obviously not hard enough.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
A tumbrel.tumbler page! Now that’s certain to garner a Moore Award nomination!
Jeff Spender
@Egg Berry:
I’m a 24 year-old with about $29,000 in debt and my parents didn’t pay for a cent of my education. I will rack up more debt as I get into PA school, so I expect this number to be in the six-digit range by the time I’m done.
Basically, my position is this: fuck James Poulos.
ETA: I had a full-tuition scholarship to U of Michigan that didn’t cover living expenses, and $10,000 of my debt has come from my post-BA education to change to a Master of Science program.
Full disclosure.
Mino
Le Monde has a well researched article on one possible conservative solution to a generation of folks with no job and heavy debt. It’s absolutely in our tradition, too.
http://mondediplo.com/openpage/locking-down-an-american-workforce
Bonne chance, youngsters.
Mark B
I paid off my student loans in full, on time. But that was in a time where it was a whole lot easier to get employment right out of college, and the total debt I accumulated was pretty small compared to what it takes now to get a 4-year degree. I actually worked half time most of the time I was in college, so loans were only a small part of my total cash flow. I was also able to get some small scholarships which helped a lot. My parents contributed what they could, which was zero.
I’m glad I was able to do that, but it’s a different world now. The loan burden some students have when they get out of college is just overwhelming. It’s a hell of a way to start out life. I think the long term solution is to reduce tuition to more reasonable levels and give students more grants to help them get an education without taking on a crushing debt.
Short term solution is debt relief for the students of the last decade or so who were screwed by the Republican-dominated educational climate of skyrocketing tuition, lack of job opportunities, and reduction of government grants.
jncc
And the best part of this all is that if you read his bio, you’ll see that he is working on his dissertation now at Georgetown in history or something.
He may have a point. People like him SHOULD be punished. Duke duchebags who turn into law school gunners in hopes of landing a cushy corporate gig at 160K a year and end up with mediocre grades should be buried up to their necks in a pile of debt and should have to suffer for a long, long time.
The only problem is coming up with a way to draw a line between him and decent people who pile up debt.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@Corner Stone:
The conflation of economics and “morality” is endemic to the right. I remember the exact same BS during the subprime crisis: They got mortgages that they didn’t deserve!
Deserve? That’s a moral term. What does “deserve” have to do with anything?
You can either pay off the loan, or you can’t. “Deserve” has nothing to do with it.
trollhattan
Thank goodness we’ve had bankruptcy reform so these moochers can’t wriggle out of their obligations so easily.
Plantsmantx
That’s basically the same bullshit argument they try to use on black people in regard to affirmative action.
flounder
Bain Capital got bailed out by the government. Therefore, Mitt Romney is passive, helpless, and ineffective.
Hey, I like this!
suzanne
@Cromagnon:
Well, let’s see, fuckface.
I had a full academic scholarship to undergrad, completed my BFA in four years, with honors. Got married, got a job in my field, had a baby, and had my husband leave and not pay child support. Decided to go to graduate school (in-state, public university), and graduated with a 3.9 GPA with my MArch, despite being a single mother, working, getting scholarships, AND being diagnosed with epilepsy in the middle of all of that fun.
And in order to make that happen, I needed financial help. And now I have six figures in debt, because neither my father nor my ex-husband felt like they had any responsibility to their children.
So, absolutely, fuck me. I’m OBVIOUSLY the entitled slacker in this scenario.
Rafer Janders
Debt is a moral issue only if you’ve borrowed from a close friend or relative, and they’ve lent you the money based on their personal feelings for you. You have a moral obligation to replay them just as you do for any personal promise you make.
If, however, you’ve borrowed from a bank or other financial institution, then it’s not a moral issue at all, because they did not loan it to you based on personal feelings whatsoever: they made the loan out of business self-interest in order to get a return, and the loan is governed by principles of contract, which anticipate default. Did the bank feel a moral obligation to loan you the money? If not, then you have no moral obligation to repay, you only have an obligation within the terms of the contract.
The problem is that many in our society confuse the first kind of situation with the second.
Cato
I think we’ve had enough bailouts in the past four years to last another 100.
The taxpayer can’t afford to bailout Queer Studies and Dance majors. They knew what they were getting into when they pursued degrees worth zilch on the job market, but took out loans to pay for them anyway.
Not the taxpayer’s problem. Own your mistakes.
Cato
@suzanne:
Sounds like you were a poor judge of moral character when you got married. Sorry.
gaz
@Cato: Crab pot politics fail.
@Cato: Blame the victim fail.
ETA: VICTORY!
jncc
This is a brilliant comment to the Poulos column over at Forbes, if I do say so myself:
noro watanabe 2 minutes ago
You’re absolutely right.
Law school gunners who dream of getting a 160K a year corporate law job but end up getting mediocre grades should suffer under a mountain of debt for a long, long time.
And not just because they are preening doosh implements. No. Because that way every gunner who “succeeds” and lands a job at Skadden working 80 hours a week to insure that their corporate client pays 0.032 percent less in taxes next year will find life so much better, their lattes so much frothier, if they know that there are many failed lawyers out there who just couldn’t make the cut.
So good for you You are providing great comfort to you betters.
Cato
@gaz:
Nobody held a gun to her head and forced her to get married to a deadbeat.
Cato
It’s simple: no more bailouts. Period.
trollhattan
@suzanne:
Preach it, sister! You should borrow Cole’s backup singers from a few threads below for emphasis.
Stuff happens, we react. We’re supposed to get double-punishment when stuff is of the bad variety? Best of luck to you, seems like you’re due for some.
Cato
@trollhattan:
You’re supposed to work out your troubles yourselves instead of going crying to Daddy Government to fix your problems for you.
trollhattan
@Cato:
We’re all sure you’re quite the catch.
Cato
@trollhattan:
Instead of, you know, sticking to the subject, the “progressives” reaches for an ad hominem, as usual.
ericblair
See, peasants have been rising above their stations in life by going to college, so crushing debt is the penance they must bear for this sin. Privilege is for the privileged, and since the peasants are not morally evolved enough to cope with getting free shit from family and society, so must peasants be denied any benefit in life for which they didn’t pay in blood. That’s all I can get out of that crap.
gaz
@Cato: That explains your smashing success with women. LOL
A tip: Caveat Emptor is not a pickup line.
Mino
Is there an “I Will Never Marry a Republican” pact out there? If not, there probably should be.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Cato:
Eat shit.
geg6
@adamchaz:
This. And I’d go further and say that the borrowing limits for Stafford Loans should be increased substantially so that they begin to resemble the reality of tuition and all the rest of a student’s cost of attendance. I don’t want them to have no limits, but a subsidized loan of $10,000 seems reasonable to me. This takes some of the burden off parents (they don’t have to take out a PLUS Loan) and puts it on the students in the form of a government loan instead of the private loans they end up getting when parents can’t or won’t get the PLUS. Private loans are also nondischargeable in bankruptcy. That so much of this debt falls either on the parents, who have other financial burdens, or the students in the form of predatory private loans is a large, if not the overwhelming majority, part of the problem.
Cato
@ericblair:
I don’t think getting an MFA in puppetry is going to allow you to “rise above your station”, unless you think “rising above your station” means working at Starbucks making lattes for the STEM degree holders.
Jay in Oregon
@The Dangerman:
@Corner Stone:
I like it; it’d be like Klout for the Madame Defarge set.
Cato
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
U mad, bro?
Yutsano
@Cato: @Cato: Riiiight. Did you look at the latest Willard numbers and get moody?
You still have never said why we should vote for Willard.
Cato
I am, unlike probably 99% of the people here, 100% debt free with the exception of my mortgage (which will be paid off in a few years).
Cato
So, now you want me not only to pay off my own debt (which I’ve already done for the most part) but steal my tax dollars to pay off YOUR debt, too? No way, losers. Do what I did–pay what you owe.
gaz
@Yutsano: I disagree.
Taco stated very emphatically “UNLIMITED CORPORATE CA$SH!11eleven”
I’m not sure why that makes Willard worthy of the oval office, but hey, whatever.
gorram
@pseudonymous in nc: Random personal question you don’t have to answer – what field is your spouse in?
trollhattan
@Cato:
Setting aside the lack of subject-verb agreement in your post, what did you think the “subject” was?
Jeff Spender
@Cato:
See, this is why your arguments are never taken seriously. You don’t actually make an honest attempt at addressing the actual situation that exists for college students. You use the “Queer studies” and puppetry examples of degrees.
I went to college with the brilliant idea of teaching, so I pursued a degree which would allow me to teach in as wide a field as possible.
Now that teachers are being attacked as the problem with our education system, and are, as one of my teacher friends so eloquently put it, modern-day second-class citizens (when you have to buy your own chalk and then buy resources for the students to use because Joe Six-pack doesn’t feel like funding his child’s education…).
I made the decision to switch careers and go into medicine. Now I’m racking up debt after I had a full-tuition scholarship. It’s never as straightforward as someone like you would like to think.
Simpleton.
PNW Warrior Woman
Freddie….see here:
Cato
@trollhattan:
Student debt. Suzanne’s difficulties seem to stem more from choosing a bad spouse, not student debt.
gaz
@Cato: And why should my tax dollars go to subsidizing your mortgage? (which they do).
Why can’t you be responsible and pay your own way without my hard earned tax dollars? Why should you get rewarded through a tax deduction for not being responsible and paying for your house in cash, like I did?
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
You gotta love how conservative trolls can squat on a thread and spew invective at every other target in site: college students are lazy bums who deserve to starve for being stupid enough to take on debt! liberals love abortion because they love torturing babies! Barack Obummer is a Muslim terrorist! -and then when someone tosses an insult back it’s suddenly: you liberals always resort to ad hominem! you only have insults and can’t refute my strong fact based argument that all liberals want to destroy America because they’ve been brainwashed into irrational hatred of their betters!
Fuckers can pivot on a dime. Which is probably how much Cato makes per post.
Cato
@Jeff Spender:
A “wide a field as possible”? You should have focused in math or science. Especially math. That’s what’s in demand.
We have enough language arts and social studies teachers (usually slackers who couldn’t hack it in a more demanding undergraduate subject) as it is.
Yutsano
@Jeff Spender: Cato is not arguing in good faith. But trolls never do. He just wants reactions to prove his Kool Kidz cred with his fellow selfish conservatives. He can’t even answer a simple question about his own candidate. I don’t think he’s all that into Willard to be honest.
Cato
@gaz:
I’d be for eliminating the mortgage deduction, but as long as its there I’m taking full advantage of it.
However I never fell into the hype about the housing bubble and wasn’t so stupid as to take out home equity loans to buy cadillacs and install and in-ground pool or whatever, so unlike a lot of homeowners I’m not whining for a bailout.
Cato
I also didn’t take out the maximum possible loan I was qualified for when I bought my home.
It’s called personal responsibility, self-discipline, delayed gratification, and hard work. Liberals should try those things sometime.
Jeff Spender
@Cato:
See, now it’s funny how, when you make something general and vague, I can get you to respond somehow.
I did do studies in math and science. As well as studies in social studies and humanities. I split them fairly evenly. I can talk all about the symbolism of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick” and carry on an intelligent discussion of microbiology or quantum mechanics.
I’d be employable as a teacher or a part-time instructor at a college in a heartbeat.
But do you think, given the current animosity amongst the policy elite to teachers and educators, that this would be a good long-term plan?
Hell no.
Stuff it, asshole.
Cato
@Jeff Spender:
Then why did you choose it to begin with?
Teachers get nine weeks off every year and can get tenure, along with pensions. I don’t want to hear any whining from them. They have way more job security than those of us in the private sector.
Yutsano
@Cato: You also realize if it offends your sense of morality so much you don’t HAVE to take the mortgage interest deduction. But then you’ll have to cope with the fact that you’re underwithholding on your paychecks. And then you get to deal with people like me. So you are a moocher on welfare.
Cato
@Yutsano:
Given all the wasteful things my taxes go to, I want to get as much back as possible.
suzanne
@trollhattan: Thanks. Life is better now—ex-husband has since pulled his head out of his ass somewhat and is contributing financially and emotionally to our kid. Have married a great dude (also with poor parents and lots of student debt), and both of us have jobs in our fields (neither of us were Queer Studies or Dance majors-hah). My father is still a millionaire and allowed my mother to be borderline homeless rather than contribute to my upbringing in any way, ever.
I reject this bullshit that only the children of the rich get the lives they want to lead, or that screwing up once means that you suffer forever. Not to mention this sexist idea that I am to blame for my ex-husband’s failings because I should have anticipated that he would bail on his kid (I don’t know on what evidence I was supposed to predict that that would happen).
By that logic, banks should go under because they should have guessed that people couldn’t pay them back, and therefore they deserve it.
Logic, it’s a double-edged sword.
Yutsano
@Cato: As usual, you didn’t respond to my point. You admit mortgage interest deduction is just fine welfare for you. Poor mooching Cato.
gaz
@Cato: So, you’re not taking a principled stand when you had the choice to do so? At least I know where you are coming from.
Do you think it’s better that some people take an MFA on subsidy if it means people can also get STEM degrees on subsidy?
Do you think it’s worthwhile to eliminate higher education for anyone that can’t afford it early in life so that you can throw those lazy humanities majors off of the dole?
Or would you like to be master arbitrator of “worthy degrees”? Who gets to decide? And if you get to decide, do I get to decide which wars my tax dollars are spent on? Or which mortgages I think are worthwhile (bye bye california wildfire building, floodplain building, and tornado alley building)…
Have you ever noticed that people with unrelated degrees are often hired before people with no degrees, all things considered equal? Have you ever stopped and thought for a brief moment that there just might be more to a college degree than just a subject of study (for better or worse?). That people hire college graduates largely because it speaks to having achieved a certain “station” in life? Did you go to college? I ask because you sound like someone that has never been – we can smell our own.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Cato: Yes, I am mad that the people who cratered the economy got a few trillion bucks worth of 0% loans, but now the interest on my student loans is about to be raised because we just can’t come up with any money even though the government already makes a profit on student loans. I’d be a fucking moron if that didn’t piss me off. Are you saying I shouldn’t be pissed that my broke ass is about to eat a stealth tax increase in the form of extra interest charges when the people who fucked the economy are paying 20% or less on their multi-million income?
Yeah, keep shitting all over the young. We won’t forget.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
Excellent name!
I want a small cut of the award (just so I can tell Sullivan to go fuck himself).
Jeff Spender
@Cato:
I’m going to be honest, I was a first generation college student. I didn’t really have any guidance, nor did I know, ultimately, what I wanted to do. I went in with a plan that was great in 2006, but didn’t work out so well once 2010 rolled around. It was too late to change, because I was almost done with my studies.
And you really are clueless about this entire situation, aren’t you? You seem to be laboring under false assumptions about teachers and tenure.
One of the best professors I’ve ever had is really close to being fired because the college added another layer of bureaucracy and the students get to rate the performance of the professor. This actually goes into decisions about whether or not to retain the professor for the next academic year. When you have a professor that is hard on students and expects a great deal from them by…you know…actually making them to their work–man, you’re ass is probably going to get fired.
Cato
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
The Tea Party is against TARP, too. But unlike you, conservatives don’t have the “bailouts for me, but not for thee” mindset.
gaz
@Cato: Except for your mortgage deduction, (which you don’t agree with but take anyway) because it’s you know, different. Because it applies to you, and not some DFH socialist, amirite?
Cato
@Jeff Spender:
Not the taxpayer’s problem. Sorry.
Cato
@gaz:
Not a bailout.
Cato
And there’s also a big difference morally and financially between a tax deduction and direct payments/bailouts for bad behavior.
gaz
@Cato: It is a bailout. You’re getting a nice healthy tax break, coming out of my pocket. You don’t have to take it, but you do.
I’m cutting you a break on your mortgage. I’m wondering if you could pay your bills without all of the breaks I’m cutting you. If you have children, chances are I’m bailing you out with EIC as well, which I can’t claim – either. I was responsible, and chose not to have children I couldn’t afford. ETA: Hell I’m bailing out your Not-Obama front runner as well, considering his effective tax rate.
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
That’s hilarious, the “with the exception of my mortgage” qualification. I’m debt free except for my debt! I For which I also suck off the taxpayers’ teat by taking a mortgage interest deduction!
Cato
@gaz:
LOL, I doubt you pay any signifigant amount of income taxes.
gaz
@Rafer Janders: buh buh buh, that’s different! because STFU! that’s why
/Taco
Jeff Spender
@Cato:
I really expected you to be that short-sighted about this problem.
It’s not a surprise, given that your arguments reduce this debate to students with “queer studies” and “puppetry” degrees, and that you can’t seem to connect one problem with the economy to another problem with the economy.
Ultimately, we’re all interdependent on each other, no matter what you want to think about how independent you are. We have a massive problem with college tuition costs and student loan debt. Even if you get a science degree, it’s no longer any guarantee of a job, and anyone who has gone through a four-year degree program learns this very quickly.
It is, in the end, the taxpayer’s problem. It’s a shame you can’t see it for what it is now before it becomes so much worse.
gaz
@Cato: Actually since I own a business, I do.
ETA: also, having made over 6 figs w2 at points passed, I’ve cut you quite the check. I’m happy to continue, because even your irresponsibility can’t make a ding in the ROI I get on these breaks I’m handing out.
suzanne
@Cato:
Um, why isn’t it the taxpayer’s problem? We as voters decided that we wanted to extend loans to college students, knowing the risk that that entails, and we elected representatives who voted to do just that. We as fellow citizens enjoy the benefits that their higher salaries and greater skills bring to us all (including THEIR greater contributions in their own taxes, since college graduates make more money than non-graduates, on average). And we as voters can also decide that we want to extend relief, by pressuring our duly elected representatives to do so.
You have GOT to be fucking kidding me. Calling going to college “bad behavior”?
Go on, arrest me, I dared to leave the house while not-rich.
I’m going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that Cato is white, grew up middle-class (at least), male, and not disabled.
trollhattan
@Rafer Janders:
I’m guessing the postbot wants to revive the F22 program (to fight the air wars of the twenty-second century!) also, too, and pay for it by selling welfare babies into white slavery or somesuch. Then, let’s get rid of all those pesky commie tobacco taxes and begin shortening lifespans. That will take care of any Social Security shortfalls.
Rafer Janders
You know who’s never, not any moment in time for even one second, debt-free? Pretty much every business in America. Almost every single corporation, partnership, limited liability company, etc. continually takes out short and long-term term or revolver loans to cover payroll, expansion, expenditures, etc. They all rely on debt to smooth out income flow and so they can engage in long-term planning. If they had to rely only on incoming cash at any moment, they’d never be able to make it, and most would go under in a week.
Goldman, Morgan, JPMChase, BOA, Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, American, United, IBM, GE, Cravath, Paul Weiss, Exxon, AT&T, Johnson and Johnson, Verizon, Time-Warner, etc. etc. all carry, collectively, hundreds and hundreds of billions in bank loans every year.
Somehow, though, for them debt is never a moral issue.
Cato
@suzanne:
Taking out loans for something you can’t afford is irresponsible, bad behavior.
Blah blah blah, race card, blah blah blah, ad hominem blah blah.
Cato
@suzanne:
You took a bet when you took out those student loans. You took a risk. YOU LOST. IT’S OVER. MOVE ON.
gaz
@Cato:
Nobody is arguing that. That statement is not the problem. Your prescribed solution seems to be FUCK EVERYONE THAT WANTS TO GO TO COLLEGE AND DOESN’T HAVE RICH PARENTS.
That’s the problem.
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
Um, no, there’s not. If there’s one thing I learned from McMegan, it’s that money is fungible! I let you keep $10 you’d otherwise owe me, or I give you $10 — the end result is exactly the same, an extra $10 in your pocket and not in mine.
trollhattan
@suzanne:
Everybody needs a private investigator on retainer and all potential spouses must have a five-year history on Facebook to plumb. There, problem solved!
Of course my spouse should have checked me out better, but that’s her fault, not mine!
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
Like your mortgage?
Cato
@Rafer Janders:
I could afford this mortgage. Never missed a payment. Not once.
gaz
@Cato: I could afford this mortgage. Never missed a TAX DEDUCTIBLE payment. Not once.
FTFY
Cato
Of course taking out the mortgage was a bet. A risk. A bet I won.
You lost your student loan bet. Life sucks. Wear a helmet.
suzanne
@gaz: The thing with student debt is that, at the time you take it out, NO ONE can pay it back. If you COULD pay it back, you wouldn’t take it at all. Which brings us back to the fact that if you don’t have someone else to pay your way, then you’re fucked.
I know my ancestors moved to this country because they wanted to live somewhere where everyone, regardless of economic class, could lead the lives they wanted. Cato should move somewhere where they still have kings.
I totally pegged the rich white dude. It’s amazing how not-hard it was.
slag
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
The corollary to this is how they equate pay with “dignity”. It’s not enough to be a productive member of society, you have to get paid to do it or you are undignified. In fact, I would not hesitate to suggest that you don’t even have to be a productive member of society to have Republican “dignity”–you just need money.
As a whole, Republicans are a morally and intellectually impoverished lot.
Cato
@suzanne:
rich
LOL, my Dad was an electrician and my mom stayed at home. Hardly lifestyles of the rich and famous.
gaz
@suzanne: “Which brings us back to the fact that if you don’t have someone else to pay your way, then you’re fucked”
Precisely.
“I know my ancestors moved to this country because they wanted to live somewhere where everyone, regardless of economic class, could lead the lives they wanted. Cato should move somewhere where they still have kings”
Yep.
“I totally pegged the rich white dude. It’s amazing how not-hard it was.”
Or a poor white guy that plays the lottery. Just sayin’
Cato
Yup. You’re taking a bet that the future earnings you will get from your degree will enable you to pay it back. You may lose. Sounds like you lost. That’s life.
suzanne
@trollhattan: Once again, by that logic, the student loan crisis is TOTALLY the taxpayers’ problem. Before lending, they should have checked me out better. ;) Oh well. :)
One can tell that Cato never took a college course in logic.
suzanne
@trollhattan: Once again, by that logic, the student loan crisis is TOTALLY the taxpayers’ problem. Before lending, they should have checked me out better. ;) Oh well. :)
One can tell that Cato never took a college course in logic.
trollhattan
@suzanne:
Methinks not rich, but rather lower middle class wannabe rich. The genius of the Republican Party is convincing millions of this cohort to vote Republican in direct conflict with their own self-interest. Luntz earns his nickels, that’s for sure.
Rich people don’t troll poliblogs.
Cato
@suzanne:
No one held a gun to your head and said “you must take this loan”. It was YOUR CHOICE. You took a bet. YOU…LOST.
gaz
@trollhattan: Unless they are Glenn Greenwald
Cato
And we’re back into attacking the person who made the argument, instead of the argument itself. Classic “progressivism. Talk about the person’s skin color instead of their argument.
Rafer Janders
Hmmm, here’s something that happened yesterday:
Elsewhere in credit markets, Molson Coors Brewing Co. issued $1.9 billion of bonds to help pay for its intended acquisition of StarBev LP of Prague.
That’s just irresponsible, bad behavior by Molson. If they didn’t have $1.9 billion of cash on hand to buy StarBev, they shouldn’t do it! Never mind that the very basis of capitalism depends on market participants being able to use leverage in order to invest and increase the size of the economic pie for everyone.
Cato
@Rafer Janders:
Rafer, Molson-Coors is making a bet by taking out that loan. They expect their future earnings will be able to pay it back. If they can’t, they’re fucked, made a bad decision, and will pay for it in the market.
suzanne
@trollhattan: Yes. Typically by convincing the lower-middle class wannabe rich that it it’s the poor taking their money, while paying to attention to the millionaires behind the curtain. The ultimate logic fail.
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
No, you couldn’t afford the house. But nice effort to try to subtly shift the terms of debate.
You did not have enough money to pay for the house out of your own pocket. So you went cap in hand to a bank to borrow the money. You took out loans to buy something — the house — which you couldn’t otherwise afford. That’s just irresponsible, bad behavior.
trollhattan
@gaz:
So unusual to see a thread win this far down the list.
“Oh Smithson, keyboard rag, please.”
Cato
And if you want a country where people can rise, you’re also going to get a country with a chance of failure. Because it takes risk to rise.
There will be failures and successes in a market economy. Sounds like you’re the former. Sucks to be you.
suzanne
@Cato:
Why should children of rich people get what they want as a sure thing, but I have to gamble?
Cato
@Rafer Janders:
It wasn’t irresponsible because it turns out I was able to afford the mortgage. I made a bet based on my financial situation. I WON.
gaz
@trollhattan: glad to be of service ;)
I get a nice kickback from the keyboard cleaning product industry.
trollhattan
@suzanne:
ITT no offer this fancypants thing called “logic.” But evidently, it hands out sacksfull of logical fallacy for free.
slag
Sounds like somebody would be better off living by his wits in Somalia. If only we could make the dream a reality.
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
Wait, so it’s irresponsible, bad behavior to take out a loan for something they can’t ‘otherwise afford, or it’s a calculated investment made by rationally balancing anticipated future costs and benefits? Because depending on the moment, you seem to be arguing both at once.
And, in fact, if they can’t pay for it in future, they’ll probably just eventually refi the loan on slightly different terms, depending on where the credit markets stand in a few years. No one will regard it as a moral matter, it will be assessed purely on a business basis.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
It’s fairly obvious we don’t actually have a market economy, or spectacular fuckups like Rmoney, Donald Trump, and Carly Fiorana, not to mention all the “too big to fail” banksters, would be living under overpasses eating rats.
Cato
I fail to see how inheriting money is any different than inheriting good looks, intelligence, or musical talent.
gaz
@Cato: So why must I subsidize it?
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
A mortgage is nothing more than a loan. You borrowed money for something you couldn’t afford, which you yourself said is irresponsible, bad behavior.
Now that it’s pointed out that you did the same thing, you’re trying to argue that taking out a loan isn’t irresponsible if you can afford it to pay it back — but that’s circular reasoning. You’re arguing that an action taken in the past wasn’t irresponsible because it didn’t turn out badly in the future. That’s like saying “I wasn’t irresponsible to drive drunk because it turns out I was able to drive safely home. I made a bet based on my drunk driving ability.”
Most everyone who takes out a loan anticipates they’ll be able to pay it back. But since we don’t have 100% foresight into the future, we can never really know. It “turns out” that your “bet” paid off — but that’s just luck. Had circumstances changed, you might not have been able to.
suzanne
@Cato: That’s not an answer to the question. Why do you find it morally/ethically acceptable for the children of the rich to have the lives they want without any risk whatsoever, but everyone else has to gamble? That’s really the world you want to live in? You think that’s the best that we as a society can do?
gaz
@Rafer Janders: It’s more than that. Paying back a loan is one thing – but I PAY his loan too through Mortgage interest deduction – something he said himself HE DOESN’T THINK I SHOULD HAVE TO DO. And yet he’s happy to engage in the behavior anyway. He’s got his cap out to me, which is fine in his book. Actually it’s not (he doesn’t think it’s right), but he’s happy to do it anyway.
Rafer Janders
I’ve figured out what the problem is: Cato just doesn’t believe in capitalism. To work, any capitalist system needs to have functioning credit markets to allow market participants to invest in the future by borrowing money in the present. But Cato doesn’t think people should borrow (well, people other than Cato, that is — when it begs banks for money that’s somehow OK) or that banks should lend.
Rafer Janders
@Cato:
I
You’re also continuously conflating “affording the house” with “affording the mortgage.”
Your broke ass could not in fact afford the house — that’s why you had to take out the mortgage. You borrowed money to buy something that you didn’t have the money for at the time.
Clime Acts
Cato is DougJ or Cole.
Cato
@gaz:
Federal student loans are tax deductible in the same way mortgages are.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cato:
You fail to see a lot of things, maggot.
pseudonymous in nc
Obvious troll remains obvious.
Is Biggus Dickus still pretending to be a rugged onterpernoor who pays himself six figures a year?
Svensker
@Cato:
You know, I am so impressed with you. You seem like such a stand up dude. Really. Always on top of everything, never make mistakes, always the keen eye to avoid bad luck or unforeseen problems. Seriously, you should run for Prez or for Jesus or something. You are, like, the perfect human.
A little work on people skills wouldn’t come amiss, however.
PurpleGirl
@Cato: My father was an electrician and my mom stayed home. I know what he made and in the late 1960s and early 1970s he could pay my way through college and I didn’t to take out loans for that. Maybe they weren’t rich but I’d say they and you were comfortable.
Svensker
@PurpleGirl:
In those days, NO ONE took out loans for college. You didn’t need to, college was affordable. Maybe you and your parents could come up with part of the tuition, you worked a summer job and MAYBE a small part-time job during school and that was it. No one I knew back in those days worried about paying for college or thought of ending up with horrible debt.
There were some rich kids I knew who went to fancy private colleges and we all thought “wow, how expensive!” but the state schools were very good and very affordable.
RalfW
This enrages me. Couple months ago Doug Mataconis took this line over at OTB, too.
What is it with these twits? Going to college is sold left, right and center as the pathway to the American dream. So people do their damnedest to live up to the dream and then get shit on by these arrogant pricks.
Makes me wish a pox of non-cancellable debt upon both their houses.
PurpleGirl
@Svensker: No, lots of people took out loans for college in those days. Lots of my friends did. The loans just weren’t as large as they are now. Also, salaries weren’t as large they became for some fields later. My first job out of college (as a mathematics typist at NYU) paid $9,000 a year.
PIGL
@Cato: Cole, just ban this motherfucker allready, will you, please? He’s very distracting, and people who should know better keep feeding the poisonous little tick.
Joe Bohemouth
@Cromagnon: Your story is a great basis for making national policy.
JoeShabadoo
@Cromagnon:
So how how come adults who are of drinking age, went to school and presumably should be smart enough to handle finances can rack up far more that 100k in debt and then declare bankruptcy to get out of it? All of them. We have bankruptcy and things like it because excessive debt is immoral and hurts society.
Someone who is 18 makes a decision to accept a loan to go to school like he has been told to his whole life and he is buried in debt he cannot escape.
The true problem with student loan debt is that it is treated differently from all other kinds of debt because people are not allowed to bankrupt out of it. Instead they get their wages garnished, can’t buy health insurance and are continually kept down.
worn
@Cato: Oh Cato, you are such a honey pot!
Ruckus
@Lizzy L:
Isn’t the question why the hell does it cost 100K or more to get a BA/MA? And why do we have for profit student loans in the first place? An educated public gives the republic a strong middle class and allows those over privileged assholes to remain exactly that. But we can’t have that otherwise the over privileged wouldn’t have enough of their inferiors to look down upon.
Corner Stone
@Ruckus: Why is there a for profit public university mentality in the first place?
Corner Stone
I’m just tired of all this bullshit. For years I have been yelling here, and other places, that we treat banks like utilities. They hold dollars, pay APR at X and loan money to solid risk at X + Y%.
Easy peasy.
There’s no reason to make a gazillion dollars for shareholders. Or leverage 30 to 1.
Ruckus
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
Had a great uncle who made good money in real estate. Told my dad when dad opened his business that one should never risk their own money. Find investors and/or borrow but never risk your own money. The concept was that if the biz didn’t work and you had a pile of debt, declare bankruptcy and start over. Wait, hasn’t one of our conservative presidential hopefuls(dropped out now, Donald) done this on more than one occasion? No fucking shame in that, it’s just business.
TheYankeeApologist
Seriously, people. It’s one thing to argue with someone who is arguing back in good faith. Cato is either DougJ or an unbelievable asshole. Quit feeding the troll and maybe he’ll fuck off to FDL where he belongs.
AA+ Bonds
This is easily one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever read
it’s like an article saying that he can’t call the cops on his abusive spouse because then he would be MARRIED TO THE COPS
AA+ Bonds
Student debt is real in the sense that it is exploitation
It can easily be made not real through genuine resistance
Just sayin: rise up and burn down the Capitol, hang all bankers, etc. you know the drill
AA+ Bonds
I do not know if liberals are really equipped to do the law-breaking necessary to deal with this problem
At least understand that the capitalists’ law is not the law of the people
AA+ Bonds
Breaking the law is no law-breaking at all in pursuit of equality; the trick will be to set up the correct redistributive mechanism to apply once the banks have been properly robbed
The exact problem here is that the ruling class is not properly terrified of social instability stemming from those in debt