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Elizabeth Warren 2020


Hugo Stiglitz

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I’d suggest that dad go take out a fuck ton of student loans and use it to pay for everyday shit like a car note, rent/mortgage, maybe even a cruise.  If warren gets elected it’s all free!!!!!!!!

Hell maybe i can do that and use the funds to lease an apartment or two and then sublease for cash.   

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2 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

I’d suggest that dad go take out a fuck ton of student loans and use it to pay for everyday shit like a car note, rent/mortgage, maybe even a cruise.  If warren gets elected it’s all free!!!!!!!!

Hell maybe i can do that and use the funds to lease an apartment or two and then sublease for cash.   

REEEE everything, wages, tuition, healthcare costs, EVERYTHING is the same as it was as it has always been regardless of data!

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Beyond the policy debate, that guy obviously wasn't there in good faith. He was looking to pick a fight and make a scene. I appreciate Warren's blunt rejection.

As for the policy debate, "The people who did the right thing get screwed!" is essentially yelling "I have no understanding of current economic reality! Also I don't know what the expression 'get screwed' means!"
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There is no actual window of opportunity for the kind of abuse the right-wingers are concern trolling about.

If Warren's plan is to forgive all debt by executive action, there is a 3 month window from her election to inauguration where the MoRaL hAzArD is in effect.

Enchubben seems to think you can just go to a bank and say, "$4 million in student loans, please!" Which... as I said, conservatives are stupid or maybe just dishonest.

I asked Anastasis if there is a 3-month program someone could jump into to get that sweet loan money to fund, but it's Anastasis. He doesn't answer direct questions and deal with straightforward ideas. He whines and tries to hide his lack of substance behind sarcasm.

If Warren's plan is to push it as legislation bundling loan forgiveness and tuition-free school as a package, there is no window at all for the mOrAl HaZaRd to be in effect.

It's a bullshit argument for morons, and it's not even the argument that embarrassing, overemotional dad was making. His was just the openly pathetic need for validation and praise.

If it's a larger argument that any possibility of debt forgiveness is an unacceptable moral hazard then we are into pure libertarian insanity.

Meanwhile, student debt forgiveness is an economic stimulus. That money is going to go immediately back into the economy.

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1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:

There is no actual window of opportunity for the kind of abuse the right-wingers are concern trolling about.

...

I asked Anastasis if there is a 3-month program someone could jump into to get that sweet loan money to fund, but it's Anastasis. He doesn't answer direct questions and deal with straightforward ideas. He whines and tries to hide his lack of substance behind sarcasm.

If Warren's plan is to push it as legislation bundling loan forgiveness and tuition-free school as a package, there is no window at all for the mOrAl HaZaRd to be in effect.

Unexpectedly, you take the argument of another and constrain it in such a way that you create a straw man which you can then deftly strike rhetorical blow after blow against.

 

You interjected this notion that the potential for moral hazard is limited to a three month window between election day and inauguration.  That's just not the case, and I provided with you an example of how the apparent political inevitability of student loan forgiveness is already being used, right now, in the marketing materials for private student loan lenders. That's playing out today, not your arbitrary three month window constraint.  And further, as I stated, student loans will be an ongoing issue for some time, even under a Warren presidency where she gets to wave her magic policy wand. Again making the implications of a one time student loan forgiveness program relevant to behaviors of future lenders and borrowers, far beyond your 90 day straw man constraint.

 

 

8 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

The economic argument for forgiveness is strong.

 

6 hours ago, gmr548 said:

You genuinely don't see a difference there?

I agree that there is a reasonable economic argument.  Just like there was a reasonable economic argument for the bank bailouts.  Of course the two are different.  They also have a fundamental similarity in that the government is backstopping risk taking, which creates distortions in decision making related to risk taking behaviors moving forward.

We have a serious problem with the out of control costs of higher education. I don't think anybody disagrees with that.  I think that a debate about how we address that problem benefits when voices like Warren's and Sanders' are engaged.  Doesn't mean I have to ignore the potential problems with their policy proposals.  

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8 hours ago, washparkhorn said:

Ana - with QE4 underway, we have to face the fact we are not inflating. The economy is slowing. And deflation only leads to horrible outcomes. Rather than pumping trillions into the world's top .01% like we did in 2008, it makes much more sense to try and reinvigorate the bottom 99%. 

In a world where the only two choices at hand are 1) give trillions of dollars to banks and billionaires and 2) give trillions of dollars to everyone else are the only two options, I would choose 2. 

I don't think that we are in the position that those are our only two choices. 

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The stretch you are trying to make from the Sofi ad copy is absurd. It doesn't say what you are wanting it to and you have zero evidence it is causing what you are arguing it will cause.

Are people getting student loans on the assumption that the debt will be cancelled? (Add this to the tome of questions Anastasis won't answer.)

A candidate's proposal is not an "inevitability", apparent or realized.

BUT A LOAN COMPANY MADE AN ADVERTISEMENT!!!!!!!

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5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

In a world where the only two choices at hand are 1) give trillions of dollars to banks and billionaires and 2) give trillions of dollars to everyone else are the only two options, I would choose 2. 

I don't think that we are in the position that those are our only two choices. 

Lol.

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2 hours ago, bad_teammate said:

Enchubben seems to think you can just go to a bank and say, "$4 million in student loans, please!" Which... as I said, conservatives are stupid or maybe just dishonest.
 

Bro I can get a private student loan in about 30 minutes online that would cover the entire first year of an MBA program, living expenses included, without even being enrolled.  Nice $4M straw man though.

The point was doing this encourages stupid decisions and bad behavior. What happens 4 years from now when people continue making bad decisions and education costs rise because of the possibility of doing this again?  What if we then decide auto debt is too high and is slowing the economy? Maybe pay that too. What about rent? Throw it in!!! Everything is free!!!!

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We bail out everyone except the students but everyone else gets a pass? I don't get it. (Not trolling, I try very hard not to do that).

The auto guys, the Goldman guys, even the farmers who produce more than can be sold can make bad decisions or get into such financial straits as to be assisted but not young people? We the people promised some young people that if they teach for awhile then we would forgive some of the debt and then made it hard to do so through onerous and faulty paperwork requirements. Private commercial universities targeted populations and sold them a bill of goods by giving them misleading occupational outlook data. We deregulate tuition so that universities can pay faculty, watch tuition climb but at the same time grow the administration to faculty ratio to near 1:1 (it's pretty close at several large state universities). In the meantime, as enrollments increase, the fed gives developers incentives and tax cuts to build luxury housing near campuses, forcing lower income students to travel further to campus. The state cuts its portion of funding dollars to universities and in the meantime, the population of the US has grown from 250.1 million (perhaps the time this Dad above was in college) to the current 327.2 million.

I'm certain that there are people making bad decisions with respect to their career choices, but a reset and policy change going forward is a topic worthy of discussion.

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1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

I thought Warren's plan includes some rebate for prior loans paid off?

It’s a basic question that could be foreseen from 1000 miles away. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s dumb, but it’s an obvious ask for millions. Her response?

”Of Course Not”.

They deserve better 

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8 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Lots of fight left in this team. 

1) This is good. This is how to win.

2) Less-than-stellar fundraising + the burn rate to have such a huge staff... yikes. She's definitely leaving it all on the field. A grifter wouldn't burn it all out and would save it for future endeavors. Liz ain't grifting.

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5 minutes ago, ChickenSandwich said:

It’s a basic question that could be foreseen from 1000 miles away. Doesn’t matter if you think it’s dumb, but it’s an obvious ask for millions. Her response?

”Of Course Not”.

They deserve better 

So you're not only in favor of forgiving all student loan debt, but retroactively paying people for all money spent paying off their historical student loans?

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8 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

So you're not only in favor of forgiving all student loan debt, but retroactively paying people for all money spent paying off their historical student loans?

I’m interested in the details and how it would all work. My interest doesn’t change the fact she should have a better prepared response to such an obvious retort. 

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Just now, bad_teammate said:

This is why politicians say, "It's time for a national conversation about <X>" so you can say something without saying anything.

I would respect the guy if he wasn't crying like a stupid, red-faced baby boy who wanted mommy to kiss his forehead.

We should have a national conversation about curing AIDS. On the one hand, AIDS would be cured and nobody would ever get it in the future. On the other hand, think of the moral hazard! All that fucking people would be doing that they're not doing now because they're scared of AIDS! I'm not saying it wouldn't be worth doing, but we really need to slow down and have a long national conversation about it.

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1 hour ago, bad_teammate said:
1 hour ago, Enchubben said:
I don’t think she’s going to win the nomination.

If she or Bernie does, will you do it then?

Maybe; I guess I would need to feel comfortable she would actually get something passed and have a good feel for how much I would get reimbursed. As of now I'm only in the partial reimbursement wage category so I couldn't take out the full $50K. Maybe I could do a quick divorce and my wife could take the full 50 and me the partial amount?   In that respect, I should probably hope for Bernie to win so there is no wage limitation on the handout.

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Just now, Enchubben said:

Maybe; I guess I would need to feel comfortable she would actually get something passed and have a good feel for how much I would get reimbursed. As of now I'm only in the partial reimbursement wage category so I couldn't take out the full $50K. Maybe I could do a quick divorce and my wife could take the full 50 and me the partial amount?   In that respect, I should probably hope for Bernie to win so there is no wage limitation on the handout.

So it's not really a very clear moral hazard at all, is it?

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18 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

"Should we cure polio?"

"Of course not, that's unfair to everyone who has suffered from polio!" 

I see a lot of these analogies floating around; and while funny, they don't seem any more absurd than the example provided by the father in the twitter video.  Person A is irresponsible and is forgiven.  Person B is responsible, and foots the bill for Person A. Nobody voluntarily selected to have Polio; people voluntarily took out student loans or chose their degree/career path. 

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1 minute ago, Enchubben said:

I see a lot of these analogies floating around; and while funny, they don't seem any more absurd than the example provided by the father in the twitter video.  Person A is irresponsible and is forgiven.  Person B is responsible, and foots the bill for Person A. Nobody voluntarily selected to have Polio; people voluntarily took out student loans or chose their degree/career path. 

You see it as "voluntary," we see it as "were systematically pressured to do so."  People of limited means don't go to college because they're irresponsible, they go to college because they understand that college is a necessary prerequisite for social and financial advancement. The only people who go to college to fuck off are privileged children.

Next step is where we get into an argument about how they were still irresponsible because at 17 they didn't do a perfect cost/benefit analysis of what going to college for a liberal arts degree would actually be worth or whatever, so I'm going to go ahead and skip that by saying that it's stupid to put that onus on 17-year-olds and a system that punishes people with literally decades of debt for wanting to actually learn is evil.

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10 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

I see a lot of these analogies floating around; and while funny, they don't seem any more absurd than the example provided by the father in the twitter video.  Person A is irresponsible and is forgiven.  Person B is responsible, and foots the bill for Person A. Nobody voluntarily selected to have Polio; people voluntarily took out student loans or chose their degree/career path. 

God damn, have you like maybe paid attention at all to the insane cost of tuition and living in this country in the past 10-20 years? It's not an option if you want to earn enough to afford to purchase any kind of permanent decent (i.e. not in need of serious repair) housing without having to live way in the suburbs or exurbs.

I'm sure your next reply will be "go to a trade school! the world needs skilled trade workers!" in which case, sure, yeah, I'll be down with that when we completely rollback the past 30-40 years of deregulation and active harm done to unions in this country. When we let these skilled workers actually have 50% representation on a company's board, when we federally mandate PAID FMLA/maternity/paternity leave, when we do so so much to protect these peoples' jobs so that they can try to earn a living without taking on massive debt in the hopes that they will get paid a higher salary.

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13 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You see it as "voluntary," we see it as "were systematically pressured to do so."  People of limited means don't go to college because they're irresponsible, they go to college because they understand that college is a necessary prerequisite for social and financial advancement. The only people who go to college to fuck off are privileged children.

Next step is where we get into an argument about how they were still irresponsible because at 17 they didn't do a perfect cost/benefit analysis of what going to college for a liberal arts degree would actually be worth or whatever, so I'm going to go ahead and skip that by saying that it's stupid to put that onus on 17-year-olds and a system that punishes people with literally decades of debt for wanting to actually learn is evil.

Where the irresponsibility lies is with parents with college educations that could have saved for college, but didn't, and foist the burden onto their children and fail to provide guidance as to the costs and benefits of college, major, and tuition/living expenses.

That's neither here nor there in the debate.

But a student loan forgiveness that isn't coupled with free state college (that's going to be a tough one to pull off) or some massive restructuring of tuition and student loans, does create a moral hazard.

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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Where the irresponsibility lies is with parents with college educations that could have saved for college, but didn't, and foist the burden onto their children and fail to provide guidance as to the costs and benefits of college, major, and tuition/living expenses.

That's neither here nor there in the debate.

But a student loan forgiveness that isn't coupled with free state college (that's going to be a tough one to pull off) or some massive restructuring of tuition and student loans, does create a moral hazard.

Sure, and I'd love to see it coupled with free state college, but even if it can't be done the hazard presented would be much less horrible than the current system. Hence my quip about curing AIDS. Concern about creating moral hazard is certainly valid in a vacuum, but it only ever actually seems to become part of the discussion for issues where the benefit of a proposed action is so fucking enormous and obviously outweighs the hazard that is allegedly the concern.

The public at large should be financially responsible for educating our children. It's the most obvious fucking investment in the country's future. Some students will end up taking advantage of such a system to fuck around and earn eight different graduate degrees and may never "repay" the full quantifiable value of those degrees to society. We might call them "irresponsible." But so what? Is that hazard worse than the current system that crushes tens of millions of people under decades of substantial debt burdens? I think the overwhelming majority of people would say it's very obviously not.  And that's without even getting into a discussion about the non-quantifiable value of the eight graduate degrees that society might still benefit from.

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The irresponsibility lies with the various factions that allowed for education costs to exponentially balloon far beyond the measure that most middle-class parents could reasonably be prepared to shell out, especially given the huge increases in the price of housing and stagnant wages over the past few decades.

Why does "being responsible" always fall on average people and never the government, corporations, the very wealthy, etc.

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Honestly free college and student loan forgiveness is so Pie-in-the Sky it is not even worth discussing because it will never happen in our lifetime. 

We should start with something more feasible like: 1) increasing Pell grant amounts and 2) offering free/discounted 2-year community college. Those two things together would be a big step in the right direction in terms of alleviating some of the increased cost of higher education.  

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5 minutes ago, bonnieblue said:

The irresponsibility lies with the various factions that allowed for education costs to exponentially balloon far beyond the measure that most middle-class parents could reasonably be prepared to shell out, especially given the huge increases in the price of housing and stagnant wages over the past few decades.

Why does "being responsible" always fall on average people and never the government, corporations, the very wealthy, etc.

If you take a look, you find two things seemed to drive tuition upward.  One was deregulation of tuition at state schools, which was usually coupled with a reduction in state support.  Most state schools, including UT, had been lobbying their legislatures for tuition deregulation for years.

Public school tuition began to rise, then private schools had to be less competitive, student loans took up the slack.  It's a vicious cycle.

So yes, there's plenty of irresponsibility to go around.

My post was simply in response to the notion that 17-year olds were irresponsible.  Of course they are, but that's where parents have to take over.

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Just now, TwiceHorn said:

My post was simply in response to the notion that 17-year olds were irresponsible.  Of course they are, but that's where parents have to take over.

It's possible parents, who grew up when college was a hell of a lot more affordable or perhaps didn't go to college at all, may not be the most responsible either. At any rate bandaid fixes aren't going to stem the tide unless we start pushing for drastic change.

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2 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

It's possible parents, who grew up when college was a hell of a lot more affordable or perhaps didn't go to college at all, may not be the most responsible either. At any rate bandaid fixes aren't going to stem the tide unless we start pushing for drastic change.

Well, my post was intended to excuse first-generation college attenders and their parents.  Operating from a position of complete ignorance is excusable if still somewhat irresponsible.

Parents with the "privilege" of having gone to college need to either provide that privilege to their children, or give decent advice if they are unable to do so.  It's no answer to say "well shit it's expensive now" and throw up your hands and send/let your kid to Pepperdine to major in art history.

And I agree that some sort of drastic change is needed, but I think loan forgiveness that isn't coupled with some sort of drastic change to the "market" is probably a bad idea.  Just like bailing out the banks, without changing the market that they dicked up, was a bad idea. 

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Just now, TwiceHorn said:

And I agree that some sort of drastic change is needed, but I think loan forgiveness that isn't coupled with some sort of drastic change to the "market" is probably a bad idea.  Just like bailing out the banks, without changing the market that they dicked up, was a bad idea. 

I agree with the first part of your post. For this though, I don't think anyone here who isn't afraid of large scale student debt forgiveness would say that that's the only thing that needs to happen. Most of us are for massive, it not outright completely, subsidizing the cost of public college education. I'm sure you'll give me a diatribe how that is stupid and would wreck the economy, but a few regulations that can get peeled back later don't give me much hope.

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I'm completely in favor of the two pronged approach of: (i) one-time student debt forgiveness, and (ii) taking measures to drastically decrease public tuition prices/make them free for all.

I say this as someone who (i) had a middle-class mom who did everything "responsible" or "right" (saved a full Texas Tomorrow Fund for undergrad, I ended up getting a large private scholarship to cover the delta for the remainder of my undergrad costs), and (ii) already aggressively paid off my $90K law school loans in 4 years (thereby missing out on all of the tremendous market gains during those years).

It may not be "fair" that we did everything right and I won't get a check for anything, but I would still get the benefit of: (i) a stimulated economy, (ii) a more-educated populace, (iii) a more happy, less-stressed populace (both the parents saving and the kids themselves), (iv) more intelligent people going into fields that serve the public good or bring new creative solutions to problems (smart middle/lower middle-class kids won't have to go work for McKinsey or Goldman just to start back at zero), and (v) countless other intangible benefits.

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12 minutes ago, GSU&UT said:

I agree with the first part of your post. For this though, I don't think anyone here who isn't afraid of large scale student debt forgiveness would say that that's the only thing that needs to happen. Most of us are for massive, it not outright completely, subsidizing the cost of public college education. I'm sure you'll give me a diatribe how that is stupid and would wreck the economy, but a few regulations that can get peeled back later don't give me much hope.

No.  I won't.  I think it may be somewhat impractical from a federal/state standpoint, and ungodly expensive.  I don't know what the answer is, exactly.

I like that Warren proposes that because if she follows through, and I think she will, it might start an honest debate and a compromise that would involve pushing states to subsidize their public schools more heavily than currently and possibly more heavily than ever, simply to avoid federal mandates.  Although my faith in the ability to compromise is severely shaken.

You seem to have me pegged for some kind of hard core reactionary based on my posts correcting distortions of history that follow the current sort of "America sucks" rhetoric.  America may indeed suck, but we don't need to distort our history to prove that.

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3 minutes ago, bonnieblue said:

I'm completely in favor of the two pronged approach of: (i) one-time student debt forgiveness, and (ii) taking measures to drastically decrease public tuition prices/make them free for all.

I say this as someone who (i) had a middle-class mom who did everything "responsible" or "right" (saved a full Texas Tomorrow Fund for undergrad, I ended up getting a large private scholarship to cover the delta for the remainder of my undergrad costs), and (ii) already aggressively paid off my $90K law school loans in 4 years (thereby missing out on all of the tremendous market gains during those years).

It may not be "fair" that we did everything right and I won't get a check for anything, but I would still get the benefit of: (i) a stimulated economy, (ii) a more-educated populace, (iii) a more happy, less-stressed populace (both the parents saving and the kids themselves), (iv) more intelligent people going into fields that serve the public good or bring new creative solutions to problems (smart middle/lower middle-class kids won't have to go work for McKinsey or Goldman just to start back at zero), and (v) countless other intangible benefits.

Kudos to you.  Seriously.

Also, I think making returns in the market while heavily indebted at ostensibly lower rates  is only for those who have the ability to immediately discharge whatever debt they are carrying.  You did the right thing.

I don't buy the whole "it's not fair to people who did the right thing" argument.  That's bullshit.  That is a different deal from moral hazard.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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19 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You seem to have me pegged for some kind of hard core reactionary based on my posts correcting distortions of history that follow the current sort of "America sucks" rhetoric.  America may indeed suck, but we don't need to distort our history to prove that.

You may have changed in the past few years, but you absolutely gave off a very libertarian-esque vibe not long ago with respect to massively changing our institutions. That may not be fair, but I'll leave it at that.

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