There are a few legitimate ethical issues about forgiveness, e.g., moral hazard, but for the most part they are bogus and completely unrelated to how finance and debt actually function. Whatever their mechanics, interest rates and the idea of interest, is essentially arbitrary. I will let everyone pursue their own line of questioning and research about these topics (where money comes from, where this money came from, what debt is), but basically everyone here is facing an imaginary number that was created by a non-human entity that only exists because of other prior political and economic choices, namely that education is not provided by the government for free. It is important to keep that into perspective. The only valid argument I have encountered about not forgiving student loan debt is the issue of past debtors who did successfully pay through whatever means, but ultimately those were also individuals who didn't recognize the scheme for what it was. Regardless, they are in some sense being defrauded.
Now I know many of the other concerns people have about their financial security, but any analyst will tell you that the current situation is unsustainable. If there are no jobs and low wages, money will not move from the owners of capital to potential workers, workers will have no money, servicing interest on debt that is compounding and increasing will not be prioritized over essential goods, it is not possible to collect money that doesn't exist, a debt becomes unenforceable, and so on. Individually this is disastrous and horrible, but collectively it becomes a problem for the whole system, which massively deflates. (This is a dummy oversimplification too, because a lot of the money used to pay these off probably hasn't come from work, or the selling of goods, or things that we assume put money in the hands of individuals. Another part of the problem I won't go into.) Even if everyone did prioritize it, that would still create huge economic problems, as no money would go towards anything else. You see the dilemma. Other than a home loan, student loans are pretty much the next largest category of debt, unsecured by any asset.
I do not see any alternative to advocating full-time for debt forgiveness until it goes away, and I do not see any reason for someone other than mental clarity to do anything but pay as little as possible towards these loans until death or the inevitable–which is that most of these debts need to be wiped out or significantly reduced, way more than what the Biden administration promised and failed to deliver.
There are a few organizations I am aware of, but I am skeptical of how they function, and I think their hands are somewhat tied in their reliance on the legal system and the avenues they are forced to navigate, though they are grounded in the same understanding I've outlined. Is there anything else out there? Are some of the people here who've already paid over and above their initial balances already at that tipping point?
Personally I am also not in a great position when these rule changes come into effect, but I also don't think the government really knows what's coming to it. Or maybe it does, but the winners are facing diminishing returns. What are folks like me doing to speed up this process?
Most viable political movement for advocating debt relief?
byu/AnthonySkejci inStudentLoans
Posted by AnthonySkejci
3 Comments
Hey, will you be my slave?
Oh, no?
Why should teachers be yours?
There is no such thing as “government giving things for free.” It is TAXPAYER-Funded.
I was excited to engage this topic, but anyone who can’t understand that basic principle isn’t worth arguing with. You cannot make people work for free. That’s illegal for some time now in the US.
It is possible there will be the opportunity for some sort of limited forgiveness via a program like the SAVE plan, but passed by Congress. You might get that in the future if Democrats and centrist Republicans make a deal instead of calling each other names.
This sounds almost entirely like cope. The reality is there is no chance of any mass debt forgiveness on the horizon and even if a more favorable government comes into power the political will for loan forgiveness doesn’t exist. At the end of the day if you choose to not pay the loans you will just end up in the default process.