I should have taken out more student loans

This whole discussion is absurd; the proposals made are minor adjustments. They'll cause some student loan debtors to pay less in the short run, but this doesn't amount to debt forgiveness or "helping the poor".

Originally posted by PsychoPawn
Because people who make good choices rarely, if ever, need help.

You don't do an intervention for someone who isn't a drug addict, do you?

Nice example the drug addict.

Do you help the addict by giving him better access to more drugs? Giving people who can't handle money extra money isn't going to do anything but make matters worse.

Originally posted by Eladar
How did they get poor? Did they take out loans that they can't pay? Did they choose to go into debt?

Why help only those who make poor choices?

You assume that debt is a consequence of moral failure. It probably is, but on whose part? We have lived in a world where people gained immense wealth by persuading us to borrow, and where wages could be allowed to slide because people could borrow to survive.

People make the best decisions they can and the assumptions they make can easily prove over optimistic. If you had a good career with General Motors in the 1990s, would you live up to your means or plan for your unexpected redundancy in a market where your skills have become worthless? Even those who have borrowed irresponsibly were victims of a sophisticated financial industry with a huge interest in persuading them to take the risk. Many invested perfectly responsibly, for example in pension plans that proved disappointing if not actually - as they often did - worthless. People are being persuaded even now to invest stupid huge sums in education that is highly unlikely to reward most graduates, and making their choices at an age when few understand the concept of long term indebtedness and when their teachers and peers and government are pushing them in the same disastrous direction.

You simply ignore the evidence that the deregulated financial sector has been a disaster and often in the hands of virtual criminals.

Originally posted by finnegan
You assume that debt is a consequence of moral failure. It probably is, but on whose part? We have lived in a world where people gained immense wealth by persuading us to borrow, and where wages could be allowed to slide because people could borrow to survive.

People make the best decisions they can and the assumptions they make can easily prove over op ...[text shortened]... he deregulated financial sector has been a disaster and often in the hands of virtual criminals.

There is nothing illegal in persuading people to spend money they don't have. People should learn from those lessons and go on.

It is about time that we start treating people like adults rather than helpless children. Part of being an adult is suffering the consequences of poor decisions.

Originally posted by Eladar
There is nothing illegal in persuading people to spend money they don't have. People should learn from those lessons and go on.

It is about time that we start treating people like adults rather than helpless children. Part of being an adult is suffering the consequences of poor decisions.

Making people suffer isn't the way to economic prosperity.

Originally posted by Eladar
There is nothing illegal in persuading people to spend money they don't have. People should learn from those lessons and go on.

It is about time that we start treating people like adults rather than helpless children. Part of being an adult is suffering the consequences of poor decisions.

The lesson to learn is that it ought to be illegal to persuade people to spend money they haven't got - or at least, illegal to try and recover the resulting debt.

It is a curious morality that applies without symmetry to both parties. Irresponsible selling of debt causes social harm that is not made more acceptable by blaming the victims.

Part of being an adult is realising that a poor decision is typically a perfectly good decision that turned out wrong not least because the variables and assumptions are not in our control and often the odds are unfairly weighted.

Originally posted by Eladar
Nice example the drug addict.

Do you help the addict by giving him better access to more drugs? Giving people who can't handle money extra money isn't going to do anything but make matters worse.

You misread the analogy. The point is that you don't help or need to help those that don't need it.

The reason there are bankruptcies for example, is because sometimes people get into situations where they are in trouble even if it wasn't completely their fault.

These aren't people who just can't handle extra money - they didn't get the student loans and go to the casino and gamble it all away.

By helping them get a lower interest rate and therefore lowering their bills it gives them a better chance at being able to pay off the loan. Giving them a better interest rate on the loans they have isn't giving them more money, it just means they are more likely to be able to afford a real living and hence help the economy better by being able to spend on things like food and maybe a few extras.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Making people suffer isn't the way to economic prosperity.

If I allow someone to suffer the consequences of bad decisions, then I am helping the person to grow. We learn from our mistakes because we want to avoid suffering the consequences again.

Enabling people simply keeps them in the same place and they continue to do the same destructive behavior.

Originally posted by Eladar
If I allow someone to suffer the consequences of bad decisions, then I am helping the person to grow. We learn from our mistakes because we want to avoid suffering the consequences again.

Enabling people simply keeps them in the same place and they continue to do the same destructive behavior.

😴😴

It's an interesting platitude but how does it apply here? Is getting an education "destructive behavior"?

Originally posted by finnegan
The lesson to learn is that it ought to be illegal to persuade people to spend money they haven't got - or at least, illegal to try and recover the resulting debt.

It is a curious morality that applies without symmetry to both parties. Irresponsible selling of debt causes social harm that is not made more acceptable by blaming the victims.

Part of b ...[text shortened]... the variables and assumptions are not in our control and often the odds are unfairly weighted.

I agree about the summetry, at least the Statists within the parties.

I would rather see the government get out of the Nanny State business, both for the individual and corporations.

If you cut the size of government and limit what the government spends tax money on, then you don't have this kind of problem.

Originally posted by Eladar
If I allow someone to suffer the consequences of bad decisions, then I am helping the person to grow. We learn from our mistakes because we want to avoid suffering the consequences again.

Enabling people simply keeps them in the same place and they continue to do the same destructive behavior.

And so the children suffer because the parents make bad mistakes. Is it good for the children too?

Originally posted by Kunsoo
And so the children suffer because the parents make bad mistakes. Is it good for the children too?

Life isn't all about roses. Children all around the world suffer from the consequences of poor decisions by parents. There's no getting around that.

My point is that if you are going to have the government hand out money, then hand it out to all. Why should money be taken away from me to give it to another person? Why should my children suffer?

Originally posted by sh76
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-20125577/obama-to-outline-student-loan-relief-plan/?fb_comment_id=fbc_5006885752265_674079_5006886864265

I went to significantly "worse" schools (both college and law school) than I could have because of cost. I basically paid my own way through both with government loans but between college and law school, I racked up deb ...[text shortened]... water because I bargain hunted when I looked for a house? What do I get then, Mr. President?

My daughter borrowed and worked through a law school and has a job she loves, but only by good fortune. Many of her peers will never work in law because the law colleges in Britain are pushing through far more law graduates than there is demand. The two are disconnected because - guess what - the colleges make good money by recruiting the maximum numbers of students, giving patently deceptive messages about future earning prospects in glossy, attractive prospectuses. As a matter of simple mathematics, many law graduates will not work in law, and indeed currently very few will. A lot of talented and well qualified, well educated adults made great decisions, worked hard, took all the best advice, and will spend much of the next ten years working in low wage sectors doing unskilled work because that's all they can get. Their debts will cripple them.

I think it's worth remembering that, unlike virtually every other type of debt (except child support), student loans cannot be wiped out in bankruptcy. Thus they are already treated differently from other types of debt. Lessening the financial burden of such debt slightly doesn't seem to be in any violation of sacred principle I know of.

Originally posted by no1marauder
I think it's worth remembering that, unlike virtually every other type of debt (except child support), student loans cannot be wiped out in bankruptcy. Thus they are already treated differently from other types of debt. Lessening the financial burden of such debt slightly doesn't seem to be in any violation of sacred principle I know of.

Well as the student debt issue grows in Britain it will have the predictable effect - that education is far more accessible to the wealthy. Social mobility is becoming a thing of the past. A decent society would regard education as both a right and a sound investment by the community in its own future and would want a meritocracy, not a kleptocracy. One of the great sources of creative drive in the US after WWII was surely the GI Bill that enabled working class adults to enter higher education which would otherwise have been beyond their reach.