Occupy's 'Strike Debt' buys debt cheaply... then forgives it

[Dachs]

Unfortunately our society isn't built to accept that as legitimate knowledge. You need that fancy piece of paper.

Kind of a funny response considering the post I responded to was talking about how "society doesn't 'need' anything".

 

[civver_764]

Don't go to college, and read whatever you like about whatever you like on your own time. Problem solved.

Yeah I guess you're right man.

 

[Murky]

Don't go to college, and read whatever you like about whatever you like on your own time. Problem solved.

These days it's really more about what you can demonstrate that you can do than just having a piece of paper so it may in fact possible to learn enough on your own. Then there's also many online courses you can take at little no cost. Khan Academy is free. Many of the MIT lectures online are free. There's certainly lots of cheaper ways to gain knowledge and skills than by going to a for-profit private college and taking out 60k in student loans.

 

[Defiant47]

And in addition to all the other problems with Defiant's plan, how exactly do you know the number of any job you'll need? That can change pretty rapidly from year to year, even month to month.

You don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure that if we get our smartest minds on it we can come up with a good estimation.

I would rather work developing donation websites for non-profits that help instead of hurt the masses of people crippled by debt.

How about restricting and denying the masses of people the choice of entering a cripple of debt? Maybe students shouldn't have the freedom to take a liberal arts degree that will leave them crippled in debt with no better job prospects.

What? You think we actually needed any of that money? No, not at all, you can take it to pay that student loan debt. It's not like we need to eat or anything...

I never really understood the "need to eat" argument... rent is way more than food, at least in all my budgets, whether presently or back when I was in university. You need to make WAY more than "enough to buy food" in order to live life. Those rental payments are every month, didn't you know?

I think if you think about it for a little bit, you'll come to find that society doesn't "need" anything.

No, society needs a lot of things. We need food, we need entertainment, infrastructure and so on. It is the duty of each citizen to fulfill a role in making society work.

People should be encouraged to educate themselves in whatever subject matters they want, at whatever pace they like, and under no financial pressures.

I somewhat disagree. People should not be free to relieve themselves of work and of their duties to society (e.g. jobs). Leisurely and non-productive activities must be balanced and earned by productive activities.

Granted, there should not be financial pressures, since it places an undue burden and inefficient stress in terms of optimizing happiness.

Our monetary system is unnecessarily creating unhappiness and we need to address that, not try to make our education system even more intertwined with our monetary system.

I don't really care about the monetary system, I'm imagining a society outside the concept of money. A person should not be able to hang back and do nothing. A person should not be able to engage in activities that do not contribute to society or the various functions we need.

Education is one of these. Someone shouldn't be allowed to just take many years off having to provide for society in order to pursue personal knowledge. Granted this can be done on the side, but taking up a wholly unproductive and wholly selfish activity to replace one's duty should only be done if one has done a sufficient amount of one's duty (e.g. vacation, retirement).

Taking college loans is a choice, it is up to you.

Your entire premise is flawed. Not all situations in which there is a choice of more than one option, are fair.

If you borrow it you need to pay it back.

How about it's wrong to need to borrow anything for such a pursuit. Proper higher education will, on the whole, improve both society and the individual. The individual should not incur debt for improving themselves in a way that will also benefit society in the long-run.

The younger generation needs to cowboy up and start acting like adults. An adult pays his own way, he doesn't look to shirk his responsibilities or whine about it. Life is choice, make good ones and life is better, make bad ones and life suffers.

Perhaps this is an undue responsibility. After all, if I spring an unfair cost or responsibility for something on you, you would be complaining or trying to change the system, not championing that you have to act like an adult and "deal with it".

I can think of a limitless number of examples where I could make a normal life choice for you unfair, but I'm hoping that I don't need to bother. The existence of choices, responsibilities, and consequences does not make a situation fair or right. It can have multiple options, different costs, and various responsibilities, and still be utterly unfair and wrong.

 

[KmDubya]

You don't know exactly, but I'm pretty sure that if we get our smartest minds on it we can come up with a good estimation.[/COLOR]


How about restricting and denying the masses of people the choice of entering a cripple of debt? Maybe students shouldn't have the freedom to take a liberal arts degree that will leave them crippled in debt with no better job prospects.



I never really understood the "need to eat" argument... rent is way more than food, at least in all my budgets, whether presently or back when I was in university. You need to make WAY more than "enough to buy food" in order to live life. Those rental payments are every month, didn't you know?



No, society needs a lot of things. We need food, we need entertainment, infrastructure and so on. It is the duty of each citizen to fulfill a role in making society work.



I somewhat disagree. People should not be free to relieve themselves of work and of their duties to society (e.g. jobs). Leisurely and non-productive activities must be balanced and earned by productive activities.

Granted, there should not be financial pressures, since it places an undue burden and inefficient stress in terms of optimizing happiness.



I don't really care about the monetary system, I'm imagining a society outside the concept of money. A person should not be able to hang back and do nothing. A person should not be able to engage in activities that do not contribute to society or the various functions we need.

Education is one of these. Someone shouldn't be allowed to just take many years off having to provide for society in order to pursue personal knowledge. Granted this can be done on the side, but taking up a wholly unproductive and wholly selfish activity to replace one's duty should only be done if one has done a sufficient amount of one's duty (e.g. vacation, retirement).



Your entire premise is flawed. Not all situations in which there is a choice of more than one option, are fair.



How about it's wrong to need to borrow anything for such a pursuit. Proper higher education will, on the whole, improve both society and the individual. The individual should not incur debt for improving themselves in a way that will also benefit society in the long-run.



Perhaps this is an undue responsibility. After all, if I spring an unfair cost or responsibility for something on you, you would be complaining or trying to change the system, not championing that you have to act like an adult and "deal with it".

I can think of a limitless number of examples where I could make a normal life choice for you unfair, but I'm hoping that I don't need to bother. The existence of choices, responsibilities, and consequences does not make a situation fair or right. It can have multiple options, different costs, and various responsibilities, and still be utterly unfair and wrong.

The sections I highlighted above in red make it sound like you are a Statist that wants absolute power to be wielded by an elite while everyone else is a slave that needs to work to be able to earn the right to pleasurable activities. You appear to want a type of dystopia worthy of Orwell or Huxley.

Who decides who is the best and brightest?

You talk of fairness but which is more fair - an equality of opportunity or an equality of outcomes? I prefer the opportunity based model, as in the pursuit of happiness, - it does not promise that you will be happy but that you are free to pursue and try. Your equality of outcomes would result in a fairness based upon everyone is equally miserable and oppressed.

Central planning does not work, has never worked and always yields suboptimal results. Look at how successful the Soviet Union was. A laissez faire free market would allow millions of people to make millions of choices. This will yield the best results for everyone. Unfortunately America is operating under more of a crony capitalism or corporate fascism instead of a free market.

 

[Defiant47]

The sections I highlighted above in red make it sound like you are a Statist that wants absolute power to be wielded by an elite while everyone else is a slave that needs to work to be able to earn the right to pleasurable activities. You appear to want a type of dystopia worthy of Orwell or Huxley.

Then you are incorrect. My system would be entirely democratic.

Who decides who is the best and brightest?

Nobody is deciding anything. Unless you're talking about who decides who gets into university programs. In which case, it would be the properly-devised standardized testing. Kind of like the way it is nowadays, except eliminating the barrier to those who are poor.

You talk of fairness but which is more fair - an equality of opportunity or an equality of outcomes? I prefer the opportunity based model, as in the pursuit of happiness, - it does not promise that you will be happy but that you are free to pursue and try.

This wouldn't eliminate the ability to pursue things that would make people happy... unless those things are unrealistic. (again, kind of like the real world now, but more smartly refined)

Your equality of outcomes would result in a fairness based upon everyone is equally miserable and oppressed.

I actually find it rather amusing that you believe that, when my points have been constantly hammering the point that I believe that people should not have the freedom to make choices that will almost certainly result in being miserable and oppressed (i.e. letting universities allow 10K students to pursue liberal arts degrees when only 1K will benefit from such a degree, and the other 9K will face crippling debt and no better job prospects). So no, that is a freedom I would restrict from people.

Central planning does not work, has never worked and always yields suboptimal results.

Pretty blanket statement, and you sound pretty sure of that. I'll just point to "Communist" Romania as evidence that it worked for a while and it can work; people were happy. Until the drawbacks of a dictatorship accrued and the system became worse as a result.

Look at how successful the Soviet Union was. A laissez faire free market would allow millions of people to make millions of choices. This will yield the best results for everyone. Unfortunately America is operating under more of a crony capitalism or corporate fascism instead of a free market.

Laissez faire is a failure of a system and the proof is abundant. You need only look at the vast inequities borne of the system. And I'm not even talking about your backyard, where your impoverished neighbours are not earning as much as they deserve or struggling through unfair debt burdens with unfairly low pay at an unfairly high amount of part-time jobs per person. No, I mean look at China, India, Africa, and the living conditions there.

 

[bhsup]

Sounds great. Are there drawbacks or risks for abolishing debts like this? Should all be able to quit paying their debts?

I know the thread has moved beyond this, but I wanted to touch on this. Debt settled for less than the amount due -does- show differently on your credit report, at least here in USA #1. It will indicate that you settled for less than the full amount due and it will adversely affect your score (though obviously not as bad as never paying it off) and creditors will also take it into account when determining future loans.

 

[W|M]

Free universities ftw

 

[JollyRoger]

I know the thread has moved beyond this, but I wanted to touch on this. Debt settled for less than the amount due -does- show differently on your credit report, at least here in USA #1. It will indicate that you settled for less than the full amount due and it will adversely affect your score (though obviously not as bad as never paying it off) and creditors will also take it into account when determining future loans.

I negotiated such debts OFF my credit report by insisting on a trade line delete in exchange for the reduced payment.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Uh. Wat?

If that doesn't work we can always bring back debtors' prisons and banishment to French Guinea, Georgia, and Australia.

Free universities ftw

The US once set the standard by providing a free high school education for all its residents to the derision of virtually all other countries. They thought we were wasting our time trying to educate those they thought weren't worthy of such efforts. Now it is taken for granted.

It is time we do so for 4 more years, as many other countries already do.

 

[KmDubya]

Then you are incorrect. My system would be entirely democratic.



Nobody is deciding anything. Unless you're talking about who decides who gets into university programs. In which case, it would be the properly-devised standardized testing. Kind of like the way it is nowadays, except eliminating the barrier to those who are poor.



This wouldn't eliminate the ability to pursue things that would make people happy... unless those things are unrealistic. (again, kind of like the real world now, but more smartly refined)



I actually find it rather amusing that you believe that, when my points have been constantly hammering the point that I believe that people should not have the freedom to make choices that will almost certainly result in being miserable and oppressed (i.e. letting universities allow 10K students to pursue liberal arts degrees when only 1K will benefit from such a degree, and the other 9K will face crippling debt and no better job prospects). So no, that is a freedom I would restrict from people.



Pretty blanket statement, and you sound pretty sure of that. I'll just point to "Communist" Romania as evidence that it worked for a while and it can work; people were happy. Until the drawbacks of a dictatorship accrued and the system became worse as a result.



Laissez faire is a failure of a system and the proof is abundant. You need only look at the vast inequities borne of the system. And I'm not even talking about your backyard, where your impoverished neighbours are not earning as much as they deserve or struggling through unfair debt burdens with unfairly low pay at an unfairly high amount of part-time jobs per person. No, I mean look at China, India, Africa, and the living conditions there.

To me freedom is being able to choose what you want and be free to fail. You'd be responsible for the outcome. In your world someone who tests well on a standardized test gets to decide what choices are realistic. That sounds like a terrible conformist place. I once heard an interview by Joe Strummer of The Clash who was happy when he heard how poorly The Sex Pistols played their instruments, it gave him hope because he could not play very well either. In your world starting a band like The Clash or the Sex Pistols would be deemed unrealistic and denied. That would be a dull and bland world indeed.

The current lack of success of any Communist central planning economies is all the proof I need about the failings of the system.

The places you listed - China, India and Africa - are not laissez faire they are more like Kleptocracies - government by the corrupt. Hong Kong probably come the closest to laissez faire policies and has economically benefitted its people by giving them economic freedoms.