Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Katrina vanden Heuvel — Americans are drowning in student-loan debt. The U.S. should forgive all of it.


I'll break a self-imposed rule and link to the WaPo for this.
The debt burdens not only the debtors but also the entire economy by dampening consumer demand. The federal government guarantees more than 90 percent of all outstanding student debt. A recent paper by Scott Fullwiler, Stephanie Kelton, Catherine Ruetschlin and Marshall Steinbaum of the Levy Economics Institute found that if the government canceled the debt it owns and bought out the remaining private creditors, it would increase gross domestic product by between $86 billion and $108 billion per year over the next decade, adding between 1.2 million and 1.5 million jobs.

More importantly, if combined with making all public universities tuition-free, this country would ensure that no young person is condemned to debt for pursuing the higher education or technical training that virtually everyone agrees is vital to this nation’s future....
The Washington Post
Americans are drowning in student-loan debt. The U.S. should forgive all of it.
Katrina vanden Heuvel | editor and publisher of The Nation

10 comments:

Matt Franko said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Konrad said...

“The federal government guarantees more than 90 percent of all outstanding student debt.”

Which means that if you default on your student loan, the U.S. government reimburses the lenders, which still go after you for the loan, plus interest, plus ever-mounting penalties. Either that, or they will sell your loan to professional collectors.

Student loan debt is an example of why the U.S. Empire is doomed by its own greed.

Incidentally the word forgive implies that student loan debtors are guilty. I prefer erase or cancel out.

When we talk of erasing student loan debt, the loudest objections come not from the bankers who profit from the scam, but from ordinary people who suffer from the scam. The peasants are so accustomed to their misery, and so invested in bullshit ways to cope with their misery, that they belittle any suggestion of student debt erasure.

Imagine being locked with other people in a sewer. One person says, “I think we can get out of here if we work together.” You do not believe him, since you are a selfish little turd. Therefore you pretend that escape is absurd and morally wrong. You imagine that you are not locked in the sewer, but you are instead one of the cruel guards outside. As a cowardly little turd, you cope with your misery by making sure it will never end for you, or for anyone else. Rather than work with your fellow prisoners, you sit and smugly insult them.

I see this all the time.

By the way, that’s a bad link. Here’s the correct one…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-are-drowning-in-student-loan-debt-the-us-should-forgive-all-of-it/2018/06/19/82565218-7314-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html

BY THE WAY: the AARP is not a “seniors lobby.” Average seniors do not lobby (i.e. bribe) politicians.

AARP is a private insurance company lobby that masquerades as an advocacy group for seniors.

QUESTION: Why has the cost of college tuition skyrocketed?

ANSWER: For the same reason that housing prices have skyrocketed. The price of housing or tuition is set by whatever banks were willing to lend for housing or tuition. The higher the housing price and tuition price, the higher the debt, and the more interest the banks collect.

Bankers want the price of tuition to keep rising. The colleges are happy to oblige them.

Tom Hickey said...

Thanks, Konrad. Link fixed now.

GLH said...

"AARP is a private insurance company lobby that masquerades as an advocacy group for seniors."
United Healthcare to be exact.

Matt Franko said...

"I'll break a self-imposed rule and link to the WaPo for this."

So youre now overtly shilling for Democrats...

If its in the Post then its a Democrat talking point...

These MMT elites are just coming up with a (self serving) wedge issue for the mid-terms for Democrats...

"come out and vote for us and we'll absolve your student debt!"

And they wonder why they get nowhere...

Noah Way said...

MMT elites are supporting Democrats?

Hahaha Democrats don't support MMT or any other idea that would expose their fraud and duplicity. They're the same as Republicans.

Matt Franko said...

“Democrats don't support MMT”

You’re tellin’ me....

Konrad said...

“Democrats don't support MMT or any other idea that would expose their fraud and duplicity. They're the same as Republicans.” ~ Noah Way

Indeed, establishment Democrats (Pelosi, Schumer, etc) are boasting that if they win a majority in the House in November, they will make deficit reduction (i.e. gratuitous austerity) their top priority, just as they did from 2007-2011 when Nancy Pelosi was House Speaker.

Those were the days of the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” (aka the Bowles-Simpson “cat food commission”) and the “grand bargain,” in which Democrats offered to slash Medicare and Social Security in return for tax increases on the masses (which neoliberals call “broadening the base”).

That is, establishment Democrats offered to screw the masses in return for being allowed to screw the masses.

Establishment Democrats get away with their evil because so many people are obsessed with hating Trump. For establishment Democrats, peace in the Korean Peninsula is a “Russian plot.” If Trump invented a cure for cancer, it would be a “Russian plot.”

I loathe Trump, but I also loathe establishment Democrat hypocrisy.

In 2020 the establishment Democrats will run Kamala Harris for President, claiming that if you don’t vote for her, you are a racist and a sexist.

This will cause Trump to be re-elected.

Noah Way said...

I think they'll run Michele. Plenty of groundwork already laid if you look. Massive name recognition and very high favorables in polling, above 75%. Plus she'd be as compliant a Trojan horse as BO. A nice smiley progressive face on fascist policy.

Tom Hickey said...

Like her husband, Michelle was a corporate lawyer. Make of that what you will.