As the college debt bubble balloons to unsustainable proportions, and as more and more college graduates belatedly discover that a seemingly reasonable choice of degree is no longer a ticket to a good job or even a career, there are increasing calls for college debt to be “forgiven”. Of course, debt cannot disappear; someone always has to pay. Usually either the debtor pays or the creditor pays, but when you hear calls for debt to be forgiven, forgotten, and thrown on the scrapheap, what this inevitably means is that the taxpayer will have to pay.
Taxpayers coughing up the money for other people’s mistakes is now a feature not a bug of our modern crony capitalist world. Six months after completion of the Opal Tower apartment block in Sydney, large cracks appeared in the building forcing all residents to temporarily move out. This made headlines in Australia and in short order there were calls for the government to come to the rescue. And by government they mean the taxpayer.
The NSW government may be on the hook for millions of dollars to fix the cracks and defects in Sydney’s damaged Opal Tower because of a law that exposes it to legal action as owner of the land.
While NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has “wholeheartedly” encouraged Opal Tower’s residents to take “every legal opportunity they have”, The Australian can reveal that her government’s own Sydney Olympic Park Authority, and not Ecove — the company that developed the land into Opal Tower — could be sued by apartment owners because of changes in building warranty laws designed to close a loophole.
Stupid MPs with no real world experience passing laws that they don’t understand. The standard path for politicians these days is to study law at university and then suck up to their local member until they too get parachuted into a nice fat pre-selection deal. But all that studying at university has a cost. Wouldn’t it be nice if lawyers could apply to have their student loan debt cancelled?
One-quarter of American workers were expected to be eligible for the program, which allows certain not-for-profit and government employees to have their federal student loans forgiven after 10 years.
How about that? Score yourself a safe and cushy job in the public service and you too can have your student loan cancelled! I wonder what type of professions have been given this luxury?
Matt Tremel
Saxophonist, U.S. Navy
The Education Department forgave Tremel’s $14,000 in student debt earlier this year. “I was ecstatic,” he said.
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
Trevor Milliron
Professor, Lee University
Getting his more than $135,000 in student debt forgiven this year felt as good as getting his Ph.D. two decades ago, Milliron said. “My wife and I cried,” he said.
135 big ones? I’m sure the prick cried. And then he went back to his job of helping to trap thousands of other people in the same situation that he himself was gifted out of. I wonder what he teaches …
Psychology. Let’s check out some of the student ratings on the good prof.
“Dr. Milliron is great! His class is literally the easiest class I think I have ever had, in college and in high school. You watch videos he posts to moodle and then take 5 questions quizzes over them the next lecture. No readings, no essays, and no final! Highly recommended.”
The easiest class that they ever had, even in high school. Who says that higher education is dead? Sounds like a blast to me.
“Literally the easiest class I’ve ever taken. No tests or exams. All we had to do was take a five minute quiz on this app in class over a video(s) we had to watch the night before. He doesn’t respond to emails and seems nice but is kind of rude face to face.”
I wonder how much students at this university are paying for this momentous level of education? It looks like the base cost for the 4 year course is around $72K. But when you add up all of the other costs I reckon that it’s going to be entering eye watering territory. And there are so many jobs going for psych majors these days, right? Particularly when they graduate from a course which is literally the easiest ever. Way to go professor Milliron!
There’s another college professor on the list as well as a lawyer. Shocking, isn’t it?
Even more hilarious are the reasons to the positive given on this debate site on the question on whether student debt should be forgiven. After all, it’s only $1.5 trillion. The pro-forgivers all have the same essential argument – it will be good for the economy!
It will help the economy.
We are going through rough economic times. Forgiving student loan debt will help increase economic consumption by young people and spur economic growth. Think of forgiving all student loan debt as a stimulus.
The poor dear has fallen for the Keynesian lie that demand creates supply. You cannot spend your way out of an economic malaise. In other words, aggregate demand does not make an economy grow. The reverse is true; supply creates its own demand. Far from helping the economy, debt forgiveness on this scale will probably scuttle it. An economy grows by investment and production. The final piece of the puzzle is that which is produced must also be sold. Just where does this individual think that these young people with the forgiven debt are going to find the money to increase their economic consumption? Do jobs appear magically, (well, if you ask politicians they do because apparently politicians create jobs).
These young people will find jobs due to investors investing their money in future production and entrepreneurs taking the risks necessary to grow their businesses. But the financial crisis that will result if $1.5 trillion is thrown out the window doesn’t bare thinking about. The associated increase in taxes will shrink the available money for private investors to grow the economy.
And the people being taxed will be those who didn’t go to college to find themselves when they were 18 but instead went out and found a job. Bit by bit they improved themselves and they earned more money. Perhaps they took risks and started a small business which meant that they probably worked for free for the first few years. They saved their money and worked hard. They certainly didn’t take classes from some nitwit professor whose courses sound so easy that a geriatric wombat would probably pass. Young people who go to college and who agree to these outlandish sums are privileged. And yet they are demanding that the average taxpayer who never had their advantages should cough up the dosh.
If a small business owner’s taxes go up to pay for your college experience then that small business owner will have less money to invest in his business. So he doesn’t begin that new expansion that he planned and which would have created a few dozen new jobs. The future jobs that you college graduates were planning on having so that you could “stimulate the economy”.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
This article was originally published at https://pushingrubberdownhill.com/, where Adam Piggott publishes regularly and brilliantly. You can purchase Adam’s books here.