Comment by dctoedt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dctoedt | Hacker News Reader

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AOC put it well:

<quote>

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Not every program has to be for everybody. People with apartments pay for first time homeowner benefits. Young people pay for Medicare for our seniors. People who take public transit pay for car infrastructure.

Maybe student loan forgiveness doesn’t impact you. That doesn’t make it bad. I am sure there are certainly other things that student loan borrowers’ taxes pay for. We can do good things and reject the scarcity mindset that says doing something good for someone else comes at the cost of something for ourselves.

An example: If a person is blessed enough to be in a position to have paid off their loans, maybe they have a home now and benefitted from first time homeowners programs that people crushed by student loans help subsidize when they aren’t able to buy a home because of student debt. It all comes around. It’s okay. We can support things we won’t directly benefit from.

</quote>

https://news-papers.co.uk/news/38704/advocating-for-student-...

I disagree that this was "put well".

> An example: If a person is blessed enough to be in a position to have paid off their loans, ...

This is the perfect kind of framing for her argument. Someone who paid off their loans didn't work hard, they didn't make a coherent plan and execute it, they didn't sacrifice, they were just "blessed". A benevolent god smiled upon them and their debt disappeared!

I disagree with her on many of those points.

- "Young people pay for Medicare for our seniors."

Medicare is literally going bankrupt within the next decade, as is Social Security. When it was founded, there were 30 young people for every old person. Now it is 3-1, and going down still from declining birthrates. There is no guarantee any young person paying in right now will ever see a penny when they are old, unless you expect the government to print money for the next half a century.

- "If a person is blessed enough to be in a position to have paid off their loans, maybe they have a home now"

Wishful thinking. I have paid off my loans, have no home, and getting home ownership right now is horrible even with first time homeowners programs. There are plenty of people trapped paying off their debt, but can't afford a home, especially with current prices.

It doesn't change the fact that Medicare and Social Security are being paid for by current contributions. That money coming out of your check isn't getting socked away for later, it's getting paid out now.

That's what she means and kind of what she literally said.

There are people who are paying into a system they will see no benefit from.

Her main point is that "what goes around comes around." You might receive a $10K bailout, but later your taxes will help someone else. That's her principle behind her thinking on why this is OK. If you hurt now, it will benefit someone else; and when you are hurt, you will benefit from someone else hurting.

I currently have very little confidence long-term that this will happen. Right now, I have 0% confidence in Social Security and Medicare existing when I am old. 0%. That money is, as far as I know, going away and I'm never seeing it again. The statistics back me up on this.

Furthermore, this bailout, it will absolutely be repeated. There is never a one-time bailout that doesn't address the underlying cause without happening again in politics.

Or to put it in other words: Let's stop with the 'F-you, I got mine' attitude that so many entitled Americans have. There's plenty of resources, capital, intelligence, technology to ensure everybody in the world has a roof, food, and clean water, but we don't do it because everybody with the power to help is selfish. They got their's so F everybody else.

This attitude is the product of an insanely competitive and violent environment. People have learned that this is how you have to be to make it to the top. Also, what's the fun of being rich if nobody else is poor? The lower the low, the higher the high. People enjoy feeling the power of crushing others. Putting your boot on the throat of the weak makes you feel intoxicatingly strong. I'm convinced this is why the rich turn to philanthropy. Instead of helping make a system where the poor and needy don't exist, they rather make charities that transmute their greed into benevolence. There's some truly sick psychological stuff going on in this country.

Great quote. Well put.

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