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Comment by spxneo | Hacker News Reader

> How about we let others at least not be underwater so the too can be out of student loan debt

That is a very selfish statement. I was burdened with student loan debt for almost a decade, nobody cared that I was underwater, so why should we suddenly start caring for you and reward your poor financial decisions? Should we start bailing you out because of your poor crypto investments too?

Why does your financial problems need to be socialized but not others? You are arguing for absolving responsibility. You borrow someone's money you must pay it back.

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So people suffered. That’s too bad. Others must suffer too. Why not stop the cycle?

And we subsidize corporate profits, and execute innocent people, and kill humans wars. That is fine in our names with our money.

So doing some good for comet students, who contributing and had no choice but to borrow, seems moral to me. But to be petty and moan about how it’s unfair when there is so much that is also unfair, that sounds small.

This proposal does zero to stop the cycle. It may well exacerbate the cycle. That is many people's problem with it in this thread.

Not only does this raise cost of debt in the future but investors might become more wary that bastion of American hegemony, her rule of law can be changed now at the whims of its populist prone presidents eager to polarize and divide its citizens.

Just look at Israel. Gets attacked by a decentralized terror cell (its not just Hamas), gets criticized for going after said terrorists around the region (with enough backed by Iran) and the American president concerned with voters low key threatened Israeli prime minister that security agreement can be voided.

Same thing with Ukraine. Believed in US guarantees, now facing a totally different reality from where it was in 2022, with a reluctant American president who has to worry about voters.

All of the above populist policies are the result of generation like parent's comment, selfishly believing that they are somehow more deserving than others while offering no merit for that claim, haven't fought WW1 or WW2 or lived through Cold War or even experienced the War on Terror.

All this does is hurt the very people its designed to benefit in the long run (as always is with populist policies). It signals that they don't care about merit but virtue signaling away responsibility. From this I feel worried that American politics have picked the wrong fork in the road and we are going to see significant curb to our freedom, speech and common sense, globally.

So you don't want to suffer but its okay that others including future generations suffer.

What gives this generation the right to avoid responsibility and burden other generations with their poor financial decision and inability to take responsibility?

Many of us had it drilled into our heads that the only way to succeed in life was to take out a big loan and go to college. By the government.

Also, it is kinda ridiculous that at 18 years old it is completely fine that I can take out an almost $10,000 loan, another $10 at 19 and so on and so forth. Making this decision when I am barely an adult, for many people the first time that they had any real sense of financial freedom with no one to tell them no. Differed payments so it's a problem for 4+ years from now and barely any education on what that actually meant.

Trying to compare this to crypto is stupid.

I am fine with paying for my loans, but it is ridiculous that I have been paying or my student loans for 10 years and I am still 2x what I originally took out. My sister is 5 times what she took out.

There is a fundamental problem with our education system and student loans and we need to address both of them. But let's not pretend that student loans are not largely predatory. We just don't call them that because they are for school and by the government.

Not everyone gets out of school and lands a job, or lands a job that will actually pay enough to pay off their loans.

Edit:

Since we really want to focus on "personal responsibility" here, I feel like we should remember that we don't think someone can handle drinking alcohol until they are 21. But by the time they are allowed to drink we are perfectly fine with them having taken out $32,500 in loans for school assuming they take the maximum at 18, 19, and 20.

How do we not see the problem here. I can get in more debt than I will likely ever be in except for buying a house (even a car may be less than that) before I am legally able to drink alcohol.

It sounds like we think that 18, 19, 20 year olds are not responsible, unless it is about getting into a life defining amount of debt that will seriously hamper your financial stability likely into your 40's.

> You borrow someone's money you must pay it back.

Why? Unsecured loans are servitude. And it just inflates the cost of the thing lended for.

I don't think one can argue for usury from some sort of moral angle.

> Unsecured loans are servitude

Credit cards are servitude?

I guess you can argue it is not servitude if the unsecured loan is small enough that it can be repayed if the borrower wants to.

> you can argue it is not servitude

On the basis of nobody being compelled to do labour, yes.

Ye. Maybe my wording with 'servitude' was just bad though.

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