Clarity about Student Loan debt

 

Scott Adams on Student debt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWOKgmexeGc

11:02

ABC news says on X the Biden Administration is cancelling student loans for another 160,000 borrowers through a combination of existing programs.

Huh. That's an interesting choice of words.

“Cancelling student loans.”

So I guess I guess the debt just disappeared.

That's good. Isn't that great that nobody owes that money? It just disappeared.

How lucky.

I wish he could do that to all of my debt, too. Well I don't have much debt, but if I did I wish he could make it go away and nobody would have to pay it. That's the great thing.

Or is the headline complete propaganda?

Because with my business experience I would have described this otherwise.

I would have said the Biden Administration is transferring the loans from people who got the benefit from the loans to people who did not.

Cuz that's what just happened.

The debt was transferred from the people who got the benefit of the debt—you know, they got the education—and they're transferring the debt to the people who got no benefit.

That's what happened.

So why do we talk about this as canceling debt?

Because your news media are a bunch of garbage!

No. Nothing got cancelled.

It got transferred to you.

It got transferred to people who didn't benefit from it.

Now you could argue separately whether it's a good idea or a bad idea but don't but don't piss on my head and tell me it's water.

You know, just call it what it is.

If you're going to defend it call it what it is.

“We'd like you to pay off the debt that these other people acquired.”

Now, believe it or not I could actually be talked into it if you were just honest to me and said, “You know what? We would be moving the debt from the people who took it on to the people who you know did not benefit.”

But here's the argument. The argument is that the system changed and young people were brainwashed into this debt and they were not really capable of making these decisions. Maybe they didn't know what they were getting into and we’re just unburying people who were sort of victimized by the system.

If you gave me that argument you could actually sell me on that.

You could sell me on that because I do believe that brainwashing and propaganda and um, you know, the forces of society are especially strong on children.

The same argument that I say we should cancel Tik Tock is because young people are too susceptible to brainwashing.

So if you if you want me to be consistent just take that argument over to the loans and say, “If you believe that young brains are too easily brainwashed that you'd be willing to get rid of Tik Tok, which is a risk to free speech—we all agree on that—if you would take that risk to free speech to get rid of Tik Tock because young brains are too susceptible, why would you be okay that they were brainwashed into taking on debt that they couldn't pay back?

It's an argument. It is an argument.

Now you could certainly push back and say but that's the way the world works.

I shouldn't pay for other people's mistakes, right?

Wouldn't you prefer that you don't pay for people's mistakes, right?

We all prefer that.

Let people make their own mistakes and everybody's responsible and the system works better.

But you're aware that we routinely do this.

We routinely insure each other against our own worst impulses.

Take for example Healthcare.

Health Care is where people who don't do bad things to themselves are subsidizing the health care for the people who are taking terrible life choices every day.

Well my health care cost would be half if everybody took care of themselves as much as I do. Is that fair?

You know, my body weight is my ideal weight and I watch my diet and I exercise and I don't drink alcohol, right?

If everybody did at least that and maybe you could do more my cost would be half.

But I'm not really arguing about it every day because I kind of like the freedom that people can do bad things to themselves sometimes and maybe a little bit of social, you know, umbrella support couldn't be the worst thing in the world.

So you can make the case.

But not the way they're doing it.

If they're going to piss on my head and call it rain then I say no.

Call it what it is. Call it what actually is and then we'll have the conversation and you might actually talk me into it.

But don't lie to me.

That's just a hard no.