Debates
23 Aug 22
@averagejoe1 saidIndividualism rules. That is how we got here.
Individualism rules. That is how we got here. Imagine Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Westinghouse, Gould, Vanderbilt with no free rein. I think I would win the argument. These men against Marx!!!! Ahhh, but some are all about a chicken in every pot, to this day.
Was that how we won the revolutionary war?
And WW1 and WW2 ? By Individualism? 😆
I'm fairly certain that we needed help from others. 😉
@averagejoe1 saidHoward though he and other "great men" shouldn't have to "adhere to the wishes of others because of societal dictates" not that the average peasant shouldn't have to adhere to their wishes. From his tedious trial speech:
You are good, Marauder.. I give you shyte, but you are good. Never could write like that. We might have a side discussion about people who do not think that they should adhere to the wishes of others because of societal dictates, rules made by other men. Na, I just don't see it, as Howard did not see it.
"No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision [Of course, the vast majority of work is done collectively and always has been - no1]. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men."
https://www.panarchy.org/rand/roark.1943.html
One "great man" with the rest to obey is the "only pattern for proper co-operation among men."
@averagejoe1 saidExcept for a societal system created by mutual consent and defended by the blood of and enriched by the toil of hundreds of millions of men and women, none of those would have accomplished much.
Individualism rules. That is how we got here. Imagine Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Westinghouse, Gould, Vanderbilt with no free rein. I think I would win the argument. These men against Marx!!!! Ahhh, but some are all about a chicken in every pot, to this day.
26 Aug 22
@KingDavid403
I didn't qualify for a loan thank god. I do think the Govt should give everyone $10,000 that didn't get a student loan just to keep things fair. Otherwise, they should pay off their debts.
@averagejoe1 saidUhh no that's not how we got here. Lol.
Individualism rules. That is how we got here. Imagine Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Westinghouse, Gould, Vanderbilt with no free rein. I think I would win the argument. These men against Marx!!!! Ahhh, but some are all about a chicken in every pot, to this day.
26 Aug 22
@joe-beyser saidAdd the caveat that they MUST use it only for post-secondary tuition and I'd have no problem with it.
@KingDavid403
I didn't qualify for a loan thank god. I do think the Govt should give everyone $10,000 that didn't get a student loan just to keep things fair. Otherwise, they should pay off their debts.
26 Aug 22
@averagejoe1 saidYou can stop reading from The Big Book of Republican Fairy Tales now.
You first. explain $600BILLION and then we can talk about a spit in the ocean in an imperfect world. Oh, and also explain Hillary felonies unpunished,,,,,,and the laptop,,,,,,and Pelosi Felonies with zero punishment.
You lower yourself with whataboutisms. Things are moving real fast. Even WAPO is deriding Biden.
26 Aug 22
@no1marauder saidWell-said.
Howard Roark was a believer in dictatorial fascism led by a few "great men". The ideas that Rand put into this fictional character's head are anathema to American ideals at least as they have existed for more than a 100 years.
That's besides being a narcissistic sociopath.
26 Aug 22
In my humble opinion, all eduction should be free at the point of delivery.
Just like healthcare, policing, water, electricity, fire brigade and infrastructure.
They're the basis for a working civilization. And yes, some people don't benefit from free education. But, some people don't benefit from free public transport or a free fire brigade either.
It's the investment we all make, to make sure the system runs smoothly, and that we create an ever greater future for the children and their children.
Yes. It means rearranging the tax system. It also means your spendible income is less. But that's compensated by the fact that you don't have costs like healthcare, schooling, etc.
Does it work? Yes. Of course it can work. Europe was like that for many years and in many of the cases still is.
Generally, Europe has less crime than the US, less poverty, less working hours, more vacation, etc.
And our women don't have fake breasts... that's another pre.
26 Aug 22
@soothfast saidFair? I paid mine off. Do I get a check to recoup my time and effort for someone
I've pondered the matter of student loan forgiveness in the past. At first my thinking was along these lines: if we let more recent students off the hook, how is that fair to those who incurred student debts in prior decades which they had to pay off entirely themselves?
But we are not talking about tossing out all of a student's debts, just ten or twenty grand. And m ...[text shortened]... helped previous generations. It doesn't fix the things wrong with higher education, but it is fair.
else who gets to avoid paying off all of their debt? The money shelled out to give
the loan in the first place will still matter; the debt is still there, now I not only paid
mine off, but I also have to put it into the government the more of my income to
pay for the debt forgiveness for someone who is being treated differently than I
was, how is that fair? Treat everyone the same way, with the same rules; if you don't
and this picking winners and losers takes place, nothing about this is fair.
26 Aug 22
@averagejoe1 saidCan one go bankrupt and get one's student loan forgiven? If not, why not, and if
At the same time Biden is asking for this, he is telling every college in America to raise tuition by $10,000. Jesus. How could this possibly be logical. Some just paid off their huge student loans, let's say this week. Mine was a 10-yr loan. Some of us do not go to college. Rather, we watch biz graduates and law graduates walk away with money-making degrees, but not hav ...[text shortened]... o things being fair and equal, equality, such as that.
It prob will happen tomorrow, August 24,
not, who helped make that so?
@joe-beyser saidOtherwise, they should pay off their debts.
@KingDavid403
I didn't qualify for a loan thank god. I do think the Govt should give everyone $10,000 that didn't get a student loan just to keep things fair. Otherwise, they should pay off their debts.
It's not so much the debt that most people have a problem with, it's the interest. $10,000 does not even cover the interest on my current student loans, and I finished earning my degree four years ago in 2018.
I'm making $100,00 a month payments, which do not even cover the interest accrued every month. Go figure... If they removed the interest on the loans people would not have such a problem with them. I also ran into some major health problems which have made me unable to work for the last 3 years. However, I have healed much and am close to being able to return to work again.
A loan from the government for students should not have interest, I think the student debt problem would be solved right there.
It's the greed of these loan servers contracted by our government, that are sinking students into debt for most of the rest of their lives. Also, it's the for profit schools raising their prices so high, which is all of them, whether they admit it or not.
When I went to college in the 1980s, it was not like this; and, college was affordable then. Back then, I paid off my student loans within two years after leaving college. Today, I can't even keep up with the interest.
26 Aug 22
@kellyjay saidIt's quite difficult and few do:
Can one go bankrupt and get one's student loan forgiven? If not, why not, and if
not, who helped make that so?
"While it is far from impossible to get student loan debt cancelled through bankruptcy under current law, it is not easy. To be successful, most student loan borrowers have to show that they have an “undue hardship,” which is a challenging legal standard. The bankruptcy code does not define in detail what it really means to have an undue hardship, so bankruptcy courts have had to step in to create rules and tests (and not all jurisdictions have adopted the same standard or test). In many states, student loan borrowers have to show that there is a “certainty of hopelessness” to their situation.
The process of even trying to prove undue hardship also presents challenges. A student loan borrower seeking to discharge their loans in bankruptcy court must initiate an “adversary proceeding” — essentially, they must sue their student loan lenders in bankruptcy court to prove that they meet the standard. In most cases, student loan lenders — including the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice — will oppose the borrower. Adversary proceedings can be a long, exhausting, and — if the borrower hires private legal counsel — expensive, which can itself cut against their undue hardship argument. Meanwhile, lenders have significantly more resources than borrowers do, providing them with an advantage in court. As a result, many borrowers don’t even bother trying to get their student loans discharged in bankruptcy."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2021/10/28/big-changes-to-student-loan-bankruptcy-rules-may-be-coming---but-questions-remain/?sh=46ae6caf56eb
Congress did in 1976. https://theconversation.com/[WORD TOO LONG].
26 Aug 22
@kellyjay saidOne could make the same argument with any discharge of debt yet the US has had bankruptcy laws allowing the same since at least 1800.
Fair? I paid mine off. Do I get a check to recoup my time and effort for someone
else who gets to avoid paying off all of their debt? The money shelled out to give
the loan in the first place will still matter; the debt is still there, now I not only paid
mine off, but I also have to put it into the government the more of my income to
pay for the debt forgiveness for som ...[text shortened]... me rules; if you don't
and this picking winners and losers takes place, nothing about this is fair.