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On April 19 2012 00:00 Equity213 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 23:53 LaNague wrote:
studying should be free, thankfully it basically is in my region in germany, just got to pay some fee that everyone has to pay that pays for social stuff like food and transportation.
The teaching part of a university is NOT expensive, buy one cruise missile less and you payed it for a few thousand people for a year.
look at this... "lucky to go to college", sounds like medieval times oO Socialists (i dont mean that as an insult) always defend their programs by saying "its better than guns and bombs". Well thats true, but it still doesnt make it right. Its still selfishly squandering the resources of this world, stealing from society to build things THEY think are good. Your just offering up the lesser of two evils.
I just can't wrap my head around how having your population properly educated translates to selfishly squandering resources of the world and an "evil" in yours. I mean, in comparison you have a system that will encourage actual squandering of the resources of the world to make iPads just because there's a "demand" for it.
If for no other reason, educated people are less likely to be manipulated and more likely to understand their needs better which will lead towards a more reasonable market with more realistic demand.
Some things are just universally, objectively, and rationally good and have inherent value that may or may not entirely translate into market value, no matter how difficult it might be for you to acknowledge the existence of such things.
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Just what this country needs... more people buying stuff they can't afford... then becoming the victims.
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It's amazing to me to see just how programmed we are to accept less/lower standards. Extremely ripe for a totalitarian state.
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There`s no such thing as 'free' education. What you are really saying is you want me to pay for your education. Well I don't want to pay for your education. Why should I, someone who never went to university, who never had those opportunities, be forced to subsidize you? People who go to university tend to be from a higher socio-economic background then those who don't. So why should the poor be forced to subsidize the rich?
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
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On April 18 2012 09:17 kammeyer wrote:I haven't seen anything on the forums about this topic. I used the search function, but alas nothing. Basically, a rep from Michigan has come forward to recognize the student debt problem and has drafted a solution. You can find it here : Sign the PetitionBasics: -The bill would create a new “10-10 standard” for student loan forgiveness. If you make payments equal to 10% of your discretionary income for 10 years, your remaining federal student loan debt would be forgiven. - If you have already been making payments on your student loans, your repayment period would likely be shorter than 10 years. The amount you have already paid on your student loans over the past decade would be credited toward meeting the requirement for forgiveness. - The bill would ensure low interest rates on federal student loans by capping them at 3.4%. - The bill would allow existing borrowers whose educational loan debt exceeds their income to break free from the crushing interest rates of private loans by converting their private loan debt into federal Direct Loans, then enrolling their new federal loans into the 10/10 program. - The bill would reward graduates for entering public service professions like teaching and firefighting. It would also provide incentives for medical professionals to work in underserved communities. It would reduce the Public Service Loan Forgiveness requirement to 5 years from its current 10 years. View Full: Full BillWhat do you guys think? You should sign the petition if you're for it, but open dialogue about it would be cool as well.
Yes, it's a good idea.
Education is a positive externality, and basic economic theory says that positive externalities should be subsidized. Partly forgiving student loans and tying it to working in jobs that society needs, like teachers, etc, increases the net societal good.
In Australia, everyone can get a university loan, which gets paid back through the tax system if your income after university exceeds a certain threshold.
Even better, the government reduces the cost of university if you study in high demand areas such as science, nursing or education. And even better than that, the government in effect further reduces this debt if you are employed in science after graduating.
This way, we encourage people to be educated in areas of need, like science, and further encourage them to work in these areas. All of this has positive spillover effects on society.
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I'm generally against this. There are better ways to make college affordable, this doesn't target particularly talented kids or especially deserving ones. Eventually people will realize college is just not for everyone, and thats completely fine.
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On April 19 2012 00:26 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
There`s no such thing as 'free' education. What you are really saying is you want me to pay for your education. Well I don't want to pay for your education. Why should I, someone who never went to university, who never had those opportunities, be forced to subsidize you? People who go to university tend to be from a higher socio-economic background then those who don't. So why should the poor be forced to subsidize the rich?
There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Your complaint is that poor people can't afford to go to university, and your solution is stop all subsidies.
Then, how do you expect poor people to get into university, if they are too poor to afford it, and no one pays for them?
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Education is a positive externality, and basic economic theory says that positive externalities should be subsidized.
I disagree with this. Just because someone else benefits from something I do doesn't mean they should be taxed for my benefit. If a girl walks around in a miniskirt I have a positive externality because of this, but do you really think I should be taxed in order to subsidize her for that?
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Your complaint is that poor people can't afford to go to university, and your solution is stop all subsidies.
My complaint is that advocates of subsidizing education want to steal from the poor to give to the rich. I don't have a problem with the fact that poor people DON'T go to university (clearly they CAN, just by getting a job & or student loans) because I think far too many people do go to university.
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On April 19 2012 00:33 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:Show nested quote +Education is a positive externality, and basic economic theory says that positive externalities should be subsidized. I disagree with this. Just because someone else benefits from something I do doesn't mean they should be taxed for my benefit. If a girl walks around in a miniskirt I have a positive externality because of this, but do you really think I should be taxed in order to subsidize her for that?
Yes, imagine the net benefit to (male) society if the government paid women to walk around in miniskirts.
EDIT: No I'm not serious. But this is a good example. If women walking around in miniskirt really is a positive externality (not really, it might be demeaning to them, some girls are fat, it gets cold, mainly benefits men not women, etc.), then it does make sense for the government to subsidize it, in accordance with standard economic theory.
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You can't improve society by forcing people to do things they don't want to do. Everyone has their own subjective value scales, their own things they want to spend their money on. Taxation decreases people's utility by forcing them to spend money on things they don't want to spend money on. And it's wrong. It's wrong to use state power to loot one group in order to subsidize another.
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On April 19 2012 00:34 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:Show nested quote +Your complaint is that poor people can't afford to go to university, and your solution is stop all subsidies.
My complaint is that advocates of subsidizing education want to steal from the poor to give to the rich. I don't have a problem with the fact that poor people DON'T go to university (clearly they CAN, just by getting a job & or student loans) because I think far too many people do go to university.
Taxes are mostly stolen from the rich, not the poor.
Subsidizing education is stealing from the rich to give to everyone (although in Australia, there's currently a government initiative to increase university enrollment from poor families), not stealing from the poor to give to the rich.
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Blazinghand
United States25562 Posts
This is a program that is trying to do the right thing, but going about it the wrong way. Instead of spending gov't money to get rid of this loans, why not just spend more gov't money on our Junior Colleges and State Universities? With more government fundings our public institutions won't have to charge high tuitions that necessitate loans.
The easiest thing to do here is reduce tuition, rather than have a high tuition then do some wonky loan forgiveness scheme. We should spend some serious bank on our higher ed programs so people can actually afford to go to a state uni like they used to...
Trying to solve this problem by forgiving loans instead of just lowering tuition is like talking to your fat friend who eats mcdonalds 9x a day and saying "oh, keep on eating that mcdonalds 9x a day but also go for a jog for 9 hours a day" when instead he could just not eat mcdonalds 9x a day
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On April 19 2012 00:37 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
You can't improve society by forcing people to do things they don't want to do. Everyone has their own subjective value scales, their own things they want to spend their money on. Taxation decreases people's utility by forcing them to spend money on things they don't want to spend money on. And it's wrong. It's wrong to use state power to loot one group in order to subsidize another.
No one is being forced.
It's not wrong, it's a positive externality, it increases the societal good.
An educated work force is good for society, so the government incentivizes people to get education.
There is a skills shortage in science (at least in Australia) so more people working in science is good for society, therefore the government incentivizes people to get a science degree, and further incentivizes them to work in science after graduation.
Subsidies don't force, they incentivize.
While taxation decreases personal utility, it can increase societies utility, as without taxation no government could afford to build roads, in force laws, provide social insurance for the poor etc.
The flip side is that if there is too much redistribution through taxes, then taxation serves as a disincentive to working hard and being productive. But this argument does not apply in the case of subsidizing education, as you still have to work hard to get good results and get a job after graduation.
Talking about taxation as if it's some kind of moral evil is an irrelevant argument. This is economics, not morality.
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If taxation is such a great thing you wouldn't need to bully people into paying their taxes by threatening them with violence if they didn't. Extortion is not a moral business model. When you say there is a shortage of scientists in your society, what you are really demonstrating is what Hayek termed the pretense of knowledge - there's no possible way to have that knowledge. How are you so sure there's not too many scientists?
When I am taxed in order to spend money on x (where x is something you want the government to spend money on) this is coercive. I am being forced, by the threat of violence, to spend money on something I don't want to spend money on. The reason why you need so much subsidies to education is because most of the people involved in this whole practice c couldn't get a real job that pays nearly as much as they can by working @ a university (or using their diploma to get a position as a bureaucrat when they graduate). The whole system is an elaborate scam, and it's all the worse because people have the gall to lecture me about the necessity of this scam.
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Economics is not divorced from morality.
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Blazinghand
United States25562 Posts
When you are born into a modern society, you inherently opt into our social contract, which includes the payment of taxes (assuming you have a sufficiently large income). If you don't like the idea of taxation and the coercion behind it, you have a number of options, including leading a secession, trying to live outside of society in the wilderness, or fleeing to a country where you can hide from taxes.
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I never signed any social contract.
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how about we just try it for the people graduating this spring and see how it goes :D
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On April 19 2012 00:54 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote:
If taxation is such a great thing you wouldn't need to bully people into paying their taxes by threatening them with violence if they didn't. Extortion is not a moral business model. When you say there is a shortage of scientists in your society, what you are really demonstrating is what Hayek termed the pretense of knowledge - there's no possible way to have that knowledge. How are you so sure there's not too many scientists?
When I am taxed in order to spend money on x (where x is something you want the government to spend money on) this is coercive. I am being forced, by the threat of violence, to spend money on something I don't want to spend money on. The reason why you need so much subsidies to education is because most of the people involved in this whole practice c couldn't get a real job that pays nearly as much as they can by working @ a university (or using their diploma to get a position as a bureaucrat when they graduate). The whole system is an elaborate scam, and it's all the worse because people have the gall to lecture me about the necessity of this scam.
Your use of terms like "bully", "extort", "coercive" is completely wrongheaded. Economics is not a morality tale, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.
The Australian government decides which courses to subsidize partly based on demand, from the public and private sector. There is a shortage of scientist and engineers in Australia. Therefore, providing incentives to work in science really is to the benefit of society.
Your attack on academics is very low, particularly since academics get paid much less than they could otherwise get working in the private sector. Here's some real numbers (1 AUD is approximately 1 USD): http://www.hr.unsw.edu.au/services/salaries/acadsal.html
You seem to be out on a crusade to prove that taxation is some moral evil, while being out of touch with the facts, and completely disregarding economics.
Maybe taxation is a moral evil. So the fuck what.
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EPT
