The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[Lord Simian]

So you propose wiping out all debt.

What do you think would happen to lending that point? Who in their right mind would lend again if they felt that they had no chance of redeeming their investment?

And ignoring banks, what about people who bought brand new cars or boats. They deserve to have those for free? They don't have to pay their agreed upon price for them? Or all the people with their credit card debt, they can just have all this stuff for free?

I get it you're upset because a college sold your wife a useless degree and she'll spend an obscene amount of time paying it back. I think the college system is screwed up, I think the colleges exist to sell you a degree regardless of usability and it is irresponsible for the government to provide loans to anyone who wants it, rather than actually providing loans only to people entering viable markets. But the answer isn't to "clean slate" debt, the effects of such a thing would be terrible.

And the fact is, no one was tricked into their credit card debt, no one was forced to buy a house they couldn't afford or buy a house at all, no one was forced to buy a new car, no one was forced to live a lifestyle outside of their means. Just because a lot of people are greedy and want what they can't afford, doesn't mean that the right answer is to erase all of their poor life decisions to screw over the banks you hate so much. Also no one was every forced into taking out huge debts for colleges, you may feel that people are tricked into thinking college is more important than it is, or the prices are too high, but when you sign up for loans, are adults are allowed to do at 18 all the information is present to you. I personally think the government shouldn't be involved in the loan process at all, just give out grants/scholarships and leave the loans to people who know they are taking a risk investing in this persons education and will only take that risk if that person is likely to be able to pay them back.

As for some people getting richer the past few years while others struggle It happened in the 30's too. I'm not going to be jealous of the what other people have.

Being jealous of what other people have is, as George Carlin pointed out, the basis for the entire economy. Your neighbor, he said, gets a solid gold vibrator that plays 'Oh come, all Ye faithful', and you wanna get one too!

[S.F. Jude Terror]

So you propose wiping out all debt.

What do you think would happen to lending that point? Who in their right mind would lend again if they felt that they had no chance of redeeming their investment?

And ignoring banks, what about people who bought brand new cars or boats. They deserve to have those for free? They don't have to pay their agreed upon price for them? Or all the people with their credit card debt, they can just have all this stuff for free?

I get it you're upset because a college sold your wife a useless degree and she'll spend an obscene amount of time paying it back. I think the college system is screwed up, I think the colleges exist to sell you a degree regardless of usability and it is irresponsible for the government to provide loans to anyone who wants it, rather than actually providing loans only to people entering viable markets. But the answer isn't to "clean slate" debt, the effects of such a thing would be terrible.

And the fact is, no one was tricked into their credit card debt, no one was forced to buy a house they couldn't afford or buy a house at all, no one was forced to buy a new car, no one was forced to live a lifestyle outside of their means. Just because a lot of people are greedy and want what they can't afford, doesn't mean that the right answer is to erase all of their poor life decisions to screw over the banks you hate so much. Also no one was every forced into taking out huge debts for colleges, you may feel that people are tricked into thinking college is more important than it is, or the prices are too high, but when you sign up for loans, are adults are allowed to do at 18 all the information is present to you. I personally think the government shouldn't be involved in the loan process at all, just give out grants/scholarships and leave the loans to people who know they are taking a risk investing in this persons education and will only take that risk if that person is likely to be able to pay them back.

As for some people getting richer the past few years while others struggle It happened in the 30's too. I'm not going to be jealous of the what other people have.

I'm not talking about Joe Blow on the other side of town with a nice car and twice my salary. I'm talking about an entire world economy based on fictional money. Trillions of dollars of national debt, most of it completely made up. That money that is lent isn't based on gold in some bank vault. It's literally created out of thin air for the purpose of debt. Banks trade and sell debt. Gamblers on wall street get rich off of that alone. It's what caused the economic crisis to begin with. It's what causes every bubble and the subsequent crash of that bubble.

It's sick.

So yes, I think we'd be better off. I think it's a misconception that if there wasn't some giant 2 big 2 fail bank to lend money, business wouldn't exist. It would exist. It would just have to be responsible.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

The entire economy today exists because Americans, and America, is in a constant state of overwhelming debt. You have the national debt, you have business founded on debt, you have mortgage debt, car debt, student loan debt, credit card debt. It's easy to say "Well it's people's choice to have a credit card." But in fact, it's the American way of life, and it's really a kind of slavery. Metaphorically as well as actually, because the giant corporations that own all of this wealth are only able to suck money out of American consumers at such a disproportionate rate to what they give back to them in wages because they are paying women and children in Asia $1 a week to work in deplorable conditions in sweat shops. This reality is promoted by our society on such a deep, institutionalized level that a peon like you (or me) can go on a message board and, with a straight face, blame someone who took a bad mortgage loan for the economic crisis. Really? A person who lives in a society where debt and spending above your means is a way of life that is indoctrinated into everyone from the moment they're born is at fault for taking a bad loan, as opposed to the lending institution who made that loan in the first place ON PURPOSE?

Rockman. Read a book.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.”

- Thomas Jefferson

[guitarsmashley]

I have no problem owing my many thousands of dollars in credit card debt and things like car loan and but the student loan debt is pretty crushing. Just go with the student loans and call it a day.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Student loan debt is vastly inflated. A college education isn't worth anything near what is paid for it. It only costs that much because our society has allowed it to become inflated through student debt. The same is true of real estate though. And really, everything. If people had to pay for things with real money, things would cost a lot less.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Though driven by global market adjustments in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars [12][13][14], the severity of the downturn was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands,[15][16] fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns. [17][18][19]
The Second Bank of the United States (BUS), itself deeply enmeshed in these inflationary practices,[20][21][22] sought to compensate for its laxness in regulating the state bank credit market by initiating a sharp curtailment in loans by its western branches, beginning in 1818.[23][24] Failing to provide metallic currency when presented with their own bank notes by the BUS, the state-chartered banks began foreclosing on the heavily mortgaged farms and business properties they had financed. [25][26] The ensuing financial panic, in conjunction with a sudden recovery in European agricultural production in 1817[27][28] led to widespread bankruptcies and mass unemployment. [29][30]
The financial disaster and depression provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprise, [31][32] and a general belief that federal government economic policy was fundamentally flawed. [33] Americans, many for the first time, became politically engaged so as to defend their local economic interests.[34][35]

I guess we learned nothing.

[guitarsmashley]

Student loan debt is vastly inflated. A college education isn't worth anything near what is paid for it. It only costs that much because our society has allowed it to become inflated through student debt. The same is true of real estate though. And really, everything. If people had to pay for things with real money, things would cost a lot less.

Student debt is the bubble getting ready to burst. And burst very very very hard. My total loan debt is just under my annual salary.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Student debt is the bubble getting ready to burst. And burst very very very hard. My total loan debt is just under my annual salary.

God damn all those greedy students with their free boats ruining our economy.

[Rockman]

Jude is pretty close to rambling about winter and summer folk here in a minute.

[Juan Cena]

Jude is pretty close to rambling about winter and summer folk here in a minute.

Appropriate since Jude is both winter and summer folk.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Jude is pretty close to rambling about winter and summer folk here in a minute.

And you're simply regurgitating the beliefs instilled in you by cultural hegemony with no real thought process behind them.

[Juan Cena]

And you're simply regurgitating the beliefs instilled in you by cultural hegemony with no real thought process behind them.

Wait, Niktrist is the "cultural hegemony" now?

[Rockman]

And you're simply regurgitating the beliefs instilled in you by cultural hegemony with no real thought process behind them.

oh I get it you're a marxist, that's cute.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

oh I get it you're a marxist, that's cute.

Oh, you can use wikipedia now, that's cute.

No, I just think that the super rich and corporations have become way too powerful, our government is corrupt and serves only their interests, and the people are screwed royally. I'm by no means a communist, I think people should be able to work to better their lives and social standing. The problem is there's very little class mobility, which used to be the heart of the American dream, left in this country, and the powers continue to take more of it away. They do it with Patriot acts and gun control, inciting meaningless class and racial tension that serves as a red herring to the real problem, and with the continual promotion of rampant consumerism on top of debt while at the same time moving all of the jobs overseas where they can basically get slaves to do them. I think that all the things that both the left and the right complain about and blame each other for are actually part of a concerted effort by the powers that be to oppress the people, I've been saying this for some time about everything, and I'm honestly astonished that everyone doesn't see it.

The tea party and the occupy movement were both railing against, and ultimately trivialized, marginalized, perverted, and squashed by these interests and the powers that be by people like you (or your leftist equivalent), who just take what you've been trained to think by the powers that be and their media pundits and regurgitate it without ever really thinking about what any of it means or what's really going on. You don't need to back it up with any kind of logical argument for why things work the way they do. You just accept it as the truth because it's the way things are.

Your platitudes about people "paying their debts" are silly because it's not a matter of a person who worked hard to gain or create property selling it to a person who needs that property. It's huge financial institutions, immune to any kind of accountability even to government, in control of that government because politics in this country are entirely based on money, in control of all of the real estate in the country. Unless you're a millionaire, the only way you can own property in this country is by taking a mortgage and paying interest to banks, and if you can't afford that you can at least pay them through rent. There's no alternative, and therefore, no real constraint of supply and demand to keep prices in any way reasonable. Because, make no mistake, when the market went bust and real estate prices dropped, rent prices rose. Because people HAVE to live somewhere, and the banks gotta have that money.

That's not a free market. It's tyranny.