#1
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#2
Mike Nelson here.
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so this plan involves one million people who weren't going to default otherwise choosing to default at the expense of probably not being able to buy a house or something because there's a small chance this micropolitical action will cascade through the economy causing the government to address student debt.
#3
tardy on these heaters
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not funny khamsek
#4
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#5
Mike Nelson here.
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keep voting each other down so that i reign supreme
#6
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Do u All want to end up in reputation debt. Do U?!
#7
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http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2007/06/student_loan_sc.html

Why should students who are trying to finance an education be treated more harshly than someone who negligently ran over a child or someone who racked up tens of thousands of dollars gambling?

#8
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dm posted:
http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2007/06/student_loan_sc.html

Why should students who are trying to finance an education be treated more harshly than someone who negligently ran over a child or someone who racked up tens of thousands of dollars gambling?



http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/19/forgive-student-loans-worst-idea-ever/

#9
tardy on these heaters
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student debt forgiveness will be the best case gain from occupy imo
#10
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i like that our economy is based on literal slavery.
#11
Dont Mess With Sucess
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gruntstein posted:
i like that our economy is based on literal slavery.


sounds like youd be happy with a lot of economies

#12
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gruntstein posted:
i like that our economy is based on literal slavery.



our forefathers would be proud :patriot:

#13
Mike Nelson here.
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the thing about "college grads" in that freakonomics article is true but the problem is that defaults probably aren't random - they are people who are very low-income and probably a majority of them have some social barrier to high incomes (minority women, didn't graduate, etc.). really the problem isn't student debt itself but the fact that school isn't free and that you don't get a living stipend while in school, which is how it should be (school is a form of work). that isn't even that radical, many countries have essentially that situation. but most of the current problem in the US is that lots of students are drawn into cash cow programs that either they won't finish or they'll graduate without jobs waiting for them. so it is sort of a scam and only comprehensive reform would make it much better.

a related issue though is that huge numbers of americans are only being trained for light office work and middle management. a huge section of the american economy are people trained to do this sort of coordination and paperwork style of work - FIRE sector and well beyond. that might have worked out well when financialization was cushioning those jobs a bit, but if we have to reduce the size of finance and management in the economy then where are those people going to go? that's probably exacerbating long-term search unemployment big time right now as millions of people with office experience are looking around while realizing they don't actually have skills, that really their entire career prospects were based around middle-class power over others and people who attach to that world (administrative assistants and so on).

another point i think is interesting (which sort of follows from marx) is that as soon as a sector becomes dominant it tends to dig its own grave through innovations. for example, factory work became the core of the economy but then class struggles quickly decimated the concentration of labour in that sector. likewise, if financialization is dominant now, it's possible that what will happen next is a dramatic hollowing out of that sector through some sort of innovation like public management. obviously for materialists this would mean that the economy be reworked around sustainable physical production in order to maximize human happiness. that is, almost everyone would have to do work in terms of social maintenance and reproduction, but it would probably take less of our time and let us focus on things like affective production (art, kinship, etc.). i think negri is probably wrong that this affective production is a new area for exploitation so much as it is a terrain of combat for late capitalism due to the power of the wealthy west which is moving towards a sort of "new new economy", although in an unequal way.
#14
tardy on these heaters
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*grudgingly upvotes*
#15
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getfiscal posted:
the thing about "college grads" in that freakonomics article is true but the problem is that defaults probably aren't random - they are people who are very low-income and probably a majority of them have some social barrier to high incomes (minority women, didn't graduate, etc.). really the problem isn't student debt itself but the fact that school isn't free and that you don't get a living stipend while in school, which is how it should be (school is a form of work). that isn't even that radical, many countries have essentially that situation. but most of the current problem in the US is that lots of students are drawn into cash cow programs that either they won't finish or they'll graduate without jobs waiting for them. so it is sort of a scam and only comprehensive reform would make it much better.

a related issue though is that huge numbers of americans are only being trained for light office work and middle management. a huge section of the american economy are people trained to do this sort of coordination and paperwork style of work - FIRE sector and well beyond. that might have worked out well when financialization was cushioning those jobs a bit, but if we have to reduce the size of finance and management in the economy then where are those people going to go? that's probably exacerbating long-term search unemployment big time right now as millions of people with office experience are looking around while realizing they don't actually have skills, that really their entire career prospects were based around middle-class power over others and people who attach to that world (administrative assistants and so on).

another point i think is interesting (which sort of follows from marx) is that as soon as a sector becomes dominant it tends to dig its own grave through innovations. for example, factory work became the core of the economy but then class struggles quickly decimated the concentration of labour in that sector. likewise, if financialization is dominant now, it's possible that what will happen next is a dramatic hollowing out of that sector through some sort of innovation like public management. obviously for materialists this would mean that the economy be reworked around sustainable physical production in order to maximize human happiness. that is, almost everyone would have to do work in terms of social maintenance and reproduction, but it would probably take less of our time and let us focus on things like affective production (art, kinship, etc.). i think negri is probably wrong that this affective production is a new area for exploitation so much as it is a terrain of combat for late capitalism due to the power of the wealthy west which is moving towards a sort of "new new economy", although in an unequal way.



agreed, except that clerking is definitely a "skill" in the same sense that any given profession has associated skills.

#16
Mike Nelson here.
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yeah i don't mean to denigrate it either, my only skills are probably light office work and simple policy analysis or something.

oh and revolutionary fervor.
#17
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#18
Mike Nelson here.
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discipline posted:
I'm going into political risk analysis imo

that field rules because like there are probably parts of astrology that are more scientific. like they use statistical tables filled with things like "leader appears in public in a military uniform" and so on.

#19
US
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I'm a bit conflicted emotionally watching the US protest movement cause if the Americans r/wise up and restore the environmental regulatory state then I'll probably be able to find work and do okay until the food system starts going to shit, and if they don't then they'll die horribly of painful and mysterious illnesses in a decade or two so it's hard to commit to getting mad at them in that case :/
#20
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getfiscal posted:
the thing about "college grads" in that freakonomics article is true but the problem is that defaults probably aren't random - they are people who are very low-income and probably a majority of them have some social barrier to high incomes (minority women, didn't graduate, etc.). really the problem isn't student debt itself but the fact that school isn't free and that you don't get a living stipend while in school, which is how it should be (school is a form of work). that isn't even that radical, many countries have essentially that situation. but most of the current problem in the US is that lots of students are drawn into cash cow programs that either they won't finish or they'll graduate without jobs waiting for them. so it is sort of a scam and only comprehensive reform would make it much better.



yeah, i have even seen some people on the Left dismiss it as a petty-bourgeois thing because they mistake middle class aspirations (blended with others) with middle class means.

if Mexico has free higher education, i think we could manage it if we tried

gruntstein posted:
i like that our economy is based on literal slavery.



I Like How a lot of people would dismiss that b/c of the stuff that David Graeber talks about with conceptions of morality

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/slavetrade.htm

Each of the States Parties to this Convention shall take all practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment of the following institutions and practices, where they still exist and whether or not they are covered by the definition of slavery contained in article 1 of the Slavery Convention signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926:

( a ) Debt bondage, that is to say, the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;



#21
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getfiscal posted:
yeah i don't mean to denigrate it either, my only skills are probably light office work and simple policy analysis or something.

oh and revolutionary fervor.



same, also banjo

#22
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#23
Mike Nelson here.
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discipline posted:
yes, looking forward to making 6 figures doing this, my foot in the door is going to be my "twirling waxed mustache" variable

the only "6 figures" you'll make under JDPEN is a series of six painted wooden figures of famous communist leaders.

#24
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#25
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getfiscal posted:

discipline posted:
yes, looking forward to making 6 figures doing this, my foot in the door is going to be my "twirling waxed mustache" variable

the only "6 figures" you'll make under JDPEN is a series of six painted wooden figures of famous communist leaders.

"either way, we're gonna have a lotta fun, huh?" - prince john, robin hood: men in tights, 1993, memorable quotes

#26
Mike Nelson here.
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as an aside, since i have essentially been a permanent student as a way of marking time while disabled / nuts, this is roughly how many courses i've taken:

(1.0 credits = 1 full fall-winter course)

8 history
7 economics
6 philosophy
4 development studies
3 politics
2 mathematics
1 business
1 women's studies
1 sociology
1 psychology
1 french

what's weird is that most of what i've learned i think is from independent study. like school taught me a whole bunch of stuff about capitalist society but it was usually taught in a totally obfuscated bourgeois way, even the "socialist" professors, it's weird. like i can tell you a fair bit about how canadian tax polciy and social programs and so on, but like that doesn't teach you anything about the real structure of political economy in itself.
#27
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#28
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#29
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#30
Mike Nelson here.
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Crow posted:
"either way, we're gonna have a lotta fun, huh?" - prince john, robin hood: men in tights, 1993, memorable quotes

Josie McCoy: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when the going gets tough...
Melody: The tough make lemonade!

#31
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discipline posted:
I'd say the best courses I've ever taken have been my african american studies courses. the best one I'm taking right now we just spend half an hour asking ourselves "what is globalization?"



a miserable enormous pile of secrets!" - gyrofry

#32
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#33
Mike Nelson here.
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discipline posted:
the next great lucy-with-the-football trick is gonna be when obama promises to forgive student loan debt, 90% of students vote him back into office, and then he changes his mind

obama isn't going to forgive $1 trillion in consumer debt.

#34
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in 2007 obama promised to give you ten grand a year for college if you volunteered in your community. lmao that guy sucks
#35
Mike Nelson here.
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gruntstein posted:
in 2007 obama promised to give you ten grand a year for college if you volunteered in your community. lmao that guy sucks

yeah well he's the president and you're not so he must be doing something right!!!!

#36
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getfiscal posted:

gruntstein posted:
in 2007 obama promised to give you ten grand a year for college if you volunteered in your community. lmao that guy sucks

yeah well he's the president and you're not so he must be doing something right!!!!

yeah LYING and being a TRAITOR, believing ina DESERT RELIGION and surrounding himself with PIG-HATERS

#37
tardy on these heaters
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discipline posted:
the next great lucy-with-the-football trick is gonna be when obama promises to forgive student loan debt, 90% of students vote him back into office, and then he changes his mind



Occupy the White House

#38
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#39
Dont Mess With Sucess
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getfiscal posted:
obama isn't going to forgive $1 trillion in consumer debt.


i hope he does!

#40
Mike Nelson here.
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Crow posted:
yeah LYING and being a TRAITOR, believing ina DESERT RELIGION and surrounding himself with PIG-HATERS

you are probably mimicking the position of someone conservative for some reason.