this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 77 points 1 year ago (9 children)

So we apparently decided that millionaires could get COVID loans forgiven and moved on, but regular folks can't get any student loan forgiveness.

Every day I'm more disappointed in my home country.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

we didn't decide anything, the mechanism the elite put into our government to prevent true democracy once again worked for them and against us. Just like the Citizen's United case.

Abort the Supreme Court

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Judical branch is in place to protect the rights of the few and Constitution so it plays a role. The issue is that the justices defend the powerful rather then thepeoples.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know the marketing spiel, but I'm talking about how it actually historically functions. In the fine print 'the rights of the few' = 'existing rich people / old money'

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Especially since the supreme court never sides with the few when it has the opportunity to grow a spine. Ie: "Jim Crow", "slavery"", internment camps", etc

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

somehow every kind of bank, business, and rich person can get tax breaks, and bail outs yet average middle class people can't get some help on their student loans.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The SCOTUS is illegitimate at this point. Prepare for years of terrible decisions. Or, do what I'm doing. Expatriate. This shit's beyond saving during this lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

It's been years of terrible decisions. They've been trying to build this Scotus config since Nixon and Reagan years, now they have it and everything people have been making fun of me for saying for 20+ years is happening. Ugh.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Expatriate

Where are you headed?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not much better in other places. Lots of us rely on being "better than the us" so as it slides, so do we, just a few meters behind.

Politicians need to actually feel concerned about how the people they are hurting will respond. Currently they know there will be nothing more than a few grouchy news articles and upset social media comments.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Except the French. They start a riot for every small change.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm glad people have correctly realized that the French should be associated with violent anti government riots and not surrendering. That was a meme that needed to die.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

When you actually study French history for 5 minutes, you realise how the memes about the French surrendering are straight-up ridiculous. And the people hold their government to account far more than most countries.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

I mean, they chopped off lots of heads back in the day. Smashing some shop windows and burning a couple of police cars is kind of a slow day for them.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remain unconvinced the states had standing sue here. They were not affected parties

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

This is a terrible precedent. Some federal action might affect a company which might pay the state taxes at some point so the states get to sue now? That could apply to nearly anything the federal government does! This is a terrible ruling for so many reasons. Naked partisan hackery by the conservative judges. The court needs reform badly.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago

dam so they paying back all the PPP money they ~~stole~~ used??

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This looks silly from an outside perspective:

IIRC the special thing about student loans in the US is that you cannot default out of them. So even if I go through bankruptcy, I will still owe this specific debt.

The obvious fix would be to deny student loans this special treatment.

I could imagine that this would also have a positive effect on the cost of tuition in the US, as the collection of these stupidly high debts would be far from guaranteed.

edit: spelling

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (9 children)

The obvouis fix would be to deny student loans this special treatment.

Unfortunately we're not going to get this anytime soon. The Republicans are against it, and Biden was the one who introduced the bill making student loans work this way.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (11 children)

It should be Ilegal to pay for education

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Cancel predatory loans, that lead to high tuitions, first...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Had a feeling this would happen unfortunately. I have a lot of student loans for my graduate degree and even if they would put the interest rate at something reasonable that would be so much better than the rates that are currently set

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Disappointed, but it makes sense that decisions with such huge implications should be clearly made by the legislative branch, not just at the whim of some executive department.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

yep. if something like debt forgiveness has a lot of bipartisan support, it should be an easy bit of legislation to pass.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

It does have bipartisan support, this is repeatedly shown in polling. But it doesn't matter what voters want. The interests of capital will be served above all else because of decades of antidemocratic moves.

Antidemocratic moves like

  • Legalized bribes that push politicians towards the interests of capital.
  • Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the electoral college which all reduce progressive and leftist voices to the point where we need massively more votes than right wingers to get the same power.
  • Filibuster power that firmly cements the status quo by requiring the majority of bills get a supermajority vote to pass.
  • Democrats being unwilling to wield their power to revoke the filibuster and enact their legislative agenda
  • The rotating villian democrats always seem to have have who can spoil anything even close to progress by one or two votes (Manchin and Sinema for now)

The US is just an oligarchy at this point and it's getting harder and harder for me to stay optimistic about getting out of it.

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