Instead we gave a small number of people all of this money for a moonshot in a state where they squabble over who’s allowed to use which bathroom and if I need an abortion I might die.
I'd give the money to folks starting in the trades before bailling out the college-educated class.
Also, wiping out numbers on a spreadsheet doesn't erect new homes. If we wiped out student debt, the portion of that value that went into new homeownership would principally flow to existing homeowners.
Finally, you're comparing a government hand-out to private investment into a capital asset. That's like comparing eating out at a nice restaurant to buying a bond. Different prerogatives.
A) this is a pledge by companies they may or may not even have the cash required to back it up. Certainly they aren’t spending it all at once, but to be completely honest it’s nothing more than a PR stunt right now that seems to be an exercise in courting favor
B) that so called private capital is going to get incentives from subsidies, like tax breaks, grants etc. It’s inevitable if this proceeds to an actual investment stage. What’s that about it being pure private capital again?
C) do to the aforementioned circumstances in A it seems whatever government support systems are stood up to support this - and if this isn’t ending in hot air, there will be - it still means it’s not pure private capital and worse yet, they’ll likely end up bilking tax payers and the initiative falls apart with companies spending far less then the pledge but keeping all the upside.
I’ll bet a years salary it plays out like this.
If this ends up being 100% private capital with no government subsidies of any kind, I’ll be shocked and elated. Look at anything like this in the last 40 years and you’ll find scant few examples that actually hold up under scrutiny that they didn’t play out this way.
Which brings me to my second part. So we are going to - in some form - end up handing out subsidies to these companies, either at the local state or federal level, but by the logic of not paying off student debt, why are we going to do this? It’s only propping up an unhealthy economic policy no?
Why is it so bad for us to cancel student debt but it’s fine to have the same cost equivalent as subsidies for businesses? Is it under the “creates jobs” smoke screen? Despite the fact the overwhelming majority of money made will not go to the workers but back to the wealthy and ultra wealthy.
There's no sense of equity here. If the government is truly unequivocally hands off - no subsidies, no incentives etc - than fine, the profits go where they go, and thats the end of it.
However, it won't be, and that opens up a perfectly legitimate ask about how this money is going to get used and who it benefits
Problem is, the parent comment is right. Even if you think student loan mitigation has washy economics behind it, the outcome is predictable and even desirable if you're playing the long-game in politics. If not that, spend $500,000,000,000 towards onshoring Apple and Microsoft's manufacturing jobs. Spend it re-invigorating America's mothballed motor industry and let Elon spec it out like a kid in a candy shop. Relative to AI, even student loan forgiveness and dumping money into trades looks attractive (not that Trump would consider either).
Nobody on HN should be confused by this. We know Sam Altman is a scammer (Worldcoin, anyone?) and we know OpenAI is a terrible business. This money is being deliberately wasted to keep OpenAI's lights on and preserve the Weekend At Bernie's-esque corpse that is America's "lead" in software technology. That's it. It's blatantly simple.
I'm one of the people who paid off a large portion of debt and probably don't need this assistance. However, this argument is so offensive. People were encouraged to take out debt for a number of reasons, and by a number of institutions, without first being educated about the implications of that. This argument states that we shouldn't help people because other people didn't have help. Following this logic, we shouldn't seek to help anyone ever, unless everyone else has also received the exact same help.
- slaves shouldn't be freed because other slaves weren't freed - we shouldn't give food to the starving, because those not starving aren't getting free food - we shouldn't care about others because they don't care about me
These arguments are all the greedy option in game theory, and all contribute to the worst outcomes across the board, except for those who can scam others in this system.
The right way to think about programs that help others is to consider cooperating - some people don't get the maximum possible, but they do get some! And when the game is played over and over, all parties get the maximum benefit possible.
In the case of student debt, paying it off and fixing the broken system, by allowing bankruptcy or some other fix, would benefit far more people than it would hurt; it would also benefit some people who paid their loans off completely: parents of children who can't pay off their loans now.
In the end the argument that some already paid off their debts is inherently a selfish argument in the style of "I don't want them to get help because I didn't get help." Society would be better if we didn't think in such greedy terms.
All that said - there are real concerns about debt repayment. The point about emboldening universities to ask for higher tuition highlights the underlying issue with the student loan system. Why bring up the most selfish possible argument when there are valid, useful arguments for your position?
And there could be a change in the law that allows people to forgive student debt in personal bankruptcy, and that could make sure higher tuition doesnt happen.
Instead of starting a new better world, we'll just stick with the old one that sucks because we don't want to be unfair. What an awful, awful way to look at the world.
> it would embolden universities to ask even higher tuition.
Then cap the amount you give out loans. Many of them are back by one level of the government or another.
> A second problem is that not all students get the benefit, some already paid off their debts or a large part of it. It would be unfair to them.
This is a very flimsy argument. Shall we get rid of the polio vaccine since it's unfair to those who already contracted it that our efforts with the vaccine don't benefit them?
AFAICT from this article and others on the same subject, the 500 billion number does not appear to be public money. It sounds like it's 100 billion of private investment (probably mostly from Son), and FTA,
> could reach five times that sum
(5x 100 billion === 500 billion, the # everyone seems to be quoting)
free college is just a giveaway to the wealthier third of our society and irresponsible with our current fiscal situation.
Don't throw more money at schools. They will happily take the money and jack up tuition even more. There is no reason why tuition is going up at the pace it does.
There is and it's explained by Baumol's cost disease. Basically you can't sustain paying professors the same wage while productivity increases in other parts of the economy. Even if the actual labor of "professing" hasn't gotten more productive. You have to retain them by keeping up with the broader wage increases. And that cost increase gets passed down to students.
It's also not clear to me what happens to all of the derivatives based on student debt, though there may very well be an answer there that I just haven't understood yet.
When a few people get really rich it kind of slips through the gaps, the broader system isn't impacted too much. When most people get a little rich they spend that money and prices go up. Said differently, wealth is all relative so when most people get a little more rich their comparative wealth didn't really change.
Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.