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Re:Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cance... by hedberg10 on Friday July 02, 2021 @10:34AM (#27712035)
Okay, NYT, you start. Make your work free.

(It's an NYT opinion piece, so straight into the garbage it goes, but it's written by Astra Taylor, who I value for her contributions to unschooling way back when, but since it's not free, I can't be bothered)

Re:Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cance... by harimau777 on Friday July 02, 2021 @12:00PM (#27713191)
The argument is generally not that people should not be paid.

Instead the argument is that the terms of the debt are not just or that people did not enter into the debt fully voluntarily (e.g. medical debt isn't much of a choice when the alternative is death/disability, student loan debt isn't much of a choice when low skilled positions don't pay a living wage).

The proposed solution generally takes the form of canceling existing debt, reforming future debt, and reforming society so that the debt is less necessary.

Re:Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cance... by bassman9000 on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:25PM (#27718354)
debt fully voluntarily

If you can vote, you can read contracts.

IMHO, we should raise voting age, precisely because of things like this. And because many entering these agreements today would be considered underage, more scrutiny would be expected.

But, until then, voting is a golden standard.

Re:Student Loans. Medical Debt. Criminal Justice Fees. Cance... by AnimalMuppet on Friday July 02, 2021 @12:56PM (#27713975)
And if we genuinely do the third step, so that we don't repeatedly wind up back in the same place, then we have something to talk about. Without the third step, it's going to work as an invitation to people to get into debt and expect to be bailed out. (You can say that people shouldn't take it that way, but you know that at least some will.)

The problem is, while Astra Taylor may get that, I'm not sure that Biden does. I haven't noticed the "reforming society" part in the debt forgiveness proposals that have been floated.