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No, because the businesses mark up the cost of everything to account for the transaction fees that visa is charging the merchant. If you never use Visa, you’re still paying for their ultimate existence.
The person using visa may pay additional interest to visa, but there’s still the baseline merchant markup that everyone is paying on everything.
Unless the business charges for credit card use (or discounts for using cash, whichever way they portray it) or doesn't take the card at all (like many won't take AmEx).
Unless the business charges for credit card use (or discounts for using cash, whichever way they portray it) or doesn't take the card at all (like many won't take AmEx).
Sure extremely limited exceptions exist. That also doesn’t escape my second point.
No, because the businesses mark up the cost of everything to account for the transaction fees that visa is charging the merchant. If you never use Visa, you’re still paying for their ultimate existence.
The person using visa may pay additional interest to visa, but there’s still the baseline merchant markup that everyone is paying on everything.
You’re also probably paying more as a consumer by visa extending the credit basis of millions of other people that are driving up demand and cost as well.
In other words, it’s the same “taxpayer”.
Eeexactly.
Also?
All this "not my tax dollars!" talk... And mind you, I made decent money and I am on the hook to pay Uncle Sam every year. Recently got my first educational experience for last year with capital gains, whee! Yeah. I pay. But you know, I don't complain about paying, if I can see a benefit to society.
And part of it is that I have been poor. I know it can take years to break out of a poverty trap if you ever even can. And having people as stuck as I was and as stuck as my relative is and as stuck as many people get, is not actually good for society. Now I'm not talking about giving the man a fish here...but if the man knows damn well how to fish, but his boat is stuck somehow and you can hop on over and lend a hand, get him un-stuck and send him on his way, then I think that's a good thing.
The kind of help I want to see people in need get, is the kind they usually want, which is just enough so that they can stop needing it and be self sufficient, if that is possible (barring for instance severe disability...and boy should those folks get a better deal than they do.)
No one wants to live in extreme poverty for some time period in order to qualify for student loan forgiveness. Make it 5 or even 10 years below the poverty line, something like that, that person is STUCK. They didn't do that to get a freebie. Living that way is nobody's idea of a good life.
The trap that had me, was that protection failed and I found myself pregnant. I don't have time for a "let's pick apart your life so I can tell you why it's all your fault" stupid conversation, but the trap I found myself in was...in order to keep working, I needed child care. Without child care, I would not be able to work. But I did not qualify for child care, because I was not working. So to get help with child care, I needed a job, to prove that I needed it, but without it, I could not get a job, and without a job, I could not pay for it... Trapped. I ended up taking my baby with me on job interviews at one point. Talk about a way to make a first impression, huh? But I did get hired, and so I was able to prove a need for child care assistance and get a little help with that, until my pay started coming and I could (and had to) take over paying it myself.
Sometimes a person just needs sprung out of a trap. If my tax dollars can help with that, I'm fine with it.
There are other things that they get spent on that I'm absolutely NOT FINE with. But that's well beyond the scope of this thread.
Why do they get the money in the first place? Why isn’t known excessive behavior priced into the interest rate or priced in by offering less money? Because the government (the taxpayer) distorts the risk and causes malinvestment everywhere. So then we need to ask why. Why are borrowers allowed access to money that they should never have and would never have anywhere else? And the answer is because the government wants to have a money spigot they can run full blast in every city in America with a degree mill, they want to play social justice god at the expense of sound economics, and lastly because they know they distorted the equation on the other side by not allowing bankruptcy.
It’s bad financial management piled on bad financial management.
I don’t think people who ****ed up should be ground into powder further because the whole system in rotten from the top. People shouldn’t be punished beyond what’s needed for them to learn from the mistake. Say, they have massively reduced quality of life for a decade. Why do we need to drive the stake in further? Let people reset. To what end is there to ruin another 10 years or another?
I really can't stand the "it's not fair" diversion. If that were the standard, we'd never progress in any way on any thing. Well the car I bought didn't have airbags, why should these other people get airbags?
Gee, my niece is 19 now and the child tax credit is going up, not fair, can't do it.
Golly, my mom doesn't have to take required minimum distributions until 72. Not fair, other people had to do it at 70 and a half.
Your "fair way" has the same problem, those people who worked 3 jobs or whatever your analogy is also had to pay whatever interest rate was there, not some reduced interest. They "agreed" to that part too, you know.
This totally avoids debating the merit of it on its own.
You are not debating, you are attempting to shut down any fairness argument - that is the opposite of debate by YOU determining that you don't want to hear opposing opinions. Fairness and who is covered is THE MAIN issue. Fairness is not a diversion, it is the heart of the "merit" (or lack of merit) of this issue. You also seem to dismiss the majority of the post that it will not get signed because Biden can't and the Congress won't because it only helps the few that made the choice to get these loans.
You don't get it - fairness is why it will not pass - only 1 in 8 (12%) have these loans - if the option is to pay $1T (projected cost) for these forgiveness payments or $1T for Biden's American Families Plan that benefits many more - I am guessing loan forgiveness will lose out.
I gave many examples of why fairness is an issue. Straight forgiveness only helps those that gained by having these loans in the first place, not those that were more responsible and already paid or never received them. The benefit was gained by those with the loans, not the plumber down the street that you want to pay for it now.
Your examples are not equivalent, you are not responsible for your niece, she is not your dependent but her parents did get that before - that is not an example of fairness - all get it to encourage support of minors. RMD is not a benefit, it is a requirement just like paying student loans. These issues are not of fairness where few benefit that freely made the choice.
The highest debt is held by those in good paying graduate programs - Law, Medical, Dental, Pharmacy, MBA and others - should someone that makes $400K be given the same as someone that makes $40K. Mostly it is those that made poor choices - getting a degree at an expensive school in something with little real world job market and now tend bar or wait tables. Now they want to be bailed out of that choice they made.
You forgive to encourage behavior you want - forgive maybe if provide service such as the doctor in underserved communities - forgiving just because you want to only encourages others to be irresponsible in the future. Reducing interest is a more palatable option.
All this "not my tax dollars!" talk... And mind you, I made decent money and I am on the hook to pay Uncle Sam every year. Recently got my first educational experience for last year with capital gains, whee! Yeah. I pay. But you know, I don't complain about paying, if I can see a benefit to society.
And part of it is that I have been poor. I know it can take years to break out of a poverty trap if you ever even can. And having people as stuck as I was and as stuck as my relative is and as stuck as many people get, is not actually good for society. Now I'm not talking about giving the man a fish here...but if the man knows damn well how to fish, but his boat is stuck somehow and you can hop on over and lend a hand, get him un-stuck and send him on his way, then I think that's a good thing.
The kind of help I want to see people in need get, is the kind they usually want, which is just enough so that they can stop needing it and be self sufficient, if that is possible (barring for instance severe disability...and boy should those folks get a better deal than they do.)
No one wants to live in extreme poverty for some time period in order to qualify for student loan forgiveness. Make it 5 or even 10 years below the poverty line, something like that, that person is STUCK. They didn't do that to get a freebie. Living that way is nobody's idea of a good life.
The trap that had me, was that protection failed and I found myself pregnant. I don't have time for a "let's pick apart your life so I can tell you why it's all your fault" stupid conversation, but the trap I found myself in was...in order to keep working, I needed child care. Without child care, I would not be able to work. But I did not qualify for child care, because I was not working. So to get help with child care, I needed a job, to prove that I needed it, but without it, I could not get a job, and without a job, I could not pay for it... Trapped. I ended up taking my baby with me on job interviews at one point. Talk about a way to make a first impression, huh? But I did get hired, and so I was able to prove a need for child care assistance and get a little help with that, until my pay started coming and I could (and had to) take over paying it myself.
Sometimes a person just needs sprung out of a trap. If my tax dollars can help with that, I'm fine with it.
There are other things that they get spent on that I'm absolutely NOT FINE with. But that's well beyond the scope of this thread.
The point that you seem to be missing is that the thing that helps people to get "sprung out of a trap" of poverty in the first place is the availability of the loan program itself! Prior to about 1965, there was no such thing as "student loans". You either had wealthy parents, or you worked 3 jobs, or got a scholarship, or you didn't get to go to college.
No bank was going to lend money to some poor student who had zero collateral and wouldn't even begin to pay the loan back for at least 4 years! So, in effect, the start of the student loan program was a god-send to students of modest means because it allowed students who were bright and ambitious to attend college without worrying about having money for tuition, books, and the like.
The problem came about when students began thinking of the student loan program as a "right". In other words, it became an "entitlement" in their view. Many students didn't concern themselves with repaying the loan. That's too old fashioned. They wanted their fun and "life experience" on a college campus and felt that they were entitled to it. Many figured that they would worry about paying the loan back later... or simply not pay it at all.
That's what happens when those who feel "entitled" take advantage of a good program and ruin it for everyone else. Now, all the "entitled" and their sympathizers want to just do away with the idea of paying the loans back. After all, living up to your responsibilities and paying your debts is just some old fashioned idea from that ancient time called the Twentieth Century which is just so "yesterday".
At this rate Biden is probably going to serve one term anyway and not run again. We don't need an 82 year old President in office. So he doesn't care about student loans. That's another can he'll kick down the road.
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