I just viewed the PPP loans we took as a tax refund. Bully for me!

Indeed. I am (but shouldn't be) amazed at how riled up some folks are about $10K-$20K in student-loan forgiveness. Similar to @11:48, take a quick look at how $7 BILLION in PPP loans were handed out in Nevada. $5M for an orthopedic practice, $4M for Findlay car dealerships, $4M for a Nevada branch of a national charter school, millions more for scammers who quickly set up sole proprietorships.

Something like 25 PPP loans, totaling almost $4M, went to businesses at Trump and Kushner-owned properties. The parents of McEnany, one of Trump's press secretaries, received up to $2M. Companies of Nevada Rep Susie Lee's husband got something like $5M. Those "loans" weren't paid back. While one suspect cash grab doesn't justify another, I think student-loan forgiveness for federal loans that enabled the ridiculous rise in tuition are much more justifiable. So let's chill out on $10K for wage earners making less than $125K, sheesh.

I'm happy for the people who had their loans forgiven, and I hope this $10,000 helps them.

That said, I am very worried about where this leads. Tuition has skyrocketed over the last 20 years, and I think it has done so on the availability of "free" loan money. I worry that unscrupulous schools will use this as Exhibit A to convince students to take on even more loans to pay even higher tuition.

Relatedly, I worry that loan forgiveness will be seen as the status quo, and that next years' debtors will expect their loans to be forgiven too.

I think a better response would be to put a cap on tuition, limit the availability of school loans, and to get US News to alter its rankings to reward affordability. I think serious actions need to be taken to stop incentivizing schools to raise tuition and raise young peoples' indebtedness. People were up in arms about mortgage bankers a decade ago; I see what colleges do as at least as bad.

Worshiping businesses as if they can do no wrong while slamming Berkley graduates as if somehow they are always wrong is why you fail in life.

@115 I definitely make more money than @112. @112 still lives in parent's basement and has purple hair.

1:09 – isn’t consumer spending the life blood of the economy? Without consumer spending, we have no economy. If you forgive loans, doesn’t that increase consumer spending?

On another note, if we are a country based on capitalism, then why should we have given companies PPP money. Let them fail. Survival of the fittest. My office got a PPP loan and I think it is crazy as our income was not effected much.

I think loan forgiveness and PPP loan forgiveness is absurd. I agree with the poster that capping tuition is better. Tuition is out of control. At a minimum, interest rates on non-dischargeable loans should be limited and not a profit center. With education comes higher income statistically, which means more consumer spending and taxes.

1:42 here. @1:47 thank you for your well reasoned response. It contributes significantly to the conversation and demonstrates my point exactly.

There are actual, real-life advantages to fixing the student loan issue. There is no silver bullet, but letting the situation continue on is untenable. This is going to be a bubble bigger than the housing bust of 2008. It's not going to be good for ANYONE. Go ahead and mock ideas on how to deal with it while you stroke your AR and beat your wife, but eventually "eat the rich" is going to be more than a snarky comment.

The main argument for debt forgiveness is that college expenses have outstripped the rate of inflation for decades, even as the value of a college degree has plummeted. The main argument against is that people paid what they owed. So why not calculate how much a college education should have cost if it had merely kept pace with inflation, adjust that amount for the decreased earning potential of a college education over time, take into account any changes in the amount of scholarship money offered by an institution, and forgive the difference? These adjustments could be done at the level of individual institutions, with colleges who raised their tuition higher than the average being forced to contribute towards the amount of forgiveness, while colleges who stayed under the average receive some type of tax credit. For those upset because they paid back their debts, perhaps they receive a tax credit depending on the amount paid back when set against the amount of forgiveness which others received.

Wow, I stand corrected. The average student loan debt, per the White House today, is $25k, not $40k. Making the forgiveness an even larger travesty than I initially thought. Even a gender study grad should be able to pay off $25,000 working as a Starbucks manager, even McDonald's.

3:20 and 3:27 sound like old boomers…completely out of touch. You cannot pay $25k in debt on a starbucks manager's salary. If you think that, you have no idea what things actually cost. People who "can't afford" their student loans are NOT still spending money on stuff. Yes – they have clothes, a phone, etc. They do not have cars, houses, or children. And to be clear, avocado toast is not going to make the difference here, no matter how much you and Murdoch want that to be the case, it's just not.

Too small a sample size to call bullshit, so I am calling bullshit on YOU!

Sincerely, 50 year old Gen X'er who didn't let his boomer father's hangups become his own.

You can't give someone something without taking it away from someone else.

Why is it fair yhat you paid taxes for Amazon and Nike?

5:31 purchasers always pay tax hikes for companies, Nike and Amazon ALWAYS pass it on to consumers, ECON 101, business MUST pass along tax hikes to make a profit, anyone that says different is demagoguing

@1033
Tell me you know nothing about business and economics without telling me that you nothing about business and economics. Once prices/taxes hike or freedoms are removed they NEVER are returned to those paying the "price".

Did anyone's billable hourly rate drop during the most recent growth period?

I have often thought that if people voted more like corporations act, we would have a more rational electorate. A corporation cannot vote but larger corporations and their trade groups purchase politicians with ease to implement their chosen agendas. Corporations view morals transactionally as mere business goodwill, with a value that either supports or harms their bottom line. The threats from leaders of medical trade groups that Congressional democrats would "pay a price" in the midterms for their votes in favor of enabling negotiation of a handful of taxpayer-funded medicare prescription drug costs and $35 monthly insulin caps (which, unbelievably, did not pass) is a good example.

Recent polls indicated that over 90 percent of young democratic voters would support a different presidential candidate than Biden in 2024. Faced with likely mass defections of younger democratic voters, Biden bought their votes with a few thousand dollars each. Why the moral outcry over purchasing votes in this manner? Like Big Pharma, these voters absolutely have a rational economic reason for favoring their own interests at other taxpayers' expense, and they should absolutely reward the democrats with votes in the midterms for keeping their promise to forgive some debt. These voters should also demand more forgiveness from future administrations as a condition of their continued support. After all, if congressional votes for a more free-market approach towards taxpayer-funded drug costs triggers warnings from Big Pharma trade groups that democrats will "pay a price" at the polls, student loan debtors have every right to demand the same.

Forgiven PPP were not loans. They were tax refunds.

Thanks!

It is not loan forgiveness, the money was paid out. It is a transfer from deadbeat students to the general tax roles.
You didn't get the high paying job you thought you would? Poor baby. Maybe we taxpayers should also make your BMW payment for you too.

There is no such thing as money.

1059, if aggressive lobbying by pharmaceutical companies leads to tax breaks and an increase in taxpayer funded drug costs, which lead in turn to higher corporate profits, one would expect corporate executives in those companies to be rewarded for adding shareholder value regardless of the origin of the increase. So do you feel the same way about a wealth transfer to Big Pharma which subsidizes the expense of the luxury cars those executives drive as you do about a wealth transfer to so called deadbeat student debtors? Those executives likely drive nicer and pricier cars than BMWs.

Covid started in 2020, checks were given in what, May 2020? Then in Jan 2021. So, as much as I disagree checks should have been given, I don't think they were timed as calculated as Biden's $10k voter bribe.

I disagree with the SL forgiveness and PPP loan forgiveness. But, the govt prevented businesses from operating. The student loans purchased a product the grad to be utilized the rest of the student's life. Not comparable.

Our wonderful Nevada Supreme Court