***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

TooOlfForThisIsh

This passage here reminded me of another aspect of the student loan debate:

<snipping my "quote" because my words only bear so much repetition>

In addition to the fact that students with massive month payments have to forgo long term professional development opportunities and/or entrepreneurship, they have to also forgo socially meaningful work or at the very least they cannot avoid socially harmful work.

It speaks to how atomized and spiritually broken most of us are when most proponents and opponents of student debt relief assume that the result will simply result in high earners , relieved of debt, staying at the same high earning jobs and simply increasing their level of accumulation and/or consumption.

In the case of these federal student debt loads, the capitalist class isn’t making much money off of it. The biggest value they are getting is keeping a lot of bright and motivated young people, with an elite education, in the law firms and administrative roles that benefit the worst actors in our society. If those debt burdens went away, a lot of beneficiaries would do whatever they were doing before but some would shift to somewhat lower paid and lower hours jobs and use their new-found time to be activists or do pro bono legal work or start an environmentally conscious company.

The social control aspect of student loans gets overlooked a lot because we have all, to varying degrees, had the notions of market economic beaten into us that our default assumption is that everyone exists to maximize their own personal profits.

I mean, yeah, sure, I guess. Being out of debt gives you more choices. One choice is to pursue wealth. Another choice might be to go do something "meaningful". I'd like to think there are choices that lead to both, but we might disagree.

I was replying directly to racial wealth inequality, but I guess you could generalize my argument is reducing gaps in opportunity. Ultimately, wealth is just a means to opportunity. Just wrap everything in the utility function, right? And debt is a constrain on opportunity.

Why aren't there more scions of the elite starting community centers? Can't be lack of opportunity.

Anyways, I'm not sure how far we go down this road together, though. It's not super awesome for me as a hiring manager if I can't find the best people because they're too scared to move. As someone who thinks that he can offer superior opportunities and long term wealth creation opportunities to my competitors, I welcome a more free movement of labor. And I'm pretty sure my shareholders would want that, too? I dunno.

Who's living in your head when you say "capitalist class"?

 

[cragmatic]

Is this a real tweet?

 

[rexanglorum]

TooOlfForThisIsh

By capitalist class, I mean those who own so much private property that either they are the managers of those concentrations of private property wield power over other people. So obviously, the workplace is a prime example. The capitalist or its delegated managers can, depending on how much market power they have, dictate how much people are paid, how they get healthcare, how much time off they get, etc.

Then there’s all the other things they decide such as who gets home loans, what media is created and distributed, where people live. All of those things are countered, to varying degrees, by the state and the level of market competition but, of course, capital has a lot of input on how the state operates and is always trying to reduce market competition.

All of this comes with the proviso that this is a broad abstraction and within the capitalist class are vastly different levels of wealth and power as well as conflicting interests within the capitalist class.

 

[rexanglorum]

I retract previous statements alluding to any impending climate change induced barbarism. I was wrong.

It’s already here.

 

[sole vintage]

Is this a real tweet?

 

[elpablo21]

 

[Based Jesus]

this clearly the argument I should have used when i was arguing about not letting racists take the flag.

If it's good enough for Dipset.
certainly it's good enough for Mark Cuban and the Dallas mavericks.

As I remember it, the conversation was about the anthem
Dipset knew better and made their own superior one

 

[Cashflow]

America is really a 3rd World Country that just happened to create an Atomic Bomb first

 

[rexanglorum]

The supporters of raise the minimum wage are an actual silent majority. Even in States where the media voter loves electing Republicans, minimum wage always passes when it’s put to a referendum. Meanwhile, there’s this high-low coalition of online libertarians and business leaders, working with the business press, that are very vocal in their opposition to raising the min wage on social media and traditional media. If one were to just go off what one sees in media, then $15 min wage seems radical.

 

[RustyShackleford]

As I remember it, the conversation was about the anthem
Dipset knew better and made their own superior one

Spoiler

 

[Methodical Management]

After the plan was in place, there were administrators and the legislators who had fought against doing anything and who all of a sudden realized that they could "embrace" the plan in order to never having to do anything else. And I find these latter-day proponents guilty of everything you accuse them of.

That's exactly it: I bristle against the idea of holding up the Texas plan as a model - as if class-based alternatives offer a fair compromise because they're "colorblind," or that they accomplish basically the same thing, as conservatives would have us believe.

If you rephrase this as "institutional change usually protects and extends the hegemony", Rex will want a high five.

And if you rephrase "Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time" to "Pete Maravich is the greatest basketball player of all time", Ben Shapiro would drag out his footstool and shake your hand.

My point was less about the obdurate nature of institutions/hierarchies than the intersectional nature of inequality. Money isn't the only issue and, even then, the family who has the luxury of investing their stimulus check stands to earn a greater financial return than the family forced to spend theirs on food or rent. It's about pushing back on the idea that fairness only means "treating everyone the same" even though our needs and challenges are not interchangeable.

I mean, if you mean that wealth effects are not directly income effects, then sure., I guess. But if you're willing to take second and third order consequences into account, I think that the debt relief will absolutely reduce income inequality.

The clear caveat is that if Person A has $1 and Person B has $2, giving them each one dollar hasn't changed the absolute difference between the two - but it would change the relative difference.

Unfortunately, we're only dealing with a $1 gap in the sense that, for every cent of wealth held by families with Black children, White families hold $1. At a certain point, and we saw this argued convincingly by Pikkety with regards to income inequality, some form of redistribution becomes unavoidable if we want to actually address the problem.


Even then, and I think this is especially crucial, we should completely reject the notion that, as Richard Delgado put it in his essay about false empathy, "blacks are just whites who happen not to have any money right now."

How many people seriously believe that we can use "class based solutions" to end sexism? To your point, we can't properly treat these inequities without first reforming the judiciary.

Plans like Cory Booker's proposed baby bonds would empower a lot of people, and they're absolutely worth doing, but they can only go so far. In this case, we're not even talking about something that would apply to everyone, or even to everyone carrying debt - only to student loan debt.

I don't think it's unfair to suggest that the people threatening to take the ball and go home over it have a very odd conception of "not me, us." It was never supposed to be the be all, end all to begin with.



But then, I'm still confused as to how student loan debt relief became "socialism" in the first place.

From each, according to their ability, to each, according to their line of credit?

 

[osh kosh bosh]

Spoiler

the only american flag i respect...

is one emblazoned on a pelle pelle buttersoft leather jacket.

 

[RustyShackleford]

the only american flag i respect...

is one emblazoned on a pelle pelle buttersoft leather jacket.

I legit think if Joey includes Pelle subsidies in the next Covid Bill, he can win back Ninja's vote

Every American deserves to be kept warm by some butter-soft leather, b.

Mans needs to pull up to Uptown, and ask the people want they need in these trying times, like...

 

[had pants]

 

[had pants]

 

[Wargames]

I retract previous statements alluding to any impending climate change induced barbarism. I was wrong.

It’s already here.

Wait .... wait..... wait

haven’t we all been experiencing COVID for about a year. I thought we were all masters of rugged individualism by now.

Tell them to tighten up...... thoughts and prayers

*bad jokes aside this was a failure on leadership and it’s on Texas to make the changes they need to survive

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

Given our current state of political economy, the black-white wealth and home ownership gap will narrow but only because white wealth and home ownership will drop.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[rexanglorum]

Bernie Sanders is Joe Manchin. We should have known last year when “Bernie” rolled coal into his rallies.

“Not me, us, vrooooom vrooooom”

 

[rexanglorum]

Even the reactionary NY Post cannot downplay how based this man is.

 

[rexanglorum]

Live, laugh, love and ****post about California

 

[stuntman mike]

i’ve known some meth users who were borderline recreational but i’ve never known anyone to take heroin just to chill

 

[KHUFU]

Even the reactionary NY Post cannot downplay how based this man is.

When Getting High Is a Hobby, Not a Habit

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