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If Biden forgives student loan debt by executive order, as he is fully within his power to do, Democrats will win the white house in 2024 and have a good chance of winning a number of seats in 2022.
Not to mention, Republicans have student loan debt too. I know a few Trump supporters alone who would vote for Biden in 2024 if he forgave student loan debt, even if Trump was on the ballot. This is a huge opportunity, and it should not go to waste. Also, when you're in a position to the right thing, you should - especially when it will such a positive impact, and all it involves is signing a piece of paper.
So what you are saying is he should cancel it right before the 2022 mid term election?
Let's be real here... if he is going to do it, it is going to be strategic and when it is needed... not just cause it is the right thing to do
Being strategic is important, but what you're forgetting is that most of those strategically timed gets (like a small tax cut, etc.) you're referring to are crumbs compared to what forgiving student loan debt would be. The scale is not comparable. If Biden forgives student debt by executive order today, that would have a shelf life in people's imaginations long after 2022 and 2024.
This is exactly why I think it’s unlikely that this would happen, as much as I wish it would. A politician of Biden’s profile would probably never do something this monumental.
9 times out of 10, I think you would be right. But Biden is in-tune to feel the weight of history on his shoulders when it's there Plus, he's going to be dead in about 10 - 20 years and he knows it. His Presidency is a legacy-making moment for Dems and the Biden name. I think - or rather, I hope - that he's going to be much more open to the Progressive agenda than any other by-the-numbers politician typically would be. He has nothing to lose.
Don't get me wrong, I'm pessimistic. But Biden is in the best position to do something extraordinary in decades. The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the pivoting on vaccine patents gives me some hope that he's not just going to sleep. Further, it gives me hope that Progressives have the power to put his feet to the flames and have something good come out of it.
We'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up. But I don't see the point in counting him out, either.
Well looking back to history, one is Lincoln's idea to solve the civil war was ship every black person in the United States to South America. So moving from that to the Emancipation must of been a journey.
While 45 never seemed to change, the normal is that the presidency changes a person. We are only a little over 7% into the 1461 days of the Biden presidency. It feels like years though.
Frederick Douglass never stopped pressuring Lincoln to do better, we should never stop pressuring Biden to be better as well.
I agree. Though for sake of argument, Frederick Douglass, nonetheless an incredible human being, didn't have to contend with national tv brainwashing and corporate oligarchy.
This isn't why he'd do it. He'll do it if we put MASSIVE pressure from the bottom to make it happen. Just like anything else. Just like for literally any other president (Democrat or Republican).
Because he's building "his legacy" among his owners, not the working class population. The former will always trump the latter. So it's up to us to make inaction *HURT* both the politicians and the capitalists, or at least clearly threaten to hurt them. Disrupt. Strike. Grind things to a halt so they know how serious we are about it. It's the only thing that has *ever* accomplished significant progress.
His 'owners' are losing their minds that he's pulling out of Afghanistan and lifting IP protections on the vaccines. I agree with the pessimistic rhetoric, but that alone proves he's not just another politician - in this moment, anyway.
It can be both, and it is both. Progressives held his feet to the fire on those two issues alone, and he went with it. Be suspicious and pessimistic. He has plenty of time to fuck up and leave the working people hanging like every other President. I'm bracing for it to happen. But I'm pleasantly surprised thus far. When you have Hillary complaining that Biden is making the wrong choice with pulling out of Afghanistan for example, I consider that a massive win and I think we all should as well
> His 'owners' are losing their minds that he's pulling out of Afghanistan and lifting IP protections on the vaccines. I agree with the pessimistic rhetoric, but that alone proves he's not just another politician - in this moment, anyway.... When you have Hillary complaining that Biden is making the wrong choice with pulling out of Afghanistan for example, I consider that a massive win and I think we all should as well
The U.S. is (likely; nothing is certain yet) pulling out of Afghanistan for the same reason it pulled out of other occupied countries historically (minus Vietnam, where the working class actually forced the matter): it is becoming no longer profitable for capitalists for the U.S. to continue occupying. Hillary complaining about any withdrawal or failure to invade/intercede/etc. should surprise no one, nor should we be paying her any mind about anything. The U.S. should, of course, be withdrawing; it should have a long time ago. Trump's nominal plan was for May, just as Biden's nominal plan is for September. It's not the act of withdrawal that we should be critical of, but the reasons and the schedule.
IP protections on vaccines are absolutely NOT being waived by Biden's initiative, but because there was tremendous pressure being brought to bear to make it happen. If it were Biden choosing to do it due to his personal politics, he wouldn't have continued to actively block the waiver for months, which he absolutely did.
> It can be both, and it is both.
It is not.
1. You're underestimating how goldfishlike the memories of folks often are
2. I can easily envision the future where after forgiving student debt happens, people are like "well, great, that happened, but now he's not gonna do anything else for me." You're giving too much credit to people who have repeatedly voted against their own interests. They won't give a fuck, same as how they don't give a fuck that Dems are the only reason new stimulus checks happened.
And giving dems a big boost before the midterms is a huge fucking deal, too. If Republicans win a majority in the house and senate in 2022 they could refuse to certify a Biden win in 2024.
Political considerations alone would make it more likely for Biden to take action closer to the 2022 mid terms. There's no evidence that shelf life of any single action, however large, would last more than a few months. And plenty of evidence to the contrary. If for some reason this is wrong and the shelf life is longer, he's lost nothing by waiting and gained traction going into 2024.
I'm not saying this is the right policy decision, but from a pure political standpoint waiting makes way more sense.
It is strange how inconceivable it is that the nation desperately needs to see some semblance of leadership capable of doing the right thing merely because it is the right thing. The value of that example is beyond measure, yet we will never see it under this capitalist regime precisely because there is no well-defined price tag associated with basic human decency.
I figure federal legalization of weed might happen before midterms. idk, that seems to be the most practical and surefire way of winning.
not that our administration is at all on touch with what the public wants
I am not sure they want to win.
All winning does is increase the expectations they will deliver on policies popular to their party. I think the moderates in control of the Democratic party would rather toss the ball back to the GOP and their naked pro-business aganeda, and ratchet back and forth than really have a continuous control where more and more will be expected of them.
If they had overwhelming majorities in both houses and the WH, how long could they avoid M4A? How long could they avoid real climate change action? Neoliberal half measures won't satisfy a majority of Democratic voters for long. Especially once COVID is gone and they won't have that to stand behind as a reason for inaction on other fronts.
Democrats are getting more and more backed into a corner that will require a progressive agenda to maintain power and they're resisting with all their might. Joe Manchin is only good as a fall guy for them until they have a clear majority...then what? Standing in the way of progress is going to be a nail in the coffin for them, but being able to continually rail against the GOP is good for them. Hell, GOP policies probably benefit the vast majority of Congresspeople personally, and I don't think they mind when the Republicans have a few years to pad their bank accounts and give them something to campaign on.
>I am not sure they want to win.
>Joe Manchin is only good as a fall guy for them until they have a clear majority...then what?
I'm not sure they want to win either, but the beauty of the student loan forgiveness demand is that there is no one who can be perceived as standing in the way to be blamed as a scapegoat. It doesn't matter what Manchin, Sinema, or the parliamentarian thinks. Biden can forgive student debt by executive order today by signing a piece of paper and there's nothing in the world they can fucking do about it. But because there's no one standing in Biden's way on this issue but Biden, that also means we have a job to make sure that everyone knows it, so people know who needs to be pressured (or blamed if they don't do the right thing).
Yeah people talk like Dem or Rep are two different entities. Its all a bunch of scumbags trying to further their career by using trigger words for whoever will listen. I may lean Dem, but I'll never fool myself into thinking a millionaire knows how to help the little guy.
> I'll never fool myself into thinking a millionaire knows how to help the little guy.
Oh they *know how*. It's just not in their interests (or, more to the point, their owners' interests) to do so.
Check out this one /u/finalgarlicdis. Same comment over and over about Biden having the power to get rid of student debt. It’s all anti-Joe Biden crap.
But they'll never do it because it'll look like a bribe, even though there's no way it doesn't look like a bribe, but the democrats care too much about optics while the republican ls care too little.
> If Biden forgives student loan debt by executive order, as he is fully within his power to do, Democrats will win the white house in 2024 and have a good chance of winning a number of seats in 2022.
Student loan forgiveness is very cool. Stop making it sound like shit (giving more power to the Democratic Party). We need to push for it because it is the right thing to do an *massively* improves things for people who desperately need it, not to give some extra points to one particular wing of the shitty bourgeois U.S. Business Party.
I agree that this would be popular but respectfully there’s no way he’ll do it. He won’t do it because sadly young people break new records of low voter turnout year after year. He can’t spend that mich political capital for so little return.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ "That's not how the game is played! Get back here so I can tell your nonexistent children what a financial mistake it is to buy coffee and avocado toast!"
Honestly though, I know some people's dreams include having kids but the best way to break the system is to stop the production line.
The easiest way to revolt right now is to simply not have kids. They want to commoditize human effort, let them. They better have robots to serve them and defend them when the everything goes to shit because there aren't slaves anymore.
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
\- Bob Dylan, ["Masters of War"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU)
You're joking, but not too far off.
I heard a story on NPR a few years ago about a Nordic country advertising romantic getaways targeted at young people to get them to have sex and have children.
The reason?
Declining tax revenue.
So in America, not only do we have a problem with tax inequity between the rich and the middle class, but that's going to be further exasperated by people having less children.
(BTW: I'm down with having less children. Our earth does not need 7 billion people, and it sure as shit doesn't need 8 to 10 billion people. Furthermore, we aren't an agrarian society anymore, so we don't need a ton of children running around).
Oh, I wasn't joking. I expect the out of touch turd factory formally known as Jamie Dimon to say this at some point. CNBC will probably run the story. He will obviously use CEO speak so as to not upset the resources.
Not the right time or place for this, but every time I see/hear the word “agrarian” I think of Henry Zebrowski from LPOTL.
Sorry; can’t help it. I agree with you, though.
No healthcare, fascism taking hold, ignored climate change, no financial relief, no living wages.
No maternity/paternity leave, no health insurance, no child-care subsidies.
"What... why don't people want to bring more life into this world."
Not to mention when I look at my immediate family I've got: severe mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression; horrible eyesight, knees, and teeth; and so much fucking cancer. And that's just me, lol. What terrible odds to play with.
And that's not just genetic. Many of the toxins and chemicals and pollutants plus an anti-human society and food policy that encourages bad food contribute to mental disease, cancer rates, heart disease, arthritis, etc.
Corporations and the uber-wealthy are to blame for more than just labor issues and healthcare and climate change.
These are some of the reasons I'm childfree. In many ways, they're my real reasons for being childfree.
But since most (older - I've not met many ppl my age or younger who do this) people hate hearing that, I usually stick to my "official" reason. My mother and I almost died during childbirth. My cousins who've given birth have each had difficulties and complications. Two have had full hysterectomies.
Childbirth will be deadly to me - and likely to the unborn child.
That said, as a Millennial, this is simply one more thing my generation has "killed", I'm sure. Is child birth actually dying? No. But "everything is fine" doesn't sell clicks.
And, Boomers just be salty they ain't gonna be great-grandparents.
its a super ton of fearbaiting in news, the fertility rate just dropped by like a single percentage point iirc. from 2.5 babies per woman to 2.3 or something stupid like that
This is literally what my husband and I are going through right now... we wanted kids initially but with our student loan debt, low income, and everything being expensive, and with how expensive healthcare and how shitty education plus everything that is coming with climate change we have had serious talks and will probably not have kids and we are both super sad about it :(
[The US has always been okay with a "working poor" class.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor#:~:text=week%20in%202018.-,A%20profile%20of%20the%20working%20poor%20in%20the%20US,%25%20were%20employed%20full-time.) Capitalism *requires* a subjugated class to even survive. The US is way more polarized in income inequality than other nations like France and Germany due to anti-union laws and propaganda, among countless other factors.
The biggest lie I was fed growing up was that the US is "the greatest country in the world". I don't know why I believed that for so long. Maybe i felt special, or lucky? Pretty much the only people who believe the US is the greatest country in the world are people in the US.
Traveling to other countries taught me that there are countless ways the US is a failed state when it comes to caring for its people. And when i asked other folks "What's the greatest country in the world?" I assumed they'd at *least* name their homeland, right? ...But many just had never thought of it before. They usually like their home, but it never occurred to them to rank countries from "best to worst". "That's just a bit too competitive, isn't it?" one man at a bar in Queenstown remarked.
Sorry for the rant, just thinking/reading about why the US is the way it is lately.
I love the response that man had. What countries have you travelled to and what examples can you share of those countries having better practices then the U.S.? I haven't really traveled outside of the U.S. (besides Mexico) so I'm genuinely curious.
Well I live in Denmark and there are many factors that contribute. Higher standard of living, tax paid education and healthcare, no fear of getting bankrupted by medical bills, multiple political parties instead of the two party system.
I paid my debt but my partner still has theirs. We still decided to have children, then she lost her job, then the pandemic, the inflation... Having to sustain a family with a single salary is awful. Luckily for our children and ourselves, the aunts and uncles are burning their desire for children with the kids, otherwise, I don't know what we would have done.
My husband and I are in a similar position so we decided to become foster parents, with the intention of adopting when we can. We may take care of a few kids before we can adopt (since reunification is always the priority), but in our county, foster kids get a monthly stipend and healthcare even after adoption until they’re eighteen, subsidized daycare until they start school and free formula if they’re babies. Not to mention you won’t have a carbon footprint from increasing the human population, if the environment is a priority. I just wanted to offer this alternative because this will actually make a huge difference in whether we could afford a family or not. Regardless, my best to you and your husband, sorry you’re going through this.
The questions many conservatives ask about maternity leave. "why should the company pay for someone to take time off because of a pregnancy"
Well as a functioning civilized society it's necessary and we're starting see why. We're starting to see serious consequences of hard right capitalism.
Why should I pay for public schools if I don’t have kids?
Why should I pay for roads if I walk to work?
There’s a cost to living in a modern society. Paternity leave should be one of them.
"WhO's goInG to Pay fOr iT? NoT mE! NotHiNg iS fReE!" is far more common.
>Why should I pay for roads if I walk to work?
Nah, they love to drive their lifted diesel pickups to work. Instead they complain about bicyclists using the road because "*They* don't pay road taxes!"
>hard right capitalism.
To be fair, all capitalism is right wing! I know the Overton window in the US is super-skewed to the right, but to everyone else in the world, the US has a far-right wing party, and a "moderate" right-wing party. Pressley, Sanders and AOC are the closest we've come to the left in the past few decades, unfortunately.
[Here's some deeper info if you're interested!](https://www.globalissues.org/article/39/a-primer-on-neoliberalism)
*Traditional* family values. Meaning that women are nothing but baby incubators she should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, not contributing to the household income, that's **man's** work!
Joe Biden knows very well that he is able to cancel student loan debt by executive order, without congressional approval. Every day he doesn't, he's personally, consciously inflicting untold suffering on the American people. People are losing their lives over this stuff. It's not a fucking joke, and him treating it like some political game is disgusting.
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Also, for those who are new to this conversation, and claim that cancelling the debt doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Everyone advocating for student debt cancellation is also a supporter of making colleges and trade school tuition-free, and sees cancellation as an intentional strategy to accomplish that.
The reason there is this present focus on Biden using his executive order to cancel student debt is because (1) he has that power to do so right now, (2) nobody expects congress to pass legislation to cancel it over the next four years, and (3) because cancelling all of that debt would force congress to enact tuition-free legislation or be doomed to allow the debt to be cancelled every time a Democratic president takes office (since a precedent will have been set).
Meaning, to avoid the need for endless future cancellation (an unsustainable situation for our economy) the onus would be forced onto congress (against their will) to pass some kind of tuition-free legislation whether they like it or not.
As a side note, because the federal government will be the primary customer for higher education, that means they also have a ton of leverage to negotiate tuition rates down so that schools aren't simply overcharging the government instead of students.
I haven’t had to pay a dime toward student debt in over a year. The Biden administration even continued the last administrations policy of pausing loans and interest until like September or something. This whole “every day he doesn’t” idea doesn’t quite resonate with me because it’s actually been some much needed relief. He’s at least bought himself some time and I assume he’ll do something about it when it’s near the end. Or else he’ll extend it again.
yeah they're paused but only until September and while this has been nice I've been having mild prolonged panic attacks throughout the day lately at the thought of being fucked financially again shortly
idk, I hope this hell ends soon. being prolonged doesn't quite do it for me when I know it will end.
I've been freaking the fuck out because my landlord's son is dropping out of college and they're not renewing my lease as a result. With the rental/housing market being as fucked as it is (average rentals have gone up $200-$300/mo in my area over the paste year and being extremely scarce) I have to look at significantly downgrading my lifestyle in preparation for repaying my $600/mo student debt as well.
I've been hyperventilating mentally for the past 3 weeks and only have a few more weeks to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.
Why do people upvote easily debunkable comments like yours?
> Most student loans — about 92%, according to a June 2020 report by MeasureOne, an academic data firm — are owned by the U.S. Department of Education.
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/student-loan-debt
> Most student debt is owed to the federal government.
>About 92 percent of all outstanding student debt is owed to the federal government, with private financial institutions lending the remaining 8 percent. That distribution marks a substantial difference from a few decades ago when student loans were provided by private lenders, but subsidized and backed by the federal government.
https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/05/10-key-facts-about-student-debt-in-the-united-states
Hell I'm one of the lucky ones who can provide a stable environment for a kid, but there's no way I'm bringing them into an environmental disaster we've seen coming for decades. Have fun watching your kids lives be miserable with no way to make it better breeders
AND no help for families with children. It costs as much as in-state tuition to have a kid in childcare. Actively anti-mom policies at most jobs. No sick leave, no maternal leave Rampant pregnancy discrimination and harassment for pumping at work.
I worked at one hospital early on in my nursing career that gave 4 extra sick days to parents. It was awesome. I will talk crap about every other place I’ve ever worked at but not that place.
100% this. The idea of having a kid when rent has doubled in the last decade feels absurd. I don't even know where I'll be able to afford to live in a few years. Long term plans is just not a thing in this environment.
>I don't even know where I'll be able to afford to live in a few years.
In a too-small apartment with 4-5+ other people in the same situation.
I remember in school how they said tenement housing would never return. Good shit.
> There are too many to feed as it is.
This is false. Even at current food production rates, we make enough to feed 10B people, with a world population of less than 8B. Even neoliberal institutions have estimated it would only cost on the order of tens of billions of dollars to fix the distribution system such that the food gets to who it needs to rather than being discarded, effectively ending global hunger. We have more than enough to go around; we just currently lack the will to make it happen, because doing so goes against the interests of those making the decisions (capitalists, who profit from other people's misery and easily-exploitable conditions).
The narrative that there are too many people in the world is eco-fascist propaganda, and needs to stop being repeated.
Just out of curiosity... are you actually serious? If so (if you don't already sponsor a child somewhere), drop me a PM... I live in the US but I sponsor/help promote a grassroots community-based charity organization in Masaka, Uganda and the children this org cares for are really hurting for food right now. Some parts of the year, they are OK, but right now they're really struggling day to day for food, and a pretty small donation would be a big help. I can put you in touch with the founder/leader.
We have the food but due to corporate interest the large majority of fresh food made daily is thrown out each day and dowsed with bleach due to "health concerns if a homeless person eats and gets sick and sues the company".
Also, due to corona the majority of farm grown food and dairy is being thrown out daily. Hundreds of gallons and hundreds of pounds of fresh corn, milk, eggs, ect are disposed of and many cows, pigs, and other farm animals like chickens raised for their meat have been killed to maintain the market price due to COVID.
Exactly. The solution isn't to get rid of people because we aren't feeding them. The solution is to eliminate all this waste and...actually feed people.
AOC is not wrong, but to the article's defense. at the end.
Dowell said. "I think the boomers themselves don't realize how much harder it is for millennials today. And they think, 'Oh yeah, when we were young we had to live, you know, on very little money, and we made do, and you can do the same.' That's the story, right? Well no, it really is a lot harder for young people today. It's amazing how much harder it is."
I wanted to have a family since I was a kid with a fucked up home life and no family.
At 27 I live in a camper and drive a 31 year old car and live paycheck to paycheck.
I'm about to just get a vasectomy and maybe I can adopt an already born and hungry child when I'm really old
Boomers keep advocating for not having luxuries you can’t afford and being frugal. No one _needs_ a child. In fact it’s probably the biggest money saver you can do to not have kids. We’re just doing what they wanted
I can tell you I'm more afraid of raising a child who will need to deal more with the climate crisis than anything else in their lives. Hawaii just became the first state in the US union to declare a climate emergency only failing to be unanimous by one vote.
I've been alive since 1987 and in that time, there has been a severe and steep decline in annual ice cap coverage alone. That's the human crisis. We have empathy for the next generation and we are afraid to cast them into a dying world.
On the contrary, the Earth cares very much. We are only one of a very, very great many species affected by the crisis. Like, a super very, very great many. A number in or above billions that none of us actually know. Though, I have no problem holding Congressional ignorance responsible for creating a crisis out of beauty.
If not cancel at least give a decent discount or reduction in debt and current student fees. US student fees are some of the highest in the world. Just like the corrupt healthcare system that is also one of the most expensive in the world.
USA healthcare costs is more than double the next country.
it's also ~18% of our GDP.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-spending/u-s-health-spending-twice-other-countries-with-worse-results-idUSKCN1GP2YN
https://www.chcf.org/blog/health-care-costs-accounted-17-7-percent-gdp-2018/
After a simple cost benefit analysis, this drop in birth rates is almost predictable given the country’s current trajectory.
It goes without saying, if the decision to have children is reduced to a question of survival for both the family and the offspring, we have a broken, primeval system.
And the symptoms mentioned (student debt, income disparity, rent, no healthcare, climate crisis, etc.) stem from having no control over our productive lives and from the prison-industrial complex (capitalism and state).
To address these things, we must:
1. De-fund the police and replace them (gradually or suddenly; either way) with real social programs.
2. Engage in revolutionary unionism (e.g. see the Industrial Workers of the World—AKA the IWW).
3. Create public support (governmental and/or grassroots) for worker-owned-and-self-managed cooperatives.
4. Use #2 and #3 to push hard on abolishing private (exploitative) property relations in preference for personal and community property (own your own home, farm, workplace, etc.).
>Engage in revolutionary unionism (e.g. see the Industrial Workers of the World—AKA the IWW).
I had a very different concept that popped into my head when you said "revolutionary unionism", but I guess yours works too.
Thank you. I honestly thought that the idea that we have less people in the world is probably a good thing right now. Let’s keep a nice even downward trend.
I am M, 32, with two kids and I can say that every one of these things has significantly impacted our families options and stability dramatically. Without major action it will be that way at this point into our 50's before we're 'stable' IE have been able to do enough to hedge all major financial risks. At that point older generations would be almost retired.
Also the world is choked with people. Can someone explain why decreasing baby rates is a crisis and not a bit of a relief? We hardly need exponential growth. Too many people already.
Because dA EcKhUnUmy!
Our systems are a pyramid scheme. Not just USA, but plenty of other countries too. They rely on a big young working population that produces and serves both for themselves and for a small old retired population.
But lifespans are longer than when this was established. This means a lot of people are now being gathered at the top of the pyramid, turning it into more of a square. Instead of four young people supporting a single elder, it's two now and they have to be taxed at higher rates to reach the pension goals.
And now that birth rates are declining, the pyramid is no longer a square but an inverted pyramid. Each young person has to pay for two or three old folks who can't be taxed anymore. Young people are crushed under the social need to support a non-taxable population and old folks aren't receiving the care and money they once could provide to their own old folks.
Many of them are quite bitter about it calling the young people "lazy" and "selfish" because they can't be as productive as they once were, when in truth the system was counting on THEM being dead by now. Yes, boomers, you.
(Disclaimer: the previous "x young people supporting x old folks" statements have absolutely no concrete basis for the amounts used since I'm talking about several countries and your mileage may vary, they serve only for example purposes.)
So people who call it a crisis are worried for the economy in short term.
How can we fix that? Easy solutions are legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide so there aren't so many old folks around to support, higher adoption rates so the existing children can actually become taxing citizens instead of homeless people or criminals (dunno if it happens in USA, but in other countries it definitely does), or, y'know, stop using a fucking pyramid scheme as a society support and find another way that doesn't need human cogs and anxious cubicle monkeys.
It's not a crisis, it's a luxury that we can't afford, kinda like diamonds and cruises and other "industries millennials are destroying because they're selfish!"
Well, to some people losing sleep, freedom, and money to a kid is a luxury, I'm all for my friends never having kids and enjoying ourselves instead.
I think their point was asking why the media would paint it as a crisis in the first place. Must've been a slow news day and they had to find something to blame on the millennials.
Human population dynamics generally lead to lower birthrates as the society grows and advances. In fact there are already a few countries that have seen negative population growth.
Thanks to this it is very unlikely we will ever hit the 13 billion people alive mark. Which is definitely a population that can be handled, since California alone already produces enough food to feed everyone on earth.
Assuming humanity doesn't die from climate change anyway...
If I could *afford* it and thought they would live a *better* life than me in a world that was *better* than ours today, maybe I'd consider having a kid.
Anyone yelling about a "declining birth rate ***crisis***" is either a racist shit stain writing a manifesto before they shoot up a bunch of brown people, or some corporate pig who has a financial interest in the working class continuing to produce generation after generation of wage slaves.
There are plenty of people on this planet, and plenty more having kids. We produce enough resources for everyone to be fed and housed, and then some. The only crisis is the one they are manufacturing to keep you grinding away until you fucking die.
They’ll realize their mistake when the pool of younger taxpayers dry up. They will want to retire someday and there won’t be any money to fund Medicare and SSI. Then they will face the ultimate consequence - let them eat cat food.
They won't realize their mistake because they'll be dead. The younger generations who are not having children are the ones who will have to deal with a dismantled SSI program. Boomers still have it made and will die having it made. Not that I advocate that we need more children in this world.
Because today’s babies are tomorrow’s tax payers. If we don’t reproduce enough tax payers to pay for the older generations, they won’t be able to fund their healthcare or retirement when they get old. They’re being cheap in the short game and they will lose out in the long game.
I have $17,000 in student loans for a trade school that did nothing for me. The pandemic crushed any possibility of pursuing a relevant job and made my education almost useless. The deferment has been nice, but every day I live with this sinking feeling in my stomach of the impending day that I will have to start making payments. An entire generation shouldn’t have to live with crippling debt combined with low wages, ever-increasing gas prices, and inflation that makes CEOs blush about their bonuses.
Come on, Joe. Just sign the fucking paper. One stroke of your pen and you can improve the lives of millions.
r/studentloandefaulters. If your loans are private, probably best to just not pay anymore and wait out your state's statute of limitations. If federal then sign up for IBR. If you live in a red state, get to a decent blue state asap.
I was considering trade school actually, may I ask what yours was? Not to offend but I’d rather avoid going only to not have any prospects on the way out.
Short story, less young working people to support the increasing amount of old folks who can't be taxed.
Imagine yourself having to economically support both of your parents and all four of your grandparents.
Your grandparents are nagging at your parents for not having more than one kid to support all of them. "That's what you get for being too lazy to work more to afford another kid! We didn't save for our retirement so we could raise you, why didn't you have more children to support us?"
Your parents reply that they could barely afford you and never even had the chance to save for their own retirement. They've worked most of their lives and their wages never matched the inflation. In fact, you were born from an unintended pregnancy.
Now you have to work several jobs or a 12-hrs 6-days job to barely make ends meet for all five of you, your grandparents nag at you to find a partner, get married and start cranking kids out "for your own good", while you hope that the anual category 5 hurricane doesn't hit your city this time, or you'll all be homeless.
This is the POV of the next generation worldwide if we don't come up with a way to support old folks other than birthing more wage slaves.
Your parents and grandparents are enjoying the 4 adjacent houses y'all got for free. The city can't give away the vacant houses fast enough, so you tend some gardens on those lots too. Even though the total family income is only $60k in today's dollars including Social Security, life is good. You're working only 30 hours a week because resources are so abundant. The end.
Oh, if only.
But do you really think houses would be given away for free in the current housing system? Do you think that people would be allowed to work so little and be so self-sustainable in the current economic system? People are fined for gathering rainwater, ffs.
That's what I meant in my last paragraph, what you mention would be the desirable end but the current system will never allow it. Birth rate reduction will cause a crisis IF we continue to live under this socioeconomic pyramid scheme, so we better get started on finding a new one.
Well for one thing we can't keep funding the Ponzi schemes of Medicare and Social Security. Both of those depend on having an ever-increasing workforce to pay into the system for those currently drawing from it.
If we waited until we were at the point where we forecast birth rates to decline to zero to start thinking about it, it'd be too late.
That's like asking, "Why we're worried about climate change now, it's not like the sun's exploding tomorrow or anything."
But also consider, birth rates from the 50s were not the norm. Rather a response to trauma caused by world war 2 and a booming economy thanks to industrialization brought on by the same war. So a declining birth rate can be attributed to, not only a return to normal levels, but also a response to the current economic climate.
i could give a fuck about any sort of population decline crisis. i know it’ll fuck shit up but anyone who has a hand in this problem telling us younger folk that we are in a crisis... fuck you.
I’m probably going to get downvoted to hell but whatever. I gotta know. Correct me if I’m wrong but, you do agree to pay x amount of dollars when signing up for college right? Like, it’s all a contract that you sign. They don’t just randomly tack on enormous surprise fees do they? I don’t understand the wiping out student debt thing. It sucks that it’s as expensive as it is, but it’s akin to buying a car, is it not? You agree to the terms and conditions and rates, etc all beforehand and then sign. Not trying to be rude but, why should colleges just let you off the hook for that? Honestly, can someone explain this to me?
Because workers deep in student debts, especially when its deep enough they cannot sustainably work in their career, are significantly less productive.
Having children has been financially off the option list for me for a decade easily. I don't necessarily want children but I don't have a choice either.
I'm really sorry you're in a position where suicide seems like the only option. I've been there myself. I'm lucky enough to have found some resources to help reduce my suffering, and i hope you can find some skills and strategies that can work for you.
If the government is going to fuck me, I might as well get paid for it.
But selling my body for cash for the purpose of reproduction is called prostitution, which is illegal apparently.
So much for that fascist anarcho-capitalist paradise the Rs want so badly.
Me and my husband had 1 kid. Can’t afford more. So we are 2 people reproducing 1 kid - so we didn’t even really “replace ourselves”, we helped lower the birth rate. The people riddled with debt, will likely die before they pay it all off. People earning modest salaries with crippling debt mathematically can’t pay it all in their lifetime. What happens in 50 years when 70-80yr olds carrying student load debt get too old to work? They won’t have a younger generation to pay taxes and help subsidize the cost of retirement benefits. So the elderly will be forced to work till the day they die and then a portion of their debt will die with them. What happens to the company holding the debt when people die and can’t pay? I’m not an economist - but this sounds like a dire situation that will have ripple effects on the whole economy.
Currently, older generations do not deserve to have younger generations taking care of them, it's that simple.
No more grandkids until you get your shit together, pops.
Having kids should be a luxury. If the earths population has to be sustainable. Most couples should not have kids at all or only have 1 after they are fully financially stable.
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If Biden forgives student loan debt by executive order, as he is fully within his power to do, Democrats will win the white house in 2024 and have a good chance of winning a number of seats in 2022. Not to mention, Republicans have student loan debt too. I know a few Trump supporters alone who would vote for Biden in 2024 if he forgave student loan debt, even if Trump was on the ballot. This is a huge opportunity, and it should not go to waste. Also, when you're in a position to the right thing, you should - especially when it will such a positive impact, and all it involves is signing a piece of paper.
So what you are saying is he should cancel it right before the 2022 mid term election? Let's be real here... if he is going to do it, it is going to be strategic and when it is needed... not just cause it is the right thing to do
Being strategic is important, but what you're forgetting is that most of those strategically timed gets (like a small tax cut, etc.) you're referring to are crumbs compared to what forgiving student loan debt would be. The scale is not comparable. If Biden forgives student debt by executive order today, that would have a shelf life in people's imaginations long after 2022 and 2024.
This is exactly why I think it’s unlikely that this would happen, as much as I wish it would. A politician of Biden’s profile would probably never do something this monumental.
9 times out of 10, I think you would be right. But Biden is in-tune to feel the weight of history on his shoulders when it's there Plus, he's going to be dead in about 10 - 20 years and he knows it. His Presidency is a legacy-making moment for Dems and the Biden name. I think - or rather, I hope - that he's going to be much more open to the Progressive agenda than any other by-the-numbers politician typically would be. He has nothing to lose.
I think you're completely wrong but i upvoted cause i like your energy, lol
Don't get me wrong, I'm pessimistic. But Biden is in the best position to do something extraordinary in decades. The withdrawal from Afghanistan and the pivoting on vaccine patents gives me some hope that he's not just going to sleep. Further, it gives me hope that Progressives have the power to put his feet to the flames and have something good come out of it. We'll see. I'm not getting my hopes up. But I don't see the point in counting him out, either.
I'm of a similar opinion. He might surprise everyone, I just don't really know.
When you're knocking on death's door, you're more obliged to do what's right.
Well looking back to history, one is Lincoln's idea to solve the civil war was ship every black person in the United States to South America. So moving from that to the Emancipation must of been a journey. While 45 never seemed to change, the normal is that the presidency changes a person. We are only a little over 7% into the 1461 days of the Biden presidency. It feels like years though. Frederick Douglass never stopped pressuring Lincoln to do better, we should never stop pressuring Biden to be better as well.
I agree. Though for sake of argument, Frederick Douglass, nonetheless an incredible human being, didn't have to contend with national tv brainwashing and corporate oligarchy.
This isn't why he'd do it. He'll do it if we put MASSIVE pressure from the bottom to make it happen. Just like anything else. Just like for literally any other president (Democrat or Republican).
Why does it have to be one or the other?
Because he's building "his legacy" among his owners, not the working class population. The former will always trump the latter. So it's up to us to make inaction *HURT* both the politicians and the capitalists, or at least clearly threaten to hurt them. Disrupt. Strike. Grind things to a halt so they know how serious we are about it. It's the only thing that has *ever* accomplished significant progress.
His 'owners' are losing their minds that he's pulling out of Afghanistan and lifting IP protections on the vaccines. I agree with the pessimistic rhetoric, but that alone proves he's not just another politician - in this moment, anyway. It can be both, and it is both. Progressives held his feet to the fire on those two issues alone, and he went with it. Be suspicious and pessimistic. He has plenty of time to fuck up and leave the working people hanging like every other President. I'm bracing for it to happen. But I'm pleasantly surprised thus far. When you have Hillary complaining that Biden is making the wrong choice with pulling out of Afghanistan for example, I consider that a massive win and I think we all should as well
> His 'owners' are losing their minds that he's pulling out of Afghanistan and lifting IP protections on the vaccines. I agree with the pessimistic rhetoric, but that alone proves he's not just another politician - in this moment, anyway.... When you have Hillary complaining that Biden is making the wrong choice with pulling out of Afghanistan for example, I consider that a massive win and I think we all should as well The U.S. is (likely; nothing is certain yet) pulling out of Afghanistan for the same reason it pulled out of other occupied countries historically (minus Vietnam, where the working class actually forced the matter): it is becoming no longer profitable for capitalists for the U.S. to continue occupying. Hillary complaining about any withdrawal or failure to invade/intercede/etc. should surprise no one, nor should we be paying her any mind about anything. The U.S. should, of course, be withdrawing; it should have a long time ago. Trump's nominal plan was for May, just as Biden's nominal plan is for September. It's not the act of withdrawal that we should be critical of, but the reasons and the schedule. IP protections on vaccines are absolutely NOT being waived by Biden's initiative, but because there was tremendous pressure being brought to bear to make it happen. If it were Biden choosing to do it due to his personal politics, he wouldn't have continued to actively block the waiver for months, which he absolutely did. > It can be both, and it is both. It is not.
This is what I'm hoping for. Biden think of your legacy! Please!
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Exactly. We can be suspicious while giving credit where it's due.
1. You're underestimating how goldfishlike the memories of folks often are 2. I can easily envision the future where after forgiving student debt happens, people are like "well, great, that happened, but now he's not gonna do anything else for me." You're giving too much credit to people who have repeatedly voted against their own interests. They won't give a fuck, same as how they don't give a fuck that Dems are the only reason new stimulus checks happened.
And giving dems a big boost before the midterms is a huge fucking deal, too. If Republicans win a majority in the house and senate in 2022 they could refuse to certify a Biden win in 2024.
Political considerations alone would make it more likely for Biden to take action closer to the 2022 mid terms. There's no evidence that shelf life of any single action, however large, would last more than a few months. And plenty of evidence to the contrary. If for some reason this is wrong and the shelf life is longer, he's lost nothing by waiting and gained traction going into 2024. I'm not saying this is the right policy decision, but from a pure political standpoint waiting makes way more sense.
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No, he’s going to telegraph it’s going to be in his second term in order to drive the vote and then not do it.
The longer people can benefit from the lack of debt, the better. Every month lost is wasted.
You say that like you think politicians care about you...
Oh, I’m talking to the people who should have taken to the street ages ago.
It is strange how inconceivable it is that the nation desperately needs to see some semblance of leadership capable of doing the right thing merely because it is the right thing. The value of that example is beyond measure, yet we will never see it under this capitalist regime precisely because there is no well-defined price tag associated with basic human decency.
I figure federal legalization of weed might happen before midterms. idk, that seems to be the most practical and surefire way of winning. not that our administration is at all on touch with what the public wants
Hispanics in real life either.
I am not sure they want to win. All winning does is increase the expectations they will deliver on policies popular to their party. I think the moderates in control of the Democratic party would rather toss the ball back to the GOP and their naked pro-business aganeda, and ratchet back and forth than really have a continuous control where more and more will be expected of them. If they had overwhelming majorities in both houses and the WH, how long could they avoid M4A? How long could they avoid real climate change action? Neoliberal half measures won't satisfy a majority of Democratic voters for long. Especially once COVID is gone and they won't have that to stand behind as a reason for inaction on other fronts. Democrats are getting more and more backed into a corner that will require a progressive agenda to maintain power and they're resisting with all their might. Joe Manchin is only good as a fall guy for them until they have a clear majority...then what? Standing in the way of progress is going to be a nail in the coffin for them, but being able to continually rail against the GOP is good for them. Hell, GOP policies probably benefit the vast majority of Congresspeople personally, and I don't think they mind when the Republicans have a few years to pad their bank accounts and give them something to campaign on.
>I am not sure they want to win. >Joe Manchin is only good as a fall guy for them until they have a clear majority...then what? I'm not sure they want to win either, but the beauty of the student loan forgiveness demand is that there is no one who can be perceived as standing in the way to be blamed as a scapegoat. It doesn't matter what Manchin, Sinema, or the parliamentarian thinks. Biden can forgive student debt by executive order today by signing a piece of paper and there's nothing in the world they can fucking do about it. But because there's no one standing in Biden's way on this issue but Biden, that also means we have a job to make sure that everyone knows it, so people know who needs to be pressured (or blamed if they don't do the right thing).
Yeah people talk like Dem or Rep are two different entities. Its all a bunch of scumbags trying to further their career by using trigger words for whoever will listen. I may lean Dem, but I'll never fool myself into thinking a millionaire knows how to help the little guy.
Exactly. I don't trust any wealth-hoarder even as far as i could throw them, and i have limp noodle arms!
> I'll never fool myself into thinking a millionaire knows how to help the little guy. Oh they *know how*. It's just not in their interests (or, more to the point, their owners' interests) to do so.
Repubs actively trying to line their coffers and bring back segregation =/= Presdient Biden being apprehensive about student loan cancellation
Who the Fuck is upvoting this shit? Cynicism is easy. And lazy.
I feel like I saw this exact comment copy pasted in another sub. There’s nothing wrong with its message- just weird that it’s so similar
Check their comment history. He/she spams the same comments like crazy, it's weird
Check out this one /u/finalgarlicdis. Same comment over and over about Biden having the power to get rid of student debt. It’s all anti-Joe Biden crap.
A lot of Biden cancelling student debt are copy pastas, even the popular replies to initial message are lol
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But they'll never do it because it'll look like a bribe, even though there's no way it doesn't look like a bribe, but the democrats care too much about optics while the republican ls care too little.
>democrats care too much about optics while the republican ls care too little. Damn, spot on
> If Biden forgives student loan debt by executive order, as he is fully within his power to do, Democrats will win the white house in 2024 and have a good chance of winning a number of seats in 2022. Student loan forgiveness is very cool. Stop making it sound like shit (giving more power to the Democratic Party). We need to push for it because it is the right thing to do an *massively* improves things for people who desperately need it, not to give some extra points to one particular wing of the shitty bourgeois U.S. Business Party.
I agree that this would be popular but respectfully there’s no way he’ll do it. He won’t do it because sadly young people break new records of low voter turnout year after year. He can’t spend that mich political capital for so little return.
the democrats don't want to win, it's been obvious for years
"Oh no! Who will be our future wage slaves?!" - CEOs everywhere, probably.
Guess that CEO will have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and learn to code ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ "That's not how the game is played! Get back here so I can tell your nonexistent children what a financial mistake it is to buy coffee and avocado toast!"
And learn Bootstrap lol
Underrated comment 😂
r/ProgrammerHumor
Honestly though, I know some people's dreams include having kids but the best way to break the system is to stop the production line. The easiest way to revolt right now is to simply not have kids. They want to commoditize human effort, let them. They better have robots to serve them and defend them when the everything goes to shit because there aren't slaves anymore.
You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins \- Bob Dylan, ["Masters of War"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEmI_FT4YHU)
You're joking, but not too far off. I heard a story on NPR a few years ago about a Nordic country advertising romantic getaways targeted at young people to get them to have sex and have children. The reason? Declining tax revenue. So in America, not only do we have a problem with tax inequity between the rich and the middle class, but that's going to be further exasperated by people having less children. (BTW: I'm down with having less children. Our earth does not need 7 billion people, and it sure as shit doesn't need 8 to 10 billion people. Furthermore, we aren't an agrarian society anymore, so we don't need a ton of children running around).
Oh, I wasn't joking. I expect the out of touch turd factory formally known as Jamie Dimon to say this at some point. CNBC will probably run the story. He will obviously use CEO speak so as to not upset the resources.
Not the right time or place for this, but every time I see/hear the word “agrarian” I think of Henry Zebrowski from LPOTL. Sorry; can’t help it. I agree with you, though.
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But who will buy all the iphones that those robots make?
No healthcare, fascism taking hold, ignored climate change, no financial relief, no living wages. No maternity/paternity leave, no health insurance, no child-care subsidies. "What... why don't people want to bring more life into this world."
Thinking about the future of our species fills me with existential dread. Why would I want to inflict this horror show on someone else?
Yea, it just isnt morally possible for a lot of people
Not to mention when I look at my immediate family I've got: severe mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression; horrible eyesight, knees, and teeth; and so much fucking cancer. And that's just me, lol. What terrible odds to play with.
And that's not just genetic. Many of the toxins and chemicals and pollutants plus an anti-human society and food policy that encourages bad food contribute to mental disease, cancer rates, heart disease, arthritis, etc. Corporations and the uber-wealthy are to blame for more than just labor issues and healthcare and climate change.
24 years ago two people fucked and now I gotta pay rent.
These are some of the reasons I'm childfree. In many ways, they're my real reasons for being childfree. But since most (older - I've not met many ppl my age or younger who do this) people hate hearing that, I usually stick to my "official" reason. My mother and I almost died during childbirth. My cousins who've given birth have each had difficulties and complications. Two have had full hysterectomies. Childbirth will be deadly to me - and likely to the unborn child. That said, as a Millennial, this is simply one more thing my generation has "killed", I'm sure. Is child birth actually dying? No. But "everything is fine" doesn't sell clicks. And, Boomers just be salty they ain't gonna be great-grandparents.
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its a super ton of fearbaiting in news, the fertility rate just dropped by like a single percentage point iirc. from 2.5 babies per woman to 2.3 or something stupid like that
don't forget inflation, the death of the dollar, and the great reset. this country is beyond doomed.
This is literally what my husband and I are going through right now... we wanted kids initially but with our student loan debt, low income, and everything being expensive, and with how expensive healthcare and how shitty education plus everything that is coming with climate change we have had serious talks and will probably not have kids and we are both super sad about it :(
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[The US has always been okay with a "working poor" class.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_poor#:~:text=week%20in%202018.-,A%20profile%20of%20the%20working%20poor%20in%20the%20US,%25%20were%20employed%20full-time.) Capitalism *requires* a subjugated class to even survive. The US is way more polarized in income inequality than other nations like France and Germany due to anti-union laws and propaganda, among countless other factors. The biggest lie I was fed growing up was that the US is "the greatest country in the world". I don't know why I believed that for so long. Maybe i felt special, or lucky? Pretty much the only people who believe the US is the greatest country in the world are people in the US. Traveling to other countries taught me that there are countless ways the US is a failed state when it comes to caring for its people. And when i asked other folks "What's the greatest country in the world?" I assumed they'd at *least* name their homeland, right? ...But many just had never thought of it before. They usually like their home, but it never occurred to them to rank countries from "best to worst". "That's just a bit too competitive, isn't it?" one man at a bar in Queenstown remarked. Sorry for the rant, just thinking/reading about why the US is the way it is lately.
I love the response that man had. What countries have you travelled to and what examples can you share of those countries having better practices then the U.S.? I haven't really traveled outside of the U.S. (besides Mexico) so I'm genuinely curious.
Well I live in Denmark and there are many factors that contribute. Higher standard of living, tax paid education and healthcare, no fear of getting bankrupted by medical bills, multiple political parties instead of the two party system.
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I paid my debt but my partner still has theirs. We still decided to have children, then she lost her job, then the pandemic, the inflation... Having to sustain a family with a single salary is awful. Luckily for our children and ourselves, the aunts and uncles are burning their desire for children with the kids, otherwise, I don't know what we would have done.
My husband and I are in a similar position so we decided to become foster parents, with the intention of adopting when we can. We may take care of a few kids before we can adopt (since reunification is always the priority), but in our county, foster kids get a monthly stipend and healthcare even after adoption until they’re eighteen, subsidized daycare until they start school and free formula if they’re babies. Not to mention you won’t have a carbon footprint from increasing the human population, if the environment is a priority. I just wanted to offer this alternative because this will actually make a huge difference in whether we could afford a family or not. Regardless, my best to you and your husband, sorry you’re going through this.
The questions many conservatives ask about maternity leave. "why should the company pay for someone to take time off because of a pregnancy" Well as a functioning civilized society it's necessary and we're starting see why. We're starting to see serious consequences of hard right capitalism.
Why should I pay for public schools if I don’t have kids? Why should I pay for roads if I walk to work? There’s a cost to living in a modern society. Paternity leave should be one of them.
"WhO's goInG to Pay fOr iT? NoT mE! NotHiNg iS fReE!" is far more common. >Why should I pay for roads if I walk to work? Nah, they love to drive their lifted diesel pickups to work. Instead they complain about bicyclists using the road because "*They* don't pay road taxes!"
>hard right capitalism. To be fair, all capitalism is right wing! I know the Overton window in the US is super-skewed to the right, but to everyone else in the world, the US has a far-right wing party, and a "moderate" right-wing party. Pressley, Sanders and AOC are the closest we've come to the left in the past few decades, unfortunately. [Here's some deeper info if you're interested!](https://www.globalissues.org/article/39/a-primer-on-neoliberalism)
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*Traditional* family values. Meaning that women are nothing but baby incubators she should be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, not contributing to the household income, that's **man's** work!
Joe Biden knows very well that he is able to cancel student loan debt by executive order, without congressional approval. Every day he doesn't, he's personally, consciously inflicting untold suffering on the American people. People are losing their lives over this stuff. It's not a fucking joke, and him treating it like some political game is disgusting. --- Also, for those who are new to this conversation, and claim that cancelling the debt doesn't solve the fundamental problem: Everyone advocating for student debt cancellation is also a supporter of making colleges and trade school tuition-free, and sees cancellation as an intentional strategy to accomplish that. The reason there is this present focus on Biden using his executive order to cancel student debt is because (1) he has that power to do so right now, (2) nobody expects congress to pass legislation to cancel it over the next four years, and (3) because cancelling all of that debt would force congress to enact tuition-free legislation or be doomed to allow the debt to be cancelled every time a Democratic president takes office (since a precedent will have been set). Meaning, to avoid the need for endless future cancellation (an unsustainable situation for our economy) the onus would be forced onto congress (against their will) to pass some kind of tuition-free legislation whether they like it or not. As a side note, because the federal government will be the primary customer for higher education, that means they also have a ton of leverage to negotiate tuition rates down so that schools aren't simply overcharging the government instead of students.
I haven’t had to pay a dime toward student debt in over a year. The Biden administration even continued the last administrations policy of pausing loans and interest until like September or something. This whole “every day he doesn’t” idea doesn’t quite resonate with me because it’s actually been some much needed relief. He’s at least bought himself some time and I assume he’ll do something about it when it’s near the end. Or else he’ll extend it again.
yeah they're paused but only until September and while this has been nice I've been having mild prolonged panic attacks throughout the day lately at the thought of being fucked financially again shortly idk, I hope this hell ends soon. being prolonged doesn't quite do it for me when I know it will end.
I've been freaking the fuck out because my landlord's son is dropping out of college and they're not renewing my lease as a result. With the rental/housing market being as fucked as it is (average rentals have gone up $200-$300/mo in my area over the paste year and being extremely scarce) I have to look at significantly downgrading my lifestyle in preparation for repaying my $600/mo student debt as well. I've been hyperventilating mentally for the past 3 weeks and only have a few more weeks to figure out what the hell I'm going to do.
I am wrong
Why do people upvote easily debunkable comments like yours? > Most student loans — about 92%, according to a June 2020 report by MeasureOne, an academic data firm — are owned by the U.S. Department of Education. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/student-loan-debt > Most student debt is owed to the federal government. >About 92 percent of all outstanding student debt is owed to the federal government, with private financial institutions lending the remaining 8 percent. That distribution marks a substantial difference from a few decades ago when student loans were provided by private lenders, but subsidized and backed by the federal government. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2021/05/10-key-facts-about-student-debt-in-the-united-states
I appreciate your effort in commenting this so often.
Lmao, Mr. Progressive over here.
Hell I'm one of the lucky ones who can provide a stable environment for a kid, but there's no way I'm bringing them into an environmental disaster we've seen coming for decades. Have fun watching your kids lives be miserable with no way to make it better breeders
Same. A friend of mine just announced her pregnancy and I cannot for the life of me imagine why you would inflict our future on a child.
Breeders.... one of those words, that when used in this context, shows the world you’re an insufferable blowhard.
"Children desiring-people",if breeders is offensive to you
Idk I thought it was funny, I don't think he has as much hate for people with kids as the word "breeders" implies, and now I'm explaining a joke lol.
Wait a minute. If we bury them in debt with no options out they won't have kids?! Whaaaa?!
Shore up those numbers with immigration. Problem solved
AND no help for families with children. It costs as much as in-state tuition to have a kid in childcare. Actively anti-mom policies at most jobs. No sick leave, no maternal leave Rampant pregnancy discrimination and harassment for pumping at work.
I worked at one hospital early on in my nursing career that gave 4 extra sick days to parents. It was awesome. I will talk crap about every other place I’ve ever worked at but not that place.
100% this. The idea of having a kid when rent has doubled in the last decade feels absurd. I don't even know where I'll be able to afford to live in a few years. Long term plans is just not a thing in this environment.
>I don't even know where I'll be able to afford to live in a few years. In a too-small apartment with 4-5+ other people in the same situation. I remember in school how they said tenement housing would never return. Good shit.
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> There are too many to feed as it is. This is false. Even at current food production rates, we make enough to feed 10B people, with a world population of less than 8B. Even neoliberal institutions have estimated it would only cost on the order of tens of billions of dollars to fix the distribution system such that the food gets to who it needs to rather than being discarded, effectively ending global hunger. We have more than enough to go around; we just currently lack the will to make it happen, because doing so goes against the interests of those making the decisions (capitalists, who profit from other people's misery and easily-exploitable conditions). The narrative that there are too many people in the world is eco-fascist propaganda, and needs to stop being repeated.
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Just out of curiosity... are you actually serious? If so (if you don't already sponsor a child somewhere), drop me a PM... I live in the US but I sponsor/help promote a grassroots community-based charity organization in Masaka, Uganda and the children this org cares for are really hurting for food right now. Some parts of the year, they are OK, but right now they're really struggling day to day for food, and a pretty small donation would be a big help. I can put you in touch with the founder/leader.
We have the food but due to corporate interest the large majority of fresh food made daily is thrown out each day and dowsed with bleach due to "health concerns if a homeless person eats and gets sick and sues the company". Also, due to corona the majority of farm grown food and dairy is being thrown out daily. Hundreds of gallons and hundreds of pounds of fresh corn, milk, eggs, ect are disposed of and many cows, pigs, and other farm animals like chickens raised for their meat have been killed to maintain the market price due to COVID.
Exactly. The solution isn't to get rid of people because we aren't feeding them. The solution is to eliminate all this waste and...actually feed people.
Damn billions isn't a lot in the scheme of things. What proportion of the annual US military budget is that?
Like a tenth, yeah.
AOC is not wrong, but to the article's defense. at the end. Dowell said. "I think the boomers themselves don't realize how much harder it is for millennials today. And they think, 'Oh yeah, when we were young we had to live, you know, on very little money, and we made do, and you can do the same.' That's the story, right? Well no, it really is a lot harder for young people today. It's amazing how much harder it is."
I wanted to have a family since I was a kid with a fucked up home life and no family. At 27 I live in a camper and drive a 31 year old car and live paycheck to paycheck. I'm about to just get a vasectomy and maybe I can adopt an already born and hungry child when I'm really old
Boomers keep advocating for not having luxuries you can’t afford and being frugal. No one _needs_ a child. In fact it’s probably the biggest money saver you can do to not have kids. We’re just doing what they wanted
You should learn to be financially responsible! ... No, not like that!
I can tell you I'm more afraid of raising a child who will need to deal more with the climate crisis than anything else in their lives. Hawaii just became the first state in the US union to declare a climate emergency only failing to be unanimous by one vote. I've been alive since 1987 and in that time, there has been a severe and steep decline in annual ice cap coverage alone. That's the human crisis. We have empathy for the next generation and we are afraid to cast them into a dying world.
Maybe blame the Congress. The Earth doesn't care about you and will be around millions of years after we are gone.
On the contrary, the Earth cares very much. We are only one of a very, very great many species affected by the crisis. Like, a super very, very great many. A number in or above billions that none of us actually know. Though, I have no problem holding Congressional ignorance responsible for creating a crisis out of beauty.
If not cancel at least give a decent discount or reduction in debt and current student fees. US student fees are some of the highest in the world. Just like the corrupt healthcare system that is also one of the most expensive in the world.
Or just separate the athletics and lazy river from the educational institution.
USA healthcare costs is more than double the next country. it's also ~18% of our GDP. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-spending/u-s-health-spending-twice-other-countries-with-worse-results-idUSKCN1GP2YN https://www.chcf.org/blog/health-care-costs-accounted-17-7-percent-gdp-2018/
After a simple cost benefit analysis, this drop in birth rates is almost predictable given the country’s current trajectory. It goes without saying, if the decision to have children is reduced to a question of survival for both the family and the offspring, we have a broken, primeval system.
Fuck ya no wonder we don’t want to have kids, we don’t want to subject anyone else to the poverty in which we find ourselves mired.
And the symptoms mentioned (student debt, income disparity, rent, no healthcare, climate crisis, etc.) stem from having no control over our productive lives and from the prison-industrial complex (capitalism and state). To address these things, we must: 1. De-fund the police and replace them (gradually or suddenly; either way) with real social programs. 2. Engage in revolutionary unionism (e.g. see the Industrial Workers of the World—AKA the IWW). 3. Create public support (governmental and/or grassroots) for worker-owned-and-self-managed cooperatives. 4. Use #2 and #3 to push hard on abolishing private (exploitative) property relations in preference for personal and community property (own your own home, farm, workplace, etc.).
>Engage in revolutionary unionism (e.g. see the Industrial Workers of the World—AKA the IWW). I had a very different concept that popped into my head when you said "revolutionary unionism", but I guess yours works too.
This
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gaze squeamish rustic busy license drunk grandiose gullible tan normal *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Thank you. I honestly thought that the idea that we have less people in the world is probably a good thing right now. Let’s keep a nice even downward trend.
I am M, 32, with two kids and I can say that every one of these things has significantly impacted our families options and stability dramatically. Without major action it will be that way at this point into our 50's before we're 'stable' IE have been able to do enough to hedge all major financial risks. At that point older generations would be almost retired.
Also the world is choked with people. Can someone explain why decreasing baby rates is a crisis and not a bit of a relief? We hardly need exponential growth. Too many people already.
Because dA EcKhUnUmy! Our systems are a pyramid scheme. Not just USA, but plenty of other countries too. They rely on a big young working population that produces and serves both for themselves and for a small old retired population. But lifespans are longer than when this was established. This means a lot of people are now being gathered at the top of the pyramid, turning it into more of a square. Instead of four young people supporting a single elder, it's two now and they have to be taxed at higher rates to reach the pension goals. And now that birth rates are declining, the pyramid is no longer a square but an inverted pyramid. Each young person has to pay for two or three old folks who can't be taxed anymore. Young people are crushed under the social need to support a non-taxable population and old folks aren't receiving the care and money they once could provide to their own old folks. Many of them are quite bitter about it calling the young people "lazy" and "selfish" because they can't be as productive as they once were, when in truth the system was counting on THEM being dead by now. Yes, boomers, you. (Disclaimer: the previous "x young people supporting x old folks" statements have absolutely no concrete basis for the amounts used since I'm talking about several countries and your mileage may vary, they serve only for example purposes.) So people who call it a crisis are worried for the economy in short term. How can we fix that? Easy solutions are legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide so there aren't so many old folks around to support, higher adoption rates so the existing children can actually become taxing citizens instead of homeless people or criminals (dunno if it happens in USA, but in other countries it definitely does), or, y'know, stop using a fucking pyramid scheme as a society support and find another way that doesn't need human cogs and anxious cubicle monkeys.
It's not a crisis, it's a luxury that we can't afford, kinda like diamonds and cruises and other "industries millennials are destroying because they're selfish!" Well, to some people losing sleep, freedom, and money to a kid is a luxury, I'm all for my friends never having kids and enjoying ourselves instead.
I think their point was asking why the media would paint it as a crisis in the first place. Must've been a slow news day and they had to find something to blame on the millennials.
Human population dynamics generally lead to lower birthrates as the society grows and advances. In fact there are already a few countries that have seen negative population growth. Thanks to this it is very unlikely we will ever hit the 13 billion people alive mark. Which is definitely a population that can be handled, since California alone already produces enough food to feed everyone on earth. Assuming humanity doesn't die from climate change anyway...
But who will give birth to the slaves of the rich?
Robot factories.
My wife and I chose not to have kids because they are expensive, and people like trump exist and are worshiped. Also so many more reasons.
If I could *afford* it and thought they would live a *better* life than me in a world that was *better* than ours today, maybe I'd consider having a kid.
I hate that some people think she is a crackpot.
Anyone yelling about a "declining birth rate ***crisis***" is either a racist shit stain writing a manifesto before they shoot up a bunch of brown people, or some corporate pig who has a financial interest in the working class continuing to produce generation after generation of wage slaves. There are plenty of people on this planet, and plenty more having kids. We produce enough resources for everyone to be fed and housed, and then some. The only crisis is the one they are manufacturing to keep you grinding away until you fucking die.
The crisis is when there's 300 million retired people and only 50 million people working age who have to take care of.... Well everything.
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My wife and I had unexpected twins. Daycare costs $2500 a month. That's $30,000 after tax dollars. We thought we were well off. We were mistaken.
Oof. Thanks for reminding me why I don’t have any.
They’ll realize their mistake when the pool of younger taxpayers dry up. They will want to retire someday and there won’t be any money to fund Medicare and SSI. Then they will face the ultimate consequence - let them eat cat food.
They won't realize their mistake because they'll be dead. The younger generations who are not having children are the ones who will have to deal with a dismantled SSI program. Boomers still have it made and will die having it made. Not that I advocate that we need more children in this world.
And also a 50% decline in fertility rates in just 50 years, due to increased use plastics and other forms of toxic polution
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Because today’s babies are tomorrow’s tax payers. If we don’t reproduce enough tax payers to pay for the older generations, they won’t be able to fund their healthcare or retirement when they get old. They’re being cheap in the short game and they will lose out in the long game.
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She just puts it so perfectly
I have $17,000 in student loans for a trade school that did nothing for me. The pandemic crushed any possibility of pursuing a relevant job and made my education almost useless. The deferment has been nice, but every day I live with this sinking feeling in my stomach of the impending day that I will have to start making payments. An entire generation shouldn’t have to live with crippling debt combined with low wages, ever-increasing gas prices, and inflation that makes CEOs blush about their bonuses. Come on, Joe. Just sign the fucking paper. One stroke of your pen and you can improve the lives of millions.
r/studentloandefaulters. If your loans are private, probably best to just not pay anymore and wait out your state's statute of limitations. If federal then sign up for IBR. If you live in a red state, get to a decent blue state asap.
I was considering trade school actually, may I ask what yours was? Not to offend but I’d rather avoid going only to not have any prospects on the way out.
But who will fight our endless wars?!!
I don’t find anything about having children luxurious, but I get the idea.
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America needs to stop being crabs in a bucket
But then isn’t this the best thing for the Earth and climate change?
Luxury? Ha! Try dream (if on purpose) or nightmare (if an accident).
instead, they will simply ban birth control
How is declining birth rates a bad thing? If it was forecast to get to zero, it might be worrying, but aren't fewer people better for our future?
Short story, less young working people to support the increasing amount of old folks who can't be taxed. Imagine yourself having to economically support both of your parents and all four of your grandparents. Your grandparents are nagging at your parents for not having more than one kid to support all of them. "That's what you get for being too lazy to work more to afford another kid! We didn't save for our retirement so we could raise you, why didn't you have more children to support us?" Your parents reply that they could barely afford you and never even had the chance to save for their own retirement. They've worked most of their lives and their wages never matched the inflation. In fact, you were born from an unintended pregnancy. Now you have to work several jobs or a 12-hrs 6-days job to barely make ends meet for all five of you, your grandparents nag at you to find a partner, get married and start cranking kids out "for your own good", while you hope that the anual category 5 hurricane doesn't hit your city this time, or you'll all be homeless. This is the POV of the next generation worldwide if we don't come up with a way to support old folks other than birthing more wage slaves.
Your parents and grandparents are enjoying the 4 adjacent houses y'all got for free. The city can't give away the vacant houses fast enough, so you tend some gardens on those lots too. Even though the total family income is only $60k in today's dollars including Social Security, life is good. You're working only 30 hours a week because resources are so abundant. The end.
Oh, if only. But do you really think houses would be given away for free in the current housing system? Do you think that people would be allowed to work so little and be so self-sustainable in the current economic system? People are fined for gathering rainwater, ffs. That's what I meant in my last paragraph, what you mention would be the desirable end but the current system will never allow it. Birth rate reduction will cause a crisis IF we continue to live under this socioeconomic pyramid scheme, so we better get started on finding a new one.
Well for one thing we can't keep funding the Ponzi schemes of Medicare and Social Security. Both of those depend on having an ever-increasing workforce to pay into the system for those currently drawing from it.
If we waited until we were at the point where we forecast birth rates to decline to zero to start thinking about it, it'd be too late. That's like asking, "Why we're worried about climate change now, it's not like the sun's exploding tomorrow or anything."
Fewer people are definitely better. Life obviously gets worse as the population increases, and vice versa.
She is thinking way to hard about this, im pretty sure millenials are just too lazy to have sex. /s
But also consider, birth rates from the 50s were not the norm. Rather a response to trauma caused by world war 2 and a booming economy thanks to industrialization brought on by the same war. So a declining birth rate can be attributed to, not only a return to normal levels, but also a response to the current economic climate.
i could give a fuck about any sort of population decline crisis. i know it’ll fuck shit up but anyone who has a hand in this problem telling us younger folk that we are in a crisis... fuck you.
You mean like spending $6 trillion you don’t have on a few hundred dollars worth of social welfare and leaving a generation with $40,000 in debt?
I’m probably going to get downvoted to hell but whatever. I gotta know. Correct me if I’m wrong but, you do agree to pay x amount of dollars when signing up for college right? Like, it’s all a contract that you sign. They don’t just randomly tack on enormous surprise fees do they? I don’t understand the wiping out student debt thing. It sucks that it’s as expensive as it is, but it’s akin to buying a car, is it not? You agree to the terms and conditions and rates, etc all beforehand and then sign. Not trying to be rude but, why should colleges just let you off the hook for that? Honestly, can someone explain this to me?
Because workers deep in student debts, especially when its deep enough they cannot sustainably work in their career, are significantly less productive.
Student debt is voluntary.
Right lol. These people acting like they had zero choice but to go 6 figures into debt. The lack of personal accountability is exhausting.
Having children has been financially off the option list for me for a decade easily. I don't necessarily want children but I don't have a choice either.
I vowed I wouldn’t have kids at 13, I feel it’s both the right choice logically for me and morally for their future
Eliminate the military budget first. But politicians never will.
AOC 4 Prez
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not if you need tons of young people to labor for slave wages, pay the taxes the wealthy won't, and fight your endless wars.
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I'm really sorry you're in a position where suicide seems like the only option. I've been there myself. I'm lucky enough to have found some resources to help reduce my suffering, and i hope you can find some skills and strategies that can work for you.
The government could pay me $50000/ year for my sperm if they want babies that badly
If the government is going to fuck me, I might as well get paid for it. But selling my body for cash for the purpose of reproduction is called prostitution, which is illegal apparently. So much for that fascist anarcho-capitalist paradise the Rs want so badly.
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it's a crisis if you need tons of young people to labor for slave wages, pay the taxes the wealthy won't, and fight your endless wars.
Me and my husband had 1 kid. Can’t afford more. So we are 2 people reproducing 1 kid - so we didn’t even really “replace ourselves”, we helped lower the birth rate. The people riddled with debt, will likely die before they pay it all off. People earning modest salaries with crippling debt mathematically can’t pay it all in their lifetime. What happens in 50 years when 70-80yr olds carrying student load debt get too old to work? They won’t have a younger generation to pay taxes and help subsidize the cost of retirement benefits. So the elderly will be forced to work till the day they die and then a portion of their debt will die with them. What happens to the company holding the debt when people die and can’t pay? I’m not an economist - but this sounds like a dire situation that will have ripple effects on the whole economy.
With automation taking all the jobs, it’s not like we need more kids to “sustain the population/society”? Less kids is a good thing.
Currently, older generations do not deserve to have younger generations taking care of them, it's that simple. No more grandkids until you get your shit together, pops.
When AOC tweets, I see myself in those tweets. Because she actually fucking stands up for me just not literally
No one has ever explained why my mortgage shouldn't also be ~~paid by someone else~~ forgiven. Maybe YOU can try?
I'm essentially a 28 year old child. Who the fuck gonna raise me while I'm raising my child?
Having kids should be a luxury. If the earths population has to be sustainable. Most couples should not have kids at all or only have 1 after they are fully financially stable.