[oddtuple]

The research on this is clear, what you’re describing is totally unrelated

https://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/rpr_2_6.pdf

Also, and I mean this sincerely… are you okay? You sound angry, resentful even. Please go talk to someone, this seems much bigger than student loan forgiveness.

[s1artibartfast]

>You sound angry, resentful even.

Taxes and wealth transfers are something that a reasonable person can be angry or even resentful of.

If someone went into your house and robbed you, you might be angry. You have bills, dreams, and children to care for. A lot of people would even want to kill the thief.

These policies have the same effect, but you are powerless to defend yourself.

[robomartin]

> The research on this is clear

Yeah, sure, people can write papers to justify anything.

Like I said, let's cancel everyone's auto loans and mortgages. I'll be we could write a compelling paper in support of that.

> are you okay?

Very funny. Insult shrouded behind fake sincerity.

I am fine, than you. Are you? You don't seem to understand reality at all. Please go talk to someone.

> You sound angry

Everyone who isn't a under heavy sedation should be angry at the stupid nonsense our society today seems to insist on passing for virtues. It is destroying our society to the bone. Splitting us up into more and more subsets brought into resonance by expert manipulators.

Don't believe me? Give it ten years, come back and compare notes. If we remain on this path nothing good will come from it. Sadly, we might have already passed a point of no return years ago.

The issue here is that it is far easier for political actors to work on the basis of creating resonance in subsets of the population than to actually do the difficult work of governing and solving real problems --which isn't easy at all.

Far easier to portray daily life as an ideological civil war with many "us vs. them" slices of society than to actually solve real problems over time.

One approach leads to easy votes and easy paths to stay in power. The other requires hard work and the risk of not delivering results, which could end political careers. The internet and social media gave politicians the tools necessary to focus on nothing except divide-resonate-and-conquer.

It's a game. The masses play. Politicians win. Society gets screwed.

For the unthinking among us, if they can reduce life to a set of mono-variable issues and clear good-vs-evil players, maybe feed them a few great looking graphs, PDF's and websites in the process, maybe even an idiot well-known actor who is stupid enough (most of them are) to get behind the cause, well, politicians and the money brokers that surround them do just fine.

Of course, the population doesn't do fine. They do worse and worse with the passage of time. Pick a time line, say, 50 years:

    - The healthcare system is a horrible train-wreck
    - Our system of education K-12 is worse than in some third world countries
    - Our university system sells, for hundreds of thousands of dollars, 
      a product that, at most, should cost tens of thousands, or 
      be free (as it is in countless nations)
    - Our systems of mass transportation are a mess
      The California high speed train project is an example of just 
      how incompetent we have become
    - Our actions on business, nationally and internationally, have 
      driven entire industries out of the country --forever
    - Air travel lately?  OMG!
    - We can't build anything at scale any more
      Remember "shovel ready projects"?  Yeah, good luck
      Just one drive up and down Interstate 5 in CA summarizes where
      we are well:  We can't build anything, and, when we do,
      it's third world
    - We have degrades so far that we can't even manufacture masks 
      and medical equipment during a pandemic
    - And, yes, we have layers of society who would rather whine 
      and be taken care of by government than engage in the difficult
      work that elevates societies and people at all levels

These are things everyone should be angered by. And this list isn't even exhaustive. Take travelling around the nation. It's a disaster. I have been to airports and have travelled through immigration systems in very small nations that put major US airports to absolute shame. One that comes to mind is Singapore. Comparing just that experience to entering the US through LAX, Dallas, JFK or any other airport is nothing less than shameful. It should embarrass and, yes, anger everyone.

One way or another, we have managed to allow our politicians (note I have not pointed at a single unique party) to devolve our nation and society into something that is simply not headed in the right direction at all. The things these people have done and are doing continue to guarantee the irrelevance of the US (and Europe) on the world stage and 100 to 200 years (if not more) of Chinese domination at nearly all levels.

I guess the unthinking among us need to find themselves in that reality before they understand just how stupid they have been to not laugh these politicians off the stage and replace them with people who will deliver results and not focus on dividing the population into subsets that are easy to manipulate for votes.

I have worked in manufacturing, technology, electronics, software, commercial, industrial and aerospace domains for four decades. We have been moving backwards, for decades. We have eroded our ability to sustain and grow our economy to a point that likely has no return.

Just try to manufacture any non-trivial product in the US and Europe and the realization of how bad things are will feel like a bucket of ice water. In fact, try to manufacture most trivial products (masks, gowns, syringes, disinfectant wipes) in the US and Europe and the results will likely be the same.

This is the result of decades of incompetence and politicians focusing on their political objectives rather than going to work for us doing the difficult job of managing the affairs of a nation.

Yes, everyone should be angry, because, without a massive unifying force and a clear vision of common goals --without everyone pushing in the same direction-- this is going in a direction most are not going to like. It's like the proverbial crab being slow-boiled. Ignorance, as it turns out, isn't, in the end, bliss.

[oddtuple]

We want the same things, but please try to at least engage with me on the data and research. I don’t want the powers that be to crush us any more than you do. I care about people, and from what you’ve written I know you do too, so let’s tackle this the best we can with the information we have. I’m not trying to trick you, really

[robomartin]

> engage with me on the data and research

Look, I know bullshit when I see it. I've been around that long. Sorry, and I do not mean this as a personal attack, the study you posted is complete horseshit. And so is every single study that claims that forcing the entire population to pay for some X a subset of the population chose to buy on their own accord is not a way to build a society based on personal responsibility and the idea that your rights must end where mine begin.

I'll give you one example of this in healthcare. Our family was nicely covered and happy with an insurance plan that cost us $650 per month and had a low thousands deductible way back when. Then President Obama comes along and publicly promises everyone: "If you like your doctors, you'll keep them. If you like your healthcare plan, you'll keep it." He is on video multiple times making this assertion.

What happened? We were forced into Obamacare. Why? The terms of the bill forced companies to cancel all prior plans. And then, our plan went from $650 per month to over $1,800 per month. The deductible went from somewhere around $4,000 per year to over $9,000 per year. We could no longer go the the doctors we had been going to for years.

I did the math. My family would have to be run over by a truck before our insurance would pay real benefits. And yet we have been spending over $22K per year on premiums for over twelve years now. That's over TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS so far since being forced into this fucking abomination. Over $270K. For what?

And I voted for that fucker too. Biggest mistake of my life. Incompetent to the core. Well spoken like few before and after him. And, of course, he used that to divide this nation in ways most have yet to recognize. And costs will go up. At this rate I would not be surprised if it costs my family over a million dollars in my lifetime.

Perfect example of a politician promising to help people, yet causing great harm instead. One can find examples of this kind of thing across the isle as well. Not claiming Democrats are the only culpable here.

Politicians in this nation, by law, can lie to all of us and suffer no consequences for it. That's wrong and should change. They are causing way too much damage using that superpower.

The political "species" --because they are not human beings, they are parasites-- in the US has done more damage to this country in the last 50 years than any of our enemies could have hoped to inflict on us through any means available to them. They have destroyed this nation from the inside by only caring about themselves while pretending to care for those who's votes they want and need.

Why people do not wake up to this and revolt is something I might never understand. The fact that, in 2016, our only two choices for "leadership" were Trump and Clinton says a lot about just how stupid we all are and how putrid our political system has become. Out of all the brilliant and capable people in this nation, those two rose to the top? Amazing.

> let’s tackle this the best we can with the information we have

We have to be very careful. This "information we have" is deeply polluted by political forces and financial interests. I would advise anyone to almost, by default, discard anything that comes out of our universities one a range of topics. They have become paid political actors. The forces that be know how to manipulate this through grants and programs that only favor certain perspectives.

For example, go search for the body of articles challenging some of the narratives surrounding what we can and cannot do about atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change. The number of studies --if you can find any-- is absolutely dwarfed by those showing we are Zeus and can lick this thing within a few years or even decades (which, of course, is complete and utter horseshit).

And so, if we were to tackle this with the information we have, the only conclusion they want us to reach is that we have to destroy entire economies to "save the planet" --which, again, is complete horseshit.

There are thing in life that don't require layers of research studies to understand or debunk. For example, any engineer with a reasonable amount of experience knows that building a submarine using a carbon fiber pressure hull is fucking stupid.

Bailing everyone out of X (which can be anything) isn't a way to build a strong, resilient, responsible society with self determination and ability to make good decisions and honor them despite outcomes. It's a way to build a loser society that will surely buckle at the first sign of trouble. Even worse, it's a way to build a society perennially dependent on government handouts, with all the downsides history has shown this brings.

I think there's reason to be angry. Some of us have been working hard for decades, only to see the people we hired to look after our nation destroy it from the inside and divide us to use us like pawns for their own benefit. That's not cool. That's something to be angry about. And rightly so.

[oddtuple]

Jesus Christ, you need help

[peteradio]

Lol! You are up and down this thread personally attacking people who don't share your misunderstandings and then mic dropping the same link to a 60 page Economics report which famously enables the poor policy decisions you refuse to engage on in any other conversation. If you ever grow up I'm sure you'll come back to this thread and laugh at what a knobhead you were. Telling anyone who 1) disagrees with you and 2) is expressing any emotion, to "get help" is remarkably childish.

[robomartin]

> Jesus Christ, you need help

I am flattered you see me as the son of God. I am not. If I were, I'd waste no time and fix the world with a single well-aimed divine fart.