Official Student Debt Cancellation Watch Thread

[King Kreole]

when people talk of the top 10 or 1%, it's a wealth conversation. conflating top income - people who depend on a check each month, as most of the black population across all income levels do - with wealth continues to dismiss the fragility of black finances across the board. a few of us already went into the fact that there is still a dearth of wealth/assets accumulated in top black income earning households, further compounded by the fact many of us are still tied to lower economic backgrounds/families and took out crazy student loans to earn a top income.

no one is saying you need to shed tears for a black person earning 150k at the same rate you would for someone earning $25k, but stop acting like that income puts them in a class of wealth

I don't see where the accusation of a conflation of wealth and income is coming from, all the numbers I've been pulling have been income. There is such a thing as a top 10% of black income. That's just..like..a statistical reality. Wealth and income aren't the same, and as I've said multiple times "all black wealth is precarious". No one is saying "fukk black people making $125K+" or "black people making $125K+ are the same as white people" or any of that weird shyt. My claim has always been that you can make inferences from someone's income level that are generally relevant/correlated to one's material conditions. If the idea is that we can't differentiate between black people making 3x the average black income, then what is the limit of that extrapolation? What about black income of $250K+? $400K+? I mean, would you be in favor of replacing our progressive tax system with a flat tax system for all black incomes because "there is still a dearth of wealth/assets accumulated in top black income earning households, further compounded by the fact many of us are still tied to lower economic backgrounds/families and took out crazy student loans to earn a top income." ?

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

I don't see where the accusation of a conflation of wealth and income is coming from, all the numbers I've been pulling have been income. There is such a thing as a top 10% of black income. That's just..like..a statistical reality. Wealth and income aren't the same, and as I've said multiple times "all black wealth is precarious". No one is saying "fukk black people making $125K+" or "black people making $125K+ are the same as white people" or any of that weird shyt. My claim has always been that you can make inferences from someone's income level that are generally relevant/correlated to one's material conditions. If the idea is that we can't differentiate between black people making 3x the average income, then what is the limit of that extrapolation? What about black income of $250K+? $400K+? I mean, would you be in favor of replacing our progressive tax system with a flat tax system for all black incomes because "there is still a dearth of wealth/assets accumulated in top black income earning households, further compounded by the fact many of us are still tied to lower economic backgrounds/families and took out crazy student loans to earn a top income." ?

you can't assume much of anything about income as most people are a check away from ruin, even six figure earners. that's the whole reason the war/push back on the top 1-10% was about wealth inequality, not just income. you can have some trust fund kid who has the freedom to make 30k working for a non-profit and a doctor from a working class background making 200k, but has to pay for their mom's housing, healthcare and food in addition to supporting their wife & kids and servicing $225k in student debt, you can't infer much about them just based on the income that shows up on their W2

 

[No1]

I don't see where the accusation of a conflation of wealth and income is coming from, all the numbers I've been pulling have been income. There is such a thing as a top 10% of black income. That's just..like..a statistical reality. Wealth and income aren't the same, and as I've said multiple times "all black wealth is precarious". No one is saying "fukk black people making $125K+" or "black people making $125K+ are the same as white people" or any of that weird shyt. My claim has always been that you can make inferences from someone's income level that are generally relevant/correlated to one's material conditions. If the idea is that we can't differentiate between black people making 3x the average black income, then what is the limit of that extrapolation? What about black income of $250K+? $400K+? I mean, would you be in favor of replacing our progressive tax system with a flat tax system for all black incomes because "there is still a dearth of wealth/assets accumulated in top black income earning households, further compounded by the fact many of us are still tied to lower economic backgrounds/families and took out crazy student loans to earn a top income." ?

You just need to stop at this point. @dora_da_destroyer was responding to your very foolish claim about the “top 10 percent of Black people.” You unnecessarily separated the groups when all anyone ever said is that the income cut off for forgiveness makes little sense when you consider who composes the black 100k plus earners and their lack of wealth and additional responsibilities. You basically shrugged it off and said fukk them to make your narrow ass class based argument because you got stuck in character and now you’re trying to juelz into saying you were just talking about numbers as if the entire conversation was about the futility of applying those numbers the same way across the board. Just admit that you got caught in your black bourgeoisie are the opps just like anyone else angle and misapplied it and got people across the political spectrum coming at your neck. You like people like Breonna Gray Joy who is a whole ass socialist and when to Harvard for undergrad and law school and didn’t start working in the left sphere until she had gotten rid of all her student debt. Was she the same as white people in that income class? Was she the oops?

 

[King Kreole]

Yes

Ok well then I honestly just don't think we're operating in the same factual universe then and I doubt any further discussion on this will be fruitful.

 

[King Kreole]

you can't assume much of anything about income as most people are a check away from ruin, even six figure earners. that's the whole reason the war/push back on the top 1-10% was about wealth inequality, not just income. you can have some trust fund kid who has the freedom to make 30k working for a non-profit and a doctor from a working class background making 200k, but has to pay for their mom's housing, healthcare and food in addition to supporting their wife & kids and serving $225k in student debt, you can't infer much about them just based on the income that shows up on their W2

I support a wealth tax for this exact reason, and I'd be first in line to say wealth is a bigger driver of material conditions than income, but there's also a reason we have an income tax. It's an important metric that actually can provide meaningful insights into economic conditions. Based on your argument, I see no reason you would be opposed to black people making $45K and black people making 3x that paying the same flat tax rate because income isn't a relevant enough factor to merit differential policy treatment. This is pretty basic economics. Even if we assume the $125K earner is paying the same ratio of their income to student debt repayments as the $45K earner, the $45K earner feels that pinch more. Barring extremely extenuating circumstances, the marginal utility of a dollar reduces in value the higher up you go in income. The QoL of a $125K earner is simply, on average, higher than a $45K earner. Being black doesn't completely neutralize that. You're acting like there is no such thing as economic class stratification within the black community. The $125K earning black doctor or lawyer with nominal high student debt isn't living in the same neighborhood as the black $45K social worker. They're not eating at the same restaurants. They're not facing the same budgetary decisions. Their consumption habits are not the same. It's a really bizarre and harmful exercise to flatted their experiences.

 

[King Kreole]

You just need to stop at this point. @dora_da_destroyer was responding to your very foolish claim about the “top 10 percent of Black people.” You unnecessarily separated the groups when all anyone ever said is that the income cut off for forgiveness makes little sense when you consider who composes the black 100k plus earners and their lack of wealth and additional responsibilities. You basically shrugged it off and said fukk them to make your narrow ass class based argument because you got stuck in character and now you’re trying to juelz into saying you were just talking about numbers as if the entire conversation was about the futility of applying those numbers the same way across the board. Just admit that you got caught in your black bourgeoisie are the opps just like anyone else angle and misapplied it and got people across the political spectrum coming at your neck. You like people like Breonna Gray Joy who is a whole ass socialist and when to Harvard for undergrad and law school and didn’t start working in the left sphere until she had gotten rid of all her student debt. Was she the same as white people in that income class? Was she the oops?

This is a really bad post. You're usually a quite strong poster with sound, well thought out politics and ideas, which is why I'm so surprised to see you in here parroting this utterly class-devoid analysis. First you deny the existence of a 90th percentile of income within the black community, which is just a statistical fact. Then you parrot standard right-wing socio-economic dogma about punishing high-earners by focusing policy aid to helping average earners. Next you'll be accusing me of advocating for the public execution of any black person who has a nice car. If acknowledging the existence of varying economic classes within the black community makes be Briahna Joy Gray, then so be it.

 

[Software]

I came into this thread looking for news on student debt forgiveness what I saw instead was people arguing bout wealth inequality and classism

 

[Astroslik]

You just need to stop at this point. @dora_da_destroyer was responding to your very foolish claim about the “top 10 percent of Black people.” You unnecessarily separated the groups when all anyone ever said is that the income cut off for forgiveness makes little sense when you consider who composes the black 100k plus earners and their lack of wealth and additional responsibilities. You basically shrugged it off and said fukk them to make your narrow ass class based argument because you got stuck in character and now you’re trying to juelz into saying you were just talking about numbers as if the entire conversation was about the futility of applying those numbers the same way across the board. Just admit that you got caught in your black bourgeoisie are the opps just like anyone else angle and misapplied it and got people across the political spectrum coming at your neck. You like people like Breonna Gray Joy who is a whole ass socialist and when to Harvard for undergrad and law school and didn’t start working in the left sphere until she had gotten rid of all her student debt. Was she the same as white people in that income class? Was she the oops?

A lot of these dudes are envious of black people who make over 6 figures. They don’t realize the blood sweat and tears it takes to get there. Straight jealousy and crab mentality. I avoid these types in real life. You can feel the hate.

 

[No1]

This is a really bad post. You're usually a quite strong poster with sound, well thought out politics and ideas, which is why I'm so surprised to see you in here parroting this utterly class-devoid analysis. First you deny the existence of a 90th percentile of income within the black community, which is just a statistical fact. Then you parrot standard right-wing socio-economic dogma about punishing high-earners by focusing policy aid to helping average earners. Next you'll be accusing me of advocating for the public execution of any black person who has a nice car. If acknowledging the existence of varying economic classes within the black community makes be Briahna Joy Gray, then so be it.

I didn’t do anything you said in this post. You sound like you copied and pasted this from your freshman year class. If the argument is that student debt is a bad thing and that it was a mistake, your veering to talk about the “top 10 percent of black people” was a red herring. You then tried to fade from that statement to talking about income percentiles, which everyone knows is just a bare fact. You sound foolish reiterating that as if it’s illuminating. That has no relevance for determining the “top 10 percent” of black people. Your argument was because there are so few of these people that they are not worth worrying about - except you should know all the structural factors that cause there to be so few of them and how many people these types support. This class of people has nothing in common white people of that class and that’s what we intrinsically understand as black people and you clearly fail to grasp, which is why we stopped talking to you.

You had no business stepping in to say that you don’t care if those types of people don’t get relief as if they are all an Obama daughter. It wasn’t a right wing talking point. I am saying because these people are decidedly unlike their white peers that you comparing and disregarding is nothing but bitterness and hatred at worst and being misguided at best.

Even among middle-class minorities, parents typically have fewer liquid assets that can be used to assist their children. Analysis by the St. Louis Fed in 2018 found that middle class white households had quadruple the assets of black households in the same bracket and nine times those of Latino households in the same bracket. Housing wealth, which varies across racial lines, may be a further important determinant.

Another 2018 study found that debt disparities between black and white students were actually highest in the upper income brackets. White families with $150,000 in net worth accrued 54% less debt than those with negligible net worth. However, black families with the same net worth had nearly as much debt as those with no net worth.

The St. Louis Fed also found that among the majority of respondents to the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, black students received an average of only $4,200 toward their educations from their parents while white students received $12,000.

Family wealth and income affects repayment as well. While the St. Louis Fed found that 41% of whites receive $10,000 or more in inherited money, only 13% of blacks received equivalent amounts.

The increased levels of debt that educated minorities are left with then continues to exacerbate wealth disparities.

No matter the income level, black people struggle with student debt. There is no point or basis to justify separation or to try to splinter the group.

 

[dora_da_destroyer]

facts being dropped here....

top 10%

 

[King Kreole]

I didn’t do anything you said in this post. You sound like you copied and pasted this from your freshman year class. If the argument is that student debt is a bad thing and that it was a mistake, your veering to talk about the “top 10 percent of black people” was a red herring. You then tried to fade from that statement to talking about income percentiles, which everyone knows is just a bare fact. You sound foolish reiterating that as if it’s illuminating. That has no relevance for determining the “top 10 percent” of black people.

That wasn't the totality of the argument and you would do well to do the background reading before entering an ongoing discussion. The argument was about what the best student debt relief policy structure is. I brought up academic studies showing a progressive relief scheme would go further to closing the black-white wealth gap, at which point some posters had an issue with the progressive scheme that featured a $125K/year income trigger because it would phase out black people who make $125K a year. I said if eliminating the $125K trigger so as to include those black people in that income bracket would have the end-effect of widening the racial wealth gap, then that would be a problematic policy path to follow. Then I got a whole bunch of bullshyt posts in response about being jealous of high-achievers and pocket-watching and how people making 3x the black average salary need to be given the same policy considerations as the average black earner. Now you're trying to pretend as if your responses to me bringing up intra-black income percentiles was exasperation at common-sense instead of ridicule at using the very concept, which anyone can go back and page and see. To call a discussion of intra-black income-percentiles a "red herring" that has "no relevance" in a discussion about the effect of income-based student debt relief schemes on the black community shows that your mind is either very muddled about this issue or you're not serious about engaging in this discussion in good faith.

Your argument was because there are so few of these people that they are not worth worrying about - except you should know all the structural factors that cause there to be so few of them and how many people these types support. This class of people has nothing in common white people of that class and that’s what we intrinsically understand as black people and you clearly fail to grasp, which is why we stopped talking to you.

You had no business stepping in to say that you don’t care if those types of people don’t get relief as if they are all an Obama daughter. It wasn’t a right wing talking point. I am saying because these people are decidedly unlike their white peers that you comparing and disregarding is nothing but bitterness and hatred at worst and being misguided at best.

That is simply not my argument and if you had been following this discussion with the barest amount of diligence or attention you would know that. My argument is not based on the numerical amount of black people in a specific income bracket, my argument is based on the qualitative difference between income-brackets themselves. I do not believe black people making 3x the black median should be receiving the same amount of government benefits or policy considerations as black people making the black median/average. Money matters. Student debt-relief is not reparations.

You characterizing my argument as "I don't care if those types of people don't get relief as if they are all an Obama daughter" is a flagrant-bordering-on-willful mischaracterization of my posts, which actually said, in response to Dora talking about her friends who are in the $125K bracket "This isn't to say the situation with you and your friends doesn't suck, I just don't think it's representative of the vast majority of black student debt holders. Black people making $125K+ don't really seem to be the most at-risk demographic within the black community, and their student debts don't seem to be materially holding them back as much as lower-income black debt holders."

And for the life of me I cannot understand why you keep bringing up some alleged equating of black high-earners with white high-earners. I don't know who, other than you, has even entertained that idea. As I've said multiple times now, all black wealth is precarious. Black multi-millionaires benefitted from the Trump tax cut but that doesn't mean they're in the exact same position as white multi-millionaires and it also doesn't mean the Trump tax cuts were a good idea. I'd like to believe this isn't a radical concept that short-circuits our brains.

It absolutely is a right-wing talking point when you forward the argument that a policy designed to aid the average income worker over a 3x average income worker is punitive towards the latter. You can already see people using your posts to bolster claims of envy of the successful and relatively high-earning. It's pretty classic petit-bourgeois fetishization, the likes we saw the GOP and Romney campaign counter-attack against Obama's "You didn't build that" line. Or even in this year's election cycle when centrists and conservative Dems like Stephanie Ruhle were roundly criticized by progressives for complaining about Joe Biden's "Scranton vs. Park Avenue" sloganeering as being too punitive and exclusionary to high-earners. It's one of the oldest tricks in the conservative book to claim that a progressive system of government/economics is more about punishing the successful than helping the lesser so, because it plays into a deep vein in this country's psyche about everyone being a stroke of luck away from being wealthy themselves instead of focusing on the structural impediments. A nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

No matter the income level, black people struggle with student debt. There is no point or basis to justify separation or to try to splinter the group.

The struggle is not the same for the entirety of the intra-black spectrum. This isn't about splintering the group, it's about recognizing who needs more help rowing. It is obscene to propose that a black Fortune 500 executive making $500K a year is in the same material condition as a black elementary school teacher, even though the former has far more debt from getting an MBA and maybe donates the latter's entire salary to charitable pursuits.

 

[Serious]

I came into this thread looking for news on student debt forgiveness what I saw instead was people arguing bout wealth inequality and classism

I'm a lazy facilitator / thread starter.
I just pop in to throw some ad-hominem / sneak disses then quietly dip out.

 

[No1]

I'm a lazy facilitator / thread starter.
I just pop in to throw some ad-hominem / sneak disses then quietly dip out.

Blame Ol boy. I ain’t even read that page he just typed at me.

 

[King Kreole]

Typical. Anyway, moving on.



Cardona will have the authority to take action on this, but Biden's been incredibly gunshy about unilateral executive authority

 

[King Kreole]

Welp.

This guy really fukking sucks ass.