Educational Debts: The Unseen Wealth Transfer from Workers to Aristocrats
The necessity of a higher education and student loans ensures a lifetime to earnings are transferred to aristocrats.
In modern America, a high school diploma doesn’t qualify you to make more than minimum wage, which won’t support a worker, much less their family.
The only hope of achieving a semblance of the American Dream, one or both of the family breadwinners must obtain a college education—or pay taxes to the State by purchasing lottery tickets and hope for a miracle.
The cost of primary education through age 18 is paid by the State, generally through local property taxes. Although Aristocrats would prefer to burden minors with lifelong debt, they are too young to enter into binding contracts, so nobody has figured out a way to pull it off.
[Special sycophant points available to anyone who can assist aristocrats with taxing minors.]
But once a person turns 18, they can be held to account for their borrowing, so when faced with a lifetime of minimum wage impoverishment or borrowing money from aristocrats to fund their higher education, they borrow the money.
Most people falsely believe the federal government loans them this money, but that isn’t accurate. The federal government merely insures the loan, and in order to sweeten the deal for aristocrats, they guarantee the borrower can’t get out of the debt through bankruptcy.
It’s a great deal for aristocrats.
Taxes and free education
Since aristocrats are funding higher education, not the federal government, any arguments about “how do we pay for free college?” are complete bullshit peddled by aristocrats who want to obtain the debt service payments.
If aristocrats were taxed directly, and that money was used to fund higher education, the transfer payments from workers to aristocrats would end.
No aristocrat wants to see the student loan gravy train reverse course. If they are to part with their money, they want to get that money back with interest rather than seeing it disappear entirely for the benefit of the American worker.
Any other argument is a smokescreen.
A tax on the wealthy to pay for higher education is obviously feasible. The wealthy are already paying for it.
A tax on the wealthy simply means workers don’t have to pay them back. Higher education becomes free to them, and they might actually obtain the American Dream.
How Aristocrats argue against free education
Keep in mind that all arguments against taxing the rich to pay for higher education are self-serving bullshit served up by aristocrats.
Right now, they aren’t even facing the real fight of permanent student loan eradication through higher taxes.
Fortunately for aristocrats, nobody takes Bernie Sanders seriously. If they did, aristocrats would be in trouble.
Sen. Bernie Sanders introduces bill to make college free and have Wall Street pay for it
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., on Wednesday introduced the College for All Plan, legislation that would make a college education free for millions and lend extra support to those from working-class families attending minority institutions.
“In the wealthiest country in the history of the world, a higher education should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few,” Sanders said in a statement. “If we are going to have the kind of standard of living that the American people deserve, we need to have the best educated workforce in the world.” …
The bill says the federal government will shoulder 75% of the cost of free college at public schools, with states paying the remainder. In the event of an economic downturn, the federal government’s share would increase to 90%.
In addition, the bill proposes the government pay for free college by imposing a financial transaction tax on Wall Street, as in previous plans put forth by Sanders and others.
The Tax on Wall Street Speculation Act would levy a 0.5% tax on stock trades, a 0.1% fee on bond trades and a 0.005% fee on derivative transactions. That would raise up to $2.4 trillion over the next decade, according to a summary of the bill.
The current battle line is far from Bernie Sanders's ambitious and realistic plan. The Biden Administration’s plan for debt forgiveness would stop the transfer payments, but it would still give the aristocrats their money back and doesn’t raise their taxes.
Student Loan Debt Forgiveness.
One method aristocrats employ to fight anything that doesn’t serve their interests is to divide and conquer by positioning various classes of workers and student loan borrowers against each other.
First, they spin a yarn that debt cancellation of any kind is arguably unfair to borrowers who have already paid off their loans, raising the question of whether they would be owed reparations (they should).
Second, mass cancellation “boosts the balance sheets of people who attended college while doing nothing for people who did not attend college, even though the latter is, on average, worse off in many respects,” as Mr. Bruenig writes. “If the government is going to sprinkle $1+ trillion of net worth onto household balance sheets, should it really do so in a way that leaves out those without college educations?”
That particular argument is genius because it places the uneducated against the educated for the benefit of the aristocracy. I love it!
The studies below were in reaction to the Biden plan to forgive student loans:
Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Makes the Poor Pay for the Rich. (Econlib): This piece argues that broad student loan forgiveness policies can be regressive, meaning they disproportionately benefit higher earners who hold a larger share of student debt, potentially at the expense of taxpayers who did not take on such loans.
This one piggybacks on the uneducated against the educated argument.
STUDY: Wealthy Reap Vast Majority of Benefits from Biden's Student Loan Giveaway. (House Ways and Means Committee): This study claims that proposals for broad student loan forgiveness would primarily benefit high-income households, potentially exacerbating wealth inequality.
Linking their bullshit argument with wealth inequality was an added touch. Neither the educated nor the uneducated have any wealth in America, as it all flows to the aristocracy.
Summary
As long as the battle line is being fought on the issue of debt forgiveness, nobody is seriously considering eliminating the student loan program entirely, so aristocrats are served by the skirmish to avoid losing the entire war.
Free higher education would serve all working Americans. By eliminating the transfer payments to aristocrats, that money will circulate in the economy with increased demand for goods and services.
Aristocrats would rather see this money flow into their bank accounts so they can purchase a better, more expensive yacht.