I’ve seen a lot of talk about what the fed could do with our student loan debts. Delaying them again & again to finally cancelling them (the right decision anyways). A notion struck me that WE (the people, not limited to just this subreddit) could force the government to cancel them by collectively not paying them. If a large enough group of people took part & walked away from outright, they would have no choice. They would not be able to go after a large enough group of people. Think about how bad it would hurt the entire country if the government garnished the wages of a million plus people? Are they going to send lawyers out to seize assets from a generation that has none, thanks in part to these loans? If they ruin millions of people’s credit scores, then what will happen when they try to bury us in impossible loans again?
We need to call the system’s bluff.
There would need to be some sort of public facing movement for this partly because many people simply won’t be able to make any kind of payments anyways. There is kind of a beauty to that as well. This movement is about saying that these unrealistic expectations WILL not be met & that they SHOULD NOT be expected to be met. We have other great financial concerns going forward at this point.
As a millennial, I’ve seen our lives go from better to worse & that’s not even about the economy at this point. We went from 9/11 & the clusterfuck $2trillion 2 decade war that WE fought in that fell apart in a week to uncontrolled gun violence to unmitigated corporate abuse (Amazon is a leading contributor to the decline in bathroom usage among employed Americans, think about that level of evil) to a pandemic to political violence & now to another war! This isn’t doable for any population, but we are expected to handle a rigged game economy with this too? Fuck. That. Noise.
If canceling student debt is actually on the table, then we shouldn’t hope the system that has failed us time & time again will do the right thing. We can force they hand & build a movement that lets them know that they should not expect payment if loans come due & that we are taking back our economy. The Great Resignation & the growth of unions throughout the country has shown that we can start making steps in the right direction for those that have to work to live. This is something big that I think we as people can do.
Sorry if it’s rambling, this has been buzzing through my head for a while & I felt that this was the place to get it out into the world. If I’m wrong, slightly off, or flat out crazy, I’m sure the good people of Reddit will let me know.