this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who has since moved on to greener and perhaps more dangerous pastures, told an audience of Stanford students recently that “Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning.” Evidently this hot take was not for wider consumption, as Stanford — which posted the video this week on YouTube — today made the video of the event private.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Odd coming from someone who is fucking retired.

I'd suspect he sacrificed work-life balance his whole career (yes, CEOs are known for golfing and vacations, but I bet they still think of work 24/7). So just like people complaining about student loan forgiveness, some people get so angry if they perceive someone might have an easier experience than they did.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago

maybe he just hated his family

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Personally I don't like student loan forgiveness because I think a free public university system is a better investment.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, same reason I don't like insulin, I want a permanent cure for diabetes... In the meantime fuck diabetic people, am I right?

/S in case people are confused

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

In the meantime fuck diabetic people, am I right?

Student loan forgiveness with no other action is completely counter-productive. Just like allowing drug companies to charge anything they want for Insulin, and then just having the government pay them is completely counter-productive. The answer to spiraling insulin prices (when not due to a shortage of some key ingredient) is to cap prices, not just pay whatever ransom drug companies are asking.

College costs have spiraled out of control because laws were passed to prevent you from escaping student loan debt through bankruptcy. From a lender perspective there's almost no risk to giving students as much money as they want to borrow. Colleges in turn realized they could just keep raising prices because students could "afford" pretty much any tuition price through loans. If you just "forgive" all student loan debt, you'll just encourage colleges to jack up prices even more. Why not? Come one come all, the government is going to foot whatever the bill ends up being!

If you're going to forgive student debt, it needs to come with 3 things:

  • A hard cap on public university tuition tracking inflation
  • Student loans need to go back to being forgiven as a part of bankruptcy.
  • A long-term plan to make public universities "free"

You want to find a middle ground with conservatives? Make tuition free for the occupations we have a shortage of to encourage people to go to school for a degree in which there will be a job waiting when they're done.

We need more teachers? Teaching degrees are free for the next decade. You want to be a marine biologist? You pay whatever the (reasonable) capped state tuition is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Free education will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Debt forgiveness is just for people who don't want to pay their bills because they studied something that doesn't pay.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Curing diabetes will make the world a better place in the future for everyone. Insuline is just for people who want to eat candy all day because they hate themselves

/S

Ps: it's hilarious how quickly you showed the true colours you pretended to hide in your first post

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I'm genuinely confused by this? I know CompSci and engineering majors that are having trouble with loans and are you saying that they should have tried a more profitable degree... What?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm saying people made choices.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And I'm saying they were coerced into it because of the poor handling of public funding for universities thus making it the governments fault that sometimes people got fucked by loans no matter what degree they got.

To advocate for fixing a systemic problem and not also advocate for fixing what the systemic problem has caused is weird. Fixing these issues aren't exclusive like you seem to think they are.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

No one was coerced to do anything. Cheaper options were available at state schools, community colleges and boot camps. Many people instead chose debt and more expensive schools instead.

If we're going to drop a trillion we really don't have on something, I'd prefer to build for the future while you don't want to pay your bills.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I’m saying people made choices.

Normally we call that 'victim blaming'; even when the victimization is financial by the univer$ity.

I get you have this "do the crime, do the time" thing for people choosing to spend on education; but aside from multi-decade reform plan that isn't even as marketable to voters as "let's just consolidate healthcare and save money", what do we have that'll help people avoid the looming debt trap that has such a chilling effect on others entering post-secondary education?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

You do NOT get a choice about getting an education in a vast, vast majority of life paths in the developed world.

I know a lot of people and exactly two of them are working in the field they got degrees in. You cannot always control the direction of your life, anything from medical issues to family emergencies to economics in your region can profoundly impact your chances of landing a career in your chosen study field, or even just getting a simple job that can pay back tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars as the interest snowballs.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Free education will make the world a better place in the future for everyone.

This is true.

Debt forgiveness is just for people who don’t want to pay their bills because they studied something that doesn’t pay.

This is utter garbage. Judgemental much? Maybe your own experiences and feelings aren't the same for everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 7 months ago (1 children)

¿Por qué no los dos?

I too prefer free tertiary education. But that also does not relieve the millions saddled with predatory loans.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Not all loans were predatory, some people just made dumb choices all on their own. If anything there should be a reasonable limit on the interest rates and the loans should be refinanced.

And, as for why not both, we actually can't afford either. Investing for the future is a better deal for society than fixing people's personal mistakes.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean we can't afford either? Are you telling me that somehow all other developed countries are able to afford free or cheap higher education but somehow the US cannot? We could also slowly start to cancel current student debt. Sure, it is at $1.77 trillion right now but that does not have to be wiped away all at once. Prioritize getting rid of predatory loans, then those those with financial hardship, then go from there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yes, we can't afford it, because we chose to spend all of our money on the military.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

This sounds like we could afford it, we just need to take that money back from the military…

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Yes, but also, America. It's not that I don't want these things, I just think they're politically impossible.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

We could switch to Medicare for All and save a couple hundred billion a year to do it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Overall, not without raising taxes though. The money just doesn't stop getting spent by people and appear in the government budget without it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

If your "taxes" go up by $7 but your health insurance costs go down by $10, why the hell would you care? There are several more dollars in your pocket. Or if you are concerned about tax amount, let's rename current health insurance fees to taxes and we can simply market Medicare for All as a massive tax cut that increases service.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They're deliberately being contrarian. They showed their hand earlier.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

I'm aware. However, it is good exercise and may help others fight ridiculous arguments.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

But...if you think free public university is a good thing...isn't not giving loan forgiveness analogous to saying "folks should stay in jail for trumped up marijuana charges until it's legal Federally"? IMHO people shouldn't have these loans in the first place.

If we can't afford loan forgiveness, we can't afford free public university. We can simultaneously fix the problems of the past while trying to improve things for the future.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The marijuana comparison is not even close to the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (19 children)

In terms of harm done, no. Principle? Yeah? It's best to stop further harm, but undoing past harms as well is even better.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Well, when you say it like that, I can only believ--- wait a minute. Show me the receipts. The 'missing middle' is real.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (1 children)

CEOs sometimes think like this, but they seem to forget how much more they are paid when it comes up.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

I’m on a business junket to [Miami Beach, Las Vegas, Jackson Hole, wherever] where I will [ski, drink, go to the beach, take a fishing boat, whatever] at an all-expensed resort or hotel, and have a couple meetings or attend a business conference, too. I’ll take a private jet and be there for a week. Everything is a business write-off. I’m getting paid while I’m doing this.

Next month will be another business trip.

Vs

Some family saved for years to visit Jackson Hole, take a hike, go fly fishing, and stay at a modest hotel or camp out. They’re not getting paid, everything is out of pocket, and they can’t write any of it off.

There’s a huge difference in not just pay but how their lives are structured financially. Tons more opportunities to write off and business expense things vs a normal person where everything is out of their personal money.