volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
**We** can't.
**Congress** can, should we elect the people to Congress who are interested in doing that.
So far, no matter the political identities of who we elect to Congress, the law hasn't been changed in that way, though, probably because the home mortgage deduction is really popular.
But that doesn't change where we are today, with the peoples' representatives having already appropriated the money expected to be collected from these loans.
@holyramenempire @benda @mentallyalex
I can't help you with the judges. Judges rule differently pretty frequently especially when it comes to things with blurred lines like when a state actor is or is not part of the state.
I can answer your other question, though: we're in this position because the president decided to take an action that went against longstanding understanding of the law, and where Congress hasn't given clear legal authority.
So now the courts are left to clean up the mess, which can itself be messy, as we see.
Firstly, I only responded to @melancholic who asked the question about norms.
But since @codeddragon2023@mstdn.social has me muted, I'm more than happy to respond to the argument without fear of bothering them.
NO muting me doesn't show a consequence of me not opting for whatever (I honestly don't even understand what eggshells I was supposed to walk around there, really illustrating my point). It shows that people are in control of their own feeds, which is exactly what I was emphasizing in what I said about norms around here.
So I'd say Ryan here gets it exactly backwards, and demonstrates exactly why I think CWs should not be the norm.
For some reason that's lost to me they didn't want to see my toot, which is fine!, so they muted, which is fine!, and that's why we should empower people to tailor their own feeds to what they want to see instead of going for CWs.
Well then what is your point?
Yeah I don't know what you are trying to say when talking about undoing and order that would have been invalid in the first place. There's no such thing.
If the order wasn't valid, it wasn't valid, and at most it will just screw over a whole bunch of people who acted based on misinformation about their financial obligations.
Which really screws them over.
I took a second to look for one tonight, but the articles I found sounded like the AT spec was kind of vague until really recently, so maybe there hasn't been time to write solid articles yet.
Either way, I'm interested in seeing if anyone suggests one!
Sure, and so should the president unilaterally give up a significant amount of revenue that was supposed to, by law, fund government programs, those estimates would have to be revised, but then what?
The revised estimates would show not enough money to pay for those programs as expected.
What do you think happens next? Do you expect the government programs to be cut short since the money's just not there anymore?
The #studentloan forgiveness doesn't happen in a vacuum. The revenues from those loans were already committed to supporting programs that would then be underfunded.
I mean, if the Democrats failed so thoroughly and disappointingly at addressing problems like student loans, then what good are they?
Without the threat of losing their majority I guess they have little reason to improve.
Hopefully they've learned from losing the majority, but meh, I doubt it.
We do keep reelecting idiots.
We get the government we vote for.
That's not how the federal government works, though.
If an authority issues an invalid order canceling loans, then the loans aren't actually cancelled, the students still owe the money, and then many of them will be in a really tough spot if they stop making payments.
The Secretary of Ed has no more authority to make that order than I do, and the order would have exactly as much impact as if I did.
There's no undoing an illegal order. It was never valid in the first place, by definition.
Seems like it has some advantages over ActivityPub, such as more interesting applications of public key infrastructure.
I wouldn't dismiss it purely as a clone. It seems to have developed in parallel and might have some advancements worth adopting.
The image I see posted above is of a headline saying "Millions of US Workers Are Still Missing After The Pandemic. Where Did They Go?"
@holyramenempire @benda @mentallyalex
Again, go directly to the source, not to third party reporting that all too often get the story wrong.
Don't go for the game of telephone.
Below I'll paste the link again.
"The Higher Education Loan Authority of the State of Missouri (MOHELA)—a “public instrumentality” of the State, Mo. Rev. Stat. §173.360, and part of the Missouri Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, §173.445—is one of those servicers."
Missouri established MOHELA by law as part of its state operation. I can link to the specific statute as well, below.
So MO by law operates this program and has it as a significant actor in its public policy. It seems pretty straightforwardly part of the state's operation, and the state would lose should the loans be prematurely canceled.
No. In the US system the onus is on the lawyers, generally the plaintiffs, to prove things, not on the court.
They are to prove it TO the court.
But that still doesn't change that modesty isn't part of the calculation.
The states that brought the suit point to financial damage as the reason they have any right to be heard at all. Otherwise they would have no access to the courts as they would have no stake in the issue.
@Huck@mstdn.party @carnage4life
Right, exactly. No significant changes in the period of recovery out of a hole where we threw huge numbers of people out of work is a bad thing!
So here is the BLS labor force participation rate graphed, showing not only that so many have dropped out, but that it hasn't done much lately to recover. Yes, this is the problem.
There have been few significant changes when we NEED to see significant recovery, with more people choosing to join the labor force.
Right, but all of that is already accounted for in the federal budget.
Federal and state governments have projections about how much will actually be collected as they figure out how much they have to spend on government programs.
For the president to just forgive that means the budgets our representatives voted on will be missing a huge chunk of funding.
If this was a question being put to Congress then that might be worth talking about, but because the president tried to end run around the legislative branch, even when Democrats were in charge, this ends up being a completely different question.
The question today isn't whether $30 billion should be invested. It's whether a president can unilaterally give up billions in federal funding that was to be used to pay for other programs.
Even people who are all for loan forgiveness should be uncomfortable with that, if they like to see government funded.
But what's the practical and sustainable solution going forward?
How do we figure out who is and isn't capable of deciding whether to take out a loan?
Do we block everyone from participating fully in the financial system for the sake of some, or how do we sell a program where someone (government?) will tell people they aren't allowed financing?
This is a really thorny issue.
@holyramenempire @benda @mentallyalex
You might find more answers from directly from the brief.
The lower court agreed that this is a state agency bringing in revenues from servicing those loans, that it would lose out on should the loans be forgiven prematurely.
Modesty isn't part of the legal calculation, though.
If the action is illegal, then it's illegal, no matter how small a violation it might be, and it's up to the court to point that out. Same for if it's legal.
It's because Congress set up the PPP loans specifically to be forgiven while these student loans were specifically written not to be forgiven.
Congress has been counting on the revenues from the student loans to pay for other programs.
Congress can change that at any point, but so far, it hasn't.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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