
The coronavirus is exposing the arbitrary, cruel realities of America's rules - vinnyglennon
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/coronavirus-tsa-liquid-purell-paid-leave-rules.html
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noobaccount
It’s darkly funny seeing TSA agents pulling out water bottles, which may be
filled with highly volatile liquid explosives, and chucking them five or six
feet on a parabolic trajectory to a trash can surrounded by people.

~~~
nine_k
The point of terrorism is not the immediate killing and destruction. The point
is the terror, the state of fright and panic, which makes the victim lose
their mind and do stupid, self-destructive things. This is the real, large-
scale, lasting impact.

By this metric, 9/11 is the single biggest and most resounding victory of
terrorists since August 1914 when a terrorist attack provoked WWI.

So it goes :(

~~~
bandie91
it was in June.

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cableshaft
I'm not convinced by this article that because we are able to put a moratorium
on evictions and student loan interest during a once-in-a-century crisis that
it means it's all bullshit and we don't have to do it.

Loan interest helps cover inflation over time (and makes up for the fact that
the government's money could have been used somewhere else that would generate
interest). If there's no interest, then the loan becomes a better and better
deal for the student over time and worse and worse for the government over
time. We want the system to remain solvent, not run out of money.

Now an argument could be made that the interest rates they are charging are
too high, but I doubt most people (and the person who wrote this article) have
enough information to make a good case for that. I imagine if nothing else
there's also administration fees and accommodating for students that either
default on their loans or go into forbearance or other situations.

As for no evictions. If people can't be evicted, then there's no incentive to
pay rent, besides wrecking your credit, which a lot of people don't have great
credit to begin with, and a decent amount of people decide to stop paying even
when not in a pandemic until the landlord goes through the (sometimes long,
like 90+ days) eviction process.

Maybe we could have some sort of insurance put into place that allows for some
hardships like disability, but I think that's one thing disability pay is
supposed to be used for anyway, so it already exists. It's not super easy to
evict people to begin with in most places, so a landlord might be willing to
work with you for a month or two if you can make the case that it is truly a
temporary situation.

Of course it's not a temporary situation for most of the people affected right
now. We have massive unemployment, and very few companies hiring, so of course
people are in trouble, and in trouble long-term. Making millions of families
homeless all at once is a recipe for disaster and total civil upheaval, so it
makes sense to put a moratorium right now.

Although the government isn't doing enough to keep it going (and GOP has 180'd
and decided screw everyone, we're not helping anyone anymore) and looks like
we're going to have exactly that horror scenario play out within the next few
months, most likely.

But that doesn't mean that evictions are bullshit when we're not in a pandemic
scenario.

Also, I don't think the article's premise is bullshit, and I agree with the
TSA example mostly, I just think some of its examples are poor, and poorly
defended.

~~~
NotSammyHagar
The way we do student loans, with the educational institution having no
negative effects when the student fails to get a job that pays it back - it's
terrible. The students can't expunge the loan in bankruptcy, and colleges have
a lot of financial encouragement to make costs such that they go as high as
the loans do. These loans actually greatly retard the financial growth of
society because the trillions owed mean people delay buying a house, can't
spend money on other things. Separate from interest rates, student loans are
terrible for the economy. Not in theory, but in clear and easy view.

~~~
cableshaft
I would agree there are serious issues with student loans, just that charging
interest isn't necessarily one of them (again, the rate might be too high, I
do know people that have been paying for years and owe more now than when they
started, that's screwed up).

I am still under student loans myself and have been paying them for over 10
years at this point. I was on track to pay them off by the end of the year,
but decided to stop paying when they paused interest and allowed pausing
payments, to give us more money for other things, since my wife is currently
only working 2 days a week and making 40% of her income right now anyway.

But in order to actually start making head way on my loans I had to start
overpaying by about 25% what they required every month. Before that I wasn't
making much progress. Not everyone can afford to do that (in fact my wife is
stuck under a much heavier student loan burden than I ever was).

Again, if there is no interest, the incentive to pay them off drops quite a
bit, like what both me and my wife are doing right now.

