I have an economics teacher that made this claim in class yesterday. I wanted to know other people’s thoughts about it.

  • TheWeirdestCunt@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    I had a university lecturer who claimed that climate change was racist “because Bangladeshi women can’t swim”

    Idk how some people end up being able to teach sometimes

  • molave@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    It’s the same answer to “if you give someone a gift, did they steal from you?” or “is a discount stealing?”

  • Bronzebeard@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    Only by the rich people who are actually stealing from us. PPP loan forgiveness for their litany of fraudulent claims…

  • Zak@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    Not any more than any other subsidy is.

    Actually nullifying a debt a borrower owes to a lender, which the government guaranteed would be paid at the time the loan was issued would be akin to theft. As far as I know, all programs that “cancel” student loan debt are actually the government paying the balance to the issuer.

  • Vanth@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    Stealing = the act of taking feloniously the personal property of another without his consent and knowledge

    There is nothing felonious or illegal here. The universities signed on to deals for government funding and the money comes with strings.

  • rational_lib@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    All property is a social construct and is defined by law. So if the law says debt is no longer valid, then the loan agreements cease to be property and there is no stealing it.

    • shastaxc@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      16 days ago

      That’s like saying if there was no law against theft I could drive away with your car, and that’s not stealing. I don’t think your argument is very convincing.

      • rational_lib@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        16 days ago

        If the law said my car is no longer my property, then driving away with it would cease to be stealing, correct. What is property without legal, government-backed title? There’s no way to formulate a definition, because without government and laws property has no meaning.

        • shastaxc@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          15 days ago

          Property has existed before laws existed to enforce it. It was enforced with violence. Stealing is still stealing even if there’s no law against it.

          • rational_lib@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            15 days ago

            And if there was a disagreement about whose property was who’s? With no laws to settle it, it would just be determined by who grabs said property and runs off with it first. That’s indistinguishable from a free-for-all.

  • Last@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    No, I don’t think so. Did they give any reasoning for me? Maybe I’m missing something

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    16 days ago

    My thought is that you should find a different class with a different teacher.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    17 days ago

    Stealing from who? It’s a social program, if society has deemed it necessary and the bourgeoisie allows it then it is simply spending.

  • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    17 days ago

    In the strictest legal sense it’s not stealing.

    Forgiving loans of those who followed a program and qualified is definitely not stealing. Not forgiving those loans and forcing payment, is at least analogous to stealing.

    Blanket forgiveness of all loans is similar to stealing from future generations, as it is government debt that isn’t getting repaid as expected.

  • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    17 days ago

    No.

    Stealing is usually defined as taking something that exists in a way that denies the original owner its use and grants the illegitimate owner its use.

    This is how loans work in fractional reserve banking: loan provider has assets of $1 million, they loan out $10 million, having wholesale created the additional $9 million. If those loans are forgiven, but the original assets did not change, what has been stolen?

    A fictitious amount of theoretical money.

    If I make up an image, and I make a copy of that image that i send to you and you delete, but I get to keep the original, is that theft? No. Obviously not. Made up money is no different.

    • curious_dolphin@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      17 days ago

      The image is a poor analogy because unlike when someone creates an image or any form of art, when a borrower takes out a loan, the lender records a receivable as an asset and the borrower’s account as an offsetting liability. Once this happens, the loan cannot then just be magically erased—somehow, some way, the lender must be made whole again. In the case of loan forgiveness, it comes out of the tax payers’ pockets. Whether that’s theft or not is a separate topic, and I think another commenter covered it well by comparing it to any other government program or subsidy.

      • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        17 days ago

        No it can be ‘magically’ erased, it was ‘magically’ created out of thin air with nothing backing it. The money doesn’t actually exist, the asset for non existent money can simply have zero value. Loans are erased this way literally constantly. In fact more loans are erased this way than actually paid, if only by volume and not purported value. This is what happens when you default and no value is reclaimed on a loan, or when one defaults on a healthcare bill with an arbitrary price tag.

        There is absolutely no reason, whatsoever, the lender has to be made whole. That’s not a thing in other circumstances where loans lose all value and the money created for them disappears.

        • curious_dolphin@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          17 days ago

          When a borrower becomes insolvent and the loan cannot be repaid, the lender records it on their books as a loss. They cannot just pretend the loan never happened.

          Of course, now we’re mixing subjects because OP asked about student loan forgiveness, which would necessarily come out of tax payers’ pockets (not the same as when a lender takes the L because the loan cannot be repaid).

          • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            17 days ago

            It doesn’t have to come out today tax payers pockets, that’s the entire thing. The money doesn’t exist, the debt doesn’t exist.

            We made up this system specifically so we didn’t have to keep exact books, that’s the point of fiat currency over backed currency. If we don’t use its primary feature for good, ever, we may as well go back to the gold standard which would elimate nearly all banks and lenders at this point in the capitalist finite curve.

            • curious_dolphin@slrpnk.net
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              17 days ago

              Fractional reserve banking does not mean the debt does not exist. The debt very much exists. Nobody takes out a loan and just sits on it. As soon as the loan is created, goods and services are traded. At the end of the day, each party to downstream transactions can go to the bank and withdraw the balance of their account in cash. The fractional reserve system only works as long as not everyone does this at once.

              • theonlytruescotsman@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                0
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                16 days ago

                Except it’s new money that’s made up, and in the case of student loans, most of that money isn’t traded for goods and services, instead more than 3/4s of the money created goes back to the lender.