Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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Or just forgive them, which is half the cost of total PPP loan forgiveness. But the point is to make these people suffer, which debt forgiveness would not enable. For other comparison, student loan debt forgiveness would cost less than half a year of 2026 US military spending (~$900B).

Garnishing these wages is a regressive, punitive tax that will further slow an economy very near recession territory. But I digress, as if facts mattered. The best we can do is help those who want to leave expat out of the US on whatever visa they can to developed countries and walk away from this debt.

> In particular, the Paycheck Protection Program has so far forgiven $757 billion in loans to private businesses, according to government databases — nearly double what the Biden administration's student-loan forgiveness would have cost.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ppp-loan-forgiveness-student-lo...

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-does-the-us-spend-on-...

https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2025/12/17/senate-passe...

Or allow people to declare bankruptcy and punish the schools and the loan companies. Garnishing wages is also a normal thing to do with debt you can't pay.

Forgiveness means paying them back, which means these companies (and the people who got loans) will have learned nothing.

We have financial tools available to this. The only problem is very, very wealthy donors will suffer immensely.

> Garnishing these wages is a regressive, punitive tax that will further slow an economy very near recession territory.

Probably not. It will certainly impact inflation however. Just like the PPP and trump bux.

> In particular, the Paycheck Protection Program has so far forgiven $757 billion in loans to private businesses

The PPP shouldn't have forgiven anyone either. There's a reason we are in the situation we are in. The financial system is not allowed to fail as intended. Instead we prop it up like weekend at the bernies with infinite money printing and forgiveness.

I struggle with this idea people aren't allowed to FAFO anymore. If we do this, why not pay back every loan. That'll certainly bolster the economy!

You think these are moral failures, or there’s a lesson to be learned. That’s a naive idea. These are governance system failures, and these people should not be punished for a suboptimal system that we put them through. They don’t get a chance to make the decision again, so what would this teach them? “So sorry you live in a poorly functioning country that doesn’t subsidize education and we told everyone they need this credential to have a middle class life haha better luck next life!”

The debt doesn’t matter, it should’ve never been issued, forgiving it won’t create inflation (they’re already not paying the debt), we’re just collectively cruel and low empathy at a nation state governance level for what’s happening. And the country will deserve the outcome.

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