What have I said in this thread that is 'economically illiterate'?
Basically everything. Two premises that stand out as economic illiteracy are
1) that forgiveness of debt repayment has the same effect on the debtor as a tax cut (bilby’s main point}, and
That was your interpretation of bilby's claim, and I didn't even say it was wrong. I said calling them the same thing was
nuts.
2) the forgiveness of the debt by gov’t necessarily harms taxpayers.
Of course it harms taxpayers. You have simply decided the harm doesn't count.
It ‘harms’ taxpayers only if all you are concerned with is money
Money is certainly a concern but it is more than that. You damage the moral fabric of society when you use somebody else's money to forgive debts because you personally feel sorry for delinquent debtors.
The government is not forgiving debt because they feel sorry for the debtors. They are doing it because forgiving debt related to education is beneficial to society. That is the primary role of government - to make the lives of the community better.
and how it balances directly and not if you disregard the benefits realized not merely for the student borrower but for society in general—because of the services provided directly by the ability of the student to be a doctor, lawyer, teacher, banker, whatever —and benefit in the increase in taxes the student borrower will pay as they earn more money than without a degree.
You are very confused. You are counting the value of the education as a benefit in favour of forgiving the debt. But the value of the education has already been realised when the person got it.
Wrong. The value of the education appears when the person receiving the education goes on to do things that are beneficial to the community he or she is part of, like inventing a cure for a disease, or developing technology that makes our lives better, or designing a new road that provides access to an isolated rural community, or writing a book that entertains millions, or becoming a teacher or stay home mom/dad who teaches their children how to be good citizens of the planet. Education is the fertilizer that allows people to achieve their potential towards making the world a better place.
Forgiving debt does not cause the value of the education to appear.
Harder to quantify directly but real nonetheless is the benefit to society of having a more educated population. One of the most concrete benefits in recent times is the differences in voter behavior depending on level of education. Another is differences in behavior with regards to mask wearing and vaccination.
Again, you are confused. If you want to talk about the value of education and why society should make it free to end users, you can have that conversation, but I am talking about the forgiveness of debts with taxpayer money.
See above. The role of government is to better the lives of the community, and education is a big part of accomplishing that goal. You cannot talk about debt forgiveness without the broader context of the value of education. And we shouldn't be engaging in the practice of forcing young people to remain in debt for decades simply because that is how it has been done in the past. "
We should continue to punish people by making them stay in debt because that is how we have always done it" is a piss-poor argument. And downright stupid.
