stevecook172001 wrote:i tell you what, the lot of young people coming out of higher education reminds me of the arrangment we had several centuries back
Back then if your average peasant wanted to work and to be able to afford to somewhere to live and to raise a family, he had to submit to an up-front debt to his overlords. The excuse being that until he had learned his trade, he would represent a net loss to his lord.
That is like no version of history that I know of. Which century are you alluding to?
Certainly my own family were farm labours and carters and the like for centuries. You didn't get apprenticed in to it. You were sent to a farmer who employed you as an agricultural servant while you learnt your trade. He fed you. He housed you. He trained you and often you married his daughter.
Future tradesmen were endentured as apprentices but only for a fixed term for the duration of their training. Then they became journeymen and finally masters after they themselves had trained an apprentice.
Rent for tied labourers was minimal as were their wages but it was a quid pro quo for farmer and labourer especially as the farmer often started out as a labourer himself and may have acquired\rented the farm through financing against future crops.
There are lots of first hand accounts of how it all worked in the libraries.
You are referring to post bubonic plague when labour became sufficiently scarce as to raise it's exchange value so that, for the first time since the Norman invasion, the peasants were allowed to become independent traders and to command (relatively) better working conditions.
stevecook172001 wrote:You are referring to post bubonic plague when labour became sufficiently scarce as to raise it's exchange value so that, for the first time since the Norman invasion, the peasants were allowed to become independent traders and to command (relatively) better working conditions.
I am referring to the period prior to the plague.
Assuming you mean the 1348/50 Black Death (plagues are so common) then you were referring to the pre-enclosure period when some land was still held in common and the open field system still pre-dominated.
No up front fees were charged there. Taxes were paid by labouring in the Lord's fields for X days per season and tithes settled by a portion of your crop.
Perhaps you were referring to Serfs? But then the comparison to student debt hardly holds as Serfs were born in to Serfdom.
stevecook172001 wrote:You are referring to post bubonic plague when labour became sufficiently scarce as to raise it's exchange value so that, for the first time since the Norman invasion, the peasants were allowed to become independent traders and to command (relatively) better working conditions.
I am referring to the period prior to the plague.
Assuming you mean the 1348/50 Black Death (plagues are so common) then you were referring to the pre-enclosure period when some land was still held in common and the open field system still pre-dominated.
No up front fees were charged there. Taxes were paid by labouring in the Lord's fields for X days per season and tithes settled by a portion of your crop.
Perhaps you were referring to Serfs? But then the comparison to student debt hardly holds as Serfs were born in to Serfdom.
Children as yet be born are going to be forced to pay for a share of a sovereign debt incurred by previous generations and not of their making that they will be paying back for the duration of their lives in the form of higher taxes, reduced health care, reduced education provision, reduced general services and where they will be forced to take on huge debt to simply have the right to work for a decent wage.
They will, in fact, be one of the poorest generations born in history. Poorer event than an African peasant because, although he has nothing all when he comes into this world, he also as no debt either.
stevecook172001 wrote:They will, in fact, be one of the poorest generations born in history. Poorer event than an African peasant because, although he has nothing all when he comes into this world, he also as no debt either.
You don't call that serfdom?
I don't think that holds water, Steve. A child born here has social care and education provided. The child can leave the country after education with no debts at all or stay here and enjoy all the benefits we have.
stevecook172001 wrote:They will, in fact, be one of the poorest generations born in history. Poorer event than an African peasant because, although he has nothing all when he comes into this world, he also as no debt either.
You don't call that serfdom?
I don't think that holds water, Steve. A child born here has social care and education provided. The child can leave the country after education with no debts at all or stay here and enjoy all the benefits we have.
Social provision which is, as we speak, being steadily dismantled. Perhaps we should have this conversation again in about 15 years. As for leaving the country, I suspect the window of opportunity for that will also close as the years roll on. At least for the majority.
stevecook172001 wrote:We have young people who must submit to several years of "education" which, in turn, forces them to take on a huge burden of debt.
...
And, of course, it will take most of their working lives to pay this debt off.
Student loans are quite unlike normal personal debt
at the moment. When inflation eats away at that threshold, and some bright spark points out that Student Loans, Inc. aren't going to be profitable if 1/4 of the loot vanishes as write-offs, a student loan will morph, as if by magic (using "salami tactics"), into a bog-standard debt.
Did you graduate from university in the last decade? Did you take out a student loan? Would you mind if your loan account was sold to private investors? No?
What if the total amount you had to repay on your loan was raised to facilitate such a sale? Or if the taxpayer was left footing the bill to guarantee private profits?
These are the two recommendations made in a study produced for the government by Rothschild on how to ‘monetise’ student loan accounts. Possible buyers include insurance companies and private pension funds.
