query: Should student loan debt be easier to discharge in bankruptcy?

positive: Wealth doesn't "trickle down" from the rich to the poor I feel like this has been a discussion about student loans more so than Reaganomics. Both of us seem to agree that student loan debt is a big problem. But, where we disagree is supply side economics. What I’ve been trying to say is that more often than not, money given to poor and middle class people will be put back into the economy. Those who are defaulting on their student loans are a minority (although a noticeable one). Most of them would spend the money on something else since they are already paying off their student loans. If you give that money to a rich person, that money will just sit there and not be pumped back into the economy. The GOP claims that their platform will create jobs and opportunities for all. However, in reality, all it does is enrich the already rich. Look at all their corporate donors (I realize that Democrats have them too). Is it a surprise that they are trying to make them richer? You would expect them to serve those who are funding their campaigns first. If rich people are donating tons of money to their campaigns, then they are going to serve the interests of the rich. That’s why the GOP continues Reaganomics. Do you seriously believe that they are going to look out for the average person before their campaign donors? The Republican Party is the party of the rich. A lot of what you see promoting Reaganomics is corporate propaganda. The myth that wealth “trickles down” has been debunked so many times. Why doesn’t it work? I feel like I can’t say this enough, but it fails because the more wealth that goes to the top (and stays there), the less wealth that’s available for the middle class so less demand is created. This actually harms job growth, and this makes sense given studies done on it. Please, tell me how fixing the student loan problem will enable supply side economics to work. I’m still waiting for an answer. Wouldn’t that wealth just stay at the top? Why would the rich spend it if the poor and middle class aren’t burdened by student loans? I don’t get it. So, when can we expect to see a “trickle?” If the poor and middle class are supposed to benefit from supply side economics, then when will that happen? Why hasn’t it happened now? You’re telling me that supply side economics is supposed to benefit the economy as a whole. That hasn’t happened yet. The rich just pocket that extra money and don’t spend it because they don’t need to. What creates jobs is demand, and that’s how we benefit the economy as a whole. Cutting taxes on the rich decreases demand due to an increase in wealth inequality. Give it to people that would actually need it and you would see it pumped back into the economy. You’ve been arguing that this won’t happen because many are burdened by student loans. Although a noticeable minority is drowning in their student loan debt, many people would still be able to pump it back into the economy because they would need to spend it on other things. Most graduates do end up finding a job and paying off their student loans in a timely manner.I know that I intended this round to be a conclusion of our overall arguments, but I feel like I would just be repeating what I’ve said before. So, I’m going to do some more rebuttals. 1. “Exactly. So any "trickle down" just evaporates into an abyss of nothingness. Give a trickle down to someone who is financially bombed, and your trickle down is meaningless.” But, as I’ve told you, a lot of people are already paying off their student loans in a timely manner, so if they were given extra money they would probably spend it on something else. There are also quite a bit of poor and middle class people that don’t even have student loans to pay back (either because they never got them or already paid them off). So, a lot of that money would actually be pumped back into the economy. Don’t you think that student loans are a separate problem? If we elect someone like Bernie Sanders, maybe something will be done about the problem of sky high college costs. I would agree that college costs are out of control these days and that we must do something. High college costs further burden the poor and middle class. But, look at what Reaganomics has done to them. Wealth inequality and the national debt have exploded. GDP growth is said to have been slowed down. Like I’ve been saying, if you give a rich person money, he or she won’t have the urge to go out and spend it. Why? Because he or she will not need to. So, you won’t see a trickle giving the money to the rich people, so why do it? At least giving money to poor and middle class people actually help them. They need it given the conditions of the economy today. 2. “If they owe $150,000 in useless debt and we give them $500, the government intercepts their money to help pay the federal student loan debt. They intercept tax refunds, parts of paychecks, and any money owed to them. So...now they owe $149,500.” What if that person is working on paying off the student loan debt? The government doesn’t just take any money they acquire to pay off the student loan if they are already paying on it. If one defaults on the loan, then that could happen. Although a considerable number of people are burdened by student loans and may never pay them off, a lot of people are successfully paying them off. Remember that most people who graduate college do end up getting jobs. Those that do get jobs and pay off student loans are pumping that money back into the economy. 3. “How much money would then go directly into the economy? It would make a massive difference.” So, aren’t you admitting that giving money to poor and middle class people does go back into the economy (assuming they aren’t drowning in debt)? Then why not fix the student loan problem and give them more money? Or, at the very least, why not give them more money? It would help them and in many cases it would go back into the economy. More often than not it would be put back into the economy. It’s better than giving it to a rich person as it will not be pumped back into the economy. This wasn’t intended to be an argument about student loans. It was intended to be an argument about Reaganomics. What I’m trying to say is that when you give more money to the rich, it doesn’t get invested back into the economy, so what is the point? To make them even richer? Isn’t wealth inequality high enough these days? 4. “This has a horrible effect on the economy. If graduates are paying back student loans every month, they can’t save up for retirement or a mortgage, or pay off credit cards, financing on vehicles and other debts. They’re unable to spend money at stores, which has a devastating effect on the economy at all levels.” It does but remember we are debating Reaganomics, not student loans. If a graduate is paying off his or her student loans, don’t you think that he or she could use some extra money? Don’t you think that he or she would pump it back into the economy by saving up for a mortgage, car, or whatever? Wouldn’t that money be pumped back into the economy? Remember that most graduates are paying off their student loans, so any money would be beneficial. 5. "Trickle down" theory holds that tax cuts for the wealthy will benefit the whole economy because new wealth at the top will circulate throughout the market and find its way into the pockets of the middle class. But that new wealth at the top doesn’t circulate throughout the market. It just stays concentrated at the top. Look at the increase in wealth inequality since the 1980s. You will see that the rich just continue to get richer. All that money that they are keeping is not helping the economy as a whole. Why? Because the rich don’t pump that money back into the economy. They have no need to. Do you see the connection? 6. “In the 30 years from the 1980s through the first decade of the new century, supply side economics contributed to the biggest boom in U.S. history.” But that prosperity went to those at the top. Average Americans did not get a huge share of all the prosperity that was created. Look at how that economic boon ended. It ended in a crash caused by the deregulation of Wall Street. Millions lost their jobs and homes. So, was all the economic growth for those at the top worth it considering it ended up being a disaster for the poor and middle class in the end? Sources: 1.http://www.forbes.com... 2.http://fortune.com... 3.http://www.examiner.com... 4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... 5. http://michiganradio.org...

positive: Federal Student Loans Should Be Abolished. I will separate my arguments into 5 sections so as to make them more structured. Federal Student Loans Have Caused an Education Bubble Over the past few decades, tuition has skyrocketed inside the United States. Between 1978 and 2012, the tuition in the US has increased 1210%, or 12-fold. (1) This is also 4 times faster than the increase in the consumer price index. This is obviously a huge problem, so the first steps we must take to come up with a solution is to look for the cause or causes. Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, stated that "The basic problem is simple: Give everyone $100 to pay for higher education and colleges will raise their prices by $100, negating the value of the aid. And inflation-adjusted aid--most of it federal--has certainly gone up, ballooning from $4,602 per undergraduate in 1990-91 to $12,455 in 2010-11. As it did in the housing market, free or reduced priced has artificially inflated the price of college education. Thus begins a classic upward price spiral caused by government intervention: Subsidies raise prices, leading to higher subsidies, which raise prices even more. Yet this higher education bubble, like the housing bubble, will eventually pop. Meanwhile, large numbers of students will graduate with more debt than they would have in an unsubsidized market. "(1) Patrick Hedger, a policy analyst from FreedomWorks, found that “Students are taking out cheap loans as liberally as colleges spend their tuition. With money readily available at low rates to anyone who asks, students never think twice and colleges have no incentive to keep prices low. The end result is tens of thousands of dollars worth of each student’s tuition being spent by universities on superfluous things designed simply to draw more and more students and their government-backed blank checks. "(2) Federal Student Loans Have Cause a Rise in Tuition As a result of the Education Bubble, tuition has been artificially inflated through government intervention. Chris Edwards, from the Cato Institute, explains that “It is a matter of supply and demand. More and more Americans have sought a college education which has pushed prices higher. Ordinarily, such upward pressure would be restrained by consumer willingness to pay, but as government subsidies have helped absorb tuition increase, the public’s budget constraint has been lifted. ”(3) Peter Wood, a professor at Boston University noted that federal subsidies “are seen by colleges and universities as money that is there for the taking … tuition is set high enough to capture those funds and whatever else we think can be extracted from parents. (4) Federal Student Loans have Harmed Students Not only do student loans cause a rise in tuition, they also harm students various ways. A. Cause Unemployment In 2012, about 1.5 million, or 56%, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest since in of least 11 years. (5) How could this have happened? Patrick Hedger explains "“Federal student loans, which are soon to be the only education loans available, severely up start the market and are directly responsible for the surge of under-and unemployed youths with bachelor’s degrees. ” B. Students are Negatively Impacted by Debt The American Association of State Colleges and Universities found that “Students often see higher education as the primary path to upward mobility, but when they accumulate excessive debt, this pathway quickly becomes riddled with pitfalls. Students graduate with debt may put off life milestones such as buying a car, owning a home, getting married, or entering certain low paying professions like teaching or social work. ” (6) Also from the AASCU, “Particularly worrisome is that the number of college graduates with $40,000 in student loan debt has increase 10-fold in the past decade. Those numbers pose long-term threats to recent college graduates lifelong decisions, but the financial future of borrowers who do not earn a degree is even bleaker. ” C. Student Loans Harms Students' Credit Score Student loans also put many students at risk of ruining their credit score if they fail to pay off the extremely high debt on time. “Because your student loans are little to be your first significant loan into the world of credit, it’s imperative that you handle these loans wisely. ” “Missing even one payment can trash your Credit Score. And a bad Credit Score can lead to higher costs for loans, higher insurance premiums, and trouble when attempting to get a job or an apartment. ”(7) Defaulting on a student loan goes on your credit report and can seriously hinder your ability to get a loan later in your life. Student Loan defaulters are restricted in their access to bankruptcy protection. The IRS can seize defaulters’ income tax refunds, and students who default on an education are prohibited from participating in the student loan program thereafter. (8) Sadly, many students end up defaulting on their loans, ruining their credit scores. Last year one in 10 recent borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans within the first two years, the highest default rate since 1995, according to annual figures made public Monday by the Department of Education. (9) Alternatives My opponent will likely state that federal student loans are necessary for our education system. I will contend there are better alternatives. Tax Credits I support the expansion of the tax credit system for low-income students. Currently, there are various tax credits already available to students. (10) The American Opportunity Tax Credit those eligible qualify for the maximum annual credit of $2,500 per student. The Lifetime Learning may allow students and parents to claim up to $2,000 for qualified education expenses paid for all students enrolled in eligible educational institutions. Deductions are also available to student, The tuition and fees deduction can reduce the amount of your income subject to tax by up to $4,000. The benefits of the tax credit system is it decreases the cost burden on low-income workers without putting poor students into huge amounts of debt. Another benefit is it doesn't cost other taxpayers anything, it simply decreases taxes for the individuals it's intended to help. Work and Study Working while going to college is a viable alternative to students who need money to pay for tuition. Not only does the money you earn pay for the tuition, but there are also other benefits. One benefit of working while in college is that it can help build your resume, regardless if the job is in your field, according to a Scholarships. com article on balancing work and college. (11) There are also Vocational Programs, Grants, Direct Aid, Scholarships, and investment plans. As I've run out of time and characters, I will go into alternatives deeper next round. Sources 1. . http://mercatus.org... 2. . http://dailycaller.com... 3. . http://www.downsizinggovernment.org... 4. . http://www.cato.org... 5. . http://www.theatlantic.com... 6. . http://www.aascu.org... 7. . http://articles.latimes.com... 8. Chang, Cello. “The Impact of College Debt and costs”. Dis. California State Polytechnic University. Pomona. 2000. Print. P.12 9. . http://www.irs.gov... 10. . http://www.benefits.gov... 11. . http://www.schools.com...

positive: studying is not the only way to get rich Hi back, before I move on to dismantle your uncited mostly assumption based arguments, I noticed you used logical fallacies like (unfair quotation, straw man, hasty generalization) to misrepresent my information. you may be able to trick the armature readers and writers into believing you by these unethical tactics but that is not goanna work on me. lets start with my arguments that you opposed. first of all, about graduates suicide, i mentioned that "SOME OF THEASE" students end up becoming desperate and commit suicide "not all of them, and it is a real fact and not "OUTRAGIOUS" as you put it. the reason I didn't mention the source or cite anything is because it is general fact. but I give you a couple of or rather( comprehensive) examples to prove that. first I want to start by some real stories: i want to start with Jason yoder an American graduate who had been a graduate student in organic chemistry at Illinois State University but after incurring $100,000 in student loan debt, he struggled to find a job in his field. one night, Jason, 35, left the family"s mobile home and his body was later discovered in one of the labs on his university's campus. he was declared dead due to nitrogen asphyxiation. The sad part is that suicide didn't end his student loan nightmare and student debt collectors were still phoning his mother about the money her son owed.( this story is all over the internet no source is needed) here are some more real tragic stories Toby Thorn from England, had "8,000 in debt when he killed himself. a Temple University student named Roswell Friend committed committed suicide because she defaulted on her student loan., In 2008, 34-year-old science graduate Claire Ashing killed herself after being pursued over "40,000 she owed, as did mechanical engineering student Marc Wadjas, who could not afford to buy food. In 2006 computer student Geraint Banks-Wilkinson ended his life after his bank called in his "1,000 overdraft, and in 2005 26-year-old Lisa Taylor did the same because she felt she would never be able to pay back the "14,000 debt accrued while studying for her degree. She left a note blaming her depression on debt.The number of students who took their own lives in England and Wales rose by 50% between 2007 and 2011 "" from 75 to 112. source(www.theguardian.com/education/2013/mar/23/student-suicide-depression-debt-recession) Cryn Johannsen of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project writes about the spectre of suicide in connection with student debt: Suicide is the dark side of the student lending crisis and, despite all the media attention to the issue of student loans, it"s been severely under-reported. I can"t ignore it though, because I"m an advocate for people who are struggling to pay their student loans, and I"ve been receiving suicidal comments for over two years and occasionally hearing reports of actual suicides.http://newworkplace.wordpress.com... In accordance with the World Health Organization, over one million people every year die from suicide. Suicidal tendencies are often associated with divorce, depression, ill-health, alcohol or drug problems; student loan debt being the most significant among them. A majority of the people who seek counseling advice are people who see suicide as a way out of private student loan debt problems. source:http://EzineArticles.com... here is a note from a suicidal student from America "I plan to douse myself and light myself aflame on the Capitol steps, to draw attention to the dire situation of the millions of indentured educated citizens who, like me, have no options, plus a predatory banking system coming after us. There is no political solution to this problem . . . I will be setting myself on fire, and the student debt debacle will hopefully come to the forefront of public consciousness." source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com... that is not the end of the story, student loan has interest rate that get built up ,and if you cant pay them on time or default on them, you will be penalized which will be added to the actual debt over time, and you end up realizing the student loan debt is with you forever -- you can't discharge it in bankruptcy. In fact, "Up to Our Eyeballs" notes that about 9% of Americas aged 45-64 still have student loan debt! as the case happened with At 47, John Koch who is still living with his elderly parents in Oyster Bay, Long Island. Koch originally borrowed $69,000 in 1997.Koch struggled to find steady employment and eventually he defaulted on his loans. He was immediately slapped with $50,000 in penalties. For years, he had been filling out deferment forms every six months to buy himself more time but in 2009, Sallie Mae declared him in default. At the time of this writing, Koch owes over $320,000. That sounds staggering but it's hardly unusual. Once a person defaults on a student loan, the balance grows exponentially, with interest compounding on interest, penalties and fees. By the time he "retires," in 23 years, Koch figures he will owe close to $1.9 million!. He can't get even subprime credit, he tells me, and it's not like there's any way out of his trap: student loan debt cannot be absolved through bankruptcy. That is why suicide is becoming a debt payment option. source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com... I could go on this topic................. ok, hopefully now you are convinced that student loan leads to suicide and is expected to increase hugely in the next few years. You should also be convinced to agree with my statement that says "on the other hand, people who opted to stay away from college or dropped out , seems [sic] to have a higher rating of success." not having an ever increasing debt on your back for the rest of your life that deprives you of a lot of things like a house, car, marriage and most importantly "peace of mind", is a huge plus in ones life. and did you know that those" successfully hired graduates" some of those hired part time (16%), have to pay back a large amount of their salaries every month to student loan for up to 10, to 20 years or even in some aforementioned cases until they are like (47-68) years old? you also did say "'uneducated people are more unemployed and earn less than their graduate counterparts" in this sentence (the unemployment rate of those without a college degree is easily higher than that of a college graduate) also you said I quoted wrongly and, 40 percent of graduates are "underemployed" not "unemployed" I think your eyes have some serious problems. I post the title of the source for you and others again to see it properly it reads"Today's students graduate from college with heavy debts, and many aren't reaping the benefits of that education "" a poll shows recent grads often find jobs that don't require a college degree. More than 40% are unemployed, and 16% are in part-time positions" here is the source again :http://www.huffingtonpost.com... look back maybe your eyes work this time. and your funny question about why I didn't mention about non-degree jobs. Because there are thousands of them if not millions to list . and there isn't simply enough space for me to do that. but to give you and idea, check this source for the 40 highest job without a degree :http://www.businessinsider.com... interestingly the title of the source completely destroys your stance on education. it reads "In today's uncertain economy, a college education no longer guarantees you a high-paying job. But on the flip side, if you don't want to go to college, you don't have to "" you can still get a high-paying job without a bachelor's degree" with all those said, I know people in my community some of them with even master degree, selling vegetables and managing grocery shops. and by the way ,not all uneducated people got rich by inheritance. that is completely false. I personally worked for a man who owned a global shipment company who had over 400 transportation trucks in operation.by his own account, he used to sell potatoes on the street when he was young. I repeat again, what is the point of wasting (4-10) years of your life in college, building up a formidable debt on your shoulders that bogs you down ,hold you back in life , brings nightmare in your dreams every night. And takes every pleasure away from you. debts that takes a life time to clear if lucky. if not then suicide would be a last dark option. I really enjoyed the debate and want the readers to evaluate both side's arguments before making decisions. I also want to thank the opposite side for his or her participation and would like to know more about him or her (nationality ,age .major.....)

positive: No debt University should be free for all. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, for the 2007-2008 year, the average student loan debt of graduating college seniors was about $23,000. This means that when a person graduates from college, instead of working to make money for their future, they are working to make money to pay back their past. True, an education allows for a better future, but so many students are stuck paying back loans for years after their graduation that they can’t do things that, such as travel, that students in other countries, where education is free can do. It is unfair that if one does not come from a wealthy family, they are stuck paying back loans for x number of years. While their friends who had their education paid have the opportunity to go doing things such as traveling, those who owe money are forced to find a job right away that they may not necessarily love, because they have to pay back their loans.

positive: Personal Bankruptcy is Anti-Libertarian Looks as though this may be me talking to myself for another four rounds. I will be arguing as per the expanded topic in round one that bankruptcy is not bad. Bankruptcy is good as it allows for the forgiveness of debts to those that have got themselves into unsustainable financial positions. Without this recourse, they and their families would become financial slaves to their creditors for the rest of their lives without any means of escape. Although it may seem unfair for their creditors, they too have this avenue open to them so are given the exact same advantage. In addition debtor control is a primary business function that should be managed effectively to limit the financial impacts of the bankruptcy of debtors to businesses.

positive: Student Loan Debt I thank Evolution078 for the topic. ==Burden of proof== As the instigator, my opponent has the burden to prove why student loan debt is bad. ==Rebuttal== ---Con's "contention"--- My opponent seems to offer a plan here: that all parents be required to donate $24,000 a year to their child's college tuition. There are a couple problems with this: 1. Poor people often live hand-to-mouth and cannot afford to accumulate $96,000 in savings per child. [1] 2. This is still not enough money. Attending Harvard costs $60,000 per year, for example. [2] Even someone's parents who donated $24,000 per year would still need a student loan in the amount of $36,000 per year. ---My opponent says that without money, students are forced to join the military or go to community college--- He purposely ignores student loans here. Student loans are provided at extremely low interest rates and are tax deductible. [3] Student loans are the best possible deal someone could get while borrowing money. ---Con's "arguments"--- 1) My opponent offers a theoretical example of a poor family who makes roughly $25,000 a year. He subtracts the cost of housing and food for a family of two and says this would leave "Jimmy" with roughly $7500 a year to put in the bank for his child's college. My opponent forgets payroll taxes amounting to $1500 a year, cost of transportation amounting to $2500 a year, and cost of clothing amounting to $1250 a year. [4] [5] Assuming his employer provides health insurance, Jimmy will also pay $1500 a year out of pocket for his premiums. [6] Lastly, my opponent forgets to factor in the high cost of raising a small child, which amounts to roughly $3500 a year. [7] After all these costs are factored in, Jimmy is roughly $3,000 in debt per year. Jimmy has zero money left for savings and will actually owe $54,000 in debt by the time his adopted child reaches age 18. Conclusion: Jimmy cannot afford to pay for his child's college tuition. Student loans will be necessary if his adopted child wants to attend college. A) My opponent argues that median incomes are high in California. However, California is one of the wealthiest states in the Union. The poorest states in the Union have median incomes much closer to Jimmy's income. [8] In addition, all my opponent's arguments here assume that he has proven that even a family living on minimum wage can afford college tuition and is just being selfish and buying "cool knick knacks." Jimmy clearly can't afford tuition if you factor in all the costs. Keep in mind, also, that tax rates go up with income, and that food, clothing, and transportation costs are calculated as a percentage of income, so these costs rise as well with income levels, since the cost of living is higher in wealthier places. My opponent has yet to prove that someone with California's median income could afford full tuition payments. 2) My opponent essentially makes the argument that eliminating student loans will boost the economy However, student loans are just like any other type of loan – they allow people to defer immediate payment in order to engage in pursuits that will pay significant dividends further down the road (college, law school, medical school). In this way, loans make the economy more efficient. Imagine what would happen in the business sector if loans to entrepreneurs ceased to exist. No one would start new companies. The same will happen in technical fields if student loans cease to exist; there would be no more lawyers and doctors. 3) My opponent argues that student loans contribute to the national debt. However, the national debt is caused by accumulating federal budget deficits. Congress borrowing money is solely responsible for the national debt. Personal debt does not contribute to this national debt figure. 4) My opponent argues that people can get student loans if the costs are higher than average (his example is doctors) The average cost of tuition for a private 4-year college in the U.S. is $27,000. [9] The average tuition cost for medical school is $25,000. [10] Under his standard, doctors could not get student loans. 5) What my opponent is essentially advocating here (in his #5) is a collapse in consumer spending. A collapse in consumer spending would plunge us even further into recession. According to the San Francisco Chronicle on September 26th, "the collective purchasing behavior of American households may determine whether the nation continues to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression or slips back into recession." [11] When people buy clothes and toys, employers can start hiring again. Without consumer purchases, employers will have to continue layoffs. 6) My opponent argues for a regressive system Forcing people to save additional money for college each year, based on a regressive system, would have the same effect as raising taxes. Raising taxes during a recession would have a catastrophic effect on the economy. [12] ==My case== C1) Orphans Orphans have no parents, by definition. They require student loans if they want to go to college. C2) Parental rights The average parent in the U.S. spends a quarter of a million dollars to raise a child to the age of 17. [13] Parents have a right to enjoy their own incomes once their child reaches adulthood. If they get more satisfaction from taking a trip to the Caribbean before they die, parents should have the right to do this instead of being required to spend $100,000 on college tuition. If, however, parents get more satisfaction from helping their child pay for college, they should have the option of paying in full. But it should be the parents' right to make the decision of what to do with their money. Adult children are not entitled to this money as a birthright. This is a slippery slope. If parents must save money for their adult children for college, why not require parents to also set up a fund for their adult children to buy a home? How about a dowry fund for marriage? Why not legislate that parents must buy their children a car? C3) Paying the difference My opponent has not allocated enough money to college students to pay tuition for expensive private 4-year colleges and has not left many college students with enough money for room and board. Student loans would still be required to pay the difference between parental donations and what is still owed. C4) People who change their minds My opponent says that if a child does not attend college or drops out, parents can liquidate the college fund. However, people often change their minds and decide to attend college later in life. These people would not be able to afford college without student loans. C5) Stock market crashes Often, people save for college by investing their money in the stock market. A downturn would erase someone's college savings, necessitating student loans. C6) Lower attendance Since many people would now not be able to afford tuition, fewer people would attend college, law school, medical school, graduate school, and business school. Educational declines over a period of many years would erase trillions of dollars from the U.S. economy, as people become manual laborers instead of engineers, doctors, and lawyers. For all of the above reasons, I urge a Pro vote. ==Citations== [1] http://tinyurl.com... [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://tinyurl.com... [6] http://tinyurl.com... [7] http://tinyurl.com... [8] http://tinyurl.com... [9] http://tinyurl.com... [10] http://tinyurl.com... [11] http://tinyurl.com... [12] http://tinyurl.com... [13] http://tinyurl.com...

positive: Personal Bankruptcy is worth doing Personal bankruptcy was designed to relieve a person of unsecured debt. Credit cards are unsecured debt because there is no collateral used to secure the loan.Most people are brought up to believe that not paying back a loan is "stealing". That's not the case with credit cards for 2 reasons:1. The money you "borrow" from a credit card is not real money from a bank. The money gets created by the bank out of thin air, so anything you "pay back" is 100% profit for the bank.http://zeitgeistmovie.com...2. The crazy interest rates of 20% or higher are really stealing from the public. If a person puts their money in the bank they get 1% interest, but if they borrow in a credit card they pay 20%. The ONLY "negative" or consequence of declaring bankruptcy is that it will be on your record. This is not as bad as it sounds. 1. Because after 7 years, nobody will care and 7 years is not a long time.2. During those 7 years, you will probably not need credit.3. Even if you did need credit during those 7 years it wouldn't be impossible to get it. If you build up your credit score, you will get many offers for credit cards. It's possible to get up to $50,000 or more in credit cards. just by paying the minimum balanceIf you are a college student, your student loans can not be forgiven with bankruptcy. However, you can pay back your student loans with credit cards. The same is true if you owe the IRS. You can't get rid of what you owe to the IRS with bankruptcy. but you can pay the IRS off with credit cards.If you have $50,000 is student loans or $50,000 you owe to the IRS, it would be very simple to just pay them off with credit cards and declare bankruptcy. Starting life with a zero balance rather than -$50,000 is much better. If no bankruptcy, in 20 years you would have the money paid back and be at zero or with bankruptcy, you could save money and be at +$50,000 or more due to interest. That's worth it!If you don't have college debt or IRS debt, it would still be worth spending the $50,000. You can buy new car, fly around the world, get new clothes and electronic devices.If you declare bankruptcy, they can't take any of that away from you. The car should last you 7 years so you wouldn't need a car loan again. Instead of spending 20 years to pay the $50,000 back, you can start at zero with $50,000 worth of things and SAVE money instead of paying back credit cards. Not only is it worth it, You'd be crazy NOT to do it! You get $50,000 for free and in return you get a mark on your record that nobody will care about after 7 years.No brainier!

positive: You should be allowed to declare bankruptcy on college loans I think bankruptcy should include college loans. College loans are so hard to finance because companies and colleges take advantage of students. The job market is bad and people are starving to death. This is not fair.

positive: Personal Bankruptcy is worth doing Personal bankruptcy was designed to relieve a person of unsecured debt. Credit cards are unsecured debt because there is no collateral used to secure the loan.Most people are brought up to believe that not paying back a loan is "stealing". That's not the case with credit cards for 2 reasons:1. The money you "borrow" from a credit card is not real money from a bank. The money gets created by the bank out of thin air, so anything you "pay back" is 100% profit for the bank.http://zeitgeistmovie.com...#2. The crazy interest rates of 20% or higher are really stealing from the public. If a person puts their money in the bank they get 1% interest, but if they borrow in a credit card they pay 20%. The ONLY "negative" or consequence of declaring bankruptcy is that it will be on your record. This is not as bad as it sounds. 1. Because after 7 years, nobody will care and 7 years is not a long time.2. During those 7 years, you will probably not need credit.3. Even if you did need credit during those 7 years it wouldn't be impossible to get it. If you build up your credit score, you will get many offers for credit cards. It's possible to get up to $50,000 or more in credit cards. just by paying the minimum balanceIf you are a college student, your student loans can not be forgiven with bankruptcy. However, you can pay back your student loans with credit cards. The same is true if you owe the IRS. You can't get rid of what you owe to the IRS with bankruptcy. but you can pay the IRS off with credit cards.If you have $50,000 is student loans or $50,000 you owe to the IRS, it would be very simple to just pay them off with credit cards and declare bankruptcy. Starting life with a zero balance rather than -$50,000 is much better. If no bankruptcy, in 20 years you would have the money paid back and be at zero or with bankruptcy, you could save money and be at +$50,000 or more due to interest. That's worth it!If you don't have college debt or IRS debt, it would still be worth spending the $50,000. You can buy new car, fly around the world, get new clothes and electronic devices.If you declare bankruptcy, they can't take any of that away from you. The car should last you 7 years so you wouldn't need a car loan again. Instead of spending 20 years to pay the $50,000 back, you can start at zero with $50,000 worth of things and SAVE money instead of paying back credit cards. Not only is it worth it, You'd be crazy NOT to do it! You get $50,000 for free and in return you get a mark on your record that nobody will care about after 7 years.No brainier!

negative: Hockey is better than soccer Some of the most sweeping remarks have been made showing an inherent lack of knowledge about the game of soccer. Beginning with the sudden death rule , I would like to enlighten my opponent that the sudden death rule or golden goal rule as it popularly known stands abolished for a decade now. It was last used 10 years ago in 2004. Here is a link which will help you understand the rules of the game before making such frivolous claims http://en.wikipedia.org...(association_football) Now let's take each of your claims in a systematic manner before determining their veracity 1) Length - As per my opponent the ideal length of any sport should be 60-75 min to keep it interesting for the spectator. Which is what makes ICE hockey popular. Soccer , Cricket , Tennis , golf , field hockey are the most popular sports in the world. Each of them are much ahead of Ice hockey in terms of the game length a) Soccer -90 mins ( only knockout games have an extra time of half an hour) b) Cricket - Test Matches - 5 days , with each day having a playing time of 7-8 hrs, One day matches - 7 hrs , t20 matches - 3hrs c) Tennis- Womens - 3hrs Men - 4-5 hrs , Longest game 11 hrs 9 minutes d) Golf - 4-6 hrs e) Field Hockey- minimum 75 min All these games are nautical miles ahead of Ice Hockey in terms of viewers which clearly proves that it is not the length of the game but the quality of it which determines its greatness. Just like a 4 hr epic lord of the rings movie will still be more palatable than a 1.5 hr Nicolas cage movie ghostrider. So the argument on length of the game is simply untenable Out of bounds - Another concern which shows a lack of research on the part of my opponent. He makes sweeping statement that "" A LOT OF TIME IS WASTED KICKING THE BALL OUT OF BOUNDS". Well an added stoppage time is given to make up for the "out of bound " period which is 2-3 minutes usually. This is completely at the discretion of the referee and could be as low as 1 min in some cases. Compare that with the length of the half of 45 min and you get 3-4 % of the time. Not much really. http://www.football-bible.com... Skill - Any sport be it garden bowls or sepaktakrav requires certain level of skill to reach professional standards. I don't understand the meaning of the term "Strongest talent". Any sport requires years of practice to prefect before one reaches international standards. And every sport requires a specific set of skills to reach the top. For instance cricket requires exceptional hand eye co-ordination , fast reflexes , and an eye for detail, Polo , requires exceptional skill as a horse rider and hand eye coordination similar to Ice hockey players , same is that for a field hockey player. Soccer requires a player to have fast reflexes , vision , passing , dribbling , shooting , heading, tackling, ability to maneuver the ball in tight spaces with feet, improvising, anticipating the other players moves. Saying that Ice hockey players are the best athletes is just like saying Nicolas Cage deserves and oscar for Ghostrider. I mean are they strongest , quickest on feet, have best reflexes. Anyone in their right mind would understand that they are all athletes with specific skill to skate on ice while they play hockey that's about it nothing more , nothing less. And skating being something of a talent is partially true as barely a small fraction of the people in the world have access to skating rinks. That's just like saying being an astronaut, or eating heavily priced caviar is a talent. Competitiveness- Ice Hockey is barely competitive with just about 16 teams in world champion ships . For a game which has been around for a while that is just abjectly poor. Compared to that almost all 205 countries of the world participate in the world cup Intensity- World cup soccer held every four years is a much more intense competition compared to IIHF world championship held every year. At best it is like an FA cup soccer held in england every year. Most sports get an "offseason" -- soccer doesn't-----For most top-flight players, there's a league season, a league cup, a club championship and international games all going on at once. If that's not enough, almost every summer there's an international cup or competition of some sort, not to mention friendlies and World Cup qualifying. It's the sport that never ends. Sportsmanship is an important part of the culture.-And even though there are rivalries, players usually respect one another for their individual talents and love of the game. This becomes no more apparent than when you see players exchange jerseys after a good match. There are always new superstars whose fancy footwork or goal-scoring prowess seems to be a gift from the heavens. It's the Beautiful game World Cups bring the entire planet together.And basically give everyone one VERY important reason to party. The FIFA World Cup is the world's most widely viewed sports event. Around 715 million people watched the 2006 final match in Germany, while the 2010 South Africa event was broadcast to 204 countries on 245 different channels. Goodluck matching that ICE HOCKEY

negative: Resolved: The Federal Reserve Should Raise Rates In this round, I intend to first address my opponents contentions, and from there expand my original argument. For sake of simplicity, I will address each contention individually. On contention 1, "The economy has recovered hence interest rates can go up," I would mainly like to address the relation between the U.S. and Chinese economies. Looking at a time series of events, it is clear that there are strong relations between the two economies. On August 11th, the Chinese government allowed the Yuan to be devalued. The value of the Yuan is usually pegged to the value of the USD, done so by the Chinese government buying USD and selling Yuan to keep their currency artificially weak, helping them maintain a competitive advantage in exporting goods. On August 17th through August 26th, both the Chinese and U.S. equity markets crashed. On August 26th, the Yuan was essentially repegged to the dollar, peaking at an exchange rate (Yuan/Dollar) of 6.422 from 6.33 two weeks earlier. This coincidentally corresponded to a recovery of both Chinese and U.S. equity markets. My point here is that it is clear that the Chinese economy is weakening, but because both equity markets rebounded, I argue that the recovery of the equity markets was less fueled by simply having stronger economies capable of recovering, but by the Chinese government restoring certainty in the value of the Yuan on August 26th. Stating that the economy has "recovered" since the financial crisis is somewhat of a generalization. In many aspects, I agree that the United State's economy is in a period of expansion, but there are many confounding facts that make this argument harder to make. Going back to the issue of inflation, one of the main goals of the Fed, who aim to keep the economy stable, is promoting stable prices. This infers an inflation rate of 2%, but right now inflation is at 0%. This is unhealthy for an economy because it infers no growth, or even suggests negative growth in prices could be coming. Short term (1M and 3M) bond yields in the U.S. are currently zero, or negative if you look at market prices. This infers investors expecting deflation, because an investor would only agree to receive negative yield if they think that deflation will devalue their money even more than the negative return on a bond. This is certainly not a characteristic of an economy operating at full capacity. An economy operating at full capacity has rising prices, aka inflation. If the Fed were to raise rates now, inflation would decrease even more, and deflation could risk the economy dipping into another recession. GDP is the main indicator of recession and GDP is determined by the total cost of final products produced in an economy. By definition, total cost is directly dependent on the prices of goods and if the prices of goods are going down, so is the total cost of all final products produced in an economy, which will decrease GDP growth as well, which indicates an economy contracting. Raising rates right now seriously risks the U.S. economy slipping into recession again on the basis of inflationary pressures, making it a very risky move. On contention 2, "Low Rates will Cause economic turmoil," which has its argument centered around the creation of asset bubbles from low interest rates, asset bubbles are not necessarily a result of low interest rates, and even asset bubbles are not a huge issue of concern in respect to the larger goals of the FOMC, addressing unemployment, inflation, and rates. For example, to look at gold, gold prices have a negative correlation to those of equity markets, because as equity markets do not perform well, or as the economy is in recession, people have a desire to own real assets, like gold, which have actual intrinsic value rather than money, which is fiat in nature. Interest rates do not cause this, but investor uncertainty causes precious metals to increase in price when the economy is contracting. The subprime crisis was a result of a housing bubble, but the housing bubble can be directly tied to interest rates in that the reason the Fed lowers interest rates is to increase investments, specifically for houses and automobiles. The housing bubble, and further, the subprime mortgage crisis, was caused by poor regulation however. Subprime loans were given out to people on a NINJA (No Income, No Job, no Assets) basis, meaning that anybody who wanted a mortgage could basically have one. This, in conjunction with largely unregulated, newer financial products such as Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO), and Credit Default Swaps (CDS), lead to a financial crisis when people started defaulting on their subprime loans as interest rates were cut. These subprime loans were packaged (technically, securitized) into MBSs, which were packaged into CDOs, which had CDSs written on them, which is essentially an insurance policy against something. Firms like AIG were glad to write CDSs on these CDOs and MBSs while times were good, because they were pocketing insurance premiums while the risk of default seemed very low. When subprime mortgages began to be defaulted upon en masse, AIG had to pay large insurance payouts, which lead to their collapse and bailout, but CDSs were also written on AIG, which triggered a large scale financial system failure. Now, regulations are in place regarding getting subprime mortgages, how CDS markets are structured, and how MBSs and CDOs are rated, which largely prevents the same situation from occurring again. The housing bubble therefore did not cause the financial crisis, and further the recession, but speculations in the form of buying CDSs amid non-transparent financial securities caused the crisis. I therefore argue that asset bubbles are of lesser importance and relevance to the Fed's decision to raise rates. Further expanding my argument against the Fed raising rates, another thing to be considered is the size of the Fed's balance sheet. The Fed had to borrow massive amounts of money in order to spur an economy recovery after 2008. The interest that they have to pay on this debt is directly related to the FFR, so by raising rates the Fed risks the United States not being able to pay their liabilities. The U.S. is seen as the most risk free borrower in the world, so this has huge financial implications if the U.S. were to be unable to pay off their debt in a manageable way any more. This is a large consideration, and was cited in the September FOMC meeting minutes as one of the reasons against raising rates. Continuing looking at the September FOMC meeting, the median long term GDP forecasts among FOMC members and Federal Reserve Bank Presidents has decreased. The central range of predictions in June were from 2%-2.3%, but now Fed members are predicting GDP long term growth to be 1.8%-2.2%, a significantly lower forecast. Inflation is also not predicted to be 2% until 2018 now, up from the Fed's 2017 prediction in June. Considering this, it seems inappropriate to raise rates at this time as long term economic growth forecasts are largely worse by the leading economic experts in the country.

negative: This House would enact a one time policy that erases all student debt from private lenders. They needed to prove that the 115th congress would pass they bill and I proved its impossible for the 115th Congress to do so.

negative: Student Discipline in the Classroom Should disruptive students be removed from the classroom and given punitive disciplinary consequences such as school suspension or given a more rehabilitative program such as Restorative Justice that takes does not approve of school suspensions.

negative: Obama has botched the recovery 1. My opponent claims, "This debate comes down to whether you believe the economy is not recovering quickly because of a dramatic drop in consumer spending, or the fear that businesses have over an unsure policy future." I disagree. All recessions have a dramatic drop in consumer spending; it is not possible to have recession without that. The question is whether the policies of the Obama Administration have done a good job of restoring consumer and business confidence so that consumers will start spending again,businesses will start investing for the future. Clearly the policies have failed to restore anyone's confidence. We know the policies have failed for some reason, because recovery in the U.S. is substantially lagging the rest of the world and businesses are sitting with $2 trillion on the sidelines waiting for a promising future. Let's suppose that the mix of spending in the Stimulus was effective. I think that only the tax cuts had a significant effect, but let's suppose for the moment it was all effective. Then why would it be sound policy to be 19 months into the program with only about half the money spent? The point of stimulus is to inject money into the economy, so there is no possibility that not spending the money is good policy. Either the concept of the Stimulus was botched or he execution was botched, or both. The talk about "shovel-ready" projects makes one conclude that the execution was botched, because the supposed shovel-ready projects were not ready. Even a modest understanding of the government procurement cycle (specifications, solicitation, qualification of bidders, bids, evaluation, award, contracts, project plans, and reviews, all before work starts) would have precluded any foolish notion of "shovel-ready." In fact it didn't happen, and, for whatever reason, is the fault of the Administration. Virtually all of the recovery effort was in the Stimulus. Therefore, failing to spend the allocated money is reason by itself for affirming the resolution. If it ready did create two million jobs, which I do not believe it did, then all the money should have been spent by now to create four million, and not doing so is incompetent. Of the Stimulus money that has been spent, Con says that one-third went to tax cuts. I agree with Con that the tax cuts were effective, pretty much for the reasons that Con claimed them to be effective. Where we disagree is on the rest of the money. Not spending the money at all is, of course, ineffective, but spending it to create jobs at the rate of $194,000 per job is also inexcusable. Con claimed I did not dispute the CBO estimates of 1.4 to 3.3 millions jobs somehow created indirectly, but I did dispute it. The original promise of the Administration was that jobs would be counted on recovery.gov and that we could rely on those numbers. About 8 million jobs have been lost in the recession, and recovery.gov says that 750,000 were created. We need to create an additional 1 million jobs per year just to keep up with population growth. Even the 750,000 is suspect, because those are unaudited estimates of recipients. The original ground rules showed the Stimulus to be ineffective, so the ground rules were changed to the CBO claims. That is reason enough to doubt the CBO estimates. However, the huge range of 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs shows they are just guessing wildly, no doubt under political pressure. 2. The Stimulus was ineffective because of half the money being unspent and two-thirds of the rest being poorly spent. However, rather than focusing on the economy as top priority, the Administration went to extremes to undermine confidence in the recovery but initiating major new and uncertain health care costs, uncertain financial regulations, threats of expanded unionization, and promises of dramatic increases in energy costs. a. Con says it makes no sense that insurance companies have to increase their premiums to cover children under 26 now forced on to parents policies. It makes sense because it is not possible to insure more people at the same cost. People in the 18-25 age group do not have many disease-related health problems compared to older people, but they certainly have health problems. That age group is also disproportionately susceptible to accidents, drug and alcohol abuse, and gang violence. Ultimately Obama care will cover 40 million people at enormous cost. Most of that cost will be born by health insurance policy holders. For example, the $500 billion coming out of Medicare will have to be made up by the elderly who lost the benefits. Con dismisses the cost of filing 1099 forms because the are not due until 2012. The costs start immediately because account system changes, like new software, have to make to prepare for the data collection beginning on January 1, 2011. The 1099 costs, like the tanning salon tax, provoke fear of additional surprises buried in the health care bill. Increasing demand without increasing supply will drive up costs dramatically. Con claims that the free market will create more doctors and medical professionals. The supply is inelastic, o in the free market prices will rise sharply.. There is abut a twelve year lag due to the time it takes to train a new physician. There are serious limits on the sizes of medical school classes imposed by the lack of availability of instructors. Professionals educated overseas must still complete residency in the US, and those slots are currently at capacity. b. the Financial Reform act poses many uncertainties, and that uncertainty hangs as a fear over businesses and consumers alike. We are already seeing increased bank fees and tightening of credit. The requirement of every financial institution to have an affirmative action office to hire minorities into the industry is rand new and unprecedented overhead. c. Con claimed that businesses are not worried about cap and trade. How could a business that depends upon energy not worry about doubling or quadrupling energy prices? The reason the legislation stalled in Congress was the worry of representatives from the mid-West about the destruction of heavy industry. California, ahead of the curve, has dramatically increased energy prices. The result was half the heavy industry leaving the state. The oil industry is second only to tourism in the Gulf States. It is unrealistic to suppose that BP is going to support all the lost jobs forever. If nothing else, it would drive the American subsidiary of BP into bankruptcy. The increase in foreign dependence on oil is not treated at all by BP's temporary relief. d. The article on the fear of card check said, "Unsurprisingly, business advocacy groups oppose it - the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the American Small Business League, ..." Con erroneously claimed that there was no expression of widespread opposition to card check. Con claims that costs of doubled salaries can be passed on to consumers. Con did not counter the reasons I gave why that is not true. If labor costs were truly of no consequence, then any country could set a minimum wage of $100 an hour and end poverty. That obviously doesn't work. 4. Most small business are Type S corporations, filing as individuals. Half the proposed tax increases would come from small business. It hasn't passed yet, but it is announced policy that has given business another reason to doubt their future. 5. I gave five ways in which the Administration could restore the confidence of business in the future of the economy. If business had confidence in the future, they would invest. Consumers would gain confidence from the improved business environment. They would believe they could stay employed. consumers could also stop worrying about skyrocketing health care costs, energy costs, and taxes. Con did not refute those claim. Obama botched the recovery. The resolution is affirmed.

negative: Student Separation I accept. I think students should be separated based on their academic level more than how old they are.

negative: student should leave school at 9th grade and work student should leave school at 9th grade and work. this is very useful because most students dont like to study, which is a waste of time, this will help them learn how to use their time and also help them make money instead of asking for money from parents. thank you.

negative: private schools should be cheaper I believe that private schools should be cheaper in costs so that more people can get a better future

negative: Hockey is better than soccer During the course of the debate my opponent by the act of not opposing has conceded to the following points a) Soccer is the most popular game in the world with a following in almost every country on the planet, a completely global sport b) By his own admission the game of soccer is vested with simplicity in rules and requirement of play whose importance will be deliberated later in the argument Further more the opponent was guilty of stating wrong facts in the course of his arguments. The facts being a) Mentioning golden goal rule which has not been used in competitive games for the past 10 years and has been abolished by the world governing body b) Diving which is a rarity in soccer has been projected as a norm. Moreover the factually inaccurate statement was made that a referee would always allot a penalty kick for such incidents which is wrong. Usually the players are let of with a card in the first instance and the second such instance results in a suspension. Now to rebuttals 1) Opponent has harped relentlessly how the average soccer players spends most of his time standing or moving slowly through his paces and how hockey players keep moving. All these statement were made without any reference to official stats. Now as per a study an average soccer player covers a distance of 7 miles in the course of his game compared to Ice hockey players who spend roughly 4 miles every game. Here's a linc to the study. Hence the claim stands defeated http://www.runnersworld.com... 2) The fact that IH players ply their trade in snow is proudly displayed in his comments. What he fails to recognize is not just the harshness of conditions but the wide range of the conditions that a soccer player is subject to. From hot and humid maracana in brazil to the icy cold weathers of zenit st. petersberg. From the rainy weather in england to the dry weather of Qatar. Something a IH player cannot even think of going through 3) Embellishment - Ice hockey players are rarely punished for faking injuries , and more often than not they get away with embellishment with more impunity than a soccer player. NHL is filled with players who fake injuries who do it for short term gains. 4) By his own admission my opponent has claimed that the average IH match yields 4 goals which is more than soccer, Now for some facts in last champion league the average output of a soccer game was 5.33 goals . So the claim stands defeated at the outset itself. http://en.wikipedia.org... 5) And now to the point which according to my opponent is the most important aspect for determining the success of any game its "BRUTALITY". I for a while was sucked into the belief that we were still in the time of gladiators and the people throng to modern day Colosseums to watch blood bath from players. He gives the example of players who were badly injured on the playing field and romanticizes their pain and injury with sadist delight. If it is about the mortality of a game then we need to do some introspection ourselves. There have been deaths on the soccer field too , but that is not something I am proud of and by quoting something like that it reflects poorly on my psyche itself. I mean what sort of an individual would take pride in the extent of injury of some of his players. More than anything I am ASHAMED that the opponent would post a youtube video to highlight the plight of his players. And what is more SHAMEFUL is the fact that he would defend how the protection provided to IH players is not fool proof and how it inflicts injury. I CAN STAND the sight of blood , what i don't is how several talented careers are ended because of such rash tackles. This is NOT mixed martial arts , or boxing for God's sake where the only means to succeed is to injure your opponent. And therein lies the greatness of soccer the BEAUTIFUL GAME . Players reflect their charisma not through brute force but through skill , this is why millions of people are mesmerized by the symphony that Lionel messi weaves with the ball at his feet. But this Beauty will forever elude those who look at it with the prism of brutality. Now to summarize Soccer is a game which is widely appreciated , globally patronized and simple to learn, an aspect which is crucial in its acceptance by the global audience. It is a beautiful game which incites passionate followers . It is a fast-paced game with ample excitement and vigour. The global stage is lit -up by its prima donnas who inspire the upcoming generations . A game which is said to be a great leveler in this world of inequalities . A game for the heart and inspiration for the soul.

negative: Divorce Should Be Easier To Obtain By making divorces faster and easier to obtain, we are reducing the incidence of adultery, both duri...

negative: Divorce Should Be Easier To Obtain The idea of lifelong marriage arose in ancient times, when life expectancies were much shorter than ...

negative: Ice Hockey Hardest Sport to Play at the Professional Level. Alright thanks for the quick response Pro. I will try to organize these refutations as best as I can, as Pro's arguments and refutations are all over the place. Refutation 1:Pro says, "Each and everyday of their lives including their professional career they are constantly learning and re-mastering fundamental skills."Yes, I agree, but this is common to all professional sports. It is not just hockey where you need to re-learn and re-master fundamental skills. So by this basis, it is logical to assume that all sports are equally difficult. Pro also says, "In addition to mastering skating, which if anyone has ever tried before, you know it is very difficult to simply go slowly with your girlfriend, much less go balls out towards a puck with a defender hanging on your back."As I have already mentioned, it is also very difficult to learn to swim, much more difficult than learning to skate. Pro has not adressed why skating is much more difficult to learn then swimming, so I would assume that he agrees with me (I will get more into this later). As Pro has said, professional players spend "Each and everyday of their lives including their professional career they are constantly learning and re-mastering fundamental skills." This would mean that water sports like swimming, or water polo is much more difficult than hockey since these players must relearn fundamental skills, and swimming is harder to learn than hockey.Pro also says, "A hockey player must also learn how to use his stick as an extension of his hands, which is not easy to get used to either because the stick is not a part of your body as in soccer or basketball where you can use your feet and hands respectively."What I would say to that is, isn't baseball the same thing? Your bat needs to be an extension of your hands, and you need the same hand eye coordination and focus that hockey has, or you'll get hit in the face with a ball travelling at 90mph. Therefore, by pro's logic, baseball and hockey and water sports would have equal difficulty, proving that hockey is not the hardest sport to play at the professional level. And with jostling and learning where to move, and crucial positioning, in all sports there is some form of this. In basketball, you box out defenders to get the rebound, and in soccer you jostle defenders to get that head from the corner kick.I guess what I'm really saying here is that a lot of the skills between sports are transferrable, like learning where to move and getting good positioning. Therefore, it would mean that all sports are equally difficult.Pro says that " In addition if a hockey player suffers an injury he/she must, in some cases, completely re-learn how to skate and play in general."Isn't that the same with all sports? If you break a leg severely, you will need to re-learn to walk. If you break your arm, you will need to relearn how to throw a ball. It is the same with all sports.Refutation 2:What Pro has provided in this refutation is examples of times where players have maintained focus in the face of danger. And he says this is why ice hockey is a difficult sport.There are many other sports that require the same focus in the face of danger. Like Pro, I can pull examples like these all day. Let's start doing that actually.In football, the quarterback has to maintain focus in order to hit that long pass to his teammate. During this time, there are several 200 pound people running at you trying to tackle you. But still, you need to get the timing right, and throw that pass, even if it means that you'll get crushed under several guys.In baseball, the batter has to maintain focus in order to hit the ball that is traveling at 90mph towards him. Therefore, in all sports you need to maintain focus in the face of danger. Therefore, they are all equally difficult. Refutation 3:Exactly everything can be relative! There is no actual proof that hockey is the hardest sport to play, that is merely an opinion. And you have not even been able to prove that hockey is indeed a difficult sport to play. I have already proved many times that alot of sports require the same skills, therefore making all sports equally difficult to play. Pro also says that there are more people who can swim than skate. But that is not a sufficient measurement of difficulty. The only reason why this is true is because of certain conditions around the world. And please, find me the source where you got that fact. Rebuilding:Therefore, because you cannot provide this information, you can't just say that hockey is the hardest sport to play. As you said, most players devote their full attenion to hockey. Therefore, how can they know that hockey is the hardest sport if they have not tried every single other professional sport? There is no way to tell.Obviously, when hockey players say that hockey is the hardest sport, it is opinion based. And as Pro said earlier, it is annoying. Therefore, that entire argument is invalid.Conclusion:I have not provided any relative arguments today. I proved why all sports are equally difficult, as they require much of the same skills. (hand eye coordination, focus, etc.)It is not just hockey where you need these skills in order to play professional hockey. In Pro's recap he says:"Ice Hockey is and continue to be the hardest sport to master and play at a high level. It is a team game, so you must rely on other people to perform their duties which let's recap, involves hand-eye coordination, balance, strength, accuracy (shooting), and most importantly and most underrated SKATING."I will use a similar conclusion.All sports is and continue to be equally difficult to master and play at a high level. Most sports are team games, so you must rely on other people to perform their duties which let's recap, invovles hand-eye coordination, balance, strength, accuracy, and most importantly and most underated SWIMMING.Therefore, all sports are equally difficult.

negative: College should be entirely government funded. I understand the crime rate issue but you have to take into account that many students who currently receive financial aid only show up to get their book checks at the beginning of the semester and during the middle. Not everyone is cut out for school. Some students are in debt sometimes not cause they wanted to go to college but had no choice but because their relatives wanted them to go.

negative: International students are charged unfairly high tuition fees at UK universities UK students should have priority to UK Universities

negative: Paying for their education gives students sovereignty and responsibility for it If students are made to pay for the tertiary education they choose to undertake it gives them a greater responsibility over their studies. This means that they will be more likely to perform academically and are less likely to do anything that will jeopardize the substantial investment they would have made into their education. In the long run this will also teach university graduates to be more responsible over things like their families and jobs. In summary, making students pay for their tuition fees will encourage academic performance, and therefore increase both the long term and short term benefits of undertaking a graduate degree

negative: Personal Bankruptcy is Anti-Libertarian In conclusion, vote for me as my arguments stand unopposed. and just to ensure that I have at least one reference...... (1) (1).. https://nicetomeetyouimmike.files.wordpress.com...

negative: Personal Bankruptcy is Anti-Libertarian To clarify, I will be arguing that the government's "forgiveness" of consumer debt through bankruptcy is wrong. Arguments will be focused on Ch. 7 bankruptcies. The First Round will be for acceptance only and any additional definitions. Libertarianism - A political philosophy that believes people should be allowed to do and say what they want, so long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of another person, without interference from the government. Ch. 7 Bankruptcy - The legal process by which all obligations to pay all general unsecured debt is discharged (wiped away). Secured debt is rarely discharged in any bankruptcy. Debt - Any obligation to pay another person/company. Debt can be contractual or court ordered (child support, lawsuits, etc...). General unsecured debt - All debt that is not secured by any collateral property. Such debt includes, but is not limited to, credit cards, medical bills, and payday loans. Secured debt - Any debt that is secured by some form of collateral property. Such debt includes, but is not limited to, home mortgages and car loans.

negative: Payday lending Services should be banned Introduction: Payday loans should be banned because they prey on the needy and vulnerable who usually remain unaware that they will end up paying a huge amount back. They contribute nothing to society besides pushing people into crippling debt and lining the pockets of the unethical people who run the companies. 1.Introduction to the problem of pay day loans. Payday loans are small, short-term loans that are easily obtained because the lender rarely checks the borrower"s credit. Simply write a post-dated check for the amount borrowed or hand over your bank account information plus a sizable fee, typically $15 per $100 borrowed, and you walk away with a few hundred dollars. When the loan comes due, generally in two weeks, you pay the money back. Or the debt can be rolled over, delaying repayment in exchange for more fees. Here"s the problem: The hefty charges imposed by lenders make the effective interest rate exorbitant. A $15 fee to borrow $100 may look like 15% interest, for example, but it"s really equivalent to a 390% annual rate " more than 10 times the typical rate for a credit card cash advance, itself an expensive option. According to a Pew Charitable Trusts study in 2012, the average payday loan borrower took out eight loans of $375 each per year and paid a whopping $520 in interest. https://www.nerdwallet.com... 1.Questionable practices of payday lending, "Tuesday, 17 March 2015 skynews.com ASIC has investigated 13 leading payday lenders and found some engaged in questionable lending practices. "Same article shows that included issuing possibly unsuitable loans and setting longer-than-requested loan terms to maximize interest payments. (loans you can"t pay back) "According to the Consumers Union (the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports) in California, Payday Loan companies can charge as much as 15% of the face value of the check. That equates to about 900% for a one-week loan and 450% for a two-week loan. To compound the issues, a Wall Street analyst indicated, "the average customer makes 11 transactions a year," compounding their problem and their financial woes. 2.Cycle of debt "According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is now receiving comments on its proposed new rules, people end up extending the initial short term loans for much longer periods, and paying extra fees and high interest rates over long periods of time. Many times the consumers can't ever get out of that initial debt, bureau officials say. "The only way payday lenders make good profit is by imposing high interest rates in order to leave the consumer in a cycle of debt in which a person spends the rest of his life attempting to pay back. 3.Explanation of this "cycle of debt" "More than 60% of payday loans are made to borrowers who take out at least seven loans in a row -- the typical point at which the fees they pay exceed the original loan amount, according to a study of more than 12 million loans made over 12-month periods during 2011 and 2012 by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "The problem is that borrowers often can't afford to pay off the first loan, forcing them to roll over their debt and even take out a new, sometimes larger loan so they can pay off the original debt. The CFPB found that more than 80% of all payday loans are rolled over or renewed within two weeks. "Many payday borrowers live on fixed monthly incomes, such as retirees or disabled Americans receiving Social Security disability benefits. Of those payday borrowers receiving monthly payments, the study found that one out of five borrowed money every single month of the year. http://money.cnn.com... Now some alternatives to this method of pay day lending 1. Faith based organizations provide an alternative "The Washington Post shows that such programs offer very low interest rates near zero in order to achieve the goal of helping the people in need of loans. The biggest difference is that those programs make people financially stable rather than stack up their debt. "The Jubilee Assistance Fund has helped parishioners of the United Methodist Church secure 14 loans that ranged from $500 to $8,800, according to Carol Mathis, CEO of the Virginia United Methodist Credit Union. Churches offer funds as collateral so that borrowers can qualify for a loan through the credit union. One couple used the fund to take out a loan of about $3,000 at an annual interest rate of about 6 percent and repaid the advance in about a year, earlier than promised. 2. Installment loans "Traditional installment loans are the best alternative to payday loans for consumers because they provide consumers a clear roadmap out of debt through manageable equal monthly payments that pay off both principal and interest," says Karen Klugh, a spokeswoman for the American Financial Services Association, an industry group. She says consumer finance companies determine the borrower"s ability to pay and report the debt repayment to the major credit-rating companies, which can help the borrower build a good credit score. Installment loans also give you much more time to pay back the debt, says James Chilton, founder and chief executive of the Society for Financial Awareness, a nonprofit group focused on financial literacy. This financing also generally lets you borrow more and at significantly lower rates than payday loans. https://www.nerdwallet.com... 3. Online alternatives Online alternatives: Many websites offer less expensive borrowing options. There"s LendUp, which provides lower-cost installment loans, and Activehours, which pays hourly wage earners the same day they work. There are also peer-to-peer lending websites such as Prosper and LendingClub, which Turner says offer better choices compared with payday loans.https://www.nerdwallet.com... Conclusion: Any alternative is better to pay day lending. It's even better to borrw from a friend then from payday lending. 4. This practice is morally wrong Basicully this method doesn't just hurt economically but it's morally wrong and as I stated in my intro a lot of the pay day lenders are greedy. Many payday borrowers live on fixed monthly incomes, such as retirees or disabled Americans receiving Social Security disability benefits. Of those payday borrowers receiving monthly payments, the study found that one out of five borrowed money every single month of the year. "These kinds of stories are heartbreaking and they are happening all across the country," Cordray said in a prepared statement. "They demand that we pay serious attention to the human consequences of the payday loan market." http://money.cnn.com... This quote says it all. A lot of people who actually us pay day lending are super desperate or poor. The reason not a lot of people really know about pay day lending it seems is because this process is only utilized by the desperate or people who don't know better. This practice is morally wrong and the individuals behind it have bad morals.

negative: The use of credit scores should be tightly curtailed C1P1: I contest as ludicrous the notion that employees have any control over being laid off and that the companies are forced to lay off workers. Executives often significantly increase their own pay for dumping workers on the street -- this disproves their payroll was not too costly, they merely transferred payroll to increase their own wealth by completely eliminating the income of a large number of people. Further, no regard is given to productivity when laying off workers; workers in third-world countries have much lower standards with rampant quality problems, and measure as being far less productive. An employee has no control over being laid off to be replaced with foreign workers. Changed loan: The consumer has zero power to change the terms of the loan or negotiate to have this one-sided abuse out of the contract. To suggest there is an equal footing between lender and lendee is ludicrous. Medical: If one loses one's income and cannot make any payments, it still harms credit and a person whose sole debt is medical would be discriminated against in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Medical debt is inherently involuntary, unless you consider it acceptable for someone with immediate medical need to forgo medical treatment because they cannot afford the payments. C1P2: Student Loan - There is no "cheap" post-secondary education. The cost of tuition and books has increased in double-digit percentages every single year for many years now. Inflation and incomes have not risen anywhere close, especially for someone who has not yet had a degree to have a high-income position to afford persuing a degree. Further, many educational institutions give full control over a student's finances to a Financial Aid officer. There is no real recourse for a student against an incompent or fraudulent Financial Aid Officer or practices that cause a student to lose qualifying status, leaving the student with no means of completing their degree and a large loan they must find a way to repay without the wages students are impressioned to believe would result from having a degree. None of these situations are in the control of a consumer. C1P3: A person who has a high credit rating because they stole money which gave them no problem paying bills will get preferential treatment in getting hired, etc. Credit history is used by a lot of companies in the hiring process, which is one of my arguments for curtailing their use -- there is no valid use for a would-be employer to use one's credit history in the hiring process. I'm a bit disturbed that CON thinks someone who has a lot of money lying around because they stole it is a trustworthy business partner ... I surely hope CON mis-understood what he was saying. C2:1 - It is up to the voters in this debate, then, whether they accept those situations as warranting discriminatory hiring practices, housing and other private/corporate-controlled aspects of necessary life in the U.S.A. that are supposed to be protected from discrimination. C2:2 - A person chooses whether or not to commit a crime. A person has no choice for their employer reducing or eliminating their income or a lender raising their payments to an unaffordable level, or whether or not be stricken with injury or illness requiring treatment or operations they cannot afford, or whether an expensive postsecondary degree is a requirement to obtain a job. "System of credit bureaus..." 1.) Yes, they do. They have no requirement to operate differently. It doesn't matter whether its intentional on the part of the bureaus ... consider a person acquires debt, then get laid off. Its then very difficult -- and often completely impossible -- to pay debt. Since employers use credit history in a hiring decision, the person then has great difficulty in getting a decent-paying job to pay off those bills. It doesn't matter if it was the credit bureau's, employer's or loaner's intention to conspire against the person to trap them -- the conflux of the three entities is a conspiracy (intentional or unintentional) against the person. And since employers use credit history in a hiring decision, a "bad" credit history is effectively a blacklist from getting employment and for anything that uses credit scores to discriminate -- rent, car insurance, etc. 2.) Your claims were false. It is ludicrous to believe a consumer has an equal footing to set and alter terms with a debtor or has any influence in what their employer does. These are completely at the "mercy" of corporations to do the right thing instead of the profitable thing. The consumer has no choice and no negotiating power. The consumer's ability to pay bills hinges on their employer not laying them off. What power do you have against your employer to keep them from laying you off or cutting your wages versus your employer's power to cut your hours or lay you off? Its very one-sided, and it doesn't matter how "good" you are as an employee. In the end, if your employer has profit motivation to close your entire department and move operations overseas where workers are far less proficient but very cheap, they will. That is entirely out of a person's hands ... and how can you pay any bills if you have no income? In regards to bankruptcy, under President George W. Bush, the ability of consumers to go through a bankruptcy process was drastically reduced. A consumer who has lost the means to pay off their debt no longer has bankruptcy as a viable option thanks to the act. C3:1.) You have failed to indicate how they would create harm. C3:2.) I'm not sure which point I made you are claiming as baseless. C3:4.) Credit score is not a valid measure of trustworthiness nor their work ethic. Any assumptions based on the equation of credit score with trustworthiness or work ethic are false, regardless of how popular such notions are. C3:5.) I did not argue for the complete banishment of credit scores, merely for their over-use. Taking out a voluntary loan is one of the few valid uses of a credit score, though this too should be restricted against discriminating against someone for involuntary debt such as medical bills or student loan. Abusing credit scores causes unthinkable and immoral harm under any system that asserts equal, just and fair opportunity for all. AFF 1.) I need not prove credit scores are entirely wrong in all cases, merely they are over-used. I can win if a voter believes fairness and justice are important values and must take precedence over profitability and rule by the biggest purse. AFF 2.) CON has failed to understand this debate is about CURTAILING -- restricting -- the use of credit scores, not banning them altogether. I am not arguing for completely banning credit scores, merely pushing for the case that their use should be highly restricted to prevent infringements upon equal opportunity, justice and fairness. I urge CON to re-focus the debate on the topic of CURTAILING (restricting) the use of credit scores instead of banning them. CON has failed to justify using a credit scores to discriminate against people for employment, housing, etc. in circumvention of civil rights legislation such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. Someone who comes from a poor household will not have equal opportunity to make and pay loans to inflate their credit scores as someone from a wealthy household with significant un-earned capital. I put it to all that this violates the axiom "all people are created equal" and that the use of credit scores should be curtailed to help level the playing field in any situation where a person's ability to pay debt has no direct bearing or relevance.

negative: Women have it easier then men. I look forward to a lively debate. My opponent did not define the parameters of our discussion, so one can assume the topic will be all-encompassing and all terms should be understood using their most common, appropriate definitions. Thus, my goal in this debate is to prove that on balance, women do not have it easier than men in life. With that, I accept Pro's remaining terms and await his opening salvo.

negative: Women have it easier then men. Con will either prove men have it easier then women or both genders face equal obstacles. First round is acceptance. Second round is argument. Third is rebuttal. Fourth is rebuttal and conclusion. Not following the debate outline, using cheap cemantics, changing around what I say or the meaning of what I said, or misquoting me in general will not be tolerated. For example, if I say something and you change the meaning or completely misquote me and change what I say and state "Since you said before (insert lie here)" or "Since you claim (insert something I blantanly never said)"; this will be pointed out with extreme prejudice in my next response and will affect your overall vote. You will also look ignorant as well as give the image that you are a bad debater who resorts to funny business in order to win. I will never debate you again, and you'll only be making my argument and conduct look ever more superior. 3 out of every 4 people I have so far debated have done one the above. Therefore before you accept, read this carefully and make sure you are not like this. Also, Wikipedia is not a source. Blogs are not sources. Use legit citing; newspaper websites, journals, university or government studies, reports, or books.

negative: Women have it easier then men. I will present my opening arguments and begin rebuttals next round. There are countless physiological, mental, and social differences between the genders. Some of these are irrelevant, others minor nuisances. There are many, however, that are undeniable examples of discrimination, disadvantage, or outright hate. This latter group of differences tend to favor men, creating a gender superiority felt the world over, and it is this group that I will focus on here. I do not have the space or resources to describe every possible issue women face, so I will condense my arguments into the three most damaging and widespread categories. 1. Financial InequalitiesWhen it comes to raw employment figures, women are outnumbered and underpaid. 60% of the world’s workforce are men [1, see: Main Findings], with this rate increasing by nearly 50% in certain African and Asian regions [2, see: Key Findings]. Women also earns significantly less than their male colleagues, regardless of profession [3]. In the U. S. , this gap averages a stunning 81 cents on the dollar [4]. This discrepancy tends to grow overseas; Multiple studies have found salary gaps in over 60 countries, some of which reaching over 30% in favor of men [5][6]. Women also suffer when it comes to job availability. They are more likely than men to depend on unstable working conditions (e. g. limited benefits, informal arrangements, limited employee support) [1, see: Female Employment]. Women are less likely to reach the most prestigious or desired job positions, due largely to negative cultural gender roles guiding hiring processes. In the U. S. , for example, only 12 Fortune 500 companies are run by women [7]. Other countries avoid the pretense altogether and flat out ban women from working certain jobs [8]. What does all this tell us? The global economic market favors men in almost every sense. This leaves women underrepresented, underutilized, and overwhelmingly more susceptible to poorer living conditions. Roughly half of all working-age women in the world are unemployed [1, see: Main Findings], and 70% of all those living in poverty are women [9]. 2. Relationship InequalitiesRelationships are no kinder to the fairer sex, with women facing unique and significant disadvantages. I’ll start with the obvious: women get pregnant. This tedious and delicate process involves dozens of painful and uncomfortable bodily changes, some of which can be life-threatening or have permanent ramifications [10][11]. Once a child is born, women are primarily tasked with their care and upbringing (a 24/7 responsibility). Throughout this time, women are necessarily handicapped in terms of education, employment, and personal well-being [12, see: Why are women living in poverty? ]. In all, the financial, social, physical, and emotional implications of any decision made concerning child birth impact women to a degree no man will or can ever experience. Women also suffer rates of domestic violence far exceeding that of men. In the U. S. , 85% of all domestic victims are women [13], with abuse and rape rates showing marked increases in recent years [14]. Worldwide, a staggering 1 in 3 women has or will suffer physical or emotional abuse from a loved one at some point during their lives [15]. Rates for men are a fraction of this amount. As gender roles tend to designate women as responsible for household and familial responsibilities, many believe that relationships allow women the freedom to work less and relax more than their male partners. This is not the case. Indeed, when hours spent working inside and outside the home are combined, women are found to still work more hours each week than men [16]. This is true even when both partners have full-time jobs [17]. 3. Societal InequalitiesOne explanation for the far-reaching inequality and discrimination faced by women is the fact that the governments of the world are male-dominated entities. The United States, for example, has never had a female president and less than 20% of its current congress is made up of women (which is a landmark figure, by the way) [18]. The political situation around the world is equally bleak, with only 20 women currently acting as world leaders [19]. Keep in mind that these political imbalances exist despite the fact that over half the world's population is female. Given the lopsided nature of lawmakers, it should come as no surprise that women’s rights lag behind those of men. Here are some highlights. In the Middle East, girls as young as 8 years old are routinely married off at their parents’ discretion [20]; honor killings claim thousands of Asian girls every year, often for reasons such as losing one's virginity or spurning unwanted male advances [21]; men in some Middle Eastern and African countries enjoy automatic custody and property rights in relationships, respectively [22][23]. All this is just a drop in the global bucket, but the common theme across all such laws is that women are worth less than men and thus free to be abused, ignored, and owned as property. Legal restrictions and cultural demonizing have made female babies so unwanted that certain countries have made infanticide and female-only abortions a common practice. China and India are primary offenders; By 2007, roughly 60 million children in Asia were either killed or selectively aborted because they were female [24]. 60 million. Closing When it comes to which gender has it worse off, there is no debate. It’s not even close. There are of course minor inconveniences women suffer and stereotypes they must put up with, but there is also global subjugation and discrimination the likes of which men have never faced. So many significant gender inequalities exist that I literally could not list them all if I used bullet points. I have yet to rebut my opponent's arguments but even now, the facts speak for themselves. It’s a man’s world. Women just live in it. References1. . http://www.ilo.org...2. . http://www.ilo.org...3. . http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com...4. . http://www.bloomberg.com...5. . http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com...6. . http://www.ituc-csi.org...7. . http://money.cnn.com...8. . http://www.pri.org...9. . http://www.globalpovertyproject.com...10. . http://www.webmd.com...11. . http://www.medicinenet.com...12. . http://www.americanprogress.org...13. . http://www.dvrc-or.org...14. . http://www.hrw.org...15. . http://domesticviolencestatistics.org...16. . http://ipsnews.net...17. . http://www.nsf.gov...18. . http://thisnation.com...19. . http://www.filibustercartoons.com...20. . http://www.hrw.org...21. . http://mondediplo.com...22. . http://www.irinnews.org...23. . http://web.archive.org...24. . http://www.foxnews.com...

negative: Yes, it should be allowed for the case of emergency. It should be allowed to use cell phones in schools as if there is any emergency case parents can easily inform their children. It should not be allowed to use during lectures but during break it should be allowed. And it also helps after school time as if the children have any transport problem they can inform their parents. Other than this if they have to stay at school after the school time is over for any type of preparation they can inform their parents. but there is some schools that let phones in because of the safety reasons.

negative: Personal Bankruptcy is worth doing Personal Bankruptcy is one of the worst choices a person can make. To be fair and honest, I"ll say there are benefits, much in the same way doing heroin feels great"for a while"then things start to go downhill. Benefits: You will be protected from the majority of a wide array of debt collectors. You will, on a chapter 13 plan, be able to pay back mortgage, etc., etc., at a chosen rate. Consequences: Bankruptcy will destroy your reputation. By law, bankruptcy is on the public record. People all around you will find out about it. Many of these people will not be kind, including people in your circle of friends, or even your family. You can bet it will be truly stressful. First off, your credit will be absolutely destroyed for some time. Credit companies will make life hell. Banks and the like won"t give out mortgages, car loans, etc., so good luck buying things. It will become more difficult to get a good job, being that many employers nowadays check credit information before hiring. Future landlords will decline you, because they will check your credit. Your insurance may very well take a leap into the heavens, and, if you discharged medical debts, your health is at risk, because hospitals and the like won"t want to treat you. If you discharge a mortgage or a car loan, you may lost them to the bank. Aside from those reasons above, you must calculate how you will feel, as a person, who cheated the system, which is what you are doing. You are a failure and a liar in some respects. Unfortunately, many folks are forced into bankruptcy, but to choose to declare bankruptcy to worm your way out of paying off debt"that is not okay. That is how the U.S. got itself into its current state.

negative: Personal Bankruptcy is worth doing Well then, I accept. I only ask that there is no disrespect, trolling, or semantics in this debate. Good luck!

negative: The majority of graduates never actually use their first degree in the workplace let alone a second, widespread prevalence of Master’s degree just creates an ‘academic arms race’ There is a real downside to making Master’s degrees the gold standard for educational achievement. If one degree is no longer enough for entry level jobs, then students from poor backgrounds will be further disadvantaged by comparison with student who are able to secure parental support and funding for postgraduate study. Students are already judged on the prestige- and therefore cost- of their first degree. To add an additional layer to the existing hierarchy of university education is doubly unfair. Not only does it require additional debt, but also means that the value of the degree a student has already worked hard to acquire is reduced, as it fails to match up to a new standard.

negative: Should people of the same sex be allowed to get married. In the US, you can't receive government-provided disability funding if you don't have a disability. That isn't discrimination against the non-disabled; rather, it just happens to be a privilege for those who meet the criteria. Could we provide money to non-disabled people, as well--or could we expand the definition of "disabled" to include more people? Sure. But we don't, because we consider the privilege of receiving this kind of government funding to be exclusive. In the same way, marriage is an exclusive legal bond between a man and a woman--and we can keep expanding the definition until it becomes meaningless and EVERYONE gets the benefits of marriage, but that becomes extremely counter-intuitive.Apparently, the opponent is interested in changing the definition of marriage. Please humor me by answering this: Are you okay with the legalization of polygamous marriage? Are you okay with marriage to animals? Are you okay with marriage to inanimate objects, like chairs? Are you okay with marriage to hockey teams? You may say, "Of course a person shouldn't be able to marry a dog! A dog can't consent, and it's a non-human!" But when you say this, you are using the same logic as someone who says, "Of course you shouldn't be able to marry! You're of the same gender!" If you answer "no" to any of the above questions, explain why YOUR change in definition is superior to the polygamist or the guy who wants to marry his dog or chair!And if you say "yes" to all of these questions, then you are okay with the constant redefinition of marriage until it becomes all-inclusive. This is the slippery slope to utter meaningless. Surely, an all-inclusive marriage system would enable anyone to receive marriage-related benefits and abolish the institution of marriage as we know it. ---Opponent: The thought of two people that's [sic] not allowed to get married just because they are the same sex sickens me. We cannot judge policy based on whether or not it "sickens" my opponent.Opponent: Just because some people are religious or some people think it's disgusting doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed to get married.It is ironic that the opponent mentions "disgust" as an irrational reason to oppose gay marriage, because he uses it as a justification for his support of gay marriage. Anyway, plenty of people oppose gay marriage for reasons other than religion and simple disgust. ---Thank you.

negative: Bailout of US automakers Nationalization of US automakers would increase US debt.

negative: Bailout of US automakers Auto bankruptcy during economic crisis would be devastating

negative: US debt ceiling deal Debt deal's modest cuts protect recovering economy

negative: A Financial Management Course Should Be Required Curriculum At All Colleges And Universities Loan default rates and bankruptcy rates are at an all time high in the United States. Americans are maxing out credit cards, borrowing money that they can't pay back, and taking out student loans with abnormally high interest rates. Basic financial management skills of even college educated people have become laughable. I believe that a financial management course should be part of the required curriculum at all colleges and universities. This course would allow college students to gain valuable financial knowledge that could be used for the rest of their lives. Basic financial management knowledge would help to lower bankruptcy and loan default rates. It would also help young, impressionable adults learn the dangers of credit card debt and high interest "student loans" that anyone can get. By not having a financial management course as required curriculum at all colleges and universities we are leaving the doors wide open for the continued abuse of our countries' financial system.

negative: Trump made his money through bankruptcy I.........have nothing to say......... My opponent has won and I forfeit this debate. My opponent has proved me wrong and changed my mind. I chose this debate out of no where though........ Good Work, Nzm

negative: College Textbooks Those elements do not make student's life easier. They will make their life harder because when they graduate they are accountable for all of the loans that will have to be paid back, including textbooks that have been paid or rented by credit card. Colleges should be around to give an education that adults can create a life and career out of. Textbook prices are one less thing to worry about for the struggling student that may not have a job when he/she graduates but plenty of loans.

negative: Payday lending Services should be banned COUNTERPLAN: The Consumer Federal Protection Bureau will implement a national regulation on payday loans composed of the following four parts: In the world of the counterplan, consumers will be able to access the benefits of payday loans in an emergency when they can't scrape together enough cash to pay for an unexpected expense, but the ban on rollovers will encourage more responsible use of payday loans and prevent endless debt cycles. No, no and no we are not doing this. I am not doing this stuff Observation 1: Judge in my world the opponent"s case means this. In my world we will have this. "Judge my counter plan is the best solution " No I clearly stated the options you had in your burden I despise counter plans especially ones that aren"t even real. Also I didn"t set this like a Congress debate, policy debate, or LD debate so I don"t know why you"re trying to make up something and run it. I looked this up and couldn"t find it. This is a made up counter plan rather than a plan that actually exist and therefore isn"t applicable to the round since it"s not facts. Also you don"t even need this framework you have a good case, just run with it, I didn"t even set up some made up framework or unfair harsh observations for you to follow as well. Make this a fair fun debate. So in conclusion we will instead focus on his main argument which I like a lot and am willing to debate against anything regarding his plan isn"t included in the debate. "I will argue that regulating payday loans is better than banning them, and that payday loans should not be banned because regulating them is better." Attack on cont 1 :DISADVANTAGE - BUSINESS CONFIDENCE He claims that this method of banning pay day lending would hurt the "honest pay day lending services" but as I stated in my case, Tuesday, 17 March 2015 skynews.com ASIC has investigated 13 leading payday lenders and found some engaged in questionable lending practices. The majority of pay day lending services are very questionable and issue possibly unsuitable loans and setting longer-than-requested loan terms to maximize interest payments. (Loans you can"t pay back) Thus we must take a utilitarian approach and take the action that benefits the most people. MOST people are badly affected by pay day lending services since MOST are bad. Also he makes an argument that banning pay day lending would make pay day lenders lose jobs but like I stated even in my intro these pay day lenders are unethical and don"t care about the people the harm anyway. Also I provide alternatives that work with loans therefore those people can find jobs either way. Furthermore more people will benefit if this is banned and alternatives are more openly advertised. The problem is they are overshadowed in a lot of cases by pay day loans. Also I provide an alternative that are similar as my opponent points out to pay day loans in what they can provide which is installment loans. Response to his attack on INSTALLMENT LOANS "You can only get them with secure credit, interest rates are actually high from them". First of all I would like to state that I didn"t say installment loans are the perfect solution or way different then pay day lending. Just that they are a safer alternative. I don't have to provide a perfect alternative just that pay day lending should be banned, I am just providing some options. Installment Loans are different than Payday Loans in the sense that they can paid back slowly over time. Most of the time you will find that an Installment Loan offers a much lower APR rate on average then a payday loan Rates can start as low as at 5.99%. No hidden fees, No prepayment penalties, no rate hike or payment increases also there are fixed rates range 5.99% to 36.00% APR In the end payday loans are just short term loans with high interest rates with quick return policy. Installment loans are much better in this case, their interest rate is relatively lower and one doesn"t have to return it as soon as they have to in payday loans. https://www.prosper.com... Lastly according to http://time.com... from a time money article on the same database as his this method of installment loans is actually the best method to utilize to improve credit for 2016. His article is from 2013 about how bad these loans can be. 2013 is three years ago therefore stricter regulations and improvements have been made to installment loans since then. I would like to point out in regular debate if information determines a round or seriously clashes they look to recent data since that"s only logical and I have recent data from 2016. Also as stated in the article taking out a debt consolidation installment loan can raise your score by moving balances from the high-score-impacting revolving type of debt (credit cards) to a low-score-impacting installment loan. Again I am not suggesting this alternative has no flaws and is perfect, just that in a terrible situation this method is more beneficial than pay day loans. Part 2 of his response: Credit is required for installment He also makes the claim that you can only get these loans with a manageable credit which is sometimes true but every American is obligated to manage their credit. In a lot of cases the credit is the individuals fault, also it"s logical that when you are in debt and have bad credit you don"t have many opportunities however he is claiming that that payday lending is there to morally help individuals and build them back up which I will continue to show they are not specifically now in Texas in a later point I establish. DISADVANTAGE- Desperation argument His argument on my introduction: He tries to argue something that"s a fact on a database with his own opinion. I guess we shouldn"t be surprised by this since he tried to use made up framework in the debate round. I put this link under my intro https://www.nerdwallet.com...... He states that people get pay day loans if they are desperate; I agree they do that which is why I am trying to fail this legislation. They do that and it leads to consequences. Also he claims people"s only option is pay day lending, but those 12 million he claims will be affected can borrow from a friend, turn to pawn shops even, payroll advances, borrow from retirement accounts( again not the perfect method but at least no super high interest rates or spikes like pay day loans), bill forbearance, simply research and actually read more on loans to ensure you select the right ones. Also many websites offer less expensive borrowing options. There"s LendUp, which provides lower-cost installment loans,. There are also peer-to-peer lending websites such as Prosper and LendingClub, which offer better choices compared with payday loans. My response to his faith based argument- A lot of churches nowadays sadly do operate for a profit http://www.cnn.com... Also again we can"t help all 12 million people but at least show them alternatives to help them. No method is 100% solable and I think it"s unfair to give me this burden. I"m mainly focusing on why we shouldn"t have pay day loans not how I will solve for all 12 million individuals. That"s my burden to prove why we shouldn"t have pay day loans. The danger PAYDAY LENDING IN MY AREA In fact according to http://money.cnn.com... in my own state Texas many citizens are getting arrested for pay day loans. Arresting people -- or threatening to do so -- over unpaid debts has been illegal in Texas for years now. Yet, that hasn't stopped payday lenders from using the criminal justice system to go after more than 1,500 borrowers in the state. Payday lenders are routinely turning to the courts seeking criminal charges when borrowers don't have the funds to repay their loans on time, a report from Texas Appleseed found. Such charges can lead to arrest or even jail time if the courts decide to pursue a case. "In addition to their outrageous rates and lending practices, payday loan businesses are illegally using the criminal justice system to coerce repayment from borrowers," said Ann Baddour, director of the Fair Financial Services Project at Texas Appleseed. Next there are many online alternatives that are similar to pay day lending like my opponent pointed out. The fact that this is just my location alone shows the possible other consequences to individuals. I already stated the dangers of payday lending in general in my case but just wanted to show narrow impacts. In conclusion my opponent doesn"t clearly state why we should actually have pay day lending services. I state why we should not. Sure I don"t provide the perfect alternative but that's not my burden. I am just proving there are ok alternatives and pay day lending should be ban.

negative: A Corporation can be "too big to fail" Thanks for the response darkkermit. ==Rebuttal== My opponent cites a number of economic concepts but none of them prove that a corporation cannot become "too big to fail." R1) The Role of Profits All of my opponent's arguments here assume a) multiple firms in a competitive market and b) relatively elastic demand. Darkkermit himself says that a lack of profits means either a) too many competitor firms or b) a lack of demand (which is not possible if demand is inelastic). However, all of my arguments deal with industries that have a) very few firms and b) inelastic demand, meaning an inability of consumers to consume less or to switch to other products. So darkkermit's arguments don't apply. R2) Opportunity cost and scarcity Darkkermit argues here that a firm that is "unprofitable" is wasting resources. This is true. A firm that CONSISTENTLY (each business Quarter) fails to turn a profit IS wasting resources. However, firms go bankrupt for reasons OTHER than failing to consistently turn a profit. Often times, although a firm consistently turns a profit each quarter, the firm takes a huge, temporary loss that it cannot cover. After a bailout to cover the firm's losses, the firm is more than able to return to turning a consistent profit. If anything, letting the firm go bankrupt is wasteful because it is still a potentially profitable firm. I'll offer two examples: 1) if there was a temporary one-year drought, Monsanto might be in danger of going out of business, but could survive if the government covered its temporary losses; 2) Goldman Sachs lost too much money in the 2008 Financial Crisis, but was able to return the government's bailout money after only a few months and return to profitability. I'll agree with darkkermit that the government should not bail out firms in markets where each firm is small and there are a large number of competitor firms. I'll also agree that the government should not bail out firms in markets where demand is relatively elastic. I only argue that businesses in essential industries (food, power, and financial services) can become too big to fail. R3) Bankruptcy reallocates resources Economists are always stressing the difference between the LONG RUN and the SHORT RUN. Creative destruction occurs in the LONG RUN. Eventually, if a large monopoly goes bankrupt, smaller and more efficient firms will move in to take its place. However, in the short run, the bankruptcy of a large monopoly causes what we call a "supply shock," which is a huge disruption in supply that causes a massive spike in prices. The problem is, as I argue, that in essential industries with inelastic demand, the short run supply shock that occurs for the first 5-15 years causes too much damage before the long run benefits start materializing (after 15-40 years). If the economy cannot survive the short run shock, then the long run benefits don't matter. Also, when a company goes bankrupt, it means there is an inefficiency in the MARKET, not necessarily the firm, and we may not like the way the market reallocates resources. For example, in the food industry, the market may decide that there are too many mouths to feed, and we cannot do it without a monopoly, so the market's solution to this problem will be smaller farms and mass starvation. The market may decide to eliminate demand, rather than shifting supply elsewhere. My opponent discusses bankruptcies in the "carriage industry," "telegram industry," and "Blockbuster," but none of these is in an essential industry with inelastic demand. By definition, because there are plenty of alternatives in these cases, demand is ELASTIC, meaning consumers can easily switch to a related product. I would agree that we should let the firms darkkermit cites go bankrupt. R4) Response to darkkermit's rebuttal Darkkermit says I assume that when a company goes bankrupt, its resources do not magically shift to other companies. This seems to be a reasonable assumption, and darkkermit is clearly misunderstanding what his sources mean by "reallocating resources." If an oil company goes bankrupt, the market allows another oil company to seek out oil instead. But it's not like everything that the bankrupt firm had suddenly goes to other companies. If Monsanto went bankrupt, no other company could suddenly swoop in and produce millions of seeds, even if Monsanto's factories were all put up for sale; it takes A LONG TIME to rebuild Monsanto's expertise and rehire or retrain thousands of employees, and it takes too much capital to buy every single factory. In fact, because of patents, no one would EVER be able to reproduce Monsanto seeds. In the LONG RUN, Monsanto will be replaced, but in the SHORT RUN, no one will be able to QUICKLY reproduce its seed production capacity. So we run out of food in the short run. Or a better example of how resources are NOT conserved when a firm goes bankrupt is: a run on a bank. Commercial banks take deposits from people and then make loans using that money. So these banks do not have enough cash in their vaults to pay every depositor if they all come calling at the same time; the banks need the debtors to pay them back before they can return all the deposits. Typically, banks only keep enough cash on-hand to cover 10% of their liabilities (money owed to other people). A "run on the bank" occurs when a crisis - such as the financial crisis prior to the Great Depression – causes people to panic and demand their money all at once. After the bank pays the first 10% of people, it runs out of money and declares bankruptcy. The remaining depositors all lose their money!! How are resources "reallocated" in this case, as darkkermit suggests? When a bank goes bankrupt, wealth is permanently destroyed; it is NOT conserved. ==My case== Let's begin with the dropped arguments. 1) Burden of proof Remember, the following banks received bailouts: Fannie and Freddie, Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Comerica, Capital One, Lincoln Financial. Darkkermit fails to explain how the simultaneous failure of all these banks would not have hurt the economy. 2) Monsanto and PG&E Darkkermit doesn't respond to these two examples of companies in essential industries. He fails to explain how the economy can weather a lack of food and power. His only potential response is creative destruction, but this only occurs in the long run. The economy can hardly survive without food and power for 5-10 years or more. So if a monopoly in the food or power industry went bankrupt, we'd be really screwed. Even if some smaller firms could start producing food or power, they would not produce anywhere near ENOUGH to replace the monopoly. The result will be a supply shock, which means a massive increase in prices. Only the rich would be able to afford food or power. Consider the following example: OPEC's oil embargo of 1973. OPEC is a cartel but it can be treated, for our purposes, as an oil monopoly (at least it was a true monopoly in 1973). When it severely restricted supply in 1973, this had a DRASTIC effect, but a LESSER effect than if OPEC had gone bankrupt and ceased to exist. If darkkermit is right, the contraction in OPEC supply SHOULD HAVE led to other firms taking over oil production. But it did not, at least in the short run. If OPEC had gone bankrupt, rather than restricting supply by 50%, it would have restricted supply by nearly 100%. There is no reason to believe, given our inability to replace 50% of our supply with other suppliers, that we would have been able to replace 100% of our supply. According to a study by NYU, the 1973 oil price shocks destroyed 1.2% of disposable income in the U.S., which is approximately $100 billion. [1] [2] The shock would have been much worse had OPEC not ended the embargo after only 6 months or had they cut off ALL supply. If we cannot replace an oil monopoly in the short run, there is no reason to believe we could replace a food monopoly or a power monopoly either. New argument: 3) How banks became too big to fail The following is borrowed heavily from Charles Morris' "The Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown." With the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies started combining into enormous mega-banks. This was a big problem. Commercial banks and insurance companies had suddenly taken on the risks of the investment banks, by combining with them. Investment banks had always made risky investments, like investing in mortgage-backed securities, but before the repeal of Glass-Steagall, an investment bank that made bad investments would merely go bankrupt. If it insured its losses with an insurance company, its investors would still get their money back. However, by combining with insurance companies, investment banks ensured that if they bankrupt their parent company, the insurance arm of said company would have no money left to cover financial losses. Secondly, by combining with commercial banks, investment banks ensured that they were wagering OUR savings accounts into extremely risky ventures, like mortgage-backed securities. So if the mega-bank went bankrupt, we would lose our savings accounts as well. This FORCED the federal government to bail out the banks because they would have had to pay either way; it was either a bailout OR FDIC (federal deposit insurance, up to $100,000) would have to cover the loss of every savings account in the country. When the banks were separate, the failure of risky investments would only bankrupt the small investment banks. Combined, however, risky investments spread the risk throughout the ENTIRE financial system. Add to that the concept of leverage, and the situation is even more troublesome. Using leverage, investment banks allow investors (and themselves) to use $1 to make an investment of more than $1. Consider an anology: if a casino let you do this, here is the way it would work. You would go to the Roulette table with ONLY $1 in your pocket. The casino would let you place a bet of $30 on black (a leverage ratio of 30-to-1) using only your one dollar bill. If you won, the casino would give you $31 (your $30 in winnings plus your original $1), but would keep the $29 of their money you used to make the bet. If you LOST, you'd owe the casino $29 dollars. That's how leverage works. Prior to the financial crisis, Bear Stearns was leveraged at a ratio of 33-to-1. At this ratio, a 3% loss wipes out the entire company. These kind of risky bets are fine when the investment bank is just betting its own money, but it is NOT fine when it is also betting people's insurance policies and their savings accounts. Credit default swaps were a way for banks to INSURE their risky investments (mortgage-backed securities). A mortgage-backed security is essentially a bundle of individual mortgages that an investor can buy. Investment banks, at this time, demanded high rates of return and by definition, more risk leads to greater returns, so banks would cut out the safer mortgages, and started only bundling the risky mortgages (subprime mortgages) together. They KNEW these investments were risky, so insurance companies started issuing a credit default swap, which means that if you lost money on the mortgage-bundles (securities), the insurance company would pay back the losses. The reason that when Lehman Brother's failed, this touched off the financial crisis, was because Lehman Brother's had been issuing credit default swaps to investment banks. When banks realized that their financial losses from the mortgage crisis were no longer insured, chaos ensued. So here's the chain of events: (1) The mortgage market goes sour. (2) Mortgage-backed securities take huge losses. (3) Investment banks are leveraged at high ratios of around 30:1. (4) This means that a 3-4% loss in the market for mortgage-backed securities will bankrupt the PARENT company. (5) Parent companies went bankrupt, meaning they ran out of money. (6) Parent companies, because of the repeal of Glass-Steagall, also included commercial banks and insurance companies. (7) Since the insurance companies were now bankrupt too, they couldn't cover the financial losses they were supposed to cover. (8) Since the commercial banks went bankrupt too, our savings and checking accounts were gone too. (9) The government had no choice but to bail out the banks. If Glass-Steagall hadn't been repealed: (1) Investment banks lose money. (2) Insurance companies, being separate, still have capital to cover the losses. (3) Our savings accounts are safe in a completely separate bank. And that's the story of how the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act caused banks to become too big to fail. Vote Pro. [1] http://people.stern.nyu.edu... [2] http://www.euromonitor.com...

negative: Remove Bush Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Removing Tax Cuts Would Reduce the Deficit

negative: Personal Bankruptcy is worth doing I should have NEVER allowed a 13 year old to debate me. Of course I get a forfeit!