Every Sunday night, when I’m pretending to do my homework at 2 in the morning, I get a YouTube notification that John Oliver has uploaded a new video. Then, I proceed to waste another twenty minutes watching it. However, this week, I did not expect that Jimmy Dore, a regular commentator on The Young Turks and the host of the Jimmy Dore Show, would respond so harshly. While there are many aspects of Oliver and Dore’s segments that are important, the one that intrigued me the most is the topic of quantitative easing and using it as a tool to, in Jill Stein’s words, “cancel” students debt. John Oliver’s arguments were given in “Third Parties” on Last Week Tonight.[1] On the other hand, Jimmy Dore’s rebuttals were in “John Oliver Quantitative Easing Debunked By Real Journalist” on The Jimmy Dore Show.[2]

Before I analyze each of their arguments, we need to have a basic understanding of quantitative easing. By definition, quantitative easing is a relatively new and “unconventional” monetary-policy tool used to buy long-term securities in order to reduce interest rates and spur economic activity.[3] I know – that’s a lot to consume. To better understand this, we turn to The Economist’s explanation. In ““The Economist Explains: What Is Quantitative Easing?”” the reader gets the picture that new money is made to essentially buy securities from banks, which in turn incentivizes banks to continue buying loans and lowers interest rates.[4] The important part here is the buying of securities from banks. It’s a misunderstanding that, as I will soon point out both Jimmy Dore and Jill Stein have, the Federal Reserve can just make new money through a “magic trick.”[5] Jillian Berman, a reporter at Market Watch, sums up the economics professor at the University of Missouri Kansas City Scott Fullwiler’s argument in "John Oliver Says Jill Stein Doesn't Understand Her Own Student Debt Plan," stating, “the Fed’s plan to buy up securities to reduce interest rates … is not the same as forgiving student debt.”[6] In short, the federal government does not simply buy up the debt and cancel it; rather, it incentivizes investment to lower interest rates.

Now that we fully understand, well… Now that we are on our way to one day possibly becoming experts in economics, we can analyze both John Oliver and Jimmy Dore’s claims. We’ll begin with John Oliver.

The first argument John Oliver makes is that the president does not have the power to use quantitative easing. This is accurate. The president has limited economic powers, but this is especially true for the Federal Reserve. In fact, President Obama had very little to do with the use of quantitative easing in 2008.[7] Of course, the President, over a long period of time, can appoint people to the Federal Reserve who are more sympathetic to the president’s policies, but the President cannot simply ask the Federal Reserve to use a “magic trick” and make money, as Jill Stein claims.

Oliver moves on to his second point that quantitative easing cannot be used to erase student loans the same way it was used for banks. As the above analysis describes, this is just factual. However, Benjamin Studebaker, who has a BA in politics from the University of Warwick, an MA from the University of Chicago, and is currently earning his PhD in politics and international theory at the University of Cambridge, offers a slightly different interpretation of Stein’s policy, in "John Oliver Doesn't Understand How Stein's Student Debt Policy Works," that shows how quantitative easing can be used to cancel student debt. He describes that instead of buying securities from banks, the government will buy student debt from banks. Then, the government will simply “cancel” it, not making a profit out of it.[8] The glaring issue here is that there is no explanation on how the government can simply “cancel” the debt it has now incurred. This implies that the banks would lose any investment they had, and there is no means of incentive that is present in quantitative easing. Also, the article concedes that this is not the same as quantitative easing. This shows that Jill Stein does not fully understand her own policy, or she does understand it and does want to use quantitative easing. The latter is a problem I will describe more in depth later.

We turn to Jimmy Dore now. Jimmy Dore was quite peeved at John Oliver’s segment, consistently labeling it as using “dishonest” and “underhand tactics” to paint a bad picture of Jill Stein. The problem with this is that John Oliver actually had the intention to give a thought out response to Jill Stein’s policies. Using rhetorical devices, such as analogies to Trump’s wall simply conveys his message. There is nothing wrong with trying to be persuasive. The problem is that Dore is not responding to the substance of Oliver’s argument.

The first argument Dore makes is repeated multiple times throughout the video. He says that Jill Stein, as the president, does not need to understand the intricacies of policy; rather, she just needs a vision. He offers two examples of this being true. The first is that “When JFK said we are going to go to the moon, John Oliver would have said ‘but you don’t know how to build a rocket.” Obviously these two situations are not analogous. Notice that I don’t even need a source to point out the clear logical problem. John F. Kennedy was not in charge of building the rocket, he was in charge of implementing the correct policies and allocating the right funding to NASA so that they can build the rocket. In the same way, Jill Stein is not in charge of transferring money between banks. Actually, she isn’t even in charge of what the Federal Reserve does, so this is a moot point anyway. Let’s imagine for a second that she did have the power to get the Federal Reserve to do what she wanted. She would need to know the policy specifics to ensure that the allocation of resources can work, just like JFK and Lyndon B Johnson needed to correctly allocate resources and understand how to invest in NASA and space exploration. The second analogy is especially poor. He says that Alan Greenspan and Hillary Clinton did not understand derivatives. I can’t believe the self-proclaimed progressive Jimmy Dore said that Jill Stein is like Alan Greenspan, and he is happy about that. I think it would have been nice to know what derivatives were and how dangerous they are, considering the over-inflated derivative market caused the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis, aka The Great Recession of 2007-2009.[9] In other words, I would prefer having informed leaders in power. Not only this, but Jimmy Dore contradicts himself. Later in the segment he criticizes Oliver by saying that Oliver probably believes that the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall and bailing out the banks makes more sense than cancelling student debt. Not only is this clearly not responsive to Oliver’s argument, it evades the discussion and points out exactly why invoking Alan Greenspan was a bad move. Those policies along with deregulation made no sense and came right out of the ignorance of politicians on the derivatives market – causing it to overinflate.

The third argument is that the President does have the power to appoint people onto the Federal Reserve. The first problem here is that this does not prove that quantitative easing correctly applies to student loans.[10] The second obvious problem is that this process of appointing people takes a long time. Lastly, it does not even disprove Oliver’s argument. The president simply cannot tell the Federal Reserve what to do. Dore claims quantitative easing happens exactly the way Stein described it, but the evidence above suggests that when it actually occurred in 2008, President Obama had no say. I discussed the evidence above, but this argument is clearly poorly warranted.

Finally, Dore brings forth a journalist’s opinion on Stein’s proposal. Granted that Robert Scheer is a great reporter, and has won the Pulitzer prize, that does not give his arguments arbitrary credence over John Oliver’s or even my own. We need to look at the warrants and the evidence. Scheer’s argument put on full display, was simply that it makes no sense that we can bail out the banks and not the students. This is the exact problem that Dore and Stein have. As described in greater detail above, the way the banks were bailed out does not easily transfer to students. Quantitative easing is not the right way to go about paying off student loan debts.[11] Lastly, Dore falls into the fallacy of hasty generalizations. Just because a person agrees with you does not mean your argument is correct. I have cited a multitude of well-qualified economists who disagree with Dore and Scheer, and also offer economic analysis and evidence supporting their arguments, something that is nonexistent in either Dore or Scheer’s argument.

I wholeheartedly concede, as a student in debt, that canceling student debt is a great idea. I support the idea that public colleges should be made free, and we need to invest in our student’s future. However, Jill Stein is horribly off base with her proposal to eliminate student debt. There are other policies that will allow the government to work directly on the problem of student debt and work to make college more affordable in the future. Quantitative easing is not the way to go, Don’t let dissatisfaction with the slow pace of change cause a quick and destructive shift in monetary policy.

[1] Oliver, John; “Third Parties;” (October 16^th, 2016); Last Week Tonight: HBO, Accessed on October 16^th, 2016; YouTube

[2] Dore, Jimmy; “John Oliver Quantitative Easing Debunked By Real Journalist;” (October 28^th, 2016); The Jimmy Dore Show, Accessed on November 5^th, 2016; YouTube

[3] Krishnamurthy, Avid; Vissing-Jorgensen, Annette; “The Effects of Quantitative Easing on Interest Rates: Channels and Implications For Policy;” (October, 2011); NBER Working Paper Series, National Bureau of Economic Research, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Finance Department; Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=...

[4] The Economist; “The Economist Explains: What is Quantitative Easing?” (March 9^th, 2015); The Economist, The Economist Explains, Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/...

[5] Stein, Jill; “How Dr. Jill Stein Will Erase Student Loan Debt;” (June 8^th, 2016); YouTube, The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur; Accessed on November 5^th, 2016; YouTube

[6] Berman, Jillian; “John Oliver Says Jill Stein Doesn’t Understand Her Own Student Debt Plan;” (October 17^th, 2016); Market Watch, Reporter, Millennial Finance; Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://www.marketwatch.com/story/john-oliver-says-...

[7] Jacobson, Louis; “Can President Obama Claim Economic Victory?” (February 12^th, 2013); PolitiFact, Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Georgia, Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://www.politifact.com/georgia/article/2013/feb...

[8] Studebaker, Benjamin; “John Oliver Doesn’t Understand How Stein’s Student Debt Policy Works;” (October 26^th, 2016); Economics, Word press, University of Warwick, University of Chicago, Cambridge University; Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;https://benjaminstudebaker.com/2016/10/26/john-oli...

[9] Stout, Lynn A; “Derivatives and the Legal Origin of the 2008 Credit Crisis;” (Spring, 2011); Cornell University Law School, Faculty Publications, Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent...

[10] Weissman, Jordan; “Jill Stein’s Ideas Are Terrible. She is Not The Savior the Left Is Looking For;” (July 27^th, 2016); Slate, Money Box; Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/07/27/jil...

[11] Evergreens; “Jill Stein’s Fairy Tale Plan to ‘Abolish’ Student Debt;” (September 9^th, 2016); DailyKos, Accessed on November 5^th, 2016;http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/9/1568286/-Ji...