Daily Updates and Insights

UPDATE: 01/11/2012 - We are all still screwed. Other priorities created by the powerful elite have distracted our great nation from dealing with student loan debt in a responsible manner. Be sure to vote in 2012 - put progressives back in charge of the Congress and then scream like hell at them to get done what you want!


Saturday, September 25, 2010

New News!

Dear Diary,

In a search for new news to lighten the oppressive mental and emotional burden of my immense student loan debt I came across two stories - one about a girl in debt up to her eyeballs (not so new in terms of fresh but a new story nonetheless) and another about a rally - which looks exciting.

So here they are. The first is featured on Kiplinger.com though I actually encountered it first on Yahoo News. So here is the link to the article which is titled Digging Out of Student Debt.

Now, I must say this article is once again missing the point and therefore useless. As I have often seen the advice is to "pick a plan" with the feds to minimize payments and/or seek forgiveness by meeting some very specific federal criteria. Neither is helpful because this young lady has $92,000 in student loan debt, ($25000) public and ($68000) private. She works at a job in an orthopedic surgeon's office making $18 and is broke at the end of the week so therefore turns to credit cards to cover the difference.

So here is my reality check for news writers my Dear Diary - how in the hell does a lower payment now (which the feds have quite a high minimum) going to help her with all this?

Furthermore, the article advises talking to your private lenders to work something out. Again, reality check - these student loan firms don't give a rat's ass if you aren't making it, they will hound you into default and back again for every red cent, no matter what.

So thanks to some serious naiveté, this putz at Kiplinger.com misses the point that this young lady was scammed, bamboozled, lied to, and turned upside down and inside out when she was told "a college degree is the key to your future."

Yeah it was a key alright - a key into a prison cell made of student loan notes, courtesy of a massive fraud born out of the deception and deceit that Uncle Same and Private Joe Banker conspired to create. Was that over the top Dear Diary?

Anywho, this next piece of information is inspiring. My friends at ForgiveStudentLoanDebt.com are organizing a rally in Washington D.C. on October 30, 2010!

This is great news because I am starting to see real activism take the place of rhetoric. Let's hope we can all be there.

The only problem is how will people tell the difference between the demonstrators in need of help and the kids out to get some Halloween treats? Hmmmmmm.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Deception, Fraud, Cheating, Theft - Just What Do You Call It?

According to Education Report, student loan debt currently stands at an estimated $829.6 billion, surpassing what Americans now owe on credit card debt.

What a milestone! That's fantastic right!? Er, not?

Yep - experts said consumers needed to spend more money to stimulate the economy so many students tried to help out obviously. The problem is they may not have done so with all the facts in hand.

How many of these new indentured slaves were explicitly told the degrees they were buying wouldn't land them a job - let alone one that would allow them to repay the average debt load of graduating seniors (of four year undergrad programs) tagged at somewhere around $24,000 by finaid.org.

How many of these same students were told that the loans would be with them to the grave or even beyond? How many were sold the idea that a college education is worth a million dollars more than what non-grads would earn in a lifetime?

Still incredible - how many of these students will think - as I mistakenly did - that a graduate degree must be the answer and incur more debt and find themselves in an even worse position several years from now?

Yes - it's a down economy and all that but we keep selling the scam don't we? , This is the illusion, the deception, the fraud - that says - a college degree or perhaps a second or third or even a graduate degree is the way to the promised land.

Sadly, the student loan scam continues today. As we cheat the next generation of college students out of their futures - how do our leaders live with themselves as they sit idly by as some of our brightest are tricked into unnecessary debt for the dream of a better life?

Call it what you will - but the deception in the education and student loan industries continues. This is the greatest scam I have seen to date - far larger than Bernie Madoff's little trick.

Soon the outstanding debt for student loans will tick over the one trillion dollar mark, that's $1,000,000,000,000. - that's more than 18 times Bill Gates total net worth!

Congratulations America! You have done it again and made it to number one once more. You have found a way to lock more of your student population into more than debt than any other nation on the planet!

I know what I call it - the greatest scam on earth! Maybe you are one those lucky people who think it's a wonderful milestone that every parent hopes for when they send their child off to college. Er, not?

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Coming Together

To anyone affected by the fraud and deception perpetrated on the American college students and their families - we must all band together and use our common voice to change the way Washington is dealing with this matter. I voted for President Obama and am so far disappointed in his work to get something significant done about student loans. And knowing that change must come while the iron is hot, I, for one, am not interested in his rhetoric anymore. It's time we force the hand of Congress and the President. We can vote against them or withhold our votes.

Before that however I suggest that we develop a common voice and stop settling for scraps at the table. We the people deserve a more perfect union where all of our rights - both economic and political are protected.

As a first I suggest that we stop arguing the minutiae and go after what we all need - RELIEF. We need ALL consumer protections returned to ALL student loans immediately. Let us leave no one behind. Let us not be divided by sham offers. In this way we can permanently change the way all future students will be treated as well.

Please - do not let your suffering silence you. Stand with me and many others to change this offense to us all. I have many links on this site to get you started so please educate yourself if you have not already done so.

At a minimum we WANT and NEED:

1. All consumer protections returned to student loans - including bankruptcy.
2. Immediate relief from our debt - particularly student loan debt forgiveness to stimulate the economy. The reason to do this is also to penalize the profiteers that have raped the American student and thus stifled the economy.
3. Sweeping reforms of Higher Education requiring all colleges and universities to guarantee each student a reasonable job to payoff accruing debt. This must also include counseling on degrees that do not yield immediate and decent paying jobs.
4. Free public college education for all who merit it - to a four year college within their home state - paid for by taxpayers as an investment in the country's greatest natural resource - its own citizens.

I can not emphasize enough that the powerful interests in the student loan and banking industries will do everything in their power to stop these changes from happening. It is the reason why we have seen nothing truly helpful to students burdened with massive debt.

It is time that the ideology of "all for 1% and the 1% for none" be put away in this country. If you don't know what I mean be this then here it is laid out for you: 1% of the people in this country now control more wealth than 95% of us at the bottom. That is absurd and wrong on every moral and logical level. And it is precisely why our leaders in Washington forget about us when so much money is shuffled in their directions.

So please get on board with this site and many others to change the way things are done in this country. Email me and post here and let me know that you are reading this blog. Spread the news of this blog to others and post about it on other sites so that the prominence of this site and the issues I am representing grow.

Please help any way that you can.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Erasing the Great American Destiny

It is hard for me to explain anymore how our rights in this country have been eroded by big business and an overly capitalistic economy without sounding like a conspiracy nut. However, I will spout off anyway and take that risk given what is at stake.

The fact of the matter is that the unregulated capitalism of the last 25 years (in the United States) has created a cult of money so powerful that most Americans are drunk on the notion of making it big - despite the odds against them. This desirous intent of many American corporations and individuals to get all they can has led to a quietly, complex collusion of sorts.

At first, I am not sure that this fledgling cult had any intent. Rather, it was just an orgy like free for all that resulted in a mad grab for cash at anyone's expense. But over time, it seems, as the initial excitement waned and yielded a new 'normal' level of greed it became clear that even more money could be made if cooler heads prevailed.

If you have to ask who these or those people are simply check out the who's who in banking and insurance industries these days. They aren't the only ones by any means, but this class of financial whiz kids have managed some incredible feats in recent years.

Under their watch, homebuyers were sold homes they couldn't afford, millions of students were trapped with escapable student loan debt, and credit card debt (along with other types) was made more difficult to discharge via personal bankruptcy. The end result has been to tie up good Americans in so much debt and financial chaos that they had little time to stop the selling off of America by exercising wise voting choices. Mind you - who among us really stood up to stop the banking bailout?

Already stretched over thin financial ice most Americans have been duped by an insidious plan that is slowly turning us all in to tradable commodities rather than recognizing each of us as human beings who deserve dignity and basic economic rights.

Anyone reading this should already be aware of the statistics to prove what I am saying is true. If you have any questions on this then challenge me and let us debate them out in the open. I am being serious when I say that I welcome the challenge. Bring it if you think you can.

Suffice to say, our country has become a sham. It's once glorious future is now in question as other countries emerge as economic powerhouses and we sit in disbelief that we are anything but the greatest nation on earth.

We can no longer sit idle my voting friends. If we want our country and collective futures back we will have to rip it all back from the hands of the banks and insurance companies - who would prefer us to get sick for a very long and profitable time and then die when appointed.
 

Budget Plannerfrom Mint.com