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.