This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Astounding Failure of the US Educational System
The below article titled “The Educational System Was
Designed to Keep Us Docile”, by John Taylor Gatto is a fine read as a complement
to my latest article “Inside the Illusory Empire of the Banking Commodities Con
Game.” Who is John Taylor Gatto?
Mr. Gatto was the NYC “Teacher of the Year” three times, and a teacher that
became highly disillusioned with the formal education system due to its
failures to stimulate critical thinking in children.
I find it odd that people that find value in the information
I provide to my clients as well as information that I provide publicly on my
blog often desire to know of me, “Where did you go to school?” I find it even odder
that many people find my attendance of an Ivy League university to be validating
of my knowledge base and thinking skill set, as if attending an expensive
university is responsible for the thought processes that have enabled many of my
big picture, long-term predictions of the global economy to be accurate. I
believe there is absolutely no correlation between the cost of an education and
intelligence or even between formal education and knowledge, although oddly
people believe this relationship to exist. If there is a provable relationship
between formal education and intelligence, it is probably an inverse one. The
more letters you have behind your name (MBA, PhD, JD, MFA, CPA) the greater
level of stupidity one likely possesses, as the attainment of a higher level of
education means that one has been exposed for a far longer time period than the
average citizen to the indoctrination process.
I find oddest of all, the expressions on people’s faces,
when I inform them that I sincerely believe that the knowledge I gained through
formal institutions of academia was detrimental to my understanding of how capital
markets operate. In fact, I explain to those that inquire of my educational
background that I had to rewire my brain and purge it of nearly all of the
false business concepts and stupidity I learned in school because I later found
the great majority of what I had learned in school to be not only downright
deceptive, but also in my opinion, deliberately erroneous. Many people express
genuine shock when I tell them that my formal education was, as was my
education on Wall Street, almost entirely useless to any of the investment
research and analysis I perform today and that my understanding of how capital
markets move is entirely the result of self-education.
"When we look at the information Gatto has uncovered regarding the purpose of the education system as designed by the men that funded and implemented the foundation of the American educational system in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, we discover, in fact, that the US educational system accomplishes exactly what it was designed to do – to dumb down people and suppress the natural inquisitiveness and critical thought processes of children."
In fact, an article I wrote titled “Delaying a College
Education in this Economy is the Right Choice” probably generated some of the
most perplexed responses I have ever witnessed up close and in person when
discussing the content of this article with others. Some of the responses I have
heard are as follows:
But isn’t this the BEST time to send my kid to college? The
economy is terrible now, so after he graduates, the economy will be much
better, right?
You don’t REALLY mean that, do you? Everyone needs a diploma
to fall back on. Who’s going to respect you without a college degree?
How is my child going to get ahead in life without a college
degree?
Even when someone saw eye to eye with my viewpoint and
generally understood the points I was trying to make in that article, in the
end, they still bowed down to societal norms because of the fact that he or she
has been conditioned to believe in the institutional system of education.
Yes, I understand what you’re saying, he or she would tell
me. But I still need to send my child to college. What other choice do I have?
And that’s exactly what the elite want you to believe – that
you have no choice but to indoctrinate your child through a formal institutionalized
process versus providing an alternate path of education and enlightenment for
your child. In the article below, Gatto states, “It’s no secret that the US
educational system doesn’t do a very good job.” But when we look at the
information Gatto has uncovered regarding the purpose of the education system
as designed by the men that funded and implemented the foundation of
the American educational system in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, we discover, in fact,
that the US educational system accomplishes exactly what it was designed to do
– to dumb down people and suppress the natural inquisitiveness and critical
thought processes of children.
Gatto reveals that Eldwood Cubberly, the future Dean of Education
of Stanford University, argued, in his 1905 dissertation for schools that
should be factory-like in production “in which raw products, children, are to
be shaped and formed into finished products…manufactured like nails, and the
specifications for manufacturing will come from government and industry.”
I have pointed out numerous times the banker-funded state of
business academia in America as my rationale for why business degrees are often
useless. I have often told those considering entering business school that I
could sit down and talk to them for three hours and probably grant them
knowledge that will be a thousand times more valuable than anything they will
learn during a two-year MBA program at Harvard Business School. I say this not out of
arrogance. I acknowledge that I still have a long road to travel in my
own educational journey. I say this only because I am 100% convinced that the
business school curricula of all traditional institutions of academia will
never provide the knowledge young adults need to succeed in today’s Empire of
Illusion.
Today, revered professors all across the US teach students the
nonsense that bankers want them to learn and that bankers want them to believe
is real, NOT the reality of how currency markets, stock markets and commodity
markets truly operate. Gatto confirms my thesis by pointing out a statement
from the Rockefeller Education Board, a key institution that was a critical
force in shaping modern education in America: “We shall not try to make
[students] into philosophers or men of learning or men of science…The task we
set before ourselves is simple…we will organize children…and teach them to do
in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect
way.”
The Educational System Was Designed to Keep Us Docile (John Taylor Gatto)
About the author: JS Kim, the founder and Managing Director of SmartKnowledgeU,
a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm, attributes
zero of his success as an entrepreneur to the formalized education process, his
four years of education at an Ivy League institution or the attainment of a
double masters in business administration and public policy. Instead, JS
attributes 100% of any success he has attained in any entrepreneurial endeavor
to critical thinking skills that were fostered from international travel,
exposure to independent media and artists, and self-education.
»
- advertisements -
I have friends who have three sons, two of whom graduated from the same 4th through 12th grade school my daughter attends. The third son is a ninth-grader with my daughter at this same school. Oldest son just graduated from Stanford, and is now pursuing a PhD. at Harvard on full scholarship (because of intellectual ability) in some obscure Chemistry discipline. Second oldest son attends California State University at Northridge and is merely a competent student. Where third son will fall between those two extremes is to be determined.
There is little in life that is as simple as people try to make it out to be, including education. The process of awakening a person to the powers of their own mind is a complicated process, with multiple participants involved. Schools play a role. Parents play a role. Extended family plays a role. Mentors play a role. But something more than all of these is at play in the lives of my friends two oldest boys. It wasn't schools and parents alone that determined where each of the two oldest boys are currently continuing their education. (Maybe one was breast fed and the other wasn't??)
Publically funded schools are supposed to meet the needs of everyone from the incapable to the seriously capable. With limited funds, it is difficult to pull this off gracefully. Assuming a normal distribution of mental abilites in the student population, the biggest bang for the buck comes from addressing the needs of the bulk in the middle. Those at either extreme of the distribution usually get short-changed.
It is politically-correct to bash the educators. But budget realities require teachers to force as many students through the same learning hoops as they can. This might meet the basic needs of the middle group, but it short-changes those at either end of the ability scale. Bottom line, public education teachers cannot overcome the effects of parents neglecting the educational stimulation of their children.
A lot of people would say that human beings are much more inclined to seeing the powers of their own mind before the ministrations of the state.
If kids had to have a spark struck by someone else for them, such as a teacher, then Montessori schools would never work. And people would never have learned anything before the advent of schools as they are. But Montessori schools seem to work tremendously well and people learned quite naturally long before schooling as we know it.
There's a subset of the study of philosophy called epistemology. You could loosely think of it as the study of what we know and how do we know it. The way most schools are run is oblivious to any solid principles of epistemology. One thing we know is that human beings possess curiosity. They want to know things. The Montessori method of teaching makes an ally of this curiosity. And Montessori schools subtly teach kids self-regulation. The way most schools are run shows an indifference to a student's curiosity unless he or she happens to be interested in exactly the thing being talked about at exactly that moment. And the way most schools are run teaches kids that power and conformity are central to life.
I don't have a link but I believe that there have been studies that show that achievement and education is not dependent on the amount of homework assigned. It's only symptomatic of a school having higher standards. The homework itself is often way over assigned. What were the kids doing those 7 hours in school that they have to spend another 3-4 hours doing homework? It becomes a fetish.
Yes, I understand what you’re saying, he or she would tell me. But I still need to send my child to college. What other choice do I have?
Are you going to answer the question? Pretend for a moment, that no one was being indoctrinated, nor did Gatto exist..
They're making it so that you must send you kids to college otherwise they will be unemployable. But sending them through that process gives them a toxic debt to carry, perhaps for the rest of their lives, as they then struggle to pay off the debt taken on to allow them to earn.
Colleges are just another manner in which the future efforts and value of the people are extracted. Then there's the mortgage (watch out for those), saving for your kids education (!) and finally your pension (which will be worthless by the time you get round to collecting it). Seriously - what the fuck have we done to deserve this - that is not life, that is a life sentence.
They're trying to convince people that kids without degrees are unemployable. It's a cliche at this point, but we're always going to need plumbers, mechanics, etc.
I have nearly 10 years of post-secondary education, and it's not doing me a damn bit of good. I wish I'd spent the time learning to weld or run a CnC instead.
The majority of kids should NOT be attending college right after high school. They are there strictly because they are told to be there. They have no idea what they want to do so they rack up $100,000+ in debt and maybe end up graduating with a useless degree because it was easy. We'd be much better off to let these kids get some real world experience, figure out what they enjoy, and then go back to college when they are prepared and dedicated. If anything, the first courses students should take is Financial Literacy and teach them the consequences of racking up $100 grand in debt and ending up with a job stocking the shelves at Ambercrombie and Fitch.
Our entire educational system is a fraud. The government's policies on education only benefit the Universities and financing companies that screw the students and their parents into debt.
I am not much for government money or programs, but stick em in the military, or something like the CCC. Put them to work on farms. Get them producing, using the most rudimentary tools, doing the most basic tasks, to earn an education.
We all must live within the confines of this physical world. When the Wii becomes PE classes, you've reached the point where kids need to be reacquainted with the physical world, and how it works before they begin to read about it in some book, and before they begin building upside-down pyramids.
Sounds like what the Chinese did with their young elites during the cultural revolution. The basic tasks you talk about were taken over by illegals a decade ago or offshored about the same time.
There is no money and there is no debt. There's only debt-notes and the discharge of debt. File your UCC 1 Financing Statement and start managing your own commercial affairs.
Read this article on the contributors page for your self-education:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
That's a victim mentality attitude. We deserve what we get. College (or any other) education debt is optional. I attended college in 1969 and started with a small education loan. Saw the tar pit that it was and stopped accepting it. Went to work at any odd jobs I could get and arranged my class schedule around it. My parents could help only minimally since we were certainly not rich and both parents worked. My college was punctuated with a 4 year Air Force enlistment, but I took advantage of the many college level courses offered on all the bases I was assigned to, including my year in Thailand. The Air Force paid all costs including books IF the course was passed successfully.
I'll submit (probably amidst a flurry of criticism) that those who are truly gifted and aware will rise above the assembly line structure of our "modern" educational system. Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of education, from pre-school to high school, is that it is not a day care. Parents are absolved of the responsibility that is inherently theirs. When students "fail" it is now the fault of the educational system? No. It is because parents have abdicated their responsibilities, or the student should have been enrolled in auto mechanics in the first place. This is not to denigrate mechanics, plumbers, electricians, or any other field of work. It is simply to point out that there are geniuses in every field. I forget who said it, "Everyone is a genius, just on different subjects". If one is going to do well, he will do well at whatever occupation or activity he chooses.
I'll not argue the point that current educational environments foster failure. That's a whole nother subject. It may be too late to back out of this morass. Just as with our current governmental structure, we may have to tear the educational system down to the ground and start over. Bailing wire and duct tape on what we have will not work.
The problem is that to admit the truth - that schooling is a galaxy-class conditioning system - requires guts. By admitting it, you must also face the fact that you, your parents and your grandparents were not only taken-in by the scam, but that you've praised "education" ten thousand times.
Either you have the guts to admit that you made mistakes (no big deal, really - we all have) or you don't. It is a deep fear of shame that prevents people from even facing these choices.
It depends on the discipline one's child wanted to study. When I eventually have kids, if my kids want to go into business for themselves, I would educate them myself, compile a booklist for them to read and would not even send them to university. There are many paths to entrepreneurship outside of the formal education system. I'm extremely critical of formal business education as I have found it to be largely useless in my life. If my kids wanted to become an engineer, doctor or architect then I'd still send them to school but also supplement their critical thinking skills by ensuring that I teach them how to think. But this would be more of a lifelong process since birth. I would still be actively engaged in my kid's education to ensure that I would be countering and neutralizing the structural elements of formal academia with which I disagree.
Thank GOD I'm just a high school grad. LITERALLY.
Hahaha, teaching people to become entrepreneurs in school, wait let me catch my breath again before i continue LMFAO
Even sadder that people attending these courses think they'll be set for entrepreneurial success afterwards
Hahahaha
Sorry, "Smart" but your comment about the "inverse" about formal degrees only proves you don't get it. Degrees, such as J.D.s give you one thing the rest of people who didn't go for "higher study" ain't got:
Access.
Stop making excuses about lack of access and learn how to be successful in the system we currently live in. Be a realist.
The root of your issue isn't the lament of our education system per se, its merely misplacd anger over what people with higher degrees "have" that you do not.
In the meantime when you successfully navigate winning a medical malpractice case involving anesthesiology issues, or perform a successful complicated operation on a patient, let us know.
Oh wait, you didn't get either of those degrees.
I suggest anyone reading these posts also study successful people who are self made. Being successful boils down to being a resourceful realist who DOES, not cries about what oughta be, but deals with the "what is".
Clearly, Cindy, it is YOU who "doesn't get it".
"If Yale, Harvard and Princeton were truly "higher education," why are their graduates at the forefront of most of our problems?" - Edward Ulysses Cate
Exactly.
There is no getting around the fact "the best and brightest" have always run the show...LOL.
You might have degree(s), but your comments just reek of "I'M A STUCK UP ASS WITH A BIGGER PIECE OF PAPER THAN YOU DO."
No need to get personal, either - esp. to those you don't know very well.
Degrees are overrated. It's not a coincidence the US is going downhill very quickly while the government and Wall Street are run by a bunch of Harvard/Yale grads in the upper ranks.
As for the comment "Degrees, such as J.D.s give you one thing the rest of people who didn't go for "higher study" ain't got: Access," I assure you there are lot of unemployed JDs right now wondering how they can get more access.
Besides - if you're good enough, you can hire these "entitled" paper holders to
"successfully navigate winning a medical malpractice case involving anesthesiology issues, or perform a successful complicated operation on a patient."
Access. People are either social butterflies, or a cynics. No amount of brick and morter schooling makes you one or the other, and school isn't the only path to "access." Life itself plays more of a role here. Military often have "access", as do athletes. Golf is a great path to access. Access is gained through shared pain more than shared triumph. There is no more shared pain involved in the over-priced drunken, frat parties, paid for with OPM.
If you want to be a social butterfly, go join Catillion.
Agreed. Education is fine, but self-education along with it is even better. I have three educated and self-educated children. Critical thinking skills are in place, and they are managing their own commercial affairs. All educational debt will be discharged.
Here is a sample of my latest self-education and commentary on the foreclosuregate. Read this article on the contributors page:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
Wouldn't a diploma which is earned solely to gain access rather than knowledge naturally lead to an argument for an alternative system? Why should people go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to become a part of the machine that is hellbent on destruction through greed and war? The smartest thing to do is to develop an alternative economy away from the cancerous one rather than continuing to feed the malignancy. This is going to take some people who are pioneers at heart, critical thinkers who think "outside the box." The comfort and safety that are being offered in exchange for the brainwashing are illusions. We are going to see more of these illusions becoming deconstructed as time goes on. I would rather my children become a force for good rather than greed even if it means a little more hardship for them.
Who is John Galt?
Bingo! The roots of the looters. Those who can produce nothing, must steal from those who can.
Actually Cindy, JS has plenty of access as he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, is a member of various Ivy League networks and has an MBA and MPAff. Access isn't the point of this article - the "Smart" admin
hey, bud. I believe your point is that business is not quite teachable, because it involves some "radar for bullshit" that comes with experience, as well as a developed way to think. Many programs, such as the Chartered Financial Analyst designation place a great deal of emphasis on the mechanics and methods of analysis rather than the most essential component: creativity, an ability to extrapolate from multiple sources of information, and the discipline to recognize when the conclusions are wrong and a course change is in order.
Professors are typically great at teaching yesterday's methods to an eagerly obedient student body (of minions). Great "business" involves a degree of maverick behavior coupled with a real sense of mortality for good measure. At best, the world of academia is a dress rehearsal for the big dance that demands a type of character that is seldom learned within a classroom. School of Hard Knocks and all that jazz.
...I reckon that last bit goes for surgeons, lawyers, and scientist, too; however, there is an appropriate level of educational foundation that must be mastered in order to "stand upon the shoulders of giants".
thats my two cents. Great post. love your work. love your website. keep it up!
Both the "formal education" and "school of hard knocks/self-education" are right.
It all comes down to Skill Level.
Skill Level One in anything is the rote application of mechanics and techniques learned as an MBA, CPA, CFA etc. Most employees and many managers never progress beyond level one.
Skill Level Two is applying Level One skills to new challenges not covered in Level One instruction; in other words, learning when and how to "think outside the box";
Skill Level Three encompasses both levels One and Two and involves the supervision and management of folks at the lower skill levels. Difference between levels Three and Two - usually direct in the field experience.
Skill Level Four (rare): consciously leading a work group or organization to move up the skills ladder, by expecting level ones to become twos within a certain period of time and providing opportunities for the able and motivated to progress up the ladder.
Note: only Level One is covered by formal instruction. Everything else depends on the individual's ability to self-educate and to apply what is self-learned to the task at hand.
Yep, no teacher like real life experience.
We home schooled. I called it Home Fooling. The name of my vision was Hog Warts School of Home Fooling, as Chief Inquisitor, Dungen Master and Principle we had fun learning. The kids made up a different name at graduation time. And learn we did. We enrolled in HSLDA for legal matters and a state home school association to get testing, texts and moral support.
Our job was to get the children prepared for the wacky world we live in.
There was no more important work we could have done.
The gift of what our children taught me was priceless.
The best times of my life, grow a kid, you will see.
We homeschool currently and it's one of the best decisions my wife and I have ever made. We are very close to our kids and we are constantly having complete strangers come up ot us in restaurants, etc. and tell us how well our children are behaved. My wife has an elementary ed degree from a small liberal arts college, and I have a bachelor's in biology.
As far as "socialization" goes, first think about what that word means. Then think if that's what is really best for your child, and what is the "right" thing for them. We get our kids involved in team sports so they are still around other kids. Granted, we have ran into some "odd" families that homeschool. The majority are concerned parents that want the best for their kids. And there are a number of former public school teacher mom's that are homeschooling in our area (St. Louis region).
Biff
Home schooling is the best way to go. Even then however the state attempts to control you and your children by making you bring them and take their test in order to pass to the next grades etc. In my opinion, the beast hates this because the beast cannot indoctrinate the youngsters in the communist manifesto that is really all they ever learn in public schools, not to mention the foul language they learn there and the bad habits they pick up there. Is it any wonder some white child comes home from public school one day, trying to act like and talk like he is a ghetto warrier complete with baggy droopy falling down shorts and stupid baseball caps on backwards. Yes welcome to public education. We spend a lot of money on it and still they want more from the property taxes. This country is broken.
So, how did your children turn out? Seriously. How old are they now? what are they doing with their lives? are they socially well-adjusted? what are your thoughts as you look back as they relate to the cons and pros of home schooling?
chopper read,
Great kids! Seriously. 21, 20 and 18 years. Two oldest are interpreters in US Marines. The 18 year old works at McDonalds and loves it. They are well adjusted and we are close.
Cons? Dealing with ignorant, biased "education professionals."
Pros: Spending quantity time with the kids was the best thing I ever did.
One of us was at home with the kids doing animals, gardens and field trips.
The best times of my life.
causes me to think back to the days before public indoctrination when families worked and played together. nice story. thanks for the feedback.
But dude, where's your PhD ?
Or Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or the many others who are incredibly successful yet no major college degree. College is a way to get you further into debt to the benefit of the bankers and keep you there in 'the system' of debt.
School Debt = Slavery
PS: Besides the simple fact that most college learning is either outdated by the time one graduates or worthless in the stage of employment. Sure exceptions like physician or lawyer need such formal education, yet most jobs do not REQUIRE such things.
PPS: 80% of public school 8th grade students in the USA read BELOW grade level... even at the 'no child left behind' lowered standards.
I don't think Henry Ford even finished High School. Now it seems like universities are just used as weigh stations to delay the young person from entering the job force. Now it really doesn't matter. There are no jobs for them now and there never will be again. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings but the changes we are witnessing now are permanent. The only reason you can see them better now is because of the information age and the blogs that are freely read for anyone that wishes to know and also because things are happening much faster now than ever before. There is a push for world government and they want it , I believe , in this generation. The damage done to young minds is difficult to repair and maybe impossible to repair. An example of lunacy can be seen by the number of people who join the military. One would think that comon sense would dictate that such a endeavor could be detrimental to one's health but never mind , for you see, many young people have played video games most of their lives and to them, it is all just one big game, until they feel that bullet of bomb fragment. Then it becomes to real. On my way to work this morning , I passed a high school in my area, and a man dressed in army fatigues was standing out front by his car, I guess, smoking a cigerette. So we see, that it begins early, this thing called the indoctrination process, where false patriotism is ground into young minds full of mush and the brain washing starts and by the time they are of age, they are ready to join up and give it all for the gipper, like the good little slaves that they are and have been trained to be.
"School Debt = Slavery"
A few months ago you were correct. Now - not so much, for anyone who has the ability to fill out some paperwork.
The government is writing off more than 200k on the principal and interest for my student loan debt (yes, I have a lot of letters after my name, which will probably shock some of you). Depending on how much I make, my payments may be as low as $10 a month, and after a number of years they just write off the remainder.
Virtually anyone qualifies for this. You need to be making well into the 6 figures when you graduate in order not to.
If you work for the government, you get an even better deal and will pretty much only have to pay about 15% of your overall debt at most.
This is one of many results of the government seizure of student loans. It is, frankly, insane, and a huge giveaway to schools cranking out worthless degrees and poorly educated graduates.
And, of course, I'd be an idiot to turn it down. You know those "honk if you're paying my mortgage" bumper stickers? Maybe I need one that says "I'm paying your mortgage, but you're paying my student loans".
"The government is writing off more than 200k on the principal and interest for my student loan debt (yes, I have a lot of letters after my name, which will probably shock some of you)."
It's you and everyone like yourself I hope the upcoming revolution in America make examples of. Not out of jealousy but of anger do I read this and fucking FUME when I see my taxes going up and what they're being used for.
What is the name of the program that gives such a good deal on your student debt? I and many other students would like to know!
I have never understood why anyone would go get themselves into debt for college? It makes no sense to me. What happened to the aspect of working your way through? So now we see this plan in action. Slaves getting out of college with degrees not worth the paper they are written on, diving head first into a employment situation that to put it bluntly, is dire, to say the least and then on top of that, they are burdened by a heavy debt load comprised of government backed bank loans, that cannot, I repeat cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Slaves you were and now slaves you are. Bow low my debtor friends and kiss the ring of your government slave master. Surely it crossed the fertile mind of a new student that this loan situation may not be the great deal anyone is saying to you that it is? It could lead to trouble. And so it has. I cannot tell you how many young people I have heard discuss how they are strapped with this government loan program debt and are straining hard trying to pay the crap off.
There was an article sometime ago on Esquire magazine, before it became what it is now, about two brothers. One went to medical school and the other started a gas station and car repair.
By the time the doctor graduated, got a job, paid off the college loan, his brother had already retired early had sold his business and he was on sailboat circumnavigating the globe. Go figure
Slacker.
Where do I pick up said paper work?
Oh , I almost forgot. Is it any wonder why they put floride in drinking water? It is a proven fact beyond a shadow of doubt that it has a deleterious effect on anyon drinking it. They have always told us it helps to prevent caviities but it doesn't.
Here is some info.
http://www.finaid.org/loans/ibr.phtml
There are a lot fewer restrictions on the program than there appear to be at first glance. Basically, if your payments are so small in proportion to your income that you won't get any benefit, then paying them isn't much more than an afterthought in the first place. Anyone who isn't in default on the loans can likely take advantage of this.
The biggest obstacle to getting this done is the current state of student loan servicing. The more recent your loans, the more likely the government is to swap servicers on you every 2 or 3 months. Paperwork enroute when that happens typically has to be started over from square one, and it is very easy to get into default by accident even if you are trying to pay. They also like to change the rules without warning, sometimes retroactively.
Some of the same risks apply to this that might apply to the various mortgage modification programs, but it's not like they can foreclose on your brain.
Yet.
Why didn't you just discharge the debt under Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial code?
Take a look at the debt-based monetary system in full battle regalia:
http://www.zerohedge.com/forum/asymmetrical-warfare-mill-wars-based-ucc-practice
Can you narrow down specifically what you are talking about in Article 3?
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/3/
Read the definitions section. Then read section 3-104 Negotiable instruments and 3-303 Consideration and Value.
You are going to have to review the whole thing to understand these statutes.