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Meet Janet Dupree:72, Alcoholic, HIV-Positive, $16,000 In Student Debt: "I Won't Live Long Enough To Pay It Off"
One would think that Janet Lee Dupree, 72, a self-professed HIV-infected alcoholic, would be slowly putting aside material worries as she prepares to set the intangibles in her life in order for one last time. One would be wrong.
Janet Dupree has had her wages garnished
As she admits, "I am an alcoholic and I have HIV," she tells the BBC. "That's under control." So what is the cause of most if not all consternation in the final days of Dupree's life? "I was sick and I didn't worry about paying back the debt." As a result, Dupree defaulted on her loan, and since she turned 65 she has had money withheld from her Social Security benefits.
"Just recently I received a notification that they are going to garnish my wages because I am still working," says Dupree, who works 30 hours a week as a substance abuse counsellor.
The debt in question: Dupree owes $16,000 in student loans she acquired in 1971 and 1972.
Or make that "student loans" - debt which is crippling the last days of a person who hasn't seen the inside of a classroom in four decades.
Dupree, who lives in Citra, Florida, admits she forgot for many years that she had borrowed the money - originally $3,000 - in order to complete her undergraduate studies in Spanish.
The stunning story of how the exponentially rising...
... notional amounts of (anything but) student debt is crushing millions of Americans as recounted by the BBC:
- Outstanding student loan debt in the US amounts to $1tr
- 3% of households headed by individuals 65 or over carry student debt (706,000 households)
- 24% of households headed by individuals 64 or under carry student debt (22 million households)
- The outstanding federal debt for older adults grew from $2.8bn in 2005 to $18.2bn in 2013
- 27% of federal student loans held by individuals aged 65 to 74 are in default, compared to 12% of loans to people between the ages of 25 and 49
In 2005, older adults owed $2.8bn (£1.61bn) in federal student debt. By 2013, that figure that had ballooned to $18.2bn, according to a report released last month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
These seniors account for 706,000 households in the United States - small compared to the 22 million households with non-seniors who hold student load debt, but a growing problem. People over 65 also defaulted on their student loan debt at a much higher rate than other segments of the population, says Charles Jeszeck, author of the GAO report.
Students in the US often take out loans, both privately funded and financed by the US Department of Education, to pay their school fees. While other loans, such as a home mortgage, can be forgiven if a borrower files for bankruptcy, student loans cannot.
According to the GAO study, the number of individuals whose Social Security benefits were offset to pay student loan debt increased from about 31,000 to 155,000 between 2002-13. Jeszeck tells the BBC that this situation can cause considerable problems for older adults who, like Dupree, may have to extend their working life well beyond retirement age.
"They face the potential of reduced social security benefits and a lower standard of living, possibly a poverty-level standard of living in retirement," Jeszeck says.
Rosemary Anderson, 57, says she is fortunate not to have defaulted on her student loan, but she already knows she will grow old with a debt "hanging over her head".
Between 1991-2000 she borrowed $64,000 in order to complete both her undergraduate and her graduate studies in organisational behaviour and development.
Soon after, though, she began what she calls a "steep decline into financial hell".
She says she divorced her husband of 24 years, had health issues that prevented her from working full time, and had her salary reduced when the financial crisis hit.
Anderson, who works as a member of the emergency management team at the University of California, Santa Cruz, couldn't afford her monthly loan payments, so she entered into a series of deferment options with the Department of Education.
Today, she owes $128,000 and is hoping to get additional help from the government in reducing that amount.
The vast majority of older borrowers took out their loans in order to pay for their own studies, although a small percentage used the loans for their spouses, children or grandchildren.
Many borrowed money to pay for mid- or late-career retraining, or may have acquired loans with a very long repayment term. Others defaulted at a younger age, were unable to dig themselves out of the problem and carried it through into retirement.
The Department of Education says it is "committed to working with older borrowers to help them understand and manage debt", as William Leith, chief business officer for federal student aid, explained in a recent Senate hearing where different measures were discussed.
A department spokesperson told the BBC that there are "many repayment options available, including those based on income, as well as forgiveness programmes".
Meanwhile, Rosemary Anderson is worried. She says never imagined that she would have this problem at her age.
She feels fortunate to have a job but recognises that she will have to continue working as long as she is physically able to.
"Retirement is not part of my vocabulary," she says.
"I will never live long enough to pay off my loan."
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I'm alcohol positive too.
Real fun at parties.
Partying it up with the university presidents and chancellors I take it.
http://time.com/104243/salaries-of-public-university-presidents-rocket-d...
'"Just recently I received a notification that they are going to garnish my wages because I am still working," says Dupree, who works 30 hours a week as a substance abuse counsellor.'
Sounds fine. Let her pay what she can, while she can, and we'll write-off the rest, assuming any of us and/or the Republic survives her.
Just wait until the federal government seizes all of your estate to pay off deliquent student loans.
Maybe she should be a debt counselor, too, while she's at it.
Don't worry Janet. We'll pick up the tab. We obviously have no fucking clue who you are and you kind of sound like a piece of shit. However, fair is fair right?
Only in America...
...She qualifies to be the new Ebola Czar's, Second in Command.
Charming all the way around.
Why doesn't she just find a job that pays moar?
Jamie makes enough in one day to repay her entire loan.
For those that didn't connect the dots yet ... this is how the government will afford all those trillions in unfunded liabilities.
Now, off to college with your children!
Regards,
Cooter
Is that a picture of her from 50 years ago?
The logical second half of her statement is missing:
I can't payoff my debt before I die, and I really don't care.
USSA in a nutshell.
It comes as a surprise when you get the letter from the bank holding the student loan note that says the interest rate on it is going from 1% to 8% just because the dear darling graduated (and has yet to find a job). Mom & pop are on the line for it. (True story.)
I'm still trying to figure out how someone fucked her to give her the HIV.
Listen Americans.
Fuck that, don't pay back any loans. Those bankers can write the losses off and the Federal Reserve backstops the "LOSS" with their counterfeit US Dollars, reimbursing the Banksters.
No one looses. No One!
C'mon everybody. Let's not be too hard on her. She's a very positive person. She could have been HIV-negative. Then I would understand the bashing.
So because she's a victim (of HIV, alcoholism, sexism and whatever) she should get a pass on the debt?
I just don't get the point of some of these stories. What is so unfair about expecting student loan deadbeats, house flippers, check kiters, credit card scammers and all the other degenerates to PAY THEIR OWN FUCKING WAY????
Wow, mean crowd today. Great piece, a few quick points.
If she borrowed money to buy drugs, gamble in Vegas, or for closing costs on a McMansion the debt would be discharged. Anyone else see the injustice?
The rules changed on her. Student debt became "forever" sometime in the eighties. Illegal, and an unconstitutional taking, but who cares, right.
Depending on the state she is in, Student loans can and are being discharged in bankruptcy. It is the judge's discretion, and this is a slam dunk. Old lady needs to go jurisdiction shopping.
Has ZH turned into a dating website..??
She looking for a sugar daddy..??
This ones got you written all over it, brah. Go for it.
No shit. This poor woman who is assumedly trying to do some good as a former addict turned drug counselor (I know there are some on this site who can relate) and some of you a-holes are trying to nail her for student loan debt from 40 years ago?
I get it, she didnt pay back her loan. Shes a normal working stiff who doesnt deserve the venom here. Lets save that for those more deserving, huh?
If she borrowed money to buy drugs, gamble in Vegas, or for closing costs on a McMansion the debt would be discharged. Anyone else see the injustice?
The rules changed on her. Student debt became "forever" sometime in the eighties. Illegal, and an unconstitutional taking, but who cares, right.
Are we certain from the story that her debt was unconstitutionally, retroactively determined non-dischargeable after being created as dischargeable? Aside from the fact that focusing strictly on the facts of this particular case is dramatically more narrow than what the entirety of the comments are discussing as well as what the Tylers were attempting to generate by posting the story...
Old lady needs to go jurisdiction shopping.
Yes, because $16k is worth changing her domecile over...
As you know, Macho, there are several ways to beat this. All she needs to do is contact SS and say she owes nothing. Whoever is getting the money would have to produce documents, dates, service notices, which they won't have.
This might be useful on some old cases. Looked it up years ago. The statute says, for loans made or renewed, after the date of the law. If the debt really is that old, that kills it.
The statute says, for loans made or renewed, after the date of the law.
Bingo.
The principal was $3,000 in 1972, now in 2014 it has ballooned to $16,000. As far as "taxpayers picking up the tab" that talking point that about half of the Zero Hedgers are currently whining about, reduce the student loan interest rate to ZERO.
Due to ZIRP, The Fed lends money at zero to TBTF so why can't the Department of Education lend at zero to students? Oh yeah because college students are little people that don't count, that's why.
The way to resolve this is old student loan debt beyond seven years which is the typical statue of limitations for most states, is to stop accruing interest, and let the student settle on the principal only with a new payment plan.
This will never happen though, because the banks don't want this to happen. The banks don't care if you die in debt because the principal has been more than repaid many times over.
I was turned on to this site through Max Keiser back in 2009, and now in 2014 the commenters on this site are now more and more leaning towards neocon. What's going on? Blame the little guy for the crimes and scams of the big banks?
Whatever happened to using "pitchforks" against the banks? Nowadays it's "let them eat cake"
Thanks for the downvotes.
Youre normally a jerk.
Greenie for ya on this one.
Thanks for the greenie. I don't try to be a jerk on purpose but I like to challenge one's beliefs, because this is fight club, so, ummm, thank you. :)
You did not get any junks. Welcome to the echo chamber...
(Personally I can not care less about junks most of the time. However if someone junks without comment is when I sometimes will get irritated. If they believe me to be so off my rocker I'd like to put myself in their shoes and see where they are coming from.)
9thDr, I would not attach too much meaning to all the 'neocon' / 'fuck poor people' comments: there are A LOT of COINTELPRO posters here, posting exactly what our Divide & Conquer elites want us to read and think about.
So yeah, a bunch of assholes come out each time to play the angles that please TPTB, and they pretty obviously use software to jack up some of the votes, but that's just a part of the political game.
I come here 'cos I know I'll find people like you with good, thoughtful comments and I don't let the trolls stress me out, nor do I believe that they are representative of the 'real' community here, although I don't doubt that some weaker minded individuals may get tricked by them some of the time :)
@christophe2
I agree with not attaching meaning to labels, but unfortunately I'm trying my best to convey an ideological type to my fellow layman. Most of this audience has a general idea what I mean by neocon. It ain't perfect and all-encompassing, but close enough.
I can definitely tell there is manipulation on this site.
I've been reading ZH since 2009, mainly to up my game. The bailouts woke me up big time to the economics angle of my NWO conspiracy research, and I liked this site, mainly because the comment quality was super high back then.
I just read. I wanted to learn as much as I could by understanding the technical analyses from an economic standpoint on how the TPTB/TBTF are pulling off this astronomical-sized mega-scam.
Lately, there's been a lot of click bait articles, and I finally made an account a month or so ago, because I felt like I had to chime in, and make counterpoints to let others know that there is still opposition to bankster scams.
The TEA Party went full neocon. #Occupy failed. But I still want to post my interpretation of freedom. Freedom from big banks. Freedom from corporations. Freedom from the state. Freedom from the Church. And mainly psychological freedom to get humanity into the next level... whatever that may be.
I may come across as jerk, as I've been told in countless forums, but telling people new information that they would rather not hear about is how we advance.
"The way to resolve this is old student loan debt beyond seven years which is the typical statue of limitations for most states, is to stop accruing interest, and let the student settle on the principal only with a new payment plan."
I like this idea, it maintains some form of accountability, perhaps also garnish more wages and SS benefits if the student does not initiate a new payment plan or limit the interest paid to the rate of inflation. Make the banksters who initiated the loans eat the difference.
I like this idea, it maintains some form of accountability, perhaps also garnish more wages and SS benefits if the student does not initiate a new payment plan or limit the interest paid to the rate of inflation. Make the banksters who initiated the loans eat the difference.
"The way to resolve this is old student loan debt beyond seven years which is the typical statue of limitations for most states, is to stop accruing interest, and let the student settle on the principal only with a new payment plan."
Well Silky, she probably aquired HIV due to a leaky liver due to her alcoholism. More and more people are seeing "HIV" as just free floating cell fragments and proteins in your blood. Go figure the harder you are on your body, the more likely that you will be deemed HIV positive.
HIV is no longer the death sentence that it was, but not for the reasons that they say.
http://www.houseofnumbers.com/site2/
pods
Exactly. And if you con't believe Kary Mullis, who the fuck are you going to believe ? Everyone needs to needs to watch this video; which is on U-Tube. "House of Numbers" look for it.
It didn't take long for the colleges and universities to worm into the fiat scam. Permanent debt with interest--the gift that keeps on giving. Meantime those same places have morphed into academic retirement homes.
+1
Never treat the disease, only the symptoms!
DaddyO
Colleges and universities are governmental institutions... fund accounting 101, spend all you get this year or you might not get as much next year... It was inevitable from the inception of the public institutions.
As a species, it's too late. Everyone's been programmed to believe in credit as a means of daily operation.
Little do silly humans remember, that other than a few special exceptions, nature allows no credit.
Morality evolves. Soon it will be completely moral to be a deadbeat.
Government, once again, is leading the way.
lim (goodness) = 0
t->inf
That I do know. Since morality is a function of goodness, it becomes more and more of an awkward concept to deal with as t increases in value.
In 1983, my sponsor advised me to clear away the wreckage of my past through living a program of recovery.
Through this advise and his guidance, I was able to do just that, no more looking over my shoulder to see who was still after me.
Freedom revolves around owing no man any thing but love.
2008 left me with more mess to clean up from on-going business operations and loans that crashed as a result of Hank Paulson's trip to the Oval orifice.
Hank's gun to the head or I crash the economy talk with shrub left many taxpayers in dire financial straits.
I'm just now getting to the bottom of the hole they dug for me through their shenanigans.
I'm still here and still honoring the committment to repay the monies I willingly borrowed and used.
Personal Responsibility is not a character trait in long supply in our society today, so don't hold your breath waiting for more goodness in general.
DaddyO
Appreciate the words DaddyO.
The best you can ever do in this life is to live up to your word and honor the commitments you chose to make. If you can do that lifelong without failing, it's a good life lived.
It has been "moral" to be a "deadbeat" lately, because under this fiat system that we are currently dealing with, we are using arbitrary 1s and 0s, instead of hard tangible assets like silver and gold.
Walking away from an outstanding loan where the lender all ready got their cut long ago, is the only way out under this crap system.
that which can't be repaid, won't be. We are in a depression, and there won't likely be a recovery any time soon. All that debt is eventually going to be written off anyway, just wait and see. I personally don't blame people for saying 'fuck it'. the govt is currently borrowing money for 30 years at around 3%, but charges these kids 6.5-7% on loans. The only reason this bubble hasnt popped yet is becuase you can't discharge it in bankruptcy.
This depression has been pretty good to guys like this Joshua Mandelman.
Taxpayers Fund $454,000 Pay for Collector Chasing Student Loanshttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-15/taxpayers-fund-454-000-pay-for-...
IS HE RELATED TO ANYONE IN CONGRESS?
Josh prolly has a few cousins in CONgress.
Why didn't she file bankruptcy like all those Ivy League kids did back then? Harvard educated for free.... and now running this shit show.
I don't think you can discharge fed student loans in BK. My opinion is this is more of the same "how do you steal money from people don't have any? Just give it to them" game.
Like the sub-prime housing thing except without any collateral whatsoever. The houses just went along for the ride, and so does the "education"...it was all about financializing the debt.
But she could get a credit card, write a cc check to the stu loan. Fart around w/min pmts for 2 yrs then call up your friendly BK attorney. It's all silly, but you gotta do the admin correctly. Hell, good ol' Trump's gone BK 4 or 5 times by my count.
She's PERFECT!
For the next Feral Reserve Chairperson!
Now drink up..
Cheers!
PATHETIC US System...
The FED Fed Billionaires Get Fucking Richer, While Everyone Else Gets F'ed Up The A$$ ...
Damn you Sally Struthers, pushing those TV and Hvac repair classes.
Archie was right you are a dingbat
"My those people must be poor, they're all sharing the same cigarette", Edith Bunker quote while looking out the window of the kids new apartment.
Au contraire.
Smug Europe is ACROSS THE BOARD, MUCH further along the downward spiral.
Tell me how you rack up 3k of loan debt in 1971, I call .... I call Bullshit on the story.... College was $250 a semester back then.......
She must have stayed in college for six years?
Yeah. People do not need Residence Halls (Housing) or, God Forbid, Books and Supplies. I mean you go to college to get laid. You go to the Library to learn and read Books.
And who needs a Meal Ticket for that Garbage that you were served in those damned Cafeterias? I mean...yeech. (Although that Food Fight held in protest was kind of fun to watch as a spectacle...)
My bet is that it cost about $900/per semester in 1971 as it cost me $1500/per semester back in 1980.
And certainly she could not ring up $3000 in debt. It must be bullshit.
From the article...
Dupree, who lives in Citra, Florida, admits she forgot for many years that she had borrowed the money - originally $3,000 - in order to complete her undergraduate studies in Spanish.
I guess that she never made a payment and all of that INTEREST, COMPOUNDED added $13,000 more to the bill.
But, of course, tuitions and other associated costs began increasing as Financial Aid, Federal Money, was pumped in.
Doctors, for instance, used to be affordable...before Medicare. It is the same with Post Secondary Education.
Now fucking kindergardeners get Student Loans to attend posh Kindergardens. And of course those Pre-Primary Schools charge exorbinant tuitions because of the infusion of Federal Funds.
This is insanity.
Right - so a person who has gotten sober, is making shit money trying to help other people get sober and potentially become a productive member of society is a piece of shit because she fell into the trap of getting into debt to go to what is likely an outrageously over priced (community) college to get a degree?
Maybe the problem is that students don't get the same negative interest loans that rich people and financiers do and maybe the other problem is that a college education is ridiculously overpriced in the US?
You kind of sound like a piece of shit too...
She acquired the loans in 71' and 72'. Thats over 40 fucking years and she couldn't pay it off. I call bullshit. She never intended to pay that shit. Ever. Her work with addicts is fantastic. That's why I said "kind of a piece of shit."
Exactly my thoughts. Are we suppose to feel sorry for someone who could not pay back $16,000 over 40 years? That is $33 a month. Half of my cable bill.
Back in 1972, she could have discharged the debt in bankruptcy. If she only knew...
Why would you expect her to have not known? It's probably every bit as likely that she was simply apathetic... Maybe she changed her mind over time... who knows.
you unpack some convincing rhetoric but at the end of the day you have someone who plainly never intended to pay back the loans and is now well, well past any contribution she made to SS or medicare.
In other words - she's taken, and taken, and expects other people to foot the bill - and the people paying are going to the working and middle class, who have been getting fucked in the ass on real tax rates relative to wealth for 100 years, and they're gonna keep getting raped so long as .gov see saws between despicable reds and incompetent, cryptofascist blues.
To quote a living legend:
WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?"
WHAT DIFFERENCE, At this point, DOES IT MAKE?"
Every difference, because the women in this article still has to look at herself in the mirror.
Again, personal responsibility is liberating and not to be viewed as a chore, but rather a privilege.
Just my .02
DaddyO
that is matrix thinking.
i think she's looking to take the red pill.
Forgot one big thing ersatz, the "rich" never enter into a loan that they cannot discharge through bankruptcy.
pods
With all due respect pods, any good business person always looks at recourse v. non-recourse or should.
Back in the good ole days, bankruptcy was the choice of last resort for most businesses and individuals because it had a huge negative connotation and impact going forward.
Today, not so much...borrow at will and only repay if it's convenient seems to be the mantra on Wall Street.
Jon Corzine bring any thoughts to mind?
The situational ethic has eroded all hope for a moral society at this point.
Again, just my opinion...
DaddyO
another alternative might be a financial planner for other people like herself. think of the income she could make!
She make a mistake she should have lived in one of those free countries; what do they call them; oh, yeah, democracies; and elected a community organizer as a national leader, then everything would have come out better.
It is no coincidence that she lives in Florida. Her house is safe for now, I think.
I dont think she really has an estate. She's will get the best of .gov, die while she's in the red. She'll probably get as many credit cards as she can and max them out too
Can you blame her?
Another example of how the one per cent -in this case the college administration and bureacracy-enslave the taxpayer to their own ends
To that we can add the banksters
the health care bureacracy
and all their uberoverlords-the Congrssional princilings on Capitol Hill in DC that let all this play out into thir own pockets
Go ahead and loan her money. She would rather owe it to you for the rest of her life than pay it back. Then try to beat you out of it at the last minute.
The issue is that she needs greater access to lower cost student loans. All the other stuff is just trivia.
Sure, just take it from other tax payers to subsidize her (and other people's) student loans. Thats a great vote buying scheme! How about we make professors actually teach class instead of a bunch of TA's? How about we don't pay coaches at universities millions of dollars? They have these fat cat salaries all over campus, and can pay Hillary $250K to talk for an hour. You wonder why tuition is high?
Sure, just take it from other tax payers to subsidize her...
Thus, the reason for her shit eating grin.
No...how about removing the special status from student loans, and put them BACK under the bankruptcy laws?
There is NO reason for student loans to be given this unique protection. And before anyone starts with the "They can't take back the education..." argument, stuff it!
They can't take back the dinner or vacation you charged on your VISA either, but Visa isn't getting any special protection. That's the whole POINT of unsecured debt! And creditors who ISSUE debt know this!
Giving student loans a special protection is illegal, and violates the whole spirit of the bankruptcy laws!
Bankruptcy is too tempting for the twits in college. If you add bankruptcy protection, then also remember to take away the gov't guarantee on that loan and just have the "free market" give out those loans. No bank is ever going to touch that deal, unless the parents are co-signing.
What kid has any collateral to use on a loan? At 22 I would have been happy to just declare bankruptcy if it was an option. At that point, why not?
Why would you ever leave school if you could declare bankruptcy? Hell, stay there for 40 years and get 10 different 4 year degrees. Think of all the pussy you would get? And when the funz over, declare bankruptcy. Its so EZ!!
"Career College Student"... nice...
For all of you down-arrowing me, does that mean we should let college students just default on their student loans by declaring bankruptcy? Seriously? Once that's ok, what student wouldn't declare bankruptcy the moment they leave school?
I guess nobody should be responsible for repaying their debts. That seems to be the American way. Silly me for finishing school and repaying my student loans.
I did not junk your post...although I should...
In Psychology 101 I was taught about the principle of psychological transference. People initially transfer their own attitudes upon those which they do not know. (In a sense I am transferring my attitude about this theory upon you as I believe it to be just what you are doing.)
If someone believes themselves to be honest and trustworthy then that is what they will expect others to be.
Likewise if someone believes themselves to be dishonest and crooked then that is what they expect others to be.
Now this is INITIALLY as new information may demonstrate otherwise.
If you expect that others will default upon their student loans and responsible about repayment of debt then just what should I expect about your potential behavior? That you would balk on your debts and declare bankruptcy?
You exposed yourself..psychopath.
That is the reason that so many are junking you.
There was another article here on ZH which I read a few hours ago. It stated, correctly, that most Middle Class will repay their debts. It stated that the rich are the poorest of credit risks and are the ones most likely to balk on debts...and that is the reason why they are rich.
It demonstrated how and why the Middle Class is experiencing "Financial Repression".
SO IF YOU INCUR A DEBT...PAY YOUR FUCKING BILLS FREELOADER.
Moron. Reread my last sentence.
U are the moron.
If the student debt wasn't inescapable, then lenders would be FORCED to only lend to students learning USEFUL FUCKING SHIT, instead of the total BS that the fucking MAJORITY of students 'study' nowadays.
Hence, stupid fucking kids wouldn't be able to stupidly get 50K in debt partying and learning nothing, because no one would ever lend them the money in the first place.
Which brings us back full circle: student debt was made inescapable because banks were unwilling otherwise to pay for BS that didn't give anyone any useful skills. EDUCATION IN AMERICA IS RARELY AN INVESTMENT - IT IS A TRAP!
Then you tell me the reason why that you believe that the vast majority of students will default upon their Loan Debt if it was allowed to be discharged in Bankruptcy...(Because you would have declared bankruptcy and had it discharged?)
Since you begrudgingly repaid that loan then it just demonstrates your psychopathy.
You would have walked away had it been dischargable, wouldn't you have?
Are you having fun looking in the mirror at yourself? Do you see your UGLINESS within?
You are not genuine. I take pride in paying my bills, pal. I do not do it begrudgingly but I do it because it feels good.
PAY YOUR FUCKING BILLS FREELOADER.
Oh stop your whining! I'm so sick of you holier than thou's, lecturing the rest of us on our responsibilities...If the system hadn't been allowed to get out of hand, you might have a point. But to insist that people should just mindlessly keep throwing money into the debt-abyss at a time when those collecting the payments have made it nearly impossible to earn enough to service the debts, or to escape them, is just too much...really.
Instead of defending the status quo, why not start asking why it IS this way in the first place?
I too, have paid much into such loans. And yet I do not begrudge those who need to discharge them, because I see how badly fucked-up the system IS. I understand the need to reset, even if I won't personally and immediately benefit from that. (No, they won't refund any of our payments...) I see my benefit as ensuring a future system, instead of dealing with a major economic collapse that would wipe out whatever gains I managed to accumulate anyway.
People have to stop worrying about what THEY aren't getting, and start looking at the bigger picture here.
Like if a system is rigged to game you; it IS ok to game it right back.
I would rephrase it a bit...If a system is rigged, it is ok to do what you must to escape it. Better to withdraw then to try and play the game right back at them.
I'd not take advantage of it, but I won't participate or support it either.
When I got out of high school we had state land-grant universities that you could attend without tuition. All I had to pay for was room and board at a dormitory. Which I did by being a janitor in summer vacation, and living in my parents house; so all my paychecks could be saved to pay for the dormitory fees. then the government started loaning people money and the result is the famous "third party" result. The university starts raising the prices because they have a new payee, with deep pockets. It was a form of corruption. At that time it was part of the American experience, that if you had good test scores and you were accepted at a state college your expenses would be very, very low. you could work various part time jobs, and so forth. Now that that is changed it's no longer the same country.
Yep, they monetized education, and turned it into another revenue stream for investors via the government. And the fuckers did this under the guise of "helping students". Yeah, they "helped" them right into insolvency. The Democrats come up with this shit, and the Repubs go along provided their friends get a cut. Things inevitably go wrong, and both sides point their fingers at each other...
Rinse, repeat.
no - encouraging bankruptcy is not the answer. maybe we should fix why a college education is so f-ing expensive in the first place...especially when you consider the fact that very few jobs care WHERE you get your degree as long as you have one and you're competent. calculus is fucking calculus - whether you learn it at a community college or at harvard.
Well Scotty, in order to LEAVE school to declare bankruptcy, I guess you'd have to have gotten the loan in the first place...
Shouldn't these issues have been worked out BEFORE the kid got the money? What due diligence did that loan officer use with this student? If the student had little or no income, why haven't the parents been asked to co-sign?
And if a bank were to loan this kid more money, for 40 years, wouldn't your problem be with THEM, and not the student? If I leave a bag full of dollar bills out on the sidewalk in front of my house every night, are you going to sympathize with me in the mornings when I discover it's been stolen? Gonna help me round up the perps? Or are you going to tell me to stop being such an asshole and take better care of my money?
"No bank is ever going to touch that deal, unless the parents are co-signing."...
You say that like it's a bad thing...Yeah, of COURSE it would get harder to get those big loans. It SHOULD be hard to get such a big loan without the income to service it, and a student should think long and hard on what he is going to sign on for. It may be necessary to alter plans, but this is life. Colleges too, would have to make changes...tighter loan requirements would dry up much of the easy money they waste on sports teams and useless courses that leave graduates unemployed.
My God, have people completely forgotten what debt IS? They want to make it easier to GET those loans, and impossible to discharge them. Do any of them SEE the logical outcome of such policies?
Ah, why do I bother? As I have said many times before, I've withdrawn as much as I can from the financial web. It's not possible to completely detach, for me anyway, but suffice it to say that I am NOT a contributor anymore. And before anyone makes any smart-ass commentary, I'm not TAKING anything either, your precious tax-dollars aren't being thrown my way. And I wouldn't want 'em anyway.
Credit will destroy the system, period. People can weep and gnash their teeth over the "unfairness" of not being able to collect every last dime of profit, but the fact is that massive write-downs and write-offs of debt WILL happen, despite your objections. Credit and Debt cannot fuel a healthy economy. Yet, the whole push is to easier credit, and loans for just about everything.
For any of you who think credit is a good thing, please tell me just how big can this thing get? How can you squeeze more loans out of a system where almost everyone is using all available income to service debt?
THEN what happens?
Understood. We agree 100%.
What med student or law student wouldn't immediately declare bankruptcy the day he/she graduates? What moron would choose to keep 350k in debt when they could simply discharge it and start over?
Now think about that for a second. How are they going to set up a practice without credit - credit which would be destroyed for at least 7 years if they declared bankruptcy. Makes no sense.
You think people coming out of school set up their own practices? God help them if they think school remotely prepares them for the task...
The system now has these same professionals taking shit jobs that pay off their student loans over time (e.g. working for legal aid, state governments, federal government, charities, practicing in underserved areas in the middle of fucking nowhere)... either way, they lose the time/money post graduation/certification. Some of them never get out from under the debt... hell, sometimes it's actually worse for these folks to work for an employer that pays off their student loans because the employer may find a reason to fire them before their contract is up and then attempt to recover the entirety of the loan payments all at once (whereas at least the creditor would allow you to pay it off over time). Of course, if they actually made the payments on the employee's behalf, then it should have had the effect of transforming the debt to dischargeable for each dollar paid on the employee's behalf...
Further, working for many of these institutions is actually worse for the careers of these folks because they probably don't actually learn how to practice worth a shit... sometimes a scarlet letter for anyone trying to jump ship into private practice.
The moral of the story is to not go into debt... The risks usually outweigh the benefits. That will change eventually, as all things do, but for now and the medium term, run away.
Very few! And THAT is what their bankruptcy protection racket has allowed them to forget!!!
Yeah, guess WHAT? PEOPLE ABUSE LOANS! There are actually *gasp!* people who DELIBERATELY take out loans INTENDING to default! I know, I know...hard to believe...
If I send someone in Nigeria money with the intent to profit somehow, and end up getting hosed, who gives me my money back? If some law was broken, perhaps I can get law enforcement to help, but my money is gone, gone, GONE! Too bad, so sad. I should have used due diligence...And I'm just a housewife from PA...
Now, let's go to Mr. Big Bank Exec...HE has training and knowledge way beyond what I have...surely THIS guy knows all about due diligence, right? Surely HE carefully vets his loan applicants, and wouldn't do something so stupid as to send money to some Nigerian scammer...
Well, not only DOES this idiot send the money, he then turns around and gets the government to give him his money back out of taxpayer funds! Then he goes and sends MORE!
So, you are right, these things did, and do, happen. The answer is to go after THOSE borrowers, and prosecute them for fraud. The laws are already in place, they are only awaiting enforcement. But to shield these bankers from the consequences of their own bad decisions only guarantees more bad decisions being made. The threat of default or bankruptcy is a NECESSARY thing to have in a healthy credit system, it keeps creditors on their game, and makes them picky. Just like the treat of prosecution should keep debtors from abusing THEIR end of the system.
The fact that bad things will happen to you if you aren't protected from the consequences is an asinine argument for continuing the protection. The answer to that argument ought to simply be "No SHIT, Sherlock."
Amazingly lawyers get disbarred for trying to do that!
dont bitch about the system if this isn't an option.
I say go for it
Thank Bush Jr
No, that special honor should go to HRH Hillary! who sold out to corporate interests to rewrite Bankruptcy Law so that her corporate client banks would be compensated.
Anyone who thinks chapter 13 is a cakewalk is an idiot. A chapter 7 is even more fun. The income restraints and fees are not easily accomplished. All of the reformed BK laws are designed to screw the consumer not help him.
But I digress. Bankruptcy should be able to toss out student loans.
Meh.
Education should be free for all who want it. Take the money from the Black Ops/CIA/NSA military budget.
If she went on a biting spree in DC the world would be a better place.
Not really. There's still NO science that ties HIV to the syndrome (not disease) known as AIDS. Like Climategate, politicized science is political. Ask Magic Johnson how HIV affects him.
As always, correlation is not causation.
Magic has a different meaning I guess to him and it has nothing to do with slam dunks. (At least not in a metal loop).
correlation is not causation, but shitloads of predictable correlation over decades... essentially is.
You can go all Hume on "causation" about just about anything - that's not how science is actually done, which involves a Pragmatic, Empirical definition of "Truth", not a Correspondence Theory or apodictic definition.
Trust, son.
"Apodictic" ????
Show off.
Wow. I always heard that there were idiots that think HIV doesn't cause AIDS. I just never thought I'd actually come in contact with one.
Welcome to ZH.
Fortunately, you've come into contact with one only virtually, not actually. I wouldn't recommend the latter.
I have found more knowledgeable people online than I have in real life.
pods
It's just a numbers game...
Well, you can count me in that camp. Not saying it doesn't, but I have read of no evidence that it does.
And in science we don't usually run on belief. Well, except for AIDS. Oh, and vaccines.
:)
pods
Do your homework; find out what the really top scientists in this field of viruses and testing say about it. you'll be surprised. right now your only source of information is "popular wisdom".
Fine then quincy, giver her a case of souped up mousepox first.
The most likely case is that there is no "disease" caused by an HIV virus. The test for this virus is a joke; or it would be if it weren't taken seriously by the deluded; which includes almost everyone. Kary Mullis who invented PCR and got the Nobel prize for it; says "no way"; it's not a test, and there's never been a virus caused disease called Aids. It's a very interesting story; proabably the biggest mass-delusion / conspiracy craziness of all. World;s foremost expert on Retrovirus says; "no way". No retrovirus has ever been shown to cause disease in any animal. that's the whole family of retroviruses. It's very interesting.
Yep, and for people who want more solid, scientific data and opinions on the AIDS myth:
http://virusmyth.com/
If she went on a biting spree in the Goldman Sachs world Headquarters the world would be a better place.
fixed ;)
She's got the choppers.
Hey Janet, wanna make fourteen dollars the hard way?
I think the HIV positive declaration points to the fact that she did back in the day.
Actually the test result doesn't point to anything. it's meaningless. Look it up, it's a very interesting subject. thousands and thousands and thousands of people who test positive for this virus who have no symptoms at all; they aren't sick. Where are alll the corpses in Africa which is supposed to have millions of infected people? there aren't any. they die of what they always died of; malnutrition, malaria, TB; which preys on the undernourished, of course; and etc. It's a phoney test that doesn't mean anything.
Just another POS with absoutely no shame. Her big mistake in life was thinking too small: she should have gone into politics.
Winning...? wait no, ummm..
American Dream...? or...
Debt Slave.
Shame she ins't one of Obola's, Rubio's, Schumer's and McCain's Little Dreamers. Everthing would be free. Illegals get EVERYTHING for free.
There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword, the other is by debt.
President John Adams
While other loans, such as a home mortgage, can be forgiven if a borrower files for bankruptcy, student loans cannot.
That would be because they can reposess the house, they cant reposess your education.
So ya, even if you were stupid enough to get a degree in "spanish studies" or "Black women's studies" or some other completely idiotic "degree" like those, you should be made to pay the shit back even if it takes the rest of your stupid life.
Yeah - trying to get a degree to actually help people - that's where she was so fucking stupid. I mean if she had gotten a degree in something smart & 'tangible' like how to become a fucking banker, or a financial services provider, or marketing, or debt servicing, etc...then she would have made a six figure salary, paid off her debts, and done something 'productive'.
Fool.
I like her spunk.
"Merikans are not Deadbeats!"
Oh, wait a sec ....
Well, this was deeply depressing. Time for a drink.
It's OK. I'll pay for it. WTF, I'm paying for everyone else and thier degenerate political officeholders too, so one more won't matter.
Death is the payoff for millions of Americans.
Why do you think the peasants were so interested in the 'after life' that religion provided. Had to think it would get better sometime...
Why do you think the peasants were so interested in the 'after life' that religion provided. Had to think it would get better sometime...
Good for you Janet. Rack some more debt up while your at it.
Cheers.
Credit Cards galore. Buy all kinds of shit and hide it, maybe even some phizz. Go to prison, die, leave clues to loved ones.
Profit?
A 72 year old alcoholic HIV (+) grandmother working as a substance abuse counselor... Only in 'Murica.
Better credentials than some kid straight out of college.
No. In America we prefer to hire people with NO experience in the field they're applying for. (see "Ebola Czar"...)
Actually, MOST substance abuse counselors have some history themselves, either personally of through family members. It isn't unusual for someone to gravitate to the field after successfully battling their own demons.
She hasn't been so successful with alcohol.
Why do you say that? I didn't see anything that said she was still actively drinking.
You realize that alcoholics will continue to describe themselves as alcoholics AFTER they stop drinking? They are quite adamant about it too, as they believe that an alcoholic is ALWAYS an alcoholic...the only difference they acknowledge is if the person is actively drinking or not.
Good point. I forgot that part of recovery.