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Overeducated Writer Explains Why He Defaulted On His Student Loans, Asks "If He Is A Deadbeat"
There are some valid points raised in Lee Siegel's 1100 word rant against college loans (if not so much against college education). There are some bad ones. But two things are clear: the words "personal" and/or "responsibility" were used precisely zero times, and the op-ed writer, who described himself as "the author of five books who is writing a memoir about money", is hardly a glowing advertisement for an education attained (funded with either debt or equity) at one of the Ivy League's "best", Columbia University.
That, or the return on money after spending nearly a decade in university and taking out tens of thousands in loans just to achieve a Master of Philosophy degree.
- Bachelor of Arts: Columbia University
- Master's Degree: Columbia University
- Master of Philosophy: Columbia University

Why I Defaulted on My Student Loans, originally published as an opinion piece in the NYT Sunday Review
One late summer afternoon when I was 17, I went with my mother to the local bank, a long-defunct institution whose name I cannot remember, to apply for my first student loan. My mother co-signed. When we finished, the banker, a balding man in his late 50s, congratulated us, as if I had just won some kind of award rather than signed away my young life.
By the end of my sophomore year at a small private liberal arts college, my mother and I had taken out a second loan, my father had declared bankruptcy and my parents had divorced. My mother could no longer afford the tuition that the student loans weren’t covering. I transferred to a state college in New Jersey, closer to home.
Years later, I found myself confronted with a choice that too many people have had to and will have to face. I could give up what had become my vocation (in my case, being a writer) and take a job that I didn’t want in order to repay the huge debt I had accumulated in college and graduate school. Or I could take what I had been led to believe was both the morally and legally reprehensible step of defaulting on my student loans, which was the only way I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society.
I chose life. That is to say, I defaulted on my student loans.
As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans, may want to consider my example.
It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college. Having opened a new life to me beyond my modest origins, the education system was now going to call in its chits and prevent me from pursuing that new life, simply because I had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.
Am I a deadbeat?
In the eyes of the law I am. Indifferent to the claim that repaying student loans is the road to character? Yes. Blind to the reality of countless numbers of people struggling to repay their debts, no matter their circumstances, many worse than mine? My heart goes out to them. To my mind, they have learned to live with a social arrangement that is legal, but not moral.
Maybe the problem was that I had reached beyond my lower-middle-class origins and taken out loans to attend a small private college to begin with. Maybe I should have stayed at a store called The Wild Pair, where I once had a nice stable job selling shoes after dropping out of the state college because I thought I deserved better, and naïvely tried to turn myself into a professional reader and writer on my own, without a college degree. I’d probably be district manager by now.
Or maybe, after going back to school, I should have gone into finance, or some other lucrative career. Self-disgust and lifelong unhappiness, destroying a precious young life — all this is a small price to pay for meeting your student loan obligations.
Some people will maintain that a bankrupt father, an impecunious background and impractical dreams are just the luck of the draw. Someone with character would have paid off those loans and let the chips fall where they may. But I have found, after some decades on this earth, that the road to character is often paved with family money and family connections, not to mention 14 percent effective tax rates on seven-figure incomes.
Moneyed stumbles never seem to have much consequence. Tax fraud, insider trading, almost criminal nepotism — these won’t knock you off the straight and narrow. But if you’re poor and miss a child-support payment, or if you’re middle class and default on your student loans, then God help you.
Forty years after I took out my first student loan, and 30 years after getting my last, the Department of Education is still pursuing the unpaid balance. My mother, who co-signed some of the loans, is dead. The banks that made them have all gone under. I doubt that anyone can even find the promissory notes. The accrued interest, combined with the collection agencies’ opulent fees, is now several times the principal.
Even the Internal Revenue Service understands the irrationality of pursuing someone with an unmanageable economic burden. It has a program called Offer in Compromise that allows struggling people who have fallen behind in their taxes to settle their tax debt.
The Department of Education makes it hard for you, and ugly. But it is possible to survive the life of default. You might want to follow these steps: Get as many credit cards as you can before your credit is ruined. Find a stable housing situation. Pay your rent on time so that you have a good record in that area when you do have to move. Live with or marry someone with good credit (preferably someone who shares your desperate nihilism).
When the fateful day comes, and your credit looks like a war zone, don’t be afraid. The reported consequences of having no credit are scare talk, to some extent. The reliably predatory nature of American life guarantees that there will always be somebody to help you, from credit card companies charging stratospheric interest rates to subprime loans for houses and cars. Our economic system ensures that so long as you are willing to sink deeper and deeper into debt, you will keep being enthusiastically invited to play the economic game.
I am sharply aware of the strongest objection to my lapse into default. If everyone acted as I did, chaos would result. The entire structure of American higher education would change.
The collection agencies retained by the Department of Education would be exposed as the greedy vultures that they are. The government would get out of the loan-making and the loan-enforcement business. Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.
There would be a national shaming of colleges and universities for charging soaring tuition rates that are reaching lunatic levels. The rapacity of American colleges and universities is turning social mobility, the keystone of American freedom, into a commodified farce.
If people groaning under the weight of student loans simply said, “Enough,” then all the pieties about debt that have become absorbed into all the pieties about higher education might be brought into alignment with reality. Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education. There are a lot of people who could learn to live with that, too.

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Sounds Greek to me.
I am anxiously awaiting the next crash, not only for my PM and cold-hard-cash hoarding to get put to work, but the forgiveness of student loans.
When the Boomers are unable to retire because their retirement evaporated again, the Millenials will be the ones getting screwed with layoffs and job loss, the default rate, which is already higher than the mortgage default rate in 2008 -- will be eye watering. The gub'ment will have literally no choice but to write it off.
Maybe .gov starts a war with Russia, and if you volunteer to fight the Russians in Russia -- and survive -- all your student loan debt gets erased.
I just hope when someone owes you money, they say fuck you and you will say thank you. Otherwise find a tall building and jump, because you are no different.
Hi, Bankster Shit, er, Shill. When a person loans someone money, they do it out of savings. When a bank lends money, they create it out of thin air. The former is entiteld to be paid back. The latter is fraud, and not only should it not be paid back, those who issued the fake money should be hung from the neck until dead for the capital crime of money debasement.
Didn't butt secks Obama also go to Columbia?
I wonder if they "knew" each other?
Im sure that asshole didnt pay his debts either
I paid off a really high interest student loan whose principle had not even begun to shrink. They had no pre-payment penalty, luckily.
But real ball and chain, this debt bondage for an education whose sole purpose to get you a job so that you can pay off said debt.
That keeps on balooning. Their non-payment fines are outrageous.
Mini IMFers the lot of them.
My fellow zeros
when
thieves are heroes
the end
is nigh?
Live Beat...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xtJApsB4cA
We will all be paying for the rest of our lives for the idiotic brainchild of marxist Columbia professors Cloward and Piven. Hang your head in shame Columbia.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VlN2t0oERHk
Governments that block the aspirations of their people, that steal or are corrupt, that oppress and torture or that deny freedom of expression and human rights should bear in mind that they will find it increasingly hard to escape the judgement of their own people, or where warranted, the reach of international law.
- Hague
ORI is tracking correctly.
ROI Return On Investment.
Something they should be teaching in third grade instead of putting condoms on bananas.
Lee Siegel, a young 'American' victim. Siegel, a chosenite, needs his free education.
We need to absorb the debt of the jooish kids, the rest will never amount to anything anyway.
This guy epitomizes Kissinger's "useless eaters." If there is a global depopulation campaign, let the world's useless, blame-projecting, narcissistic butterflies go first.
His writing is shit, hardly an advertisement for Columbia. Anybody can write; it's what you write that matters.
Where did the pedal hit the metal? When he asked the banks for debt. HE REQUESTED IT.
To hell with him AND the banker AND his mom for enabling him to waste his time and life and that of everyone around him.
Sure, he requested it, but it was proffered under false pretenses. Remember, the interest rate is an ECONOMIC SIGNAL. Ever since the Fed took control of it, it has been sending false signals, which 99.9% of people interpret as if they were true. This is the source of capital misallocation. This guy isn't a moron, or even particularly stupid. He's just some guy that didn't understand that the system is rigged, and as a result had his life ruined.
This is like blaming someone for getting their legs blown off by a landmine in the middle of a populated area. You wouldn't expect a landmine to be in a place like that, just like you wouldn't expect interest rates to be completely disconnected from reality, destroying the capital base that is needed to pay salaries. Now, slowly but surely, the landmines are starting to go off, and eventually, people will come to understand that being in debt in this environment is not beneficial.
The worst part of this situation is that the government will eventually offer a "solution," which to them, is always to find a way to sustain the debt or use taxpayer money to pay it directly to the banks. This is called "debt forgiveness" but in fact, it's really just a transfer of debt from individuals to everyone. The debt remains, just distributed.
Actually decreasing future debt however is NEVER considered and never will be, ensuring this gets worse and worse until collapse.
If I were evil and a banker (but I repeat myself), I would destroy the community college system anyway I could, because right now, that is the only remaining obstacle to exponentially increasing debt in the education industry.
Students should have the right to go bankrupt. It would solve a lot of problems.
They did that once and it turned into a disaster thus the current situation. With the way the US is today if bankruptcy was an option at graduation there would be a clerk just off the stage collecting EVERY students bankruptcy petition. Kids who would never dream of going to college would take out loans and have a 4 year vacation at the local U. Even the rich kids would take out loans and file. Except for a rare few no one would ever pay back a student loan.
Typical whining lib-tard. "Universal education tax"??? Screw you dude, the world needs ditch diggers too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiRGRvE_Wqg
"His writing is shit, hardly an advertisement for Columbia..."
His ability as a writer may seem a bit off-topic; but, that's half of the equation, isn't it?
Government money drives the price of education to the sky by artificailly enlarging demand (just like it did with medical care and real estate)... and the result is a surplus of crap. As a writer (and as a thinker), this guy is crap. No wonder he can't earn enough to repay his loan.
He doesn't understand that his type of thinking creates these problems.
It's not government money but government driven propaganda driving kids to college. Be a loser or go to college and be a somebody. Dozens of times per day, unless you don't partake of the media, you are blasted or subtly prodded to send your little buboo to college. Even the grandparents are targeted.
An Undereducated Writer (me) says these dipshits have killed a once great country. BTFD, keep cahsing out, stack the PM's and ammo. Move to the cost where you can make a fast escape. Then grab your arse for a horrifying ride. When she blows, it will be ugly and violent.
And this dumb douchebag Lee Siegel got three degrees from that shitbag school. He was a moron at age 17 when he took out the loans and he is a moron today.
The double whammy is that after you have mounted all this debt...you still have a POS education.
Last week i was helping a youngster look into a Nursing Education. Holy shit...the curriculum was completely retarded. No wonder we have a freakin nursing shortage!! I don't remember the number...take something like 30 classes....of which perhaps two of them are relevant for hitting the ground as a nurse. Even the real courses (opposed to bogus completely worthless ones) like microbiology have limited value in the ER.
Throw out all this education and go back to people doing genuine internships and apprenticeships. (or however you spell it)
Actually CIA-Obama was out on CIA business while he was supposed to be attending Columbia.
And since no one can be found that remembers CIA-Obama at Columbia, in any capacity, I doubt they could have "known" each other.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
CIA-Obama was probably overseas in Pakistan infiltrating his butt-buddy's family circle on behalf of the CIA.
I am still trying to figure out why people downvote you when you mention the Obama CIA connection. These are probably the same people who think George Sr. just woke up one day and became head of the CIA.
Hint: The CIA creates histories for those in their employ, not necessarily fullproof histories... but histories nonetheless.
Reeeeealy? You mean they can modify Goozle and Archive.org?
You don't say.
" Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable."
This guy is an idiot, along with so many other idiots. And therein lies the problem. Congress couldn't fix the problem if they wanted to idiot. Once colleges found out that stupid students would take out ANY amount of money for ANY stupid degree, they RAISED PRICES. They have kept raising prices because there are more dolts out there like this guy, who will go into any amount of debt it takes to get their precious WORTHLESS degree. I'd like to lie in the park all day and draw clouds and trees too. But you know what? Thats NOT going to put dinner on the table. This guy like so many others, wants to get his hands into the pockets of the people who put in the REAL work, and steal it from them. Too bad idiot, philosophy isn't going to put a lick of food on your table. Get your gloves on and start a garden.
"'Congress might even explore a special, universal education tax that would make higher education affordable.' This guy is an idiot, along with so many other idiots."
If it is in the NYT it IS propaganda--Zionist propaganda as well. There might not even actually be a writer with that name. Regardless, this "tax" is probably the crux of the whole propaganda piece--another excuse to steal more for Zion.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
i know, this article is garbage, and misses the netire point. College is so fucking expensive now days because the government lends money to ANYONE that can fog a mirror to attend school and get pointless degrees. If the government wasn't involved in studdnt loans, people who really want to attend could work thier way through college, a little at a time if neccessary.
I don't particularly care about this guy defaulting on his loans, whatever, most of its going to be written of one way or another, and Iregard it all as fruadulent anyway. Whatever helps crash this whole thing as soon as possible gets my endorsement. People like him defaulting just may help that along.
If the government wasn't involved in studdnt loans, people who really want to attend could work thier way through college, a little at a time if neccessary.
The US government has long been involved in direct funding public education, the shift has been toward private funding offset by loans to students. Colleges can now raise costs / expenditures as much as they'd like - burning through $ like drunken sailors - and expect that the increases will be gobbled up by guaranteed larger loans. Easy way for the 'private sector' to make shitloads of cash.
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/original-...
In europe lots of countries have cheap college education run by government and comparable outcomes (if not better overall).
let me say this again, I don't care what colleges do, I only care that I am not put on the hook for them. That should be a free market, and allowed to suceed or fail on its own merits. Colleges can rape these kids and get away with it for a while, but people aren;t going to put up with it forever. The only reason they have been able to get away with raising costs, building so much useless shit, and hiring so many administrators while at the same time lowering their standards is because of the free money spigot from the feds. Turn that spigot off, this will fix itself in very short order. I for one and looking forward to having the former "womyns studies" professor give me a lap dance or deliver my pizza.
Afterwards, colleges that provide a good, valuable education at a decent price would thrive.
Actually, the colleges realized that they can bilk the GOVERNMENT, not the students.
Federal Loans. They (college management) did what everybody in every industry does: make it seem like their product is 'life-changing' and 'necessary', and then make it available to the masses. That's where Federal Loans came in. They knew that people would flat out refuse to pay $35-50k/year unless assistance was given.
They essentially duped the American public into assuming college degrees were the only way up in life, and for those that dont know what to do, they really are. In the end, America got entrenched in absolutely useless, paper-pushing jobs. The older I get, the more I admire the craftsmen who dedicate their lives to making or improving something with their hands and minds. All of these bankers, politicians, consultants, HR managers, product managers, financial analysts, lawyers....they do what is uneccessary, or at least unecessary to the degree that it is done. The market, back in the day if you read old books, was meant to enable startups or help companies expand. Where do you even see that anymore? Now the market is one big rigged casino that serves no purpose but to shuffle money from the system or the little men into the lined pockets of the aristocracy.
Lawyers wouldn't be necessary in 9/10 cases if the law was actually meant to be upholden instead of rigged.
Consultants...dont even get me started. Completely useless.
Financial analysts...useless, anybody can read a chart like a monkey, or make some fancy excel/minitab sheets.
Bankers...super useless, we only need one self-regulated bank (that doesnt tie corporate pay to anything other than reviews by the people)
Politicians...except for meeting other heads of state, and military matters, everything in the WhiteHouse could be run on Twitter linked to your social security number. You know, a true-realtime-democracy where everything is voted by the people for the people. Goodluck trying to raise taxes on the poor when they can vote on their phones.
Basically, so much useless activity backed by paper, backed by bits on a computer, backed by a illegal organization. No wonder its all falling....
So this dick is admitting to ripping people off and is looking for bigger dicks to sympathize with his thieving ass. Pay your bills, you fucking crook.
He's saving for his flat in Tel Aviv. You can't deprive him, his ancestors invented this great country!
Banks aren't people, shill.
STOP SUPPORTING A CORRUPT SYSTEM.
I up voted you for your truthful statement. Anyone can get a copy or find on line a copy of "Modern Money Mechanics" published by the Federal Reserve. It states right in that pamphlet that banks are forbidden to lend out its own or its customer's assets. Banks in the US only create credit out of thin air and hound the "borrower" if they fail to meet the bank's fraudulent contract.
I would dispute the author's notion that government should pay for College education unless they had a high hurdle for students to climb over. Actually, I suppose I am against the whole idea of gov. paying for anything more as it is by forced extraction of a tax payer's labor that pays for the bloated and abusive current bankrupt government. We need to see lots of trials for treason of high officials as well as Rico indictments of Corp. execs. starting with the Federal Reserve, The Executive branch, Congress and the Judiciary.
greenie for the thought.
You need an editor to help extend it into something readable.
Not going thru the entire equation, ultimately, when a bank lends out and the loan isn't paid back, it's stolen for us. Until banks are allowed to fail, and loan issuance is managed, this statement holds true. It's a crappy system and until people stop thinking of themselves as Republicans or Democrats and start to actively vote for change, however they define it, we'll keep eating this shit sandwich.
Not going thru the entire equation, ultimately, when a bank lends out and the loan isn't paid back, it's stolen for us. Until banks are allowed to fail, and loan issuance is managed, this statement holds true. It's a crappy system and until people stop thinking of themselves as Republicans or Democrats and start to actively vote for change, however they define it, we'll keep eating this shit sandwich.
Counterpoint: I don't lend money to people who are being forced to borrow.
Before you come at me with your "don't go to college then" bullshit, I'll
1) Illustrate how literally in every single country -- the WORLD over, save the USSA, post-HS education is cheap if not free. The next most expensive example is the UK where average tuition is less than $8k per YEAR.
2) If you don't go to college -- then mathmatically your changes of success (because lets be honeset no one learns shit there except for beer-pong rules and how to chase skirt better. Normally its just a "foot in the door"/"right of passage" anyway) go down aggressivly to say the least.
"in every single country -- the WORLD over, save the USSA, post-HS education is cheap if not free."
Nothing is ever free.
Taxpayers pay high taxes for that "cheap if not free" education.
I've sat down and run the numbers -- I pay 3% more in Germany than I would in Manhattan, and 1.5% less than in London.
Oh, and given that real estate in Manhattan is seriously 500% more than here, I am doing ok for myself. No need bringing London in to the real estate discussion.
Not spending 5-7% of GDP bombing brown people allows you spend that cash on other things.
Fiscal priorities. How do they work?
Hey Haus, why don't you help us out and kick us out of NATO? Fiscal priorities and all that, but we could still use a hand. Thanks in advance.
Only if they could. Only if they could. We are not there at their behest. I thought youd know that. But maybe we should start w the basics
2+2 = 4.
YOU're right perhaps we should:
"...Not spending 5-7% of GDP bombing brown people allows YOU spend that cash on other things."
you
pronoun \?yü, y? also y?\—used to refer to the person or group of people that is being addressed as the subject of a verb or as the object of a verb or preposition
—used to refer to any person or to people in general
courtesy Merriam Webster.
Basics indicate he's addressing Yanquis in general. That's a pretty wide brush. I thought you'd know that also includes alot of Amies like me that feel "Only if they could. Only if they could," as far as not spending MY money for the bombing of "brown people" goes. It IS possible to throw us out. How did NATO HQ end up in Brussels? Ya know, basics.
LOL - Manhattan is your gold standard for the rest of the country.
What I do -- its really my only option.
don't get us wrong here, H-T, almost everyone on here would be thrilled if we didn't 'waste 5-7% of our GDP killing brown people', as you say. I know I would be. But just becuase i don't want the money spent on war doesn't mean I am ok with it being wasted on fucktards going to college for free. I would rather that money not be spent in the first place, it should either not be stolen from the taxpayer or borrowed into existence and wasted by the government
Yeah, but, if my kids don't have the smarts and ambition to make it through Gymnasium, they're not going to Uni. Which is also why there are almost exclusively whie faces there.
Come to think of it, that's another reason to love Germany. My taxes ARE pretty high, though.
"in every single country -- the WORLD over, save the USSA, post-HS education is cheap if not free."
For an "overeducated writer" you are a fucking idiot. And definitely an example of just how useless higher education is.
Fucking idiot that does okay for himself, knows how fucked the system is, and if you are relying on .gov for your future, you're fucked worse than the system is.
who do you think the writer wants to pay for his college? the government.... He is a fucking idiot, and so is ANYONE who wants the government any more involved in education than it already is. Everything it touches it fucks up and typically makes more expensive. Thats a typical govt worshiper answer, what you seem to be saying: "well, after the government started giving out student loans to anyone with a pulse, it drove up the cost to tuition through the roof( who could have seen that coming, when you artificially increase demand for something, the price goes up...total mind blower) to the point that so many college students graduate hopelesly in debt, so the only solution is to have the government completely take over the entire thing and give it to everyone for 'free' instead"
You are literally advocating giving government more power to fix the problem government created in the first place. Thats the most insanely idiotic shit I have ever heard.
>>Everything it touches it fucks up and typically makes more expensive.<<
Kind sir, I think you are a bit confused. The "more expensive" is not a "fuck up," rather, it is their prime directive. The Machiavellian rehtoric is just to manipulate and mock the Muppetry.
The OWNERS of the mega banks finance government. They also finance the politicians who run it. Therefore, the OWNERS of the mega banks are Special Interest #1 and CONTROL the government.
Given that their widget, their product, is debt (you know the receipt side as money), OF COURSE THE SOLUTION TO EVERY FREAKING PROBLEM IS MORE MEGA BANKSTER WIDGETS!
That was the plan that the Bankster thought up. They then told their quislings how to dupe the Grubered Americans.
They aren't "fucking up," people, they are economically gang raping you, your family, your childreni, your friends, your community, your city, your county, your state, your country, and the entire freaking plantet and they mock you and yours every time they feed you and yours a line of bull AND YOU BELIEVE IT ENOUGH TO REPEAT IT AND NOT SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT LIKE I'M DOING RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!
I hope that helps clarify any misunderstandings. Thank you and have a nice debt day in your UzBanksterstan financed territory.
His article wasn't about getting the government to pay for his education, his article was about his parents not being wealthy. He mentions his father declaring bankrupcy, his mother co-signed for his loans?
If Momma co-signed, you and I know damn well the banks went after her paycheque when junior opted out. They would have hounded her until she was in her grave. And junior doesn't care a damn about her or he would have said 'and the bankers calling my mom and garnishing her cheques made my blood boil' or some such. Nah, he doesn't even mention her struggle to pay off his %$@$ing bills.
What does he mention? That he hasn't repaid one single dime of what he owes, and his distress that the amount has grown as large as what it is.
But he's frakked something up - 30 years of non-payment usually means you get written off the books as a bad debt. Not this tool tho'. So he's frakked it all up, and the government probably have his balls in a vise as a result.
I did not have the impression that he had balls.
"Taxpayers pay high taxes for that "cheap if not free" education."
ZDI, you prefer paying high taxes for the MIC to pocket than to see your kids in proper schools?
What a bunch of willing slaves...
Lea, the average person has not input into where their tax money goes. Oh, and that's a false dichotomy logical fallacy. BTW, do you know what Rockefeller engineered "schooling" is? It ISN'T education. Indoctrination + Regurgitation != Education. Think operant conditioning to be obsequious towards Debt-Money Monopolist financed government authority.
And, hey, if you have any pull in how government spends money, can you ask them to stop funding al Qaeda as a proxy army to conquer Poland... errrr, wrong tyranny. I mean funding ISIS to conquer Syria in their ongoing effort to install a Debt-Money Monopoly debt-money central bank in Syria and then Iran? Have them stop all their mass lying, mass thieving, and mass murdering while you are at it, okay now?
Thanks a lot - really appreciate it.
Your income in those jobs is fairly limited. You can get into the mid 6's -- but anthing north of that is one of those "one-in-a-million kinda thing."
But I do enjoy making money sitting at my desk starting at computer screens and talking shit on ZH and Bloomberg.
Exactly. People have such a high level of entitlement these days that they aren't interested in a job that requires actual work and where they will never make it to 7-digit salaries. Whites have been disillusioned and now they all want the easy money that only a few can have. If they can't have it, they'd rather be bums and drag on the system instead. Hopefully for them, that system won't collapse any time soon.
Yes bring in the race card - no blacks in America want easy money and none of them are bums who drag on the system. You seem to be the disillusioned on with this pathetic statement.
Straw man. Discussing the disillusionment of whites does not make one sympathetic to blacks, whom I have not mentioned at all.
"whites" don't exist, Mr. Logical Fallacy. There is not such monolithic entity. Is you want to communicate liogically then you need to use meaningful terms. Niether do "blacks." It is illogical to discuss either as some kind of monolithic entity.
I know, we've been dog trained to think menaingless terms actually have meaning and then throw them around in simple minded ways, but we need to see the programming, mind the control and elevate our game.
"Blacks" and "whites" exist to about the same degree that "humans", "trees", "cows" and "clouds" do. All words connected with empirical reality are generalizations. But let us not consider this a flaw; these are the best words we have! To deal with words that are disconnected from reality (eg. metaphysics) may be logical, but it tells us nothing meaningful about reality.
We all understand what "blacks" and "whites" are. We all understand that my statement about whites was generalizing, and that it does not apply to every single white or exclude anyone else. Now shall we have a constructive discussion?
+1
Accidental double post.
All I know is that when I was a contractor if I took a low rate they treated me like shit and cracked the whip all the time, but if I won a higher rated contract the work was easy and they valued me much more FOR DOING EXACTLY THE SAME WORK.
I'd be happy with a 25K job IF THE FUCKING EMPLOYERS TREATED ME NICE, but generally they only treat you like a human when you cost 40KPA.
And yes we ARE supposed to be ENTITLED to somewhere to live rent and artificial restriction free.
So called Civilisation took that right away from us, and replaced it with the compulsion to pay rent.
In fact it just seems to have replaced the natural and understandable restrictions that all life forms face with a set of artificial rules and mores the just benefit a few of us whilst enslaving the majority.
It's warm and apparently safe, (until nuclear war or nuclear accident or any of the other technological menaces that replaced natural hazards, gets us) and you don't have to struggle to eat, but it's slavery none the less.
Just a shiny psychological gilded cage with TV.
If all you ever do is labor for someone else performing those trades, then yes, your income is fairly limited. On the other hand, I'd say the prospects of a skilled laborer who has years of experience plying his trade to start a business for himself is much better than some desk jockeying paper shuffler at (insert corporate name here.)
There's choices, and then there's choices, noamsayin?
You're saying that if people make the best "choice" they will exploit others so that they can earn much more money, ideally without working themselves at all.
Let's just come right out with it and say that the most successful people will amass wealth by exploiting and dominating others, not merely by their own direct labor. Whether within the "legal" framework which is set up to protect a certain type of crime, or outside it, in the more dangerous realm of the type of crime that is only safe for the most powerful.
Such is the way of life. I'm not sure how much "choice" we have in it, life seeming rather like an endless causal chain of reactions that we didn't start, but, depending on one's circumstances, it can either be best for one to dominate others, legally or not, or to be the prey.
I agree that this is all quite irrespective of college education.
Why should I work when I can create money, buy your labor or the product of your labor and resell it to someone else for a profit? Wall street has long since learned this lesson. That is why the only thing most companies want to make in this country is "a profit".
As long as money is debt and can be created out of thin air there is absolutely no point in "working" for a living when I can borrow the money into existence and loan it to someone else who will be forced to repay me the principle AND interest. Let them sweat and labor for my sustenance. As a bank it took no effort and didn't cost me anything to create the money I loaned you.
The people who have ready access to this newly created money will be considered to have made "the best choice" as they will take home the most gains. The financial industry creates more product every year. Unfortunately, that product is debt.
And yes, this is all quite irrespective of a college education.
Money is a debt receipt. Debt generates money.
People are paid in direct proportion to their perceived ability to saturate society, external to their employment, with debt.
If you can't saturate society with debt, you aren't worth much of a paycheck. If you can help to saturate society with $10 million in debt, maybe you make $1 million.
It can't be any other way.
Debt (and corresponding debt receipts used as "money") is a Banksters product. It is their "widget." A sandwich shop makes sandwiches, a bank makes debt and issues receipts (money). That's what they do. If you got paid in sandwiches in a society that used sandwiches as "money," you would be entitled to earn more sandwiches based on yyour ability to generate more sandwiches in society external to you - otherwise society would run out of sandwiches with which to pay you!
"Exploit" and "dominate" are politically and emotionally loaded words. Some people, for multiple reasons, are happy working for someone else, some are not. I personally think people like you are part of the reason why it's becoming harder and harder for the little guy to go out and make his own moves and make shit happen for himself. If you want to let your political ideology hold you down with ready excuses about how everything just happens, hey man, whatever floats your boat.
Do tell. How about spreading the love to Frankfurt and tell me how to do the same. My DBA work pays pretty well, but I'm always looking to move up!
1) "Every single country". Yes, and it is not "free". As once your sorry ass gets out you are now in the real world of paying 40% taxes in the nation that provides all the "free" stuff. Most EU countries have, or are putting into place, a clause that states, "If you take your newly minted education and leave this fine country for another country... your ass must repay the "free" education". Nothing in this world is "free"... someone is paying for it.
2) I did not go to college and made my first million a few months before my 30th birthday. You don't "need" a college education, you "want" a college education. Most on this website realize a college education for that vast majority of those in the USA is an utter waste of money.
1) Yeup -- you're right, except said clause, which I cannot find really -- well anywhere. Has maybe a country or two done it? Sure. I know tons of Germans that go to work in the UK, Sweden & Switzerland and don't have to payback jack squat.
2) You also probably have a sky-high IQ. Your ability to understand difficult concepts comes easy to you, and you can explain it to others so that they can understand it. But yes, for most that get a Bachelors in Asian-Lesbian studies, college is a waste of time & money. Completely agree.
Here's and example:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/01/25/students-rally-against-hu...
Quote, "These included maintaining the number of state-funded university places that were available in 2012, stopping cuts to higher education funding, and abolishing a contract that funded students must sign obliging them to remain in Hungary after graduating."
So Hungary.
http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/8/26/santorum.gif
Bad link ! Try again please ?
USA USA comments reflect the basic ignorance of these commentators of other countries politics. Sweden/Norway/Germany/ is all just called socialism (and that is a hanging offence). Has always been supported by tax dollars in the past to open opportunities for all to learn.
But that is what team USAUSA ignores. Having a complete profit based, pay-as-you-go system of post-secondary education in USA has always excluded the largest segments of the population in the past..beyond limited scholarships. As such it more or less did the job of perpetuating the class structure and inequality.
In the 1960's I wonder how many Afro-Americans had the ability to attend post-secondary schools? Or Latino? I have no stats but think it is likely very few.
https://www.google.com/search?q=non+white+college+graduation+1960&biw=12...
College in the 1960s/1970s was VERY cheap. I had loans for four years and my total debt was about $1500, which I paid back in a little more than a year. The University of California system cost (if I remember correctly) $6 a credit at that time.
Then something happened. The conservatives understood that the campus was a factory producing political radicals. They lobbeyed for Property Tax relief all over the country. Suddenly, higher education was no longer being funded. Universities had to become 'entrepreneurial' in order to 'pay their own way'. I worked at the University of Oregon from 1977 to 2008. In that time tuition went up over 4,000%. The big debt bubble was manufactured in higher education.
I came from a lower middle class family. My brother and I both received educations at the university, without bankrupting our family. Education (free or cheap) was a shared value at the time. We, as a society, felt that education was a positive for a democracy. But then there was a war on the higher education system, for political reasons. The Vietnam War led to a real democratic movement -- the people in power were resisted in their war-making powers. They did not like that.
Now people get out of college with debts around and above $100,000. This system is broken. American corporations claim that Aemricans aren't well educated enough to employ. Well, Wall Street was behind this also. Wall Street was threatened by the populist uprising centered in the universities at that time. And they resolved to get even. And they did.
College in the 1960s/1970s was VERY cheap. I had loans for four years and my total debt was about $1500, which I paid back in a little more than a year. The University of California system cost (if I remember correctly) $6 a credit at that time.
Then something happened. The conservatives understood that the campus was a factory producing political radicals. They lobbeyed for Property Tax relief all over the country. Suddenly, higher education was no longer being funded. Universities had to become 'entrepreneurial' in order to 'pay their own way'. I worked at the University of Oregon from 1977 to 2008. In that time tuition went up over 4,000%. The big debt bubble was manufactured in higher education.
I came from a lower middle class family. My brother and I both received educations at the university, without bankrupting our family. Education (free or cheap) was a shared value at the time. We, as a society, felt that education was a positive for a democracy. But then there was a war on the higher education system, for political reasons. The Vietnam War led to a real democratic movement -- the people in power were resisted in their war-making powers. They did not like that.
Now people get out of college with debts around and above $100,000. This system is broken. American corporations claim that Aemricans aren't well educated enough to employ. Well, Wall Street was behind this also. Wall Street was threatened by the populist uprising centered in the universities at that time. And they resolved to get even. And they did.
There is asian- lesbian studies for free in the old country for the price of a discount plane ticket?
Prolly a three year waiting list, with prerequisites.
The idea is that everyone pays taxes into the system so that our citizens are more highly educated.
However, as the late George Carlin said.."they aren't interested in having citizens who are capable of critical thinking". So, there's a reason why college is so expensive and increasingly out of reach.. keep the number of educated people down and outsource. Keeps people in power when most of the people aren't smart enough to realize what is happening.
If your average HS grad could read, write and do arithmatic, had a decent grasp of logic and history, and simply understood that, while one has a right to one's own opinion, one does not have a right to one's on facts, we'd be a lot better off than we are now.
"keep the cost of attending college out of reach, keep the number of educated people to a minimum"
While that is no doubt part of the goal, if keeping people stupid was the goal, American public schools and public colleges are hands down the best place to do that. They are terrible, and they are that way for a reason. Perfect progressive paradise, the cost always goes up, while the quality goes down. Colleges are NOT equipping people with the critical thinking skills needed to see through the farce of our current system and govt, trust me. The system is benefitted by sending as many young people through 4 more years of indoctrination, it is not threatened.
Thats why you see such a concerted effort, at the same time, to impose common core and get rid of exemptions for homeschooling. Thats where the threat lies, young people raised to think critically and not exposed to 6-8 hours of indoctrination, brainwashing and propoganda for the formative years of their lives.
On that note Greenskeeper Carl and all
A new search engine due to launch (to maybe foster thought)....
http://www.goodgopher.com/About.asp
I was not aware American colleges were a bastion "critical thinking". Group think maybe... critical thinking - no.
("How does [this poem / art / prose] make you FEEL") =/= Critical Thinking
Yes; see my comment above. Critical thinking challenged the War Powers Act of our leaders in the Sixties and Seventies -- they didn't like it. So they got even.
Make college expensive, then only the rich kids will be educated and the Old World Class System will be preserved, which is a benefit for the Old Money Establishment. They want their children to take over a passive, docile world, one that follows orders. This is what we have today, obviously.
quote "I did not go to college and made my first million a few months before my 30th birthday. You don't "need" a college education, you "want" a college education. Most on this website realize a college education for that vast majority of those in the USA is an utter waste of money."
Are you sure it was not your first billion? Go to any large corporation and see who runs it. If one of the very very very few non-college educated started it and grew it into a major corporation you will notice they filled the top positions with college grads.
Meet the neighbors in the upscale neighborhoods. Notice how many of them (or all of them) are college educated.
So, if a college education is a waste for the vast majority then why not encourage young people to get a jump ahead and quit high school after their sophmore year once they can drive. By then they have basic math abilities.
If you make your money with your physical labor then prepared to do that level of labor when older.
A college education is never a waste. It's not about making more money -- it's about opening doors to a richer life, a richer interior life, for the rest of one's life.
We have become so materialistic that we doubt the power of education to transform one's life -- unless it results in more money. The rich life translates in many different ways. At the most basic, into more money. At the less basic, into less practical but in now way less magical and expansive ways.
We like the lowest common demonimator when your imagingation is limited, or bankrupt. Money, Money, Money, Money. But this is a very crude, very Roman view of the world. Educating oneself is a lifetime goal, becoming an educated person, one who can think and explore the universe of ideas, is one very major side of the issue that is ignored or remains invisible to the concrete view of life as an avenue of expensive objects we need to collect. If that is the game, collecting expensive objects, I'm glad I'm not playing. Shakespeare wrote: "They had a high hope for a low heaven."
Ask anyone if they were not deeper, brighter, and enriched by a college education -- if they are honest they will say yes. Of course Business students were the least enriched probably. That is the way it seeemed anyway.
A college education is never a waste. It's not about making more money -- it's about opening doors to a richer life, a richer interior life, for the rest of one's life.
We have become so materialistic that we doubt the power of education to transform one's life -- unless it results in more money. The rich life translates in many different ways. At the most basic, into more money. At the less basic, into less practical but in now way less magical and expansive ways.
We like the lowest common demonimator when your imagingation is limited, or bankrupt. Money, Money, Money, Money. But this is a very crude, very Roman view of the world. Educating oneself is a lifetime goal, becoming an educated person, one who can think and explore the universe of ideas, is one very major side of the issue that is ignored or remains invisible to the concrete view of life as an avenue of expensive objects we need to collect. If that is the game, collecting expensive objects, I'm glad I'm not playing. Shakespeare wrote: "They had a high hope for a low heaven."
Ask anyone if they were not deeper, brighter, and enriched by a college education -- if they are honest they will say yes. Of course Business students were the least enriched probably. That is the way it seeemed anyway.
Milken and his brother Lowell founded Knowledge Universe in 1996, as well as Knowledge Learning Corporation (KLC), the parent company of KinderCare Learning Centers, the largest for-profit child care provider in the country. He is currently chairman of the company.[18] Milken also established K12 Inc., a publicly traded education management organization (EMO) that provides online schooling, including to charter school students for whom services are paid by tax dollars,[19] which is the largest EMO in terms of enrollment.[20]
When joos get near it, it all goes to shit!
There is nearly $60 trillion in debt, both public and private in the US with a GDP of under $18 trillion. It's not getting paid back, period. If that doesn't tell you that the system is dishonest and there is a lot of debt that flat out should not be paid back, then I don't know what will. Usury is going to destroy us, and you're going to go marching over the cliff with the system. But hey, if you're fine with paying a bank back for a loan which it didn't actually offer you any consideration, but rather entered some numbers into a ledger and claimed that you had X amount of FRNs because of that entry, then turned around and transferred that debt to a "bankruptcy remote" entity who then turned around and issued a certificate backed by the credit instruments which the bank used to back some of its shit corporate paper that it sold to investors, thereby offloading the "risk," to somebody else, be my guest. Our monetary system is corrupt, and thus so is much of the debt that exists in it.
True as that is, have you ever noticed that nobody complains about usury or fractional reserve credit creation when they walk into a bank for a loan?
A lot of people are just plain dumb and/or ignorant.
This guy not only doubled down, but tripled down and lost.
This is why prostitutes demand payment up front.
The fact that he pursued a Masters in Philosophy shows that he's a class A dumbfuck from the word go.
At least a prostitute has some value - a Masters of Philosophy? lol.
Ask the dim witted Yankee fuck face if he can grow food, shoot game or catch something to eat with a trap. Ask him if he can change a tire or change his own oil. Ask him if he can shoot a gun or defend himself in a physical altercation.
No, this useless, entitlement minded coward spent a decade playing in school, living off loans, accomplishing nothing and now his plan is to get a bunch of credit cards, marry somebody who has some character and let the chips fall where they may.
He is a coward and he is STILL living off others.
Useless fucking eater. He's the white version of an EBT card thug. Fuck him and all those like him. Useless motherfucker.
"Ask the dim witted Yankee fuck face if he can grow food, shoot game or catch something to eat with a trap. Ask him if he can change a tire or change his own oil. Ask him if he can shoot a gun or defend himself in a physical altercation."
I'm speechless at the educational level you wish on your country fellows. BTW, you've forgotten about wondering whether he can make fire by grinding pieces of wood against each other.
Back to the stone age...
"I'm speechless at the educational level you wish on your country fellows. BTW, you've forgotten about wondering whether he can make fire by grinding pieces of wood against each other.
Back to the stone age..."
Oh spare me your liberal drivel you useless stupid bitch.
I'm a college educated IT consultant that consults for Fortune 500 companies, and I can hunt, trap, garden and fight.
You'd think a person "smart" enough to earn a Masters of Philosophy could start a fire by rubbing two sticks together - but they can't. It's not quite as easy as you might think.
So yes I do wish that my fellow countrymen could grow their own food and be self sufficient. The horror!
What's more, I wish women these days could cook worth a damn; but as YOU well know, most can't. They are as useless as the fucking men.
Indeed, it’s not the banks that are the crooks here.
He took the money.
He took more money.
As in his text, he had every credit card available.
He liked to spend it all but never tought on how to pay it back.
And 30 years later, a compounding interest beat him...
He is actually what’s wrong with America. Buy everything, spend everything and then blame those who loaned him the money.
That guy should be thrown into jail.
Rule 1 IN LIFE:
IF YOU ONLY HAVE MONEY FOR A COKE, DON’T ORDER THE STEAK.
Banks generally don't offer any consideration when they loan people FRNs. If the amount of debt in the system does not continue to increase, the system will cease to function. The system has become so corrupt that you are hard pressed to get ahead unless you start ahead or are willing to embrace the corruption. For those without a lot of money, taking out a loan and defaulting on it is no more corrupt than what the bankers are doing.
I disagree. No one puts a gun to your head and forces you to go into the bank to take out a loan to get a college degree--especially for a worthless degree like Lesbian Studies or Underwater Basket Weaving. You walk in their of your own free will. Alot of the dollars in the banks, are from people who worked hard and are trying to save them for a rainy day or retirement. You just want to steal from those people because you think the banksters are behind every dollar. They aren't---some of those dollars have been earned. Like SuddenDebt said, don't eat the steak when you only have money for a Coke.
If it were money loaned from a person or something like that, or if it were, say, gold coins that become unavaliable to the lender until they are paid back, I would agree, but FRNs are a ponzi scheme, plain and simple. When you take a loan out from a bank, they don't actually have the money that they're lending, they're just crediting an account and then those credits get transferred from one account to another. They are growing the M2 money supply when they give you a loan. It's really quite the fraud.
And FWIW, I am 100% debt free.
I took out loans for college. Too fucking much. Injured myself and unable to work for half a year after college. Set me back a couple years. Loans on deferrment the whole time - almost doubled! Spent ten years paying them back, then used money from working overseas to pay them off. Glad to be rid of them. Hated every minute of them.
Never. Not once. Ever, did the bank come to me to force me to take out the loan. They even told me what the interest was, and what the payments would be; and for how long. I still went for it.
I'm the dumbass. It wasn't the banks fault.
Bullshit. Kids that age don't have the world experience to have "free will" in a situation like that. If I knew then what I knew now, I wouldn't have gone to college at all, and just gone for a trade or driven a fucking truck.
It's not the kids fault when EVERYONE in society tells them things that aren't so. People REALLY BELIEVE the things they tell the kids, but those things that they think they know are all based on lies and illusions, all of which can be traced back to one simple factor--the Fed has usurped the basis of Capitalism by setting the price of money.
You don't order steak when you only have money for a Coke, sure. But do you order a steak when the menu shows it is cheap enough for you to afford, and only after you get the bill, which includes a gigantic god damn interest charge, that you realize the true cost. And worse, you look in your wallet to find that your money has shrunk so it is worth only a fraction of what it was before.
But hey, who cares about systemic problems? We can just blame some guy!
Correct! This entire system has become one based on corruption, greed, bull shit and perception. The current money system was not built to be a sustainable system, but rather a wealth generator for those who are properly placed. The creators of the system figured they would be gone by the time it fell apart and left the next generation completely screwed.
This system was built to be abused, by those with the connections and power. However, when peons figure out how to abuse it, then it's time for talk about morality and how things are wrong, etc... Endlessly complaining about it is an exercise in insanity.
It’s just a excuse with a lot of words.
I’ll translate what you just said:
It’s good to go into debt when you’re not rich to act like you’re rich and default once you spend it all.
There’s so many things whrong with that kind of thinking.
Actions without reprecussions.
If you take a loan and the person who gives you the money says: I want 500% per year, and you say yes, you give your word and there’s nothing criminal at that.
You took he money, now be a man and pay up. Or go to jail and pay up at 2 dollars a day.
And defaulting isn’t just a thing you do for a weekend, do people realise what it means?? You’re life is over. It’s that easy.
And there,s absolutly no repsect for people who do that.
I don’t like banks either but that’s anarchy and people like that belong in jail or need to be kicked out of the system, asap.
It’s selfish greed, people who destroy everything so they get a iPhone, it’s just sick.
"It’s selfish greed, people who destroy everything so they get a iPhone, it’s just sick."
But that's where we are. That is what we have become. We are marketed, propagandized and told incessantly that we are supposed to be greedy, and it's all about the show, and style wins over content. THAT is the entire culture.
I would add that there's a difference between anarchy and chaos. The word Anarchy has been successfully corrupted by the oligarchs.
If the act of lending money actully made it unavalable to the banks when they lent it out, I would agree with you. Since banks get to create money like credits when they loan it out, this is not the case. The entire system is fradulent, and it is designed in such a way that the bankers reap the largest benefits while everybody else gets to be debt surfs. Again, if the amount of debt stops growing, the entire banking system comes to a halt. Our monetary system itself is unethical.
all the more reason to never never borrow from a bank or other "lending institutuon" ---
I would drink to that if I didn't have other things to do. So tonight I will toast to it.
"Or go to jail and pay up at 2 dollars a day."
Debtor's prison? I think I'd have your head first.
Sorry, but signing a contract doesn't make you a slave, as much as you seem to cheer for such an outcome, clearly to feed your sense of smug satisfaction at your superiority (perhaps for being born at a time such that you were able to ride the money bubble to riches without ever having to face any of the consequences until now, and you can just blame those on "the new generation). No, a contract is something you can walk away from, ESPECIALLY if it has already ruined you. That's business. Try getting a bankrupt company to pay out on an invoice. If you forbid bankruptcy, the company still won't be able to pay up. But according to your logic, the workers in such a comapny should perhaps be chained to their desks and forced to work for nothing until the invoice is paid?
No. Default is the first step on the course back to reality. You idiots who want this Bizzarro world to continue make me sick.
No money is owed. It was created out of thin air and funnelled to useless eaters on the faculty, the builders of taj mahal dorms and athletic facilities, etc. It has already been stolen and not by the borrowers. My only complaint with the douche writers is he whines that he isn't rich becuase he wasn't born right. I know a kid who put himself and his brother through private high school and college because his parents were dirt poor and uneducated. He didn't get a bs degree he got an engineering degree and is doing well. The student loan program was a massive theft but that doesn't excuse this bitches envy and whining.
A lot of people don't want to understand that the FRNs were created out of thin air because then they would have to start questioning what actually makes them valuable and they would also have to question why they toil for them and who benefits from them. It cannot be said too many times that the USD is not just any ponzi scheme, but probably the largest in all of human history.
If I loan you $100 that represents my toil and risk, you owe me $100.
If I take your rent money you entrusted to me, and then loan out 90% of that to you with usury, who owes who?
The banksters stole your savings, deposits, and future savings, price-inflation, with their counterfeit fiat-debt loans. The deadbeats are the banksters in their debts to you, not the guy unable to pay on the banksters' fiat-debts.
The banksters need to repay us.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Looks like this thread is full of bankster shills and govt trolls today.
Why would anyone here give them a pass for creating this pile of shit in the first place?
Looks like this thread is full of bankster shills and govt trolls today.
Maybe some of them are taxpayers who know that they will end up getting stuck with student loan defaults?
Well, they aren't very bright then are they? And why would I think that?
Because it is a Ponzi and none of this debt (US govt) will ever be repaid.
That's right goy, get mad at the regular people. Don't look behind the curtain.
"The banksters need to repay us.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission"
kchrisc: it`s getting old and tired to read over a hundred times these same old wishful thinking statements of yours! It`s like SPAM
Well Dutti how does -- fuck you you whiney cocksucker if you don't like it don't read it --sound. Is "its" getting old and tired are we??? fucking piece of shit faggot---you wish you could come upwith something as profound as "Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission"
long live Liberty !!!!!I just hope that, the next time you loan money to someone, you don't have the expectation that there's no risk and you're 100% guaranteed to get it back... if that's too much to deal with you might consider "neither a borrower or a lender be" as your motto...
the flip side is when all these poor unfortunate souls who need to fuel their pipe dreams with someone else's money get turned back at every door, they should know and understand why... someone who was similar or just like them didn't pay back, so you're now painted with the same brush... oh well, the world needs ditch diggers too...
If only! The leftist writer had his own Harriet Tubman to ferry him across the border to a 'free' and Socialist paradise.
@ remain calm, sounds like someone might have purchased some student loan-back securities...
The bad thing about running with the herd is that you follow the herd over the cliff.
The good thing about running with the herd is that, unless you are at the very front of the herd, the path is clear - for those in the middle and the rear all obstacles have been trampled down for you by the time you get there.
Capitalists love buying from the herd: "Oh, you are willing to work for 8 dollars per hour but this guy here is willing to work for 7 dollars per hour and those people over there are very happy with two dollars per hour. Any takers for one-fifty?"
Capitalists love selling to the herd: "Yes, you can only afford two hundred grand but that guy over there is willing to pay four hundred grand. (We'll just ignore the fact he doesn't have $400k, and can't afford $400k - his bankster said it is all okay so it is all okay)."
Capitalists should not be surprised when they occasionally get trampled by the herd. They had a pretty good run.
Note I did not mention "right" or "wrong". Just as Capitalists are happy to under-pay and over-charge the herd, all the while claiming that "right" is whatever the desperate "agree" to, the herd claims that "right" is whatever direction in which they are stampeding, whether it is to fields of plenty or over the cliff.
Who pays for your education? Wouldn't that be your customer (or boss - boss is just an exclusive customer)? The tradesman needs equipment and tools. Those costs have to be passed on to the customer. University education is the white-collar tool. It takes four years to acquire and then that cost needs to be passed on to the customer/s. Yeah, we obviously should be discussing this shit back in high school. How many customers are available for a ten year philosophy degree? Who short-circuited their brains and suggested that because it cost a lot of time and money, it must be valuable? Hang on! The greater the risk, the greater the return? He "risked" TEN YEARS!!!! :P :P :P
Most tools are a TAX DEDUCTION.
High cost tools are CLAIMED OVER SEVERAL YEARS.
Why is education different? Can an engineer build a working bridge / skyscraper without an education? Can a tradie work without pliers / spanners / regulation hand book?
Shouldn't obsolete knowledge be depreciated the same way tools are depreciated?
Education related to your trade is tax-deductible.
It is only the first four years (uni) that is NOT tax-deductible. The engineer who goes on to do further education in his field can claim deductions on those courses. (Of course, deductions are useless if you don't earn the money in the first place.)
Step 1: Get a job.
Step 2: Further education - all tax deductible, as opposed to uni degree which is a liability, NOT deductible.
Step 3: If you are on minimum wage, the tax deduction is minimal. Your boss is in a much higher tax bracket. Best if he pays the expenses and gets the greater deduction.
What if no education was "free"? What if bosses had to check every single potential employee for his ability to read / write / do basic maths? :P Whoops! Sorry, I forgot ...
Not one of my most cohesive comments. I swear I've forgotten something here. A point, maybe? Unfortunately, I gotta go now. Have a think.
Dump it on the Taxpayer. They can rectally take it.
Students should be able to borrow at negative interest rates like the banks.
Funny how they have to borrow at positive interest rates from the banks.
There is no such thing as "taxpayer." That is a propagandist term used to instill a sense of partnership with them and their crimes against you, us, and others.
In the same way there is no such person called a loot-payer in reference to a mugger. They take it, it becomes theirs, it is no longer yours. They only utilize the word "taxpayer" to give their victims the feeling of some control over what has been stolen from them--"Hey, you're our quasi-partner in crime,. Ain't that swell?"
The proper term is, "tax victims."
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
"Don't let 'em in your head."
Yep. These days, with artificially low rates, they are abusing the dollar's reserve status as well. This means they are also stealing from dollar savers around the world.
+1, no idea whay you got so many downvotes for this post.
No shit...do you suppose the IRS have been surfing us today?
Outside of a few shills, be assured that it is because, for a lot of reasons, people hate to think, and most people have had it indoctrinated into them that any opposing opinion is bad, and must be destroyed.
Therefore, people often react negatively to new information, and even aggressively if that new information is counter to what they have been indoctrinated to think.
They have been indoctrinated into destroying the opinion and/or opinion holder, instead of providing information or opinion supporting an opposing viewpoint.
It's quite sad, and one of the biggest hindrances I find out in the wild when talking with people. They all either want to break me down, or demand that I convince--indoctrinate them in my view. They have no desire to ponder, and maybe even look into an idea.
Sad.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Collective USA tax serfs starting to prolapse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rectal_prolapse
The guy that junked me possibly is:
a. Government worker.
b. Welfare recipient.
c. Teacher.
d. Banker.
e. Guy that doesn't understand Sarcasm
f. "O"
g. Feel free to add to this list.
H? A dumbass?
Ya' covered the musical scale, but do you know how to tune a guitar?
Be a friend.
Here's Las Vegas' solution to the student loan program.
http://ktnv.video.jrn.com/Viewers-chat-strip-club-grads-29193057?playlistId=14990
Just the text on the page is enough for you to laugh instantly.
Haha! This is a perfect solution. All the real money from stripping is from the hooking they do on the side. What better way for a Women Gender Studies major to pay back their loan! She can say I'm a free independent woman, hear me roar, while taking the old man's bone for tax free considerations.
"It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college."
Beam me up, Scotty
Hello dude what did you think college was free
This sounds like the dialog, over the phone, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had today with the German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble over Greece
Jack Lew: Support Greece
Wolfgang Schäuble: will you give 50billion from your end in order to save her
Jack Lew: .......................... (long silence ...never answered)
Hellooooooo
In all fairness, these loans were originally made at low interest rates (subsidized by the govt for the sake of future higher tax revenues) and so what was borrowed was an excellent investment. Especially because there were plenty of jobs...
But then investment money flowed to Asia in search of lower wages and operating costs, and the US economy was irreversibly undermined.
And further, when banks now get money for around 0% and students must pay infinitely more (0.small number * big number), it's the very concept of usury in modern times.
Now we see the end game for many traditions.
In today's culture- if anything bad happens it is always someone else's fault.
The Indians want their land back, the blacks are waiting for reparations, women are pissed that they don't make what men make, the 99% hate the 1%, everyone hates cops, and students with shitty degrees want their money back.
Me? I'm all about the love baby.
Wow and here I worked hard and repaid my debts...your word is your bond, your bond is your word. You sir have no honor. Yes you are a deadbeat and belong in debtor's prison, not only did you break your word, you broke your mother's as well. I wouldnt be bragging about this if I was you.
Buddy, I hate to break it to you, but under a fiat system, eventually, everyone defaults. It's inevitable when the debts are 3X GDP.
It struck me as absurd that one could amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of having children then getting forced into a divorce where one has no choice but to pay your legal fees, their legal fees, child support and have to buy everything twice - the second time to replace the ones she stole.
Fixed it!
I dont really care if this guy stiffs his lender. I just don't want to involuntarily back loans with taxpayer's money. What risk is there for the for the lender or govt? Zippo And people wonder why there's a trillion+ student loan bubble?
I have website blockers on sites like the NYT and I'm not reading that shit here.
http://albainternazionale.blogspot.it/2015/06/la-russia-fornira-liran-di...
S-300, Iran, Russia, Moscow .... etc ...
It would have been useful to include the writer's balance sheet and income statement in this article about money.
Instead it is simply propaganda bemoaning a $1+ Trillion dollar national student loan problem (part of a much larger US debt-liabilities time bomb) and a paean to either personal irresponsibility or incompetence, if not both.