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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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It's the NYT (aka Jew York Times). Of course, it's propaganda. He's had over 40 years to pay.
More Lee Siegel
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2012/10/lee-siegel-exuding-jewish-t...
The true reason they attained cultural domination was partially understood by my dad, who was a high school dropout. As a kid, I asked him how they managed to seize control of everything. He said it was because they loaned money to one another interest free while charging the rest of us. See Deuteronomy 23:19-20.
He never even knew about the fact that they had immigrated to the US right before the FED was created in 1913, from Czarist Russia. Most stayed in NYC, the main US banking hub, for crying out loud. Just ask Chelsea C. where the money is. She married one for the same reason. The overthrow of the Czar was called "Jewish Bolshevism" before their cultural domination changed the term to Communism to hide it's origins, which was international Jewish revenge against the Russians. Something they are doing once again, at our expense.
End the FED and see how well they dominate without all that counterfeit cash.
He is still a fucking deadbeat...
Then what are those men and wimmin who have ripped off the global financial network for a quadrillion or more in the Mortgage Banking crises, those men and wimmen who got paid trillions for signing up those home buyers who had never a prayer of paying back their loans?
You need to revisit what you think a deadbeat is.
He is a total deadbeat, as in shirked his personal responsibilities and is letting others pay for it. In the little MT town I grew up in, those that took the deadbeat route aka filed bankruptcy, were basically run out of town no one, absolutely no one would speak with them nor sell them a loaf of bread.
Concerning the criminals you are referencing, they are also deadbeats but more purposeful and repeat offenders whom have absolutely planned to screw others (and maybe this author did to?). They are thieves of the highest order and should be punished accordingly.
They're both pieces of shit. Yeah, some might say deadbeats. I won't argue
"live your life in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip"
Will Rogers
"Then what are those men and wimmin who have ripped off the global financial network for a quadrillion or more in the Mortgage Banking crises, those men and wimmen who got paid trillions for signing up those home buyers who had never a prayer of paying back their loans?"
They are criminals.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
I'm no lover (or hater) of the banks, but I remember back in '02-'05, congress had all the big wigs of the big banks in washington, and were accusing them of not loaning money to poor credit risks, and they threatened them if they didn't start doing it(lending to poor credit risks).
Is it a crime to steal from the Destroyer of Worlds?
Stealing from the Destroyer of Worlds?
No, he's ultimately stealing from taxpayers because they'll be the ones paying the bills.
But he didn't do that. The Government did.
It's like having a madman in the room, damanding that you cut off slices of your skin, threatening to take the slices off of someone else if you don't. In that scenario, the obvious solution is kill the madman, not to blame the guy who doesn't want to carve his face off to comply with social pressure.
People need to grow even the tiniest fucking amount of balls and STOP GIVING MONEY TO THE FUCKING BANKS. I know none of you faggots would ever take up arms against this brutal and oppressive system (I sure wouldn't--that's suicide), but you could at the very least cease your active support of it, and stop shaming people who DO have the balls to resist, even if only economically.
The government made him take out those loans for those useless degrees?
No.
Obamacare was paired with a bill that made significant changes to the federal student loan program, largely cutting banks out as middle-men between the government and recipients of the loans.
Now, the government is both the lender and the guarantor of student loans which means that ultimately TAXPAYERS will get the bill.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/15/1336675/-AR-Sen-Tom-Cotton-R-Ob...
"The government made him take out those loans for those useless degrees?"
I see, you are a shill.
No, the government didn't force him to take those loans. I never said anything that even resembles that. What I said is that it isn't his fault that the government will socialize the losses to save their precious, corrupt banks. Banks they have already shown unconscionable favor towards by making student loans non-dischargable in bankruptcy. Banks that violated their fiduciary duty by giving loans out to people who they should have told to pound sand, but gave them anyways since they had government guarantees.
Go back where you came from.
"the government will socialize the losses to save their precious, corrupt banks."
You don't understand.
The government has already "socialized" losses. Obamacare was paired with a bill that made significant changes to the federal student loan program. It largely cutting banks out as middle-men between the government and recipients of the loans.
Now, the government is both the lender and the guarantor which means that ultimately taxpayers will pay for any loan defaults.
His fault was taking loans for useless Ivy League degrees. Now he's defaulted and taxpayers will get the bill.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/tom-cotton-student-loans_n_3692...
"Be sure to pay the local mugger or he'll have to go mug more people! Those muggings are YOUR fault, for not paying the mugger."
Sounds like a fucking battered wife making excuses for her shitstain husband. How long until he kills one of the kids, huh?
So have you stopped paying all taxes to your big government mugger? Otherwise you sound like a fucking battered wife making excuses for her shitstain husband.
no, thats what you sound like, making excuses for the government. Tmosley is right. I'm not excusing what this guy did, but this is a case study for why the government should not be involved in any of this in the ifrst place. The government is a mugger. And it is the government that is making us give our money to finance shitshows like this. this guy walking away from his loans isn't the one forcing us to pay for it, the government is. He is a deadbeat, so what, many people are. But instead of being angry at the deadbeat, you should be angry at the entity that is FORCING YOU AT GUNPOINT to pay for free shit for deadbeats like this.
This is the same argument used with welfare. Rather than being angry at the hoodrat sitting around smoking weed and being uselss while living off of food stamps, which is exactly what the government, espeially the republican party, wants you to do, you should be mad at the entity that is FORCING YOU AT GUNPOINT to pay for this hood rat to do nothing all day. \
Noticing a trend here?
Actually, I have. I (purposefully) don't book income large enough to pay taxes.
But most people aren't strong enough to do that. You don't resist the armed mugger when he comes for you. But you don't have to pay his unarmed friends who may or may not get him to go steal them some more to cover what you "owe".
"His fault was taking loans for useless Ivy League degrees. Now he's defaulted and taxpayers will get the bill."
His name was Siegel, he should'a knowed better, or had a close relative in banking! This article is total propaganda BS. I gave it a one 'cause 0 isn't an option.
+1 ZH has been overrun with people who can't even remotely connect the dots like you did above.
Most certainly the FED, Wall St Banksters and US govt are to blame for this mess, like most everything going wrong in the country. But hey, lets blame the kids (aka debt slaves) who don't know what else to do other than stay in school and borrow more money.
Moral hazard went out the fuckan window the day Fannie and Freddie were nationalized in 2008.
The guy running Sallie Mae, Ray Quinlan, is a banker that worked for CITI, Goldman Sachs. Isn't that strange?
Take a look at FNMA/FHLMC former execs. I think I see a pattern of them getting rich helping other people make mistakes.
No one really cares if he pays back since the bankers are all backed by unlimited bailouts. Their goal is to impoverish the Middle Class American with massive debt, taxes and 0.01% yld on savings accounts.
Until Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke's ethnic class repays every single cent plus substantial usurious interest on the quadrillions they have been given by the Treasury and the FED with no obligations, any amount of loans the other classes can avoid paying back is to be condoned, and not condemned.
U who criticize a default by students either have no understanding of just what has been going on with mostly the Jews these last 40 years in moving methodically into control of every single financial nexus in the world.
Get up to speed and then maybe you might have some credibility to take a student to task for reneging on his promise.
No one really cares if he pays back since the bankers are all backed by unlimited bailouts.
And who pays for those unlimited bailouts?
TAXPAYERS!
Obamacare was paired with a bill that made significant changes to the federal student loan program, largely cutting banks out as middle-men between the government and recipients of the loans.
Now, the government is both the lender and the guarantor of student loans which means that ultimately TAXPAYERS will get the bill.
If you pay taxes, you should care.
Enough already with this mantra. The US govt is already broke, and the US taxpayer will never pay any of this shit off.
Who are you kidding?
The US govt may already be broke, but that won't stop the politicians from confiscating every dime they can from taxpayers in the meantime.
They say it's about "fairness."
"And who pays for those unlimited bailouts?
TAXPAYERS!"
Wrong. It is the holders of dollars who will pay, when the results of their inflation hit prices.
They aren't taking the money for these bailouts out of taxes, they are PRINTING THEM.
Oh look, a captain in the Free Shit Army.
Pay it back you loser.
He's right. The banks and the goverment owned by the banks aren't interested in debt repayment.
They are interested in you making payments forever, because they payments are often "manageable". Bullshit. The payments are "manageable" because they make it that way, designed to lull the dumbass who got the loans in the first place into a sense of complacency.
The only thing they are interested in is the perpetual earning of interest. The British government still has 100 year bonds they're paying off from World War I.
Yep, just 84 easy installments of XXX.xx or 360 "manageable" monthly payments of XXXX.xx for your depreciating assets, which is to say unless we choose to bubbleize them.
Dude, leave the country, it has more debt than you do.
The TBTF banks/corporations/insurers were bailed out of their debt with public money (and no they haven't paid it back nor forward) so it would be unpatriotic for this guy to pay back the loan - if you think about it long enough.
Not long at all if they have a body temperature.
I had to stop reading when he said turn himself into a "Professional reader and writer". While some can earn a living doing those things, for 100% (after rounding) those can only be a hobby. Did you tell the banker you intended to be a " Professional reader and writer"? If so then you both failed to live up to you parts in the bargain.
The banker wasn't listening because he doesn't care. The $$$ is looking for people because the yield on usary and fraud is the best game in town. At the end of the day he'll get every penny back plus interest, and then some. He is counting on everybody blaming deadbeats. Bankers are the victims here just trying to help out lol. This is all going to be bailed out and they knew it. Moral hazard ha ha!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-04/the-student-debt-colle...
The Lawsuit Machine Going After Student Debtors
“This is robosigning 2.0”
Should have gotten a real job. You stink as a writer.
It is a moral imperative .... to not fund .... this government .... let them print it .... that's a flat rate inflation tax !
If the PRIVATE SECTOR held the reigns over student loans with absolutely zero government backing not only would this shit be a non-issue, but college would have been cheaper for decades.
Major in Biology or Chemistry? Mmmmm....3% interest rate.
Major in English or Philosophy? Mmmmm...12% interest rate, perhaps even no loan available at all.
Got a 3.0 or 3.5 or higher last semester: no rate increase.
Oh you only got a 2.2 last semester? Half to a full percent rate hike.
See how easily this whole thing could work? The numbers are just examples of course, the market would set those numbers and they would be competitive.
Write all that you want, you still owe the money.
What a goddamned pussy. About the same age as me. Worked in the hayfields and refineries to pay for graduate and undergraduate school. Did in five years.
Few did, but you could do it back in the early 80's.
What a fucking cunt!
I don't understand why it doesn't occur to people until after they graduate that they won't ever get a ROI. Maybe he should have been doing something productive or useful for the community instead of wasting time and money brainwashing himself with ostentatious garbage.
If we can mandate that race and gender can't be factors in employment, why not also put a stop to education inflation by disallowing post-secondary educational information and questions to be shared with employers on all the millions of jobs that were performed without problems by HS grads in the 1960s?
Time to begin growing up at age 18 again.
Another empty headed Columbia Grad who knows how to write (and that's up for debate) but has nothing worth saying. He defaulted on his personal responsibility and was clearly one of the millions who should have gone to a trade school. Instead this pussy provides little to no value to society.
Why do we consider these people deadbeats instead of role models. Trying to bring down the criminal cabal is more than most have ever done on these blogs
He wasn't trying to do anything other than avoid reality and personal responsibility.
All you people that think it's OK to be a scumbag because Wall Street is filled with scumbags need to take a good hard look in the fucking mirror.
Just because the guy down the street is a lying scumbag doesn't make it OK for you to be like him.
I swear, this country is chocked full of lying, mirror avoiding, useless pieces of shit. Is this how America raises it's kids these days? It's OK to cheat on your test because little Johnny down the street cheats on his?
Jesus Christ people. Man up and stop being excuse making pussies.
Poor attitude reflects poor leadership. Your generation has proven to be full of shit leaders and parents. Why should we honor anything you say when the country we get to grow up in is vastly different that the one you got to enjoy when you were young
"Why should we honor anything you say when the country we get to grow up in is vastly different that the one you got to enjoy when you were young"
I don't know - maybe because IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO???
You don't have to honor a goddam thing I say. But if you want to look in the mirror and see a useless, lying, pussy - then go right ahead. Just stay the fuck out of my pocket.
Lots of shitheads calling this guy a deadbeat when in fact your whole country is a bunch of debt slaves and the USA is the largest debtor nation on earth and can NEVER get out of debt.
Most of you self righteous assholes suffer from 'Stockholm Syndrome''.
The debt ceiling issue in the USA has never been addressed and confronted (18 trillion and counting), so I don't see why you are getting junked for stating a simple fact. And the unfunded liabilities are a couple hundred trillion.
An order of Stockholm Sydrome with side of Cos Dis to go please?
The Student Loan Bubble isn't any different than the other FED/Govt induced bubbles. sadly, millions of these kids will never be able to pay these loans off. Not that I agree with it, but thats the way it is.
As long as the debt is denominated in USD, we can get out of debt at least once.
The owners of the Federal Reserve may cry and the USD may be worthless after that, but we'll be debt free - and think of the export advantage! ROFL!
It's our Ponzi, Dutch Boy .... were cashing in our chips .... before the big fail .... the least socialist wins .... it's all relative ! LOL
If low-income graduates were allowed to default, with colleges and *private* lenders forced to eat the loss, this would effect a massive re-orientation of American higher education toward degree programs that lead to high-paying jobs, and to students able to complete them.
There's no downside, except to the thousands of mediocre colleges that would not survive the shakeout.
Obamacare was paired with a bill that made significant changes to the federal student loan program, largely cutting banks out as middle-men between the government and recipients of the loans.
Now, the government is BOTH the lender and the guarantor.
What this means is the ultimately TAXPAYERS are the guarantors of defaulted student loans.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cotton-pryor-debate-student-loans
http://www.factcheck.org/2014/10/student-loan-stretching/
After which the government will simply pay outright for everyone to go to college, and colleges will have even more incentive to entertain their students instead of educating them. Less interesting colleges will still have trouble attracting students, so the government will start assigning each student to the nearest college, like it's another 4-6 years of high school.
How much will all this cost, you ask? When you can create money out of nothing, who cares?
Yes, you're a deadbeat. You should be impressed into involuntary servitude, forced to work 100 hours per week, and beaten unmercifully on a daily basis until the money is paid back.
Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too. [/Judge Smails]
his mistake was not maxing out his credit cards using swipe for cash outlets or just buying lots of gold, and then leaving the country. A bunch of cards, bare minimum should be ~$80k. With that and a phd, you can restart life in virtually any country.
Bingo. I know some people who did just that ;)
You guys are truly inspiring role models. You're nothing but con artists who justify their behavior by pointing to the wrong doings of others. No wonder Germany rolled through Holland like a hot knife through butter. Not much in the way of real men to stand up to them.
LOL. yeah, A massive army compared to almost zero. What the fuck do you know about real men, you little punk ass americunt fucktard.
I know enough that the only reason you aren't speaking German and your women aren't getting fucked by the Nazi's is because American fighting men came over there and did your fucking job for you you little pussy.
Grow the fuck up.
No, that would be because of the Russians. Americans had jack shit to do with it apart from making movies claiming they had everything to do with it.
Meat Trapper lol what a disgusting kool aider you are . Strikes me as foolish that you bother to spout your unexamined nonsense. Muricans freed others from nazis ? Hahahah . IDIOT THOSE SAME NAZIS WENT BACK IN USA and started ruling from there . You did jackshit to liberate others . Adolf Hitler bazi general was later appointed as head of nato council in 1945 by murican goverment . Learn some facts its present on internet for FREE !!
He had better be lucky he took those loans 30+ years ago. Today, you can't default on student loan debt. It's not dischargable in bankruptcy court. What did this guy think would happen with such a worthless degree?
Indeed. His story made no sense to me, until later on he reaveals this all took place 30 years ago. Today, congress passed laws to make student debt an Iron Clad debt, immune to all the civil processes of bankruptcy and default. Nothing removes the burdern, it can be pushed down the road, but then interest accumulates.
America has become the kick the can down the road society. Our government sets the standard by spending the future earning of Americans for the nex 2 centuries today, and hands the bill to those future Americans.
Most of the debt in our ponzi monetary system is not getting paid back. The sooner people figure this out, the better things will be not for us, but for whomever makes it through the shakeup. What people don't understand with our monetary system is that the amount of debt MUST increase. When it stops increasing, there ceases to be enough currency to make the interest payments and the whole thing comes to a screeching halt. This is not simply debt surfdom, it is something worse because a lot of people think that this is the way things should be; they are willing debt surfs. People are brainwashed to think that paying into the ponzi scheme, and it is a ponzi scheme, is the good and honorable thing to do. When they make their payments to the cabal of criminal bankers, they think that they are doing something honorable, when in reality, they are just affirming their status as a debt surf.
@Jack--congress passes bills ---the POTUS signs them into law---Bush the "smarter" signed the "student loan for the benifit of the lender" law while Obama the "weak" fudges around making the US gov't (aka tapayer) the guarantor of the student loan which nationalizes the whole scheme --in other words its just "sell another T bill at auction" or -yes kicking the can down the road to infinity.
I have a neighbor whoes daughter went to Rice and borrowed $75,000 on the thinking she would get a job in a certain field. When she graduated, they now required a Ph.D, not juts a masters. She works at Kohl's as a sales clerk and lives with her mom. She's an idiot. Go be a school teacher for three years and pay the debt off while you live with mom. Take action. Do something. Nope.
For whatever reasons, Rice grads have a higher failure rate. The school did a study of "why" back about 30 years ago and it was a gloss over job written to not offend.
I've worked with a lot of really good ones.
No Deadbeat. Just woke up too late. Should have become a cop after getting your GED. Might be retired with pension by now and definitely no student debt.
He could have joined a military branch, Navy, Army etc. and retired after 20 years. Had I stayed in, I would have retired at age 37, with 20 years service. This is enough for a decent pension, not enough to live on, but enough to make your life really easy from then on!
But you are right, any public service job, federal, state, county, municipal, and he would retired at 55 and coast for 25 years!
Army stopped providing pillage opportunies as perks long ago, but being a cop still has it.
Oh, sure. He could have also joined the biggest mob in town. Working as a drug-runner, he could have made a killing and paid off all of his debts within months.
<<He could have joined a military branch...>>
Philosophical degree = toilet paper
take that Lib Arts College degree and go Wipe your ass with that sheepskin, you Lib, snap card, free loading bum, use that worthless degree to wipe your ass with it.
its, its its.....toilet paper
For some, that liberal arts degree is a ticket to a much more damaging degree that comes from that Ivy League ....
a Ceiling on Benefits might help or be one strategy.
Health care and education Inflation can't work well if students have a college loan ceiling of $50,000. Not a bad idea if there is growing risk of student defaults.
Ivy League Schools all have trust funds, many invested in Zombie Hedge Funds. Obviously Universities are Profit Centers... not the completely altruistic concept their first benefactors had in mind at all.
If Medicare has caused inflation of US Health Care, and has no Ceiling on Benefits maybe some mechanism is needed to keep hospital overhead, admin, equipment leasing and purchases under control as well.
$10,000 a year for tech school or internet study is kind of high...
When colleges began to smell the money of unlimited student loans, they went into out of control Ponzi mode. Growing and becoming resorts and party clubs for the kids, just get them in the door! Once in the door, fuck them hard for tuition, book, room and board. Go to a college campus, stalk a few professors for a couple days, once you see their life style, you will get it! Next go to administration, just walk in like you work there, and go where ever you can until kicked out. Wanna see an army of do nothings? Amazing just how many people sit at desks, overseeing the students and teachers. Whats worse, is the shitty quality of many professors and undergrad teachers. Many have little or no teaching skills, they have long since grown tired of repeating the same lessons, they drone on, give no real teaching skills or effort to it. Too busy dreaming of summer at their cottage on the lake. Imagine, every year spending June, July and August at the lake! I work may ass off to get two weeks a years.
Consider having the Fed buy your debt and disappearing it.
Accept all credit card offers. max them all out and pay off student loan and then file Bankruptcy.
Default option: Wait for mother of all nig-er jubilee debt forgiveness !
By the time I finished the 5th grade, I learned everything I needed to know to be a writer. I also had an untarnished brain. It has taken me decades to unlearn everything that was fed to me after the 5th grade. But, I am almost there.
No big deal defaulting on his student loans. The government can just go ahead and say, "Don't want to pay? That's fine, we'll just hold onto your social security and tax refunds indefinitely." A genius way to hold onto the money of the millenial morons.
Here is a fact you may not know. the govt can only garnish 15 percent of SS for student loans.
While true, I wouldn't doubt that the rule makers will probably change the rules in the future.
"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."
With those words he betrays his generation and his public education. Told from birth how unique and good he was at everything. Never challanged or put down for bad behavior or poor performance. He left home, high school and then college convinced he was owed a career in what he studied and wanted. He was not going to waste his valuable, extra valuable, life in a JOB that was not his chosen field. He obviously never learned that survival in a capitalist job market meant digging and fighting for everything you get. Start at the bottom work your way up? Nope, not for him! He went to college, and was taugth he was owed his "writing job".
How wrong can one man be?
Everyone is replaceable. I think more people should realize this. Doesn't matter what your job is or title.
Let's face it, sometimes people have to choose between money and preceived happiness. Whatever floats one boat.
Not paying on a loan or contract is fundamentally wrong and should suffer the consequences.
"Graveyards are full of indispensables"
"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."
This is a fact of life we all learn, and have to deal with. Nothing can be done, so live with it. Money begets money, it always has and always will.
It only takes one great generation to sacrifice to give a good life to the next. And it only takes one rotten generation to plunder, take, and steal --- to take away from the next three.
WOW is that the truth or what----piss it all away in a couple of years--
"...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."
*************************
You now believe you're being useful to society? Seriously? I have my own opinion on that.
Lifetime student if you ask me. Stayed in school because he didn't want to work.
A electrician, plumber, welder, auto mechanic all are good paying jobs if you want to work without going through the hoops of college degrees. Two year trade college is the way to go if you are a hard working person. IMO.
He thinks a lot of himself, that much is clear.
This article is quite the shallow victory for a Columbia graduate --- now that the article is largely read because of a ZH link and gets shot down by a bunch of loonies that outwit you with a few keystrokes.
The problem is a societal one and not only unique to the schools. As I see it there are three issues facing us (both Canada and the US):
1) Demographics. The Boomers needed new services and products to spring up and meet their needs. They are going to be dying off soon and as a result will leave their excess to the Millenials who won't need any where near the same services as they already exist. Before the Boomers they did not exist. In the US the millenials are a little larger than the boomers. Not so in my native Canada. There will be huge excesses.
2) Societal debt is huge and will take decades to pay off (if it ever is). The is in both Canada (which has not yet corrected yet and will do so very painfully) and in the USA. Leverage was grossly overextended. What do you do when debt becomes unpayable? I am not sure there is a right or wrong answer here?
3) Our fractional banking systems are broken and do very little for scoiety. They produce very little and yet production is needed to pay this worthless cash back.
I don't have the answer other than I suspect a simplified approach might be easier to deal with.
amazing...how about this story: injured on several occasions and one incident (2009) knocked me out of work forever (none were due to any fault of mine) tried to take new direction at online Uni but the course work aggravated symptoms, leading me to consider suicide due to chronic pain at all time high, approved for social security disability on first application (2010) (average is only 30% applicants approved on first applications). Obviously, my injuries were/are serious.
Income with SSDI in 2010: less than a thousand per month, current is slightly more than a thousand per month due to teeny annual increases... and a bill at end of year from feds for $400 for medicare (doh!) Would have loved to finish my courses and move on... (instructor informed me that all other students in research program were waiting for me to post my papers before they posted theirs...) but - moving on to qualify for work again simply was/is not possible... my story linked to fact that some state laws are designed through corporate lobbying - protecting the corporations... so, don't have an accident on somebody's premises because they violate insurance rules... Imagine being injured due to absolute negligence on somebody else's end and being treated like a criminal through the investigative process and never qualifying for work again... now that's a student loan horror story. Of course, I'm not paying anything on my student loans. But, If I could, I would.
I forgot to mention - if and when my sister sells our dead mother's property, which might net $20,000 for the two of us (to be split equally), the one and only private bank I have a loan with may take all of my share.
If life were fair you should be the one with your finger on the "dooms day machine" button. Just choose for the rest of us for a while. Whats your plan for today Captain Obvious?? Thumbs up you say? Good choice IMHO Captain. Whew!!
are you always so cheery?
Today:
broadcast rye grass for permaculture hugelkultur food security - check/done
broadcast nuclear news - check/don/ongoing
stay warm on this chilly winter day -check/that's working and I don't use energy burning heater
And, You?
People that work for NGO*s can get out of paying student loans.
*Lois Lerner approved only
While you are at it, you might want to think about the rest of the responsibilities you'll have in life. You might want to default on all or some of the following, as they may present an opportunity for personal self-serving gain: You marraige, your children, the commitments you made to pay a mortgage and credit cards, your neighbors, your friends and others in your community. The key is not to think ahead, do your due dilligence and accept the responsibility up front. You try it all out, see what you can get out of it, and walk away if it doesn't work out or make you happy, and try to shift the blame on others.
You do realize that you just outlined the basic qualities required to be a politician these days.
Lol. I guess no more room for "folks" like him.
...or a business/corporation?
Lee Siegel,
Here are massive deceptions by omission. Write about them!
"Stop whoring for Wall Street"
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
http://patrick.net/?p=1223928
So much wrong with the author's thought process.
1. Being useful to society is paying your debts.
2. You don't have to be paid to write in order to write.
3. It always comes down to the government should give more stuff away for free.
Are people on IBR who pay $0 said deadbeats? Me thinks not. They are in Repayment. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to witness, does it make a sound?
The guys an idiot and his mother was for pushing him along that path. Kid's need to figure out who they are and what they wish to do, before they sign on the dotted line. They also need to have a good knowledgle of what a scam our society is. I am encouraging my nephew who is 17 to get a skillset in electrical, plumbing, metal fabrication, ect and steer clear of the college racket. Additionally, the moral fabric at most colleges is disgusting and not what you want your kids exposed to.
"...the moral fabric at most colleges is disgusting and not what you want your kids exposed to."
I tell this to mainland Chinese parents I know ALL. THE. TIME.
"You won't like what they'll 'teach' your son," I will say, and/or, "you will be sorry when you see what they do there to your daughter."
All to no avail.
"But Lin, American education is the finest in the world! How can you not know this!?" They tell me.
I just shake my head and drop the matter.
You know, sometimes I feel as though I am living on the wrong planet...
You are living on the wrong planet. I agree with everthing you say and I warn folks the exact same way.
Here is what is missing: You expect parents --- here, there or anywhere --- to give a shit about their kids or to want better for them. Some do. Some clearly do not. The world is filled with bad and stupid parents.
For some parents, higher education is a cheap way to kick a kid out of the nest while maintaining the allure of being a good parent. The fact that their kid will come out completely debauched is neither here nor there --- they did the same and turned out fine, right?
Excellent points, all.
Yes. Morally, you're a deadbeat. If the government didn't exist, not paying your debt is no good. You're stealing. You said you would pay back and didn't. You're also a liar. And the "predatory" nature is that people don't forget and attempt to get back what you owe them from you.
And spare me the moral relativism. You can only control your actions. And you decided that what you wanted to do was important than what you promised your creditors.
As for other debt, there are remedies for default. And once you go through them, good. You're done. But the remedy for default on an unsecured debt like a student loan is that creditor can continue to go after what you owe them at your expense.
25 years ago the price tag of a University education concerned me greatly. This was when I was 18 and all my friends were signing up for the College Farm System...Several failed wars and financial busts ago so it was much easier to drink the kool-aid then.
I don't know how this crybaby deadbeat "writer" was too stupid to see how this would turn out for him. I don't really feel sorry for him or his predatory creditors who'll get stiffed. They were meant for each other. My guess is he never planned to pay anything back anyway. The apple didn't fall far from the tree with him.
Hey writer guy: The world is a crooked, corrupt, goat fuck....You got a Master's degree in Phillosphy at an Ivy Leage school and you were never taught this and it never dawned on you? You're a pigeon. Not a writer. Don't pay it back. I could care less but you wasted 10 years. You would have been a better as a shoe salesman.
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.
__
Clearly he put his education to good use: rationalization is the shadow-side of reason. He learned how to lie to himself to protect himself from....working. One can be a writer and work at another job. I did it for 30 years.
I paid off my student loan.
"How I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society?" the writer asks.
Actually, paying your debts and working at a job that has nothing to do with your particular usefulness to society is your particular usefulness to society. Welcome to the human race
Yes. Deadbeat. Deadbeat with powerful skills of rationalization. It was a act of political and moral conscience to borrow money and not pay it back. Sorry, I don't buy it. Rationalization is the easy part.
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.
__
Clearly he put his education to good use: rationalization is the shadow-side of reason. He learned how to lie to himself to protect himself from....working. One can be a writer and work at another job. I did it for 30 years.
I paid off my student loan.
"How I could survive without wasting my life in a job that had nothing to do with my particular usefulness to society?" the writer asks.
Actually, paying your debts and working at a job that has nothing to do with your particular usefulness to society is your particular usefulness to society. Welcome to the human race
Yes. Deadbeat. Deadbeat with powerful skills of rationalization. It was a act of political and moral conscience to borrow money and not pay it back. Sorry, I don't buy it. Rationalization is the easy part.
Upvote for medium anecdotal double post .... what's the record for a manifesto double post ?
Interest in excess of the risk-free rate is charged on loans to account for the risk of default. Default is not immoral. It's just a business decision.
We did a lot better as a group when we considered it immoral. The guy who breaks his word to a bank is going to keep it with his wife and kids?
The way I see it is that corporations and the financial system are given a pass, so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
The individual should not have to pay off a zombie loan and they aren't a deadbeat for doing. It's still the creditors fault for giving un-secured loans out and should have to pay the punishment of people defaulting until they figure it out.
Anyone who doesn't understand that should be kicked in the head repeatedly until it computes.
No where do I hear any remorse for people whose money he effectively stole. All I hear is the bleating cry of "I'm a victim, therefore I cannot be held responsible for any choices I make."
Tell you what. You give up the right to vote, as obviously you cannot be trusted to make good choices, and we'll consider letting you off the hook for your student loans. Sound fair?
Thats a good one but this one might be better. Liberal students eat professors;
http://www.vox.com/2015/6/3/8706323/college-professor-afraid
Of all the things the US spends money on, free or nearly free higher education would make the most sense. That's the way it used to be.
If subsidized higher education was limited to those that are highly qualified for math, science, and engineering --- you might have a point. But to have taxpayers pay for the rest of the crap --- forget it. Pay your own way.
This ^
Do I want to pay taxes so Chinese kids here on visas - and who are wealthy anyway - can study engineering at my expense and subsequently get work in this state which is being denied to US citizens?
Do I feel good about paying taxes so that semi-literate Latin Americans who shouldn't be in this country to begin with can get into a university DESPITE low gpa's and poor SAT scores?
Do I support paying taxes so angry young women can get advanced degrees in Victim Studies and become even angrier toward straight young men?
NO.
Use the taxes to REPAIR THE ROADS AND WATER INFRASTRUCTURE.
I really don't care about your roads and water infrastructure, because i use neither. How about no taxes.
No taxes works for me, too.
I'm all for it as long as the college administrators and professors work for free.
I'm going to assume that you believe education is priceless so it is worth whatever it costs. You are an idiot. A society can only afford to pay as long as the benefit is greater than or equal to the cost.
Nothing is free.
Ultimately it's the taxpayers who end up getting the bill.
Why should taxpayers have to pay for the Ivy League education of lazy shitheads like him who want to sit around and pretend to be writers?
Jesus Christ you're stupid. College use to be affordable, but that ended when the governement got involved with their easy money guaranteed loan program. You know this but you don't put two and two together.....well you do but you get five. Easy money distorted the market, but what do you want to do? You want to make the money even easier.
I hope he isn't paid by the click, I feel cheated!
So his dream as a kid was to be a writer, mine was to play in the NBA. I'm 5'8" and white and didn't take out any loans to fund my dream. He's a shitty writer and I'm a shitty b'ball player. He just believed the lie that he could be whatever he wanted to be...reality and debt are a bitch.
The most powerful weapon the American people have is Rejection.
The system of fraud and theft that has been built up upon the backs of the American people is dependent upon our backs. Withdraw our backs, and the whole scheme collapses. This is our greatest weapon.
Stop Paying--Put it into food, and precious metals, etc. They stole whatever "debt money" they loaned you in the first place (fractional reserve banking) and soon you won't be able to pay them anyways, so Stop Paying.
Stop Playing--Stop being a tool for them to use, mock, and call "stupid." Stop Playing.
Stop Obeying--If they are in violation of the Constitution then they are not legitimate anyways, so Stop Obeying their unlawful dictates.
The Four Rs
Rejection: Stop Paying, Stop Obeying, Stop Playing
Revolution: It is inevitable, so prepare, as they are.
Restoration: Restore the American people, country and Constitutional republic.
Retribution: The guilty must answer for their crimes against the American people and the Constitution.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
I often focus on the underlying morality issue of how one does not owe, cannot owe, what was funded via theft from the borrower in the first place. But what of contract law?
If the banksters are, as is quite clear, not required to adhere to their contracts, why then would it be a requirement for an individual to adhere to their contracts with the banksters?
Putting aside the banksters' utilization of violence by their violence-puppets, government, what requirement is there to abide by one's contract with the banksters if the banksters have no such requirement, and in practice, don't abide by their contractual duties?
I posit none.
The banksters need to repay us.
liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
Save Mankind
Guillotine a Bankster
I usually like your posts. This/your post is from a person that doesn't have a student loan IMO. Your not receiving four phone calls a day at any hour to pay up.
If you lived though what I did, your posts would sound much different.
Not to mention that the collection agency collects a fee on top of your student loan so to be paid as well.
Let's say you run into good fortune like I did. You didn't pay your student loan for what ever reason.
You want a loan or want to refinance. That student loan debt will haunt you till the day you die. I say this from experience. GL!
This is how I paid off my student loans.
I spent 8 years in the military. So I got a VA loan after college. Bought a two bedroom two bath condo. Got a roommate paying me half my mortgage and utilities. Refinainced to a lower interest rate and took out equity to pay off my student loan. Four years later I sold the place at a 100% profit. Moved in with my girlfriend and fixed her place up and now the place is paid off. This was in 2000 thru 2004.
Now it only takes four or five days to cover my bills and expenses for the month.
Until she gets sick of you and throws your ass out into the street. Your name on anything?
She is a computer programmer. Makes double what I do. Been living this way for 15 years. Maybe I'm better off not being in the system. My brokerage account is in my name. :).
That's what my brother said, he was with her for about 20 years, now he got his tiny IRA and she got the loot, the houses, the cars you name it. He got an old van and his clothing. Hope you are not in Illinois. With women, it's all good - until it isn't.
You're the fucktard with the PHD in Philosophy, why are you asking us?
the entire "student loan debt" is a ruse, a scam. our young people were deliberately targeted by those sitting in the highest offices of Washington DC & at the top in the banking system ...... deliberately scammed. OUR PRECIOUS YOUNG CITIZENS WERE DELIBERATELY TARGET TO TAKE ON DEBT & IF THEY COULDN'T SIGN, THEN, THEIR PARENTS CO-SIGNED.
this young man figured out the swindle. he scammed the banking system right back...... just deserts.
A PHD and he knows nothing about the Federal Reserve Ponzi.
Subprime Student Loans start at around 7%, and as soon as one payment is missed, the file is in "default" and the interest rate automatically increases to the non-teaser rate, and the "student" is locked into indentured servitude without legal recourse to file for Personal Bankruptcy in perpetuity. This translates into financial limbo for the lives that are ruined by personal financial mismanagement, and malinvestment.
The Western World has destroyed the productivity of hundreds of millions of people throughout the World with the "academic subprime student loans" Subprime Ponzi Scheme in Gubberment issued University/College Student Subprime Loans. It's a racketeering Federal Ponzi scheme promulgated by gubberment to inflate the financial system in a way to artificially inflate the stock market issue of their own personal stock market investments. A rigged zero sum game that affords no real winners in the end.
If comes down to owning the govt money and going to college or just not, don't bother. They can change the terms of the loan at any time. It's a lesson for everyone: NEVER owe the govt money.
---@ the master of the universe--
The gov't has truly fucked up here-- these persons in debt will hate the gov't more than the most hardend 20 year hard timer in a Federal Pen. Thats millions of people with intense hatred for TPTB--
Can remember this guy on NBC news being interviewed because he was happily paying off his underwater mortgage. It was obviously a propaganda piece to keep other suckers writing that monthly check. Most businesses I have known would've realized what a dead end that was and would have dumped their "personal responsibility" right then and there. When it comes to $ vs. morality, they choose $. This kid did as well. I bet he makes out in the end while every other dupe continues to uphold their morality by paying off a loan on worthless junk.
Moral of the NBC story? Never screw a creditor.
This kid's moral? Never screw yourself.
Too bad this clown didn't join the military for four years, get a GI Bill which is now quite substantial, and gone to an affordable state college, graduating with little or no debt.
There are always options, but usually those with no acceptance that life is about responsibility for one's actions will bury those potentials with excuses.
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain (It's time to toss the dice)
Got Karatbars?
He did attend a state college, and dropped out. Because HE DESERVED BETTER.
I don't see what personal responsibility has to do with this. The loan originator tried to fuck him with usurious interest and instead he fucked them. The terms of the loan clearly laid the agreed upon contingencies for both payment and non-payment. And in the case of the loans being government loans, he is not fucking over his fellow taxpayers. The federal debt is too big to ever get paid back, and that is equally true if you incluude the trillion in student loans or not.