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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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Just because the federal debt is too big to ever fully be paid back won't stop the politicians from trying to collect...
Have an older friend who rememers the rich in his town, would routinely never pay their bills for services they receieved. The hope would be to install fear into the sucker who was screwed. "God forbid the Upsnoot family on the hill speaks bad of me for complaining about being paid...no other succesful family will ever hire me again."
I took some classes in huge auditoriums holding about 400 "students." Also some with 30 "students” being "taught" by insanely clueless grad students.
So one day I sat down, and I don't recall the exact parameters I used, but they were something like 100 Grand for the professors (and all classes taught by real professors), 30 students to a class, and textbooks for $15. (They surely must cost at least $100 by now.) Also $75 or so per year for administration per student, and "rent," light, heat, etc. for each classroom. Result was:
The education should cost between 2/3rds and 3/4ths of the basic room and board.
We actually have peak knowledge. The doctor charges hundreds, hands you a pill, but provides almost no information. (With some major exceptions) people in the U.S.A. tend to know just about nothing, despite any "education."
Education has become a racket.
With YouTube, pirated eBooks, and all the free knowledge on the internet, there is close to nothing you can't learn faster and cheaper by yourself. Higher education has become an anachronism in the age of information.
These days you can read a few thousand pages of technical books, setup a website & phone numbers to fake your work experience, and get well above $100k/yr job if you just think for yourself and experiment.
Again, you must be a politician, a fool
or just plain stupid or all three. LOL!
Maybe your just plain crazy. I going with just plain crazy politician.
By telling people on blogs how your aunt made $23,856 last month on the internet?
I think this guy has identified one of the best scams going. Take out student loans and default. Then you havew acheived a higher education and multiples of earning power on the backs of the workers out there. Extra points if you are imigrant and take advantage of this scam on the backs of the locals. Get on board this scam now before the eventual collapse!
Show me where you can default on a student loan please. In 2000 thru 2004 it was impossible. What has changed?
it was possible before that and was a significant problem because the loans were guaranteed by .gov there really was no "need" to pay them back. that is why they enslaved you with the no default clause.
Hey: Bighorn_100b
"Show me where you can default on a student loan please."
SIMPLE, (if you have the balls) just quite making payments.
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/forms/sampleletter9.shtml
Not quite sure you made your point. Back in the day you could defer payment but still have to pay accrued interest. Not to mention that the bill collectors could and still will garnish your wages.
IMO, IF YOU STILL CARE ABOUT A CREDIT SCORE, then pay on time the contract that the student signed.
You can't have both. Choose.
Again, you are dealing with the FEDS. No form letter is getting anyone off the hook.
FED'S to student: Just pay me or I will make your life a living hell. It's that simple.
Every time a thread on student debt comes up, I am shocked that no one, and I mean no one, gets how easy it is to erase student debt. I've seen some come close, but no one gets it quite right.
Everything I am about to tell you is a fact. However, the example below is ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL.
Pay attention now, and learn how you, too can get rid of all your student debt. These instructions work for any other secured debt, as well.
1- Get yourself as many credit cards as you need to cover the amount of student debt owed.
2- transfer the student loan debt to these credit cards, while making the minimum payment, and until all student loans have been cutover to the credit cards. You have now converted secured debt to unsecured debt.
3- if you can't keep making the payments on the credit cards, then you default on the credit card payments. (Important- if you PLANNED to do this, it can be construed as FRAUD, but if it "just happened" that you didn't have the income to pay back the debt- it is NOT fraud). Stop all payments on your credit cards. Make note of the date you did so and then look up your state's statute of limitations on unsecured debt- it will be between 2 to 5 years.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-card-state-statute-li... You will get letters in the mail from debt collectors during this period- do not open them, simply throw them away. You will get phone calls during this period, simply do not answer them. At the end of the 2 to 5 year term, your debts are uncollectable. In 3 to 12 months, your credit rating will be around 600-700.
Everything I stated is absolutely legal. Any good bankruptcy attorney will tell you so. That's the bonus- you avoid bankruptcy.
The only thing you need to be careful of is that you do this wisely, otherwise it could be construed as fraud- so consult with an attorney before doing so.
Note- this is not legal advice- consult an attorney for details.
Point (2) above..Surely you cannot assign a debt? Not in any country that I know of.
Checks from the credit card issuer are offered by every credit card issuer.
Use these checks to pay the student loan.
In this way the amount is now owed to the credit card issuer, and is unsecured.
And I repeat again, I am not condoning fraud, nor suggesting it.
I am merely exposing a legal way that this can be accomplished.
If, after getting all the student debt transferred onto the credit cards, the debtor were suddenly unable to pay the balance on the credit cards through no fault of their own, then, because it is now unsecured debt, there is no fraud committed.
Like I said, everything I stated is fact in the USA, I don't know about any other country. And it bears repeating- consult a good bankruptcy attorney for advice and details.
Well seek_truth I have a few questions on your so called plan.
1. As you know you need a job to establish credit.
2. In order to transfer debt from the FEDS to say Visa, you need a job.
3. Not only can you not find that much available credit, now you have to pay both the FEDS and The credit card company so making matters worse having two creditors calling you four times a day each. WTF! Your logic only make sense if you are a employed Doctor. Again, gold luck with that. Because if you change schools/colleges after 60 days you must start paying back the first loan. That's probably why the guy stayed at the same college so not to have to pay back the first loan.
If you are a attorney then your message is expensive. Why, because now I have to pay you as well. So that's three bills a month I have to pay with no job. Again, WTF.
And what if your girlfriend is in the same boat only worse? You are truly fucked two ways to Sunday!
You're not thinking outside of the box.
Most don't.
There's much more that could be mentioned, for sure.
Here's some thoughts:
Move to where the jobs are.
Work two jobs.
Work under the table, in whole or in part.
Reduce your Expenses.
Learn to live off the land, to fish, to hunt, to forage, to offset expenses.
Best wishes.
I already posted how I paid off my student loan.
Now debt free forever. :)
As a small business owner of an Engineering company, if anyone who owns the company has had a bankruptcy you may not be able to get insurance. Good luck getting large work without insurance. I am sure there are ways around this, though. This also may depend on what your goals in life are.
Work for someone or have people work for you?
He borrowed the money from a private bank.
Privatize profit. Socialize losses. Wonder where that idea originated?
school was cheap 30 years ago. student loans were not extended in the astronomical terms they are today. you would be hard pressed to run up a fifty grand debtand if you did you were stupid. i went to a ny state school where tuition for the year was around 2500 for the year. i took out a 5000 dollar loan and paid 57 dollars/mo for ten years and got a masters in economics for it.
40 years ago when i got my ba the tuition was 425 dollrs/semester.
this guy had no nut to speak of. while there are lots of good arguments for the predatory nature of student loans this guy does have not one of them. can't pay your loan? get a second job at mcds just to pay it off.
Under the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act, you are allowed to challenge the validity of a debt that a collection agency states you owe to them. Use this letter and the following form to make the agency verify that the debt is actually yours and owed by you. Keep a copy for your files and send the letter registered mail.
http://www.creditinfocenter.com/forms/sampleletter9.shtml
I'm sure he paid his income tax on that defaulted debt.
I wonder about that. I think you only have to pay income tax on debt that has been discharged. With defaulted debt, one could always say you plan to pay later.
Finally, a loophole for regular people!
Actually it is called being a "Fucking Deadbeat".
In a system as corrupt as banking and finance today, the victims are the ones without the money. It was a gimmick. Create a think tank, send them to Hawaii or Hollywood for 3 months to come up with ideas to advance an agenda (bilk the customers), gain vast profits and destroy the credit rating and future of millions of unsuspecting people. This is the end of the Roaring 1st decade of the 21st century, and Great Credit Expansion was the one sure method in place to come in and buy it at bottom dollar by the time the water finished circling the bowl. This is a business plan that is a wrecking ball.
Hello - this debter did NOT received money or cash for his college loans. ZERO dollars was sent to his college. There are no Brinks trucks filled with US Currency - rolling up to schools accross the country - ever wonder WHY?
His signature CREATED debt. The promissory note was sent to the Federal Reserve window and DEBT was created (puff - out of thin air), simple magic numbers appeared on a computer with some usury percentage rate - then his loan was securitized and sold on Wall Street, god knows how many times.
Since NONE of this was disclosed to the debter, this is FRAUD and there is no statute of limitations on FRAUD... so personal responsibility, dead beat, all these terms have been programmed into our modern day serf heads by those in power.
Everyone needs to wake the f*ck up because this scenario happens for ALL LOANS...
Ever take a magnifying glass to the signature line on your personal checks?
*Hint - it's not a line...
Holy fucking shit, it isn't a line.
What does it say? I don't have a magnifying glass, and it is too small for me to read.
Edit: found my jeweler's loupe. It just says "AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE" over and over. Not really a big deal.
Three degrees at the same institution??!! Where I studied in the UK we were encouraged to study at a different institution if we went on to study after a bachelors degree in order get a more rounded experience of academia.
It's a bit like sleeping with one person for the whole of your life and being told you are the greatest lover.
College is not meant for unintelligent, uninspired children who should not graduate from high school in the first place. Only the hard sciences should be subsidized for those with talent. The soft sciences do not prepare students for a way to pay off their debts. The author of this article has a Masters in philosophy. I have never seen a want ad for a Masters in philosophy or for political science, etc.
"Only the hard sciences should be subsidized for those with talent. "
Agreed. If you like history or English literature go and study it in your spare time at your local library. Don't expect others to subsidize your dilettante lifestyle choice.
But it be rayciss when Shaniqua don't get no free education like all dem white folks dat get everythang. All she be needin is a chance to go to school and be all she can be.
I'm all for change.
The question is not "are you a deadbeat," but rather "will you be able to feed yourself when shit goes south?
"writer?"
Writing is a form of communication and many people, including some who contribute to this blog by way of posts and comments, are excellent at writing as the writings are interesting and get the thought across to the majority of readers.
Writing does not require the education stated above. I am sure many contributors to ZH never received advanced training in writing. Alternatively those who are over trained often times do not make sense to my mind.
Training is slavery.
Learning is freedom.
"Instead of guaranteeing loans, the government would have to guarantee a college education. "
Well he has a degree in philosophy, now he can borrow another S100k and use 10 more years to get a degree in thinking.
Edit: Mises would probably use the term "maleducated" rather than overeducated.
<<< he did right (being a chicken shit deadbeat)
<<< he did wrong (should have payed of the loans)
<<< I don't like polls with binary options
Wrong question, deadbeat. Why did he major in philosphy, when our great philosophers lived in a time when there were no universities?
Locke, Thomas of Aquinas, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Hume, Nietsche, Hayek, Kant, Sartre... ALL were persons who lived in a time of universities, at least a time when universities made their students learn a trade in addition to their studies,
Oh, sorry, you have your head up your ass and can't even read this.
You'd be wrong about most of the men you mentioned- even then, these men (excepting Thomas) didn't simply live outside the box. They tore it down.
Can you breathe?
Interesting that you mention Thomas of Aquinas, because he was the one who told you that you were powerless to control your own destiny.
He's wrong.
That you invoke John Locke and Rene' Descartes as representatives of university indicates a profound misunderstanding of what it means to be human.
Student loans are just another sub-prime schema...
They juice the educational establishments to get you kids excited at the chance of a classical education, which isn't; or to aim for an industry where "we're crying out for graduates" and you saps enroll, no offence intended.
You sign the dotted line and get on your studies with the knowledge that you're God's gift to the world; we all fell for it, it is a great opportunity in a normal world view!
On graduation you realise that the best jobs are taken (by the connected) and the low paid shit, if lucky, for you:
But, you have 50K of debt, payable to the banksters who print money out of thin air, just to cream some stuff off the almost poor.
You are not a "deadbeat", you are a victim of state-sponsored financial fraud, who have no intention of creating decent jobs.
Basically the 1100 word rant of a parasite.
Philosophy is not taught, it is learned. Big difference.
Yes. Capitalism begats more capital to those with capital. Theres nothing new about that. Get over it. This guy didnt go wrong when he got one college education that he could not afford. It did not go wrong when he got two college educations he could not afford. It went wrong when he had to get THREE college educations he could not afford. And the gubmint was foolish enough to let him do it. A pox on both your houses.
I really do love those that shit on our kids who know no fucking better.
You fucking brought them up, you put the cunts through school and expected them to go on and finish through college and then fucking university? And you clever cunts knew this before you passed this vital information on to your kids? Are you taking the right fucking piss?
Your kids owe this shit show even less than you dumb cunts taking the piss out of these kids for wrong choices that you had the chance to fucking stop, or stop your fucking children wasting time on things that cant help you later on in life.
I fucking hate, and I mean fucking hate people that blame kids for the way this shit show is turning owt.
You could have done something about this shit show we call life, and you fucking didnt, so leave the fucking kids alone.
Cunts
I agree with your sentiment; but I don't. Parents assist their 18 year olds in making bad choices ... but, these aren't really kids, they are adults. It's "kids" this age who took on the fascists during WW2. By 23 years of age they were squadron leaders, officers in charge of hundreds of men, and First Mates on ships. Today, "kids" at 24 years of age are interns in hospitals, police officers, derrick formen, nurses, teachers, commodity traders, heavy equipment operators, and any number of jobs that take mature intelligent individuals.
As for my 5 kids, I solved the problem when they were in grade 12. "Dear child, I will give you a place to live for one year after high school. After that you are on your own. I won't help pay for your university, so choose wisely."
I have a doctor, a police officer, a fireman, a commodities trader, and an optician. Only one is even 30 years old yet. All except the doctor own their own homes, are very serious and reliable employees, and are well on their way to being better off than I ever will be.
Only the doc has educational debt.
People thought I was harsh ...
The guy who wrote the article is a parasite ... period.
Boy, you were a dick of a father. Breed 'em then throw them to the wolves once they start college.
Really? You really don't know shit do you?
My children all are very close to me and all say that my "method" spurred them on to taking "responsibility" for themselves. They aren't the basement dwelling losers so common of Gen-X. My youngest had saved up $20K before even graduating high school.
Furthermore, you have no idea of the many ways I supported them in collage other than financially, enriched their lives as children and later, gave advice when asked, and sent them off better equipped for the world than most of their spoiled self-entitled gen-X peers. But, I did nothing special in actuality, I just raised them the way children used be raised.
Now we own property together, hunt together, politic together, and enjoy a life free of crushing debt.
You say "throw them to the wolves" ... really ... what a silly unsupportable statement. What wolves? If you raise a child to 18 years of age and they can't survive, you're a fucking useless parent ... most likely an over-protective nanny who's raised a nightmare of a self-entightled little prick (like the asshat who wrote the article).
Generation X was the last employed generation. It is Generation Y/the Millenials that are fucked. Basically anyone under 35, though be people at the top of that range (like myself) at least were able to get in a few good working years before the shit hit the fan.
Don't think you are so great. Your kids just got into the system early enough to avoid getting laid off in the financial crisis, and went to school when it was dirt cheap compared to today or the last ten years.
"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."
Wow.
What an ego. Too good for 'joe jobs,' and only is 'useful to society' as a writer...wow, what an asshole. Like we don't have enough 'writers.'Hell, I am trying to get bits of fiction published.
I have a BS in History. I studied it cuz I like history, REALLY like history, and because I expected realistically to work in the intelligence field. I screwed the intel thing up, and have been working jobs I hate ever since, and I HAVE REPAID ALL BUT 5,000 OF MY LOANS.
This asshole needs to grow the fuck up, man the fuck up, and meet his obligations. Right now, his usefullness to society is less than that of a guy shoveling shit in Louisiana. Stoodint loans might be a scam, but NO ONE makes you sign.
It's understanding that it's a scam, and that anyone who really has a "real" education, like the author, will succeed without ANY thought of paying them back.
Back in the mid 60's I was doing engine runup and taxiing KC-135 and C-130 aircraft in the USAF at AGE 20!!
You could get an FAA Airframe and Powerplant license for 5 dollars. That has made it easy for me to get jobs world wide. and well PAYING jobs.
I went to college also while in the USAF (U of Maryland) but it was only to enhance my learning, I never got a degree and I have NEVER had ONE employer ask me if I had a degree. and I bet I have out earned many college grads during my lifetime. Living debt free and home paid off , retired at age 60.
I have much more respect for someone with an A&P license and knows how to fix things over someone with an Ivy League degree and only knows how to talk about things.
Most people who get SUBSIDIZED under the GI Bill NEVER default (guess why!) on home loans.
Of course a loan is much different than a HANDOUT for someone simply "doing their fucking job".
He is a Deadbeat....
All loans are equal, that is they are created out of thin air by the banksters... True enough.
There are no jobs waiting for them as advertized... True enough.
But all that is known. The money still spends as if it were real money. His mother co-signed, surely knowing the problems. The schools took the money created and spent it.
He knew he wasn't going to pay them off but still took out more loans until he had what he wanted.
That, my friends, is plain old vanilla fraud if not outright theft.
All these kiddies grew up with and have iThingies. All are on the web. There is not one reason why they should not be aware of the job and loan problems. It's even covered by MSM.
To take out a loan knowing few jobs exist to repay it is no different than taking out a car loan knowing you don't have the resources to pay it.
That is FRAUD. If you cannot afford college,,, don't go.
Two or more wrongs don't make a right.
I f "all loans are equal", why then are soome discharged (million or BILLION dollar loans) under bankruptcy, while the small loans of small people must saddle them for LIFE?
Oh, BTW, you're a FUCKTARD.
"But all that is known."
When and by whom? I sure as shit didn't know that. I started school fully expecting to get a middle of the road job making $50K right out of college. My first job was less than half that (though I moved up to and above 50K, it took three years and only because I'm fucking brilliant). And I looked HARD. That was by far the best offer. This when the college councillors ASSURED me that there were jobs in my field.
No fucking normal person saw these bubbles coming. No normal person suspected a fucking greater depression. They made the right choices given the economic signals they recieved. They can't be faulted for the Fed and the government conspiring to create a false reality. Like in Die Hard two where the terrorists reset the plane's altitude as being 200 ft higher than it really was. You can't blame the pilots for the resulting crash. It was the fucking terrorist's fault!
I also was fooled into a useless Philosophy degree. What a hoax.
Years later I found out that the Rothschilds paid Fredrick Nietsche and Karl Marx to create opposing philosophies of socialism vs Individualism to attract and play off one against the other.
Philosophy is a concocted hoax and just another rich mans trick to divide and conquer society by the Black Nobility using their Masonic, Zionist and Jesuit agents.
College knowledge is a cruel hoax pushing useless academic constructs and theories.
I finally graduated with a second degree in engineering and discovered it too was a useless hoax that little prepared me for the technical world.
As the millions of ant-tribe college educated in china have recently found out - college is a cruel hoax preparing you for nothing. Welcome to the United States of Deception.
I agree that college does almost nothing in terms of preparing you for life. The problem is getting a start in life without having one of their useless degrees.
Oh, I dunno... I went ot university, learned how to understand and use business calculus, splice and clone genes (as well as numerous other biological concepts and practices), make real jewelry, and learned welding.
I guess it depends on the student... fuck ups fuck up, the rest of us exercise our wide range of opportunities that an education has prepared us for.
You... not so much.
Broad education gives college graduates an ability to express themselves, they have confidence that exudes from them for having accomplished one of the first projects - drop outs feel shame. It may be different now and of course, some classes are a total waste of time. Who uses algebra, anyone? But the class had to be taken by everyone and the stress of this class and nearly failing it is embedded in my mind (crying myself to sleep as a teen over bad grade destroyed any hope for fun during my 10th grade. But, I digress :( Anyone who finishes college without parent's help should be very proud of themselves.
Debts should be paid. Promises should be kept. The hardship of reality does not erase moral obligations.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100840148
There is not a business transaction or contract in place today that is not a scam if it has to do with banks. Predatory lending did not exist prior to 2000. We were not bombarded with credit cards and offers of loans at my high school or on the campus where I worked in 1979. The HIKE IN THE COST OF EDUCATION IS THE ISSUE not this man and his choices. Getting a job after the creation of a jobless economy is the issue. Where is all that money going? New buildings? Masters instructors of their profession? Obviously not.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-19-college-preside...
"Board of Trustees announced that it was going to increase next fall's tuition by 12 percent, an additional $294 a semester, the board turned around and approved a salary of $400,000 for the new president of San Diego State, Elliot Hirshman -- $350,000 in state funds and $50,000 from the campus's foundation -- a bump of more than $100,000 from what his predecessor made last year. "There's never a good time to raise presidents' pay," said Michael Uhlenkamp, a spokesman for the Cal State system. "But when there are immediate needs, whether taboo or not, we have to fill them."
"CSU's decision was met with a public outcry. California has made severe cuts to its higher education budget, including a $650 million cut to the CSU system this year."
http://fortune.com/2015/03/21/college-basketball-coaches-and-their-slam-... - Hey Sport!
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/pf/college/highest-paid-public-universit...
Pennsylvania State's Rodney Erickson, who stepped down from his position as president in 2014, tops the Chronicle's list of highest earners, raking in nearly $1.5 million in total compensation for fiscal year 2013-2014. Erickson, who took the helm in 2011 in the wake of a sexual abuse scandal at the university, left his post last year.
Related: Where public university tuition has skyrocketed
" EX - Pennsylvania State's Rodney Erickson compensation included a base pay of $633,336, bonus and severance totaling a combined $275,000, and retirement pay of $78,000, according to the Chronicle. On top of that, he received $586,267 in deferred compensation, or a lump sum that many universities give presidents after they have been on the job for a specific length of time.
Because those who step down as presidents often receive large deferred compensation packages, severances and retirement pay, it's no wonder that six out of the top 10 highest-earning presidents on the list are no longer in those roles.
The second highest-earning president, R. Bowen Loftin, whose total compensation was $1.1 million in 2011.
Since 2010, nine public college leaders have crossed the $1 million mark, some more than once, according to the Chronicle. E. Gordan Gee, former president of Ohio State University and now president at West Virginia University, is the highest paid in any year of the Chronicle survey, making more than $5 million in 2013.
You are a good slave. The Chosen People are glad to have you in their pen.
One of the selling points of Ivy League elitism when they are selling clueless high school students on going to their grossly overpriced hell-holes is a strongy inferred automatic entree of their students into the monied class on graduation. The graduates will always "summer" on Marthas Vineyard or the Hamptons forever and never have to worry about money again. This idiot assumed he would be bicyclng across a leafy campus on the way to teaching a class of big-titted coeds the mysteries of philosophy while devising plans to get their panties off. Just didn't work out that way.
I know it might be an unpopular position on ZH but whether it's an individual (as with this guy), or a nation (Greece) debts should be repayed if they were incurred freely, not under duress and that trickery was not involved.
This guy is a grifter trying to justify himself.
And that's the rub. "that trickery was not involved"...
On what was this loan /credit / electronic cyphers based? Obviously, (to me), the "education" this poor soul received was as vacuous as the cyphers deposited into the account from which this soul drew upon.
As was previously posted on ZH re: the “tsunami” of defaulted credit instruments that will most assuredly occur, I believe the most prudent course of action will be to shadow the actions of the “smartest people in the room” and not play the game at all.
Set sail and keep your fishing vessel well out to sea and on the other side of the swell that will sweep away those chasing shells as the tide recedes to record levels.
Your 70 – 80 orbits on the earth, while vitally important, do not compare to the assessment that will be applied to your overall value to the Immortal, Eternal and Unparalleled Justice Dispensing, yet loving, Father of Mercy.
Personally, I believe there will be many souls resting in / on Abraham’s bosom that I would never have suspected of being there, including me.
Jmunderstanding and Hope.
Monty Burns,
Totally agree. Mr. Philosophy wanted a do nothing, self - important degree that was beyond his financial reach or that of his parents.
Doesn't anyone teach kids about degrees that actually lead to job offers anymore? Debt is a form of slavery where you enslave yourself.
An attitude of "I am too good to do anything useful" is what leads to men in the suburbs who can't repair small engines or mow their own yards.
Hubster and I have 6 degrees between us but you can bet that we aren't afraid of manual labor or getting our hands dirty either. Further, we sure didn't leave college with debt since we held jobs while working on advanced degrees.
And what would you call a false economic signal sent by artificial (and fully divorced from reality) interest rates? Fine print?
Look at it this way,Mr Seigel..You got paid to bone sweet college co-eds for 10 years,while many of your contemporaries were losing limbs in Iraq,or struggling through 2 recessions,to put food on the table for their children.So man-up,you worthless piece of shit,if anybody should be outraged,it's the taxpayers who are going to foot the bill for your paid vacation..
Student loans are like Hotel California - you can default any time you like, but you can never leave - your student debt...
You CAN leave, t's just that you have to leave the US.
He "deserved better" than state college. WHY? I didn't find an explaination of why he "deserved" anything, never mind "better" What a self-important asshole.
Note the IRS is after him also, it's not just "college debt". The guy is a professional dead beat. Fuck him.
If he was writing an expatriot memo while having a beer in San Luis Potosi, I think we would have a little more respect for this fucker. As it is, none of us can stand his bullcrap.
I agree, con men stories are great - but the only person this fucktard is conning is himself.
Middle class should be thankful that there are still shitloads of students willing to take a loan, bringing new money into the economy. Most of them will be shredded sooner or later and others get the profit, that's life, isn't it?
Guess I'm an ingrate, I'm not thankful for fuckheads that thing they are smart and sign for these stupid loans so they can party and have iCrap, then regret it later.
Philosophy = 100% pure shit
Master of Philosophy degree = 100% pure waste of life
expell them all
Yet conservatives hold William Bennett, the former "Drug Czar" as some kind of moral beacon....
Oh yeah... you steer AWAY from lighthouses!
Disagree. Imagine we would make philosophers the leader, above economists and all that.
Well we don't check on our Lawyers & Bankers to see what they did over time. They are basically Self-Regulating. Banks and Lawyers do operate with a business culture of secrecy, obfuscation, and Counter Intelligence Operations.
** Help End the Profession of Lawyers today, ease the burden of Federal Laws, and Destruction of the US Constitution **
* Simplify, Streamline, Standardize Laws, Regulations, Income Tax Regulations, Finance, Courts, and establish Bench Marks and Guidelines for Courts to eliminate lengthy proceedings, numerous motions, and unlimited resources applied by the Wealthy, make courts equal for the poor. *
But Philosophy has developed over 1000s of years. It contains the history and thinking that created logic, mathematics, and Science.
We don't know who the philosophers where racially or where they came from. Maybe that is something they teach in history or philosophy. There may have been black African Philosophers in Greece for all I know.
Economists seem tied to Ideology and Patriarchy. This would be soft science at best not philosophy at all.
One of the last acts of Philosophy unfortunately was to educate Germany people that the State was the Ultimate Authority above God, Above Individualism, and above all else. This was transferred to the American Education System.
Today we see this.
US Presidents & Congress pretend to be the Royal Leaders, Ultimate Authorities.
M. Phil--about as useful as tits on a boar hog.
"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."
And you don't like him? What is he doing that the USA's 'let's-build-a-colossal-debt' government is not?
"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."
It would be cheaper, to begin with, because they'd see reason. Or free, as it is in sensible countries. Social mobility has a price, and that IS a free for all good education. What do you prefer, a massive debt because of huge military expenditure or a normal debt because of a sound education system?
Sorry, but this guy is right on all counts.
I took a course once in Existential Philosophy after getting out of the USAF. It was interesting so one night I decided to test it out. Instead of going to class and took my backpack and 3 dollars and hitchhiked to California to see what would happen by just following my nose. This was in 1974. When people still picked up hitchhikers. I had people throw joints out to me while I was lying on the side of the interstate not even trying to catch a ride. Kids passed in cars giving the PEACE sign. I made it from Omaha to Riverside,. Calif,. and still had 10 cents left. enough to call a cousin who lived there who offered me a job in Anaheim but I turned it down and he gave me an old beater car he had so I drove back to Omaha.. 2 weeks later I was back in class, and the instructor wondered where I had been. I told him , ''testing out my own personal existential philosophy''. I learned a lot. He laughed when I told him what I had done.
If you had truely discovered your existential self, it all might have all ended right there on one of those highways.
Perhaps. but then ANYTHING can happen at any time. hence 'existential'
This is a story of crazy imorality on all fronts.
unconstitutional action by the government:
1. Using anything but gold and silver coin as a tender in payment of debts.
2. Delegating the power to create money to a private corporation.
3. Aiding and abetting the banksters in their fraudulent money scheme.
4. Using tax money to guarantee student loans.
5. Demanding payment in dollars but accepting Federal Reserve notes instead.
Banksters:
1. Well what can I say? Just crooks from the get go and they think they're not. How many banksters do you know who stop being a bankster once they figure out the money is created from thin air and its fraud? No, they go and get the government to back the loans that they don't want to make and they get their money with no risk. Except for perhaps the risk that happens when the system falls apart and the people hang the banksters on a tree.
Parent:
1. Cosigning more than one loan.
2. did she not teach him to meet his obligations?
Student/writer:
1. Continuing to borrow more when he knew he couldn't pay back what he already borrowed.
2. Attempting to justify is immoral behavior.
3. failing to catch on to this scam with three freaking college degrees.
You sound like some freakin DumboBot. We know all about that shit. Why you got to piss on a thread talking about something else?
Well Mr. Siegel, you can take solace in the fact that you cannot bring any more shame to a profession that we already respect less than pedophile politicians, Wall Street lawyers, and used car salesmen.
Philosophy is very interesting, much more so than psychology. Taking a few philosophy courses and actually learning about Camus, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Sarte will help you get some pussy at cocktail parties. At least it worked for me.
But anyway, I took college courses not to get a degree but to actually learn things.
Having a degree is bullshit and most degree holders can't find their ass with both hands.
Now having an FAA certification and a few factory schools on certain aircraft (paid for by employer) . Thats the ticket for world wide employment and HIGH wages.
Dear Overeducted Writer.
sleep easy & rest assured that -
unless you were personally on the receiving-end (a la Lloyd) of the 3TBBB* - you are most likely NOT a deadbeat!
Hope this helps - have a Nice Day ;)
(3TBBB* - THREE $TRILLION BANKSTA-BONUS BAILOUT)
Exactly my thoughts... so I engineered my own bailout and defaulted, left the country with my degree (FUCK YOU Uncle Sam for giving out all those H-1B visas after you guaranteed my loan, now fucking EAT IT), got a good job, more, but FREE education, and now live where there is no chance (according to the local laws) of any recourse by those who I "owe" money to.
Where I am now, I am a happy, tax-paying resident who contributes to society. Wish I could have done it in America, but that's all silly talk, as we all know the only thing good about America is the parts where the glitter is still glued to the plastic.
"If Lee Siegel takes a dump in the forest,and no one is around to see it,does it make $150,000 in student loans go away?"
A man was told if he climbed a mountain he would find the meaning of life.
So he sit out to climb the mountain. When he got to the top , he found a little old bearded man. He asked the man ''What is the meaning of life'? The little man said ''Life is a bowl of cherries''. He said to the old man ''You mean I came all the way up here to have you tell me that?? So the old man said ''Okay, Life is NOT a bowl of cherries''.
Thats your philosophy lesson for the day.
Fair play to the guy. 30 years is a very long time to spend paying off student loans.
If one can 'go without' a $150 a month wireless plan and buy a decent used car for say $10,000 cash instead of leasing a Lexus for $399 a month they can apply that to paying DOWN the student loan debt. Remember that you can & should pay MORE than the minimum payment.. I think the problem is that millenials are so sheltered, so pampered and refuse to grow up and want to live like a 21 year old when they are 40.
Having read more than enough comments as yours I have had enough. Education id big business, as such if the market does not support your business (your education) then that is a net loss and the market should respond (bankrupt businesses drive the cost of borrowing). But it doesn't. It is as fraudulent as too big to fail, and IF I am going to pay for some sucker's education OR some TBTF banker's bonus for being an equal zero, at least the student got to study, while the banker trades on the inside with my tax money. The end is coming, and it is not the kid's fault. It will end badly, and not because we educated our kids, but because the war machine is too hungry to care what it eats.
Yes, surely, it is the fault of an entire generation of people, from the lowest level to the highest, and most assuredly not the result of some sort of systemic problem that has completely destroyed our country's future.
Millenials don't lease cars, the drive beaters that they can barely keep running because they can't get a job using their degree and are instead flipping burgers or serving alcohol.
No, the problem isn't the sheltered Millenials, it's the idiot boomers who can't see that the world is fundamentally different from when they were that age.
Companies now CHECK credit reports and having 'defaulted student loans' (or anything significant in default or charged off status) is a show stopper at many organizations.. People DO NOT think... I always ask, doesn't the guy who 'goes for the cops gun' understand that at the minimum he is looking at some type of felony on his record -- 92% of employers do criminal background checks. A felony is an automatic disqualifier
If you are a 'good' and accomplished student in a given field, schools will offer you a stipend to fund a Master's and Doctorate. You will teach undergrads and do research and otherwise 'earn' your stipend (albeit at a pretty low hourly rate) BUT you're not paying for the degree you're getting. You may have to come up with some additional funds to pay for livable accommodations (something beyond the traditional garrett in a slum accommodations that have housed long term students throughout history) but overall it should NOT cost you a huge amount to get an advanced degree.
You're only paying for an advanced degree if you want an MBA (a proven money maker for universities) or a Law degree (a real scam for universities).
If you're pursuing an advanced degree and paying for it then you're simply buying credentials you probably don't really deserve because you SHOULD have gotten some kind of offer from somepace for an advanced degree IF you were all that good in your field. Admittedly the number of spots for degrees with limited utility (in primarily academic fields where the jobs are teaching that field) are small and applications for them are highly competitive. You're not going to have a huge number of stipend paying spots in a field like Linguistics or Philosophy. So....... those PAYING for advanced degrees in such fields are NOT among the 'best and brightest' in their field. If that is the case you should seriously evaluate your future prospects for employment and NOT be paying for advanced degrees in those fields if you cannot afford them.
Knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a nice theory in the abstract but traditionally is ONLY for those who come from well off families who can pay for the priviledge OR those willing to endure a life of near poverty in pursuit of abstract knowledge that has no direct application in the practical world or employment prospects beyond teaching that field to others. At least now you have opportunities for the best and brightest in any given field who are offered defacto scholarships in pursuit of higher degrees.
Yes, college IS too expensive BUT there are elements of personal choice and responsibility that should also come into consideration. You may no longer have to be a tilesetter or carpenter of ironworker because that's what your father and grandfather did BUT you're a fool for going to college and getting a degree - ANY degree - withuot considering the employment prospects that are associated with that degree (I loved history BUT got an engineering degree precisely BECAUSE I knew it would make me employable - and changed from Civil Engineering to Industrial Engineering because the economy in the late 70's had tanked and Civ E's were NOT getting hired).
I am the first in my family to go to college - as is my wife. One of our children is now pursuing a Doctorate in a purely academic area (and is being paid in pursuit of his degree). He has no debt from getting his undergrad degree (where he got top grades at a top university, doing grad level research as an undergrad which led to his current situation - he is one of the top students in his area of interest). He knows he has years of additional study and faces a difficult road pursuing a career in academia but he is doing everything 'right'. Nonetheless he has a 'Plan B' and will be prepared for alternative employment if his long term plan does not pan out.
Another child is also going to a top university but is far more pragmatic in outlook ruing the lack of 'practical' courses that directly apply to life and career (pretty much true of the first 2 years in ANY program). He's skilled in a nuber of areas and could do fine without any degree BUT he knows that a degree (and a degree from a 'good' school) WILL open doors and make him more employable (he's studying the sciences with an eye towards field work - making him highly desired by forms exploring for raw materials or firms doing envoironmental work).
The author of this op-ed piece seems like he 'wanted' more than was rationally practical for him to afford (either in money or time). Like too many others he was not willing to pay the price (fair or not) for what he 'wanted'. He borrowed to pay for the credentials he wanted - that got him the position he's now in (though apparently not paying enough to let him pay off his debt). The author knew the circumstances starting off - what the costs were and what his employability and future earnings were likely to be. It is immaterial if the costs of his education was 'too high' (and it was). The author was NOT conned by some 'for profit' school that itself is a scam (a different issue) 'Free' education is a nice concept BUT even then there should be standards to be met - basic knowledge and ability/aptitude for a given field.
Too many people are paying for degrees in fields that do NOT lead to any form of employment (or have limited prospects for only the very top students in these fields). Paying for a Master's in English and Doctorate in Philosophy when you cannot afford the cost (up front or long term) is not just foolish but - if sticking others with the cost - immoral.
Do what you wish with your life BUT you are responsible for the choices you make. Used to be you simply could not do what you could not afford to do - and nobody expected otherwise (unless they were consciously scamming others).
here is a much better, and much simpler solution:
PREVENT DUMBASSES LIKE YOU FROM EVER GOING TO "COLLEGE" IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Amen.
Praise the Ivy league graduates who count on daddy to pay 63.000.00 a year. They give us our lawyers, economists, business people. Alumni of which are our fearless leaders from local to govt level today. Yes, what a good job these graduates of high caliber have done. Destroyed the fucking country. Cheated their way through exams. (Religious reasons lead to no class on Friday, Saturday is the day these fools and felons take the test which they now have the answers to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ because ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE when you really want something.
FUCK YOU short sighted prick.
ahhhhh.... you sad little bloviating pontificating proud little sad excuse for a clown.
grow up and stop showing your hind quarters to every person who walks by and laughs at you for your stupidity.
My dad (now retired) taught at a small liberal arts college. He absolutely refused to pay (it would have been loans) for me and my brother to go to one; he insisted that we go to the state university where he went. His view was that small liberal arts colleges are very nice for people who can truly afford them, but that they can destroy those who can't. As a 17 year old I thought this was awful; he was taking away my lovely path to status!!!! The thing is, my dad was and is very smart and insightful. Most parents arent; they mean well usually but they are idiots.
One of the ugliest things in this picture is the late fees and the outrageous interest rates. People are more willing to repay loans that they feel have been legitimately assessed and handled. When they swell to enormous proportions for no good reasons (fees, fines, ridiculous rates) any sense of fairness evaporates.
Where have we failed this poor young man?
S~
Being educated doesn't always equate to being intelligent.
Dig up his mom and make her pay for the loan she co-sgned for. As a zombie.
Moral of the story "Never, ever co-sign a loan for anybody".
If you want to, pay it yourself and call it a gift.
There's a simple solution to these fuckers. Consequences. Don't wanna pay? Your degree just got nullified. Fuck you very much. What's most galling about this flippant self-righteous jackass is he gets to keep the title and benefits that acrue from that which he refuses to pay for. Take away those, and this shit will end instantly.
You do realize the university system, the banks profiting from student loans, and probably the entire US "economy" as it is currently comprised would collapse if you provided current grads this option, as I bet you a shitload of them would exercise it and happily return their degrees to the institutions which granted them, once they realize how fucked the current job market is and how pointless their degrees are.
That's true. Then again, one way or the other, collapse is coming. But I know smug fuckers like this who beat you over the head with their Ivy League pedigree. Useless twats. He wanted it so badly... make him pay. Fuck him.
Yes, whip the slaves a little harder. That'll get them to work harder. Surely they won't get sick and die or fucking kill themselves.
He shouldn't be obligated to repay his debts anymore than our government is going to repay its debt.
Yes, you are a deadbeat, an idiot and a not very interesting writer. You absolutely do NOT need a university degree to be a freaking writer. Did Samuel Clemens have a university degree? Or Hemingway? WTF!
Even this decrepit looted-to-the-ground economy has a strong organic demand for certain professions: specialty welding, FARMING, auto technicians. You don't need a college degree for any of these, and you'll be a better, more stable actual writer if you have a real productive job.
I note you didn't mention any modern writers. How about Dr. Hunter S. Thompson?
Pretending the world is like it was a hundred years ago is nice for a jerk-off fantasy, but those of us living in reality tend to get pissed when you spooge in our eyes.
well if he doesn't want to pay, he won't pay, but who will pay? The American tax payer will pay. There you go.
So?
The solution is bankruptcy. Student Loans are the only category that cannot be discharged through bankruptcy. Even tax debts can be reduced after 2 years of low or little income have been recognized by the taxing authorities. But student loans cannot be. This is debt slavery.
Let those, who determine that they cannot service the debts acquired through student loans, discharge their obligations through bankruptcy. They will have to spend a couple of years thereafter on a cash or debit-card existence; and will have their ability to borrow severely inhibited for 7 years. That's enough to discourage those who find loan payments difficult, but manageable, from walking away from their obligations. The rest can re-start their lives again.
What a pathetic individual. He dserves scorn and as he writes, he looks like he is looking for some sort of pathetic forgiveness for going to college? I am thinking that his fascist-marxist teachings at his liberal arts colllege have polluted his brain to the point that he should not have to repay his college tuition. I find his opinions pathetic.
Wow - I'm shocked by the judgment here. It is at times like this where I often think that Libertarians are indeed old rich white guys, when in reality, I always thought that was BS. Listen - I'm in the same position. I couldn't get a job to pay the amount of money per month they want on my loans. My loans double every two years. I'd gladly go bankrupt and pay that consequence, but I can't.
It's seriously fucked up that you all here know that the government backing loans led to the inflation of school tuition and the ridiculous wealth put into professors and construction of physical infrastructure at useless universities. You all know this ... and yet you judge this guy for defaulting on his loans? I didn't hear this judgment about your generation and their home foreclosure problems - and in those cases many of the same "he should pay for it" people hated how the gov't and banks acted, but still stuck up for those who got screwed and thought they should keep their homes.
WTF ZH people - university is not what it was when you were kids. You used to be able to work during school and pay it off if you had saved up or in a couple of years. Many middle class parents used to be able to contribute to their kids education. When it hits $50K a year...parents can't do anything. Hell, my parents are now saying to me "we're sorry we couldn't help you with college when you were in it, but we'd be happy to help now". Help now? Do you have a spare $200K? Didn't think so - I 'll just deal with the fact that it DOUBLES every 5-7 years while the economy and job market tank for my generation. Glad to know the baby boomers are gonna suck everything out of the system before it collapsees and they die - - meanwhile, administering judgment on the younger generation they screwed.
Ok this guy might be a prick - but fuck you if you think he's a deadbeat. Some of us live with almost nothing at all - not "american, I have 2 cars" nothing at all - literally no future nothing at all and these loans are simply not an option. food and shelter are mor important. So fuck you and your judgment.
You are not entitled to shit. Fuck you and your free ride. Nobody here wants to give up the shit they earned to you.
How carefully did you read his piece? He is the same age as the "judgmental" "old" ZH posters. He is not of your generation. He went to college way back when it was much cheaper and it was infinitely easier to work one's way through.
Here is my List of Counter Intelligence Operations against the US Voters/Households/Citizens:
- 2005 was the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA)
1913 - Federal Reserve Act,
1964 - Gulf of Tonkin,
1964 - Vietnam War,
1968 - US Discovers that some Wealthy People don't pay tax due to Tax Law Loopholes
1979 - Intelligence Finding Signed by Jimmy Carter,
1980 - G.H.W. Bush CIA Director becomes US VICE President,
1985 - Iran Contra Affair,
1989 - Invasion of Panama,
1990 - Persian Gulf War,
1992 - Energy Policy Act (H.W. Bush)
1994 - NAFTA, Deregulation of Trade, 3 Nations (W. Clinton)
1994 - Free Trade Begins to Devastate US Manufacturing Jobs,
1996 - Energy Deregulation (W. Clinton, followed by ENRON Scandal)
1996 - Telecommunications Act (W. Clinton, cross ownership)
1998 - Clinton's Kosovo War (over 60 Days)
1998 - Citicorp & Travelers Insurance Merger
1999 - Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (Phil Gramm, W. Clinton, followed by 2008 Financial Crisis)
1999 - bombing campaign in Kosovo (W. Clinton, over 60 days)
2000 - Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (P. Gramm, W. Clinton, derivatives)
2001 - Afghanistan War
2001 - Subprime Home sales & Financial Derivatives Take Off,
2002 - McCain–Feingold Act (G.W. Bush, Campaign Finance, soft money unlimited)
2003 - Iraq War, Fake Evidence of WMD
2005 - Energy Policy Act (G.W. Bush, subsidies, excluded clean air Water acts)
2005 - Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (BAPCPA).
2005 - CAFTA-DR Ratified, 2006 El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala
2005 - US Military Spending Exponential by any measure
2005 - US Housing Market Bubble Tops out in October
2008 - After Presidential Election Financial Crisis is Declared out of the Blue
2008 - 2012 Private Email Servers to avoid Audit (B. Obama, H. Clinton)
2008 - Liberal Darling B. Obama becomes War Monger, Rights taker, and Elevates Drone Assassinations "Obama Doctrine"
2008 - 2014 QE & LIRP/ZIRP (B. Bernanke, J. Yellen, B Obama)
2009 - 2014 Continuing Resolutions in which Congress gives up Budget Powers
2010 - Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (money is free speech for corps)
2011 - US combat in Libya (B Obama, over 60 days)
2014 - lift ban on crude oil exports (B Obama, Commodities Deregulation)
You could have gone to a community college for two years at minimum costs, transferred to a state university for the last two while majoring in something employable like mechanical engineering and graduated into a respected, professional career. if you were so inclined you could have taken courses in a fluff subject on your own time in the evening after your BS degree.
I just interviewed a brilliant you man who did just that. He lives on a very nice street in a country club neighborhood. Two years at a community college and then on to a big ten school to finish up in mechanical engineering. He lived at home and commuted all the while. Had over a 3.7 gpa. Probably cost about $30k in tuition total. Will probably get offered a stipend to go to grad school.
I know people living off the freebe education loans and it is pretty much assumed that the FedGov especially Dems like Hillary/Obama/Warren will be offering loan amnesty. Hillary knows that she must offer more to her personal qualifications than merely not having a peepee. She will say and do anything to buy the votes and nothing would swing the millenial vote like more free stuff from Uncle Sugar.They have been conditioned to expect fedgov supplying every need since kindergarten.
The writer would have been years ahead of the game if he had only joined the plumber's or electrician's union out of high-school. But that would have meant he would have gotten his lazy ass to work every day, ON TIME. Study your hobbies on your own time and learn how to make money at them ON YOUR OWN DIME.
Well, at least two people plan on buying this guy's shitty writing from Amazon.
Ok, I've mentioned this before......
We used to tease arts students all the time on campaus, "Would you like fries with that?" because that was their future and this was in the eighties. If you go into arts, YOU WILL STARVE! Unless you use it as a spring board for Law or Commmerce.
This guys ALSO knew this but he went into writing anyway.
He should be in jail as a bankrupt. He took the money, now give it fucking back. If he had no plan for paying it back he should not have taken it.
This guys is a 40 year old child...he's not the only one.
Squid
He sounds 50 year old to me.
And yet the bank lent him vast sums of money for it.
There was a time when bankers got fired for making bad loans. Now they get promoted. The problem isn't the people taking the loans, it's the reckless lending.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Thousands of wrongs don't make a right.
Millions and billions of wrongs don't make a right.
I can't think straight, but I want to be a writer.
Quite the self-recommendation.
Pathos is to be Admired.
Pathos, Logos, Ethos.
Watching this guy on CNBC now. Rarely does a person prove to be as big a piece of shit in reality as they are in my imagination. But here he is, live and in living assholiness... What a waste of space...
Lee Siegel is a 62-year-old writer of books that no one on Amazon wants to buy. That is the real problem.
I admire this person. Courageous.
Yes, a Mother Teresa of our times!
Most high school kids have a variety of interests, several of which can translate to a college major that is actually in demand. This writer was completely clueless from the start. This guy couldn't do a few hours of career research? Columbia University laughed all the way to the bank.
That writer wishes he could be deadbeat, his debts will pass to his grandchildren.
I doubt a wanker like that is interested in raising children. Seems a little too self-centered and really not capable of taking care of himself. But then when did that ever stop anybody?