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Should Students Voluntarily Default On $1.3 Trillion In Debt?
One week ago, we highlighted a NY Times op-ed by Lee Siegel, a writer who holds not one, not two, but three degrees from Columbia, including two graduate degrees. Long story short, Siegel accumulated quite a bit of student debt on the way to obtaining three degrees from one of the nation’s top schools, but apparently no one told him that writers (or at least the type of writer he planned on being) don’t generally make a lot of money, and so when Siegel found himself falling behind, he simply decided he would not be repaying his student loans.
You see for Siegel, student debt is part of a system that’s “legal but not moral.” It’s “absurd that one [can] amass crippling debt as a result, not of drug addiction or reckless borrowing and spending, but of going to college.”
Of course, one might easily argue that taking out three large loans to fund three degrees from Columbia, none of which promise high-paying jobs, is the very definition of “reckless borrowing and spending.”
Siegel also says it’s ridiculous that the education system “open[s] a new life beyond [people’s] modest origins [only to] call in its chits and prevent [these people] from pursuing that new life, simply because [they] had the misfortune of coming from modest origins.”
But is it then immoral for auto lenders to expect to get their money back from low-income borrowers who take out car loans? After all, car loans also “open a new life” for people of “modest origins.” Before the loan they had to walk or take public transportation. After the loan they are able to go wherever they want, whenever they want in an expedient fashion. Is it then wrong for auto lenders to “call in their chits” by expecting borrowers to make their monthly payments? Obviously not. The argument is nonsensical.
Siegel sums up the difficult decision he faced as follows:
“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.”
So according to Siegel, because the free market doesn’t value (in monetary terms) writers as much as it does say, petroleum engineers, that means writers shouldn’t have to repay their loans.
But there’s no inherent injustice in the fact that writers are not, on average, paid as much as petroleum engineers. It is Siegel’s right to choose what he wants to study and thereby what vocation he wants to dedicate his life to. If that’s writing, so be it. That’s great.
It is however, society’s right to determine how much Siegel’s writing is worth. If that determination leaves Siegel unable to service his debt, he does not have the right to punish society for how they valued his work by forcing taxpayers to take a loss on his student loans.
We can of course argue over what it says about our society when writers and intellectuals can’t make enough to live a comfortable existence while white collar criminals on Wall Street rake in hundreds of millions every year, but that’s an entirely separate argument and probably shouldn’t have been included in Siegel’s op-ed because frankly, it has nothing to do with whether or not borrowers should be held accountable for their obligations to creditors.
The better argument may be that the student debt bubble is just one more example of easy credit and moral hazard conspiring to create a massive social inefficiency wherein it's impossible to compete for a job without having a $35,000 college degree, but depending on the major, these degrees don't often prepare graduates for the job market. What's left is a nation of waiters and bartenders laboring under tens, if not hundreds of thousands in student loans in an economy that still (BLS and BEA "adjustments" notwithstanding) hasn't recovered from a crisis caused by the very same type of easy credit and moral hazard that has now spawned the student debt bubble.
In other words, it's not that Siegel is wrong to criticize the student debt bubble, it's just that the issue isn't whether or not student borrowers somehow deserve to be treated differently by creditors simply because their debt went towards an education while someone else's debt went towards a Honda Civic.

Moving on, you'll recall that Siegel also has some concrete recommendations for graduates struggling under a mountain of student debt. As a reminder, here they are:
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).
The NY Times has more on why some of these suggestions might turn out to be bad ideas:
Over the last couple of decades, we have been engaged in an enormous national experiment, taking impressionable and often ignorant teenagers and young adults and seeing just how much student loan debt they can handle.
Colleges and graduate schools flaunt their fancy amenities while making the case for their brand of degrees, loan papers in hand. Parents stand idly by and often co-sign for the debt. As a result, more than $1 trillion in student loans are outstanding, and people of all ages are struggling to repay them.
Whatever you may think of these results and the costs that produced them, there is also a practical question at hand for people who feel as if they are in over their heads: Is it ever a good idea to try to beat the system by openly defying it and refusing to repay the debt that you willingly took on?
The ramifications of defaulting and remaining in debt deliberately are usually real and lasting. After all, the federal government spends over $1 billion annually on collection agencies to get its money back on behalf of the taxpayers who pay for the loan programs.
Mr. Siegel suggested that others might want to consider his example and listed three steps that could help them cope..
First, he tells people to get as many credit cards as they can before they stop repaying their student loans. This way, presumably, you will have plenty of credit available once your credit report is ruined and you can’t get new cards. But card issuers are constantly checking the credit of existing cardholders to look for distress signals. If they see any, they may lower your limits or close your accounts.
You could use debit cards instead, as long as you don’t bounce checks or regularly overdraw. Once your credit is a mess, however, it becomes that much easier to justify all sorts of bad financial behavior. After all, your student loan default has already rendered you off limits for lending, so what’s a few more late payments or stiffed creditors?
The second piece of advice Mr. Siegel has for aspiring defaulters is to establish a good history of paying rent. This can work, as long as you rent from a landlord who never checks your credit or a new one who relies on your old landlord’s good word.
But many landlords do check and won’t be sympathetic, especially in tight markets. Besides, plenty of people don’t want to be tenants forever, given how hard it can be to find rentals in some good school districts. Others want to plant roots and build home equity.
Will those defaulters be able to qualify for a mortgage? A judgment resulting from a default may stay on your credit report for up to 10 years. But we’re talking about the credit reporting agencies here. Mistakes happen, black marks may linger, and they aren’t always easy to fix quickly when your home purchase hangs in the balance..
Which brings us to Mr. Siegel’s third piece of advice: Marry well, or at least have a creditworthy partner. Then, that person can be the sole mortgage applicant. Mr. Siegel’s wife bought the home where they live, according to public records.
There are a number of problems with this approach. Some lenders may not allow it, since certain low down-payment loans in community property states require both spouses to apply, according to Wells Fargo. Of course, you’ll need to talk someone into coupling up with you in the first place, after explaining that you’re not so big on financial obligations but that you really, truly intend to honor marital ones.
In the final analysis, the entire debate may well end up being irrelevant because the larger the student debt bubble grows, the louder the "forgive all student debt" calls become and because, in Bill Ackman's words, "there's no way students are going to pay it back," it may not be long before the Lee Siegels of the world have their debt cancelled before they have a chance to make a publicity stunt out of their defaults.
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Just the involuntary defaults should suffice.
No need to default. Just emigrate and exclude the first $98k pa from income, hence annual payment = zero without default.
Start working at home with Google! It’s by-far the best job Ive had. Last Monday I got a new Alfa Romeo from bringing in $7778. I started this 9 months ago and practically straight away started making more than $83 per hour. I work through this link... www.earnmore9.com
Alfa Romeo? Nice low profile ride, Fredo.
Are the elite rethinking the Debt Burdens they laid on the #1 consumers in the world???
(Nah, greed overcomes logic 999 times out of a thousand...)
He can't default. He can just stop paying. It's not the same thing.
Three degrees from a prestigious university and he doesn't know that they will come after him forever? They will take his social security and estate when he dies? It was all there in the papers he voluntarily signed to get the loans.
There is a better way.
6172377
Then everyone should voluntarily default on their mortgages and credit cards.
If everyone did it, we would be rid of the banks for good.
No, not quite:
First, make sure all of your secured debts are paid in full- (Mortgages, cars, etc.)
Then, default on your unsecured debts- (Credit cards, etc.)
Im not advocating or condoning this behaviour, but...
Id stay current in one of those income based repayment plans for now. That which cant be paid back won't be. And since evern with 'the markets hitting new all time highs' the underlying economy sucks, there is NO WAY most of this is going to get repaid, ever. And it looks bad, politically, to keep pursueing these people forever, especially for the left, who think everything should be 'free' anyway.
Eventually one of these feckless politicians who manages to get themselves crowded emporer is going to get all this debt wiped out, Id say within the next 5 years. Since its obvious they won't get their money back anyway, might as well appear magnanimous and benevolent to the plebs by writing it all off. Think of it as another LBJ/civil rights moment "if you help me get this bill through, Ill have those niggers voting democrat for the next 50 years" except this time 'those niggers' will be all the dumbass millenials. Afterall, it just monopoly money anyway, and if you are a keynesian type economist, this is great, because since those young people will now have most of their debt written off, thy can now go into more debt, buying moar stupid shit they dont need from china, thereby "stimulating the economy"
I think the first people who will get it written off will be those who at least appear to have been making an honest effort over the years. Defaulting before that happens won't get your student loan debt wiped out, but it will fuck up your finances for a long time. Best just sit back and see how this plays out.
I don't have squat for a mortgage, but after the MERS scam, I doubt that the money center bank I pay every month even has any legal documents anymore on my house.
What I was getting at is that is that if everybody stiffs them, they are helpless but to try to set a few examples and their synthetic paper will spontaneously combust if the revenue STOPS.
Maybe we should crowd fund protection for the examples.
Non violent protest.. Ghandi and MLK would be proud.
What "they" lend is a fraud.
It is "money" (debt) conjured out of thin air.
I don't mean to speak in riddles, but this is, after all, ZH.
"Are you not entertained?"- Maximus Decimus Meridius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsqJFIJ5lLs
Why not free university? I'm also for free health care. And while you're at it, can you throw in a free FEMA trailer. Sounds sweet to me.
My friend did it the right way: he financed his three degrees on credit cards and then defaulted on the credit cards, which are of course uncollaterized consumer loans, and so when they couldn't collect they were sold off to the junk debt buyers. He ultimately declared bankruptcy and seven years later, after building a business in the meantime, he came out smelling like roses.
I am Chumbawamba.
You got it, Chumba.
Or, hypothetically speaking, if one were to get a student loan, and then pay it off with credit cards, well, you'd have to follow the link I posted a few comments above.
PS-Not being too cryptic here, for those who are paying attention. Look to the right of my comment for the link.
To me, it says the most about how the federal government shouldn't be involved in student lending in the first place.
They shouldn't be lending period. Look at the housing which is even more massive.
Credit must be very easy today. Having a job paying $20k/yr while in college, my first CC had only a $2000 limit. I would have needed 12+ cards to do that and I'm sure back 15 years ago I wouldn't have been able to qualify for that many.
What "they" lend is a fraud.
It is "money" (debt) conjured out of thin air.
---
it is money created and lent with the backing of the savings of the last few americans responsible enough to actually save. if reserve requirements were 0 or if no good folks actually saved money in banks, then your statement would be more accurate. bankrupting a bank would cause only a tiny fraction of the losses to be borne by bank stockholders, and no costs would be borne by execs (as we saw after the 2008 GFC). going further would wipe out savers in excess of FDIC limits...
i suspect you are going to ridicule anyone who has saved that much and holds the cash at a bank, but believe it or not there are some good, responsible americans who have managed to do so. there aren't many, but together they form a large part of the american banking system's depositor base.
I see you are still under her spell.
The spell of Babylon the Great Whore (the global financial system).
"By your magic spell all the nations were led astray." - Revelation 18:23
Well- stick around, keep reading.
Eventually, you'll get it.
PS- There is no spoon.
if everyone chose to default on all their loans, banks would not go bankrupt nor would bank executives bear a cent of the burden. the cost would be borne by regular folks who have savings accounts at said banks in excess of 250k (or whatever the fdic threshold is now) and taxpayers who would be forced to bail out the banks for whatever the remainder of the negative balance is.
by the tone of your post it seems perhaps you don't know it, but you are just advocating a typical american's favorite thing to do. you are implicitly suggesting that to borrow as much as your credit profile allows to buy car/education/home/i-goods/etc. and then force the burden onto the silly responsible people who actually work AND save. what you are advocating is the financial destruction of the last few responsible americans left amongst us.
if you actually had a mechanism by which you could force the costs of predatory lending back onto the specific predatory lenders and the individuals who benefitted from it, then i'd be all in favor.
Look around you...where are the investors who loaned these students the $1.3T? You know no one so stupid. Yet, it's all around you...because the FED's money via debt creation process is what fuels 100% of this nonsense. Sure, default...but that's not the point. The FED and their banksters must be stopped. That will take care of insane college costs, mortgage boondoggles, car loans to the poor, etc. It' all comes back to the FED. (oh, along with our $18 Trill or so in .gov debt)
Put in on Janet's tab.
Not only should they default...they should rack up as much credit as possible before doing so. Take that trip! Buy that car! Fuck...buy some silver too! See kids...nobody fucking cares anymore.
Yes, we have become a sick nation. No obligations are actually obligations. How many of us know people who took out mortgages, HELOC'ed the house until it could not be HELOC'ed any more, then defaulted and lived for free for years? After all of that they cried, "I'm a victim of predatory lending". How many of us know people who have racked up massive credit card debt, all the while planning to default on as much of the debt as possible? They, too, feel they are owed this largesse.
Now, we have the children of these "victims" crying that they should not have to pay their student loans. These loans have paid for a generation to attend college, whether they had any business in an institution of higher learning, or not. Those loans have also paid for trips, clothes, fun money, and a whole variety of other expenses. But now we see an ethically deprived hack like this Siegel clown say that everybody is indeed a victim.
And for all you people who have paid your mortgages, your tuition bills, your credit cards, just fuck off. You do not fit in with this victim nation. You are fools. You are boobs. Your neighbor with the new car, new boat, and personalized plate that reads "VICTIM" is the smart one. He hasn't made a mortgage payment since 2011. The victims know how the game is played. Of course you peel back any of the layers from the great ocean of victim stories and almost never do you find an actual victim. But we are now into a time when we have multi-generational families who have consumed the victimhood diet for decades. Their hunger for the morsels of victimization is insatiable. Freud allowed you to blame mommy. Now, you get to blame EVERYBODY, everybody but yourself.
Siegel is serving up the latest platter of victimization, and the dish will be devoured by the ravenous wolves to whom he panders. Perhaps his wife will one day recognize just how morally deficient the person with whom she has chosen to share her life, and possibly even reproduce, truly is. Perhaps she will have the courage to do to him what he hopes will not happen to his legions of victims. Perhaps she will hold him accountable for the dross he is serving up. Somehow, I doubt it. We are too far down the victimization rabbit hole for such fantasies to come true.
So, just default all you victims. All you need after that is a law that makes it illegal to hold your default against you. I am sure you can find more sympathy from panderers dying to get your vote. After all accountability is so 1956. And this isn't 1956.
not sure why you got the downvotes, must have touched a nerve. Id say you are spot on
Most people think it okay to get ahead by stealing.
You can take a person out of the animal world, but you can't take the animal world out of a person.
When you live in a world that is built on theft, you're an idiot not to play the game.
Sure a very MORAL idiot, but also a broken and abused idiot.
Very true. I'm a proud idiot who likes to tilt at windmills as well.
I believe that what you do is who you are. As another poster mentioned in an earlier forum, all good men go to the cross.
If everyone believed that we would still be in the animal world.
Oh, wait...
I've been selling shit and saving to get out of debt. If these fuckers can just walk away without penalty, then I want blood.
Hold that thought. The benefits of getting out of debt may not result in the significant advantages they once did (vis a vis deadbeats getting theirs written off without effort), but the skills you learned along the way will ALWAYS stand you in good stead. Learning scrifice may seem irrelevant in a world without consequence, but it's not.
Where debt is the primary measure of a person, you are no longer viewable using their technology. The greatest thing I gained from going completely debt-free was not the financial advantages (which are numerous), but that my radar cross section became very small. I'm a steath bomber with glider wings and a zero coefficient of drag. I can stay aloft for YEARS on barely perceptible thermals of financial lift without ever cutting in the engines.
You are new to this life (and should be congratulated for the progress you have made so far). I have been living it for quite some time now. Ground-dwellers (debt slaves) care about forward/backward/left/right. You now have a third dimension to play in- ALTITUDE. Which can be traded, when you see fit, for ANY of those other directions. Choose wisely and keep a low profile. And no, you don't have to be rich to maintain this kind of life. Just smart and determined to stay aloft.
Enjoy your new wings.
+1. we may live in a world without consequences, as you say, right now. But that won't always be the case. Being debt free will pay pretty big in the coming years, IMO. Im not there yet, but Im pretty close. Paid the wifes car off 10 months early, should be done out completely by the beginning of next year.
I see friends and co workers of mine buying new cars, and Ill look at it, tell them its great, and laugh a little as I walk out to my 11 year old tahoe i bought used 8 years ago, thats in great shape and been paid off for 6 years. Most of these guys don't save a dime. But Im sure the memories of driving that 50k truck when they were 30 will be totally worth it when they are 60 and realize they havent saved any money.
Gone are the days of personal integrity and responsibility. FUCK IT!
Student loans are a racket. Banks taking advantage of naive kids just starting out, trying to get ahead and do the right thing. Its hanging a permanent yoke on their neck while the elite laugh all the way to the bank.
Oh hell yeah. Fucking calling it as it is, while half these cocksuckers blame the victim for not knowing they were playing against loaded dice... I salute you.
Well, I guess if you don't have the job to earn the money to make that first payment, I guess you won't be making the payment and hence, will be in default.
The question should be reworded asking the question to those graduates who do have the means to make their payments whether or not they should make that first payment?
a friend of mine went to a community college to give a lecture some years ago. After seeing all the fuck ups in there he said: The future is NOT bright. I have to agree with that assessment.
Funny, I thought the same thing when I entered graduate school 20 years ago. Pathetic bunch of know it all assclowns and that was just the faculty.
I sure wish that I could find out how much of this trillion plus since 2008, was to pay for living expenses, and how much of this taxpayer theft resulted in the completion of degree/certificate requirements. My guess is less than 50%.
Be of good cheer. Your taxes were used to fund the true sciences. You know, the science of climate change, the science of economics, and the sciences of gender identification, sexual orientation, triggering, white guilt. This list is, of course, inclusive but not exhausted.
im not excusing these people and the fact that many if not most of them used a huge portion of that money for things other than tuition, but if you are going to get pissed, go to the source of the problem: the thieving government that took your money and lent it to these people in the first place. getting angry at the student debtors is no more productive than getting made at shaniqua buying filet mignon with her EBT card that you pay for. Once again, the thieving government that MAKES you pay for it
I don't think my comment talked about how the students spent the money at all. And I am somewhat confused how you conflate sarcastic remarks about how the government and academia wastes these funds on political and social-driven agendas with Shaniqua buying anything with her EBT card (which reference seems unduly racial coming from someone who has such a forgiving heart for the FSA).
Mostly, I don't need a lecture about taxes or what I should or should not be pissed about. I'm actually just an casual observer of the decline of America, my real interest held in abeyance until a feasible movement for change appears (no reason to get one's blood boiling over things about which one has no control).
But thanks for your concern anyway.
"I sure wish that I could find out how much of this trillion plus since 2008, was to pay for living expenses, and how much of this taxpayer theft resulted in the completion of degree/certificate requirements. My guess is less than 50%."
I understand your outrage, but I believe your anger is misplaced, and here's why: The problem is that we have a debt-based fiat currency system in place, meaning that money is only created when loans are issued; new money is backed by new debt instruments. When you have a debt-based fiat currency the ONLY way to increase the amount of money in circulation is by issuing loans, in the aftermath of a massive deflationary financial implosion the obvious response is try to find ways to create as many loans as possible, and the bigger the better.
This is why our economy has been based on the so-called "serial bubble blowing" scheme for so long now. The answer is not to "crack down on deadbeats," the answer is to get rid of the Fed, get rid of debt-based fiat currency, and issue a new national currency backed by the faith, credit and productive capacity of the American nation. Unfortunately, America has a tradition where politicians who make too much noise about doing such a thing end up suddenly deceased.
When you really think about it, we've been conditioned to hate "deadbeats" and complain about the "taxpayer being ripped off" by the very same bankers who create money out of thin air, depending entirely upon our credit-score rated ability to repay it, and then in their magnanimity graciously loan it to us. They are quite literally making it on our backs, based on our expected productive ability and likelihood of repaying, and then loaning it to us with the expectation that we not only repay it in full, but with interest on top; gosh, what wonderful people they are. Perhaps it's time to re-think who it is we've been conditioned to hate, and who it is we've been conditioned to look up to?
Federal Reserve "money" isn't backed by anything but a gun. The process of its printing does not create convertibility to US Treasuries, as was the case with the gold backed money where theoretically you could present your dollar and get that much gold. If you present a dollar (assuming you could find an office to do so) you would not receive a dollar's worth of US Debt.
16 trillion in the hole, what is another 1.3 trillion. Don't pay back Uncle Sammy.
Yes -wipe out the debt and as fair compensation for other Americans, give every other American a check for $3,000 to compensate. So the debt goes to $20 trillion. Free handouts to the banksters, the military industrial complex and other beneficiaries of our system of crony capitalism will result in the national debt hitting $25 trillion in just a few years anyway. Why should the banksters and rich fucks be the only ones benefitting from the looting and destruction of America? Let us all participate in the orgy before it all collapses.
Default!!
The banksters have created a society of debt servitude. Give the middle finger.
The peoples, they rant and rave about illegal immigrants and welfare mothers but irresponsible fuckers like this? Not much to say, eh?
Pinche huevon! Throw him in the billionaires bunker!
Pancho, the illegal immigrants and welfare mothers are fighting the battle with what they got. They may seem like they are just leeching off the system. But sometimes the strategy of going limp and making them drag you makes them waste more energy than it would take to put you in a choke-hold. Some of us DO understand that.
There is no reason to make excuses. That's the imposition of morality on debt and it's a game. Default is part of the contract. If it is worth it, do it.
Yes, of course ... and all of the governments of the world should default on all debt owed directly to banks, including and especially central banks.
Then, if the bankers want a new charter after being defaulted on, it MUST be at the terms dictated by the people.
It is the system that is false. How much is owed to a system that deceives you and tries to enslave you?
Be of good cheer, for eventually this is EXACTLY what will happen, and has ALWAYS happened.
And the governments never even took out any student loans for themselves.
That would be the turd nugget gem in the crown of the shittiest loser generation the vaginas of the world ever let slither out.
slither...wow.love it
They should default....they agreed to pay for something they didn't get other than threeways. .GOV cannot charge you for threeways.
I would like to be clear on this. If a large portion of our society gets a pass on debt that is owed, I will stop paying my debt obligations. I have paid my bills on time since I became an adult about 48 years ago. I played by the rules, I did the right thing every time the choice had to be made. If this debt forgiveness is enacted, everyone should stop paying what they owe to everyone they owe. Fuck em.
There is a word for the kind of upstanding citzen you are.
Its called "sucker"
colleges are largely a scam. Any Liberal arts degree is shit- they should be for rich folks with money to burn, and who have no care or need to be trained, as they have family wealth and connections to allow them to cruise through life. Those without wealth should get subsidized education (as the rest of the world does) for useful degrees like engineering - based upon merit -yes based upon merit - otherwise go to technical school, or learn a trade or business on the job, and get your liberal arts education online though the internet. Most colleges should be shut down -all they do is teach too many students bad habits-like how to party, drink, have a lot of sex and run up debt. You don't need loans and debt to learn such bad habits. Most professors can't teach anyway -and the curriculum they have to follow for liberal arts crap is laregly propaganda and shit. Guaranteed student loans are nothing but a vehicle for banks to make money with no risk -and which run up the cost of education so lazy incompetent professors and administrators can make inflated salaries. It's all going to end anyway -we won't have a choice.
Wasn't it Ben Franklin who said "Neither a borrower or lender be"?
Maybe he was right. The whole system will crash. Pay. don't pay. In a short time it won't matter.
Yes default. The money never exiisted...fuck it.
Hell yes.
Defaults is a risk inherent in any lending contract. Student loans are the only ones treated differently. Make them subject to bankruptcy laws and the problem is solved overnight. A huge pile of nonperforming loans will be liquidated overnight, ridding the system of imprudent lenders. And college costs will drop like a rock as no one will be rolling out boats of cash to finance whatever the colleges want to charge absent immunity from normal market forces. Many colleges prop ably go under, but online alternatives will pick up the slack much more efficiently. The debtors won't be off Scott free, they'll have the stain of bankruptcy on their credit for 7 years. But that's better than a lifetime of debt peonage, which I think society was wise to abandon with the Middle Ages.
I think one thing that needs to be pointed out on student debt is that bankruptcy would still leave the student in possession of their degree.
Let them vacate their claim to that degree and I am in favor of letting student debt go into the normal bankruptcy systerm.
You want to be a doctor or a lawyer and then skip out on your loans, okay. But you're no longer eligible to be a doctor or a lawyer. Just turn the clock back to before you had either an education or debt and it's all square.
Wow.
Your lack of understanding what is important, what is to be prioritized, is glaringly obvious.
If you have "learned" by any means what it takes to "heal", or to be an "attorney", then it doesn't matter how you accomplished it!
You could have taught yourself by reading.
You could have gone to school.
That is completely separate from what "debts" you incurred from doing so- and how you "discharged" them!
I understand perfectly.
In society as it exists today, many degrees represent licenses to make money by practicing a profession for profit that non-licensed people are excluded from. If you want to practice medicine for free, be my guest. if you want to charge for your services in taking out someone's appendix, you are going to need a medical license and a medical degree.
Want to be an engineer? Cool. Want to charge someone for the privilege of putting your stamp on their plans? You need to be a state registered engineer.
I'm not saying that I like this system, but that is the way it is built.
Take away the license to practice and wipe away the debt incurred in getting that license and you are back as if neither had ever happened.
Wipe away the debt but leave the ability to be licensed in place and you have someone who has gained dishonestly.
Even for moron degrees like social science or education, the same thing applies. Wipe out the degree and you can't qualify for many positions available in the field.
The current tide is clearly running towards abrogation without any consequences whatsoever. I think that is not good. Since some sort of abrogation is inevitable, why not invoke some sort of price that may deter at least some of the many who would otherwise take advantage of it even though they can, in fact, handle their debt load?
I have placed a suggestion on the table as to how to handle the approaching reality of large-scale default. Since you dislike my idea so much, that's fine. I am not usually found in the mainstream of thought on just about any subject you would care to name. I like blazing my own trail and don't much fear being left alone in the wilderness. But I do try to add something original to the discussion.
Let's hear what you think ought to be done about the problem.
Good for you, "Tarabel", I, personally, like the statement that you are "not usually found in the mainstream of thought on just about any subject you would care to name."
That shows that you are in the learning process.
Let me be as succinct as possible:
The degree is onerous, obtained through trickery, to a mark, by a con.
It doesn't matter the college degree- what matters is what one actually knows, and has experienced.
College is a con.
Student debt is a con.
Corporations are a con.
Governments are a con.
All waiting for the next generation of marks.
Here is what will be done:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+5%3A5%2CDaniel+5%3A2...
PS- And no, George Washington's prophesy won't be fulfilled- it is a false prophesy.
I would say yes, its about time the bankers got screwed.
I don't have any student loans but been thinking about getting some free money.
Cool.
Default!
Everyone knows education these days is a sham. Sucking the life out of the economy.
This is a ridiculous argument. Who actually HAD $1.3T to loan out here before the student signed on the dotted line for the loan? Not the banks that made the loan. They Borrowed the money after the student took the loan at a lower rate of interest from Da Fed and made money on the spread. Da Fed created the money out of thin air.
The Lender who made such a stupid loan should take the bath on it.
Beyond that, it's quite obvious these students cannot pay this debt, it is IRRENDEEMABLE debt. It is also ODIOUS debt, handed out under false pretenses by lenders that should have been aware that what they were doing was done under false pretenses. They take advantage of young people without experience in these matters and abuse their power.
Not paying or defaulting is the morally correct thing to do in this situation. The LENDERS are at fault here, not the BORROWERS.
The Lenders will be backed to 100% if not more. They are above trivial things like risk.
That is so 99%ish.
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 (fraudulent-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 Playing. Stop Obeying.
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. No “truth and reconciliation,” but “trial and Retribution.”
Liberty is s demand. Tyranny is submission.
You forgot BOYCOTT.
VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET.
When oligarchs are printing money for themselves, nothing in the economy is real. Student debt is another part of the scheme to dispossess the middle class and transfer labor and capital to the oligarchy.
Who owns the USA? Who controls the systems that make up the country? Who drove costs through the roof and printed the country into an inflationary nightmare?
Blaming the poor is just more class warfare bullshit. The poor have absolutely no power, and false moral arguments do not make a compelling case.
Morality does not apply to the process of paying fictional entities back their fictional money. It is about treating actual human beings well. That's all. Anything else is just the shackles of the State swaddling themselves in the clothes of religion and ethics.
In 1980, I started engineering school, Oh yeah, it was an oil boom. Chemical/Petroleum engineering
grads were making 2X what anyone else was making fresh out. Everyone wanted to get into
that program. The brightest students were in that program. By 1984 when I graduated
none of the Chem/petro engineers had jobs. Lots of them laid over a year to apply
for grad school or to see if they could double major into Electrical or Comp-sci...
A few years ago, Petroleum was loaded with bright young ambitous students looking
for the big bucks out of college.
I suspect half of them are unemployed now.
“Should Students Voluntarily Default On $1.3 Trillion In Debt?”
The biggest lie ever sold on planet earth is that they were ever lent something in the first place. You cannot default on that which was never lent. Printing digital currency out of thin air does not constitute lending. The quicker we can correct the nations vocabulary the faster this Fractional Reserve Banking model can be purged from the system.
Debts should be paid. Not paying it would be stealing from their neighbors.
You forgot the /sarc tag
those are banks, not neighbors
But,but,but.. you already are a successful writer,Mr Siegel..Everytime you endorsed one of your financial aid checks,you got paid for writing your name.By your own admission,your one of the most well compensated writers of all time,making $1,000 for 2 words:Lee Siegel
"Is it ever a good idea to try to beat the system by openly defying it and refusing to repay the debt that you willingly took on?"
Willingly?! When government-enabled counterfeiters (the banking cartel) are lending the only choices for most are borrow or be priced out of the market by those who do borrow.
Government subsidized private credit creation makes saving and pay-as-you-go impossible for most people. Most people are therefore DRIVEN into debt. Free will has nothing to do with it; it's government subsidized debt slavery.
I wonder how long it will take before legions of SWAT teams are deploid to round up the dead beats?
Instead of a Rifleman behind every tree it is a Crook behind every tree.
Equally dangerous to aggressors.
First, the debt is an accounting book entry. No one's savings are at risk here, only lines of credit. Defaulting hurts the bank. The same banks that can run to the .gov to create new laws so they (banksters) don't loose their bonuses.
Second, the reason a large loan was necessary was the very large cost of college today. The exorbitant costs are a natural result of the .gov loan guarantees and student loan debt been undischargeable in bankruptcy court. Banksters incurred zero risk of default so they loaned to anyone. So many people had easy access to college that colleges raised prices to the stratosphere. Of course.
Of course, since so many are getting a degree, employers now expect a bachelor for receptionists and masters for their sales force.
So, students are told that you need a college degree in order to succeed, The prices have been driven to the moon by an artificiality created by .gov. Students must then sign for loans in order to pay for college degrees they are sold as absolutely needed for the workforce only to find out there is no place for them in the workforce.
A student loan is the price you accept for the higher income of a college graduate. We are been told that "College graduates make x more over their lifetimes than High School grads". So, the loan, in that case, would be an investment until it exceeds the expected income advantage.
If your degree is expected to help you earn 10k extra a year but your loan is 12k a year, clearly there is no benefit.
That is the problem. There are no positions left in the workforce. Having everyone with degree makes it mandatory to have a degree in order to be competitive. Yet, since everyone else has a degree, you are no longer competitive.
The financial advantages of the degree are now being overtaken by the cost of the loan.
Here's how you get rid of your student loans. Student loans cannot be discharged by BK. I don't see dot gov bailing out SLS (Student Loan Serfs) - that would upset the banker lords and we know that will never happen. You need to become a guerilla borrower to get rid of this shit... or just pay them off over the course of your life.
1. Buy a house. If you can, overfinance it with the help of a creative broker/mortgage lender/developer - take extra loan proceeds, pay of student loan. Give house back.
2. Buy a house, take out a HELOC. Pay off loan. Give house back.
3. Get a second passport, renounce US citizenship, tell Dept of Ed to fuck off.
4. Take out X credit cards, get cash advance, pay off student loan, default on CC.
If you have to default and get a shitty credit score - so fucking what? you do like a buddy of mine did and move overseas, make your remaining CC payments on time, get a nice job making $200K a year, and between the Foreign Income Tax Relief (first $100k is tax free) and the Foreign Housing Deduction $50K) and running your own little website/blogging company you pay fuck all in taxes. 7 years later your credit score will be clean as a virgins honey pot.
The banks are not nice people. full stop. Anyone who thinks they are and that lenders should do the 'honorable' thing are not paying attention. The days of your local banker giving a loan to the local boy died out in the 1980s. Don't play that 1950s Norman Rockwell shit on me. Those days are dead and buried.
Item #3 on your list is the best option. Items #2 and #1 are only good in non-recourse states.
That piece only looks like the author had an urge to perch himself on some moral high ground and lecture everybody. Never let a good opportunity to climb on a soapbox go to waste, I say.
So, a banker can default on millions, get bailed out with taxpayers money, find his way back at the head of another bank and start again, no problem, but a student from a poor background can't default on infinitely less, even though he's in the "land of opportunity" which, it it truly was what it purports, should have free education for all anyway?
And he can't even study what he freaking wants without some self-righteous asshole telling him he should have studied something that brings "high wages", even though he's in the "land of liberty"?
I have an idea: every youth should study to be a banker, get "high wages", repay they student loan, and then default on billions and get bailed out with the money the Stockholm syndrome-afflicted taxpayers on this forum would happily pay.
Someone who gets it.
Well stated.
<APPLAUSE>
Better plan. Pick a year to die. Live life to its fullest. Run your credit into the ground. Disappear.
Being a politician is the surest way to millions
the morality of the default is no longer the question -- the question is now, WHEN? of course the system sucks, where you have to study finance and become a bankster if you want to be debt free in your lifetime, any other major is stiffed. our economy no longer can provide jobs for the educated. so who cares about the individual moral hazard issue. the system set this up. the great default is coming.
Perhaps Lee Siegel needs moar degrees.
It's utterly ridiculous for a society to saddle an entire generation or two with enormous debt, even if jobs and opportunities are plentiful - which they are definitely not in Amerika.
This is yet another example of the stupid short-sightedness which the US is globally known for.
This venal form of crony capitalism which is blatantly displayed in education and 'health care' will come back to bite the economy and hard.
I had and paid off student debt, but then college expenses were 1/10th what they are now. The only way towards the necessary changes needed so we do not screw our future are if action is collectively taken. Yes, DEFAULT! EVERYBODY!
At the same time, nullify the FICO witch hunt system which is just another avenue for lenders to escape their responsibilities. Outsourcing due diligence has worked so fine - right?
What does it take for people to look at other countries (which, granted, do not play cop and court to the world) who fund their future through education and health care? Why is it their costs for these two human necessities have not risen 9% per year as in the USSA? I wonder...
Amerikans are being and have been gypped big time. Wake up!
knowing what i know today, i would have gone into politics. if i had started immediately after college in the late 1990s i would have gone the local government route first (coucilman), then state rep, and hell, I would already be or running for the senate! Once in the senate i would then have sweet medical, sweeter pension, get myself on some house sub comittees for the free European trips and then like all other Senators...let the money gates swing open. Then a visit to Bilderberg to let the powers that be know I will play ball and I am president. done.
What i now know is that you need a partner in crime for this - namely a wife or someone who will partner up with you for the great heist because obviously all of the shit is in her and the kids names.
There you have it - the only educations in Amerika worth a damn: becoming a banker and becoming a politician. Being a politician only requires basic finance so your English Lit types should go that direction.
What's the downside you asK? What's the 'fall back plan'? Easy. You end up as a campaign manager. Maybe a staffer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Rhodes_(White_House_staffer)