Jesse Jackson says Big Banks Screw Students as The Fed Helps the Banks
Submitted by bobbyw24 on Fri, 10/28/2011 - 06:09by Rev. JESSE L. JACKSON | October 26, 2011
Counter Punch
The Debt Keeps Growing - Desperate Students
The sign at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration revealed the struggles of America’s young: “A B.A., $30,000 in student debt and no job.” Young people are graduating from college into the worst jobs market since the 1930s while carrying record levels of student debt. The sad truth of Occupy Wall Street is that for many of the young activists, Wall Street occupied them first.
Students are borrowing twice what they did a decade ago, even adjusting for inflation. Debt has doubled in just five years. Student debt is likely to exceed $1 trillion over the next year.
As states cut back on college support and grants, college tuitions have risen faster than the cost of homes, health care or energy. Americans believe a college education is key to their children’s future, so more and more borrow what they can.
Students are now graduating with average debts of over $24,000. When I speak to families in mining towns in Appalachia, I ask how many have lost a job, how many face foreclosure, how many face costly medical bills. Many hands go up. But when I ask how many worry about student loans, the biggest portion of the audience stands up. It is working families — families stretching to give their children the chance that they never had — who are taking on the greatest debt and are at the greatest risk.
The banking industry has used its clout to make these loans the harshest of all debt. They survive bankruptcy. The lenders have broad collection powers, far greater than with a mortgage or a credit card. They can garnish wages or even Social Security payments. When payments are missed, penalties are brutal. Students who graduate and then lose their job suddenly find themselves owing twice what they signed up for.
Why should big banks be able to get virtually interest-free money from the Federal Reserve, while students are forced to pay far higher interest rates? Why should bankruptcy courts be able to rewrite mortgages on the vacation homes of the wealthy while student loans are untouchable? Students need legislation to allow their loans to be refinanced in bankruptcy court, or forgiven. Why don’t we provide students with the grants or low-cost loans the banks get?
An as any Austrian School economist will tell you ...
... the incentive for the school administrators is to raise tuition to approximately the lending limit of the loan program. This then consumes the loan money, leaving the students with little for other costs. That leads the government to raise the limit and the schools to again raise tuition in a vicious cycle. Students are left indentured and the student body is again limited to people whose families can cover the remaining costs, rather than the program leading to opportunities for children of poorer families.
Regarding the bankruptcy exception and getting congress to "fix" it. The exception IS a congressional "fix". Originally the student loans were like any other - dischargable in bankruptcy. Some medical or law student figured out that, right at graduation, he'd be deep in debt with very few assets. So he filed for bankruptcy to start his career with a zero - rather than a big negative - net worth. This caught on and soon became a common enough practice that about 1% of medical and law students were using graduation bankruptcy as a financial tool. The congress first "fixed" it by exempting student loans for a period of several years. But when this "was inadequate" - as students held off paying until the time limit and THEN filed for bankruptcy if they hadn't struck it rich - they made it a perpetual indenture. They'll even attach social security benefits to pay off the loan. So don't look to congress to fix their own fix any time soon.
= = = =
"Obama’s Economists: ‘Stimulus’ Has Cost $278,000 per Job."
That means: For each job "created or saved" about five were destroyed.
We have been made to believe
Today even Eistiens bagel (Spelling?) wants college grads in their employ. The workforce has made college the deciding factor in who they hire. I do believe that a college education is great,however, it does not make some one a good employee, or a better worker, hello, you dont need college to cut bagels and butter them, or to understand how to perform on the job. College is now more expensive to attend, it has lowered its standards, and the only one benefitting from it, are the colleges, not the workforce.
With that said, our children are being forced to go to college even to land a common job, and the debt ceiling for the American people (family), keeps growing higher and higher. Hmmm, could this be the plan?
Too funny.
I don't think I have ever been in an Einstein's Bagel joint that didn't screw up my order in some way. They all seemed to be manned by kids with a far off look in their eyes. What does that say?
“Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”
-Denis Diderot
Don't laugh!
Taxpayers money, once again, pays for government programs that screw up everything and gives no help for its intended purpose.
No wonder Herman Cane is laughing and his campaign manager is blowing smoke at us.
and then you die
when are the bankers going to jail for Fraud?
?
I graduated in 1984 with
an engineering degree having $15,000 in loan debt. I was given a payment schedule and 15 years later, May 2000, I sent in my last payment. Within those 15 years I got married, had two kids, moved bunches of times, stopped working to homeschool, but kept up my payments. Granted, the interest rates were low but comensurate for the times. The payments were not required until I graduated and thankfully had a job. I will admit, it was a more friendly relationship between loan-maker and debtor than it is today. Today the relationship is predatory and the student should be very careful WHO they borrow money from.
My point is - it can be done but sometimes you may have to do without and wait for those luxuries you may think you deserve.
The O'bailout solution will make the young person a slave of the State. Be careful WHO you make a deal with guys - NOTHING is free in this life. You either pay now or you pay later.
“The law cannot make a wicked person virtuous…God’s grace alone can accomplish such a thing.” Ron Paul - The Revolution
Do the elders in a society owe the youth anything?
Yes. Education. To put our children into debt so that they may gain knowledge is heinous.
(Add to that, to force them into a fiat currency system to be able to eat or have shelter and it gets absurd.)
Could someone please explain to me why humans are the only creatures God demands pay rent? I want to see the Deed where God gave anyone all the land in the first place, I'll bet MERS was involved and it is not valid either.
Whatever else I said a minute ago, the last word I want to get in is
LOVE!
Get 'em back by joining the military
You'll get steady pay, personal fitness, free training on cool stuff, travel to exotic lands, and most of all you'll be sticking it to the government that stuck it to you...especially if you have a college degree.
Folks with college degrees can be officers.
What about killing others? Don't do it. Fake an illness, pretend you are scared, or best of all, be an officer in a non-combat field (so you don't have kill or order killing)...be an interpreter, pilot, etc...drag out them paying you for nothing for years.
They can't hit you or curse at you anymore. At worst, they'll just yell at you and ostracize you. BFD. Get job-related skills and advanced degrees at the government's expense.
When the economy gets better, leave.
RON PAUL IS THE PEOPLE'S CHAMPION!
Good article, bobby!
He makes some very valid points.
"I support the Declaration of Independence and I interpret the Constitution."
Thanks Double Yum
Thanks Double Yum
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