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dkf's JournalStudent-Loan Default Rates Soar as Federal Scrutiny Grows
More than one in 10 borrowers defaulted on their federal student loans, intensifying concern about a generation hobbled by $1 trillion in debt and the role of colleges in jacking up costs.
The default rate, for the first three years that students are required to make payments, was 13.4 percent, with for-profit colleges reporting the worst results, the U.S. Education Department said today.
The Education Department has revamped the way it reports student-loan defaults, which the government said had reached the highest level in 14 years. Previously, the agency reported the rate only for the first two years payments are required. Congress demanded a more comprehensive measure because of concern that colleges counsel students to defer payments to make default rates appear low.
“Default rates are the tip of the iceberg of borrower distress,” said Pauline Abernathy, vice president of The Institute for College Access & Success, a nonprofit based in Oakland, California.
The data follows complaints that commission-driven debt collectors the government hires aren’t telling students about affordable options to repay their debt, especially a plan that lets them make payments tied to their incomes. Students have borrowed $1 trillion to pay for higher education, surpassing credit-card debt.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/student-loan-defaults-soar-as-government-scrutiny-grow.html
USA TODAY analysis: Nation's water costs rushing higher
Published: 9/27/2012 9:39:46 PM
While most Americans worry about gas and heating oil prices, water rates have surged in the past dozen years, according to a USA TODAY study of 100 municipalities. Prices at least doubled in more than a quarter of the locations and even tripled in a few.
Consumers could easily overlook the steady drip, drip, drip of water rate hikes, yet the cost of this necessity of life has outpaced the percentage increases of some of these other utilities, carving a larger slice of household budgets in the process.
"I don't know how they expect people to keep paying more for water with the cost of gas and day care and everything else going up," complains Jacquelyn Moncrief, 60, a Philadelphia homeowner who says the price hikes would force her to make food-or-water decisions. She gathered signatures on a petition opposing a proposed water rate increase in her city this year.
USA TODAY's study of residential water rates over the past 12 years for large and small water agencies nationwide found that monthly costs doubled for more in 29 localities. The unique look at costs for a diverse mix of water suppliers representing every state and Washington, D.C. found that a resource long taken for granted will continue to become more costly for millions of Americans. Indeed, rates haven't crested yet because huge costs to upgrade or repair pipes, reservoirs and treatment plants loom nationwide.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/story/2012-09-27/water-rates-rising/57849626/1
The Student Loan Bubble In 19 Simple Charts
A picture paints a thousand words but in the case of the world of college education (and its surrounding income, unemployment, debt burden, and pricing implications), we decided 19 charts was the simplest way to explain the path to debt servitude that an increasing share of the US population is taking - despite record delinquencies, falling real incomes for graduates, stagnant graduate employment, and rising college costs.
As BofAML notes, the cost of higher education has continued to climb, fueled by debt and government aid. Over the past twenty years, tuition growth exceeded the average rate of inflation by nearly 3% annually, while both grant aid and Federal loans per full-time undergraduate exceeded by about 5% annually. This trend is not sustainable, in our view. The challenging labor market, which has left the youth population underemployed and underpaid, has put the spotlight on the burden of student debt. We expect a correction in the price of tuition and reduction in debt.
There will likely be lasting effects on the economy from the high cost of education and large debt burden. Graduating during a recession leads to permanently lower earnings growth, making it that much harder to service the debt burden.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-28/student-loan-bubble-19-simple-charts
Much more at link
Johnny Lewis Might Have Taken Drug 'Smiles' Before Killings
Police in Los Angeles suspect that Johnny Lewis, the "Sons of Anarchy" actor who allegedly beat to death his landlady and killed her cat before he plunged from a roof to his own death, might have been high on designer drugs, possibly a new drug called "smiles."
Police say they have found no evidence of drugs, pending the results of toxicology tests that could take several weeks, but the actor's behavior was consistent with the psychotic effects they've seen in other designer-drug users.
Lewis, 28, is believed to have attacked his landlady on Wednesday morning at the Writer's Villa, a bed and breakfast-style house for young people working in Hollywood. Officers responded at 10:40 a.m. to reports of a screaming woman and breaking glass.
As police arrived on the scene, Lewis' body was in the driveway and Catherine Davis, 81, was dead in her bedroom. The cause of death was blunt-force trauma and strangulation. She had been beaten to death, and her cat was found in the bathroom. Police say the cat's body was mutilated.
Lewis is the only suspect in the killings, and no one else fled the scene, according to police. Eyewitnesses told police that Lewis appeared to show "superhuman strength."
http://gma.yahoo.com/johnny-lewis-might-taken-drug-smiles-killings-104116843--abc-news-celebrities.html
Consumer Spending in U.S. Stagnates
Consumer spending in the U.S. barely rose in August after adjusting for inflation, showing the economic expansion is struggling to gain momentum.
Household purchases rose 0.5 percent, matching the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg and the biggest gain since February, according to data from the Commerce Department issued in Washington today. The gain mainly reflected a 0.4 percent jump in prices, the biggest since March 2011, leaving so-called real spending up 0.1 percent.
A slack job market and rising food and gasoline prices are squeezing households just as concern mounts that lawmakers might not be able to avoid the fiscal cliff of tax increases and government spending cuts slated to take effect next year. At the same time, rising stock prices and an improving housing market are lifting consumer confidence, which may help underpin demand.
“The consumer is not going to be able to lead the recovery,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist for Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, who correctly forecast the gain in spending. “We’re headed into a few months of soft consumer spending. Even though gas prices look like they may be peaking for the year, that’s going to weigh on spending for the next month or so.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/consumer-spending-in-u-s-stagnates.html
Couples who share the housework are more likely to divorce, study finds
In what appears to be a slap in the face for gender equality, the report found the divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.
“What we’ve seen is that sharing equal responsibility for work in the home doesn’t necessarily contribute to contentment,” said Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled “Equality in the Home”.
The lack of correlation between equality at home and quality of life was surprising, the researcher said.
“One would think that break-ups would occur more often in families with less equality at home, but our statistics show the opposite,” he said.
The figures clearly show that “the more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” he went on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/9572187/Couples-who-share-the-housework-are-more-likely-to-divorce-study-finds.html
Spain risks break-up as Mariano Rajoy stirs Catalan fury
The ruling parties of Catalonia have sought guidance from Brussels on the legality of secession from Spain, requesting a “route map” for membership of the European Union and the euro as an independent state.
It is the latest move in a fast-escalating clash between Catalan nationalists and Spanish nationalists, the latter backed by King Juan Carlos and the Spanish military.
Jose-Manuel Garcia-Margallo, the foreign minister, threw down the gauntlet, calling Catalan secession “illegal and lethal”. He warned that Spain would use its veto to stop the region of Catalonia becoming an EU member “indefinitely”.
..
Catalan leader Artur Mas held high-stakes talks with Mr Rajoy in Madrid on Thursday, armed with a mandate from the Catalan parliament and with charged emotions left from an unprecedented protest by 1.5m people in Barcelona 10 days ago.
He demanded an independent treasury for the rich Catalan region, with control over its own tax base akin to the model already enjoyed by Basques. The 9m Catalans have an economy the size of Austria’s.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9556803/Spain-risks-break-up-as-Mariano-Rajoy-stirs-Catalan-fury.html
Romney gets second intelligence briefing
"Mitt Romney got his second classified national security briefing Tuesday at a CIA office in Herndon, Va.
ABC is reporting that Romney running mate Paul Ryan has also been briefed.
The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker wrote earlier this month that both Romney and Ryan would begin to get the briefings. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/09/27/abc-ryan-has-received-intelligence-briefings/
I wonder what they are learning about Benghazi...
Benghazi attack followed deep cuts in State Department security budget
Since 2010, Congress cut $296 million from the State Department’s spending request for embassy security and construction, with additional cuts in other State Department security accounts, according to an analysis by a former appropriations committee staffer.
The cuts to the embassy construction, security and maintenance budget was almost 10 percent of the entire appropriation for that account over those two years, said Scott Lilly, now a scholar at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
The cuts were the latest in a series of squeezes on State Department spending. Congress has appropriated less money for the department than requested in every year since Fiscal 2007, according to budget figures.
“During both the latter years of the Bush presidency and throughout the Obama presidency, the administration has recommended boosting spending on foreign aid and [State Department] foreign operations, including security, and Congress has always cut it back,” said Philip J. Crowley, a former State Department spokesman.
Read more: Benghazi attack followed deep cuts in State Department security budget - Washington Times http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/27/benghazi-attack-followed-deep-cuts-in-state-depart/#ixzz27kC5GdMI
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter
Man behind anti-Muslim film ordered jailed
(AP) – 21 minutes ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered the man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that inflamed parts of the Middle East to be detained because he is a flight risk.
U.S. Central District Chief Magistrate Judge Suzanne Segal ordered Nakoula Basseley Nakoula held after authorities said he violated terms of his probation.
Nakoula, 55, was convicted in 2010 for federal check and sentenced to 21 months in prison. Under terms of his probation, he was not allowed to use computers or the Internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.
Nakoula was arrested after federal probation officials determined he violated the terms of his supervised release, Thomas Mrozek, a U.S. Attorney's spokesman in Los Angeles, said Thursday.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gM5E3mVGnKliAkrEq-QqWCVyr3mA?docId=259a8e60616e4ab1aaa72fc2fdfce33f
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