the permanent debt pool...

[Javaman]

After reading an article today regarding student loans and the inability for ex-students to pay them off pretty much within their life time, what we have here is a entire cross section of society that has become the permanent debt pool for credit and loan companies.

they can bank on the fact that they have constant flow of money coming in from these over inflated high interest loans from these people.

First they destroy the housing industry with the variable interest rate, next is destroying the ability to either get or want a good education.

In a few dozen years we will have the one of the poorest educated populations probably since the turn of the 20th century. On top of that no one will have homes.

What's next?

[notadmblnd]

1. relocation camps?

we can call them "poor houses"

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I cain't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

[Mojambo]

3. Sounds like a pretty fine recruiting pool for the military. n/t

[MUAD_DIB]

7. Either that or the Revolutionary Socialist Party.

Screwing around with your population to the point of bleeding them dry is a no-win option.


History repeats itself.

[starroute]

26. Boy, you ain't kidding about that

Here's what a quick google turns up:

http://www.military.com/Resources/ResourcesContent/0,13964,44245--,00.html

Student Loan Repayment Program

Are you worried about paying off student loans? With the cost of a college education on the rise, many students and recent college graduates are finding themselves overwhelmed by debt. The Armed Forces can help you manage your college debt with special loan repayment programs for qualified students.

Many people are not aware that the Army, Navy and Air Force recruiters can offer you special programs for repaying student debt.

Army

The Army's Loan Repayment Program (LRP) is a special enlistment incentive that the Army offers to highly qualified applicants at the time of enlistment. Under the LRP, the Army will repay up to $65,000 of a soldier's qualifying student loans. . . .

Here is how it works:

After each completed year of active duty your service branch will make a payment of 33-1/3 percent or $1,500, whichever is greater, on the total remaining original unpaid principal balance.

[1932]

28. Seriously. This is how we're going to feed the imperial army.

[Flying Dream Blues]

4. and don't forget, you now can't discharge private student loans

in bankruptcy,either. "For you, there IS no escape"...from some old movie, the title of which escapes (!) me...

[oldtime dfl_er]

5. I graduated 10 years ago

and still owe $25,000. I pay as much as I can every month, but it doesn't make a dent. With that kind of debt, and 8% interest, I'm paying maybe $5 on the principal every month. Student loans should be interest free, or higher education ought to be free. It's a shame.

[Christa]

6. If Canada can do it, why not the US?

Free higher education, free medical care ...

[Kansas Wyatt]

27. Military Industrial Complex

Everyone else gets social services from the government, but we get the best military in the world to conquer and protect for Corporate America and the Wealthy Elite instead.

[1932]

29. Here's how the UK does it:

The government runs it, so there's no profit for banks built into the system.

You take out a loan to pay for your education.

You only pay it back if you make above the median income.

You can only pay up to 10% of your income.

You have your whole life to pay it back.

If you never pay it back, that's OK.

The burden is on the government and society to provide an economy in which a college degree at least earns you above the median income.

This was something the Labor government instituted recently.

The US needs something like this.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1083527&mesg_id=1083527

[eridani]

35. Back in the days of the National Defense Education Act it used to be 2-3%

No reason it can't be that way again, IMO.

[bluerum]

8. Thank St. Ronnie for trhowing student loans into the feeding trough of

the finance industry.

When I was in school (back in the 70's) we had grants and very low interest loans from - drum roll please - the government. Yes - we had socialism. Or at the very least - government regulated educational loans and grants. It was mostly based on income and ability to pay. Lots of work study programs too.

Then, St. Ronnie gave all that to the finance industry and things improved - for the finance industry.

[mrcheerful]

9. Remember FDR started regulating businesses for the main fact that business men

would create monopolies. Reagan came along, deregulated everything and what are we seeing? Monopolies. Wonder what made brain dead americans forget what happens when you deregulate business? Oh yeah thats right, the sheeple thought the rich being able to get richer would mean a golden trickle down on them effect. Well reality is that the golden trickle went up instead of down and all the sheeple and the rest of us are getting is a brown shower.

[Mojambo]

10. Only conservatives would look forward to a "golden trickle" coming down on them. n/t

[kurth]

11. Thank Senate Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy bill

which had been previously vetoed by Bill Clinton.

[bluerum]

17. That was rammed through in the dark of night when the pubs had both houses. eom

[juno jones]

15. ST damn Ronnie

I have had the pleasure of having Texans bark at me (1983) as I was quitting my minimum wage nursing home job..."JUST LIKE YOU NORTHERN FOLK TO COME DOWN HERE, STEAL OUR JOBS THEN QUIT!" Well, if industry hadn't up and left in '81, I'd still be in IL. And no way out of this with eduaction, I saw this 20 years ago. Where the fuck was everybody then? I laugh at the "I'm sorry I voted Reagan" comments from some here. Glad to know you woke up, sorry, but this IS your fucking fault.
I heard some hair-raising shit in my busboy/waitress days (81-84), before they decided they better have non-english speaking menial staff to CYA (economics ain't all the reason for entry level restaurant work being hard to get for americans of american descent, believe me). Discussions of ketchup as a veg (in a $40 a plate CA cuisine restaurant), arguemnents about how far we liberals could take Jefferson and his writings, mental masturbation of fat small-dicked white men who wanted to be superior, etc etc. Y'all who voted for Raygun, your employers and leaders were saying shit behind your backs way back then, wake the fuck up already, if you haven't done so.

[Deja Q]

12. Until they simply write off the debtors when they die...

whether it be suicide, starved to death, or having just rotted away in a debtors camp*.


* Such prisons haven't been around in a very long time, but I suspect they'll come back into fashion.

You should post this in the Lounge; see what people have to say there. ;)

[catmandu57]

19. No, that debt will then be inherited

by the next of kin, it will be the only thing that gets passed to the next generation. Debt immemorial.

[Robbien]

13. Keeping people living from paycheck to paycheck is important to the elite

It’s actually quite profitable, especially in a deregulated era like ours. The debt riddled are often in tenuous and desperate situations that make them easy to exploit with usurious interest rates, rent-to-own ripoffs, exorbitant mark-ups and other opportunistic schemes.

The rich needs to keep raking in the profits.

[Matariki]

14. We need to push the Democratic party to make this a top issue. This and health care.

These issues are ruining our competitiveness in the world market which should make it easy to get businesses behind it too. College should be covered or seriously subsidized.

[1932]

30. It is for Edwards. This is what College for Everyone is meant to chip away at.

In '04, all the other democrats were talking about more lending programs for college students. Edwards was talking about giving them a year free to reduce the principal you have to finance by 25%.

Obviously, the best thing to do is to do something like the UK's system (see my post above).

[greenbriar]

16. we are still paying off student loans

:banghead:


45 thousand dollars combined...hubby and I

[Julius Civitatus]

18. Debtor prisons, debt feudalism

We are moving towards a system that resembles the medieval concept of servitude to the land-owner. Now instead of serfs forever enslaved to the landowner, we are forever enslaved to credit and loans companies, for life, with fewer and fewer chances to ever become "debt free" or buying back your freedom.

Watch PBS's Frontline on the truth behind the credit card industry:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/view/

In short, they are evil to no end, and spend their time and money looking for new ways to f#ck people's lives for profit.

This Nosferatu-looking dude is the brain behind the worst schemes and scams that the credit-card industry has ever developed. Andrew Kahr makes a living developing new ways to mess with your ability to pay back:

[Julius Civitatus]

20. MUST SEE: The Secret History of the Credit Card Industry

Everything you need to know about the evils of the credit card industry were covered by a terrific PBS report in Frontline. You can view it here (divided in 5 small video parts):

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/view

[femrap]

21. food shortages. nt

[Gregorian]

22. The entire country is in debt.

I think the bigger picture is far more important. We're going to be living from service charge to service charge, without making a dent in the principal.

And how will we be in two more years of this financial purge the Bush criminals are doing to the country?

Yes, I do tend to exaggerate. I do sound gloomy. But that's where we are headed unless there are major changes. The way I see it is we either bring our standard up or bring the world's standard down. The administration is busy doing the latter, which is immoral.

[aikoaiko]

23. I too encumbered a lot of college debt (40k) to get my Ph.D, but my first year's raise covered

that payment. Sure, I am nibbling away at the debt on a long term paydown plan, but it helped me get my secure, professor gig and I didn't have to work an extra job through 7 years of grad school.

[WinkyDink]

24. It's why a relative of mine is in the Marines: for tuition money.

[walker percy]

25. What's next? - You mean what does it go back to...

or where did it come from...The Federal Reserve System folks - and National Debt - Check out "Money Masters" on Google Video ( I'm too young to start my own post ) and regardless of what you think about Income Tax - here's a story that I'm amazed isn't getting posted on the DU: http://www.edbrownvlog.blogspot.com/ or run a search on the name - canary in a coal mine folks...
oh - and here's another one reported in US Today: "The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.

"We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.

Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.

The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.

Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined."

Here's a URL: http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATODAY.com&expire=&urlID=22498576&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fprintedition%2Fnews%2F20070529%2F1a_lede29.art.htm&partnerID=1660

[tom_paine]

31. Halliburton Homeland Security Detention Camps

Preemptive arrests by the thousands.

If an economic depression finally breaks loose, or, God Forbid, a nuclear 9/11 attack by Loyal Busheis forces or their al-Qaeda allies, we shall see where all this is going.

[lovuian]

32. Join the army they pay for it see the choice

poor kids go in debt or go in the army either way they own you

[Quantess]

33. just an idea.

I blow off that loan..

[Javaman]

36. In a few more years...

I think we will see a lot of that.

The student loan bubble is the next one I'm waiting for to pop.

[silverback]

34. All debt is permanent...

The only mechanism for discharging debt in our system is bankruptcy.

I know that sounds strange, we've all paid off one sort of debt or another, but I'm not talking about individuals, I'm talking about the big picture.

It's impossible for total public and private sector debt within the federal reserve system to decline, or even stabilize, without a corresponding decline in the money supply, and there's WAY more debt than money in the system. Economic growth is totally dependent on credit market growth.

Debt is the very basis of our monetary system, that's the fundamental truth that exposes the lies our politicians, from both parties, tell us about economics and social justice.