

I am the 1% of Student Loan Debt - tibbon
http://tibbon.tumblr.com/post/13839164804/i-am-the-1-of-student-debt

======
kls
_Sallie Mae and all of the banks that pushed changes so that bankruptcy
couldn’t happen for student loans are just greedy and really shouldn’t be
allowed to offer these loans._

The bankruptcy reform bill was the biggest assault on citizens right that has
happened over the last few years and almost no one took notice. America was
founded on the principal of debt amnesty, in which a citizen at any time could
based on their own analysis of their situation could absolve themselves from
the burden of their debt. In doing so the owner of their debt would liquidate
their assets and take to proceeds. The debtor was then free to try to rebuild.

This institution was created because any other construct, will inevitably lead
to slavery and create a debtors nation. They studied the factors that created
debtors prisons in Europe and wanted to avoid the pitfalls of a nation built
on debt burden. Because it is a nation built on slavery.

The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on the
eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence. Student Loans are the most
over leveraged product on the market, what is worse is they are not backed by
an asset that can be liquidated. Knowing this and seeing the collapse coming
the lobbyist and politicians quickly worked to place safeguards into place to
keep the house of cards from coming down.

Coincidentally the timing of the move is damning evidence to the fact that not
only the financial industry but also the politicians knew the collapse was
coming. The instituted the means test as a way to strap homeowners to
underwater mortgages and outright removed student loans from consideration. It
was the most blatant display of politicians putting business interest before
the people.

They did everything in their power to strap us to the debt of poor choices
while simultaneously working to form legislation to bail out businesses that
made equally poor chooses.

I implore each and every one of you, to look at the bankruptcy reform bill and
who voted for it and vote them out. They have shown that they are now overtly
and directly working against your interest. It is a huge assault on your
rights, while you may never need the relief those rights afforded, if you do
you will find that they have blocked your ability to start over, denying you
of rights when you need them the most. It is a heinous attack on the rights of
the citizenry.

~~~
anamax
>> Sallie Mae and all of the banks that pushed changes so that bankruptcy
couldn’t happen for student loans are just greedy and really shouldn’t be
allowed to offer these loans.

> The bankruptcy reform bill

had nothing to do with the non-dischargability (can't get out of with
bankruptcy) of student loan debts. That change happened in 1998.

> almost no one took notice.

Speak for yourself.

> The fact that an institution as old as the founding fathers was changed on
> the eve of the collapse bears more than coincidence.

Bankruptcy laws have changed many times since "the founding fathers".

~~~
kls
_had nothing to do with the non-dischargability (can't get out of with
bankruptcy) of student loan debts. That change happened in 1998._

Thanks for the info, I thought I read that they where both in the Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 05. I was unaware of a
previous bill.

And I do understand that the laws have been change previous to the 05 and 98,
but my understanding of the law is that it was the first such attempt to
restrict the people who could file for chapter 7 AKA total discharge of debt,
therefore pushing them into a 13, requiring a judge to garnish a large portion
of the income for 5 years before they can be declared free from the
responsibility of having the service the debt.

------
anamax
Why do I get the impression that if he hadn't been loaned money to get that
degree, he'd have complained about that?

The lesson that I'm getting out of this is a that a lot of people shouldn't be
in college and/or shouldn't be allowed to choose their major.

~~~
kls
I think the article covers the issue pretty well, collage to many was as
inevitable as buying a house, it was so ingrained into cultural norms that the
though of not going never even crossed his mind. There are cultural forces and
norms that have a strong influence on peoples actions without them even
contemplating an alternative point of view or the ramification of the action.
Cultural wisdom and norms like "put your money in real estate, it never goes
down", "we are a military family" or "Everyone in my family goes to college"
are strong subconsciously influencing factors, to just put it on the person
alone ignores a lot of factors that got us into this mess.

~~~
anamax
> I think the article covers the issue pretty well, collage to many was as
> inevitable as buying a house, it was so ingrained into cultural norms that
> the though of not going never even crossed his mind.

Is that "ingrain" stronger than "He was just following orders"? I ask because
few people accept the latter excuse.

> Cultural wisdom and norms like "put your money in real estate, it never goes
> down",

That sounds like a lame excuse, as real estate is one of the classic cycles.

~~~
kls
_That sounds like a lame excuse, as real estate is one of the classic cycles_

It may sound lame to you, but what you fail to see is perspective, many people
listen to that cultural wisdom and many people do "just follow orders" it's
the reason we have this mess. Are they totally blameless? no. should they have
researched what they where getting into? yes.

But both of those require someone actually even beginning to think it through
in the first place and that is the point. When it comes to social norms like
this, because of socital habits they don't even think. Just like the guy just
following orders, he did not think through his actions.

Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no. Does it mean we
should reflect on how it happened and have empathy? yes. But just like the guy
following orders, the system that indoctrinated him into not thinking requires
some of the scorn and blame.

Hitler was just as much to blame as the guard. It's preposterous to view it
any other way. To do so, absolves guilty parties of their burden of the blame.

It's not that the author is not guilty of failing to think, it is that the
system is also guilty of conditioning children in that manner. We (society,
the education system, finance) share the blame, whether you like that fact or
not.

From your perspective you see them as excuses for the author to be blameless
for his actions. From my perspective, he is not the only accountable party.

Just as in real estate, it is not an excuse that people don't understand
cycles, but it is a reality that people relying on "cultural wisdom" invested
in real estate "because it is the safest investment". The fact that they did
not even know what a cycle was, does not absolve them from responsibility for
their action, but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that
"cultural wisdom".

Life is never that cut and dry, telling a person to suck it up because you
believe it is an excuse, does nothing to address the systemic issues at play,
that are just as responsible as the individual.

~~~
anamax
> Hitler was just as much to blame as the guard.

So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for
this "ingrain".

> Does that absolve them from guilt or responsibility? no

And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame.

If, as you argue, he's not competent to think about the consequences of his
decisions, he's not competent to vote, make those decisions, and so on.

> but it does not absolve us as a society for perpetuating that "cultural
> wisdom".

"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a
safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still
others had different messages.

And the exact same is true of college educations, and of spending lots of
money to become an audio engineer.

~~~
kls
_So, you want to blame his parents. If not them, then who is responsible for
this "ingrain"._

Yes, as well as the predatory lenders, targeted marketers and a host of others
working to dumb down the consumer. Lack of critical reasoning increases
impulsive and conspicuous consumption, it is not a coincidence that critical
reasoning and the intellectual lazy have increased along with consumption. To
believe that culture and propaganda does not have the ability to influence an
individuals decision making is to ignore the body of evidence that fascism
(and later the soviets) created for us and used with deadly precision.

 _And then you write several paragraphs trying to shift blame._

I hold all parties equally accountable, that was clear in my writing.

 _"us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a
safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still
others had different messages._

Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions, no
one has went to jail over predatory loans, when direct corruption on their
part, has been highlighted by several whistle-blowers. The financial industry
was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of that we as a society are ok
with people not critically thinking.

Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals,
that are being paid to do the thinking and analysis for them. When I go to my
CPA, I expect him to be a tax professional, I do not educate myself in tax law
because, I pay the CPA to do so. To educate myself in it would be redundant
and a waste of my time and money.

It would also kill human progress to require everyone to educate themselves on
every aspect of their life to ensure they don't get screwed. We don't expect
people to know mechanics and when a mechanic recommends more work than is
necessary we generally consider it fraud. Again the person that did not
educate themselves is to blame for not educating themselves or at the least
seeking a second opinion, but it does not absolve the mechanic of his fraud.

What you suggest is untenable as a society, we have to rely on professionals
to make decisions for us, as a society becomes more complex we have to
delegate more. To not do so would stagnate us as a civilization. We should
expect professional to act professional, and hold them as an accountable party
when they do not.

In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children understand
the conditions of the loan and the full projected debt and payment at the end
of the loans. So a student can see what their debt and payment projections
will look like at the end of their education.

We should expect the schools to have clear, data on what their graduated of
specific disciplines make, so that a student can compare that to the debt
burden that they will incur.

Finally, we should expect sales and marketing to paint a true picture of the
prospects for employment and education. Until we do, we as a society share the
blame.

We can get into the semantics of who "we" are, but that is playing the blame
game, the reality is, "we" as a society should not allow predatory practices
in any market where large debt decision will be made. Until we do, we share
some of the culpability of the indebted.

~~~
anamax
>> "us as a society" did no such thing. Yes, some folks said "real estate is a
safe investment". However, other folks were saying the exact opposite. Still
others had different messages.

> Real estate agents where free to perpetuate the myth with no repercussions,

So? Folks say lots of things. If I tell someone that they don't look fat, am I
responsible if they actually do?

Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making
fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society.

> The financial industry was bailed out. To me that is pretty indicative of
> that we as a society are ok with people not critically thinking.

Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a
functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then
there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)

> Further, many people hold out some of those individuals to be professionals

So if I hold out grocery clerk to be an expert on nutrition, I have a legit
beef?

"I want {someone} to be liable for their advice" is no reason to hold said
someone liable for their advice. You want liability, contract for it. Note
that a contract requires the consent of the other party, so you're going to
pay for said assumption of risk.

> In this specific example we should expect, lenders to help children
> understand the conditions of the loan

They're not children. They're college students. We let them vote. We let many
of them buy alcohol.

If they are unable to understand that words have meaning and that it's a good
idea to know said meaning, they shouldn't be in college.

~~~
kls
_Folks who believe everything are fools. Society needs fewer fools, so making
fools take a huge hit for being foolish is a good thing for society_

 _Not at all. We bailed out the financial industry because we like having a
functioning financial industry. Moreover, said bailout was profitable. (Then
there are the folks who argue that the bailout was unnecessary.)_

I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society
needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in foolish
exuberance. Do you draw a distinction between the individual and the
institution or is foolishness excusable when we may have to take a hit for it.
Even if we did not participate.

In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the
financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been
painful for us. One could argue that we need to be empathetic and learn from
their mistakes and that we needed to bail them out for the greater good.

If that is the case, why does it differ for the individual "fool"? because we
don't have to share in repercussion so we can therefore be selectively
empathetic. You see from my vantage point, the "fools" that did not do their
homework on wall street are no different than the "fool" that did not do his
homework before getting into student loan debt or mortgage debt. You can weigh
in on either side of the morality issue that we need to help them or not help
them, but they both acted foolishly and other fools in the system helped
perpetuate their foolishness, we have a systemic issue of anti-intellectualism
and intellectual laziness. Whether you are for or against helping or are in
favor of selectively helping the ones that will cause us pain for their
foolishness, if we don't act, the fact remains that both sides are culpable. I
know that you don't see that vantage point which is fine, but I am genuinely
interested in understanding how you unify the two positions for different
classes of fools, which from my vantage point looks like an argument for
situational ethics. Which is what many in the financial industry used to
justify their behavior.

~~~
anamax
> I am interested to hear how you reconcile those two points of views, society
> needs fewer "fools", but yet the financial collapse is a case study in
> foolish exuberance.

Actually, it wasn't. However, even if it was, there are benefits to a
functioning financial system. There's no benefit to more fools.

> In my view, the repercussions of the foolish actions on the part of the
> financial industry where not allowed to happen, even if it would have been
> painful for us

That's a reasonable view, one that I happen to share. (However, you're
ignoring the role of govt in this whole thing. I think that folks who want a
foolish govt should take a hit.) However, as I've pointed out, there's a
reasonable counter argument.

What is the benefit to protecting fools?

> Which is what many in the financial industry used to justify their behavior.

I think that you're making that up. How about a checkable cite to someone in
the financial industry actually making that argument? (Someone else saying it
about them is not evidence.)

