The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. – Benjamin Franklin
– Student Debt Accounts For Nearly Half Of US Government “Assets” (ZeroHedge, April 19, 2015):
“The gap would be made up with future tax hikes and/or cuts in spending. Those future taxes would be paid by successful millennials and their descendants, letting unsuccessful millennials off the hook,” Bloomberg notes, bemoaning the likely “solution” to America’s trillion dollar student debt bubble.
…
– “Staggering” Student Loan Defaults On Deck: 27% Of Students Are A Month Behind On Their Payments (ZeroHedge, April 15, 2015):
A new St. Louis Fed study finds that the delinquency rate for student borrowers in repayment is 27.3%, meaning nearly one in three of the Americans laboring under a debt load that has now swelled to $1.3 trillion are more than a month behind on their payments. Ackman says there’s “no way they are going to pay it back.” We can hear the “cancel the debt” cries now.
…
– Every young person should see the Fed’s startling numbers on student debt (Sovereign Man, March 30, 2015):
What I’m about to tell you is not my own opinion or even analysis. It’s original data that comes from the United States Federal Reserve and national credit bureaus.
- 40 million Americans are now in debt because of their university education, and on average borrowers have four loans with a total balance of $29,000.
- According to the Fed, “Student loans have the highest delinquency rate of any form of household credit, having surpassed credit cards in 2012.”
- Since 2010, student debt has been the second largest category of personal debt, just after a home mortgage.
- The delinquency rate for student loans is now hovering near an all-time high since they started collecting data 12 years ago.
- Only 37% of total students loan balances are currently in repayment and not delinquent.
The rest—nearly 2 out of 3—are either behind on payments, in all-out default, or have entered some sort of deferral program to delay making payments, with a small percentage still in school.
It’s pretty obvious that this is a giant, unsustainable bubble (more on this below). But even more important are the personal implications.
Read moreThe Fed’s Startling Student Debt Numbers Every Young Person Should See
– Police Gas Student Protesters In Quebec (ZeroHedge, March 27, 2015):
Earlier this week we reported that the Blockupy movement — supporters of which set fire to the streets of Frankfurt earlier this month in an anti-austerity protest timed to coincide with the grand opening of the ECB’s new headquarters — had apparently spread across the Atlantic to the streets of Montreal where students describing themselves as “an association of young communists and anti-capitalists” got tear gassed, sound bombed, and shot with rubber bullets after they failed to provide police with an itinerary as to what they planned to vandalize and when.
Just days later and aggrieved Canadian students are at it again, this time in Quebec City where hundreds gathered to protest austerity measures like shorter library hours. Here’s more from RT News:
Students in Quebec City were sprayed with tear gas by Canadian police after holding an ‘illegal’ gathering to protest the provincial budget. A brief scuffle broke out before law enforcement officers began randomly gassing the demonstrators.
– Caught on Hot Mic – Janet Napolitano Says “We Don’t Have to Listen to This Crap” Referring to Student Protest (Liberty Blitzkrieg, March 19, 2015):
Before I get to the meat of this post, let me provide a little background. Late last year, I covered how the former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, was pushing through a 28% tuition hike within the University of California system so that administrators can get huge pay raises. Naturally, students weren’t all that pleased and decided to get creative with their protesting. Big Sis didn’t like this one bit.
What’s amusing is that in a prepared statement she noted:
“They want to be sure that their voices are being heard and I want to commit to them that their voices are being heard.”
Sounds reasonable; however, she quickly lost her patience and was heard on a hot mic saying:
“Let’s just break. Let’s go, let’s go. We don’t have to listen to this crap.”
Let’s just say this isn’t going to help improve her relationship with the student body. CBS reports:
“Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.
I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.”
– “Cancel All Student Debt” – The Petitions Begin (ZeroHedge, March 14, 2015):
With global moral hazard having long ago become institutionalized, and codified as “monetary policy”, catering almost exclusively to the TBTF entities in the financial sector, we were surprised it took as long as it did for Obama to announce (as he did last week), that the administration is now studying “new bankruptcy options” for student loan borrowers: code word for an across the board student debt moratorium, or forgiveness.
To wit from “Student Aid Bill of Rights: Taking Action to Ensure Strong Consumer Protections for Student Loan Borrowers“:
The President is directing his Cabinet and White House advisers, working with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to study whether consumer protections recently applied to mortgages and credit cards, such as notice and grace periods after loans are transferred among lenders and a requirement that lenders confirm balances to allow borrowers to pay off the loan, should also be afforded to student loan borrowers and improve the quality of servicing for all types of student loans. The agencies will develop recommendations for regulatory and legislative changes for all student loan borrowers, including possible changes to the treatment of loans in bankruptcy proceedings and when they were borrowed under fraudulent circumstances.
Living in constant fear has consequences:
– Dr. Bruce Lipton: The New Biology – Where Mind and Matter Meet (Video)
– What Are We So Afraid Of? (Of Two Minds, Oct 2, 2014):
We’ve put all our hopes, dreams and chips on Plan A, as if security flows from institutional promises rather than from being adaptable, resilient and able to create value in a variety of circumstances.
Setting aside monsters under the bed, the Ebola virus and fanatical terrorists bent on our destruction–what are we so afraid of? It must be something, because fear is the ever-present backdrop in America.
If you don’t get a college degree, it’s widely assumed that you’re doomed to a life of involuntary poverty of part-time toil in a coffee bar or big-box retailer–if you’re lucky enough to find a job at all.
– Free speech banned: Student group sues 4 US universities that ‘stifle dissent’ (RT, July 2, 2014):
Arguing that free speech is suffering at colleges across the US, an advocacy group filed lawsuits against four universities, seeking to strengthen the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has filed lawsuits against four schools – Iowa State University, Ohio University, Chicago University and Citrus College in Glendora, California – that it says disrupt the flow of free speech in a number of ways, including the banning of particular T-shirts, for example, or by refusing to permit certain speakers address the student body on controversial issues.
According to the group’s estimate, about 60 percent of public universities and colleges have restrictions on rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Read moreFree Speech Banned: Student Group Sues 4 US Universities That ‘Stifle Dissent’
– Obama Unveils Student Loan Debt Bubble Bailout (ZeroHedge, June 9, 2014):
“The challenges of managing student loan debt can lead some borrowers to fall behind on their loan payments and in some cases even default on their debt obligation,” notes the always astute White House… and so it’s time to do something about that… by bailing the bad debtors out with US taxpayers money. As we have been vociferously warning, not only has the student loan debt bubble expanded massively (as the easiest credit substitute for real-world working and unemployment) but delinquencies on the ‘easily available’ credit is soaring with “consequences such as a damaged credit rating, losing their tax refund, or garnished wages.” Consequences, as we have been taught now, are not acceptable for this administration and so President Barack Obama will issue an executive action on Monday aimed at making it easier for young people to avoid trouble repaying student loans.
Read moreAND NOW: Obama Unveils Student Loan Debt Bubble Bailout
– What Most Americans Don’t Know About Student Debt (ZeroHedge, June 8, 2014):
Now that student loans, well over $1.1 trillion, are hitting fresh record highs as… well… daily as the S&P500, the Fed is finally getting concerned about the latest debt bubble it has blown (not so much in equities). So concerned, in fact, the New York Fed recently added questions about student loans in its broad survey on consumer expectations to find out what people knew, or rather, did not know about this record debt mountain. We hope it was not shocked to learn that once again the bulk of Americans are taking on unprecedented amounts of debt without having a clue what the conditions are: accordint to the analysis, people don’t fully comprehend the ramifications of taking on student debt.
As Bloomberg summarizes, the survey covered 1,029 people, including those with and without debt. The shocking findings:
– NSA seeks to ‘convert’ students into intelligence work (RT, Dec 10, 2013):
The US National Security Agency has hundreds of teens and college students on its payroll, thanks to a recruiting effort aimed at wooing would-be writers and aspiring producers into the intelligence community.
In an effort to identify prospects for its college internship program and its “High School Work Study Program,” the agency places advertisements on employment websites each autumn and contacts campuses throughout the US.
NSA recruiters are seeking college upperclassmen with at least a 3.0 grade point average who are pursuing “writing, editing, journalism” or “television production, motion picture production, or 3-D animation,” among other fields, according to a report published in Salon on Tuesday. Young men and women are tempted with a “competitive salary” and government-subsidized housing near the NSA headquarters at Ft. Meade, Maryland.
Read moreNSA Seeks To ‘Convert’ Students Into Intelligence Work
Challenging the status quo is rewarded in America, right?
Yes, ask Michael Hastings.
Related info:
– President Obama: ‘Stop Focusing On The Bloggers’ (Video):
“Now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul.”
Hand that hypocrite, goddamn liar and ZIONIST Biden a Guantanamo jumpsuit & a parachute and let him challenge China all by himself …
… and let him serve all the prison time of Chinese students who will follow his advice.
– ?Biden urges Chinese students to take inspiration from young Americans and ‘challenge’ their government, teachers and religious leaders (Daily Mail, Dec 5, 2013):
Joe Biden told Chinese students to challenge their nation’s authority
He urged them to follow American youths and reject ‘orthodoxy’
US Vice President spoke to visa applicants at US Embassy in Beijing Biden has landed in the Chinese capital for a two-day visit to country
Chinese youths should challenge authority and reject conformity, US Vice President Joe Biden said today.
Mr Biden took a stand for the American mindset shortly after arriving in China for a two-day visit, as he addressed a group of visa applicants at the US Embassy in Beijing.
The Vice President urged Chinese exchange students to challenge their government, teachers and religious leaders, and take inspiration from the attitude of young Americans.
‘Children in America are rewarded – not punished – for challenging the status quo,’ Mr Biden told a group of Chinese citizens waiting to get visitor visas at the US Embassy.
FYI.
The US government books $41.3bn in student loan profits
– Over $41bn in student loan profits for US government (PressTV, Nov 27, 2013):
The federal government of the United States made a profit of $41.3 billion on student loans for the 2013 fiscal year.
Although the profit is $3.6 billion less than the that the US government reaped from distressed borrowers the previous year, it is a profit higher than that made by all but two companies, Exxon Mobil and Apple, in the world.
According to David Jesse, who writes for the Free Press, the profit is enough to pay for the tuition of nearly 3,000,000 Michigan residents at the University of Michigan for one year.
Read moreOver $41 Billion In Student Loan Profits For US Government
– Princeton to use students as vaccine experiment subjects with rollout of non-approved meningitis vaccine (Natural News, Nov 16, 2013):
Princeton University is poised to move forward on a plan that would transform the entire student body into human guinea pigs for a campus-wide vaccine medical experiment. Responding to nothing more than a handful of students contracting mild meningitis (and then fully recovering), Princeton now wants to inject ALL students with a vaccine that isn’t even approved for use in the United States, thereby making it a vaccine experiment with unknown outcomes that must, by definition, include risk.
Meningitis is often spread through people sharing drinking cups, but like nearly all communicable diseases, it is easily conquered by a healthy immune system (which is, of course, supported by good nutrition). Even the small number of students who contracted meningitis at Princeton were able to conquer it without serious incident, and most college students live on processed junk food and atrocious diets!
Princeton falls for quack science of the for-profit vaccine industry
Read morePrinceton University Wants To Inject ALL Students With Non-Approved Meningitis Vaccine
– Dear Recently Graduated Millennials: Prepare To Work Until You Are 73 (ZeroHedge, Oct 25, 2013):
Our advice to recently graduating Millennials? Live long.
Because according to a just conducted analysis by NerdWallet, looking at the future of the average recent college graduate, and more importantly looking at the mountain of student loans each graduate will be saddled with and the implications for the earliest possible retirement age onset, Millennials may well have no choice but to postpone their retirement by about a decade, to the ripe old age of 73.
The reason for this, of course, is the magic of compounded interest: that “manageable” debt load grows and grows and grows even assuming one dutifully pays interest on time. And with unemployment at graduation running at 18%, that is a rather generous scenario. Still, even under base case assumption, the median student loan of $23,300 will end up costing students over $115K by the time they retire.
What does that mean in practical terms? “When will students be able to retire given that many are spending the first ten years (or more) of their careers paying off their hefty loans? NerdWallet… found that while retirement is certainly not impossible, for most it will have to wait until their early to mid 70s— over 10 years later than the current average retirement age of 61.” It goes without saying that all else is assumed equal. Alas, in the America’s welfare state future, few things will be equal, and most things will be far worse.
Which, one wonders, may be the secret plan after all: since by now everyone knows that the US’ welfare state is unsustainable for the mid- and certainly long-term future, what better way to avoid draining it, than to force those who would otherwise benefit into at least ten more years of work to pay off debts accumulated over 50 years earlier.
Read moreDear Recently Graduated Millennials: Prepare To Work Until You Are 73
– Next “Subprime Crisis” Expands As Student Loan Defaults Hit $146 Billion, Highest Default Rate Level Since 1995 (ZeroHedge, Oct 1, 2013):
Almost exactly one year ago we wrote “The Next Subprime Crisis Is Here: Over $120 Billion In Federal Student Loans In Default” in which we took the latest (2009 three year cohort) loan default data on Federal Student Loans released by the Department of Education and applied it to the total amount of student loans outstanding, which back then was $914 billion. Yesterday, ED.gov provided its annual update – this time to the 2010 three year and 2011 two year cohorts – and to nobody’s major surprise, learned that things just got even worse. To wit: “The national two-year cohort default rate rose from 9.1 percent for FY 2010 to 10 percent for FY 2011. The three-year cohort default rate rose from 13.4 percent for FY 2009 to 14.7 percent for FY 2010.” Putting this in context, according to Bloombergdefaults have risen to the highest level since 1995. The irony that this is happening in the aftermath of Bernanke’s disastrous ZIRP policy is not lost on anyone.
Quantifying this percentage, recall the NY Fed reported in its second quarter household credit update that the amount of total outstanding student loans has now risen to $994 billion, or $80 billion more in just one year:
… one can calculate that the current amount of non-performing loans originated in 2010 is now a whopping $146 billion (the full total amount of student loans owed is $1.2 trillion when including private loans from the likes of Sallie Mae – this sum surpasses all other kinds of consumer borrowing expect for mortgages). Unfortunately, as the economic situation has only deteriorated since then especially for student-age Americans, the real blended amount of student loans in default is almost certainly substantially higher as of this moment.
The Education Department had this commentary:
Related info:
– Fed Shocked To Find Student Loans Used For Anything But To Learn
– U.S. Student Loan Delinquency Rate Hits New Record High
– Presenting The College Whose Graduates Have A 62% Student Loan Default Rate
– Student Loan Bubble Forces Yale And Pennsylvania University To Sue Their Own Students
The interest rate on new Stafford loans is going to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent Monday.
– Student Loan Rates Set To Double On July 1 (NPR, June 28, 2013):
The interest rate on government-backed student loans is going to jump from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent Monday.
Republicans, Democrats and the Obama administration could not agree on a plan to keep it from happening. Lawmakers say a deal is still possible after the July 4 recess. But if they don’t agree on a plan soon, 7 million students expected to take out new Stafford loans could be stuck with a much bigger bill when they start paying the money back.
– Fed Shocked To Find Student Loans Used For Anything But To Learn (ZeroHedge, June 24, 2013):
Since January, under pressure from the Fed, the Education Department has flagged 126,000 applicants attempting to pocket federal loans and grants without any intent of going to school. As the WSJ reports, officials are cracking down on fraud in student-aid programs after evidence of recipients – acting alone or as part of organized crime rings – misusing funds. “What we find are very poor students academically that are borrowing to the max, getting the maximum in their Pell grant and just going from school to school,” noted one director of financial aid, with roughly $829 million in Pell grants as “improper payments,” in the last year. Rather stunningly, more than 34,000 participants in crime rings improperly received federal student aid last year, up 82% from 2009. “We started seeing student borrowing that was just over the top with no explanation for why,” another director noted, adding “it’s not so much about the education, it’s the money.”
Most federal student aid requires no credit check and comes with few restrictions on how the money is spent and Federal officials say the Internet has helped fuel student aid fraud.
Via The WSJ,
Federal officials are cracking down on fraud in student-aid programs, responding to evidence that a growing number of recipients—acting alone or as part of organized crime rings—are pocketing federal loans and grants without any intent of going to school.
…
Since January, the agency said it has flagged 126,000 applicants, about 1% of all those seeking aid for the 2013-2014 school year.
Read moreFed Shocked To Find Student Loans Used For Anything But To Learn
– 20 Completely Ridiculous College Courses Being Offered At U.S. Universities (Economic Collapse, June 5, 2013):
Would you like to know what America’s young people are actually learning while they are away at college? It isn’t pretty. Yes, there are some very highly technical fields where students are being taught some very important skills, but for the most part U.S. college students are learning very little that they will actually use out in the real world when they graduate. Some of the college courses listed below are funny, others are truly bizarre, others are just plain outrageous, but all of them are a waste of money. If we are going to continue to have a system where we insist that our young people invest several years of their lives and tens of thousands of dollars getting a “college education”, they might as well be learning some useful skills in the process. This is especially true considering how much student loan debt many of our young people are piling up. Sadly, the truth is that right now college education in the United States is a total joke. I know – I spent eight years in the system. Most college courses are so easy that they could be passed by the family dog, and many of these courses “study” some of the most absurd things imaginable.
Listed below are 20 completely ridiculous college courses being offered at U.S. universities. The description following each course title either comes directly from the official course description or from a news story about the course…
Read more20 Completely Ridiculous College Courses Being Offered At U.S. Universities
– Schools scanned students’ irises without permission (RT, May 30, 2013):
Parents in Polk County, Florida are outraged after learning that students in area schools had their irises scanned as part of a new security program without obtaining proper permission.
Students at three facilities — an elementary school, a grade school and a high school — had their eyeballs scanned earlier this month as part of a ‘student safety’ pilot program being carried out by Stanley Convergent Security Solutions.
“It simply takes a picture of the iris, which is unique to every individual,” Rob Davis, the school board’s senior director of support services, wrote home to parents in a letter dated May 23. “With this program, we will be able to identify when and where a student gets on the bus, when they arrive at their school location, when and what bus the student boards and disembarks in the afternoon. This is an effort to further enhance the safety of our students. The EyeSwipe-Nano is an ideal replacement for the card based system since your child will not have to be responsible for carrying an identification card,” he added.
Read moreFlorida: Schools Scanned Students’ Irises Without Permission
Related info:
– Student Loan Bubble? Just Discharge It!
– 40 Statistics About The Fall Of The U.S. Economy That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe
– The Student Loan Delinquency Rate In The United States Has Hit A Brand New Record High (Economic Collapse, May 29, 2013):
37 million Americans currently have outstanding student loans, and the delinquency rate on those student loans has now reached a level never seen before. According to a new report that was just released by the U.S. Department of Education, 11 percent of all student loans are at least 90 days delinquent. That is a brand new record high, and it is almost double the rate of a decade ago. Total student loan debt exceeds a trillion dollars, and it is now the second largest category of consumer debt after home mortgages. The student loan debt bubble has been growing particularly rapidly in recent years. According to the Federal Reserve, the total amount of student loan debt has risen by 275 percent since 2003. That is a staggering figure. Millions upon millions of young college graduates are entering the “real world” only to discover that they are already financially crippled for decades to come by oppressive student loan debt burdens. Large numbers of young people are even putting off buying homes or getting married simply because of student loan debt.
Read moreU.S. Student Loan Delinquency Rate Hits New Record High
– Student Loan Bubble? Just Discharge It (ZeroHedge, May 28, 2013):
By now everyone knows that the biggest portion of US household debt, besides mortgage debt, is a towering $1+ trillion in student loans, more than total outstanding credit cards or car loans, which is problematic for three main reasons: it is increasing at an unprecedented pace due to lax Federal lending standards, delinquent loans are soaring and are now well over $100 billion and rising at a pace of tens of billions each quarter, and it can not be discharged. At least that is conventional wisdom. But while points 1 and 2 are indisputable (and deteriorating), it is point 3 that is the more troubling for an entire generation of young men and women who are afraid to splurge on levered purchases such as houses due to an already insurmountable debt overhang, and a job market that is hardly hospitable to young entrants. Luckily, there may now be solution stamped in US case law.
