College Is Taxing the System

Something I’ve noticed the last week is that discussions on education have been popping up everywhere. Our economic system is facing collapse, and the main issues are all centrally connected to the way our secondary-education system is founded and unregulated. The payment of the tuition is resulting in the major collapse but no one wants to focus on it. You have parents taking out mortgages, the government heavily subsidizing tuition, and student lenders, all taking huge losses on college.

I mentioned this in an old post that was originally written in the middle of March, though it focused on only the government subsidization. The issue is not that government shouldn’t assist, but they are hurting themselves and the economy by not regulating school rates. Over a 30 year period they have wasted approximately $2.4 Trillion( with a T) on education. Meanwhile, college rates are rising doubly as fast that of interest rates.

The people who were taking out loans are hurting but if they claim bankruptcy that is only making it worse for everyone else. The students with 30 or 40 thousand dollars in loans are going to find it hard to pay back because of the weak job market, and the parents who took out mortgages are are probably hurting tremendously. Yet, today the NYT’s posted an article on how the lenders should be taking the brunt of this blow. By allowing the students to claim bankruptcy on these funds.

This article is fucking ridiculous( pardon my language) , this will allow for billions of dollars to be wiped from the slate. This leaves the lenders with no capital to provide for the future borrowers and no profit for their services. What needs to happen is a reformation of the collegiate system.

The problems of our current economic tumults are founded upon these 2 systems the collegiate and the lenders. They are the major issues that caused the collapse in the housing market collapse, outside of the pricing bubble. Colleges have been and will be taxing the lending system both private and federal, making it harder to produce revenues to reach the equilibrium needed. College is generally going to cost you more with less job security and lower standards of pay. Lenders are feeding on this fact for interest and fees.

So the point I’m trying to say, is that even if we find a way out of the housing bubble, we still have a huge problem. If we don’t do something to reform college funding we will see this strain the system to a point of another economic collapse. I can see this occuring anywhere from less than 5 years to 10-20 years from now, it will happen if we don’t do anything.

Acknowledging Personal Truths Are Not The Truths Of Others

I’ve been seeing this recurring theme of intolerance pop-up almost non-stop in current media. We have the ’08 election and are constantly badgered with views of racism, sexism, ageism, and religious intolerance. This is constant in modern life, no matter what you do, you will come across someone with a very different perspective on some subject.

The story that really brought this idea to fruition in me is that I saw an interview with two 14 year-old girls on television. These girls were kicked off of a bus in Portland last year for kissing by the bus driver who called them ‘sickos’. He didn’t bother to wait to get to the next bus stop. This was someone who was forcing his opinion against homosexuality because he saw it as a truth, in doing so he impeded the girls’ rights.

The election has been wrought with constant bipolar truths that are no doubt going to stay in the mainstream media until at least November. Most of them originating in the Democratic Primaries just to market to the masses on one side of the truth. You have “Hillary is a woman, a woman can’t run the country”, “Barrack is Muslim(not true), he’s going to sell this country out to the terrorists”, “McCain is too old to be president, he’ll die in office”, “Barrack is like Rev. Wright”, and “A black man isn’t capable of running this country, he’ll turn it into a ghetto”, all of these have been either explicitly or implicitly distributed by the media. Is this the representation of the beliefs of everyone in the country? No, they are marketing to their audiences, the only problem is that diffusion has occurred in media and it spreads, having it reach the people that share the other side of the truth.

If your trying to sell something as truth, you have to realize that what your truth is opinion only. As you age, however, your opinion shall become more refined; it needs a proper base to do so. So try to reflect on your views and the flip-side of them. You may be the intolerant bastard who you despise.

Your Pouring The Wrong Way

[I’m sorry for any ranting and poor writing this subject is just to dire.]

Wednesday, June 23, the Housing Bill was passed through Congress and the House. I’ve reviewed what little information they are giving the public and it’s only going to affect a small majority of homeowners, approximately 400,000. The main benefactors to this bill, however, are Frannie, Freddie and other lenders. The fact still stands that overtime the average American is going to be taxed for the problems of others

The bill will offer bailouts on houses up to $550,000 which in most cases would be relatively higher than median pricing in any area,  with exceptions for a few areas (i.e. California). This is just ridiculous; if you’re going to offer this to former defaulters you’re a fucking retard, or a member of Congress. This is a horrible incentive to be offering, it’s just going to show them that they weren’t responsible for their problems, each party will point the finger at the other.

I think someone should have thought this thing through, at 600 pages you would think that it might be worth something, yet nothing except tying the government to corporations. I think if anything we need to bolster economic centers of growth but we can’t be bailing people out for every problem, yeah I’m calling you out Dems. We need to develop a plan that can actually help rather than just boost morale for a few months. We also need to show that we don’t support weak economic decisions by people, how about starting to teach basic personal finance and economics in our Middle and High Schools.

Our lending market filled itself with greed and ditched common sense; they offered poorly qualified people opportunities that they could never afford. These people only thought about margins and not about the chance that everyone else would be going after the same niche in the market, sub-prime borrowers. Now we, the American public, get our asses taxed off until we default or our jobs get taxed to the brink and they collapse leaving us jobless and then we default. This isn’t going to help it’s just there to ease the trip down.

So it looks like I’m going to have fun as a responsible spender over the next several decades. Hooray for the assholes back in the 90’s and early-oughts, for flipping me and my generation over and fucking us in the ass. It really fucking stings to know that simplicity and release from branding, no matter how non-conformist, doesn’t help you separate far enough to escape bailing out the people bound to consumption. It’s time to stop praying for the money to come in, and learn responsibility for your actions.