If the dollar collapses do we get out of student loans ?, page 3
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ATS Members have flagged this thread 3 times


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 10:06 AM by TheBandit795
reply to post by Europe


In The Netherlands education is not free. You have to pay it back anyway. Almost all of my friends have to pay back loans for at least the coming 15 years.

In fact, I don't really want to know what one of my best friend owes now. At least 50000 to 100000 Euro's. He studied to become a doctor.

[edit on 2-2-2009 by TheBandit795]


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 10:21 AM by username371
Originally posted by ProfEmeritus

This IS the reason we are in a financial crisis. It is the lack of personal responsibility for actions you FREELY took that are causing the problem.
People buy homes that are more than they can afford. Banks give loans to people that shouldn't get them.




Someone had to borrow our money for it to exist. Don't blame those who borrowed money for the massive amount of debt that exists in this country. Debt is what the banks have always wanted. By design.

If someone doesn't borrow money into existence, YOU wouldn't have any money either. Stop blaming people who don't understand the system... if anyone is to blame, its the architects OF the system.



Quote:
G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jekyll Island – A Second Look at the Federal Reserve:
"As we have already shown, every dollar that exists today, either in the form of currency, checkbook money, or even credit card money – in other words, our entire money supply – exists only because it was borrowed by someone; perhaps not you, but someone.

That means all the American dollars in the entire world are earning daily and compounding interest for the banks which created them. A portion of every business venture, every investment, every profit, every transaction which involves money – and that even includes losses and the payment of taxes – a portion of all that is earmarked as payment to a bank.

And what did the banks do to earn this perpetually flowing river of wealth? Did they lend out their own capital obtained through investment of stockholders? Did they lend out the hard-earned savings of their depositors? No, neither of these were their major source of income. They simply waved the magic wand called fiat money."



I keep hearing people blaming borrowers for the country's problems. I ask you... would a responsible bank ever loan money to someone they knew couldn't pay it back? The reason it happened was because banks knew they had nothing to lose.



Reginald McKenna, Chairman, Midland Bank London:
"I am afraid that ordinary citizens will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money. The amount of finance in existence varies only with the action of the banks in increasing or decreasing deposits and bank purchases. We know how this is effected. Every loan, overdraft or bank purchase creates a deposit, and every repayment of a loan, overdraft or bank sale destroys a deposit."



Ralph M. Hawtery, British Secretary of Treasury:
"Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment out of nothing."



John Kenneth Galbraith:
"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled."



Major L. B. Angus:
"The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented."



"Putting it Simply", Boston Federal Reserve Bank:
"When you or I write a check there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check, but when the Federal Reserve writes a check there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money."



Graham Towers, Governor of the Bank of Canada:
"Banks create money. That is what they are for. The manufacturing process to make money consists of making an entry into a book. That is all. Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created – brand new money."



Robert B. Anderson, former U.S. Secretary of Treasury
"When a bank makes a loan, it simply adds to the borrower’s deposit account in the bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone else’s deposit; it was not previously paid in to the bank by anyone. It’s new money, created by the bank for the use of the borrower.



The banks have nothing to lend!


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 12:06 PM by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by odd1out




Your bachelor's degree, what is that getting you these days???

Yes, that is why I went on to get my additional degrees, and yes, I had to pay for it entirely on my own, with loans, hard work and long hours. In addition, I came from a 1st generation American family that had squat. I was the first person in my family to go to college, as well as grad school. I knew what I was getting into, though. I understood what those loans meant. Basic high school math was all I needed to figure out what it would cost me. Furthermore, I never complained about the loans. In fact, I was glad that they were available, because it enabled me to pull myself up from a situation which I found myself in.

I find it hard to understand how people who supposedly have gone to college, and have tools available such as Excel, with built-in business functions to calculate amortization of loans, does not take advantage of that to perform a SIMPLE 30 second calculation regarding, arguably, the largest financial commitment of their life. It strains credibility to the limit.


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 12:14 PM by CaptGizmo
reply to post by admriker444

While I understand your frustration with having to pay that high of an interest back it still angers me that you would contemplate not wanting to pay it back.When your wife signed those student loan papers it is very clear at what percentage the loan would be at. I didn't like having to pay that percentage back either but I signed a contract with the government that in good faith they would lend me the money and I would pay it back. I am now paid off as of 4 years ago. Yes it took a long time but it was a responsibility that I took on when I wanted to go and get a higher education.

As someone else stated...her loan will be the least of your worries if the dollar collapses. Try thinking about how you will feed yourselves if that happens instead.



reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 12:24 PM by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by username371




The bankers did nothing. And their insistence that you pay back much more than you "borrowed" has historically been called "usury" - both an immoral act, and a crime.

If you feel that the interest on your loan is considered usury, according to your state law, then feel free to contact your state, and report that. Be aware, that some states do not have ceilings:

Charging loan interest higher than the rates allowed by law. Interest rates in consumer credit contracts are controlled by state law, and the highest permitted rate is called the usury rate or the usury ceiling. Since the early 1980s, many state legislatures relaxed statutory controls on consumer credit because rather than protecting consumers from unscrupulous lenders, such controls often make it more difficult for consumers to obtain credit. To alleviate this, and to keep banks from moving their credit card operations to states with more liberal statutes, lawmakers revised state statutes to allow interest rates to be set by market competition, rather than specified by laws. Several states have abolished usury ceilings; most states have raised the interest ceilings to encourage more rate competition among financial institutions, and most of these laws have a Sunset Clause calling for periodic review every three to five years. Some states, including New York, Delaware, and South Dakota have no limits on consumer credit. New York does, however, have a criminal usury ceiling of 25%, a maximum rate of interest that lenders may charge on consumer credit. State usury laws generally are enforceable only through civil suits filed by debtors claiming excessive interest charges. Most state laws have stiff penalties for illegal interest, ranging from forfeiture of interest owed on the entire loan balance, or forfeiture of both principal and interest. Commercial credit in most states is exempt from usury statutes; agricultural credit is unregulated, though not exempt from state interest rate controls.

www.answers.com...

In any case, no one should take out a loan without knowing what they will be required to pay back.
Unfortunately, some people obviously don't bother to check. That is THEIR problem, because they signed the loan agreement, which says that they have been advised as to the conditions of the loan.

I know for a fact that many people do not bother to read "the fine print", or even the bold print. They just want their "Mapo now".

How many of you bother to read the "agreement", THEN check the "I agree" when you download free software? Be honest now. Did you know that many of those "agreements", that go on for pages and pages, have Trojan horse clauses in them, that allow them to bill you for certain functions that you subsequently use, or that by agreeing to the download, you agree to have 'capture software" placed on your computer?

Ignorance is no defense when it comes to the law. People need to learn that.

This entire thread comes down to people that are not willing to take responsibility for their own actions.

Yes, that is what is causing the financial mess we are in now. Don't just blame the bankers. If you didn't fall for their traps, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in, and asking those of us, who DO take responsibility for their own actions, to pay for THOSE who DON'T is sending the wrong message to all people. As ATS proclaims: "Deny Ignorance".

Summary of my response for all future posters on this thread:

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS.


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 12:34 PM by Illusionsaregrander
Originally posted by Xtraeme

Therefore I was arguing we should address the problem by rewarding people who are financially responsible as well as people who contribute their time towards pursuits that have significant social benefits, especially those that require a large upfront initial investment.


I did re-read your post, and this one thoroughly, and I am still annoyed at at least part of your point. You seem to be saying, and correct me if I am wrong, that some people, those who train for jobs that "have significant social benefits" should be given leeway to act in ways those who work "insignificant jobs" should not. It is classist. And, it in no way ensures that people who act honestly and responsibly are given a fair shake.

Why? Because a lot of people who work "insignificant jobs"

a) are actually working jobs that have a great deal of social significance,

b) they are working these jobs because right off the bat in life, in their late teens and early 20's they realized they could not afford to train for years and accumulate that much debt.

You seem to be thinking that education and a certain job title makes you more valuable, and apparently should offer you a get out of debt free option that the uneducated does not get. I worked with a lot of guys who did not have even a complete high school education. Many of them grew up poor and had to leave school early to start work to help their families pay the bills. Going to school, student loans or no, was not an option as the opportunity cost, (loss of a present income) was more of a burden than they and their family could bear.

They were not stupid. And their work is not insignificant. We need everyone from laborers to master electricians in this country to build the hospitals, the law offices, etc. They provide real value for the money they earn. And for the guy who said tradesmen make more than a doctor, that is just simply BS. Even working over seas, where you are compensated at a higher rate than in the states, I did not make more than a doctor. Not even close.

If one of those guys got laid off, with his lack of a high school diploma, and he was forced to run up debt on credit cards to survive, he is no less deserving of a "handout" or debt forgiveness than some kid who never did hard labor in his/her life and had the great good fortune to even be in a position to take out $250,000 in loans for school.


Why do we allow a person who doesn't even possess a high school degree to accumulate 10 or 20 credit cards, max out the limit, and then declare bankruptcy with little more than a slap on the wrist?


We dont anymore. The bankruptcy laws have changed. And along the same line, why do we let business and professional people form LLC's or incorporate so that their failings do not attach to their personal wealth? Its a built in escape from culpability free card that the "professional" gets that your average high school drop out never does.

Why is it that the government is trying to placate people (through mortgage rate renegotiation, abatement, and subsidies) who purchased homes they couldn't afford?


Your student loans are exactly like a home you cannot afford. The only difference is, (and why they are not forgivable,) is that the creditor cannot repossess the "good" that they loaned you money for. Your house can be repossessed. And in many cases in this crisis, IS being repossessed. You seem very critical of people who did not know they could afford their homes at the time. Why the sympathy for the college educated person who did not understand their loan agreement, and none for the often times less educated person who did not understand their loan agreement?



Investment bankers who lied should be forced to return their bonuses and pay other monetary damages. If they can't afford to do it immediately, they can pay it back over time.


I agree wholeheartedly. I think the system of compensation in this country is horribly broken. And it is the heart of the real problem. Certain jobs have more prestige, and are considered more "valuable." The jobs that promise the higher opportunity for income, also, not surprisingly, have a high fee in terms of education. You pay to play. Hoping that over time, your income will exceed your investment.

But you are making an investment. And sometimes investements dont work out the way you hope. The guy who invests in an apprenticeship in a trade is betting too. He or she is betting that their body will not become so damaged from the work that they can make it through the apprenticeship and actually get the payoff for their investment too. They arent all right. Just like all doctors and dentists arent right that their investment will pay off.

It would be very, very nice if we had a system that worked in such a way that real investments in energy, be it physical labor or education, actually paid out a fair wage to the people who made those investments. And I would love to live in a world where those who had the ability intellectually or physically, got jobs and training based on merit rather than their financial ability to "buy" it. We would have a lot fewer crappy doctors and investment bankers if it were NOT a "pay to play" system, but a meritocracy.

I would also like to see true equity in pay. I would love for a garbage man or a plumber (both trades contribute as much or more to the overall health of a society as its doctors do) be compensated with pay and respect that matched their contribution. This idea that some are so much more valuable than others is very skewed by the idea that high pay MAKES you valuable, when in fact, high pay just makes you highly paid.

Originally posted by Xtraeme
The majority of people look to benefit themselves however they can. Judge those people all you want, but your sense of righteous indignation won't matter much because their value system is based on dramatically different principles from your own.


Here, I disagree. Maybe the majority of people you know are this way, but I can assure you that the majority of people I know are not trying to game the system.

Consider from Freakanomics,

freakonomicsbook.com...

He had also -- quite without meaning to -- designed a beautiful economic experiment. By measuring the money collected against the bagels taken, he could tell, down to the penny, just how honest his customers were. Did they steal from him? If so, what were the characteristics of a company that stole versus a company that did not? Under what circumstances did people tend to steal more, or less?


The conclusion?

Entering the summer of 2001, the overall payment rate had slipped to about 87 percent. Immediately after Sept. 11, the rate spiked a full 2 percent and hasn't slipped much since.


So even prior to the boost in cooperative thinking spawned in the wake of 9-11, 87% of people were not gaming the system. Sure, its just bagels, but people in general are more willing to feel justified in taking a small benefit than a large one. Macro-socio economically, most people ARE playing fair, and if you thought about it, you would realize that this is obvious. Societies would never have risen from the mire if MOST people were not willing to do their fair share and then some. The "and then some" acts to support those free riders at the top of the system that are gaming the system.

What you are suggesting is that the real "fair" people take on another level of free-riders to support. That money has to come from somewhere to "forgive" those debts. And where it comes from is from suckers like me who pay for our educations. (or any good or service) They bump up prices in order to recoup the losses of those who will not pay.

The difference between your theory and the bankers theory is superficial. The amount you feel should be taken, and what you feel "worthy" people are. Do you not think those bankers feel they are more worthy?

How in your proposed system could you ever compensate those who COULD have been doctors, who had the intelligence and inclination, who never went to medical school because right off the bat they recognized the cost? How could such a system ever compensate the MOST fair? It wouldnt. It would just spread the benefit of gaming the system around to a larger number of people.

There will always have to be people who pay more than their share in a system like that to make up for those who take more than they pay for.


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 12:58 PM by Illusionsaregrander
Originally posted by odd1out

Haha..This country would NOT have ANY DOCTORS if people "acted responsibly"


Yes we would. If all of a sudden, people stopped going to medical and dental school because they knew they could not afford it, there would be some intervention on the part of the government.

The reason medical school (and other school for high paying jobs) charge so much is not an accident. It was designed that way, not by evil bankers, but by evil doctors. (if you want to call anyone evil.)

www.sjsu.edu...

Around 1900 there was a concerted effort on the part of physicians in the U.S. to restrict the supply of doctors; as they termed it, "To practice professional birth control."


As a result of this restriction the income of doctors went up. In the long run the benefits of the restricted supply of doctors did not all accrue to doctors. The restriction generated economic rents which others found ways to garner. The medical schools, with their quotas on admission, could charge higher tuitions. Consequently now many doctors graduate from medical school with enormous debts for their educations. So now it appears that doctors need to receive high incomes to pay for their expensive education.

In terms of economic analysis, what was involved was the creation of a cartel of doctors. A cartel functions as a protected monopoly. If a monopoly is created in an industry that was previously competitive, the first thing the monopolist does is raise the price and reduce production. The same thing is accomplished by reducing production and allowing the price to be bid up. This is the procedure in the case of a cartel.


The problem is a simple economic one. What people are calling for in this thread is not a breaking up of the "pay to play" system in favor of implementing a meritocracy. If they were advocating that, I would be in favor of it. What they are calling for is keeping the "pay to play" system, so that they can reap the rewards of that system, without they themselves having to pay to play. They want "the little people" to pay so that they can reap the rewards of an inherently unfair system.

Blaming "the bankers" may be popular, but it isnt just bankers who are creating and sustaining these monopolies or oligopolies. It is doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc. And I dont think it is the least bit fair to pay them to continue to reap the rewards of such a system.

Read the whole article. If more people had any understanding of basic economics, we would not be in this mess. If people considered seriously at all the basic principles, the economic polices our leaders implement would look a lot less rosy. You would see it for the protectionist (of the wealthy) raping (of the not so wealthy) that it really is, and was designed to be.


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 01:05 PM by spinkyboo
Originally posted by ProfEmeritus
reply to post by Illusionsaregrander




I agree. I would have liked to go to medical school myself, but I could not afford to, and didnt want to indebt myself for life. Instead, I worked in construction overseas to save up the money to pay cash for a Bachelors degree.

Kudos to you. You HAVE acted RESPONSIBLY. If more people in this country were like you, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now.


Do you not see that the state of this world and how we do things actually stopped you from becoming a doctor? Do you realize that many doctors HAVE to charge what they do because of this unreasonable amount of money that it takes to get a higher education? When their intial intention was probably just to be a good doctor. Shouldn't we be making higher education an easier monetary road to take? How can this serve us - That only people with money can move forward?

If we are not born rich - should we not be able to add to society in the best way possible? What would we do if every person decided not to take the risk of becoming the doctor they knew they could be - all because a broken and corrupt monetary system dictated it? WE have made it impossible for the regular intelligent Joe - to reach his/her full potential. Can you not see how we are causing our own demise?


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 01:51 PM by Illusionsaregrander
reply to post by spinkyboo


Read the article attached to my post. The problem with medical school costing so much wasnt caused by the NWO, or the Illuminati, or evil Jewish bankers, or any of the convenient ready made blame monkeys. It was caused by the doctors themselves.

Sure, politicians were involved. Politicians are always involved. But the politicians were then, and are now, acting on behalf of the wealthy. Not the "people."

These people who want their debt forgiven dont want the monopolistic, cartel type situations to end, they arent looking for fairness. They want the benefit of that monopolistic rich persons club without having to pay the membership dues set up by that very same club. Those fees are set high to to limit membership so that they can continue to charge high prices and stay wealthy. It is simple supply and demand. Keep supply low, and demand high, and you can charge whatever you want.

And they arent the same as those who took out house loans. Those who default on their home loans lose the home. It was a secured loan, and the security, the physical house, it repossessed.

School loans are for a product, (an education) that isnt repossessable. That is why they are so darn unforgivable. Because if the person defaults, it is the perfect crime. They took the huge sum of money, and there is no way of getting the money back (as the creditor sees it) by reselling the "product."

Professional associations, guilds, whatever, are ways of controlling supply of the members of that profession. They pretend it is about "quality control" but in fact, the newer members always have higher hurdles to jump than the founders. It isnt about quality. It is about controlling the market, and drumming up demand by pushing for legislation that favors their trade. (mandatory insurance for consumers, limited liability for members of a specific profession, etc.)

Capitalism isnt capitalism. If anyone took the time to read Adam Smiths requirements for a free market, they would quickly realize that we dont have one, and businesses and professionals are the main reason we do not. Not the poor Joe Schmoo worker on the street who wants a guaranteed pension and some social programs for his tax dollar.



[edit on 2-2-2009 by Illusionsaregrander]


reply posted on 2-2-2009 @ 02:06 PM by MegaCurious
reply to post by admriker444


With that much debt, the US dollar would have to crash like Zimbabwe.

After that you'd have to somehow get your hands on like, one Amero. That's because your debt is priced in US dollars.

The US might not exactly be another Zimbabwe though, so we're talking a slim chance here.
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