This excellent piece by James Howard Kunstler is a MUST READ. (Kunstler is the author of the Long Emergency). There is a specific paragraph about the housing market and toxic mortgages, and there is a clear link to what's happening in that sector to that of the student lending industry. For instance, do you know that Deutsche Bank invests in student loan debt in the stock market? Does anyone wish to discuss the repercussions of the fact that our private loans are being swapped and packaged at the global level? What happens when those private loans become toxic? I have been digging for months and reading about a lot of these private loans - some companies are doing very well, while other companies are going belly-up. But I think there is a clear trend: private loans are becoming more toxic than they ever had been in the past. The consequences of this happening are catastrophic, and I fear that I may never be able to return to my home and make an honest living.
Homesickness and despair sets in . . . We are heading into darker times.
Those who seek knowledge suffer from the sin of despair.
3 comments:
Darker times only so long as corporatism is the order of the day, aided and abetted by Tea Partiers despite themselves.
The Tea Party is, of course, entirely too new to be blameworthy for the ills alluded to in your post. However, the Tea Party *pathology* existed before the Tea Party and is considerably to blame. The United States, as a refuge for intellectual laze and malaise, has made her own bed and now, lying in it, must deal with the fleas and bed bugs for which she can only blame herself.
The Tea Party epitomizes what's the matter with Kansas, as it were. I see direct correlation (although not necessarily cause and effect) between TP pathology and education debt crisis, on so many levels.
I didn't mean to allude to the so-called powers or blameworthiness of the tea party. I think this article does a good job of also suggesting that there are a lot of people, parties, etc., etc. culpable for the things going on in the U.S.
As I always tell people, I hope my negative outlook is entirely wrong - that would be wonderful! However, I have a lot of fears about the state of the U.S. and am particularly concerned about it maintaining its influence as a world leader. There is so much political strife, so many people suffering in the U.S., etc., etc., that it looks pretty ugly.
Moreover, I was speaking to a new friend in Korea - an African American woman who's a fellow alumna at U. of Chicago - and we were agreeing that fall out for voting an African-American president hasn't even begun yet. If you think about that fact, along with the student lending crisis, the housing slump, high unemployment (just to name a few), and things seem pretty uncertain.
But, again, I hope I am utterly wrong. Trust me, I do, because I want more than anything to return to a country that has gotten its act together and who cares more about its citizens than it does now.
I just found out that a friend of mine from studying abroad in Europe several years ago was killed by his partner...he stabbed to death in their apartment in Amsterdam.
Why this is relative to this site, and your cause...my friend lived abroad because his student loan debt kept him from returning to the states. He married this man in Holland so he could stay in The Netherlands legally...so it was purely a marriage of convenience. Now, he's dead by the hand of his husband.
Maybe if graduates didn't accumulate this kind of debt, people would have more choices as to what to do with their lives, and this wouldn't have happened to my former classmate. My heart breaks for him.
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