STUDENT LOANS, STUDENT MOANS...

Imagine this.You're in debt up to your assets because you borrowed $200,000 plus to major in Comparative Literature at an elite university. You're out of school now, but after 10 months you still can't find a job. Too bad that you selected a college major that probably will require that you either (1) get a public school teaching credential or (2) get a PhD in your esoteric college major to find work. If you pick Door Number One or Door Number Two, more school and more debt is in your future. According to USA Today:

The amount of student loans taken out last year crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time and total loans outstanding will exceed $1 trillion for the first time this year. Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the U.S. Department of Education and private sources.

The bad news is that a public school teaching job probably won't pay for the fantasy Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous that many of these aspiring academics crave. Good PhD jobs are hard to get and require trudging on an academic tenure track that would make the travails of Sisyphus seem like a piece of cake. Huffington Post columnist, Rich Williams bemoans the fate of poor debtor students:

There's a countdown to an ominous deadline for college students across America. When time runs out on July 1, 2012, student loan interest rates will double for almost 8 million students. Without a plan, millions of students will pay a crushing $5,000 more on their student loan than they otherwise would. 

The above-mentioned USA Today article quotes a finance (good choice of major) graduate student who opined:

"It's going to create a generation of wage slavery," says Nick Pardini, a Villanova University graduate student in finance who has warned on a blog for investors that student loans are the next credit bubble — with borrowers, rather than lenders, as the losers.

Never mind the poor taxpayers that have funded many of these vain fantasies. Nobody ever thinks they might end up taking Door Number Three, a commission sales job to make ends meet. This is where false pride goeth before the fall or, to use a fancy college term, hubris goes down the crapper. Some college graduates simply do not the have the interpersonal skills to succeed in sales and they fail miserably because they think they're good for the job. 

  

If you, or more likely your parents took out private loans or a second mortgage to fund your self-indulgent fantasy of graduating from an "elite" university,  your Mom and Dad might be SOL. And as a result, your parents may not have the comfortable retirement that they had planned for. If you have a government loan, things are not much better.  Interest rates on student loans are scheduled to double this July to 6.8%, roughly what they were in the 1970s, when I went to school. To give you an idea of how different things were back then; banks were paying 6% plus on passbook accounts. No such luck now getting a decent rate of return for your hard-earned money. But the 1970s are beginning to mirror the present day. The 1970s were considered a decade of malaise with the pathetic Jimmy Carter closing out the 1970s with high inflation and a terrible economic growth rate.

But don't worry, Obama's here to save the day and if in the bargain he picks up a few college student votes, so much the better.  Obama wants to keep the rate at 3.4% in a futile attempt recapture the magic of his 2008 campaign, when young skulls full of mush bought into his "hope and change" hokum. Republicans are opposing Obama's proposal because the US cannot afford yet another expensive Obama giveaway.  

Margaret Thatcher had it right when she said, “Socialists are happy until they run out of other people's money.” Obama's need for votes is causing him to kick out the jams when it comes to vote buying schemes.  This is why class warfare scams like the Buffett rule imposing a minimum tax rate of 30% on millionaires originate to pay for this student loan vote buying scheme. To the Senate's credit it was rejected. 

But there's always Door Number Three. Disgruntled student loan debtors can join the slugs in the Occupy (Bowel) Movement and demand that taxpayers forgive their student loans and their life poor choices.  But why coddle these edumacated idiots and deprive them of the life lesson of thinking before you act. As a friend once told me, life is short unless you make a poor life altering choice. 

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If you're wondering why there's no commentary on Earth Day: (1) I refuse to acknowledge any event that falls on the birthday of that vile Marxist, Vladimir Lenin; (2) I find that most tree huggers that I have met are Eco-Nazis; and (3) I refuse to associate with socialist pigs, which comprise the vast majority of tree huggers.