I need a million bucks, quick!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

It's important!

All I need is for 10 DUer's to send me 100K each and that'll take care of it!

The student loan people are getting nasty and I need to move out of the country quick!

:sarcasm:

But, holy shit! The student loan people just called me on $15K and the collection firm said $9K and we'll get you out for that. If it goes back to the Gubb'ment, it goes to $16K. Got a Gubb'ment letter giving me the details.

I took the $9K deal and have to wonder...

The gubb'ment woulda garnished me for 16K or let the collection agency pay them probably $4.5K. Gee, what's wrong with that picture?

[ComerPerro]

1. Sounds like you need $9K

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. I'm lucky there....

I've sold my body parts for $9.2K.

That'll give me enough for cab fare home from the hospital and $50.00 for a last meal!

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. A major reason why we will never have public education thru

at least post-secondary level.


As long as someone somewhere is milking us for money.....

[Kutjara]

5. It could be a real boon for overseas aid agencies.

Take out big loans, get a good education, default on the loans, work overseas for however long it takes the default to clear from your credit report, come home. Hey presto! Free education.

[msongs]

4. your problem has an OBVIOUS solution so why not do it?

IF you borrowed the money AND agreed to pay it back....just pay it back.

Msongs
www.msongs.com
batik & digital art
put your pics on a shirt!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

8. Unfortunately, I was an English Major...

And hit on hard luck immediately after school. This is the first time in my life I have been able to address the issue (which I am).

Don't diss me on this.

[Dogmudgeon]

13. Are you making a point, or just pimping your blog again?

Nobody with debts starts out with any other idea than to work hard and pay back the creditor. But for 10-15% of us, bad times intervene.

For instance, I once owed my dentist $2800 after he saved and fixed three of my teeth which had gone bad during a previous episode of ill health that had almost killed me. I'm down to $1200 now, but times are hard again, and I can't pay him now. But he's a good guy, and did a great job on my teeth, and he gets paid first.

It's not laziness, not malingering, not slackertude, but bad times, and that 10-15% figure is a guesstimate, probably a low guesstimate. Illness, prolonged unemployment, family problems, Republican presidencies happen to a lot of people. Often several at once. Yet there is no disability insurance available for these loans. Funny, the way that works, isn't it?

The student loan programs are among the most corrupt this country has ever had. They have fueled 30 years of tuition and supplies inflation, saddled three generations with debts guaranteed to default for half of them within ten years, and made financial institutions billions of dollars risk-free, underwritten by the government.

And collection is among the most aggressive outside the Mafia. Student loan collections are held to a different, more-lenient, standard, because the idiot Republican judges who infest the bench like pinworms believe that all students are lazy spoiled kids who just need a good kick in the ass -- unlike people like George Bush, a moral and godly man.

So I don't blame anyone for grousing, even if they can pay on the loan, or the interest, or the tiers and tiers of penalties.

Economic justice is sorely lacking in the USA. Things are still kinda-sorta okay, but we're awfully close to the edge, and when we take that plunge into the abyss, it's going to be a terrifying fall followed by a painful crash.

--p!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

14. Well said, Pidgewidgeon.

If only the conservatives could figure that out.

[jmowreader]

17. your solution has an OBVIOUS problem

If he could afford to pay it back, he would.

Welcome to Bush's economy, Rip Van Winkle.

[Lost-in-FL]

6. Wrong forum

That would be the Oil Underground.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. My own student loan inflated from $2500 to over $8000

Aggressive collection, accompanied by the tune "The World Doesn't Owe You A Living". Although I owed the bank lots of government-enforced money.

And, you know, some people complain about the "dumbing-down" of America. It's usually the same ones who support the financial incentives to keep people OUT of school.

The moral of the story: Don't get sick in America.

--p!

[Kingshakabobo]

9. Have a stiff drink and read this. It appears to be the companion article..

...to the piece 60 Minutes did about Sallie Mae. I think I would rather owe money to the mob if I couldn't pay. At least the mob will break your legs and be done with you and/or you can hide.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/05/60minutes/main1591583.shtml


>>>>On top of that, Sallie Mae also owns some of the biggest collection agencies in the country. Once a student borrower goes into default, the government pays Sallie Mae all the principle and compounded interest that have accrued.

The loan then passes into the collection phase. If Sallie Mae is the collector, it gets to keep up to 25 percent of whatever is recovered. In 2005, nearly a fifth of its revenue came from its collection business.

"Sallie Mae makes money if you pay back on time. And Sallie Mae makes money if you don't pay back on time," says Elizabeth Warren, a professor of bankruptcy law at Harvard Law School. <<<<

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

10. It's a racket. Someone ought to be liable to the RICO law here.

[William769]

11. I owed about 20k in student loans, paid it down to about 7 thousand

Before I defaulted when I went on Social Security Disability. Now the IRS is automatically taking a portion of my check for student loans.

I went from owing 7 thousand to back up to over 10k. They are taking 15% of my check every Month, which may not sound like alot to some but when it's your only income, oy vey!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. I can believe it. If I was still poor, they'd just be concentrating on

making me poorer.

It's a terrible, inhumane system.

[wakeme2008]

15. read about the scumbag collection agencies

that buy debt for 2.5% and go after you

clip...

Not anymore. In the brave new world of debt, unpaid bills never die. Today speculators are buying thousands of these aging accounts at a time and extracting payments the original lenders could no

clip...


http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/04/Business/_Buyers__give_old_deb.shtml

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

16. Hell, I believed in the "gubb'ment" when I took the loan,,,

And they changed the rukes on me.