Forgive student loans

The only party, in this whole mess, that would not be asked to pay a price.

 

Really? What whole mess? Are specifics just a foreign concept to you or what?

 

If you are already in a lower economic condition where are you supposed to get the money since jobs don't pay what they used to. I work in IT and the pay sucks for the work involved. We used to have 4 tech support people but they let two go and just foisted their work over on us without any increase in pay.

 

Yeah, my son-in-law is (was) in IT. Tell him about that poor pay as he keeps going up - way up. So because you ain't making it, you think we should pay your bills. Would love to hear that logic. And, yes, whether it is private loans or government backed loans, the end result is that either the tax payer or the consumer pays for your problem. You won't convince me.

 

If he was in IT and making all the good money then why did he stop. I would also be interested in when he got out. Did he get out of IT before or after the .com bubble?
If it was in the last two years ask him about the way companies were cutting their bottom lines by cutting IT staff and moving work load to other people in the company.

Interestingly enough I paid my student loans so you will have to find another argument.

 

He got out because he got promoted out of it.

If you have paid of you loans, congratulations. You did as expected. My "you" was not necessarily singular.

 

Did you initially take the IT job knowing you wouldn't be able to pay your bills?

 

You missed something;

 

Then I don't see what his argument is....

 

I guess I could never go wrong underestimating your ability to comprehend, huh?

 

Her argument.

Well let me fill in the story then. The plant I was working at closed down and I went to school. The school insisted that computer technology was the only real option and since I had already worked in computers I agreed. It was about this time that the .com bubble exploded and all of a sudden there were no jobs to be found in my chosen profession. Kind of like now. I put in applications for months before I graduated, but no one called because there were too many computer people looking for work. The only job related to computers that I could find was working at Walmart in the Electronics/Photo department. A job that barely paid above minimum wage and intentionally kept my hours below 29. I had no extra money to pay my student loans so I didn't. There were no more jobs in the area which weren't doing the same. The only place hiring for the kinds of skills I had was the local chemical plant and they had more applications than they could deal with. I had to pay my student loans from my income tax refunds.

Here is the gist of what happened. I took training in what promised to be a rising field just like a lot of people asking for school loan assistance just like now. The jobs disappeared. Just like now. I had to make the choice between feeding my family and paying the school loans so guess which won.

The only difference now is that the government has been handing out bailouts to the people who caused the current situation, but aren't willing to make the same adjustments for the people in the lower classes. Once again, the government is favoring the rich over the poor and the government should be treating people equally.

Now people like you are surprised and indignant that we want the same treatment that the people who already have all the money are getting. You know who I am talking about. The people who gamed the system, gathered/are gathering immense profits from the situation AND getting loans from the government to cover their losses. Not only are you defending the crimes but attempting penalize the victims. The perpetrators are getting off Scot-free and getting paid.

 

You're asking the RW'ers to be sympathetic, to put themselves in your shoes, to understand that you didn't do anything wrong and that you did work hard and played by the rules. That is your biggest mistake. They worship the guys gaming the system, bribing politicians, and feeding an insatiable greed. They respect that, hell, they drool over that type of predatory behavior. Sympathy and understanding are weaknesses in their eyes. My wife and I have made a good living through education, waiting to buy a house, and paying our debts. We were lucky, but it would never cross either of our minds that the people that haven't been as lucky are to blame for the economic, political, and sociologic forces that are not in their control. You can make all the good choices you want and work your fingers to the bone and still find yourself in dire straits. At the level of the average Joe, the economy is fairly indifferent. That isn't so much true of those that influence our economic lives for their own personal gain. Economic Darwinism has us feeding on each other while they wealthy get richer.

 

I forgot to mention that the only way I got the job in Electronics was by cleaning toilets for a year before I was able to move to electronics.

 

I guess I'll play devil's advocate here & ask a couple of questions....if you were only working 29 hrs a week, what were you doing the rest of the week? Working multiple minimum wage jobs certainly isn't the ideal but it beats not eating. When you went back to school, why did you let the school determine your course of study? It appears, once again, that your beef is with the school for pushing you in the wrong direction, putting you into student loan debt & then not delivering a product that was good enough to help you become successful. Also, you refer to "people" receiving bailouts. That isn't necessarily true. Bailouts were made to companies & those bailouts continue to be BO's main point of pride when he talks about saving the economy.
I'll end with this...have you noticed that in virtually every story someone tells here, at the core of the story, is an educational system that didn't deliver but still left the person on the hook for huge student loan debt?

***and everyone complaining about the bailouts seems to ignore the fact that BO considers the bailouts to be one of his crowning achievements***

 

I made the mistake of thinking that the school had a good feel for the coming needs for education. They certainly seem to promote the idea that they do.
The education I got in computer science wasn't at fault. It was imply not relevant to the situations that developed.

As for what I was doing during the other hours of the week. Watching the kids so my spouse could work because child care is incredibly expensive on two minimum wage jobs. If it is just you working several jobs may sound like a god send, but add children to the mix and it isn't necessarily a solution. A good day care will cost between 140-250 dollars a week.

 

I don't see that but let me ask you what you attribute your success to? Was it your high school education? The statistic you are searching for is that college grads average 1 million dollars more in income over their lifetime than people without college educations. It isn't higher educations fault that the economy is in the toilet. It is the fault of both our political system and our business community however.

Which bailouts are you referring to specifically? If you are talking about TARP, that was Bush not Obama.

 

Education paid a huge part in my success but perhaps things have changed over the years? Perhaps the university systems has transformed itself into an enterprise and the product isn't as good now as it was? Maybe the system needs to be reformed?

 

The product of any university system is knowledge. It always has been and always will be. I don't believe that universities will ever reform that product.

 

I woudn't agree with that David on the whole the quality of the degrees earned from most Universities is the same now as it was 20+ years ago what is different is that now there are more graduates chasing fewer jobs (Larger population now than when you graduated David)
Also you can not blame a collage for a person not getting a job, they base many of there courses (other than things like the arts) on the demands of business, if that demand vanishes overnight (As happend when the Dot com bubble burst) then who is to blame?
It is also fine and dandy telling someone to go out and get two jobs but can you tell me how they can do that if there are no jobs available? (yet again we have more people after fewer jobs than when you graduated)
So how can one improve ones job prospects well the best way is still to get a good education but that will cost LOL you have to have a educated workforce in this digital age so until someone comes up with a fair way to recover the cost of a student loan then you are in for this argument time and time again
Why not simply Renegotiate the repayment terms of the loans to bring them more in line with the reality of the current economic situation, they can do it with bank loans/Mortgages etc even Governments do it so why not with student loans?

 

Well, tomorrow we'll find out the answer. Monday was to help homeowners, Wednesday is to help those drowning in student debt. Hope it's something that will actually do some good.