So I am sure you all have seen Robert Applebaum’s petition to President Obama. I for one am in favor of it and like Charlie Brown kicking a football think it could happen.

However, instead of my thoughts and reasons which simply would echo Robert’s in a less eloquent unresearched fashion let’s here from Alpha Man who is in favor it but thinks it will never happen and Mike Triforce who is against it but feels it could get pushed through.

By way of background Robert is essentially proposing legislation that forgives student loans AS AN ECONOMIC stimulus. Obviously, like all of us Robert believes that we have suffered an injustice and that’s the main motivation for the bill, however the OFFICIAL argument is that this will promote spending, stimulate demand for things, create jobs or whatever. Think of it like Republicans and tax cuts. Republicans like tax cuts for the rich because they are rich and the rest of the country be damned. However they argue that tax cuts are good for the economy because they allow small business owners to hire more people than they would otherwise and make the country more attractive to international corporations who can set up shop anywhere.

So, let’s get to arguments. Mike Triforce first.

The point is to change our culture. Because after countless articles in real newspapers nobody cares who isn’t directly affected. Here is the thing most people don’t care about other people’s problems. I mean if we’re honest with ourselves we don’t REALLY even care about stuff we pretend to like veterans, children and animals. So we have quite a job on our hands.

First I mean did people ever care? I mean REALLY care? Yes. Once upon a time. Back in the day, during the Depression, when a family in the neighborhood got evicted the neighbors would break the locks on the old house and carry their furniture and other belongings back in. A lot of times the family got to stay in their homes.

Unfortunately as a (former) lawyer I know that possession is 9 tenths of the law. I also know my non-existent friends can’t help me take back my life because it’s not a physical house it’s an “education.”

Ok, so what would an equivalent story be? How about this – imagine if a determined group of individuals, some student debtors and others not literally occupied the schools and disrupted classes until the schools paid off the debt?

Yes, pay it off. They can’t forgive it because the lending institutions hold it and if we went there we would be arrested or shot.

Yeah. We are a long way away. Perhaps we are not even closer.

In my last post I wrote that a lot was going on that might make it seem like on surface progress of some kind was being made.  Unfortunately this optimism doesn’t hold up to any kind of rigorous analysis.  It’s like if you’re trying to get somewhere and you don’t know where it is all the while you’re running out of gas.  So you stop.  After all, what’s the point of continuing driving when you have no gas and don’t know where you’re going?  So you send your passenger out to explore while you guard the car and after awhile they come back and say there is a gas station two miles up the road.  Great.  But you’ve still got pay for that gas, and you still don’t know where you are going.  That’s kind of like what is going on here.

What we have here, or essentially what we are witnessing, is the solidification of the student debt “scam” as just one of those those unjust facts of life.  Think of it as Republicans only protecting the interests of the rich or wanting to cut any sort of health care safety net.  Republicans have been the same in that respect for 40 years AND WE KNOW THIS.  They still get elected and raise money the same way.  Every now and then when something becomes OUTRAGEOUS there’s a small re-adjustment but nothing FUNDAMENTALLY changes.

There are several reasons for this.  Read on for the discussion

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So, a whole lot has happened.  So much in fact that it’s hard to decide exactly what to write about.  First there is this

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/business/law-school-economics-job-market-weakens-tuition-rises.html?_r=1

And if you’re here on this site you are aware of everything in the story linked to above.  What makes it newsworthy is that it’s in the New York Times.  I suppose I should be happy that one of the most widely read newspapers in the world has taken note of my specific plight.  But instead all I did was crack a beer.  Then I cracked another, and another and then I got REAL mad.  Is this how people who see parents murder their children all the time felt when the media found Casey Anthony? And now thanks to the NYT article…well, my life’s still over.  I’ve got this blog, I do my part to help the next generation.  All I am left with his emptiness.

But there’s more.  How about this

http://abovethelaw.com/2011/07/suing-law-schools-potpourri-tidings-from-law-schools-named-after-a-thomas/thomas-cooley-lawsuit-cl/

That’s right.  Kids like me are rising up and suing their law schools.  Read on to hear what I think about that.

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There are some great stories here.  I am also adding this to the blog roll.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/down-not-voices-long-term-unemployed-125453267.html

Sorry for the long delay.
Here is the link until I can post this properly

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11412507

So mid-way through recreating the lost posts when my phone died for whatever reason I discovered KF Li and Icarus’ icons no longer show up for whatever reason.  Since we’ve had this weird glitch we’ve had Casey Anthony, a Skadden Associate die of a heart attack and a whole slew of other crap.

Please check out the political page as Simon’s Girlfriend has an interesting take on the Healthcare debate.

As always I remind you to go back and read some of our legacy posts.  Most are about the ongoing phenomenon of being a student debtor, not say, a specific event.

Also check out the media section. More stories and movies to follow, I promise!

One of the good things about losing a string of posts is that it gives you some time to reflect on what you wrote . With respect to the Thomas Jefferson Law School lawsuit I feel I originally failed to get at the real crux of the matter.  For those of you unfamiliar an unemployed law grad with excellent grades is suing her alma mater for false advertising because they materially misrepresented their employment statistics to her when she was considering matriculating.

Triforce and Alpha Man had a long fight about it and I sat on the sidelines eventually reluctantly agreeing with Triforce that there was no case because there was no precedent, no specific guarantee was made, and because surely there were enough employed individuals from this school so as to make the premise easily rebuttable.  I didn’t even touch the Triforce slippery slope/don’t hate the player argument. Alpha Man muttered something about cracker lawyers under his breath but stuck to his guns about consumer fraud and the seriousness of a potential FTC violation.
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Ok. Because all of your are too lazy to click on the other categories available on this site, throughout the summer I am going to highlight past posts of note.  This is also a good time to search the blog by author, checkout the media section or just pick a random month before you discovered this site and see what everyone was up to.

Specifically I would recommend:

Tales of an Unpublished Author – Our mini series from last summer.  I must read for aspiring authors.

Mike Triforce Says Go to Law School and Get Paid – Our debut (and so far only) xtranormal movie.

The Roommate – Our debut (and again so far only) short story.

Enjoy your summer everyone.  The Job Applications will be there after Labor Day.

Hopefully our short story selections won’t follow in the footsteps of our movies.  Without further ado I present: “The Roommate” by Angsty Kong.

The Roommate

Matt Finer was on death row for the murder of his roommate Michelle Row.  A last minute stay of execution had been denied.  Finer was a lawyer and had tried, unsuccessfully, to avoid execution due to a mental illness.  The guards didn’t buy it, just another trick to keep privileged pricks like Finer out of the hot seat and in minimum-security resorts.  Matt Finer was guilty and he deserved to die.  He wouldn’t even give Row’s family the location of the body.  It was widely believed that unwillingness contributed to his sentence more than any other factor.

Up to this point, Finer had been about as calm and coherent as anyone facing execution, particularly a person who ought to have a lot of regrets.  But when the guards came for him he was wide-eyed and wild, already hoarse from screaming and bleeding all over his face from scratching himself, like he tried to claw his own eyes out.  Experienced guards who’d led hulking beasts such as ex-football players, ex-military and hired killers down the Green Mile were having trouble with a 5’-8” dumpy kid who five years ago had been tossing a Frisbee around his ivy-league campus.

The guards began to strap Finer into place and he grew even wilder.  It was more than just fear.  He’d seen something behind the glass where the family waited to view his execution.  Standard procedure was to keep the curtain pulled until the inmate was strapped in, but Finer’s antics had caused them to run behind schedule.  The crowd was restless.

“I wish executions had previews,” remarked one guard and his colleagues nodded.

Once everything was prepared Finer grew calm.  He said several times he had something to say and the warden ensured him he’d be permitted to speak before the execution.  When the warden asked him if he had anything to say Finer said, after visible deliberation,

“I should have watched the end of the tape,” then nodded when asked if he was finished.

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