Recently Benito singled me out as not having written anything in a while. Of course I am actually interviewing people for a post good enough to sit on the blog for a solid 3 months which it seems is par for the course now that everyone is “occupying” or similarly indisposed. Oh wait, that’s just Benito. I’d love to hear everyone else’s excuse. But rather than rush my article or take Benito’s jab lying down I thought I’d comment on a recent ATL post about the Cardozo kid who was “homeless” for 9 weeks.

I am not going to rehash the obvious which is that this stupid kid wasn’t homeless in any real sense of the word. What I am going to say is that what he did is not only easy, but when taken in conjunction with M.I.T.’s new program could also be a part of the new future we are looking at.

Here me out.

Say Benito is right and M.I.T.’s solution actually takes hold. Education becomes cheaper, MUCH MUCH cheaper…around the price of room and board. A rational actor could choose in that situation to be…I’m sorry I can’t disrespect millions of Americans by continuing to use the word “homeless” let’s go with transient.

You’ ve got a food plan, facilities that are open close to all night, gyms with showers, common areas in dorms where you can crash, etc. Really only one thing suffers: your social life. And that just means you study more.

I did the math recently and figured that if I had started working at my food truck when I was in school and hadn’t borrowed money to live like I was a member of the middle class I would be almost debt-free today.

It takes a lot to get one of us to write these days.  Alpha Man promised me a simple explanation of the crux of the Occupy Movement’s issues and he has yet to deliver.  Me, I am content for the time being just to be part of something.  Looking for an answer beats looking for a job. Probably because unlike a job, I know the truth exists.

However I had to tell you guys about this: M.I.T. is providing free, online education that now comes with a certified credential that exhibits mastery of the material. I am including the link below

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/12/21/m-i-t-game-changer-free-online-education-for-all/

These aren’t taped lectures people! This is a real, interactive experience that captures a great deal of the amazing value of an M.I.T. education.  And it is available to any and everyone for free and it’s learn at your own pace. You could do this at 19 or 59, the latter number being significant given that the fastest growing demographic for taking on student debt is now middle-aged people.

This is the future.  This is how the revolution ends.  This is meritocracy at its purest form, this is what will change everything…and if our generation being regulated to debt slavery forever is the cost of the vicious cycle becoming a permanent thing of the past, I just might be ok with that. I’m not saying we’re going to be sitting at a Thanksgiving table 50 years from now telling stories about taking to the streets like the Civil Rights generation, but that’s ok too.

Hopefully we’ll still have each other.

Hi folks! We here at Debtor’s Prison are pleased to introduce Rebecca Smith who has been kind enough to write a guest column.  We are impressed with Rebecca’s work and hope she will write for us again.

REBECCA SMITH

The latest chapter of a painful story that began years ago was the debt fight that continued in the capital of the nation and the ensuing credit downgrade by the Standard & Poor’s.  In the last decade, the banks, consumers and the homeowners became bloated with too much leverage or borrowed a huge amount of money and this resulted in a drastic shrinkage of credit throughout the entire economy, a particular phenomenon that is financially known as ‘deleveraging’. Apart from the big picture, the consumers too were worried about the ways in which they can seek debt relief so as to stay out of the debt cycle.

The present situation of the US is nothing new and the government has been grappling with such issues and has also been throwing billions to dollars to provide a quick cure from such problems. Even after continuous meetings and steps taken to assess and improve the current state of the US economy, there has been no positive result that is noticeable. Though the labor market reports were slightly positive in the month of July and August, 2011, yet there has been no such noticeable increase in the growth of jobs within the market that could alleviate the spurring unemployment level. Gut-wrenching market plunges, accompanied by multiple negative aspects of the economy show that the economy is losing steam. Despite all such nerve-wracking events within the US economy, very few expect the policymakers to reveal some new stimulus plans to rejuvenate the lost shine of the nation.

Fed Runs Out of Bullets – Is the Arsenal Empty?

While the Federal Reserve seems to be running short of bullets, the government is also low on ammunition. With the fractious debt fight demonstrated in Washington, the idea of “deleveraging” has even spread within the government. Both the local governments and the state governments are implementing draconian cutbacks to get back on track. The Congress, in the month of September, 2011 voted for a cutback of $2.5 trillion trim from the federal budget deficit and if this step is taken, this would perhaps be the most remarkable move towards austerity during a time when the economy is hardly growing.

The result of this is being shown in the unemployment rate that is stubbornly hovering around the 9% rate. As the debt ceiling debates followed by the raising of the debt ceiling sidelined the increased government spending, there’s very little cushion for the economy to fall back on, if there are chances of backsliding into yet another financial fiasco.

Credit Busts – Is There a Quick Cure or is This Going to Continue?

The most prominent result of “deleveraging” is the economic quagmire and this is also the reason for the extremely sluggish economic growth. According to a study done in the year 2010, it has been seen that it takes a nation minimum 6-8 years to emerge from the deleveraging process. Deleveraging has self-reinforcing effects! If the consumers have a high debt load and they stop purchasing things, the businesses will automatically stop hiring people and this will have a further impact on consumer spending. When the economy will face a dire financial situation, the US government will typically provide the economy with a shot in the form of spending projects or tax cuts. But the main issue here is that the government is running out of all the stimulus bullets!

The Federal Reserve has posed to be the final backstop for the economy. Though the central bank has tried to do everything possible within its means to spur economic growth, reducing the short term interest rates to nearly 0, purchasing billion worth Treasury Bonds and by putting the delinquent mortgages on the balance sheet, yet something more still needs to be done.

With the US economists and the analysts worrying about the future of the US economy, on a personal level, the consumers should also remain aware of their personal debt ceiling so that they don’t add on to the credit card debt level as this worsens the bigger picture in the long run. Get help from a professional

www.debtconsolidationcare.com

Rebecca is a financial blogger & associated with the online debt community debtconsolidationcare.com. If you want to know more about her & the community, you can get latest updates here on Twitter.com debtcc.

I spent the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in ages with the Occupiers.  People were very generous with food and I even had a few friends stop by.  Best of all there was no judgment and that suffocating feeling of failure that permeates your being as you feel all eyes around the table judging you each time you dip your eyes to the delicious meal before which suddenly you have no appetite for, even though you fasted for days in preparation.

I know posts have been light, virtually non-existent, but I think its important to be a part of what is actually happening in the streets all across the country.  As far as the blog goes, I am keeping the domain and PROMISE to check in more often to approve comments.  I am also opening this space to guest writers. Also remember, there are hundreds of posts here, and each one is part of the story of why we’re all out here. I’ve reviewed some old entries and 95% are just as relevant now as whenever they were written over the last two years.

So read the Ghost of Entries Past if you want to understand, or if you want assurance that you’re not alone.

…And I have been trying to resist the urge to write about it.  Part of it is because everyone with ten minutes worth of charge on their I-Phone here is blogging about it, and part of it is because of embarrassingly low page hits…I suppose together that would constitute most of it.  But there is another reason too.  I want to “experience” something.

I spent most of my life through school with distance, time, paper and a host of other obstacles between me and experiencing the reality where I spent my life.  Then I experienced something-losing my job and being unable to pay my student loans which in all honesty was hard enough even with a six-figure salary.  After that experience I spent the rest of my life up until now trying to write about that experience, particularly on this blog.  Whereas before I was reaching out to an intriguing reality that would always be behind a veil of secrets, now I am holding on to a painful reality kept fresh by picking scabs…all the while I miss the world around me.

Well no more.  Or at least not for awhile.  You can’t live in the moment and capture it for posterity at the same time.  Besides, posterity is always colored by ultimate outcome.  Right now I have no idea what that will be.  Or when I will start writing again more regularly.

A lot of problems have simple solutions. Take the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian Statehood with Independent sovereignty of Jerusalem and the West Bank with each side alternating control every four years. Problem solved, you’re welcome world. But that ain’t getting pitched at Camp David and Applebaum’s legislation ain’t getting proposed in Congress despite the high probability of it working.

True, there are the Benitos and Triforces of the world. I would argue however that most individuals with high debt loads acquired them because they desired a certain material lifestyle and their loans are the chief obstacle preventing the employed individuals from purchasing the toys they associate with their high powered jobs.

The average person with a heavy student debt load has also made friends with many many rich people so they have specific toys they want to buy. These people have been trained to view consumption as a birth right. Give them more money and they will buy.

Why aren’t they buying now? Well, first, they are. It’s a question of quantity. What separates Triforce from most isn’t his determination to have twice as much as his neighbor, it’s his seeming immunity from fear if he is in fact not full of shit because top-shelf liquor was a little sparse last time I was there and his car has been detailed in awhile. Killing the loans will kill the fear. These idiots who get 100k forgiven will within 9 months spend at least twice that on upgrading their home, car, computer, phone, clothes, at least one thing they’ve never had (skis, a motor cycle, country club membership) and will go out to eat twice if not three times as often. It is the ultimate stimulus targeted to the greatest economic engine in the world: the American sense of entitlement.

That said it will never happen. Even Triforce acknowledges it’s political suicide. And I mean did we forget we have a Congress that ran on not passing any law with the potential to be signed by a black man? None of the things Triforce listed could pass under this current Congress AND each of those things were the product of decades of work. We are the first generation to be screwed by the educational system in this country from the vantage point of financing. Alot of gay, old and sick people had to die before Congress even noticed them and that was with congressional bodies not philosophically opposed to working with the President.

I normally don’t participate in discourse of this sort unless there is an immediate and tangible benefit like taking an attractive young coed to bed. I need to work on my conservative asshole shpiel because I had a misfire with a girl I chose because I didn’t have the energy to compete for her more attractive cousin. In reality I just don’t care.

Ok, I make no secret of the fact that if I want something I get it. Alcohol, cars, electronics, travel, premium housing, the latest trends and newest sports equipment…only the best for yours truly, and I have a crushing debt load. I also make no secret of the fact that paying my loans is my absolute lowest priority. I have told stories about gambling with my loan balance for a month just to prove a point. That point is paying my loans is like letting the Princess sleep in the bed after I have defiled her (if she is indeed still capable of being defiled) just because I usually do it doesn’t mean I have to and I am the one in control.

So if my loans magically evaporated I wouldn’t necessarily spend more money. I might, over time, carry a lower credit card balance. Eh.

But this is one of the rare times when it’s not all about me. Let’s take my polar opposite in every way: Benito. When Benito was working he dutifully saved his money, denied himself most extravagancies, and when he got canned he had saved just enough to pay off my buddy’s share of the rent and mine since my buddy ripped me off before we left. I gave him a cold offer to stay with the Princess and I – took him three nights to figure out the key I gave him didn’t work and it wasn’t an accident.

Anyway, a working Benito is just going to save that money. Benito in his current state either isn’t paying his loans or is committing sexual misdemeanors to do it which he would presumably stop if the immediate need to whore himself suddenly evaporated.  Net effect on the economy = zero.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t get done. We’ve got gays in the military and at the alter, we have pan handlers and servant’s children getting medical care, and we STILL have old people getting a check for doing all that they do…causing traffic jams at 2 pm, paying for groceries with pennies, lying about potential inheritances, exaggerating ailments and getting other special treatment like parking and movie discounts.

Just like everyone hates old people and hates black people who went to a private college, public college in the south, UCLA or Michigan soon everyone will hate former student debtors and everyone and their mother will say “I got into Harvard but didn’t want to take out the loans” and just like with Social Security and Affirmative Action Joe Everyman will eventually convince himself that he would have gone to Harvard if he’d known…just like old people make him poor and blacks keep him out of school.

What I want is a tax break. Why? Because taxes are automatically deducted from my check. I won’t spend more when this happens either but a bigger check will make me feel like a bigger man.

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.

Ugh. I feel like I am the only person who still posts around here. That is one of the problems with a blog like this – everyone thinks someone else will pick up the slack. But on to the point at hand.

When you’re black one of the difficult things about dealing with non-black people (Asians, South Asians and “mixed” people are also notorious for this) is figuring out which ones are sheltered/ignorant/slow and which ones purposefully propagate falsehoods in order to serve their own self-interest.

Take the Internet meme where the black woman thinks she doesn’t have to pay her mortgage because Obama is President. The first non-black thinks this is a representation of a large percentage of blacks. The second circulates it to perpetuate that type of nonsense and add to the plethora of material non-black children are exposed to in order to condition them to think that black = inferior. After all, the schools have been almost desegregated for almost a generation now and look who is in the White House?

But I digress. Drum roll please…the reason black unemployment is still so high is discrimination. Yes! Believe it or not folks holding all other factors from education to industry constant there is a much higher unemployment index for blacks and it’s discrimination.

But Alpha Man, shouldn’t a black President help, just a little?

No! Here’s why. All major progress with respect to race has with it a brutal backlash. After the Civil War we saw the rise of the KKK. After Civil Rights we saw the rise of Southern Republicanism and after Barack Obama we have the Tea Party. Also, more than ever white people feel threatened, like maybe after 500 years the get out of jail free card that is being white has finally expired and that is causing them to hold onto what is theirs like never before.

There is also another issue here. A lot of white (as opposed to non-black because only white men once owned slaves here) men are threatened by this tall, handsome black President…whose mother happened to be white and whose beautiful wife happens to be black. See, it used to be the white man who had both a black family and a white family. But here this man is with both and he didn’t have to be a rapist to get it and all of his children are with the same woman. For historical reasons this bothers a lot of white men (to be fair I met an Indian guy who had the same problem). If you ever meet a guy who will at once trash Obama for being black and then in the next breath say he’s not really black because his mother raised him and she was white, then you have met someone with the hang up by just described. A lot of these men unfortunately make hiring decisions and THIS phenomenon explains why black male employment is lower than black female employment.

September makes sense to me. July and August don’t. Neither does February.

An ugly duckling. An attractive MILF. The studious co-Ed who abstains from dating studies for a test given by a professor with her roommate in his bed- but there is love there.

Grass withers and the flower fades but neither reaches it’s peak in the final moments before death – if a being without consciousness can even be said to really die.

It should snow on Christmas. I should be wearing shorts in June. I should see my parents on holidays.

It shouldn’t rain on a wedding. Managers should be older and with more education than employees. Pets shouldn’t die until the children are grown up.

If I love you you should love me. If you loan me a dollar you should let me keep it if I am only making a penny every other week.

If you are successful you should acknowledge that which is outside of you that brought about your success and if you are unsuccessful you should focus on what is within you that may have been lacking