The main thing lacking in Benito’s little manifesto was any sort of idea.  If we assume by default that he is just going to go along with whatever morally reprehensible, legally questionable idea Mike Triforce has in order to turn a buck then naturally I am somewhat skeptical.  However, I don’t have a strong response ala Erin or Alpha Man.  It could be that I just don’t care.  When life and death becomes routine, anything else can seem trite.  However, if I am honest with myself, another HUGE part of it is that it’s tough for me to put myself in non-medical shoes.

When I think of earning X amount to pay off Y debt I immediately think to myself – what kind of specialist has X amount of disposable income? I read Benito’s manifesto and started thinking about Dermatology or Lasik eye surgery in a market like LA or NY where looks mean alot.  After that, I started thinking about other ways doctors make money when their mid to high six figure salaries just aren’t enough – starting one’s one practice, investing and of course selling out to the drug and insurance companies more completely than we already do.

To be perfectly honest, I look at things this way:  I am a better person because I help people than those who go into finance and some areas of law that make more and I am a better person than say a fireman because I make more and am smarter.  Any job in between, like Erin’s, I basically look at your car and judge you in relation to my (future) car and dock you points for not helping people, or if they do help people for not saving lives, or if they do save lives for not doing it directly, or if they do do it directly than because the way I do it is harder or I do it more often or in extreme cases I still am better because I make more.  Or will make more.  For the record I am a Mercedes gal, not too fond of the BMWs.

Finally, I am beginning to feel that I have a very different type of debt that Benito and Triforce have.  In Ohio, a public defender failed the character and fitness test to practice law because he owed a great deal of money and wasn’t making much.  Our salaries  would have been the same if he had been working full time.  Imagine if I couldn’t get my medical license because I was in debt for the education that made me eligible for said license? I don’t know what’s that’s like.  To be devalued in that way…I mean, I certainly do not have enough information to comment.

So I was at the BMW dealership looking at a 3 series when I ran into a kid from law school. Immediately I was scared that he might be looking at a 5 series, but thankfully he was not. We struck up a conversation and I was soon invited back to his place for drinks.

The first thing I noticed was the tree, or specifically what was under it. It looked like a mall exploded on his floor. There were at least ten games from every major system, three shirts from every major designer, shoes ranging from athletic to formal, three personal grooming sets, beer from Belgium, wine from France, four antiques and at least 2 of everything Apple makes, including some new Mac book I’d never heard of.

The second thing I noticed was the 52 inch HD Television and brand new furniture. I complimented him as he made me a real cocktail with top-shelf liquor and before I knew it I was getting the tour.  His bedroom had an identical television. This is where I started hating him. And I hadn’t even seen the man cave.

Three Fucking Dee.  On a television that made the others look like something you give to a little cousin to put in his dorm room once you replace the kitchen TV. His movie library was as tasteful as it was massive.

So the first thing I did when I got home was calculate how much it would cost to live that large. Yeah it was my student loan payment. Sort of.

See, in this credit driven country, the 2k plus a month I drop in student loans could buy me 10k worth of credit, aka an extra 10k worth of purchasing power. Here I was thinking I was the shit because I had 2 of 3 systems, HD and was thinking about upgrading to Blu-Ray. Yet I only have 1 40-inch 2D TV with barely enough movies to fill three drawers.

That’s it. I’ve had it. I am paying off my loans in 2011.

We are definitely going to address this topic again and in more detail but I wanted to get this idea out before the entire legal/student debt related blogosphere is completely subsumed in posts about how hard it is to find a date.  Please people, just go to matchmaker.com or whatever.  Anyway, unserviceable student debt is tantamount to the inability to add to or maintain networth/wealth.  The inability to maintain wealth is essentially a reduction in one’s socio-economic class.  The reduction of one’s socio-economic class is the antithesis of the American Dream and really if one thinks about it what it means to be an American.

Once again I will come back to this when it has had more time to simmer but Benito insisted that we have a post of the week for the short post labor day week and it was either this, an Erin Samus post about dating or another article about Benito’s “Mama’s Boy” business.  Please, someone find that kid a job. 

Sorry.

So as a follow-up to the chart featuring the history of the student debt crisis I wanted to add something to what you could have found on just about any blog related to the subject.  I started thinking about what student debt, divorced from unemployment, recession and politics really does.  For those of you who have difficulty seeing what I mean it is probably because you equate socio-economic status not with wealth but with income or you confuse the two.  Even if you don’t you probably think that your income is the dominant driver in your networth or wealth. 

Wrong.  Once again, a simple thought experiment is all that is necessary to see what I am talking about.  Simply ask yourself whether it is likely that the sum total of your wages over your working life will equal or exceed the sum total of generations if those generations were able to create assets, some of which have been earning interest or appreciating for a century or more?  Obviously not.  Now of course this goes against our American ethos, and even a trust fund baby wants to convince you that he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps because he couldn’t afford (considering his considerable car payment and rent in the upscale part of town) to take Kaplan or the Princeton review when studying the LSAT/MCAT/GMAT or GRE.  The truth of the matter is though that his parent’s income will have a larger net effect on his life than his own, particularly if he doesn’t start making any real money until he is well into his 30s. 

Finally, let’s take my passive nemesis Mike Triforce as an example.  Mike Triforce makes somewhere between 150k and 200k a year and has four almost five years.  But he has no assets, not so much because he doesn’t save or do anything but drink, not go to work and sleep around but because his parents have no assets.  This isn’t a knock at his parents, but the fact remains the BMW he still lusts over actually belonged to his mom which she transferred to his name when she could no longer afford it only to replace that car with a lexus.  If his parents had saved say, for his education and he had less debt even the irresponsible Mike Triforce might today be a homeowner.  Therefore despite Mike Triforce’s high salary, he still lives paycheck to paycheck and if he gets laid off within three months he’s either living with his parents or more likely (since his presence would likely affect the flow of their heavily mortgaged home) he’ll be living in West Philly in an overall lower socio-economic class than his parents, all because of his debt.

So this is late and I apologize.  I am trying something different here.  Mike Triforce is still my hero, but I am going to stray a little bit and try and actually answer Benito’s question, which was simply…why?  Alpha Man clarified.  “Why, with everything you’ve been exposed to as part of this blog, would you borrow more money and go to law school, particularly a third tier law school?”  The Mike Triforce answer is easy.  I am going to make it, despite how many people have failed, and I want the BMW driving, bottles and models, JD-Just DOllaZ lifestyle.  Please don’t get me wrong I do.  But if I am really honest that’s not it, that’s not even 50% of it.  The reason I applied to law school and plan on attending is because of the way it makes me feel.

Please read on as I try to explain what I am experiencing, and how I believe that translates into the “average” undergrad or young person.

Again, please be nice, I am going out on a limb here.  Now, I am not bipolar or anything, but I do experience highs and lows.  The lows come when the reality of spending seven years in college, only earning a BA, and being constantly unemployed or underemployed is focused through the lense of not evening knowing what I want for my life because certain basic needs, companionship for instance, are not met.  You need to be able to sleep before you can dream.  The highs come when I overcompensate for this knowledge by wanting everything from life and gravitating towards individuals who claim to be able to give it to me, hence how I met Mike Triforce.  Print this out because I will never admit this when I am sober or fully drunk.  This is four beers tipsy.

But enough about me.  When a kid gets good grades in high school they feel special.  Society, particularly individuals they look up to, reinforce this.  Then a kid gets into a good college and they feel special again.  They do well in school and yes, there is that feeling of approval or if they have slipped a little, at least blending in with their peers who are overachieving or giving the appearance of overachieving.  Then you get to the end of college.  You look at your job prospects.  It is not about the money.  There are plenty of jobs (clerking for a judge, medical resident, research assistant for a famous professor, white house intern…) that don’t pay well.  But they are prestigious and they make one feel special.  Nothing fits the bill. 

So what do you do?  You apply to law school of course.  Sure, if you’re in certain communities you realize the folly of such a choice.  But the world at large is utterly unfamiliar with the legal world, taking notice only when a Supreme Court case or nomination graces the front page of the paper…or a celebrity gets themselves in trouble.  And it’s the opinion of the world at large, where you live and breathe, that one tends to care about.  Then you get in and loans and crappy job prospects aside, you feel special. 

Law school has plenty of opportunities to feel special: Law Review, Moot Court, Research assistance – but even if you fail in all these endeavors you can at least blend in given the grade curve and a few well placed lies to your peers.  Plus deep down, if you fail (and you do admit this possibility to yourself) you would have failed in the real world anyway without the degree.  Why not put off the real world for three more years?  Think of it like treating terminal cancer.  Death and perpetual unemployment have this in common: they are pretty much forever.

So that’s why I did it.  To feel special.  I know that sounds lame.  I hope Mike Triforce doesn’t read this.  And I hope nobody has figured out who I am.

[Original content temporarily suspended as a professional courteousy until the ethical investigation is complete. Older posts that failed to make the original cut will be rotated and substituted. If you have any questions, thoughts, concerns and most importantly if you need a copy of the ORIGINAL POST please contact nick@debtorsprison.com]

I went to Law School to make as much money as possible. That’s my professional responsibility. Life  is a game and if you are a lawyer you get to change the rules. Literally. If you think that makes me a bad person you are either envious or you just haven’t seen or heard of a real bad person. I could tell you some stories about my buddy Ganon.

However that’s not why I am into bottles and models. Money begets money and if you don’t have it you better pretend like you do.

I can hear Erin already “but you have a gf” blah blah blah. So what? She flirts for a five dollar tip and I can’t for my career? Sometimes I have to do more than flirting but you know what? She keeps that five dollar tip and my career provides for both of us. Do I enjoy it? That’s not the point.

The point is that the elite among us are not wined and dined for nothing. If you act like you’ve never tasted steak or had bottle service those who are treating you know they can control you, blind you with the scraps from their table. However if you show you are comfortable in their world they don’t see a pawn, they see a partner.

That’s why KF Li the Understudy in my opinion is closer to paying off his loans than any of the other misfits who write for this blog. He has zero marketable skills and no identifiable income but I am at a loss for a luxury he hasn’t sampled more than once. Benito on the other hand almost cried when I picked up our drive thru tab (that is one advantage of Mustang over BMW, you can eat in it). I am not joking. He kept calling me a good friend. It was awkward as hell.

Politics is one place where what I am saying is transparent. You don’t grade onto the Supreme Court you are appointed. Half the Supreme Court had spent less time on the bench before they were appointed than Lebron James does during a playoff game. The vast majority of successful campaigns are won not on the merits but by convincing voters you are LIKE THEM. That’s all I am doing, except instead of pretending to be an average Joe I am pretending to be King Shit of Fuck Mountain. And I am. Almost.

[Original content temporarily suspended as a professional courteousy until the ethical investigation is complete. Older posts that failed to make the original cut will be rotated and substituted. If you have any questions, thoughts, concerns and most importantly if you need a copy of the ORIGINAL POST please contact nick@debtorsprison.com]

I can still see the red lights on the dash. I can still feel the way it handled sharp turns. I remember the perfect control of a clutch-less manual transmission. I miss my BMW. Its not that I don’t love my Mustang…at least the Mustang was brand-spanking new off the lot. Still, the Princess looks at me different…and every time she does its emasculating, my perfect six-pack abs aside.

You would think though that I could still drive my old car in my dreams. But no. I get rudely awakened by a call at 8 AM…well maybe 830, 830ish, from my mom telling me my little sister has been defaulting on her student loans. She then has the audacity to ask me why I’m not at work and ask me for ten grand in the same sentence. What. The. FUCK!!!

For those of you losers who can’t pay your bills but CAN actually add you are probably thinking ten grand is probably the difference between a low mileage used 3 series and a new Ford Mustang. Fuck that. I told my mom she shouldn’t have cosigned for the loans (she sure as hell didn’t cosign for mine) and not to call before 11 AM. Ever. Maybe it was more like ten when she called.

All right, before you call me an asshole consider this: I could have kept my car and simply missed a student loan payment or two. I could have kept my car by asking relatives for a little cash to keep the wheels greased. And yes the Princess could have gotten her ass a job (sorry honey but its true). But no, I took responsibility for my loans and gave up the thing that mattered most. What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t impart this lesson to my little sister? I promptly picked up the phone and cursed her the hell out. Then I took the liberty of canceling her cell phone and posting her car on craig’s list. It’s a cute little miata, email if interested.

Point is kids, before you go lamenting your lack of help consider the person in your exact same position who did it all by themselves. Then instead of asking for a handout ask for a tutorial. You’re in debt? So what?! The average crack head spends their entire existence in debt, are operating with only a thimble full of brain cells and they owe money to a lot scarier people than Sallie Mae. They miss a payment and it’s a shiv in the kidney not a blemish on a credit report. Yet Benny’s on the corner doing just fine every day when I walk to work.

For all you who read this just for kicks and actually have jobs, who are probably thinking I’m a monster, can you honestly say you’ve EVER given a family member a substantial sum of money and not later resented them for it? Before you go thinking you’re better than everybody else you do realize that the average family pulls the plug on grandma after the insurance runs out lest it eat into the vacation fund? You’re not special. Your behavior is the exact same as everyone else. The difference between you and me is while you’re rationalizing your own behavior to fit in with your self-authored moral code I’m thinking about ways to get an even better car than the one I lost. Don’t be the one holding onto the bumper when I drive it off the lot.