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College Students: You've Been F#%'D!
Americans for Fairness in Lending (AFFIL) has gone YouTube in its campaign against predatory lending. Its new video bashes credit card companies for targeting unemployed college students and leading them on the path to financial ruin. Serving on the group's board, incidentally, is Janne O'Donnell, whose son committed suicide after running up $12,000 in credit card debt while in college. O'Donnell appeared in the recent documentary Maxed Out, whose director, James Scurlock, also helped create AFFIL earlier this year to promote the cause (and his movie).
Check out the video here:
(H/T CL&P Blog)
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First of all, thanks to Stephanie for posting the "You've Been F#%?'D" video. We hope it will generate lots of attention and comment. One quick correction: while we here at AFFIL work closely with our good friend James Scurlock to raise awareness of predatory and abusive lending practices, AFFIL existed before that relationship and before James's exceptional documentary "Maxed Out." AFFIL is the collaborative campaign of numerous consumer advocacy partners viewable at www.affil.org/about/partners. Thanks again for helping get the word out about avoiding credit card solicitation traps! Sarah Byrnes, AFFIL Campaign Manager
books cost a lot less, and you don't get a degree, but
Bill Gates is a multibillionaire and he was a college drop out...
Schooling and college education as well as medical care should be free, at no cost to American citizens.
If you think this idea is nuts, just think how much it costs to maintain the US empire, not only the ongoing war, but the over 700 military bases around the world. Just think of all the money that goes into making and delivering a bomb, then gone in milliseconds.
If Americans pay for such a military and war, couldn't they pay for a more worthwhile cause, if there was no war, if there was no military? No alternative to military you say? Try diplomacy for starters.
I'm for life and the living vs. death and destruction.
Thank you for helping educate America about the perils their children face financially at the hands of unscrupulous lenders.
Perhaps many children in America today are learning as well from the credit trap their own parents may have fallen into -- specifically with their housing.
Thousands of American homeowners stand a chance of losing their homes and thereby possibly their savings, assets and credit. This is a loss for the children as well in a time when our economy seems headed toward a full blown recession, if not something very close to it.
With everything from the price of milk to skyrocketing college tuition, how can these children afford an education, much less do so without credit?
This issue and this video are very timely! We are all becoming aware of the slavery that is credit debt.
We can hope our children will not repeat our mistakes. Who will teach them to save? To live within their means? The non intrinsic value of owning something you actually can afford or saved up for?
Ann, what I think is 'nuts' is the idea that Anything, Particularly something as massive as a higher education system or medical care, can be 'free'!
Let me repeat what I wrote the other day. One of life's most important lessons, IMHO, taught to me by Robert Anson Heinlein:
TANSTAAFL
(There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)
NOTHING is "Free".
The Cost, and means of paying it may simply be hidden. (it Always will be when government's involved)
The Primary reason for Hiding the cost of something people are intended to believe is "free" is..., People would rebel if they were to see what the Real Cost to them is, and they were then able to compare that cost against the actual VALUE of what they were getting "for FREE".
On the other issue, I agree wholeheartedly.
Americans should NOT be paying for 'Free' defense of other people's nations, nor should OUR sons and daughter be risking life and limb to defend the rights and sovereignty of places that aren't ours.
(Didn't LBJ promise: "I will NAWT send 'merican boys to do whawt Vietnamese boys awught to be doin' far themselves"? Liar!)
Today, we have American 'Defense' forces on permanent station in over 100 foreign countries, not to even mention the ones we're currently occupying.
Would it seem fair and reasonable to Americans to have Koreans, Germans Japanese and 100 other nationalities stationed in defense of OUR borders? At the expense of the working people of Those Nations?
The fiction of Heinlein stretches far across time and space, just that of Hubbard's ... Why doesn't anyone mention Le Guin?
How much do Scandinavian citizens pay for education, medical care? How much do Americans pay for 700+ (some say 1000+ it seems as if no one really knows) military bases scattered throughout the world, salaries and retirement pay of soldiers and officers, the weapons and the largest military arsenal in the world, perhaps in all history? How much does the US spend on R&D for newer and faster, more powerful and dangerous weapons and crafts of all types? How much fuel do all those military vehicles, tanks, planes and whatever else use just going from one place to another (sometimes just for just a photo display)? And, how long has all this been going on? Why after the fall of Communism, the last major threat to US, did US military spending didn't decrease, but increase?
Oh, I suppose one could say that the Swedes, Finns and all the rest of those Northern Europeans are just docile people and let their government do whatever it wants, but Americans, oh, that's a different story. We don't let our government get by with anything. We knew, for example, the war in Iraq was about oil, etc., etc. That, my friend, is ethnocentricity.
It is utter nonsense to think that US can't afford FREE EDUCATION and MEDICAL
CARE for its citizens if wasn't so self-righteously imperial and militaristic.
I've read quite a bit of Ursula K, but to be honest, I always had a particular fondness for the works of Octavia E. Butler.
"How much do Scandinavian citizens pay for education, medical care?"
Well, it Sure Ain't 'Nothing'!
It's called "Taxation".
And that's how the true cost is so effectively hidden from those who are footing the bill.
Compare the TOTAL tax burden of the USA to Scandanavian countries some time.
Not JUST income tax, but things like the VAT taxes they pay on EVERYTHING they buy, on the order of 15% to 18%, depending on country, gasoline taxes (they generally pay about three times what we do, or more, and the difference is ALL tax) and you'll begin to get an idea what 'Free' really costs.
As to the rest of it.., how our 20th and 21st century government has decided it has NO limits on what it can do, if it takes a mind...
That's why I'm backing Ron Paul.
The only guy in the race who seems to have a clue what the Constitution says, and what it's words mean.
Dear friend, of course, there are taxes, silly (we haven't evolved to the level of a Star Trek society, yet), but look what the USA does with its tax money and, the point I'm trying to get at, look what it can do, if you only look how much it already spends and compare that to how Northern European countries spend their tax money. (Although I don't personally think their example is necessarily the best of all possibilities - use your imagination. Think of a society with a government that is REALLY pro-PEOPLE, i.e. citizen-friendly, i.e. for the people, to the people and by the people etc., etc. Yes, Ron Paul stands out among Republicans, but is he really people-friendly. Yeah, he's anti-war as any sensible man is, but this going off on a tangent.)
Recently, there was an international "happiness" index poll or something similar where Finland, Sweden et al. were rated above a lot of other countries including the US. (Sorry I can't find the address) Anyway, the point is Americans are quick to point out how much taxes Northern. Europeans pay but there aren't too many of them griping.
Dear friend, of course, there are taxes, silly (we haven't evolved to the level of a Star Trek society, yet), but look what the USA does with its tax money and, the point I'm trying to get at, look what it can do, if you only look how much it already spends and compare that to how Northern European countries spend their tax money. (Although I don't personally think their example is necessarily the best of all possibilities - use your imagination. Think of a society with a government that is REALLY pro-PEOPLE, i.e. citizen-friendly, i.e. for the people, to the people and by the people etc., etc. Yes, Ron Paul stands out among Republicans, but is he really people-friendly. Yeah, he's anti-war as any intelligent man is, but this going off on a tangent.)
Recently, there was an international "happiness" index poll or something similar where Finland, Sweden et al. were rated above a lot of other countries including the US. (Sorry I can't find the address) Anyway, the point is Americans are quick to point out how much taxes Northern Europeans pay but there aren't too many of them griping.
If we define "people friendly" as allowing people the maximum amount of Liberty possible, and the broadest latitude in exercising what the founders referred to as "Natural Rights", Ron Paul is going to be hard to top (without going back TO the nation's founders to find a better example).
If we define "people friendly" as releiving the citizens of as much of their earnings as the gov't thinks is appropriate, and giving them what gov't decides they need; and it's "people friendly" as long as it coincides with what "I" think they need, then that's not Ron Paul at all.
But understand that at Some Point, government operating that way will NOT think people need what "I" think they need, and we end up where we are.
Personally, I tend to lean more towards the wisdom of T.J.
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have."
"The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."
--Thomas Jefferson--
I'm a bigger fan of Liberty than of 'security' in any perceived form.
It doesn't really make much difference how big the government gets, if it is really for the people. A big government or little government that is really people oriented is just that for the people, nothing more, nothing less.
Americans give so much respect to those individuals, who are really just like us, only because they were backed by huge donations from corporations of all kinds, went on extravagant campaigns spending millions only to fool them long enough to get elected. But, they are nothing more than our SERVANTS - nothing more, mind you! When has Congress reduced its own salary? Yet, to even raise the minimum wage is a major issue! When has Congress withheld its power? When has Congress considered the well-being of the people? Americans work more hours per year than any other country in the world and for what? Yet, they're proud of working so much! Talk about being sold! Yet, they work for so little from the richest entities in the world, the American-international corporations. How many Americans lost their pensions recently? How many Americans don't even have access to health care, a basic essential for survival? And, you talk about liberty? I'm talking about survival. Without the basic essentials all discussion about liberty and freedom are moot.
After Katrina, how many countries offered to help the US (Oh, what a national embarrassment!), because it couldn't help its own poor (or whatever other adjective you want to insert - they are still US citizens) in New Orleans? And, that tragedy still continues for many. Yet, the US spends how much per day in Iraq?
"And, you talk about liberty?"
Yeah, I do.
Because a century or so ago, when we still had a pretty hefty dose of that, and a much, MUCH smaller dose of taxation and government, Americans did Pretty Darned Well for Themselves!
People never starved in America's streets.
Neighbors helped their neighbors in a multitude of ways, when it was needed.
Government wasn't in the "charity" business, because Americans understood that any "charity" coming from government had to be taken from other Americans, and that simply WASN'T charity. It was Coercion.
And for all that Liberty, and for so little in the way of interference from a massive central government, we were the envy of much of the world. So much so that we were presented with the most marvelous gift any nation has ever received (IMHO).
The Statue of LIBERTY, funded by the CITIZENS of France (NOT it's government!) in recognition of our standing as "The World's Beacon of Liberty".
It's something we should all be proud to look back on, as we aspire to reclaim that status and shake off the relative debasement we now suffer, seemingly quite willingly, as we lobby the government to "take care of us", as we must no longer be capable of effectively exercising Individual Liberty and Personal Responsibility.
Oh dear, here we go romanticizing about the past:
A century ago: people did well? never starved in the streets? neighbors helped? government wasn't in the charity business (Oops, isn't that labeling the past with a present concept "charity business"?) and all that about the Statue of Liberty.
Wow, we're talking history here, aren't we? I suppose you'd like people to understand history of the US better? Well, you can't teach very well to people who come to school hungry or sick or from dysfunctional families. You can't teach people who see no use in education, because they think it will not get them anywhere (and they're probably right in today's society). You can't teach anything if your students think the only point to education is getting a job, except in vocational school and they don't do a good job teaching history there. Having been in ed. for yrs., having taught at ALL levels, I know this very well.
Nope, whatever label you learned (note!) to describe a government that thinks of its citizens FIRST, whether it's "big government" , "nanny state", "socialist government" or "populist government" or a "take care of us" government or whatever, they are only labels (word, signs, symbols with floating popular meanings) and I'm for it. Christ, you even implied that we pay enough taxes, shouldn't we getting some of that back? It can be done, and it is done successfully, like I said above, where its citizen rated their country higher than US citizens rated theirs.
And, further, my friend, please don't think you are so free and the US is a shining example of liberty in the world. This I can say from personal experience having lived several years in 3 other countries, having family in a 4th - none of which are Western; nor, did I live as a tourist or rich American. I lived as anyone else in those countries and felt more at ease there then, than here now.
Thousands of American
Thousands of American homeowners stand a chance of losing their homes and thereby possibly their savings, assets and credit. It is evident.