Why Where We Are, Where We Are, Explained...In One Graphic

Grim as they are, none of these facts -- which I just came across on Facebook -- should surprise anybody who makes their living from anything literacy-related, whether it's editing, teaching, proofreading, writing...you name it. The reality of the piece is that literacy and comprehension go hand in hand with the bigger skills that you'll need later in life, to do more than just enough to slide by. This is a fact, however much those on the other side of that particular divide try to deny it.

Not too long ago, the Squawker and I were discussing how we were -- quite literally -- raised on reading. at home and at school. I have vivid memories of my mother taking me on her knee, and we'd choose a particular book to read together, and she would have me copy down the heavyweight words -- all those 50-cent and one dollar words, as they call them, presumably those with more than two or three syllables -- and go over with them with her.

My father was exactly the same way. Although he worked in construction, a job that involves hard physical labor, he always made time for reading at home. And by that, I don't mean the potboilers of the day, but pretty heavy duty stuff -- his favorite subjects leaned towards history and politics, from such esteemed historians as A. K. P. Taylor, Will Durant -- The Story Of Civilization was a particular favorite -- and Barbara Tuchman (A Distant Mirror. The Guns Of August), to Ballantine's popular series of black and white World War II paperbacks, and beyond. Of course, he always made time for classics, and whatever popular fiction struck his fancy. though I remember him favoring a bit more of the former than the latter.

Looking back, it's all the more striking, since neither of my parents had a great deal of formal education themselves. My mom got as far as a couple years in business college, which was a prerequisite in the '50s and '60s for women looking into secretarial careers -- which she never ended up pursuing, once the demands of raising children like me came calling -- while I'm not sure about my dad. I'm fairly certain he went through high school; whether he graduated, I'm not sure, but he didn't let it stop him from essentially further his education himself, whether it came on the job, or whatever he curled up to read on the couch.

At any rate, my parents understood the importance of putting a premium on understanding the world around them, and impressed that on me. Growing up in the '70s, as I did, I still remember when schools actually taught critical thinking, instead of what we've done for 30-odd years now, since the madness of No Child Left Behind forced teachers to go against their instincts -- and spend much of their time teaching to standardized tests.

While I'm over simplifying somewhat here, all I can say is, check out the above graphic for yourself, and let those facts sink in a little bit. There's a reason why the bandleader, Woody Herman, joked to his musicians, "Don't forget why they call them the Great Unwashed," and there's a reason why Trump constantly intones, "I love the poorly educated." Need we say more, especially after the fallout of Nov. 5, 2024? --The Reckoner

False Equivalency 101: Springing The Student Loan Jailbreak

<"Boxed In":

The Reckoner>

<i.>

Student debt feels like the weather. Everybody talks about it -- and talks and talks and talks, and talks and talks and talks, and then talks some more -- but nobody does anything about it. That seems the case, now that we've passed the magical 100-day mark of the Biden presidency. 

President Biden has shied away from progressive calls to cancel $50,000 of debt per student. He's willing to write off up to $10,000, which would ease a third of the average student's debt load ($30,000), but hardly dent those of the average MBA ($66,000), PhD ($110,000), lawyer ($145,000), and physician ($246,000). Nevertheless, Biden has tasked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to see if he can cancel student debt by executive order, via the Higher Education Act.

Time will tell if the Biden administration works up the gumption. Even so, his predecessor, Donald Trump, and former "Education Secretary," Betsy DeVos, postponed student debt repayment deadlines three times, as Debt Collective organizer Astra Taylor notes in her piece (see below). Though it's fine that Biden has extended the deadline again, to September 21, continuing "a flawed Republican policy is hardly a victory," Taylor states, in part.

Biden doesn't help matters when he suggests that struggling borrowers should rely on parents, or sell their homes, "a luxury those without intergenerational wealth cannot afford," Taylor scoffs. At times, his reading of the facts seems downright muddled, such as his willingness to tout options that fail borrowers, like the notorious Public Loan Service Forgiveness program, which rejected 95 percent of its applicants.

Student debt has reached alarming levels in this country. As of January 2021, 44.7 million Americans hold an estimated $1.71 trillion in student debt, or twice the total level of credit card debt. That's an eye-popping figure, fueled by extreme cases like Seth Koeut, a Cambodian refugee who convinced a federal bankruptcy judge in December 2020 to wipe out 98 percent of his medical school debt ($440,465).

What makes Kouet's case noteworthy, other than the mountain of debt that nearly swallowed him whole, is that he still got screwed, even as he dutifully followed the standard life script ("College pays off," "Education is the answer," yada-yada-yada). His educational odyssey included bachelor's degrees in marine biology and Spanish from Duke University (2002), and a stint studying clinical tropical medicine in Bangkok.

Koeut wrapped up his education at the for-profit Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, in 2010. But Koeut never gained a residency placement, something that happens to roughly 10,000 medical school graduates per year. He then worked a series of part-time McJobs (Banana Republic, Bloomingdale's, Crate & Barrel, dishwasher in a Mexican restaurant) before he finally threw in the towel in 2015, and initiated the long road to his bankruptcy relief. 

Yet students like Kouet often face a stunning lack of empathy. The Department if Education argued against clearing most of Kouet's debts by suggesting that he hadn't "given his best effort to find better employment." Thankfully, the court didn't buy it, as its reasoning made clear: "A medical school graduate who works as a parking lot attendant and dishwasher cannot be described as lazy." You'd think, right?

Howie Klein sums up the situation well in a post ("The Student Snake-Oil Scam") on his Down With Tyranny blog. Education used to be considered as a path to upward mobility, one that's turned seriously sideways, as Klein points out: "In the last couple decades, it has instead turned into a path to permanent debt penury and financial servitude." 

<ii.>

The collateral consequences of that penury and servitude are endless, and well-documented. Debt-burdened graduates often end up postponing major life decisions like cars, houses and kids. Massive monthly  repayment schedules leave little or no room for necessities, let alone the serious business of saving for retirement. Only 33.3% of Americans finish their four-year degrees, yet even their future is hardly rosy, with so many jobs paying essentially the same as they did 20 years ago, as my comrade in arms, The Squawker, points out. 

Yet the same strawmen are still peddling the same tired arguments against canceling student debt, from the standard boilerplate line ("It would only help the rich"), to the speculative ("The federal government would lose too much money"; "It won't help the economy"), to the downright defeatist ("It won'f fix higher ed overall; it won't help those who didn't go to college"). 

I'd offer a simple rejoinder to all of those bromides: 

So...What? 

Even if any of them were true -- and they aren't -- do we really want to perpetuate a debt-based higher education model, with all the implied social costs? With so many millions struggling under crushing repayment schedules, does it really matter if they racked up their debts at a state school, or a private one?

We also need to deal with the "The What About?" argument, as in, "What about me? I busted my ass to repay my loans, why should I pay for everyone else who can't pay theirs?" That rests on the classic American notion of "bootstrapping" -- "I pulled myself by my bootstraps, so why can't you?"'

You know we've become a truly twisted society when we wax anxiously about, "What happens if we make life better for others?" Aside from the obvious rejoinder (Isn't that what government's for?), such notions rest on the premise that giving people support, no matter how badly they need it, makes them weaker and more dependent. Take them off the hamster wheel, and they might lose their edge. Or some crap to that effect.

<iii.>

But here's the rub. The loudest advocates of bootstrapping often had somebody else pulling the strings for them. Our sociopathic ex-President, Donald Trump, is the classic example. His wealth rests on the connections and money that his reptilian father, Fred, engineered, largely before his voice changed. 

When cash-strapped Donald entered the real estate game, his father set up the multimillion dollar loans that made his presence possible, and helped transform New York City into a giant Monopoly board, at its non-wealthy residents' expense. When Trump's dream of Atlantic City as a gamblers' paradise started going south, his dad jumped in, and discreetly bailed him out.

In other words, the price of admission for the rich and the mega-rich is way, way different than the rest of us: no bootstraps needed. For them, it's simply a case of making the right call, or flashing the right amount of cash, to make whatever headache they're facing disappear, as Lori Loughlin demonstrated, in showing her willingness to pay $500,000 to get her two daughters into USC, on the pretext of joining the rowing team.

These indiscretions earned Loughlin and her husband a mere two months in prison, plus the usual community service/supervised release model of legality, and $400,000 in fines, which they'll probably write off next year, as they move on to the next quarter of their lives. Their daughters remain enrolled at USC, they've never joined the rowing team, and while their various business ventures have been disrupted, they'll probably find someone else willing to roll the dice. No bootstraps needed.

Suddenly, the strawman argument ("But canceling student debt would only hurt you") looks a hell of a lot less impressive, if we consider one simple fact. We've been subsidizing the Loughlins and the Trumps of the world all along, for far too long. That should be reason enough to pull the plug on the edu-debt scam, and start over from scratch.

If nothing else, canceling student debt would provide a major stimulus in itself. Instead of allowing banks and the feds to skim off the interest, the money could actually go back into the economy, or the indentured edu-debt class could actually set some aside for themselves -- what a radical concept, eh? 

Again, time will tell if the political class finds the gumption to actually allow it, but we shouldn't wait for them anymore to find it. We've waited too long as it is. And not stop raising hell, publicly, privately and politically, until they do. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Interest Rate Carries You Away...)
Admissionsly.com:
Eye-Opening College Dropout Rates & Statistics:
https://admissionsly.com/college-dropout-rates/

Down With Tyranny: 
The Student Debt Snake-Oil Scam:
How America Uses Education
To Expand Poverty And Hurt The Economy:
https://www.downwithtyranny.com/post/the-student-debt-snake-oil-scam-how-america-uses-education-to-expand-poverty-hurt-the-economy

Educationdata.org: College Dropout Rates:
https://educationdata.org/college-dropout-rates

MarketWatch:
Schumer: With Relief Bill,
Major Argument Against
Student Debt Cancellation "Vanishes":
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/schumer-with-relief-bill-major-argument-against-student-debt-cancellation-vanishes-11615903993

The American Prospect:
Six Stupid Arguments Against 
Forgiving Student Loan Debt:
https://prospect.org/day-one-agenda/six-stupid-arguments-against-forgiving-student-loan-debt/

The Guardian:
Biden Is Already Backtracking
On His Promises To Provide Student Debt Relief:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/25/joe-biden-student-debt-american-students

Yahoo Finance:
Medical School Graduate Sees Nearly
All His $440,000 In Student Loans Discharged:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/medical-school-graduate-440000-student-loans-discharged-151422886.html

Unseen Skit #1: Academic Distraction (Take II)

<i.>

If you work in any creative field long enough, you're bound to have your share of offbeat experiences. About seven years ago, a close friend invited me to submit skits for a new comedy show airing in his city (Grand Rapids), right on the ABC affiliate, no less. That sounded better than the usual Craigslist crap ("WANTED: ZOMBIE EXTRAS for postnuclear romantic comedy. MINIMUM 16-HOUR SHIFT for weekend shoot. Must bring own costume and makeup. NO PAY, but free French Fries provided. GREAT EXPOSURE!"). 

I had one small reservation. "I haven't written any skits before. Well, at least not since our college days," I pointed out.

My friend just laughed. "Doesn't matter. You'll be on a writing team that'll hammer it into shape for air. You'll need to come up at least every couple of weeks, though, if you want a voice on the show. What d'you say?"

"Oh, what the hell," I shrugged. "Can't be any harder than learning the guitar, right?"

"Now you're talking!"

I felt the smell of promise in the air. Who knew where this idea might lead? I'd done the usual public access-type stuff in college, but this proposition sounded like a major step up from that era. Hell, who doesn't want to be on TV, right? Only the reluctant, and how many of those Greta Garbo wannabe types are working nowadays? Your 15 minutes of fame just might pay a few of those pesky bills.

<ii.>

I duly gave up a couple of late nights, ending up with the first attempt that you see below. (I'll post the other one when I get a free minute.) I had no ideas about "proper" script format. (See, show biz in general -- and Hollywood, in particular -- works like the Supreme Court. If the margins aren't just so, all the content isn't properly centered, and so on, they don't have to read it, apparently). 

I decided not to worry about such issues. As my friend noted, a team would polish whatever I did, so I didn't plan on getting too attached to whatever words finally got past my brain,This effort, "Academic Distraction," sends up a certain sort of low-budget ad -- one you may see running today -- from a certain company that claims to match students with potential college choices. For free, no less. Who could object to that?

But when you type in your area, the only choices that pop up are for-profit colleges -- think University of Phoenix, and so on -- whose charges are way more felonious than their two- and four-year counterparts. That spelled comedy gold to me, especially if I could link that little glitch to the sprawling student debt explosion. 

Takes I and II focused on the guitar hero living in his basement, with a parody of the theme song. That seemed less inspired than the idea of said guitar hero trying to raise his student loan payments by busking, and running into some old buddies on the street. I couldn't write too many lines for them, since I only had about five minutes to get the point across. But this version (posted below), I think, gets the point across pretty effectively.

Sadly, I've never actually seen this effort, nor the other one that I wrote ("Flags Of Unknown Nations"). Shortly after I submitted both skits, my friend indicated there'd been some sort of turmoil -- the usual "creative differences" chestnut, I reckon -- leading to a mass walkout off the show.

Still, both skits had aired, he reassured me, though he'd had to make a few changes of his own. Apparently, some people thought they were too political -- which makes sense, since the show aired at 3:30 p.m., a slot that's typically set aside for light entertainment. "Hey, if all we've done is crack one fart joke after another, not much has happened," I told my friend. "I did my best. After all, I'm learning on the job here.")

My friend said not to worry, because the show would probably return with a retooled cast or format, so I might get another crack at writing sketch comedy. That didn't happen, but not for the reason you'd suspect. Our efforts coincided with those brief halcyon days of Michigan's subsidized film program, which led to my one (and only) experience, as an extra on a movie set . 

For further reference, see my post on this issue, "Michigan Kisses Off Its Creative Class: No More Film Incentives: https://ramennoodlenation.blogspot.com/2015/08/michigan-kisses-off-its-creative.html.  And oh, yeah, enjoy the skit. Such is life. -- The Reckoner

<Academic Distraction (Take II)>

(CUE:Hip-hop-ish intro, medium break beat. 

(WIDE SHOT: BUSKER w/guitar on grimy street corner, in front of standard issue grimy wall. A container w/a sign marked,"PLEASE HELP: PAYING STUDENT LOANS," is at his feet. His appearance suggests that he hasn't slept nor looked after himself well.

(He bends to check the container, and rattles it once or twice. It's pitifully empty, as the sounds make all too clear. 

(He frowns, sighs, stands up and begins to play over break beat and scratches.)

I went to high school, kept noddin' off

Then dropped out, my bad luck

There's five jobs for every one of you

Oh, my God, what'll you do?

Now I got referred, for free

To some for-profit university

I'm drowning in a sea of debt

For some career that's never paid off yet

I got hooked up for free

Through Academic Distraction

Took my eyes off the prize

Thanks to Academic Distraction

(CUT TO MEDIUM CLOSEUP: BUSKER ON STREET CORNER.)

BUSKER: Hey, remember me? The guy who nodded off in class, dropped out, ended up sleeping in the basement? Well, I never got to be a rock star. (Hits off random off key chord.) Tuh-wannng!

I'm still sleeping in the basement. (Hits another random off-key chord.) Thanks to Academic Distraction, I'm all hooked up...for 20-thou-plus in loans, plus all the double-digit interest rates you can eat!

It doesn't even feel like real money after awhile, but it adds up fast. (Tuning up dissonantly) That's why I'm on this corner, Monday through Sunday, trying to strum up enough pennies to pay that money back!

CUT TO: BYSTANDER who walks briskly at first, then stops to stare up and down at BUSKER.)

(CLOSEUP: BYSTANDER's hand briskly feeding the required coins into his tip container.)

BUSKER: Beats saying, "You want fries with that," right? 

(CUT TO: BYSTANDER #2, stopping right behind first one. He pauses, looks BUSKER over. He sighs, shakes his head and moves on.)

BUSKER: Oh, yeah, and don't even think about skipping a payment. They keep looking, for up to 10 years!

(LONG SHOT: BYSTANDER #3 stops to size up BUSKER's appearance. Thinking better of it, he too takes a step back.)

Hey, Jim, how are you doing?

(BUSKER offers to shake BYSTANDER #3's hand. BYSTANDER #3 shakes his head, and pulls out a fiver.)

BYSTANDER #3: Wow, never imagined I'd see you here. My God, what happened? (Drops fiver into BUSKER's container.) Oh, yeah. You'll be paying that loan till you're 100-plus. Well, good luck. Get yourself something to eat!

(BYSTANDER #3 hurries out of shot, and down the street.)

BUSKER: Hey, thanks, Jim! Much obliged! (Hits random off-key chord.) Well, I'd better get back to it. Every little bit helps, right?

(CUE reprise of song. BUSKER begins to strum harder, looking left, then right, for anyone coming into tip range.)

Got front-loaded, for free

Through Academic Distraction

Got tangled up in debt

Through Academic Distraction

The interest isn't over yet

Thanks, Academic Distraction

I haven't seen the payoff yet

Thanks, Academic Distraction 

(FADE to BUSKER reprising these next lines.)

I went to high school, kept noddin' off

Then dropped out, my bad luck

There's five jobs for every one of you

Oh, my God, what'll you do?

The College Degree Glut (Did Our Ancestors Know Something We Don't?)

This graphic is extraordinary. The caption reads as follows: "A Prospect Of Higher Education. Sixty-Eight Million Dollars Were Given For Colleges Last Year; --if the Mania for College Education Continues We May Soon Expect the Above State of Affairs." I found it in a book entitled, Looking Forward: Life In The Twentieth Century As Predicted In The Pages Of American Magazines From 1895 To 1905. Published in 1970, Looking Forward does exactly what the title says: I picked up for a buck at the library book sale for Squawker, who loves to read about Victorian- and Gilded Age-era life.

Considering that it's a century old, this illustration definitely strikes a nerve with me. Back in 1990, when I returned from my six-month tenure as a clerk, at the University of London, I faced a post-college employment picture that should look familiar to any graduate today. I was still living at home, so I didn't have that pressure of paying rent -- plus food, and laundry, and all that other grown-up rubbish -- over my head. However, my family was struggling financially themselves, so I had to pound the pavement. I couldn't expect them to subsidize me, on top of everything else on their plate.

However, after almost six months of pounding, I couldn't find a job that paid above McJob level (as in, minimum or sub-minimum wage). So I did what anyone in my spot does. I told myself:: if you must work a McJob, make it one you can stand. I went to my hometown paper, where I'd done a 150-customer motor route in the summer of '86. It didn't pay princely sums, but enough to put gas in my car, get a few takeout meals a week, and keep me in records and rock mags (which I was now beginning to score for free, having discovered the magic world of reviewing for comp copies).

I asked the paper if they had any big routes opening up. As it turned out, they did, and I found myself dealing with 200-plus customers through the summer and early fall of 1990. Eventually, after asking around some more, I found an out-of-county newspaper job with one my former college editors, who was now the boss there, and wanted me badly. So, in a sense, I landed on my feet, though not without some tense moments...like in the den, when a news report came on about the Gen Xers' struggles to find suitable jobs. I was about to mutter something along the lines of, "Wow, I can relate," when my dad looked over his paper, and said: "Son, the trouble with this place here is that everybody graduates." 

Not having found my second motor route job yet, I quickly changed the subject; I didn't feel like giving a progress report. Looking at today's numbers, though, I think that my dad raised a valid point. As of 2014, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 260,000 bachelor's degree holders were working for $7.25 an hour or less, along with an additional 200,000 associate's degree earners trapped on the same go-nowhere treadmill.

This issue has produced no lack of anguished rhetorical questions from the likes of Forbes ("If college degrees are becoming more valuable, why are so many graduates either unemployed or employed at low-paying jobs?"), and the National Association of Scholars ("Obama wants to substantially increase the number of Americans who get college degrees, but what does he think they'll be doing?").

However, solutions -- and the long-term thinking needed to produce them -- are in shorter supply than ever, as we see from "Education Secretary" Betsy DeVos's decision to scrap promises of student loan forgiveness to graduates who took low-paying public sector jobs. As my dad suggested so long ago, there are way too many people competing for way too few jobs. The problem is that we're well into a new era of outsourcing and automation that leaves less and less for anybody to do, even though their bills don't ever stay the same for long.

This notion, to coin Lester Bangs's classic phrase, "is slightly inconsistent." As for Obama, I doubt that he's giving the matter much thought anymore, or why else would he feel comfortable with collecting $400,000 to speak at a health care conference this fall? Shame on him for doing it, but that's another discussion for another day. What's needed among grads, though, is a more radical resistance. 

Begging the world at large to ease your path toward a high-paying job only taps into the prevailing narrative that the federal government constantly pushes: college pays off in the end, so if we treat you like a walking profit center, you must be good for it. Every penny. Every percentage point. End of discussion. Deferments, forgiveness, lowered interest -- all of those remedies are fine, but what's needed is a tougher-minded look at the big picture. And that starts with my dad's statement, plus one more that's worth repeating: What do we mean by the golden rule? He who has the gold makes the rules. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Act Now,
Before Your Loans Go Up):
Common Dreams: Borrowers "Chilled 
To The Bone" As DOE Reneges
On Student Loan Forgiveness:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/03/31/borrowers-chilled-bone-doe-reneges-student-loan-forgiveness

New York Post: Sanders Calls Obama's
Wall Street Speech Fee "Unfortunate":
http://nypost.com/2017/04/28/sanders-calls-obamas-wall-street-speech-fee-unfortunate/

Student Loan Report
Student Loan Debt Statistics 2017:
https://studentloans.net/student-loan-debt-statistics/

Think Progress: Half A Million People
With College Degrees Are Working
For Minimum Wage:
https://thinkprogress.org/half-a-million-people-with-college-degrees-are-working-for-minimum-wage-4a2d86ea7775

Notes From The College Industrial Complex: Edu-Debt Springs Eternal

High wire fencing on the playground
High rise housing all around
High rise prices on the high street

High time to pull it all down

White boys kicking in a window

Straight girls watching where they gone

Never trust a copper in a crime car

Just whose side are you on?
--Tom Robinson Band, "Up Against The Wall"

Whilst looking up some other potential posting topics, I came across this whopper from the Campaign For America's Future, which focuses on a little-advertised fact about our glorious federal government -- if you borrowed their money to finance your college education, you'll be paying into your elder years...and pursued into them, as well, if you haven't managed to pay off the loan. According to the report, which I've helpfully posted below, an estimated 760,000 households headed by someone 65 or older are paying off student loans. That's worth roughly $18.2 billion in debt.

Unfortunately, one in four of these households (191,000) are in default, which allows Uncle Sam to grab up to 15 percent of your Social Security check (as long as it doesn't fall below $750 a month). As Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) observes, "Garnishing Social Security benefits defeats the entire point of the program -- that's why we don't allow banks or credit card companies to do it." Well, Congress didn't allow any garnishments to happen until 1996 -- when the Republican-led Congress carved out an exemption for student loan debt, as part of its "Contract On America." Oh, wait, you mean the "Contract With America?" No, I think the other preposition fits better.

Imagine the sticker shock awaiting millions of retirees -- who shouldn't have to worry about being hunted down for decades-old debt in their golden years (theoretical or otherwise). Of course, America is virtually the only industrialized nation that insists on clinging to this Rube Goldberg for-profit model of education (although Britain is doing its damnedest to catch up with our example). Still, other nations seem to get by just fine without all the malignancies clotting our college and university system -- such as the bloated administrations who see no problem with condemning future generations of instructors to permanet adjuncthood...but I digress.

Of course, the other problem is that, while edu-debt is exploding, along with cost of living, wages and salaries haven't remotely kept pace. As a June 2014 article on Yahoo Finance indicates, the cost of tuition and fees has soared by 1,120% since the government started keeping track of these matters in 1978. And, as Dan Hurley, a policy expert for the American Association of Colleges and Universities suggests -- such figures often obscure the bigger problem: "Instead of young adults purchasing homes and goods and services, they're paying [for college], which doesn't generate any income for the country."


The grind of working pay off edu-debt and other cost of living expenses also chips away at the one of the most important -- and rarely mentioned -- aspects of the college experience, namely, exposure to people and ideas that could change your life. I met four of my closest friends in college: one has since died, but the others remain part of my life.  I wouldn't have met them anywhere else: need I say more? Still, I'll own up and admit -- hand on heart -- I wasn't necessarily motivated by whatever sheepskin I was aiming to get. I imagined college being something like the British art school scene of 1964-65...with the Kinks, the Pretty Things and Yardbirds rubbing suitably inebriated shoulders...or the '76-'77 punk explosion, where you just might bump into Paul Simonon toting art supplies and canvases, looking for another abandoned ice cream factory or junkyard to turn into a mural. I thought it'd all be a lot like Carnaby Street, with myself and my co-conspirators plotting how to take the world by storm between rounds of some imported beer or other -- even, though, at times, I felt more like Catwoman's hapless victim, Carnaby Katz, during Batman's final soggy season on TV. Good, bad or indifferent, though, I wouldn't trade those times for anything.

Then again, I didn't have to work nearly the hours that grads face down these days...back then, jobs were basically excuses to pay the odd bill, or (better yet) buy silly punk records. If you didn't have enough money for those silly punk records, you'd hope to hustle some by cashing in your textbooks...or, as I eventually did...start can collecting, and turn it into a good side income. Some way or another, you found ways to get by, and get what you wanted -- I bought my first bass for $120, which I saved by dedicating one day of my weekly can collecting take to the cause. What students do now...or whether they could pull off similar scenarios...I can't imagine.

Given the one-sided nature of the present situation, it's not surprising that more and more grads are choosing to default (see the essay below)...though the bubble will likely have to swell quite a bit larger before all those greenbacks come bursting out of our undergraduate equivalent of Mount Vesuvius (or is it more like Krakatoa?). And that's before we even get to the other big questions that the Campaign's report raises: with fewer and fewer jobs requiring a four-year degree, should college be the automatic choice for everyone? More to the point, how do we force a greater degree of accountability from institutions that fight their workers as hard as a ninteenth century robber baron? Who knows -- the "Free University" idea of the 1960s looks better and better all the time. Giving such concepts a bigger stage could only improve the present system...even if our friendly neighborhood banker is dead set against the idea. --The Reckoner

And I said,
Look out, listen, can you hear it:
Panic in the County Hall?
And I said,
Look out, listen, can you hear it:
Whitehall (got us) up against a wall
They got us up against the wall...

Links 'N' More (Click 'Em Before
They Jack Up Your Tuition):

Tom Robinson Band: Up Against The Wall:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ9qR7CMCvo

Campaign For America's Future:
Haunted By Student Debt To The Grave:
http://ourfuture.org/20150728/haunted-by-student-debt-to-the-grave

Salon.com:
College Is Ripping You Off: http://www.salon.com/2014/10/01/college_is_ripping_you_off_students_are_cash_cows_and_schools_the_predators/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The New York Times:
Why I Defaulted
On My Student Loans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/opinion/sunday/why-i-defaulted-on-my-student-loans.html?_r=0

The Wall Street Journal:
$555,000 Student Loan Burden:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703389004575033063806327030

Yahoo Finance: The Daily Ticker:
College Costs Unaffordable For Students:
https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/college-costs-unaffordable-for-students-174357548.html

Forever A Bum To Your Own Family

                                         [picture from drphil.com]


Remember those old Dr. Phil shows where he would yell at the "mooches"?

I often thought I wonder how many of them are mooches by choice. Sure some of them probably were lazy, "didn't want to work", spent their days hooked up to a meth pipe or pot bong, and playing Warcraft or something...

but what about the ones who simply could not get a decent jobs that would pay for a decent enough apartment, car and life?

While the economy implodes and our newcasters lie about the actual employment rates, how is it to be the person whose family has done well and they have not due to a variety of reasons?

It can be hell on earth.

Many do not understand.

Among some narcissists and some baby boomer types who never suffered, your own lack of financial success is always laid at the foot of your own shortcomings, even if you went to college and worked hard for years at jobs only to be laid off or had your health implode, such things do not matter if the dollars never poured in.

Poor people with better off families are told they are "no good" often for years. You can get a college degree, whip up the resumes, move to seek to improve the almighty career, and then when you are left holding an empty bag, realize those old time social connections aren't there either anymore.

I really worry about young people today who may have had parents do well, and then they go out into a work world that simply doesn't want to know. I went through the same thing but at least I could get a job to pay for a rented room, ramen noodles and milk crates. If there is no job though at all, one is in trouble and can't even manage that.

You're the bum, the elephant in the room no one wants to see or exist. To some of these people they got their first job about of school at the age of 18 and never faced the unemployment line. Maybe they have the right personality, right "look" for modern American. Maybe they did work hard but they also were given the opportunity and pay-out for their hard work.

It disturbs me how if one ends up in "throw-away" status in America, today it's not just the human resources manager looking at you with a jaundiced eye at your cheap suit or dulled shoes but your cruise taking, shopaholic family that definitely sees you as an "embarrassment" too. It can be emotionally devastating. Some people may have kind relatives who want to help them who care, but one thing I have noticed about some within the upper middle class world is they only want to keep company with their own kind. Your concerns are off their radar.

There's too many people out there who realized they became too poor even to be accepted, included or loved by their families, but then that one comes from the moral decay in America, and from the prevalent narcissism that is in many ways collapsing the economy from the top tiers to begin with.

Your lack of money is seen as a personal failing and if it lasts too long you are resented, hated and rejected.

In America today there are these class divisions between families. To the liberals who yell "First World problems" at poor or working class people in America who dare speak of their problems, sometimes the Third World sounds like a better deal, at least you are not hated or rejected for things that are beyond your control, your kinfolk are in the same boat with you. Many of the immigrants are smart because they share resources, there's no such thing as Mama or Sis living in a McMansion while their disabled or poor adult child lives in a broken down trailer with no running water or in a cardboard box in the street.

Even if you have a family that may have helped you years ago, there's a pound of flesh to be extracted. As the merciless employers rip out the carpet beneath you or your husband, rejection often comes from the family too. You are not a source of pride but someone to be ignored and hidden away. They help you with a car repair to keep you from the streets and their front stoop and their resentment grows and your self-respect dies. There is never enough money, only shame. Another job lay-off and the invitations dry up. These types who will tell you "We worked hard!" when you tell them not to be so down on the poor, will tell you straight to your face, people are poor because they deserve it. They will tell you that you are "entitled" if you desire a job that will keep a roof over your head and a car to get there.

                                          [picture source]

And that is a horrible fact of modern American life, rich relatives aren't so nice to the poor ones. Your Tea-Party loving shark uncle will write that all poor people are losers, as he is brainwashed by the elite to blame the victims of the economy while paying homage to the bankers and multinational corporations outsourcing all the jobs. Your mother who never went to college and got her good job via nepotism, and who won the insurance Lotto, will roll her eyes with disgust at you for years as she shops til she drops and buys a second home in Florida. Your sister will tell you that your 800 square foot working class apartment [even in a decent area] is "too small" for a visit and look down on you from turned up nose for eons. She was C and D student but because she married a six-figure executive...so she rose up the ranks in the family forever more.

                                         [from Zero Hedge]

Younger people forced to move home, sometimes will deal with the parents who will say "When are you going to move out?" as they struggle to get a job or an affordable apartment. Often the families are as merciless as the bosses who cut hours or wages. Older people face the middle life crisis of realizing they will never make their parents proud, they will be the family "bum" and that success has eluded for far too long. Hope taken away as one remembers one's old life where opportunity at least seemed to reigned supreme and one seemed to have a good future. Sad faced regretful 40-somethings living with disgusted elderly mothers. 20-somethings with heads hanging down low trudging down the basement stairs coming home from low-paid jobs telemarketing or doing day-care or filling out job applications with their father screaming "Mooch! Loser! Bum!" So many left unaware of what awaits them as they exit the college world into the you're just another number in line unless you have connections. One ponders how did some relatives do so well? Doors opened to them with ease, as the padlock on yours seemed to grow bigger.

Years of knowing you never could afford decent presents for nieces or nephews or vacations to see anyone. Knowing that you are forever a bum to even your own family because the jobs were as disloyal as they were.

Poverty is a scythe that cuts into relationships.  DNA doesn't always cross the class barrier.---The Squawker

Going Underground: Five Signs That We're Marching Backwards In Time

Some people might say my life is in a rut, 

But I'm quite happy with what I got 

People might say that I should strive for more, 

But I'm so happy I can't see the point. 

Somethings happening here today 

A show of strength with your boy's brigade and, 

I'm so happy and you're so kind 

You want more money - of course I don't mind

 To buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes

--The Jam ("Going Underground")

As the old saying goes, the only certainty of history is that it always repeats itself. What goes around, comes around. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior...and so on. If I had a nickel for every time I'd heard all these cliches, I'd be living in a mansion somewhere in the south of France.

Even so, there's no going around the fact that we're living in some of the most regressive times since the 1980s...a feeling that's hammered home by five negative social trends that keep the commentators' tongues wagging. Without further ado, shall we roll the credits, then?

1. This Just In (America Has Officially Joined The Hamburglar Nation): Doubt persists about whether we've finally spent our way out of our economic doldrums, though some of the usual established voices have apparently decided that's so ("Slow U.S. Economic Recovery Is Gaining Momentum": Wall Street Journal, 6/24/13).

However, the number of part-time jobs (read: 35 hours or less) has grown by 2.8 million since the Great Recession officially kicked off in December 2007, according to The New York Times. By contrast, the number of full-time jobs has fallen by 5.8 million.

Also, if you add two significant subgroups -- those who want full-time work, but have to settle for part-time, and those workers who have up looking -- the official unemployment rate effectively doubles, from 7.7 to 14.3 percent.  Get the rest of this cheery memo here:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/the-rise-of-part-time-work/

2. Permanent Fiesta For The 1 Percent Department.: Most analysts agree that those pesky little 1 percenters have enjoyed quite a party since the 1980s, when everybody seemed to strut around with oversized portable phones, and sweaters stuffed with big shoulder pads, waiting for their share of the wealth to trickle down their direction...today, the crickets keep on chirping, and they're still waiting.

How one-sided the party became isn't always apparent, though, until you read the Economic Policy Institute's May 2012 report, "CEO Pay And The Top 1 Percent," which states that U.S. workers' compensation grew by just 5.7 percent between 1978 and 2011. By contrast, CEO compensation swelled by more than 725 percent during the same period.

When stock options are included, the overall CEO-to-worker compensation ratio grew from 18.3-1 in 1965, to 411.3-1 in 2000, and presently sits at 209.4-1 in 2011 (a reflection, presumably, of the backlash that greeted such fripperies, once the economy flew south). Read the remainder of the bad news for yourself here:

http://www.epi.org/publication/ib331-ceo-pay-top-1-percent/

I'm going underground, (going underground) 

Well the brass bands play and feet start to pound 

Going underground, (going underground) 

Well let the boys all sing and the boys all shout for tomorrow 

3. At Least Keith Partridge Had Something To Fall Back On: The One-Paycheck Household has faded into a relic of "The Partridge Family" era...when the widowed bandleader (Shirley Jones)  could sleep soundly, knowing that she and her velvet-clad pop combo could cover all their monthly bills, plus Keith's college education tab, and have a few shekels left over for the occasional meal out.

Nowadays, however, Shirley and company would have to whore themselves out on the fast food or retail McJob Circuit, because their concert guarantees wouldn't keep up with the runaway cost of living.  This phenomenon is well-documented in The Two-Income Trap (Why Middle-Class Mothers & Fathers Are Going Broke).

As the authors note, married couples with children are twice as likely to file bankruptcy as their childless counterparts, and about 75 percent more likely to fall in foreclosure: "The problem is that so many fixed costs are rising -- health care, child care, finding a good home -- that two-income families today actually have less discretionary money left over than those single-earner families did." Keith Partridge, eat yer heart out!  For the rest of the story, go to this link:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2004/11/two-income-trap

4. Your Wallet (In The College Industrial Complex's Crosshairs): As even our mainstream media friends have finally acknowledged, educational debt has reached astronomical levels in this country, to the tune of $1 trillion, with roughly $180 billion in some kind of default or others. We've actually reached the point of generational debt, which promises to keep future lenders out of the cold, and off the street corner.

"Wait a minute," you say, "didn't President Obama and his minions sign some type of law regulating interest rates on student loans?"  Well -- as USA Today makes clear -- even with the changes, the feds stand to pocket $175 billion in profit from students over the next decade. As Ogden Nash once remarked: "Professional men, they have no cares/Whatever happens, they get theirs":

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/25/student-loan-rates-will-feed-fed-profits/2696241/

5. Read My Lips, Bud, The Needle Hasn't Moved A Millimeter Around Here: As of 2009, an estimated 50.0 million nonelderly Americans lacked health insurance. According to the Employee Benefit Institute, the figure represents about 18.9 percent of the populace. Except for dips in 2004 and 2007, the number and percentage of the uninsured ranks has continued to climb, making the Clinton-to-Bush-era transitional low point (15.6 percent, in 2000) seem awfully quaint, indeed. You can find additional interesting information about this topic here:

http://www.ebri.org/publications/benfaq/index.cfm?fa=hlthfaq10

What you see is what you get 

You've made your bed, you better lie in it 

You choose your leaders and place your trust 

As their lies wash you down and their promises rust 

You'll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns 

And the public wants what the public gets 

But I don't get what this society wants 

I'm going underground, (going underground) 

Released in March 1980, "Going Underground" marked the first of three instant chart-toppers for the Jam, and still stands up as one of the most potent blasts of social commentary that Paul Weller ever unleashed.  What kind of society, no matter how prosperous, allows the scenario of "kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns" to occur, again and again?  In short, this song is all about prosperity versus priorities, with the average person falling considerably short of the finish line -- then, and now.

For yours truly, "Going Underground" became one of the handiest songs to blow off some steam, and a marker of hope that -- some day, somehow, somewhere -- the majority (whoever they were) would finally wake up, and shake the cobwebs off their brains...once the hangover of failing to get rich quick set in.  That never happened, of course.

As even many conventional Democrats are loath to admit, the Clinton era set dizzying new standards for go-go finance that would have made Reagan-era fixtures like junk bond king Michael Milken -- or his silver screen counterpart, Gordon Gekko -- wet their knickers with joy. Realpolitik, in it all its grimy, joyless variations, was the order of the day.

Whenever anyone dared to ask, "Isn't all this go-go business gospel getting slightly out of hand?", they'd hear the Status Quo Police respond: "Shut up! As long as we can print more money, it shouldn't be a problem." Other times, you might hear something like this: "Shut up! For most folks, debt's a way of life now. As long as they can buy their latest toys on credit, it shouldn't be a problem."

One common denominator ties all these statistics together: they represent snapshots of the choices that American society -- at its leanest, meanest, most mindlessly Darwinistic, and socially regressive -- forces citizens to make on a constant basis, whether it's food versus medicine, or child care versus earning a living wage...and so on, and so on, and so on.

This is a situation that makes no bones about community, with no other ethic laid out on the table beyond survival of the fittest. How the average person navigates this dog-eat-dog maze, of course, is strictly up to them...but, as these figures suggest, they're continuing to lose the battle...and don't even think about attempting to win the war.  --The Reckoner