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There are many excellent articles below to read that help us understand some of the issues and solutions to high levels of all kinds of debt. Fact: In the 1990's the average credit card balance in the US was $7,000; in 2018 it was $15,000.
You are not a loan.
The Army Beat Its Recruitment Goals This Year by Targeting Students in Debt
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne833d/the-army-beat-its-recruitment-goals-this-year-by-targeting-students-in-debt?utm_campaign=sharebutton
The U.S. Army has already achieved its recruiting goal this year, after falling short about 6,500 recruits in 2018. At the Pentagon this week, the head of Army Recruiting Command Maj. Gen. Frank Muth attributed the success to America’s crippling student debt crisis...
Thomas Gokey, an organizer with the Debt Collective, an organization of activists working toward debt cancellation, also believes that the Army’s use of offering help with student debt in exchange for enlisting is harmful. “Debt is a form of social control,” he said. “You can force people to do all kinds of things if you put them in debt first, including waging unjust wars, killing and hurting other people, and risking [their] own life and limbs.” ...
Proposed Legislation Sets Timeline for S.F. Public Bank November 2019
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/proposed-legislation-sets-timeline-for-s-f-public-bank/
...The latest task force would ease San Francisco into the change by first coming up with a business plan for a bank known as an Economic Development Financial Institution (EDFI) that’s not fully developed and doesn’t take deposits. This would limit the first phase of the bank strictly to lending focused on affordable housing production and preservation, small businesses, and public infrastructure.
The nine-member task force would meet at least monthly and be required to submit the plan by June 2020. By December 2020, another plan would be due to enter the trickier, second phase: turning it into a fully-fledged public bank capable of taking deposits...
New Public Banking Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFnvaqZ-X-U&feature=share
In the years since the financial crisis, vibrant campaigns for public banks have emerged all across the country. The time for public banks in the U.S. has come..
NEWS FLASH! October 2019 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill that will allow Public Banks to form. check out our page on Public Banking under the heading ABOUT at the top of this page.
Los Angeles Announces Plans for the First Public Bank In California
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/los-angeles-announces-plans-for-the-first-public-bank-in-california/
Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson... announced that the first public bank in California would be coming to Los Angeles... “Within the next 48 hours it is my intention to put forward before the LA City Council a motion to put out a request for a banking expert to help put together a public bank here in Los Angeles.”
May 30, 2019
Public Banking bill AB 857 passes the Assembly with the bare minimum
41 votes just now.
Now it goes to the California Senate.
See more about Public Banking under About on bar above....including the public ad SF ran last November 2018.
How College Professors Turned Into Uber Drivers
The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission
[ book review ]
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/how-college-professors-turned-into-uber-drivers/
Ellen Tara James-Penney, an adjunct at San Jose State University... often drives to a parking lot to grade papers. When it's dark, she'll use a headlamp from Home Depot so she can continue her work. At night, she'll repark in a residential neighborhood and sleep in her 2004 Volvo. She keeps the car neat to avoid suspicion.? ...
Disappointment and anger infuse [the author's] rhetoric, giving the book a more emotional and personal tenor than one normally encounters in works about public policy. But that?s understandable in a profession where some people have lifetime job guarantees and others sleep in their cars.
Getting rid of debt may actually make your brain work better
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/getting-rid-of-debt-may-actually-make-your-brain-work-better-2019-03-29
Getting rid of debt doesn't just unburden finances, it takes a weight off the mind that clears up cognitive functioning, lessens anxiety and improves impulse control.
The findings come from researchers at the National University of Singapore's Social Service Research Centre, who studied almost 200 low-income people who unexpectedly had portions of their long-running mortgage, utility and municipal debts paid down by a charity.
Parents and Grandparents Student Loan Debt Heartbreak
by Roberta Badger Cain 1/19/2019
Many people know about the trajectory of student loan debt – up, up and up! – and know of family members or friends among those owing staggering student debt that has now reached $1.53 trillion. (1) But few people know that more than 173,000 Americans have seen Social Security checks (including Disability checks) garnished to pay for student loan debts. (2) Many co-sign for their children or grandchildren. Older adults trying to improve themselves and their financial future take out student loan debt themselves.
Not only that, the U.S. Department of Education has granted only 1% of legitimate applicants who have applied for federal student loan forgiveness. That amounts to just 96 people out of 30,000 who applied (3), including older student loan debtors. Studies have shown that cancelling existing student loan debt would save the average borrower more than $4,000 per year, but would put money back into the economy, and create millions of jobs. (4). It would also mean more students could graduate, contribute to the economy at a higher level, and pay back parents or grandparents, or get out of debt themselves, and maybe even afford to someday in the foreseeable future, buy a car, support a family without hardship, and rent a decent apartment or even buy a house!
What is going on? Can we do something about it? And how?
In 1996 the Debt Collection Improvement Act was passed. It went into effect in 2003. It obligated holders of federal student loan debt in default, to have up to 15% of their wages garnished until the student loan debt was paid in full. (5) These holders are any older or retired individuals who co-signed for a child or grandchild’s student loans or pursued a degree themselves. There are even attorneys who specialize in helping such people!
Wage garnishment for defaulted student loan debtors includes standard wage garnishment (by court order) or administrative wage garnishment (directly by the U.S. Department of Education and its guaranty agencies). (6) Either way, it puts a cruel burden on older debtor individuals, parents and grandparents, as well as producing guilt and dropout by those who are just trying to prepare themselves or their loved ones to make it in the U.S. heartless Neoliberal economy.
Student loans have seen almost 157 percent in cumulative growth over the last 11 years. (5) The average Oregon student owes $27,000 in student debt. (citation 7?) Costs of tuition continue to rise, predatory private for-profit colleges are being re-energized, and ever more students (now 85 percent) have to work part- or full-time while trying to get an education. Interest rates are rising, borrowing keeps increasing, and default levels keep rising. Predictions are that the student loan debt crisis will only get worse. (8) Public policies need to be changed that allow for sweeping student loan forgiveness, consumer protections for all, and debt-free college for all. (9) In the meantime, Strike Debt Portland (www.strikedebtportland.org) is: A) gearing up to raise awareness of parent / grandparent student loan debt garnishment, B) seeking and giving those in Portland in that situation the opportunity to come forward, and C) mitigating the immediate hardship by awarding money to as many garnishees as possible via current funds and future fund-raising efforts.
(1) The Washington Post, https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/, 1-5-19
(2) Action Network, http//actionnetwork.org/petitions/studentdebt?nowrapper=true, 11-17-18
(3) Progressive Caucus, https//mail.aol.com/webmail-std-en-us, 12-20-18
(4) Action Network, Ibid.
(5) Brent Adams & Associates, https://www.brentadams.com/library/garnishment-of-social-security-benefits . . . 1-12-19 (6) LoanForgiveness.org, https://www.loanforgiveness.org/student-loan-default/student-loan-wage-garnishment . . . 1-12-19 (7) Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/the-student-loan-debt . . .
(8) Citation
(9) Bloomberg, Ibid.
(10) Student Debt Crisis, https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us , 1-7-19
Roberta Badger Cain
Roberta: emilysing@aol.com
************************************************************************************************************************************************************
To see what it takes to get a Public city or state bank going, read over the Oakland Public Bank proposal at this link.https://friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/FOPB_public_bank_of_oakland_governance_proposal_040918.pdf.
See our Strike Debt Portland page on Public Banks by clicking on ABOUT on the bar at the top of this page and then selecting Public Banking.
You are not a loan.
The Army Beat Its Recruitment Goals This Year by Targeting Students in Debt
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne833d/the-army-beat-its-recruitment-goals-this-year-by-targeting-students-in-debt?utm_campaign=sharebutton
The U.S. Army has already achieved its recruiting goal this year, after falling short about 6,500 recruits in 2018. At the Pentagon this week, the head of Army Recruiting Command Maj. Gen. Frank Muth attributed the success to America’s crippling student debt crisis...
Thomas Gokey, an organizer with the Debt Collective, an organization of activists working toward debt cancellation, also believes that the Army’s use of offering help with student debt in exchange for enlisting is harmful. “Debt is a form of social control,” he said. “You can force people to do all kinds of things if you put them in debt first, including waging unjust wars, killing and hurting other people, and risking [their] own life and limbs.” ...
Proposed Legislation Sets Timeline for S.F. Public Bank November 2019
https://www.sfweekly.com/news/proposed-legislation-sets-timeline-for-s-f-public-bank/
...The latest task force would ease San Francisco into the change by first coming up with a business plan for a bank known as an Economic Development Financial Institution (EDFI) that’s not fully developed and doesn’t take deposits. This would limit the first phase of the bank strictly to lending focused on affordable housing production and preservation, small businesses, and public infrastructure.
The nine-member task force would meet at least monthly and be required to submit the plan by June 2020. By December 2020, another plan would be due to enter the trickier, second phase: turning it into a fully-fledged public bank capable of taking deposits...
New Public Banking Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFnvaqZ-X-U&feature=share
In the years since the financial crisis, vibrant campaigns for public banks have emerged all across the country. The time for public banks in the U.S. has come..
NEWS FLASH! October 2019 California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill that will allow Public Banks to form. check out our page on Public Banking under the heading ABOUT at the top of this page.
Los Angeles Announces Plans for the First Public Bank In California
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/los-angeles-announces-plans-for-the-first-public-bank-in-california/
Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson... announced that the first public bank in California would be coming to Los Angeles... “Within the next 48 hours it is my intention to put forward before the LA City Council a motion to put out a request for a banking expert to help put together a public bank here in Los Angeles.”
May 30, 2019
Public Banking bill AB 857 passes the Assembly with the bare minimum
41 votes just now.
Now it goes to the California Senate.
See more about Public Banking under About on bar above....including the public ad SF ran last November 2018.
How College Professors Turned Into Uber Drivers
The Adjunct Underclass: How America's Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission
[ book review ]
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/april-may-june-2019/how-college-professors-turned-into-uber-drivers/
Ellen Tara James-Penney, an adjunct at San Jose State University... often drives to a parking lot to grade papers. When it's dark, she'll use a headlamp from Home Depot so she can continue her work. At night, she'll repark in a residential neighborhood and sleep in her 2004 Volvo. She keeps the car neat to avoid suspicion.? ...
Disappointment and anger infuse [the author's] rhetoric, giving the book a more emotional and personal tenor than one normally encounters in works about public policy. But that?s understandable in a profession where some people have lifetime job guarantees and others sleep in their cars.
Getting rid of debt may actually make your brain work better
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/getting-rid-of-debt-may-actually-make-your-brain-work-better-2019-03-29
Getting rid of debt doesn't just unburden finances, it takes a weight off the mind that clears up cognitive functioning, lessens anxiety and improves impulse control.
The findings come from researchers at the National University of Singapore's Social Service Research Centre, who studied almost 200 low-income people who unexpectedly had portions of their long-running mortgage, utility and municipal debts paid down by a charity.
Parents and Grandparents Student Loan Debt Heartbreak
by Roberta Badger Cain 1/19/2019
Many people know about the trajectory of student loan debt – up, up and up! – and know of family members or friends among those owing staggering student debt that has now reached $1.53 trillion. (1) But few people know that more than 173,000 Americans have seen Social Security checks (including Disability checks) garnished to pay for student loan debts. (2) Many co-sign for their children or grandchildren. Older adults trying to improve themselves and their financial future take out student loan debt themselves.
Not only that, the U.S. Department of Education has granted only 1% of legitimate applicants who have applied for federal student loan forgiveness. That amounts to just 96 people out of 30,000 who applied (3), including older student loan debtors. Studies have shown that cancelling existing student loan debt would save the average borrower more than $4,000 per year, but would put money back into the economy, and create millions of jobs. (4). It would also mean more students could graduate, contribute to the economy at a higher level, and pay back parents or grandparents, or get out of debt themselves, and maybe even afford to someday in the foreseeable future, buy a car, support a family without hardship, and rent a decent apartment or even buy a house!
What is going on? Can we do something about it? And how?
In 1996 the Debt Collection Improvement Act was passed. It went into effect in 2003. It obligated holders of federal student loan debt in default, to have up to 15% of their wages garnished until the student loan debt was paid in full. (5) These holders are any older or retired individuals who co-signed for a child or grandchild’s student loans or pursued a degree themselves. There are even attorneys who specialize in helping such people!
Wage garnishment for defaulted student loan debtors includes standard wage garnishment (by court order) or administrative wage garnishment (directly by the U.S. Department of Education and its guaranty agencies). (6) Either way, it puts a cruel burden on older debtor individuals, parents and grandparents, as well as producing guilt and dropout by those who are just trying to prepare themselves or their loved ones to make it in the U.S. heartless Neoliberal economy.
Student loans have seen almost 157 percent in cumulative growth over the last 11 years. (5) The average Oregon student owes $27,000 in student debt. (citation 7?) Costs of tuition continue to rise, predatory private for-profit colleges are being re-energized, and ever more students (now 85 percent) have to work part- or full-time while trying to get an education. Interest rates are rising, borrowing keeps increasing, and default levels keep rising. Predictions are that the student loan debt crisis will only get worse. (8) Public policies need to be changed that allow for sweeping student loan forgiveness, consumer protections for all, and debt-free college for all. (9) In the meantime, Strike Debt Portland (www.strikedebtportland.org) is: A) gearing up to raise awareness of parent / grandparent student loan debt garnishment, B) seeking and giving those in Portland in that situation the opportunity to come forward, and C) mitigating the immediate hardship by awarding money to as many garnishees as possible via current funds and future fund-raising efforts.
(1) The Washington Post, https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us/, 1-5-19
(2) Action Network, http//actionnetwork.org/petitions/studentdebt?nowrapper=true, 11-17-18
(3) Progressive Caucus, https//mail.aol.com/webmail-std-en-us, 12-20-18
(4) Action Network, Ibid.
(5) Brent Adams & Associates, https://www.brentadams.com/library/garnishment-of-social-security-benefits . . . 1-12-19 (6) LoanForgiveness.org, https://www.loanforgiveness.org/student-loan-default/student-loan-wage-garnishment . . . 1-12-19 (7) Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/the-student-loan-debt . . .
(8) Citation
(9) Bloomberg, Ibid.
(10) Student Debt Crisis, https://mail.aol.com/webmail-std/en-us , 1-7-19
Roberta Badger Cain
Roberta: emilysing@aol.com
************************************************************************************************************************************************************
To see what it takes to get a Public city or state bank going, read over the Oakland Public Bank proposal at this link.https://friendsofpublicbankofoakland.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/FOPB_public_bank_of_oakland_governance_proposal_040918.pdf.
See our Strike Debt Portland page on Public Banks by clicking on ABOUT on the bar at the top of this page and then selecting Public Banking.
"In his resignation, Frotman also accuses the CFPB's leadership of suppressing a report, prepared by his office, revealing new evidence that some of the nation's largest banks were "saddling [students] with legally dubious account fees."
"The Trump administration has also taken steps outside the CFPB to curb oversight of the student loan industry. The Justice and Education departments have argued that debt collectors should be protected from state efforts to regulate them."
August 8, 2018, Eugene Weekly
New Data Reveal Extent of Oregon Student Loan Debt
More than half of Oregon college grads are in debt
New Data Reveal Extent of Oregon Student Loan Debt
More than half of Oregon college grads are in debt
More than 50 percent of Oregon college grads are in debt, and Oregon is ranked 22nd in the country for its amount of average student loan debt per borrower.
That amount per borrower in Oregon is $27,500,
August 7, 2018 Wall Street on Parade
Financial Health of US Consumer Will Determine Severity of the Next Recession
Financial Health of US Consumer Will Determine Severity of the Next Recession
According to the report, “aggregate household debt balances increased in the first quarter of 2018, for the 15th consecutive quarter. As of March 31, 2018, total household indebtedness stood at $13.21 trillion,” which is $536 billion higher than it was at the end of the third quarter of 2008. That was when the country was ravaged by the worst financial crash since the Great Depression.
May 19, 2018, S.F. Examiner
Build a public bank in S.F.
Build a public bank in S.F.
A public bank would serve San Francisco in many ways; first and foremost as a place to ethically store our public dollars. With a public bank, we can ensure that our deposits do not go toward fossil fuel emissions, gun manufacturing or purchases or support of unfair labor practices. We also provide that any profits made off our deposits don’t go to the bottom lines of big banks but rather get reinvesting into our community.
May 8, 2018, IPS (Institute for Policy Studies)
Restoring Opportunity in California
Taxing Wealth to Fund College for All in California
Restoring Opportunity in California
Taxing Wealth to Fund College for All in California
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Californians could attend top tier research universities as well as state and community colleges without incurring student debt. It was not that long ago that public colleges and universities didn’t even charge tuition.
This report details the transition from a debt free public higher education system to one that leaves hundreds of thousands of students deep in debt year after year. It also details the corresponding tax cut given to the wealthiest Californians, the lost revenue of which could have been used to pre-empt the growing student debt crisis.
April 25, 2018 HuffPost
Kristen Gillibrand Unveils a Public Option for Banking
The idea would provide a low-cost alternative to payday loans — and it might just save the Postal Service, too.
Kristen Gillibrand Unveils a Public Option for Banking
The idea would provide a low-cost alternative to payday loans — and it might just save the Postal Service, too.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is introducing legislation Wednesday that would require every U.S. post office to provide basic banking services, an ambitious step aimed at improving the lives of Americans with limited financial resources.
March 1, 2018 The Progressive Populist
An Unprecedented Grassroots Effort Could Put a Stop to Fraudulent Debt Collections
It could finally bring to heel the profoundly abusive banking system and its main collaborators.
An Unprecedented Grassroots Effort Could Put a Stop to Fraudulent Debt Collections
It could finally bring to heel the profoundly abusive banking system and its main collaborators.
Longtime monetary-reform advocate Mickey Paoletta of Mortgage Defense Systems in Mechanicsburg, Pa., (hermitageway7@cs.com) has helped scores of individual homeowners being sued in foreclosure proceedings expose their mortgage “loans” as invalid in court.
Feb. 9, 2018, New York
We must cancel everyone's student debt, for the economy's sake
We must cancel everyone's student debt, for the economy's sake
Late last year, congressional Republicans passed a $1.5 trillion tax cut, which delivered the lion’s share of its benefits to the wealthy and corporations. The GOP did not justify this policy on the grounds that all corporate shareholders and trust-fund hipsters deserved to have their wealth increased. Rather, the party argued that, however one felt about making the rich richer, the tax cuts would ultimately benefit allAmericans by increasing economic growth and lowering unemployment.
But what if we could have achieved those objectives, at roughly the same price, by forgoing tax cuts — and wiping out every penny of student debt in the United States, instead?
Read the article here.
Feb 5, 2018, The Sanders institute
Report: THE MACROECONOMIC EFFECTS OF STUDENT DEBT CANCELLATION
Report: THE MACROECONOMIC EFFECTS OF STUDENT DEBT CANCELLATION
More than 44 million Americans are caught in a student debt trap. Collectively, they owe nearly $1.4 trillion on outstanding student loan debt. Research shows that this level of debt hurts the US economy in a variety of ways, holding back everything from small business formation to new home buying, and even marriage and reproduction. It is a problem that policymakers have attempted to mitigate with programs that offer refinancing or partial debt cancellation. But what if something far more ambitious were tried? What if the population were freed from making any future payments on the current stock of outstanding student loan debt? Could it be done, and if so, how? What would it mean for the US economy?
Read the report. Click here.
The agents arranging these loans can get fat commissions of up to 16 percent, an example of the perverse incentives created in the lucrative student loan market. Servicers often profit more when borrowers default than when they pay smaller amounts over a longer time, so they have an incentive to encourage delinquencies, pushing students into default rather than rescheduling their loans
Read article. Click here.
Dec 26, 2017, Ellen Brown
Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young
Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young
Slaves had to be housed, fed and cared for. “Free” men housed and fed themselves. For the more dangerous jobs, such as mining, Irish immigrants were used rather than black slaves, because the Irish were expendable. Free men could be kept enslaved by debt, by paying them wages that were insufficient to meet their costs of living.
Read article. Click here.