Tag: our terrible economy

Report: Student Loan Debt Isn’t Just An Issue For Young Americans

Report: Student Loan Debt Isn’t Just An Issue For Young Americans:

The US Government has discovered a new way to make social security last.

When older Americans were hit by the real estate crisis and driven further into debt, they had to stop paying their student loan debt. Now the Federal government is withholding funds from social security, medicare and *survivor* payouts to these people who THOUGHT they had achieved the American dream, driving retirees in the HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS into poverty.

THAT’s the future America has laid out for the rising generation. We, who hold more student debt than combined previous generations, can look to the present to see grandparents held down by endless, lifelong, student debt. Look at them, and think about what the future holds.

“An analysis of data from the Survey of Consumer Finances found that 3% of households – about 706,000 households – headed by those ages 65 years or older carry student loan debt. Although, the student debt level for those 64 years or younger is significantly higher – 22 million households, the issues faced by older American’s who tend to live on fixed incomes can’t be discounted.

The percentage of households headed by those aged 65 to 74 years of age with student debt grew from just 1 percent in 2004 totaling $2.8 billion to about 4 percent, or $18.2 billion in 2013.

The real issue is the number of older Americans who hold defaulted federal student loans – nearly a quarter of older American’s loans are in default – which often leaves the retirees living below the poverty threshold.”

Be f*cking furious.

Millennials speak up on rejecting credit: Jobs are scarce. Pay is low. School debt is high.

Millennials speak up on rejecting credit: Jobs are scarce. Pay is low. School debt is high.:

Readers chime in as to why young people are avoiding credit cards.

It frustrates me that the coverage of this recent report is totally ahistoric. Pre-2006 it didn’t matter that you didn’t have a job and had a loan, credit card companies were signing students on campuses up left and right. That they aren’t anymore and that individuals don’t feel the need to get a card, isn’t a story of some victory over economic expectations, a failure to grow, or unemployment. 

This is a story about the mistakes of the previous generation, what an overage of credit did before and could do again; why the underlying economic shift away from personal debt is incredibly depressing and dangerous for consumers and the middle class.

Credit cards and credit card companies are AWFUL. But the lack of availability of credit to individuals compared with significant outlays of credit to banks and large corporate entities (and the inflation that accompanies it) is THE story. 

It’s the story of our ongoing tailspin into complete economic inequality and one that tells us about a dark future for Millennials that has nothing to do with carrying balances or avoiding debt and EVERYTHING to do with our increasing inability to access the means by which wealth is created. 

Millennials aren’t using credit cards, and it might come back to haunt them

Millennials aren’t using credit cards, and it might come back to haunt them:

A new study finds Millennials are ditching plastic. That might hurt them in the future.

Being responsible with your debt isn’t going to help you get a good credit history. Welcome to a system designed to force you into significant levels of potential debt in order to go into further debt. All this to abdicate responsibility of your personal information to faceless sketchy credit and credit rating companies for a house or a car that is more likely to lose value than gain it by the end of your life time. 

Our parents bought into a system in which credit card use and taking on high debt loads were qualifiers for loans and positive background checks. Now when Millennials opt-out of a system designed to provide approval for what is essentially wage-slavery they find they are unqualified to gain credit because they’ve been more fiscally responsible then the last two generations. 

Millennials: screwed either way.