OCCUPY WALL STREET

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by persiphone

i think Obama recently passed a cap on student loan payments of 10% of your income maximum. i think the whole thing is now based on your current income, actually. i could be wrong. it's been a minute since i read about it and it was a buried story and i haven't seen anything about it since.

This is true in part, however, the student loan programs were taken from government administration and given to private banks (over the last few decades)! We need to go back to full government administration and re-payment. It used to be that the interest paid on these loans went back to the government agencies for reinvestment of student loans- now it is "profit" for banks. Thus, a huge amount of what used to "re-fill" the public coffers to keep granting student loans became part of a private profit margin- which brings us to Wall Street profits.

Also, some of the interest made was put back into educational systems other than the student loan programs, as in state education college funding. What happened (and even under Obama's plan) is that the "working" margin of interest profit is now going to the private incomes/bonuses of private bankers and is part of those dividends paid to stockholders of the private banks. Those are folks within the 1%!

Sound familiar? This was the direct work of Republican privatization political strategies. In effect, the student loan programs in the US were raped for the good of private and publically traded business on the backs of college students.

Obama's plan will help with having sane payments for students after graduation, that is true. But the banks will not have as high of a yield of profit from these loans. Probably they will add more loan fees in order to recover these losses (remember, the so called regulation safeguards we now have don't really have much bite at all- pretty bogus, really).

There are also many loan fees associated with these loans that were not charged when they were administered by the government. Not even close. The original government run student loans were a very good bargain for students and were not filled with initiation fees. In fact, a student paid about $15 to file a loan application and that was about it for them in terms of loan fees. And they paid a low inhterest rate when they began paying back these loans.

No, problems around student loans and the relationship to banks and Wall Street are not being fully addressed.

Even loans for our veterans that can give them good deals on buying a home are profit makers for banks and Wall Street via how they are intermingled and administered through private banking.

Personally, I want whatever taxes I pay that is earmarked for education and loans to vets to be part of government administration and put back into the programs so that the programs grow and more loans become available for both populations and the jobs that were available to government employees are brought back!

Have to add that "out-sourcing" happens within our geographical boundaries (public to private administration)!!!