Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Looming... Student Loan Debt


via HERE

For quite awhile now this country's student loan debt crisis has concerned me more than the housing crisis of 9 years ago ever did — the housing crisis had potential, if painful, solutions (some of which I suspect have been avoided)... I’m not sure the student loan debt dilemma has realistic solutions going forward. Most concern addresses the younger generations strapped with these loans, and the ramifications both for them directly and longer-term implications for the overall economy, but something I didn’t even realize was how many “baby boomers,” specifically over 60, are hampered by the problem as well!
This Marketwatch piece focuses on the issue:
In part:
The number of older Americans with student debt is growing faster than any other age group, according to the CFPB, and it appears they’re struggling. Nearly 40% of federal student loan borrowers over age 65 are in default…
For many it means, having Social Security garnished, in turn leaving them with poverty-level income in their retirement years.
Check out more about general student loan debt at Phil Ebersole's blog:
We’re in deep doo-doo, that, just like the housing bubble, no one seems to much talk about (perhaps because they have little positive or intelligent to say). Worse yet, we’ll soon have an Administration bent on concentrating yet more wealth in the few, while sending the rest into deeper, more drawn-out recession/depression. Long-term, there may be a solution as brick-and-mortar colleges go the way of brick-and-mortar bookstores, and the cost of education significantly comes down -- but that's VERY long-term; in the meantime several generations have a tough future ahead... tougher lives than their parents had.

Four years from now, it will once again be the Democrats screaming, “It’s the economy stupid!” …but will it already be too late? It remains a bitterly horrible irony that so many of those who voted for Trump and retrograde Republicans, will be those most adversely affected by what passes for their “policies.”



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