Bingo!

Not My Financial Crisis -- I've Got Literally Nothing to Lose

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/102676/not_my_financial_crisis_--_i've_got_literally_nothing_to_lose/?page=entire

...My feeling of remove from the crisis is a product of the fact that I don't have much to lose. Like millions of Americans, I own nothing -- not property, not stock, not a 401(k) plan, not health insurance, not a car, nothing.

Like most people I know in their 20s and 30s, it takes a stretch of the imagination to understand that I have a stake in the national economy. In terms of day-to-day life, my only ties to large financial institutions are a Bank of America checking account, a single low-limit high-fee Visa card, and a Kilimanjaro of student debt, which I have come to accept as something I will die with, not from, like a benign but grapefruit-size tumor or peaceable parasite dwelling in my large intestine. When people use scary terms like "unchartered territory" and "total meltdown," my first thought is, "Would an economic cataclysm wipe out my student debt? If so, then let's press reset and start the whole damn thing over! Burn it clean!"

...[skipped]...

...I request only a pinch from his remaining liquid assets to help pay down my student debt. Because while people with foreclosed homes and repo'd cars can declare Chapter 8 and clean the slate, student loans offer no such hope of escape. Like diamonds and herpes, those dotted lines are forever.

-----

Comment:

I am not at all clear on two things A) why isn't education free and merit-based? and B) why isn't student loan debt dischargeable?

We live in a legal and economic environment that forgives practically anything but the genuine desire to get ahead and become a productive member of society by way of an education.

Something is very wrong with this picture. What gives?