The US Debt Story in Video

[FRED]

A tread that documents perspectives on personal debt in the US. It will be continuously updated as new videos are found.

Bush's Debt

bushdebtmov


Credit Industrial Complex

creditindustrialcomplexmov


Generation Debt

generationdebtmov

generationdebtbook


Average American family is $9000 in debt - Citizen Rant

citizendebtrantmov

[rich4495]

Re: The US Debt Story in Video

This thread could probably use a thorough update. The current debt situation here is dragging down economies around the world.

[mikedev10]

Re: The US Debt Story in Video

i am very eagerly awaiting this... http://www.agorafinancial.com/iousa.html

[World Traveler]

Student Loans - Debtors Prison For Decades

I stumbled into this website about 3 or 4 years ago, and read through some of personal testimonies. I was SHOCKED!

Story after story of young (and a few older) students or graduates who lost a job, had health problems, couldn't find a decent-paying job, etc. and had to decrease or temporarily suspend payment on their student loans for a while. They then had thousands, up to tens of thousands of dollars tacked onto their student loans in the guise of late fees and jacked up interest rates.

Or stories of people who thought they had paid off their student loans but did not keep all their cancelled checks for the last 20 years. Company A did not keep good records of payments, sold their student loan to company B, who sold it to company C, and 15 years later Company C is hounding them to pay off tens of thousands of dollars on student loans they thought they had paid off.

I actually talked to a neighbor in above situation - a student loan she had paid off in the early 90's but did not have the cancelled checks for, and she was now paying to Company C, because she could not prove she had paid off Company A. Company A's records were a mess and they had sold off their student loans to raise money.

Per StudentLoanJustice, Sallie Mae, VERY profitable until recently especially for its CEO and Board, is one of the worst, in terms of taking a $40,000 loan and multiplying it into an $70,000 loan via late fees and jacked up interest rates. 60 Minutes interviewed founder of StudentLoanJustice and had a segment on Sallie Mae, a couple of years ago.

And student loans cannot be discharged via bankruptcy. They were exempted due to, among other things, intensive lobbying by Sallie Mae and other student loan organizations, when new bankruptcy law was passed.

Is this how we want to treat the next generation of Americans, who among other things, need to be solvent and to pay taxes, to keep U.S. economy and government operating?

After discovering this site, I would not let my son take out any student loans. He is attending the best 4 year university in our state, so we can pay-as-we-go, and he will graduate debt-free.

http://www.studentloanjustice.org/victims.htm