Student Loan Rates - How Much Profit?

Many conservatives argue "Government should be run like a business!"


But they complain when it is.  Look at student loans.  Currently, the average rate paid for money the Government borrows is 2.187% (down from 2.370% a year ago. [1])


For student loans, the government charges 3.4% So, at the existing rate, the government is making a spread of about 1.2% - we are making money on those student loans.


That is exactly what banks do - borrow low and lend higher.  Our student loans are already a profitable "business."


But the GOP either wants to double the interest rate or "pay for" keeping it low and affordable by taking money away from other programs.  


There is no need to "pay for" the lower rate - what the GOP is pushing to do is take money from other programs if they can't make obscene profits from students.


When they say "government should be run like a business," apparently they really mean government should be run like a loan sharking business - with excessive profits screwed out from students.


Education makes our country stronger.  Why is the GOP trying to increase the cost of making our country stronger?

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[1]  http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/rates/pd/avg/2012/2012_03.htm

Incurring Debt For College

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has “very little tolerance for people who tell me that they graduate with $200,000 of debt or even $80,000 of debt.”

She said, “There’s no reason for that.”

Hmmmm.

Adjusted for inflation, in 1968, the year she was graduated, the average tuition, room & board for public university was $1,064

In 2007 the average tuition, room & board for public university was $11,034.

That's 1,037 percent increase in the basic costs of a public university education.

But “there’s no reason for” these levels of educational debt,” she said.

In my experience, most working college folks make about minimum wage or slightly above.

In 1968, the federal minimum wage was $7.21. (Adjusted for 1996 dollars, the first chart I found.)

In 2007, the federal minimum wage was $4.41 (adjusted for 1996 dollars.)

So.... For a public university, at minimum wage as adjusted, in 1968 it would have taken 148 hours a year to earn room, board and tuition. (Less than 4 weeks working full time.)

For a public university, at minimum wage as adjusted, in 2007 it would have taken 2,502 hours a year to earn room, board and tuition. (A full time job at 40 hours a week is 2,000 hours a year.)

But “there’s no reason for” these levels of educational debt,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, Republican of NC, said.

By the way, Representative Foxx chairs the House subcommittee on higher education.

And she even

has a higher education, herself.

She was graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor's degree in 1968 and later earned both a Master of Arts in college teaching (1972) and Ed.D (1985) from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

I was only a sophomore in 1968, but I'm pretty sure we were all taught concepts like "then and now" and "adjusting for inflation" and "things change." Some of us even learned "critical thinking skills." I guess not all of us - or maybe she's just forgotten.

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Of course, if the idea of incurring debt to develop a better, more prosperous future is a bad idea, then America's corporations are really screwed up. At the end of 2011, US corporations had $7.8 Trillion aggregate debt.

Is that going to bother people who really think corporations are almost always right? Or Is Rep Foxx just a trifle confused about the role of debt?

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Sources:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_320.asp

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0774473.html

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/z1r-2.pdf

Common Sense and Voter Fraud

To there extent that there is "voter fraud," one would have to assume that it is evenly split between votes for Republican candidates and for Democratic candidates -- effectively self-cancelling.

Or do Republicans claim that all fraudulent votes would be caste for Democrats? That the only fraudulent voters are democrats?

Are concerns about voter fraud nothing more than psychological projection?

In my experience, you can tell a lot about a person and his values by the way he views others - honest people tend to assume others are honest -- liars tend to assume everyone else is a liar.

So, when someone gets all worked up about other folks committing voter fraud - well, you figure it out.....

Temp-Post Gas Prices

For a FB thread

Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Are you your brothers' and sisters' keeper?

Last spring I started asking various folks about God's question to Cain about the whereabouts of the slain Abel in the Genesis poem and Cain's question in response: "Am I my brother’s keeper?"

8 Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

9 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Genesis 4:8-10 (NASB)

Recall that God doesn't answer Cain.

So I've asked folks (maybe a couple dozen or so): If God had answered Cain, would his answer been

1. "Yes, you are" or,
2. "No you aren't" or,
3. "Well, its complicated"?

Interestingly, for the most part dems and liberals pretty much answer "Well, 'yes' --- duh!"

I'd always thought/assumed everyone's answer would be "He's have answered 'Yes.'"

But I was wrong. I have found that the few conservatives who answer "yes" usually hesitate for awhile before answering. (A couple haven't hesitated in the least.

Most end up either with "well it's complicated" or by avoiding an answer altogether.

One conservative internet friend went so far as to argue that God was using the term "keeper" in the sense of animal husbandry so that is was a trick question!

(He found that argument through a google search and found a site that argued that The argument is based on the line a few passages before that "Abel was a keeper of flocks..." I checked an interlinear Hebrew translation, however, and found that the two passages use two different words which are translated into English as "keeper.")

So I was intrigued by this little tidbit from President Obama speech to the UAW.

I have a number of concerns about President Obama's values and his presidential record, but I sure liked his clear pronouncement of being our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

Libertarian Achievements

When will someone in the "main stream media" point out that a libertarian, Alan Greenspan, ran our primary banking regulatory agency, the Federal Reserve, for 19 years, leaving only shortly before the banking collapse of 2008?

Could there be a more resounding proof that libertarianism is a failed concept?

Good Samaritan Parable, a la Santorum

Presidential Candidate Rick Santorum has taught us that the sick are to blame for pre-existing conditions.

He says he is a Christian. I’m thinking this must be in his personal revision of the Word of God

“The parable of the Good Samaritan, Santorum version:

30Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

"Of course," Jesus added, "they didn't have to do crappola because that idiot shouldn't have been out on the Jericho road at night dressed like that. It's his own fault he was mugged."

Jesus Continued: "33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. What a dumb jerk - just another bleeding heart liberal trying to steal my gospels."