A Generational Storm Is Coming
Dear Diary,
Yesterday, we began our high-minded graduation speech to the Class of 2015.
We explained how the young graduates were not only the most heavily indebted in history, but also the least likely to be able to pay their debts.
Median wages have been going down since these graduates were about five years old… So have economic growth rates.
Today, we continue the speech no one wants us to give…
You are heirs to claptrap, nonsense, bogus theories, and trillions of dollars in debt.
The systems, programs, and institutions your parents set up are mostly worthless scams. Worse, they produce outcomes contrary to their stated goals.
Welfare programs do not help people escape poverty; they keep them mired in it.
Health care programs do not make them healthy; they make them dependent on the drug industry.
Defense industry spending doesn’t make us safer; it funds drones, bumbling interventions, and assassinations… and it creates more foreign enemies.
We end up not only poorer, but also less secure.
All of those assertions take more time to explain and prove than we have time for now. But here’s a little example that you will appreciate…
25 Years of Poverty
Under President Johnson, the government set up the Federal Direct Student Loan Program to provide “low-interest loans” (back then, “low” meant 8%) to students.
Private lenders make the loans, but they receive the full backing of the feds.
The idea was to help you afford higher education… and earn larger salaries as a result. And with your increased earnings you were supposed to be able to pay off the loan.
But at over 11% of outstanding debt, the Student Loan Program now has the highest delinquency rate of all forms of household debt (mortgage loans, auto loans, credit cards).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
