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<blockquote data-quote="rickyb" data-source="post: 4952695" data-attributes="member: 56035">Anthony Fiorentino:&nbsp; Well, I think it&#039;s disgraceful, Ralph. I&#039;ve always agreed with the public good theory of education. I don&#039;t think you can have a functioning citizenry unless they&#039;re educated. And in&nbsp; any&nbsp; advanced&nbsp; industrialized&nbsp; economy,&nbsp; and&nbsp; particularly&nbsp; the&nbsp; 27&nbsp; OECD&nbsp; countries,&nbsp; education&nbsp; is treated as a public good. You can go to countries in Scandinavia, not only do not take out loans while you&#039;re going to school, they pay you a stipend. They actually pay you to go to school because school is work. Ask anybody who is pursuing a PhD or a doctorate. They&#039;ll you, it&#039;s a lot of hard &nbsp;&nbsp;work to go to school and to excel. And so instead of taking out loans, we should be doing that. We should be investing in people having an educated citizenry. But instead, we&#039;ve created a predatory lending system that is not about creating pathways to education; it&#039;s about enriching large for-profit corporations&nbsp; and&nbsp; banks.&nbsp; And&nbsp; unfortunately,&nbsp; it&#039;s&nbsp; also&nbsp; about&nbsp; taxing&nbsp; the&nbsp; middle&nbsp; class&nbsp; because&nbsp; this federal loan program is actually a tax. It&#039;s just called a loan, but it&#039;s a way of getting revenue for the federal government without having to tax corporations. So you charge these interest-bearing loans to working class people and then you don&#039;t have to tax them because you already just charged them interest on an interest-bearing loan.&nbsp; And&nbsp; so&nbsp; it&nbsp; is&nbsp; a&nbsp; disgraceful&nbsp; system&nbsp; and&nbsp; it&#039;s&nbsp; really&nbsp; predatory.&nbsp; I&#039;ve&nbsp; seen&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; if&nbsp; you&nbsp; watch&nbsp; the documentary, Scared to Debt which, as I said, the first installment has just come out, there is one borrower who originally borrowed $20,000 and this was 20 years ago [yet] she has been making payments ever since, and now she owes over&nbsp; $214,000. That&#039;s because the payments don&#039;t even touch&nbsp; the&nbsp; principal.&nbsp; You&#039;re&nbsp; just&nbsp; paying&nbsp; back&nbsp; interest&nbsp; year&nbsp; after&nbsp; year,&nbsp; and&nbsp; the&nbsp; interest&nbsp; keeps compounding and you can never get out from underneath it. I mean it&#039;s so much worse than paying lenders.&nbsp; Ralph Nader:&nbsp; So the US government, through its contracts and fine print outsourcing, has turned itself into a loan shark.&nbsp; Anthony Fiorentino:&nbsp; Well, absolutely, Ralph. When you strip away consumer protections, like bankruptcy&nbsp; protections&nbsp; [and]&nbsp; like&nbsp; statutes&nbsp; of&nbsp; limitation&nbsp; on&nbsp; collection,&nbsp; you&nbsp; create&nbsp; a&nbsp; functionally predatory&nbsp; loan&nbsp; system.&nbsp; And&nbsp; that&#039;s&nbsp; why&nbsp; it&#039;s&nbsp; now&nbsp; common&nbsp; for&nbsp; borrowers&nbsp; to&nbsp; pay&nbsp; back&nbsp; the&nbsp; amount they borrowed plus interest without ever touching the principal balance and still keep going. Most borrowers&#039; payments that I&#039;ve spoken to, and I&#039;ve spoken to thousands, only cover the interest. And you&#039;ve got interest rates as high as&nbsp; 7%. And so what we have now&nbsp; is really a predatory&nbsp; lending system that&#039;s being run by&nbsp; the federal government in collusion with these federal&nbsp; loan servicers who&nbsp; are&nbsp; supposedly&nbsp; servicing&nbsp; the&nbsp; loans&nbsp; but&nbsp; in&nbsp; most&nbsp; cases&nbsp; they&#039;re&nbsp; just&nbsp; kicking&nbsp; people&nbsp; out&nbsp; of repayment plans that they&#039;re entitled to be [URL unfurl=&quot;true&quot;]https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.254/c03.434.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ralph-Nader-Radio-Hour-Ep-386-Transcript.pdf[/URL]</blockquote>

[QUOTE="rickyb, post: 4952695, member: 56035"] Anthony Fiorentino: Well, I think it's disgraceful, Ralph. I've always agreed with the public good theory of education. I don't think you can have a functioning citizenry unless they're educated. And in any advanced industrialized economy, and particularly the 27 OECD countries, education is treated as a public good. You can go to countries in Scandinavia, not only do not take out loans while you're going to school, they pay you a stipend. They actually pay you to go to school because school is work. Ask anybody who is pursuing a PhD or a doctorate. They'll you, it's a lot of hard work to go to school and to excel. And so instead of taking out loans, we should be doing that. We should be investing in people having an educated citizenry. But instead, we've created a predatory lending system that is not about creating pathways to education; it's about enriching large for-profit corporations and banks. And unfortunately, it's also about taxing the middle class because this federal loan program is actually a tax. It's just called a loan, but it's a way of getting revenue for the federal government without having to tax corporations. So you charge these interest-bearing loans to working class people and then you don't have to tax them because you already just charged them interest on an interest-bearing loan. And so it is a disgraceful system and it's really predatory. I've seen . . . if you watch the documentary, Scared to Debt which, as I said, the first installment has just come out, there is one borrower who originally borrowed $20,000 and this was 20 years ago [yet] she has been making payments ever since, and now she owes over $214,000. That's because the payments don't even touch the principal. You're just paying back interest year after year, and the interest keeps compounding and you can never get out from underneath it. I mean it's so much worse than paying lenders. Ralph Nader: So the US government, through its contracts and fine print outsourcing, has turned itself into a loan shark. Anthony Fiorentino: Well, absolutely, Ralph. When you strip away consumer protections, like bankruptcy protections [and] like statutes of limitation on collection, you create a functionally predatory loan system. And that's why it's now common for borrowers to pay back the amount they borrowed plus interest without ever touching the principal balance and still keep going. Most borrowers' payments that I've spoken to, and I've spoken to thousands, only cover the interest. And you've got interest rates as high as 7%. And so what we have now is really a predatory lending system that's being run by the federal government in collusion with these federal loan servicers who are supposedly servicing the loans but in most cases they're just kicking people out of repayment plans that they're entitled to be [URL unfurl="true"]https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.254/c03.434.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Ralph-Nader-Radio-Hour-Ep-386-Transcript.pdf[/URL] [/QUOTE]

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