Debt

Even Insured Can Face Crushing Medical Debt

January 6, 2016 Margot Sanger-Katz, www.nytimes.com Educate! Debt, health, Healthcare, Single-Payer

By Margot Sanger-Katz for The New York Times - The number of uninsured Americans has fallen by an estimated 15 million since 2013, thanks largely to the Affordable Care Act. But a new survey, the first detailed study of Americans struggling with medical bills, shows that insurance often fails as a safety net. Health plans often require hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket payments — sums that can create a cascade of financial troubles for the many households living paycheck to paycheck. Carrie Cota learned the hard way that health insurance does not guarantee financial security.

The Potential Of Debtors’ Unions

January 2, 2016 Debt Collective, www.roarmag.org Resist! Debt

By Debt Collective for ROAR Magazine - Financial markets are political. Stock markets, bond markets and derivatives markets do not merely (or even primarily) raise capital for goods and services. Rather, they all have direct and often harmful effects on people’s everyday lives. Our public universities issue bonds to cover the shortfall from tax cuts and, in turn, use ever-rising tuition dollars as collateral. Our mortgage, car and credit card payments are all securitized into short-term, lucrative investments for banks and investors, while for us they are shelter, food, and merely getting by. The municipal bond and sovereign debt markets have had plainly disastrous effects from Detroit to Puerto Rico to Greece—but for some they have been spectacularly profitable.

Why Small Debts Matter So Much To Black Lives

January 2, 2016 Paul Kiel, www.propublica.org Educate! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Debt

By Paul Kiel for Pro Publica - It is not unreasonable to attribute these perils to discrimination. But there’s no question that the main reason small financial problems can have such a disproportionate effect on black families is that, for largely historical reasons rooted in racism, they have far smaller financial reserves to fall back on than white families. The most recent federal survey in 2013 put the difference in net worth between the typical white and black family at $131,000. That’s a big number, but here’s an even more troubling statistic: About one-quarter of African-American families had less than $5 in reserve. Low-income whites had about $375.

Why Is College So Expensive if Professors Are Paid So Little?

September 25, 2015 Michelle Chen, www.truth-out.org Educate! Capitalism, Debt, Education, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Michelle Chen in Truth Out - According to a study by the Campaign for the Future of Education (CFHE), overreliance on precariously employed faculty is devaluing higher education for teachers and students alike. Faculty activists acknowledge the consumer concerns about higher education's value today, including poor completion rates, but link these to a cycle of underinvestment on the teaching side: The "churning of the faculty workforce…low salaries and over-reliance on part-time appointments" erode the quality and attentiveness of instruction, with long-term impacts on public institutions that have historically served the most challenged populations - the poor, people of color and first-generation college students. And as disinvestment and declining academic outcomesdeepen, the overall institutional integrity of higher- education systems erodes.

Colleges Flush With Cash Saddle Poorest Students With Debt

September 15, 2015 Annie Waldman and Sisi Wei, www.propublica.org Educate! Debt, Education, Loans, Student Activism

By Annie Waldman and Sisi Wei in ProPublica - A ProPublica analysis based on new data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that students from low-income families graduate from NYU saddled with huge federal loans. The school’s Pell Grant recipients – students from families that make less than $30,000 a year – owe an average of $23,250 in federal loans after graduation. That’s more federal loan debt than low-income students take on at for-profit giant University of Phoenix, though NYU graduates have higher earnings and default less on their debt. NYU is not the only university with a billion-dollar endowment to leave its poorest students with heavy debt loads. More than a quarter of the nation’s 60 wealthiest universities leave their low-income students owing an average of more than $20,000 in federal loans.

Puerto Rico Proposes Harsh Austerity To Solve Debt Crisis

September 10, 2015 Alice Ollstein, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Austerity, Debt, Puerto Rico

By Alice Ollstein in Think Progress - The government of Puerto Rico put forward an official plan on Wednesday to tackle its looming $72 billion debt crisis. In exchange for demanding some concessions from the island’s hedge fund creditors, the government is promising to pay workers less than the minimum wage, slash retirement benefits, limit collective bargaining, cut funding to universities, and shut down more K-12 schools. In a speech Wednesday, Puerto Rico’s Governor García Padilla said the hedge funds and other creditors had a moral obligation to meet them halfway, otherwise the island will run out of money next summer. “That path…will result in years of litigation and defaults and a major humanitarian crisis,” he said. “It will force us to choose between paying a creditor, a teacher, a policeman or a nurse.”

Wall Street & Military Are Draining Americans High & Dry

September 3, 2015 William Edstrom, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Debt, Finance and the Economy, Wars and Militarism

By William Edstrom in CounterPunch - The United States (US) government often cites $18 trillion as the amount of money that they owe, but their actual debts are higher. Much higher. The government in the USA owes $13.2 trillion in US Treasury Bonds, $5 trillion in money borrowed by the US Federal government from Federal government trust funds like the Social Security trust fund, $0.7 trillion for state bonds issued by the 50 states, $3.7 trillion for the municipal bond market (US towns, cities and counties), $1.97 trillion still owing by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, mostly for bad mortgages in years gone by, $6.23 trillion owed by US government authorities other than Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $1.04 trillion in loans taken out by the US Federal government (e.g. government credit card balances, short term loans) and $0.63 trillion in loans owed by government authorities (e.g. their government credit card balances, short term loans).

A Second Chance For Cooper Union

September 2, 2015 The Committee to Save Cooper Union, www.savecooperunion.org Create! Debt, Education, Human Right

By The Committee to Save Cooper Union - The Committee to Save Cooper Union (CSCU) has been working closely with the New York Attorney General’s Office (OAG) to return Cooper Union to its tuition-free and merit-based mission, ensure the school’s fiscal recovery, and establish better governance structures. The OAG and CSCU challenged the school’s Board of Trustees to rethink its ill-conceived response to the fiscal crisis, reconsider the decision to charge tuition, and accept binding, verifiable changes to how the school is run. Today, we are proud to announce that this effort succeeded and a Consent Decree has been signed by The Cooper Union, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and The Committee to Save Cooper Union. As a part of this agreement, which will be filed with the Court tomorrow, CSCU has settled its lawsuit with the trustees. The Attorney General will also be filing a cy pres petition.

The Hidden Force In For-Profit Closures

August 22, 2015 Michael Stratford, www.insidehighered.com Educate! Debt, Education, Higher Education

By Michael Stratford in Inside Higher Ed - The messy unwinding of Corinthian Colleges was an unprecedented dance among various actors: the U.S. Department of Education, state attorneys general, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and buyers like ECMC’s Zenith Group -- not to mention members of Congress and student and consumer groups. But another, far less visible, entity also had a strong interest in and influence on the outcome: Bank of America and a handful of other banks. The extent to which those institutions, which lent money to help keep Corinthian afloat, were involved in managing the for-profit college giant as it hurtled toward ruin is becoming clearer in the company’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

Trumping The Federal Debt Without Playing The Default Card

August 22, 2015 Ellen Brown, www.ellenbrown.com Educate! Debt, Finance and the Economy

By Ellen Brown - In short, the sovereign debt crisis can be solved by issuing sovereign money. But is there really such a thing as a free lunch? Wouldn’t buying up the debt with newly-issued money lead to a hyperinflationary disaster?That was the fear when the Federal Reserve began its QE program in 2008. But the Fed has now monetized $4.5 trillion in QE ($2.7 trillion of which consisted of buying back federal securities, and these fears have not materialized. The stock market has gone up, but not apparently from an increased money supply. More likely it is from very low interest rates, making bonds unattractive and facilitating stock buybacks and borrowing to invest. The cost of produce has gone up, but it is largely because of drought in California, which supplies nearly half the country’s fruits, vegetables and nuts; and because speculators have moved into foodstuffs. Despite all that, the overall inflation rate remains at manageable levels.

Town In Michigan Pooled Money To Send HS Graduates To College

August 20, 2015 Walter Einenkel, www.dailykos.com Create! Debt, Education, Michigan

By Walter Einenkel in DailyKos - The Atlantic has an article about the town of Baldwin, Michigan, and their decision to help the young people in their community afford college. According to the article, 10 years ago less than half of the small graduating class even enrolled in college, and the number of kids from that class actually graduating from college was two. Today, nearly every student that graduated high school is heading off to college this fall. What changed was the introduction of the Baldwin Promise, a fund which in 2009 offered to pay up to $5,000 a year for any student from the Baldwin public schools to attend a public or private college in Michigan. Now $5,000 might sound like a pittance when compared to the $31,000 private college now costs annually.

Greek Bailout Goes To Servicing The Debt

August 13, 2015 Interview of Dimitri Lascaris Sharmini Peries, www.therealnews.com Educate! Debt, Europe, Greece, Left, Syriza

Interview of Dimitri Lascaris by Sharmini Peries in The Real News - Well, the headline is that a deal has been struck for Greece to borrow on top of its mountain of debt, which everyone now acknowledges is unsustainable, a further 86 billion euros in new loans over three years. Virtually all of which I think one can reasonably anticipate is going to be used to service the existing debt of Greece. So this is very much an extension of the five-year long exercise of extend and pretend that the Syriza government criticized so vehemently before coming to power.Underneath that headline, the next point of importance which I think the government is stressing and they're going to characterize and they have begun to characterize as a victory of sorts is the primary budget surplus targets which have emerged. They actually are significantly lower than those that everyone anticipated would be incorporated into the agreement based upon the deal that was struck in broad strokes on July 13 in Brussels.

Court Fees Trap Ex-Inmates In A Prison Of Debt

August 5, 2015 E. Tammy Kim, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Debt, Mass Incarceration, Prison

By E. Tammy Kim in Al Jazeera - In Washington, a state whose progressive reputation masks a tough-on-crime undercurrent, defendants and prisoners are charged “user fees” that fund the state and local systems designed to put them away. Those who do not or cannot pay are at risk of arrest and reimprisonment. It’s a national trend: In nearly every state, offenders pay for court costs, representation by a public defender, jail and probation, and fees are on the rise. The county clerk’s offices that depend most on these sums routinely refer to defendants as “customers”. Since 2003, Spokane County, home to about half a million people, has more than doubled what it collects in these legal financial obligations, or LFOs, from criminal defendants.

Puerto Rico Defaults On Debt Repayment

August 5, 2015 Dominic Rushe, www.theguardian.com Educate! Colonialism, Debt, Debt Colony, Puerto Rico

By Dominic Rushe in The Guardian - Puerto Rico missed its first debt repayment on Monday, the first time the troubled US commonwealth has failed to pay its bills. The island paid just $628,000 toward a $58m debt due to creditors of its Public Finance Corporation. While the default was expected, it is likely to worsen the financial situation for the island as it struggles with debts estimated at $72bn. “This was a decision that reflects the serious concerns about the Commonwealth’s liquidity in combination with the balance of obligations to our creditors and the equally important obligations to the people of Puerto Rico,” the territory’s government development bank president, Melba Acosta Febo, said in a statement. Late last month Víctor Suárez, chief of staff for governor Alejandro García Padilla, warned that the government did not have the money for the $58m of principal and interest due on Public Finance Corporation bonds.

Hedge Funds Helped Destroy Puerto Rico’s Economy, Poor Pay Price

August 3, 2015 Alice Ollstein, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Austerity, Debt, IMF, Puerto Rico, usa

By Alice Ollstein in Think Progress - Angry graffiti scrawled across the brightly colored buildings of San Juan tells the creditors of the world exactly where they can stick their plan to extract roughly $73 billion in debt from the struggling U.S. territory. “Puerto Rico comes first. To hell with the debt,” reads one wall. “Don’t play around with my retirement,” says the side of a major freeway. Down by the University of Puerto Rico, the walls and sidewalk are filled with laments — “Look into my unemployed face” — and calls to action: “Study and fight!” Depending who you ask in Puerto Rico, the debt crisis was caused by neo-colonial and imperialist policies from the U.S., the Puerto Rican government’s wasteful overspending and corruption, or the cadre of hedge funds that are currently profiting from the island’s woes.

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