Senior Citizens and Student Debt

Higher Education Bubble Update:  The Federal Reserve Bank of News York has some stunning data on student loan debt.  $135 billion -- 15% of the total -- of the $870 billion in student loan debt is owed by Americans over the age of 50 and $35 billion is owed by Americans over the age of 60.

Student loan debt means a lifetime of servitude for millions of Americans,   

How College Students Were Shafted by Obamacare

Friday's Wall Street Journal discusses exactly how young people have been shafted by Obamacare.  Hope and Change! 

College students in nearly all states will be hit with a triple whammy. First of all, tuitions are increasing at public universities and colleges in large part because ObamaCare restricts governors from making changes to Medicaid eligibility that would reduce their state's health-care costs. Consequently, higher education is one of the first places they can cut.

College students are being hit again because the federal government took over the student-loan business in 2010, eliminating the competition. This allows the Education Department to borrow money from Treasury at an interest rate of 2.8% and lend it to college students at a rate of 6.8%. A portion of the profits from overcharging students will be used to help pay for ObamaCare.

And the third blow comes as college students graduate and enter a depressed job market where employers are creating fewer jobs as a result of the high costs associated with ObamaCare. Analysts at UBS have suggested as much when they stated in a September 2011 report that the health-care law is "arguably the biggest impediment to hiring, particularly hiring of less skilled workers."

Supreme Court Oral Argument Show How Obamacare Hurts Young People

Oral argument in the Supreme Court case regarding Obamacare shows why the program is harmful to young people.  If the federal government was making retirees pay $5,000 a year for insurance coverage that could be purchased on the open market for $854 a year, you better believe that the politicians in Washington would be hearing about it.  Why is it OK for the government to shaft your generation to pay for entitlements for oldsters? 

JUSTICE ALITO: But isn't that a very small part of what the mandate is doing? You can correct me if these figures are wrong, but it appears to me that the CBO has estimated that the average premium for a single insurance policy in the non-group market would be roughly $5,800 in — in 2016.
Respondents — the economists have supported — the Respondents estimate that a young, healthy individual targeted by the mandate on average consumes about $854 in health services each year. So the mandate is forcing these people to provide a huge subsidy to the insurance companies for other purposes that the act wishes to serve, but isn't — if those figures are right, isn't it the case that what this mandate is really doing is not requiring the people who are subject to it to pay for the services that they are going to consume? It is requiring them to subsidize services that will be received by somebody else.
GENERAL VERRILLI: No, I think that — I do think that's what the Respondents argue. It's just not right. I think it — it really gets to a fundamental problem with their argument.
JUSTICE GINSBURG: If you're going to have insurance, that's how insurance works.
GENERAL VERRILLI: A, it is how insurance works, but, B, the problem that they — that they are identifying is not that problem. The — the guaranteed issue and community rating reforms do not have the effect of forcing insurance companies to take on lots of additional people who they then can't afford to cover because they're — they tend to be the sick, and that is — in fact, the exact opposite is what happens here.
 

Detroit Students Walkout: Students Demand an Education

There is no institution in society that is doing more to steal the future of young people than the public education system. The Detroit Free Press  reports that: 

About 50 high school students at Frederick Douglass Academy in Detroit were suspended Thursday after walking out of classes to protest a host of issues at the all-boys school. The concerns included a lack of consistent teachers and the removal of the principal. The boys, dressed in school blazers, neckties and hoodies, chanted, "We want education!" as they marched outside the school. Parents organized the walkout because they fear for the school's future. As recently as last month, students spent weeks passing time in the gym, library or cafeteria due to a lack of teachers, parents said

If the failings of the education bureaucracy had even 1% of the attention of that of the single Trayvon Martin case, there may be some hope for these young people.  

NYT: How Italy’s Labor Codes Hurt Young People

The New York Times reports on how Italy’s labor laws are stealing the future away from young Italians.  Labor and pension laws provide older Italians with employment protections and generous pensions.  The cost is borne by young people who have less job security and more dismal future prospects as a result.

ROME — Assunta Linza, a bright-eyed 33-year-old with a college degree in psychology, has been unemployed since June, after losing a temporary job as a call-center operator. Her father, who is 60 and has a fifth-grade education, took early retirement with full benefits at age 42 from a job as a workman at the Italian state railway company.

“Everyone said that kids should study to get ahead, but I graduated with highest honors, and the only thing my degree is good for is to hang on the wall,” Ms. Linza said dryly. 

Barack Obama’s agenda involves the expansion of union power and entitlement programs.  The experience of young people in Italy should provide fair warning of where Mr. Obama’s agenda is taking your future.

American Mammoni

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the percentage of young people living with their parents has reached the highest level since the 1950’s.  

After graduating from Brown University in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature and completing a Fulbright scholarship in Brazil, Cassie Owens was left with a few dollars on her stipend and no job in sight. So, Ms. Owens returned home to her mother in Philadelphia.

“I moved back home pretty much for lack of money and prospects,” she says. Owens’s cousin, Evon Burton, who also returned home after graduating from Morehouse College in 2009, adds, “The choice is to go out and be in debt or to pursue your dreams and save up money at home, in a safe, stable environment.”

US Youth Unemployment at European Levels

How's that hopey changey stuff working out?  Labor force participation of young Americans falls to a 64 year low under Barack Obama.