Student Loans -- Not a Crisis

I went to school late in life.  I didn't catch "the bug" until my mid to late 20's and graduated with my bachelor's degree at the ripe young age of 31.  Knowing that I had to pay for all of my education I was strategic and deliberate.  Something about footing the bill made it more valuable -- in class I wanted my money's worth!  I didn't want class to be let our early or have class cancelled. I had paid for the whole hour.

I started at a community college.  I found there, teachers who wanted to teach rather than teachers who needed to publish.  Most large universities make a good portion of their income on the published works of its professors; the professors there MUST publish or perish.  That need to publish is often a distraction from their primary job of teaching -- not so at a community college.  I worked toward a transfer goal and was accepted to U.C. Davis as a junior. Thus far I had no student debt.  I worked throughout my first two years and found the community college schedule quite conducive for that.

At Davis I applied for student aid.  I got a Pell Grant which almost everyone can get.  I got a Board of Governor's Grant in California which again almost anyone can get.  I applied for a couple of other small private grants and got them too.  The grant money is out there -- you just have to sit down and do it.  I then applied for two small student loans.  The lowest rate was 5% and the highest hovered just under 8%.  Again I found a part time job at a golf country club waiting tables.  I studied, I road my bike and I worked.  I did not party, play harder than I worked and did not waste my time or my money.

When I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Economics I had just under $8K in student debt.  That to me was a lot of money!  I had a year before I needed to begin paying it back.  Right after graduation I moved to Colorado and set out to find a job.  None were to be found.  The dot com bubble had begun to leak and was readying to burst.  I knew no one and had no inside connections for anything.  It took me nearly six months to land a “real” job of any kind through a temp agency, prior to that I took any temp work that came along.  The “good” temp job ended up becoming a permanent job and I was set.  Then the bubble did burst and the Titanic-of-a-software-company I was working for went belly up.  I found more temp jobs and was able to piece together an income.  By now my loans were due.

When I began paying them back the payments were small -- very small. Anyone who did not take out more than a couple of loans can make those payments of the income of a waitress.  I found myself having to take work that did not use my degree at all but paid the bills.  I began to pay extra on the higher interest loan to pay it down faster.  When it was paid off I paid extra on the lower interest loan.  I paid them all off early. When you hear young people dithering about having debt until they are 40 (assuming they went to college right after high school) that is because of one of two things and sometimes both.  First, they took out way too much money in the forms of loans.  They don't have to do that -- they CHOOSE to do that.  And second they make minimum payments on those loans.  Most don't have to do that either.  They can forgo 3 lattes a week and make an extra payment.

On the morning before Mr. Obama was to address students at CU Boulder they interviewed students who had been waiting in line for tickets all night.  We heard the interviews on local radio. One girl was so excited that he was coming and that he as addressing the fact that their student loan interest rates were going up to just over 6%.  She went on to say that she thought education should be a "right".  Wait a sec young lady; you did get twelve years of free education!  I helped pay for your education too.  The rest of it is up to you.  Spread your little wings and fly.  The gift that all of us are blessed with in the United States is a free K-12 education.  Some people beyond that don't need or want more.  They take up a trade, enter into an apprenticeship or begin as an hourly worker somewhere and work their way up to management.  I would venture to guess that a large portion of today's degrees are never "used".  The college-aged generation today was raised in an entitlement atmosphere so no wonder they have an entitlement frame of mind.  A college education is NOT a right; the freedom to PURSUE one is.

Today’s student loan debt exceeds one TRILLION dollars.  Students are protesting this debt.  But wait a minute – it is their debt, not mine, not yours, but theirs.  Some of them actually want that debt forgiven.  I would like my mortgage debt forgiven too and my car payment and the credits cards, but that is not going to happen.  A student loan is an unsecured loan – they can’t really repossess a kid’s education.  Because it is unsecured, young people can actually threaten to walk away from their own personal debt and have few repercussions.  In many cases the value of the education in real terms is lower than the cost of the loan they took out to get that education.  But no one likes to look at this critically because it is our “young people” and it is “education”.  At eighteen a young man can enter the military and die in on foreign soil for the freedoms of this country. His peers of the same age can make better life decisions regarding their debt and their tolerance for it.  To write this off as an “error of the young” is absurd and inexcusable – this time if any, is the best time for them to learn to stand on their own two feet.   Today’s young people have got to understand what debt is and what it means before they take it on.

There are not a lot of great jobs out there – but there are jobs.  No one should believe that by getting a degree they are entitled to a job – it just isn’t so.  I took whatever I could get in order to support myself and service my debt.  I was not entitled to a thing – neither are they.  Grow up and take responsibility for the decisions you make and the money you take.

Slavery in America -- Common Ground

Don't ask me why I thought to look this up. I stumbled upon the idea while doing a completely unrelated Internet search. In that search myriad side bar stories came up. One was a story about a white teen ager in Kansas City who had been doused with gasoline by black teen aged boys. It happened a month ago and I never heard a word of it. I have heard an endless barrage of stories about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, but no word of the burning of an Anglo boy by Black boys. I began to think about what I was taught in high school and even college American History classes about blacks and whites in America and about America's slavery. What I found was interesting.

We all were taught a good deal about black slavery in America. We all know that he civil war was in part fought to change the plight of the black slave. We think we know that happened. Then I remembered a term that was talked about regarding whites. "Indentured servant." I began to research what it really meant, not what I was taught it meant. What it means in the vast majority of all situations is "slave". 
Long before any black person was enslaved or sold in America, tens of thousands of Anglo-Saxons were. Writer Elaine Kendall asks "Who wants to be reminded that half - perhaps as many as two-thirds - of the original American colonists came here, not of their own free will, but kidnapped, shanghaied, impressed, duped, beguiled, and yes, in chains - ?...we tend to gloss over it... we'd prefer to forget the whole sorry chapter." The word "slave" itself is derived from the word "slav," a reference to the Eastern European White people who, among others, were enslaved by their fellow Whites, by the Mongols, and by the Arabs over a period of many centuries. The white people, who were bought, sold and worked until death did not refer to themselves as servants but as slaves. The Black slaves referred to them as "white slaves".

According to Thomas Burton's Parliamentary Diary 1656-1659, in 1659 the English parliament debated the practice of selling British Whites into slavery in the New World. The Irish and the Scots were the most heavily traded and often put into situations often more dangerous than their black counterparts because their owners deemed them less valuable and expendable. If they died or fell overboard it was not a great loss. The term kidnapping, originally kid-nabbing, was a term coined to refer to the abduction of poor white children to be sold into slavery in Britain or plantations in America. Also the term "spirited-away" was a term used when any White person was taken against his will as the white slaves were called "spirits".

The mass establishment media, as well as academia, focuses exclusively on the enslavement of Blacks. It is promulgated that only Whites bear responsibility for enslaving Blacks and that only Blacks were slaves. The perpetuation of this non-truth is in part responsible for the ongoing division in America between Blacks and Whites. There is still blaming and there is still shaming even though not single living black person was a slave nor a living white person a slave owner. In fact, Blacks in Africa engaged in widespread slavery of their own. Slavery was endemic in Africa, with whole tribes being enslaved through conquest on a regular basis. When Arabic, Jewish and White slave traders arrived on the coast of sub-Saharan Africa, they did not often have to hunt their quarry -- they almost never had to leave port. They were met on the coast by Africans more than willing to sell slaves to them by the thousands. And in America, records show that Black slaves were owned, not just by a few wealthy Whites, but by free Blacks and by Cherokee Indians. In some cases, these Blacks and Indians even owned White slaves.

While I found a lot of answers in my research, it left me with a nagging question. Why? Why is it so important to keep the historic plight of the black slave alive and well yet the story of the white slave is never, not ever told? Why is the story of the white slave not only "not told" but a new story called "indentured servitude" fabricated to gloss over it? There were some indentured servants (both black and white), but in all my reading I found that the vast majority of them were slaves with no way what so ever to work toward freedom. This rewriting of history is a very deliberate and calculated process. To what end? I hesitate to use the word "agenda" because I don't want this to be laced with anything other than the facts as I found them. But it bears to ask what is the purpose today to perpetuate this fallacy? What was the purpose in the first place?

It might be a useful thing to talk about and to bring out in the light and I mean REALLY talk about. Maybe, just maybe if we do this true equality can be felt and resentments of past crimes can be let go. We might find some connectivity in our ancestors' common misery. It seems that finding common ground -- of any kind is a good thing.

The EPA Power Grab

The EPA was started in the early 1970's by none other than Richard Nixon. It was the days that we all can remember the "Give a hoot, don't pollute" and of course the Indian paddling through a trash filled lake and the moving ending of the close up of the tear on his cheek.  I remember those commercials CLEARLY and they moved me, even as a little kid.  I was a conservationist before anyone was talking about it.  I picked up trash, collected aluminum cans and turned OFF the water while I was brushing my teeth. We never did a half load of laundry and dear God knows how many times we reused a zip lock bag (considered precious) or a piece of tin foil.  We turned lights off in rooms that we weren't using or it came out of our allowance.  I still do all of these things today.

The EPA has its fingers in almost everybody's pie. Take for example the lead based paint measures that must be taken when you remodel a house built before 1978.  If you are hiring a contractor he must go to extreme measures to make sure no particles become airborne if he disturbs more than 6 square feet of anything. These extreme measures can add hundreds of dollars to the expense of a very small job but will lead to thousands and thousands on a larger job.  Do you have thousands of dollars extra to spend?  But if you are an owner-builder or a do-it-yourself person you don't need to comply -- you can tear up as much as you want!  If it is truly THAT dangerous why wouldn't everyone have to do it?  The irony of this sort of mandate is that it will drive jobs like this underground -- where there will be no permits and no controls.  Remember back alley abortions -- they happened anyway.

Today's EPA is an organization that has run amok.  It has its fingers in literally everything we do because everything we do has some perceived impact, directly or indirectly on the environment.  I am going to give you a couple of examples of what the EPA is up to and how it affects us locally.  But when I am done, make sure understand that I am talking about a FEDERAL mandate so it will affect you too.

First I will note that the EPA is now a cabinet level-organization.  In its requirements for changes in the law it must submit those changes to Congress.  There is no language that requires Congress to APPROVE anything!  So all they do is say "This is what we are going to do" and they can do it.  NO checks and balances.  This is the beginning of "amok".

The EPA manages how towns, municipalities and states deal with storm water runoff -- among MANY other things -- but we will narrow our focus on just this for now.  In many eastern cities the storm runoff enters the sewer system and then becomes a part of the sewer treatment process.  If that is the case I understand a strict set of management rules around it.  In the west and the mid-west that is almost NEVER the case.  Storm runoff is distinctly separate from anything other than storm runoff. The two systems have nothing, no pipes, no controls, nothing in common.  In fact the local laws around development require that they be kept separate.

The EPA also issues permits for municipalities, counties and states and has the right to audit all the past projects of those entities and make decisions about whether or not they were done properly, an entity that performs badly on an audit risks losing its permit or will not be renewed.  Without that permit the entity cannot issue citizens any permits to build anything.

So now the EPA wants to mandate that all run off from a storm in every state in the nation handle that run off as if it were water pollution. So they are now saying that water is a pollutant to water. Not only do they want this moving forward but they want to require that all developments be retro fitted to comply with these new standards.  Our county engineers did a study on a single, medium-sized commercial development in Highlands Ranch, Colorado.  It was a small strip shopping center with a Safeway as the anchor store.  The retrofit on that development alone would cost $1.2 million dollars and that does not include the purchase of the land that the newly constructed retention pond would have to be on.  What commercial land owner has that kind of money?  If the Horse Park had to retrofit for all if its barns and arenas we would close the doors. The EPA wants this to apply now to everyone -- residential and commercial in EVERY state whether your land sits inside a city limit or is in the middle of nowhere.  So now if you build a home on a city lot or on 40 acres or 640 acres in Huerfano (BFE) County you must have a storm water mitigation plan.  This entails building a retention pond and making sure that all run off from every roof, driveway or impermeable surface of ANY kind goes into that pond.  Keeping the water that comes off your structure IN the pond and only releasing it back onto the ground at historic flow rates (this means in Colorado very slowly).  So now you have to dedicate land for nothing other than a storm event.  What happens if you don't have that much land to set aside for this pond?  Tough doo-doo, you can't develop.  The city lot won't be large enough anyway -- where would your pond go?  

 The cost for all of this pond building and retro fitting lands squarely on the shoulders of the land owner or the developer.  Any of the economic recovery we have seen (if there has been any) will stop cold.  Oh and there are already requirements for "pond owners" to control mosquitoes -- so now you have yet another thing to manage. The EPA makes suggestions about now using that pond for irrigation.  What they don't realize is that in the state of Colorado it is against state law to trap rain water and put it to use (dumb, I know -- but true).  The state wants all water to return to the aquifer. The other thought that comes to me is this, I am trapping the water because it is now considered pollution. If that water in the pond is considered "pollution" why would you allow me to now water my grass with it?

Another amazingly costly mandate concerns road building.  The EPA is now asking that anytime a road is being re-surfaced and a mile or more of the surface is removed for the laying of new asphalt that the road be considered NEW development.  The road is not changing at all.  The road bed and the grading and subsurface are still totally intact. The path of the road is not changing. The difference between new development and redevelopment is HUGE where the EPA is concerned.  This would require new EISs (environmental impact studies) to be done for all resurfacing projects.  All the engineering to be redone and every hoop that is out there to be jumped through again. So not only does this add amazing expense to road building it stalls the process mercilessly.  I don't know about your state but here in Colorado we have a narrow window in the seasons for road building.  If we thought the roads were bad now…just wait, they'll get worse!

So the EPA is mandating from Washington requirements for states that have nothing in COMMON with Washington to change the way they do business.  The EPA is taking away a state's right to manage itself and is passing laws at the federal level that don't take the unique physical, legal and environmental factors OF a particular state into account.

I had a long meeting with one of our county engineers.  Our county is going to lead the charge against the EPA.  We are going to demand that when the EPA goes before Congress that they MUST get Congressional approval.  Our county had experienced unparallel growth in the last decade -- most occurring in the first part of the last decade.  In 2007 it was ranked in the top ten of the fastest growing counties in the nation.  Over that decade our water quality has steadily increased.  Despite the growth the local ground water and the stream water has gotten better; in fact it is outstanding.  This is because the county cares about itself. It is one of the reasons people choose to live here.  The EPA doesn't care that the practices already in place exceed the goals and standards of most of the nation.  Whatever the county is doing now WORKS.  Who knows if the new EPA standards will positively or negatively affect the stellar record of Douglas County? This sort of blanket law very likely will have negative unintended consequences. They obviously haven't tested them in environments like ours -- heck they don't even know our state's laws around water and water use. I guess it won't matter though -- no one will be able to afford to build.  Thank you EPA for cutting our throats yet again.

What I don't get is, why?  In this case I know that the EPA does not care about the record of water quality.  In the case of Douglas County they have not even looked at it.  I know in Colorado, Douglas County is not the only one doing things well -- the state as a whole is doing this very well. We think that the EPA is motivated by environmental concerns and protecting it.  We all know it requires balance to do so.  We must allow growth and economic recovery and attempt to mitigate negative impacts on the environment.  But we know we can't eliminate them altogether and be a society of civilized people.  Flush toilets are far better than outhouses for ground water and public health.  If the EPA continues its control and mandates -- who is going to be able to build anything?  The EPA has being running so far and so fast without any sort of checks and balances that they have both lost sight and lost perspective.  Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Other than having "power", extreme power, I am not sure what the EPA gets out of all of this.  But we see tyrannical dictators all through history acting in bizarre ways -- the EPA at this point is no different.

These are just a few of the things that will be directly affected by new EPA standards.  It is by NO MEANS and exhaustive list.

Protect the environment YES but we must stop the EPA.