Project Logic Ga

Am I missing something in these Wall Street/Main Street Bailout discussions: what about student loans?  Most people pay their loans back in a reasonable period and it has always seemed unfair to “bailout” those of us who did not.  Us.  We.  Me.

But, Wall Street speculated on financial products and projects and some homeowners bought (tried to buy) more house than they could afford.  My simple formula for homes would be double your annual income to get the cost of your starter house; pay for that house and use the money from selling that house to buy your next house; of course, the next house would be cash from the first house plus double your annual income again. 

This is not rocket science but the government bails out or spends money on nation building in countries that don’t like us; people who speculated that they could afford five kids on minimum wage; and even people who’s small businesses were illegal.  Yes, we spend $26,000 a year putting a fool in Georgia State Penitentiary but we let his clean-living brother get student loan debt to attend Georgia State University—I am for law and order but these criminals are bleeding us dry.

So, people “invest” in their educations and speculate that the economy will produce jobs to pay back the student loans.  Good kids trying to move forward in a positive way until we realize that the cost of living over 10 or 20 years when up, up, up but the incomes and benefits actually when down—I should have listened better in e-con class.

People are talking about adjusting the bailout plan to let failing firms and banks fail and rescuing the homeowners directly—the same homeowners with finished basements the size of the house they could really afford.   While people can walk away from real estate debt, student loan will always be around until paid– growing exponentially. 

My proposal is simply a “mercy rule” that caps student loan debt as double the original amount.  We can pay for it with Iraqi oil revenue.