This is a short excerpt from the story at http://aun-tv.com/debt-slavery-via-the-college-education-bubblescam/
The term “debt bondage” or “debt slavery” (a person’s pledge of their labor or services, or of those of a person under his control, as security for the repayment of a debt) is not a new one, the practice has been in use for thousands of years, including in ancient Israel, and was commonplace up through even the 19th century. But unlike the Bible that mandates release from debt and/or debt bondage after seven years, in the rest of the world the terms of the repayment of debt were often undefined making quittance nearly impossible and regularly resulted in lifelong servitude.
Debtor’s prison, also ancient in its use, was a common way to deal with unpaid debt in Western Europe that also spilled over into colonial America, becoming quite prevalent. But the entire idea of being jailed for debt was becoming more and more of a contentious issue among Americans as many were in need of relief of oppressive debt and abusive lenders. By the time the Revolutionary War ended the founders, having heard the outcries and understanding the importance of debt relief to the economy, incorporated the right of bankruptcy protection into the Constitution itself, the first country to do so in its founding legal documents.
How far we have come from this positive step of enlightenment, going from reasonable debt management to the flippant attitude that “deficits don’t matter”. With debt mounting on a national level as we expand social welfare programs and massive unfunded liabilities of government retirements, Social Security and Medicare, not to mention skyrocketing personal credit debt, we are on the fast track to economic unsustainability.
And as if this massive debt burden we have created for future generations isn’t going to be enough of a blow to their future incomes, add to that what has become a fast inflating “education bubble” where the debt now exceeds a trillion dollars, threatening to burden them further and left even less positioned to ever get out from under it.
This bubble is the result of the enormous rise in tuition, via cheap credit, coupled with the belief that a college degree will yield enough in increased income to make taking on the debt worthwhile. The reality is that many people are graduating and finding themselves unable to get jobs that allow them to pay off the debt. Adding insult to injury the debt, which is topping the six-figure range in more and more cases, cannot be eliminated through bankruptcy like other debt.
The video here has highlights of Bill Whittle’s Mike Rowe’s and Dave Ramsey’s thoughts on student debt. The full videos are at http://aun-tv.com/debt-slavery-via-the-college-education-bubblescam/
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