a brighter tomorrow?

A bright and happy Asian-American family is looking into the sunshine of a brighter tomorrow through organic consumerism… wow! Brought to you by Chank Diesel.

Ban Student Loans....

Here is a more detailed analysis of the economics of student loan wherein according to Ted Rall, "an essential public service like education" has been transformed into "a profit-based loan-shark business creates too much temptation to poorly paid, easily corrupted college administrators and corporate greed monsters alike."

I agree whole heartedly with Rall's point, EXCEPT the point about college administrators being "poorly paid." As far as I can tell, a college administrator makes 30% - 50% more than a college professor. Under the present regime, one cannot be GREEDY enough. As far as I can tell, the more well paid you are, the greedier you become!

As Rall points out, retired Al Lord, CEO of scandal ridden, price gouging Sallie Mae paid himself $225 million over the last FIVE years: there is no cut off point after which one says, I've had enough of the cookie. I'll kick back and give back. Meanwhile, middle class kids pay over $800.00 to financeCarpetbagging IS the name of the game. Let's not cry alligator tears for USC, Columbia and Johns Hopkins financial aid officers, although the level of their profiteering is dwarfed by the greed of those at the top. Everyone can use 100K.

Rall suggests and the ONLY presidential candidate who seems to realize this is John Edwards -- that Banks and private credit agencies should be banned from making student loans to begin with!

Oh, by the way, Student Loan Xpress's corporate parent is CIT group, a former subsidiary of Tyco -- you remember Tyco?

And by the way, to all those out there who have praised Buffet and Gates for their philanthropy, the rich could not give back ENOUGH money as far as I am concerned. They're hoping to put a fig leaf on economic injustice that has taken on gargantuan proportionsm, and the do-gooders are still showing us that ONLY capital can talk and walk...

Radicalize the Middle Class!

This post at Daily Kos makes it clear that it is possible to craft a truly nonpartisan political consensus on the issue of radical economic injustice of the past twenty years. Economic equality, economic justice should in fact become the refrain of a new Progressive Platform. Of course economic justice has been denounced by demagogues of the right as "socialism."

Unfortunately for them, the economic policies of the past twenty years have sqeezed the middle class so hard that the consensus against governmental intervention has been broken by the broken government of the Clinton-Bush eras.

When I was in college and graduate school, the relative comfort of the middle class made them complacent: radicalization seemed barely possible. This economic complacency produced abberations on the left that led to an identity politics polarized splitting off the new social movements into fragmented demands for recognition, peace, an end to violence -- making political struggle a question of metaphysics. I have blogged before about the "take back the night."

Take back the government may be the new slogan of a new generation of proletarianized middle class families who have seen their paychecks looted by a new generation of free market oligarchs and plutocrats.