If you've wondered why your Bank pays you an insulting rate of interest on your hard-earned savings - I get a magnificent 0.4%, and I actually
like my Community Bank - it just might be because they don't
need our money.
The big Banks - no need to point out what those greedy, incompetent gamblers did to our financial system after they persuaded Bill Clinton to dismantle the regulations which had protected us from their fathers and grandfathers since the 1930s - those big Banks can borrow money from the Government - meaning you and me - at interest rates of less than 1%.
Meanwhile, our Credit Cards cost us up to 29%, and student loans - the only way most kids from average families can finance a College education - make a millstone around new graduates' necks.
On July 1st, the interest rate on new, federally subsidized student loans is set to double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. That's the kind of policy our leaders think will be helpful to a recession-struck economy.
The blessed Elizabeth Warren, who's making waves in the Senate just like we all hoped she would, has introduced a bill to dish out some justice, finally. "
The Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act would allow students who are eligible for federally subsidized Stafford loans to borrow at 0.75% -- the same rate that big banks get."
"For one year, the Federal Reserve would make funds available to the Department of Education to cover the loans and give students relief from high interest rates while giving Congress time to find a long-term solution. If the government can float huge sums of money to large financial institutions at low interest rates to grow the economy, surely it can float the money necessary to fund our students, keep us competitive, and grow our middle class."
"Rep. John Tierney just introduced a companion bill in the U.S. House."
But they need to show massive support from the public, to shame their dear colleagues into supporting a measure that only an idiot or a crook could oppose. This is where we come in - by becoming "Citizen Co-Sponsors"
here.
As a Brit who actually grew up in a Democracy, I can attest to the success of a logical scheme which works perfectly. The Government follows a principle that
no one should be denied a College education just because they can't pay for it.
They make available Grants, set on a sliding scale according to family income. They reason, correctly, that the Government will recoup the money when the graduates obtain decent jobs and pay taxes, as any good citizen in an honest country would be glad to do.
Of course, that would be called Socialism - quite Un-American.
I mentioned in my Annie Lennox post this morning, that Tom Ashbrook interviewed Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz on his "On Point" show this morning on NPR, on Student Loans.
You can hear what he had to say,
here.
