Stinking, greasy cog in a soulless and corrupt machine

[mbarrick]

So I got a call from the Student Loan Nazi's today. In all the years I have been faithfully paying back this debt I have never had the same cubicle monkey twice. The stinking, greasy cog in the soulless and corrupt machine du jour was one Chad Manning, "Collector Assistant Supervisor" (or "Super Ass" for short). From the word go he took a condescending tone with me that immediately raised my hackles. In the course of trying to pay back this loan I have been lied to by the banks and subsequently had my loan defaulted through no fault of my own (I even still have all the correspondence to prove it was their error, not mine - not that it is of any use at all). Thereafter I have been harrassed, threatened and lied to by the American owned collection agency that has the exclusive contract to collect on the Canadian government's debt (and pocket a whopping 20% in the case of student loans, per the Cananda Student Loans Act). I've had them reneg on agreements, fail to follow instructions, and even process post-dated cheques ahead of the date they were written for. I'm sick of explaining my life to an endless parade of Edmontonian hicks. Given what I expect to not get back as a tax return this year should pretty much, if not completely, elimitate what's left of this loan I have it in mind to give my new pal Chad (I wonder if he is any relation to Preston?) Manning a call and express my heart-felt opinion of him and his profession.

Student loans should be abolished, as should consumer credit, and even credit on a whole. Credit just artifically inflates prices and further floats along an untimately untenable system. Do you think a "starter" home in Vancouver would go for $250,000 if people actually had to pay up front for it? Without credit you would see apartments selling for $10,000, houses for $20,000, new cars for maybe $2,500 or so... The average North American has about a $15,000 USD credit card debt alone, let alone student loans and mortgages. And while they wallow in their debt they go ahead and do things like "invest" in "ethical funds" and think they are being smart and good. I don't care whose stock one buys into, it's just feeding an even more fucked-up part of the same fucked-up system. Those stocks are effectivly loans to companies. Public companies operate with a mind to feeding the debt they owe to their stockholders, not with a mind of actually producing any real wealth. That's all it comes down to: produce more than you consume.

I'm 35 years old and my fondest financial wish right now is to have, on paper, $0. No loans, no credit card balances, no money in the bank. From that point on my money is entirely my own business.

Comments

[contrasoma.livejournal.com]

Man, I can definitely relate to you on this one. I put off having a credit card until I was nearly twenty-two, just because the idea seemed and still seems to be totally insane. I use it for online purchases, restaurants, and that's about it. The "keep buying, don't worry" mindset that you're in danger of falling into when you obtain one of those things is truly frightening.

I've managed to avoid the student loan pit, but it's meant gradding two years later than "normal" and not ever really living "uni life". I've basically been working half-time and going to school half-time the whole way through in order to avoid loans. The idea of owing the government more money after getting bumped out of the student tax bracket after gradding is scary.

I saw a sticker on a lamp-post on the Cambie Street Bridge a while ago that made me laugh: "Invest? Isn't that like giving them a stick to beat you with?" Not your politics, I know, but still seemed apros-pos.

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

"Invest? Isn't that like giving them a stick to beat you with?"

Well I suppose it depends wich side of the war you are on.
Are you a casualty , and innocent bystander , or a soldier?

The advantage of real war over economic war thoug .. is that
soldiers get to die. For them the pain is over .. they get honored and remebered and monuments are made for them.

In an economic war .. casualties have to live in poverty with the scars on their name and credit for their failures in battle. You will never see a statue for all the dot com
start ups for their heroic valliant efforts , you will never
hear praise for fired comerades.

Perhaps this is why Japanese businessmen kill themselves so often. To regain their honor.

Actually

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

That quip about investment is consistent with my politics. I'm in in favour of private ownership. Incorporated public traded companies have little incentive to do anything but inflate the speculative value of their shares. Rather than focusing on the production of real wealth public corporations focus on the psychological creation of illusory value. The dot.com debacle is a fine example of this. Start-ups abounded that had no foundation in viable business, i.e. no plans to produce anything of any tangible value. They capitolized on the ignorance of investors (Venture capitolist circa 1998: Tech is good. I don't understand it, but the nerds all say, "Wow! This is soooo cool," and I'll make my money back when they IPO / Average sheep investor circa 1998: Tech stock is hot, I better buy some... what IPO's are there today? Anything will do...) and all that really happened is the investors got bilked. I know a tiny number of tech-plebs who were lucky/smart enough to cash in on their options (and get a cut of the money robbed from the investors) and a whole lot more who lost their jobs (and homes, cars, and anything else they bought on credit and hadn't finished paying for).

I'm obscenely pleased to be working for a privately owned company that manages renewable resources to produce a necessary product of tangible value. I have no problem at all with the fact that my employer is rich enough to have, for example, recently gotten a private tour of the Tate Gallery - he earned it fair and square. I'm happy to help this company do what it does because I know that contributing to this company in the business of just creating illusions to bilk investors (as opposed to the God-awful bank I used to work for - I loathed being a part of that company).

A viable company has to sustainably produce more than it consumes and do more good than harm. And that applies not only to companies, but to any group and any individual.

Dot bomb

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

Well that was the thing I love about the Dot com business

You sold products that didn't exist (software and web sites- no physical form)

And placed them in a virtual space

to people who didn't know (clueless investors)

for imaginary money (the dollar has no value since we are off the gold standard, and bank balances are just 1s and 0s)

and make a profitable business



But therin lies the inherent flaw with the DOT COM community.
When you compete in an industry built on imagination and fabrication. To survice you have to be a better imagination
than the next guy. But eventually the ultimate lie will be revealed - wich will reflect your lie.

"you got some pictures , post them on my server $5/month"

"no - rent some space on my server, it's built reliable and you get 1 gb traffic for $4 a month"

"no - rent space on my server...more storage, and 10 GB bandwidth for your family photo album for $3 a month"

"no - rent space on my MEGA-SERVER 50 GB Storage for
you family portraits, 15 GB alone for your pictures of your cat and UNLIMITED bandwidth and a free footmassage...Plus our servers are faster because we sandpaper the Network cables for $2 per month"

Why have $5 of monopoly money when you could have $5000 monopoly money?

Why pay $20 for something you DON'T NEED when you could pay $7?

I learned long ago than there is no way to compete against
an effective liar.

and the problem is that when the smoke clears and all the liars have been revealed - no one will be willing to pay $20 /month for legitamite server storage for their
website and bandwidth.