<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19258">
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=dlj725@hughes.net href="mailto:dlj725@hughes.net">David Johnson</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, July 18, 2012 7:37 PM</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV class="region-inner main-inner">
<DIV class="columns fauxcolumns">
<DIV class="fauxcolumn-outer fauxcolumn-center-outer">
<DIV class=cap-top>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxborder-left>
<DIV class=fauxborder-right></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxcolumn-inner></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-bottom>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class="fauxcolumn-outer fauxcolumn-left-outer">
<DIV class=cap-top>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxborder-left>
<DIV class=fauxborder-right></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxcolumn-inner></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-bottom>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class="fauxcolumn-outer fauxcolumn-right-outer">
<DIV class=cap-top>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxborder-left>
<DIV class=fauxborder-right></DIV>
<DIV class=fauxcolumn-inner></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-bottom>
<DIV class=cap-left></DIV>
<DIV class=cap-right></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=columns-inner>
<DIV class=column-center-outer>
<DIV class=column-center-inner>
<DIV id=main class="main section">
<DIV id=Blog1 class="widget Blog">
<DIV class="blog-posts hfeed">
<DIV class=date-outer>
<H2 class=date-header><SPAN>Wednesday, July 18, 2012</SPAN></H2>
<DIV class=date-posts>
<DIV class=post-outer>
<DIV class="post hentry" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"
itemscope="itemscope"><A name=8223841524559734403></A>
<H3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name">Abolish student debt: Free
federally funded education at all levels. </H3>
<DIV class=post-header>
<DIV class=post-header-line-1></DIV></DIV>
<DIV id=post-body-8223841524559734403 class="post-body entry-content"
itemprop="articleBody">
<TABLE style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; FLOAT: left; MARGIN-RIGHT: 1em"
class=tr-caption-container cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><A
style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 1em; MARGIN-LEFT: auto; CLEAR: left; MARGIN-RIGHT: auto"
href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FDkk36Ib7Hk/UAboC5FtQLI/AAAAAAAADSY/wbfDcRGQJJY/s1600/NA-BR603_STUDEN_D_20120717185108.jpg"
imageanchor="1"><IMG border=0
src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FDkk36Ib7Hk/UAboC5FtQLI/AAAAAAAADSY/wbfDcRGQJJY/s1600/NA-BR603_STUDEN_D_20120717185108.jpg"></A></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center" class=tr-caption><A
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303612804577533332860797886.html"
target=_blank>Source: Wall Street Journal</A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>The US
spends around <A
href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/pentagon-new-generation-military-bases-tom-dispatch"
target=_blank>$250 billion a year maintaining its military installations around
the world</A>. This comes at a great cost to the US taxpayer and we are
feeling this more than ever as the assault on our living standards necessary to
pay for it intensifies. As we have pointed out in previous blogs, there is
considerable opposition from populations when their governments invite US
military presence as it is likely to drag a community in to the US <I>"War on
Terror"</I> or more appropriately, the profit war. <BR><BR>The war at home is
continuing apace as the money lenders and other coupon clippers continue to
bleed people dry. Studies reveal that student debt in the US at over $1
trillion exceeds auto and credit card debt. The moneylenders have their
claws in to people well in to their old age and while student debt is rising
among all age groups, people over forty are beginning to really feel
it.<BR><BR>Moneylenders are concerned not because running a society in this way
is inherently unstable and and inflicting untold strain and grief on people that
actually work for a living and make society function, but because people are so
weighed down by the usurers that that it they cannot borrow any more and the
lenders can't make their blood money, get their pound of flesh. It's not
really any better than those that kill themselves or drink themselves to death
inder the strain, the result is the same---the coupon clippers can't find a use
of their capital in this market.<BR><BR>The delinquency rate for 40 to 49 year
olds in hock to the moneylenders (defined as the percentage of debt that has not
had a payment made in 90 days <A
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303612804577533332860797886.html"
target=_blank>according to the Wall Street Journal</A>) was 11.9% as of March
this year exceeding the 8.7% for all age groups. One of the reasons for
this is that people in this age group are often home owners and for decades we
have been told that the home is our bank. The home will guarantee us
health care and security in our old age, will pay for our children's education
etc. The collapse of the housing market due to the overprodcution of homes
during the rise of the credit bubble, a crisis brought about by the market or
the unplanned, for profit madness of the capitalist mode of production, has
depleted the savings, of this age group. With mortgages often much greater
than the value of their homes and either losing jobs or having major wage cuts,
what savings this group had in the banks has also been tapped dry. In some
cases, people take out more loans to pay old ones. We know that more and
more people are using credit cards to buy food and paying for health care in the
sickness industrial complex has been going on for some time.<BR><BR>Buying the
necessities of life on credit is described by the coupon clippers and their
political representatives in the Democratic and Republican parties as us
<I>"living beyond out means"</I>. We can't have 1000 bases around the world
spreading peace and freedom and not expect to make sacrifices for
it.<BR><BR>Since 2005, the number of Americans with student debt has risen to 37
million from 23 million. For those over 50 with student debt, our numbers
have doubled and for the over 60's tripled according to the WSJ. As one
woman paying $415 a month on her student debt points out, <I>"It's do I feed my
kids, do I pay my car, payment, do I pay my car insurance?</I> Some
choices. We hear the money lenders comlain about people's inability to
pay. But the details of how much has been made over time in interest
payments is never detailed. Some people paid of their debts decades ago
and are still paying the interest or blood money to these parasitic
characters.<BR><BR>As we have explained in the past, capitalism produces too
much, more than they can sell at a profit and production is only set in to
motion in capitalist society if profits can be made so all sorts over other
activity is used for capital that they don't use in the Labor process.
Much of this is speculative activity and we have all heard of the term
<I>"financial instruments"</I> gimmicks and tricks for shifting wealth from one
coupon clipper's pocket to another. Debt allows capitalism to go beyond these
limits set by its internal laws, but eventually the system has to be brought
back to within its limits and in order to do that we experience what we are now
and what will return in the not so distant future with greater force. These
crisis will only be eliminated when we eliminate a system of production based on
profit and set imn to motion by and for the personal gain of private
individuals.<BR><BR>When it doesn't work, when the excesses break out in to the
open, the coupon clippers refer to this as <I>"crony capitalism" </I>is the
Romney camp is doing so today with an ad aimed at one of Barack Obama's wealthy
supporters. They use the term when whole nations collapse due to capitalist
crisis, It's not a failure of capitalism, it's <I>"Crony capitalism."</I>
Is there a <I>"Crony Socialism"</I> too? It is capitalism that is the
problem, it is all cronyism.<BR><BR>In the same WSJ today there is yet another
reminder that health spending (caring for us when we're sick) and pensions
(caring for us when we're old) are <I>"Squeezing spending on education,
infrastructure and other services".</I> We know this is not true, the money is
there. I remind readers yet again that 6 Americans, the heirs to the Wal
Mart fortune stolen from workers throughout the world, is greater than that of
90 million Americans. The trillions spent on warfare to defend these
profits, this theft is also a source of capital that we can put to good humane
use. Blaming who they do is simply an attempt to obscure the truth as well
as a divide and rule tactic, to set us against each other, young against old,
men against women, white against black.<BR><BR>We can stop this theft by taking
the finance houses and banks under public ownership and management. This
does not mean making the deposits of savers, the savings and security of workers
and the middle class, but the storage and allocation of the wealth, the capital,
that the collective Labor of society creates. Capital is not a private
product.<BR><BR>Abolish all student debt<BR>Free, federally funded education at
all levels <BR>Free health care at the point of need<BR>End the Pentagons war's
bring the troops home<BR>Jobs for all.
</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>