Tag: Student Loan Debt

  • ODDS and ENDS: World Cup, Lawsuits, and Reading

    (I Believe That We Will Win!)

    So, the World Cup is almost here, and yes, I am excited about it. I have kept my promise of not blogging non-stop about Tottenham, (even though they have been playing like gash, yet still did make it out of the group stage in the Champions League – but that is a blog for another day) and as the World Cup is about to begin, I will be writing about it. The teams I will be watching are Team USA because you support your home country, Mexico as they have good teams that never deliver and their fans are the best, and England. In fact, The English National Team released a video announcing their team lineup that I thought was rather original:

    Now, I woke up this morning to the news that a Texas Federal has ruled the Biden-Harris Student Loan Forgiveness plan unconstitutional. The lawsuit was filed by a group called Job Creators Network Foundation, which is an organization that was founded by the billionaire and former CEO of Home Depot, Bernard Marcus. What I find the most interesting about Marcus, and this whole situation, is that if you read his bio, after graduating high school, he wanted to be a doctor, but couldn’t afford college, so he went to a state school – Rutgers – back when college was funded by the government, making it affordable for working class kids from Newark in 1947. Added on top of that, I can find no evidence of Marcus fighting against the Federal Government cutting his taxes back in 2017. I mean, Marcus owed taxes, but then Trump passed a law and forgave what he owed, in essence. I love how hypocritical the uber-wealthy are. And they wonder why no one likes them.

    Did you know the average American reads 13 books a year? I was actually surprised by that number, as I thought it would be much lower. I have a feeling there are a few people out there that are reading way more than 13 books a year, which is pushing the number up, and I would like to thank those people for helping make America seem more literate.

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  • Money

    I was trying this morning to write a blog, and I just couldn’t get anything to stick. The reason for that is that I had to sort out what was going on with our bank, car insurance and the shop working on our car. And the faster that I tried to get it all sorted out, the longer it took. Finally, at 11am, I gave up on the idea of getting a blog done out my self-appointed deadline, and just gave in to doing on the family budget for the month.

    Now that I’m at the local library to write, I’m trying again to blog. I sat here at the main table for a minute or two trying to focus on some literary or political point that I wanted to make, or maybe crafting a 300 word joke. But, what is on my mind is money. Well, rather the lack of it, and the attempt to get on top of it.

    Yes, yes, we all know the cultural norm of not talking about money, as it is embarrassing for someone, or at least, we are told someone will get embarrassed if the conversation happens. I don’t think I have ever hidden the fact that my family has a large amount of credit card debt, student loans, and we have a car. It’s a chunk of money, but not insurmountable to take care of. We are fine; no one in our house goes hungry or lacking what they need. Out level of indebtedness is best described as having to plan in advance and save. If we want to do something big, we just have to plan for it, and save.

    But it does ware me down. The last time that I had no debt around my neck was when I was twenty-two. (Oh, what carefree days those were. I used to pay cash for things.) At forty-five, I would like to own a home, pay for the kid’s college, and maybe retire. The normal American Dream shit. BUT, I’m forty-five and I have none of those things. Sure, we are getting closer each day, but we still haven’t arrived.

    And this is what keeps me up at night, if I let myself think about it; I don’t want my daughter to have it worse than I did as a kid. There are days, like today, where that thought is hard to shake, and I feel like I’m not getting it done.

    At fort-five, I do know somethings about myself. Like, I’ll go to bed worrying about this stuff, and then in the morning, I’ll get up and try again to make it better.