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Forum Post: Laissez Fairyland

Posted 12 years ago on Aug. 6, 2012, 7:54 p.m. EST by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

After graduation, students' incomes would be "attached" by financiers. Let's take a trip deep into the magic kingdom of "Laissez Fairyland" and prostrate ourselves before the infallible and inscrutable force known as the free market.

While this awesome deity cannot be seen, the high priests of free-market fundamentalism insist that we mere mortals must simply have faith that its mysterious workings are always in our best interest. Yeah, sure, your holiness. We saw how well that worked out for us wandering pilgrims after you true believers deregulated Wall Street, which then crashed on our streets.

Well, get ready. Free-market purists want us to have another ungodly religious encounter with their omnipotent deity. Looking at America's trillion-dollar student debt crisis, these spiritualists had a burning-bush revelation.

The crisis can be healed by letting the magic market (aka Wall Street) lay its hands on the funding of college education. Get the government out of the student loan business, they preach, and let global speculators invest directly in students by covering their tuition. In other words, turn students into just another Wall Street commodity to be purchased by the wealthy.

But venture capitalists expect fat returns on their investments. What do they get back for covering some kid's tuition? A chunk of the kid's future, that's what. After graduation, students' incomes would be attached by the financiers. And, since the free-market doctrine dictates that investors should always seek to maximize their returns, they would have a direct interest (and maybe even a legal right) in making their investees pursue careers that make the most money for them. The first thing to know about the free market is that it's not free, and turning Wall Street loose on college students will turn them into chattel, effectively indentured to investors.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/10715-turning-college-students-into-commodities

7 Comments

7 Comments


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[-] 3 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

Indentured Debt-Bondage !!! Ain't it just GR8 ?!! Oh, for the halcyon days of mere Wage-Slavery !

verum ex absurdo ...

[-] 1 points by shadz66 (19985) 12 years ago

Thanx 'PK' for this important post & please further consider :

avarita facit bardos ...

[-] 0 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 12 years ago

Time for a world wide Jubilee - Hell most of the shit happening today is smoke and mirrors anyway - Right?

So fuck the assholes - Time to push reset and start fresh with reality and real transactions.

[-] 2 points by TrevorMnemonic (5827) 12 years ago

If there was never a war on drugs... the government could have used the money to put kids through college instead of putting black people in prison.

Current cost of the war on drugs since it's inception is almost the same as the total student loan debt.

Our country could be so much better but John Lennon was right when he said the world is lead by insane people with insane objectives.

[-] 2 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 12 years ago

That would complete the cycle of wage slavery--from womb to tomb.

[-] -1 points by hchc (3297) from Tampa, FL 12 years ago

The students are already there.

[-] 0 points by funkytown (-374) 12 years ago

They've already done this.