If there’s been one policy idea that President Brick Tamland has been trying to get off the ground, it’s student loan debt forgiveness. Even after the Supreme Court smacked it down, our boy Brick has continued to push for it. Recently, he rolled out new initiatives to help those with student loan debt to the tune of a measly $7.7 billion. In spite of the fact the Supreme Court said he doesn’t have the power to do it, as Nancy Pelosi noted.
But that’s not what this piece is about.
When announcing these new initiatives, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said the following:
We must continue to protect borrowers from predatory institutions—and work toward a higher education system that is affordable to students and taxpayers.
Hmmm…now, where have I heard the term “predatory” used before…oh, yeah, the mortgage bank crisis!
Without going into the gory details, I was in the mortgage industry when the shit hit the fan. Through government fuck-ups disguised as helping people, lenders skirting the law to make sales, house-flippers whose only motivation was to make a quick buck, and borrowers being dumber than a bag of hammers about Economics 101 for Dummies, the mortgage industry was in a world of hurt. Naturally, people started looking for any kind of help.
Enter Big Daddy Government! They would fix the problem by going after the easiest of targets: the lenders themselves. Now, I’m not saying all of the lenders were working above board and even some of the more reputable ones had hinky loan terms that you would need to be careful to read and understand before signing on the dotted line. But speaking from what I saw more often than not, the problems blamed solely on the banks were (or at least should have been) a shared responsibility.
That’s one of the reasons I didn’t like “The Big Short” as much as everyone else did. In an attempt to create an entertaining movie-going experience, it left out a LOT of shady shit and utter incompetence. And that’s just within the federal government!
Anyway, the point is people looked to the government to help bring those predatory lenders to heel, and the government responded by…expanding itself. Up until the mortgage crisis, mortgage complaints fell under the umbrella of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. But those DC galaxy-brain thinkers didn’t think it was enough to make every mortgage bank jump through the OCC’s hoops, so they created a new agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, thanks in part to Chief Running Mouth, Elizabeth Warren.
And having dealt with them on numerous occasions, we were better off with just the OCC. Of course, we would be even better off with monkeys and typewriters, but that’s neither here nor there.
At this point, you might be wondering what in the Wide World of Fuck this has to do with student loan debt. It’s all in the approach. Since Leftists had success in convincing people the mortgage loans they signed their names to were all a part of the evil cabal of Big Banking, they’re trying the same thing with student loan debt. They’re even using the same language. On the plus side, it’s one of the rare times Leftists actually recycle, so yay, I guess.
If the Social Media Platform Known As Twitter is any indication, this tactic is working again. Young adults who know there are 90 gajillion genders but think 2 + 2 equals potato (hat tip to Simon Miller for that turn of a phrase, by the way) are being allowed to straddle the line between being competence and incompetence simultaneously. You know, just like Kamala Harris. And invariably, they’re going to get what they want because Leftists are never ones to let a crisis (especially one of their own creation) go to waste.
Others have astutely pointed out President Tamland’s student loan forgiveness is a big gift to the banks who lent the money in the first place, which it most certainly is. And others have also pointed out the loan isn’t forgiven so much as being pushed onto other people. This is also correct. But what I don’t see too many people talking about is what the next step could be.
And having seen this shit play out before, I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s next.
I see this playing out in one of two ways. First, some DC douchebag with more vices than brains may try to put student loan debt under the umbrella of the CFPB. In a demented kind of way, this makes sense. After all, the CFPB is charged with holding big banks accountable for predatory loan practices (even if they don’t understand regular loan practices), so it’s not that much of a leap to suggest they devote a portion of their efforts on student loans.
Second, and the one I think is more likely, some DC douchebag is going to suggest the creation of a brand new federal agency like the CFPB, but with a focus on student loan practices. Remember, one of my Immutable Laws of Life is a bureaucracy’s sole purpose is to find ways to make itself more expansive and incapable of being removed. So, what’s to say a CFPB II: Electric Boogaloo is out of the question?
I mean, aside from me, of course.
In either case, expect the federal government to get more involved with fucking up student loans in the near future. Just try to act surprised when it happens.
Tag: elizabeth warren
Leftist Lexicon Word of the Week
When it comes to finding topics for this weekly excursion into Leftist insanity, patience can be a virtue. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had a topic in mind only to have another topic jumping to the head of the line. (Then again, it might have something to do with me not being able to count, but that’s neither here nor there.)
This week was one of those times. I intended to write about a potential Presidential candidate getting shafted more than a gay porn filmed in an elevator when our good friends at the Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 decision striking down race as a factor in determining college admissions via Affirmative Action..
Thank you, Jesus.
Of course, Leftists freaked out all over the place, which means not only does it give us the topic for this week, but gives us an opportunity to mock the Leftists into the Stone Age! Yay!
Affirmative Action
What the Left thinks it means – a necessary program to address racism in social, academic, and political arenas
What it really means – a program that fights racism by being racist
Affirmative Action began in 1961 due to Executive Order 10925 issued by President John F. Kennedy where he called for “affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” But before you could say ” color-blind society,” Leftists took the idea, twisted it, and turned it into a way to legally discriminate to address grievances, both real and imagined.
Then, it went from letting blacks have a chance to seize the American dream to letting them have all the chances. And it worked well for a while. Eventually, other races wanted in on the Affirmative Action gravy train, and Leftists being Leftists let them. And it worked even better.
Until Asian-Americans entered the equation. (For the purposes of this piece, I will be focusing on the educational aspects of Affirmative Action since that was the issue before the Supreme Court.) Seems when it came to college admissions with institutes of higher learning that adopted Affirmative Action in said admissions (like Harvard and the University of North Carolina, just to name two completely random universities), Asian-American students kept getting passed over for…you guessed it, blacks who didn’t exactly match their Asian-American counterparts, but did have the right skin color.
And guess how that turned out. Oh yeah, it got slapped down by a 6-3 majority like a narc at a biker rally.
Granted, the Asian-American community is understandably split on whether Affirmative Action is a good thing. A majority of those who have heard of it think it’s a good thing, but they don’t think race should be a factor in college admissions. So, they’re working at cross purposes, like your fingers in a Chinese finger trap.
And the Left won’t let that go for a second.
Of course, when they’re trying to explain the dichotomy/duality/hypocrisy, they resort to letting members of the Asian-American community do the whitesplaining for them. And, not surprisingly, they all seem to parrot the same squawking point: Affirmative Action good, Supreme Court decision bad.
But here’s the thing. Affirmative Action in education is racist by definition. Colleges and universities literally used race as a means to determine entry, thus favoring one race over another.
Literally racism. And I do mean literally, kids.
Affirmative Action as the Leftists practice it pulls an Animal Farm by suggesting some racism is more oppressive than others, so they put different weight to certain racial elements in order to rectify the racial injustices of the past. By being racist.
And people wonder why I’m so fucked in the head after being a Leftist.
Regardless, Leftists were pissed at the Supreme Court decision. Some, like Chief Running Mouth, lamented what is being presumed as a loss to black and Hispanic students. Others, like President Puddin’ Head Joe, told the truth without knowing it. Still others, like California Governor Gavin “Human Smarm” Newsom, tripped over his state’s own laws while blasting the decision.
But the general consensus among Leftists is, well, melting down in racist ways, with an “expand the Supreme Court” twist for good measure. (By the way, Erica Marsh, you might want to call the office and let them know you’ve dug yourself a hole and need a really long ladder to get out. And you can’t blame MAGA Republicans for you being stupid.)
Never let a crisis, even one of their own creation, go to waste, amirite?
And believe me, this Supreme Court decision going against the Left is a crisis of their own creation by not really getting the whole “racism is bad” thing. Even if you think you have the best of intentions, racism will get its ass kicked by the law sooner or later. And when you consider how often Leftists have invoked the 14th Amendment as a means to try to punish politicians they say were part of the January 6 “insurrection,” you would think they would have read the first parts of it dealing with, oh I don’t know…equal protections under the law. You know, the very fucking thing the whole Amendment was about?
Nevertheless, this Supreme Court ruling is going to be a bitter pill for the Left to swallow because it’s the same thing that happened when Roe v Wade was sent back to the states. Leftists overplayed their hands and got away with it for decades because they made it socially unacceptable to oppose them. What they didn’t (and still don’t if I’m being honest) think about is when enough people say “fuck it” and stand up anyway. Then, we see how paper thin the Leftist tigers actually are. If the Left hadn’t twisted the original intent of Affirmative Action into a bean-counting system, they would have been fine and no Supreme Court case would have come forward because there wouldn’t have been grounds to do so.
Of course, this wouldn’t be an Affirmative Action ruling without Leftists singling out Justice Clarence Thomas because Leftists say he benefited from Affirmative Action practices to get into law school. Pretty big assumption, as Thomas has shown himself to be a keen legal and Constitutional mind (which might be one of the main reasons the Left hates him). It’s possible he got into law school through Affirmative Action, but it’s just as possible he got in on his merits. Only Thomas knows for sure.
Even if Thomas recused himself, the outcome would be the same, just with a 5-3 outcome. Nothing would have changed.
By the way, have you noticed how Thomas is the only one who’s questioned about whether he would have gotten into law school without Affirmative Action? Not Sonia “Wise Latina” Sotomayor. Not Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Just Clarence Thomas. Of course, Sotomayor and Brown Jackson vote the “right” way, so they obviously got into their respective law schools totally on their merits and not because of their skin colors.
Wait. Aren’t Leftists complaining about blacks and Hispanics not getting educational spots due to this ruling? Yes, but I’m sure it’s just an amazing coincidence…
Nevertheless, using Affirmative Action for educational purposes usually winds up the same way using it in the private and pubic sectors go: a small handful of diamonds in a metric shit ton of, well, shit. Of course there’s a simple way to grab more diamonds than shit in this case. Something about hiring the best people for the job regardless of race. But I’m sure that will never work. I mean, when has hiring competent people ever been successful? You know, aside from just about every time it’s done.
But the Left keeps expecting hiring incompetents for high profile positions will wind up elevating them into the roles. But it never works that way. The incompetents will get a false sense of achievement and the overinflated egos that come with it, and as long as Leftists keep letting them either advance or spin their wheels where they are (and vote/rule the way the Left wants, of course) these folks will be harder to remove than a Jehovah’s Witness tick with Super Glue on its jaws who moonlights as an IRS auditor.
This is made worse for college students who don’t have the luxury of a job to fall back on yet. For them, this is a do-or-die environment, one that is constantly being enabled by Leftists who want to feel good about “helping” minorities without actually doing anything. Once these students graduate, they are ill-prepared to handle a world where results matter. Skin color and misguided application of Affirmative Action can get your foot in the door, but if you can’t do the job, it’s going to cost money sooner or later.
But at least white Leftists feel good, right?
Say what you will about the Supreme Court, they got this decision right. Affirmative Action has no place in academia because it guarantees someone is going to get hurt by being coddled by a system that they will never allow to be applied to themselves.
Good luck with that, Leftists.