Are We Raising Our Children to Be Slaves?

“You can’t make it without an education!" "Go to college!" "Graduate from high school, go to college, get a good job." How many of us heard these mantras while growing up? How many of us have said these mantras to our children? Other people's children? Despite the fact that getting a  college degree today paves the road to debt slavery  where the chains and fetters are invisible and the wealthy, powerful owners, anonymous.

“Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages." -- Chas. Hazzard, The Hazzard Circular, 1862

As we start 2018, student loan debt is close to $1.5 trillion, where an estimated 44.2 million Americans have one or more student loans on file.  Student loan debt surpasses total U.S. credit card debt by approximately $659 billion. It is the second largest financial asset on the federal government's balance sheet, making up 51.8% of total assets. Only mortgage debt is higher. Not to mention, according to the Federal Reserve is the only form of consumer debt that continued to grow in the wake of the Great Recession.

Parents and students have little understanding of how this loan program operates.   They don't understand that there is an entire "ecosystem feeding on federal student loans."

“The companies making those calls are just one part of an ecosystem feeding on federal student loans. There are also debt servicers, refinance lenders, firms that help former students stay out of default and for-profit schools that make money as borrowers try to repay more than $1.2 trillion in government-backed education debt.

They don't understand that the cost of living is rising faster than income that make it increasingly difficult for people to keep up with the everyday expenses of life. They don't understand that a four-year degree is no longer the golden ticket to full time job with benefits and job security. They don't understand that the "four-year" degree actually takes five, six or even more years, which, of course, costs even more money.

When will we catch up with reality?  What was true 40 years ago doesn't make it true today.  What was true for baby boomers is not true for millennials and/or generations x,y,z, etc. 

“It’s not unusual for me to talk to a couple that between them has $200,000 in student loan debt now. It’s not unusual at all. I talk to them almost every day on this show. And they’re 32 years old, they’ve been out of school for four, five or six years and they’re just treading water. They’re stuck because no one in their life—no supposed high school counselor, no parent, no financial-aid officer—smack you silly. Financial aid is $200,000 in student loan debt. Give me a break. Nobody looked at you and said, “You know, when you bring that baby home from the hospital, there’s a possibility you may want to use your education to raise your children.” -- Dave Ramsey

Links:

Student Debt Crisis

Hazard Chronicle Documentary Evidence

Student Debt Relief

Student Debt Slavery: Bankrolling Financiers on the Backs of the Young

Narrow bankruptcy laws make it nearly impossible to discharge student debt: From the The Cost of Opportunity: A series chronicling the student loan debt crisis in Wisconsin series


Rising Tuition Costs and the History of Student Loans

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Carnival Cruise: Sweatshops at Sea

From Corpwatch:

Carnival Cruise staff on UK ships are paid $1.20 (75p) an hour in basic wages, according to new documents seen by the Guardian newspaper. Moreover, P&O Cruises withhold passengers' tips unless crew hit performance targets which work out to roughly 15% of wages, unless they get at least a 92% favorable rating from customers.

These wages are below the minimum level recommended by the Joint Maritime Commission of the International Labour Organization which was set at US $555 a month for salaries paid out after January 1, 2012.

“Unfortunately, because the shipping industry is largely unregulated, (workers) wages will normally depend on the kind of contract (they) have signed,” notes the International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) web page for seafarers.

The $1.20 an hour wages are for staff on P&O Cruises sailing out of Southampton in the UK. The tour operator began life as Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company which operated the world's first passenger ships starting in 1822 with trips to Iberian Peninsula, and tours in 1844. The UK company merged with Carnival Corporation of Florida in 2003 to create the world’s largest cruise ship operator with annual revenues of $15.8 billion in 2011 and profits of $2.2 billion.

Today most of the workers aboard P&O are from India and the Philippines. Tours in July advertised on the site for the Carnival Legend range between $2,798 and $6,458 per passenger for a 12 day trip around northern Europe. A quick calculation suggests that P&O workers would need to work for almost 500 days to pay for a cruise themselves, assuming that they did not spend a single penny of their wages.

David Dingle, CEO of Carnival UK, told the Guardian that staff were "much happier" and many of them earned over £1,000 a month ($1,600). Some passengers were skeptical. One - Rob Bygrave of Sherborne, Dorset - told the newspaper that "grown men were in tears" after hearing about the new pay scheme.

"It's high time the disgraceful practice of allowing the shipping industry to pay poverty wages to workers who don't live in the UK was stopped,” Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trade Union Congress told the Guardian. “Exploitative rates of pay for those working on British ships have no place in a modern society."

An estimated 1.2 million people work at sea. For them working on board a ship has never been an idyllic operation. Over 200 years after the men of the HMS Bounty rebelled against their captain for mistreatment (commemorated in a number of books and films like Mutiny on the Bounty) activists say that the ship workers are still exploited routinely.

“It’s a sweatshop at sea,” says Paul Chapman, former port chaplain, founder of the Center for Seafarers' Rights, and author of “Trouble on Board: The Plight of International Seafarers.” “A ship owner can go any place in the world, pick up anybody he wants, on almost any terms. If the owner wants to maximize profit at the expense of people, it’s a piece of cake.”

“Cruise ships maintain a degree of glamour and opulence. Advertising projects images of fun and carefree times. Those of us living in port cities see impressively clean, bright and huge ships glide into our harbours, offloading passengers anxious to spend money at stores, restaurants, and with tour operators,” writes Professor Ross A. Klein of Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada who runs http://www.cruisejunkie.com/.

In an article titled “High Seas, Low Pay, Klein adds:

“The reality for many cruise-ship workers, however, is certainly not carefree, nor fun. While the working conditions for officers, cruise staff, and those working in the shops and casinos are adequate, if not good, the experience of those working in the dining room, cleaning rooms, in the galley, and below deck is quite different. These workers are often paid substandard wages, have marginal accommodations, survive on inadequate food, and live under a system that is rife with abuse and uncertainty.”

The ITF has been fighting to get European countries to adopt the Maritime Labour Convention that would require ships to maintain minimum labor standards on board ships. The UK is yet to ratify the convention.

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Slavery By Consent

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Slave Labor and Martial Law: The New Normal?

Companies, now, more than ever before, are hiring for probationary periods that can last months or even an entire year without pay, according to Fortune Magazine.  The worst part? There is intense competition for some of these unpaid positions! 

"One editor and two cameramen ended up quitting before the end of the trek due to rough conditions and 16-hour workdays. In retrospect, Lovejoy says, "I would screen a little bit better and make sure they understood that this wasn't a vacation."

What? "Rough conditions" and "16-hour workdays"...unpaid!   At least slave-owners provided food and shelter for their slaves.


Why do we make it so easy for the jackasses at the top of our power structure?   In fact, we make it so easy for our overlords that I bet if Homeland Security installed video screens with a recording of Janet Napolitano, shouting Save the planet...Kill Yourself! in all the Wal-Marts across the nation,  half the population would head for  pillow section and smother themselves.  Because, the underlying message here is: die. 

The Michigan Monarchy Legislates Financial Martial Law

The new law, described by one of the GOP legislators sponsoring the bill as “financial martial law”, empowers the governor’s appointees (referred to as ‘Emergency Financial Managers’ but more aptly termed viceroys appointed by the king) allows the EFR to fire duly elected local officials, cancel labor contracts and even dissolve entire communities and school districts.

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Building Community Where Everyone Has a Chance to Reach Their Dreams

"If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all." -- Barack Obama


"I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." -- Barack Obama

"It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today." -- Barack Obama


"Our goal is to have a country that's not divided by race." -- Barack Obama


"There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America." -- Barack Obama


"We have proved that the true strength of our nation comes not from the scale of our wealth but from the power of our ideals - opportunity, democracy, liberty and hope." -- Barack Obama

I hope we realize that the people of New Orleans weren't just abandoned during the hurricane. They were abandoned long ago — to murder and mayhem in the streets, to substandard schools, to dilapidated housing, to inadequate health care, to a pervasive sense of hopelessness. -- Barack Obama


"For that is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it." -- Barack Obama


"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." -- Barack Obama

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