Financial Debt: Oppressive for Some

Financial Debt: Oppressive for Some & Lucrative for Others

The Back Story to Financial Debt

By Luis Ángel Pérez
Sunday, October 16, 2016


Despite the fact that we are all naturally equipped with a brain that inevitably yearns to learn - setting stringent barriers around the access to education has historically been a tactical solution toward facilitating the oppression and exploitation of targeted groups of humans while satiating the greed for power and wealth of some already affluent humans.

As time passed, this once publicly overt yet unnatural imposition to the human condition, and its negative consequences, began to clash with people’s moral sensibility in an infectious manner - to the extent where complicit business and government leaders were forced to learn of the critical value which a humanitarian-like public image has on allowing them to get closer to their prey.

The negative stigmas forced greedy wealthy folks, (and purchased government officials), to close the curtains on public displays of malicious business practices and instead open the curtains to a new act where said practices will still be conducted only in more of a stealth manner.

When you are trying to hide something, you look to hide it in a place where others are least likely to look for it. Who would ever guess to look behind ridiculously high corporate and political financial incentives for the answer to – Why so many people in the United States are always in financial debt and cannot seem to ‘shake-it-off’? Who would have ever guessed that your financial debt is actually a goldmine for wealthy Wall- Street financial institutions and corrupt government officials and not so much the societal burden which they so desperately try to have you believe?

Even today, many humans, including scholars, do not expect and thus cannot even begin to wrap their minds around how exactly is it that other humans greatly benefit financially from another’s financial debt.

You also have humans that own a small inkling to the back story of financial debt in this country but opt to mostly remain in the dark about specifics in order to inoculate “a guilty conscience” which also happens to be easily nursed by their own personal financial gains from financial lending schemes that intentionally produce debt.

And then you have the sadists that are completely aware but who secretly generate much pleasure and pride in the financial, social, and psychological demise of other humans.



Government Bail-Outs for the Rich


A Business Person & Our Government

One particularly lucrative lending scheme that depends on oppressing others with financial debt is known as Predatory Lending. Predatory lending is defined by the Farlex Financial Dictionary as, “The practice in which a loan is made to a borrower in the hope or expectation that the borrower will default.”

A wealthy businessperson and current United States Presidential Candidate was allegedly legally allowed to file for bankruptcy in our United States Government Bankruptcy Courts on four (4) or more separate occasions in order to “clean the slate” of his immense financial debts while repeatedly coldheartedly leaving many dedicated workers/taxpayers unemployed and in financial and personal hardship as he repeatedly walked away from such damages much wealthier than before.

He was also allegedly repeatedly granted complete immunity against ethical and moral responsibility for damages imposed upon workers as a result of his repeated reckless business ventures. Additionally, Wall-Street Financial Institutions (Banks) continued to approve more loans for him to default and repeat such vicious cycle.


So, why did our Department of Justice ignore
this wealthy businessperson’s repeated reckless business ventures and all the devastation which such behavior
repeatedly imposed upon
working poor and middle income families?
&
Why did Wall-Street Banks repeatedly approve more loans
for him - given his business-failure track record?


Essentially Because …

Creating Financial Debt is Lucrative Business for the Wealthy
While Oppressive to Working Poor & Middle Income Families.



The Banks & Our Government

The recent infamous financial crisis created by predatory-mortgage lending-practices is another example of businesses getting rewarded and protected by government and Wall-Street Banks for merely facilitating debt upon working poor and middle income families. This financial crisis allegedly cost the United States taxpayers $700 BILLION to bail-out the banks that were found to intentionally create such crisis, (an amount which was openly scrutinized by Government Officials and the Media), and approximately $13 TRILLION, (an amount that was not openly scrutinized or discussed by neither).

Government officials used massive amounts of taxpayer funds to bail-out the repeatedly “failed” business ventures of the wealthy businessperson mentioned above and used massive amounts of our taxpayer funds to bail-out Wall-Street Banks despite the known reckless and predatory nature of their business practices - which has a devastating impact on working poor and middle income families while further enhancing the wealth of the wrongdoers.

Working poor and middle income College Students, however, including those clearly dedicated to ethical and moral business practices with immense benefit to our natural environment and the human condition, and who are slated to be critical stimulators of the economy - are vigorously oppressed and sadly robbed of their spending and intellectual potential to help make this world a better place for all because of predatory lending.



Government Bails-Out-On
The United States’ Working Poor & Middle Income Students


In contrast to the government bail-outs mention above, College Students are not allowed to file for Bankruptcy in our Government Bankruptcy Courts in order to “clean the slate” of their huge, exponentially growing, student-loan-debt.

As a result, students and families cannot seem to escape damages imposed by student-loan-debt, such as (a) the permanent destruction to credit scores, (b) the disqualification from fair mortgage loans, automobile loans, and future student loans, (c) the suppression of access to student transcripts and college-registration-blocks imposed by the Department of Education, and (d) the disruption of attaining employment and promotions since most employers today conduct financial background checks in order to justify implicit bias in hiring and employment promoting practices, just to mention a few.


Why so many roadblocks to ameliorating student-debt?

Why so much interference in ensuring that students and families secure a viable income in order to pay back their student loans?


Essentially Because …

Student-Loan-Predatory-Lending Benefit Officials of
The Department of Education, Wealthy Corporations, & the Federal Government
While Effectively Oppressing Working Poor & Middle Income Families.



“In a leaked memo,
Sallie Mae officials have listed
preserving the inability to discharge education debt in bankruptcy
as their second most important goal.”

“The Department of Education
actually encourages schools to withhold transcripts
of those who are behind on payments.”


Which creates an unfair imposition on employment opportunities and
on returning back to school to further enhance one’s education and possibly earning potential.


“The Congressional Budget Office
projects that the Federal Government made
about $50 BILLION on student loans in 2013.

This is $5 billion more than ExxonMobile,
the most profitable company in the country.”


- The Huffington Post, March 24, 2014

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kyle-mccarthy/10-fun-facts-about-student-loan-debt...



Government Bails-Out-On
Puerto Rico’s Working Poor & Middle Income Families


If you follow the money you will see that many wealthy people are getting richer off the backs of working poor and middle income families. If you follow history you will see that this is merely a familiar exploitative slave-master footprint which has hovered over the human condition for far too long.

One of the most salient demonstrations of the devastation that results from predatory lending is the humanitarian crisis currently happening in the island of Puerto Rico after government officials in Puerto Rico were allegedly repeatedly loaned large amounts of money, by Wall-Street Banks, with the condition that they cannot pay back the interest or the principal of the loans until many years later, (close to 50 years later).

What they failed to mention to the working poor and middle income families of Puerto Rico is that many years later the unpaid interest and principal of the loans will accrue to such high amount that it would make it impossible for Puerto Rico to pay back the loans and thus guaranteeing the island’s financial debt.

Similar to the working poor and middle income students in the United States, Puerto Rico is “mysteriously” not allowed to file for bankruptcy in order to “clean the slate” of their immense financial debt while the wealthy that facilitated the debt walk away from such humanitarian crisis much wealthier than they started.

These predatory loans are known as Capital Appreciation Bonds and are said to work the same way as the payday loans familiar to many poor communities.



How Does It Work?

“… there’s a secondary market for bonds, just like there’s a secondary market for mortgages, where the lender that sold you the … (loan) … package it up into a security, they sell it off, and it gets traded. And so, a lot of the investors that are now buying it, which are these vulture hedge funds that are buying at dirt-low prices and trying to make a huge profit, profits … up to 2,000 % ...”



For Example:

If, “… something … theoretically ... is worth one dollar ($1.00),
and I’m going to pay you five cents ($0.05) to buy it up ...

… even if I, (sell it off and) , get back ten cents ($0.10),
I’ve doubled my profit.

And what they are trying to do is collect
not just the full dollar,

but then 800 % interest on the dollar.”


Saqib Blatti, Democracy Now’s Guest &
Director of the ReFund America Project, Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, &
Co-Author of the new report - Puerto Rico’s Payday Loans

Puerto Rico’s Payday Loans:
The Shocking Story Behind Wall Street’s Role in Debt Crisis

Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez, July 15, 2016

http://www.democracynow.org/2016/7/15/puerto_ricos_payday_loans_nearly_islands



What Are We Teaching Our Children -
That Financial Greed, Oppression, & the Exploitation
of Our Fellow Humans
Are The Favored Principles of Our Leaders?



Everything Starts With Our Thoughts


Vision for Changes

I have a vision where humans behind the walls of the Department of Education, humans behind the walls of Wall-Street’s Wealthy Businesses, and humans behind the walls of our Three Branches of Government all begin to conventionally utilize a -“What If It Were My Family & I?” - litmus-test in order to gauge the morality and ethics of their decisions and actions prior to implementation.

I have a vision where humans maintain unbiased Independent Special Prosecutors, for each of these entities mentioned, who will take public complaints serious and collaborate with one another to enforce the “What If It Were My Family & I” test and rigorously enforce Transparency, Accountability, meaningful Training, & quality Oversight (TATO).

I have a vision where we all come to realize that this obsessive “cut-throat” race toward financial superiority, off the backs of the already disenfranchised, has historically proven to be dangerously divisive to the human condition and has historically proven to negatively affect all humans, one way or another.

I have a vision where we come together to legally end the facilitation of debt onto others and instead genuinely facilitate access to quality education for all.

I have a vision where we are constantly reminded that independent of how much money one has and independent of what one looks like on the outside - we are, first and foremost, all human.

I have a vision where we all sing and dance to the tune that education is a natural human right and responsibility for all humans and that true richness essentially comes from within and is further enhanced by what we, as individuals, project onto all humans in this brief journey we call life.



United We Can Do Better!

Thank you for all you do to make this world a better place for all.
Much Love to All.

Sincerely,

Luis Ángel Pérez
Degrees in Psychology & Education
Mental Health & Social Services Counselor
Public School Science & Mathematics
Middle School- Seventh & Eighth Grades
Elementary School- First & Fourth Grades
Educator & Advocate



Awareness Is Power So Please Continue To Follow

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Window of Opportunity

Build The Blocks That Culture Shock,

Build The Wall To Cage & Stall,

Distort Your Efforts To Keep Us At Bay,

But Nature Always Finds A Way,

Nature Always Finds The Way.


By Luis Ángel Pérez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gPheJSirOk