HomeUncategorized3/6-7 News Roundup and Open Thread

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orlbucfan

T and R x 2, jcb!! 🙂 I’m posting a link to a very well-written and thought-provoking NYT guest essay. The subject? Climate change. As my fellow Birdies know, I have access to this news source on line. We are also getting the Sunday print edition again. I’ve always enjoyed their Arts sections and the environmental stuff. The publisher and editors have kept up the high quality, even though their political stuff usually leaves a lot to be desired. Anywho, enjoy. 🙂 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/06/opinion/climate-change-early-spring.html

Benny

I wasn’t aware you had access to NYT. Good to know!

orlbucfan

We had a print subscription to the Sunday edition years ago. Then Hi-Tech Hubby got a daily subscription on-line which he’s kept up with. He also had a WAPO one but got disgusted after Bezos bought it and cancelled it. Now, we get the Sunday NYT print again, too. About the only news stuff I read is NC, the American Prospect, TPW, and sections of the Gray Lady. 🙂

Benny

Benny

Benny

wi64

Because the US has had the proverbial finger in that pie since 1917. Even more so since Israel was offically a nation in 1948

orlbucfan

That’s the Intercept article I read. I constantly slam American political stupidity, but the Israelis topped us by electing this piece of trash 3 times!💩

wi64

We have about 20% of morons that really believe that cult 45 2.0 needs to happen. More than likely that still more than the population of Israel

Benny

orlbucfan

They are also acutely aware of climate crisis. Their generation didn’t cause it; they were born into it!

wi64

And will suffer the consequences of the Greed rules the day policy that the craprate empires bought with their political $$$$$$

Benny

Illinois leads nation in applications for student debt relief

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments last week in a case that could impact more than 1.5 million people in Illinois with student debt. At issue is the legal standing of President Joe Biden’s loan forgiveness program, which would cancel up to $20,000 in debt for borrowers earning less than $125,000 a year.

Before the program got held up in court in November, Illinois residents applied in droves.

According to newly released data from the federal education department, the three congressional districts with the highest response rates in the nation were in Illinois. More than 70% of eligible borrowers in the 5th, 6th, and 8th Congressional districts, all located in the Chicago area, applied for or automatically qualified for debt relief.

The stakes for the outcome of the Supreme Court case are high for these borrowers, especially for those who are Black and, according to research, carry the heaviest student debt burden.

A report from the Education Data Initiative showed that Black college graduates owe an average $25,000 more in student loan debt than white college graduates. If the court upholds the federal debt relief program, borrowers who were eligible for Pell grants, designated for students with the greatest financial need, would receive $20,000 in loan cancellation. Non-Pell grant eligible students can receive up to $10,000 in loan relief.

Brittani Williams, a higher education researcher with the Education Trust, a Washington D.C.- based advocacy group, said Black borrowers are disproportionately impacted by student debt because of the lack of generational wealth in their communities resulting from systemic racism.

“If we had the wealth to pay for college, I don’t think that we would have borrowed the money in such great numbers,” Williams said. “People have to borrow, to persist in the [hopes] of upward economic mobility.”

Williams said oftentimes for Black borrowers, including herself, pursuing higher education offers the best chance at a better quality of life for themselves and their families.

“As an undergraduate student, a student loan borrower, a Pell Grant recipient identifying as a first generation student, from a single parent home — this degree was not just for me,” Williams said. “I’m the oldest sibling and so this degree was for me, and my siblings. And while I worked three and four jobs at a time, I sent money back home to my siblings.”

Unfortunately, she said, student debt often gets in the way of upward economic mobility, even for those who complete their degrees and perhaps earn higher salaries. Loan and interest payments make it harder for borrowers to save or even cover basic needs, especially as economic conditions have increased the cost of food, rent and child care.

Critics of the debt relief program say that it is too expensive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the price tag to be about $400 billion. Others believe degree earners do not need to have their debts relieved. Still others view debt forgiveness as a band-aid on a broken system.

Williams said it is just one small but meaningful piece of the college affordability puzzle.

“When you add that aspect of student loan debt, you could imagine the toll that it would take on someone’s mental health,” said Williams. “For those borrowers who get that relief, who also have other competing, very critical priorities, this could be just a huge thing.”

wi64

Just another example of what America excells at “GREED” They dont care about damage our greed at all costs of our current economic system. remember when Americans cant afford food, thats when the riots begin and with every passing year we get closer to that scenario

Benny

The governor of Illinois isn’t opposed to Biden’s plan at all. Illinois has been working on expanding monetary assistance grants to potential students. MAP has been around before Pritzker arrived in Springfield, but they tended to be for the most poor and if I recall, they also had to have a certain GPA. I’m glad to see the expansion as more flexible. Pell Grants are not enough.

I presume, however, that not all IL students who applied for student debt relief necessarily went to public universities within the state.

orlbucfan

Pritzker sounds like he’s not just smart; he’s shrewd.

Benny

Almost.

Benny

I would like to ask him the question Bill Maher asked Bernie on Real Time last Friday: are you for equity or equality?

orlbucfan

Me, too.👍

wi64

Good Question!!

orlbucfan

How about cutting a chunk of the parasitic MICC budget? I got my graduate degree on fed loans and paid every cent back. It helped me establish credit, too. I support debt forhgiveness. My late mother was born into white poverty. Education was a sacred commandment to her. 🙂

Benny

orlbucfan

Big John knows he has access to the best healthcare in this country now. He’s taking advantage and getting his med problems fixed. He is also doing his job as a public servant representing his fellow Pennsylvanians. As a long-suffering Floridian, I envy PA, sigh…..

Benny

orlbucfan

You bet this contagion is growing. The young folk figure what do they have to lose at this point?

Benny

We’ll see, but Matt Stoller seems to believe this will occur.

orlbucfan

Stoller does know craporate monopoly. 🙂

Benny

wi64

Ahhh The Fed currupt to the core. They want 2 million layofffs to tone down the economy and then the GQP can complain that to many Americans are on unemployment and assisted living.. Some economic system we have…