US Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act on May 10, 2013. She made several good points about student loans, the most depressing one being that interest rates for new subsidized student loans will increase from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on July 1, unless congress does something about it.
She noted that banks get to borrow from the Federal Reserve at 0.75 percent, the same banks that destroyed the economy. The Federal Reserve has also lent and or given out tens of trillions of dollars to the banks on behalf of rich investors, so yes we can afford to push interest rates down on student loans.
However, the banks have investors who want more and more profits, while students only invest in themselves. Student loans are purchased by Wall Street investment banks, who then slice and dice them, and sell bonds backed by the loans to rich investors. Much of the monthly loan payments made by students go directly into the pockets of investors.
Consequently, the current purpose of student loans are to redistribute income from the borrowers to rich investors. As they examine the bill, everybody in congress and on Wall Street will look at it and wonder, why would any investor buy bonds backed by such low interest rates?
So don’t expect congress to vote yes on the bill without sizable pressure from voters calling them to support it. And, of course, the corporate press will be sure to never mention that the bill exists, except perhaps in the least obvious way, like in small print on page 57, or with a five second clip on the 2am news. That way they won’t alarm the general population to act on federal legislation to their benefit and people won’t call Wall Street’s congressional representatives, such as Senator Ron Wyden and Congressman Earl Blumenauer. That way Wall Street hacks won’t complain to the editors.
