Disgusting Federal Bailout for Corrupt Student Loan Sharks

Just when you think it can't get any worse in "higher" education in America ...

It's been clear for a long time that the explosion in student lending by private institutions has been fueled by massive campaign contributions by those companies to Bush and other Republicans ...

Yet another example of "privatization of profits, bailouts for losses" given to favored groups by this infernally corrupt gang in the White House and formerly GOP-controlled Congress ...

So once interest rates start to rise -- largely as a result of the obviously-at-the-time self / destructive economic "policies" of the Bush regime --

these corporate loan sharks to unwitting students started moaning about how "unprofitable" the student loan business had become,

and started, as we noted just as few weeks ago, pulling OUT of that game, just at the time when students were hearing about college admissions, and trying to make plans to finance their excessively expensive "higher" education ...

Gee, do you think the timing was co-incidental ... ;-) ... ???

So, in typical fashion, the RPBs put together a bail-out for their big contributors from the student-loan racket,

and, equally typically, the idiot Democrats -- and equally gullible major media like the Times -- go right along with it,

all under the pathetic rhetorical banner of "making sure that students have access to loan money for their education" ...

Revolting ... as this NYTimes article makes clear ...

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings on Wednesday announced a plan committing the federal government to buy college loans for the coming school year from student lending companies

and to take other measures to ensure that despite troubled credit markets, students will have access to college financing.

Oh yeah, it's ALL for the students ... ;-) ...

But check out the terms these guys got ... unbelievable ...

The government would pay face value ... plus accrued interest ... and origination fees ... as well as $75 per loan to cover administrative costs, Ms. Spellings said.

Ellipses added to make sure it's clear what a HUGE rip-off of taxpayer money this is ...

Not that students SHOULDN'T have access to low-interest loans ... of course they should ...

even IF US colleges charge WAY too much, mostly for bloated faculty and administrative salaries that are totally out of line with what they actually DO ... ;-) ...

But to pretend that it's all about the students ... and not a huge bail-out for education loan sharks is a pathetic joke ...

Ms. Spellings’s announcement capped weeks of talks with scores of lending companies that have asked for more help from Washington to continue their participation in the government’s loan programs.

They have complained that the global credit crisis has elevated their capital costs.

Oh, poor babies ... :-( ... yet they weren't complaining -- or asking for government involvement -- when their profits were going through the roof ...

Only now, when their sacred profit margins are starting to narrow a/o disappear do they want "big gubmint" to come in and rescue them ...

Also, last year Congress cut the subsidies paid to lenders for federal loans.

And please note the subsidies were being paid NOT to the students, but to the LENDERS ...

Big difference ...

As with health care, where the hell do Americans get the idea that ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING is a legitimate arena for obscene profit-making ???

And, of course, the pathetic Democrats play right along with the utterly bogus rhetoric ...

Representative George Miller, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House education committee, called Ms. Spellings’s plan “a thoughtful approach” to ensuring that students have continued access to loans.

A spokeswoman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who heads the Senate education committee, also praised the plan.

Ugh ... all the way around ...