Loans // Current TV

Sen Kent Conrad to give $1 Billion to Wall Street Instead of Students in Need

If you had to give away $1 billion, would you help struggling students in your state,... more

JonRaymond
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3 years ago
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Worst US Loans In History

Some of the most oppressive regimes and repulsive groups in history have existed only... more

digitalfever
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3 years ago
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The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden

When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.

"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."

To be sure, Dr. Bisutti's case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.

But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as "good debt," because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.

Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can't make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.

Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.

Although Dr. Bisutti's debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying
isn't.
More-------
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/108846/the-555000-student-loan-burden?mod=edu-continuing_education

http://www.freefinancezone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/debt-consolidation.jpg
isn't.When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished... more

remanns
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3 years ago
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10 comments

IMF Loan to Haiti

I have been posting extensively as have others on the way conditional loans and imperial policies have forced Haiti towards destructive economic policies that have left Haiti as susceptible as they were to the earthquake. I have also written on how we should ensure that Haitis desperation was not used to force it into further economic compliance. I have really positive news which says some great things about the IMF and the US given their degree of control over the IMF. The article starts here:

Last Friday I wrote about the IMF's new $100 million loan to Haiti. I cited debt relief activists who told me that the new loan would be an extension of the IMF's existing loan of $165 million. This information was confirmed by the IMF's press release, which stated that "emergency financing would be provided as an augmentation to the existing IMF-supported arrangement with Haiti under the Extended Credit Facility [ECF]." The IMF's announcement provided no further information about conditions that may or may not be attached to the loan and made no mention of future debt relief for Haiti.

My post was based largely on an analysis by Soren Ambrose, the development finance coordinator of ActionAid International, who concluded that augmenting the existing ECF loan to Haiti would impose the same conditions as the original loan. Those conditions include raising prices for electricity, refusing pay raises for any public sector employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation as low as possible. Ambrose says that he doesn't know of any established procedure that would exempt an augmentation of an existing program from the program's conditions. (His analysis also noted that Haiti's existing program with the IMF was due to expire at the end of this month and that negotiations on the loan's terms were likely underway already.)

As the IMF announced its $100 million loan under vague and presumably onerous terms, debt relief activists like the folks at Jubilee USA were already calling for a different kind of global response. They were demanding that aid to Haiti come in the form of grants, not loans. But given the magnitude of the crisis and the fact that the IMF does not issue grants, they welcomed the IMF loan in the hopes that its terms could be altered in the future and that Haiti's entire debt could be canceled. At the same time, Naomi Klein and others warned about the possibility that the earthquake would be used as a pretext to amp up Haiti's exposure to the shock doctrine. Activists started a Facebook group, No Shock Doctrine for Haiti, and in less than a week, it has attracted almost 18,000 members. Appeals for debt relief and for the recognition of Haiti's economic sovereignty were written to the Obama administration, the IMF, the World Bank and anyone else who might play a role in Haiti's reconstruction.

Today, the IMF put out an announcement clarifying the terms of its new loan to Haiti--it's "an interest-free loan of $100 million in emergency funds." A spokesman for the IMF emailed me to confirm that "the US$100 million loan does not carry any conditionality. It is an emergency loan aimed at getting the Haitian economy back to function again..." The IMF's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a statement that the IMF would immediately work to cancel the entirety of Haiti's debt ($265 million) to the fund:

"The most important thing is that the IMF is now working with all donors to try to delete all the Haitian debt, including our new loan. If we succeed--and I'm sure we will succeed--even this loan will turn out to be finally a grant, because all the debt will have been deleted."

In other words, as the IMF is processing a loan, it is also making a public promise to try to cancel it.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/519364/imf_clarifies_terms_of_haiti_s_loan

(image here: http://www.iadb.org/news/images/medium/carrefour375.jpg)I have been posting extensively as have others on the way conditional loans and... more

peterzylstramoore
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3 years ago
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14 comments

2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita loans to be forgiven

Vice President Joe Biden announced on Friday that the U.S. government will begin... more

stormchaser4850
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3 years ago
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Smiley Face Signature rejected for Loan

Even though a smiley face was OK as a signature for a passport and an ID card, a bank... more

AnnieMole
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3 years ago
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1 comment

Cannabis grower used government loan to set up marijuana farm

Stephen Duxbury's misuse of taxpayers money came to light when police raided his... more

copperdragon
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3 years ago
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A Home Loan Named Desire

GoodB Blog

It’s official. The “save the drowning homeowner who got burned plan” aka the “Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)” is a Big Fat Dud.

A U.S. Congressional oversight panel reported this week that of 500,000 mortgages currently in the hopper for restructuring, only 2,000 (less than half a percent) have been permanently modified-a remarkable feat of failure only George W would envy.

The ten month old program offers lenders $1000 per year for up to three years if they modify a loan. Mortgage servicers make far more than that in late fees alone. The banks with these loans on their books must be laughing at the paltry sum in the wake of the tens of thousands of dollars they stand to make in foreclosure. Investor pools that hold mortgage securities and hide behind the servicers and banks would lose millions. In response, they slither away out of the public eye and simply ignore the Obama administration’s call to make homes “affordable.”

There is no legally binding, real financial incentive, or even official threat to participate, so why bother say lenders? Hence the U.S. “Making Home Affordable” plan is a miserable failure. It is all bark and no bite.

Why bother indeed? Lenders might step up because they want to help their fellow countrymen? Let’s just forget that. How about doing it for the sake of the housing market, the economy, the country? No thanks, lenders say.

We would have to come up with something more compelling than that to shake the snakes out from under the rocks. Perhaps some big buckeroos might do it. Short of that, real threats of withholding government aid from lending institutions might create sudden patriotic fervor. Or perhaps bank-loving policy makers should put their money where their mouth is-in the American people’s hands.

While the nation is spending billions on two wars it doesn’t want and trillions on the same folks that pulled the financial ground out from under them, $3000 to modify a mortgage seems like chump change to a lender. And folks as we know from the biggest scam ever to hit the American people-subprime mortgages and the CDO and CDS securities that hid them- banks are not chumps.

source: http://3blmedia.com/theCSRfeed/Home-Loan-Named-Desire#GoodB Blog It’s official. The “save the drowning homeowner who got... more

3BLMedia
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3 years ago
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Home rescue plan delaying, not solving crisis

ALBANY, Ohio/WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - Within weeks of taking office, U.S.... more

J_Jammer [removed]
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3 years ago
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5 comments

the meltdown explained

"This American Life" (NPR) updated "the giant pool of money".... more

iamaman
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3 years ago
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2 comments

Student Loans by the Numbers (Graphic)

While it's been said you should never underestimate the value of a college... more

brandonthebuck
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3 years ago
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Discover 27 Ways To Repair Your Bad Credit

http://www.CreditRaisingNow.com Discover 27 Proven ways to repair your bad credit in... more

Creditguru
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3 years ago
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Capitalism: a love story

The new documentary by Michael Moore, the American director who in Fahrenheit 9/11... more

hyperion74
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3 years ago
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27 Ways To Repair Your Bad Credit

http://www.creditraisingnow.com Check out these 27 powerful ways showing you how to... more

Creditguru
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3 years ago
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Do You Qualify for a Loan Modification?

Loan modifications are hard for homeowners to figure out. Many get mixed signals... more

IlyceGlink
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3 years ago
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Why do we need a CFPA? To squelch $31 billion a year in bank fees | FraudulentCharges.com

Anyone who doubts the need for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that... more

dagloman
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3 years ago
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MyIdSupport.com and Payday Loan Scams and how to get a refund

It has been brought to our attention at FraudulentCharges.com that there’s yet... more

dagloman
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3 years ago
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1 comment

Lending slowdown in US: report

Leading US banks are not lending as much as bankers and borrowers refrain from taking... more

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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3 comments

keep living that American Dream!..

Income to Debt the realities of life... Student Loan.. eek!

thepsm
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3 years ago
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1 comment

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