thepeoplesrecord:

Student-loan delinquency skyrocketing, hitting “Danger Zone”
January 31, 2013

Most of us are have seen headlines about the burgeoning student-loan crisis. As of August, for instance, student loans had topped $914 billion — an increase of $10 billion in less than half a year, even as most debt was falling around the country. Still, we do not appear to have hit rock-bottom. A new report shows that student-loan delinquency rates have gone through the roof in recent years and that, even more troubling, we may be entering a “danger zone” in which the entire U.S. economy is at risk.

The report from FICO Labs shows that student-loan delinquencies saw a 22-percent increase in the past several years; the overall delinquency rate is now more than 15 percent.

The LA Times has more:

The worsening deliquency rate comes as loan balances surge. The average student-loan debt jumped to $27,253 last year, up 58% from $17,233 in 2005. By contrast, average credit-card and auto-loan balances declined during that period.

“As more people default on their student loans, their credit ratings will drop, making it harder for them to access new credit and help grow the economy,” [FICO Labs head Andrew] Jennings said. “Even people who stay current on their student loans are dealing with very large debts, which reduces the money they have available to spend elsewhere.”

Source

Strike Debt has created a Debt Resistor’s Manual that you can read here.

It’s side project, Rolling Jubilee, has raised $552,682 to abolish $11,058,465 in debt.

* there goes ur life shackled by a debt

* Joy Division- Unknown Pleasure

chemicalfreelife:

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GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOOD:  More Tales from Universities in Bed with Big Corporations

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They have been funding universities and faculty to publish favorable reports for years, but now Monsanto and their buddies from Big Chemical, the GMA, and Big Ag are quietly funding universities/paying faculty to squash the GMO Honest-Labeling campaign

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Industry-Funded so-called *study* says Honest Labeling of GMOs will cause economic crisis

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New ‘study’ from UC Davis about costs of GMO labeling funded by biotechnology industry

Major food and biotechnology corporations like Cargill and Monsanto really do not want to see genetically-modified (GM) food labeling laws passed this fall in California, or anywhere else for that matter, which is why they are continuing to hire corrupt scientists, researchers, and university academics to flesh out phony “studies” that make the implication that GMO labeling will create a type of food apocalypse in which nobody will be able to afford basic food essentials because of their exorbitant costs.

The latest bit of propaganda pushing such nonsense comes out of the University of California, Davis, where two professors recently put out an industry-funded study that claims that California’s Proposition 37 ballot measure, which will require labeling of GMOs at the retail level, will cost the food industry more than $1 billion. And this increased cost; they claim, will ultimately lead to higher food costs for consumers.

Entitled A Costly Regulation with No Benefits, the 48-page spin piece uses scare tactics and fear : http://responsibletechnology.org/resources/state-of-the-science

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This gradual merging of corporations with academia is hardly surprising since corporations have been merging with the government for decades.

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It turns out that the UC Davis study, which reads more like pro-Monsanto marketing material, was actually funded by Monsanto and many other corporations that have contributed millions of dollars to the No on 37 campaign. As we reported on previously, the No on 37 campaign has been almost entirely funded by Monsanto, Cargill, Kellogg’s, Nestle, and a number of other corporate giants that for many years have been deliberately hiding unlabeled GMOs in the American food supply. (http://www.naturalnews.com)It is on the very first page of the UC Davis study where we learn that “work for this project was undertaken with partial funding from No on 37.”

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So much for unbiased, independent research from an institution of higher learning. In essence, this statement shows that the UC Davis study is not even a study at all, but rather a No on 37campaign marketing piece disguised with academic credentials.

Read more: Bad science busted: New ‘study’ from UC Davis about costs of GMO labeling funded by biotechnology industry

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To learn more about Prop. 37 and the grassroots efforts to get GMOs labeled, visit:  http://www.carighttoknow.org/

Sources: http://www.latimes.com; image-rmpjc.org

smarterplanet:

The Faculty Project

The best Professors from the world’s leading Universities are coming together to teach online FOR FREE!

The Faculty Project brings academia’s most outstanding professors to the computers, tablets and smartphones of people all over the world.

All courses will be free with open enrollment for anyone with an Internet connection.

* this is dope. i’ll be looking forward to this

cartoonpolitics:

Student loan debt, at $830 billion, now exceeds total US credit card debt, itself bloated to the bubble level of $827 billion.  More here..

* A frog sits on a U.S. dime in this photo taken by Louisiana State University herpetologist Christopher Austin near the Amau River in Papua New Guinea, in this Aug. 2009 photo released by Louisiana State University. (Louisiana State University / Christopher Austin)

Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120111/tiny-frog-smallest-vertebrate-120111/#ixzz1jKBja930

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alexanderpf:

owsposters: Visual Student Loan Debt

* the modern slavery

* Well that just makes me an artist. 

(Source: mno-bimaadiziwin)