The Student Loan Crisis and the Democratic Party Platform: Key Reform Proposals Would Entice Young Voters to vote for Hillary

Hillary Clinton has a problem with young  voters. They went 3 or 4 to 1 for Bernie Sanders in the various Democratic primaries this spring. Why did young voters go to Bernie, and how can Hillary win them over?

The Democratic Party insiders--dinosaurs like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Schumer, etc--don't realize it but the number one domestic policy issue in the United States today is the student loan crisis.  Approximately 43 million Americans are carrying $1.3 trillion in student-loan debt, and at least half of them can't pay it back.

As the Wall Street Journal reported in April, about 40 percent of college-loan borrowers in the repayment phase aren't making their monthly loan payments.  And five million people are enrolled in various income-based repayment programs. Most debtors in these programs are making payments so low that the payments don't cover accruing interest. In reality then, most people in income-based repayment plans will never pay off their loan balances.

Bernie Sanders signaled that he understands the scope of the problem when he proposed a free college education at a public college for every American.  By making that pledge, he turned millions of young Americans into single-issue voters.

Hillary could attract millions of Bernie supporters by adding these  planks to the Democratic Party platform:

• Free college education at a public college or university (as Bernie proposed).
• Eliminating the tax penalty for people who successfully complete long-term repayment plans but who have a loan balance when they've  completed their repayment terms.
• Stopping the garnishment of Social Security checks for elderly student-loan defaulters.
• Forcing the for-profits to stop putting mandatory arbitration clauses in student enrollment documents.
• Repealing the provision of the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act that virtually eliminated bankruptcy relief for people who took out student loans from private lenders.

If Hillary and her handlers are smart, they will adopt these ideas. I hope Bernie refuses to endorse Hillary until she endorses at least some of them. If Bernie can pressure Hillary to make a commitment to solve the student-loan crisis, his campaign for the presidency will not have been in vain. But if the presidential race between Trump and Hillary rolls toward election day without any serious discussion of the student-loan crisis, then this country is in huuuge trouble.

References

Josh Mitchell. More Than 40% of Student Borrowers Aren’t Making Payments. Wall Street Journal, April 7 2015. Accessible at http://www.wsj.com/articles/more-than-40-of-student-borrowers-arent-making-payments-1459971348 

How many college graduates have jobs that don't require a college degree? You might be surprised.

Last April, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released an analysis of labor-market conditions for college graduates. Here is what it found:

• In 2015, almost 45 percent of recent college graduates (graduates aged 22 through 27) were working in jobs that do not require a college degree.

• Around 35 percent of all graduates (graduates aged 22 through 65) were holding down jobs that don't require a college education.

• Wages for recent college graduates have remained relatively flat from 1990 to 2015.

So what do these numbers mean for young Americans?

College is not a good bet for everyone. First, although the college industry and their advocates (Brookings Institution, etc.) like to remind us that people who graduate from college make more money over their lifetimes than people who only have high school diplomas, going to college is not a good bet for everyone.

As the New York Fed has shown us, darn near half of recent college graduates are working in jobs they could have gotten without going to college. Of course many recent graduates will eventually find jobs that require a college degree. But even among the college-educated population as a whole, about one third of college graduates are working in jobs that do not require a college education.

 The payoff for getting a college degree is not as good as it once was. Second, wages for college graduates have remained about the same for the past 25 years--about $45,000 in constant 2015 dollars. But the cost of going to college has tripled over the last quarter of a century. That's why about two thirds of college graduates leave school with college-loan debt.

Thus, you may still need to go to college to earn a decent income, but a larger share of that income is going to go to servicing student loans.  In other words, recent college graduates are not as well off financially as their counterparts were 1990 because a majority of them are graduating with a significant amount of debt.

The case for a free college education gets stronger and stronger. People laughed at Bernie Sanders when he argued for a free college education from a public college for anyone who wants one. But, as I have repeatedly pointed out, Bernie's plan would actually cost less than the current federal loan program, because millions of people aren't paying off their loans.

Now Bernie is gone--swept away in the California primary election, and the higher education community can look at this idea afresh without fear of undermining their favorite presidential candidate--Hillary Clinton.

And lo and behold, the Brookings Institution published a paper today by a couple of croakers named Morley Winograd and Michael Hais that suggests free college might be a good thing.

And it would be a good thing. Certainly offering a free college education would be better than Hilary's scheme to pump billions of dollars more into a higher education system that is corrupt, obsolete, inefficient, and horribly overpriced.

References

The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates. Federal Reserve Bank f New York, 2016. Accessible at https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market/index.html

Mathew Boesler. More College Grads Finding Work, But Not in the Best Jobs. Bloomberg.com, April 7, 2016. Accessible at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/more-college-grads-finding-work-but-not-in-the-best-jobs

Morley Winograd and Michael Hais. The Democrats' Generation Gap. Brookings Institution, Jun 3, 2016. Accessible at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2016/06/03-millennials-democrats-election-2016-winograd-hais?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=30380706&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8kyQSbZyUfxh-t2hnsxhvRRXvUp2j0eORShy09EK-7-HQpeIdEwoZaQ1CXQ3fR5CAxWRHk2cBWPTT6cCkIOO74q4BLUw&_hsmi=30380706

 Morley Winograd and Michael Hais. The Democrats' Generation Gap, Mike and Morley web site, June 6, 2016. http://www.mikeandmorley.com/the_democrats_generation_gap


Morley Winograd and Michael Hais recommend free college in a Brookings paper less than 24 hours after Bernie Sanders lost the California primary



The Brookings Institution is a cowardly, sniffling organization committed to preserving the status quo in higher education. And here is another indication of that.

On June 8, the morning after Hillary beat Bernie in California, Brookings posted an essay by Morley Winograd and Michael Hais about how the Democrats can win back  the young voters who went for Bernie Sanders over Hillary by 3 or 4 to 1. 

In case you haven't heard of them, Morley Winograd and Michael Hais are two old coots who profess to be experts on the millennial generation. Judging by their photos, Winograd and Hais are not millennials themselves, but they have written some books about millennials and that makes them experts.

In their essay for Brookings, Winograd and Hais cooed approvingly about Hillary's stand on the student-loan crisis:  "[Hillary] has already spoken out forcefully on the need to lift the burden of student debt from this generation," the authors wrote. They note that sheendorses the idea of allowing college-loan borrowers to refinance their loans and she favors loan forgiveness for people who were defrauded by "unscrupulous lenders or schools." 

Big friggin' deal. Allowing distressed debtors to refinance their loans will not solve the student loan crisis. There are 43 million people with outstanding college-loan debt, and most have signed multiple promissory notes. There must be at least 200 million individual debt instruments floating around--maybe twice that many.  Is the federal government really going to refinance all those loans at lower interest rates? In your dreams, Mike and Morley.

And as for the notion that defrauded students should have their loans forgiven, I've got news for you, Mike and Morley. The Department of Education already has a debt forgiveness program in place. The problem is that the process is so cumbersome that very few loans have actually been forgiven.

But here's the money quote.  Mike and Morley recommend a free college education for everybody.
 "[M]illennials and the generations that come after them should be able to get their higher education debt free," Winograd and Hais wrote, "because that’s the level of education they—and America—will need to be successful both in today’s economy and in the years ahead."

Hey, that's exactly what Bernie Sanders said at his first debate with Hillary last fall. If this is such a good idea, why didn't Mike and Morley, the so-called millennial experts, suggest it sooner? Why didn't Hillary endorse this idea? And, more to the point of this commentary, why didn't the Brookings Institution publicize this idea before the California primary rather than after the votes were counted and Bernie was defeated?

I'll tell you why--because Hillary, the Brookings Institution, and the Democratic Party are committed to the status quo in higher education. If Americans could get a free college education from a public college in the same way they get a free high school education, the for-profit colleges would shut down almost overnight and the elite private colleges would be forced to slash their tuition rates.

Hillary is not going to let that happen. She and Bill have made too much money off the higher education industry, and so have Democratic Party insiders like Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  That's why Mike and Morley's whispered suggestion about a free college education didn't surface until after Hillary had defeated Bernie. And my prediction is this: the Brookings Institute will never allow this very good idea to be floated again in any of its publications.

Morley Winograd & Mihael Hais: Experts on millennials

 Note: The Winograd and Hais essay is dated June 3, 2016, but it first appeared for public viewing on the Brookings web site on June 8, 2016. The same essay appeared on the Mike and Morley web site on June 6. 

References

Morley Winograd and Michael Hais. The Democrats' Generation Gap. Brookings Institution, Jun 3, 2016. Accessible at http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2016/06/03-millennials-democrats-election-2016-winograd-hais?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=30380706&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8kyQSbZyUfxh-t2hnsxhvRRXvUp2j0eORShy09EK-7-HQpeIdEwoZaQ1CXQ3fR5CAxWRHk2cBWPTT6cCkIOO74q4BLUw&_hsmi=30380706

 Morley Winograd and Michael Hais. The Democrats' Generation Gap, Mike and Morley web site, June 6, 2016. http://www.mikeandmorley.com/the_democrats_generation_gap


Bill Kristol wants David French to run for president against Trump and Hillary: Don't bring a knife to a gun fight

Bill Kristol, Editor of Weekly Standard, is promoting David French, a National Review writer, to run for president as an independent against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

What a terrible thing to do to Mr. French. It's like throwing a puppy into a nest of crocodiles.  And isn't Donald having enough fun already? Do we really need to give him another person to belittle and ridicule?

On the other hand, French is a Presbyterian as is Trump; and Hillary is a Methodist. I would love to see these candidates debate theology.

Jerry Brown endorses Clinton: Governor Moonbeam takes a fall for Crooked Hillary

I've long been a fan of Jerry Brown, Governor of California. He is 78 years old now, but he was 36 years old when he was elected Governor of California back in 1974--the youngest governor of the state in over a hundred years. Brown was a progressive politician then--Governor Moonbeam they called him. I admired his politics when I was a youth, and I would have voted for him if I'd been given an opportunity back when he ran for President in 1976.  He once dated Linda Ronstadt, and I gave him a lot of points for that.

But like the movie character Peter Pan, played by Robin Williams, Jerry grew up, and he started listening to what the grownups say. Now, one week before the California primary election, Jerry comes out for Crooked Hillary.

I feel sorry for Jerry Brown. He had a chance to make an important moral statement but he choked. He did what the Democratic political bosses wanted him to do.

Surely Jerry knows the old world is passing away. The status quo won't last forever. Jerry could have joined the Sanders revolution and remained true to the ideals of his younger days.

But Jerry Brown lost his nerve. At this crisis point in American history, Jerry turned out to be just an old man.

Jerry Brown: Unfortunately, Peter Pan grew up

Jerry and Linda Ronstadt: Those were the days

References

Jerry Brown. Open Letter to California Democrats and Independents, May 31, 2016. http://www.jerrybrown.org/an_open_letter_to_california_democrats_and_independents

Barney Frank, World Class Sleaze, Accuses Bernie Sanders of McCarthyism

Barney Frank, former Congressman from Massachusetts, will be one of Hillary Clinton's Super Delegates at the Democratic Convention. Indeed, Frank is on the Convention's Platform  Committee. That fact that Barney Frank is a Hillary partisan is reason enough to be a Bernie Sanders supporter.

Most people have forgotten that Barney Frank paid for sex with a male prostitute, hired the guy to be a personal assistant and then turned a blind eye while the prostitute ran a prostitution ring out of Frank's apartment.  (Frank claimed he did not know his apartment was being used for prostitution, and he may have been telling the truth.) And all of this while Frank represented the state of Massachusetts in Congress. The House of Representatives reprimanded Frank, not for hiring a prostitute, but for writing a misleading letter to the prostitute's probation officer. Oh yes. And Frank used his congressional privilege to fix more than 30 of the prostitute's parking tickets

You don't have to believe me.  Read about it in the New York Times and other respected newspapers.

Frank was on the House Financial Services Committee in 2005, when he downplayed concerns about the bubble in the housing industry. Millions of Americans suffered losses in the financial downturn of 2008, but not Frank. As  Liz Peak  reported in 2011, Frank did quite well during the financial crisis and retired from Congress comfortably fixed: 

As a steward of the nation’s purse during the financial crisis Mr. Frank may not have succeeded, but he did quite well personally. Unusually, Mr. Frank’s personal finances sailed right through the downturn. In 2006 he reported assets valued between $525,020 and $1.6 million; by 2010 Mr. Franks’ net worth had soared to between $1.9 million and $4.6 million, with nary a down year in between. No wonder he can afford to retire. 

 And now Frank, speaking as a Super Delegate for Hillary Clinton, has the effrontery to accuse Bernie Sanders--the only decent person left in the presidential race--of McCarthyism!

Barney Frank is one of roughly 400 Democratic Party insiders who have profited from politics while the American economy spirals downward. And Frank's vote as a Super Delegate is worth more than a coal miner's vote in the West Virginia primary or a Walmart clerk's vote in the Oklahoma primary.

The media elites--all self-proclaimed progressives--have closed their eyes to Hillary's cronyism and self-dealing and have thrown their support to Bernie's opponent.

But I have a message for all Hillary's media lap dogs who are disparaging Bernie Sanders--Frank Bruni, Froma Harrop, Cokie and Steve Roberts, etc. etc. etc. Hillary Clinton will not be the next president of the United States.  And the public will remember the journalists who were confronted with a choice between sleaze and decency during the 2016 presidential campaign and who chose to support sleaze.

Barney Frank, a Hillary Super Delegate, Accuses Bernie Sanders of McCarthyism

  
References

 Allan Gold. Frank Acknowledges Hiring Male Prostitute as Personal Aide. New York Times, August 25, 1989. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/26/us/rep-frank-acknowledges-hiring-male-prostitute-as-personal-aide.html?pagewanted=all

Mark Finkelstein. Hillary Fan Barney Frank Accuses of Bernie Sanders of 'McCarthyism."MRC Newsbusters, April 6, 2016. Accessible at http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2016/04/06/hillary-fan-barney-frank-accuses-bernie-sanders-mccarthyism

Froma Harrop, Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite. Seattle Times, May 19, 2016. Accessible at http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/bernie-sanders-and-racism-lite/

Frances Romero. Sinful Statesman Barney Frank. Time Magazine, June 8, 2011. Accessible at http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1721111_1721210_1883878,00.html

A Timeline of Politicians and Prostitutes. U.S. News & World Report, March 11, 2008. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/03/11/a-timeline-of-politicians-and-prostitutes

Liz Peek. Barney Frank Won't Have To Worry About Money In Retirement. Fox News, December 2, 2011. Accessible at http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/02/barney-frank-wont-have-to-worry-about-money-in-retirement.html

Cokie and Steve Roberts. Bernie Sanders plays a dangerous game. Baton Rouge Advocate, May 30, 2016, p. 5B.  Also accessible at  http://kpcnews.com/opinions/other_columnists/kpcnews/article_ac1c34ff-ce96-5376-89c8-26841b44436a.html

Froma Harrop insinuates that Bernie Sanders is a racist: Is Froma pimping for Hillary?

The media elite are furious that Bernie Sanders won't go away and that he continues to win primary elections. And some journalists have resorted to making wild accusations about Sanders and his campaign.

Froma Harrop's piece, which appeared last week, is particularly nasty. Appearing under a headline entitled "Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite,' Harrop insinuated that Bernie's campaign is associated with racism. She even accused "Sanders' white posses" of "invading campaign events of other presidential contenders, including Donald Trump rallies. But Harrop cited no evidence to support such a charge.

The liberal media can't have it both ways. Most liberal commentators argue that Trump's rallies are disrupted because Trump incites violence by his message and tone. But now Harrop suggests that it is those nasty Bernie supporters who are causing all the ruckus.

She also cynically interpreted Bernie's observation that his rallies were largely peaceful even when held in "high crime areas."  According to Harrop, "high crime areas" is a veiled reference to African American neighborhoods.

Harrop admits--as she must--that Bernie has a "staunch civil rights record." Indeed, Bernie was arrested in 1963 for participating in a civil rights protest against segregated schools in Chicago; and he was active in the Congress On Race Equality (CORE) during the 1960s. Does Hillary have a comparable civil rights record? No, she does not.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of Harrop's hatchet job on Bernie was her insinuation that he moved to Vermont, which she described as "the whitest state in the nation," for racist reasons. Vermont, Harrop confides, "had become a safe haven for liberals leaving--the word then was 'fleeing'--the cities."

What a pile of horse manure! A great many states have low minority populations--Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Vermont, Maine. Is Harrop suggesting that people who move to those states are a bunch of racists? If that's true, then pack me to a re-education camp because I lived in Alaska for nine years during the 1980s.

In my view, Harrop is one of a band of panting puppies eager to assist Hillary Clinton clinch the Democratic presidential nomination by denigrating Bernie Sanders--the only genuinely decent candidate left in the race. Cokie and Steve Roberts performed a similar service for Hillary in an op ed essay as did Frank Bruni of the New York Times, who suggested that Bernie was a sore loser because he didn't drop out of the race for president.

But it is the liberal media elites who are the sore losers. And what they have lost is the public's respect for their journalistic integrity. And that's why millions of Americans have decided to think for themselves during this election cycle instead of allowing CNN, the New York Times, and journalistic lap dogs like Froma Harrop to do their thinking for them.

I hate to break the news to you, Froma, but a lot of Americans find Hillary totally unacceptable as a president; and insinuating that Bernie is a racist is not the way to persuade Americans to change their minds.

Who is that guy?

References

Frank Bruni. The Cult of Sore Losers. New York Times, April 26, 2016. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/the-cult-of-sore-losers.html?_r=0

Froma Harrop. Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite. Seattle Times, May 19, 2016. Accessible at http://www.seattletimes.com/author/froma-harrop/

Tim Murphy. Here's What Bernie Sanders Actually Did In the Civil Rights Movement. Mother Jones, February 11, 2016. Accessible at http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago

A Bernie Sanders Supporter Who Will Vote For Donald Trump: Cry Havoc!

You ask me if I'll get along.

I guess I will, someway.

I don't like it but I guess things happen that way.

Guess Things Happen That Way

Johnny Cash

I am a die hard Bernie Sanders fan. As I said in an earlier blog, I will support him until the last dog dies, right through the California primary election.  I have harshly criticized Donald Trump on my Catholic blog site because I think Donald's stand on immigration is contrary to Catholic teaching. And I'm not taking my anti-Trump posts down.

But here's a message for Hillary. If I am faced with a choice between Donald Trump and Crooked Hillary, I'm voting for the Donster.

Hillary claims to be a progressive but her brand of progressivism allows her to collect a quarter million dollars a pop making secret speeches to corporate oligarchs. 

Hillary's brand of progressivism is Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew's brand of progressivism. Lew took more than two thirds of a million dollars as an exit bonus when he left New York University, the most venal and expensive higher education institution in America. But he's a progressive because he wants Harriet Tubman's face on the dollar bills he lines his pockets with.

Hillary's brand of progressivism is Arne Duncan's brand of progressivism. He bleated repeatedly about the student-loan crisis but did nothing to rein in the for-profit college industry while he was Secretary of Education. In fact, at the direction of his boss, Duncan cynically constructed a modern-day form of serfdom whereby millions of distressed student-loan debtors pay a percentage of their income to the federal government for 20 and even 25 years.  And when he finished picking his nose at the Department of Education, Duncan toddled off to the Brookings Institution, where he will probably write policy papers defending the status quo in higher education and rake in money sitting on corporate boards.

Hillary's brand of progressivism is the New York Times' brand of progressivism, which tells the people of North Carolina how to go to the bathroom while it organizes Luxury Conferences and peddles obscenely expensive New York real estate in its advertising pages.

Hillary's brand of progressivism allows her to think Americans are so stupid that she can mock Donald Trump for flying in a private jet, while she flies in a private jet that is almost identical.

Yes, and Hillary's brand of progressivism is Barack Obama's brand of progressivism, which allowed Barack to  cozy up to Wall Street for eight years while the death rate for working-class white people went up--driven by suicide, liver disease, and drug abuse.

In short, I reject Hillary and all her empty promises.  I would much prefer to vote for Bernie Sanders in November, but if I must choose between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, I'm pulling the lever for Trump. As Johnny Cash put it, "I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way."

Will Donald Trump bring chaos to the United States? Perhaps. But I think Hillary and the political elites are going to find that millions of Americans would rather risk chaos than be manipulated by an old political hack and her Ivy League cronies for the next four years.  

Indeed, Shakespeare expresses my sentiment exactly: "Cry 'Havoc!"

Jacob Lew, Secretary of the Treasury: I want my cash in small bills, preferably with Harriet Tubman's picture on it

References

Andrew J. Chirlin. Why Are White Death Rates Rising? New York Times, February 22, 2016. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/opinion/why-are-white-death-rates-rising.html

Danny Hakim. Obama's Treasury Nominee Got Unusual Exit Bonus on Leaving N.Y.U. New York Times, February 25, 2013. Accessible at  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/nyregion/lew-treasury-nominee-got-exit-bonus-from-nyu.html?_r=0

Paul Krugman ranks Hillary as best presidential candidate to handle an economic crisis: Why am I not surprised that Krugman ignored Bernie?

In 1928, Myles Connolly (1897-1964), wrote a brilliant Catholic novella entitled Mr. Blue. The title character is a sort of modern-day St. Francis who delivers a series of zingers about secular American culture. Books, Mr. Blue observes at one point in the narrative, are for people who have already made up their minds or have no minds to make up.

We might say much the same thing about the New York Times.  Day after day it dishes out its so-called "progressive" drivel, lecturing the whole world on how to behave--from the North Carolina legislature to Vladimir Putin.  Without a doubt, the Times is the publication of choice for people who have already made up their minds or are totally incapable of doing their own thinking.

So I was not surprised to read Paul Krugman's recent op ed essay in the Times arguing that Hillary Clinton would be the best President to deal with a major economic crisis.  Although he purported to make logical arguments, Krugman was totally dismissive of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. "The Donald doesn't know much," Krugman sneered contemptuously, "but Ted Cruz knows a lot that isn't so" (stealing a line from Mark Twain).

Krugman essentially writes the same essay over and over, for which the Times compensates him handsomely. Day after day, he assures his idiot readers that Barack Obama does everything right and that massive deficit spending is the smartest way to manage the American economy.  And now of course he lavishes the same fawning praise on Hillary Clinton that he slathered on Obama for the last eight years.

Normally, I wouldn't comment on Krugman's screeds, but his latest piece on Hillary deserves a response.  First of all, although Krugman expressed utter contempt for Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in his essay about presidential qualifications, he didn't even mention Bernie Sanders, the only presidential candidate who has articulated a coherent and principled economic policy.

I feel sure Krugman's omission was intentional. Ignoring Bernie was Krugman's insinuating way of suggesting that Bernie is such a minor political figure that he doesn't even deserve comment. After all, Krugman doesn't dare offend Hillary in the slightest way by giving even an iota of credibility to her dogged opponent.

Second, Krugman basically acknowledged that a major economic crisis is coming to the United States. But look at where he predicts it will come from. "China has a severely unbalanced economy," he tells us, and there's also a potential for an oil crisis.

Basically, Krugman is already laying the groundwork for putting the blame for the next economic crisis on forces outside President Obama's control.

What sophistry! Americans have some pretty good ideas about where the next economic storm is coming from, and they didn't need a Nobel Prize in Economics to figure it out. Here are some things to worry about that Krugman did not bother to mention:

• Radical Islam. Jihadists from the Middle East are brutal nihilists who will do anything to destroy what we once charmingly called Western Civilization. If they get the capacity to deliver a cyber attack on our global financial network, they will certainly launch one. If they can figure out a way to inflict massive casualties on American civilians, they will certainly do it. 
• The collapse of the European Union under the relentless tide of Islamic refugees, which could trigger a fascist backlash as Europeans see the erosion of their ancient cultures.
• A global financial crisis caused by chicanery and greed in the international banking industry.
• War between Israel and Iran, which will soon be a nuclear power.
• The destruction of the American middle class as American working people are sacrificed to satiate the greed of  the global oligarchs and young people are suffocated by student-loan debt they acquired to obtain worthless undergraduate and professional degrees.

Krugman did not mention any of these possible scenarios--scenarios that keep Americans up at night-- because a catastrophe from any of these sources could be fairly blamed at least partly on President Obama--the liberal elite's Sun King. 

So keep reading Paul Krugman if you believe the political, academic and media elites know what's best for us or if you are so intellectually lazy that you want someone else to do your thinking. After all, that's exactly what the Times and its columnists are there for--to do your thinking for you.

Paul Krugman: Bernie who?

References

Paul Krugman. The 8 A.M. Call. New York Times, April 25, 2016.  Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/25/opinion/the-8-am-call.html?_r=0

Cokie & Steve Roberts urge Bernie to take a fall for Hillary: Old croakers with outmoded ideas about what is good for America

Cokie and Steve Roberts published an op ed essay today urging Bernie Sanders to back off on his presidential campaign so he won't hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of beating Donald Trump in November.

"If you want to stay in the race to propound your policy ideas, fine," the Roberts couple counseled Bernie. "But don't keep undercutting the one candidate who can save the party--and the country--from a President Trump."

I read the Roberts' op ed essay in the Baton Rouge Advocate, where it appeared under a photo of Cokie and Steve looking like they are in their 40s. But Cokie is 72 years old,and Steve is 73! Frankly, their ideas are as outmoded as their media photos.

In essence, the Roberts are arguing that Bernie should either get out of the presidential race or tone down his energy so that Hillary will be assured of beating Donald Trump.  Indeed, they are pointedly urging him to take fall for Hillary in order to save the Democratic Party.

But most Bernie supporters don't want to save the Democratic Party if it means propping up a corrupt gang of cronies and insiders who are all beholden to the corporate interests. I for one don't give a damn about the Democratic Party. I registered as a Democrat for the first time in December for no other reason than to vote for Bernie in the Louisiana Democratic primary.

The Roberts also urge Bernie to get out of the race or take a powder so that Hillary will be in a stronger position to beat Donald Trump in the fall. But many Bernie supporters don't see Hillary as an improvement over Trump. The Roberts themselves admit in their op ed essay that only 19 percent of voters think Hillary is honest. Even among Democrats, only 40 percent of Democratic voters trust her.

Donald Trump has big negatives for sure. But his negatives are going down in the polls, and Hillary's are going up. I predict by September, about the same percentage of Americans will find both candidates odious.

Cokie and Steve don't realize that the United States has changed. Establishment politics is totally unacceptable to a great many Americans--particularly young Americans. If it is a choice between the Donster and Crooked Hillary, millions of fair-minded progressive American voters will have a great deal of trouble deciding which candidate is the lesser of two evils.

Cokie and Steve want Bernie to take a fall for Hillary

References

Cokie & Steve Roberts. For party's sake, time for Sanders to back off. Baton Rouge Advocate, April 25, 2016, p. 5B. Online version of essay accessible at http://www.uexpress.com/cokie-and-steven-roberts/2016/4/20/time-for-bernie-to-back-off

The student-loan crisis and Presidential politics: Bernie needs to up his game on student loans to attract young votes

Bernie is very popular with young voters. He out polled Hillary by almost 4 to 1 among the twenty-somethings in the New York Democratic primary, and he's done even better with young voters in other primaries. Young people sense almost instinctively that Hillary is just a political hack, and that Bernie has ideas that might really make their lives better.

In fact, Bernie is the only presidential candidate to offer a realistic plan to address the student-loan crisis, which is crushing millions of Americans. Bernie's plan for a free college education at a public college is eminently sensible, and cheaper than what we are doing now, which is to loan $165 billion a year to college students and only get about half of it back.

In contrast, Hillary's student-loan reform plan is to pump an additional $30 billion a year into the nation's bloated and corrupt higher education industry.  That's Hillary's solution to every problem--let's shovel some money at it and make sure the insiders get most of the loot.

And let's not forget that Hillary tweeted young voters last summer, asking them; "How does your student loan debt make you feel? Tell us in 3 emojis or less." Let's see if I can find three profane emojis to send her.

And Cruz is no friend to student-loan debtors. He represented the lender in the famous Espinoza case, in which a bankrupt baggage handler argued that he should only be required to pay back the principal on his debt and should be relieved of the accrued interest.

Espinoza's argument was very reasonable; after all it is the accrued interest and penalties that are crushing most distressed student-loan borrowers--not the amount they actually borrowed. But Cruz's client prevailed before the Supreme Court--a 9 to 0 decision against poor Mr. Espinoza.

So if you are one of 20 million overwhelmed student-loan debtors, Bernie is the only game in town.  Unfortunately, you and I know that Bernie's free-college plan will never be enacted, because too many political interests benefit from the status quo.

But there are other student-loan reforms Bernie could propose that are less ambitious than his free-college plan but which would resonate with young voters.  Here are a few ideas for him:

1) Let's force the for-profit colleges to stop making their students sign arbitration agreements that cut off students' right to sue for fraud.  DOE Secretary John B. King favors regulations to stop colleges from putting arbitration clauses in their student contracts. Bernie could reasonably support King's efforts.

2) The government could require all loan servicers--including Educational Credit Management Corporation and Navient--to disclose the compensation packets for their senior executives and their debt collectors and to disclose on a public web site the amount they pay their lobbyists, the attorneys who hound student-loan debtors, and the recipients of all their campaign contributions.

3) The government could stop garnish Social Security checks of elderly college-loan borrowers who defaulted on their loans. This is a logical extension of the Obama administration's decision to forgive loans of disabled borrowers.

I think if Bernie would add a just couple of additional features to his plan to solve the student-loan crisis, he would see an even bigger surge of support among young voters--maybe enough of a surge to assure a victory in California.

And of course my ideas for appealing to young voters are open to any of the Presidential candidates: Hillary, Cruz, Kasich and Trump could take these ideas and run with them. But Bernie is the only presidential candidate who shows any interest in solving the student -loan crisis.

Ted Cruz: No friend of student-loan debtors

How does Hillary's emoji on student loans make you feel?

References

United Student Aid Funds, Inc. v. Espinosa, 130 S.Ct. 1367 (2010).