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Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. This episode is for anyone who has

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Speaker 1: a student loan, which is a large amount of people.

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Speaker 2: Man, it was the most big boy pants moment of

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Speaker 2: my adult life when I paid off my meager student loans,

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Speaker 2: and I was very lucky to have gotten something called

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Speaker 2: the Hope Scholarship, which in the state of Georgia, if

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Speaker 2: you make a's and b's, pays for a.

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Speaker 3: Large portion of your college.

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Speaker 2: I took out a loan just to pay for some

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Speaker 2: living costs and some equipment and things like that, and

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Speaker 2: even that stuck with me for a long time, and

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Speaker 2: when I finally was able to pay it off, it

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Speaker 2: was a big deal. But I know people that depend

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Speaker 2: on student loans with their entire tuition are not that lucky.

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Speaker 4: Can you believe that I never had a student loan.

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Speaker 3: Guys, that's fawny. I believe that I'm that privileged.

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Speaker 4: Oh my goodness. But I did pay my ex wife's

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Speaker 4: student loans, and they were.

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Speaker 1: Steep, especially with the interest rate.

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Speaker 3: What was it?

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Speaker 1: There's the old Mark Twain line about compounding interest. This

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Speaker 1: episode is from twenty nineteen. Folks, from February of twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: wherein we talk about the idea of student loans as

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Speaker 1: a systematic conspiracy. At the time that we recorded this,

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Speaker 1: the overall student loan debt in the United States was

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Speaker 1: one point five trillion dollars, which is barely even a

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Speaker 1: real number.

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Speaker 4: And then hey, since then, five years later, some of

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Speaker 4: us have had our student loans just wiped from existence.

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Speaker 1: And the question is what happens with all of this money,

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Speaker 1: all of these expectations. When the bubble, I'm doing automotopia,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing something. It burst it, It bursts it all.

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Speaker 3: Right, here's the show.

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Speaker 5: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 5: riddled with a explained events. You can turn back now

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Speaker 5: or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 4: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my

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Speaker 4: name is Noah.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben.

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Speaker 1: We are joined with our super producer, Paul Mission Control Deck.

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Speaker 1: At most importantly, you are you. You are here, and

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Speaker 1: that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 1: A bit of a depressing episode, to be completely honest,

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Speaker 1: they had a little bit of a dark Knight of

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Speaker 1: the soul doing some of this research. But on a

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Speaker 1: positive note, it reminded me of my college days, and

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Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you guys, just generally speaking, did

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Speaker 1: you have a good time in college?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: No, I kind of had like a really boring I

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Speaker 2: stayed in my hometown college experience, so I just sort

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Speaker 2: of continued life as I knew in high school in

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Speaker 2: many ways. And then after college I kind of had

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Speaker 2: a college experience when I wasn't actually in college.

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Speaker 3: I moved to.

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Speaker 2: Athens, Georgia. A lot of my friends I had gone

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Speaker 2: to Uga. I ended up going through a lot of

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Speaker 2: like house shows and house parties, but it was just

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Speaker 2: after my college experience was.

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Speaker 3: A little removed. It was kind of interesting, actually, I

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Speaker 3: sort of like it.

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Speaker 4: What about you met I had a wonderful college experience,

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Speaker 4: met my wife, met some of my closest friends, started

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Speaker 4: a company, got hired here. Yeah, all of that occurred

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Speaker 4: while I was in college. So for you, good study,

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Speaker 4: that's right, that's right. The actual college was a little boring.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people end up saying something

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Speaker 1: along those lines. You'll find, and this may be your

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Speaker 1: experience as well, folks, You'll find that many people see

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Speaker 1: the financial or career benefits of college as equal to

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Speaker 1: or in some cases less important than and the social

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Speaker 1: benefits such as, you know, meeting your significant other, making

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Speaker 1: lifelong friends, and you know, the social aspects. We are

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Speaker 1: a very tribal species. The social aspects are inherently tied

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Speaker 1: up in any institution. I mean, one of the big

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Speaker 1: benefits of a fraternity is going to be I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a nicer word for nepotism, but that

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's what it is. It's a social network,

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Speaker 1: right right. So we hope that if you went to college,

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Speaker 1: or if you are in college, or you're planning to

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Speaker 1: go to college, that you have a great time. We

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Speaker 1: also hope that you're very careful. For much of recent

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Speaker 1: US history, graduating college has been seen as one of

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Speaker 1: those key prerequisites to later success in adulthood. And you'll

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Speaker 1: read statistics that argue something like something along the lines

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Speaker 1: of a bachelor's degree is over the lifespan of the

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Speaker 1: person who holds the degree, it's worth several million dollars

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Speaker 1: in terms of how it enhances their ability to earn

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Speaker 1: money over time. Over time, Yeah over time' that's the

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Speaker 1: first asterisk here. But while that's true, While it's true

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Speaker 1: that the average lifetime earnings of people with a degree

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Speaker 1: has tended to be about seventy five percent higher than

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Speaker 1: that of people with a high school diploma or less.

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Speaker 1: That doesn't tell the entire story. Sure, there does appear

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Speaker 1: to be a tangible financial benefit, but that's at first blush,

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Speaker 1: that's at accursory glance of What we also find is

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Speaker 1: that we live in a society, and this is something

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Speaker 1: we talked about previously on our tour. We live in

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Speaker 1: a society where a lot of people were convinced that

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Speaker 1: to have any worth or value as an individual in

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Speaker 1: this our current age, they had to go to college,

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Speaker 1: even if they got a degree that they didn't really

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Speaker 1: care about, even if they got a degree that wasn't

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Speaker 1: particularly applicable to their later interest in life. They just

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Speaker 1: had to jump through this social hoop to be a

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Speaker 1: person worth knowing or acknowledging as a person. And that

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Speaker 1: is fundamentally first disclaimer, I know I'm monologue in you here,

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Speaker 1: but that is fundamentally not true. Trade jobs right now

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Speaker 1: will make as much, if not way more money for

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Speaker 1: the person who is employed in that position than a

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Speaker 1: job that we would consider maybe more high end. So

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Speaker 1: the person who works in an HVAC job for instance,

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Speaker 1: maybe pulling in bank and you might not have any

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Speaker 1: idea so, or driving trucks or driving trucks right, or

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Speaker 1: working in manufacturing, these are fundamentally these are fundamentally crucial

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Speaker 1: jobs to the American economy.

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Speaker 3: Not to mention.

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Speaker 2: I mean just like working in like high end restaurants

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Speaker 2: on the weight staff. I mean you can pull in

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Speaker 2: crazy amounts of tips three hundred dollars a night.

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Speaker 3: More more, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 4: Or a bartender, oh man, I mean you don't have

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Speaker 4: to go to school for that at all.

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Speaker 2: I mean again, we're not saying don't go to school, right,

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Speaker 2: There is a disparity in this, like myth that sort

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Speaker 2: of pushed this American dream, which is usually the case

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Speaker 2: with American dream type ideas, that there are lots of

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Speaker 2: ways to skin a financial cat.

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Speaker 4: That's right. But if you do want to get in

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Speaker 4: the upper echalons and find yourself in that one percent,

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Speaker 4: that point oh one.

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Speaker 3: Percent, make yourself a podcast, no.

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Speaker 4: Definitely, please don't do that unless your name is Ira.

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Speaker 4: But then let's see, I would say you have to

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Speaker 4: have a college degree to make that kind of leap

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Speaker 4: to those like heights most likely, except for with the

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Speaker 4: exception of maybe a handful of people that have ever

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Speaker 4: gotten that through investing and through family funding.

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Speaker 1: Oh sure, sure. By if by family funding you mean inheritance,

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Speaker 1: then that is that is clearly I mean that is

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Speaker 1: the primary avenue for one percenthood. It's the game is broken,

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Speaker 1: the great the game is more broken than Monopoly, which

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Speaker 1: is probably the most famous of broken games. But before

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Speaker 1: we get all gloom and doom about it, let's yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's get let's get straight to the heart of the matter.

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Speaker 1: There does appear to be this tangible financial benefit. It

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Speaker 1: is your choice whether you decide to go to college.

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Speaker 1: And I think what we're saying here at the offset

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Speaker 1: is that you should not feel like you have to that.

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Speaker 1: Just try to think very clearly and carefully through the

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Speaker 1: process because it is a big decision, you know it is.

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Speaker 1: And debt is much like a tattoo. It can stay

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Speaker 1: with you for the rest of your life and it's

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Speaker 1: very differfficult to remove. That comes for us, all right,

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Speaker 1: And that brings us to today's question. Is there a

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Speaker 1: student loan conspiracy? Or to phrase it a different way,

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Speaker 1: what the hell is going on with student loans in

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Speaker 1: this country? I don't think that's an unfair question.

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Speaker 4: I don't think so at all. Let's start with what

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Speaker 4: exactly a student loan is. Well, it's right in the name.

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Speaker 4: It's a loan. Somebody, some institution is going to give

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Speaker 4: you a large chunk of cash so that you can, specifically,

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Speaker 4: in this case, use it to pay for tuition, for books,

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Speaker 4: for housing, student housing, for food, for whatever you need

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Speaker 4: in order to get through your college experience.

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Speaker 1: And that money is often going to be distributed in

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Speaker 1: some degree in a lump some kind of fashion. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that some goes straight to your school or your

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Speaker 1: institution learning, and then some other portion goes to you.

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Speaker 1: And it's up to you as an individual to parse

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Speaker 1: that out and budget that out. And a lot of

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Speaker 1: us when we're in college, we end up spending that

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Speaker 1: on really cool adventures, yeah, instead of you know, instead

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Speaker 1: of school books. But those books are a racket all

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Speaker 1: their own. That's a different podcast.

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Speaker 4: My gosh, three hundred dollars for a textbook, that sounds right.

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Speaker 1: But you can sell it back for thirty five the

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Speaker 1: end of the term.

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Speaker 4: To the same place that sold it to you.

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Speaker 3: It's like my DVD investments. What's ta going for you?

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Speaker 1: Man?

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Speaker 6: Oh?

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Speaker 3: My god, I tried.

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Speaker 2: I recently was like, I'm going to get rid of

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Speaker 2: the clutter, and I haven't watched these DVDs in years.

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Speaker 3: So I boxed them all.

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Speaker 2: Up, took them with high hopes to a secondhand book place.

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Speaker 1: Do you go to booknook?

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Speaker 3: I went to Booknook.

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Speaker 2: They handed back almost ninety percent of them to me

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Speaker 2: and offered me about ten dollars in store credit for

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Speaker 2: the ones that they wanted store credit. Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 3: It was pretty embarrassing. Did you take it?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I mean, but they literally only wanted like five things

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Speaker 2: out of like several hundred, and they're still in the

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Speaker 2: back of my hunter of fit well.

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Speaker 4: Much like you know, these student loan companies offer everyone

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Speaker 4: these these loans, but unlike your DVDs, these loans are

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Speaker 4: very enticing because a lot of times they have low

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Speaker 4: interest rates, at least comparatively to other loans that you

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Speaker 4: might get. They three to seven percent. Yeah, that's really nice.

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Speaker 4: And also you have a grace period, like if you

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Speaker 4: see one of those credit cards that says, you know,

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Speaker 4: you don't have to pay anything for twelve months or something,

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Speaker 4: or zero percent APR for.

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Speaker 3: Twelve month for a year.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and then and then.

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Speaker 2: And then get another one of those zero percent offers

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Speaker 2: and pay off and around.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but for real, that's that's why these loans. Perhaps

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Speaker 4: at least one of the reasons these loans are so

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Speaker 4: enticing because of that interest rate in the pretty long

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Speaker 4: grace period.

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Speaker 1: Well, and because it goes to a good cause. Yeah right,

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Speaker 1: it is furthering your education. Education is widely agreed. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to be careful about how I say this

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Speaker 1: because some people might object. Education is widely agreed to

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Speaker 1: be a public good. We can all agree that depending

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Speaker 1: on the type of education we're talking about, knowing things

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Speaker 1: like engineering, math, literacy, that that sort of stuff. These

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Speaker 1: these things are just matters of fact rather than opinion.

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Speaker 1: The more people who are aware of these things, the

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Speaker 1: more people who were competent in these disciplines, the better

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Speaker 1: society will tend to be. Huzzah, It's true, we can't.

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Speaker 1: I mean, everybody, the world is not going to automatically

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Speaker 1: be perfect if everybody gets a chance to study trigonometry.

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Speaker 1: But that is a positive factor, you know, learning is

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Speaker 1: knowledge is power.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it wouldn't hurt anything, except for maybe everybody would

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Speaker 4: be a little more bothered by simple things that require

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Speaker 4: complex trigonomet trigonometry that I just don't understand.

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Speaker 6: I know.

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Speaker 1: Also, yeah, okay, trigonometry may not be the best example,

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Speaker 1: but it is true that these loans are for good cause.

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Speaker 1: They have a grace period, typically sometime after an education

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Speaker 1: is completed, so while you are a student past a

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Speaker 1: certain threshold of course hours, you will not have to

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Speaker 1: pay this loan. Not all student loans are the same.

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Speaker 1: Some are federally funded by these United States of America,

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Speaker 1: some are private, and some are designed specifically like pell

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Speaker 1: grants to help financially needy students. Those aren't really loans,

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Speaker 1: that's money that is given to you. Some offer protection

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Speaker 1: for borrowers, and then of course interest rates that should

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Speaker 1: be below market. And when the federal government issues these loans,

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Speaker 1: they offer low fixed interest rates and that makes them

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Speaker 1: more attractive in contrast to private loans that may have

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Speaker 1: a variable rate of some sort. So we don't have

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Speaker 1: to get too far in the weeds on the different

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Speaker 1: types of loans other than to establish the primary categories

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Speaker 1: that differentiate student loans from any other kind of loan

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Speaker 1: you would get. They're not a mortgage, they're not a

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Speaker 1: car note et cetera. These have private public lenders. They

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Speaker 1: have qualification requirements, right, the primary one being that you

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Speaker 1: can't get a student loan unless you're going to be

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Speaker 1: a student.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: They have lower interest rates, and they have flexibility on

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Speaker 1: their payment schedules and their timelines. You said that these

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Speaker 1: were enticing, Matt. You're absolutely right. Tons of people have

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Speaker 1: student loans. There are more than forty four million borrowers

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Speaker 1: and people who have a student loan with some outfit

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Speaker 1: in the country as we speak now. Yeah, and they

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Speaker 1: had to in many ways. These people were forced into

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Speaker 1: this because in the decade between two thousand and six

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Speaker 1: and twenty sixteen, the overall cost of college rows sixty

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Speaker 1: three percent, true, and that increased student loan debt by

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Speaker 1: four times. The student loan debt now is at around

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Speaker 1: one point five Get ready for this trillion?

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Speaker 3: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Okay with a T like T BOSS and TLC yep.

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Speaker 4: Can't calculate it. And my trigonometry skills are not up

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Speaker 4: to par as they should be. You take TRIG, I did.

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Speaker 4: I took Advanced TRIG, but I do. I had no idea.

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Speaker 2: I kind of muddled my way through algebra. Man, I

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Speaker 2: had to get I was not good. Math is not

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Speaker 2: my strong suit. I'm much I've got the gift of gab.

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Speaker 1: So it's tough to think of one point five trillion.

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Speaker 1: It's it's distressingly difficult for most of us to comprehend,

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Speaker 1: to really comprehend what a billion is, you know what

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Speaker 1: I mean. So one way that could be helpful to

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Speaker 1: get our heads around what one point five trillion is

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Speaker 1: is to compare it to other things. Facebook is worth

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Speaker 1: five hundred and forty one point five billion, ish, Microsoft

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Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty point six billion.

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Speaker 3: Okay, these are ballparking.

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Speaker 1: That means that the American student loan debt is worth

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Speaker 1: more than those two entities put together. It's about five

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Speaker 1: hundred and twenty one billion more than all the credit

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Speaker 1: card debt in this country combined. Whoa, It's it's big money.

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Speaker 7: That's so big, so big that it's like ephemeral, made

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Speaker 7: up money, Like I don't know, it just seems unquantifiably

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Speaker 7: huge to me, Like, I mean, I get that it

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Speaker 7: is in fact by it's very nature quantifiable, but it

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Speaker 7: just seems like GDP.

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Speaker 3: Kind of money. Yeah, I mean, it's bunkers.

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Speaker 4: We're totally yeah, total us debt kind of money back

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Speaker 4: in the day, and now that's just ridiculous. But yeah,

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Speaker 4: I see what you're saying. That's that's wow. Well what's

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Speaker 4: the what's like the average amount that each person is

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Speaker 4: like carrying around.

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Speaker 1: With For people in the class of twenty sixteen, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the average stud it would would graduate with thirty seven thousand,

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Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy two dollars in student loan debt.

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Speaker 2: Just to offer a counterpoint, I was lucky in that

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Speaker 2: I had Hope Scholarship, which is a Georgia thing. I

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Speaker 2: think probably Matt did as well. We all we're all

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Speaker 2: pumping our fists here. I did still take out a

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Speaker 2: couple of student loans, but it was to pay for

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Speaker 2: equipment that I wanted for my studies. I was doing

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Speaker 2: film work and I wanted like a nice computer and

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Speaker 2: all of that, and just ways to supplement my income

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Speaker 2: while I was in school, even though I worked, but

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Speaker 2: it was like a crappy job at a music store.

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Speaker 2: But so I don't have that much student loan debt,

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Speaker 2: but it is the one that I pay attention to

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Speaker 2: the least because of the fact that the interest rates

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Speaker 2: so low and it takes them so long to actually

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Speaker 2: come after you and call you and be like, hey,

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Speaker 2: you forgot to pay your loan. And it's not that

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Speaker 2: I can't afford to pay it. I just kind of

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Speaker 2: forget and I need to set it up on like

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Speaker 2: an auto draft. But I think that a lot of

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Speaker 2: people are in that boat because it's not as urgent

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Speaker 2: feeling sometimes unless you're not paying at all, then the

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Speaker 2: start trying to take out you know, what's the word,

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Speaker 2: garnish your wages or there's definitely recourse that they can take,

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Speaker 2: but it hasn't been that big of a deal to me.

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Speaker 1: So for background, for anyone who hasn't heard of this,

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Speaker 1: who is outside of Georgia, where a podcast is based.

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Speaker 1: Hope is a state level, state level college attendance assistance

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Speaker 1: program financial assistance program for college based on people's grade

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Speaker 1: point average, based on the originally based on the revenue

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Speaker 1: for the Georgia lottery program, which was great press for

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Speaker 1: the lottery here. Other states have similar things, and similar

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Speaker 1: to the Hope Scholarship. Those things are increasingly in a

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Speaker 1: lot of situations, they're increasingly endangered by legislation, so we

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Speaker 1: don't know how long they're going to be around. But

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Speaker 1: they did some great stuff for college students we personally,

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Speaker 1: this is my opinion. I hope those kind of things continue.

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Speaker 1: But the most important point about those kinds of programs

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Speaker 1: is they typically do not give you a full you

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Speaker 1: can have hope scholarship. You will still need money for supplies.

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Speaker 1: You'll probably still need money for textbooks. You'll still need

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Speaker 1: to find a place to live, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: But something's better than nothing, right, Still, these loans remain

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Speaker 1: popular among the class of twenty eighteen. Congratulations to everyone

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Speaker 1: who graduated college last year. Yeah, this is a massive achievement,

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Speaker 1: and I wish you the best in your coming adventures.

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Speaker 1: Let us know what your experience is like. Without having

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Speaker 1: ever met, I can say that if you're listening now,

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Speaker 1: there is an overwhelming likelihood that you also took out

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Speaker 1: student loans sometime before you graduated. In twenty eighteen, sixty

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Speaker 1: nine percent of you did, and everyone who graduated, if

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Speaker 1: we take everyone as one big group, that was an

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Speaker 1: average debt of twenty nine eight hundred dollars, including both

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Speaker 1: private and federal, and fourteen percent of the parents of

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Speaker 1: people who graduated in twenty eighteen took out an average

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Speaker 1: of thirty five thousand, six hundred dollars in federal parent

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Speaker 1: plus loans.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 1: I know this is a lot of money on the table,

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Speaker 1: but what price can you put on your future? So

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Speaker 1: in many ways, this large agglomeration of debt has altered

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Speaker 1: American society. Multiple generations now are far less likely to

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Speaker 1: successfully purchase a home or start a family around the

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Speaker 1: same time their parents, their grandparents, are their predecessors did.

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Speaker 1: It's simply not the reality anymore that someone can get

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Speaker 1: out of college, get an entry level job and then

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Speaker 1: pay off, buy a car and pay it off in

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Speaker 1: a few years, and then buy a house. That doesn't happen.

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Speaker 3: Anymore, especially in certain cities, as real estate just go.

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Speaker 2: It was bonkers, you know, like Atlanta the way it's

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Speaker 2: being gentrified and stuff, And you can't find a house

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Speaker 2: around here for under two hundred and seventy thousand dollars

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Speaker 2: for like a starter home and anything like below that,

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Speaker 2: it's going to be like a massive fixer upper, which

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Speaker 2: is like scary in and of itself.

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Speaker 1: And then couldn't quickly become two hundred and seventy thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars total worth of work. So instead what people will

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Speaker 1: end up doing when be deviled by these inescapable loans.

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Speaker 1: Is they'll say, Okay, I have to push off this

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Speaker 1: one milestone so I can figure a way out of

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Speaker 1: this hole, or at least to get it to a

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Speaker 1: more manageable place.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what my wife did. It was not a

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Speaker 4: good idea.

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Speaker 1: So is this a case of a pure mistake, pure misstep?

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Speaker 1: Is this a comedy of errors on the part of economists,

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Speaker 1: the people in charge of deciding how much tuition should cost?

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Speaker 1: The federal government? Private lenders would be college students, continuing

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Speaker 1: college students, people who are returning students. Is accidental mismanagement

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Speaker 1: on any one particular person's part or is there something

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Speaker 1: else at play?

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Speaker 3: We'll get to that after a quick sponsor break.

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Speaker 4: Yes there is.

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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Totally. Arguably, Yes, arguably this

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Speaker 1: is one something purposeful, but maybe not, maybe not a

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Speaker 1: grand conspiracy, but maybe several different groups of motivated.

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Speaker 3: Stakeholders. Sureholders.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say very greedy institutions, but no, it's

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's true they are stakeholders.

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Speaker 4: Right, greedy institutions that see you as a money battery.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, as a money battery that they don't ever

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Speaker 1: have to throw away yep till you die. So the

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Speaker 1: first student loans, if we want to look at a

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Speaker 1: quick timeline of this, we can just run through this

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00:23:03,160 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: super quickly. First student loans in the US were offered

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Speaker 1: exclusively to kids at Harvard way back in eighteen forty

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Speaker 1: and there were no public loans until the twentieth century,

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Speaker 1: and the US Department of Education was founded in what

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00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:22,800
Speaker 1: was that eighteen sixty seven. They didn't give out federal

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Speaker 1: student loans until the passage of something called Title four

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Speaker 1: of the Higher Education Actor HEA in nineteen sixty five.

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Speaker 2: So in the two decades before the institution of federally

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Speaker 2: guaranteed student loans, the US experienced a significant increase in

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Speaker 2: college attendance, thanks in large part to the passage of

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Speaker 2: the nineteen forty four GI Bill and fulfilling the need

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Speaker 2: this need for affordable higher education. The GI Bill actually

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Speaker 2: subsidized or entirely paid for the cost of college education

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Speaker 2: for nearly half of Americans returning for World War Two.

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Speaker 2: And you have to remember this was a time where

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Speaker 2: this was not an option, so this was like a

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00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 2: big deal and was also a large percentage of our

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00:24:08,359 --> 00:24:10,359
Speaker 2: able bodied men that were going off to war and

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Speaker 2: then coming back and getting this benefit. So since its inception,

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Speaker 2: the program has remained popular over the years. And it's

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Speaker 2: true a lot of people nowadays that it is a

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Speaker 2: choice to join the military do so because of those

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Speaker 2: GI Bill benefits.

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Speaker 1: Which is a slippery slope when you think about.

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Speaker 2: It, it really is, or they re up, you know,

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Speaker 2: I mean, there's a whole thing behind it.

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Speaker 1: So by nineteen seventy six or nineteen seventy seven, all

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Speaker 1: undergraduate students became eligible for something we mentioned earlier, pell grants.

436
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 1: And these two popular programs, the GI Bill and the pelgrant,

437
00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: increased college attendance rates because people who previously would never

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Speaker 1: have had a chance to obtain the financial support to

439
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Speaker 1: go to college, they finally had doors that were closed

440
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: to them open. Good thing, right, yeah, American dream right. However,

441
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: not all of this assistance has been beneficial. The problems

442
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:12,359
Speaker 1: with student loans started to show up way back in

443
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties.

444
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:19,640
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, roughly nineteen eighty six. That's when basically we

445
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:24,360
Speaker 4: as a country realized that we'd incurred around ten billion

446
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 4: dollars in student loans. And if you think about nineteen

447
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 4: eighty six dollars. Ten billion is like saying a trillion dollars.

448
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 4: At least it's close if you say that today. So,

449
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 4: in that same year, more than a quarter of students borrowed,

450
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 4: and they owed more than ten thousand dollars if you

451
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 4: look at them, you know, per person as an average,

452
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 4: more than ten thousand dollars in student loan debt. Wow,

453
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 4: that would be nice. Just ten thousand dollars. I wish

454
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 4: it was the eighties again.

455
00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: Ten thousand dollars in nineteen eighty six is the equivalent

456
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 1: of twenty two thousand, almost twenty three thousand dollars in

457
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. I'll still take it, Still take it. Yeah,

458
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:05,400
Speaker 1: it's still a deal.

459
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 3: Huh.

460
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: So by the nineteen nineties, student loan debt really began

461
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 1: to skyrocket. In ninety three, the average debt of a

462
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:19,640
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree, the average debt burden was about nine thousand bucks.

463
00:26:19,720 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 1: Five years from then, it was fifteen thousand, and then

464
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 1: by two thousand and three it jumped to seventeen and

465
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: a half thousand. Let's not forget. This happens in lockstep

466
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:36,160
Speaker 1: with what's called wage stagnation. Yeah, wage stagnation is when

467
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 1: someone says, you know, well the minimum wage, is this right,

468
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:44,160
Speaker 1: or I pay I've paid every employee for the past

469
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,920
Speaker 1: twenty years thirty two thousand dollars twenty eight thousand dollars

470
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:52,720
Speaker 1: whatever to do this job. Never mind that everything else

471
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 1: is becoming more expensive, right, never mind that that every

472
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 1: single one of those twenty eight thousand dollars individually and

473
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: collectively buys less than it did before. And it's it's

474
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: a complex argument, but that's the gist, right, the cost

475
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:14,959
Speaker 1: of If the cost of living increases, then the demands

476
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: on an individual budget increase, and if the wage stagnates,

477
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: there's just there's less and less pie to slice.

478
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a that's a really good way of looking

479
00:27:24,760 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 4: at it. An unfortunate reality. So you got that wage

480
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 4: wage stagnation, But then you've also got this cultural thing

481
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 4: that's happening in the US at the same time, or

482
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 4: at least roughly in the same time, where college is

483
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 4: seen as an absolute necessity to become successful.

484
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: Do you want to be an upstanding person? Yeah, Do

485
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: you want to be worth something in this country to society,

486
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: go to college. It doesn't matter what you study.

487
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 4: No, No, of course not. And also pledge you.

488
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 3: If you can.

489
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, underwater basket weaving if you want to get that.

490
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,200
Speaker 3: Is underwater basket weaving like a physical fitness elective.

491
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,160
Speaker 1: No, it's it's the euphemism for someone taking a useless elective.

492
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 3: Oh there you go, so I like it.

493
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, my drum instructor used to do that.

494
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: They'll also call them mickey mouse courses.

495
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 4: Yeah.

496
00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 3: I never heard underwater basket weaving. I love that. I

497
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 3: want to take that course.

498
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: It's probably pretty tough if you think about it, and

499
00:28:22,359 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: you have to. It's probably like film, you have to

500
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: buy a lot of equipment. I imagine what I'm thinking

501
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: about this too much.

502
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 2: I mean, surely you'd have to at least rent some

503
00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 2: scuba stuff if you were going to anyway. No, no, no,

504
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 2: no more tangents.

505
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: I guess, like, does your body have to be underwater?

506
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: Do you just have to put the basket underwater?

507
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 3: Unclear? Unclear?

508
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: There are probably multiple levels. There's like a one on

509
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: one in a one anyway, let us know if you

510
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:51,280
Speaker 1: have experience with underwater basket weaving. At the same time, though,

511
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: at the same time that wages are not increasing, cost

512
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: of living is increasing, college is becoming seen as a necessity.

513
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 1: The cost of just going to college, just the tuition

514
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: is increasing precipitously. It's like, now, not only do you

515
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: have to go here, but it's way more expensive than

516
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:13,920
Speaker 1: any of the other times before you were alive that

517
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: people went. And this puts us in a real bind

518
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: as a society. We have to start asking ourselves who

519
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: profits now the colleges and universities that would be first

520
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: on the list, right, There are nonprofit colleges, and there

521
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,959
Speaker 1: are profit colleges which could be the subject of their

522
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: own show. The for profit colleges, the University of Phoenixes

523
00:29:40,520 --> 00:29:41,200
Speaker 1: and stuff like that.

524
00:29:41,280 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 3: Niche.

525
00:29:42,880 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: We can probably do a different episode about those, especially

526
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: the unaccredited ones, which are frankly robbing students blind and

527
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: going to quarter over it. But the institutions that we

528
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 1: would all like to consider more legitimate also have their

529
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 1: fingers in the pie. Colleges have been caught raising cost

530
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: and blaming the increase on various outside uncontrollable economic pressures.

531
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.

532
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,240
Speaker 4: Yeah, like our president of the college needs to get

533
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 4: paid a lot more millions.

534
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:21,840
Speaker 1: Yeah right, yeah, or we have we have desperately needed infrastructure,

535
00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 1: infrastructure maintenance that we have to conduct right like ours

536
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: is an old and storied institution, and the bridges in

537
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: the walls won't fix themselves. That asbestos is not going

538
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: to magically lead I'm making that last one up, but

539
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's the argument that we

540
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: have to maintain and upkeep the institution exactly makes sense

541
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: and would make more sense if it was true. It

542
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: turns out in multiple cases that while these colleges are

543
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:56,760
Speaker 1: claiming they need to increase tuition primarily for these maintenance

544
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: costs or like staff requirements, pensions, except trip, what it

545
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: turns out that they've been doing they've been squirreling away

546
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: massive cash reserves outside of endowments. I believe it was

547
00:31:09,440 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: West Virginia got caught doing this, and their defense was

548
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: that other schools do it.

549
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, of course.

550
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: So it's it's dangerous, and of course Wall Street investors

551
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: are in on the game. They're in on the game

552
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: because if you if you want to profit from this

553
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: kind of financial sphere, in this financial market, one thing

554
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: that's really going to stick out to you is that

555
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: student loan debt, unlike many other kinds of debt, cannot

556
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: be discharged. Discharge means, you know, let's say just pick

557
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: a random coworker of ours, not one of us. I

558
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: don't want to pick on us, hmm Ramsey Okay.

559
00:31:54,480 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 6: So so our super producer Ramsey Yunt, who is a

560
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 6: fantastic guy who prod produces movie Crush and I think

561
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 6: works on committed as well, right, Ramsey yt.

562
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 1: Let's say things get weird, he gets he gets too

563
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,800
Speaker 1: deep in the underwater basket weaving industry, and he has

564
00:32:17,840 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: to have one reason or another declare bankruptcy. Statistically speaking,

565
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: in this country, one of the main reason we declare

566
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: bankruptcy is if something went wrong. Medically, we're just coming

567
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: up with different episodes left and right. So let's say

568
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 1: this unfortunate thing happens to Ramsey and he is bankrupt.

569
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: So he gets various debts discharge, credit card debt, consolidated discharged,

570
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: mortgage solidated discharge. Let's say he loses his house and

571
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: he has to move to a rental or something carno,

572
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: you know, let's see, cars are possessed boom. So he

573
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: gets a fresh start and he keeps his nose clean

574
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 1: and maintains good financial hygiene. Then eventually he will recover

575
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: from this except for his student loans, which will almost

576
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: never go away. There is a myth that says student

577
00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: loans never go away during bankruptcy. That's not true. It's

578
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 1: just virtually true. It's very very difficult, Like on the

579
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: order of ninety percent of student loans are going to

580
00:33:18,080 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: stay with you if you go bankrupt.

581
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd say generally, what I've seen happen is they

582
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 4: get deferred just for a time period and then they

583
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 4: just come right.

584
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: Back yep, yep. Or and this may not be the

585
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: way it works in bankruptcy. They may enter forbearance, oh,

586
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: which is like the ugly cousin, the ugly meaner cousin

587
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: of defermit. So, of course investors are going to be

588
00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 1: in this game because it's a debt that will always

589
00:33:45,560 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 1: need to be paid, and in some cases it's a

590
00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: debt depend on the way it's paid. In some cases,

591
00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: it is a debt that follows people for decades or

592
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: the entirety of their lives. There are people who have

593
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: retired who are sixty five plus and still are paying

594
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: their student loans. This is true.

595
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, there are people in my immediate family that are

596
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:08,439
Speaker 4: in that boat.

597
00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:13,760
Speaker 1: And it's not discharged right, it's not changed, and in

598
00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: some cases we have people who are paying entirely on

599
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: the interest or the fees of their loans rather than

600
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: the principle. There's a great anecdote in The Rolling Stone

601
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: about a lady named Veronica Mardish. She's a sixty eight

602
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: year old veteran at the time of writing. She served

603
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: in the Armed Forces during Vietnam. She's a grandmother. She's

604
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: had a clean record her entire life, and she considers

605
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: herself a patriot. But student loans ruined her life. In

606
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,399
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, she took out an eight thousand dollars

607
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 1: student loan through Sally May, and then five years later,

608
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:55,960
Speaker 1: after some people died in her family she fell behind

609
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:59,880
Speaker 1: on her payments. She entered a loan rehab program with

610
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:03,800
Speaker 1: feast and interest. That original eight thousand dollars loan ballooned

611
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: into twenty seven thousand dollars. She has this woman to

612
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,719
Speaker 1: the date of that article, which was relatively recently, she

613
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: has paid more than sixty three thousand dollars to date

614
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: and is nowhere near getting rid of the principle from

615
00:35:21,760 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: eight thousand. Just to reiterate from eight thousand dollars nineteen

616
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: eighty nine to sixty three thousand dollars paid.

617
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that is that is terrible, and that is

618
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 4: not an uncommon thing. Unfortunately, even if you took out

619
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,719
Speaker 4: loans in the early two thousands, the ballooning factor and

620
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 4: trying to pay down the principle while furiously paying off

621
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 4: all that interest. I think we can all we can

622
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 4: all we all know what that's like.

623
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean again, I'm not trying to be

624
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 2: flipping about it, but I mine has not shrunk very

625
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 2: much at all, even though I didn't take out a ton,

626
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:07,480
Speaker 2: It's like maybe like ten thousand dollars, and like that

627
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 2: was what it took out to begin with, maybe even less.

628
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 2: It's not that far away from where it was when

629
00:36:12,160 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 2: I started hitting, like the early two thousands, or you know,

630
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 2: around two thousand and four. So yeah, it's something that

631
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 2: even if you don't notice it, it's definitely not doing

632
00:36:21,760 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 2: you any favors, and you are paying into the system

633
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 2: by not paying it off, you know.

634
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:29,520
Speaker 4: But I can't imagine her situation. That's a.

635
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:32,760
Speaker 3: Heartbreaking. Yeah, it's heartbreaking.

636
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:37,760
Speaker 1: And of course, as we have encountered in so many

637
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:43,040
Speaker 1: other episodes or so many other subjects, so many other stories. Whatever,

638
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: the federal government is involved, and a problem occurs, everybody

639
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 1: in the government says, humpharumpharumph, something must be done.

640
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 3: Let's figure out what's going on here. We say that.

641
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how. Yeah, everybody whispers in Congress now got it?

642
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:08,960
Speaker 1: Its library rules. We will tell you what the government

643
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 1: thinks about this and what their involvement is after a

644
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. So yes, Uncle Sammy boy, the Feds, big.

645
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 3: Brother, Sam the sham, the United.

646
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,000
Speaker 1: States of America, Sam the Sham, great band, by the way,

647
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 1: great performer. The federal government is the biggest lender of

648
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: American student loans. This makes sense. For years and years

649
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: and years, a lot of this money was managed by

650
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: private banks and loan companies like Sally May, who I

651
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 1: have often referred to as my real long term girlfriend.

652
00:37:48,600 --> 00:37:51,760
Speaker 3: M hm. Only now it's not even Sally May anymore.

653
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:53,280
Speaker 3: We'll get to that in the second. Yeah.

654
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 2: In twenty ten, Congress cut out the middle man of

655
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 2: their lending fees, and Sally May spun off its servicing

656
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 2: arm into Butana, the public traded company Navavits, which is

657
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 2: a weird name for a girlfriend, but just the same.

658
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 2: There she is she's actually gender Naviant is gender neutral.

659
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's twenty nineteen, that's rue. So Navian's not too

660
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: far from Salume though. They're led by former execs from

661
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: Sally May. And the company describes itself as a leading

662
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: provider of asset management and business processing solutions, I know,

663
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: for education, healthcare, and government clients. But it's best known

664
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 1: on the on these mean financial streets as being one

665
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: of the very lucky companies that one coveted federal contracts

666
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: to make sure students repay their loans. And that's where

667
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: the trouble begins. Why are these coveted, you might ask.

668
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: Navian is the primary point of contact or the servicer

669
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:50,399
Speaker 1: for more student loans in the United States than any

670
00:38:50,440 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 1: other company, handling twelve million borrowers and three hundred billion

671
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: in debt. So surely there's money to be made with

672
00:38:59,040 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: those kind of figures.

673
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the company really really made it big, at

674
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 4: least under the Obama administration, not necessarily that the administration

675
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 4: had anything to do with it. But while during that

676
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 4: time they just they flourished. Let's say, it's stock rose

677
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 4: sharply after the election of Donald Trump, which is nice

678
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 4: that occurred not that long ago, and a lot of

679
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 4: other companies saw a big spike there. But Naviant also

680
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 4: has a ton of complaints. They've got more complaints than

681
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 4: any other borrower, any other servicer, and this is according

682
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 4: to a fusion analysis of data over a course of years.

683
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: Right, Right, So these complaints have a running theme. The

684
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: theme is that the company Naviant, has failed to live

685
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: up to the terms of its contracts and that it

686
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:50,480
Speaker 1: illegally harasses consumers. I'm sure we all have friends and

687
00:39:50,520 --> 00:39:54,799
Speaker 1: maybe some personal experience not to call anybody out wherein

688
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: Naviant stalks.

689
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:01,840
Speaker 4: You, right from random numbers from random numbers? Right, seriously.

690
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 1: But Navien says in their defense that most of the

691
00:40:06,719 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: most of the anger that they're getting from consumers. And then,

692
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: as they say, consumers, not former students, It's like, what

693
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:15,839
Speaker 1: did we We already did an episode of that, right,

694
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: I know, the citizens became consumers.

695
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:22,320
Speaker 4: We've touched on that different show, but we've touched on

696
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:24,359
Speaker 4: that in multiple episodes of this show.

697
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: It's scary. It's scary if you are over twenty five,

698
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: that happened while you were alive. Yeah, and if you're

699
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,960
Speaker 1: old enough to have seen it, it's it's spooky. How

700
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:38,920
Speaker 1: how we used to say citizen and now we say consumer.

701
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: So gross man. But Navian says, in Navian's case, to

702
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: be fair, these are consumers. It's a publicly traded company.

703
00:40:48,840 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 1: So Navien says that most of the problems that people

704
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:58,840
Speaker 1: are complaining about come from the structural issues surrounding college finance,

705
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: like terms of the loans and that they say is

706
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: up to the federal government and the private banks. We

707
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 1: don't make the rules, they say, We're just doing our

708
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,879
Speaker 1: job filling the contract. So the complaints are not about

709
00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: our customer service. They're complaining about the wrong thing. They

710
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: should be complaining about the banks and the feds.

711
00:41:17,080 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 4: We didn't make the product. We're just the customer service.

712
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, they received twenty three complaints per one

713
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people borrowers. See. I feel like words like

714
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 1: consumer and borrowers are trying to distance us from the

715
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 1: fact that these are people.

716
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 3: Talking about the borrowers. There's little people that live in

717
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 3: the walls, and I never saw that was anything. They're

718
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 3: just little guys. They have like a whole city in

719
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 3: the walls.

720
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: They're like quarters or something. Yeah, they they borrow Oh, Okay,

721
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: that makes sense.

722
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 4: Isn't they're a mayor like bubble Dooery or something Julius

723
00:41:46,960 --> 00:41:47,560
Speaker 4: Bible Doonery.

724
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I forgot.

725
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: Okay, so that number twenty three complaints per one hundred

726
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: thousand is more than twice that of their nearest competitor.

727
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: From twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen, Naviet was named as

728
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:04,800
Speaker 1: defendant of five hundred and thirty separate distinct federal lawsuits.

729
00:42:04,640 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 4: Which actually seems a little bit low to my ear.

730
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, how are you going to afford to help

731
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: file a lawsuit?

732
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:13,360
Speaker 3: That's true?

733
00:42:13,719 --> 00:42:18,320
Speaker 1: Okay, yep, I mean really, there should probably be more.

734
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: But they they do make a salient point when they say,

735
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, Noviant as an organization is not capable of

736
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:32,840
Speaker 1: making the federal government change its interest rates for you. True,

737
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:37,960
Speaker 1: they can't really do that. They can't, however, lobby and

738
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:41,360
Speaker 1: they do, and they don't lobby in your best interest.

739
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 1: So we when we go into the world of conspiratorial

740
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:49,759
Speaker 1: or cover up thinking with student loans, one of the

741
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: things we run into is an interesting argument. I don't

742
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:54,799
Speaker 1: know if you guys had heard this before. I had

743
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 1: never really thought about it this way. Their critics, who

744
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: will argue that the practice of indebting p for going

745
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: to college has become a form of indentured servitude, primarily

746
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 1: because it's so difficult to discharge the loan and it

747
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: makes you much more likely to get hooked on a

748
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: paycheck to paycheck lifestyle.

749
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 4: Yeah, I you know, I hate to give my opinion

750
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 4: here too much, but I could totally see that argument,

751
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 4: not necessarily as being true, but at least ringing very

752
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:29,600
Speaker 4: very true of all of the different loans that we

753
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 4: take out over the course of and I guess an

754
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,280
Speaker 4: average middle class American lifestyle just just the sheer number

755
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 4: of loans that we take out that are large enough

756
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 4: that cause us to be paying them for decades, I

757
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:44,799
Speaker 4: mean easily decades. Everything from you know, your house to

758
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 4: your car to be on what you buyan well too.

759
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 2: I mean, not to mention the helicopter pad you have

760
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 2: to have installed on your hands.

761
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: You're still paying you have to get it, like legally

762
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: you have to get the pad, which I think is mallarchy. Well.

763
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 2: No, and to your point, Matt, I mean, these are

764
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 2: a lot of things too that are similarly to the

765
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 2: American dream of college. They're pushed on people to the

766
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:06,879
Speaker 2: point where they feel like if they don't do it,

767
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 2: if they don't sign the paperwork, they don't get into

768
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 2: that space, they are less then, and they will be

769
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:14,399
Speaker 2: seen as less than, whether it's status wise or whether

770
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 2: it means they won't be able to get that job

771
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,120
Speaker 2: or the won't be taken seriously for that you know, meteoric

772
00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:21,760
Speaker 2: rise and position that they.

773
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 3: Plan to plot. You know, that means they did a

774
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 3: good job at life.

775
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,440
Speaker 2: That's the thing, you know, I mean, the whole idea

776
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 2: of buying a house has its own drawbacks and issues involved,

777
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 2: you know, inherent in it.

778
00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 4: Oh absolutely, And and to your point, but you're saying earlier,

779
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,880
Speaker 4: the of all of these loans, the student loan is

780
00:44:39,040 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 4: probably could be I would consider it to be the

781
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 4: most nefarious because it is so difficult to discharge. It's

782
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 4: the one it's that one hook that sticks in you

783
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,239
Speaker 4: even if you bankruptcy.

784
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, And so at this at this point we

785
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: can see why that argument exists. One of the questions

786
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: we have to ask is in densered ser to whom right,

787
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,080
Speaker 1: who are who are you serving in this? In this situation,

788
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: the argument will usually be something along the lines of well,

789
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: we're making sure that people are too busy, scared, and

790
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: anxious to rise up against the status quo. It's kind

791
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,760
Speaker 1: of like an occupy argument if you remember the occupy

792
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:23,959
Speaker 1: protests from a few years back. So it's not it's

793
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: not specific. But while that is a maybe more of

794
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:32,680
Speaker 1: a fringe accusation, it also had it also reminds us

795
00:45:32,719 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: of the argument that the prison system replaced the system

796
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: of chattel slavery, which has some other very depressing and

797
00:45:43,239 --> 00:45:45,439
Speaker 1: very compelling points to it. You know what I mean

798
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 1: this In this case, what we can see, however, is

799
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: a clear financial incentive for this system, which is predatory

800
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: in some ways to continue. Now, is it predatory to

801
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 1: let people borrow money from school for schooling for education

802
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:10,000
Speaker 1: and expect them to pay it back? Absolutely not. Is

803
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: it predatory to change the laws and move the goalpost

804
00:46:15,080 --> 00:46:18,439
Speaker 1: while these people are already attempting to pay this thing back. Yes,

805
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 1: I would argue that is very much predatory.

806
00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 2: And there are you know, things in place, little by

807
00:46:23,520 --> 00:46:26,200
Speaker 2: little that are allowing some people to get quote unquote

808
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,120
Speaker 2: forgiven for some of these loans, especially when it comes

809
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 2: to taking out loans for some of these for profit

810
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 2: colleges that have been wrapped up in so much litigation.

811
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:36,799
Speaker 2: I believe there is actually a system where you have

812
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 2: to be notified that you're eligible. But if you went

813
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 2: in to debt to go to one of these for

814
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 2: profit colleges and then they kind of did a fly

815
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 2: by night move and disappeared and you were left on

816
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 2: the hook, there are ways to get forgiven for that debt.

817
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 2: But overall, it's a lot of people making some kind

818
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 2: of rash decisions at a time when they feel compelled

819
00:46:58,200 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 2: to do so. Maybe they're not thinking of the full

820
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:03,399
Speaker 2: emplaytions of is this degree going to make me enough

821
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,879
Speaker 2: money to actually pay back this debt? And then there's

822
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 2: this vicious cycle, right.

823
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, Honestly, what would benefit most people entering college now

824
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: are considering it is we need like you guys remember

825
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,920
Speaker 1: the DARE program, which absolutely did not work. Right, We

826
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 1: talked about this before.

827
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, dare not to do drugs.

828
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: Dare to give a kid some hope. Ye. So there

829
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: have been a ton of PSAs with things like this

830
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: is your brain on drugs? Or you know, if you

831
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: look at someone once you will get in STD. Abstinence

832
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: is the only way all those kinds of things. I

833
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:45,040
Speaker 1: found them hilarious.

834
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 3: They did.

835
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: They were probably well intentioned, but they did not work

836
00:47:50,120 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: in the way that the people who created them wish

837
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 1: they would. We could use some heavy handed alarmist psays

838
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: about the student loan industry for kids who are junior

839
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: seniors in high school or.

840
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 4: Even I don't know, even early high school. I would say,

841
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:07,560
Speaker 4: just so as soon as you get in that environment,

842
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 4: you're thinking about it and you can bring something to

843
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:10,320
Speaker 4: your parents.

844
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:11,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.

845
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 4: I would, I would lobby for that.

846
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:18,120
Speaker 1: We also need more We also need more mandatory financial

847
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:20,920
Speaker 1: awareness classes and people should just have to take a

848
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 1: budget class in high school.

849
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,160
Speaker 3: Why is that? And it makes no sense.

850
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:26,680
Speaker 2: So many things they make you take that are such

851
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 2: a waste of time, Like that would really set a foundation. Yeah,

852
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:32,400
Speaker 2: they expect your parents to teach you, but sorry, people's

853
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:33,880
Speaker 2: parents are bad at money.

854
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 3: Right, right? What's the incentive to teach it?

855
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 4: Though?

856
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: That's where the question gets tricky.

857
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:40,400
Speaker 2: Are you saying that it's almost like systematic that we

858
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 2: keep people in the dark about smart financial decisions that

859
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,600
Speaker 2: the powers the beak can reap the benefits.

860
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: I've just said, it seems like an easy win to

861
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: say Hey, let's teach people basic budgeting home economics.

862
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 4: Man, eighth grade, y'all didn't.

863
00:48:55,160 --> 00:48:59,840
Speaker 3: Get that underwater basket weaving? Ok, sixth grade?

864
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 1: I mean, you're Matt. You might be laughing now, but

865
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, if you catch this guy with some

866
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:05,879
Speaker 1: straw in a pool.

867
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 4: I don't doubt it.

868
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 3: Oh I'm I am out of control.

869
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: It's it's a beautiful thing to wause and it's cool.

870
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 2: You know, it's even better than underwater basket weaving. Synchronize

871
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,120
Speaker 2: underwater basket weaving. When you have a whole group of.

872
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:20,560
Speaker 1: People doing it, I don't know, it creeps me out.

873
00:49:20,640 --> 00:49:24,920
Speaker 1: In sync, which is what the boy band is named after, right,

874
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 1: That's how they all meant. So is this is this

875
00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 1: a bubble? This is one of the big concerns. I mean,

876
00:49:32,040 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: not underwater basket weaving, your boy bands. I think kpop

877
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 1: is here to stay also, But is this student loan

878
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:43,000
Speaker 1: situation of bubble? The answer for a lot of people

879
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: is going to be yes. But the answer for a

880
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 1: lot of people is going to be no. What we

881
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 1: we should explain what we mean when we say a

882
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:53,040
Speaker 1: bubble in terms of economics. So there's a guy named

883
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: Brent goldfar But, Professor of Business at the University of Maryland,

884
00:49:56,840 --> 00:49:58,960
Speaker 1: is an author of a book called Bubbles and Crashes,

885
00:49:59,000 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: The Boom and Bust of Tech Logical Innovation, and he

886
00:50:02,560 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: says the best way to think of a bubble and

887
00:50:04,840 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 1: financial terms is to think about a stock that people

888
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:12,480
Speaker 1: keep buying mostly because other people are buying the same thing.

889
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:17,920
Speaker 1: It's a herd movement. And then Weiss wrote a pretty

890
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: solid article about this, and they said the best known

891
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:25,120
Speaker 1: examples of recent bubbles would be the mortgage crisis the

892
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:29,719
Speaker 1: homes that people live in in the US. So what

893
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: happened is at least two different sets of people started

894
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:36,840
Speaker 1: thinking the price of something housing in this case, was

895
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,720
Speaker 1: just going to keep going up, So people kept buying

896
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:43,680
Speaker 1: property for inflated prices, and people kept lending the money

897
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,920
Speaker 1: to do so. Right, eventually the center cannot hold, like

898
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: Chenua Chebe says, and so another bubble would be the

899
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:57,359
Speaker 1: stock the dot com stock bubble in the two thousands, right,

900
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,960
Speaker 1: And they were very different, but they shared one thing,

901
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:07,120
Speaker 1: the mass runaway delusion about how much something, about how

902
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: much people thought something was worth versus how much it

903
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: was actually worth. And the problem here is that people say.

904
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: People feel like companies like Naviant and Wall Street investors

905
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: and colleges and universities are accelerating this bubble because people

906
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:32,759
Speaker 1: are saying, well, college education is worth so much over

907
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: the span of my life, that I should go to college,

908
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: even if it costs twice what it did when my

909
00:51:38,120 --> 00:51:42,200
Speaker 1: parents went right. Of course, we do have to mention

910
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 1: that scholarships are great. Get a scholarship if you can.

911
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:46,640
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, I just write some essays.

912
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of my relatives said it this way, like, no,

913
00:51:53,719 --> 00:51:58,239
Speaker 1: you have to toil away like a slave in high

914
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: school so that you can enjoy your life life later. Okay,

915
00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:04,759
Speaker 1: well it was tough love, but they were right. So

916
00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: now we're in a situation where some economists worry that

917
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 1: we will reach a point where we have generations of

918
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,840
Speaker 1: people who can never afford a home, are having a

919
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: very difficult time raising children, let alone saving for retirement.

920
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,839
Speaker 1: That's a pipe dream at this point. And eventually they

921
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 1: may reach a breaking point. And just like the scene

922
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: in that Ariam music video during the traffic jam, everybody hurts,

923
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: people might just get out of their cars and walk away.

924
00:52:39,840 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: In this situation, they may just stop paying their loans

925
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: and say screw the credit rating. This system is not

926
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:52,680
Speaker 1: real rage against the machine. Bulls on parade, eat the rich.

927
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 2: And the thing is, I know plenty of people who

928
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 2: again like I feel like a jerk, but I pay

929
00:52:58,560 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 2: my bills. But sometimes I let the student loan one

930
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 2: kind of lapse because they don't really haven't really given

931
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:07,080
Speaker 2: me an incentive to not do so. I never really

932
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 2: get charged late payments. It's not that big of a

933
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:11,920
Speaker 2: deal if I forget to pay occasionally and just have

934
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 2: to get a couple of annoying phone calls. But I

935
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 2: know people that have gone years without paying. And if

936
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 2: more people start acting like that, that's when the bubble

937
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:21,520
Speaker 2: burst happens, right.

938
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:27,440
Speaker 1: Ben, Yeah, Yeah, It's something that takes cooperation from all sides.

939
00:53:27,960 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: And some people have gone so far as to leave

940
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 1: the US entirely and start I kid you, not an

941
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:43,920
Speaker 1: entirely different life in a foreign country. I would refer

942
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 1: to Vice again. They have an excellent article on this

943
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,880
Speaker 1: by Alexander Coggan Debt Dodgers, the Americans who moved to

944
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 1: Europe and what a Wall and their student loans, And

945
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: you can find various stories of people who moved to

946
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:59,080
Speaker 1: Europe and maybe some other countries, because they felt like

947
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 1: they had no choice, they had no way to get

948
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: a decent job that would allow them to pay back

949
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: the loan. And now it's a shame that we're not

950
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:12,040
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to end this with

951
00:54:12,160 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: a nice bow or ribbon, a nice pat answer.

952
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 4: Well, and it's because it never ends. And it's because

953
00:54:17,480 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 4: of this thing called forbearance. That's what it is. I'm

954
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:21,879
Speaker 4: telling you, that's why this doesn't end. This is one

955
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:25,640
Speaker 4: of the primary reasons that this whole thing seems to

956
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:27,759
Speaker 4: be an issue.

957
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:33,120
Speaker 1: So forbearans, we mentioned it as the meaner cousin of deference.

958
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 4: But if you really think about this, and this is

959
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 4: exactly what my wife did, and it's why I'm going

960
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:40,360
Speaker 4: to be paying student loans for the rest of my life,

961
00:54:40,360 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 4: probably even though I didn't take any. It's because she

962
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 4: went into forbearance with her student loans at one point,

963
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:50,759
Speaker 4: and rather than just the money, the loan being on

964
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 4: freeze and you don't have to pay anything, the interest

965
00:54:53,680 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 4: continues to accumulate as you're not making any payments for

966
00:54:57,440 --> 00:55:00,319
Speaker 4: whatever the allotted period of time is. It can be

967
00:55:00,400 --> 00:55:03,799
Speaker 4: a year, be six months, It just depends and then

968
00:55:03,880 --> 00:55:06,799
Speaker 4: that interest it's not like it's not like it goes

969
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:08,879
Speaker 4: a wait, it gets added to the principle of the loan.

970
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:10,440
Speaker 2: Is that the same thing as having a loan that's

971
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:13,440
Speaker 2: in rehabilitation, like rehabilitating alone. That's a term that I've

972
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 2: heard thrown around as well, when you I don't think

973
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 2: it is. I don't know, but there is something where

974
00:55:17,200 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 2: when you just straight up don't pay your loan and

975
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:23,719
Speaker 2: then you start having conversations with d lender to get

976
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:27,760
Speaker 2: back on track. They assess how much you can actually

977
00:55:27,800 --> 00:55:30,200
Speaker 2: afford to pay, and it can be quite a little

978
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,600
Speaker 2: amount of money, but just getting back on track to

979
00:55:32,680 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 2: paying that loan.

980
00:55:33,920 --> 00:55:36,799
Speaker 3: But you're never gonna pay it off. They just want

981
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:38,359
Speaker 3: something from you, you know. Yeah.

982
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:41,080
Speaker 4: And that's the thing with word parents, because as you're

983
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:43,879
Speaker 4: adding to that principle, know, you're talking about how hard

984
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:46,279
Speaker 4: it is to pay off your principle because you are

985
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:49,440
Speaker 4: paying such a large percentage of interest with every payment.

986
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 4: It's terrifying that there are so many humans that are

987
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 4: stuck in this kind of deal, in this cycle because

988
00:55:58,680 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 4: they were either told that forbearance would be a good

989
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 4: idea for them, or it would be a band aid

990
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 4: basically to fix your current financial situation where you can't

991
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:11,600
Speaker 4: afford to pay in your student loan payment. Then it

992
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 4: wraps you up for the next thirty years.

993
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:21,480
Speaker 1: According to statements by former loan servicing employees, forbearance was

994
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 1: one of the go to ways to process a call.

995
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 1: They were instructed to keep calls under seven minutes seven

996
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: minutes or less if they could, and the easiest way

997
00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 1: to do that was to tell somebody about the joys

998
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 1: of forbearance. It is a short term band aid with

999
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: long term ramifications now na VI it. For their part

1000
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:44,799
Speaker 1: and other private loan servicers are doing pretty well in

1001
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:50,240
Speaker 1: this environment. Since twenty fourteen, their execus have given around

1002
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:54,720
Speaker 1: seventy five grand to the company's political Action Committee or PACK,

1003
00:56:55,520 --> 00:57:00,640
Speaker 1: which pumped money into different different campaigns in the state

1004
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:09,279
Speaker 1: level to try to prevent some states from tackling the

1005
00:57:09,640 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: debt crisis. They've spent more than ten point one million

1006
00:57:14,160 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 1: dollars lobbying Congress. Four point two million of that spending

1007
00:57:18,800 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: alone came from twent came since twenty sixteen, so that

1008
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: means that Navin's lobbying is increasing in step with the bubble.

1009
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 1: All of the stakes are getting higher, there's more and

1010
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 1: more and more money and people involved, and more and

1011
00:57:35,000 --> 00:57:38,840
Speaker 1: more children's futures. I mean, that's cliche, but it's true.

1012
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:43,840
Speaker 1: So where does this leave us now? Now, let's be honest.

1013
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:47,120
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who will say this

1014
00:57:47,200 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: is an issue of personal responsibility. You make your bed,

1015
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:54,280
Speaker 1: you sleep in it, and there is something to that, right, But.

1016
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 7: It is.

1017
00:57:58,240 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 1: Disingenuous at best to say that these people are given

1018
00:58:04,040 --> 00:58:09,120
Speaker 1: full awareness of what they are agreeing to do. That's why,

1019
00:58:09,160 --> 00:58:13,959
Speaker 1: in any experiment you hear the phrase informed consent rather

1020
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,200
Speaker 1: than consent. And this is an important difference. And maybe

1021
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:19,600
Speaker 1: it's not a one on one comparison, but it's still

1022
00:58:19,600 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 1: a pretty good one. Student loans began as a means

1023
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: of allowing less privileged Americans to chase previously unobtainable parts

1024
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: of the American dream, and now, regardless of how you

1025
00:58:32,120 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: feel about individual cases, on a national level, this has

1026
00:58:37,120 --> 00:58:41,400
Speaker 1: become a paralyzing generational problem. What happens when no one

1027
00:58:41,400 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 1: can pay the debt? What happens when no one can

1028
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 1: buy a house? Are we going to get to that point?

1029
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 1: I mean, that's dystopian, that's alarmist, but it is distantly

1030
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:55,240
Speaker 1: in the cards. Luckily, Now, if you're listening and you're

1031
00:58:55,320 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 1: underwater or a student loan or someone you care about

1032
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 1: is you can find sing for student loans. There are

1033
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,720
Speaker 1: numerous counseling services. Go with a nonprofit one or a

1034
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:09,920
Speaker 1: government sponsored one just because some might be scams, some

1035
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: loan consolidation things or scams. I'm sure you've met someone

1036
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:16,800
Speaker 1: who has received one of those weird notices or maybe

1037
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 1: you received one where they will, you know, send you

1038
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:21,560
Speaker 1: junk mail these guys to look official.

1039
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 4: It's all yeah, it's all about due diligence. Like seriously,

1040
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:26,680
Speaker 4: get online, find out what people are saying about whatever

1041
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 4: company it is or whatever group or governmental organization before

1042
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:31,680
Speaker 4: you do anything.

1043
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:34,560
Speaker 1: And like you said, no, there are forgiveness programs right.

1044
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 1: Two are two that may be of great interest to

1045
00:59:38,840 --> 00:59:42,040
Speaker 1: some of us, the Teachers Student Loan Forgiveness Program and

1046
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 1: Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. This means if you work

1047
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,440
Speaker 1: in a qualified job for a number of years, poof

1048
00:59:49,440 --> 00:59:53,600
Speaker 1: your your loan has disappeared. But the problem here is

1049
00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: that not everyone can take these sorts of jobs for

1050
00:59:56,080 --> 00:59:59,840
Speaker 1: one reason or another. Right, then the big thing on

1051
00:59:59,840 --> 01:00:02,960
Speaker 1: the table, off and on again. All the time is

1052
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:05,320
Speaker 1: student loan refinancing.

1053
01:00:05,360 --> 01:00:06,040
Speaker 3: But what is that?

1054
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:09,320
Speaker 2: So let's let's put it like this. What if borrowers

1055
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 2: could reduce their interest rates? This is the question that

1056
01:00:13,360 --> 01:00:18,520
Speaker 2: proponents of refinancing are asking, And in this case, technically

1057
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:20,600
Speaker 2: they'd be able to pay back their loans on time,

1058
01:00:21,120 --> 01:00:23,960
Speaker 2: improving their own credit and financial well being while supporting

1059
01:00:24,000 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 2: the integraty sustainability of the federal loan program.

1060
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:27,840
Speaker 3: Seems like a win win.

1061
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 2: Yet refinancing is incredibly expensive. In twenty fourteen, the Congressional

1062
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 2: Budget Office estimated the Senator Elizabeth Warren's refinancing plan would

1063
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 2: cost just shy of sixty billion dollars over a three

1064
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:43,600
Speaker 2: year period, or twice the annual costs of the federal

1065
01:00:43,680 --> 01:00:44,640
Speaker 2: pel grant program.

1066
01:00:45,040 --> 01:00:48,040
Speaker 1: So it's expensive. Also, the way it would work out,

1067
01:00:48,400 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 1: the savings on that refinancing wouldn't be that much on

1068
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:55,880
Speaker 1: an individual level, and it wouldn't.

1069
01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:57,480
Speaker 3: It would help.

1070
01:00:57,320 --> 01:01:00,200
Speaker 1: People who are already capable of paying loans more than

1071
01:01:00,240 --> 01:01:04,240
Speaker 1: we to help people who were already defaulted or having difficulty.

1072
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:07,200
Speaker 2: You know, it's the same as like refinancing your house, right, Yeah,

1073
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 2: get a better rate you technically are able to pay it.

1074
01:01:10,720 --> 01:01:14,280
Speaker 2: Quicker because you're not getting eaten alive by high interest

1075
01:01:14,320 --> 01:01:15,440
Speaker 2: and ladies and things like that.

1076
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:20,800
Speaker 1: Exactly, and right now I believe there is a federal

1077
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,920
Speaker 1: case going forward. A judge ordered the Department of Education

1078
01:01:25,680 --> 01:01:31,080
Speaker 1: to implement a student loan forgiveness rule that meets a

1079
01:01:31,400 --> 01:01:33,080
Speaker 1: I think it's what you were talking about. It meets

1080
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 1: at you have to meet a couple of different requirements,

1081
01:01:35,080 --> 01:01:40,320
Speaker 1: and it's in it's in reaction to those those really

1082
01:01:40,360 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 1: sketchy schools that close down right and left their students

1083
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:47,680
Speaker 1: high and dry. So there is hope, there is always

1084
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 1: an action you can take. But the next time, the

1085
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 1: next time someone tells you that millennials or insert generation

1086
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:02,960
Speaker 1: here is wasting their money on off coado toast or whatever, many.

1087
01:02:02,680 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 3: Are good though, mans, it is.

1088
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: It is, and it's not that expensive. You make it

1089
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 1: at home. That's the secret good just as good. So

1090
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:16,720
Speaker 1: the next time someone spews that kind of stuff, just

1091
01:02:16,800 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: remember that a lot of these people are probably scraping by.

1092
01:02:20,800 --> 01:02:25,160
Speaker 1: And it's not out of laziness that people aren't, you know,

1093
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:28,720
Speaker 1: buying houses or having two point five kids. It's a

1094
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:30,440
Speaker 1: matter of survival for a lot of people.

1095
01:02:30,760 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 4: That's right, Okay, Do you have a student loan story

1096
01:02:38,720 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 4: that you want to tell us that won't make us

1097
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:44,480
Speaker 4: all feel just absolutely terrible, or maybe one of those

1098
01:02:44,520 --> 01:02:45,920
Speaker 4: that you just want to share to get it off

1099
01:02:45,960 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 4: your chest.

1100
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have something that's like a PSA for

1101
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:51,760
Speaker 1: your fellow listeners about student loans? Do you have an

1102
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:54,280
Speaker 1: inspiring student loans storry with a happy ending.

1103
01:02:54,160 --> 01:02:55,720
Speaker 2: And do you want to deliver it in your own

1104
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:58,120
Speaker 2: voice with the potential of it actually ending up on

1105
01:02:58,160 --> 01:02:59,080
Speaker 2: an episode of the show.

1106
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,240
Speaker 4: Give us a call. We are one eight three three

1107
01:03:02,920 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 4: std WYTK. The chorus of voices tells your ears the

1108
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:12,240
Speaker 4: acronym of our show. Call that number, and don't.

1109
01:03:12,040 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 2: Forget there's a three minute cutoff. So either try to

1110
01:03:15,320 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 2: get your story in type three or be prepared to

1111
01:03:18,240 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 2: do a part two tight three is preferable. It really is, okay,

1112
01:03:22,840 --> 01:03:23,760
Speaker 2: So if you.

1113
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 4: Guys don't want to do that, you can find us

1114
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:27,320
Speaker 4: in most places on social media. We are at conspiracy

1115
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 4: Stuff on Instagram. We are at conspiracy Stuff show.

1116
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and if you want to see some of

1117
01:03:33,240 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: my various misadventures before I get disappeared, I'm at then Bowland.

1118
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:38,760
Speaker 2: I am at Embryonic Inside. If you want to see

1119
01:03:38,800 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 2: a cute kid and kittie picks and maybe some modular

1120
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 2: synth nerdery.

1121
01:03:42,800 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I am at one eight seven two two

1122
01:03:45,040 --> 01:03:47,960
Speaker 4: four one one.

1123
01:03:47,880 --> 01:03:51,160
Speaker 1: Just rolls off the tongue. You can also find us,

1124
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,040
Speaker 1: and more importantly, your fellow listeners on Facebook. Right we

1125
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: have a group.

1126
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 3: Called Here's where it Gets Crazy.

1127
01:03:56,520 --> 01:03:59,200
Speaker 2: You either have to name one of us by name

1128
01:03:59,360 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 2: to get in, or just say something really clever lets

1129
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:02,760
Speaker 2: us know that you actually care about the.

1130
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:06,240
Speaker 4: Show honestly, and that's the end of this classic episode.

1131
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:10,200
Speaker 4: If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,

1132
01:04:10,520 --> 01:04:12,600
Speaker 4: you can get into contact with us in a number

1133
01:04:12,640 --> 01:04:14,640
Speaker 4: of different ways. One of the best is to give

1134
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:19,400
Speaker 4: us a call. Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK.

1135
01:04:19,840 --> 01:04:21,600
Speaker 4: If you don't want to do that, you can send

1136
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 4: us a good old fashioned email.

1137
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1138
01:04:27,640 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 4: Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production

1139
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:34,360
Speaker 4: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1140
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.