Thursday, October 11, 2012

Going to zero

Last night I started reading Michael Lewis's The Big Short, which is about the financial meltdown of 2008.  I don't have time to write much about it today, but it would be an understatement to say the story Lewis tells has some relevance to the topic of this blog. 

Here are just a few quotes from the opening chapters of the book:

[Meredith Whitney's] message was clear: if you want to know what these Wall Street firms are really worth, take a cold, hard look at these crappy assets they're holding with borrowed money, and imagine what they'd fetch in a fire sale. The vast assemblages of highly paid people inside them were worth, in her view, nothing.


"It was a fast buck business," says [Sy] Jacobs. "Any business where you can sell a product and make money without having to worry about how the product performs is going to attract sleazy people."


When [Steve Eisman] was done, he had an explanation for the unpleasant order wafting from the subprime mortgage industry he had detected. These companies disclosed their ever-growing earnings, but not much else. One of the many items they failed to disclose was the delinquency rate of the home loans they were making.


The interest rate on the loans wasn't high enough to justify lending to this particular slice of the American population. It was as if the ordinary rules of finance had been suspended in response to a social problem. A thought crossed his mind: How do you make poor people feel wealthy when wages are stagnant? You give them cheap loans.


"If you are going to start a regulatory regime from scratch, you'd design it to protect middle and lower income people, because the opportunity for them to get ripped off was so high. Instead what we had was a regime where those were the people who were protected the least."



Eisman asked, "Are any regulators interested in this?"
"No," said Sandler.
"That's when I decided the system was really, 'Fuck the poor.' I now realized there was an entire industry that existed basically to rip people off."


The original cast of subprime financiers had been sunk by the small fraction of loans they made that they had kept on their books. The market might have learned a simple lesson: Don't make loans to people who can't repay them. Instead it learned a complicated one: You can keep making those loans, just don't keep them on your books.


"You have to understand, I did subprime first. I lived the worst first. These guys lied to infinity. What I learned from that experience was that Wall Street didn't give a shit what it sold."

 We've seen this all before.

99 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. The credited response is "First."

      Delete
    2. "The credited response is "First.""


      Adam was the Genesis of the original FIRST.

      Therefore there is no need for him to proclaim it - he only has to name himself.

      ;-)

      Delete
    3. (One of these days I will learn to keep in mind that the name-select feature can't handle apostrophes and quotation marks. Apologies for the goofy looking name "What's" above.)

      Delete
  2. What a great country, huh?!?!

    The fact remains that THE OWNERS want the entire pie, including the crumbs they left in the corner of the pan. When you, the proletariat reach out for those crumbs, you will get stabbed in your hand, by the owners' fork. In all honesty, football games, movies and other entertainment options will only keep the proles in line for so long. When that time comes, of course the plutocrat pigs will wonder why they are being "persecuted."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha - I wish that was true. When there are twenty thousand new lawyers a year finding out they have no future, many with crippling debt, and nobody does a damn thing....there will be no Bastille moment. Everyone is waiting for a miracle from the higher-ups (when there isn't a shred of evidence for it) or just sitting there crying in their soup while lawprofs and admins live fat off the hog and off that debt.

      Nothing will change unless universities or the Dept of Ed get firebombed. But that shit ain't happening. Too many just relieved to suck on the teat of IBR and presidential platitudes about the importance of higher education.

      Delete
    2. Those who don't like this country are free to leave.

      Delete
    3. They told me "Love it or leave it". I hated it and left it.

      Delete
    4. "Those who don't like this country are free to leave."

      lolwut? Or, well you know, actually change the laws to bring justice as allowed in our system of government. Perhaps you're the one that should leave and move to, say, North Korea where your answer to all issues would be more widely accepted and institutionally established.

      Delete
  3. The owners want every last drop of your blood, sweat and tears. These filthy pigs and cockroaches are NEVER satisfied, and it will be their great undoing. Hopefully, the revolution comes much sooner than I anticipate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Keep dreaming Fernando.

      Delete
    2. That's Fernando SUAVE to you, PlebeOctober 11, 2012 at 5:25 PM

      `nuff said.

      Delete
  4. "We've seen this all before."

    Yep, and we'll see it rehashed again, yet twisted to fit your views here...in about...one or two days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Brian,

      I'm a former student of yours (see if you can guess who). I'll be visiting you soon.

      Until then . . . keep trolling in good health.

      Delete
    2. I doubt a well-compensated professor obsessed with his reputation would be trolling like this.

      The frequency and stridency of this guy's posts makes me think he is paid to do this, as the Assistant Vice Dean of Enrollment Management at some fourth-tier school.

      Delete
  5. Here is a great article about the growth of for profit higher education. In years past, there used to be a "50%" rule, meaning that an institution had to have at least 50% of it's student body located on campus to be eligible to receive federal loans. Goldman Sachs saw an opportunity for a quick buck and lobbied for a rollback of that regulation:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/14/goldman-sachs-for-profit-college_n_997409.html

    Obviously this applies to the online schools and not law schools, but it shows how little these I-Banks care about ripping people off.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lawprof,

    Law schools do not care if loans are repaid. They now have a perfect system. They need only talk about success and the legal system to get gullible students to enroll. The cash then flows in from the federal government. When the bill comes due, the customer is out the door and without recourse. The funder -- uncle sam -- has political motives for not insisting on regulations, restrictions on access, or reform.

    It's become the perfect federally enabled scam. No one, other than those of us with a conscience, will speak up to end it. It's complicated to understand, and the selling point -- access to education by government loans and investment in the future -- is an easy newsbite.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yeah there are so many parellels between the housing collapse and the student loan/law school scam. The people profiting from them basically control the government.

    In fact, if you consider how many bankers move back and forth from Wall St. jobs to govt. jobs (Geithener, Bernanke, Corzine, etc) and how the law school deans control the ABA and state bar associations, the people profiting from the scam, in many cases, ARE the government.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The scary difference is that the housing collapse, no matter how bad your loan, left you with a house that could be repossessed. You can't walk away from your degree (or the progress you made towards it before wising up, as I did) and give it back to the school

      Delete
    2. Yes, but honestly some of the old houses in decrepit, backwater parts of the country that sold for $400,000 and up aren't worth the costs to bulldoze them.

      Delete
    3. Who cares if you can't walk away from your degree, you CAN walk away from your loans. Just don't pay. What is the lender or govt to do? Take your tax refund, take your SS in 40 years, send you nasty letters? Fuck 'em. JDP is probably the smartest guy on here. Rich, no; but very smart.

      Delete
    4. To be fair to Geithner - he has not actually held a job in private investment banking - NY-Fed and treasurey, but not actually in a Wall Street Bank.

      Delete
    5. Don't worry, MacK, he will.

      Delete
    6. Wrong--the Fed is owned by the largest banks. The Fed is NOT a part of any government agency.

      Delete
    7. October 11, 2012 4:51 PM

      Fed is part of the US Treasury. The Board of Directors of the Fed consist of the major heads of US banks.

      Delete
  8. It's another Michael Book where (I don't have the exact quote): Wall Street hires the smartest people to design the most complicated products, and gets the best salesmen to pawn the products all over the world to suckers who will take the other side.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A thought about the IBR program:

    I'm not an expert, but it seems that there are various ways we could finance higher education: directly giving money to schools, giving grants to students to use towards tuition, and giving students loans. The political problem, however, is that coming up with money to directly give to students or schools is very hard to do even if a better way to fund. It's easier politically to give loans.

    One way to think about the IBR program is that it is an ex-post conversion of some loan money given to students into (a less tax-favored) form of grant money.

    I wonder if it is possible to explain the political popularity of IBR because it manages to both fund schools and give some "grants" to students on the backend? I am not endorsing IBR--it is a large problem that taxpayers are being asked to socialize losses that arise from funding degrees not worth their value. But I do wonder if the popularity of IBR amongst politicians has something to do with it being a disguised way to spend on higher ed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Step one: End the current federal loan program

      Step two: Give a higher ed loan program the power to say "NO", meaning a loan for college can be denied.

      Step three: Deal with the fall out of people claiming this is unfair or otherwise bias in someway to deny a loan to anyone for any reason related to higher education.

      Step four: Life goes on debt free for those that really did not need college, and resources/debt are allocated to people now able to successfully repay their loans.

      Why can't these four steps be enacted today?

      Delete
    2. The near-impossibility of supporting a family without a college degree?

      And this is the part where you go "Hurr, apprenticeships!" and pretend that plumbers would still make a good rate if there were five times as many of them.

      Then you go away feeling smug and the whole process repeats in a few days.

      Delete
    3. I think it's more than "disguised spending" on higher ed-- it's disguised spending that has really boosted local economies as a whole. In Massachusetts, which has a ridiculous number of universities, the recession has not been nearly as bad. Construction projects are popping up everywhere at universities and students flock from all over the country to consume and spend in the Bay State. The economy in Mass. really depends on the growth of higher education.

      Delete
  10. Easier than getting 22 year olds to stop taking on non-dischargable debt based on cognitive biases:

    (1) Who is financing the construction of new law schools, and ongoing operations of law school diploma mills?

    (2) How do we get them to stop?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. You are financing construction of new law schools, as a taxpayer.

      2. End full value student loans for everyone with a pulse, and you end the scam.

      Delete
  11. I think there.s something to that. Also regulatory capture is probably part
    of the picture as well. The universities benefit enormously from fed. gteed loans bc they can raise tuition basically unchecked.

    ReplyDelete
  12. PNP--good points in your post. IBR is a perfect early 21st century scam:

    --it privatizes profits and socializes the losses

    --it gives politicians a feel-good program to brag about and squeeze for votes ("we are helping everyone get access to education so they can invest in their futures")

    --the financial can is kicked further down the road (e.g. the outstanding balances are counted as assets when, in reality, many of them will not be repaid and are liabilities which will have to be paid for at some future point).

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you LawProf for the big picture. The Law School Scam is just an out-growth of the deeper fraud in our socio-economic system.

    ReplyDelete
  14. So true in the legal profession.

    If the stata going farther out than 9 months were available the median income of law school GRADS, not practicing lawyers, was known, there would be a mass exodous from this problem.

    Who is going to sign up when easily 75% of all law school grads earn less than $60,000 a year. Are lemmings still going to go to Las Vegas, so to speak with the actual odds of making a go of this degree known?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Every special snowflake assumes he/she will perform among the top ten percent. More accurate downbeat data will continue to only dissuade a few at the margin, leaving plenty of nitwits to fill as many law school seats as are available every school year.

      Delete
    2. "Every special snowflake assumes he/she will perform among the top ten percent. "

      Not only that, but a recent scientifically conducted survey proved conclusively that 51% of those polled were...

      ...in the majority.

      Delete
    3. As has been pointed out on this blog earlier, we're seeing massive declines in applications at many schools. IIRC, Paul Campos predicted a crash in applications the minute that the economy offered alternatives to new grads.

      Delete
  15. The lie is embedded in our culture. Since WW2, the mantra has been" education is good. more education is better. white collar jobs good. working with hands is bad. service economy good.

    We must have leaders willing to call bullshit. It won't be political leaders, but there must be leaders to end the horrible, crippling scam.

    Save a few children from their mistakes.

    ReplyDelete
  16. It's an excellent book. The interesting part comes later, when he discusses the short-sellers who saw the implosion coming and were able to cash out and make a fortune by creating default swaps. Does anyone know a way that we could create a reverse swap instruments to bet against 4th tier law schools?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sure. Borrow a fourth tier law school from your broker and sell it to someone else. Then buy it back after it goes bankrupt and give it back to your broker. Of course, the board of trustees of the law school doesn't know that your broker gave it to you. The board thinks it still owns the law school as does your buyer, so you in effect created two law schools...it's magic!!!

      Delete
    2. Genius!

      It even complies with the Locate (§203) and Close Out (§204) requirements of Regulation SHO.

      Delete
  17. A standard CDS swap would be your way of cashing out if a law school collapses, the problem is who would be your counter-party on that swap? If you have enough money, an investment bank will enter into any swap you want on anything you want.

    ReplyDelete
  18. You could do a total return swap on the equity of a private for-profit, then hedge your downside with a CDS against it.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I watched Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) for the first time this week. I can't wait until the moment comes when I grab my pitchfork and go to the palaces of the ultra-wealthy. Literally the actual moment in real life where I grab a garden tool and join the march with millions of others who are sick of this bullshit system for robbery that the United States has become.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't wait for you to try it as my security forces have plenty of weaponry and ammo poised to mow you losers down like the vermin you are. BTW, you can always choose to go to one of the many countries with a "system" more to your liking.

      Delete

    2. Yeah, that's what Ceausescu, Gadhafi, Marcos et al. thought, they had plenty of weaponry and ammo.

      Delete
  20. I hope, LP, that when you finish The Big Short, you will pick up Neil Barofsky's "Bailout." He was the inspector general for TARP, and provides chapter & verse re how his efforts to combat fraud were foiled, not just by the criminal bankers, but by the members of the Obama administration who came from, identified with and wanted to protect the criminals.

    There's also an interesting book sale with Barofsky re the book at the FireDogLake site. Occurred about two weeks ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, FireDogLake...there's a fine source of unbiased info.

      Delete
  21. "Sale" should be "salon."

    Link: http://fdlbooksalon.com/2012/09/22/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-neil-barofsky/

    The host, David Dayen, is one of the best financial writers on the planet. A very interesting read.

    ReplyDelete
  22. If IBR takeup was made into a meaningful underwriting standard, i.e., a school has lots of graduates in IBR, it gets to write less loans and smaller loans than a school with few or none - IBR would make sense - it might even be an enhancement to the student loan system because it would address those who fail. It also would mean that colleges and graduate schools would go to great lengths to reduce the risk that any of their graduates would need IBR.

    The current IBR system's biggest fault is that there is no penalty for the school or the lender for having a graduate in IBR - it thus is laced with moral hazard.

    ReplyDelete
  23. one thing that the student loan and housing loan crisises have in common is that they were caused by the government butting in where it doesnt belong.

    anyone else for bigger government?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They were caused by companies abusing government programs.

      Delete

    2. Oh, OK. So how about you design a government program that can never be abused. Do that as a homework assignment and get back to me.

      Delete
  24. There is an important difference between the Wall Street types and the law school administrators & faculties. The Wall Street types are honest in the sense that they never pretended to be in for anything other than the money; they want to get as rich as possible as fast as possible and make no bones about it. The law school gang is the most sanctimonious bunch of left liberals imaginable, only interested in making the world a better place. They constantly bemoan the fact that their students are there to, you know, learn how to make a living representing businesses (icky) and urge them again and again to eschew filthy lucre and dedicate themselves to public service (while, I suppose, living on air). Even when I was in law school in the '70's, and shared most of their views, it was pretty annoying. Today it makes me sympathize with the pitchforks and torches commentators.

    RPL

    ReplyDelete
  25. Being a 20 year vet of wall street (prior to attending law school), I can tell you money is all they (we) cared about. Get your bonus and who cares what happens down the road. Owners of for-profit schools know that game well. Take in as much loan $$$ as you can now and to hell with the school in the long run. Sounds like a GS trade to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So congratulations, you're a scumbag.

      Delete
  26. The faculty hires of that the brand new bottom-of-the-barrel law school Indiana Tech Law suggests another painful similarity between the housing bubble and the law school scam.

    http://www.nationaljurist.com/content/indiana-tech-hires-minority-dominated-faculty

    Remember back to the years of the housing bubble, the early '90s to 2008. African-Americans, and other minorities, were especially targeted as customers for overpriced homes and subprime loans. And minorities were often receptive to those appeals because of a long history of ghettoization, redlining, restrictive covenants, and worse. The scammers played on those cultural memories, sold their scam wares, and basically wiped out the savings of the African-American middle class.

    Now, a different set of scammers is counting on minorities being receptive to the siren song of law school in light of other painful cultural memories--such as denial of professional educations and humiliation by racists in the justice system, or wanting authority ("empowerment" is the buzzword) within a legal system where structural racism persists.

    Unfortunately, as with homeownership, a JD means something different than it meant for previous generations, especially a JD from a bottom of the barrel school like Indiana Tech.

    Indiana Tech Law's Associate Dean of Academic Affairs andre douglas pond cummings, that white-as-dandruff specialist on hiphop and the law, and scourge of all things capitalized, may modestly refer to himself as a "dynamic scholar" who is "challeng[ing] the status quo and work[ing] toward equality and social justice," but he is really just enriching himself at the expense of naive kids who were unwise enough to trust him.

    http://www.andredouglaspondcummings.com/greetings.html

    Hopefully, somebody will write a furious hiphop song about andre douglas pond cummings, maybe with lyrics about busting a capital letter in andre douglas pond cumming's ass.

    dybbuk

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just can't get over this pretentious André Douglas Pond Cummings ass. Too faux-modest for capitals, but quite immodest enough to write out his four names ("André Cummings" wouldn't do) and to call himself a Dynamic Scholar (capitalization mine, bien sûr).

      Delete
    2. I would not mind busting something stiffer than a capital letter in Andre's tight ass.....

      Delete
    3. For 3:05, check out this comment, http://insidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-frank-exchange-of-views.html?showComment=1349806172143#c5421407271265680153


      For 4:30, uh, "eeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww!".

      Delete
    4. Whoa, go to the website of "andredouglaspondscumming" linked by dybbuk and nav to the "students doin' work" tab.

      Apparently these are supposed to represent his "successful students"?

      Note many are working as "account representatives" or some such. Many of the other links (leading to their law firm associate profiles) are dead links, so I guess(?) they got laid off from their firm gigs.

      And several of the others who are still at firms, bear no relation to any of the schools where andredouglaspondcumming taught or went, so I can't figure out why they (e.g., the Duke U JD) are listed on his website.

      Delete
  27. dybbuk - Clearly niche marketing, targeting as you so aptly put it, young and naive African-Americans. Reminds me of those vile merchants who sell rancid meat and rotting vegetables to the poor of our inner cities. For what it's worth Indiana Tech has taken down the faculty section on it's law school website. Sometimes shame works. William Ockham

    ReplyDelete
  28. To KD

    "They were caused by companies abusing government programs."

    Right, the government policies are perfect. Its those dastardly capitalists.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Something doesn't have to be perfect to be abused. Student loans were set up with good intentions of increasing access to higher education and it did do that. But, people got greedy, and ruined good policy. Stem The Myths

      Delete
  29. Oh this is all so very boring, and like American dirty laundry onstage and in full view of a laughing world audience, while the wall street bankers wink from behind the curtains so as to increase the volume :)

    Money, life.....love...dreams. The American Dream, dreamed of in some sort of an indebted afterlife dream without end?

    The left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and a persistent wail all up and down the shore for Daisy Buchannan?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwYjmMjwF_M&feature=relmfu

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're oh so witty Painter. I love your erudite way with words ... so impressive. I bet the chicks just drool over you. And when they see your banjo playing, I bet they just melt like butta...

      Delete
    2. Oh my fucking god you are back you retarded piece of shit.

      ONCE AGAIN YOU CANNOT LEAVE THIS FUCKING PLACE ALONE!

      PLEASE FUCK OFF!

      CAMPOS, PLEASE BAN THIS MORON FROM YOUR SITE! HE IS FUCKING INSANE! HE RUINS YOUR ENTIRE MESSAGE AND HE RUINS EVERY SEMBLANCE OF REASONABLE COMMENTS FROM READERS.

      Delete
    3. JD PainterguyOctober 11, 2012 4:57 PM

      Oh this is all so very boring, and like American dirty laundry onstage and in full view of a laughing world audience, while the wall street bankers wink from behind the curtains so as to increase the volume :)

      Money, life.....love...dreams. The American Dream, dreamed of in some sort of an indebted afterlife dream without end?

      The left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and a persistent wail all up and down the shore for Daisy Buchannan?

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwYjmMjwF_M&feature=relmfu

      Delete
    4. Holy Cow, John.

      Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, cut your own hair again. Spend the $3 at the barber's college, fer cryin' out loud.

      Delete
    5. 5:44 pm - I rather hope that you get banned. While John's posts may be boring, sad, pathetic (choose your adjective), at least they're not profane and offensive. (As are yours.)

      Delete
    6. I can understand why the guy has a potty mouth. Painter can't just stay on his own blog, he has to come here (or his b*tt buddy's blog by Nan-Doo-Doo) and ruin it for everyone. He's sick and needs constant attention. I've specifically told the guy that he's better off spending his time on Match.com where he's more likely to find some female compassion. There, he can show off his little ankle-biting dog in the hope that some women will find his little dog cute. Then he can show off his poetry and banjo playing skills until the focus of his affection melts like butta is his long, ratty hair. Get a haircut punk! And please f-off. Stay on your own stupid little blog that no one (but your imaginary friends) visits. You're irrelevant Painter. Buzz off.

      Delete
    7. "I can understand why the guy has a potty mouth. Painter can't just stay on his own blog"

      And this is your blog? Or potty mouth's?

      Why aren't y'all "staying on your own blog(s)"?

      Delete
  30. "Remember back to the years of the housing bubble, the early '90s to 2008. African-Americans, and other minorities, were especially targeted as customers for overpriced homes and subprime loans. And minorities were often receptive to those appeals because of a long history of ghettoization, redlining, restrictive covenants, and worse. The scammers played on those cultural memories, sold their scam wares, and basically wiped out the savings of the African-American middle class."
    -What a load of crap. It was our "celebrate diversity" government that pushed these loans. People like Andrew Cuomo (who was the HUD Secretary under Clinton) and Barney Frank. Wiped out Savings? These were 0% down loans. These "victims" got to live in a house they couldn't afford for years - often without making a single mortgage payment. And after all was said and done, they got to walk away.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can't blame the poor for this financial crisis--- they are not the ones in control of trillions of dollars. It was the TooBigToFail banks' synthetic debt instruments that pushed us into the black hole.

      Delete
  31. Good Times.
    Any time you meet a payment.
    Good Times.
    Any time you need a friend.
    Good Times.
    Any time you're out from under.

    Not getting hastled, not getting hustled.
    Keepin' your head above water,
    Making a wave when you can.

    Temporary lay offs.
    Good Times.
    Easy credit rip offs.
    Good Times.
    Scratchin' and surviving.
    Good Times.
    Hangin in a chow line
    Good Times.
    Ain't we lucky we got 'em
    Good Times.

    source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/goodtimeslyrics.html

    ReplyDelete
  32. Another (irrelevant) J.D. Painter post ...

    Good Times.
    Any time you meet a payment.
    Good Times.
    Any time you need a friend.
    Good Times.
    Any time you're out from under.

    Not getting hastled, not getting hustled.
    Keepin' your head above water,
    Making a wave when you can.

    Temporary lay offs.
    Good Times.
    Easy credit rip offs.
    Good Times.
    Scratchin' and surviving.
    Good Times.
    Hangin in a chow line
    Good Times.
    Ain't we lucky we got 'em
    Good Times.

    source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/goodtimeslyrics.html

    ReplyDelete
  33. Steve Eisman, one of the people in the big short who argued that subprime loans were toxic and bet against them, has also been a big critic of student loans. This is one of his presentations: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-28/student-loan-bubble-19-simple-charts. However, his focus has been on for profit colleges. He tried to persuade congress to restrict funding to for profit colleges whose graduates could not pay back their loans but failed. There was bipartisan support for loaning money to people for school regardless of whether they would be able to pay back the money.

    ReplyDelete
  34. i've alluded to this before:

    "[A]ll games involving money will some day be rigged."

    http://bexhuff.com/2007/12/the-game-is-rigged

    ReplyDelete
  35. just saw this

    "Income-Based Repayment: Lifeline for Law Graduates, Certain Loser for Government"

    http://www.americanlawyer.com/PubArticleFriendlyALD.jsp?id=1202574613758

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for posting this link! Lovely graphs.

      Delete
  36. well what happened was the federal reserve(providing the cheap money with low interest rates) and the goverment guarantee(takes all this risk out) and you have a big crisis.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Maybe I will post some more banjo songs just to annoy the critics.

    But that's terrible. I did a test post to see if I was kicked off, and look at all the hostility.

    The painter peater repeats my post, and then they insult my banjo playing and my hair.

    If it is long they don't like it, and if it is short they don't like it.

    And it's like they all think they own this blog.

    BTW my total SL debt is now 340K. How much is yours?



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "If it is long they don't like it, and if it is short they don't like it."

      This seems to be hard for you to grasp, but that means they don't like anything you post.

      "BTW my total SL debt is now 340K. How much is yours?"

      $0.00

      Delete
  38. JD PainterguyOctober 12, 2012 5:08 AM

    Maybe I will post some more banjo songs just to annoy the critics.

    But that's terrible. I did a test post to see if I was kicked off, and look at all the hostility.

    The painter peater repeats my post, and then they insult my banjo playing and my hair.

    If it is long they don't like it, and if it is short they don't like it.

    And it's like they all think they own this blog.

    BTW my total SL debt is now 340K. How much is yours?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Painter, you really need to go. You have your own blog that is "all about you". This blog is "all about the law school scam". You are not a victim of this scam. You need to go to Cryn's site and post there, because she is concerned with student debt as a whole. That's your problem.

      Look at your average post. Like the one above, for example. What in there is relevant to this site at all? First sentence? Nothing. Second sentence? Nothing. Third sentence? Nothing.

      In fact, every sentence is about you.

      Listen dude, the fact that you have $340K in student debt does not make you the biggest victim or the most important victim. Especially since your spiralling debt seems to be largely self inflicted.

      So enough about your hair, that awful banjo, trying to annoy your critics, just enough of it all. That's the kind of self absorbed stuff you post on your own blog, where it's "all about you".

      But we all know that you're not interested in your student loans, or law school, or solving these problems, or being a good advocate and helping others. We know that you are in this game for self serving purposes. You like the attention. This is "all about you". You don't fool us one little bit.

      Here's my take on it all. You are a permanent victim. You relish the attention that comes with victimhood. You absolutely love it, and we see that from your online history. And not only that, but you actively seek out ways to be a victim: you threaten suicide (victim), you let your loans spiral out of control (victim), you post all about your private life of divorce and never being able to marry (victim). And I bet that in everything you do, you find it easier to just play the victim, the failure, the loser, the person who demands synpathy.

      Here's a thought. Why not try to get attention through achievements rather than failures?

      Delete
  39. LawProf and DJM:

    Two questions:

    1. Are you the ones repeating my posts?

    2. Would you rather I not comment on this blog?

    If you like, you can reply by email: johnnyhere2@gmail.com

    And I can even give you my phone number if you would like to talk on the phone.

    If you are not the ones repeating my posts , then there must be a lawsuit in store against me and the repeater is gathering and saving evidence.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 1. I doubt it. I repeat them sometimes. Many times, it is other people. We do this because people respond to you, then you delete your posts, and it ruins the conversation.

      2. From what I understand, you were told to stop posting here. At least, that's what you posted on your own blog. Did you delete that post? Are you pretending that you've forgotten all about it?

      There is no need for a phone call or an email. Just stop posting self serving, irrelevant trash.

      And is that already another "victim" storyline? Someone is saving all your posts for a lawsuit against you? For what? Your only crime is intense annoyingness.

      Stop with the self absorbed conspiracy theories that the world is out to get you. You are truly insane. Get help.

      Delete
    2. (Just to stop you deleting your post:)

      JD PainterguyOctober 12, 2012 5:57 AM

      LawProf and DJM:

      Two questions:

      1. Are you the ones repeating my posts?

      2. Would you rather I not comment on this blog?

      If you like, you can reply by email: johnnyhere2@gmail.com

      And I can even give you my phone number if you would like to talk on the phone.

      If you are not the ones repeating my posts , then there must be a lawsuit in store against me and the repeater is gathering and saving evidence.

      Delete
  40. @5:53AM

    Send me an email and I will give you my phone number and we can talk on the phone. But I will have to know who you are.

    Sincerely, the "victim"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JD PainterguyOctober 12, 2012 6:00 AM

      @5:53AM

      Send me an email and I will give you my phone number and we can talk on the phone. But I will have to know who you are.

      Sincerely, the "victim"

      Delete
    2. You are an extraordinarily creepy internet person.

      Not only did you start posting IP addresses of people who visited your blog recently (to "out" them), but now you are once again asking for identities and phone numbers and contact information.

      You are not trusted, Painter. Nobody will call you or give them your real identity.

      You will post that information online.

      And you have already tried to call the police and pretend that whoever was mister infinity had threatened your parents, which I assume was a complete lie.

      Anyone who is foolish enough to call painter will find their personal information all over his site, with stories about how you threatened to kill his parents and destroy him.

      You don't "have to know" who anybody is. Just because you were foolish enough to follow Nando's misguided example and forever ruin your good name online, doesn't mean we have to make the same mistake.

      Stop with the creepy stalker behavior.

      Delete
    3. "Sincerely, the 'victim'"

      You are only a victim of your own stupidity.

      Delete
  41. Law Prof. have you read Leiter's lattest pathetic attempt to discredit your work? Anything on it?

    ReplyDelete
  42. Once again, we're approaching about 20% "Painter" comments (either by him, or to him), none of which have anything to do with this blog.

    I thought he was told to stay away. Can he actually be banned?

    I am at the point where I believe he is a law school professor or a PR person from Sallie Mae who is pretending to be an outrageous example of a student debtor to discredit the idea that normal people end up in debt slavery from law school loans.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Indiana Tech has put the faculty section back up on their website. Sometimes shame doesn't work.

    ReplyDelete

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