Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/22/2015 11:43 -0400
Perhaps it’s all the talk about across-the-board debt forgiveness or maybe the total amount of outstanding student debt has simply grown so large ($1.3 trillion) that even those with no conception of how much money that actually is realize that it’s simply never going to paid back so there’s no point worrying about, but whatever the case, the general level of concern regarding America’s student debt bubble doesn’t seem to be at all commensurate with the size of the problem.
And it’s not just the sheer size of the debt pile that’s worrisome. There’s also the knock-on effects, such as delayed household formation and the attendant downward pressure on the homeownership rate, and of course hyperinflation in the rental market.
Of course one reason no one is panicking – yet – is that the severity of the problem is masked by artificially suppressed delinquency rates. As we’ve documented in excruciating detail, if one excludes loans in deferment and forbearance from the numerator in the delinquency calculation, but includes those loans in the denominator then the delinquency rate will be deceptively low. In any event, as WSJ reports, even if one looks at something very simple like, say, the number of borrowers who haven’t made a payment in a year, the picture is not pretty and it’s getting worse all the time. Here’s more:
Nearly seven million Americans have gone at least a year without making a payment on their federal student loans, a staggering level of default that highlights how student debt continues to burden households despite an improving labor market.
As of July, 6.9 million Americans with student loans hadn’t sent a payment to the government in at least 360 days, quarterly data from the Education Department showed this week. That was up 6%, or 400,000 borrowers, from a year earlier.
The figures translate into about 17% of all borrowers with federal loans being severely delinquent—and that share would be even higher if borrowers currently in school were excluded. Additionally, millions of other borrowers who haven’t hit the 360-day threshold that the government defines as a default are months behind on their payments.
Each new crop of students is experiencing the same problems” with repaying, said Mark Kantrowitz, a higher-education expert and publisher of the information website Edvisors.com. “The entire situation isn’t getting better.”
The development carries big implications for borrowers, taxpayers and the economy. Economists have warned of student-debt defaults damaging borrowers’ credit standing, which would hurt their ability to borrow for things like cars and homes. That in turn would hamper the economy, which relies heavily on consumer purchases for economic activity. Delinquencies also drain government revenues, which are used to make future loans.
So what’s the solution you ask? According to the government, the answer is the income based repayment plans. Here’s The Journal again:
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said declines [in some categories of delinquencies] resulted from rising participation in income-based repayment plans, which lower borrowers’ monthly bills by tying payments to their incomes. Enrollment in the plans surged 56% over the past year among direct-loan borrowers.
The administration has urgently promoted the plans, mainly through emails to borrowers, over the past two years in an effort to stem defaults. The plans set payments as 10% or 15% of their discretionary income, defined as adjusted gross income minus 150% the federal poverty level.
The plans carry risks, though, for both borrowers and the government. Many borrowers’ payments aren’t enough to cover the interest on their debt, allowing their balances to grow and threatening to trap them under debt for years.
At the same time, the government could be left forgiving huge amounts of debt if borrowers stay in the plans. The government forgives balances after 10, 20 or 25 years of on-time payments, depending on the plan.
But aside from the fact that these plans will cost taxpayers an estimated $39 billion over the next decade – and that’s just counting those expected to enroll in plans going forward and ignoring the $200 billion or so in loans already enrolled in an IBR plan – the most absurd thing about Duncan’s claim is that, as we’ve shown, IBR programs don’t drive down delinquency rates, they just change the meaning of the term “payment”:
See how that works? If you can’t afford to pay, just tell the Department of Education and they’ll enroll you in an IBR plan where your “payments” can be $0 and you won’t be counted as delinquent.
So we suppose we should retract the statement we made above. You are correct Mr. Duncan, these plans are actually very effective at bringing down delinquencies and the method is remarkably straightforward: the government just stopped couting delinquent borrowers as delinquent.
Very hard to find a good paying job with a degree in Latino Transgender Studies.
Greetings,
This should be a wakeup call to anyone thinking about going into debt in order to go to college. An economy that exists by the people selling cheap Chinese crap to one another (70% of our economy) has no need for the majority of the degrees being offered. Why people can not see this is beyond me.
Production -real production- is what sustains an economy and produced decent jobs.
Degrees aren’t necessarily related to that, in fact most of the current popular ones aren’t.
Good for them, student loans are a ponzi scheme. Don’t feed the beast.
BEA LEVER says:
“Good for them, student loans are a ponzi scheme. Don’t feed the beast.”
If they didn’t want to feed the beast they should not have signed on the dotted line.
BEA,
These are taxpayer loans, if they don’t pay you pay.
You OK wit that? You paying for someone else’s loan so they don’t have to?
“Nearly seven million Americans have gone at least a year without making a payment on their federal student loans, a staggering level of default that highlights how student debt continues to burden households despite an improving labor market.”
Will someone please explain to me how a household is burdened by student debt when they haven’t made a single payment in over a year.
That sounds 7 million people are UNburdened by student debt.
Anyone who is unemployed in America wants to be unemployed.
The government only collects 2trillion a year in taxes from the sheep. Would it not be more like a bailout to pay off the student loan mess to those who really own the government? Why should John Q. student starve at $8 per hour to pay into a system that was doomed to stab them in the back? Yes, mon ami, they should not feed this beast of deception.
Are yoos guys ok with that?
Bea Lever said:
“Are yoos guys ok with that?”
Not if they signed on the line agreeing to pay.
I’m with you Indentured.
I didn’t sign on any line to pay for their loans when they took them out, they did.
I suspect BEA doesn’t pay taxes, or at least any net taxes (taxes paid in above benefits received).
What difference, at this point, does it matter?
Anon- I work to pay taxes, that is all I do is pay taxes.
These people signed on the dotted line to get a degree in hopes of jobs to pay their loans. There are jobs at 8-9$ per hour everywhere, that meager pay will never pay back this mountain of debt. A Forbes article I read said that those who sign up for Obama Debt Forgiveness could in some cases have the interest doubled on the remaining balances of their loans if they are not careful. There are more traps built in to this crap than you can wrap your mind around and it is cruel.
I believe that it will be written off as a bailout some where along the line. Win/Win for the banksters again. They always win, we always lose, why do we keep feeding the beast?
Don’t be surprised if the future write-off comes with a major hook attached – perhaps unpaid federal service for a couple years, or a higher tax rate on your income (if you ever have any), or foregoing social security…. something. Debt is used to enslave people and I’m sure what’s going on will be exploited badly.
It will also probably be used to help Dems win the next election, perhaps by some popular but unconstitutional decree of debt forgiveness (nominal, probably not actual) the week before the election.
Snick
Exactly, the wordage of the debt forgiveness BS all but implies public service as a form of indentured servitude. Yes, agree about that being part of the Dems hook to reel them in at the last minute. It all stinks to high heaven if you ask me.
Persnickety says:
“Don’t be surprised if the future write-off comes with a major hook attached”
Put ’em in debtors prison and let them out daily to pick up trash, scrub graffiti etc. When they get tired of that they can always pay off their loan balance.
At some point in the education process you and/or your family & counselors should engage your brains to pick a career path that meets your future goals right? You’re going into debt with a goal of doing what? If you’re going to go into debt to pay for an education then that education should be in areas for which there are or will likely be decent jobs. Underwater basket weaving, wimmens/lickalotapus studies and other bullshit degrees are not on that list. Hell, if your degree won’t get you a job that pays your living exoenses and student loan debt then how the hell do you expect that degree to pay your living expenses and retirement funding? Or a house? Or a car? Or a vacation? Or a kid?
Too many (the majority) of these kids are going to school to avoid getting a job in the first place. The same desire for job avoidance is still there when college is over.
Life is expensive. Not all jobs and careers pay well. This is not a mystery or an unknown. Life is tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid.
I/S- Snick pointed out the fact that they will be in debters prison.
Oops- should have been (debtors prison).
Too many kids in college that really don’t belong there in the first place. This College is for everyone is a disaster, it causes inflated tuition and large student debt. Maybe Tech school or a trade is better for some.
College was just a way to keep hopes high, and keep young people out of the labor force until the magical take off of prosperity promised by the globalists occurred. Didn’t matter if it got paid back, it was going to be small potatoes compared to the coming wealth. Love to see the demographic breakdown of the deadbeats, bet that paints a dark picture.
Just add seven million to the list of US deadbeats. Tremendous.
The world became perpetually screwed when it began to believe that everyone deserves societal support, even if they give nothing back in return.
Obviously, some folks do deserve societal support. But the list is very short. And it does not include deadbeat student loan defaulters.
“Put ’em in debtors prison and let them out daily to pick up trash, scrub graffiti etc. When they get tired of that they can always pay off their loan balance.”
Horseshit!
You seem to be under the impression banks and government are the good guys that have money lying around and loan it to us. The $1.3 Trillion never existed. With fractional reserve banking borrowing creates “money”. It is baffling to me why anybody still thinks debt is a moral issue and debtors are deadbeats. This is usury and the debt itself is immoral.
Homer–says, “get all the money for your education that you can get and get an education that will give you a skill that you can sell in the market place.” Then pay your bill for the first year and THEN DON’T PAY A PENNY MORE! RENEGE ON THE DEBT! Millennials renege on the debt that was handed to you by the ‘greedy generation’, NeoCons, and social parasites. I can’t remember a time when a generation didn’t provide a better future for their children in America. Such is not the case today.
The whole world is one step away from falling off an economic debt-credit cliff. The banks will have no trouble taking a half or more of your deposits with BAIL-INS, the government taking your 401k or Ira, pensions and anything of value from you. They will screw you with GLEE!
If Bernie Sanders gets in, you can forget about that extra vacation house that you have–no one need two houses or two cars or a $65K retirement pension let alone an RV or boat.
But, DON’T WORRY, Bernie will give everyone a free college education. YUP! Who’s going to pay for it–GO LOOK IN THE MIRROR. Actually, no one is going to pay because before it happens the dollar will be just a faint memory reminiscent of Monopoly Money with an intrinsic and exchange value of $0.
Ever wonder why economies don’t start out with Socialism??? Well it did once in ‘The New World’ in the 1600’s. It ended in abject failure and near starvation. It’s because Socialism relies on the wealth created and built up in free marketism. It takes from those that have and gives to those that don’t have which is why it’s immoral, unethical, and just criminal. It’s called thievery. Soon, those that produce stop producing and Socialism is abandoned, but not after destroying the civilization and free trade.
Sanders and other when confronted with the failure of their destructive philosophy will offer “we had the best of intentions”.
Of course, corruption being so rampant in government, you move from Socialism to Fascism.
Hot doggie!
The old tired clammy said:
“It is baffling to me why anybody still thinks debt is a moral issue and debtors are deadbeats. This is usury and the debt itself is immoral.”
Debt is not a moral issue. You doing what you obligated yourself to do is the moral issue
Morals………got some?
Usury is not immoral nor is debt. It is a tool which many use to improve their lives.
If you believe usury and debt are immoral then DO NOT PARTAKE! Is that simple enough for you or do you need someone to draw a fucking picture? Debtors who agree to pay and then do not are immoral.
I find it amazing how many people get themselves into trouble with debt and then suddenly decide it’s immoral. Fuktards!
The fractional reserve system was intentionally created as a usury monetary system. It is a system of money begetting money. When I borrow for a student loan, a car loan, a house loan, a credit card; that money never existed prior to my borrowing. The borrowing itself created the money by banks with 0% interest rates.
“For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. ”
-John Maynard Keynes, 1931
“If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good, also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, whereas the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people. “- Thomas Edison, 1921
“There are two sorts of wealth-getting, as I have said; one is a part of household management, the other is retail trade: the former necessary and honorable, while that which consists in exchange is justly censured; for it is unnatural, and a mode by which men gain from one another. The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. And this term interest, which means the birth of money from money, is applied to the breeding of money because the offspring resembles the parent. Wherefore of an modes of getting wealth this is the most unnatural. ” -Aristotle
“Since those who rule in the city do so because they own a lot, I suppose they’re unwilling to enact laws to prevent young people who’ve had no discipline from spending and wasting their wealth, so that by making loans to them, secured by the young people’s property, and then calling those loans in, they themselves become even richer and more honored. ” -Plato, The Republic
Spout all the quotes you want Clammy……….you and you alone signed on the dotted line. You and you alone got the education you requested in return for your word to repay the loan. You and you alone benefited from the education. You knew the deal going in…..that’s why you had to sign that big stack of papers prior to getting your hands on the money.
It is not possible for you to claim the moral high ground here. YOU made a CHOICE to be immoral and skip out on your obligation.
@IS, I tend to think that Steph has a point, but one marginally relevant to this topic. I agree that fractional reserve banking is essentially fraud. But I don’t see serious proposals to go after that as a solution to the student loan issue.
For the record, I took out considerable loans for my professional education, and I have since paid them off 100%, at 100 cents on the dollar. But I also took useful courses, got meaningful degrees, worked hard, and was lucky enough to graduate in an economy that had jobs. Yes, luck is an element, what the guidance counselors tell you is the greatest hot field is quite often saturated and lacking in jobs 4-8 years later when you actually enter it. Many of my friends who got computer science degrees found out the hard way that if you didn’t make it to Silicon Valley, you were competing with Indian migrant workers for $10/hr jobs. This was particularly and bitingly ironic for the friend who was born in India, moved to the US at 7 and got his Ph.D. in comp sci from a very prestigious university – after the tech bubble burst and before internet 2.0 reignited it for some lucky ones.
“YOU made a CHOICE to be immoral and skip out on your obligation.”
The only thing I agree with you about. Yes, I intentionally defaulted on my student loans. I borrowed from Citigroup starting in 2005 and ended up with 17,000 in debt (way, way, less than current students getting ripped off). I remember very clearly when the 2008 stock market was crashing and somehow Citigroup’s stock bottomed out at exactly $1 per share. They were deemed “too big to fail” and were saved by the bailouts.
Fast forward two years when I found out my student loan may or may not have been sold to Discover when Citigroup sold off 80% of their student loan portfolio because the loans were toxic (who knew?). If this is sounding like de ja vu of the mortgage default swaps that is because it is exactly the same thing. After a full year of calling to find out who own my loans and being stonewalled I consulted a financial lawyer who told me to default. His reasoning was simple, if I pay my loan without knowing who legally owns it I am still legally on the hook if I pay the wrong entity. After 5 years of numerous calls I still have no idea who owns my loans.
Persnickety- It is great you don’t have any student debt, but you and anybody who pays off their loans are getting the shaft. You paid back a loan that was money created out of thin air by your borrowing with money you earned through actual work. I have nothing against the idea of borrowing for an education to learn a useful skill. What I am arguing is the system itself is wrong because all money will be paid back through actual work that earned the money for debt that was created from nothing. Debt is not created by labor hours or investments.
Don’t get me wrong. I KNOW that the banks don’t have any of their own skin in the game so to speak. But the banks don’t saddle you with debt without your explicit agreement to that debt and the repayment terms. YOU do that. Just because you discover the insidious nature of usury does not minimize your moral obligation to pay.
Paying your debts and living up to your obligations is a matter of integrity. NO ONE in this world can take your integrity away from you by force. Not even through imprisonment and torture can anyone take away your integrity. The only way you can lose it is to WILLFULLY GIVE IT AWAY. Doing so says more about your character, or lack thereof, than you will ever know.
Bankers have no integrity. Failing to pay your debts shows that YOU have no integrity. It would seem that you are in good company.
IS: I would’ve been released out of my student debt obligations, as well as millions of Americans with debts borrowed from the banks, had these insolvent zombie banks not been saved by taxpayer bailouts.
It has nothing to do with my character or my integrity. It has to do with banks and politicians turning our country and economy into their corrupt casino, sticking us with the bill, and then charging us on top of it for unknowing going along with their fraud.
It has EVERYTHING to do with your character and integrity. Integrity is black and white. Ones and zeros. You have it or you don’t.
You think ANYBODY likes paying back debt? I don’t LIKE paying my mortgage or my wife’s student loan debt (she went for graphic design like you did despite my warnings) but I’ve never once considered not paying it.
LIke I said, debt is a tool that a great many people use successfully to make their lives and businesses better. I’m sure llpoh used copious amounts of debt to get where he is. Your employer probably does as well.
Steph – just how do you figure you would be released from your debt if the banks had failed? That their bankruptcy would absolve you from your debt? Not hardly.
And you say you stopped paying your loans because you do not know who holds the note. Alrighty then, sounds reasonable.
If you have been paying the money each month into an escrow account. But you have not been doing that, have you?
You know you owe the money to somebody. But you are not setting the money aside . You have a good case why you are not forwarding the money.
But you have zero case as to why you have not set the payment aside.
And when push comes to shove, that little issue may well come home to roost.
Unless you have set the money aside to repay the debt you freely entered into, then you are simply trying to justify your behavior based on a technicality. And that will not hold up when the man comes calling for his money. Nor should it.
You have a long history illegal/unethical behavior.
I have seen you grow some in recent times. But still you cannot make the leap the behaving ethically, and still seek justification for your unethical action.
It is not easy, but until you become a woman of your word, then you will never become the person you can be.
You have overcome much. I hope you can make a great leap forward.
IS – I borrowed at various times. My student loan was equivalent to say $70k in current dollars. I chipped away and paid it off. I borrowed against my home to buy capital in my business, and paid it off.
Most people never become people of their word these days. It is easier to create justifications than to meet the obligations that they freely enter into.
I do not believe that people of substance fail to meet their obligations. It is part of being an advanced human being. Without that, people are merely fooling themselves.
“If you have been paying the money each month into an escrow account. But you have not been doing that, have you?”
Actually I’ve been setting money aside. Unfortunately, no lawyers will take a student loan case because they are impossible to win (most think I am talking about discharging my debt when I want to take them to court for them to prove ownership).
But it may be in my favor soon enough considering this month Discovered was fined for fraud related to the Citigroup sale.
Llpoh, I’m only mildly interested in this subject, and I absolutely agree with your premise. People of substance do not fail to meet their obligations. But that only works in an equitable situation. The past 15 years is not. If we grind up a generation who’s prospects were stolen, in favor of the criminals who did the stealing, there is no honor there either, and the country will be lost. Peace, brother
Glad to hear it, Steph. ?
Llpoh summed that up nicely. The only thing of value that I can add is that if you think something is immoral, illogical, unfair or otherwise not right, DO NOT PARTICIPATE.
By taking out the loan- regardless of the underlying mechanics of fiat creation and fractional reserve banking systems- you obligated yourself to their terms. You didn’t pull a Robin Hood by taking the money with the intent of not repaying in order to prove a point, you took in order to benefit yourself and when your gamble failed you changed your tactics and simply walked away from the game.
How does that benefit you as a person who is striving towards an honorable life? It simply makes you another thief.
Learn from your mistakes- and let me add that the more costly they are, the more likely you will be to gain from the experience. Pay back the loan for yourself, not for them.
What else needs to be said?
======================
“The wicked borrows and does not pay back,” ———- Psalms 37:21
“It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay” ——– Ecclesiastes 5:5
“Do not be among those who give pledges, Among those who become guarantors for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, Why should he take your bed from under you?” —— Proverbs 22:26-27
“Owe nothing to anyone …” ——– Romans 13:8
A decent college education can be done without taking on enormous loans. State schools offer a quality education at a more reasonable price. If it is not affordable students should not live at school, but commute as my two nephews did. My son graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering and a minor in chemistry with less than $10,000 in debt. This did not come without sacrifice. No new cars for 10 years. No fancy vacations for the last 4 years. All money saved by him went toward his education, we paid out of pocket the remaining amount.
We will be dropping off my daughter tomorrow to the same state university, for her sophomore year, where she is studying biology with a mind to get her Physicians Assistant qualifications. She spent the summer working full time and getting her accreditation for her EMT. She will be an RA starting this year allowing my wife and I to pay the remainder of her college costs out of pocket. No additional loans required.
Hard work and sacrifice allow us to do this. This is why I get frustrated and angry when so many blithely say we should forgive these loans. I understand that these loans usurious and stand to cripple a generation, but what about the people who did the right thing. I guess that is just the way it is. BTW our house will be paid of within a year following the very same tactics. We are neither rich nor do we make a huge amounts of money. Hard work and sacrifice.
Bob.
Bob, you are right, and so is llpoh. We are going to get back to taking care of business, old school, ot looks like. Good guys will win again. FSA will reap what they’ve sown, nothing. But there is a big cleanup job ahead, and it’s going to involve a lot of debt destruction. Right or wrong, it’s going to happen, it has to happen.
Stephanie,
Why should I be obligated to pay off YOUR debt?
You weren’t forced to take it, you voluntarily sought it out and signed up for it.
Why should YOUR poor judgment become MY obligation?
Pay off your own damn debt, leave me out of it.
I believe I was one of, if not the first one to suggest that clammy establish an escrow account via a lawyer to make student loan payments into when she told us of her troubles in establishing who owned her loan. Thing is, you have to make payments in full and on-time to that account just as if you were actually paying the loan. If not then you better be including the applicable late fees etc.
Like HSF said, pay the loan back for yourself, not for them.
The part I don’t get is why your payments do not go directly to Sallie Mae. Everyone I know with student loans pays directly to Sallie Mae including my wife. I can’t imagine a bank or credit union extending unsecured loans to unproven borrowers such as flaky high school graduates who are just beginning a four year long party session (college).
OK! Folks get it through you thick skull. Modern banking is EVIL and the partner that promotes it is EVIL, too. Modern banksters rely on illusion and deception. It’s a Madison Avenue Job.
It is not Evil because of Usury. Money is like any other commodity with special advantages. You wouldn’t think of renting a trencher or other tool from United Rents with out paying money to do so, would you? United Rents is giving up the use of their tool to you and they need to be compensated for the the loss of usage. Time Preference. United Rents has their fee and you pay it or you don’t get the tool. Money is like a tool. If you want to rent it, you pay a fee. It’s called Interest. If you don’t like the fee, don’t rent it. Usury Laws are only a socialist means to get something of value for less than fair market value. Sovereigns or debtors like Usury Laws as it diminishes the cost associated with renting money. Of course, Sovereigns renege on the fee and principal anyway. They do it all the time.
Modern Banking is Evil because it created money substitutes called Federal Reserve Notes out of ‘thin air’, (a key stroke on a computer). Money is created when they LOAN money out (Credit). The bank then expects you to pay a renters fee on the ‘money substitute’ created out of ‘thin air’ that they gave you. But, they gave you nothing of value. They say that the Federal Reserve Note is not backed by anything and it’s value resides in what someone is willing to give you products and services for it.
So, who do you owe the principal and rent to??? The person that gave you the money created out of thin air or the person that provided you a valuable good (products) and a valuablel service??? Therein rests the Illusion.
When the Banksters make bad bet in the ‘Financial Casino’ and lose they want the taxpayer to bail them out. The taxpayer loses in two ways. First, they give the Banksters rent that they don’t deserve and then bail them out for their mistakes, which they don’t deserve.
Modern Banking is Evil because of the way ‘high stakes’ banking is done, today. Banksters have created bad loans and knowing that these loans were going to be non-performing, created tranches or packages of these loans and sold them to pension funds and sovereigns across the globe and got the rating companies to rate them higher than the tranches deserved. They did this with real estate and now they are doing it with car loans. Cheating the buyer of these tranches through misrepresentation of their value. These Banksters gamble in Derivatives in Trillions of dollars. They have been involve in drug money for drug cartels. Yet none have seen the inside of a cell for their crimes. Too big to fail and too big to jail is the mantra.
Now these Banksters want to take your deposits in your bank accounts if they feel they need it to survive. So much for the all caring banks. They espouse full employment and a stable dollar. Full employment for them. You didn’t think they were talking about you, did you? And the dollar has lost about 98% of it’s purchasing power since 1913. Hah!
So do like they do and say the f**k with them and their funny money.
IndenturedServant—It’s not immoral to protect yourself from predatory monetary practices.
Boston Bob….doing the right thing is becoming meaningless these days . More and more I’m hearing from folks ” Well everyone does it ” !
Just like the illegal invaders,they are breaking Federal law being here but are given a pass. Like I’ve asked those who rule us , “What Federal aw do I get to break and not be prosecuted ?