January 13, 2016 Total student loan debt in the United States is increasing at a rate of about $2,853.88 per second and has now passed $1.3 trillion. To access the student loan debt clock and a wealth of information click here.
Category Archives: Economy
Source of the U.S. dollar
The U.S. has had a debt-based banking system since 1864. As a result, it is currently impossible to extinguish government debt without simultaneously extinguishing our money supply. The Federal Reserve, established in 1913, is a for-profit corporation owned by private member banks. It has no reserves to back up the … Continue reading
President Obama on Inequality
October 23, 2015 Excerpt of President Obama’s full remarks on mobility and inequality on December 4, 2013. …I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. It’s why I ran for President. It was at the center of last year’s … Continue reading
Renters’ Crisis 2015
09/21/2015 A report from Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies and Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable-housing nonprofit group, provides further documentation of the growing housing crisis. The number of renters forced to allocate 50% or more of their income for rents is at an all time high, and growing rapidly, … Continue reading
Greek Debt
July 7, 2015 It is in no one’s interest, including the United States, to let Greece collapse. Greece’s creditors might lose most -if not all- of what they’re owed and the Greek people would suffer immensely for an indefinite period of time. The potential social, political, economic and even military … Continue reading
Today’s Housing Crisis
Press Release (excerpt) November 25, 2018 J o i n t C e n t e r f o r H o u s i n g S t u d i e s o f H a r v a r d Uni v e r s i t … Continue reading
Unaffordable Rents
June 4, 2015 The National Low Income Housing Coalition has published a comprehensive report entitled Out of Reach 2015 describing in great detail how low wages and high rents affect people throughout the United States. California, our most populous state and a historical trendsetter, has the 3rd highest rents in … Continue reading
UCLA Fees 1949-1950
Source: Registrar Archive, University of California at Los Angeles Inflation conversion factor 1950-2014 = 9.8520; 2014 dollars in parentheses. Incidental fee: $39 ($384.23) Covers certain expenses of students for library books, athletic and gymnasium facilities and equipment, lockers and washrooms, registration and graduation, consultation, medical advice, dispensary treatment as can … Continue reading
The Caribbean
G-20 Infrastructure Commitment On November 16, 2014 leaders of G-20 nations in Brisbane, Australia presented a plan to boost global GDP by more than $2 trillion over five years by investing in infrastructure and increasing trade. Presumably the infrastructure they have in mind will include projects to reduce the use … Continue reading
Solar Power Economics
October 24, 2014 Here’s an example –albeit of limited scope- of how solar power could be used to reduce unemployment. An Arizona-based private company will build a 60-megawatt solar power plant on 600 acres of dry, vacant land near Mendota, California, a drought-stricken community with near 30% unemployment about 25 … Continue reading