BEAR AND BASKETBALL

Great dinner last night at Donna and Terri’s. Stone crabs. My favorite food. Their favorite food. We pigged out!

Amazing how rapidly Bear is growing. Twelve weeks old. I see him generally once a week. Bigger each time. Much bigger.

After dinner, I was watching the Syracuse/Boston College game. Bear came over and sat on the floor to the front of me. He looked up at the TV screen. His eyes remained glued.

I called Terri over. He’s watching the game with me. I don’t believe it!

She said, he is. Does it all the time when basketball is on. She believes Bear can hear the sneaks hitting the floor and that is what keeps his attention.

Whatever, he sat there for a whole half. Not budging.

Too bad it was not a good game. Syracuse lost again.  85-70.

The pain of it all!

Bad news. Jean and Joe Thornton in Hawaii. I received word from Jean that daughter Laura had emergency gall bladder surgery. Two gall stones the size of walnuts removed also. I could not figure out if Laura was with them in Hawaii or home in Birmingham.

Fortunately, the surgery was able to be done laparoscopally. Laura was released the same day as the surgery.

I can recall gall bladder surgery when I was young. Not to me. To others. Left an impact in my mind. The patient in bed with tubes in every part of the body. A 10 day hospitalization at the time. How medical science has advanced that it can now be done in a same day surgery.

Deviate sex goes both ways. Man alone is not the perpetrator. In some instances, the woman.

Stephanie Peterson Ferri is a 26 year old school teacher at the New Smyrna Beach Middle School. She was arrested yesterday. Charged with having sex with a 14 year old male student over a period of several months. Occasionally supplied him with marijuana, also.

Ferri further sent the 14 year old nude photos of herself over the cell phone. Her face showing.

Not the first time I have come across an older woman and boy in a sexual relationship. The occurrence rare, however. Apparently there are fewer female pedophiles than male ones. Much fewer from what I could determine.

The youthfulness of the boy was apparent when his mother confronted him. She had discovered the naked pics of the school teacher on his cellphone.

The boy cried.

Libby Schaaf is mayor of Oakland. One of America’s larger cities. Oakland is a sanctuary city. And proud of it.

The federal government is aware of which cities have declared themselves sanctuary ones. Thus far there have been only threats from the federal government to cease and desist. No other action against the sanctuaries.

Mayor Schaaf became aware that there was going to be a mass arrest by ICE the next day in northern California. Especially the cities of San Francisco and Oakland. She became aware not from official sources.

The Mayor went public with the news. ICE came in the next day expecting to make roughly 1,000 arrests. Only made 150. The illegals had gone into hiding.

Mayor Schaaf is being threatened with arrest. She does not believe she violated any laws since the information she spread was received by her from unofficial sources.

The Mayor claims she would it again and that she would go to jail to protect Oakland’s sanctuary city status. From her perspective, blowing the whistle was the right thing to do.

Mayor Schaaf said, “What I did was my job as the mayor of Oakland and reflective of the values of the people that I represent.”

I say…..Good for Mayor Schaaf!

Trump has blown the immigration problem out of context and control. Federal agents in the form of ICE arresting people on the street and out of their apartments. Followed by quick deportation.

Appears similar to the Nazi raids on the Jews in Germany in the mid 1930’s.

I doubt the Mayor would be convicted if arrested. There is something called jury nullification. Juries permit defendants to walk if they believe the crime charged is wrong in itself.

Mayor Schaaf is a hero.

A recent study shows that the student debt is $1.5 trillion. The U.S. is on the hook for that amount. Said another way, the $1.5 trillion is listed as an asset on the U.S.’s balance sheet. It represents 30 percent of the government’s assets.

Collection of all questionable. Even half questionable. The total amount always out there. Increases daily. Not dischargeable in bankruptcy.

A phony asset. Misrepresentative.

Enjoy your day!

 

DRACULA IN THE OPERATING ROOM

Dracula in the operating room.

Dracula is the United States government. The operating room is the college student loan program.

A college education today is a costly thing. It has been for the last 30 years. Becoming increasingly more expensive each year. There was a time a young person eager for a college degree could work his/her way through school. A decent summer job and two to four part time jobs while in school. One or two small scholarships along the way helped.

I know. I and many like me did it. Of course back in 1953-57 when I was in college, the cost of room, board and tuition was $2,400 a year. A lot of money at the time. However, no where near the dollars involved today. A gallon of gasoline was 17 cents and a loaf of bread 10 cents.

The cost today of a higher education degree has gone through the roof. The cost of one year at a private college is $50,000 to $60,000 for room, board and tuition. The cost at a public university between $20,000 and $35,000 for room, board and tuition.

Public institutions of higher learning are obviously cheaper. Eighty percent of all American students attend publicly funded universities and colleges. The reason being that such schools are cheaper to attend.

As States have become squeezed economically, public assistance budgets have been cut dramatically. State schools receive less and less assistance each year. Public institutions have had no choice but to raise room, board and tuition charges. Administrators compelled to order increases across the board.

The federal government came to the rescue. A college student loan program. Every one could then afford to go to college. Borrow now and pay later.

Later became a problem. An unforeseeable one initially. A well known one today. Young people cannot afford to pay back the loans. The job market is down. Salaries for those college grads working much lower than anticipated. The where with all to pay non-existent.

The college student loan debt today is $1.1 trillion. Impressive. Any thing with a trillion dollars at the end is. Note that the U.S. debt to China is $1.3 trillion. The comparison made to show how extremely large the student loan debt has become. I read some where that it is even larger than all the credit card debt in the United States.

It has been recently discovered that the government gets a piece of the pay back dollars. A fee of some kind. There is a new statute in the works to help the student debtors. However, it will not eliminate the government receiving a piece of the action.

The government profited in 2012 $44 billion. In 2013, a bit of a slide. Only $41.3 billion.

Two corporations world wide made more profit in recent years. In 2012, Exxon Mobile profited $44.9 billion and Apple $41.7 billion.

If the government’s profit in either of the two years mentioned were to be paid out in Pell grants, maximum level payments of $5,645 would be paid to 7.3 million college students.

The government denies a profit is involved. It claims the accounting makes it appear to be a profit. I do not buy it, nor do many others. The $40 billion plus profit goes from a federal college loan fund account into the general fund. From the general fund, it is used to pay all sort of government bills. The government is running a for profit business which subsidizes other government activities.

It gets worse.

Federal legislation prevents a college student loan debt from being discharged in bankruptcy. A tough situation for the college graduate who cannot find a decent paying job in today’s society.

The government hires bill collectors. The government is under the impression that 76 to 84 cents will be recovered by pursuing those who have not or are not any longer paying. Good luck! The government will be lucky to recover 25 cents on the dollar.

The government has retained collection firms to pursue college loan debtors. They are referred to as collection specialists. One is NCO Group Inc. NCO is owned by JP Morgan. The same JP Morgan who helped give us the 2008 mortgage debacle and recession for several years.

The college student loan program is another example of how government takes care of its people when the weight of the economy causes them to  bend over.