The Cardinal on Student Loan Debt

Sorry to interrupt our serialized “lost footage” documentary series “Psychobilly Massacre” for a public service announcement by “The Cardinal.”
   Student loans, low interest investments in the next generation, not a controversial idea, except that as debt it is strangling us to death and has surpassed credit card debt as our supreme usury based vice. If that were not enough in 2005 legislation made it impossible for bankruptcy to wipe out these youthfully incurred debts. These loans have given generations of lower to middle class students the chance to major in drama, English, psychology etc. While going on mind bending four year journeys of sexual exploration and drug induced adventures all while building up five to six figures worth of debt with no concept or plan on how to pay it off. Of course the government could just award these loans to those pursuing in demand majors, but that would deprive minorities of the chance at squandering a small fortune before they're thirty in the name of their art. We could funnel the loan money to colleges with strict codes of conduct as far student fraternizing and underage drinking go, insuring the money is going towards fomenting usable skills and modes of thinking in young pliable minds, instead of cultivating a healthy campus musk of hash smoke and bodily fluids. Or, we could just continue to allow this tectonic change in funding, demographics and sobering economic realities return higher education to the realm of the rich. None of these options are socially tolerable based on a few loud angry voices which would drown out any honest debate on the subject, shrilly defending some narrow interest or fomenting phantom discontent to justify their position of authority, while the status quo is held in place as no generation wants to be the one to lose the right to a psychedelic threesome without being an artist or billionaire. No, we must save student loans by giving it the ole college try/spirit ( the college spirit is only worshiped in certain collegiate pantheons).

    How about producing and dealing drugs. I say produce and deal since we want to cut out the middle men and you will learn important lessons in entrepreneurship, accounting, horticulture, mycology and chemistry (if you wanna go hardcore).Also when you grow your own you can offer it a few dollars cheaper and thus be the cool dealer, you may need to invest in a large/multiple couches along with couch based activities from a game console to a risk board, in short make your vice den your own and potheads, weed whores and fiends ( since, remember, you have no friends, only customers) will do the rest. While the stresses of an unregulated business might take a tole on your GPA, you will be learning important lessons in life and business, ones that can't be learned in any classroom, even oaksterdam often gets lost in the minutia.

    This approach can be expanded to other vices, though with greater risk for ones investment. The gambler is a timeless classic whether it is as a lone gambler playing at traveling poker games, a gruff booky or an all out, off campus casino. Besides the fun of fleecing others under the guise of chance you can easily build up an unmatchable allure, a devil may care attitude, his cards in the wind, will he take you with him when he has to flee in the dead of night with only a few dollars, the shirt on his back and the promise of adventure? Maybe, maybe not but you better stick with this guy as he is a one way ticket to danger, mystery and teaching daddy a lesson all at once and to unlock his inner beauty and vulnerability from his wild uncaring exterior. Yes, you will know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table knowing There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealing's done, which is significantly more than the majority of our current college graduates come away with.
 
    Now, while a bordello seems like a natural solution, sliding across floors in tighty whitys and sun glasses, becoming a man and a master of ones fate, but there is a problem. Unregulated, the sex industry is a base and terrifying world full of coercion, violence, humiliation and intimidation. So do the classy thing, and put a camera between yourself and your work and maybe even earn some film credits while you are at it. While a reputation as a pornographer might hold you back in some circles, it wont as much as crushing debt, and as long as you wear a smoking jacket and smoke a pipe you'll be practically classy, hell you'll be 21st century aristocracy, haha! We are a classless generation.

    If the idea of mixing business and education don't appeal to you, probably because you are lazy and unthankful, than go ahead have your fun four years, flounder about for a few more were you try and apply your degree to a trade, but the loan payments become too much and you can't make it. Welcome back grasshopper, but now your in too deep, debt has piled on debt, it is time to disappear, a rose by any other name does not carry a roses debt. This is not going to be easy, and you will probably never see your friends and loved ones again, at least until the law forces them out of society as well. You will want to invest what little liquid cash you can into an RV, solar panels and weapons and prepare yourself for a life of nuance, challenges, bricolage beyond politeness and convention and into the uncomfortably real. Value will be assigned by utility, people and things lacking utility will quickly find there way into the junk to be picked over by bottom rung opportunists. You will live by your hunger, survival will be your passion, all those things that you used to worry about will fade in comparison to keeping warm at night and something to eat in the winter. Who worries about loans when there are wolves and frostbite.

  These are your options when dealing with the sinking ship known as American Higher education: game it or opt out of it, engage with it and you will just get pulled down in its wreckage. Just remember that the night is always darkest before the dawn, but also remember that the night gets continually darker as it progresses, so what you might believe is pre dawn darkness, might just lead to even greater darkness of an arctic night we may never live to see the end of.