America’s ‘Brightest’:Simon Says, School’s Out!

School’s Out! Get ready for Shell Games and Loan Sharks!

US Grads, I’m sorry to be a stinker and break it to you. Like death and taxes, you will pay up, one way or another.

Simon Says, jump and throw your hat in the air if you know what student loans, stadiums and Sofi have in common.

Majority of Americans hit the stadiums yearly to watch their favorite teams. Know about SoFi Stadium and its $5 Billion price tag. Enos Stanley Kroenke, aka ‘Silent Stan’, have you tabulated how many games before stadium pays for itself?

Hey, here’s an idea. SoFi, the company who “will pay more than $30 million annually over 20 years to put its name on a new stadium” could pay Stan a small commission off every student they help with “refinancing loans.”

SoFi, how many students before you get back what you spent?  For Americans, 20 years is literally a life sentence.

Silly Simons, Let’s Play SoFi

Reproach of top PGA players choosing to play in the Kingdom seems self-righteous. Especially in a time when US is once again “Rocking the Casbah” ‡‡ Kingdom Royal Flush and Persian Empire Checkmate US King.

US critics, you speak of sports washing? Take a look at your own sports association SPONSORS and MARKETEERS.  How many have been involved in questionable or controversial affairs?

Reportedly Sofi or “Social Finance Inc., a financial technology startup, will pay more than $30 million annually over 20 years to put its name on a new stadium that will be the home of the Los Angeles Rams and the Chargers…” Wow, now that’s what I call a lot of marketing dollars. Hmm, wonder how they expect to get their money back from such a huge ad investment?

According to TechCrunch “FTC finalizes settlement with student loan refinancer SoFi over deceptive advertising.” Well, well, well, looks like it’s gonna be “quick and dirty.” Says FTC, “SoFi had been misrepresenting how much money student loan borrowers could save in its online, TV and direct mail advertisements since April 2016.”

Of course, if one looks closely, you find Eastern Connections. Is that right Sofi? So it seems, “Online lender SoFi has quietly raised $500 million in funding, led by Qatar.” But did you know “customers of SoFi’s new ETFs weren’t told beforehand that SoFi intended to liquidate their existing ETF investments and funnel the proceeds into its own new funds…” Hmm, do those funnels lead to tunnels of love?

Stadiums built for Olympic Games in the West continue to be criticized by TAX PAYERS. But let’s be fair, Eastern stadiums have their detractors. Recall the reported inhumane working conditions of workers in Qatar? They and their families are not complaining about taxes. For them, it’s about those that died building the stadium.

Back to US, Mr. President, are “mikey mouse” operations and their money makers the ones keeping you from making a decision on loan forgiveness? Who’s the real pariah in your country’s shell game of trilateral bastards – Government-Universities-Financiers?

Students, here may be an example of “it’s not what you know but who you know.”

According to multiple sources, including TechCrunch and Bloomberg, Anthony Noto, a former NFL executive, held positions with Goldman Sachs and Twitter before becoming CEO at SoFi. Tony, Tony, nice PAST connections. But SoFi?

Where did it go wrong? Was putting Sofi’s name on “‘Silent Stan’s” stadium a “giant leap toward achieving our company’s mission of helping people get their money right by reaching our members where they are.” Who are these people getting students’ money and where are these members? Now that’s what some in marketing may call a linear pyramid scheme, B-C-B.

Competitive Advantage?

Did I go to college? Yes, but not straight out of high school. I took the path less traveled. I needed and wanted to work, especially leaving home and finally being on my own! Every job I obtained was without a degree.

Later, seeing an opportunity, I went for it, hit the schools and got the degrees. Took a chance? Sure. Exciting? Hell ya! That’s the beauty of being on your own. Ya find yourself saying, WTF!

Let me be clear. Education is needed for some jobs, specialized training for others. Students, it is your job to find out which. Today, if you rely on counselors, you’ll likely be played for a fool.

THINK! You’ve literally got a powerful computer in the palm of your hand. USE IT and make your own paths knocking down doors or building your own!

College is not for everyone, say some in government now. Too many loans too late, for those holding a useless degree in one hand and a student loan contract in the other. Some still believe their choices are limited: take out loans for school; be an “entrepreneur” by shopping or driving for others; OR, look for a REAL job; OR serve their country. Bull$*%!

It’s all in how you think. Go past the so-called limits of the sky, earth and oceans!

What of those jobs you simply will not or cannot do? Easy, powers that be will do what they’ve always done, hire newly arrived immigrants. And how’s government gonna make use of those student loan payments? 

Where do think government obtains funds for Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare? Right, stuff your parents are going to need because they can’t depend on you to take care of yourself let alone them.

Unlike other countries that provided digital literacy to their young over two decades ago, U.S. government “fell behind.” And while their citizens are made to think they’re to blame, it’s business as usual for those who purposely kept themselves behind.

Those that ‘got schooled’ during the pandemic questioned the “old school” rationale of returning to class on campus when digital literacy was a viable option. Why mandate student in person attendance?

Lectures that changed little in their yearly presentations could easily be recorded once and viewed electronically the following years – away from campus. Right, less lecturing would mean less professors and less pay.

BUT, why the continued tuition hikes? Simple, if you’re getting loans they’re getting paid in/out of class! Besides, someone’s gotta pay for Administration and Faculty high salaries.

Mr. President, billions doled out domestically and abroad to Ukraine and Israel, but you couldn’t help pay student loans? Leader of the “free world” continues bailing its banks and businesses leaving behind young minds strapped to their necks with student debt subsidizing university bastards and preyed on by loan sharks.

Trilateral Bastards – Government – Universities – Financiers – we remind you, Revolt comes in many forms and dimensions. Your sick mendacity has consequences.

AMERICAN VOTERS, AND YES THAT INCLUDES ALL YOU STUDENT DREAMERS. ELECTION DAY IS YOUR PAYBACK.  VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT!

Darker Side of “Shadow University”

Student Loans for Safe Spaces?Looks like jokes on you!For some students, real or imagined, a more pressing issue takes center stage – Solidarity with those they identify as needing a “safe space” or as some have appropriately termed, “HATE SPACES.” And no better system than education and its dark shadows to sell them on this idea.

According to two professors, Alan Charles Kors and Harvey A. Silverglate, who delved in these shadows, this “totalitarian mindset” goes back decades.  In their 1998 book, The Shadow University. The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses, one sees their findings disturbing and relevant:

“Universities still set themselves apart from American society, but now they do so by enforcing their own politically correct worldview through censorship, double standards, and a judicial system without due process. Faculty and students who threaten the prevailing norms may be forced to undergo “thought reform.”

Professors’ Kors and Silverglate present examples of multiple legal cases disclosing the early beginnings of the end of free speech in all its forms. Their research:

“lay bare the totalitarian mindset that undergirds speech codes, conduct codes, and “campus life” bureaucracies through which a cadre of deans and counselors indoctrinate students and faculty in an ideology that favors group rights over individual rights, sacrificing free speech and academic freedom to spare the sensitives of currently favored groups.”

It is obvious that in the course of shaping and reshaping student’s minds with a milieu of counter-productive real and imagined aggressions, students developed antipathy towards those who didn’t follow their crowd; ultimately towards each other.

Ironically, or poetic justice, they become easy targets for sirens calling out that they’re ready to reach them “where they are” and follow their crowd. Yep, like a stadium, these “safe spaces” don’t come cheap.

Future Legends or Legends of the Fallen?

Focused on self-gratifying ideals, simplistic minds implode. Tailed spineless creatures know not of charm, spirit or wit.

Amidst campus scandals and student loan debt, the youth of America faces crises: suicide, substance abuse, depression, unemployment, homelessness…  Where’s the solidarity for them? Or protests against tuition hikes? Students failed to redirect their hate of each other and aim it towards profiteers, universities.

In these times of health and economic disparities when mental illness and drug addiction continue to be taboo, cries of social media and smartphone addiction are not only ludicrous but insult our intelligence.

Criticize government and you’re told, “But government is all of us.” NOT ANYMORE. Yes, there was a time when those working in agencies –City, County, and State. Not defined by job titles, they trained to do a job they were proud of. These were the Baby Boomers parents.

But somewhere along the line, pervasion coupled with greed in the private sector permeated those in Washington.  It didn’t take long before it extended its sickness across the nation to its two main critical lifelines: Health and Education. Medical Malpractice lawsuits of Pharma’s and Physicians speak for themselves.

I asked Dr. Mary Frances Berry, History Professor, what her thoughts were on Education. She replied “I would hope that education would build character. I am not sure that there is any conscious effort to do that on the part of people who are in charge of education today.”  I agree with Dr. Berry and reiterate why parents’ involvement is critical.

Parent GenX’ers, some, played their cards right and nurtured great young minds. Men and Women who didn’t let the color of their skin or name become a negative factor. Instead, they flourished because of them.

Unfortunately, some parents seriously dropped the ball, leaving many including themselves SOL. And now you’ve got ‘no snowball chance in hell’ to stop it. All you can do is sit back and watch them fall.

Not only are your tax dollars paying for incompetent government workers but you’ll be hard pressed to find or pay for private sector professionals to help your overly self-deprecating and self-made student loaners and loners aka entitled social media junkies.

Nearing graduation, several students I came across looked despondent, old, and tired. Unlike Julius Caesar, the world conquered them!

Fortunately, not all followed the crowd in university. Some found as Caesar and I, “It is better to create than to learn!”

 “Been looking for the answer

Ever since we were seventeen

You know the truth can be a weapon

To fight this world of ill intentions

A new answer to the same question

How many times will you learn the same lesson?

I think they got it all wrong

Gonna get their attention

What we’re doing here ain’t just scary

For you might never make it out alive

You gotta live without the columbines

Let everybody hear your battle cry

Yeah we’re gonna be legends“

“Legendary” by the American blues rock band Welshly Arms