Half of the US government's financial assets are student loans
Recent reports from the Treasury Department show that the US government owns nearly $1.5 trillion in student loans.<p>That’s pretty sad when you think about it: the US government’s #1 financial asset is debt owed by tens of millions of its young people for university education that didn’t even necessarily qualify them for a real career.<p>Millennials are the most educated generation in history. Yet there are record numbers of them working off student debts as waiters and bartenders, and supplementing their income on the side with ‘gigs’ (like being an Uber driver).<p>...<p>On top of all that, young people will spend their entire working lives paying into a pension system that likely won’t be there for them when it comes time to collect.<p>The Board of Trustees of Social Security tells us that the program is going to completely run out of money within the next 15 years. Millennials’ retirement horizon is far beyond that.<p>...<p>Miami-based homebuilder, Lennar Homes, recently announced it would pay a big chunk of a student loan for any borrower buying a home from them.<p>Through its subsidiary Eagle Home Mortgage, the company will make a payment to a buyer’s student loans of as much as 3% of the purchase price, up to $13,000.<p>Debt has become such a keystone of our society, that the only way we can afford something is to swap one type of debt they can’t afford with another type of debt.<p>-- Simon Black