There is much fuss in Congress about student loans.  Should we help students pay them off or what?

I can't help feeling queasy about this whole debate.  When the housing crisis hit, I remember thinking it was bound to happen.  After all, anyone with any sense could see that the houses people were buying were both too big and too expensive.  It's not like the American people were swimming in money.  They were doing the same jobs they had before.  Some TV shows cashed in on the frenzy:  Flip This House is one that stands out.  People would purchase a piece of crap house then do some modest improvements and sell it at a large profit.  I hated that show.

Here we are wringing our hands about student loans.  Hmmm, seems to me people should have recognized that schools were way too expensive.  I'm not knocking the price if you can afford it.  It's just too many kids were scrambling to get into schools and these private institutions stood around with their hands out looking for easy money.  And these poor kids just jumped right in to debt.  Now they're not pleased with the debt.  Well, I don't like debt either.  Here's a solution:  don't get into it if you can't afford.

Sure, some had no intention of getting in trouble.  I'm just feeling like someone should have noticed that it's not a good idea to graduate from college with a massive debt.  And no job.

I like President Obama, and I too believe we need to get kids into college.  But I also notice that we need tradesman.  We still need plumbers and electricians.  We need landscapers and horticulturists.  Where will they come from?  Sure, college raises the bar, but it's also screwing the American public.  Trust me, you'll get what I mean the next time your toilet starts backing up and a snake and a plunger don't do the trick....

What this country needs is a population with intelligence.  College doesn't necessarily guarantee that.  My friend Cindy was just complaining tonight about how one of her college professors was berating the class because they did not know how to write a paper properly. She is almost finished with college so we're not talking about the new freshman.  This, of course, brings up another topic.  Why do we keep inflating grades.  Look, if a kid writes a shit paper, give a grade that reflects that.  Goodness.

If we were intelligent, we wouldn't buy a home we couldn't afford.  And we wouldn't let our children amass great debt for a college education.  Then we wouldn't be in this fix.