Steven Tyler and Nancy Pelosi the Same Person?

This is just creepy.  Squint your eyes and it's even worse.

Student Loan Rip Off: Now Big Government is Getting Rich off Kids

It used to be the Democrats excoriated "big banking" for taking advantage of college kids by selling them a mortgage worth of loans before they ever earned a steady income.  Obama in 2007 criticized the Bush administration for backing "big banks."

But now that he's in the White House, and when the Dems controlled both houses of Congress, it was too tempting an income stream for the Federal government.  They took all private loans over, including a very small one I had taken out short term for my son's college.  Why was the Obama administration rushing in to buy them all up?  The answer is in this Time magazine article:

From Time magazine, Sept. 16, 2009,

Obama's Student-Loan Plan: A 'Good' Takeover?

"On its face, it would seem to be a gift to Barack Obama's conservative critics, who have spent the summer painting the new Democratic President as a socialist who is eager to nationalize the entire health-care system. After all, the Administration's proposal to restructure the student-loan industry is, in many respects, much closer to an actual government takeover than its relatively tame market-driven health-reform plan. But as the House holds hearings and looks likely to pass a student-loan bill this week, it's clear that the education overhaul is not going to be the high-pitched battle that opponents and the White House once expected it to be.

It was only last spring when Obama made clear that he was expecting a fight over the biggest change in the federal student-loan program since its 1965 creation. "The banks and the lenders who have reaped a windfall ... have mobilized an army of lobbyists to try to keep things the way they are," he said in April. "They are gearing up for battle. So am I."

....The Administration essentially wants to cut such companies out of the game and run the system itself."

Well, now Obama and Big Government are reaping that windfall on the backs of students.

Government Getting Rich.  Truth is, students loans these days the the best, highest interest, most stable income stream the government can get.  And they want more of the action.

Just how much does it really cost to take out a student loan?  Use the link below to plug in figures for yourself.  And I'll give you an example.

www.finaid.org

Example:  A Stafford student loan in early 2012 is 6.8% (mortgages are now 3.75% and money markets about 1.5%!).  That's twice what a lender can get from making a real estate loan.  No wonder Government wants in on the action.

• A relatively small $50,000 student loan on a ten year term has a monthly payment of $575.
• That means a grad who gets a $30,000 job ($15 per hour) will work 38 hours each month for 10 years just to pay off Uncle Sam! 

"Well, my kid will do better than $30k!"  Let's use $40k right out of college.  He or she will still work 28 hours each month for 10 years for the Government, paying 6.8 percent interest all the while.

With student loans nearly twice the interest rate of mortgage rates no wonder Washington wants in, loading your kids with a mortgage-worth of debt before they ever earn their first post college dollar.

Let's use another example:  $75,000 student loan at 6.8% over 20 years has a $570 monthly payment and a cumulative cost of $137,402!  Government is making  a cool $62k off your kid.

The Folly of "Vampire" Power Suck Enviro Craziness

Marketeers know that there is money to be made in superstitions.  One high tech superstition is that all those computers, phones, and other devices are boiling the oceans and melting the ice caps while you sleep, and costing you "hundreds of dollars a year."  Of course, they are quick to sell a kill switch solution.  But is this a real problem?

Is that the case?  Computers, such as the Mac, are often implicated.  We are told by green activists, Don't go into "sleep" mode--turn your computer completely off, and even turn off the power strip or you are not a good green citizen because lots of "vampire" power is being sucked out of the device and trashing the planet.

How do the numbers stack up?  Here are Apple's figures on it's 2009 iMac 27" and using Peace River (Florida) Electric Co-op 2011 costs per kilowatt hour to residential customers: