[ExI] the formerly rich and their larvae...

[Tom Tobin]

On 2/12/08, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> ### But this Damocles' sword does focus your mind on the future
> usefulness of your education, doesn't it? Yeah, I know it's not fun to
> be in debt but I am trying to look at things in perspective: Going to
> work every day for 4 or 5 months of the year before ever earning
> enough to pay your taxes for that year, that's no fun either. I prefer
> to have to get loans as a young person, if this is what's needed to
> make a good salary later, rather than have "free" school and then end
> up languishing in servitude to the taxman for the rest of my life.

If one's goal is "accumulate as many goodies as possible", and one
starts out from a secure position (financially, health-wise, etc.),
sure, I might imagine feeling frustration at taxes.  If one doesn't
start out from a secure position, and/or doesn't really care to
accumulate that much, the low-tax low-service bargain doesn't quite
look so great.  From my position, it looks positively awful; by the
time I fight my way to decent health care, a paid-off debt, etc., I
might have spent a third of my life working a job I don't care for
(but, perhaps, pays well), the health issues might have accumulated
(since early attention is just *too expensive*), and I'll be left
wondering what the hell it was all for.

American society does not treat its fledglings well.  If I had an
ounce of the hard-earned wisdom I have now (at 29), I would have
rejected out-of-hand quite a few options young adults are barraged
with (educational debt, credit cards) that haunt for decades
thereafter. I'd hand back my diploma *today* if it allowed me to
declare bankruptcy on my educational debt.