The tweets, facebook updates, and blog posts have begun ? all discussing fall marathons and the initial couple of weeks of training for these races. That means weekly long runs are starting ? by mid-summer, there?ll be plenty of 20+ mile runs being completed in preparation for the upcoming races.
One question I?ve been asked repeatedly is?how I get through long runs?? week in and week out ? without getting burned out. ?When I was training for the NYC Marathon and the Knickerbocker 60k (concurrently), I had successful training runs up to 30 miles.
Long runs during marathon training are just as much based on mental strength as they are on physical strength (if not more).??So how do you mentally survive running 14+ miles every weekend for a few months?? ?Here are some things I do to get me through my long runs:
Break up the run.??Once the run begins, I try not to think about the total distance I have left to run until it?s well under half. ?Being at mile 2 of a 22 mile run is a bit intimidating and can easily throw off your concentration. ?When I ran?30 miles on my 30th birthday, I broke the run up into 6 ? 5 mile increments. ?I focused on 5 miles at a time (which coincided with a 5 mile loop that I was running on). Each time I finished five miles, I told myself that I only had to make it through the next 5 miles. ?5 miles is totally manageable.
Concentrate on one mile at a time.??Focusing on just one mile and the pace I want to hit makes my goal pace seem more manageable. I tell myself that I have to run the next mile at x:xx pace ? as soon as the mile clicks on my Garmin, I start working on the next mile.
DON?T be a slave to your Garmin.??Constantly looking at your pace and distance will make the miles?drag?on. One of my recent tricks is to keep my Garmin on the main display so all I see is the current time. ?I get a vibrating notification when I finish a mile ? that?s the only time I see my pace. ?This may not work if you are trying to hit very specific times during your long run, but since I am running based on how?I feel?rather than?pace, it doesn?t hinder my run.
Pick a new route. ?I always enjoy runs where I am exploring or covering new terrain, so I often try to leave certain routes or areas alone during the week and save them for the weekend long run. ?Just this past weekend, I ran a?point-to-point route?that I had yet to run ? the miles FLEW by because I was enjoying my new surroundings.
Let your mind wander.?Think about the rest of your day, ?what you are going to eat/drink when the run is over, maybe an upcoming vacation or trip ? whatever will keep your mind distracted. ? When I was training for my first ultra, I had about 5 miles left of a 28 mile trail run ? I was tired ? and starting to get hungry (for real food ? not just gels). ?My husband was my?roving support?on his bike and told me that he would get me one of my favorite indulgent foods when we got back ? KFC!! ?That was all I needed to hear. ?I spent the last few miles thinking about fried chicken, potato wedges, and biscuits.
Listen to Music.?As I?ve discussed previously, I am a?huge fan of having music?on my runs. ?It keeps my mind occupied and makes me happy. ?For me, there is nothing better than when one of my favorite songs come on my IPOD and I get pumped up and pick up the pace during mile 20 of that long run.
Envision success.??Picture yourself running the last few miles of the marathon you are training for. ?When I was training for the NYC Marathon, I did a few runs in Central Park to get used to the hills. ?I ran the same route that the last few miles of NYC Marathon follows. ?I envisioned myself coming into the park, ?I saw and heard the crowds, I actually could feel the adrenaline of race day! ?And would immediately get a boost of energy and excitement.
Allow time in your plan for rest/recovery/low mileage days.?I follow the hard, hard, hard, easy rule for long runs. ?For example, I?ll run 16, 18, 20 miles three weeks in a row followed by an easy or off week where I?ll run 10-12 miles. ?The following week I?ll run 20, 22, 24 miles. ?Knowing that I get that easy long run day helps me push myself through the current run. ?Going back to my previous high mileage also gives me a?buffer week?in case I am sick, scheduling conflicts arise, or just need a week off from the long run.
In the end, do the things that you enjoy ? if you prefer music over running ?naked?, bring your IPOD; if you enjoy running alone vs with a group, then make it a solo run. ?Make the run as enjoyable as possible for yourself !!
Do you do anything on long runs to help get you through the miles??
? Stay Frugal & Fit My Friends!
Michael J. Schiemer B.S. CPT
Owner of FRUGAL FITNESS Worldwide Wellness & Elite Cheapskate?
Owner & Personal Trainer of RESULTS Private Fitness Boston, MA Author of The Frugal Diet, The Frugal Workout, & The Ultimate Fitness Guide Series?FRUGAL FITNESS TV?|?Twitter?|?Facebook?|?Fitness eBooks
There is certainly a lot of hype these days encompassing World wide web-based mostly voice communications (VoIP) replacing standard telephone service. Most of this revolves all around businesses this sort of as Vonage who coin on their own as the ?Broadband Telephone Company?. So what about individuals of us who do not have a broadband relationship? Just simply because you don?t have large speed Internet, doesn?t indicate that you can?t conserve a fortune by employing VoIP for your long-length calls. While a broadband relationship will usually end result in a lot more consistent VoIP get in touch with quality, equivalent results can be reached making use of a dial-up connection provided some basic recommendations are followed.
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Not all VoIP service companies assistance dial-up customers. Organizations this sort of as Vonage bill by themselves as alternatives to traditional telephone services and shy away from the dial-up local community (who are tied to these ?traditional? networks to accessibility the Net). Additionally, some support providers only help dial-up previously mentioned a particular speed (e.g., 56Kbp). Two businesses whose VoIP softphone programs work well in excess of very low pace connections contain Callserve and Go2Call.
?Free-up? your Program Assets
In order to ensure the highest phone top quality, close programs that are operating in the ?background?. For Windows customers, these programs can be seen in the taskbar at the bottom correct of your screen. ?Right-click? the icons and shut individuals applications that are not important to technique security (e.g., don?t close anti-virus software, firewall apps and the like).
If you might be making use of Windows XP with person switching enabled, log off all users apart from the one that will be employed to make the get in touch with. This will avoid the other consumer identities from jogging software program and/or employing your bandwidth even though you might be making calls.
?Free Up? your Internet Relationship
Given the constrained facts ability of dial-up connections, it is critical that you commit as significantly of your bandwidth as attainable to the VoIP softphone software. To achieve maximum get in touch with top quality, will not do anything that makes use of your bandwidth although creating calls. This consists of quick messaging, checking e mail, employing a webcam, browsing the web, downloading, and so forth. In Windows, you can appear at the two tiny pcs in the bottom right of your taskbar to see whether or not your link is getting used prior to contacting (the tiny pcs illuminate when info is being uploaded and/or downloaded).
Scan your Technique for Viruses, Adware, Adware and Malware
Some of these destructive programs can hijack your browser, tie up your web link and gradual down your program (not to point out significantly invade your privacy!). I suggest AdAware for free scanning and removing of Spyware/Adware. After you have checked and cleansed your technique of these awful programs, your virus definition documents really should be up to date to decrease the probabilities of re-infection.
Use a Headset with an Built-in Boom Microphone
Very last but not the very least, utilizing a headset with a boom microphone must eliminate people annoying voice echoes usually associated with Personal computer to Mobile phone calls. Echoes are caused by your microphone detecting the voice coming from your personal computer speakers and re-transmitting that voice signal back again to the individual you might be conversing to. By employing a headset, the voice indicators are limited in volume (because of to the headset getting immediately adjacent to your ears) and thus the odds of your microphone ?re-transmitting? those voice indicators is tremendously reduced.
So there you have it. A Lack of higher velocity Web needn?t imply a lack of Computer to Cellphone VoIP functionality.
Nathan Smith
Nathan is the owner of netphonedirectory.com which offers particularly with Laptop to Phone and Pc to Computer VoIP. The internet site contains a complete directory of Personal computer to Phone support providers as effectively as information on VoIP and what you require to make inexpensive long-distance telephone calls employing your laptop or computer
PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) - World oil consumers are poised to tap into emergency oil inventories as soon as early September after the International Energy Agency (IEA) dropped its resistance to a U.S.-led plan, a source and an oil journal said on Friday.
Just one week after its chief said there was no discussion of possible emergency action, the IEA is now thought to have agreed to the idea, the industry journal Petroleum Economist reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. The release could be as large or larger than last year's 60 million barrel injection.
Responding to the report, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven said the agency remained in close communication with members and stood "prepared to act as necessary in response to a physical disruption", avoiding the question of whether active consideration of a reserve release was underway.
"However, as I said as recently as last week, at this time the conditions that would warrant such a response by the IEA are not present," she said in a statement.
But market fundamentals may not be the principal consideration. While the disruption to Iran's exports may be used as the excuse for action, U.S. officials are also keen to temper rising prices that risk diminishing the impact of financial sanctions on Tehran, Reuters reported last week, citing sources.
While the IEA may not agree that the degree of supply disruption has met the traditional measure of what would merit emergency intervention, it is concerned that the United States, France and Britain might act together to draw on stockpiles without coordinating with the rest of the group, undermining its credibility, according to Friday's media report, which was echoed by the source.
"The U.S. is the main driver, the IEA sees no need for a release. However, if major consumers such as the U.S., UK and France want a release, the IEA is likely to step up and play a role," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"A release could be as early as September," the source said on Friday.
News that consumer nations could be moving quickly toward intervening in oil markets again weighed on prices, with benchmark Brent crude falling $1.42 a barrel or 1.2 percent to close at $113.59 a barrel. The impact was muted by oil platform closures as a storm heads toward the U.S. Gulf.
The Petroleum Economist said that the sharp decline in Iran's oil exports this year would be used as a justification, it reported in an article by editor Derek Brower, who also writes for the Economist magazine.
"Whether it's self-inflicted or not, that's still a supply disruption," the article quoted an unnamed official at a government backing the release as saying. The Petroleum Economist has been a well-regarded energy industry publication for decades, but it is better known for its sophisticated analysis and detailed maps than for breaking news.
WHITE HOUSE 'DUSTS OFF' PLANS
Talk of tapping into strategic stockpiles resurfaced last week after Reuters reported that the White House has began "dusting off" old plans for a possible release on fears that the 30 percent rise in oil prices since June could undermine the effect of sanctions on Iran.
Analysts also have said the move could be timed to aid the reelection effort for President Barack Obama, who has shown a much more liberal approach to the country's Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which has traditionally been reserved for major supply disruptions to be used only as a last resort.
Last year the U.S. led a successful effort to convince the IEA to tap into emergency supplies for the third time in its history.
The Petroleum Economist said the White House had spent "recent weeks" seeking to persuade other countries to join the plan, although officials in both the United States and other IEA members told Reuters that no talks had been held by last week.
On August 17, a source familiar with the matter said U.S. officials were waiting to assess market conditions after the Labor Day holiday on September 3 before making a decision.
Plans do not appear to have reached an operational stage.
"I have received no official instruction telling me to stand ready to release stocks and I'm unaware of such plans," Jean-Marc Tenneson, head of the steering committee of France's strategic oil reserves agency (CPSSP), said on Friday.
He said a release would not be "reasonable" under current circumstances, and would only be legitimate if, for example, geopolitical tensions between Iran and Israel worsened noticeably.
FRANCE, UK SUPPORT; SAUDI CONSULTED
The Petroleum Economist, part of the Euromoney group, reported that France and Britain, both of which had signaled their support for releasing reserves during an earlier round of discussions in the spring, have endorsed the strategy.
It cited a diplomatic source as saying a British cabinet official had discussed the move in Washington in recent days.
Last Friday, van der Hoeven said there was "no reason for a release," and that no other IEA member was considering such a measure. She said then that she had not been in contact with the White House over possible intervention.
The Petroleum Economist article said that the IEA had changed its stand after "lengthy talks with U.S. Department of Energy officials in Washington earlier this month".
Officials in Japan and South Korea -- both of which have cut back Iranian imports in order to avoid new U.S. sanctions -- also dismissed the need for emergency supplies last week. The Petroleum Economist story said some IEA members were still opposed, including Germany.
U.S. and British officials have consulted on the plan with Saudi Arabia, according to the report. The kingdom believes that there is no need for a release, but that the decision is up to consumer countries, according to the story.
Oil consultancy Petroleum Policy Intelligence (PPI) said this week that some consumer nations had discussed a possible price trigger of $115 to $120 a barrel for taking action, according to the journal's report.
(Reporting by Jonathan Leff, additional reporting by Michael Rose in Paris; Editing by Marguerita Choy, Leslie Gevirtz and Carol Bishopric)
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Harry Truman, wearing a white linen suit, peers out at the delegates. It's 1948. Two o'clock in the morning. He's trying to start his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. So far, it's been humiliating.
First, he knows he's a terrible speaker ? so bad his aides now give him talking points, hoping he'll be livelier when he ad-libs.
Worse, most delegates don't like him. Truman knows they want to draft the most popular person in the country, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Only the political bosses running their delegations have kept them in line.
And the Southern Democrats? With a civil rights plank in the platform, they've walked out, likely to form a third party, which everybody thinks will doom his chances.
Even little things backfire. Just as he got to the stage, a woman rushed up to present him with a cage containing "doves of peace." They were pigeons. They got loose, flew up to the rafters and, as an aide wrote later, "did what pigeons do."
"Watch your clothes!" delegates cried, covering their heads.
Now this! He's the president! Can't he even control the microphones?
"I can't!" Truman shouts back.
Today, 64 years later, the Republicans and Democrats are gearing up to gavel in their conventions in a way that will allow them to control every picosecond of the multiday events.
When the Republicans open their conclave on Aug. 27 in Tampa, Fla., and the Democrats a week later in Charlotte, N.C., they will try to make everyone stay on message and stick to their meticulously prepared scripts in what has become one of the most tightly controlled rituals in American politics.
But since the first Democratic convention in 1832, these quadrennial events have always been full of surprises. These may be, too.
That's not to say there's any doubt about the outcome. Longtime GOP strategist Joe Gaylord ran the rules committee for the 1976 Republican National Convention ? the last convention when it wasn't clear who would be the nominee.
"That was a raucous event," says Mr. Gaylord, who went on to play major roles at five more. "Now, it's such a managed stage show."
That, he hastens to add, doesn't mean that conventions aren't worth watching.
Certainly viewers will hear about big issues. This election pits a nominee who wants to carry out the 2010 health-care act against one who wants to repeal it; one who'll work for same-sex marriage against one who'll try to keep marriage between a man and a woman; one who would repeal tax cuts for millionaires against one who would make those tax cuts permanent; one who would continue a government-run Medicare program against one who might convert it to a voucher-based system.
Washington will spend about $15 trillion in the next four years. Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have different ideas about where that money should go. The conventions can highlight some of those differences.
Still, the changes in how conventions work and what they do have made people question the value of these events, which received $18 million each in federal subsidies this year, in addition to the $50 million Washington gives each host city for security. In 1996, Ted Koppel, then the popular host of "Nightline," left the Republican convention in San Diego early.
"More of an infomercial than a news event," he said, arguing that gavel-to-gavel coverage of them wasn't useful anymore.
Is that true? Does knowing who the nominees will be really mean there's no news worth reporting? How exactly have conventions changed over the years? Are they still important?
We hear about this issue all the time: tech companies, even the big guns, have trouble attracting and retaining women. Interestingly enough, Google has taken the least human and most nerdiest possible route to tackling this gender issue—algorithms. More »
To be candid, there are many aspects to being a new home developer I have not missed since ?retiring? from my life as a developer in 2008 (which just so happens to correspond to when the new home market tanked) other than I do love the creative aspect of it; going into an older neighborhood, with functionally obsolescent homes, tear them down and build new homes suited for today?s consumer.? I?m having a lot more fun on the brokerage side of the biz nowadays so I don?t think I?ll be jumping back in as a developer anytime soon, however, if I were so inclined, I think I might be scouting out some locations to build based upon recent reports on new home sales.So what?s the reason for my new-found optimism?? Well, for starters, I?m not thatoptimistic, but I think to say I?m encouraged would be accurate.? This morning, the Commerce department released it?s?new home sales data for July 2012 which is somewhat encouraging.? New home sales in July increased 3.6 percent from June and were up a robust 25.3 percent from a year ago, according to the report.? Also, new home inventories are dropping,? to a very comfortable 4.6 month supply in July, down from a 6.7 month supply a year ago.
On the other hand, new home prices slid in July to a median price of $224,200, down from $229,100 in June and down from $229,900 in June 2011.? Even this is encouraging though as it shows stability in new home prices.? I?m telling you, if this keeps up, I see a tight inventory potentially driving new home prices up modestly and perhaps enough, to where it makes sense to put a shovel in the ground again.
Gregory McNeil, 49, is living out his days at a veterans home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His room is so cramped he can barely fit his twin bed, dresser, and the computer desk he had to sneak in because it was against regulations. His only income comes from the Social Security disability payments he began receiving last year after undergoing quadruple-bypass heart surgery. These payments go directly to the veterans home, which then gives him $100a month for his expenses. McNeil fears that if he leaves the home, the government will seize a portion of his Social Security to pay off the federal student loan he defaulted on two decades ago. ?This veterans home may become my financial prison,? he says. ?And this is no way to live.?
McNeil?s fears are well grounded. For years, private collection companies acting under contract with the U.S. Department of Education have hounded him. The government garnisheed his wages for a time, and threatened to sue him. He says he always wanted to repay, but has never had the income he would need. Meanwhile, interest continues to accrue on his debt, and has already tripled the amount he owes.
McNeil?s troubles date back to the late 1980s, when, after leaving the Navy, he decided to go back to school to study electronics. He borrowed about $15,000 in federal student loans to attend a local branch of National Education Centers, a for-profit trade school chain that claimed an exceptional track record in helping students find employment. He soon realized, however, that the training was much less than advertised. And he discovered that the company?which later shut down, due in part to a high default rate among its former students that threatened its access to federal funding?would do little to help him find a job. ?They considered you placed if you were flipping burgers part time at McDonald?s,? he says.
School officials arranged one interview for him, but after that didn?t pan out he didn?t hear from them again. Mc-Neil tried to carry on with a low-paying factory job, but couldn?t keep up with his loan payments and ended up defaulting. He tried rehabilitating his loan, but after he lost his job in the recession of the early 1990s he couldn?t manage even the reduced payments. In 1994, with only $23 to his name, he felt he had no choice but to file for bankruptcy.
At the time, he thought the judge had discharged all his debts, but in 2001 collection agencies started calling at all hours, demanding payments on his student loans. The government subpoenaed him to appear in court, and the IRS threatened to seize money from his paychecks. Collection agents told him that his loans had not been discharged through bankruptcy after all, because at the time there was a seven-year waiting period before student loans could be erased through that process. In 2002, he filed for bankruptcy again to force the government?s debt collectors to back off. That worked for a while, but in 2007, the calls resumed, and they haven?t stopped since.
For a brief moment in 2008, McNeil thought he had a shot at making steady payments. He had worked as a machinist for fifteen years and reached journeyman status, meaning that his pay would nearly double, to $25 an hour. ?This opened the door to me finally being able to get my defaulted student loans under control,? he says. But soon afterward, with the economy in Michigan tanking, he was laid off again. With his health failing, he knew his career was over.
Not so long ago, the kind of troubles McNeil has known were generally limited to poor and working-class people who attended shady for-profit trade schools. But these days, more and more middle-class Americans who attended mainstream public and private colleges are having trouble with the loans they took out to finance their educations, and they too are getting caught in the often brutal gears of the system that manages those loans. In the absence of serious reform, the feelings of rage and helplessness that accompany such experiences are likely to become much more common.
One reason is the ever-rising cost of higher education. In the early 1990s, fewer than half of bachelor?s degree recipients graduated with student debt. Today, two-thirds do. The average amount of debt amassed has risen by 50 percent since 1993, to about $25,000. According to the Project on Student Debt, the proportion of students who graduated from four-year colleges owing at least $40,000 has grown, from 3 percent in 1996 to 10 percent in 2008. Four out of five of these recent borrowers took out high-cost private student loans on top of their federal loans.
Undergraduates leaving college today are also entering the worst labor market in decades. More than half are either unemployed or working in jobs that don?t require a college degree. For the 42 percent of college students who drop out before graduation, the burden of financing a degree they never received is often even more crushing. Just 26 percent of former students who took out loans and left school without a degree are keeping up with their payments.
Yet those numbers don?t come close to capturing the full extent of the crisis. According to a report released last year by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, more than half of all borrowers who started paying back their student loans in 2005 became delinquent, defaulted, or put their loans into forbearance to delay payments within five years. It is unacceptable, of course, that some students take out loans without having any intention of paying them back. But our current fearsomely complex student debt management and collection system, as it has evolved over the last generation, makes no distinction between deadbeats who don?t plan on paying back their loans and the much greater numbers of people who just don?t have the money to do it. Few policymakers understand what happens to such people once they fall into the clutches of collection agencies, or even who they are.
And for many borrowers, there is no way out. Unlike mortgages and credit card debt, student loans these days cannot be erased through bankruptcy except in rare cases of extreme hardship. And there is no longer any statute of limitation for prosecuting those who fall behind on their loans. As Deanne Loonin, director of the National Consumer Law Center?s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project, has written, ?Even rapists are not in this category since there is a statute of limitations for rape prosecutions, at least in federal law and in most state laws.?
Over the years, politicians, even liberal ones, have paid too little attention to what happens on the back end of the student loan system to those who can?t afford to make their payments. Instead, Democrats have focused on trying to broaden access to higher education by making student loans more available and less costly on the front end. In 2010, the Obama administration achieved a major victory in this access agenda when he signed legislation ending the wasteful practice of subsidizing banks to make student loans. Since the summer of 2010, all federal student loans are now made directly by the government, saving the Treasury $68 billion over eleven years (half of which is going to expanded Pell Grants for needy students). But this monumental reform of the front end of the student loan system leaves the back end untouched, meaning that more and more Americans? people like Gregory McNeil?are left at the mercy of predatory debt-collecting contractors. Having kicked the banks out of the student loan business, it?s high time to get rid of the repo men, too.
The federal government first started underwriting student loans in 1965. At the time, the Johnson administration and Congress made clear that federal loans would be available to all eligible students, regardless of their credit history. Students would also not have to post any collateral to obtain loans.
The risks proved to be quite manageable. A 1977 GAO report found that less than 1 percent of student loans were discharged in bankruptcy. Nonetheless, stories of deadbeat doctors and lawyers escaping their federal loans in bankruptcy took hold in the public imagination, much like those about welfare queens.
In response to these anecdotes, Congress barred federal student loan borrowers from being able to discharge their debt in bankruptcy during the first five years of repayment unless they could prove ?undue hardship.? Lawmakers took this action over the objections of Michigan Democrat James O?Hara, then chairman of the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, who argued that Congress was trying to remedy ?a ?scandal? which exists primarily in the imagination.?
In 1981, Ronald Reagan?s Department of Education began contracting with private companies to collect on defaulted federal student loans. In 1982, a new law allowed the government to withhold federal benefits (not including Social Security) from those in arrears. But the real crackdown came in the early 1990s, after student loan default rates skyrocketed as a result of widespread abuses by unscrupulous trade schools. Worried that these scandals would jeopardize popular support for the federal student aid programs as a whole, Democrats joined with President H. W. Bush?s administration to rein in the trade schools and strengthen the tools the government uses to collect on defaulted loans. Congress extended the waiting period before which federal student loans could be dischargeable in bankruptcy to seven years. And, much more significantly, it changed federal law to put default on student loans into the same criminal category as murder and treason by eliminating the statute of limitations under which student loan borrowers could be prosecuted.
Liberals went along with many of these crackdowns, and even proposed some of their own. President Clinton, for example, signed a law that made it even harder to discharge federal student loans through bankruptcy and allowed the Education Department to tap into a federal database?originally designed to enforce child support payments?to track down and garnishee the wages of those who defaulted on student loans.
George W. Bush?s administration proved even more zealous. It aggressively collected on long-overdue debt, by, for the first time, seizing Social Security payments from elderly and disabled defaulters and signing legislation ending bankruptcy protection for borrowers who take out risky private student loans. Nor has the Obama administration been shy; last year, President Obama called on Congress, as part of a larger deficit reduction proposal, to allow collection agencies to use automated dialing to contact defaulted borrowers? cell phones.
Why have even liberal politicians been willing to make the student loan repayment system ever more draconian? Partly it?s because, in an age of federal deficits, they?ve been desperate to find ways to boost government revenue without raising taxes. Partly it?s been a general political eagerness to signal that they are not about to coddle deadbeats.
But it?s also because, for years, a number of Democrats have had a vision about how to crack down on freeloaders while at the same time easing the burden on borrowers who through no fault of their own simply cannot repay their loans. The idea is the income-contingent loan, or ICL (see ?Answering the Critics of ?Pay as You Earn? Plans?), whereby people who take out student loans can repay them based on a fraction of their annual income, rather than fixed payments. The free-market economist Milton Friedman came up with the basic concept in the 1950s as an alternative to state funding of higher education, and it was tested in pilot form by the Reagan administration. But by 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis was advocating a version of the idea as a way to make student loans more affordable.
Bill Clinton made ICL a central plank in his 1992 presidential campaign. He argued that such loans would not only offer relief to borrowers who never managed to graduate or became unemployed, but would also make it easier for students to embark on socially vital but low-paying public service careers, such as teaching or social work. He also championed the idea that the federal government could save money by making loans directly to students rather than paying banks to do so. In 1993 he signed legislation creating both a direct lending program (the one Obama would expand in 2010) and an ICL option. The hope was that the two initiatives together would provide a cheaper, simpler, and safer alternative to the traditional student loan system. But lobbyists for the banks, whose subsidies were threatened, convinced Congress and Department of Education regulators to limit the reach of the two programs, and for years relatively few borrowers were made aware of them.
Even borrowers who do learn of the income-contingent option often face a bureaucratic nightmare when they try to exercise it. Consider the case of Kayleen Hartman. When she first entered Georgetown University Law Center in 2008, she knew she wanted to become a human rights lawyer, and that such a career would likely give her only a modest income. The only reason she thought she would nonetheless be able to carry the cost of her law degree was that she planned to repay her federal student loans through an updated and more generous version of the Clinton initiative called the income-based repayment, or IBR, program.
So after she graduated in May 2011 and passed her bar exam later that summer, she put in the paperwork for consolidating all her federal loans and using the IBR option for repaying them. But she didn?t hear back from the Department of Education for months?and became alarmed when she started getting letters from her original lenders warning her that she was overdue on her payments. By February, completely panicked, she started trying to reach the loan ?servicer.? Servicers are the organizations (some for-profit, some nonprofit) that the government or lenders hire to handle the paperwork on student loans. The servicing representative she talked to dismissed her concerns, saying that the consolidation would be completed any day now. It wasn?t until April that she learned that the department was having trouble consolidating one of her loans?a Perkins loan she had received through her alma mater, Davidson College. The department had been alerted to the problem months earlier, but for some reason the servicer was unaware of it. Meanwhile, her original loans had become delinquent and were in danger of defaulting.
The consolidation was finally completed in May, and she thought her problems were behind her. In her application for consolidation, she had checked a box indicating that she wanted to repay through IBR, and assumed that she would now hear from the department about how to enroll in the program. Instead, she received her first monthly bill from the department for $1,600, a figure that represented half of her take-home pay. She called the servicer again, and learned for the first time that she had to fill out a separate application and submit a copy of her income tax return.
A servicing representative mailed her the form, and she promptly returned it with all of the required documentation. She once again thought she was in the clear, until she received another bill for $1,600. Irate, she called the servicer again, only to be told that the servicing company had never received her application. The representative first questioned whether she had really sent the form, and then accused her of sending it to the wrong address.
Now she is waiting for the servicer to mail her a new application form to fill out. Nearly a year has passed since she began the process, and even with a law degree, she has still not figured out how to make the bureaucracy and its various contract agents deliver a benefit to which she is clearly entitled by law. Meanwhile, because her loans have become delinquent while she?s waited for the department to refinance her loan, her credit is shot. The experience, she says, has been ?maddening.? She no longer trusts that the department?s servicing representatives have her best interest in mind. And get this: assuming she ever gets approved for IBR, she?ll have to repeat the application process every year, according to current law, or be automatically kicked out of the program.
Why do the servicers provide such lousy service? One reason is basic institutional incompetence, says the National Consumer Law Center?s Loonin. But just as important, she says, is the complexity of the regulations that govern the terms and procedures of the various student loans. Even servicing representatives who are sincerely trying to help ?really don?t understand the programs,? says Loonin. And, of course, if the loan professionals have trouble grasping the nuances of all the loan programs, what chance do average borrowers have? (For an as-simple-as-we-can-make-it explanation of federal student loan repayment options, see ?Got Student Debt??)
If loan servicers can be exasperating to deal with, the debt-collecting companies can be downright scary. The federal government contracts with twenty-three such firms to collect on loans in default, paying the industry hundreds of millions of dollars annually in fees and commissions. Well-documented horror stories abound about how these collection agencies routinely fail to inform borrowers about repayment options to which they are entitled, demand excessive payments, refuse to provide documentation to back up their claims, call at all hours, harass borrowers? friends, family members, and neighbors, and generally lash out in abusive and threatening ways.
One of the most aggressive loan-collection firms is Pioneer Credit Recovery, a subsidiary of student loan giant Sallie Mae. Consumer Web sites are full of complaints about the company?s practices. Meanwhile, former Pioneer collectors recently told Bloomberg Businessweek that the company has a ?boiler room? culture, where low-paid workers are richly rewarded for squeezing the most money they possibly can out of defaulted borrowers. Those who miss their targets are under constant threat of losing their jobs. ?When you?re making eight bucks an hour, it?s all about the bonuses,? said a former Pioneer employee who worked at the collection agency from 2004 to 2007.
Despite such complaints and accusations, Pioneer regularly scores at or near the top of the rankings the Education Department uses each quarter to reward the best performing of its debt-collection contractors with new accounts and generous bonuses. Why? Because the rankings are based almost entirely on the amount of dollars collected, with little regard for how borrowers are treated.
In theory, the department could discipline collection agencies that are known to abuse borrowers by cutting the companies? fees or ending their contracts. But in 2003, the Department of Education?s inspector general released a disturbing report that took the department to task for its complete and utter failure ?to track and monitor complaints? that were made against the collection agencies. By neglecting to follow its own detailed policies for reviewing complaints, the Education Department, the report concluded, didn?t have any idea whether its contractors ?were appropriately servicing borrower accounts and adhering to applicable laws and regulations.?
The National Consumer Law Center?s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project recently found that little has changed in the intervening years. In a report it released in May, the group revealed that the Department of Education and most of the collection companies it hires make it unnecessarily difficult for defaulted borrowers to even lodge complaints. ?As long as the Department and its contractors can deploy extraordinary collections tactics to recover federal loans, borrowers must have an accessible way to register their dissatisfaction,? said the report.
In recent months, the Obama administration has taken some steps to address the mess on the back end of the student loan system. The Department of Education has proposed new rules that would require all collection agencies to determine how much income and expenses defaulted borrowers have?something the department hasn?t required them to do until now?and to then craft repayment plans based on the borrower?s ability to pay rather than demand minimum payments based on the original loan amounts. The president has also ordered the department to set up a system to allow borrowers to apply for income-based repayment online without having to go through servicers.
But while these reforms might provide easier paths for many struggling borrowers, they largely leave the current system and its many dysfunctions in place. Borrowers will still be reliant on the servicers to tell them about their repayment options, including IBR. Collection agencies will still be paid based on how much revenue they can extract from defaulted borrowers, which means they will have strong incentive to find ways not to comply with the new requirements. The Department of Education?s lax system of oversight of servicers and collection agencies shows no real signs of improving.
Even if these incremental measures could bring some improvement, it?s worth asking some bigger questions: Is this even the system we want? Do student loan repayment options need to be so impossibly complex? Is it really necessary to subject borrowers to the caprice, incompetence, and abuse of loan servicers and collectors? Should our system take no account of the reality that some students embark on careers that are vitally needed by society but that only pay modest or uneven income, from being a primary care doctor to starting a new business?
As it happens, there is a better way. We could follow the lead of countries like Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom and create a single student loan repayment system that is entirely based on a borrower?s future income. Under such a program, employees with federal student loans would see a portion of their income withheld by their employers and used to pay down their debt, much as they see payroll taxes withheld today. Self-employed borrowers would use a simple schedule on their federal income tax forms that would tell them how much they owed on their federal student loans. When a borrower?s adjustable gross income went up or down, so would their monthly payments, with the only enforcement mechanism needed being the Internal Revenue Service. Defaults would be virtually eliminated, along with the need for the government to spend tax dollars on collection agencies. Borrowers with high incomes would simply pay off the loans more quickly than those with low incomes. (For answers to questions critics of ICL raise, see ?Answering the Critics of ?Pay as You Earn? Plans?)
The proposal is a win-win. Efforts would still be needed to crack down on college dropout factories and shady trade schools, and to promote improved efficiency and accountability throughout higher education. But borrowers would no longer be left on their own to navigate among a dizzying array of repayment options as their debts spiraled. Nor would anyone need to forsake such callings as family medicine or social work, or even being an entrepreneur, just because of the crushing burden of fixed student debt payments. And above all, the millions of today?s younger Americans who are earnestly trying to repay their debts would not need to endure the hell faced by struggling former students like Gregory McNeil. If this proposal seems political impossible, consider that the Obama administration has already gotten the banks out of the student loan business. Having done that, surely it will be easier to throw over the repo men.
To be candid, there are many aspects to being a new home developer I have not missed since ?retiring? from my life as a developer in 2008 (which just so happens to correspond to when the new home market tanked) other than I do love the creative aspect of it; going into an older neighborhood, with functionally obsolescent homes, tear them down and build new homes suited for today?s consumer.? I?m having a lot more fun on the brokerage side of the biz nowadays so I don?t think I?ll be jumping back in as a developer anytime soon, however, if I were so inclined, I think I might be scouting out some locations to build based upon recent reports on new home sales.So what?s the reason for my new-found optimism?? Well, for starters, I?m not that optimistic, but I think to say I?m encouraged would be accurate.? This morning, the Commerce department released it?s?new home sales data for July 2012 which is somewhat encouraging.? New home sales in July increased 3.6 percent from June and were up a robust 25.3 percent from a year ago, according to the report.? Also, new home inventories are dropping,? to a very comfortable 4.6 month supply in July, down from a 6.7 month supply a year ago.