The giant middle finger from the toads.

The passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 was a classic demonstration of how America works, or doesn’t, depending on your point of view. While we focus on differences between Republicans and Democrats, it’s their uncanny habit of having just a sliver of enough agreement to pass crucial industry-friendly bills that really defines the parties.^[1]

The giant higher education rip off is financed by a devil's bargain. Naïve, energetic, and/or ambitious young people buy into the notion that a college degree is essential. That degree has built in obligations for the student to finance stadium construction, frivolous degrees for one and all, princely salaries for professors and diversity commies, and, for good measures, a healthy dose of physical assault for free speech promoting un-woke opinions. The price of admission to this clown car experience is ruinous for the young who don't yet grasp the relentless effects of compound interest or that seemingly decent people would connive against them by making them the cash cows for the university high life.

The bankruptcy change guaranteed a life of debt slavery for such a precious resource with profound implications for political stability, home ownership, and family formation. A moral approach -- missing on all fronts -- would have shifted the risk to the universities and made them shoulder the risk of student default and fine tune their tuition, compensation, hiring, and curriculum policies accordingly.

But, no, that road wasn't traveled at all. Everything proceeded on autopilot and the devil take the hindmost. 21st-c. America in its present form. The young will justifiably feel outrage over this and America's political class will rightfully be seen in yet another area to be utterly indifferent to our national interest and the interests of our citizens.

Pay up, kids! Rev that hamster wheel. That's what the political class has in store for you. And, please. Don't blame "capitalism." There are basic duties of every decent government on earth that have nothing to do with that. Public order, honest dispute resolution, attention to the welfare of the nation as a whole, control of the plutocrats. Marxism has nothing to offer here except even worse concentration of power and even more official unaccountability. A profound moral revolution is called for. Solzhenitsyn pointed the way with his simple but complete injunction: "Live not by lies."

Notes
^[1] "The Trillion-Dollar Lie. Universities built palaces and financiers made fortunes in part through a lie: that student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy. But a series of court cases is helping unravel the scam." By Matt Taibbi, TK News, 7/22/21.