The Beginning of Sallie Mae's End
Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren did not understate the case when she said "Student-loan debt collectors have power that would make a mobster envious".
Thanks to a 60 Minutes segment on the Student Loan Marketing Corporation (aka SLM Corp, aka Sallie Mae) on May 7, Alan at studentloanjustice.org has received more than a thousand emails citing personal experiences ranging from suicide to broken families to American citizens being forced to flee the country--all because of Sallie Mae's predatory lending and terrorist-style collections practices.
Meanwhile, former Sallie Mae CEO Al Lord is allegedly using the spoils of this corporate activity that has destroyed so many lives to put in a bid for a professional baseball team, and to build his own private golf course. With a net worth of somewhere around $250 million, and Sallie Mae's faithful companion in Congress (Rep. John Boehner, R-OH) recently taking over as House Majority Leader, what is to stop Lord from flaunting the money that other people have worked so hard to earn for him? Is his character going to stop him?
Ralph Nader quickly followed the 60 Minutes segment with an essay of this own on the subject, which you may read here. Unfortunately, Nader's essay merely summarizes the 60 Minutes segment, which barely scratched the surface of the savagry that Sallie Mae is famous for among its victims.
Sallie Mae's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness: It has such a complete stranglehold on debtors, such complete legal immunity against prosecution for "unconscionable" practices, and such complete control of the U.S. Congress, that the huge number of people Sallie Mae has injured have no choice but to take extraordinary action. Even members of the RIAA are smart enough to hide their enormous wealth and their puppet-mastery of Congress on media issues. In a supreme display of sheer arrogance, however, Sallie Mae has not even made an attempt to hide its abominable role in American society. Indeed, Al Lord freely admitted, "It would be very hard for me to tell you that what I make is not a lot of money." Meanwhile, Sallie Mae reportedly sent damage-control emails to colleges and universities the day after 60 Minutes' segment aired. Why would a fine, law-abiding, upstanding, socially-responsible corporation need to engage in this kind of immediate damage-control?
Al Lord will probably end up keeping his $250 million, unless investigators uncover some kind of criminal activity that would force him to forfeit his baseball team, golf course, and any other toys he purchases. The key is to begin the investigation in earnest....
Either way, if Al Lord believes in Heaven and Hell, one must wonder on what conceivable grounds he could expect the other Lord to allow such a man to ever catch even the briefest glimpse of Paradise. No wonder he is building a beautiful golf course, while he still can....
Make no mistake about it, the 60 Minutes segment marks the beginning of the end of Sallie Mae. The company itself will likely continue to be responsible for even more suicides, destroyed families, debtors imprisonment, and other atrocities, for years to come. However, the individuals who are responsible for so much human suffering, while cowering behind the obscure moniker of "Sallie Mae", are finally beginning to have their names written permanently into history, so that future generations may regard them with the contempt they have earned. Not just Al Lord, but other executives, the army of attorneys who carry out Sallie Mae's will like mindless mercenaries, and the members of our U.S. Congress who have betrayed the American People for a bag of Sallie Mae brand gold coins.
Thanks to a 60 Minutes segment on the Student Loan Marketing Corporation (aka SLM Corp, aka Sallie Mae) on May 7, Alan at studentloanjustice.org has received more than a thousand emails citing personal experiences ranging from suicide to broken families to American citizens being forced to flee the country--all because of Sallie Mae's predatory lending and terrorist-style collections practices.
Meanwhile, former Sallie Mae CEO Al Lord is allegedly using the spoils of this corporate activity that has destroyed so many lives to put in a bid for a professional baseball team, and to build his own private golf course. With a net worth of somewhere around $250 million, and Sallie Mae's faithful companion in Congress (Rep. John Boehner, R-OH) recently taking over as House Majority Leader, what is to stop Lord from flaunting the money that other people have worked so hard to earn for him? Is his character going to stop him?
Ralph Nader quickly followed the 60 Minutes segment with an essay of this own on the subject, which you may read here. Unfortunately, Nader's essay merely summarizes the 60 Minutes segment, which barely scratched the surface of the savagry that Sallie Mae is famous for among its victims.
Sallie Mae's greatest strength is also it's greatest weakness: It has such a complete stranglehold on debtors, such complete legal immunity against prosecution for "unconscionable" practices, and such complete control of the U.S. Congress, that the huge number of people Sallie Mae has injured have no choice but to take extraordinary action. Even members of the RIAA are smart enough to hide their enormous wealth and their puppet-mastery of Congress on media issues. In a supreme display of sheer arrogance, however, Sallie Mae has not even made an attempt to hide its abominable role in American society. Indeed, Al Lord freely admitted, "It would be very hard for me to tell you that what I make is not a lot of money." Meanwhile, Sallie Mae reportedly sent damage-control emails to colleges and universities the day after 60 Minutes' segment aired. Why would a fine, law-abiding, upstanding, socially-responsible corporation need to engage in this kind of immediate damage-control?
Al Lord will probably end up keeping his $250 million, unless investigators uncover some kind of criminal activity that would force him to forfeit his baseball team, golf course, and any other toys he purchases. The key is to begin the investigation in earnest....
Either way, if Al Lord believes in Heaven and Hell, one must wonder on what conceivable grounds he could expect the other Lord to allow such a man to ever catch even the briefest glimpse of Paradise. No wonder he is building a beautiful golf course, while he still can....
Make no mistake about it, the 60 Minutes segment marks the beginning of the end of Sallie Mae. The company itself will likely continue to be responsible for even more suicides, destroyed families, debtors imprisonment, and other atrocities, for years to come. However, the individuals who are responsible for so much human suffering, while cowering behind the obscure moniker of "Sallie Mae", are finally beginning to have their names written permanently into history, so that future generations may regard them with the contempt they have earned. Not just Al Lord, but other executives, the army of attorneys who carry out Sallie Mae's will like mindless mercenaries, and the members of our U.S. Congress who have betrayed the American People for a bag of Sallie Mae brand gold coins.
posted by Paul at 2:12 AM
1 Comments:
It is sad that Sallie Mae is still out there, ruining people's lives today. But I hope you continue to make more entries - your blog is very astute and relevant.
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