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This is not directly bitcoin related.
But today I got denied an apartment because I owe Sallie Mae $3400.
Its not a whole lot of money, but its about $3400 more than im willing to pay.
Does anyone know any loopholes to get out of it?
It is mostly my fault for accepting federal money in the first place.

Pay off your loans? Isn't it taxpayer's money? (I know, tax is theft and all that, but we shouldn't be parasite on taxpayers)

If you dance with the Devil, you should expect to get burned.  But yes, I do know of an effective way to avoid paying what you legitimately owe to any branch of the US government.

Prison time.  Time is money, after all, and after about three years in jail, the Fed is likely to overlook the $3400.

Loopholes to get out of owing $3400? or to get out of being homeless?

Don't rent from people who check that stuff. Lots of private people will let you live on their property in exchange for money.

If 3 years equal to $3400, i would hate to see how much time big money is equal to.

It's not linear.

You might be able to declare bankruptcy, but you won't be able to rent or buy ever again, I don't think.

That's crazy talk. I don't have any credit problems, but my last 6 rentals have not done background or credit checks of any kind. I give them money, they give me keys. A few had contracts, a few didn't. I don't even have a job.

You will absolutely be able to find a place to rent, assuming you have money.

couchsurfing.org

Your person is yours to command. No reason to limit yourself to only one.

I'm not American, so forgive me if this sounds impossibly naive. But I'm more than a little shocked to see anyone suggesting that it is fascism for your creditors to expect you to pay back the money you borrowed from them.

Sallie Mae is a government owned agency, it's possible to "owe" them money without ever agreeing to borrow from them.  This may, or may not, be the case here.  In the US, calling the government fascist is what Americans do.  The accuracy of the statement depends on how one defines fascism, but it is somewhat true as a matter of degree.  Americans are not the kind of culture that takes to civil unrest to light cause, like the Greeks and French; but it's starting to get 'hot' around here and if it pops here in the US, we don't tend to stop until somebody is dead.

Yeah, the USA. The land of the big, where the small don't matter. Big corporations and big government rule hand in hand, and the two party system combined with tons of big-money lobbyists makes sure that no new influences ever make it to the democratic process. And a hyper-entangled patent and copyright system makes sure the money stays in the hands of the rich, by drowning small companies that can't afford the legal deals. However, fascism is not the right word here.

And if you borrow money you should pay it back, even if you hate the person you borrowed it from  :)

Best argument so far

What's the interest on this? is it fixed?

I suggest holding off payment for as long a possible. Inflation will soon eat it away. Thanks Bernanke. ;-)

I forget the interest, the collection agency said it was "gaining interest everyday"

How does that happen?  (I'm a Canadian, so I have very little understanding of your loan guarantors.  Maybe the problem down there is you make them sound so benign: "Fannie Mae", "Freddie Mac", "Sallie Mae".  It sounds like a contingent of cousins from across town).

It's like CMHC but far more corrupt (imagine that!). One reason the WTC offices were blown up was to hide the evidence of a massive swindle.

As for the word, "facist", the controlled media has been lying to the US people for so long that not one in a hundred could tell you the definition of the word.

To them it's just become a synonym for bad.

Well I think the origin of "fascist" is that people confuse the current state of affairs and some possible, bleak future. If things keep going the way they are now, it might happen if its citizens become really unhappy and start to riot. In which in an extreme case their government might declare martial law and march the army into the streets. Then it's rightfully "fascist".

But until such a thing happens, it's the wrong word. "oligarchy" is the right one. But it doesn't anger people that much :)

I think the "Mae" family of banking institutions was set up to sound benign when in fact they aren't.  These are monster institutions where often you aren't really sure you are even dealing with them half of the time as you have local bankers who are usually acting on your behalf when exchanging money with these organizations.... where even the banker isn't quite sure that you are going to be working with one of these companies until it is a done deal.  As an American, even I don't totally understand the process in spite of the fact that I've gone through three different mortgages myself and have my name signed onto some documents that in reading the fine print turn out to be loans through one of these agencies.  Even that wasn't clear and it was only a couple of years later that I found out that the primary guarantor was Sallie Mae, I think.  It wasn't even very clear in the loan settlement papers either nor explicitly stated.

There are the usual ways to "owe money" through either stolen or perhaps even mistaken identity.  I had a problem where some government agency told me that I owed back child support on a kid that I knew nothing about to a woman that I had never heard of before.  It was even tougher as it was my wife who got the initial phone call from that agency.... about three months after we were first married.  Yeah, trying to explain why you own child support to a newlywed spouse isn't easy.  It turns out that I shared a somewhat uncommon name with somebody else and this agency simply presumed I was in fact the same person.  I've also had other bills and even court judgments come my way where I had to "prove" my identity was somebody different.  One creditor I simply said "take me to court.... I dare you!" and then they stopped talking to me (and I checked my credit report to make sure they didn't put a lien on me either).

My brother-in-law, who happens to be a CPA coincidentally and should know better about these things, had somebody somehow dig up a copy of a credit card application (from something that was thrown into a trash can apparently at a store he applied for credit at) and used the information on the application to open another dozen credit card accounts and even an automobile loan totally nearly $50k USD in debt over the course of about six weeks.  He finally found out that there was a problem when he started to get collection notices for some of those cards, where they got his address from the credit report rather than what was used as the mailing address for the cards.  Needless to say, it took him nearly two years to prove he wasn't the person who took out the loans and it still has impacted his credit score in spite of that mess and dealing with police on the matter.

I'm not too happy with the American banking system, and it can mess with you hard if somebody wants to ruin your life.  Usually with persistence, time, and unfortunately spending a fair bit of your own money you can get out of these outrageous kinks in the system, but the presumption is guilt until innocence is proven conclusively.  Considering that some of this can enter the realm of criminal matter too, it makes the whole system even more ironic given the standard of innocence required by some of these bureaucrats you have to deal with.  Simply because some bureaucrat or loan officer punches in the wrong SSN while filing paperwork can cause years of headaches.

Or just piss someone off who has the buttons to push and be the object of his dirty trick.

Fascism is technically government of corporations and monopolies.  The reason why it is used extensively in American political dialog is because after a fashion that is what American society has become:  a government dominated by major corporations and legislative bodies who seemingly care only to appease the donors... generally only the very wealthy and major corporations.

Fascism tends to be very "efficient" in terms of organizing businesses and can be used to maximize profits for the companies involved.  In both Germany and Italy of the 1930's and 1940's, the governments in those countries were dominated by the major corporations with the CEOs and board members of those companies playing an active a major role in terms of setting government policies.  Toward the 1940's in Germany, after the Reichstag was abolished, the major corporate leaders essentially became the key people outside of the "inner circle" who set policy and made political decisions.  Think of it as if Congress was abolished and the lobbyists essentially took over as the legislative body instead.  In some ways, I don't think most Americans would notice much of a difference if that happened.

What is being mistaken here is the personal prejudices and feelings of the individual leaders for what was going on.  Fascism is so nasty because it concentrates political power in the hands of just a few people, where their individual whims such as "the final solution" could be carried out with tremendous allocation of resources to accomplish something which may ultimately be counter-productive to a healthy society.  In America, you need only look as far as the TSA to see something similar happening, but you also see similar concentrations of political power to unelected bureaucrats and other groups that make people uncomfortable with what is going on.

I don't know how this is going to turn out in America, and the current system is dependent upon the "powers that be" in America keeping ordinary Americans well fed, plentiful affordable housing, and luxuries that are better than what their parents and grandparents had before them.  When that changes, you will start to see rioting and mass protests happening.  The Tea Party stuff is just the beginning and I predict that will be considered the tame protests compared to what might be in the future.  Most Americans are simply bewildered and knowing that vaguely something is most certainly wrong, but they can't put their finger on what is the problem nor on how to fix it, but it is a political vacuum that will eventually get filled.  The elections of last month proved that there are some people really ticked off with what is happening and aren't happy with the current system.

The reaction of the government itself is the key, and I agree that if those in key government leadership positions decide to strong arm the citizens of America into submission, it is going to simply turn ugly.  Some will submit, but not everybody.  My hope is that some of those government leaders remember their government civics lessons (which are unfortunately not really taught in American public schools anymore) and return the authority back to its citizens.  That does require the people in authority to give up political authority, so it isn't something to be assumed either and goes against the current trend.

Naw, democracy and government is for old farts who brothers to vote. Crony capitalism is just a side show.

The big problem with democracy is the tendency to vote oneself money.

Fascism is government by big business. The "bleak future", "riots", "martial law" stuff are the lies spread by the controlled media.

People are fooled mostly because the liars fail to talk about the distinction between wartime and peacetime. They illustrate the organisation of their opposing ideology with wartime images. The power of the press belonging to the owner of the press.

Have you ever been shown images of a fascist nation in peacetime?

My point was only that the word has lost it's meaning and is now just used as a synonym for bad. I think that was done deliberately by an organised group.

Anyway, not to digress to far, I think the advice given the OP to find a landlord who does not do a credit check is best advise. I baited you guys with my one-liner about having multiple persons and got no bites. I meant to suggest using alternate ID.

Yeah. Democracy has degenerated into stagecraft. Voting just grants this sham my assent.

Indeed, how can a cow be expected to vote between two farmers?

(Oh sorry, was I supposed to work a snake analogy in there somewhere?)

Thanks for explaining about Sallie Mae, RHorning.

find a kid that died before he was 16 born in the same year as you (he wont have a SIN/SSN)
tell every card owned you lost your wallet with everything traveling.
You have no proof of ever being alive tell them your new name.
get new everything.
start new dept free life.
???.
profit.

The combination of corporation and government... sallie mae...

I got a SSN before i was 16. I also had to be hopitalized so maybe they made one for me?

They give SSNs to new Americans at birth.

I'm old enough that I got my SSN when I was 15, and applied for it myself without assistance from my parents.  It is true, however, that since about the mid 1980's that all kids have been given SSNs at or near the time of their birth, and I ended up applying for SSNs for all of my kids with forms that came with their birth certificate information that I filled out in the hospital.  The IRS keeps track of Americans through SSNs including child tax deductions where you have to list all of your dependent children with SSNs on your tax forms.  If you have a divorce, the first parent to file with the IRS "gets" the deduction as a sort of game and can become a big pain in the behind if your ex-spouse is simultaneously claiming the deduction.

It is very hard to get "off the grid" to the degree that you have no SSN and also be an American.  Technically it is still possible, but you have to live a lifestyle that is completely self-sufficient and keeps the IRS agents away from you.  Perhaps some Amish colonies might have some people and especially children without SSNs?

If you intend to 'get off the grid' of the tax system, isn't it better to just move to some country with less tax pressure?

Then you vote with your feet...

Umm...from The US State Department: Renunciation of U.S. Citizenship (http://travel.state.gov/law/citizenship/citizenship_776.html), renouncing your citizenship doesn't change your tax obligations:


In fact, you are still liable for taxes to Uncle Sam for ~10 years after you renounce.  So I don't know if moving to another country for tax purposes is smart...you are likely to have to pay taxes to two governmnets...  :-\

Part of the question is where to move?  Yes, there are some places for Americans to move to if you want to say "go to hell" to the American government, but there are trade-offs for doing so in every case and to me no strongly compelling place in terms of where to move to.  I could go through a list of countries around the world where perhaps life might be a bit easier that way and list the various trade-offs for each country, but none of them seem particularly inviting to me.  Certainly if there was a breaking point where large numbers of Americans wanted to get out of the country, I don't think there is any place on the Earth that would even want Americans in large numbers.

For myself on a personal level, I've considered New Zealand as a particularly strong alternative instead of living in America, but as I've said there are some major trade-offs even going to a place like that and I'm certainly not locked in even in that way.

I certainly have no particularly compelling reason to stay in a particular U.S. state myself, and have lived in three different states over the years, where "voting with my feet" has been precisely what I've done.  When local politics and economic circumstances are particularly tough, pulling up roots and moving somewhere else certainly seems like a good thing to do.  I also have what might be considered a family tradition of doing that too and certainly my family hasn't really been nailed down to a particular spot for nearly three centuries or more.  I certainly don't expect my kids to hang around near me at a distance of less than a thousand miles when they finally leave home, and likely will be living much further away.

If you have problems with a particular tax system, that by itself doesn't seem to be necessarily a compelling reason to leave a particular location.  Of course my priorities are perhaps different than yours.  Where you choose to call home generally is a rather complex issue and at least at the moment my hope is to work within the system to change it to something more comfortable, even if that is tilting against windmills.

Tax is NOT theft, it's the rent... the price of admission to civilization.  Borrowing money and not paying it back IS theft. You don't have to hire a private army because the nation provide an army for you, you don't need to hack down trees... make tar... turn it into asphalt and pave the road to where you are going because society has already done that.  To expect to be able to use that for free is childish, selfish and short sighted.

Tyler,

You're a thief and spoiled brat.  Your childishness makes my loan cost more.  Pay back the loan or leave civilization.  You should also do some research on what fascism is and more importantly what it is NOT.  It is not "anything you dislike".  Fascism would be corporate bailouts or using goons to break up a lawful workers strike. 

Tax is theft because you are forced at gunpoint/jail for doing so. And for the record, I think public roads are a menace on civilization and public education is a laughingstock.

Other than that, I suggest you understand libertarianism to understand where we're coming from.

13fpigil, what will your organization do to me if I refuse to pay the claimed taxes?

What exactly is your claimed society?  How is it comprised, or how is membership of this society determined?

When and how am I presented with a choice to be admitted or not to this supposed civilization of yours?

What if I feel that the quality of the nation's army is not effective nor efficient at protecting me and my freedom?  What if I feel that the nation's army is infringing on my rights?

What if I want to pool money together and hire construction workers to clear trees, make tar, lay it into asphalt, and pave the road?  What if I don't want to pay taxes at gunpoint for your supposed society's roads?  What if I feel your organization's roads and ineffective at providing my transportation needs because they are always clogged up with too many cars and poorly maintained?

What if your society mandates that I pay taxes to it for decades after I leave and relinquish citizenship?

...

Which "society" ???

If someone can just take your money you are no more than a slave. The only thing moving does is change one master for another.

Being born in a geographic location is not a choice or an admission of a contract.

yes...as the quote under my avatar says, "change_masters ≠ freedom"

This is clearly not true. If you don't pay admission any where else ever what happens is that you leave. Is that how it works with the "admission fee" of taxes? Do they escort you to the border or do they lock you up so that you can't get to the border? And what about the ~100 million Americans that don't pay any taxes is anyone even advocating we kick the poor, disabled, underaged, retired out of the country because they don't have their admission money? And why do we have to keep paying over and over in various changing ways and amounts after we've been admitted?

What would you say if Disney Land put you in their dungeon because they raised the rate after you paid it or tried to charge again?