SFE Invitations - Duress Code

duchy

Media studies I bet .......for some strange reason didn't get the grades for law ..............

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

You would be hard pressed to match my grades, you naysayer.

Dunroamin

duchy wrote: »

Media studies I bet .......for some strange reason didn't get the grades for law ..............

Nutjob....

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

What is all this denial stuff - are you feeling uncomfortable reading my views on student loans, Dunroamin? With a username like that, you sound like you might be "of an age" so I can respect that - but what have I said that is so wrong?

Taiko

I think the only thing needing a "d" so to speak here is yourself.

Your argument is completely invalid, in that you are not forced to take the loans out at all. You have alternative practical choices (self fund, seek finance from other parties) and as such contract law does not apply.

Your whole argument contains more balls than the similarly titled Channel 4 documentary from a few months ago.

Dunroamin

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

What is all this denial stuff - are you feeling uncomfortable reading my views on student loans, Dunroamin? With a username like that, you sound like you might be "of an age" so I can respect that - but what have I said that is so wrong?

Nothing wrong - I love a good laugh on a Sunday.:D

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Well I don't think any of this is funny at all, Dunroamin. Your flip comment in fact reminds me of the RT promotion tape running at the moment that compares their offering with other news channels - RT dares to suggest that there seems to be rather a lot of inane or insincere nervous laughter broadcast as part and parcel of typical American and UK news coverage of quite serious news subjects.

As a general observation of what passes as the norm in this forum, It is clear that Taiko and Dunroamin have rather a lot to say on the whole subject and have done so for a very long time. However I see no serious or sincere response anywhere in this forum to the dodginess I have detailed and I am sure it has all been raised before if not all in one thread.

I think it is rather sad that anyone in the forums should feel that they are entitled to pontificate rather than engage with the real criticisms as set out. I still have no idea what interest rates to put in to the simple spreadsheet that would show the loan balance to the penny based on dates given in the SFE offer letters I have seen which were sent to the two young people I referred to. Nor do they know and they couldn't do without doing some serious internet research in internet small print. They were given no hardcopy that shows them either.

And unless the government have done something about it in the last few months, then it might be less than straightforward for them to establish the current annual increase of RPI to use in the spreadsheet, mightn't it? That's because the government wants to let RPI fade into the background where it was deliberately driven into the buffers to be forgotten (switching horses between and changing names for everyday items or entities, and using similar but not quite the same titles for new replacements which are something else entirely is a classic trick used by successive governments and corporates alike many times in recent decades to shed linkages with inconvenient liabilities and expectations).

I have in fact just made an attempt to Google the current RPI and haven't really yet found it because the ONI website has a number of false links which say CPI and RPI but which mostly lead only to CPI documents. I did however find the graph to June 2013 RPI on one interesting page which is about as close as we get I guess: at www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/consumer-price-indices/june-2013/stb---consumer-price-indices---june-2013.html#tab-Retail-Prices-Index--RPI--and-RPIJ- which of course reminds us that by law, RPI is not fit for use as a National Statistic so I suppose that when no-one is looking the government will declare quietly behind cover of some other headline news that they are replacing the Student Loans RPI link with some other more "legitimate" variable?

What you are trying to claim by saying Taiko that contract law does not apply, I am not quite sure. Of course contract law applies because the loans are contracts. I think you are simply trying to claim there is a defence to my allegation of general coercion being used as an accepted part of the system i.e. the causing of tens of thousands of young people to sign up for these one size fits all loans under duress because for the majority, your so-called alternative practical choices of self fund, seek finance from other parties are of course wholly unrealistic and do not exist for young people with no income. The existing repayment plan 2 loans (starters from 2012 on?) themselves could not exist without the government guarantee to provide the massive levels of credit in the first place. Having given that guarantee and got a sufficient tranche through to the payback period they will securitize it and sell it to the private sector as they have been doing with older loans. Meantime the private sector is gorging itself on the new opportunities handed to them on a plate by government to be involved in grossly inflated tuition fee and accommodation fee projects.

I don't expect you to answer my detailed assertions put earlier but I am interested in the fact that you have referred to a "simarly titled Channel 4 programme". Similarly titled to what? My thread title? I think I missed any such C4 programme so if you can tell me its name then I'd like to try to find it online and catch up with it.

agrinnall

Why are you wasting your and our time raising this on here when you could be boring the @rse off your MP? I'm with Duncan Bannatyne on this: "I'm out!".

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

In case you hadn't realised agrinall, it is MPs who got us into the current unlawful mess of a scheme and it is MSE that is the main crowd source for how to manage your affairs as a prospective student.

That is why I am raising it here, and MSE forums were the first place (other than 38 degrees now for selected topics) where MPs' research assistants are most likely to spot any significant disquiet amongst the serfs and ensuing political upset.

D is for Definitely Dodgy and Duress.

Taiko

You're not sure it applies, but I am certain your suggestion doesn't. To sign it under duress, SFE would need to force you to take it out, with there being no other option. There are other options, as I listed previously.

All this is in your head but, if you're that concerned, do as agrinnall suggested and write to your MP about it.