course and the pool.

and just does not get that there are REAL POOR FOLKS in this country oh I forgot HE"S NOT CONCERNED. DOESN'T EVERYBODY HAVE A ELEVATOR IN THEIR HOMES FOR THEIR CARS? Godamnit he is so clueless

to fund their child's college education and then lost the house. But I think what Romney means is that if your parents don't have the cash (stocks, bonds etc.) to fund your college education then you don't belong in college.

He has absolutely no idea how most people live.

He's got to know they don't live like that. It just boggles the mind.

I think he honestly doesn't know that there are people in this country who are living so close to the edge that they can't even manage to save, say, $10 or $20 a month for a rainy-day fund, let alone get five-figure loans from their parents. It's so vastly different from anything he's ever experienced that he would just say those people should work harder, or... well, I don't know what he'd say, because I don't think he'd believe it, except maybe as an intellectual exercise--not as a truth about millions of Americans' lives.

I don't necessarily blame him for that failure of imagination--I can't fully imagine what it'd be like to be a ragpicker on the outskirts of Calcutta, no matter how many books I read or documentaries I watch--but he simply shouldn't run for the presidency of a country where increasing numbers of people are living like that unless he's genuinely concerned about making their lives better. And he certainly isn't.

people who are nowhere near the edge don't have $20,000 to invest in their kids' startup businesses. It's an insane suggestion.

And I have had a very late start in finishing my degree. I am nearly 50. If my parents had the money it isn't a certainty they would have helped me with college. They might have, I had a way of getting my way. But, being that they didn't have a college education themselves, my dad got his GED when he was about the age I am now, they had like no money. So, growing up poor gives you a totally different perspective. Like when you look at going to college, you know you are on your own. I am just lucky that student loans and pell grants are still available. I am well aware of the fact that the GOP would love to cut off even this route of people being able to afford college.

When he had ONLY his investment income to see him through. Gotta cut him some slack, he knows how rough the average person has it!

Let's say for the sake of argument that they really did live on very little money--whether that's their idea of very little money or by any objective measure. Maybe they really did live like most other students do, with that door for a desk and those carpet remnants on the floor. Let's say they had to watch their pennies, even if those pennies came from stock--they still didn't spend a lot.

Okay, fine, we'll grant you that, Mitt and Ann. But the real difference--and I'm not casting stones, I went to school at a time when tuition was cheap and my parents had steady employment so I knew I wouldn't have to drop out or starve--is that he had a safety net. It's almost fun to be young and in love and making do if you know it's not a permanent situation and if you know that it won't all fall apart at any moment with a bill for a car repair or an increase in the rent or a sick kid.

But he doesn't know that there's a difference. It's like sleeping on the street so you can see what it's like, knowing that you'll be snug and dry the next night and that you can even go home tonight if it's too difficult, versus sleeping on the street because you have no choice. They look the same, but they're very different.

So he and Ann really believe, bless their hearts, that they know what it's like to be poor. But they actually only know what it's like to not spend a lot of money for a while. Big difference.

I went to college on scholarship at a private school with quite a few rich guys. One guy's mother was an heiress of some kind, but he was more the "tortured artist" type; permanently depressed, listened to a lot of "The Smiths" and often railed about how fucked up his parents were. Lived a rather austere life, by choice. But one day he was out riding his bicycle and got caught in a thunderstorm, so he stopped and bought a new jeep. Absolutely true story. Talk about a different world.

She thought I said "french fries" and said she can't afford to take me out to eat.

Parents took out huge leans on their property to pay for college and start businesses etc... then the whole house of bad debt fell. The government perhaps should do a better job of regulating small business loans and tax breaks it offers so people like G. W. Bush don't suck money out of a system designed to go to college graduates to start small businesses. Sigh.

I wonder how many parents have that kind of bread readily available or equity to secure a loan. Or maybe the parents could in turn borrow unsecured money from a loan shark. Getting any kind of a loan is hard these days, isn't it? Or maybe Romney thinks most parents have that kind of petty cash in the cookie jar.

now off to Costco to buy a box of oranges to sell at off-ramps

I'm collecting Romney material.

http://embed.crooksandliars.com/v/MjQyNDctNTcwNTY?color=C93033"

I'm not holding my breath for the debate question in the fall: "Mr. Romney, your advice to college students in a struggling economy was to borrow $20,000 from their parents and start small businesses. Is that the advice you would give the American people here tonight?" Somehow I doubt he'll ever be asked about it.

It seems that someone should give Mitt Romney the advice, "You were given one mouth and two ears for a reason". He is out of touch and a terrible listener. He is out of touch in that he seems to not realize that many students cannot ask their parents for $20,000-$30,000 to start a business. He is a bad listener in that if he were a good listener he would know that many students cannot do what he is telling them to do in that a least one student would have told him about their financial problems.