AFord

@ryancohen What happened to Southwest Airlines when Elliot had enough shares to force their way onto the board was shameful… and now that the changes are finally implemented & complaints are rising Elliot has reduced their ownership. Misaligned incentives damaged a beloved brand.

The Hollow Men American capitalism is rotting from the head down. We have replaced the "Owner-Operator"—the risk-taker-with a new, parasitic class of corporate bureaucrat: The Risk-Free Insider. By "Insider," I am not referring to a specific title. I am referring to the entire administrative state that has captured the modern corporation. This includes the Directors who exist solely to collect fees, the Executives who exist solely to collect bonuses, and the Managers who exist solely to hire consultants. These are the hollow men of the boardroom. They are masters of PowerPoint. They wear the right suits. They say the right buzzwords about "governance" and "ESG." But they are mercenaries fighting a war with someone else’s ammunition. In a functioning economy, authority is tied to liability. If you make a bad decision, you lose your own money. That fear of loss is the only thing that keeps a business honest. It forces you to cut waste, obsess over the customer, and stay late to fix what is broken. Today, we have severed that link. We have rigged the game so that heads, the Insider wins; tails, the shareholder loses. If the stock goes up, the Insider collects a massive performance bonus. If the stock crashes due to their own incompetence, they are fired with a "Golden Parachute" worth tens of millions. They are gambling with the house’s money, and they never leave the table poorer than they arrived. This looting starts in the boardroom. We have normalized a "Country Club" culture where directors are selected based on social profiling rather than their ability to build a business. The modern board member is often a professional tourist—paid an average of $350,000 a year. Let’s be brutally honest about what that number represents. The average director is paid nearly five times the GDP per capita of the United States. They earn more for attending four quarterly lunches than the vast majority of Americans earn in five years of hard labor. And for what? Most of these directors are "over-boarded," sitting on three or four boards simultaneously. They treat directorships as a gig economy for the elite. They fly in, rubber-stamp a compensation package they didn't read, and fly out. They collect checks from companies they do not understand, do not use, and certainly do not love. They are not there to ask hard questions. They are there to be collegial. They are there to protect the other Insiders. And what happens when these boards hire executives who also have no personal capital at risk? We get the Delegation Economy. When a Risk-Free Insider faces a crisis—bloated expenses, a broken supply chain, or a stale product—they do not roll up their sleeves. They hire a consultant. They pay a strategy firm millions of shareholder dollars to produce a 100-page deck telling them what they already know. This is not management. It is intellectual money laundering. They use shareholder capital to buy an insurance policy for their own careers. If the plan fails, they can blame the consultants. They delegate the work because they are terrified of the responsibility. They would rather preside over a slow, comfortable decline than risk a bold mistake. While American Insiders are busy optimizing their severance packages, our global competitors are optimizing their products. They are not slowed down by bureaucracy. They are not waiting for a slide deck. They are outworking us. If we continue to fill our C-suites with administrators instead of operators, we will lose our edge. We will see iconic American franchises hollowed out by fees, managed for the benefit of the Insiders, while the true owners—the shareholders—are left holding the bag. The time for polite governance is over. If we want to save the American economy from mediocrity, we must demand a return to the "Owner’s Mentality." We need leaders who treat shareholder capital with the same reverence they treat their own savings. The era of the Risk-Free Insider must end.

@chucksastropho1 I’ve been learning from you for years - but wow Chuck! Bravo! 🤯

The Rosette Nebula - 5,200 light-years from Earth. Some people say this picture is smiling back them. Do you see Casper the Friendly Ghost? I captured this in 2020 and I reprocessed it this month. Celestron RASA telescope ZWO ASI1600MM camera Baader Filters Detroit

It was also a choice @usedgov did not implement the only change to HEA passed by Congress in 2022: law 117-200 to separate joint consolidation loans. Abuse victims who never had access to pandemic pause left to pay their abuser’s debts alone for decades w/ no access to hard earned PSLF. This administration picked winners and losers while ignoring the laws.

@StrikeDebt twitter.com/kristielou502/…

There are teachers eligible for Public Service Loan Forgiveness right now but Secretary Miguel Cardona hasn't processed their application.

@StrikeDebt Worse, he neglected implementation of the only student loan reform law passed by Congress! Joint consolidation borrowers fought hard to follow the legal process, but he prioritized his own feeble attempts at fixes that he knew wouldn’t stand up in court. @SC_DoUsPart

Secretary Miguel Cardona's legacy may be the saddest of all the Biden-Harris cabinet members. Over the past four years, he has done quite little. A few borrowers got PSLF/IDR they deserved years prior, but that's about it. The same structural problems in higher ed are the same.

@AstroBackyard Anyone using them on a zwo duo camera? How does it affect the guiding with the filter on the guide camera?

Which light pollution filter are you currently using for astrophotography?🤔 Please share any example images you have!

Joint Consolidation borrowers had terms of their loans changed (w/o consent) when Congress removed their loan type from legal definition. Good luck to anyone trying to get a day in court for breach of contract on their federal student loans. It took a 2nd Act of Congress 12 years later to fix + 2 years for FAFSA to begin implementation of the change.

@AdamSMinsky How is it not breach of contract, when a borrower borrowed or consolidated in, say, 1995, under the ICR regulations, and now gets told, "sorry, you have to switch to IBR to get the 300 month cancellation." It sounds like 8th Circuit is rewriting contracts.

This week, the Education Department released updated guidance for the SAVE plan injunction and the associated forbearance, with big implications for student loan forgiveness under IDR plans in general. forbes.com/sites/adammins…

@chucksastropho1 Beautiful!

My latest capture. This whole area of nebulosity is often referred to as NGC 6820 and is near the open star cluster NGC 6823 in Vulpecula. It's sits is around 6,000 light years from Earth. Explore Scientific 127MM telescope ZWO ASI1600MM camera Optolong narrowband filters.

They could have implemented the law to separate joint consolidation loans back in 2022 when Congress passed & @POTUS signed JCLSA into law 117-200 also, but upholding laws passed by Congress isn’t important to @usedgov. Joint loans still don’t have any separation application available. @SC_DoUsPart

Dept of ed could turn on the ability of public servants to apply for IBR online again tomorrow so they can get more than 0 credit for PSLF. So why won’t they do their job? IBR is a law from Congress it’s not affected by the injunction.

@Dcollier74 Don’t kid yourself - even with guidance, MOHELA may choose to ignore the guidance & do nothing. See exhibit A:

Most of the remaining JCLs were locked in FFEL (federal loans that are “privately held”) w/ no ability to reconsolidate to Direct. Privatized profit w/ public risk (taxpayers are on the hook in case of default) & unequal treatment. The private status wasn’t known until the pandemic pause and this distinction had devastating results. @SC_DoUsPart

In the private student loan market, private companies are raking in profits off of the backs of borrowers. Not ok!

Truly private or the stealth private (FFEL) loans that weren’t described as private until @usedgov introduced the term “privately held” in pandemic pause to define why two federal (FFEL) loans could have identical origins/MPNs but if Ed randomly took possession of the loan they could be treated completely different? JCLs never had the option to reconsolidate to truly “federal” loans when that quantifier was introduced, the law to fix passed in 2022, but still nothing changed. @SC_DoUsPart

Private student loan debt has been overlooked for TOO LONG! As federal student debt has taken center stage, protections for the millions forced to take on private student loans have fallen by the wayside—and these borrowers are suffering. @StrikeDebt

What sort of private? Truly private or the stealth private (FFEL) loans that weren’t described as private to borrowers until @usedgov introduced the term “privately held” in the pandemic pause to define why two federal (FFEL) loans could have identical origins/MPNs but if the borrower defaulted or bank got bailed out in 2008 prompting Ed to re-take possession of the loan they could be treated completely different?

I’m incredibly excited to watch @SenatorWarnock dive deep into the private student loan market with the brilliant @AissaRCanchola @daliejimenez. It’s been 12 years since @daliejimenez and I worked on @CFPB’s private student loan study. Where are we now? Tune in 📺

@StudentLoanTrav @FAFSA Within their power - yes. Should we be surprised by inaction? No. @FAFSA never implemented JCLSA (law 117-200). @MOHELA never offered forbearance as recommended by @usedgov so I’ve paid 2 years on debt I can prove wasn’t mine. They do what they want - there is no rule of law.

Borrowers experiencing decreased income deserve to have an online option to renew their IBR payment to a lower amount. But @FAFSA is blaming lawsuits when it's perfectly within their power to turn on the online application for folks not in SAVE who need to reduce their pmt

Bravo Mike - seeing years of hard work lead to something this big is so satisfying. If you & your colleagues take on @MOHELA next, I’ll be cheering. Their quasi gov role muddies water on purpose. I was told my joint FFEL loan was a federal loan in 2005 marketing materials, I knew private loans were bad & to be avoided, but we all know today how differently the joint loans locked in FFEL (still w/ no access to rejoin federal direct despite law 117-200) were treated during the pandemic pause.

This is an incredible day. I've been working on this case in some form for *eleven years. It reshaped my career and changed my life. I met some of the most incredible colleagues-turned-lifelong-friends @CFPB, in state AG offices, in Congress, and on student loan beat. 🧵

Please ask them why they haven’t implemented the Joint Consolidation Loan Separation Act passed unanimously by the Senate, & signed into law 117-200 by @POTUS on 10/11/22. Two years later, nothing changed for this group who want to be personally responsible their OWN debt. @SC_DoUsPart @HawleyMO @Eric_Schmitt @FAFSA @usedgov

@AGAndrewBailey Please hold lawless @usedgov to account & ask them why @FAFSA hasn’t released the application to separate joint spousal loans as required by JCLSA (law 117-200) passed by Congress 2 years ago! @HawleyMO @Eric_Schmitt @SC_DoUsPart

@StrikeDebt @SecCardona @UnderSecKvaal + they still haven’t implemented the only student loan fix passed by Congress in 2022 signed into law 117-200 by @JoeBiden on 10/11/22. @FAFSA do your job - separate JCLs, and stop enabling domestic abuse.

The student loan system is more broken right now under Joe Biden than it has ever been in federal student debt's 59 year god forsaken history The SAVE forbearance doesn't work Servicers are screwing up everything Payment pause now @SecCardona @UnderSecKvaal

Joint Consolidation borrowers have waited 2 years for @SecCardona to finally implement JCLSA (LAW 117-200) passed by Congress to separate their loans & free them from ex-spouses to pay their own debts. @usedgov is lawless - send help @SC_DoUsPart @AGAndrewBailey @HawleyMO @Eric_Schmitt

@RepKatiePorter @MOHELA @RepKatiePorter please investigate why @usedgov still hasn’t implemented law 117-200 passed by Congress two years ago. Joint consolidation borrowers are still paying debts of ex-spouses & blocked from PSLF they earned many times over. @SC_DoUsPart

The Biden-Harris Administration has delivered substantial relief to Americans with student loans, but some efforts have been bungled by student loan servicers like MOHELA. I’m working to hold @MOHELA accountable for their long record of mismanaging student loans.