The fish rots from the head down.
For the benefit of my readers who have had public school educations – and thus probably only have a rudimentary grasp of European history – tax farming was a practice from the Roman empire where the state licensed out the right to collect regional taxes to private individuals and groups, told said groups what they had to kick back every year, and then left the tax farmers to acquire the money somehow. If you’re wondering what then stopped the tax farmers from gouging their victims, wrecking long-term financial structures, and/or generally making life miserable, let me answer that: absolutely nothing. Which is one reason why you’re reading this missive in a language influenced by Latin, but not descended from it.
Not that things are nearly that bad in this country. Unless, of course, you have a student loan that you can’t pay. Then you’re fodder for the administration’s privatized student loan debt collectors – who will hound you to a fare-thee-well, complete with a total disinclination to give you any idea about how to get them off of your back. Because they actually aren’t from the government, and they’re certainly not there to help. Continue reading #rsrh Barack Obama’s Student Loan ‘tax farmers.’