How Gen X Got Crushed by Compounding Student Loan Debt

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Compounding is the royal road to riches... or the fast track to ruin. In this episode:

• Why small financial mistakes snowball into massive life problems if ignored
• The shocking story of a $74,000 grad school loan that ballooned to $300,000
• How Gen X is entering retirement with the heaviest student loan burden of any generation
• Why “wishing it away” or waiting for government forgiveness only makes it worse
• The simple rule: deal with debt immediately, work extra if you have to, and stop compounding mistakes

 Debt doesn’t disappear. It compounds. And for millions of Americans, it’s turning into a lifelong financial prison.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Compounding poor choices. Rule number one, well number one on
my financial what I call it way way of the
Markowski Investments World. Rules of the Road. Rule number one
is compounding is the royal road to riches, compounding interest.
It's also the road to a good life. Good choices,

(00:40):
they compound. The thing about compounding is it can work
in the inverse, it can work against you. Again. I
talk about this all the time, you know, we talk
about people their credit card bills and the type of
interest and they pay debt or voices throughout life for

(01:01):
a myriad of different things. The thing is, when you
make a poor choice, this is something again, it's a
bit of a life hack lesson. You need to recognize it.
He can't brush it underneath the rug. You need to
deal with it right away. Basically, just fix the problem.

(01:22):
I hold that the same way. I'm incredibly anal about
you know, things that happened to my house or my car,
or something is offered's broke. It needs to be fixed immediately,
because one little issue here is going to lead to
another issue, and then it starts compounding. Then you've got

(01:43):
real problems. Why do I bring this up? Really sad story.
I felt for these people today. It's a story on
the Wall Street Journal talking about student loan debt and
common student loan debt is strangling gen X. That's my generation,

(02:05):
and the usual you know Wall Street Journal pieces right now,
these are Wall Street jeneral pieces, or they have anecdotes,
they find people to fit whatever their narratives may be.
But in this case, again I felt bad for these people.
And you know, person number one, Federal loans have followed

(02:26):
him for twenty six years, longer than he's been married.
He's got a couple of kids, but he's also took
out seventy four thousand dollars in graduate school debt. Again,
my generation that's now up to three hundred grand I
see these stories, I'm like, how did you let that happen?

(02:50):
How did you let seventy four thousand dollars in student
loans turn into three one hundred thousand, fifty five year
old New Jersey chiropractor. Again, he is buried right now,
the balance continues to accrue interest. Basically, he also just

(03:11):
get denied a home loan home equity loan application. I mean,
you're borrowing more money on top of the money you
already own. You again, you're compounding your problem anyway, Um,
he's again he talks about where he's at, and again

(03:31):
they're given other examples of other gen xers that are
barrowing toward retirement with an excruciating student loan burden. Six
million borrowers age fifty to sixty one have the highest
average balance of any age group forty sent almost forty
eight thousand dollars. Again, okay, this is my age group.

(03:55):
Big price tad, big price tag. And again they they
talk about other people as well, student loans. What they
did how again they changed the rules. Certain people were
living off their student loans while they took out their
student loans at some point in time. And again, every

(04:16):
single one of these stories. Here, I look at these
things and I say to myself, because I had student loans.
I had stud loans. They weren't massive, I had them,
but they were dealt with lickety split. They were dealt
with lickety split. I paid them off as soon as

(04:40):
I could. And then you know my wife, well, I
love Dailey, but when the years where her financial action,
it was not up to stuff. You know, we got married.
She had student loans at Boom. Take care of that, immediately,
get rid of it, cross it off the list. I
don't want it. And I get everything you could to

(05:04):
get rid of this stuff. You look at these people,
and I'm saying, one person, you know up got into
one career, went and turned MBA later on in life,
and is you know, you know now pest control expert
up in Seattle makes eighty grand a year. People, you
can't wish your problems away. If it takes, you know,

(05:29):
opening up a power washing business on the weekend, or
waiting tables or doing whatever it takes to knock this down,
you do it. And hey, it's all your younger people
out there. Let this be a lesson to you. Okay,
do not ignore problems. Deal with them immediately, deal with debt, immediately,

(05:54):
get it under control. Do what you have to do,
work the extra hour, because this is what's going to
end up happening. And you're stuck. These people right now again,
they're going to start having their their paychecks garnished if
they can't make these payments. I get it, you know,

(06:17):
I get it. You know many people you know went
out and took student loans. You you believe the the
bs that that was the only way, it was your
only ticket, only ticket to make your way up in
the world. And again that was pretty much that was
pretty much the gospel back when I was in high school,

(06:38):
without a doubt. But you gotta be you got to
be going to a school, You got to be doing
something that you understand where you're going to get a
return on that investment. This and compounding mistakes leads to
many many problems in life. Okay. And until you step
up and you say, you know what I'm going to do,

(06:59):
it a takes to get rid of this. I don't
what to tell you people, Okay, you know you're wishing
on a lottery ticket, You're wishing on a government official
to make it go away. No, okay, handle it. Watch
dog on Wall Street dot Com