:Vocalo.org

Lawrence Msall is president of the Civic Federation. Their new numbers indicate that Illinois will have $12 billion dollars less than it needs to operate next year.  He talks about how the state got there, and what happens next.

  

Mark called the Hotline to advertise his family's antique pump organ. Once the pride of some wealthy New England family, it was sort of junky when his musically inclined mother and tinkerer father brought it home.

Cathy McManamey went back to school at age 51 to become a therapist, and took out student loans to do it. She’s now 69 years old and, having been making payments faithfully for eight years-- $22,000 and counting-- still owes almost as much as she borrowed in the first plac: $38,000. 

She’s on a graduated-repayment plan, meaning that her payments will be going up until the loan is paid off… 20 years from now, when she is 89 years old.  She wrote a pretty moving letter to President Obama about her situation in early March and posted a copy to a web site called studentloanjustice.org.

She talked with :Vocalo.org host Tom on May 15, 2009

A conversation with a homeless man in London, England.