The Skinny on Biden’s Loan Forgiveness Program; Perfect Albums Vol. 3; and “Forgive Me”

Episode Notes

Transcript

[Music]

Intro: It’s the Legal Toolkit Podcast with Jared Correia, with guests Adam Minsky.  We play around of give me.  And then, it’s time for our annual audio only foliage tour of New England.  It’s the only way to truly enjoy those changing colors.  But first your host, Jared Correia.

Jared D. Correia: It’s time for the Legal Tool kit podcast.  Let the monkeyshine since Sue, and yes, it’s still called the Legal Toolkit Podcast even though I left my Halligan Bar in the shed.  I’m your host, Jared Correia.  You’re stuck with me because T.J. Lavin was unavailable.  Yes, he was finally eaten by CT.  I’m the CEO of Red Cave Law Firm Consulting, a business management consulting service for attorneys and bar associations.  Find us online at redcavelegal.com.  I’m the CEO of Gideon Software, Inc.  We build chatbots, so law firms can convert more leads and conversational document assembly tools.  So, law firms can build documents faster and more accurately.  You can find out more about getting at gideonlegal.com.

Now, before we get to our interview today with Adam Minsky, student loan lawyer, let’s roll out another charter member of my perfect Album’s Club.  Coldplay is sort of a lightning-rod of a band.  They got really popular too, which always brings out the haters.  Trust me, I know and they were branded as an emo band.  There was also some backlash against emo bands in the late 2000s.  I myself am not an emo guy.  But I have to say, early Coldplay was pretty damn good and the first two Coldplay albums were both excellent.  ‘Parachutes’ was their first studio album and their commercial breakthrough that came out in 2000.  ‘Yellow’ was the big hit and the song you probably remember most from that album.  But there are other singles too and some other good album tracks including ‘Shiver’, ‘Spies’ and ‘Sparks’.  Yeah, they all start with an ‘S’ and I didn’t do that on purpose.  That’s real.

‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’ was the follow-up album in 2002 and that’s what really sent Coldplay through the stratosphere.  Not only was this album commercially successful, it is a legitimately great record in its own right.  ‘Clocks’ is probably the biggest hit on the record and is probably the defining track in part because it’s so damn catchy.  There’s also a fantastic version of this song on a collaborative album from Cuban musicians including Buena Vista Social Club called ‘Rhythms Del Mundo’, that is absolutely amazing.  The vocal stays the same.  The instrumentation is just different, and you can bet your ass that song will be on my playlist for this episode.  It’s so good.  It may be better than the original.  But there’s also other good songs on this album, too.  And even the ‘Signs’ I don’t like.  I can at least respect.  ‘Green eyes’, ‘Warning Sign’ and “In my Place’ are probably my favorite songs.  And even I don’t really like the ‘Scientist’ or ‘Politic’ as much.  The first of which was a pretty big hit.  Those songs have considerable merit still.

Now, Coldplay live came out in 2003 and that was, as you might guess, a live album that was focused on presenting live versions of songs from their first two albums.  There’s a really good live version of Amsterdam on that album.  It’s about seven minutes long and pretty baller, honestly, kind of the live album after only two studio albums, but Coldplay was huge at the beginning of the century.  Back to the studio album catalog now.  Next, ‘X and Y’ was released in 2005 and that was honestly a little bit of a back slide for the band.  Frankly, it was okay I guess but that’s the best thing I can say about it.  The singles are pretty good including the ‘Speed of Sound, ‘Fix You’ and ‘Talk’, but there’s a lot of filler and I can listen to the hits without wanting to listen to anything else on that album.  ‘X and Y’ was far from a perfect album.

And Coldplay was going to need to do something next to uniquely impress me, to keep me invested in them as a band.  Well, they sure did because they followed up the very mediocre ‘X and Y’ with an absolute triumph.  Coldplay’s 2008 released ‘Viva la Vida’ or ‘Death and All His Friends’ is a perfect album.  I mentioned before the perfect album is a sort of a vibe, which is why they’re different for everybody and 2008 was very good to me.  I got married that year.  I’ve gotten married the year before, and I remember that my wife and I went to Hawaii for a second time after honeymooning there the year before and it was my first trip to Maui.  Now, I left Hawaii and I love my wife and.

(00:05:00)

I distinctly remember flying back which is usually super depressing and listening to this album on my iPad while sitting next to my wife, and I was seriously like, “Well, if the plane goes down, there are worse ways to go out, I suppose.”  How many record albums can make me okay with dying in a fiery plane crash?

Later that year, we went to see Coldplay at the Boston Garden, which has a horrible corporate name now that I won’t mention and it was a really good show, like surprisingly so and the drummer, Will Champion, was a beast.  I was very impressed.  They were pretty tight live band.  But the studio album is the subject at hand and it’s brilliant.  It’s like a great progressive rock album only with shorter songs and modern production values.  It’s also a really varied album in that it covers a number of different musical styles.  Super producer Brian Eno worked with Coldplay on this album and his mandate was every song had to be substantively different.  So, lead vocalist Chris Martin even experimented with deeper vocal ranges, which is one of the reasons that this album does not sound like any Coldplay has produced before or since.  And despite the very styles, every song is driving an urgent in its own way.  This is a super high-end record.  It’s the caviar in fact of late 2000s pop.  And fitting that high-minded ideal, the record cover is taken from an 1830 French painting called ‘Liberty Leading the People.’

Plus, how awesome is an alternate album title of ‘Death and All His Friends’?  This isn’t just a series of poignant or Wobegon love songs.  There are real themes addressed here, like death and war.  This is some serious shit people, but it’s also about the songs, right?  And of the many Ball Z moves orchestrated here, one is that the album starts out with an instrumental, life in technicolor which is a Bop.  Not sure I’m using that term correctly but whatever.  I don’t listen to Olivia Rodrigo.  Plus, the album ends with a secret song.  So-called secret songs are tracks not listed on the album called ‘The Escapist’.  Alright, we got an album about death with references to the Beatles ‘The End’, which almost finished as off every road that ends with the ultimate escape from all the sadness of life or is it just a dream?  Sign me the fuck up.  Other highlights include ‘Death and All His Friends’, the final listed track which is a melancholy piano ballad that splits into a sweet in the middle with an upbeat ending segment about the weirdness of life and then you die.  Cemeteries of London is a percussive force.

I’m telling you.  Coldplay’s drummer is really good if you listen to these songs.  ‘Lost!’ is a jaunty song about picking yourself up and keep it going.  ‘42’ is another song that becomes a sweet and which addresses themes of death and the afterlife as well.  Of course, it does.  It doesn’t even have a chorus.  Fuck yeah.  I love that shit.  Yes, it has something of a Bollywood vibe and points of it drips with agitation which is sort of a rare thing for a Coldplay song.  ‘Violet Hill’ mixed with synth piano and guitar in a really effective way and also heavily borrows from the Beatles.  ‘Strawberry Swing’ is probably the finest song on the album and it still gives me goosebumps every time I hear.  ‘Close Your Eyes and It’s a Summer Day’, I also think the song is heavily influenced by mindfulness.  ‘Viva la Vida’ is the title track assuming you accept the first title as the title, and it’s probably the worst song in the album if you believe it.

There are so many good songs in fact and the album is so popular.  The Coldplay later released the ‘Prospects March EP’.  EP stands for extended play not as long as an album, longer than a single.  You get a — which included some songs that didn’t make the final cut as well as alternative versions of album cuts.  I love this album so much.  I still talk about it a lot.  Every time I did, my friend Jeff is like, “Dude, you love that album,” and I do.  Viva La Vida is fucking amazing.  And after it came out, I was super excited to see what Coldplay would do next.  I was hoping they would keep pushing the envelope.  But their next album was 2011’s Mylo Xyloto, which was absolutely horrendous.  So much for that.  Maybe, that was our Super Bowl hangover album, I don’t know.  But I just couldn’t get into Coldplay anymore after that because they set the bar so high.  And when they’re progressive rock tendencies were burnt back down to pop schlock again, I just couldn’t do it.

It’s terribly disappointing.  But I do have this theory that popular bands lose their creative edge after eight years together.  I’ll tell you about it sometime.  But for that one moment of time, back in the glorious summer of 2008 on the tarmac in Maui, Coldplay was just about perfect.  So, welcome ‘Death and All His Friends’.  You know who’s colder than Coldplay though?  Joshua Lennon who has this week’s edition of the Clio Legal Trends report.

[Music]

Joshua Lenon: What do lawyers with great client relationships all have in common?  They use cloud-based legal practice management software to run their law firms.  I’m Joshua Lenon, lawyer in residents of Clio and this is just one finding from our recent Legal Trends report.  There’s no getting around it.  The fact is —

(00:10:00)

— when it comes to client expectations, standards are higher than ever for lawyers.  Proof is in the numbers.  Eighty-eight of lawyers using cloud-based software report good relationships with clients.  For firms not in the cloud, barely half of them can say the same.  That gap is significant.  For more information on how Cloud software creates better client relationships, download Clio’s Legal Trends report for free at clio.com/trends.  That’s Clio, spelled clio.com/trends.

Jared D. Correia: Okay.  Let’s get into the meat of this show everybody.  Today’s meat is bologna.  Now, let’s talk about something else.  It’s time to interview our guest.  My guest today is Adam Minsky, a student loan lawyer.  Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Minsky: Thanks, Jared.  Good to be here.

Jared D. Correia: Doing all right?

Adam Minsky: Not too bad, not too bad.  Crazy time for student loan lawyers these days.

Jared D. Correia:   So, yes.  I was going to say.  I want to have you on because, obviously, big news coming out of the Biden Administration.  They’ve allowed student loan forgiveness in certain contexts for certain borrowers.  This is not my field of expertise.  I think I am far past getting my loans forgiven sadly.  But can you give us a rundown of what’s going on right now?  Because this is a huge deal for you, right?

Adam Minsky: Yeah, yeah.  Things are crazy.  There’s a lot going on.  So, the big news is the one-time cancellation initiative which can wipe out $10,000 and in some cases up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers with government-held loans.  Estimated 40 million borrowers may ultimately qualify for this.  Of course, it’s also now the subject of multiple lawsuits, and the Federal Appeals Court has now temporarily blocked the program.  So, we’ll have to see how that plays out but already something around 22 million borrowers have already applied for relief.  There’s also a waiver in effect for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program that can retroactively provide a whole bunch of credit towards the 10 years of qualifying payments that are required to get Loan Forgiveness for folks who work in non-profit or government jobs.  That waiver ends on the 31st.  So, a lot of people are scrambling to get their applications in for that program.

And then, there’s another initiative called the IDR Account Adjustment, which can similarly provide retroactive credit for borrowers seeking Loan Forgiveness under income-driven repayment plans.  That program is just now ramping up and isn’t expected to be in full force until sometime next year.  But that’s sort of the next big thing on the student Loan Forgiveness horizon.

Jared D. Correia: Good Lord, that’s a lot of stuff.

Adam Minsky: Yes.

Jared D. Correia: Can we drill down on that a little bit?

Adam Minsky: Sure.

Jared D. Correia: So, one time loan forgiveness cancellation, whatever you call it, is that to protect people from coming back if the law gets better at some point down the line?  Like let’s say I get $10,000 forgiven, and then there’s opportunity to get 40,000 later.  Am I out of luck?  Sounds like it might be.

Adam Minsky: I mean, the programs are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Jared D. Correia: Okay.

Adam Minsky: And, you know, the one-time cancellation really is designed to put people in a better position than they were when COVID hits.  That’s the legal basis for the program.  But, you know, someone who has say, $50,000 in student loan debt if you qualify for the one-time cancellation and you might also qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, there’s nothing preventing you from applying for both.

Jared D. Correia: Oh, that’s great.  Okay.  So, this notion of credit that you mentioned before, that’s interesting to me.  Like usually in the past, you were just paying the loans or you were doing your time working at a non-profit to get those 10 years.  And how’s the credit piece for the work?

Adam Minsky: Well, so when I say credit, when I’m referring to is specifically for say the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program requires a 120 what they call qualifying payments.  Now, under the original rules for PSLF, a qualifying payment had very strict criteria, only payments made on certain types of loans qualify, only payments made under certain in kinds of repayment plans qualify.  If you are a penny short or a day off, it might not count.  If you overpaid, it could trip things up.  There are whole bunch of ways that you could be doing everything right or at least so you thought, and then find out later that it didn’t count as a qualifying payment.  So, what the waiver does is it expands the definition of what a qualifying payment is so that entire loan periods that might otherwise have been rejected can now be counted under the waiver.  So, for some borrowers, that means that they’re accelerating their progress towards Loan Forgiveness.  They’re closer to that 120th payment than the otherwise would be.  And for borrowers who get so far with this retroactive credit that it pushes them beyond 120 payments, they can get immediate Loan Forgiveness.  So, it’s kind of a big deal for those folks.

Jared D. Correia: Yeah, that’s wild.  So many loopholes, I guess that’s how you know the government is involved, right?

Adam Minsky:  Yep, yep.

(00:15:00)

Jared D. Correia: So, if I’m out there and I’m listening to the show, not recording it, which I’m doing right now, how do I know if I’m eligible?  Like do someone give me a notification?

Adam Minsky:  Yeah.

Jared D. Correia: Do I have to go to a website to find out?  Like what’s that look like?

Adam Minsky: Well, that’s part of the reason that I have a job doing this work, unfortunately.

Jared D. Correia: I was going to say.  This is kept under cover, right?  You got to really search for this.

Adam Minsky: It’s not easy.  I mean, so each of these programs have their own eligibility rules.  And obviously, they’re designed to expand eligibility, but they have rules.  And to make matters even more complicated, those rules change sometimes.  So, for instance, for the one-time cancellation initiative, only borrowers with what we call government held federal loans can qualify.

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Adam Minsky: That means loans that are either issued or held by the Department of Ed or were issued by a commercial lender but subsequently transferred over to the Department of Ed, and you also have to earn within certain income guidelines.  So again, for that one-time cancellation, you have to earn under 125,000.  If you’re single or married filing separately or 250,000 is the threshold if you’re married filing jointly in either 2020 or 2021.  And then whether you get 10,000 or 20,000, depends on whether you received a Pell Grant, which is a type of Federal Aid.

Jared D. Correia: Oh, yes.  It’s a very specific type of loan, right?

Adam Minsky: Well, it’s not even a loan.  It’s a grant.  It’s something that you literally don’t have to repay, but it is indicative of coming from a low-income family.  And so, the idea is we want to target cancellation towards lower income borrowers.  So, that’s the reason for that.  But for that one-time cancellation, that is widely available and, you know, they’re saying 40 million borrowers can benefit.  Even that has some pretty strict eligibility criteria so and it gets even more complicated for some of these other initiatives.

Jared D. Correia: Sounds painful.  Does it make you just want to pay sometimes?  Let’s pay the loan stuff.  So, in terms of these lawsuits you talked about, I think that’s interesting.  So, like basically like people are applying, but this is potentially on hold or could potentially be changed in the future.  And do you have a sense of where that’s going to go?  Does anybody?

Adam Minsky: I don’t think anyone does because —

Jared D. Correia: Yeah.

Adam Minsky: — the one-time cancellation per game in particular is truly unprecedented.  There’s never been anything like this before at least as far as I’m aware, and there are multiple lawsuits.  Several of them have been dismissed.  But several of the ones that have been dismissed have been appealed, and one Federal Appeals Court has issued an administrative stay pending arguments on a more lasting injunction.  So, we might know more from that court in the coming days.  But I don’t think anyone really knows what’s going to happen here.  You know, is it going to be blocked?  Is it going to get up to the Supreme Court?  Our people can actually get their loans forgiven?  We don’t know.  All we know is, right now, the Department of Ed cannot award any Loan Forgiveness, but they are continuing to accept applications.  So, we’ll have to see.

Jared D. Correia: Wow. It’s like the Wild West.

Adam Minsky: It is.

Jared D. Correia: I want to get back to this process question in a second, but it sounds like there are scenarios where people could potentially get 100% of their loans forgiven.  Is that just for the context of pro bono work or outside of that?

Adam Minsky: So, I mean, a program like Public Service Loan Forgiveness has no cap or limit on the amount of loans that can be forgiven.  If you have, you know, if you’ve accumulated 120 qualifying payments including under this waiver which again expands the definition of what counts as a qualifying payment, the rules for employment are largely unchanged, meaning you have to be employed full-time either for a 501(c)(3) profit organization or a public entity of some kind, like a public school or government agency.  But if you have 120 months that qualify, yeah, there’s no cap.  You can get 100% of your federal student loans that qualify forgiven.

Jared D. Correia: Okay, if only I was a little bit younger.  So, I said I want to talk about process because who doesn’t love process.  So, these applications, if I’m out there in the wild, I’m definitely applying to have my student loans forgiven even if the regulations changed in some point down the line.  It sounds like people are doing that.  What’s the application process look like?  Are these forms hard to find?  Is it easy to do?  Like are they asking for like tons of financial information?

Adam Minsky: It depends on the program.  So, the one-time cancellation is actually arguably the simplest student loan forgiveness application that I think anyone has ever seen.  You don’t even need to login.  It’s available online at studentaid.gov, takes about 30 seconds to fill out.  No supporting documentation is required.  You just put down your information, self-certify that you meet the criteria when you submit it and that’s all you got to do.  So, if you haven’t applied, you can do so at studentaid.gov.  And the Department of Ed is encouraging everyone to submit an application.  Now, the Department of Ed may follow up later and request a proof of income.  They’re going to do that I believe for somewhere around 125 million borrowers who apply might subsequently be asked to supply, you know, a tax return to prove that they actually did earn within the income guidelines.  But —

(00:20:01)

Jared D. Correia: Yeah.

Adam Minsky: — it’s actually very simple application.  Public Service on the other hand is not.  That process depending on the borrower circumstances might involve direct loan consolidation.  There are employment certifications that have to be completed if you’ve had multiple employers.  You need to separate certification for each employer.  So, that program unfortunately has a more complicated application process.

Jared D. Correia: So, as an attorney in this space, do you find that you’re helping people with the application process at this point, or do you envision that they’re mostly coming to you after the fact when the regulations have been settled and they’re into that process, or there’s an issue with the process?

Adam Minsky: A little bit of everything.  I think these days, you know, certainly in the last, you know, month or two, a huge focus of my practice has been advising people on eligibility and process.  You know, here’s what you may qualify for.  Here’s what you need to do.  Here are some pitfalls.  Here’s what to expect.  And if something goes wrong, here’s what to do.  And so, that’s been basically my days since these initiatives have been announced because a lot of people are scrambling to get information.  It’s not always easily accessible.  Sometimes, it’s —

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Adam Minsky: — unclear confusing or conflicting and people want to help.

Jared D. Correia: Alright.  So, as you know, this is a podcast for lawyers.  You yourself a lawyer.  I’m a lawyer alive and practice law in anger and many, many years.  Lawyers have lots of student loan debt from probably college law school.  Is there anything in particular that attorney should be aware of in terms of loan forgiveness?

Adam Minsky: Well, you know, for folks who have very large balances, obviously the one-time cancellation of 10,000 to 20,000 may feel like a drop in the bucket.  I tell people every little bit help.  So, if you qualify, go for it.  But really these larger programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and the waiver, but also this other initiative that’s about to ramp up called the ID or Account Adjustment.  That might be particularly useful for people who have been in repayment for a long time because, under that initiative, borrowers who accumulate 20 to 25 years of qualifying time, can get their loans forgiven under that program as well.  And we’re going to see more in that probably in the coming months.  Bottom line is for attorneys who have large balances, it’s really important to understand, you know, what you’re eligible for and what plan is best for you.  Should you be paying off your loans as aggressively as possible to cut down on future interest accrual, or should, you know, maximize the amount of loan forgiveness that you might ultimately be eligible for by just paying the minimums and that really depends on the specific borrower circumstances.

Jared D. Correia: You know, it’s funny.  I was going to ask you when you came on, like you got this niche practice student loans, do you ever worry about like I don’t know Bernie Sanders getting elected and being like fuck all these people?  All of the student loans are forgiven like right now.

Adam Minsky: You know —

Jared D. Correia: You know, it sounds like the process is actually more complicated which is good for you.  But I think this is an issue that niche practitioners in general have.  Like this is the first step down a pathway.  Do you ever get concerned that like, oh-oh, what if I can’t do the student loan law stuff anymore?

Adam Minsky: Yeah.  I mean, it certainly occurred to me before.  I’ll tell you that when COVID hit and they implemented the student loan pause which paused payments for —

Jared D. Correia: Right.

Adam Minsky: I think the borrowers.  You know, I thought, well, that’s it for my practice.  You know, I’m done for it.

Jared D. Correia: Yeah, like packing up.

Adam Minsky: Yeah, exactly.  I’ll just go on a long vacation.  But, you know, I kept that there were still things going on obviously and I kept busy.  And the last year, honestly, I’ve been the busiest I’ve ever been.  It’s wild.  I’m turning people away.  I don’t have capacity to take every case that comes in because there’s just too many borrowers and only one of me.  So, is it possible that, you know, I may no longer have work in this niche?  Yeah, that’s possible, but it doesn’t really keep me up at night anymore, certainly not these days.

Jared D. Correia: Good for you man.  Alright, I’ve one more question for you —

Adam Minsky:  Sure.

Jared D. Correia: — before we get into the next segment here.  One of the things I’ve seen online and other places is there some people who are in the category of getting their loans forgiven who are like, hell, yes, forgive my loans.  But then, there are some other people, not everybody who have already paid their student loans off or who are close to paying their student loans off and they’re like, what the hell?  What about my student loans?  Do you get comments like that?  What do you say to people when that’s their take?

Adam Minsky: I do get comments like that.  I think there are a minority of people and —

Jared D. Correia: I think that’s true.

Adam Minsky: — you know, my responses, you know, we don’t not give people relief.  We don’t not help people because someone before that didn’t get that help or relief, you know.  We’re not, you know, choosing not to cure cancer or try to find a cure for cancer because other people, you know, had cancer.  You know, when they created Social Security, you know, we didn’t say, well, you know, other people, you know, had to suffer through —

(00:25:00)

— poverty and retirement.  So, we shouldn’t create Social Security for people that are entering retirement.  Now, you know, it’s, you know, to me, you know, as a society, you try to improve and progress and, you know, I certainly get that there’s some frustration from folks who have already been off their loans and now can’t get that forgiven because there’s no balance.  But I don’t think that means that we shouldn’t be providing relief to people.

Jared D. Correia: Moving forward, I like it.  Otherwise, we’d still be using stone tools, probably.

Adam Minsky: Exactly.

Jared D. Correia: Adam, can you stick around for one more segment.

Adam Minsky: I can.

Jared D. Correia: Excellent.  Thanks for all the student loan information and tips.  We’ll take one final sponsor break here, so you can find out more about our sponsors and what they can do for your life practice.  Then, stay tuned for the rump roast.  That’s right.  It’s even more subtle than the roast beast.

[Music]

Imagine billing day being the happiest day of the month instead of the day you dread.  Nobody went to law school because they love drafting invoices for clients and chasing overdue bills.  At times, all of our attorneys have the tools to achieve a 97% collection rate.  That means more revenue for the same work and turning billing day into a happy day.  Learn more about how to get to your time and billing happy place at timesolv.com.

[Music]

Bill for lawyers.  Notice Cloud-based business banking is perfect for your solo or small law firm, easily set up categories to track income and expenses in a way that integrates smoothly with your practice management, accounting and payment systems, create instant transfers to your eye out that can pass any audit, print checks from your desk and get excellent service from reps who only work with attorneys online at trustnota.com/legal.  Nota, banking built for law firms like yours.  Terms and conditions may apply.

[Music]

Welcome back everybody.  That’s right.  We’re the rear end of the Legal Toolkit.  This is the rump roast.  It’s a grab bag of short-form topics all of my choosing.  Why do I get to pick?  Because I’m the host.  Today, we’re going to play a game called, “Forgive Me,” because we’re talking about Student Loan Forgiveness.  But Adam, what if I gave you the power to also forgive some massive historical blunders?  How do you feel about that?

Adam Minsky: It’s a lot of power, but I’m open to it.

Jared D. Correia: Well, yeah, you should take the power if offered.  So, here’s how we’re going to play.  I’m going to give you a choice between three famous mistakes in specific categories and you can wipe one out, and I’m looking for your reasoning behind each choice.  So, I’ll get back to it.

Adam Minsky: Okay.

Jared D. Correia: We’ll discuss.  Be ready to get weird.

Adam Minsky: Let’s do it.

Jared D. Correia: All right, here’s question one.  You’re Russia and you just sold Alaska to the United States for 7.2 million.  You’re France and you just sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States for $3 million.  You’re Spain and you just ceded Florida to United States.  Now, I know we’re both residents of the United States and all of this a nurse to our benefit.  But placing yourself in the shoes of those countries, which boneheaded mistake would you want to erase most?

Adam Minsky: Oh, definitely Spain. Spain should have kept Florida.  I mean, I’m from Florida.

Jared D. Correia: You are?

Adam Minsky: You know, well, —

Jared D. Correia: You’re a Florida man.  Would you say that?

Adam Minsky: I mean, I would not say that.  I practically try hard not to say that.  I was born in New York and I grew up in Florida.  And I’ve been — I was in Massachusetts for a long time after that.  But, you know, I feel like maybe Spain if they had kept Florida could have turned out to be a little bit of a better state, maybe.  So yeah, I think that’s the one that I go with.

Jared D. Correia: You might have been a Spanish Citizen and that’s really interesting.  And then, would loans have been forgiven?  Who knows?

Adam Minsky: I don’t know.  Who knows?

Jared D. Correia: Spain is a good choice.  I think if pressed, I would have to go with Russia here.

Adam Minsky:  That was my second choice.

Jared D. Correia: 7.2 million is for Alaska, man.  Like that’s got to be like billions and hundreds of billions of dollars lost with all the national resources, but —

Adam Minsky:  With all that oil?  Yeah.

Jared D. Correia: All the oil.  Yeah, I don’t feel bad for Russia, though.  All right.  Let’s do another mulligan.  This time, we are going to do a sports-related mulligan.  Your practice is in Boston, right, if I remember correctly?

Adam Minsky: Practice is in Boston.  Although, I live in Vermont now.  So, not too many signs up here.

Jared D. Correia: Well, that’s all right.  Lots of plaid though, lots of plaid.

Adam Minsky: That’s true.  That is true.

Jared D. Correia: Subaru’s, I know the Vermont lifestyle.  All right.

Adam Minsky: You know it.  Yeah.

Jared D. Correia: I’m going to give you three sports mulligan’s Boston-based, pick your choice and you may not be a Boston’s sports fan.  So, you may just want to keep all of these.  So, first, you’re Larry Bird and you’re able to sync the game winning shot in Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals, tying the series of two games apiece, or your Bill Buckner —

(00:30:00)

— and you’ve been down just an inch further to stop that Mookie Wilson grounder in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, or your Asante Samuel and you make the interception of Eli Manning in Super Bowl 42 against the Giants to potentially preserve the Patriots perfect season.  And I don’t care that much about the Brewing.  So, we’re going to stop here.  What do you think?  Which mulligan would you want to take?

Adam Minsky: To be perfectly honest, I’m going to get in trouble for this.  But I’m not much of a sports person and I don’t even know most of what you’re talking about.

Jared D. Correia: Okay, let me take this one.  Let me take this one.  Celtics are my favorite team.  I’m Larry Bird.  I think the shot an 87 NBA Finals.  We are two championships, the head of the Lakers at that juncture.  So, I’m feeling pretty good about that.  Now, you said, you’re not a sports fan.  Did you play sports at all ever?

Adam Minsky: I ran track and did Little League when I was a kid.

Jared D. Correia: That class?

Adam Minsky: So, you know, I did some sports.  Yeah.

Jared D. Correia: What do What do you guys do for sports up in Vermont these days?  You riding moose or something like that?

Adam Minsky: Riding moose.  I do a lot of hiking.

Jared D. Correia: Yes.

Adam Minsky: And as winter is approaching, I am getting excited about some winter activities.  Skiing and snowshoeing are on my list.  So, we’ll see.

Jared D. Correia: Snowshoeing?

Adam Minsky: So, it’s my first winter up here.  So, —

Jared D. Correia: Snowshoeing, hard work and extremely underrated, I think.  I think people don’t understand.  Have you not tried it before?  Snowshoeing you tried before?

Adam Minsky: I never tried before.

Jared D. Correia: Get some workout, man.  You got to pump those knees.

Adam Minsky:  I cannot wait.

Jared D. Correia: I snowshoed and sweat it about a liter.  All right, here’s another one for you.  We are going to do the show business mulligan.  You’re your Kevin Costner.  And instead of making ‘Waterworld’, you take the role of Andy Dufresne in ‘Shawshank Redemption’, or you’re Will Smith and you take the role of Neo in ‘The Matrix’ rather than making ‘Wild, Wild West’.  Lastly, you’re Burt Reynolds and you decide that an American can play James Bond rather than seating the role to George Lazenby.  Which would you redress?

Adam Minsky: I think I’d have to go with Will Smith.  I mean, we all know, ‘Wild, Wild West’ was, you know, one of the worst movies ever made.  And, you know, you can’t really beat the star power of ‘The Matrix’.  So, I think it has to be that one.

Jared D. Correia: That’s good.  That’s a tough choice.  Waterworld was also a really —

Adam Minsky: Yeah.

Jared D. Correia: — awful bomb as well.

Adam Minsky: As soon as you said that one, I was like, well, clearly, it’s going to be ‘Waterworld’ between Wild, Wild West.

Jared D. Correia: That is an objectively horrible movie. I don’t know how they feel about an American.  So, Bert Reynolds actually turned down the role of ‘James Bond’ because they think an American can play it, which I actually think is in the stood move.  It might not had turned out very well.

Adam Minsky: I would have watched it.

Jared D. Correia: I would have, too.  All right, I got one more for you.

Adam Minsky:  Sure.

Jared D. Correia: We are moving on to the world of publishing.  You’re one of the 12 publishers who rejected the ‘Harry Potter’ series.

Adam Minsky:  Oh, man.

Jared D. Correia: Or you’re one of the 144 publishers who rejected the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ series or, lastly, you’re one of the 30 publishers who rejected Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’.  Now, this may have more to do with your choice of literature than anything else.  But which mulligan would you erase from history?

Adam Minsky: Honestly, I think the Stephen King one.  I mean, just the sheer volume of works that he’s created, I mean, you know, he just came out with another book recently.  I haven’t read it yet, but a couple my friends have and they said, you know, it’s really amazing that he just continues to pump out these books that are just completely engrossing.  You know, you really just can’t beat Stephen King.  I think it has to do with that.

Jared D. Correia: You’re going with lifetime value.

Adam Minsky: Exactly.

Jared D. Correia: That’s the solid.

Adam Minsky:  Exactly.

Jared D. Correia: That’s solid.

Adam Minsky: Exactly.

Jared D. Correia: And then, I feel like every Stephen King novel has also been remade into a movie or a Netflix series.  So, you’re getting some of that back end as well.

Adam Minsky: One hundred percent.  Royalty is relative realities.

Jared D. Correia: You’re an astute business manager, my friend.  Thanks for coming on the show.  Thank you for subjecting yourself to the rump roast.  I had a lot of fun.

[Music]

Adam Minsky: Me, too.  Thanks for having me.  I appreciate it.

Jared D. Correia: Alright, we’ll talk soon.  Take it easy.

Adam Minsky: Sounds good. Alright, you too.

Jared D. Correia: If you want to find out more about Adam Minsky, student loan lawyer, visit Minsky-law.com.  That’s minsky-law.com, minsky-law.com.  Now, for those of you listening in the X Massachusetts, yes, that’s a real place.  We’ve got a great Spotify playlist for you this week.  We’ve got Coldplay’s greatest hits, Jared’s version.  I’ve run out of time though, and I won’t be able to talk about peak foliage in New England until next fall alas.  This is Jared Correia reminding you that my college roommate didn’t think baby pigeons were real because he had never seen one, —

(00:35:00)

— neither do I honestly, but I’m sure they exist, right, right?

[Music]

Continue Reading