Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt

[unklejman]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/12/occupy-wall-street-activists-15m-personal-debt

A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.

Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy's Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before "abolishing" it, freeing individuals from their bills.

By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.

Interesting. Thoughts?

 

[matt0611]

Its funny. I wonder what Occupy would say about the national debt?

Personal debt = bad

National debt = ?

 

[Snew]

cool stuff.

 

[brandon]

I dont see the point. If they got it that cheap it had to be debt that was very unlikely to ever be repaid anyway. So I guess maybe they are helping improve a few people's credit scores. In the case of medical debt then I guess thats a nice thing to do. If it was consumer debt than they are just giving handouts to irresponsible people.

 

[pcosmar]

They just bailed out the Corporations they were so against.

Most of that debt was likely interest outstanding,,, and if they were like me a few years back,, had already paid more on the debt than they had borrowed.
So the "loss" was only in extra profits,, and the pay off (even at a reduced amount) was pure profit.

Backwards logic at work again.

 

[brandon]

They just bailed out the Corporations they were so against.

Honestly, Great point. To buy this debt they had to outbid all the other collectors. If they didn't buy it someone else would have for less.

 

[Ender]

So- no good deed goes unpunished or unappreciated on the Liberty forums........

 

[pcosmar]

So- no good deed goes unpunished or unappreciated on the Liberty forums........

OR UNOBSERVED. Nothing goes unquestioned.

http://strikedebt.org/

It is a nice Idea on the surface,,, but does leave a lot of questions.

 

[angelatc]

I dont see the point. If they got it that cheap it had to be debt that was very unlikely to ever be repaid anyway. So I guess maybe they are helping improve a few people's credit scores. In the case of medical debt then I guess thats a nice thing to do. If it was consumer debt than they are just giving handouts to irresponsible people.

We talked about this earlier. I don't hate the idea at all, but they're likely creating an income tax obligation with the debt forgiveness.

If they really wanted to muck up the system, they would start reporting the debt as being paid on time, every month.

 

[twomp]

If it isn't tax payer money then I don't really care what they do with their money but good on them for trying though. The world would be a much better place if people helped each other rather than depending on the government to do it.