Occupy Wall Street’s debt buying strikes at the heart of capitalism

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/13/occupy-wall-streets-debt-buying-strikes-at-the-heart-of-capitalism/



Occupy Wall Street’s debt buying strikes at the heart of capitalism
By Alex Andreou, The Guardian
Wednesday, November 13, 2013 15:55 EST

Across the United States, 2,693 people have received a letter in the last few months, which identified a debt and read: “You are no longer under any obligation to settle this account with the original creditor, the bill collector, or anyone else.” This is the work of the Rolling Jubilee project – a non-profit initiative which buys personal debt for pennies on the dollar in the secondary market (where debt is sold to companies who then resell it to collection agencies) but then simply cancels it.

When the Occupy movement came into being in the summer of 2011, its critics said that a lack of identifiable objectives and strategy for achieving them meant it was doomed to fail. This was a monumental underestimation of its potential impact. Two years on, the debate about the ethics of corporate capitalism in its current form, the fairness of the remuneration of those at the top, the widening wealth gap and the morality of tax avoidance is alive and well. The concept of the “99%” is now part of the collective consciousness. All this is, in no small part, down to the fuse lit by the Occupy movement.

However, another significant aspect of the movement – dismissed as being woolly – was that it brought like-minded people together and allowed a dialogue which identified common strands. This appears to have evolved into several focused and practical initiatives. One of the most significant, and perhaps the most threatening to the status quo, is the Strike Debt group, of which the Rolling Jubilee project forms part.

The idea is that, those freed from debt and those sympathetic to the movement, then donate into the fund to keep it “rolling” forward; hence the name. The fund has already raised $600,000 and has used $400,000 of this to purchase and cancel an astonishing $14.7m of debt, primarily focusing on medical bills. This strikes at the very heart of the system, not only by using its own perverse rules against it, but critically by revealing the illusory and circular nature of debt.

[fasttense]

1. Debt slavery is very common in the US.

While our tax dollars go to bailing out the banks that would have been nothing but dust in the wind if NOT for our federal bail outs, we get to turn around continue paying on inflated, usury style debt to those very same banks.

[valerief]

2. And WAR. Most of our tax dollars go to WAR. nt

[A Little Weird]

3. This is brilliant!

Unfortunately, they are only accepting donations until the end of this year so if you wish to donate - don't wait! I don't have a lot to give, but I'm going to send something.

http://rollingjubilee.org/

[RainDog]

4. k&r n/t

[myrna minx]

5. Fantastic! K&R

[Wilms]

6. ^

[Warpy]

7. I've chipped in and probably will again.

It's a great idea, outbid the boiler room debt collection agencies and simply retire the debt.