These Guys Want to Buy Up Your Debt and Set You Free

[octoberlib]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/11/rolling-jubilee-buys-debt-cheap-and-cancels-it



Going viral today almost as fast as a good pepper spray video is the latest idea from Occupy Wall Street: the Rolling Jubilee, a project to buy up and zero out people's debts. David "How To Sharpen Pencils" Rees explains:

Now OWS is launching the ROLLING JUBILEE, a program that has been in development for months. OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in order to forgive it. As a test run, we spent $500, which bought $14,000 of distressed debt. We then ERASED THAT DEBT. (If you're a debt broker, once you own someone's debt you can do whatever you want with it—traditionally, you hound debtors to their grave trying to collect. We're playing a different game. A MORE AWESOME GAME.)


But ultimately, the Rolling Jubilee could do much more than inspire charity. Spending $500 to cancel $14,000 in debt is an amazing bang for the buck—or, seen differently, an amazing illustration of how the financial system that we all bailed out now enslaves many of us. Even if the Rolling Jubilee becomes wildly successful, it probably won't cancel out more than a tiny fraction of our trillions worth of personal debts. Its value is as a devastating political statement: Debt is cheap, except when it's owned by the banks.

[drm604]

1. So can individuals buy their own distressed debt?

Last edited Sat Nov 10, 2012, 10:54 PM - Edit history (1)

If not, can you buy your friend's debt while he buys yours?

[grasswire]

2. excellent question nt

[limpyhobbler]

3. I hope somebody answers this.

I don't understand how this works

[TomClash]

4. I will try

I owe you $14,000. I have no money to pay you, so I stop paying. I have no assets you can seize: no home to foreclose on, no bank account to attach, and in most states only asmall percentage of my measly paycheck can be garnished. So you can't get your money back.

These guys come along and offer you $500 for the right to collect the debt and you say, hell yes, better to get a little money than try to get anything from that deadbeat Tomclash. So you give the right to collect $14,000 (which you know you'll never get) to these guys in exchange for the $500 these guys give you.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

15. Debt collection agencies buy debt for cents on the dollar....

If the first agency can't collect from you, eventually they sell it to another agency for considerably less than they paid for it....It finally ends up being bought for literally pennies on the dollar. People don't know that. If a debt collector offers to settle your debt for anything more than 25% of what you owe....tell him to pound salt....you'll wait for the next guy.

[tinrobot]

11. Form a corporation...

Corporations buy debt all the time.

Once you've purchased the debt, liquidate the corporation.

You would have to pay for incorporation fees, but that can be pretty cheap if you pick the right state.

[Sirveri]

21. A better plan would be to go to the occupy group and pay them to buy your debt.

But you have to be in arrears, if you're current they can't really do anything. So if it's not in collections you can't do this.

[Orrex]

5. I can't believe that the law hasn't been changed in the two hours since you posted this

This process might be the best fiscal idea I've ever heard.

[RustyWheels]

6. Just donated !!

And passing on to my friends and family.

[femrap]

12. It is

a great idea, isn't it?

Welcome to DU!

[JaneyVee]

8. The FedGov should buy all the student loan debt at rockbottom rates then forgive it all.

If it's a trillion then $150Billion should do.

[Flaxbee]

9. Wouldn't that be incredible? A student loan debt jubilee.

[limpyhobbler]

16. +150 billion

[truedelphi]

10. Wish I could rec this 35 times. And SO THERE

To those who are saying that Occupy is dead.

Long Live OCCUPY. That group of activists outdid the Red Cross in providing help to those in upheaval from Sandy.

And now they offer up an alternative to the debt that normal people owe. Good to know SOME PEOPLE understand that if things like this happened in Iceland, those things can happen here.

[femrap]

14. I have

goosebumps. Maybe the paradigm is truly shifting and I can dare to be happy!

[defacto7]

13. Great idea!

This is really creative!

[knitter4democracy]

17. I would get in line.

I owe the first lawyer for the divorce/custody crap a ton of money he's trying to get out of me now (long story), not to mention lawyer #2 who had to fix lawyer #1's mess. I would be gobsmacked if someone bought that debt and fixed it somehow.

[Kurovski]

18. K&R. (nt)

[HiPointDem]

19. wow. big thinking.

[smirkymonkey]

20. K&R!