Prediction: people will soon be openly advocating debtors' prisons. Convince me I'm wrong.

[AlienGirl]

I expect to be hearing about how great an idea debtors' prisons and workhouses are as the economic clusterfuck continues.

The Debt Relief Act was passed toward the beginning of August...The DRA allowed creditors to seize debtors who defaulted and require them to work to repay their debt. In practice, they sold the debt contracts to the work-prison companies, which put the debtors to work as contracted labor rented to other companies, at wages of pennies an hour, from which was deducted room and board. The companies had cheap and plentiful labor of all kinds, from doctors and lawyers to dishwashers and manual laborers; the prison corporations had a profit for the shareholders and a chance to proselytize for their charitable donors and faith boards; and the police no longer had to bother with rioters. All of the people who matter were satisfied.

The debt sweeps cleared the streets, in the minds of the fortunate gainfully-employed solid citizens, and the DRA was praised mightily in letters to the editor and telephone calls to the ubiquitous radio talk shows. Here and there a union fight erupted; these were quickly put down by the Tribs. Unions had been recruiting in job-lines, but after the rumors began of unionists permanently disappearing, and after the Tribs' Enforcement Division began paying by the tip for every unionist or traitor arrested, most workers would not even listen to the union recruiters for fear of winding up under Patriot's Arrest.

More here.

Tucker

[Bolo Boffin]

1. And by "people," you mean

Banks.

[AlienGirl]

3. I mean mostly teabaggers and their radio/TV overlords...

[Bolo Boffin]

11. Ah, well, media conglomerations are now people, too.

It's enough to get Charles Dickens to crawl out of his grave...

[Taitertots]

4. Edit: Wrong spot

[TwixVoy]

10. They are people now

Just ask the SCOTUS.

[leftstreet]

2. Would we get dental with that?

:shrug:

[Taitertots]

5. Hey, advocating they make us their slaves is just corporate free speech

Donating billions to make it happen is too.

[Fumesucker]

6. They don't want slaves, slaves have to be housed and fed..

Serfs is more like it..

Neo-feudalism here we come, woo-hoo!!

[Quantess]

7. Yes, indentured servitude.

We're pretty much already there.

[Taitertots]

9. Good point

That way they can blame us for being starved and homeless.

[lib_wit_it]

20. Just what I was thinking!

[dysfunctional press]

26. that's why outsourcing to third world nations is cheaper than having slaves.

the labor cost there is cheaper than keeping slaves here.

it's just good business.

[asdjrocky]

8. This always cracks me up.

Debtors prisons are here and they've been here for a long long time.

Right now there are thousands of people in jail who could get out, aid in their defence, get into a drug program or any number of things but they don't have a 150 buck for bail.

People don't need to call for it, the poor know that they've always been here.

[TwixVoy]

12. They already exist

Most people are in debt like crazy. Especially the suckers that took out student loans that may eventually take their social security as payment.

No point in putting anyone in an actual jail.... can't work to send money to your masters from a cell.

[1776Forever]

13. Can anyone tell me what President Obama was proposing for Student Loans? Help!

This is the most ridiculous and hanus program there is in America. Try to better yourself and then get slammed and even when you file bankruptcy they still come after you! God help us! I think you are right on!

[lovuian]

14. Have anybody read Dickens story Little Dorrit

It was all about the downfall of the British Empire
and how Debtor prison was a dismal failure

but hey you will have children born in debtor's prison
that is the story of Lil Dorritt

[kestrel91316]

15. Dominionists have advocated DEBT SLAVERY for years.

[HillbillyBob]

16. Yup, go to their churches sometime they have more heinous ideals too.

Just think if McCain and Palin(she being a dominionist) what she might advocate.
Convert to their version of kkkreestian or die. Soldiers of gawd(like the tribs in the story).

[Golden Raisin]

23. I think when you get to that end of

the spectrum the thinking has passed debtor prisons and zoomed straight ahead to internment camps. Palin, and so many others on the right, are big on deciding who is and is not a "real American".

[me b zola]

17. Sorry, but I can't talk you down

I have seen posts here (and no, not by people that I would consider to be trolls/freepers) that believe it is acceptable for people who owe money on their student loans to have that debt taken out of their social security check. WTF? You know, that safety net for older people, so that they don't die on the freaking streets. People have been so beaten down that they advocate against their own best interest. :(

[dickthegrouch]

18. CA Gubernatorial Candidate Meg Whitman wants to reduce welfare

and she's quite upfront with and proud of the suggestion.

Of course, she is a billionaire (ex President and CEO of eBay) so she thinks she'll never be poor. I hope the loss of the $150M she wants to spend buying the race is the beginning of a rapid and slippery descent into just that - poverty.

[Hannah Bell]

21. it's not only ebay. she's the heir of 5 generations of great wealth. from

both sides of her family tree.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Hannah%20Bell/110

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7694259#7697838

[neverforget]

19. Who thought that our government would torture and get away with it? Anything is

possible anymore.

[JCMach1]

22. This was outsourced years ago- you are in a debtor's prison...

The whole damn country is one unless you are rich.

[troubledamerican]

24. "Let American children be free to work in factories to help their families!"

Newt Gingrich, 2015, after the April 4 military coup

[haele]

29. What factories? Maybe it's "let the children work in the prisons with their parents"

Later, perhaps 2020 - "let's steralize all those undesirables so they don't continue to reproduce like feral dogs and cats".
Even after they make contreception and abortion illegal, even for the health of the mother. ("don't want babies, then don't have sex. Oh, but you have to obey your husband or boyfriend when they want it...")

Haele

[dysfunctional press]

25. as the LARGEST debtor nation- wouldn't that be kind of hypocritical...?

there are too many debtors in this country to try and incarcerate them.

[salguine]

27. That's when you'll know the time for this has truly arrived:

[haele]

28. And those same people are most likely up to their armpits in debt

The good old "three paycheck away" types (as opposed to us one paycheck away folks) who think their 401K will be at least a million dollars that they think they can live comfortably on for thirty/fourty years after they retire.
Foolish people who are in reality only one accident, one medical emergancy, one rebellious teenager away from bankruptcy.

Haele