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Politics

We’re Not Sure What To Make Of ‘The People’s Bailout’

2:30 pm, November 9th | by Sarah Devlin


What if Americans could bail each other out in exactly the way the government bailed out the banks at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis? What if we could take out of control credit card debt, student debt, and bad mortgages, and make them vanish? Does that sound crazy to you? It sounds a little crazy to us, and yet…

From How To Sharpen Pencils:

Like many folks, Occupy Wall Street has been some doing good work in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, helping people on the ground.

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.)

This is a simple, powerful way to help folks in need — to free them from heavy debt loads so they can focus on being productive, happy and healthy. As you can see from our test run, the return on investment approaches 30:1. That’s a crazy bargain!

You can check out the website, which provides much of the same information (and also has an explanatory YouTube video, which you can see below).

Is this fair? Is this possible? I’m fascinated. What do you think?

[Via Maxistentialist]

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  • WiddleBabyWepublican

    stupid cop car pooping pot heads.

    They have no principles like the tea party….

    Huh?

  • http://24ahead.com/ 24AheadDotCom

    No way I’m going to bother watching that video.

    Let’s say they could get debt at a 1:100 ratio, and there’s a $100 billion in debt. Now, they just need to sell enough pot to come up with… let’s see… $100 billion divided by 100…

  • Anonymous

    Evil made a huge step forward when it convinced (via a certain Jesus-denying flock of bankers) the Catholic Church to accept USURY. Why this happened would be worth writing a book about – but the same Jesus-denying flock seems to run the publishing houses.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPfq2oatIgA

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/LVKYPZRDXWK3RQGKNACDKRQBZU Matthias

    Where is fair coming from? If you sell something, it is no longer yours. If the new owner wants to destroy it, that’s the decision of the new owner. The thing bought and sold here is an I.O.U.

    (Of course debt that is easier collectable will command a higher price)

  • Devon Graham

    Is this person serious? Miss. Devlin thinks it doesn’t sound strange for banks to get bailed out though TARP and QE 1-3. But if someone who played by the rules his or her’s whole life and racked up massive student loan debt which through usurious practices that for some reason remain legal under the current system, can’t repay it. Then that sounds weird?? The mainstream media which are effectively mouthpieces for the banks and the criminals who got away with the largest fraud in world history, are pretty shameless.

    The Devil And Miss. Devlin, indeed.

  • http://twitter.com/ideawoman10 Donna Green

    I have a small 20 yr business need bridge capital. Have plenty of business that I can’t finance. $15K & will pay back. Would I fit into the “Rolling Jubliee” program?

  • Sarah Devlin

    I don’t think that it’s fine for banks to get bailed out and not have the same option for people; I just wonder how exactly something like this would work, practically speaking. Whose debt gets priority? Is it fair to do this for credit card debt that was accrued irresponsibly? Would those people get priority over, say, someone with medical bills or student loans? I just have a lot of questions. :) Also no one has made a “Devil/Devlin” joke to my face since middle school – come on, dude! Be nice.

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