Those
of us in the 99% who understand the plutocratic war games understand and relate
to the movement that started in Zuccotti Park a couple of years ago, and, when
it was a "hot" story, attracted both media attention/scrutiny, and the
attention of the sensitive elites on Wall Street. This sensitivity was certainly reflected in
the attitudes of the elite nationally, and in the actions of the police who
protect them from the great unwashed 99%.
After about three months of "out there" protests and marches,
occupancies and arrests, the blush came off the protest rose for the major
media, and now we hear only occasionally about the actions of Occupy, and then
only in the most progressive of mainstream media.
We
know about actions like Occupy the SEC, established to keep the rule making
robust as a regulatory outgrowth of the ridiculously mild reforms embodied in
the Dodd-Frank legislation, which reforms were an essential failure as may be
seen in the massively strong growth of our largest banks in the wake of this
reform effort. But that's a topic for
another day. Occupy continues to flex
its muscle, but atrophy is embodied in this movement which can't seem to get
much attention for whatever it has been doing since its earliest days, until
now.
Now
Occupy has hit a real seam of gold in them thar plutocratic hills. In the last 10 days, it has announced a
program to buy up debt from creditors.
This is what is done in the business world, with companies established
to buy and collect from the ne'er-do-well among the 99% who can't pay their
bills and get forced into bankruptcy, foreclosure, and who become the latest
casualties of the assault on the middle class.
The seam of gold is a new program called the Rolling Jubilee, designed after an Abrahamic Old Testament paradigm
for "forgiveness of debt" mentioned prominently in the Lord's Prayer. The idea, an ingenious one, behind the new
attack on the elite is really quite simple.
Occupy has started an organization which will ask for contributions to a
fund, and, according to most, this fund is now well in excess of a quarter of a
million dollars in only about 10 days.
It
is running telethons to collect as much as they can, and then will begin their "strike
debt" program. The way in which the
program works is that the fund purchases, buys up, blocks of debt from large
creditors. Because this is a business
standard followed by companies established strictly to collect debt, these
blocks can be defined by zip code. Because
of this, Occupy plans to buy up debt in the country's most economically
distressed areas. They intend to purchase blocks of debt for an estimated five
cents on the dollar and comprised of hundreds of small to large sums due
creditors from credit cards, medical expenses, student loans, etc., which
debtors have been unable or unwilling to pay.
After they buy this debt for literally pennies on the dollar, they will
simply tear up the debt, forgive it, and contact the debtors to let them know
that the debt is no longer owed, and that further efforts will not be made to
collect it. In an age when those who
become unemployed for lengthy periods, literally millions, and who have scant
or no resources to pay back those who have granted them credit while they were
employed or who don't have health insurance and have major medical expenses,
this will be something of a modern miracle.
The math of this is such that millions in debt can be bought and
forgiven for thousands.
This
is, however, where the moral issue arises.
The moral issue is simple. Since
the program does not identify specific individuals, but only determines their
identities, once the debt is purchased, to be forgiven, there arises an
issue. This is an aside to the massive
good which is done, but, by experience, we know that many (some unknown
percentage) of these debtors are in trouble, not because of medical or employment
exigencies, but rather because of various vices, from drug use, to alcoholism,
to addiction to credit, to gambling addiction, etc. The program will sweep up everyone, from the
truly responsible who have, through no fault of their own, fallen on hard times,
to those who have serious personal and psychological failings and who need to
be taken to task and recover from their addiction and make good on what they
have accumulated from their ill advised wonts.
Sadly, these folks deserve a "bailout" of this kind about as much as we
feel that the largest scum, the Too Big To Fail Wall Street banks deserved from
TARP and the FED.
I
am not arguing, as a part of this piece that Occupy shouldn't do it, but the
result ends up being the same as with the bank bailouts, and that is that, for
the amoral transgressor, it is likely that their irresponsible and sometimes
criminal behavior will continue unabated, and they will just view this as a
nice windfall and may, in some cases, enable not only continued immorality, but
could actually make it worse, now that they have a clean slate.
On
the positive side, this action will have a real positive effect on the nation's
economy if it becomes very successful, to the extent that the amoral actions of
creditors and their collectors to take their victims to the poor house, in many
cases unscrupulously, will fail, and many will be given a chance to rebuild
their lives without permanent damage to their credit and future prospects. It will also free their meager resources to
be put to constructive and useful economic activities. It will, in the long run, also have a
detrimental effect on mammoth creditors who get many of us involved in the use
of credit which should never have happened, as in the Alt-A and adjustable
mortgage debacle where the borrowers were not properly qualified, borrowed and
then watched as their lives were destroyed by their victimization.
One
can only imagine that someone like Elizabeth Warren, newly elected Senator and
crusader for the victims of abusive credit practices, will be thrilled by this
new meme, and totally endorse it.
As
a final note, my view is, objections aside, that in the long run this program
will have a positive effect on the population in general, and won't prove to be
detrimental except to some minor extent involving people who can't seem to
control their lives and debts. I believe
that we all should stand 100% behind this effort.
I
have contributed to this cause, and would strongly advocate, even I you can
afford only a few dollars, that you also contribute, since only five dollars
can purchase $100 dollars in debt!
The
website is http://rollingjubilee.org/ . Go to the site, check the resources there,
and sign up to help in any way you can, large or small. Just by plugging "rolling jubilee" into
Google News turns up 8400 "hits" to reflect the power of the idea.
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