6 ms·

My main problem with John Oliver is that he often chimes in on subjects he doesn't know anything about with folksy common sense logic that is often wrong. I rem

• KayEss 10y ago
  For trading debt I would certainly hope that the actual contracts under which the debt was agreed where included. Yes that would be difficult, but it ought to be a minimum requirement.
  • bko 10y ago
    The problem is that this debt is for very small amounts, often a few hundred dollars/thousand dollars traded for pennies on the dollar. This is a risk the seller/buyer is willing to take since the cost is so low and it isn't even worth taking the time to review the contract in depth for such a small payout.
    • bayesian_horse 10y ago
      But because these cases aren't reviewed, debt is often created out of nothing. For example if the debt has expired or was even paid, the debt changes hands, and they file a law suit somewhere, there is the real chance the debt is brought back to life in full. And if it doesn't work that time, the debt is just sold off to the next collector to try it again.
      • bko 10y ago
        Yes, he spoke about "zombie debt" in his segment. "Brought back from the dead" is true only if it was dismissed or past the statute of limitations for collection. It's not "brought back from the dead" if you had collectors calling and then they stopped calling and now they continue calling. You still owe that money and you're responsible. Do you ever wonder why somebody would extend you a 30 day unsecured 0% interest loan (credit card)? Or a 15-25% interest unsecured rolling loan to someone with little or no credit history? You can choose to make policies that make it harder for creditors, but you can't pretend that won't impact the borrowing rate or the access of credit to many Americans. The idea that you can't buy and sell receivables seems silly. I agree that some of the reasons people collect debt is unfortunate and unjust. But people need to be responsible and we need reasonable laws that prevent harassment.
        • bayesian_horse 10y ago
          Debt should be resellable, but only with clear protection of both parties. That's impossible for "cents on the dollar" on a spreadsheet. At that point it's hardly even a benefit for the original creditor. In many cases, creditors should be more picky about whom they lend money too. Especially if they can't afford ethical collection the question becomes: Should this company even be giving credit?
    • st3v3r 10y ago
      If it's not worth taking the time to ensure the most basic of due diligence is taken, then you shouldn't be able to contact anyone about the debt.
• Retric 10y ago
  Having important things being passed around using Excel is common, but so is stubbing your toe. Comedy makes fun of things close to home.
• ritchiea 10y ago
  At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh. You can't make people laugh with jokes about insider domain knowledge only possessed by experts. If you consider the constraint that Last Week Tonight is primarily a comedy show themed around important newsworthy issues rather than an investigative journalism show it's hard to imagine it done any better.
  • pc86 10y ago
    Agreed, but just because it's a comedy show doesn't mean that he can be factually inaccurate about things and not get called out on it.
  • partiallypro 10y ago
    > At the end of the day it's a comedy show not a news show and his job is to make people laugh He and Jon Stewart keep (kept in the case of Jon) using this excuse when they get things wrong, but when they get things right they take all the glory they can get. The show(s) have to have some sort of accountability. For example Couric was just ripped for adding 6 seconds of dead air on a documentary....but that's literally what The Daily Show had been doing for years, making people look like idiots (so it fits their segment narrative). That's all good fun until you realize young people think people like Stewart and Oliver are trustworthy news sources. I like what they do in many cases, but I despise this excuse that it's "just" a comedy show. Maybe NBC nightly news should just add an in-studio audience that laughs and suddenly they can get away with every screw up.
    • chrisseaton 10y ago
      > using this excuse when they get things wrong That's exactly what it is. It's the equivalent of those people on YouTube who assault someone and then say 'it was just a prank!' I think making fun of someone and trashing their reputation without being super careful to check all the facts first is really nasty and I don't like watching either of their shows.
      • ritchiea 10y ago
• deleted 10y ago
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• iheartmemcache 10y ago
  Tape as backups are arguably still valuable, but any important information being passed by Excel is a travesty. I've worked on the quant side of things and trading securities has standard protocols (primarily FIX, but more esoteric protocols are used by some MM's). I've worked with insurance conglomerates - health information has HL7 for EHR. Purchase orders between Walmart and their suppliers use EDI. All of these aren't 'magical' but they sure are global standards which are transparent and relatively perfect (you have XML schemas to validate against). Those are just the industries I've worked in professionally (I'm sure any other industry - oil, heavy machinery use something similar.)
  • dvcc 10y ago
    A working vendor-compatible HL7 implementation is certainly magical.
  • collyw 10y ago
    In my last job I ended up wasting around half of my time fixing Excel / user errors (despite complaining to management multiple times about how error prone it was).
  • thwarted 10y ago
    any important information being passed by Excel is a travesty I think that's putting it mildly. A major issue with using Excel files for data transfer is, to put it bluntly, the lackadaisical way people treat Excel files. They are passed around and edited. Passed back once edited. Passing them around creates copies of them. They get goofy names as people try to manage the multiple editors and editions. There's no verifiable authority for the source or latest version of the data. None of the data or its state is externally verifiable. We've all seen where this goes south very quickly; we even have a meme for it: the FINAL FINAL FINAL suffix that gets appended to the filename. I suspect this is why/how zombie debt, as described by Oliver, gets resurrected: data quality issues: debt that is accidentally (or on purpose, to make another/recover a quick buck) sold again when it shouldn't have been. And the original owner of the debt, once sold, isn't interested in keeping track of it (they've already written it off). Some of the issue is that there are multiple parties involved. Real estate has title records as one way to solve this, which isn't necessarily a final solution (thus the existence of title insurance), but without even something resembling a centralized and agreed upon record of the history of the debt changing hands, it's impossible to reliably know anything about it. Excel files exacerbate that. Further down in these comments, AstroJetson says that to forgive debt, they "they just delete the Excel file it's in". I find this to be a reasonable possibility for how this is handled. But deleting a file received from some other party doesn't make the file disappear. It's perhaps still in an attachment somewhere, in the sent mail folder, on the computer of the sender (perhaps moved to a "Sold Debt" folder). None of this is necessarily solved by transfer methods like EDI or HL7, except for what amounts to a barrier to entry to access the data and make it available to begin with. EDI is a solution for purchase orders between Walmart and suppliers is because 1) there's often a limited number of parties (two) involved with the data, 2) Walmart is always one of the parties (so it is effectively centralized), 3) the data itself is verifiable against other, trusted sources like accounts payable and accounts receivable. It's also going into a system that has automation components. The people who are buying debt information and receiving it via Excel spreadsheets are just going to go over it by hand and call/contact people on it. It's going into some massive computer based process and generate reports for dozens of different departments like the data being transferred via EDI at Walmart is. This is where someone mentions using a blockchain or git to track the way the debt changes hands and its current state. This would be a fine suggestion if it wasn't in the interest of the debt buyers/sellers to keep the system shitty with little visibility/oversight so they can take advantage of debtors and other debt buyers any way they can.
• scotty79 10y ago
  Passing that kind of information as Excel file is as horrible as passing it scribbled on a piece of tissue. If someone sold my debt (which is already stinky because after that I have relationship with a party I never entered any relationship with) I'd hope that what's being sold is bit more than my name with "iou" and some numbers. If not original agreement, then at least a statement from notary that had seen my credit agreement and someone who attests at some high penalty that it was not paid yet.
• marxidad 10y ago
  Doesn't he have a team of writers whose job it is to understand the subject matter?
• yo-code-sucks 10y ago
  Using excel to pass around data that should be encrypted, in the context of debt if borderline illegal, if not completely.
• stanmancan 10y ago
  In his latest clip, he mocks information being passed by Excel. He wasn't mocking that information was being passed via excel, he was mocking _what_ information was being passed via excel. The fact that companies can but and sell excel documents with a name, address, SIN, and debt amount, and that's it. No contracts, no history, no anything, just, this person now owe's you $X. Also, I find it incredibly irresponsible how the customers information is handled. They quite literally email spreadsheets around with thousands of names, addresses and SIN numbers. If someone nefarious got their hands on just one of the many thousands of those documents floating around, it's a great starting place for identity theft.
  • bko 10y ago
    Banks have very strict guidelines with how they handle sensitive documents with personal information. Can't say the same for the secondary market though. > No contracts, no history, no anything, just, this person now owe's you $X. Going through the details isn't worth it to the buyers since its for such a small amount. They give them names, numbers and amounts to their phone bank and they see what they can get. Killing off the secondary market would decrease the amount and cost of accessible credit to borrowers with bad or no credit history. It may or may not be right, but there is definitely a trade-off.
    • stanmancan 10y ago
      Going through the details isn't worth it to the buyers since its for such a small amount. I get that, but that's ripe for abuse, and it can be a nightmare for the consumer. These companies can effect your credit rating and prevent you from getting a mortgage. Lets pretend you have a false debt on one of these lists. It shows up on your credit report. You try to get a mortgage, but can't until this debt is settled. So now you either have to essentially pay their ransom to have it closed quickly, or proceed through length processes to have it forgiven if they don't have the appropriate documentation to prove it. Neither situation is ideal, and only exists because "going through the details isn't worth it". Maybe credit is too cheap if we have to follow shoddy practices to afford it. Maybe credit shouldn't be accessible in such large quantities to the masses as it is today. Either way, it's probably too late to change that now.