9 ms·

How does OWS think this debt accumulated? Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. You have to get yourself into deb

How does OWS think this debt accumulated? Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. You have to get yourself into debt. It used to be taboo, but it's acceptable to get into debt these days and worse yet, walk away from it. OWS, to me, represents an entitled generation.

gmkoliver 14y ago
Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. No, but distressed debt can be.
narcissus 14y ago
"Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street." Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. I'm not saying that this is true for all of the OWS debts: probably not even the majority. I'm just saying that it's not as easy as "it's your fault you're in debt".
- tsotha 14y ago
  >Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. That's why we have bankruptcy laws. From what I heard at the time, the big hobby horse for the OWS people was student debt, which can't be forgiven in bankruptcy. And that kind of debt is entirely optional.
  - sc68cal 14y ago
    That's why we have bankruptcy laws. Yes - bankruptcy laws that were passed in 2005 which made it significantly harder to get debt forgiven in bankruptcy, and also removed some forms of debt from being able to be discharged in bankruptcy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_an... It was widely claimed by advocates of BAPCPA that its passage would reduce losses to creditors such as credit card companies, and that those creditors would then pass on the savings to other borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. These claims turned out to be false. After BAPCPA passed, although credit card company losses decreased, prices charged to customers increased, and credit card company profits soared. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 And that kind of debt is entirely optional. Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree.
    - tsotha 14y ago
      >Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree. That's a self-refuting argument. If your degree was really the ticket to a "vibrant middle class" job you'd be able to pay off your student debt. The reality is not all degrees are created equal, and people should think a little bit before they go $200k into debt for a degree that's going lead to a $40k job. Granted, 18 year olds aren't very good at this kind of reasoning, but that's what parents are for. On top of that, for a lot of fields a degree from a public university is just as good as one from an Ivy. Nobody is entitled to a pricy private college education. Either you go on family money or you think very carefully about how those loans are going to get repaid.
      - sc68cal 14y ago
        I believe that the vast majority of student debt is not people going to an Ivy institution. The major concentration of serious debt issues has been in the private-education-as-big-business sector from companies like University of Phoneix and DeVry, whose business models depend on government backed student loans, or loans from private companies that are subsidized/guaranteed by the government (before President Obama signed a law that allowed the government to manage student loans without requiring a private company to act as an intermediary). http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-profit-colleges http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-prof... "Last winter, the Department of Veterans Affairs tasked its newly hired blogger, a cantankerous Iraq vet named Alex Horton, with investigating the website GIBill.com, one of many official-looking links that come up when you Google terms like "GI Bill schools." With names like ArmedForcesEDU.com and UseYourGIBill.us, these sites purport to inform military veterans how to best use their education benefits. In reality, Horton found, they're run by marketing firms hired by for-profit colleges to extol the virtues of high-priced online or evening courses. He concluded that GIBill.com "serves little purpose other than to funnel student veterans and convince them their options for education are limited to their advertisers." http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-profit-higher-education-numbers http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-pr... "The for-profit higher education industry was the target of a bruising report issued last week. Based on a two-year effort, the report detailed high rates of loan default, aggressive recruiting, higher than average tuition, low retention rates, and little job placement assistance. It was spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a longtime critic of the industry. (ProPublica has written a number of pieces looking more closely at the explosive growth sector, including questionable recruiting and marketing.)" And finally - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoenix-allegations-enrollment-abuses-persist http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoen... "After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school's parent company paid out nearly $10 million to resolve the allegations. Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters' pay to enrollment numbers, U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up unqualified students. In the years since, Phoenix cemented its stature as the nation's largest for-profit school and the single biggest recipient of federal student aid. But some of the school's recruiters have continued to use high-pressure, deceptive tactics, according to a dozen current and former students and two former recruiters who spoke to ProPublica and Marketplace as part of a joint investigation."
  - bobwaycott 14y ago
    While I'm not entirely disagreeing with your point, there is an element of dubious optionality wrt student debt when one systemically cannot find gainful employment without a college degree. College degrees are increasingly becoming the new high school diplomas—wherein they are, for all intents and purposes, of equal compulsory nature, without the defense of laws requiring all 18-21-year-olds to be there. Thus, for vast majorities of the population who wish to lead productive economic lives, the "option" isn't quite optional anymore.
    - tsotha 14y ago
      I disagree. There are all kinds of things you can do that don't require a college degree, including any kind of owner-operated business, a military career, or a skilled trade. Even today only 40% of the population gets a college degree. That other 60% is doing something to make ends meet.
      - bobwaycott 14y ago
        I think you miss the point. Systemically, exiting high school and entering college is the narrative. It is the path students are being presented as the way forward, not an option forward. Culturally, there is a very strong set of expectations placed on people wrt university education, and this narrative determines people's recognized option paths. There are strong social determinants in place, both positive and negative, to which people react and from which they draw their conclusions--even unknowingly. Student debt has risen in tandem with the codification of the narrative. An entire industry of loan operations has exploited the inexperienced eighteen-year-olds of the last few decades, saddling them with lifelong debt in the pursuit of the supposed "dream" the American narrative has been selling them their whole lives. Suffice to say, when one talks about options available to people, one should talk deeply of the real viability and potentiality of those options on a person and his/her life, and refrain from rattling off platitudes of the things someone could do other than follow the narrative. Those things typically aren't qualitatively better, and usually wind up being part of the greater narrative as how we ease our consciences and wash our hands of people we allow to systemically fail.
- marknutter 14y ago
  This may sound harsh, but medical attention isn't free, and crossing that street without medical insurance and getting hit by a car and accepting expensive treatment you can't pay for is still incurring debt which you are obligated to pay back. This is why insurance of all forms exists; to protect us from expensive, catastrophic events. So as far as fault goes, you are very much to blame if you take risks and choose not to pay for insurance, regardless how expensive it is.
  - mcantor 14y ago
    It's not a choice if you can't afford it or are turned down.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.
    - marknutter 14y ago
      Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.
      - potatolicious 14y ago
        The cost of medical care in the US is structured to account for bankruptcies - the hospitals get paid in aggregate. The real suckers here are people who actually pay for the care, because they've now paid several multiples of the real cost of the care to account for the people who couldn't afford this ridiculous number and went bankrupt. The morality behind medical finance in the US is not nearly as clear cut as you think it is. > "Well, it's beside the point." It really isn't. It comes down to the core of the issue. What we have is an industry that collectively charges many times the actual cost of delivering their service and have a monopoly on performing a critical service (licensing, certification). Whether or not this is acceptable hinges hugely on whether or not you believe access to this service is a fundamental right. There is no way, for example, that we would accept a similar situation if the product in question was fresh water or air.
- philwelch 14y ago
  If you get hit by a car, by law, the driver of that car should have liability insurance which will end up paying all your medical bills.
  - azakai 14y ago
    Should, but not necessarily. People buy insurance for exactly that case, where the other motorist is uninsured or underinsured.
  - frio 14y ago
    So what if the shoe's on the other foot? A driver hits someone. The driver doesn't have insurance. He's now liable for the other person's medical bills, but can't afford them. He's now massively in debt over some random accident. No matter the moral judgment ("he shouldn't be driving without insurance"), the underlying point was that random debt does happen :).
    - philwelch 14y ago
      Not only should he not be driving without insurance, but he's almost certainly at fault for hitting the pedestrian. We put some debtors into prison for lesser forms of irresponsibility.
      - frio 14y ago
        The point is: unexpected debt happens. Arguing semantics over a hypothetical case is not a meaningful tangent :).
        greedo 14y ago
        You set up a strawman, and then change the point. Defending irresponsible behavior won't do much to improve things.
      - elemenohpee 14y ago
        That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understand that there are people who do not have the luxury of a risk-free life?
- craig552uk 14y ago
  Sometimes I forget how fortunate I am to have the NHS. Thank you for reminding me.
- Shivetya 14y ago
  I sure hope they are going to apply some sort of means test. Having known quite a few people who have discharged their debts in court or are currently mocking the system I certainly don't think all of them deserve the help. If this group would focus on debt incurred from medical cases then I would be all for it. I want something where I feel good contributing, there are far too many dead beats out there who have hands out but never have a helping hand out for others.
unomateo 14y ago
I was thinking the same thing... To make this a better program they should buy someones debt, in the example they bought a $14,000 debt for $500. The person that had the debt removed should pay $1,000 back to OWS. Then OWS can buy 2 more... and so on. Unfortunately, the person that had the debt removed will probably just create more debt for themselves
- bendmorris 14y ago
  Buying someone's debt and hoping to make more than you paid is what any collection agency does.
  - malandrew 14y ago
    I'm interested in knowing if there is a business model in an "eBay or SecondMarket for personal debt" where anyone could buy and sell the debt of other people. I get the feeling that there is disruption possible in this industry but I don't know enough about it to speculate how it could be disrupted.
    - TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
      Sounds great. So the mob will start buying debt from targeted individuals and have a "chat".
paulhodge 14y ago
You can read their whole explanation, it's an interesting read: http://strikedebt.org/debt/ http://strikedebt.org/debt/ Short answer: various methods of systematic trickery and financial booby-trapping perpetrated by, you guessed it, the 1%.
- mseebach 14y ago
  In shock revelation, OWS blames all ills of world on "the 1%". Film at, you guessed it, 11. One of the reasons OWS isn't more popular is that 99% of the 99% understands that the vast majority of personal debt was and is incurred by regular people living beyond their means, and not by nefarious schemes by nefarious monocle-wearing capitalists. Unsympathetic as it might be, they merely provided the rope.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Almost all debt I've seen was generated by either medical problems or going to university. And I say this as someone with no debt whatsoever and a reasonable income each month that I live within. You are talking nonsense.
  - elemenohpee 14y ago
    Yeah, no. http://assets.clearbankruptcy.com/infographics/leading-causes-of-bankruptcy.jpg http://assets.clearbankruptcy.com/infographics/leading-cause...
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    You would be well served to based your world view around observable fact instead of tired stereotypes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/american_journal_of_medicine_09.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/amer... 62% of all bankruptcies in the US have a direct medical cause, a sharp rise from only 8% in 1980. "Vast majority" of debt incurred by lavish living indeed! It must be a surreal world for you, one where it's okay to heap blame upon tens of millions of Americans without seeing one single shred of evidence against them.
ImprovedSilence 14y ago
Yeah, medical bills just happen sometimes, for the un-insured or under-insured. And you can easily rack up 10k in debt for a weekend stay at the local hospital for something you could have never helped (accident, disease, or otherwise). Crazy part is, you would never even know what hit you till you got the bill 3 weeks later. It's not like they tell you upfront, "ok, each IV you get is gonna be $550, each blood lab $230, and each vital check is gonna run u $55." I don't think they are bailing out loans on BMWs or mc-mansions...
vinhboy 14y ago
Buying a random stranger's debt with your own money, with no expectations of re-payment or even a personal thank you is entitlement?
- bo1024 14y ago
  I'm not much of an OWS supporter, but a lot of the criticism of it really bothers me. Just a lot of hypocrisy to be frank. - This entitlement thing. I don't see what's entitled about giving one's own time or money to a cause you believe in, to go camp out for weeks or whatever. It seems like a lot of criticism of OWS centers on them acting like they deserve to be given jobs, but I have trouble taking this seriously when the same pundits complain about slow growth in their stocks/financials due to decreased consumer spending and unemployment, and want to know what the government's going to do about it. - Civil liberties and free speech are supposed to be the cornerstone of American democracy and yada yada, but people suddenly feel extremely threatened when people want to exercise them. Who cares, let the hippies have their say and their signs. Why let it bother you? - Loan forgiveness, bank bailouts. This is the one that really annoys me because criticisms of OWS on this front tend to be so inconsistent. If a student gets over their head in debt trying to earn a degree, we shouldn't think of helping her out because that's a terrible case of moral hazard, and we'll only encourage that sort of risk-taking behavior. But if bank executives commit fraud and bet against their customers, then get multi-billion bailouts for their companies and multi-million severance checks for themselves, well, you know how business is, these things just happen, there's no help for it. Anyway sorry for the rant, but I just think if you disagree with what OWS proposes, you should make an argument against it (or even better, just ignore it) rather than resorting to personal attacks or condescending catchphrases like "entitlement".
  - elemenohpee 14y ago
    > Civil liberties and free speech are supposed to be the cornerstone of American democracy and yada yada, but people suddenly feel extremely threatened when people want to exercise them. Notice the government doesn't get their panties in a bunch over the Westboro church, or Tea Party townhalls, but turn your attention towards the plutocrats and suddenly there's riot police in the street. The fact that the government feels threatened lends credence to their critique.
subsection1h 14y ago
Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical expenses. So yeah, debt can be some random accident like getting hit by a car. OWS, to me, represents an entitled generation. Which post-WW2 generation can't be described as an entitled generation?
- dmix 14y ago
  The issue is using "generation". There's always been an entitiled subset of each generation. The question has it grown and are they more vocal?
  - elemenohpee 14y ago
    The issue is also, is it really entitlement to ask for a level playing field and a functioning democracy?
lizzard 14y ago
It is also accumulated by being bled dry and having paid the original debt many times over.
intended 14y ago
Yeah I can get behind that people should have known. But in the case of the Mortgage Market prior to the crash I can't - simply because it wasn't an equal/level playing field. In brief 1) CDOs => Mortgage Origniators no longer held back by their risk levels. CDOs can just offset it. 2) MOs incentives are now drastically different - Incentive now entirely to generate as many mortgages as possible, whatever the risk profile. 3) With no incentive to care who was signing, as long as they signed - MOs sold to people they knew were incapable of understanding the terms, nor ever meet the conditions, creating things like NINJA mortgages/loans. The MOs held the information advantage, and then abused it (look at the marketing material of the time) while now including people that they KNEW were out of their depth. It was like stealing candy from a baby. Edit: Formatting, point placement and flow
- philwelch 14y ago
  The fact that lenders were able to win short term profits from the ignorant and irresponsible does not exonerate the ignorant and irresponsible.
  - eli_gottlieb 14y ago
    Ignorance is, in fact, the traditional defense against responsibility. And yes, sufficient ignorance absolves.
- hnal943 14y ago
  Politicians and citizens alike were pounding on the banks to lower their standards before the crash. Everywhere there was rhetoric about home ownership being a right, and that the evil banks were standing in the way. It's not like this was an evil scheme that the banks cooked up.
  - intended 14y ago
    Erm - The politicians were being funded by banks and focus groups? Heck de facto end/death of Glass Steagal was when Citi went ahead and merged with Travelers, even when they knew it would precipitate in a court case and most likely an end to the regulation

gmkoliver 14y ago

Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. No, but distressed debt can be.

narcissus 14y ago

"Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street." Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. I'm not saying that this is true for all of the OWS debts: probably not even the majority. I'm just saying that it's not as easy as "it's your fault you're in debt".

tsotha 14y ago
>Except debt can be exactly due to some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street and you don't have the insurance to pay for the medical bills. That's why we have bankruptcy laws. From what I heard at the time, the big hobby horse for the OWS people was student debt, which can't be forgiven in bankruptcy. And that kind of debt is entirely optional.
- sc68cal 14y ago
  That's why we have bankruptcy laws. Yes - bankruptcy laws that were passed in 2005 which made it significantly harder to get debt forgiven in bankruptcy, and also removed some forms of debt from being able to be discharged in bankruptcy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_and_Consumer_Protection_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy_Abuse_Prevention_an... It was widely claimed by advocates of BAPCPA that its passage would reduce losses to creditors such as credit card companies, and that those creditors would then pass on the savings to other borrowers in the form of lower interest rates. These claims turned out to be false. After BAPCPA passed, although credit card company losses decreased, prices charged to customers increased, and credit card company profits soared. http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 http://ssrn.com/abstract=1157158 And that kind of debt is entirely optional. Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    >Not when the majority of jobs that create a vibrant middle class in the post-industrial United States require at least a college degree. That's a self-refuting argument. If your degree was really the ticket to a "vibrant middle class" job you'd be able to pay off your student debt. The reality is not all degrees are created equal, and people should think a little bit before they go $200k into debt for a degree that's going lead to a $40k job. Granted, 18 year olds aren't very good at this kind of reasoning, but that's what parents are for. On top of that, for a lot of fields a degree from a public university is just as good as one from an Ivy. Nobody is entitled to a pricy private college education. Either you go on family money or you think very carefully about how those loans are going to get repaid.
    - sc68cal 14y ago
      I believe that the vast majority of student debt is not people going to an Ivy institution. The major concentration of serious debt issues has been in the private-education-as-big-business sector from companies like University of Phoneix and DeVry, whose business models depend on government backed student loans, or loans from private companies that are subsidized/guaranteed by the government (before President Obama signed a law that allowed the government to manage student loans without requiring a private company to act as an intermediary). http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-profit-colleges http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/gi-bill-for-prof... "Last winter, the Department of Veterans Affairs tasked its newly hired blogger, a cantankerous Iraq vet named Alex Horton, with investigating the website GIBill.com, one of many official-looking links that come up when you Google terms like "GI Bill schools." With names like ArmedForcesEDU.com and UseYourGIBill.us, these sites purport to inform military veterans how to best use their education benefits. In reality, Horton found, they're run by marketing firms hired by for-profit colleges to extol the virtues of high-priced online or evening courses. He concluded that GIBill.com "serves little purpose other than to funnel student veterans and convince them their options for education are limited to their advertisers." http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-profit-higher-education-numbers http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/explosive-growth-pr... "The for-profit higher education industry was the target of a bruising report issued last week. Based on a two-year effort, the report detailed high rates of loan default, aggressive recruiting, higher than average tuition, low retention rates, and little job placement assistance. It was spearheaded by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a longtime critic of the industry. (ProPublica has written a number of pieces looking more closely at the explosive growth sector, including questionable recruiting and marketing.)" And finally - http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoenix-allegations-enrollment-abuses-persist http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/university-phoen... "After federal regulators accused the University of Phoenix of systematic enrollment abuses in 2004, the school's parent company paid out nearly $10 million to resolve the allegations. Phoenix allegedly had broken the law by tying recruiters' pay to enrollment numbers, U.S. Department of Education investigators found, creating pressure to sign up unqualified students. In the years since, Phoenix cemented its stature as the nation's largest for-profit school and the single biggest recipient of federal student aid. But some of the school's recruiters have continued to use high-pressure, deceptive tactics, according to a dozen current and former students and two former recruiters who spoke to ProPublica and Marketplace as part of a joint investigation."
- bobwaycott 14y ago
  While I'm not entirely disagreeing with your point, there is an element of dubious optionality wrt student debt when one systemically cannot find gainful employment without a college degree. College degrees are increasingly becoming the new high school diplomas—wherein they are, for all intents and purposes, of equal compulsory nature, without the defense of laws requiring all 18-21-year-olds to be there. Thus, for vast majorities of the population who wish to lead productive economic lives, the "option" isn't quite optional anymore.
  - tsotha 14y ago
    I disagree. There are all kinds of things you can do that don't require a college degree, including any kind of owner-operated business, a military career, or a skilled trade. Even today only 40% of the population gets a college degree. That other 60% is doing something to make ends meet.
    - bobwaycott 14y ago
      I think you miss the point. Systemically, exiting high school and entering college is the narrative. It is the path students are being presented as the way forward, not an option forward. Culturally, there is a very strong set of expectations placed on people wrt university education, and this narrative determines people's recognized option paths. There are strong social determinants in place, both positive and negative, to which people react and from which they draw their conclusions--even unknowingly. Student debt has risen in tandem with the codification of the narrative. An entire industry of loan operations has exploited the inexperienced eighteen-year-olds of the last few decades, saddling them with lifelong debt in the pursuit of the supposed "dream" the American narrative has been selling them their whole lives. Suffice to say, when one talks about options available to people, one should talk deeply of the real viability and potentiality of those options on a person and his/her life, and refrain from rattling off platitudes of the things someone could do other than follow the narrative. Those things typically aren't qualitatively better, and usually wind up being part of the greater narrative as how we ease our consciences and wash our hands of people we allow to systemically fail.
marknutter 14y ago
This may sound harsh, but medical attention isn't free, and crossing that street without medical insurance and getting hit by a car and accepting expensive treatment you can't pay for is still incurring debt which you are obligated to pay back. This is why insurance of all forms exists; to protect us from expensive, catastrophic events. So as far as fault goes, you are very much to blame if you take risks and choose not to pay for insurance, regardless how expensive it is.
- mcantor 14y ago
  It's not a choice if you can't afford it or are turned down.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  The difference in opinion usually winds up being, one party believes medical attention is a basic human right and should be free for everyone. The other party does not.
  - marknutter 14y ago
    Well, it's beside the point. For now, medical care costs money, and people rely on that money for their livelihood, and simply walking away from that debt is wrong.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      The cost of medical care in the US is structured to account for bankruptcies - the hospitals get paid in aggregate. The real suckers here are people who actually pay for the care, because they've now paid several multiples of the real cost of the care to account for the people who couldn't afford this ridiculous number and went bankrupt. The morality behind medical finance in the US is not nearly as clear cut as you think it is. > "Well, it's beside the point." It really isn't. It comes down to the core of the issue. What we have is an industry that collectively charges many times the actual cost of delivering their service and have a monopoly on performing a critical service (licensing, certification). Whether or not this is acceptable hinges hugely on whether or not you believe access to this service is a fundamental right. There is no way, for example, that we would accept a similar situation if the product in question was fresh water or air.
philwelch 14y ago
If you get hit by a car, by law, the driver of that car should have liability insurance which will end up paying all your medical bills.
- azakai 14y ago
  Should, but not necessarily. People buy insurance for exactly that case, where the other motorist is uninsured or underinsured.
- frio 14y ago
  So what if the shoe's on the other foot? A driver hits someone. The driver doesn't have insurance. He's now liable for the other person's medical bills, but can't afford them. He's now massively in debt over some random accident. No matter the moral judgment ("he shouldn't be driving without insurance"), the underlying point was that random debt does happen :).
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Not only should he not be driving without insurance, but he's almost certainly at fault for hitting the pedestrian. We put some debtors into prison for lesser forms of irresponsibility.
    - frio 14y ago
      The point is: unexpected debt happens. Arguing semantics over a hypothetical case is not a meaningful tangent :).
      - greedo 14y ago
        You set up a strawman, and then change the point. Defending irresponsible behavior won't do much to improve things.
    - elemenohpee 14y ago
      That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understand that there are people who do not have the luxury of a risk-free life?
craig552uk 14y ago
Sometimes I forget how fortunate I am to have the NHS. Thank you for reminding me.
Shivetya 14y ago
I sure hope they are going to apply some sort of means test. Having known quite a few people who have discharged their debts in court or are currently mocking the system I certainly don't think all of them deserve the help. If this group would focus on debt incurred from medical cases then I would be all for it. I want something where I feel good contributing, there are far too many dead beats out there who have hands out but never have a helping hand out for others.

unomateo 14y ago

I was thinking the same thing... To make this a better program they should buy someones debt, in the example they bought a $14,000 debt for $500. The person that had the debt removed should pay $1,000 back to OWS. Then OWS can buy 2 more... and so on. Unfortunately, the person that had the debt removed will probably just create more debt for themselves

bendmorris 14y ago
Buying someone's debt and hoping to make more than you paid is what any collection agency does.
- malandrew 14y ago
  I'm interested in knowing if there is a business model in an "eBay or SecondMarket for personal debt" where anyone could buy and sell the debt of other people. I get the feeling that there is disruption possible in this industry but I don't know enough about it to speculate how it could be disrupted.
  - TheAmazingIdiot 14y ago
    Sounds great. So the mob will start buying debt from targeted individuals and have a "chat".

paulhodge 14y ago

You can read their whole explanation, it's an interesting read: http://strikedebt.org/debt/ http://strikedebt.org/debt/ Short answer: various methods of systematic trickery and financial booby-trapping perpetrated by, you guessed it, the 1%.

mseebach 14y ago
In shock revelation, OWS blames all ills of world on "the 1%". Film at, you guessed it, 11. One of the reasons OWS isn't more popular is that 99% of the 99% understands that the vast majority of personal debt was and is incurred by regular people living beyond their means, and not by nefarious schemes by nefarious monocle-wearing capitalists. Unsympathetic as it might be, they merely provided the rope.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Almost all debt I've seen was generated by either medical problems or going to university. And I say this as someone with no debt whatsoever and a reasonable income each month that I live within. You are talking nonsense.
- elemenohpee 14y ago
  Yeah, no. http://assets.clearbankruptcy.com/infographics/leading-causes-of-bankruptcy.jpg http://assets.clearbankruptcy.com/infographics/leading-cause...
- potatolicious 14y ago
  You would be well served to based your world view around observable fact instead of tired stereotypes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/american_journal_of_medicine_09.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/amer... 62% of all bankruptcies in the US have a direct medical cause, a sharp rise from only 8% in 1980. "Vast majority" of debt incurred by lavish living indeed! It must be a surreal world for you, one where it's okay to heap blame upon tens of millions of Americans without seeing one single shred of evidence against them.

ImprovedSilence 14y ago

Yeah, medical bills just happen sometimes, for the un-insured or under-insured. And you can easily rack up 10k in debt for a weekend stay at the local hospital for something you could have never helped (accident, disease, or otherwise). Crazy part is, you would never even know what hit you till you got the bill 3 weeks later. It's not like they tell you upfront, "ok, each IV you get is gonna be $550, each blood lab $230, and each vital check is gonna run u $55." I don't think they are bailing out loans on BMWs or mc-mansions...

vinhboy 14y ago

Buying a random stranger's debt with your own money, with no expectations of re-payment or even a personal thank you is entitlement?

bo1024 14y ago
I'm not much of an OWS supporter, but a lot of the criticism of it really bothers me. Just a lot of hypocrisy to be frank. - This entitlement thing. I don't see what's entitled about giving one's own time or money to a cause you believe in, to go camp out for weeks or whatever. It seems like a lot of criticism of OWS centers on them acting like they deserve to be given jobs, but I have trouble taking this seriously when the same pundits complain about slow growth in their stocks/financials due to decreased consumer spending and unemployment, and want to know what the government's going to do about it. - Civil liberties and free speech are supposed to be the cornerstone of American democracy and yada yada, but people suddenly feel extremely threatened when people want to exercise them. Who cares, let the hippies have their say and their signs. Why let it bother you? - Loan forgiveness, bank bailouts. This is the one that really annoys me because criticisms of OWS on this front tend to be so inconsistent. If a student gets over their head in debt trying to earn a degree, we shouldn't think of helping her out because that's a terrible case of moral hazard, and we'll only encourage that sort of risk-taking behavior. But if bank executives commit fraud and bet against their customers, then get multi-billion bailouts for their companies and multi-million severance checks for themselves, well, you know how business is, these things just happen, there's no help for it. Anyway sorry for the rant, but I just think if you disagree with what OWS proposes, you should make an argument against it (or even better, just ignore it) rather than resorting to personal attacks or condescending catchphrases like "entitlement".
- elemenohpee 14y ago
  > Civil liberties and free speech are supposed to be the cornerstone of American democracy and yada yada, but people suddenly feel extremely threatened when people want to exercise them. Notice the government doesn't get their panties in a bunch over the Westboro church, or Tea Party townhalls, but turn your attention towards the plutocrats and suddenly there's riot police in the street. The fact that the government feels threatened lends credence to their critique.

subsection1h 14y ago

Debt isn't some random accident like getting hit by a car while crossing the street. The leading cause of personal bankruptcy is medical expenses. So yeah, debt can be some random accident like getting hit by a car. OWS, to me, represents an entitled generation. Which post-WW2 generation can't be described as an entitled generation?

dmix 14y ago
The issue is using "generation". There's always been an entitiled subset of each generation. The question has it grown and are they more vocal?
- elemenohpee 14y ago
  The issue is also, is it really entitlement to ask for a level playing field and a functioning democracy?

lizzard 14y ago

It is also accumulated by being bled dry and having paid the original debt many times over.

intended 14y ago

Yeah I can get behind that people should have known. But in the case of the Mortgage Market prior to the crash I can't - simply because it wasn't an equal/level playing field. In brief 1) CDOs => Mortgage Origniators no longer held back by their risk levels. CDOs can just offset it. 2) MOs incentives are now drastically different - Incentive now entirely to generate as many mortgages as possible, whatever the risk profile. 3) With no incentive to care who was signing, as long as they signed - MOs sold to people they knew were incapable of understanding the terms, nor ever meet the conditions, creating things like NINJA mortgages/loans. The MOs held the information advantage, and then abused it (look at the marketing material of the time) while now including people that they KNEW were out of their depth. It was like stealing candy from a baby. Edit: Formatting, point placement and flow

philwelch 14y ago
The fact that lenders were able to win short term profits from the ignorant and irresponsible does not exonerate the ignorant and irresponsible.
- eli_gottlieb 14y ago
  Ignorance is, in fact, the traditional defense against responsibility. And yes, sufficient ignorance absolves.
hnal943 14y ago
Politicians and citizens alike were pounding on the banks to lower their standards before the crash. Everywhere there was rhetoric about home ownership being a right, and that the evil banks were standing in the way. It's not like this was an evil scheme that the banks cooked up.
- intended 14y ago
  Erm - The politicians were being funded by banks and focus groups? Heck de facto end/death of Glass Steagal was when Citi went ahead and merged with Travelers, even when they knew it would precipitate in a court case and most likely an end to the regulation