Saturday 17 November 2012

Rolling Jubilee

I think i understand the new strategy by the Occupy Wall Street group in their latest venture Rolling Jubilee.
The Rolling Jubilee website describes it like this: 'Banks sell debt for pennies on the dollar on a shadowy speculative market of debt buyers who then turn around and try to collect the full amount from debtors' so if i owed the bank £100, they would sell this debt to someone for a few pence and the newcomers would then come after me for the £100. What the Occupy people are doing are paying the few pence to become the new debt owners but rather than chase the debts, they are writing them off.
The Rolling Jubilee has already made its first debt purchase, spending $5,000 to acquire $100,000 of debt and sending out letters to the borrowers, telling them the debt is abolished and as the Rolling Jubilee website is showing it has raised $327,397 from donations, it could wipe out over $6 million worth of debt.
I always thought the Occupy movement had great potential but it needed a focus to make it a real threat and although this is a great idea, i'm not even slightly convinced this is the killer idea to change things, that will only come when they make use of their numbers and force a few of the banks and financial houses into collapse which would scare the others into line, along the course of the idea that they have previously of moving accounts into other banks because a drastically dropping share price is the only way they can be frightened and this isn't going to do that.
At least they are doing something and helping countless families and that has to be applauded though and all the time they are in there swinging, they have a chance of happening across the killer idea.  



10 comments:

Anonymous said...

lucy,

you might as well be writing about nuclear physics. it is obvious you know nothing about banking. sorry to be so harsh, but obviously true.

q

Lucy said...

You might have noticed the first line of the post where i said i thought i understood it.

Correct the bit i, or rather the occupy people, got wrong. Do banks not sell debt to other collectors for a fraction of the price who then collect the full amount?
If not then boy have they got this very wrong, but if they do then boy, have you got it very wrong and i invite you to the next nuclear physics lecture.

Anonymous said...

it is not possible for you to understand. too many of your "beliefs" would get in the way.

like me trying to understand how socialism can possibly work.

it would waste our time worse than normally.

q

Lucy said...

By avoiding the question i guess the answer is yes, that is how banks work. Not sure what my beliefs have to do with such a simple answer to how banks work. Any prticular time good for your nuclear physics lecture?

Anonymous said...

nope you are wrong again - though funny. what do you know about string theory?

commercial banks, investment banks, savings banks, or retail banks? are you including credit unions and S&L's in your definition of banks? if not, why not? what about national banks? see, you don't understand.

your beliefs matter because you are unable to see banking "functions" as just that - a collection of many functions that result in banking services. also, you do not understand the complexity of the functions, how they interact, or why they even exist. You (like all us humans) fill your many gaps in knowledge with guesses based on your beliefs. The adjective "shadow" in your first post is a good example. it is a waste of time.

q

Lucy said...

I do enjoy it when people tell me what i understand and what i don't. Do i know about string theory? Don't know, do i? You tell me.

So if banks don't sell debt for pennies to debt buyers who then try to collect the full amount from debtors, who does? If they answer is no, then the Occupy people have just wasted $5,000 but if the answer is yes, banks (any of the assorted banks you mention) do then you are wasting precious time when you could be telling me what i do understand so i know what subjects i am allowed to post on in future.
If the answer is yes but i'll be darned if i am going to admit it to the limey then carry on avoiding to answer the question.

Anonymous said...

is it hard for you to imagine that the occupy idiots made another mistake?

i was basing my comment on your understanding based on what you posted... sorry. should i have not used your words?

q

Anonymous said...

In addition to every company in america, banks end up trusting people that do not pay their debts. Of course, like most other companies they also clean their toilets, cut the grass, and change light bulbs when they go out. The banks try to recover some of their losses for their owners. There is nothing “shadowy” about it. It also is not very “speculative”. It is not part of the banking business model. It is the cost of doing business regardless if industry. Their options are: take the collateral, sell the bad debt to debt collectors, take the tax write off.

“so if i owed the bank £100, they would sell this debt to someone”
only if you don’t make your payments - deadbeat
and they should have a lien against real property (car, house, etc.) – only large loans
so they will first consider taking your real property – only large loans
if that won’t work they treat your loan as bad debt (a business loss on their taxes) – 5% to 8% annually
they zap your credit score so that
your next lender demands excellent collateral, a big down payment, and a much higher interest rate
meanwhile, whoever has ownership in the bank just took a loss - in USA includes middle class employees of big companies, teachers pensions, union pensions... oh, and the US government

“What the Occupy people are doing are paying the few pence to become the new debt owners but rather than chase the debts, they are writing them off.”
BRILLIANT!!! – can you sense the irony?

“The Rolling Jubilee has already made its first debt purchase, spending $5,000 to acquire $100,000 of debt and sending out letters to the borrowers, telling them the debt is abolished and as the Rolling Jubilee website is showing it has raised $327,397 from donations, it could wipe out over $6 million worth of debt.”
Wow, that is 12 bad home loans in California... just another 125,000 to go... BRILLIANT

q

Lucy said...

The Rolling Jubilee website describes it like this: 'Banks sell debt for pennies on the dollar on a shadowy speculative..etc etc

Not my words you used, theirs. I did wonder why they used pennies and not cents though.

Anonymous said...

when you quote someone and then don't dispute their words, isn't that the same as you saying it?

q