Occupy Wall Street activists buy $15m of Americans' personal debt

Rolling Jubilee spent $400,000 to purchase debt cheaply from banks before 'abolishing' it, freeing individuals from their bills

'Our primary purpose was to spread information about the workings of this secondary debt market,' said Andrew Ross. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

A group of Occupy Wall Street activists has bought almost $15m of Americans' personal debt over the last year as part of the Rolling Jubilee project to help people pay off their outstanding credit.

Rolling Jubilee, set up by Occupy's Strike Debt group following the street protests that swept the world in 2011, launched on 15 November 2012. The group purchases personal debt cheaply from banks before "abolishing" it, freeing individuals from their bills.

By purchasing the debt at knockdown prices the group has managed to free $14,734,569.87 of personal debt, mainly medical debt, spending only $400,000.

"We thought that the ratio would be about 20 to 1," said Andrew Ross, a member of Strike Debt and professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University. He said the team initially envisaged raising $50,000, which would have enabled it to buy $1m in debt.
"In fact we've been able to buy debt a lot more cheaply than that."

The group is able to buy debt so cheaply due to the nature of the "secondary debt market". If individuals consistently fail to pay bills from credit cards, loans, or medical insurance the bank or lender that issued the funds will eventually cut its losses by selling that debt to a third party. These sales occur for a fraction of the debt’s true values – typically for five cents on the dollar – and debt-buying companies then attempt to recoup the debt from the individual debtor and thus make a profit.

The Rolling Jubilee project was mostly conceived as a "public education project", Ross said.
"We're under no illusions that $15m is just a tiny drop in the secondary debt market. It doesn't make a dent in the amount of debt.

"Our purpose in doing this, aside from helping some people along the way – there's certainly many, many people who are very thankful that their debts are abolished – our primary purpose was to spread information about the workings of this secondary debt market."
The group has focussed on buying medical debt, and has acquired the $14.7m in three separate purchases, most recently purchasing the value of $13.5m on medical debt owed by 2,693 people across 45 states and Puerto Rico, Rolling Jubilee said in a press release.
“No one should have to go into debt or bankruptcy because they get sick,” said Laura Hanna, an organiser with the group. Hanna said 62% of all personal bankruptcies have medical debt as a contributing factor.

Due to the nature of the debt market, the group is unable to specify whose debt it purchases, taking on the amounts before it discovers individuals’ identities. When Rolling Jubilee has bought the debt they send notes to their debtors “telling them they’re off the hook”, Ross said.

Ross, whose book, Creditocracy and the case for debt refusal, outlines the problems of the debt industry and calls for a “debtors’ movement” to resist credit, said the group had received letters from people whose debt they had lifted thanking them for the service. But the real victory was in spreading knowledge of the nature of the debt industry, he said.

"Very few people know how cheaply their debts have been bought by collectors. It changes the psychology of the debtor, knowing this.

“So when you get called up by the debt collector, and you're being asked to pay the full amount of your debt, you now know that the debt collector has bought your debt very, very cheaply. As cheaply as we bought it. And that gives you moral ammunition to have a different conversation with the debt collector."

Source:

Before He Died George Explains American Economics & Politics

   

Educating People Is Empowering Them, Smart People Do Not Make For Obedient Workers.

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Spirit Science 12 The Human History Movie

The Road to World War 3

[Sourced From The StormCloudsGathering Website]

Why did United States attack Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan... Yemen?
Why are U.S. covert operatives helping destabilize Syria?
And why is the United States government so intent on taking down Iran in spite of the fact that Iran has not attacked any country since 1798?

When you look at the trajectory that we are on it doesn't make sense at all if you evaluate it based on what we are taught in school.
In fact it doesn't even make sense according to what is being presented by many in the alternative media.
But it makes perfect sense once you know the real motives of the powers that be,

In order to understand those motives we first have to look at history...

In 1945 the Bretton Woods agreement established the dollar as world reserve currency which meant that international commodities were priced in dollars. The agreement which gave the United States a distinct financial advantage was made under the condition that those dollars would remain redeemable for gold at a consistent rate of $35 dollars per ounce. The United States promised not print much money, but this was on the honor system, because the Federal Reserve refused to allow any audits or supervision of its printing presses.

In the years leading up to 1970 expenditures in the Vietnam war made it clear to many countries that the U.S. was printing far more money than it had in gold, and in response they began to ask for their gold back. This set off a rapid decline in the value of the dollar.

The situation climaxed in 1971 when France attempted to withdraw its gold and Nixon refused. On August 15th he made the following announcement:

This was obviously not a temporary suspension as he claimed, but rather a permanent default and to put it bluntly it was theft.

In 1973 President Nixon asked King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to accept only US dollars as payment for oil and to invest any excess profits in US Treasury bonds, notes, and bills. In return Nixon offered military protection for Saudi oil fields. The same offer was extended to each of the world's key oil producing countries, and by 1975 every member of OPEC had agreed to only sell oil in U.S. dollars.

The act of moving the dollar off of gold and tying it to foreign oil instantly forced every oil importing country in the world to start maintaining a constant supply of Federal Reserve paper, and to get that paper they would have to send real, physical goods to America.

This was the birth of the Petrodollar, Paper dollars went out, everything America needed came in and the United States got very, very rich as a result. It was largest financial con in recorded history.

Through 70s and the 80s the U.S. used the financial power gained by the petrodollar arrangement to build the most powerful military in the world,
and when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the United States was left with no rival.

Many hoped that at this point the U.S would start to reduce its military presence across the world, and that a new era of peace and stability would follow...

Unfortunately there were those in high places which had other ideas

Within that same year the U.S. invaded Iraq in the first Gulf war, and after crushing the Iraqi military and destroying their infrastructure, crippling sanctions were established which prevented that infrastructure from being rebuilt. These sanctions which were initiated by Bush senior and sustained throughout the entire Clinton administration lasted over a decade and were estimated to have killed over 500,000 children. The Clinton administration was fully aware of these figures.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/

Mrs. Albright what exactly was it that was worth killing 500,000 kids for?

In a final act of resistance Iraq began selling it's oil exclusively in Euros November of 2000.

This was a direct attack on the dollar and on U.S. financial dominance, and it wasn't going to be tolerated.

In response the U.S. government, with the assistance of the main stream media began to build up a massive propaganda campaign claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was planning to use them. In 2003 the U.S. invaded, and once they had control of the country oil sales were immediately switched back to dollars.

This is particularly notable due to the fact that switching back to the dollar meant a 15 - 20% loss in revenue due to the euro's higher value. It doesn't make sense at all unless you take the petrodollar into account.

General General Wesley Clark: March 2, 2007

This interview was filmed in 2007 and yet almost all of what General Clark described has come to pass.

In Libya Gahaffi was in the process of organizing a block of African countries to create a gold based currency called the Dynar which they intended to use to replace the dollar in that region. U.S. and NATO forces helped destabilize and topple the Libyan government in 2011 and after taking control of the region U.S. armed Rebels executed Gaddafi in cold blood and immediately set up the Libyan central bank.

Iran has been actively campaigning to pull oil sales off of the dollar for some time now and has recently secured agreements to begin trading its oil in exchange for gold; In response the U.S. government with mainstream media assistance has been attempting to build international support for military strikes on the pretext of preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. In the meantime they established sanctions which U.S. officials openly admit are aimed at causing a collapse of the Iranian economy.

Syria is Iran's closest ally, and they are bound by mutual defense agreements. The country is currently in the process of being destabilized with covert assistance from NATO, and though Russia and China have warned the United States not to get involved, the white house has made statements within the past month indicating that they are considering military intervention.

It should be clear that military intervention in Syria and Iran isn't being considered, it's a foregone conclusion, just as it was in Iraq and Libya. The U.S. is actively working to create the context which gives them the diplomatic cover do what they already have planned.

The motive for these invasions becomes clear when we look at them in their full context and connect the dots.

Those who control United States understand that if even a few countries begin to sell their oil in another currency it will set off a chain reaction, and the dollar will collapse.

They understand that there is absolutely nothing else holding up the value of the dollar at this point, and so does the rest of the world.

Rather than accepting the fact that the dollar is nearing the end of its lifespan, the powers that be have made a calculated gambit.

They have decided to use the U.S. military crush each and every resistant state in the middle east and Africa.

That in itself would be bad enough, but what you need to understand is that this is not going to end with Syria, Iran and Yemen.

China and Russia have stated publicly and in no uncertain terms that they will not tolerate an attack on Iran or Syria.

Iran is one of their key allies, and they understand that if Iran falls

then they will have no way to escape the dollar without going to war.

And yet the U.S. is pushing forward in spite of the warnings.

What we are witnessing here is a trajectory that leads straight to the unthinkable.

It is a trajectory that was mapped out years ago in full awareness of the human consequences.

But who was it that set us on this course? What kind of psychopath is willing to intentionally set off a global conflict that will lead to millions of deaths just to protect the value of a paper currency?

It obviously isn't the president. The decision to invade Libya, Syria and Iran was made long before Obama had risen to the national spotlight, and yet he is carrying out his duty just like the puppets that preceded him.

So who is pulling the strings?

Often the best answer to questions like this are found by asking another question: Qui Bono? Who benefits?

Obviously those who have the power to print the dollar out of thin air have the most to loose if the dollar were to fall and since 1913 that power has been held by the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is a private entity is owned by a conglomerate of the most powerful banks in the world, and the men who control those banks are the ones who pull the strings.

To them this a game. Your life and the lives of those you love are just pawns on their chessboard.

At like a spoiled 4 year old who tips the board onto the floor when they start to lose the powers that be are willing to start world war three to keep control of the global financial system.

Remember that as these wars extend and accelerate. Remember that when your son or your neighbors son comes back home in a flag draped coffin. Remember that when they point the finger at the new boogie man. Because the madmen who are running this show will take this as far as you allow

What are our chances? Can we change course?... also the wrong question.

The odds don't matter anymore. If you understand what we are facing then you have a moral responsibility to do everything in our power alter the course we are on regardless of the odds. It's only when you stop basing your involvement on the chances of success that success actually becomes possible.

To strip the ill begotten power from the financial elites and to bring these criminal cartels to justice will require nothing less than a revolution. The government is not going to save us. The government is completely infiltrated and corrupt to the core. Looking to them for a solution at this point is utterly naive.

There are 3 stages of revolution, and they are sequential. Stage one is already underway.

Stage one is the ideological resistance. In this stage we have to actively work to wake up as many people as possible about what is happening and the direction we are headed. All revolutions originate from a shift in the mindset of the population, and no other meaningful resistance is possible without it. Success in this stage of a revolution can be measured by the contagion of ideas. When an idea reaches critical mass it begins to spread on its own and seeps into all levels of society. In order to achieve that contagion we need more people in this fight. We need more people speaking out, making videos, writing articles, getting this information onto the national and international stage, and we especially need to reach the police and military.

Stage two is civil disobedience, also known as non-violent resistance. In this stage you put your money where your mouth is, or more accurately you withhold your money and your obedience from government, and do everything in your power to bring the gears of the state to a halt. Practiced in mass this method alone is often enough to bring a regime to its knees. However if you fail at this stage, stage 3 is inevitable.

Stage 3 is direct physical resistance. Direct physical resistance is the last resort and it should be avoided and delayed as long as possible, and should only be invoked once all other options have been thoroughly exhausted

There are those talk tough and claim that they will resist when the time comes, but what those people fail to realize is that if you are inactive during the first two stages and save your efforts for violent resistance then you will fail. When the Nazis were moving door to door dragging people out of their homes in Germany that was the time to fight back physically, but due to the lack of ideological resistance and civil disobedience leading up to that moment even an armed uprising would have likely failed at that point. An armed uprising can only succeed if the people have established an attitude of active resistance, and active resistance is only possible after their minds have broken free from main stream propaganda.

If you want to fight back it's now or never. You're not gonna get another chance, and the stakes are much higher than they were in Nazi Germany.

----
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Music is original composition by StormCloudsGathering
Thumbnail is creative commons
Scenes from Grey State trailer used with permission fromhttp://www.graystatemovie.com

10 Signs The Global Elite Are Losing Control

***This Website is no longer operational, I have a new website:https://learninghowtothink.net***

Karma is coming for the elite in a big way. As the Powers That Be head toward a devastating defeat in their war plans for Syria, signs are emerging that their rule over humanity is rapidly diminishing.

Over the last decade the global elite have been on a mad dash to consolidate power over the world. It's always been their plan like some evil villain in a comic book, but after 9/11 the plan went into overdrive and then turbo charged during the financial crisis of 2008.

Yet it's doomed to fail because humans are meant to be guided by their own free will, not controlled like livestock. The more the elite try to control humanity, the more entropy occurs. Entropy, for those who don't know, is the lack of order or predictability; a gradual decline into disorder.

Although the elite still enjoy a huge wealth advantage over the masses, they are now resigned to behaving like tyrants to maintain control. This, in turn, exposes their dark side which has been cleverly concealed for ages. Not anymore.

People are waking up in droves, at least as fast as the elite can build their full-spectrum prison matrix. Let them try. To paraphrase Victor Hugo, "No army can stop an idea whose time has come."

Here are ten signs that the elite are losing control over the people:

1. Official lies no longer effective: The lies they tell simply don't work anymore. There was a time when official lies, especially about war and peace, were believed. Because, after all, how evil would it be to lie about such things? Generally people want to believe they are being told the truth when life and death is at stake. The boy who cried wolf has cried one too many times. Even if they told the truth at this point, very few would believe them.

2. No confidence in politics: US politicians have a paltry approval rating. The trust in government is at all-time lows here and around the world. Mainstream polls show only 10% of the public has confidence in Congress. In other words, 90% don't believe in them to be competent to govern.

Watch this Town Hall exchange below where a man threatens US Senator John McCain with arrest for treason to his face. This would have never happened just a year or two ago:

3. No confidence in media: The most recent polls show that 77% of the population no longer trusts corporate TV news. Is it any wonder why the establishment media failed to sell the lies about the alleged Syria chemical event? With all their monopoly might over the airwaves, they can no longer claim that black is white simply because officialdom says so.

4. Bankers rejected: Hungary recently became the first country to follow Iceland's lead by shedding international bankers (IMF) and is considering pursuing prosecution of past prime ministers who enslaved the people with debt.

Look for this trend to continue even if nations decide to default to break free.

5. Vatican abruptly cleaning up its act: Under the previous Pope, Pope Benedict, scandals erupted from the Vatican ranging from covering up pedophile priests to money laundering and fraud. Benedict, in an unprecedented move, abruptly retired to make way for a seemingly much more likable Pope Francis. Pope Francis by all measures is working furiously to reclaim the church's peaceful and humble reputation. Whether this is genuine or a PR move, it's telling that the church was forced into such a drastic turnaround to save itself from losing all credibility.

6. Mutiny among soldiers: Finally. Soldiers, who are outlawed from making political statements, are steadily speaking out against US military adventurism. As Einstein famously said "The pioneers of a warless world are the young men (and women) who refuse military service."

7. Militarized police state: One of the darkest signs that the elite are losing their grip on power is the construction of the militarized police state specifically trained to combat domestic civil unrest. Local cops with tanks and other combat gear are working with Feds at Fusion centers, active Army units are on American soil for the first time in history, the NSA spy grid is being used by the IRS and DEA, and the elimination of due process for Americans under the NDAA are just some of the tyrannical moves made to secure the elite criminals from public backlash. They're clearly scared, and they should be given what they've done to the American people and the Constitution.

8. Serious secession movements everywhere: A state seceding from a larger political entity used to be an ultra-fringe concept, until now. In America, secession movements are winning over the public in parts of Colorado and California. In Europe, serious secession movements are happening in Spain and Scotland, as well as several EU nations flirting with the idea of dropping out of the euro. Decentralization = Entropy!

9. GMO food being rejected everywhere: Control the food and you control the people. True in theory, but much more difficult in practice. GMO leaders like Monsanto are being exposed. All of their economic and political strength cannot defeat the spread of knowledge about the dangers of pesticide-soaked Frankenfoods. GMO fields are being burned in protest in America and around the world, informed nations continue to reject their products, and labeling laws are gaining traction. 

10. Cannabis liberation: Many reading this will think marijuana legalization is a superficial development. However, it is a major signpost that the elite's grip is fading. Enormous resources have been spent to keep cannabis illegal. Cannabis has been a powerful medicine for physical, mental, and spiritual health throughout the ages. This single plant represents a huge threat to the power structures and their industries, hence its seemingly senseless illegality. The approaching global reversal of the tyrannical policy of prohibition is the first of many concessions to come.

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The Dark Side of Israel

Why should Americans support a socialist, racist, theocratic state? 

Some libertarians claim that it is only a commitment to abstract general principle that forces us to oppose U.S. government aid to Israel. In other words, we should support the ideological concept of aid to Israel, opposing only the fact that our tax dollars are being used to achieve it. Yet if one examines the situation with a more critical eye, one finds that the laws and policies of Israel are blatantly contrary to the tenets of libertarian-ism ― the universality of individual rights, a commitment to nonaggression, and the right to hold private property. In fact, Israel is an uncompromisingly racist, militarist, and collectivist entity, and has been so from the time of its conception.

The racism of Israel is transparent in the policy of “the Law of Return.” Any Jew may become a full citizen Israel, but non-Jewish Palestinians of Israeli birth who emigrated or were expelled may not return. Thus, Samuel Sheinbein can escape trial in the United States, where he was accused of the brutal murder and mutilation of a fellow student, by fleeing to Israel and claiming the Right of Return; yet my mother, born and raised in Jerusalem, couldn't return home to escape a parking ticket.

Palestinians who remain in their homeland are granted only second-class citizenship. They are barred from receiving many of the subsidies of the heavily socialized state, although they are not exempt from the oppressive tax rates. In fact, many Palestinians in Israel are treated as “present absentees,” denied the right to return to their villages. Israeli authorities systematically use government regulatory devices against Palestinians to prevent them from building or expanding their houses, refusing them the building permits routinely granted to Jewish citizens. For the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, things are worst of all. Their homeland is illegally occupied, yet Israel treats them no better than visitors. They are considered “permanent residents,” whose residency permits can be taken away if they go abroad. Jews may have dual citizenship (and many do), but a non-Jewish Jerusalemite loses his residency if he acquires American citizenship. Arab Jerusalemites who marry people from outside the city must choose between giving up their residency and leaving town because non-Jews are not allowed to obtain residency.

The definition of Jew in Israel is racial and not religious. Under Israeli law, having a Jewish mother is what makes a person a Jew. An Israeli need not follow the Mosaic law nor even believe in God to qualify as a Jew as long as his mother meets the ethnic requirements. (On the other hand, the Israeli High Court has ruled that Messianic Jews ― meaning Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah ― lose their status as Jews. Apparently Jews who question the ultra-orthodox definitions of Judaism are considered as little worthy of citizenship as Palestinians.) Although Jewish teachings do not promote discrimination against non-Jews, the so-called Jewish state of Israel binds itself less to actual religion than to ethnicity. Israel grants full citizenship, including property rights, subsidies, and individual rights to any person of any nationality, as long as that person is of Jewish ethnicity. Ben Gurion University political geographer Oren Yiftachel has rightly noted that such a form of government is an “ethno-cracy” rather than a democracy.

Israel’s militarism has been defended by the claim that it is a tiny Jewish nation in a sea of hostile Arabs. However, this hostility is not the result of religious disagreements, as is maliciously suggested by pro-Israeli supporters. Arab aggression is far from a permanent factor in the history of the Middle East, a fact clearly demonstrated by the historical coexistence of Jews and Arabs under Muslim rule. In fact, although the Romans expelled the Jews from Jerusalem, the second Caliph, Umar, allowed the Jews to return when the Muslims captured Jerusalem in the seventh century. This was in direct contrast to the desires of the Christians inhabitants, who wished the Jews to remain exiled, and was in fact the sole Christian request that Umar did not fulfill. Centuries later, the Crusaders banned the Jews after massacring Jewish, Muslim, and Arab Christian occupants of the city. When Saladin recaptured the city, he allowed the Jews to return. The Hashemite kings Abdullah (who ruled Jerusalem from 1948-52) and Hussein (who succeeded him through 1967) departed from this tradition and excluded the Jews from Jerusalem, but they did not do so on the grounds of religious bigotry. Rather, they acted in direct response to the actions of Jews ― in retaliation for the Zionist expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes and lands. Pro-Israeli factions may claim that Arabs hate Jews on principle, but history makes clear that this is not the case. The heightened militarism of the country is therefore inappropriate and may even be a direct cause of many of the conflicts which Israel blames on its Arab neighbors.

The most interesting issue to libertarians is that of private property rights. Even the most pro-Zionist libertarian will criticize Israel for its staunch socialism. The collectivism of Israel, however, is not just a simple flaw in Zionism, but the core of the ideology. To appreciate this, one should note that at the time of Israel’s foundation, Jews (Zionist and non-Zionist alike) owned less than seven percent of the territory. This included land recently acquired from absentee landlords. The Jewish National Fund demanded that the new government should use its power of eminent domain in order to “acquire this year . . . as much land as it acquired in 47 years of unremitting effort.”1 This land was not to be turned over to private Jewish ownership, but was to be collectively owned by the Jewish people. This meant two things: it would never again be put into private hands, and it would never again be rented or leased by non-Jews. Under current laws, the same restrictions apply to state-owned land.

A recent example of the Israeli disregard for private property was the takeover of land near the village of Dir Kadis. A press release, issued by the Israeli Peace Bloc (Gush Shalom), noted that verbal protests by the Palestinian titleholders to the land were ignored. On May 23, 1999, when villagers tried to stop the bulldozers from leveling their property, Israeli soldiers shot tear gas canisters into their houses, wounding several people, including children, and causing one woman to suffer miscarriage. The justifications for such actions vary from the ever-popular seizures by the military for “security needs” to the claiming of land “abandoned” by refugees. In the occupied territories, Israelis employ a series of strategies to pressure the indigenous people to leave: The curfews that force people to remain indoors as many as 22 hours a day, the closures that prevent them from going to work, and the road system that cuts farms in half exemplify the difficult conditions Palestinians struggle against, simply to keep land which, under any private property law, should be theirs without question. Outright deportations, though illegal under international law, constitute yet another weapon in the Israeli arsenal.

Land is not the only target of looting. Israel does not have enough water to support the large numbers of immigrants it needs to outpace the fecund Arab population. To maintain the stream of immigrants, the Zionist lobby induced the U.S. Congress to endorse stricter immigration laws to make it more difficult for Jews from the former Soviet block to enter the United States. Unable to come to their first-choice destination, most emigrants end up in Israel, where the water supply falls short of supporting the artificially increased population. As a result, the Israelis raid the aquifer in the occupied territories to meet their needs.2 When Palestinians’ wells go dry, a negative response ― or indifferent silence ― meets their request for permits to dig deeper wells. Meanwhile, the illegal settlers get all the water they want from the dropping aquifer, while they live on land that has been illegally seized. There is no question that Israel’s policies regarding land ownership and water rights are not simply biased against Palestinians, but violent and illegal, and above all contrary to the fundamental concept of private property.

Too many libertarians, in spite of rejecting the need for government funding of foreign countries, feel that it is morally correct to support Israel. Yet morality cannot be divided from the consequences of action. The very foundation of Israel’s present existence should be anathema to any libertarian who disagrees that race should supercede all other factors when it comes to granting or denying citizenship and basic rights, that history should be ignored when justifying militarism, and that private property rights can be overruled in favor of government-mandated collectivism.

Notes

Jewish National Fund, Jewish Villages in Israel, Jerusalem: Keren Kayemeth Leisrael, 1949.

Swain, A., Arab Studies Quarterly, v. 20 #1 (Winter 1998), p. 1.

This article has been taken in its entirety without modifications from:
Liberty, 15 (4), pp. 39-40. (2001)

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