Keeping up with Rolling Jubilee

http://www.nationofchange.org/you-are-not-loan-strike-debt-and-challenge-rolling-jubilee-1369835584

One of Strike Debt’s most publicized initiatives is the Rolling Jubilee, a donation-based fund that has already purchased and abolished more than $1 million worth of people's private medical debt in the United States. The initiative has brought attention to the “shadowy, speculative secondary debt market” where defaulted medical and credit card debt can be sold to debt collectors, who purchase it for a fraction of the price and turn a profit by pressuring debtors to pay the full amount. The group's most recent debt buy involved obtaining a portfolio worth over $1 million — for around just $21,000.

“We purchase the debt like a debt buyer, but instead of trying to collect on it we abolish it,” said Ann Larson, Rolling Jubilee’s assistant treasurer. “This is like public education, letting people know that this is happening. These are people who haven’t been able to pay their medical debt, people who got sick [or] had an accident, and now debt buyers and collectors are profiting from it. They are trafficking in misery.”

Another large Strike Debt initiative has been the 130-page Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, a handbook that outlines various forms of debt and debt resistance. Debt resistance, the manual explains, can consist of anything from intentionally defaulting on debt to simply negotiating with creditors for more equitable interest rates. The publication is available for free online and at Strike Debt rallies. A second edition will be available in mid-September for purchase on Amazon, but will remain free online and at demonstrations.

“The problem is that people suffer from debt alone, often overwhelmed by feelings of shame,” Rolling Jubilee secretary Christopher Casuccio wrote in an e-mail. “With the DROM, we tried to tell a story to other people who feel as isolated as we do, a story about our economic system and the role that debt plays as a predatory tool for capitalists. We have received thousands of emails from debtors all over the country, [which] confirmed what we suspected: debt is a crisis and people are suffering everywhere, often with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to.