It’s maybe Occupy’s most radical idea: buy up overdue debt on the secondary market and cancel it, leaving lucky people across the country debt free. It’s so crazy it just might work.
Before they became known for hurricane relief or even encampments in public parks, Occupy Wall Street was an intellectual leftist movement with connections to the anti-austerity protests in Greece and Spain. They’ll be returning to those roots this week with an imaginative new action campaign that will strike at the heart of what ails the economy, strike a blow against economic business as usual, and maybe even strike fear in the guts of the 1%, by buying up consumer debt and then forgiving it.
Total American consumer debt, from medical debt to student loans to credit cards, currently stands at a record $2.74 trillion. When payers fall behind on this debt it becomes delinquent, and banks often clear it off their books by selling it to third-party debt collectors for pennies on the dollar. These collectors then try to get you to make good on the full amount plus interest with often unfair or abusive results.
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