How the Rolling Jubilee Works

need more guests. So if you are a stealthy celebrity listener, if you're an actor, or a writer or a producer, uh director, if you're a musician, if you are a book author. I've had all kinds of people in the studio, and that's kind of the point, is to hear from from neat folks of all walks of life. If you were out there and you want to be on Movie Crush, I would love, love, love to have you. Um. If you're in Atlanta or going through it Anna with a

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to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Bryant. There's Jerry over there, and this is stuff you should know. Come on aboard the Rolling Jubilee guests, not to be confused with the Jamboree, which is what the boy Scouts do. Yeah, Rolling Jubilee sounds hope one, and for a lot of people it is. Yeah, unless you're like a Wall Street shark who hates seeing lower income people get out from under debt miraculously. It's a great time for everybody. I

honestly didn't know much about this thing, so I didn't either. Yeah, I actually I saw I Um, I saw it in the sidebar while I was looking for an article to do. Um, and I was like, I have no idea what that is, So let me check it out, and it was just one of those hidden gems, if you will. Should we talk Let's talk about debt, baby, Yeah, And I want to say, like this is largely about the rolling jubilee, but we're gonna scratch the surface of the consumer debt

secondary market. I would love to do one on just debt and debt collection and just this this the the whole industry and the I guess, the whole massive ball of wax on the business of debt. Yeah, and like you know, how in what case is it's actually good to have? And like how it kind of powers the economy all that stuff. Did we ever do one on bankruptcy? No? All right, well we should put one of those in

there too. Yeah. We got a lot to do, lest we have a lot left to do, more work to be done, all right, So let's in this case we're talking about consumer debt. AH in the United States, it is a um an astounding number and problem. Is that fair to say? I would say that's yes, I think that might even be an understatement. Although so as of this when this article was written, which appears to be about December of two thousand twelve, it was a bigger

problem than that. It is now from what I'm seeing. Uh, well I have an higher number now than then. Okay, go ahead. Well the number I see, well, the original number from two thousand twelve was eleven point four four trillion trill trillion. Number I got today was twelve point seven three trillion. I saw twelve point two nine trillion, which is still I mean, that's years. Is almost a trillion dollars more in four years. I'm sure those are.

So that's two thousands seventeen numbers. Yeah, okay, well that would explain. Mine was Q two of two thousand sixteen. So it's the distant past, a trillion dollar increase in five years. That's all of the household debt, credit cards, mortgages, UM car loans, uh old, medical bills, all that student loans a big part of it. Yeah, that's a big one too, that all households have in the United States. Right. Yes, as of two thousand fifteen, I'm hats off to you, man,

I could not find two thousand seventeen numbers. Yeah. So here's the thing, debt. If you talk to someone who knows finance, they will say, like, that is not the worst thing in the world. It's not like being in debt. It's got to be the right kind of debt, Like owing a ton of money to high interest credit cards is not good by any measure. Um, Emily and I got smart when we Uh, I think I've told the story when we bought our house, we had a bunch of stupid credit card debt and this was she's twelve

or so years ago. And what we did, because they were given away money back then foolishly uh. And this could have bought us in the butt, I guess if we hadn't have, you know, gotten jobs and been able to afford payments. But we rolled all that credit card debt into our homeland. So we literally paid off every cent of it and told each other We're never gonna go into credit card debt again. And since that day, and it was tough, we have never not paid off

a credit card in full at the end of every month. Yeah. We we um almost always pay them off too. And it's like just just the best feeling to be able to look at that stuff and be like, oh, wow, I'm not like dying here. Well yeah, And to be able to kind of give the finger to a credit card company and say I'm using you for what you're supposed to be used for, which is to pay for things easier, but to not mortgage my life away with ridiculous interest rates because I'm buying stuff I don't need

and can't pay for. And thanks, thanks for the sky miles chumps. Yeah for real. All right, So that's bad debt. They're all kinds of bad debt. But you know that's not the worst thing in the world to have. What's bad is delinquent to debt, right and yeah, so there is, like you were saying, I think good debt to have if you live in a consumer based economy, right, that kind of makes makes the world go round. But yes, delinquent debt is is across the board bad debt for

almost everybody involved. Yeah, and about ten of the debt in the US is delinquent debt. See, this is where I saw a major drop. Actually, okay, so is it not that high anymore? No? Man like by half? Wow? Yeah, as again I found Q two of two thousand and sixteen, but it was in this article that was written in two thousand twelves. Is one point oh six trillion is delinquent? I saw in two thousand and sixteen. It was five and eighty nine billion. Oh well, that's in the right direction.

And then about three quarters of that was um, super delinquent, although I think they call it seriously delinquent, I like super delinquent more or way delinquent or oh my god, which means three months ninety days late or more. Probably not in all cases, but probably delinquent to the point

where you're you're not going to pay it, right. But but so there are in there the banks, as anyone who's ever owed a bill longer than ninety days knows, banks and lenders of any sort will just be like here, here, here, collection agency, go take this and if you can get something out of them, will split what you get right um, And you're you're in the cycle because collection agencies that's

their business, right, lenders lend of money. Collection agencies try to go get money that's owed right there like a different ilk altogether. And there's actually different kinds of levels of that, as we'll see. But you're you're in the machine, and your life is going to be made unpleasant by the people who are trying to collect on those bills. Right.

What the rolling jubilie, which we're talking about today, What that does is they have entered the debt collection industry, but rather than trying to collect on debt, they are buying debt and forgiving it. Yeah, so here's what can happen.

Back up a second. Let's say you owe a ton of money on a bad credit card and you have been delinquent for a little while, and you call up that credit card company and you say, you know what, I want to pay this I spent this money, but your interest rate is really bad, and can you work with me on this interest rate and get it down to a point. And they'll stop you right there and say, oh, sir or ma'am, I'm sorry, but we don't own your

debt anymore. And you go huh. And you say no, no, no, no no, no. We sold that debt to an investor and you go huh. And if you don't know that this is how this works, then well you didn't pay attention during the mortgage crisis, because that's basically what that was, bundling debt to an investor, bundling loans, um mortgages, bad debt into securities that are then sold to those investors who buy it really really cheap, with the idea that they can then go out and collect on a portion

of that to make a big profit. And we'll like, we'll get into the details a little a little more in a minute, but the Jubilee itself the idea of buying debt, entering that industry and buying debt, but rather than trying to make a profit like you were saying, but just to forgive that debt so that the people who owe the money don't have that burden any longer. UM.

That is the whole point behind it. And if you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, this sounds like some sort of plot out of maybe Occupy Wall Street, well then you would be correct, because at Zukkati Park and I think two thousand and eleven, the idea for doing this was bandied about and there was a guy named Thomas Gorker who was there at one of these conversations, and he went on to found this thing called Strike Debt, which is an offshoot organization from Occupy Wall Street and

Strike that has this project called Rolling Jubilee. UM. So it's a direct outcropping of Occupy Wall Street. Yeah, this is when UM Strike Debt was finally launched and the whole deal with Occupy Wall Street was basically protesters getting together and saying, well, you'll bail out banks to the tune of billions and trillions of dollars. But the banks don't then turn and turn say well, we're gonna forgive

consumer debt as well, since we were bailed out. They'll bail out the big banks, but the consumer is still

uh in big trouble. And so the idea of of the Rolling Jubilee and Project Strike debt was a bailout of by Yeah, and there was there's one facet to that, um lopsided bailout situation to that I think you left out, which is the banks are getting the bailouts from the government, but the government's getting that money from the taxpayers, and very frequently those taxpayers who actually gave the money to bail out the banks are the same ones that the

banks are turning the thumbscrews on. So they're basically saying, thanks for the bailout money, give us the money you actually owe us individually now. And Yeah, Occupy had a big problem with that, and I think for good reason. Frankly, if I can go on record for saying that, yeah, so um, I agree the Rolling Jubilee as far as structure goes, Uh, they have and we're not gonna get too much in the weeds on this, but they have a board of directors and then volunteers who are not

paid assent. Originally they had um brokers in while they're still brokers and web developers who have been paid but

well well below market value. They're not completely donating their time in all cases, but they're getting paid apendance for this cause of what they normally would right like um pre wrapped cooler sandwiches money, you know what I mean, Like the kind not even like like a recognizable brand of sandwich that you buy in like a Bow Dagger convenience story, just you know, somebody's last name with like a poorly drawn like logo next to it that's overprinted

so it's mudgy. You can't even really see what the logo is supposed to be. That is the kind of sandwiches these people are able to buy with the money they're getting from the Rolling Jubilee. Yeah, where there is no discernible difference between the meat and the bread. They've just coalesced into one lumpy, moist unit. I know it grows so many people out there with that word combination moist Yeah, moist unit, moist lumpy units. That what I said, Um,

should we take a break so soon after moist lumpy unit. Yeah, all right, let's do that, and we'll come back and talk a little bit about the origins of the word jubilie. All right, josh Uh, I kind of thought jubilie meant jamboree because I'm a big dumb dump sometimes. Hey, I'm right there with you. But it's not true. It actually comes from the Bible, specifically the Book of Leviticus. Um. I'm not sure which one I used to know all

those in order I could rattle them off. Genesis, a third book of the Bible, I think, right, I know Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Germedy, Joshua Judges Ruth first and seconds, Samuel Man the Book of Ruth. Yeah, some of that stuff really just comes right back into my my p brain. I didn't know that. So anyway, in Lebticus and the Old Testament, um, jubilee is actually an English variation of the Hebrew word joe bell jo j o b e l, which means ram's horn.

And this is how you would you would blow in this horna and announce the signal of the year of the jubilee, right, which came I saw every forty nine years. Apparently this article says every fifty years, roughly every half of a century, let's just say, right. And so they blow the rams horn and that was a big deal. So a acording to Leviticus levig Kiss twenty five, I guess which is uh some section the section or verse or what chapter? Chapter A chapter? Okay, chapter verse okay?

So um. The chapter of Leviticus basically says, um, here's how you do uh jubilee and everyone who is a member of the House of Israel, all the Israelites, right, um, are to have their debts forgiven. So if you are an indentured servant, you were freed. Or if you said, I'm a farmer, but I can't pay this debt, um, I really I lost all my all my um. I lost the farm on a bunch of magic beans. Because this is you know them. For the common era, people

thought magic beans were a real thing. You would give that person who who sold you the magic beans your farm um as as collateral basically, and you would lose farm. But during Jubilee year you could get that farm back. You were given that farm back, restored your land, like all debts were forgiven. Yeah, it's basically God saying I'm a liberal hippie. Every fifty years, we're gonna wipe the slate clean. Here's what we don't know for sure is if this really happened, right, you can tell like the

Israelites were like, oh yeah, good idea. Yeah wait, that's a great one. Nice idea, God, and then just we're just kind of didn't bring it up again. Yeah, do you think you noticed? Right? Uh? So we're not sure if that actually happened, but there are records in history of other cultures that did this sort of clean slate tradition, uh that have records under Hammerabi and Babylonia, uh in Egypt under Ptolemy, and even the Rosetta Stone has a

jubilee proclamation recorded from right, So it did happen. Which think about this, Chuck, that is really heartening that like pretty early on, I guess in the agrarian system, once people settle down and all of a sudden you had

like surpluses and income inequality and economic strata. Um, you you also had the idea that debts should be forgiven to Like it was a natural outcropping of that because they're they're that thing would that wouldn't exist prior to those things, because if you're a hunter gatherer, you can't go into debt. It's not possible. You're responsible for your own you know, food gathering and all that. So the idea that it just kind of naturally emerged out of it,

I find that heartening. It makes me. It gives me faith in humanity again, or at least humanity from hundreds and thousands of years ago. Right. Uh So the idea with those jubilees, it was, like we said, once every forty fifty years, the idea of a rolling jubilee. The word rolling just means it's an ongoing thing. Uh, and so therefore they named it rolling Jubilee, which just to me still sounds like a party on a on a farm with people selling uh whippets out of plastic bags

on exta. See, hence the rolling part. That's right. So um, this is how it works. Right, You've got the rolling Jubilee started. I think they started with a benefit concert and they managed to raise like five grand like pretty pretty quickly. Back in two thousand twelve. And what they did was they looked around and they identified like how

this was happening. They knew that there were people who were in debt, and that the people that they owed the money to weren't even collecting any longer, that there was that what had developed was a secondary consumer debt market. Right, And you kind of went over a little. But I think it bears like like fleshing out. Yeah. I mean it's a little hard to wrap your head around if you're not in this world. No, but I don't mean

if you live on a different planet. But in the world of finance, if you're rolling on a farm, you you may have time wrapping your head around this. But but the the basis of it is this, Right, So you go to a lender and you say, UM, lend me some money. And if you fall behind on your payments, um, after a certain amount of time, I think you would

you say three months. Well, it kind of varies, but sure it could be you're in you have reached this level, like a new level of delinquency, and banks say that's it, You're done. We're we're not collecting from you anymore. You're

a loss and we're writing you off. And they do this actually because back in the nineteen eighties up to the savings and loan crisis, which were you know, the savings and loan banks were the place you went to go get a mortgage in America, and because they were overregulated from the interest rates they could charge, the banks started engaging in like risky investment behavior because in that

sense they were underregulated and they lost a bunch of money. Well, one of the outcroppings of the savings and loan crisis was that there were some really really shady accounting going on, and it was actually one of the first one of the early bailouts. It was like a hundred billion dollar bailout, which was an astounding amount of money. You chump changed today, sure it is, but at the time that was a

huge deal. So it's a taxpayer bailout of these banks that had engaged in risky behavior and stopped me if this is starting to sound familiar, but it was largely because there was they were able to get away with it. And the problem gets to be so big because the accountants were keeping these bad assets on the books. So

debt to you is an asset to the bank. It's something that they've got, they've got money they can collect on from you, right, But these delinquent assets that they had um were being kept on the books to make it look like there was a lot that the banks were a lot more flushed than they were. So after the savings a loan crisis, the government stepped in and said, you guys can't do that anymore. If you have a delinquent account on your books after say ninety days, you

have to write it off. But whoa wa, Well, you're the banks and we love you and we want you to be happy and prosperous at all times, so we're gonna give you a tax deduction for that too. And they say, well, okay, what do we have to do after we write it off? And the government says, do whatever you want, sell it. We don't care, but you have to write it off and you can take a tax deduction. And then yeah, if you want to sell it, do And that's where the secondary consumer debt market was born. Yeah.

And if you think that sounds like a pretty sweetheart deal, it gets even better because sometimes when they bundle this debt together and sell it to people who think they can go out, earth firms usually who can go out and make money by just recovering, like we said, just a portion of the stuff of these debts. Uh. They will then do the loan deal with that firm as well and make an additional amount of money as a lender. Yeah, they financed the purchase of that debt that they're selling

to the person. It's crazy, man, So weird how things work in this country. And the weird is one way to put it, for sure. And the um the you said it, you said that they bundle this stuff right like they did with mortgage backed securities. They bundled mortgages together and then sliced them up and sold like basically them as shares. Right, this is a little different, but

there's also bundling going on. But rather than just sell each debt individually, the banks will take, say, you know, all of the ones that they they're doing that day or that week or that month or whatever that they've written off, and they'll bundle it together into what's called a portfolio, and then they'll sell that portfolio for pennies on the dollar. Yeah, we're talking like it can be. You can you can spend like one dollar to buy thirty two up to thirty two dollars worth of debt.

Let's say, yeah, I think that's about as good as you can get. That's the best I've seen. I've seen anywhere from ten cents on the dollar to yeah one a one to thirty two ratio. Yeah, which is I mean, that's a great uh. On one hand's super cheap, but it's very risky still, because what you're doing again is buying debt that you may or may not be able

to collect on right exactly. And so like the whole industry is based on the idea that you'll be able to collect some of the um debts that are in this portfolio, and that you'll probably only be able to to um collect on a portion of the debts that you do collect on. So some out of the gate, the people just aren't gonna pay you, no matter how much you call them and harass them. They're just not

gonna pay that debt. And if it's small enough that it doesn't make any sense to spend the money taking them to court, there's just nothing you can do about that. If they're like, I'm on year six of this, this debt being reported on my credit, I'm not about to pay now. Because once they make it a year seven, you guys can't do anything about it any longer except

they call me. They're not gonna pay um, But there's gonna be some in that portfolio where either the people just want to pay to get you to stop calling it. The debt is big enough that you could conceivably take them to court or for other reasons. So there's gonna be some in there that you can collect on. And then when you do collect on those, you're gonna collect less usually than the full face value of the debt. Right, Yeah,

they'll offer a deal. Let's say, like, hey, you're behind on your debt, and what they're what they're usually doing is trying to target people who, um, we're maybe in financial trouble and are now pulling themselves out of financial trouble, rather than going after the debt that they, like you said, just probably you have no shot at getting. But now hey you've got a job again. You're making a little dough. Um pay us back like fifty and we'll call it square.

And the people think, uh, well, you know that sounds like a good deal to me. Um, I'll just go ahead and take that fifty percent deal, right, exactly. Sometimes they apparently people are are like, wow, that was a really generous thing you're doing here by offering me to just to to absolve my debt for just half of it, you know. But again, those people may have paid three cents on the dollar for that debt, but you're about to give them fifty cents on the dollar. So they're

making out like bandits. And again there's something slippery and eel like and clammy about the fact that you're having to deal with these people who you never even borrowed the money from. You don't know, these people from Adam, if you'll forgive the biblical thing, right um, and and now like you're you're they're inspiring the sense of like gratitude and you for just you know, charging you fort of that debt that they had nothing to do with

originally they just bought on some secondary market. Yeah. And I mean, the whole thing is slippery to me because on one hand, like targeting poor people who maybe lost their job due to circumstances beyond their control, it's not going to help any It's not gonna help anyone to keep them poor. It's not gonna help the nation or the economy. But then there are also people who were very irresponsible with their money and bought too much stuff and said, you know what, I don't want to pay

for this. You'll file for bankruptcy or I'll just I'll just I don't care about my credit rating any longer. I'll just go ahead and not pay it. Sure. The thing is, though, is for years and years now, the second group of people that you you pointed out have been used to excuse mistreatment of that first group. Correct, you know what I'm saying, Like there's no real separation. It's like, oh, they're both debtors, so they you know, unfortunately they all deserve it. Yeah, and here's the deal

with the Rolling Jubilee. They will uh, like we said, the whole idea is they will try and purchase these debt packages just like these firms do. Um I think they give an example of on the firms, like there's one called Encore Capital Group and here's just one example.

Um I think inelve they spent forty seven million dollars to buy one point one billion dollars worth of debt uh to make a lot of money on and they you know, their aim and what they did in that case was recovered about three times what they invested through these settlements with the debtors. So let's say they made you know, three point two or you know, three and half billion bucks off that forty seven million dollar investment. Oh no, they would have made like a hundred and

fifty million. They just bought a billion dollars with the debt Okay, okay, yeah, but that's still I mean, that's substantial for one quarter. Yeah, for basically just saying hey, we'll take over the harassing phone calls from here everybody. Yeah, and this is you know, they basically like the banks have given up on this because they don't have they would have to spend way too much money. Two not become bankers any longer, and to become bankers slash debt

collection agencies. So they've just give up on trying to collect with these other people like, no, we do this, this is what we do, so we'll take it exactly. And again they're required banks or lenders are required by law to write off delinquent accounts after certain number of days, So even if they wanted to keep collecting on it, they can't. Yeah, that's right. So with the rolling jubilee there and we'll talk about a little bit how they

do this. But they buy this debt forgive it, like we said, But it's not like you can't if you're someone who is in trouble, you can't contact the Rolling Jubilee and say, please buy my debt because it's all lumped together. Um. They do help people and families, but a lot of times they don't even know who these people are. Sometimes they do, and if they have their personal information, they will then contact them and say You're

debt is forgiven. Um, but because it's a Rolling Jubilee, what we would like you to do now is is donate a little bit of money back to the cause because you're debt is forgiven. And I'm not. I wonder what they're numbers are for stuff like that. Extraordinarily low for people donating then afterward. Yeah, so so not only donating but like getting back in touch. Apparently, UM, I read this interview with Thomas Gorky and they asked him that very question, like you know, like how what kind

of response are you getting from people? And and so they've got everybody's personal information, Um, they just don't have it until they buy the portfolio, right, so they'll send everyone in that portfolio a letter saying here's the amount of debt that you no longer Oh we bought your dead it's it's being abolished. And I think most people are like, is this a scam? Are are you like trying to get my Social Security numbers? And like that?

So they're just totally ignoring this letter and they say, no, we're the rolling you believe do No, it doesn't because they're like like the boy Scouts. But the but regardless of whether those people get back in touch what, regardless of whether they donate to the cause or not, they're dead is still forgiven because the rolling you are strike debt makes this point that this is not like they're they're not. Their goal isn't to decide, well, who who

really do who who deserves this? They can't make that judgment because when they buy a portfolio, they have no idea who the individuals are in there. They just know that these people um owe money, and that the likelihood, since they're delinquent on their debt, that they either are experiencing a time when they're down in their luck or are getting out of a time when they're down in their luck. That is enough that's that's good enough for for Strike Debt to to justify buying their debt and

abolishing it. Well yeah, and not only that, but rolling Jubilee and Strike Debt's goal isn't. They're not saying we're gonna solve the consumer debt crisis, or even we're gonna solve when we'll talk about student loans more in a minute, but we're gonna solve the student loan problem. They're literally just saying we're gonna solve a tiny fraction of this.

But what our real aim is is to raise awareness because you just you can protest all you want, but you simply can't ignore a real program like this right exactly because it gets a lot of pressed too. You know. Sure, So let's take one more break, Chuck, and then we'll come back with more on this. Okay, we're back, We're back. So um. Apparently, Chuck. Initially, they were really worried about how they were going to be able to kind of come into this industry because it was a pretty tight

knit industry. Yeah, like when a bank goes to sell debt, it's not like they place a want ad and say, well, who's out. They're like, they know who's out there. They know who these firms are, and they have trusted which is kind of a funny way to say it, working relationships with these firms. Right, So they were thinking like, well, we need to have people on the inside buying debt force. It's the only way they're going to ever let us do this. We have to we have to sneak around

and do it. The way this article puts it is, um, they had sheep and wolves clothing, yes, buying debt for them on behalf of this rolling jubilie. Right. So this again, this article is written in two thousand twelve. Apparently that

did not pan out at all. So as they got more into it, they almost became amazed at the willingness of this uh secondary debt industry too to sell to them knowing that they were going to abolish it or not caring to find out whether they were abolishing or who they were what they were doing, which means that, yeah, this industry is so inscrupulous it doesn't even look out

for itself. Yeah, you know, so they they um, I think as they got further into it too, and this may have actually developed since two thousand twelve as well. This is Um, this industry is is spread even more. I think it's a little less tight knit than it once was. There's a lot of brokers that are set up where they're the ones that are dealing with the banks and then turning around and selling it on behalf of the banks and then taking a little cut of

whatever the portfolio goes for. Right. But then there's also like websites that do the same thing. Just like you have an online stock broker, there are websites where you or I Chuck can put together a thousand dollars and go buy a portfolio that was worth like ten to thirty thousand dollars um. So if you want to really stick it to your fellow man, um, go do that. Go start doing that because it's something you can do online. Now that is correct, alright, So will the work is

the big question? Uh. It certainly will work with awareness. But as far as we're all numbers go, as of today, um, which is what October was it? Fourth fifth fourth October four seventeen, they have raised uh seven hundred, one thousand, three hundred seventeen dollars, which this is a few hours ago, so it's more than that probably by now and they have forgiven about thirty two million dollars total to date, which, like we said, is a not even a fraction what's

below a fraction of infantismal amount? An infantismal amount. Did I say infantismizable? I think it just made up a word, but it kind of works. It's so infantismal it's invisible, that's right. Uh, it's such a small amount that it makes no dint in the problem really, except to those individuals and families who are like, well this really worked out for me. But U thirty two million bucks is

raising awareness, which is a good thing. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Again, Like there was a huge thing in two thousand twelve when they first announced it. It was everywhere, right, everybody was talking about it. Uh. They got another bump in two thousand fourteen. I can't remember what happened, um, but then I think either this year or last year, they made the rounds with media again by buying debt from UM something called Corinthian Colleges, which is a for profit

college UM like company corporation. Yeah that and Thomas Gorky called them. He said that they were quote the worst of the worst, and they have just tons of lawsuits against them, um for UM just all manner of activities. Uh. And the Rolling JUBILEEUE got something like like three and a half million dollars worth of debt from them, and this would be student loan debt, yes, um. And the reason that they were able to do student loan days

because these this is a for profit college. So this would have been federal student debt, yeah, like of student loans or from the federal government. And they, uh, the federal government does not sell their debt. No, so if you have a student loan, you're through the federal government, like the Rolling Jubilee is never going to be able to help you, at least not directly like that. But that also raises one of the like long standing criticisms

against this idea. If you are against the entire like predatory lending idea of UM, the banking industry and the secondary market, that the whole thing, this whole ikey mess, Right, you're gonna criticize UM. Strike debt for contributing to it. They're they're throwing money into it, even though they're even though they're like abolishing debt, they're still giving money for it. Right, And so strike this whole thing is like, hey man, the level that we're operating on is so small that

we couldn't possibly affect the market. Yeah, like in their in their wildest dreams, they could uh affect the markets such where they could drive up the price and really compete as a as a as a top dog in the industry and maybe even drive some of those other firms out of business, and like that will never ever happen. No, And they also point out that like banks have to sell this stuff anyway, or they have to get rid of it anyway. UM, by law, they have to write

it off. So this this debt was going to be it was going to be sold one way or another. And they also try to buy debt at that really lucrative stage, lucrative for the debt collectors, where you you have been more than ninety days delinquent for about a year, so you probably went through that rough patch like you were talking about, Chuck, But now you the likelihood that maybe you've got a job again and you're starting to like get your debt under control and are therefore amenable

to UM an offer of just paying off UM. That's the kind of debt they're trying to buy because that's the Those are the people who are most vulnerable to this kind of um this industry, right, So they're saying, all this is gonna happen anyway, and we're not affecting the the the debt that people are are paying, and we're not really helping the banking industry anymore than they would have been helped anyway. The thing that sticks to me though, is and I couldn't find this. Did you

see if they bought that debt from Corinthian Colleges directly? Oh? I don't know, because if so, then they were they were paying money to Corinthian Colleges UM. And I could see that that criticism just being there because Corinthian College UM or any for profit university UH isn't required to write off bad debts, so they wouldn't be forced to do that if they bought from them. They also work with a lender. That's just a guess. I don't know. Yeah, I don't want to speak to that. Well. I saw that.

I saw this one that basically was teaching individual investors how to go get into this, and one of the things they suggested was go hang out at small claims court and when you when a company comes in and they're taking some debt or to court to collect um on a debt. Just go up to them after court and be like, hey, let me handle this. Just sell me all your debts, bundle them together, and I'll buy it from you. So people do go directly to companies that have have like bad debts on their books. Um,

so it's possible they did go to Corinthian College. I didn't see that one one way or the other. Very interesting. And then there was one other thing that was kind of an early concern that apparently didn't pan out, and that was that whether or not the government could consider this debt abolishment as income for the person who owed

the debt and would therefore oh taxes on it. And so apparently occupied Walster your strike debt with some lawyers, and um, the lawyers said it is our professional opinion that this would not qualify as income, and so they these people should not owe any tax burden. And so far, no one's, no one's had, no one's gotten a tax bill for their tax being abolished by strike debt. It's so convoluted, it's a little complied. Do you got anything else? No,

I think that's it. Man, Uh, let's see. If you want to know more about the Rolling Jubilee, good, check out this article on how stuff works. It's a good one. Grab your ban Joe yep and um, since uh, keep an ear out eventually for like just a larger debt episode because it is interesting and weird. Um and since I said weird, it's time for chuck administrative details beautiful. This is part two where we thank people for their lovely gifts and the kindnesses that they bestow upon us.

All right, I'm going start with Emily Winfield. She sent a well, she sent me a reformed Bedwetters Society patch. I'm on record as a late bed wetter and I've always championed people not being ashamed of that. So apparently Emily was and they she made a patch. It's really cool. That's amazing. I gotta see that. Why I didn't see it? Uh, let's see. Jackson Harder send us a Jigsaw puzzle postcard. I appreciate that, Thanks Jackson. David Velasquez and Samantha Penna

sent another wedding invite. Oh yeah, muzzle top. Nick Sokol sent us a bunch of great stuff from Korea. Thank you, very much for that. Jonathan Beale sent us handmade copper flasks from his company. Uh. Sara Toto dot com s E R t O d O stuff. You should drink copper flasks. They are to be beautiful. Terry M has a daughter named Chuck, who wrote us a very kind thank you note about the HIV episode in we want to say, Terry, we hope your friend's partner is doing well. Absolutely.

Chris Wecht of Carlton Brewery in New Jersey, well, he sent us beer. Thank you. Ryan and Chloe sent us a Montreal postcard. Thank you. Caroline Cross, she was very moved by the M the MS episode because her mom had MS, so she sent some sponge candy from Buffalo, New York to make me feel better about my friend Billy. Nice. That was very sweet, it was Uh. Connor g sent us some candy, sent us some smarties and a nice letter.

Thanks Connor Te. Sarah van dong or Bean Dange d O n g E send us her book I Love Love Walla Walla. It's her book about loving Walla Walla, Washington. Alexander Peppe, thanks for the thank you note, uh, and you're welcome for helping you kick your diet coke habit. That's right. Julia Decaman sent us uh, well, sent some hand painted pictures for me. It was pictures of my dear departed dogs, Buckley and Lauran. Uh. For you, she sent you one Charleston Hospitality, which was a painting of

the Belmont and Queen Street grocery. And for Jerry sent her one of a pink Peoni and uh, you can go to buy b y j Deckman dot com uh to check out her work. And since then we have paid her. She's so sad. Paid her for portraits of Lauren and we're about to commission another one for the Wizard. So the core for will be represented by Julie Duckman's art in our household Caroline. And I'm not even gonna attempt your last name, Caroline. I'm just gonna spell it s w I s z c Z. That's swizzle stick.

Put that together with a dot com and it will take you to her site which has They're awesome zene featuring us called the dread appropriately enough, Jordan Pearson from Canada sen as some Canadian chips lace ketchup an old Dutch ketchup chips sALS gluten is what it says because it's French Canada. Uh. And also Jordan had the nicest handwriting I think I've ever seen. Yeah, oh yeah, thanks a lot for that. Nice handwriting these days is that'll take you far in the past, um, let's see. And

then Katherine from Vello Drome sent us some CDs. Thanks a lot for that. Captain Matthew Grubs and us his first children's book called Tommy P. Tinker and the super Duper Rare Bottle cap nice. And then we want to thank Max from chirps Chips who sent us some chirps chips. Remember in our our crickets episode Crickets um well eating crickets basically, um, we mentioned chirps and they heard it and they said, here, guys, try this. Did you try

hi yet? I have yet to try it. I think we should try it like on Facebook Live or something like that. That's a good idea, you know. Uh ja more And that is with one oh send us his hot sauce. Spank you very much is the name of the hot sauce. I'm not just being cheeky, n And then that's that's all I've got written down. You got anymore? I just got one more Matthew for Minnesota, Sin. It's his joke book, Uh, the River of Wahaha. Great. I

love a good joke book. Great. Well, thanks everybody for sending us stuff, and if you want to send us stuff, we always are grateful for it. Um You can get in touch with us via Twitter. I'm at josh um Clark and the official handle is s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff

you Should Know or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us all an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at our home on the web, Stuff you should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff Works dot com