The Debt-Buying Industry and Debt Resistance

Thomas Gokey, an organizer with Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee, offshoots of Occupy Wall Street, explained how credit card, medical, payday and private student debt is sold for pennies on the dollar to unregulated debt buyers, and how the group raised roughly $700,000 to buy and abolish nearly $15 million in medical debt. He described failed negotiations with a Sallie Mae vice president, linked stagnant wages to household debt, and sketched a proposed "debtors union." Audience members asked about debt collection tactics, credit reporting, public banking, cooperatives and guaranteed income.