They can’t handle student loans, because there isn’t a secondary market for them.

I’m not entirely sure how the secondary market for these debts works, but if they’re buying the debts fresh (that is, buying it from the hospitals rather than from debt collection agencies) then they’re padding the bottom lines of hospitals, not collectors.  I suspect that a lot of hospitals would rather sell the debt to something like RolJub rather than to the vultures, if they can get a similar price for it.  Hospitals are always strapped for cash.  They don’t have much choice but to sell these debts; an income stream is an income stream.

The price for these debts will only rise to the point where the commercial debt collectors can’t compete.  Once there’s no other buyer on the market, the debt originators (hospitals, businesses, etc.) will presumably take whatever they can get.  Which is pretty darn low once the debt-holders have given up collecting on their own.I don’t think that buying up debt at pennies on the dollar gives the originators much incentive to create debt.  It’s a losing investment.

All the time you hear about government debt, they conviently omitted the big debts. 

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf

Page 4. 4.7 trillion alone for the state pensions. [Even that is a figure fiddled down]

Your share, 250,000 pounds, plus your mortgage, plus university debts, plus your own pension and no doubt pay for debt forgiveness for others. 

The state can’t pay, because we can’t pay. We won’t pay. Why pay vast taxes just to pay debts to other people? After all, taxes should be for services.

So Thorzdad is correct. What about debt forgiveness for children in the UK? 

Ah yes, we don’t do that. They are going to be forced to pay for the errors and frauds of the politicians. Just like the 3rd world. 

Its much like scratch lotery just the debt-collectors have the odds on theyr side atm.

So if OWS buy now and stay long enough to appear as if they buy a debt for say 1.5 times of the professional collector. This means the collector cant compete any more since he actualy collects less then he pays for those debts. So the collector goes out of buisness. If now OWS stays long enought to push a significant amount of collectors out and then removes itself from the market you have to many debts for not enough collectors. The remaining ones wont have enough cash or other liquidities left (say Gold, ART, drugs …) to buy all of those.

After a time a debt voids (atleast here if you dont send reminders etc. etc.) thus you could just void tons of debts if there arent enough debt-collectors with enough cash to buy those debts in time.

Normaly you make some red numbers if you are after debts like a student loans.If you are a bank its to much of an hazzle to follow these debts. Debt collectors do that stuff in bulk and on theyr own risk. Thus you have no employees to pay on this and the whole administration process. Another benefit is that you get some money back that you can reinvest.

The debt-collector has the risk that none of his bought debts bears fruit but since they do it on bulk and people are guilable like hell (thus paying even if they dont have to or if they and theyr families are preasured in some way) they are zero-sum if one out of ten or so pays.

If, as a movement, we cannot attend to the immediate needs of the immediately distressed while we continue to focus on the long-term strategy of departing the dysfunctional system altogether, my belief is that we would be practicing the same old same old that brought us to this spot.

All truly functional systems address both long-term health and short-term health. 

This may be a very short-term relief, if, as you say, the debt system simply gets savvy to this new twist and adjusts to work it to its advantage — on the other hand, the shift in consciousness of a small group of “relieved” debtors from the idea that “debt is inevitable” to “Hmmmm.  Debt is NOT inevitable — we could work together to make it irrelevant” — is not irrelevant.

All great movements have begun with a mind-change that filters through the group consciousness.  This is a potential consciousness-changer.

Like the idea, I  would like to make sure money goes where it’s suppose to go, 

http://www.facebook.com/events/430245497030636/?fref=ts 

The reason is that it accepts as a basic premise the legitimacy of the free market, and the framework of owning and trading other people’s debts. This framework itself needs to be abandoned, our only hope is for people to simply refuse to pay their loans, to unilaterally cancel their own debt.

So here’s what would happen if this was deployed on a wide scale:  An increase in debt purchasers would drive up prices for debt.  At first, OWS would only buy the “bottom of the barrel” debts that nobody else wants (presumably because the debtor was never going to pay anyway, which is another reason to question this approach).  But once those are bought up, OWS needs to outbid actual debt collectors in order to continue cancelling debt.  This raises the price further, and the higher OWS is willing to bid and the more debts they buy, the higher the price gets.  And remember, the original owner of the debt (the bank or finance corporation) will only ever sell the debt at a price which they deem favorable.  Before long, OWS is paying huge, non-negligible sums of money to the very entities they oppose, at rates which those entities consider profitable.

The worst part is that through the twisted logic of capitalism, buying up debt this way actually adds incentive for banks to create more debt, much like the original credit bubble did.  The more people are willing to buy the debt, the more debt the banks will want to have on hand to sell.

Debt slavery and crony capitalism cannot be defeated through clever buying and selling.  It can only be defeated when we refuse to play by their rules altogether.  The game is stacked against us, pretending otherwise just gives them more power.

Wouldn’t it be more productive to hire intervenors who know the law to help hold collectors to the letter of the law? For example, forcing them to honour instructions not to contact debtors by phone or other illegal practices.