[smsm42]

"$100,000-$500,000 worth of personal debt" is in no way something that 99% of people do. I can not think how one could get $500K of personal debt (excluding mortgages, etc.) without either multiple major catastrophic coincidences (by definition can't be 99%) or some very serious bad decisions going on for years. I do not buy that people owing 100-500K in personal debt are being "exploited" as a rule. This reminds me of this Person of the Year: http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/12/sarah_mason_time_... who raked up debts by going on random shopping trips at the malls and then blames the evil 1% for it. I do not buy it and I would not buy it.

As for the 1%-vs-99% rhetoric, it is kind of cute that people try to raise money using slogan-de-jour, but for me this sounds as a baloney. One can march on a street with slogans based on nothing but emotions and deep misunderstanding of economics, but as a business plan that does not sound good.

Personally, I don't understand why I would give any money to selectively bail out worst debtors and thus incentivize their behavior. I'd rather give the same money to a local charity or local Red Cross - I know they help real people in dire need and I can be reasonable sure I'm not just financing some loan sharks and some innumerates with appetites exceeding their capacities to pay.

[to3m]

The people I know who've come a cropper due to personal debt have ended up that way because they made poor financial decisions. It's a touching story, the one where people are forced into spending on their credit card because of INSERT PERSONAL TRAGEDY HERE and it spirals out of control from there. I shan't say it never happens, just that it is not something that jibes with my experience. The people I've known with debt problems just like to spend money that they don't have, because they want to own things that they can't afford. Then they complain of the injustice when repayment falls due.

Perhaps my experience is different from that of most other people. It is certainly possible. But I don't claim to speak for everybody, only for myself, and I speak based on my experience. And, based on my experiences, and speaking only for myself, I can't help not caring to spend any of my money on complete strangers' debt problems. They have already spent enough of other people's money. It has to stop somewhere.

[ThomasGokey]

Just to clarify, the $100,000-$500,000 is collective debt from many different debtors ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars each. This isn't forgiving one single person's giant debt.

[smsm42]

Thanks for the clarification, it was not clear in the original message but makes more sense after the clarification. However, only a little more - among all charity I could do with my money, why should I select this particular one? I still see this would be incentivizing both irresponsible borrowing and irresponsible lending. I'd rather have the same funds go to either helping people in need directly or educating them about their rights and proper bankruptcy debt discharge procedures.

Maybe I'm missing some important points there but it looks like this project is basically giving out money to people after selecting them by the property of being bad debtor (and without any filtering distinguishing unfortunate accidents from sheer irresponsibility). Of course, each person is free to choose his own charitable giving, but so far the case for it does not sound convincing.

[ThomasGokey]

I'd like to give a full response but I'm afraid it would be too long.

Long story short: I'm hoping to use this debt forgiveness project as a way of building momentum for a large scale debt strike/debt refusal campaign.

[smsm42]

I don't think refusing to pay the debt you took voluntarily and spent is ethical or moral. Charity is laudable, even one that I think is misguided, but I don't really think suggesting people defraud their lenders an masse is a good idea. OTOH, I think chances of such campaign to succeed is extremely low, so it becomes just pure charity.

[jchrisa]

If you think there is a moral claim that debts should be paid, you owe it to yourself to read Debt: The First 5000 Years and then see how you feel.

[throw_away]

I think you may have misunderstood. I don't think that the $100k–$500k figures refers to the debt of one single particular person, but rather a bunch of individual debts sold as a block by the creditor. Also, I don't think that this is meant as a business plan. As far as I can tell, the OP doesn't plan on making any money on this.

[smsm42]

Even if you plan to run a non-profit, you still need a plan. Charities and nonprofits have business plans too.

[throw_away]

I don't see anything wrong with the plan—solicit donations & use them to forgive debt randomly with pennies on the dollar while spreading an anti-bank message. arguably, the tax implications could be problematic to the overall plan, but this doesn't seem to be your argument. Yours seems to be akin to saying Planned Parenthood doesn't have a business plan because you disagree with birth control.

[smsm42]

If you say "I'm gonna fight the evil 1% by educating people how to lead lives without debt" - that sounds like plan. If you say "I'm gonna fight the evil 1% by giving them money so people in bad debt can take more debt and irresponsible lenders could recover their costs, all while creating tax problems for the recipients of my charity" - that doesn't sound like a good plan. It's like AA giving out free beers, if I'm allowed to use analogies too.

BTW, if you look at what Planned Parenthood does, abortions are about 3% of what they do. So if their model would have 70% prevention, 25% counseling and 3% debt forgiveness, as PP does, I'd say it makes much more sense.

[ThomasGokey]

Right, we aren't making money off this. We'll be transparent as to how much we raise and where it all goes.