Tweet

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

More from @StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

16 Sep

Ten years ago, activists took to Zuccotti Park in Downtown Manhattan — Occupy Wall Street. A lot of the social consciousness and left-wing ideas we know today were birthed in this moment. Thread—

Today, despite conservative and neoliberal naysayers who dismissed Occupy as a failure, the Debt Collective is one of many tangible and impactful offshoots of the 2011 uprising...

an uprising that has consistently challenged the notion of “who owes what to whom,” won billions of dollars in student debt cancelation for tens of thousands of everyday people, and formed the nation’s first debtors’ union. This matters.

> debtcollective.org

Read 11 tweets

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

12 Jan

Everyone knows the student debt crisis is hurting young people, but it’s also hurting our seniors. The government can garnish up to 15% of your social security payments to collect on student loan debt, hampering one of the greatest anti-poverty programs in the country.

Thread.

While credit card companies and other lenders can’t touch social security checks, the Department of Education can garnish someone’s check if they default. And guess what – nearly 40% of people over the age of 65 are in default, meaning they can’t afford to pay back their loans.

The number of Social Security recipients 65 and older who had their check reduced due to defaulted federal student loans increased by more than 500% between 2002 and 2015. Imagine you’re on a fixed income from your monthly $1,000 check. Then boom, $150 is taken away. How cruel.

Read 5 tweets

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

16 Dec 20

@JoeBiden

In anticipation of @JoeBiden cancelling all federal student loans, I just consolidated all of my FFEL loans into direct loans.

@Navient is now showing that my total amount of debt is DOUBLE. They are counting both the old FFEL loans and the new consolidated Direct Loans.

Every single part of our system is broken and cruel. All the more reason to cancel ALL student debt.

This debt never should have existed in the first place and the system cannot be reformed or fixed. It just shouldn't exist anymore at all.

@Navient

@Navient also is listing the due date for the new consolidated direct loans as 01/01/2021 even though the moratorium is extended through 01/31/2021

Maybe what they mean here is that there is $0 due on that date, but even so highly confusing and anxiety inducing.

Read 7 tweets

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

20 Nov 20

@JoeBiden

The student debt moratorium expires Dec 31. @JoeBiden gets inaugurated Jan 20. This means we might be facing a 3 week gap before Biden can #CancelStudentDebt

Here is a *zero-risk* way to protect yourself. Change the due date with your servicer to the 28th of the month

The process will look a little bit different depending on which servicer you have. Call them if you can't figure it out.

Here's how you would do that if your servicer is Great Lakes

Read 11 tweets

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

18 Nov 20

Here, we make the moral case for refusing to pay your debts. (1/8)

Both Gandhi and MLK Jr. distinguished between just laws and unjust laws. We have a moral obligation to cooperate with just laws, but we also have a moral obligation to refuse to cooperate with unjust laws. A similar distinction exists with debt.

There are just debts and unjust debts. We have a moral obligation to pay just debts, and a moral obligation to refuse to pay unjust debts.

So the question is: what do we really owe and to whom? What should we owe to the 1% and what do they owe to us?

Read 8 tweets

The Debt Collective

@StrikeDebt

11 Nov 20

In 2012, we bought over $32 MILLION worth of debt for just PENNIES on the dollar. But instead of collecting it––we abolished it! This is how debt cancellation became a big thing!

Here's why debt is so cheap & how we pulled off such a big stunt that we called "Rolling Jubilee."

All in all, we raised about $700k from small dollar donations and abolished over $32M in student loan and medical debt – a bailout BY the people FOR the people.

How? Well, personal debts get bought and sold for pennies on the dollar by a shadowy network of debt buyers.

Credit card debt, payday loans, private student loans and medical debt get bought and sold as "investment opportunities" on a secondary market for an average of 4¢ on the dollar.

It's an incredibly lucrative, predatory industry because it literally invests in people's pain.

Read 13 tweets

Share this page!

The Debt Collective

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @StrikeDebt

The Debt Collective

The Debt Collective

The Debt Collective

The Debt Collective

The Debt Collective

The Debt Collective

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Like this author's thread?