Volunteer Programmer Needed for a Debt Forgiveness Project

55 views
Skip to first unread message

Thomas

unread,
Nov 1, 2011, 10:28:04 AM11/1/11
to Debt Strike /Kick-Stopper
I'm working on a debt forgiveness project in collaboration with one of
the editors of AdBusters and one of the web designers of www.occupytheboardroom.org,
we're looking for someone to do the coding side of the website. It's a
relatively simple site that we're trying to build, maybe two or three
days of work, lots of in-the-box programming. If you're interested in
volunteering please let me know.

Basically what we're going to do is buy up people's defaulted debts
from the bank for pennies on the dollar and then instead of collecting
on the debt we're going to forgive it outright.

If this project works I think it could tie-in well with our debt-
strike project. We had discussed earlier about people paying into a
common escrow account when they stop paying their loans. Instead of
doing that we could have people donate their monthly loan payments to
this debt forgiveness effort. If we coordinate large scale defaults,
and then buy and forgive those same defaults for 5-10% of their
original value, then we could theoretically forgive 90-95% of
everyone's debt. It's a bailout of the 99%, by the 99%, for the 99%.

I'm not sure if we can really scale the project up that way. I'm
pretty sure the banks or the government would find a way to shut us
down before we could operate on that scale. But to start out with
we're going to try to raise several thousand dollars and forgive
several hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. It will make a
significant difference to the individuals whose debts are forgiven and
help further the discussion about debt.

It's an all volunteer effort, if you'd like to pitch it, or know a
programmer who might be interested, please get in touch with me.

Martin Sanders

unread,
Jan 4, 2013, 6:17:30 PM1/4/13
to debt-strike-...@googlegroups.com
Hi Thomas,

Is this project still looking for programmers? I'm interesting in offering my skills as a volunteer (PHP/MySQL/BaSH/Perl).

Please let me know if your still looking.

Kindest regards,

Martin

Martin Sanders

unread,
Jul 8, 2013, 4:11:19 PM7/8/13
to debt-strike-...@googlegroups.com
Thomas,

I'm available again now that i've recently been made redundant. Are you still looking for volunteer Programmers?

Kind regards,

Martin

On Tuesday, November 1, 2011 2:28:04 PM UTC, Thomas wrote:

Thomas Gokey

unread,
Jul 8, 2013, 6:27:52 PM7/8/13
to debt-strike-...@googlegroups.com
Yes, and it's good timing too. We're gearing up to really explore what a debtors' union could look like, one that is capable of going on strike. We'll be at a conference at MIT in August pitching the idea and seeing if we cant coax some programers, data scientists and economists to help us figure it out.

There's still a lot of missing pieces to the puzzle, but check out this brief outline of the idea: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CfmgFtCFieRafX-wFcwgL81gXYkkXbUX5uQvlIm-6_g/edit?usp=sharing

-Thomas


--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Debt Strike /Kick-Stopper" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to debt-strike-kick-s...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 



--
____________________________________________________
Thomas Gokey
w: thomasgokey.com
e: thoma...@gmail.com
____________________________________________________
This e-mail is a handmade object, all errors of spelling and grammar give it a sense of character and authenticity.

Martin Sanders

unread,
Aug 1, 2013, 4:13:34 AM8/1/13
to debt-strike-...@googlegroups.com
Hi Thomas,

That's brilliant, taking a look now.

Kind regards,

Martin

On Tuesday, November 1, 2011 2:28:04 PM UTC, Thomas wrote:
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages