Debt Traps For Employees

In recent years, there has been a widespread imposition of “stay-or-pay” contracts. These agreements force workers to compensate employers if they leave their job before a set time period. The contracts are called  “TRAPS” –  a Training Repayment Agreement Provision.  Employers could legally require workers to pay “liquidated damages” for on-the-job training or use of…

ANTI DEBT HEROES #5 and #6

Astra Taylor and Hannah Appel Astra Taylor is a filmmaker, writer, and political organizer. She often appears on Democracy Now and The Laura Flanders Show. Hannah Appel is co-founder of the Debt Collective and a professor of anthropology at UCLA. She is also a director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy. Their joint article…

The CFPB And Consumer Debt

The CFPB And Consumer Debt

The idea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) originated in a paper that Elizabeth Warren wrote in 2007 while she was a law professor at Harvard.  She moved to Washington after Dodd-Frank passed, to help then-President Obama get CFPB up and running. She touted it as a tool to protect average people from banks behaving badly. Obama…

Public Prosecutors Meet Heavy Resistance

Public Prosecutors Meet Heavy Resistance

Liberals often claim that the cure for crime is to expand social-welfare programs.  They say we must first address economic exploitation, male and white supremacy, and homophobia in order to reduce violent crime.  Other culprits for ‘mass incarceration’ include a biased legal system, early childhood mistreatment, and draconian drug enforcement.   However — in the 1960’s,…

Vulture Funds Are A Disgrace

Vulture Funds Are A Disgrace

Debt vultures are nothing new in America – especially in health care. Collection firms can buy medical debts for pennies on the dollar, and then they try aggressively to collect the full amount. However, this ugly business model also operates on an international scale. I refer to the ‘Vulture funds’  — who have spent decades…

My Favorite Podcasts and Blogs

Podcasts: Arm and a Leg – Practical presentations on how to fight a hospital bill, how to deal with your insurance company, and other ways to fight the high cost of health care. Behind the Bastards –  Colorful oral histories of history’s villains, ranging from Caligua to Hitler, Stalin’s Beria, the founder of Scientology, Idi…

Medicare Is Not Going Broke

Medicare Is Not Going Broke

To appreciate this statement, one must first wade through the complexity of Medicare accounting. Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) is funded with a tax of 2.90% total on all payroll income, plus an extra .90% on income that exceeds $250,000. For the first thirty years of Medicare, the annual receipts from payroll taxes exceeded the…

Expose The Vicious Settlement Buyers

Expose The Vicious Settlement Buyers

A little-known area of financial abuse involves “structured settlement” annuities.  A structured settlement is often used in compensation for injuries or accidents – i.e. car crashes, medical malpractice, and class-action lawsuits. The victim is set up to receive their money through periodic payments –this is the ‘structure’. For example, the recipient might get $2,000 a…