John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'

[sethbannon]

I'm not aware of any other show that so seamlessly combines rip-roaringly funny comedy with essential insight into the way our society and system of government is deeply flawed. And on top of that, he even manages to direct action to fix the issues he draws attention to -- taking down the FCC website being one example[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/03/john-oliv...

[coderdude]

It's a good show (he's funny and you learn stuff) but it's way too preachy. He gets just a little too excited about things that are basically impossible for anyone to get excited about. Clearly pandering to the young, left crowd. I'm sure it makes some people feel very warm at night but it gives me a bad taste in my mouth after binge watching.

[hellofunk]

The show is very entertaining and sheds some light on important issues, but don't kid yourself: you are being manipulated by masterful editing and writing, just like any other compelling "news" program. Everything in the show is filtered through a carefully worded script and is biased as hell. But I still love it. Just be sure you know what you're watching.

[rev_null]

The only other show that comes to mind is The Daily Show, of which John Oliver is an alumnus.

[tptacek]

If you like John Oliver, check out Sam Bee's _Full Frontal_ on TBS. I like both shows, but Bee's is the better of the two.

[ashitlerferad]

It seems to me this show is all about native advertising.

[ColinWright]

Georestricted:

    The uploader has not made this
    video available in your country

Someone else provided a different link:

https://facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=912968418832168&id...

That returns with:

    Sorry, this page isn't available

    The link you followed may be broken,
    or the page may have been removed.

I look forward to the day we finally realise we are out of the transition period between not having the web at all, and the web working properly, with content makers being properly resourced and rewarded. Good job I'll live forever - if I have a normal lifespan I doubt I'd see it.

[a_bonobo]

Julia Reda, MP for the German Pirate Party with Greens/EFA in the European Parliament, has recently launched a campaign to introduce EU laws against geoblocking: https://juliareda.eu/2016/05/end-geoblocking/

So there's a little bit of movement, I guess?

[evolve2k]

Yup super frustrating, I'm in Oz and face this too.

Here's a link that should work on main part of the show: https://youtu.be/Ii6TEJuvrM0

[ashitlerferad]

Use the Tor Browser.

[stephen_g]

I can't watch the YouTube video either, but searching for the Last Week Tonight page on Facebook I found it there.

[fredley]

I think we've already transitioned through that period.

[dvcrn]

As a non-american guy that has never seen John Oliver before, I found it very hard to sit through the entire thing until the end, though the payoff was definitely worth it.

This guys looks to me like he's been in TV for a little too long and tries very hard to find a audience with very simple jokes (that feel kind of forced) amplified by background laughter.

He has the right idea and did the right thing but I personally would have found it more enjoyable without the jokes.

[dominotw]

I too find it too hard to watch without cringing. He has a whole team of writers and the best they come up with is some sarcastic comments at someone's expense. Laughing at people is not 'social commentary', its lowest form of dumb comedy with horrible laugh tracks ( i thought we were done with silly laugh tracks ?)

I always thought this was a dying genre but seems like young ppl are into it?

[wccrawford]

I like a lot of his jokes, but I think there are too many of them, and too many are just "hey, here's a meme I remembered!"

But without them, I think his show would fall flat with most of his audience, so I don't think he really has a choice about them at this point.

[bayesian_horse]

I feel relatively well versed in American "culture", but I still don't get a lot of the references he makes. On the other hand, I still laugh at many jokes and his rants on Trump are just epic.

[pas]

America, a country where politics is a tragicomedy, comedy is about politics, and which is actually a continent.

[scotty79]

Yeah. He could tone down a bit with the off the top jokes. Factual material he presents is morbidly funny enough.

[myth_buster]

I think it's addressed to rile up a certain demographic which otherwise would not get involved in issues.

[sp332]

He does the same thing every week, so his audience is jaded.

[Tycho]

I just don't find him that funny.

[zimpenfish]

The baffling thing to me is that this is already discharged debt - "out of statute medical debt from Texas", "medical debt they no longer had to pay" - and how on earth is it legal to try and collect that?

[orblivion]

There's a program called The Rolling Jubilee which has been doing this for a few years. I think the idea is that it encourages people to help pay off the next person's debt, since the amount they were forgiven is much more than it cost to buy it:

http://rollingjubilee.org/

I believe that this is an offshoot of the Occupy movement.

[rm2889]

If debt is trading at pennies on the dollar, and I owe someone 5k, what's stopping me from borrowing 50 or 100 bucks from a friend (if I dont have it) and buying back my debt? Do you need to buy in bulk?

Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll make a nice profit.

[mcherm]

That's called "settling" the debt -- and debt collectors try it all the time. Quite often it does not work.

[awesomerobot]

>Here's an idea - aggregate debt at pennies on the dollar and sell it back to the debtor at twice the amount it'll still be pennies on the dollar and you'll make a nice profit.

That's essentially what a lot of debt collectors will accept. If you have debt in collection, sometimes you can offer them a lump sum instead of the whole amount and they'll take it because they're looking to simply profit.

At that point it's likely your credit is already ruined though... which is a whole different topic to broach.

[MichaelBurge]

You could probably use debt forgiveness as a collection technique: If the person doesn't agree to start paying it back, you threaten to forgive the entire amount all at once in a way that is not tax-advantageous. Now you owe taxes on your $80k of extra income(forgiven debt), and the government is less lenient than banks when they're collecting tax debt.

They might eventually be able to get it discharged, but it'd require them to declare bankruptcy.

I don't know: It might be too subtle to scare people with. The kinds of people who could easily understand this tactic in a one-page letter are probably not the kinds of people in debt.

[talmand]

How exactly is forgiven debt considered income?

[jccc]

The title of this post focuses on one aspect of the episode in a way that has badly skewed our discussion.

The point of the episode is not John Oliver's Oprah stunt, but rather how the debt collection industry works.

[The original title is/was: "John Oliver buys $15M in debt and forgives all of it on 'Last Week Tonight'"]

[neiled]

As has been mentioned elsewhere, it seems the real 'value' of this debt to people buying it, is not the debt itself because it can't legally be enforced, but the personal information that goes along with it.

[vittore]

Why there is no non-profit here that gets donations and spent them to wipe out medical and general debt that is the cheapest available on the market right now? Or are there ?

[goda90]

There are some. Like http://rollingjubilee.org/

[xseven]

bad idea, that's like validating the debt buying industry

[tyoma]

Wont the debtors have to report the forgiven debt as income on their taxes, potenially triggering a very difficult tax situation?

[pessimizer]

I was a little disappointed in how this story developed; it started with a family being destroyed by medical debt, and I thought it was going to develop into a discussion of medical debt, which accounts for 60% of bankruptcies in the U.S.[1]. Instead, it just talked about the buying and selling of debt, which is a legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.) I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on to their own debt?

I'm happy about the debt he forgave, though. An organization called Rolling Jubilee[2] does it without a tv show - you can buy someone's debt, too. I didn't notice a shout out; did I just miss it?

edit: learned from the comment above me that they've stopped doing it, and are now The Debt Collective[3], an advocacy organization.

[1] https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/health/managing-medical-bill...

[2] http://rollingjubilee.org/

[3] http://blog.debtcollective.org/

[scotty79]

> legitimate business (often unregulated and operated by scum.)

That's comedy gold. Wish John used that line.

> I'm not sure what he was calling for, here. That companies be required to hold on to their own debt?

I think he's calling for regulation. At least some mechanisms to ensure that the debt is factual. Maybe some mechanisms that would ensure people can't collect the debt that they can't legally enforce. Maybe some mechanisms that would prevent accepting debt by default when someone doesn't show up to court. All these things lead to much abuse. Basically something that would address the problems he highlighted.

[ChicagoBoy11]

I'm obviously wrong about this, but I'm surprised there isn't a greater arbitrage opportunity in this -- if one could average out just $10 in collection on average, you'd make a sizable profit on the debt he bought... I wonder if you were to just call and tell these people you bought these debts, and if they'd like to make a donation to help you keep doing this work in the future, I'm curious if it could be self-sustaining...

[S_A_P]

In a former life I was a developer for a collections agency. I can confirm that we got data from financial institutions in a variety of formats. Most of the time they were PGP encrypted, sometimes as low as 56 bit IIRC. This was in 2007 so I have slept since then.

[tlrobinson]

Note that this didn't actually cost them $15M, they bought the debt for $60K.

[evolve2k]

Umm isn't that sort of the whole point.

[SCAQTony]

At the 17:06 mark is when he drops the surprise news about buying up the debt.

[pfarnsworth]

Aren't there tax implications for forgiving the debt?

[zimpenfish]

Maybe.

"Topic 431 - Canceled Debt – Is It Taxable or Not?" https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc431.html

[nacs]

Yes there is, in the video, Oliver mentions how they hired a company that specializes in handling the tax implications so they wouldn't have to pay the full amount.

[MrJagil]

There was a terrific story about this in the NYT a while back https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182953

"This is one of the most unbelievable articles I've ever read. If you didn't read it all the way through, do so over lunch or something; it's amazing."

[dghughes]

Can the debt John forgave be resurrected by another debt collection agency?

The video mentioned several scenarios where debt that's seemingly past it collection date or expired is still desired by these collection companies.

Or is forgiving the debt officially the only way of forever getting rid of it without fear of it coming back from the dead.