VULTURE CAPITALISM
Caught in the battle between hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer and Argentina, some hedge funds complain that they are being held hostage.
Bondholders who agreed to a 70 percent hit as part of Argentina’s debt restructuring are concerned they might not get paid all they are owed if Singer’s Elliott Management gets its way.
Gramercy Funds Management, one of the bondholders that agreed to accept 30 cents on the dollar when Argentina defaulted in 2001, said as much to Manhattan federal court Judge Thomas Griesa yesterday.
“We’re the ones being held hostage,” Sean O’Shea, Gramercy’s attorney, told Griesa at a hearing.
Elliott had asked the judge to lift a stay that would require Argentina to pay up to $1.3 billion to Elliott in December, when Argentina makes payments to other bondholders.
REVERSE VULTURE CAPITALISM
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement launched to fight corporate greed and corruption, is now buying up peoples’ debts and forgiving them.
Its new initiative, called Rolling Jubilee, is being spearheaded by Occupy’s Strike Debt team to protest a “predatory” lending system, according to its website. The group will hold a telethon and variety show called “The People’s Bailout” in New York on Nov. 15 to raise money for the cause, and the proceeds will be used to buy defaulted debts — such as unpaid student loans and medical bills — and erase them.
“The basic premise is simple: people shouldn’t have to go into debt for an education, because they need medical care, or because they have to put food on the table during hard times,” Occupy’s website says.
Besides being a Keiser Fan, Greg Palast has released two books this year called ‘Vultures’ Picnic’ and ‘Billionaires and Ballot Bandits’. Max and Greg are the very few who even mention Singer by name. I don’t know who is worse at this point: Paul “the Vulture” Singer, Harold “Ice Man” Simmons, or Charles and David Koch. Singer held the entire GM bailout hostage and then funded Romney who bitched about the bailout but made around $100 million on the rescue.
Not that revolutionary to pay debt, even if it is pennies on the dollar. BTWAren’t these people’s credit ruined already, the ones whose debt is purchased?
How about: no debt repayment to banksters at all.
The whole credit and credit rating system keeps people hostage.
What I don’t get, is if the note holder is selling off the debt for pennies on the dollar, then why isn’t the debtor at least given a chance to settle at that selling price?
there are a number of question that need to be answered so people know how this is intended to work:
what kind of debt are they buying?
who are they buying the debt from?
how do people whose debt is now forgiven know their debt is paid?
What happens then?
The one good thing about this movement is it makes people who are in debt aware and I think that may answer Andy’s question – “How about: no debt repayment to banksters at all.”
What this program does is generate a lot of good faith and capital – in a way it’s just branding and as we all know Americans love brands. Just ask Huxley – http://youtu.be/Baroc9Q6_bI
What this program has the potential to do; provided no political party or hedge fund manager gets their slimy claws on it, is turn horror into good, its goal it to take a broken system and make it obsolete and you need numbers to do that, big numbers, after that it’s as Bill Clinton branded at the DNC convention, “it’s arithmetic.”
“Awake from your slumber and get um with the numbers” – Pattie Smith